Alliance Block- The token that gave fire

The word Prometheus means forethought or is better explained as the anticipation of changes in the future.

The name Prometheus comes from Greek mythology and is the story of an elder god, a titan (the original rulers of Olympus before Zeus) that constantly thought about what could happen in the future. It is told that whilst the gods of Olympia drank and feasted, he spent his time thinking about how he could make the world wiser. Instead of living on Olympus, Prometheus spent his time living with humans and he realised nothing had changed for humans now living under Zeus. They lived in caves, starved, hunted by beasts, and were always cold. This was said to be because there was no fire. Prometheus thought about all the ways humanity could thrive if it were given fire. At the time Zeus, who was ruling, forbid this because of the threat of humanity uprising and usurping the gods of Olympia. The story ends with Prometheus going against Zeus' wish and providing fire by stealing a bit of Zeus' power to create lightning and thus created a spark that led to humanity's evolution. Zeus punished Prometheus by casting him out from Olympus… until a certain son of Zeus i.e., Hercules later saved him.

This story to me is synonymous with the current state of Alliance Block in relation to the cryptocurrency space. In this situation, humanity wouldn’t be your retail investor or defi-platform but would be the institutions who we usually see as the villains (for good reason). The gods would be the first and second generations of the cryptocurrency space such as Ethereum 1.0, and Bitcoin or decentralized finance platforms i.e., Uniswap. Where these tokens utilise cryptography and are designed and marketed originally to push away from the archaic financial market and systems.

Alliance block however shares a different view and looks at these old markets with all their flaws and friction and uses cryptography to propel these old financial markets into a glorious new age by solving many of their problems which had also been plaguing the retail investor as well as start-up companies.

Global Compliant Regulation.

Alliance block essentially aims to create a marketplace that is regulatory compliant for all users. First-generation cryptocurrencies weren’t built with the notion of global compliance for regulation; thus, this is a concept that goes against the original status quo of the cryptocurrency space in which they sought to replace, not help, the old financial system. In the current space, cryptocurrencies that haven’t been built with the notion or adapted to aid these systems thrive, however they fear that these old systems may be rebuilt and essentially render these currencies themselves obsolete.

Tokens that work with regulators are vilified and are seen by the stubborn thorns of the space as going against the grain… exactly as Zeus forbid Prometheus from giving fire to humanity before later outcasting him, coins with little utility in this current market are overshadowing utility tokens with real-world solutions, you won’t hear the utility tokens mentioned by the mass media because cryptocurrencies aren’t supposed to have any real-world impact in the eyes of the public.

Alliance block understands all of this and purposely has built its protocol called Prometheus to give fire to the old financial markets. That’s right! I didn’t just come up with that whole introduction for no reason, besides brushing up on my interest in Greek mythology. The name Prometheus was in likelihood chosen by Alliance block in relation to its meaning and connotations with the myth, therefore it implies that when the founders of Alliance Block designed the protocol, they did so with forethought that possible changes in the future in regard to regulation should be considered.

The exact nature of the titan.

I’ll now explain why and how this simple understanding and protocol design is about to give fire to the world that we live in.

The Prometheus protocol is a 3-layer blockchain solution to allow for cross-border transactions in capital markets i.e., Nasdaq, London stock exchange, etc. The protocol also allows for the digitization of assets such as stocks, contracts, houses, and precious metals. These assets can be traded with seamless compliance with the regulation in full effect.

The first layer solution is called decentralized data governance which ensures the data being traded and managed on their built decentralized market, is compliant with data privacy laws and its quality does not deteriorate over time or distance, meaning that if new information were to come to the forefront, the data currently stored doesn’t become worthless. That data can be updated in real-time over periods of time. This will aim to prevent data or issued tokens against unauthorized access, protect users from identity theft and manipulation/subversion of information.

The second layer is cross-border regulatory compliance. This layer was designed to automate the validation of transactions upon compliance with specified regulators. Furthermore, trusted legal entities can add to or correct the transaction governance. This is not the transactions themselves but refers to the laws which govern them, such as the closing period of when an asset can be traded on the market. This ensures consensus with regulation is met.

The third layer is Securities issuance and lifecycle management, this layer was designed to allow for management throughout the lifecycle of an issued digitized security and end to end regulated issuance of that security, for example in the case of an initial coin offering (ICO) which is the distribution of tokens to investors before being first traded on an exchange.

The Prometheus protocol powered by the alliance block token (ALBT) as previously mentioned earlier in the blog, can tokenize assets. However, Alliance Block, much like Prometheus would have, thought through various issues in regard to token issuance as stated in their white paper.

For a digitized token to be compliant it would have to incorporate any regulation changes made, comply with regulatory authority Know Your Customer (KYC) standards, allow for transactions to be enforced and reversed, as well as enable mechanisms for resolutions (A method for companies to note decisions made at board meetings usually requiring information on the voting such as time/date as well as the location of where it happened).

Two existing theories behind how to go about such token designs have been discussed before and highlighted in their white paper.

- “Code is law”. This theory requires that regulation be hardwired into the token and this would mean for new laws to be implemented, a new token would need to be issued.

- The second law is to make only immutable (unchanging) regulations into smart contracts, however, this would limit innovation not only in law but in token creation, as well as defeating the purpose of decentralization as these smart contracts could only be issued between regulators and legal owners and not put on an open market.

The Prometheus protocol however innovates between the concept of what a digitized token and security are and provides a different solution. Digitized security would just be a token representing the security in question e.g., a contract. The digitized security would sit with the issuer, a central security depository which is a special financial organization that holds securities and shares. Think of them as a bank for securities. The digitized token would encompass all the laws and would be available to be altered when needed. If it’s hard to imagine then think of the digitized security like an original document in a bank vault.

Now a digitized token copy of the digitized security could be traded on the open market and streamlined with any changes made with the actual token sat with the issuer. Think of these tokens as photocopies of the document in the vault. Whatever happens to the original happens to the clones. When central security depositories become more readily available the alliance block network will allow for the implementation of tokenized securities on their decentralized market. Thus, the Prometheus protocol considers and allows for all of the above theories and solutions.

However, the question goes without saying. It’s all good having a decentralized market fully regulatory compliant, but how much value would it be worth to do such a thing?

To understand the true significance of building such a market, it needs to be understood that the derivatives market (the financial market for financial tools such as futures contracts, or options based on underlying assets) that Alliance Block aims to bridge to their decentralized market, possess a notional value of over 1 quadrillion dollars annually.

The Prometheus protocol not only provides the breeding ground for new revenue streams to be tapped into but for that value to be captured all on one platform. It is providing the tools to fix the corruption and money laundering that has plagued financial markets in the past, that have allowed hedge funds on wall street to propel themselves to heights due to exploiting flaws in regulation. Alliance block is ensuring a level playing ground for new business, fintech companies to rely on as they build a functioning product.

First-generation cryptocurrencies with little to no utility can continue to try their hardest to overshadow the inevitable, and rightly so they should be fearing the uprising of utility-driven tokens solving real-world problems that will make them obsolete. Just as in the myth, a child of Zeus rose up to help Prometheus, Alliance block is partnered with second and third-generation cryptocurrencies such as Ocean protocol, Energy Web Token, Quant, Orion protocol, and Chainlink that will help set Alliance block free and be remembered as the token that gave fire to the financial markets.