Institutions need to be aware of many things when holding or buying digital assets. There are many working parts including storing private keys and having strict hardware standards for your devices. Additionally, multi-party signatures are necessary when multiple fiduciaries or executors are required for a transaction to be approved. 

Accumulate makes it easy for institutions to integrate or use decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions as the entire network is centered around secure identities and key management. Secure identities have the ability to manage keys, tokens, and data. 

The Benefits of ADIs for DeFi

Accounting for these concerns, Accumulate seeks to integrate secure digital identities into everything – from a publicly-traded corporation to a non-profit organization to a large financial institution.

Accumulate has made identity a central part of its architecture with Accumulate Digital Identifiers (ADI). ADIs are a core component to replicating organizational operations on the Accumulate Network, such as: 

• Making multi-signature decisions 
• Sending & receiving tokens
• Building consensus 
• Key management 

Key Architecture

Accumulate has a hierarchical key management structure where Key Books contain Key Pages, and then the Key Pages contain keys that are authorized to sign transactions. Every Key Page can specify how many transactions are required to approve a signature. 

There is a unique architecture surrounding an ADI’s various functions. Some of the components include: 

• Key Book: Secures accounts and provides advanced key management; belongs to an ADI
• Key Page: Organizes keys within a Key Book

Key Management 

A common use case for Accumulate is making enterprise-level decisions on the blockchain. That means a corporate structure could essentially be replicated – department by department – onto a blockchain network. Accumulate’s unique design is created for this type of corporate replication, centered around the concept of identities. 

Why would an enterprise like a financial institution or a multinational business conglomerate use a blockchain? Blockchains have many benefits that extend well-beyond cryptocurrency and the hyper-financialization of NFTs. 

Benefits of Accumulate’s Unique Identity-Based Architecture 

Added benefits of the unique identity-based architecture of Accumulate enables enterprise data management, business hierarchy, ownership, and regulation-readiness: 

• Enterprise Data Management: Secure data mapping that is highly available and organized. 
• Business Hierarchy: Replicate your business’s operational procedures, but with more permission-based responsibilities like a requirement for multi-signature transactions for decision-making. 
• Ownership: ADIs can be assigned to any asset-owning entity, from buildings and IoT devices to investor reports and patents. Those digitalized, IoT-ready devices then have their own smart identity that is linked to it, ensuring secure communication 
• Regulation Readiness: Accumulate’s architecture is compliance-ready, meaning you won’t have to worry about adhering to the GDPR or other major data mandates because compliance is baked into the Accumulate architecture

Accumulate’s inherent compliance-ready architecture heightens security and market readiness. Additionally, Accumulate is designed to be more approachable for corporations to onboard themselves. 

In Conclusion

Enterprise adoption of blockchain technology continues to grow. Accumulate Network’s compliance-ready architecture can help enterprises take on the unique horizon of challenges. The identity framework and Accumulate’s key management structure delivers a secure, highly modular platform for corporations to integrate blockchain into their tech stack. 

These accounts are not permanent, hence using the term “scratch”. Scratch accounts have limited data availability, and any transaction using a scratch account becomes unavailable after two weeks. After the two-week period, the account is compressed and a proof of the transactions is created.

Scratch accounts are compressed, logical proofs of validation that show the truth of operation on-chain. The proof of operations and validation gets compressed into a logical proof. This proof or argument contains less data than the Scratch Account it is representing. The newly created scratch accounts also takes up less space than a traditional Accumulate ADI. 

Why Use a Scratch Account? 

A user could opt for scratch accounts for several reasons. 

Scratch accounts:  

• Integrate cryptographic proof of validation into different processes without overburdening the blockchain.
• Reduce the cost of using a blockchain for consensus building. Lower costs can expand available use cases for enterprises that use blockchain.
• Delivers less of a burden to the blockchain’s bandwidth.  

A scratch account can break down an operation on the blockchain into a logical proof. Yes, similar to a proof you may remember from logic class or geometry. 

Examples of Real World Uses for Scratch Accounts

There are many exciting use cases for scratch accounts for enterprises and businesses of all sizes. Below are three examples that are also highlighted in the Accumulate whitepaper. 

• IoT: IoT devices can use scratch accounts to promote important events onto the main chain for a fraction of the cost and data. 
• Oracle Data: Miners can use scratch accounts to submit records of pricing information from public pricing feeds. 
• Proving Exchange Transactions: Exchanges could use scratch accounts to provide cryptographic proof of every transaction, which would ordinarily be expensive. 

In Conclusion 

Scratch Accounts reduce the cost of writing data to Accumulate, which opens up a number of use cases for Accumulate. By reducing the burden on the blockchain, Scratch Accounts help make Accumulate a fast blockchain with a high transaction throughput. This innovation is one of many that makes Accumulate a suitable blockchain for integration with enterprises.

New infrastructure is being deployed to support the growth of the IoT industry such as the rollout of 5G, which can benefit IoT devices more than it benefits mobile phone reception by making greater data transfer speeds available. The speed of 5G enables the development of innovative technologies such as wearable watches that can translate a conversation in real-time between two people who do not speak the same language. As the capability of IoT continues to improve through technological advancement, there is potential for improvement by augmenting it with blockchain technology.

Smart Contracts and IoT

Blockchain is a distributed ledger system that stores immutable transaction information, meaning that the data cannot be edited across a network of computer servers known as nodes. The immutability of data through blockchain has several security benefits, as the data cannot be altered assuming normal operations are taking place. Whenever a new transaction is committed to a particular blockchain, it is recorded in a data block and appended as a link in an unbreakable chain. 

The data on this digital ledger can represent ownership of an asset such as a building, a piece of artwork, the copyright to intellectual property, or a digital token such as a Bitcoin. Some blockchains support the creation of smart contracts, pieces of programmable business logic that will execute when certain conditions are met, such as automatically selling the intellectual property rights of a patent when money is received. Smart contracts can be foundational for bringing the benefits of the blockchain to IoT technology.

The Intersection of IoT and Blockchain

Innovators are hard at work applying the benefits of blockchain to IoT technologies, yet there is room to grow in the scalability and security of these products. Look no further than IBM. Watson, one of IBM’s most sophisticated Software-as-a-Service solutions, has recently released an IoT Blockchain service. IBM’s Blockchain Service offers a practical solution to complex supply chain issues involving freight transportation and component tracking. 

For instance, using Watson’s service, a company and its clients can monitor and share a variety of data about the status of shipping containers as they are en route. Vital information about the shipping container can be shared on the blockchain with interested parties like the supplier of a product, the shipping company, and the warehouse where the products are destined. Accumulate’s design can benefit IoT with greater throughput, segmented addresses, scratch accounts, and authorization schemes. Below are existing use cases at the intersection of IoT and Blockchain.

A Supply Chain Use Case

IoT-enabled devices can send and receive specific information between the parties mentioned above, such as: 

• The temperature of the containers 
• The container’s global position
• Expected arrival time of the container 

A shipping container can be sent to an automated warehouse at which smart contracts are set up to respond and react accordingly to the changing conditions of the shipping container. A smart contract is similar to a real contract because when certain terms are met, certain conditions are enforced, except that in a smart contract, the terms are enforced by computer-coded logic. For example, a smart contract can be arranged that the order can be canceled if the temperature of a container exceeds a specific temperature. 

A self-driving IoT vehicle can be set up to unload the container when it arrives. The contract can verify the delivery to everyone involved in the order via the blockchain, potentially triggering more smart contracts and allowing for more efficient scheduling of deliveries. 

A Maintenance Use Case

The intersection of blockchain and IoT can be used to verify that maintenance has been conducted on a machine that sees regular wear and tear such as an elevator. A smart contract can be set up to automatically schedule maintenance as soon as required which makes the world safer. This information can also be automatically shared with regulators keeping track of compliance with federal safety codes and cutting through red tape. IBM is just one of many businesses taking advantage of the possibilities that IoT and blockchain can enable. 

A Survey Use Case

NetObjex, a California-based startup, creates applications on its proprietary decentralized IoT-blockchain platform. They have worked with the Brooklyn Public Library to provide secure phone charging lockers, which library visitors can access after filling out a survey meant to improve the user experience at the library. The answers are stored on a blockchain where various stakeholders can analyze the results and carry out improvements. Storing answers on a blockchain creates some verifiability for the data and how it got there.

A Smart Home Use Case

ArcTouch, a San Francisco-based startup, is a leader in developing decentralized apps (DApps) which run on the blockchain and connect to smart devices. Their applications include a tool for 3M, which connects home air filters to Alexa, monitors longevity, and informs users when they need to be changed. This leads to better air quality, as people often forget to change their filters.

Security and Scalability Remains as Top Issues for IoT Industry Experts 

While the previously mentioned examples from IBM, ArcTouch, and NetObjex are potentially great use cases for IoT-connected devices and blockchain, they need progressively better infrastructure to become more secure and scalable. That’s where Accumulate can help. 

Despite IoT technology’s increasing presence in our world from the above examples and many others, industry experts believe that IoT is being held back from its truest potential due to security and scalability concerns. A Deloitte Perspective piece stated that IoT devices often suffer from vulnerabilities and are an easy target for cybercriminals via Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. 

Experts from Deloitte also believe that another issue with IoT is the technology’s current level of scalability. As the number of overall IoT-connected devices grows, the network becomes congested, so it becomes less efficient in authenticating, authorizing, and connecting to different devices. 

How Accumulate Helps with IoT Security Concerns 

Accumulate’s design can serve as a defense mechanism to combat the security and scalability issues that impede the potential of IoT-connected devices. While we discuss this more in-depth in the blog post “How Accumulate Can Mitigate DDoS Attacks” it’s worth noting here that there are several aspects to Accumulate’s design that makes the network capable of mitigating DDoS attacks, thus improving the security and scalability of IoT-connected devices: 

1. Rather than existing as a single blockchain, Accumulate is a chain of chains. Each chain has its own security and bandwidth. Thus, attacking all chains is more complicated than attacking a single network. 
2. Accumulate’s fee structure requires fees to originate from a single signator, making the identification of attacks easier. 
3. Accumulate’s two-token system has ACME and Credits. While Credits provide a security add-on, ACME is a spendable token like ETH that Accumulate issues to reward services providers (e.g., Validators) 
4. All IoT devices have their own identity on the blockchain, preventing spoofing. As related to IoT, spoofing happens when an entire security system is breached via entry from a lower level of the system. A classic example is when a personal computer is hacked because it’s connected to the same network as an IoT-enabled light switch. Even on encrypted networks, the hacker can bypass the network’s encryption by blending into it, so the network thinks the hacker is encrypted as well

Event Highlights: 

• 3-months long 
• 8,000 attendees expected 
• $500K in prizes at the end of 3 months  
• 6+ hours of content for all participants via livestream
• Exposure to the human-centered design process and hands-on support 

In total, Web3athon has two stages. The first stage, Join, is when participants will utilize their own research methodologies in addition to the content that is recorded at Consensus in Austin (that is also provided through the Web3athon livestream). This first stage unites participants into teams where they form to submit ideas before July 24, 2022.  After receiving the submissions, a shortlist of 30 – 40 teams will be chosen to advance. 

Teams can form in person at Consensus Austin, or online. The second stage, Prototype, is when teams of developers will bring ideas to life. On August 31, 2022, teams will submit what they have built and judges will select the winners in the Fall of 2022. 

The Web3athon invites a full range of participants from different backgrounds, including: 

• Coders 
• Designers 
• Community Organizers 
• Policy Makers 
• Economists 
• Urban Planners 
• Artists 

Virtual Participation

Programming for Web3athon will be available for free online through a livestream or in-person for Consensus attendees that purchased a ticket for the event. The content will also be recorded and posted live after the event. 

Themes and Categories

One of the main ideas behind Web3athon is to create a design culture that is human-first. By doing this, it is possible to cater to a wide range of people, bringing the true promise of crypto to them across a variety of categories:  

• Generational Wealth Building
• Financial Health
• Sustainable Communities
• Culture, Disaster Relief, and Response
• Environmental Well-Being

What 

As most hackathons solely provide technical resources, Web3athon goes several steps further and provides other resources related to people-first problem-solving.

Several unique components of Web3athon’s content and formatting include: 

• Theme Brief: A 1-2 page summary of the theme, including sub-topic, key stats about the theme, and theme challenge statements
• Related Links and Media: Examples both inside and outside of crypto that show what the judges are looking for. Content that is curated such as various podcasts and articles from CoinDesk. Additionally, there will be media that is provided by the partners and sponsors (see the list of partners and sponsors below) 
• CRADL Stories: testimonials, audio recordings, and quotes that allow our team to leverage our research network for a variety of voices.
• Consensus Programming:  Over 6 hours of uniquely curated content will be recorded in Austin from June 9-11, with live streaming available all around the world once the conference is over 

Who

Partners include: 

• Africa Blockchain Institute
• H.E.R. DAO
• City of Austin 
• DreamDAO
• Jumpscale
• Impacqto
• Black Bitcoin Billionaire
• Women Who Build Web3

Sponsors include: 

• Circle
• FileCoin
• Accumulate 
• Celo
• Boba
• Polygon
• QTUM
• Stellar
• Prasaga
• Hbar fund
• Acala
• Polkadot
• Provenance
• Avalanche
• Ripple
• Aleo
• Block Daemon — the official API sponsor of Web3athon

Modern enterprises often have hundreds or thousands of dormant data sets. As new oracle technology for data consumption comes online, there are ways for that dormant, proprietary data to generate revenue in a way that costs nothing to the data provider while also maintaining privacy privileges associated with that data. To generate revenue, that data just has to be made available in a marketplace to other entities that would be interested in that data. 

That’s where BlockPortal comes in – one of Accumulate’s partners in the Inveniam ecosystem. 

This article discusses: 

• What Makes BlockPortal Unique? 
• BlockPortal and Accumulate Partnership 
• Use Cases Beyond Accumulate 
• How BlockPortal and Chainlink can Work Together 
• How BlockPortal Automates Smart Contract Processes 

What Makes BlockPortal unique?

BlockPortal is an infrastructure for private data sharing. While other protocols may focus on public data and decentralizing the sourcing of public data by using a number of providers, certain data sets only come from a single source, and there are very few processes to maintain the integrity of the source and distribute that data. Additionally, there are limited development initiatives that define how data can be used, so BlockPortal is hoping to create an infrastructure to enable the usage and monetization of that private data. BlockPortal can help private data owners monetize their data. 

Data that is captured, consumed, and created is forecasted to grow to 180 zettabytes between 2020 and 2025. To put a zettabyte into perspective, it has been calculated the requirements for storing all human speech that was ever spoken as roughly 42 zettabytes.

BlockPortal sources private data that is siloed in places that might have utility to the public, either in its raw state or in some sort of transformed state, with calculations that hide the raw data. Additionally, BlockPotal can aggregate data from many private data sources and make it consumable, like a web3 version of Statista. 

The potential impact of BlockPortal’s mission could be very significant. For example, this could have implications for academic institutions that want to share private data openly while maintaining the integrity within the privacy of that data. 

BlockPortal could aggregate proprietary data and, through its partnership with Accumulate, take proprietary data so that it can be further:

• Distributed 
• Verifiable 
• Immutable

BlockPortal and Accumulate Partnership 

Once anchored to Accumulate, the state of the data can be used in various ways, with the main application for this immutable data being used to meet regulatory and compliance requirements. However, generally speaking, BlockPortal enhances proprietary data to meet a robust number of needs with financial implications, including environmental, social, and government (ESG) requirements and regulatory and compliance requirements. 

BlockPortal and Accumulate’s relationship revolves around anchoring proprietary data through Accumulate due to Accumulate’s:  

• Consistently low and predictable costs 
• High transaction throughput
• Architecture 
• Auditability
• Proof of process

Data Use Cases

BlockPortal’s primary focus is on connecting providers and users of real asset data. For example, real asset owners could provide financial data that can be monetized via price indices or other novel financial products.

Beyond that, the BlockPortal team foresees other categories of data such as IoT. In 2021 alone, there were more than 10 billion active IoT devices, with forecasts expecting that number to hit 25.4 billion devices total by 2030.

Additionally, BlockPortal envisions that the data they make available can be used to manage carbon credit-related items, such as issuance of carbon credit, and follow up on the projects where the carbon credits originate to ensure consistent execution on promises. 

BlockPortal identifies situations where they can find data from multiple sources and then deliver insights that people would be interested in purchasing or consuming. Then, BlockPortal would use a blockchain feed to generate revenue back to data providers in an immutable, higher performing, and low-cost way. BlockPortal enables data providers to take advantage of data they otherwise wouldn’t know what to do with and create new streams of insight-driven revenue for those enterprises. 

BlockPortal Delivers Data On Chain

Proprietary data is often inactive outside of technology company databases. While data may be used internally for analytics and metrics, BlockPortal has seen demand for this data outside of tech companies themselves. If companies have the opportunity to ethically monetize that data, it’s worth consideration because monetization has little cost to the company. It’s data that may go unused and it’s already collected and what matters is passing on the reputation of the data provider. BlockPortal enables web3 data sharing to anyone that wants to make their data available to smart contracts. 

If a company wants to automate a particular process using smart contracts and doesn’t know how to do that, or if a company has an existing relationship with a third party that needs the data, BlockPortal can enable permissioned usage of that data for a robust variety of purposes. BlockPortal uses an oracle-as-a-service model instead of a pay-per-query marketplace approach. 

In Conclusion 

BlockPortal makes proprietary data from private companies more consumable, allowing data owners to generate income and become aggregated to be used in a wide variety of use cases. Accumulate’s partnership with Blockportal strengthens that data by making it immutable, consistently low-cost, further distributed, and verifiable. 

In the years following, Factom evolved through innovative developments and the buildout of an ecosystem. Factom secured partnerships with the Gates Foundation, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Energy. The momentum surrounding Factom’s launch and the build-out of its core infrastructure is resounding and what was developed has an everlasting legacy to this day. 

Some of Factom’s early core infrastructure is still used across the entire industry.  Factom created the precursor to modern-day SegWit. Factom introduced anchoring transactions onto Layer 1 blockchains and it was the first protocol with a dual-token model. Although Factom’s name will change, the innovations live on.  

A validator-elected upgrade of the Factom Protocol to Accumulate augments some of Factom’s core features in an entirely new architecture that addresses new use cases across various industries. Parts of the world-class engineering group from Factom continue to work on Accumulate with the upcoming hard fork. 

Accumulate includes several key innovations.

Accumulate Key Innovations: 

• Identity Paradigm 
• Parallel Processing 
• Synthetic Transactions
• Key Management 
• Scratch Accounts 

Identity Paradigm: Accumulate has centered its protocol around Accumulate Digital Identities (ADIs). In Bitcoin, transactions are hashed and then put into a Merkle tree. The tree’s hash is put inside a block, and a blockchain is created together with the roots from other tree hashes. ADIs are independent identities that define their own state, and they are treated like independent blockchains.

Each ADI is distributed across Tendermint networks. These networks, referred to as Block Validator Networks (BVNs), enable Accumulate to scale and maintain a high transaction throughput. ADIs are user-friendly and application-friendly, making them an essential addition to the web3 ecosystem.

Parallel Processing: Every Accumulate ADI is assigned to a BVN. Every BVN is a network of Tendermint nodes, and each BVN can process transactions for thousands of accounts. If a greater scale for the network is needed, then more BVNs can be added. At launch, Accumulate can handle about 75,000 TPS. However, Accumulate can scale to millions of TPS by adding more BVNs. The end result of parallel processing is fast transaction finality and short block times.

Synthetic Transactions: Transactions generated by the protocol in response to user-generated transactions are referred to as synthetic transactions. These transactions are sent to the BVN that manages the destination ADI after it leaves the source ADI. A synthetic transaction is sent each time ADIs interact with another ADI. An ADI doesn’t have to query a BVN node to verify the balance of an ADI; this fact allows the network to be indefinitely scalable.  

Every ADI has its own state and is its own blockchain, a layout that makes Accumulate sharded by design. Transactions routed to an ADI must be processed independently of other ADIs in a network. Communication between BVNs becomes tough to manage due to coordination issues when multiple ADIs are involved in a transaction. Accumulate’s solution is to self-generate additional transactions that perform settlement within an ADI, thus improving the communication scenario. 

Scratch Accounts: This is a way to compress data by limiting the data’s availability. If an ADI’s owner creates a Scratch Account, all the transaction hashes belonging to the account will be pruned at 2-week intervals (unless the owner decides to store the data off-chain). While transaction hashes are pruned, the root hashes are saved on-chain. These accounts provide validation proof without putting too much stress on the blockchain. Scratch Accounts ultimately reduce the cost of using the blockchain for consensus building.

Key Management: Commonly, an organization’s personnel has a hierarchy of different levels of capabilities, access levels, and administrative privileges. A Key Book is a set of Key Pages that are structured by priority, and a Key Page outlines what keys are required to validate a transaction. Accumulate can reproduce this common corporate framework on a blockchain using ADIs with Key Books to define access control. Key Books define these capabilities and access control, such as which ADI in an organization’s Key Book has password changing capability or which ADI has certain decision-making authority.  

Learn more about these Accumulate Key Innovations in the whitepaper and this recent YouTube video:

Table of Contents

1. Factom Quick Facts
2. Eventual Transition Into Accumulate blockchain
3. Differences Between Factom and Accumulate 
4. Accumulate Tokenomics
5. Accumulate Network Statistics
6. Accumulate Benefits
7. Accumulate’s Roadmap
8. Frequently Asked Questions on the Factom to Accumulate Transition

Factom Quick Facts 

• The Factom whitepaper was peer-reviewed by Vitalik Buterin 
• One of the first token sales ever
• Raised 579 Bitcoin on the first day of its token sale in 2015 
• Partnered with Gates Foundation 
• Grant recipient from the Department of Homeland Security 

Eventual Transition into Accumulate Blockchain

Generally speaking, some of Accumulate’s core functionality preserves parts of Factom’s more distinctive design aspects while improving on UI/UX, its range of use cases, and scalability. 

When Factom first surfaced, blockchain development was largely explored for trustless transactions and record keeping. Factom’s team of developers realized some of the inefficiencies of Bitcoin’s requirements for validating data, but Factom’s team used the Bitcoin network’s strengths to the team’s advantage. Some of the Bitcoin network’s requirements were not only inconvenient but rather unsuitable for larger data sets that were utilized by enterprises. To improve on these pain points, Factom’s development team improved on some of Bitcoin’s weaknesses when releasing Factom, but then used some of Bitcoin’s strengths to its advantage – such as the network’s security and size due to the network’s reliability. Factom was able to commit to Bitcoin in real-time, making Factom’s chain of chains architecture unique. 

Factom’s design gave way to: 

• Faster indexing
• Reduced complexity
• Lower storage costs 

Factom took the advantages of the Bitcoin network’s security one step further with the use of anchoring, a process that Accumulate still implements today. The results of consensus on Factom were uploaded to Bitcoin’s blockchain every 10 minutes. Large amounts of data were entered into Factom and then secured on Bitcoin through a single data point. This not only gave users an immutable history of transactions, it also had lower data requirements, and only asked users to sync with only a small portion of Factom to run the application. The design’s ease enhanced sharding as well. Thus, Factom’s approach allowed for scaling to become more efficient. 

Then in late 2021, the Factom Authority Node Operators (ANOs) voted to rebrand and upgrade into Accumulate. Accumulate was created to continue Factom’s legacy with a complete rewrite of the Factom codebase. 

Differences Between Factom and Accumulate 

Factom’s ANOs voted to upgrade and serve as the basis for Accumulate – a faster, more widely usable, and more scalable improvement of Factom– organized around digital identities called Accumulate Digital Identifiers (ADIs). The Accumulate Protocol is an identity-based, Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) blockchain designed to power the digital economy through interoperability with Layer-1 blockchains, integration with enterprise tech stacks, and interfacing with the World Wide Web

What is an Accumulate Digital Identifier (ADI)?

An ADI (also called identity) is a human-readable URL that can represent users, institutions, devices, etc. An Identity may have accounts, which hold its assets, whether those are tokens, data, or keys. An identity can be represented as: “acc://Bob”. Identities provide structure on the Accumulate Blockchain and allow smart contracts, consensus building, validator networks, and enterprise-level management of digital assets.

Accumulate architecture allows the processing and validation of identities. Every ADI on the network also has an associated set of hierarchical keys. Each key has a different priority level, allowing users to manage security settings, or organize complex signature authorization schemes. Accumulate’s system anchors all transactions to Layer-1 blockchains while providing enterprise-grade security to anyone that wants it.

Accumulate Digital Identifiers can:

• Send and receive blockchain tokens like a Bitcoin address 
• Support smart contract rollups 
• Maintain legal and regulatory compliance 
• Maintain predictable gas costs 
• Multi-signature authorization for wallet transactions 
• Flexibility to be managed by an individual, an organization, or even a device
• ADIs can also be transferred or controlled by multiple parties to create a consortium that manages a user’s identity and data. 

Accumulate Tokenomics

Accumulate has a token supply that deflates with increased demand for the network. The token supply occasionally mints tokens to distribute to validators and stakers. However, at different times that vary by transaction volume, a portion of ACME tokens are burned when ADIs are created. Burned ACME tokens are reissued in future blocks. Accumulate’s demand mechanism incentivizes staking and burning ACME. 

Supply: 500M Tokens 

Release at Mainnet: 150M 

Grant Block and Dev Block: 60M and 90M 

Grant Block Breakdown: 

• 50%: Allocated to Governance 
• 25%: Core Development 
• 10%: Ecosystem Development 
• 15%: Business Development  

FCT Conversion to ACME: 50M

Conversion plus Activation Block: 200M of the 500M Max Supply 

Uncirculated Pool: 300M tokens (60%) 

Monthly Mint Rate: 1-2% of uncirculated pool tokens will be minted as ACME to create credits. 

Accumulate Metrics

• Community: Since launching, Accumulate Network’s community has quickly grown to over 150,000 people. 
• Transactions: One of the fastest blockchains globally with 70,000 transactions per second (TPS). 
• Block Time Settlement: Near instantaneous with 1-second block settlement 
• Node Validators: 30+ node validators to be onboarded
• Testnet Transactions: Accumulate’s testnet has seen over 1.2 million transactions.
• Site Events: Growing interest in Accumulate has resulted in 172,277 site events since inception.

Accumulate Benefits

• Low-Cost Transaction Fees: Predictable, low-cost transactions average $0.025 per token transaction.
• High Scalability: 70,000 transactions per second enable scalability for enterprises and individuals.
• Speed: Single second transaction settlement speed makes Accumulate one of the fastest blockchains available.
• Interoperability: Anchoring with other chains gives way to an interoperable design.   
• On and Off-Chain Integration: A smart contract model that offers support for dApps.  

Accumulate’s Roadmap 

Throughout the rest of 2022 into 2023, Accumulate’s development plan has two major components: ecosystem and core protocol. Some of the ecosystem updates that are anticipated for Accumulate include integrations with some of the most important Layer 1 protocols, as well as integrations with prominent stable coins. 

Planned updates to the core protocol include staking rewards, staging automation, validator automation, and signature chain pruning.

Frequently Asked Questions on the Factom to Accumulate Transition

When did Factom become Accumulate? Factom will officially become Accumulate after the hard fork is completed. On November 10-21, 2021, Factom’s Validators unanimously voted to upgrade into Accumulate. In the summer of 2021, Inveniam acquired Factom Inc.’s 40 blockchain patents. 

How many validators will Accumulate have? Accumulate’s ecosystem has been designed to support somewhere in the vicinity of up to 50 validators when Accumulate Mainnet activates.  However, the architecture was designed to support more validators as the platform’s volume increases. Accumulate requires validators to have substantially less hardware per transaction than other major blockchains to make validator onboarding easier. 

What are Accumulate’s benefits? Key hierarchies, human-readable addresses, and its multi-chain architecture. Key hierarchies allow keys to be rotated, recreated, and redesigned, resulting in an overall safety improvement for your assets. Human readable addresses improve the current status quo of interacting with long alphanumeric text strings to send blockchain tokens to another person. 

What is the ratio when converting FCT to ACME? Any user that holds Factom (FCT) would convert to Accumulate’s ACME at a ratio of 1 FCT to 5 ACME.

What do I need to do if I hold FCT for it to convert to ACME? If you have FCT in your own wallet, you will have to import your FCT into an ACME wallet. After the hard fork, a user would use their private key for their Factom wallet to access an Accumulate wallet that would contain the converted ACME (at a 1:5 ratio of 1 FCT to 5 ACME).

What do I need to do if I hold FCT on an exchange like Bittrex? Bittrex and other exchanges with FCT will be updated for the conversion to take place. More information will be published on this in the future.

Will WFCT holders convert to ACME? Yes, WFCT (Wrapped Factom) holders will be able to convert to ACME at the same ratio that FCT converts to ACME (1 FCT to 5 ACME). The conversion portal will be available at https://wfct-burn.netlify.app

Accumulate’s compatibility with the EVM will offer unique opportunities for the protocol’s ecosystem. Accumulate’s development team has in-depth exposure in this area with lead developer Paul Snow having made contributions to the EVM’s initial development. 

This article discusses some basics on what the EVM is, how it functions, and how Accumulate’s compatibility will extend the protocol’s ecosystem.

Topics that are in this post include: 

• What is a Virtual Machine? 
• What is the Ethereum Virtual Machine? 
• What is the Purpose of the Ethereum Virtual Machine?
• EVM Compared to Other Existing Technology 
• Downsides of the Ethereum Virtual Machine
• Benefits of the Ethereum Virtual Machine
• How EVM-Compatibility via Accumulate Augments DeFi and NFT projects 

What is a Virtual Machine? 

Virtual machines (VMs) are created on top of operating systems such as iOS or Windows. VMs can run on different types of software so that all the software can be compatible and work together to complete tasks independently without relying on others to function. Virtual machines can determine the computing power of physical machines, and because VMs are so versatile, VMs are essential for a decentralized platform to function correctly.  

What is the Ethereum Virtual Machine?

The Ethereum Virtual Machine was created so that any node (computer) can use its resources no matter where it is located without being dependent on other nodes. The EVM acts as the go-to universal processor that anyone on the Ethereum network can use to make smart contracts or decentralized applications (dApps) function independently. 

The Ethereum blockchain is decentralized, meaning that thousands of computers run its software worldwide. These computers all have different operating systems and are spread out physically. The Ethereum blockchain system runs on a voluntary network and incentivizes participants who run the chain. The EVM is necessary to assist these nodes in building and executing what they want while sharing computing power. 

What is the Purpose of the Ethereum Virtual Machine?

The Ethereum Virtual Machine is embedded in all the nodes on the Ethereum network and keeps the rules consistent throughout every node. It ensures that all the blocks are valid and allows them to continue to the next block and run on their own. 

What is Turing-Completeness? 

A Turing Machine, once called an A-Machine or an Automatic Machine, represents a machine that would only work off algorithms until it got the correct answer. The possibilities are endless with this type of machine and can only be limited by physical restraints, which means the machine can continue forever until an answer is resolved. A Turing Machine relies on ‘statefulness’ as it can only focus on the task at hand or one state at a time. 

Turing-Completeness occurs when a computer can automatically decide a ruleset based on its computer language, instruction set, or advanced automation. It was created by a computer scientist named Alan Turning from his concept where he postulated that because computers do not think or act like humans, they can only function by processing a set of data to solve problems. 

EVM Compared to Other Existing Technology 

EVM is not the only Virtual Machine that exists – there have been many others that function similarly to it. One is the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) which, just like the EVM, is attached to an OS or other hardware to allow a variety of systems to work with each other. 

The main difference between the EVM and the JVM is that the EVM works for a decentralized network and is organized externally, so there is no scheduling capability. Also, the fact that the EVM lacks hardware support means that it runs completely virtual.  

Downsides of the Ethereum Virtual Machine

Many people believe the EVM system is expensive to run – paying for each operation can add up quickly. The environmental impact of Proof-of-Work decentralized systems are criticized quite often. There needs to be power for the EVM to continue blocks.

Benefits of the Ethereum Virtual Machine

The main benefit of the EVM is that it allows the Ethereum blockchain to run on any software. This encourages more nodes worldwide to join the ecosystem and makes it faster and more efficient. The EVM also encourages developers to run their dApps on Ethereum because they’ve created such a powerful system running for years (one of the longest in the crypto industry). Having this central processor lend its computing power is a massive advantage for the Ethereum network compared to other blockchains. 

Turing-complete Programming Languages

Turning-complete programming languages are able to perform any computation and work to process tasks written by developers. Javascript is an excellent example of a well-known programming language that is Turing-complete. JavaScript is a top-rated language that developers use to create websites and applications from scratch. A language like Javascript can be helpful in understanding the syntax of Solidity – Ethereum’s programming language for smart contracts. 

How is Ethereum Virtual Machine Deterministic? 

The Ethereum Virtual Machine was created to be deterministic, meaning its functions will always provide the same output as input. So no matter how many times the code is run, the EVM will always have the same outcome. This feature makes dApps on the Ethereum blockchain reliable because some of these dApps functions are for storing important information or transferring large amounts of money. The code must be flawless. 

What is Solidity?

Solidity is the name of the programming language developers use to create smart contracts or dApps on Ethereum. It is syntactically similar to JavaScript. When developers want to build an application on any computer, they must use a programming language. It looks something like this: 

All of the apps and websites you’ve used throughout your entire life have been created with programming languages. They act as a set of instructions to complete a task. Although Ethereum has a complex structure, its programming language, Solidity, is known to be a user-friendly programming language.

What are Smart Contracts?

A smart contract is an agreement between two parties that can be self-executed on computers anywhere. Smart contracts do not require any human supervision or authority for validation; they are a massive part of how the Ethereum network and EVM work.

Think about what a regular contract is, an agreement between two parties that outlines what each side is responsible for and determines what will happen when the tasks are fulfilled (or not). A smart contract does the same thing, except this type of contract isn’t written by a lawyer and monitored by a judge. A smart contract is written by a developer and monitored by computer code.

What are Opcodes?

Opcodes stand for ‘operational codes’ and are machine instructions that the EVM uses to execute tasks. Opcodes are lower-level codes than Solidity and allow the EVM to compute continuously. 

There are different types of opcodes, such as: 

• Memory-Manipulating Opcodes
• Environmental Opcodes
• Halting Opcodes. 

The website ethervm.io has a table of all the available opcodes the EVM uses, along with stack input, stack output, expression, and notes.

What are Bytecodes? 

If you want to effectively store an opcode you must first turn it into bytecode. Every bytecode is split up into bytes which is a number that contains two hexadecimal characters. Some bytes need to be attached to opcodes if they include push data.

For a task to be completed on a smart contract, a developer will create opcodes that are used for the instructions and then create the bytecodes that will take these instructions, and break them down numerically. This will allow them to function on their own based on the numerical code and the following bytes after it. 

What is the Gas Cost of Interacting with Smart Contracts?

Gas costs on Ethereum represent the amount of computing power smart contracts need to complete their tasks. A smart contract task can use thousands of nodes on the Ethereum blockchain. That’s a lot of computing power! Gas fees are implemented for developers to use this power wisely and to prevent attackers from slowing down the network with unnecessary tasks. 

Each opcode will have a base gas fee (standard fee), as well as a dynamic gas fee (the latter being calculated per word of code). The cost of these transactions varies depending on what the operation is. For example, the “Amount of gas to pay for a JUMPDEST operation” is 1, whereas the “Amount of gas to pay for a SELFDESTRUCT operation” is 5000. All the costs per instruction can be found on the Ethereum Yellowpaper under Appendix G & H.

How Does Gas Relate to the Performance of EVM? 

Gas relates to the performance of EVM because it incentivizes developers to write clean, efficient code that will not clog the network. Before launching smart contracts, the written code should be as efficient as possible to avoid unnecessary fees. This will allow for the performance of the smart contract to run to the best of its ability and not waste unnecessary computing power. 

Gas Cost vs. Gas Price 

Gast cost is a set amount, meaning it stays the same based on what is written in the Fee Schedule above. However, gas prices will change. The cost of gas is paid for in the cryptocurrency called Ether, whose price can fluctuate based on buyer and seller equilibrium. The current price of 1 Ether in April 2022 at the time of this writing is just under $3,000. However, gas is determined in Gwei, which is a denomination of ether; one Wei (singular for Gwei) is one quintillion of ether. 

Now that different aspects of the EVM have been defined, let’s discuss how the EVM integrates with Accumulate. 

How EVM-Compatibility via Accumulate Augments DeFi and NFTs 

Software engineering best practices dictate that software systems are written in layers with clear responsibilities. This best practice results in systems that are less complex and far easier to maintain. The resulting benefit is a significantly lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and fewer software defects and bugs. Within the DeFi space, the second benefit, lower defects, is significant, and recent security breaches in Qubit, MonoX, and Compound illustrate this point.

The Accumulate ecosystem cleanly divides data and application layers by running EVM and other smart contract solutions as layer two protocols running on top of Accumulate.  

Along with our ecosystem partners, Accumulate intends to offer several smart contract solutions, integrated with Accumulate and Accumulate’s unique managed chain approach. The use of managed chains allows for the creation of smart contracts that are highly scalable. In these scenarios, an organization has already made testing on an existing technology stack. 

An EVM-bridge integration connects Accumulate to the larger DeFi and NFT world. However, Accumulate’s ADIs and the corresponding security model can do things that would be impossible in most EVM environments. All of Accumulate Network’s operations are managed by ADIs, which are centered around identities. 

ADIs will or could have capabilities such as: 

• Sending and receiving tokens like a Bitcoin address.
• Issuing smart contracts like an Ethereum address.
• Facilitating a variety of new and complex operations such as on-chain consensus building and key management. 

Each ADI operates as its own independent chain under which all the states for a user’s identity including its keys, data, token accounts, and sub-identities can be managed on the network. In addition to the benefits that Accumulate can bring through an EVM-Ethereum Bridge, ADIs can have tremendous implications to enhance identity-based security issues across the world of DeFi and NFTs. 

Some of the expected outcomes of an Ethereum Bridge can include the ability to: 

• Transfer digital assets (ERC-20 or ERC-721) from Ethereum to Accumulate EVM and back.
• Transfer EVM-based digital assets from Accumulate EVM to Accumulate token accounts.
• Transfer digital assets (ERC-20 or ERC-721) from Ethereum to Accumulate EVM and back through a bridge.
• Transfer Accumulate-native tokens from Accumulate token accounts to Accumulate EVM.
• Porting EVM-based smart contracts to Accumulate. 

Major enterprises like Molson-Coors and HSBC are buying virtual land in the Metaverse with very real money. JP Morgan has forecasted that over $1 trillion will pour into the metaverse annually. These investments signal that the Metaverse could be a major part of social and corporate life for enterprises and individuals life in years to come.

Enterprises in the Metaverse by the Numbers: 

• $1 trillion: The annual amount of money JP Morgan anticipates will pour into the metaverse 
• $8.3 billion: Combined market cap of The Sandbox and Decentraland as of the time of this writing, two of the most significant metaverses available today. 
• $4.3 million: Current record-setting purchase amount for a single piece of virtual land

What Is The Metaverse?

If the internet is a 2D space where information is primarily conveyed through text, images, and videos. The Metaverse is a 3D version of the internet where user experience will be focused more on immersive experiences with speech, hearing, and even touch. People (and companies) will be able to buy and sell products, interact with customers or customer support staff, sign contracts, play games, and do many other “real world” activities in a virtual space.

Facebook rebranded itself as Meta in October of last year, announcing that the company’s next big move would be the development of a virtual reality world called the Metaverse. What exactly as the Metaverse though, and what are the implications of this new technology on our daily lives?

Neal Stephenson coined the term Metaverse in his 1992 classic book Snow Crash. Stephenson’s novel partially takes place in a virtual reality world where people’s personalized digital avatars mingle with each other, research new ideas, see concerts, duel with swords, and live in lavish homes of their own design (kind of like The Sims). In Stephenson’s book, many people spend as much time in the Metaverse as they do in the real world. Not only that, but the first investors in Metaverse real estate turn cheap plots of virtual land into real-world fortunes. 

Stephenson is not just a writer — he is a highly-regarded programming philosopher who serves as an advisor to Jeff Bezos’s space company Blue Origin. His decisions have weighed well beyond the world of literature. Now Mark Zuckerberg and hundreds of other companies want to make Stephenson’s futurist vision a modern reality. 

Meta is not the only major player in the development of the Metaverse. Other tech titans like Microsoft are developing Metaverse technology, and a number of companies are focused on virtual real estate. However, other blockchain companies have also come into the space such as Decentraland, Upland, and The Sandbox (the latter starting as a computer game before transforming into a blockchain-focused company following a 2018 acquisition by Web3 investment powerhouse Animoca Brands).

Read this blog post to learn more about how Accumulate ADIs can be used in the Metaverse. 

What is Metaverse Real Estate?​​

As mentioned before, a plot point in the novel Snow Crash is the development of virtual cities and real estate markets. In a move of life imitating art, projects like The Sandbox, Decentraland, and Upland are creating the foundation of the Metaverse’s real estate market. Virtual land in these metaverses can later be used to develop projects like virtual bars, cafes, concert venues, and offices – although some of the uses of this land are speculative at this point.

In Animoca’s The Sandbox, people can buy packages of virtual land and other digital assets with Ethereum and Polygon. Many larger parcels of land on The Sandbox go for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars.

A Metaverse Before Facebook 

In fact, the current record for a virtual real estate in The Sandbox purchase was set in November 2021 by Republic Realm, a metaverse investment firm founded by former Atari game developers. Republic Realm purchased the record-setting Sandbox parcel, which was the equivalent of 1,200 city blocks, for an astonishing $4.3M. Again, although it’s highly speculative, this industry is just heating up so it will be shocking to imagine the evaluations as more money pours in from the likes of enterprises if they follow suit of HSBC.

The Sandbox project predates Facebook’s rebranding to Meta. Prior to Facebook’s rebranding, parcels in the Sandbox started at around $2000. A month after Meta was revealed, the cost of parcels in the Sandbox had increased to over $11,000. Many real estate speculators are buying land based on its proximity to other developments. Buyers are hoping that, much like physical real estate, the value of property will increase based on what is in the neighborhood. If someone buys the land next to Snoop Dogg’s $450k virtual plot of land, called Snoopverse, or the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s virtual headquarters, they are betting that these neighborhoods will become trendy destinations in the future. Other destinations to consider are close to roads, casinos, and other prominent headquarters. 

Other projects like Decentraland and Upland offer similar value propositions as The Sandbox does. While Decentraland operates similarly to The Sandbox, Upland is more like a Web3 version of Monopoly-meets-Google maps where players trade, buy, sell, and earn a stake on virtual properties that are linked to real-world addresses. 

How To Buy Land In The Metaverse

For your average buyer who is only purchasing a small plot of virtual land, land can be purchased in a similar way to purchasing any other NFT.  You can simply connect and fund your crypto wallet, such as Metamask, browse available land on the platform of your choice or on OpenSea, then bid on the land or buy it outright. The NFT of the land will be transferred to your wallet and then integrated into your in-game experience

If you are looking to buy a more substantial parcel of land, a number of virtual real estate brokers have popped up in the last year. These brokers will work with the Metaverse provider to get you the best deal. There are even a few mortgage companies that specialize in Metaverse deals. As the space matures, more of these businesses will crop up to assist with virtual land purchases. You’ve probably met quite a few real estate agents, but have you met a virtual real estate agent? Not yet. Can you imagine a world where virtual home mortgages pop up so that, as Stephenson’s Snow Crash becomes more of a likely reality, people build a second life for themselves customized as much as they would customize their first house. 

Enterprises and the Metaverse

One reason that Metaverse real estate is gaining traction is due to the major brands that are purchasing land in the Metaverse. The Sandbox alone has sold land to businesses in over 200 major partnerships, including deals with Gucci, Adidas, and the TV show the Walking Dead. Some companies are spending millions of dollars on land, believing that it will significantly increase in value in the future and that the Metaverse will become a new media channel for their business.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC)

Big Four accounting powerhouse, PwC, purchased land on The Sandbox for an undisclosed sum with the intention of building a Web3 advisory hub for next-generation accounting and tax services. William Gee, a Hong Kong partner at PwC, called the Metaverse a “digital phenomenon.” They not only hope to use the land to offer advice and services, but they hope to assist smaller startups and family-run businesses that want to grow in the Metaverse. These types of businesses are often eclipsed by venture capital funds and conglomerates and can struggle to gain traction in new markets.

Molson-Coors (Miller Lite) 

Since they were unable to buy ad time during the Superbowl due to a sponsorship conflict with Bud Light, Miller Light opted to create the first branded bar in the Metaverse instead – where patrons could interact with Miller’s Superbowl ad. Molson purchased land and built the Meta Lite Bar in Decentralandwhere patrons aged 21-and-over could watch the game, play darts, talk to other fans, earn swag, and watch the ad – which lasted for 20 minutes and included interactive features. Some of the wearables given away at the bar during the game were later resold for $250k. Miller’s Superbowl event was the largest event to ever take place in Decentraland and the 20-minute ad was said to be an absolute hit. The Meta Lite Bar also had an IRL component that accompanied the bar featuring physical giveaways.

HSBC

On March 16th, 2022 HSBC became the first bank to buy land in The Sandbox, and the second bank to purchase virtual real estate after JP Morgan’s Decentraland lounge. The enterprise will use this land to create a hub to engage with physically and electronically. This move happens as HSBC closes physical locations across England, indicating the bank may be investing in a virtual future in lieu of a physical one.

JP Morgan 

JP Morgan, perhaps remembered to crypto faithful for its flip-flopping stance on Bitcoin, has forecasted that the metaverse will be a $1T a year industry. They’ve planted their virtual flag in Decentraland with the opening of a digital lounge called Onyx. The lounge is located in Metajuku mall. When you enter the lounge, a few things may stand out to you like the portrait of current JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and a roaming tiger. The price of MANA, Decentraland’s token, shot up 8% on the day that JP Morgan announced their entry into the space.  

Meta (Facebook)

Many people heard of the Metaverse for the first time when Facebook rebranded to Meta –a stunning move from one of the most powerful companies on the planet. Meta aims to lead the next revolution in social technology, just as they did with Facebook. Using their proprietary Oculus VR headset, Meta wants to bring people onto the Metaverse for social connections, entertainment, gaming, fitness, work, education, business, and more. Meta’s rebrand has been a boon for all Metaverse adjacent companies. Real Estate values in the Metaverse saw a 500% increase in one month after Facebook rebranded. There has been an explosion in new Metaverse startups and businesses due to Zuckerberg’s seal of approval.

Republic Realm

As previously stated, in November of 2021, Republic Realm made headlines after purchasing 492 parcels of Sandbox land for $4.3 million dollars – which was the largest purchase of digital real estate at that point in time. The digital real estate company is partnering with Atari to develop the land into something magical. They envision that the virtual development they create will be similar to Minecraft and will entice a new generation of gamers to dream big in the Metaverse.

Atari

After pioneering the traditional video game world for a quarter-century, Atari is moving on to the metaverse through the development of a crypto casino in Decentraland’s Vegas City – a Metaverse city dedicated to gaming and gambling. They bought 20 parcels of land in Vegas City’s casino quarter, and have developed an ERC-20 token called Atari token that can be used on their proprietary chain when gambling in their casino.

In Conclusion

JP Morgan has forecasted that over the metaverse will be a $1 trillion market opportunity in yearly revenues. Enterprises from Molson-Coors to HSBC are buying virtual land in the Metaverse with very real money. The Metaverse could be a major part of social and corporate life for enterprises and individuals in years to come. As other enterprise brands continue pouring money and resources into the metaverse, it will be exciting to see how the industry electrifies.

The work Accumulate is doing for identity-first, human-readable crypto addresses will usher in the next era of ease into the crypto adoption process. That identity-based address that Accumulate offers is a registry similar to the one that DNS created for the internet. 

Topics covered in this post include: 

• What is DNS? 
• How crypto addresses have a similar issue to the one IP addresses faced 
• Accumulate identity-based addresses 

What is DNS? 

Before DNS, domains were long and not easily readable by humans. Then when the Domain Name System arrived, IP addresses of the world wide web were translated into Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) like Google and Reddit.  

Every single device that is internet-connected has an associated Internet Protocol (IP) address. Then, another machine utilizes the IP address to identify the device that is being searched for. The DNS takes away what was previously a requirement – knowing the complex IP address. For example, 192.158.1.38. 

The DNS has acted like the Internet’s Yellow Pages and has included domain names that we use to get to the places we want to visit on the web. As a result of the DNS, people are able to do things like access their beloved social media channels, post questions on Reddit, and check the score of sports games. 

Any time that the internet browser interacts with the IP, the DNS translates the string of numbers associated with the IP into a URL. 

The work Accumulate is doing with blockchain addresses is parallel to what the DNS did and still does for IP addresses… makes crypto addresses human-readable. 

Problems with Today’s Crypto Addresses 

There are several problems with the state of long alphanumeric blockchain addresses that we use to make crypto transactions. Primarily, blockchain addresses are not user-friendly and they lack easy recovery methods. While proponents argue that this is a built-in security feature, there are ways to achieve a proportionate amount of security without all of the hassles that the current state of blockchain domains cause. 

Blockchain addresses are not user-friendly: A BlockCAT survey asked participants to self-assess their anxiety when sending a crypto payment. Over 94% of respondents admitted that they worried about making a mistake when sending crypto and an additional 11% admitted to sending money to the wrong address (Forbes). Besides someone with savant-like abilities, who has the capability (or time) to remember these long alphanumeric crypto addresses that are used today? Short answer: no one. Instead, the world needs solutions that can be used more easily. 

Accumulate’s user-friendly, human-readable identities address this issue by being derived from names we are familiar with. 

Lack of recovery: Many stories have circulated about the number of people who have lost access to their crypto accounts which has resulted in a loss of funds. For crypto payment’s adoption level to evolve further into the mainstream, account recovery needs to be a focus. It produces a lot of anxiety to store crypto with the chance that the custody could be gone if the person or entity loses access to the private key. While this system has been great for security, it’s almost too good in the sense that an estimated 20% of Bitcoin, or $140 billion, is inaccessible due to lost private keys. 

Accumulate offers a hierarchical alternative where the master key for identity can reset the keys that are lower on the hierarchy list. Imagine a corporation on the blockchain in which the company’s chairman, president, or CEO is able to reset corporate keys for a new hire that hasn’t fully earned the time-tested trust of the company yet. 

Accumulate Identity-Based Crypto Addresses

Said in a different way, Accumulate acts similarly to a human-readable, Web 3.0 version of a URL. While Web2 and its associated companies had the DNS, Web3 has Accumulate identities. Through Accumulate identities, blockchain addresses become: 

• Readable: Accumulate identities are strings of readable texts like Acc://BlueOrg.
• Secure and Owned: An identity’s owner, whether that be an organization, person, or even a building, has the capability to manage with best-in-class security functions and key privileges. 
• Managed: Within a corporation, ADIs can be assigned to different departments, and each department has the ability to create a permissioned identity hierarchy with a range of security levels. 

Essentially, Accumulate takes the long public crypto addresses that we all know and detest, then replaces it with a simple identity that’s easy to see and understand. The once complicated 1BvBMSEYstWetqTFn5Au4m4GFg7xJaNVN2 now becomes Acc://BlueOrg. 

Accumulate vs Ethereum Name Service 

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is an Ethereum-based domain solution that provides a URL similar to a name or email that is substituted for a crypto address. Essentially, ENS translates and simplifies the long, alphanumeric text string that people are used to. With the ENS, 0xb764f5ea0ba39494ce839613fffba94229579261 is simplified to Drew.ETH. 

Accumulate identities are similar to ENS addresses in that you can send and receive tokens to a simplified blockchain address. However, Accumulate identities have a much more robust range of native features which include readability, security, and management (as previously mentioned). While ENS is a strong candidate for personal accounts, Accumulate’s enterprise-grade security is strong enough for some of the most complex entities in the world like governments and major corporations.