Metronome – the Thousand-Year Crypto? 🚨 This article is 7 years old...
Metronome – the Thousand-Year Crypto?
4 min read
Updated: Jun. 28, 2019 at 12:26 am UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
Cryptocurrencies are mushrooming all over and revolutionary blockchain arrivals make fresh headlines daily. Albeit extremely exciting, it’s proving hard to stay on top of the latest and greatest in a beehive of feverish tech activity and the relentless tick-tock of time is a harsh judge. Jeff Garzik’s team, however, is convinced their invention will last the whole millennium. What makes them so sure?
Who is Jeff Garzik?
From his early ponytailed days to the suave, clean-cut look today, Jeff Garzik has done the hard yards in tech trenches. Having coded open source software for more than 20 years, it’s worth taking note when he comes up with an idea.
Garzik was born to a father who flew fighter jets and worked on rockets. Jeff started computer coding at the age of 8, stock trading at twelve and opened his first business when he turned 16. After completing high school, he studied at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US and graduated with a degree in Computer Science in 1996.
Garzik began his career as a web developer at CNN, followed by a tenure of more than ten years as Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat, where he worked with the Linux kernel and cloud engineering. Keen on blogging, Jeff stumbled across Bitcoin posts on the Slashdot platform during July 2010. Describing himself initially as “a Bitcoin skeptic,” Garzik says,
“I had to study the software to convince myself it would work”.
It didn’t take long for him to get hooked and refer to Bitcoin as “an amazing invention, that proved money without a central administrator was possible.”
Jeff became CEO of exMULTI and worked with all things Bitcoin-related. He also formed and managed the one-man micro businesses Dunvegan Space Systems and Sleepy Dragon Properties.
On top of it all, he moved on from Red Hat and accepted a position as Bitcoin Core Developer at Bitpay in June 2013. It was here that he did revolutionary work on Bitcoin’s advancement; to this day, the media fondly refers to Garzik as “Bitcoin’s Unsung Hero”.
As a great “space fiction” and “space fact” enthusiast (Star Wars was a favorite movie) Garzik told Bitcoin Magazine in 2014 of his plans to send Bitcoin and the blockchain into space; he believed that the solar system should be wired for networking. Space, he said during the interview, offers an opportunity for off-grid Bitcoin access via satellite.
Venturing into space was not yet to be, however. During 2015 Garzik wound down Dunvegan Space Systems and started to throw all of his energy, time and focus into a blockchain startup, Bloq.
Bloq – the birthplace and loving home of Metronome
Jeff Garzik and Matthew Roszak founded Bloq during November 2015 in Chicago. The company lists its core objective as delivering enterprise-grade blockchain technology to leading companies worldwide.
Bloq offers three solutions to their clients; Enterprise – software to create and customize blockchains; Think – a consulting service that complements the software; and Labs – where customers’ special needs and requests are brought to life from the drawing board.
The Company’s headcount is listed as 11 – 50 employees; based at the Chicago headquarters and offices in Atlanta and Shanghai. Bloq’s Partners are Deloitte, Microsoft, Bitpay, Circle and PWC Australia.
The Company also announced in February this year that it acquired Skry (formerly Coinalytics), a pioneer in blockchain analytics, to accelerate the development of its analytics capabilities and open the door for Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) on its platform.
Metronome (MTN) – one ticket for many rides
Garzik and the team at Bloq are very excited about the digital currency Metronome, which launches at its “Initial Supply Auction” during December 2017, to be followed by the first cross-chain launch during quarter one (Q1) of 2018.
Roszak told Bloomberg during a phone interview last month, “We’ve built a thousand-year cryptocurrency, something that’s built to last.” Well, so far they’ve been extremely diligent and thorough, to say the least – this cryptocurrency even comes with an owner’s manual!
The company says that Metronome is better than others because it has the built-in advantage of lessons learned from previous cryptocurrencies; it’s also designed with the sole purpose of being a monetary system, nothing more and nothing less.
In their literature, Bloq describes the many advantages of Metronome, such as longevity, autonomy and equal access. The one feature that stands out head-above-shoulders is its “cross-chain portability;” the Company says that this is a completely new concept, even in the innovative cryptocurrency space.
What portability means in a digital perspective is that Metronome MTN is the first coin that can also travel on other blockchains. Bloq uses the example that BTC can only travel on the Bitcoin blockchain, LTC can only travel on the Litecoin blockchain, and so on.
Bloq comments further that it’s risky to be tied to only one blockchain; citing reasons such as “management discord, supply uncertainty, etc.”
The great thing about Metronome MTN, Bloq writes, is that it “is the first cryptocurrency that has the potential to be secured by the best blockchain networks, without permanent commitment to any one blockchain.”
As you hop between blockchains with your MTN, the exiting blockchain issues you with a “merkle” digital receipt; and the new, host blockchain let’s you in the door when you show that receipt.
We are not going to be around to see whether MTN lasts a thousand years or not. We don’t even know if we’re going to witness cryptocurrencies and blockchains getting beamed around the universe from satellites.
But, what we do know is our love of choice; as much choice in this life as possible. So, even if we might not quite fully grasp the magnitude of your invention yet, thank you for Metronome in the meantime. Tick-tock.
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Metronome
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Metronome (“Metronome” or “MET”) is a new cryptocurrency focused on making greater decentralization possible and delivering institutional-class endurance..
Jeff Garzik, better known as the CEO of blockchain startup Bloq, now believes his prior work could be revived in a way that promotes interoperability between the increasingly fragmented set of protocols bearing the bitcoin name.