“Crypto made easy.” That’s indeed a catchy tag line that sums up Divi’s vision of making cryptocurrencies mass-accessible, easy to use, and efficient on a global scale.
True, it’s a vision chased after by many since the early days of crypto and first-generation blockchains. However, with its robust technological infrastructure and fast-maturing decentralized ecosystem, Divi is now emerging as a frontrunner in that pursuit.
In this review today, we are going to assess all the factors adding fuel to the buzz surrounding Divi. We will try and gain some insights into the core ideas powering the ecosystem. While at that, we will also look at the problems Divi aims to resolve and how the broader Divi ecosystem works in unison towards democratizing finance for people everywhere.
Let’s start with an overview of Divi – the platform and the vision behind it.
Divi: An Overview
Divi is a vast blockchain ecosystem with an innovative set of services tucked into a “Smart Wallet“. Divi’s main agenda is to roll out a self-sustained, fully decentralized private payment solution that makes cryptocurrencies accessible and usable to the masses.
The Vision
The team behind Divi shares the same vision that prompted Satoshi Nakamoto to create Bitcoin. Like the elusive mastermind, the Divi team also has made it a mission to get rid of the centralized banking system’s follies and use technology to extend financial inclusion to everyone regardless of their socioeconomic status.
With that mission, the Divi project, originally called Divx, officially launched in Q2 2017. The project rolled out the DIVX initial coin offering (ICO) in Aug 2017 at $0.57 per coin and continued it through to the end of Nov. DIVX was an ERC-20 token that served its purpose when the team was preparing the launch of the Divi blockchain.
In Sept 2018, the team introduced its own Divi blockchain and minted the first Divi coin. The DIVX-to-Divi transition happened rather smoothly at the rate of 1 DIVX = 100 Divi.
The Team
Divi is led by Geoff McCabe, co-founder and CEO, with a strong team comprising young blood and experience behind him. Geoff is a serial entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience in building successful ventures across various industries. These include three multi-million dollar businesses before he co-founded Divi.
Nick Saponaro, co-founder and CIO, oversees the platform’s technological side. He is a full-stack developer, crypto enthusiast, and keynote speaker.
Nick joined Divi in 2017, taking on responsibility for its web services and protocol development for the Core Node. In 2019, he became Divi’s Chief Information Officer and has since been using his skills in programming and functional design to help drive crypto’s mainstream adoption.
Divi: The Core Objectives
Conceptually and technologically, crypto and blockchain have all the power to redefine, or at least, reshape the future of finance. However, this can only happen when there is mass adoption.
So far, cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin have primarily served as stores of value – a hedge against inflation and the faltering economy.
Many also join the ecosystem purely to tap in on the volatility of the crypto market and make hefty profits. And that’s perfectly fine. However, to trigger mass adoption and live up to the original ethos it started with, crypto has to offer everyday usability where you can use your crypto stash to pay for everyday expenses — just like you do with cash or a credit card.
And this is precisely where Divi can make a big impact.
Divi identifies usability and accessibility as the biggest pain points to have slowed down the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies. It wants to resolve these issues by introducing crypto to the average Joe.
With that objective in mind, Divi incorporated fiat and several popular cryptocurrencies into a new system. This new system empowers users to easily set up a bank account and a debit card. They can then use these financial tools to pay for everyday expenses anytime, from anywhere.
Of course, this would require a much better fiat/crypto integration than what was available in the market at the time. And that’s where Ridivi and its enormous potential kicked in.
Ridivi
Divi has a dedicated fintech unit called Ridivi, which was created after the company acquired a controlling share of a Costa Rican fintech firm, which was then rebranded as Ridivi for integration into the broader Divi ecosystem. This acquisition also gave Ridivi a head-start with more than 10,000 customers from the newly acquired firm’s remittance business.
It was a great addition to the Divi ecosystem as Ridivi makes fiat-crypto integration a lot easier. In fact, to the point that you can now convert fiat to crypto and crypto to fiat in real-time without relying on a third party.
Perhaps the biggest perk Ridivi has in store for users is the ability to make IBAN transactions from their Divi wallets.
Ridivi now plans on outcompeting remittance companies and banks that sometimes charge as high as 10% – 20% for transferring money. In contrast, Ridivi plans on offering the same services at “close to zero fees.”
In a nutshell, the addition of Ridivi brings the broader ecosystem the following benefits:
- One-click fiat account setup.
- Debit cards for users.
- International bank account numbers for crypto users.
- International wire transfers (fiat).
- One-click fiat account setup.
- One-click exchange between crypto and fiat.
Divi: Under the Hood
Tiered Masternode
On the technology front, Divi deploys a “tiered masternode system.” This is a unique system consisting of five tiers that can be easily set up with a single click. And that makes it quite a handy feature considering it enables the average users with little to no technical expertise to participate in a cryptocurrency network and run full nodes.
This tiered system allows users to choose from the five levels of participation depending on how involved they want to be in the network.
Each of these tiers corresponds to a progressively higher number of blocked Divi coins. Therefore, the higher a tier is, the higher the rewards earned by the corresponding masternode.
Divi believes that this ease of owning a masternode is a big leap forward to make crypto safer, mass accessible, and user-friendly for everyone.
Proof of Stake (PoS) Consensus and Staking
The Divi blockchain is based on the Proof of Stake consensus mechanism which is drastically different from the Proof of Work (PoW) mechanism that powers the Bitcoin network. This means, unlike Bitcoin mining which requires a vast amount of computing power, Divi relies on a concept called “Coin Age” to secure the network.
The Coin Age is determined by multiplying the number of Divi coins in a wallet by the “age” of those coins. Here, the age of a coin is the time since the last transaction involving that coin.
Lottery Blocks
Meanwhile, Divi also has a new lottery block technology that contributes to the overall security of the network. The Lottery Blocks is a unique feature that allows 11 lucky masternode owners a shot at winning up to $50,000 worth of Divi coin each week.
All users participating in staking and owning more than 10,000 Divi coins are eligible to be picked for the lottery reward system. Among other things, this also incentivizes masternode ownership and staking, thereby driving adoption.
Divi Smart Wallet
The Divi ecosystem includes the Smart Wallet, which is a huge improvement on the run-of-the-mill crypto wallets. It focuses on delivering a smooth user-experience for anybody including those who have never used a crypto wallet before. The Smart Wallet, once deployed, will come loaded with unique saving features to complement the multi-layered masternode system on the blockchain.
The wallet will attach profile information to each transaction on the blockchain, which will enable users to send money to verified profiles with personalized characteristics. This is a drastic improvement from the anonymous wallet addresses that Bitcoin and other cryptos use.
Final Thoughts
It is clear by now that Divi is indeed a vast and ambitious project with a multi-layered ecosystem. Its focus on expediting crypto’s mass adoption is based on a blend of solid technology and smart finance.
It has great potential to gain a strong foothold in third-world countries where “smartphone banking” is often considered the most viable way to extend any meaningful financial inclusivity to the unbanked population.
If it lives up to its potential, Divi might very well be the first mover in those untapped markets. And while there, it will likely find itself in a perfect spot to make a big positive impact.
For additional information, you can visit the official DIVI website and social media accounts on Telergram, Twitter, and Facebook
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