Despite its prevailing downturn, the crypto industry has cemented its place as one of the leading industries across the world. In recent times, the industry enjoyed a rapid rise in its adoption and has also expanded to other spheres. As of today, millions of investors across the globe still rely on cryptocurrencies to trade, make payments, send and receive value. This thus illustrates cryptocurrencies as utility-driven assets. However, its major function is serving as a medium of payment and investment. Remarkably, some of these crypto assets serve as native tokens to numerous protocols, serving as a means through which their users make payments for the services or transactions carried out. Worth noting that the MINA crypto is one of such crypto, serving as a native token to its protocol.
Nevertheless, it is necessary that readers embrace and understand this piece without misinterpreting its purpose. For the sake of clarity, this piece is not aimed at promoting the crypto project, but only to make them comprehend its background, potential and peculiarity so as to take decisions from an informed angle.Therefore, consequential decision lies solely on the investor and not the responsibility of the author.
Mina crypto: General Overview
As a native crypto of Mina protocol, MINA helps to fuel, power and safeguard the platform. Notably, the crypto serves as an instrument for paying transactions. This thus enables the protocol to execute the crypto transactions. Through Mina crypto, block producers are rewarded to create blocks. Further, the crypto serves as a means of interacting with Snapps, described as decentralized applications on the protocol. Just like others, MINA can be sent, received, traded in various exchanges. Also, holders can also decide to stake the token in a bid to earn rewards.
The token also allows its holders to enjoy governance right on the prorocol. This right enables them to participate in decision making processes of the platform. More so, Mina crypto has a limited supply. As of press time, it has a supply of 1 billion token which, according to reports, might increase over time. As of May 2022, the circulating supply of Mina Protocol crypto (MINA) was 503,151,296 token, and may possibly increase it over time
Mina protocol
Worthy of note that Mina Protocol runs as a blockchain platform, aiming to solve a scalability problem enveloped in some Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain networks. The Mina Protocol aims to give use w the ability to keep their data safe and decentralized on a concise and scalable blockchain. It gives utmost priority to security, accessibility, and decentralization to achieve its “light” blockchain infrastructure. Notably, the Mina zk-SNARKs, along with a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. As designed, the protocol usually uses block sizes. This thus paves the way for a zk-SNARK system that allows for more people to run nodes.
Interestingly, zk-SNARKs usually capture the entire blockchain as a relatively lightweight snapshot. Meanwhile, when the blockchain becomes larger, the zk-SNARK snapshots entails just a proof of its validity based on metadata. These snapshots help to serve as proof of the data’s authenticity, averting the need for full blockchain history. More so, the cryptography technique helps to foster a payment-oriented blockchain, needing no node to record the complete record of transactions. This thus helps to reduce the computational standards required to support a full blockchain network.
Specialized nodes on the network
Worth noting that Mina Protocol necessitates two specialized nodes within the crypto platform. One of such nodes is block producers. Notably, block producers usually select transactions to come up in the next block. With this, they act as miners or validators of other blockchains and become consequently rewarded. As another node, Snark workers usually commit their computing power to compress network data and generates proofs of transactions. Afterward, block producers are expected to bid for these proofs.
Generally, Mina crypto and its protocol seeks to explore proof of validity in resolving scalability. This thus helps to ensure the security and efficiency of the blockchain. Also, the protocol believes the validity of the blockchain is enough to prove that the snapshots are valid. However, as Mina continued to grow, it intends to deploy new zk-SNARKs so as to maintain an efficient dataset running on the platform.
History of Mina crypto and its protocol
In 2017, Evan Shapiro and Izaak Meckler founded O(1) Labs, a firm that created the Mina crypto and its protocol. It’s technical whitepaper was released in March 2022. Its economic whitepaper on the other hand, came in around October 2020. According to findings, the team launched the mainnet of the Mina project in 2021, four years after formation of the 0(1) Labs.
Last year, Mina foundation hosted a community token sale. The token sale led to the rasing of over $18 million. Worthy of note that the foundation is responsible for overseeing grants meant for community developers. Meanwhile, the board of directors of Mina Foundation includes Evan Shapiro (CEO of Mina Foundation), Josh Cincinnati, and Jill Carlson.
Features of Mina Protocol
One of the notable features of the Mina Protocol is its Succinct blockchain initiative. The protocol works on attaining an efficient distributed payment structure to aid users in natively performing right from the initial block. Mina Protocol employs Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge (zk-SNARKS).
zk-SNARKS is a cryptographic proof that aids an individual to verify information without revealing it. Notably, the protocol through zk-SNARKS simplifies the process of tracing the platform to its initial block. As one of the vital features of the Mina Protocol, zk-SNARKS help simplify the process of tracing transactions on a wide network.
Furthermore, another key features of the Mina Protocol are the use of Ouroboros Samasika, which is a type of PoS mechanism. It’s specifically designed for succinct decentralized networks because it offers bootstrapping from a genesis block. Also, Mina Crypto uses a parallel scan state to optimize transaction processing speed. It works by categorizing unproven blocks and allocating the process to parallel provers.
These parallel provers are similar to a miner that ensures that a certain block commits to the state. Above all, the Mina protocol has some similarities to both Bitcoin and Ethereum. The protocol uses an account model that is used by the Ethereum network. With all its exquisite features, the protocol is incomplete without its native token, MINA otherwise known as Mina crypto. The token is used as a medium of exchange and as an utility coin on the protocol.
Future of Mina Crypto
Without doubts, Mina crypto is quite prominent in the cryptocurrency market space due to the popularity of its protocol. During the cryptocurrency boom of 2021, the Mina crypto attracted investors’ attention due to its impressive market performance. Therefore, garnering lots of investment contributed heavily to the prosperity and growth of the token within that period. More so, investors registered trust in the project due to its innovative posture in the industry.
Notably, the bear market that stormed the crypto space in June has continued to affect the stability Mina crypto. Thus, raising questions about the future of the project. Although, it is noteworthy that the crypto is not the only asset impacted by the prevailing downturn in the market. However, the future of Mina crypto owing to its volatility lies in the recovery of the general cryptocurrency market. Nevertheless, factors like collaboration, future upgrades and mass adoption of the token can as well boost the value of Mina crypto. Although its team have been doing the above, but how far they can sustain it will go a long way in expanding the project.
Collaborations and efforts of the Mina protocol team to enhance the project
Among numerous attempts to solidify the Mina protocol and push its mass adoption, the team behind the project engaged in numerous partnerships. In 2021, Mina protocol partnered with Polygon. With the partnership, Polygon incorporated Mina Protocol to use its zk-SNARK to enable developers to build solutions on Polygon. Then, it aided DeFi platforms to pull in user information privately and securely in order to meet KYC requirements or any other such requirements. Also, NFT builders were able to keep ownership data private. The collaboration supported Social Media dapps to verify that users are real people without requiring them to share PII(Personally identifiable information).
Also, the Mina protocol team has organized numerous boot camps for developers in the past. In April 2022, members of the Mina protocol travelled to Amsterdam to participate in DevConnect, a week-long collaborative gathering of various Ethereum and Web3 events hosted throughout the city. This event is among numerous attempts by the Mina protocol team to enhance the popularity of the project.
Final Thoughts
Mina protocol clearly standouts among its peers as a distinctive project. Nonetheless, investors are more concerned about committing their funds to Mina crypto. While the project has proved that it’s here to stay, investors must maintain a careful approach while making an investment decision relating to the token. They must not commit more than a reasonable part of their portfolio. At all times, they must follow market trends to sketch their investment plan for the project.
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