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Elrond is a blockchain platform for distributed apps, business use cases, and the development of a scalable, quick, and secure internet economy. In addition to using Adaptive State Sharding and a secure proof-of-stake consensus mechanism to protect the network, Elrond is optimized for high throughput and fast execution. Its WebAssembly-based virtual machine, which can facilitate the development of decentralized apps, can be used by developers, validators, and enterprises to fulfill the vision of building a new internet economy.

EGLD is Elrond’s native currency and it plays an integral role in the Elrond ecosystem. It’s used to pay transaction fees and cover the costs of building dApps. Incentives and rewards for different network contributions are done with EGLD. Moreover, users who hold and stake EGLD acquire the right to vote on network improvements and receive newly minted EGLD in proportion to the amount staked. EGLD has a limited supply of 20 million tokens. 

Elrond’s architecture is based on the following technologies:

• Adaptive State Sharding – divides the Elrond infrastructure to handle additional transactions and programs. Adaptive State Sharding solves the scalability problem by enhancing communication across shards while also boosting network speed and efficiency.
• Secure Proof of Stake (SPoS) – is Elrond’s novel approach to consensus mechanisms. It’s a technique for synchronizing different network components to a single ledger. SPoS combines eligibility through stake and rating, and uses a random validator selector and a fixed optimal number of validators for the functioning of its consensus mechanism.

The platform offers Elrond Integrated Development Environment where developers can create and launch customizable decentralized applications. Elrond pays smart contract writers 30% of transaction fees as “smart contract royalties” and keeps 10% of all transaction costs to reward community members. 

Elrond was created in late 2017 by brothers Beniamin and Lucian Mincu, and Lucian Todea as a solution to the blockchain scalability issues.

The team consisted of a group of entrepreneurs and 13 engineers and researchers with expertise working with blockchain systems at companies such as Microsoft, Google, Intel, and NTT DATA. It was originally announced in August 2019, and its mainnet went live in July 2020.

Elrond organized a private funding round in June 2019, receiving $1.9 million from multiple angel investors. The team also organized the Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) of the EGLD token in the same month, raising $3.25 million in exchange for 25% of the total token supply.

Elrond’s cryptocurrency was known initially as ERD coin. However, once its mainnet went live, the name of its native token was changed to EGLD. After that, the project conducted a transitory event where investors could exchange their ERD for Elrond’s new EGLD coin.

To keep the network safe, Elrond employs a Secure Proof of Stake consensus mechanism. To participate in the validation process, nodes must stake EGLD tokens, and each validator is awarded a rating score based on its previous activity. Validators can also be removed from the network, and their stakes can be slashed if they act maliciously.

Moreover, the validators are randomly chosen using Elrond’s BFT-like consensus procedure to assure even more protection. This helps maintain a high level of security by randomly selecting the consensus group and randomly shifting nodes into other shards.

However, online theft and fraud are often conducted not by attacking the blockchain network but by targeting users’ online/hot wallets to expose their private keys. Such malicious actors trick users into revealing their private keys or attack their system with malware.

Hardware/cold wallets overcome this vulnerability by storing private keys in physical storage devices cut off from the internet and, therefore, out of reach of malicious actors.

Well-known cryptocurrencies like EGLD can be bought on many centralized and decentralized exchanges (DEXs). However, CEX users have to compromise complete ownership over their crypto assets, as they do not have access to the private keys of the wallets holding their funds. DEXs are ideal for investors who prefer privacy and ownership over their assets. However, there are still some loose ends on the security front when online wallets are used, as they may expose private keys and result in thefts and frauds. 

Ledger hardware wallet saves your private keys offline and thus makes your crypto assets inaccessible for anyone except you in the event of a computer hack. 

Ledger Live app gives the option to manage 1800+ coins and tokens from a phone or desktop, making the system extremely convenient. Although it is not possible to purchase EGLD on Ledger Live currently, you can still store, stake, and send/receive it. Here’s how to do it:

1. Get a Ledger hardware wallet.
2. Download and install Ledger web or mobile application.
3. Connect the Ledger app with the Ledger hardware wallet.
4. Install the Elrond application from the app catalog.
5. Send/receive and stake EGLD tokens.