Fusion is a blockchain project aiming to create an inclusive cryptocurrency finance platform that solves the interoperability, scalability, and usability problems associated with current blockchain ecosystems. The team behind Fusion believe that blockchain technology is creating a new “Internet of Values” by making it possible for individuals and businesses to trade in a decentralized, inclusive manner. “Values” here refers to blockchain tokens, identity data, off-chain assets, and other kinds of data.
According to Fusion, there are currently three bottlenecks in the cryptocurrency space that prevent the realization of an Internet of Values:
Interoperability – The Internet of Values must communicate with existing blockchains as well as centralized organizations and external data sources. Blockchain ecosystems lack interoperability.
Scalability – Lack of interoperability will prevent the Internet of Values from scaling. It’s impossible to map application scenarios involving multiple cryptocurrencies, external data sources, and organizations without interoperability.
Usability – The Internet of Values currently can’t support heavy projects. There are too many problems limiting the implementation of blockchain solutions in various consumer and business scenarios, such as lack of standardization, functional modularity, interoperability, etc.
Fusion wants to solve these bottlenecks by establishing an inclusive public chain that will:
– Integrate all existing cryptocurrencies and those that will be issued in the future.
– Manage value transfer and connect all kinds of values.
– Enable communication between several chains and their tokens.
– Provide complete financial functions through decentralized apps (DApps).
– Bridge centralized and decentralized organizations to accelerate the coming of the Internet of Values.
The project is being developed by the Fusion Foundation, a non-governmental organization based in Singapore. Key members of the foundation include Dejun Qian, the CEO of BitSE and creator of QTUM and VeChain; Dr. Jiangang Wu, Foundation Development; Noam Cohen, Foundation Communication; Xi Luo, Foundation Operation; and Guachang Xu, Technology Director.
How Fusion Works
Fusion will use digital control rights management (DCRM) to securely manage the control rights of tokens from various blockchains and act as a highway for value transfer. Distributed nodes chosen by the Hierarchical Hybrid Consensus Mechanism (HHCM) will manage the private keys of mapped tokens and execute cross-chain smart contracts.
Hierarchical Hybrid Consensus Mechanism
Fusion is implementing a Hierarchical Hybrid Consensus Mechanism (HHCM), which is a combination of proof-of-work (PoW) and proof-of-stake (PoS). It leverages the best of both worlds to balance safety, efficiency, scale, and other aspects on the Fusion network.
HHCM is hierarchical because transaction packaging and block generation are divided into two tiers. The first tier is the application computing layer, which executes applications and completes the calculation of all current transactions before submitting the results to the second tier for block generation. Grouping the tiers in this way increases the randomness of bookkeeping node selection in each round, which enhances the security of the network.
HHCM is a hybrid system because PoS consensus is used in the first tier of the hierarchy and PoW consensus is used in the second tier to generate the new blocks.
HHCM Advantages
– HHCM brings the advantages of both PoW and PoS to Fusion. It prevents the centralization of staking nodes (bookkeeping nodes are fairly elected based on PoS consensus) and achieves a reasonable energy efficiency ratio.
– HHCM enhances the security and robustness of the system by randomizing block generation.
– HHCM adds a parallel grouping mechanism, which enables parallel processing of transactions.
– HHCM uses hierarchical calculation to handle the fragmentation and storage of application data. This reduces the computing and storage requirements for bookkeeping nodes.
– HHCM can dynamically adjust the balance between the current system size and the scale of applications, which enables Fusion to handle large-scale applications.
Distributed Control Rights Management
Fusion uses distributed control rights management (DCRM) to hand over the control of digital assets owned by individuals, blockchains, or centralized organizations to its decentralized nodes. The private keys are generated and stored in a distributed manner to ensure no single node can access a complete private key.
Any blockchain can map its tokenized asset to the Fusion public chain using DCRM. Mapping allows tokenized assets to freely interact with one another, and mapped tokens can be programmed by Fusion’s smart contracts and financial DApps.
Fusion will provide a multi-token wallet that features several financial DApps. Developers can write financial DApps for the wallet and provide financial services to users. The platform will be able to offer, among other things, a multi-currency loan system that allows users to apply for a loan using one type of token and pay it back with another.
Fusion can have other use cases, such as faster Bitcoin payments. A user with a Fusion account can use it to send Bitcoin to a recipient with a Fusion account in a matter of seconds. Fusion also allows cross-token atomic payments. If a user with ETH wants to pay for goods at a retailer that only accepts BTC, they can initiate a smart contract that’ll swap their ETH for BTC and then pay the retailer in BTC.
Fusion vs. Other Cryptocurrencies
Fusion’s vision of creating an inclusive crypto financial platform for value transfer is nothing new. One of the most popular cryptocurrencies on the marker – Ripple – is also creating a blockchain-based financial platform that implements the interledger protocol to ease the transfer of value across multiple chains.
Similarities between Fusion and Ripple:
– Both are working to ease the transfer of value across blockchains.
– Both are bringing interoperability to blockchains.
– Both significantly reduce the cost and time of financial transactions.
Differences between Fusion and Ripples:
– Ripple uses the interledger protocol for efficient transactions across different payment networks, while Fusion uses DCRM to map out tokens and make them interoperable.
– Ripple’s operation is mainly focused on cross-border value transfers, while Fusion is focused on cross-platform token compatibility.
– Ripple uses the RCPA algorithm, while Fusion uses SHA-256 algorithm.
Ripple and Fusion are trying to achieve the same goals in different ways, but both are working towards bringing about the Internet of Values. Such competition in the financial crypto market will only result in better platforms and more options for end users.
Fusion Trading Volume, Price and Market Cap
The total supply of FSN caps at 81,920,000 tokens. They are distributed as follows:
– 10% is set aside for the core team
– 10% is set aside for angel investors
– 10% is set aside for community development
– 10% was sold in a private ICO round
– 25% was sold in the public ICO
– 5% is in a reserve fund controlled by the Fusion Foundation
– 30% is set aside for PoW and PoS mining
Fusion’s ICO ended on February 11, 2018. It reportedly managed to raise $50 million in less than 24 hours. FSN was first listed in February at $2.95 USD. Its price slowly rose to reach an all-time high of $9.61 USD in May 2018 with a market cap of ~$285 million USD. Its value has since fallen to less than the post-ICO price.
The maximum available supply listed on CoinMarketCap is only about two-thirds (57,344,000 FSN) of what Fusion listed as the total supply in its white paper. The Fusion FAQ says that’s because CoinMarketCap uses numbers from Etherscan.io instead of the total supply Fusion will have when its mainnet goes live. FSN’s price and market cap will likely undergo extreme changes when this discrepancy is fixed.
Buying, Storing and Selling FSN
As of 2018, FSN is not available on any major crypto exchanges. It can currently only be acquired from Bibox, Qryptos, IDEX, and Ethfinex.
FSN is currently an ERC20 token, which means it can be stored in any ETH wallet that supports the standard, including MyEtherWallet (MEW), Jaxx, Exodus, and MetaMask. Hardware wallets like the Ledger Nano S and Trezor should also work together with MEW.
Liquidity of Fusion
Fusion has good market liquidity on the exchanges that carry it. The project is quite ambitious and while its white paper attempts to explain in great detail how it intends to fulfill its goals, the Fusion team still hasn’t launched a working prototype. The mainnet will reportedly go live in Q2 2018. Until that happens, interested investors should trade with caution.
