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How to Mine Byteball?

Last Updated on February 27, 2024

James Headshot
Written by
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Disclaimer: This is not a validation of cryptocurrency or any particular provider, service, or product. It should not be taken as advice to engage in trading or use any services. Please check our terms and conditions.

Quick Answer:

Byteball, now known as Obyte, is not mined in the traditional sense because it uses a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) instead of a blockchain. In Obyte, there’s no competition among miners, and no new coins are created through mining.

Instead, users secure the network by linking new transactions to previous ones. To earn Bytes, which is the currency of Obyte, you can either participate in the distribution events that occasionally occur or provide a service within the Obyte platform and receive Bytes as payment.

The total cryptocurrency market cap is over 2 trillion USD and the daily trading volumes are constantly increasing. This huge market capitalization is usually associated with the largest cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA), and other popular altcoins.

But, the truth is there are hundreds of interesting and very useful crypto projects that might not have such a huge market cap or trading volume, but they do provide users with numerous features and functionalities.

One of the less popular but highly functional cryptocurrencies with a modest market cap is Byteball Bytes (GBYTE). This crypto project was launched in 2016 by crypto enthusiast and developer Anton Churyumov, with the aim of overcoming some of the limitations of Bitcoin, presenting GBYTE as crypto complementary to BTC

The initial coin offering of GBYTE happened in 2016 and most of the coins were immediately distributed for free through airdrops to Bitcoin wallet addresses in order to motivate people to use this new crypto that promised to provide users with advanced payment options and smart contract functionalities for developer teams.

Let’s take a look at what Byteball Bytes are, how they work, what are the various functionalities they offer users, and whether you can mine GBYTE coins.

BYTEBALL cryptocurrency coin with euro money background

What Are Byteball Bytes (GBYTE)?

Byteball Bytes are very different from most classic cryptocurrencies. This crypto is actually an immutable storage system that can facilitate various types of data transactions and smart contract operations. When Anton Churyumov was developing Byteball, he wanted to provide users with a highly versatile cryptocurrency that expands the key functionalities of Bitcoin, as the market-leading digital gold

While Bitcoin made it possible for people around the world to carry out fast transactions of funds regardless of geographic location and to store value in the form of cryptocurrency, Byteball Bites expanded the scope of functions provided by BTC.

GBYTE delivered users a wide variety of fast crypto solutions for secure payments, anonymous transactions, insurance services, betting, ID management, development of applications, and more functions focused on decentralization.

The Byteball storage system offers a medium for storing data that can’t be altered by any external factor and is very convenient for storing business information, financial records, shares, cryptocurrencies, and other data. GBYTEs are the native currency of the Byteball.org network which enables all transactions of funds and data through the system. 

Just like in the case of BTC, GBYTE is also a fully decentralized network with no central authority, which means that the network isn’t dependent on any single server. The basic idea behind Byteball Bytes wasn’t to make a profit. Instead, it was to provide crypto enthusiasts with a sophisticated cryptocurrency system for conducting a wider range of functions than those provided by Bitcoin and to also include smart contract functionalities suitable for developers.

byteball word on letters

The Technology Behind the GBYTE Cryptocurrency

The GBYTE network’s service provides full immutability when it comes to smart contracts. This means that once a smart contract is set in motion and both sides agree to the terms of the contract, none of the two sides can back out of the agreement, and what’s even more important, no third party can interfere with the realization of the contract. 

Byteball smart contracts don’t provide as many possibilities as the Ethereum-based contracts that use its native programming language Solidity, but what they do provide is simplicity and efficiency for users.

GBYTE smart contracts don’t require extensive programming knowledge like those based on the Ethereum network. Even non-developers and everyday crypto enthusiasts that just want to use smart contracts to conduct an online business agreement can do so with Byteball smart contracts. This was exactly the goal of the Byteball developer team – to make basic smart contracts available for everyday users

While Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other popular coins have blockchain networks that use hashing algorithms to create new blockchain blocks and utilize the proof-of-work consensus mechanism to validate transactions, GBYTE doesn’t even have a blockchain. This is quite uncommon among cryptocurrencies because one of the main selling points of cryptos since their beginning with the launch of BTC in 2009 was the tight security and efficiency of blockchain technology.

However, GBYTE proved that it is possible to create a cryptocurrency that is both secure and provides numerous functionalities even though it doesn’t use blockchain technology. Crypto enthusiasts were skeptical at first and for this reason, the Byteball Bytes team decided that they should use the ICO for GBYTE (from back in 2016) for free distribution of most of the coins, as a way to let users try it out and gain trust in this new type of crypto.

DAG

The network solution behind GBYTE, which proved to be totally trustworthy and efficient is called DAG (directed acyclic graph). Instead of needing miners to verify data blocks by finding the corresponding transaction hash like BTC, ETH, Litecoin (LTC), and many other cryptos, the DAG network works in the way that every new data unit scans all of the previous ones in the network before being approved and added to the system.

The DAG network treats new data units as child units, while all of the previous data units are regarded as parents, with data seniority compared to the child unit. This is why the new data units need to scan all of the previous ones to get approved by the network.

GBYTE’s network doesn’t have a typical blockchain structure with blocks that are added to the network after being verified by miners because there is no need for miners. They wouldn’t have any role in the system because the data approval procedure is automated and doesn’t require any external power source like Bitcoin and Ethereum which can’t work without the computing power of mining rigs.

Instead of proof-of-work, GBYTE uses a different consensus algorithm that protects the network from scams and double-spending by creating two data chains responsible for checking data units at their intersection points and automatically removing any attempted double-spending from the chain before it gets finally included in the network. This is possible because effectively all network nodes of the Byteball system contribute jointly to the verification of data transfers.

Byteball Transactions

Byteball transactions work quite differently than most cryptocurrencies. This is because the DAG network doesn’t follow the classic proof-of-work blockchain logic. When someone initiates a GBYTE transaction, they send the transferred data in the form of a message, along with a special data signature and references to parent units on the GBYTE network that enable a transaction confirmation. 

Byteball Bytes Cryptocurrency Coin Candlestick Trading Chart

Byteball Bytes Key Features

You don’t need to worry about trusting the other side when transferring funds using Byteball Bytes, because so-called On-chain Oracles are responsible for keeping the funds locked in a special address that will only become spendable once the other side fulfills their end of the smart contract agreement.

Byteball Bytes provides users with various utilities powered by smart contracts that enable a wide variety of services. These are some of the key GBYTE features.

  • Secure Payment Options: GBYTE provides users with secure payment solutions by utilizing simple smart contracts that create conditional payments that make sure the money is processed to the receiver only once they have complied with the contract terms. With conditional payments, you can’t be a victim of fraud where someone receives your money but doesn’t fulfill an agreement. The multi-signature option is another security feature that adds an extra layer of security to your funds and you can also create shared control of your GBYTEs if you register several signatures for the same funds.
  • Insurance: Byteball Bytes enable users to create automated insurance policies. In the real world, money from insurance policies often takes a lot of time to get paid out and various complications can occur. Insurance agreements facilitated by GBYTE enable users to get paid out immediately in case an unfortunate event that is covered by the insurance policy occurs. This is a true example of efficient decentralized finance that treats user experience as a top priority.
  • Blackbytes: If you’re especially keen on protecting your privacy and want to have access to an asset that is focused on user anonymity, Byteball Bytes has additional, built-in crypto for this purpose. This currency is called Blackbytes and is focused on anonymity. Blackbytes are great for private transfers and they are literally untraceable by third parties because these transactions aren’t stored on the Byteball bytes public database.
  • Atomic Exchanges: Another useful characteristic of Byteball Bytes is that they have the Atomic Exchange feature, which enables instantaneous transactions between two parties. This type of transaction can only be carried out if both parties initiate the transaction at the exact same moment.
  • Prediction Markets and Betting: GBYTE has its native prediction markets which run on the basis of conditional payments that are paid out to users that manage to correctly predict the outcome of certain events defined by smart contract agreements. This system is also used as a peer-to-peer sports betting system that can’t be manipulated by third parties.
  • Byteball Bot Store: The Byteball ecosystem has its own Bot Store, made especially for developers that want to build decentralized apps based on the Byteball DAG network. The Bot Store is integrated with the native Byteball wallet called O Byte, which is compatible with iOS and Android devices.
  • ID Management: Thanks to the Byteball partnership with Jumio, users can link their GBYTE wallets with their personal information, making a solid connection to their identity if they want to use their GBYTEs for transactions and smart contracts that require a KYC policy. A great thing about this partnership is that you can choose when to turn your wallet ID on and selectively show your identity only to those entities that require identification. You won’t be publicly displaying your personal info to anyone who sees your GBYTE wallet address.
silver byteball coin concept

Can Byteball Bytes Be Mined and How?

Given the fact that most of the total supply of Byteball Bytes was put into circulation on the market during the initial coin offering in 2016, there aren’t any GBYTE mining operations. Also, since Byteball Bytes don’t have a blockchain network and uses DAG technology, there isn’t any reason for GBYTE mining to exist, so the direct answer is NO, you can’t mine Byteball Bytes with your GPU or CPU.

The easiest way to obtain some GBYTE is through cryptocurrency exchange platforms that deal with this currency.

However, if you want to start mining cryptos, you can invest in a Bitcoin mining rig or an ASIC miner machine and exchange some of your freshly mined BTC for Byteball Bytes on exchange platforms. The technology behind GBYTE doesn’t leave any option for direct mining of the cryptocurrency because there is no proof-of-work mechanism that would require miners to verify transactions and mine new GBYTEs.

A Few Final Words…

Byteball Bytes are one of the many examples on the crypto market that prove that high-quality features and advanced functionalities aren’t something reserved only for the largest digital currencies such as BTC and ETH.

Altcoins with lower market caps and trading volumes can also prove to be very interesting projects with a specific set of features that differentiate them from the rest of the crypto market. 

GBYTE can’t be mined but, as you hopefully saw in this guide,  it is a currency worth investing in

About The Author

James Headshot
Written by

Crypto Technical Writer

James Page, previously the lead writer at Crypto Head and a registered psychologist, brings a unique perspective to the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency.

His extensive experience in the industry and ability to present complex concepts in an understandable manner make his articles a valuable resource for readers seeking to navigate the ever-evolving crypto landscape.

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