Consensus as a Service
Ardor is a multichain blockchain platform with a unique parent - child chain architecture. The security of the whole network is provided by the parent Ardor chain while the interoperable child chains have all the rich functionality.
This elegant design and access to hybrid user permissioning capabilities are the key to the flexibility necessary for a variety of use cases and opens the door towards mainstream adoption of blockchain technology.
Not only that - Ardor is created with scalability in mind and solves many existing industry problems such as blockchain bloat, single token dependency and the need for easily customizable-yet-compatible blockchain solutions.
What is Ardor?
Ardor is an open source multichain platform launched on 01.01.2018. Its unique architecture was designed from the beginning to overcome existing blockchain technology problems and ensure scalability. Ardor’s advanced design introduces a parent - child chain system where the network security and transaction processing for the entire platform is provided by the Ardor main "parent" chain while all the business-ready functionality is present on the permissionless and permissioned child chains.
This architecture has three fundamental advantages:
* All child chains have their own native tokens, used as a unit of value and for paying transaction fees, and a variety of ready to use features
* Scalability is achieved by pruning of the unnecessary child chain data once they are included in the permissionless Ardor parent chain, preventing the "bloat" of the network
* All child chains are connected and share the same source code, ensuring ecosystem interoperability that allows child chain token trading to one another in a fully decentralized way and transactions on one child chain to access data or entities on another
All transactions of the child chains are included in the parent Ardor chain thanks to the bundling system - a process that groups several child chain transactions into parent chain blocks and enables application owners to sponsor transaction fees for their end users.
Ardor uses a 100% pure proof-of-stake consensus algorithm which makes it energy efficient - significantly reducing the hardware requirements for securing the network. The Ardor parent chain token, ARDR, is used for forging - the generation of new blocks and network consensus. ARDR forgers receive the transaction fees from the blocks they forged but no new ARDR coins are created.
Feature highlights
Proof-of-Stake Consensus
Ardor uses a 100% proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus algorithm. This protocol allows the platform to be extremely energy efficient and not dependent on expensive hardware. It makes Ardor equally suitable for public and private implementations that easily work on any desktop or mobile device.
Multi-Chain Platform
Ardor child chains are separate customizable "blockchains" within the Ardor ecosystem. Child chains have their own native tokens and all the built-in features necessary for their specific use case. Enriched functionality, permissioning, or custom parameters can be added if necessary for the child chain operation.
Child Chain Interoperability
As part of the Ardor ecosystem, all child chains are interconnected and their native tokens can be traded on the built-in fully decentralized coin exchange. In addition, many objects such as assets, account properties, currencies, etc., are "global" for the whole ecosystem and can be accessed from any child chain.
Scalability
Ardor's architecture allows child chain transactions to be safely removed ("pruned") from the system once they are no longer needed and their hashes are included in the parent chain. Parallel processing of the transactions of different child chains is being researched - to increase the overall network throughput even more.