The volatility is a pivotal hallmark of crypto. Yet this very characteristic of it can be implied not only for crypto market fluctuation. The industry by and large tends to be volatile, as it has not only been rapidly changing, but also constantly advancing with novelties.
For the last year, a new trend has been spotted in the industry – blockchain networks. Undoubtedly, they have been cornerstones of crypto since the introduction of Bitcoin, but not only did they rise in numbers, but also sought new definitions and aims. Their role of technical enhancement was successfully fused with the aspiration to create solid and flexible product ecosystems. The recent cases in point are blockchains by leading cryptocurrency exchanges: WB Network by WhiteBIT, and Base by Coinbase. The fact is: each of the networks shape the industry in its own way, not mentioning their impact on digital business development and marketing. But how specifically did they achieve the statuses of cutting-edge ecosystems, and which technological drawback they tackle?
This review will dot the i’s and cross the t’s about the leading blockchain projects in this day and age.
WB Network Review
Origin
WB Network is a blockchain solution by WhiteBIT – one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Europe. Its foundation was launched a year ago with the release of its native token ( it’s coin now) – $WBT. At first, its utility was limited to receiving user benefits in holding the token, but the forecast for it was quite more ambitious.
$WBT turned out to become a crucial step towards merging all WhiteBIT services in a comprehensive product ecosystem – both from a marketing and technical perspective. The predictions about a comprehensive network were confirmed while in April, 2023, WB Network’s testnet was launched. It managed to shed the light on the interface and technological basis of the blockchain.
Lately, the WB Network Testnet was enhanced with WB Soul – a cutting-edge technological ecosystem for non-transferable and unchangeable data. The interest towards the new project was also spurred through launching retrodrop and granting community with $WBT for holding the token in the exchange’s deposit, participating in testnet and completing community tasks via Zealy.
On August 3, WhiteBIT Network Mainnet was finally released. A long-anticipated project set his foot in the industry with the claim of retrodrop and introduction of $WBT as a full-fledged coin. Yet it is not the full list of its technical bits and pieces.
Technical Overview
Proof-of-Authority
The distinct feature of WB Network’s structure and simultaneously its basis is a Proof-of Authority (PoA) consensus mechanism. This algorithm heeds the value of identities. Specifically, the transactions are validated by not the ones who invested (Proof-of-Stake) or disclosing the hash of the next block (Proof-of-Work), but instead by the pre-approved accounts – validators. They are pre-selected and entrusted with the responsibility of verifying transactions and adding it to the blockchain.
The PoA mechanism of consensus seems rather centralised at first glance – although the identities of validators are known, it is impossible for other nodes to take over enough governance rights for maintaining the chain. Still, the authority is a fair price for a great deal of advantages of PoA.
Namely, the accountability for the actions of validators is far more credible, resulting in a more secure digital environment and lower transaction fees, as there is no reward competition among the pre-approved nodes.
It is also important to highlight that by contrast to Proof-of-Work, transaction validating through PoA does not require immersively powerful computational facilities, hence the carbon footprint of such consensus is greatly diminished. This makes the chain more sufficient and environmentally friendly.
Moreover, the Proof-of-Authority empowers the authorities to validate transactions with remarkable speed. Acceleration in transaction validation results in the blockchain achieving an even higher transaction rate than PoS or PoW. The predictable generation of blocks, determined by the number of validators, ensures a consistently rapid and efficient process.
WhiteBIT Coin ($WBT)
The coin is a native essence of the blockchain. $WBT is not used only as a linker between different services of the WhiteBIT ecosystem, but also as a tool for sustaining WB Network’s operability and boosting the efficiency of it.
For instance, the specific amount of $WBT is regularly burned in order to maintain steady demand and proposition rates. That means, the price of $WBT is stable and ensures proper working of the chain.
What is more, $WBT usage ensures benefits for the community and shapes the WhiteBIT product ecosystem into a better user experience. Specifically, the coin provides a wide array of integrations with the exchange products that include:
- increased referral rate
- reduction of trading fees
- free withdrawals
- free AML Checks
- increased rates for $WBT deposit
and, crucially, the SoulDrop – monthly reward for holding $WBT.
WB Soul Ecosystem
WB Soul Ecosystem is another cornerstone of the Network. Notably, it is based on the soulbound technology that envisages non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that are impossible to purchase, transfer, exchange, or sell. Simply put, the data on the blockchain is immutable and can only be received that enable its exclusivity and digital security.
Each Soul (a data unit embedded on the blockchain) has its unique features. They all are divided into two types:
- Soul attributes: changeable characteristics (for instance, the level of Holding);
- Soulbound Tokens: constant characteristics that are referred to achievements, event passes, KYC-approvals etc.
Explorer Review
The first thing to distinguish WB Network Explorer is its interface. The UI is simple and intuitive, yet it manages to comply with a rather detailed UX that highlights all the essential data about blockchain state: the total number of transactions carried out, TPS (transactions per second) rate, latest transactions and blocks.
The Explorer also contains different functions’ menu, among which are creating the tokens, searching for specific transactions, and making own smart-contracts – everything for sustaining the operability of the Network.
WhiteBIT Network indeed indicated great success. As of August 28, the total amount of transactions hit 9 million while the total number is going near 22,738. The flexibility and efficiency of the blockchain was also not exaggerated: the block is created for 2 seconds, and the current TPS rate is 4.48 transactions in a second.
Still, WB Network is not the only major blockchain that was introduced to the crypto community in August. Another major exchange, Coinbase, released its blockchain Base just six days later – on August 9.
Base Review
Origin
Base blockchain’s testnet was released on February 23, 2023, and almost immediately it took up hosting Web3 projects on it. Just three month later, such novelties as Blackbird (food catering referral service), Parallel (NFT-based trading card game), Thirdweb (facilitating blockchain development toolkit), and OAK (cryptocurrency for an exclusive community striving for more accessible blockchain landscape).
Still, the most crucially, testnet has fully disclosed the nature of the future blockchain aim and utilisation. Contrary to WhiteBIT that focused on the user experience, Base heeds on-chain development that is adapted to Web3 more sufficiently. But we have to admit that both crypto exchanges successfully integrated the Web3 technologies into their functionality. This long-anticipated Base’s facilitator for decentralised development was released on August 9 and achieved the staggering outcomes of 11.5 million transactions for less than a month and hitting a record of 15.88 transactions per second while reaching 1 million unique users in just 11 days after release. For instance, zkSync overcame this barrier for 71 days, and L2 solutions Optimism and Arbitrum – for 191 and 303 days respectively.
Technical Overview
Specifically, Base is a Layer-2 solution that ensures security and cost-competitive on-chain development. Its structure is based on the Ethereum L2 that is, simply put, envisages Ethereum structure with lower expenditure, and greater security, stability, and scalability for empowering dApp development and satisfying other technical blockchain needs.
The part and parcel about Base is the EVM integration, that not only ensures simple cross-chain development, but also allows access for Ethereum development features at a lower cost.
OP Stack by Optimism
The pivotal driving force of Base operability is the integration of OP Stack – development open-source development stack that powers Optimism, a scalable L2 Ethereum solution for development.
The utilisation of such a top-notch tool set Base on a path of evolving into decentralised and accelerated Superchain. The very collaboration with Optimism envisages accelerating the activity in the Superchain by optimising its operability, adding value to it, advancing developer ecosystem and enhancing interoperability.
Explorer Review
UI and UX are performed decently. The visuals are smooth, and the information is simple and intuitive for absorbing. The diagrams reveal transaction states, block time, wallet addresses, and gas tracker. The transactions and blocks list is understandable as well as transparent.
The ultimate benefit of the explorer is that it separately discloses the full documentation on Web3 development APIs, that once again proves its foremost nature to be the expediting solution for new projects to emerge on the blockchain and web3 landscape.
WhiteBIT Network and Base have as many similarities as they do differences. Both are the lately leading blockchain solutions in Web3 dimension, and both are smooth in using, but the first ones strives for top-notch product ecosystem, and the latter one heeds efficient decentralised development.
Stil, the most crucial factor these networks are sharing is a vision of a better technology world, where Web3 will unlock all possibilities that we strive for.