Minima Blockchain now runs on 120,000 nodes worldwide
With more than 120,000 nodes up and running Minima blockchain is proud claim that it is one of the most decentralized networks ever created.
Minima achieved the milestone last week, saying that their blockchain is now distributed on various smartphones and “Internet of Things” devices in more than 183 countries, surpassing the distribution of Bitcoin.
To achieve this, Minima has completely renewed the blockchain to run on much smaller devices than the servers needed to host a node on other networks. In general, with other blockchains, running a server is an incredibly resource-intensive business that requires tons of processing power. Not so with Minima, whose blockchain is an extremely easy protocol that virtually any device can run.
To run a Minima node is all that is required download a mobile application. This unique design has enabled Minima to embark on building what it claims will be the most scalable and inclusive blockchain of all, with the highest level of resilience.
Minima is the pioneer in a new, user-centric proof-of-work consensus mechanism that eliminates the need for centralized miners. Instead, Minima relies on the collective power of thousands of mobile devices to secure its chain and process transactions.
Each device on the network runs a complete node and shares the job of extracting new blocks. It can be compared to an army of ants that all work together – in direct contrast to Bitcoin and other proof-of-work blockchains that are more akin to a few empty elephants. While Bitcoin is dominated by a relatively small clique of miners, Minima’s protocol is so small that it can operate on almost any smartphone, with energy consumption equivalent to a messaging app.
This unique design is meant to make Minima more decentralized by spreading equal power across the network to all users instead of a few that have huge amounts of processing power.
Minima takes some tricks to achieve this. The new consensus mechanism is supported by some clever compression techniques and regular “pruning” of the blockchain to ensure that it can run on such small devices. Because it can run almost anywhere, Minima has grown enormously, and its increasing number of nodes makes it far more resistant to attack than most other blockchains. Even now, it would be almost impossible for a malicious attacker to take control of their network.
According to Minima founder and CEO Hugo Feiler, the ability for everyone to run the same blockchain without hierarchy will lead to “complete decentralized freedom and prosperity.”
Minima believes it has a great future ahead, with its blockchain capable of supporting payments and decentralized applications such as NFTs, DeFi and GameFi, as well as Ethereum and other smart contract blockchains such as Avalanche Fantom, Binance and Solana. While matching those rivals in its capabilities, Minima’s distributed architecture makes it more democratic and secure.
