Chances are, you probably haven’t heard of Nebulas, as it’s still quite new to the blockchain scene. Nebulas is, simply put, the search engine for blockchain – an incredibly innovative idea created by none other than NEO’s (previously Antshares) founder, Hitters Xu. Nebulas’ aim is to make different blockchains as easy to browse as possible, assessing their liquidity, propagation, and interoperability to find the best blockchain for you.
The History of Nebulas
Over 5 years ago, Hitters Xu, formerly a director of Ant Financial’s blockchain platform and member of Google’s search and anti-fraud team, decided to launch his very own blockchain community in China.
This community, BitsClub, is still thriving today. Xu went on to found ICO365 (one of the largest ICO platforms in the world) and then FBG Capital (one of the earliest crypto funds created). Xu’s expertise in blockchain expanded, and by 2017 he was widely known as one of its top authorities. At last, he was ready to create his ultimate tool for the system.
In June 2017, the initial concept for Nebulas, a “search engine” for the blockchain, was born. Momentum gathered, and only a few months later Nebulas’ Testnet was online. By 2018, it was on Mainnet and ready to be released. With Nebulas fully in bloom, giving users an effective tool for assessing value of blockchains, their capacity for evolution, and their ecosystem development, it should be a major turning point in the industry.
Here, we take a look at the hows and whys of Nebulas, and the innovative team behind it.
How Does Nebulas Work?
Nebulas, like many other search engines, works via a complex system of algorithms and assessments, known as the Nebulas Rank. This, as the name suggests, assigns blockchain projects a universal assessment of value – similar to how an internet search engine would give websites a “domain authority” score – based on these three factors: Liquidity, Propagation, and Interoperability.
Liquidity
Liquidity is a dominant aspect of how Nebulas measures a specific technology’s value to the blockchain.
Using Bitcoin and Ethereum as examples, the daily volume of these two cryptocurrencies can exceed $1 billion. Simply put, the higher the transaction volume and scale, the higher the liquidity, because the more people there are willing to buy your coins if you want to sell. This results in increased transaction quantity and an enhanced value. This will in turn further enhance the financial assets’ value, creating a positive feedback mechanism.
Propagation
Nebulas doesn’t just look at the financial value of a cryptocurrency, but its social importance as well. Applying social media virality with factors such as speed, scope, the depth of information transmission, and linkage, Nebulas Rank uses powerful viral propagation to indicate the scope and depth of an asset’s liquidity.
This can promote both the quality and scale of an asset in the blockchain world, thus exploring the scope and depth of a blockchain platform’s social impact, in addition to its monetary standing.
Interoperability
We have long since moved past the dawn of the internet, when websites were basic and information put online could still conceivably remain private. After decades of use, information on different platforms can be forwarded on the network and isolated data silos can be gradually broken.
Sharing information has now become a fundamental aspect of the internet, and it’s likely that blockchain will follow a similar pattern. However, due to the nature of the blockchain, data dissemination will occur faster than anything we’ve seen before.
As use of blockchain increases, the information stored regarding users’ assets, smart contracts, and DApps will become richer and more complex. The interaction of higher-dimensional information will become more frequent. This means that as cryptocurrencies become more frequently used, the interoperability of a blockchain will become ever more important.
The Nebulas Token (NAS)
One aspect of Nebulas which is essential to its use is the Nebulas Token (NAS). Not a cryptocurrency as such, the NAS is the key to Nebulas’ decentralized search framework, and it works more like an incentive to keep Nebulas running smoothly and efficiently. There are currently 100 million NAS tokens, with that figure set to rise further.
The key uses for the NAS are:
- Implement digital apps on the blockchain
- Upgrade smart contracts
- Stake and governance on the blockchain
- Pay fees for running smart contracts
- Incentive for developers who contribute to the Nebulas platform and Proof of Devotion (PoD) bookkeepers
- Development of digital applications on the Nebulas blockchain
The Nebulas Team
Hitters Xu – Founder
Founder and CEO of Nebulas, Hitters Xu is also known for founding AntShares (NEO) in 2014, and for his role as director of Ant Financial’s (Alibaba’s financial arm) blockchain platform. In addition, he worked as part of Google’s search and anti-fraud team, and he founded BitsClub, one of China’s first blockchain communities. So it’s safe to say that Xu knows a thing or two about both cryptocurrency and search engines. Now, dedicating his time and expertise to Nebulas, Hitters Xu wants the blockchain to become accessible to everyone as the popularity of cryptocurrencies increases by the day.
Robin Zhong – Co-Founder
Nebulas co-founder, former architect of Ant Financial’s blockchain platform, and former Senior Development Director of Dolphin Browser, Robin Zhong is also the Leader of Game Division. Having graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Robin has used his expertise to found China’s first blockchain support platform, Tongxinclub, and now seeks to promote Nebulas to the forefront of cryptocurrency and the blockchain.
Aero Wang – Co-Founder
Nebulas and Antshares (NEO) co-founder, Aero Wang is the initiator of the Open IP and IP Community as well as being a serial entrepreneur in blockchain industry. He is a graduate from Southeast University and has worked alongside Hitters Xu for a number of years in blockchain development.
Competitors and Challenges
Because Nebulas is such a novel idea, it currently has no competition or rivals in this particular field of blockchain. While many blockchains utilize the liquidity, propagation, and interoperability of cryptocurrencies, there is nothing else out there currently that brings all these factors together and assesses them for users to browse.
Like Google in the early days of the internet, Nebulas could become a giant in the blockchain sphere, and the fact that they got a foothold early on in this cross-section of blockchain and search engines only adds to their potential.
Summary
Nebulas is certainly an ambitious project, and its end goal to provide a mass search engine for the blockchain is of enormous importance. Being an open-source project underpinned by an expert and committed programming team, the Nebulas dream could well become a reality very soon.
With its huge potential to expand and develop further, as well as the use of the NAS token as an incentive to keep the drive running, Nebulas could achieve the overarching status as the “search engine of the blockchain.” Who knows? It might even make Google take an interest in cryptocurrency.
