a great article, which is really quite relevant and related to the SOILcoin project:
https://medium.com/@InnFin/blockchain-predictions-for-2016-238bda7d0752#.zb90h799gi think some of the predictions are very important.... data STORAGE on the blockchain, possibly thru the use of merkle trees where the hash of the lead chunk of data is held on the blockchain, with sharded data retrievable thru the contract; or by porting something like Storj or IFPS onto the platform as a complex "smart contract" where the renting out ones unused harddrive space can be used to incentivize this, especially where we are seeing 1-2 terrabyte drives becoming more and more affordable and accessible. as smart contracts become larger, and we move towards such projects such as GIS map data storage and analysis for smart farm management, this is one of the sorts of things we will need to focus our energies on in the coming year.
There are a number of companies and groups either porting the Ethereum virtual machine to other Blockchain implementations, or creating their own alternative rich smart contract environments that extend the the Ethereum ideas.
i think the above neatly describes what we are trying to do with SOILcoin, namely "extending" the idea of Ethereum from a sandbox of unrelated DApps into something that, as is later mentioned in the article, serves "industry consortia". we have, from our genesis, envisioned the blockchain and encompassing programmatic environment as something that would provide solutions to an emerging market with massive forecasted growth potential, something that already has been migrating itself towards cloud computing and experiencing massive costs related to that. as a business model, providing the SOIL blockchain towards this, at what would be essentially 95% cheaper, it will wind up making good business sense to use our system as opposed to something subscription driven like microsoft's azure rendition of the EVM.
of course, with a lot of this, another point in the article comes into play... "data security" which we can provide in a "cryptographically secure" way, and i think the evolution of the Distributed Applications we are using and building will work themselves naturally towards that, ensuring that while the EXISTENCE of the contract on th eblockchain is public, the data therein, is only accessible by certain "subscribers"
ive stated from the beginning that we see SOIL as something so much more than JUST a speculative cryptocurrency traded on the markets, and why our low valuation isnt very bothersome right now. when buterin explained how ether wasnt a currency but a fuel for the contracts, it made a lot of sense. and of course, with low valuation, *RUNNING* those contracts on the SOIL platform will be very cost effective. i remember reading, soon after we launched, that i seemed to be disregarding the miners, that i didnt care.. which isnt the case... i view the mining and currency trade as the engine that keeps the network "vehicle" running, but ive never viewed it as the most important part. SOIL
is about the smart contracts and the platform with which to deploy them on, and thats why ive encouraged you, the community, to get involved with that, to get your fingers dirty with them. a capable DApp development, deployment and interaction mechanism will be important to those ends, and is something we should have an announcement on regarding a toolkit for in the coming week, as this is essentially in the testing stage as we speak.
we need to start
"recruiting businesses / clients / organizations to the network and we've been working on that, communicating with industry representatives and introducing them to the idea of the SOIL globally realized programmatic network. these things take time to filter out of cryptocurrency into the real world, as the ideas we are working with are so brand new, so disruptive and revolutionary.
the last point made in the article is something ive been talking about here and with others for awhile, the idea of
cross-chain technology, and whereas my focus to start is in relation to the distributed SOIL-hosted exchange, which i continue to work on a piece at a time, its something that will enable us to scale towards communicating with other network subsets as well as other altcoins. i have had interesting conversations with other players in the cryptocurrency world regarding this and how it might be implemented, either with a intermediary blockchain or something similar to shapeshift, converting other currencies into fuel for the SOIL machine.
the challenges there have been many... not just cross-chain inter-connectedness, but in pegging tokens to the drive real world prices (for the sake of the SOIL exchange, the hard and soft commodities), and enabling the trade, on chain, between SOIL and other currencies.. whether they be similar algorithmic blockchains such as ethereum, shift and expanse... or other altcoins that "fit" into the essential message of SOIL (EnergyCoin, GAIA, EarthCoin, Greencoin, etc) as well as user-created tokens... theres a lot of working parts that need to be set in place to make it work the way i envision it, and im thinking we're a few months out from that, but we are constatntly looking for solutions to implement to take us steps towards that...
we ARE at the forefront of a pioneering technology, and we are here at the very outset of it, and for those of you who have been with us from the very beginning, or just jumping on board now, enjoy the ride. we are building something very special here, and a mere
two months into our system, we are already making consistent progress towards our goals.