What are Assets on the Avian Network? Simply explained for everyone!

Disclaimer: This post is best understood when read in its entirety, as it covers all topics and contains simple explanations to terms and underlying knowledge needed to understand assets.

In the rapidly evolving world of technology, it’s common for questions to arise around new concepts and platforms. One such question that often comes up is, “What are assets on the Avian Network?” This question is as fundamental as asking, “What are websites on the internet?” or even, “What is the internet?” back in the early days of the World Wide Web.

To simplify this complex technology, let’s draw a parallel between the Avian Network and the internet. In the early days of the internet, websites were the primary assets. They were the building blocks that made up the vast digital landscape we navigated.

Just as understanding websites was crucial to navigating the internet, understanding assets is key to leveraging the Avian Network. So, let’s dive deeper into what these assets are and how they contribute to our innovative technology platform.

In this comparison, which i really like as its simple and co relates to what’s often referred to as common knowledge to help understand this new “complex” technology.

Just as the internet was designed for sharing information through a network of servers and clients, the blockchain operates on a similar principle. However, instead of hosting websites or sending information, the blockchain is a peer-to-peer (client-to-client) communication system on a global scale, storing and sharing information about a complete ledger. Information isn’t hidden, or available only to peer to peer clients, they just independently verify and utilize the network for themselfs, and anyone can get a client or be a node, but also anyone can see or explore the network using publicly available explorers, which are as well peer to peer nodes on the network but with built functionality of interface, and presenting of the information on traditional web.

A ledger, in the context of blockchain, is akin to a list. It’s a comprehensive history of all transactions, blocks, and events that have occurred on a blockchain network. Think of it as a shared, globally verified database.

Understanding these principles makes it easier to answer the question, “What are assets?” In the context of the internet, assets are akin to websites — pieces of data stored to be accessed and verified by others. However, unlike websites, which can change and go offline if the server hosting them is turned off, assets on the blockchain are built to be decentralized. This means that any asset minted would remain on the blockchain unless the entire network is taken down. Every client node stores and shares information, but there is not a single entity that controls the network or could do so single-handedly. And assets on blockchain network, are nothing more than exactly pieces of data stored to be accessed and verified by others with addition of proofs of ownership.

When it comes to assets on the blockchain, particularly on the Avian Network, it’s important to understand the evolution of blockchain technology from the start, to understand what’s new and exciting that assets bring. The first blockchain (known as Bitcoin) was designed as decentralized globally verifiable database meant for facilitating monetary transactions, in the form of coins (currency) of the native network. This was an exciting development and worked well on a small scale. But as the technology evolved, additional features were added as demand grew with other projects, beyond just native currency transfers. The advent of Smart Contracts marked a significant milestone in the evolution of blockchain. While the term might seem like a buzzword, it simply refers to the ability to deploy code on the blockchain itself. This code can perform certain actions, automate transfers, or even build entirely new systems. This exciting development was first introduced with Ethereum (ETH).

However, Smart Contracts had their uses but also flaws, which lead to invention of native onchain assets (what Avian is all about). Assets on the Avian are predefined sets of rules in the form of new objects that can be added or traded alongside the regular currency on the blockchain. Assets come in several predefined types, such as main assets, sub assets, unique assets, or message assets, which is majority of main most common functionality smart contracts were coded for on ETH, but in this case, standardized easy to use and deployable assets without any advanced coding knowledge with filling few fields and pressing few buttons.

Assets development on AVN allowed for the transfer of tokens (minted as main assets or as sub assets under a main asset) or message assets which are cryptographically signed. This is a sophisticated way of saying there is proof of ownership or legitimacy about a certain message. It can be mathematically confirmed that it was signed from a certain person or place on the blockchain, which is done automatically. Any of these assets are designed to contain certain content, much like websites on the internet.

In blockchains like the Avian Network, it was agreed that main asset names must be unique to avoid confusion or phishing attacks. For example, on Ethereum, any tokens or utilities traded based on deployed Smart Contracts rest on a contract address that looks like a random string of numbers. It’s challenging to differentiate a real contract address from a malicious one, as anyone could copy the code from one place, edit it, and host it on the blockchain by redeploying it elsewhere, tricking users into interacting with it thinking it’s the regular place. This issue is completely resolved on the Avian Network, as each main asset must be unique, much like domains on the web, which makes it much easier to verify as its all in humanly easy to read format.

Sub assets are similar to subdomains on the internet. For example, facebook.com could be a main domain, and marketplace.facebook.com could be a subdomain. In the context of assets, this looks more like FACEBOOK (main asset) and FACEBOOK/MARKETPLACE (sub asset). Just like websites, the content of assets could be changed if changes were set to be allowed. To deploy a sub asset you must be an owner of the main asset, just like on the web with domains and sub domains. If the specific name is taken, you can use your username or something that is recognizable, and mint as much sub assets, that contain different tokens, assets or projects you want to be associated with that main asset.

Assets are particularly useful when creating tokens for specific purposes. For instance, if you wanted to create a company and tokenize it on the blockchain as shares, or create a utility-based token like a stablecoin. In the case of assets, you can easily do this by creating a simple main asset with the name of your desired token, providing an IPFS hash as an image, and setting an amount. In this case, we would set re-issuability to be enabled. Once the asset is minted and confirmed by the blockchain, we can simply edit the existing amount, either by sending coins to an address the network does not have keys for (known as a burn address) or issuing new coins by redeploying an asset with a new amount of coins, which would be held by the creator. In each instance, re-issuability could be changed, but once it’s changed to false, there is no future redeployment possible.

This is an example of creating something in limited quantity. Users can trust the numbers and proof on the blockchain, which is easy to check and trust as it’s impossible to further change a non re-issuable asset by the consensus rules of the entire network.

Over time, usage patterns have provided clear outlines of the most common uses for smart contracts. These include tokens represented as forms of other utility-based currencies for programs built on top, or many other tokenized things. Unique assets, known as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), are non-divisible, non-changeable, completely unique issued tokens with their own unique properties that could be traded (sent & received) on the blockchain. For example, a house. Even if two houses look the same or have the same name, they might not be in the exact same place. As long as something is different, it makes them unique. Tokens are interchangeable, while non-fungible tokens aren’t. That’s what fungibility means. One bitcoin, or one avian, can be exchanged for another one of the same currency, as long as it’s the same currency value (1 avn = 1 avn), there are no differences. In the case of tokens, the same can be applied unless they are issued as Unique.

The purpose of these tokens is to track ownership of more than just balances of virtual currency. You can deploy anything you wish on the network, and it can be traded seamlessly among any network participants. This is an on-chain way of creating, storing, and transferring custom end-user generated information with proof of ownership. For example, you can tokenize gold. Issue a representation of such an asset that is divisible as gold, which can be traded by users in any amounts, while gold is not divisible in the real world. You can tokenize game items, which can be tradable, collectables, memories, and so on…

Why use blockchain? Why tokenize? Why not build another cryptocurrency or own database (ledger) or even network? The answer to this question is pretty straightforward. Having a network does not guarantee usability or even security. A network requires a lot of surrounding infrastructure, such as wallets or accessibility points that make it easy to read or access stored information by everyone. An existing user base where people are familiar makes it perfect as a platform that is standardized and trusted by many. And mainly, security. A network is held together and validated by nodes all around the world. Besides nodes, miners contribute to securing the network by mining blocks, which requires intense computational power which they dedicate. The more miners and nodes there are, the safer the network is. So, by tokenizing assets, you are taking advantage of an entire ecosystem/platform built for such utilizations, all available to you by a few clicks of a mouse. Yes, it’s that easy deploying on the Avian Network, no matter if you are looking to deploy a token as main asset, sub asset, unique nft or an message asset, its as simple as clicking few buttons in the core wallet. No code or advanced knowledge needed.

This is just another advantage over the older smart contracts tokenization approach of Ethereum, which requires high upfront payment by hiring developers, or messing with the code yourself just to ensure tokenizing something, and in case a bug exists, it’s only you to blame for any losses. With Avian, there is no worries.

Avian strives to be the most effective, efficient, fastest, and easiest to use & access of all the networks, by combining innovative approaches to scaling such as future blockDAG upgrade we plan, led by moves made by Kaspa in the space of scaling, decentralizing the network further by favoring much more smaller miners to participate other than large mining farms with ASIC machines (these machines are specialized to perform just this task of mining a specific algorithm). Any algorithms we implemented are ASIC resistant. Avian is both CPU and GPU friendly which makes it easy to participate, earn Avian as a currency of utilization of the blockchain, and then spend it on tokenization and utility such as transfer fees, which is kept low cost on the network! We are also working on adding coding approach as smart contracts, which can give developers abilities to further expand and advance functionality to fully automate transfers, build swaps, decentralized exchanges and complete the ecosystem. Stay tuned for more insights into the Avian Network and its exciting developments.