Jonathan Emmanuel of Zenith Chain discusses building Africa first blockchain platform and its Metaverse role
Jonathan Emmanuel of Zenith Chain discusses building Africa's first blockchain platform and its Metaverse role
Blockchain technology is one of the most bizarre innovations driving today's digital world. As many have noted, technology will serve as the foundation for numerous innovations. This encompasses cryptocurrencies, tokens, NFTs, DeFi, and, most recently, the Metaverse.
Despite its enormous influence and critical role in the future of technology, few people, particularly in Africa, understand what Blockchain is and why it is so critical. To many Africans, blockchain, and more precisely, cryptos, are all examples of western innovations that Africans have adopted in order to give themselves a chance at a better life.
However, Zenith Chain is a blockchain startup that aims to transform Africa into a blockchain technology powerhouse by developing Africa's first hybrid blockchain platform with enormous potential and use cases.
In other words, just as Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum, and Ripple all developed their own blockchain infrastructure, Zenith Chain developed its own blockchain platform to power industry innovations. And during our conversation, the company's Founder and CEO, Jonathan Emmanuel, insisted that the platform is one of the best blockchain platforms the world has ever seen.
At first...
Blockchain has long been viewed as a western technology. What motivated this African entrepreneur to embark on this journey of establishing Africa's first blockchain facility?
According to the CEO, Zenith Chain was conceived in November 2020, when Ethereum's gas fees skyrocketed. This increase resulted in a corresponding increase in the cost of Ethereum transactions. This was accomplished through the use of NFTs, DeFi, and gaming applications on the Eth blockchain.
According to Jonathan, public blockchains such as Ethereum risk having slow transfer speeds and high transaction fees despite the fact that they are open for use. Private blockchains, on the other hand, typically have low gas fees and fast transfers because their owners typically have complete control over the validators, in contrast to public blockchains, which have validators that are anonymously owned. Zenith Chain is a hybrid of the two.
"I reasoned that if blockchain is to be the future of finance, nobody is going to pay this high a gas fee. I shouldn't have to pay $200 for a $10 transfer. As a result of my research, I came up with Zenith Chain, a hybrid blockchain. We took the best features of private blockchains, such as transaction speed, and the best features of public blockchains, such as interoperability and smart contracts, and created Zenith Chain, a hybrid blockchain," he explained.
The CEO and Rajesh Chinnadurai, who serves as CTO, co-founded the company. The primary goal was to address the issues with Ethereum's gas fees. The CEO stated that his team entered Beta in just three months (January-March 2021). By October 2021, the blockchain, including the Zenith coin, would be fully operational.
Zenith Chain currently has a transaction speed of 1.5 seconds and a fee of less than 1 cent (less than N5), according to the CEO. Additionally, the platform supports smart contracts from various other blockchains.
While he acknowledged that a blockchain platform such as Solana has approximately 1,000 validators, he stated that the platform lacks the capacity to operate them effectively. As a result, the platform occasionally shuts down due to the volume of transactions.
Additionally, he maintains that Zenith Chain outperforms other blockchain platforms in terms of interoperability, or the ability to communicate with other blockchain platforms. He stated that his platform currently has a bridge that connects to BSC and is in the process of rolling out a decentralized exchange that will connect it to Polygon, Solana, and Ethereum. This provides a significant advantage to applications built on the Zenith Blockchain.
NFTs and the role of Zenith Chain in the Metaverse
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a significant development enabled by blockchain technology. They enable creators of art and other works to create and preserve their works in near-unique digital and virtual formats. Due to their rarity, NFTs can be quite costly.
Regrettably, few people understand what NFTs are because they appear quite distant, even to those who are more digitally inclined. This lack of knowledge may cause concern for many people who are struggling to keep up with digital trends, particularly as the world accelerates toward the era of virtual reality.
Jonathan provided some context for NFTs, explaining that they contribute to the uniqueness of a work of art or music. This means it cannot be replicated or replicated in another location. He noted that NFTs are extremely beneficial in the fight against copyright violations and piracy because they make it more difficult to imitate an item or work of art.
"There are numerous copyright violations occurring worldwide today. Musicians are frequently subjected to copyright violations; individuals steal paintings and music, copy it, and resell it. However, with NFT, once you mint a photograph or painting, it becomes unique. To verify the authenticity, all that is required is to copy the address and paste it into the block explorer.
Additionally, the CEO noted that NFTs are critical to the digital world, particularly the metaverse, which is one of the most bizarre innovations available today. And, despite popular misconceptions about how complicated NFTs are, they are actually quite simple to mint and produce due to their lack of coding.
"At Zenith Chain, we're developing an NFT marketplace that will make it simple for you to mint NFTs. Additionally, we are developing a unique marketplace for musicians to assist them in minting their music, so that when they decide to sell their music or even an entire album, once they mint a piece of it, it can never be replicated," he explained.
Jonathan defines the metaverse as a digital world that people are collaborating to create. It enables individuals to digitally recreate themselves as well as own digital assets.
The blockchain expert refers to it as Web 3.0 and says his company's goal is to act as a backbone for the various software that will help support the metaverse.
"We're going to assist in scaling transactions, minting and holding NFTs, because everything in the metaverse will be done with NFT." We, the founders, have no say in it."
Looking forward
The year 2021 was an excellent year for technology companies in general, and the blockchain industry was no exception. On the space, innovations such as NFTs, DeFi, and the metaverse were heralded. These advancements created an infinite number of opportunities, which makes a platform like Zenith Chain extremely promising.
Looking ahead and anticipating what the future holds, Jonathan stated:
"The year 2021 was fantastic for me and my startup. We launched the world's first hybrid blockchain, which has a wide range of applications. We accomplished a great deal of interesting things. We started as an ICO, raised over a million dollars from our community, and were listed on seven exchanges in total. It was an eventful year.
"2021 was an interesting year, and we intend to do even more interesting things in 2022. We intend to onboard 1 million users by the end of Q2 2022. Additionally, we are considering inviting a large number of companies that are currently participating in ERC (Ethereum Request for Comment) and BSC to build on Zenith Chain. The first two are USDC and USDT, which will be used to create a stable coin on the network," he explained.
The founder stated that this move will help generate significant marketing and public relations for the Zenith blockchain, which he hopes will result in a flood of smart contracts.
