Digital Gem's Solution
Digital Gem tries to address the two main problems of Bitcoin which is:
1) Bitcoin's massive energy consumption
2) Bitcoin's scaleability
Digital Gem uses the Delegated Proof of Stake consensus mechanism which consumes electricity equal to 51 computer servers.
One computer server uses on average 500 to 1200 watts per hour. If the average use is 850 watts per hour, an average server uses 20.4 kWh daily. The whole Digital Gem network, uses electricity of 20.4 kWh x 51 = 1,040.4 kWh.
Compared to Bitcoin's 167,124,241 kWh daily electricity usage, this is a dramatic difference.
Digital Gem uses 1,040.4 / 167,124,241 = 0.0000062253% of the daily electricity usage as Bitcoin.
Hence, Digital Gem is much more environmentally friendly than Bitcoin.
In terms of scaleability, Bitcoin does around 7 transactions per second and that is mainly because of it's Proof of Work consensus mechanism. Proof of work is great, because it works. It has worked since 2009 and is the basis for the entire cryptocurrency revolution.
However, ten years on, we have another consensus mechanism that dramatically improves scaleability and also works from the standpoint of blockchain technology.
Digital Gem uses the Delegated Proof of Stake consensus mechanism that can perform vastly improved transaction speeds as compared to Proof of Work.
Delegated Proof of Stake, in which Digital Gem is based, can easily handle 100+ transactions per second and that is a conservative estimate.
Also, Digital Gem's block time is 8 seconds compared to Bitcoin's 10 minutes so transactions get sent in 8 seconds with Digital Gem.
Digital Gem does all of this while maintaining good decentralization and security compared to Bitcoin.
In terms of security, the main problems with Proof of Stake cryptocurrencies is the nothing at stake problem.
With Bitcoin's Proof of Work, there is a cost if the cryptocurrency forks because the miner has to use electricity in the real world to mine the chains. So, miners naturally tend towards choosing the genuine fork. However, with Proof of Stake, miners can choose to mine on both chains because they get the mining fees no matter which chain wins.
Digital Gem's Delegated Proof of Stake consensus solves this problem by having 51 validator nodes that are voted in, in a one coin equals one vote fashion and can be voted out at any time. This economic voting system ensures that the validators behave because if they don't they get voted out and their future fee income stream is gone.
In terms of decentralization, Digital Gem is also good in that aspect. Although it is not as decentralized as Bitcoin whereby there are hundreds and thousands of miners, with Digital Gem's voting mechanism and 51 nodes spread around the world, we believe that this is adequate. If push comes to shove, we can always add more nodes in if needed.