The team at Komodo (KMD) has announced a plan to start using the Litecoin blockchain
for cross-chain notarizations. The move is aimed at protecting small chains within the Komodo platform, against 51% of attacks.Komodo has been using the Bitcoin network to perform cross-chain notarizations as the BTC blockchain has a proven track record of being secure, decentralized and having a high level of having power.
Additionally, the costs of carrying out a 51% on the Bitcoin network are extremely high thus making it an ideal choice for cross-chain notarizations.
However, the Bitcoin network is becoming costlier and congested as the world adopts the digital asset at a rate similar to the internet in the 90s. As a result, the Komodo team decided to explore ways of a sustainable future with the Litecoin network being the automatic next choice due to the following reasons.
According to the team at Komodo Platform, the switch to Litecoin for cross-chain notarizations will occur in June 2021, after Komodo’s fifth notary election. The election is to determine nodes on the Komodo platform who are tasked with securing the network as explained below.
Notary Nodes are 64 dedicated servers that are elected annually by the Komodo community. They are responsible for running delayed Proof of Work (dPoW) — a security mechanism that recycles the hash rate of the Bitcoin network through a series of cross-chain notarizations. dPoW has successfully defended against real 51% attack attempts and currently secures over 30 production blockchains, protecting several hundred million dollars in value.