TOKAMAK NETWORK: THE NECESSITY OF LAYER 2 SOLUTIONS WITHIN THE CURRENT BLOCKCHAIN FRAMEWORK

Chadley McKnight
5 min readJan 23, 2021

The blockchain market is rapidly growing, with billions of dollars invested in creating new applications designed to positively disrupt most of the world’s industries. Despite its huge potential, many blockchains face specific issues, including scaling challenges, lack of sufficient decentralization, and poor security protocols.

For instance, Ethereum is by far the most renowned blockchain for dApps and DeFi. Even with over $21 billion locked within DeFi smart contracts, it’s still unable to serve the masses due to its relatively low transaction throughput and high gas fees.

Indeed, these issues may be viably dealt with following the release of Ethereum 2.0, but the Ethereum Foundation is taking things slowly to ensure that each phase release works as planned. In doing so, it’s difficult to estimate when the Serenity update will be fully deployed. Until then, blockchain developers must handle an unprecedented market gap as innovation will certainly not be halted.

With these aspects in mind, technological additions are required to ensure that blockchain technology lives up to its name. Layer 2 solutions are a feasible means of assuring an improved degree of scalability, decentralization, and security. These solutions facilitate scaling by processing transactions outside of the mainchain, on a separate layer known as layer 2.

INSIDE TOKAMAK’S VALUE PROPOSITION AS A LAYER 2 AGGREGATOR

Increased market demand has led to the appearance of multiple layer 2 solutions, each with its very own particularities. This makes perfect sense given that each dApp demands specific solutions, so a one-size-fits-all approach is unviable. To put this into perspective, a dApp looking for privacy may turn to Aztec’s layer 2 protocol, whereas a project requiring top-notch smart contract deployment may choose zkSync.

The list goes on — those looking for composability may rely on Optimism and dApps in need of ZKP-based scalability may choose StarkWare. Projects that base their operations on layer 2 networks will have to purchase their afferent tokens and constantly collaborate with the protocol.

But what happens if a dApp has a larger set of desideratums? Who’s going to serve a project that needs super scalability, composability, privacy, and smart contract support? This is where the Tokamak Network comes in!

Tokamak Network value proposition consists of its aggregating solution for the market’s best layer 2 protocols. Based on the Ethereum mainchain, project managers in need of multiple layer 2 benefits will be able to leverage Tokamak to unlock multiple advantages, including super scalability, composability, privacy, and smart contract support.

Thus, Tokamak Network main focus is to assure collaboration within the layer 2 market, rather than competition. This puts an end to the ever-lasting layer 2 war, as blockchain-based projects can now access the market’s best solutions with ease. In other words, there’s no longer a need to purchase a myriad of native tokens, nor there’s a need to build applications from scratch whenever a new layer 2 solution is required. As a turing complete plasma network, Tokamak promotes the creation of next-gen projects that are robust by design and assure an unprecedented degree of scalability, usability, interoperability, and functionality.

UNDERSTANDING THE TON TOKEN

It’s worth pointing out that the Tokamak Network is based on the TON token, working as its economic protocol. This token represents a prerequisite to opening the layer 2 chain, while serving its goals of incentivising network-wide community governance and child chain security.

There are three main use cases associated with the TON token — staking, deposit challenging, and stamina. Child chain operators must stake TON when deploying and connecting their chains to the Tokamak Network. Incentivisation works via the commit rewards that are given to all chain operators.

Layer deposits can always be challenged via TON, so if a predetermined rule is broken, challengers will receive a part of the deposit as reward. TON’s use case as stamina entails that a TON-based payment is required to pay the transaction fees associated with child chains operating on Tokamak. Lastly, the future may hold a DAO governance mechanism, thereby giving more decisional authority to TON token holders.

EXPLORING TON’S RECENT AND FUTURE PRICE TRENDS

Over the last couple of months, the TON token has shown relative price stability, with a value centred along the upper $2 mark. At press time, the token is trading at $2.73, which is still an undervalued price point when considering that Tokamak Network is the world’s first layer 2 aggregator. Recent days have shown a slight increase in its value, which is bound to continue as the cryptocurrency bull run advances.

It’s also worth pointing out that TON’s trading volume is increasing, with $5.35 million in average traded over the last few days. A bullish price prediction is also centred on the idea that TON saw an all-time high of $8.38, back in September 2020. If industry trends are to be believed, the price point may even surpass this ATH, reaching new records. Of course, such an evolution is directly dependent on Tokamak’s rising popularity as a self-sufficient layer 2 aggregator.

TOKAMAK NETWORK MOST RELEVANT INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIPS

Readers who are interested in Tokamak Network should know that it’s backed by several prominent investment companies, including 100 & 100 Venture Capital, Blocore, Alphain Ventures, and Skytale Capital. With considerable financial resources at its disposal, Tokamak will stay centred on its path of enhancing collaboration within the layer 2 blockchain market.

Tokamak has also signed a series of partnerships, while being backed by well-known foundations. For instance, Tokamak has been awarded by the Ethereum Foundation Grants, and has been praised by Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, who stated that: “I was very impressed in the specific design that they made is one that even our own plasma researchers never thought about yet.” Tokamak Network has also partnered up with MakerDAO and Matic, as part of its noble pursuit of simplifying industry-wide innovation.

BOTTOM LINE ABOUT TOKAMAK NETWORK

To wrap things up, it has become clear that Tokamak Network is setting new industry standards by facilitating never before seen cooperation between layer 2 blockchain protocols. Over the long-term, Tokamak will solidify its position as the market’s optimal choice for projects requiring the usage of multiple layer 2 solutions under a singular ecosystem.

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Chadley McKnight

Into Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Publications and relations, and also a journalist