What Is Ethereum Fog?

‘Tis the season for cryptocurrency hard forks, by the look of things. So many new versions of Bitcoin have popped up recently, we almost need a calendar to keep track of things. It seems the same is happening with Ethereum, with Ethereum Fog being the most recent fork to gain any sort of traction. Although few people know it exists, its tokens have been issued to Ethereum holders on a few exchanges.

Ethereum Fog has Arrived

As is always the case with any major cryptocurrency hard fork, one would expect there to be a lot of hype on social media, Bitcointalk, et cetera. In the case of Ethereum Fog, things are a lot quieter, and it wasn’t all that easy to come by any relevant information about this project. That is somewhat surprising, considering that users of Binance and KuCoin received this “airdrop” yesterday. It seems a lot of people are unaware of all the forks taking place right now.

Ethereum Fog seems to focus on becoming a decentralized computer using fog technology. Fans of the SONM ICO will know what this concept is all about, although it remains to be seen if anyone can ever be successful at it. Fog computing is an interesting area worth paying attention to, as it could allow anyone in the world to access a decentralized supercomputer. Regardless of which task it needed to complete, the prices would be kept lower and computing power would be sourced from all over the world.

Moreover, it seems Ethereum Fog uses the same consensus algorithm as Ethereum does. It is a bit unclear whether or not this warranted an actual hard fork, but if the developers felt it was necessary, that is their prerogative. This fork is also meant to solve the scalability issue which has become more apparent in the world of Ethereum over the past few months. Creating a larger decentralized storage network is certainly an option worth exploring, although it will not be all that easy.

As one would expect, Ethereum Fog has a long roadmap ahead. Its native file system, known as EFFS, is scheduled to launch in Q1 of 2018. Later on, there will be support for hardware-level decentralized storage, and the decentralized fog storage won’t come to market until Q3 of 2018. By that time, it seems likely other companies will have already rolled out their services. There’s always room for competition, though, as it will benefit consumers all over the world.

If all goes according to plan, Ethereum Fog will be capable of processing one million transactions per second by Q2 of 2019. This is a very ambitious goal, as no cryptocurrency in existence comes even close to that. Further down the line, the developers hope to match the business capabilities of Amazon Web Services, but in a decentralized manner. All of these things sound good on paper, but they will be very difficult to realize in the real world.

With the Ethereum Fog hard fork going live last night, it is evident a lot of people will soon aim to access their tokens. For now, this fork is supported on quite a few exchanges, including KuCoin and Binance, though there are no official trading markets just yet. Whether or not this project can be successful remains to be seen. Either way, it will be fun to watch “ETF” appear on exchanges, as that is the official ticker for this new Ethereum hard fork.