Vlad Zamfir, proficient developer and a reputed name in the world of the blockchain, is in talks with a start-up named Casper Labs. The start-up is a subsidiary of RChain cooperative, a blockchain company based in Seattle. If all goes well, this prospective partnership could end up playing an important role in the crypto world as RChain and Ethereum will have a brand new competition.
Both the projects – RChain and Ethereum, have active involvement of Zamfir for a few years now. This latest development has surfaced while RChain is experiencing an uncertain period. The company states that it is creating important technologies for social coordination as well as blockchain platform in order to solve the biggest issues in the world.
According to the reports, Casper Labs had signed what is called a letter of intent with Zamfir for negotiating an agreement. If Zamfir also had signed the contract with the start-up wasn’t known. One of the latest issues published by The Block, however, confirmed the news through Casper Lab’s CEO but Zamfir, on the other hand, denied having done so.
Giving an official statement on the situation through his Twitter handle, Zamfir said, “We’re in the process of negotiating a research agreement, and that relationship is very much a subject of negotiation, so I can’t say too much (both because it isn’t defined and because of the sensitive nature of negotiation), but mine leaving Ethereum has never been on the table.” We must note here that Zamfir is active as Ethereum Foundation’s researcher and RChain Cooperative’s board of director.
Casper Labs now has some professionals who previously worked at RChain including Steve Careaga and Medha Parlikar. While Steve was a former general partner at Reflective Ventures, a firm that established an association with RChain the past year, Medha worked at Pyrofex as a program manager that worked on RChain. At Casper Labs, Steve and Medha hold their respective roles as a chief financial officer and Executive Vice President.
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Scott Walker, Casper Labs’ chairman, revealed that he had invested in the start-up during its ongoing seed funding phase itself. Having invested into multiple crypto projects, Walker declared that he is one of the holders of Casper Labs’ equity stakes though he refused to divulge the exact investment figures from various investors.
Development of “CBC Casper”
Sources have it that a robust algorithm called CBC Casper is being generated for several projects of the blockchain. The 28-year-old Zamfir is focussed on bringing his version of the CBC Casper to life. CBC Casper is the proof-of-stake based consensus algorithm of the blockchain. This algorithm is a written software code that can be considered as rules. This algorithm lets the servers secure the blockchain network without relying on another party for dispute settlements. The meaning of proof-of-stake suggests that network resorts to computer servers or validators which own a few of the cryptos from the network & therefore possess a ‘stake’ in it.
On the other hand, there is bitcoin which, for a secured network, counts on the algorithm of proof-of-work. The widely used digital currency needs validators for owning mining machines or special computers for seamlessly running tedious calculations. While these specialized computers need a huge load of energy, proof-of-stake algorithms are energy-efficient.
After the release of its initial version in November 2017 by Zamfir, CBC Casper has created an environment of curiosity for its updated version in the world of the blockchain. That’s because CBC Casper project is believed to be capable of solving the biggest problem of scalability that many blockchain platforms are facing in the present times. RChain too is said to be striving to utilize CBC Casper.
RChain’s Future Consequences
While Lucius Greg Meredith, President of RChain, has not shied away from terming his alliance with Zamfir as a collaboration on RChain’s CBC Casper, Zamfir has been marked absent from RChain’s last few board meetings as per the company’s board minutes records published for the public.
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As far as the transaction processing capability goes, Visa can process around 24,000 transactions per second (tps), and Ethereum can handle only around 15. According to Meredith, RChain’s test version was capable of processing 7,000 tps, but the product still awaits its official launch which has been postponed till 2019’s 2nd quarter.
The project of Casper Labs is reportedly utilizing some of RChain’s code base. When quizzed about whether the start-up was RChain’s division, Walker stated that there were several nuances and meanings of a fork as a word, although he denied giving out more details.
