Ankr

Idea & Token

Ankr is a resource efficient blockchain framework with infrastructure for business applications and a feature of distributed cloud computing. The blockchain will use the Proof-of-Useful-Work (PoUW) consensus that utilizes the massive potential of idle computing power around the world. Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, every computation contributor will be compensated, and some will get the extra reward for generating the blocks. Participants will both secure the network and perform useful computations, such as AI or machine learning operations. As a result, Ankr will make the cloud computations much more affordable. Through the integrated Oracle Service, Ankr will also simplify real-world business adoption by providing an authenticated data feed system and a standardized API.
To resolve the scalability problem Ankr will use a Multi-Chain Structure using Plasma and sharding. The network will comprise a single root chain (Main Chain) and multiple connected chains for applications (Child Chains).
Their ERC-20 tokens called ANK will be used to transfer value, as storage of value, and for computation fees for miners.

Team

The Ankr team consists of 12 specialists, including top IT engineers with multi-year experience at tech positions at Amazon, Palo Alto Networks, General Electric, Electronic Arts, and Gigamon. The team is led by CEO Chandler Song, a serial entrepreneur, graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, previously worked as a software engineer at Amazon and SAP as well as CTO of CitySpade, a professional housing consultancy. The advisory board include 4 professionals in IT, legal, and marketing. Pay attention to Jiangang Zhang, a distributed architect at Yahoo, principal engineer at Cisco, Microsoft, Blackberry, and AT&T. They also have 3 partner and 5 investor companies.

Summary

Ankr has a number of serious features including distributed cloud computing, the PoUW consensus protocol, trusted hardware, multi-chain structure, and seamless interface of oracle service. Since they have a number of serious investors, we can conclude that the project was thoroughly investigated and evaluated high enough for investing. On the other side, the team must provide an easy adoption mechanism to engage a significant number of computational contributors to create an effective cloud network. The roadmap is short and doesn’t show us the team’s plans. The team itself may suffer from lack of business development experience.

An ambitious project with a number of excellent features showing a promising potential in a short-term perspective.