What Is DigiByte?

While DigiByte has remained in relative obscurity as compared to other cryptocurrencies, the blockchain platform's scalability may create opportunities for DigiByte to be used in a broad range of applications.

Understanding DigiByte

DigiByte was launched in 2013 with the goal of creating a fast and secure cryptocurrency that could reach a wider and more decentralized community than Bitcoin. The DigiByte platform is open source, meaning that anyone can view and contribute to the project's code.

DigiByte uses the proof-of-work operating mechanism, which uses a process called mining to generate new DGB tokens and process DGB transactions. The DigiByte blockchain, which is designed to be adaptable, supports multiple mining methods. The five different mining algorithms that DigiByte supports are Sha256, Scrypt, Skein, Qubit, and Odocrypt.

The DigiByte blockchain is programmed to continually change how much computing power is required to successfully add a new block to the DigiByte blockchain. The block difficulty changes every time a new block is added to DigiByte's blockchain.

The DigiByte blockchain consists of three layers:

• A top layer of decentralized applications and smart contracts that are integrated into the DigiByte platform
• An electronic public ledger that is created and maintained by the DigiByte blockchain
• A global network of DigiByte nodes that relay and validate DGB transactions and mint new DGB currency
  

DigiByte Special Features

Several features of DigiByte make the blockchain platform unique:

• Multi-algorithmic mining process: By supporting five different algorithms for mining, DigiByte is more decentralized—and generally more secure—than a platform that supports just one mining process.
• Block difficulty changes: By changing how much computing power is required to mine every block, the DigiByte blockchain minimizes the likelihood of a network takeover by a consolidated group of miners.
• No ICO: Many cryptocurrencies generate funds for developing and launching a blockchain platform through an initial coin offering (ICO). DigiByte was launched without an ICO, and is entirely volunteer run.
  

DigiByte vs. Bitcoin

You may be wondering about how DigiByte differs from Bitcoin. While the DigiByte platform is originally based on Bitcoin's code, DigiByte and Bitcoin have some key differences:

• Maximum coin supply: Both DigiByte and Bitcoin have a maximum coin supply, but the maximum number of DGB exceeds the Bitcoin maximum supply by an order of magnitude. The maximum supply of DGB is 21 billion tokens, whereas Bitcoin's coin supply is capped at 21 million.
• Mining rewards schedule: DigiByte and Bitcoin both gradually reduce the amount of cryptocurrency paid as rewards to miners, but the two blockchain networks use different reduction schedules. DigiByte's per-block reward decreases by 1% every month, while Bitcoin's reward halves about every four years.
• Transaction speed: DigiByte can process transactions faster than Bitcoin because it adds new blocks to its blockchain more frequently. DigiByte transactions are processed in about 15 seconds, while the average time to process a block of Bitcoin transactions is 10 minutes.