What Is Burstcoin?
There’s a lot more to the crypto market besides Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and a couple of other top-ranking altcoins. In fact, there are hundreds of innovative crypto projects that don’t receive nearly as much attention as the top 10 market-leading digital currencies. It’s really easy to miss out on some interesting cryptocurrencies because most of the hype is centered around a couple of assets, while numerous projects that solve various real-world problems are left in the dark in terms of popularity and adoption rate.
One such project, which is definitely worth checking out is Burstcoin (BURST). Actually, it has been recently rebranded to Signum (SIGNA), but a lot of people in the crypto community that are familiar with the project still refer to it as Burstcoin.
The key feature that makes this digital asset stand out is its unique blockchain consensus mechanism known as Proof of Capacity, which is different from some of the most popular blockchain models on the market like Proof of Work and Proof of Stake. Keep reading our review to find out more about this consensus algorithm, as well as the history and use cases of BURST/SIGNA.
How Burstcoin Got Started
Burstcoin was launched back in 2014 by an anonymous developer on Bitcointalk.org, a popular crypto forum. Although the original Burstcoin developer remained anonymous, the development of the project was taken over by a team called the Proof-of-Capacity Consortium (PoC Consortium).
At the time of its launch, BURST was hailed as an innovative cryptocurrency that uses far less electricity to operate its blockchain, unlike Bitcoin and its immense power consumption, which has grown so much that it contributes to climate change because most of the electricity Bitcoin miners use comes from fossil fuels.
BURST offers an entirely different blockchain model, which relies on free hardware space to mine new burstcoins and consumes much less power. The power consumption of all Burstcoin network nodes combined is estimated to be roughly around 0.002% of the total power consumption of the BTC blockchain.
Apart from being an energy-efficient, green cryptocurrency, the Burstcoin project also aims to provide users with very fast and cheap transactions, smart contract functionalities, and encrypted messaging features. Also, BURST users have access to a dedicated marketplace where they can buy, sell and exchange assets on a secure and fast blockchain network.
The project went through a rebranding process in April 2021, when a hard fork was implemented on the Burstcoin blockchain, creating the new Signum (SIGNA) blockchain, which is the continuation of the BURST project. Today, the project is run by the Signum Network Association (SNA).
The BURST developers have also launched the official Burstcoin wallet, which is one of the best BURST/SIGNA storage options.
How Does BURST/SIGNA work?
The Proof of Capacity (PoC) consensus mechanism eliminates the need for expensive GPU mining rigs, ASIC miner machines, and the whole Proof of Work mining process. All you need to do if you want to mine SIGNA is to allocate some free hard drive space and connect to the SIGNA mining software. The algorithm uses your free hard drive space to check and verify transactions on the blockchain, without producing any excess heat or high electricity consumption. This is what makes SIGNA a green cryptocurrency, in an era when the use of fossil fuel for electricity has become a serious issue that threatens the environment.
As for the BURST/SIGNA initial coin offering (ICO), the developer team didn’t pre-mine any coins, which means that they didn’t keep any profits for themselves in advance before the tokens were launched on the market. Mining a new block takes a 4 minute block time and the mining difficulty is increased by 5% every month, by making the block rewards 5% smaller.
Anyone can mine SIGNA coins because you just need some free hard drive space to do so. Of course, the more space you dedicate to Burstcoin mining, the more coins you will eventually receive. While mining SIGNA, you have to solve various mathematical problems, which requires an average of 5 minutes per equation. The free space on your hard drive is used to store, process, and return correct equation answers, thus providing liquidity to the SIGNA blockchain, allowing users to facilitate transactions through the network. When a miner manages to find the correct answer for the equation in question, they are rewarded with a block reward of freshly mined SIGNA coins.
SIGNA is the first cryptocurrency on the market that implemented the PoC blockchain mechanism. Several popular crypto projects have since launched this mechanism, including SpaceMint and Chia.
Signum Features
Let’s take a look at some of the key Signum features in more detail.
Fast Transactions
With Signum, you can conveniently send a huge amount of lightning-fast transactions, which makes the network ideal for all sorts of payments, as well as lending and exchanging assets.
The network can handle an unspecified but extremely high amount of transfers per second, because it consumes as little as 0,5 Kwh per transfer, compared to the 250 Kwh per Bitcoin transaction. With Signum, scalability isn’t an issue, because the network is never too busy and even if millions of users started utilizing the blockchain for SIGNA transactions, there still wouldn’t be any network congestion thanks to the extremely simple and fast transaction verification mechanism.
Accessibility
Anyone can participate in the Signum ecosystem with their computer. All you need is some free hard drive space and you can become a network node that verifies transactions, mines SIGNA coins and contributes to the overall functioning of the blockchain. While BTC or Ethereum mining requires you to invest thousands of USD in expensive mining rigs, SIGNA doesn’t require any initial investment, which makes it a highly accessible cryptocurrency.
Also, miners can stake their SIGNA tokens to help power the network and receive even greater rewards.
Decentralized Asset Exchange
One of the key aspects of the SIGNA ecosystem is the Burst Asset Exchange (Signum DEX). This is a decentralized marketplace located on the SIGNA blockchain that allows users to buy, sell or trade different assets and services. The exchange platform utilizes the decentralization features of the Signum blockchain and is integrated within the Burst Wallet.
Through this exchange platform, users gain access to a fast and reliable marketplace where they can tokenize any type of asset and trade between themselves. Every trade is facilitated by smart contracts that are used to ensure no one gets scammed.
Low Fees
Transaction fees on the Signum network are very low, thanks to the fact that they consume a very low amount of electricity and miners can quickly process a transfer. Low fees, paired with fast transactions are a great combination for users who are looking for reliable ways to transfer funds without paying a lot for blockchain energy consumption. Transaction fees on the BTC and ETH network have skyrocketed during recent years, making transactions very expensive, because users have to include high transaction fees to make sure their transfer will get processed by miners.
With Signum transactions, you don’t need to worry whether you’ve included a fee that’s attractive enough for miners because the transaction selection is automated, and miners process all pending transactions.
Great Security
Signum offers great security features since the blockchain data is immutable and no one can alter it within the approved blockchain blocks. This is a feature similar to that of many other popular blockchains, but the fact that this type of security is available without huge energy consumption is something that makes Signum stand out.
Users also have a built-in encrypted message feature when using the Signum ecosystem. All messages are end-to-end encrypted and transferred through the blockchain with the use of SIGNA tokens.
Where Can You Buy SIGNA?
If you decide to invest some cash in SIGNA tokens, the best way to keep up with the SIGNA/BURST price in real-time is through the Signum page on Coinmarketcap. Here, you can check the popular SIGNA markets and the current circulating supply of coins. Some of the top exchange platforms where you can trade SIGNA include Bittrex, Finexbox, and Stex.
A Few Ending Words…
BURST/SIGNA is one of those low market cap crypto projects that you probably wouldn’t pay any attention to, but it’s actually a great project with lots of potential thanks to its use of proof-of-capacity blockchain technology. The wide range of services, such as the Burst wallet, decentralized asset exchange, fast transactions, low fees, and great security are all features that make BURST/SIGNA a project with considerable potential, and one that’s definitely worth checking out.
