It's because a lot of the marketing is false and a lot of people think digibyte developed multi algo because they market it in such a way.
Let us clear something up here to put this unnecessary flaming war to rest. We have never claimed to be the inventors of multi-algo and we have repeatedly given credit to Myriadcoin for doing so. Both in writing and in public presentations. However, we were the first coin to go from a single mining algo to fork to a multi-algo setup which had its own unique challenges. If anything we certainly have helped bring more attention to the benefits multi-algo offers.
We feel there is a mutual synergy between DigiByte and Myriadcoin moving forward and we would like to collaborate to assist each other in the future. We do not view the crypto world as a "winner" take all situation. There need's to be multiple blockchains not only for security but also for development & experimentation. This is what makes the blockchain world so exciting.
The DigiByte protocol is the heart of the DigiByte ecosystem. The DGB protocol will continue to evolve as time goes on. The primary means of improvements will be to take tested, useful and innovative additions found in multiple other coins and implement some of those changes into DGB. This will allow DigiByte to maintain a competitive advantage over the majority of other block chains without wasting time on implementing new changes that have never been proven or tested that could and often do lead to significant security vulnerabilities. At the end of the day we can not afford even a single major security breach in the network (think DAO). We will give credit where credit is do in this process to other innovators for taking the initial risk. By taking ideas from multiple sources DigiByte itself will remain unique with many competitive advantages. At this point DigiByte is far enough along, with 2.5 years of invested resources (both time and money by people all over the world) that we can not afford to be reckless with unproven "additions" to the core protocol.
We would love to spend 100% of our resources on R&D but the reality is this is just not feasible. By far the biggest challenge right now for every coin is user adoption and real-world utility. You can have the most technologically advanced blockchain in the world with the most cutting-edge advancements. But if no one knows about it what good is it? Sure you will get a short term pump & dump in a tiny speculators market. But without making a coordinated, strategic move to gain news users outside of the "speculators" community its just not a viable long term solution.
The DigiByte Protocol currently consists of 5 decentralized mining algorithms including; Sha256, Qubit, Skein, Groestl and Scrypt. The core DigiByte protocol is considered to be UTXO based and is different than the emerging “Virtual Machine” approach now pioneered by Ethereum. UTXO by companies such as Microsoft and IBM is considered to be the most secure and well-tested approach to blockchain development. The block timing is currently set at 15 seconds (40x faster than BTC) with 1 MB blocks. Every 2 years the size of the blocks will double. At this current rate we will match VISA with network transaction capacity by 2021. DigiByte currently implements the “DigiShield” and “MultiShield” difficulty adjustment code which has been proven to be highly reliable and has since been implemented into multiple other alt coins. DigiByte currently boasts over 8,000 nodes and in terms of absolute decentralization is the most secure blockchain on the planet. However without continued improvements for the remaining parts of 2016 and in to 2017 this edge will be lost.
Future Protocol Additions: Sync of DigiByte Core Protocol to BTC 0.12 core code.
1. Libsecp256k1 Switch – This allows for a dramatic increase in the speed of validating ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) public/private keys. This will only enhance the speed of DigiByte transactions while reducing bandwidth and network latency.
2. Headers 1st Sync – One issue DigiByte is currently facing is our blockchain is almost at a height of 3 million blocks. Bitcoin is still at 300K. By allowing headers 1st sync our simplified wallets (Android, iOS) will be able to sync with the network much quicker. As well as regular nodes. This code has already been tested and implemented to BTC.
3. Block Pruning – It is not necessary to retain all information sent and received in a block for everyone on the network. By pruning some previous block data we can help DigiByte scale without overloading users hard drives.
4. CheckLockTimeVerify - This op function allows sending a transaction that cannot be re-spent until a certain point in the future. This unlocks the potentially for advanced smart contract applications to be built upon the DigiByte blockchain as well as advanced security authentication procedures with platforms such as Digi-ID.
5. Other Adjustments – Several other slight improvements to the protocol can be found in the 0.12 core sync. It is important however to note several conflicts may potentially arise with some of our current custom implementations in our UTXO protocol such as MultiAlgo, DigiShield, block timing etc that still need to be worked through and tested. This should not require a hard fork though.
6. Addition of Segregated Witness Code – “SegWit” for short essentially allows for nodes on a network to be a witness to a transaction without having the ability to alter a transaction. Hence the segregated nature. This allows for the establishment of what is know as “Micro Payment Channels.” This is better compared to the way the Internet itself works with the DNS system. By implementing the SegWit code into DigiByte we are setting the foundation and ability for the “Lightning Network” to be implemented. This means potentially hundreds of thousands of transactions per second worldwide for DigiByte. We have the ability to pull this off before Bitcoin if we can get the right resources in time.
7. Algorithm Swap – In the past 16 months since DigiByte’s switch to multi-algorithm proof of work many new cryptocurrency mining algorithms have been created to help decentralize and set new coins apart. As DigiByte grows we will need to swap one algo out to send a message to ASIC manufacturers etc. that DigiByte will remain decentralized.
8. Addition of Colored Coins Layer – This is a well establish layer that can be implemented on top of DigiByte to create a virtually unlimited amount of “Smart Contracts.” “The Blockchain of Things” brought the most impressive potential use case for adding the colored coins layer on top of DigiByte. By leveraging the headers of a transaction itself it is possible through an additional API layer to use DigiByte transactions not as we think of them today but more as a communications network that can contribute groundbreaking improvements to industries across the board in a decentralized manner all the while boosting DigiByte's real world utility around the globe.