Why Signum

10min



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Signum is our foundation for a sustainable future. Signum is an open blockchain protocol and development toolset for Web 3.0 applications and decentralized solutions.

What is Signum

Signum brings a powerful blockchain solution to the world in the most sustainable way. Like Bitcoin, Signum provides a digital currency called Signa (ticker: SIGNA) that is distributed, traded and stored using a decentralized ledger system. There are no intermediaries, payment gateways, or banks. 

Signum is so much more than a digital currency. As a customizable platform, it has the power to feature unstoppable and censorship-resistant decentralized applications. Anyone can create digital assets (smart tokens) that can be used in ways only limited by our imagination. Exchanges, marketplaces, financial services, and games barely scratch the surface. The best part is that it is genuinely sustainable compared to other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum.

What makes Signum truly sustainable

Bitcoin's infamous Proof of Work consensus protocol requires expensive, specialized, energy-hungry hardware. They result in an enormous amount of 121 TWh of energy consumption per year and more than nine kilotons of e-waste. Using easily re-purposed consumer-grade hardware, Signum also avoids e-waste and requires less than 0.002% of that energy to drive the blockchain.

On Signum, energy-intensive calculations are only once executed when the miners plot their available disk space. After that, the mining process requires reading through a tiny fraction of this disk space (1/4096, less than 0.025 % of the plotted capacity). The hard disks are usually idle, as this small fraction only needs to be read every few minutes to secure the network. (see PoC+). 



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Tokenization

Issuing your smart token on the Signum blockchain is simple. The smart token is immediately available for transfers and trading: perfect for crowdfunding, ICO, or any other use case. More about Smart Tokens

Smart Contracts

Signum is shipped with smart contracts implemented as Automated Transactions (AT). Initially developed by CIYAM, this system is Turing-complete and has infinite use cases. Signum was the first platform to run Turing-complete smart contracts on a public blockchain.

A unique feature of Signum's smart contracts is that they can be programmed to self-execute. Most of today's smart contracts only react to the transactions they receive. Signum's self-running smart contracts provide endless potential for new applications, for example, decentralized autonomous lotteries that need to run at a specific time.

Signum will make your smart contract experience easy and user-friendly. With Signum SmartJ, you get a powerful tool to develop smart contracts in easy-to-write Java - no need for developers to learn an additional blockchain language.

Smart Layer 1.0

Signum is, in general, a layer one blockchain. The main difference to another layer one chain is that Signum introduces smart transactions. Adding a single transaction to the chain triggers thousands to millions of changes in the balance on different accounts by this transaction. Due to this, Signum introduced a new KPI STPS (smart transaction per second). Indicating how many smart transactions are triggered by one transaction signed and sent to the chain. The current limit is 1.2 million balance changes per block - or 5,000 STPS.

Multiverse

Signum is ready for a multiverse setup. Based on Signum code and logic, a new blockchain can be created by adjusting the base parameters for the blockchain. The new chain can have a completely different block reward, block times or block size. Also, new Transaction Types can be defined or existing disabled. Finally, a native coin with its name, like Signa , will be created. Those multiverses will be supported by the main chain and covered with the Signum DEX for cross-chain trades P2P

Proof of Commitment (PoC+)

Signum is based on Proof of Commitment (PoC+). A decentralized consensus is the evolution of the Proof of Capacity (PoC) consensus. Unlike the well-known Proof of Work (PoW) consensus used by Bitcoin and many other coins, PoC+ uses available disk space - no need for special power-hungry equipment. This innovative consensus offers a new way for miners to increase their effective storage capacity - committing a Signa balance (stake) in their account. It will help secure the network and improve their chances of earning mining rewards. PoC+ is a greener option since effective capacity can be increased without purchasing more equipment. The mining process in the PoC+ consensus is so effective it has such low hardware requirements that any consumer-grade PC can be used to mine. The user will not even notice the mining process happening, aside from the occasional blinking LEDs from the hard disk drive (HDD)!

Circulation of Signa

Signum has a minimum reward of 100 Signa per block (every 4 minutes). The minimum reward was introduced to keep an incentive for the miners to maintain and secure the network. Compared to the old hard cap, Signum has a starting inflation of 0.6% pa (per annum) starting in 2024. The corresponding SIP can be read here. In turn, with the SIP-36 the Signum blockchain introduced the burning of execution fees for smart contracts and ongoing subscriptions.

Performance

Every 4 minutes, the Signum blockchain creates a new block. Within the block, thousands of transactions can be stored. This leads to a TPS (transaction per second) of around 8.5 TPS by a block size of only 375,360 bytes. The Signum protocol has transaction types which are much smarter and more efficient, which means that one transaction can trigger thousand to millions of balance changes in Signa or smart tokens. For those transactions, we measure the TPS in STPS (smart transaction per second). The STPS can reach 5'000 with the current given Transaction Types.

Transparency

The Signum protocol is open, with the source code available on Github 🔗 The protocol's updates and improvements are discussed by the community on the Signum Enhancement Proposals 🔗 forum.

Ecosystem for Developers

Beyond the blockchain functionality and its underlying protocols, the Signum ecosystem offers a diverse collection of tools, products, and components to streamline the process of building and running dApps. The tools are developed both by the Signum core team and the developer community.

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Updated 12 Jan 2024
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