What Is Automata Network (ATA)? Features, Tokenomics and Price Prediction
Tech Deep Dives

What Is Automata Network (ATA)? Features, Tokenomics and Price Prediction

CoinMarketCap takes a deep dive into Automata Network (ATA), a privacy-first cross-chain infrastructure for Decentralized Applications (DApps), that offers non-intrusive integrations. It allows developers to build mobile and web apps in a decentralized environment.

What Is Automata Network (ATA)? Features, Tokenomics and Price Prediction

Table of Contents

Automata Network (ATA) is a privacy middleware for DApps on Web3 that focuses on decentralization, security, performance, and privacy of DApps that run on the Automata Network to achieve frictionless computing.

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100% Price Gain in the Past Week After the Binance Launch

Automata Network (ATA) token grew 100% in the past week hitting the price of around $2, with crypto analysts indicating a break of its all-time high that is currently standing at $2.55. Although the token has fallen to $1.37 as of Sept 1. 2021, the ATA token which raised $2.4 million in funding from the Binance Launchpool in June 2021 is being termed as a long-term investment by many crypto analysts.

How Does Automata Network (ATA) Work?

The technological architecture of Automata is based on processing that is protected by hardware like Intel SGX (explained below), as well as the industry's first implementation of Oblivious RAM for DApps. The Automata Network offers a wide range of Web3-specific applications, such as Anonymous Voting, MEV Minimization, and Do-not-track Indexing.
Open-source code and APIs can provide better building blocks for developers and users can securely transact while regaining control of their identities. As Web3 economic activity grows, people have more opportunities. Automata Network plans to lead the Web3 arena in the near future.

The Problem That Automata Network Solves

According to the official lightpaper of Automata Network, the execution and storage on the nodes are generally public. Engagement of unknown nodes on blockchains or decentralized application platforms will not be more secure than well-reputed centralized and well-known institutions. If malevolent nodes serve the execution of data for users in permissionless blockchain systems, they can disclose the private information of specific users.
Because these platforms are highly unstructured, fraudulent nodes can easily join the network to implement contracts or host data that goes against users' expectations for decentralization being safer than a centralized institution.
Privacy is a zero-sum game in decentralized apps, however, if consumers can't get proper privacy from the decentralized platform (due to malicious nodes), there is no point in trusting the system more than a centralized entity.

Automata Network Has The Answer

Automata Network recognizes the problem and provides two types of nodes for capable machines to participate in. Automata Geode & Automata Validator.

Automata Validator

Automata Validator node can be used by the users to stake their tokens and also take part in several control-plane tasks which include:
  • Community registration of Automata Node and Automata Geode
  • Geode hardware and software verification.
  • Geode computing power marketplace for trading
  • Completing compute plane tasks requested by service suppliers and compensating Geode for completing them

Automata Geode

To perform tasks scheduled by the control plane, Automata Geode: 

  • Protects data by combining state-of-the-art hardware-based trust with algorithm-based hardening, which not only protects data directly but also makes data access patterns invisible to Geode providers.
  • Provides a protected, impartial, clean, and organized computing environment. 
  • Links several ledgers or blockchains to move data between chains or collaborate on the same piece of data, all while maintaining the crucial aspect of anonymity.

Note: Both Automata Validator and Automata Geode contribute to the overall performance, decentralization, and security of the protocol.

Products Offered by the Automata Network (ATA)

Witness by Automata

Automata Witness provides a decentralized voting mechanism for DApps across several blockchains that can be customized according to the protocols defined by the app's owner. The solution is off-chain and supports private governance, which means that the voting participants can express their opinion (vote) without exposing their preferences or identities to everyone.

How Does It Work?

There are three major steps involved in the process of Witness by Automata:
  • The first step is to create proposals on workplaces and fine-tune the granularity of final vote results between different levels of privacy.
  • The second step is to participate in the voting process on the Witness website by linking crypto wallets and governance tokens. 
  • The third and final step (after governance votes are passed) is the execution of the on-chain process of contracts that were registered at the proposal stage of the contract.

Features of Automata Network (ATA)

No Gas Fee

The off-chain voting process allows a larger spectrum of token holders to engage in governance activities as there are zero gas fees associated with the entire process.

Increased Privacy With Three Custom Options

Users have the option to select between public, medium, or private options. The public option keeps the voter's address and their number of votes visible to the entire network. An intermediate option only shows the number of votes, and selecting the private option will hide the voter identity and their number of votes, only the voting result will be disclosed.

On-Chain Execution

The on-chain execution process starts after the voting results are announced and the on-chain contract that was registered during proposal creation can be called using Chainhook.

Signaling Tool

Each of the features described above can be used individually or in combination. It is also feasible for a project to use Witness as a signaling mechanism without executing it on the blockchain.

Conveyor by Automata

Conveyor by Automata is a solution to the problems related to Miner Extractable Value (MEV)

What Is Miner Extractable Value (MEV)?

Transactions are sent from one blockchain to another regularly. These transactions don't immediately reach from one end to another, rather there is delay and in that time the transaction is mined into a block. During this delay or processing period, transactions are stored in a mempool which is a pending transaction pool. Now, the problem is that all the contents of this mempool are visible to everyone on the network. 
Arbitrageurs and miners scout the mempool and look for ways to increase their earnings, a great example of it is frontrunning transactions where a miner can reshuffle or even filter transactions if the front-runner is a miner.
The amount of profit that may be recovered by sorting and filtering transactions on the blockchain is referred to as Miner Extractable Value (MEV). Miners can charge users by taking MEV from them in the form of an invisible fee (tax). It may be feasible for them to disrupt consensus by rearranging or filtering transactions if block rewards are modest enough in comparison to MEV.

How Does Automata’s Conveyor Solve the MEV Problems?

Conveyor consumes and produces transactions in a predetermined order which eliminates the confusion of transaction reordering by creating a front-running free zone. Conveyor arranges transactions in a First-In-First-Out (FIFO) manner, preventing block producers from injecting additional transactions into the output of Conveyor and removing ordered transactions by broadcasting them everywhere. This step makes sure that the transactions cannot be removed unless all block producers are working together to filter all broadcasted transactions at the same time.

Intel SGX

Intel SGX is one of many Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) that provides end-to-end security to users. Intel SGX creates an impenetrable container that, when properly implemented, prohibits anybody from peering inside, even the box's owner. It is like a fortified hidden stronghold that serves as an outpost to store all your important files.
The role of TEEs in the Intel SGX is simple. They ensure a secure ecosystem in which computations may be carried out without being seen by others which permits private computations to be offloaded to computers that are not immediately under the user's control. Cryptographic primitives and close coordination between the software and the hardware layers are the main factors behind such levels of privacy. Intel SGX, in particular, offers two essential primitives that enable the construction of a secure ecosystem and its usage, data-in-use secrecy, as well as integrity, and remote attestation.
There are two main elements of Intel SGX: Enclave & Remote Attestation.
The memory-encryption mode established by the CPU is referred to as an ‘enclave’ in various TEE systems in which the CPU's private key encrypted memory sectors, also referred to as ‘Enclave Page Cache’. Memory bus tapping techniques which are part of physical attacks have no effect on the enclave. The official website of Automata Network relates it to a clerk working in a busy office where sealed envelopes come in and no one has access to it except the clerk, as Intel SGX provides him with a separate office, known as 'enclave'. Any other user-level programs or operating systems cannot access or tamper with the code and data inside the enclave. The security of the enclave is powerful enough to not let anyone, even the building management, look inside the office.
The second component of Intel SGX is Remote Attestation. This process can be termed as a virus scan that searches for spy devices and busybodies before any document is opened inside the office. Remote attestation is the backbone of an enclave as the trust factor comes from the cryptographic verification performed only through remote attestation. The verification process includes the following measures:
  • Determining if the CPU is authentic Intel hardware.
  • Checking whether the other enclaves operating on the operating systems are reliable.
  • Checking whether the enclave is executing the exact copy of the code that the user expects.
Note: The Oblivious RAM (ORAM) feature comes into play as the missing piece of the puzzle. You see, an enclave software has certain limitations and ORAM makes sure that the security limitations (risks) are properly identified by acting as a proxy between the enclave and the data store.

Unique Features Of Automata Network (ATA)

Control Plane That Is Elastic and Scalable 

The Automata Network offers a control plane, controlled by a collection of staking nodes, that protects the whole protocol and controls interactions between different protocol players.

Accountability Method That can be Verified 

When Geode accomplishes the specified duties, a variety of accounting methods are employed to determine its compensation. A pay-as-you-go approach allows users to pay for a computation per their requirement (use), or a payment schedule, such as hourly, daily, monthly, or annually, can be used.

A Cross-chain Service Plane That Prioritises Privacy

Automata connect multiple blockchains to provide decentralized apps with privacy services. Service providers can utilize Geode to create tooling services or incorporate the Geode primitive into apps to provide consumers control over their data.

Staking and Hosting Are Rewarded Collaboratively 

For service providers looking for privacy-first computational resources, Automata offers a pay-as-you-go solution. Geode suppliers will be compensated for both staking and hosting the Geode. As a return for their collaboration and maintenance costs, automata validators and other roles might receive staking incentives.

DApps Applicability and Speed

Automata's ultimate objective is to offer developers the tools they need to create strong apps that can compete with online or mobile applications in general.

Interoperability Is Aided By a Consistent Cross-chain Support System

Automata Network (ATA) offers simultaneous and privacy-preserving interfaces for different blockchains to interchange data and collaborate on a shared data files.

Compute Plane That Is Shielded and Impartial

In Geode, Automata provides a high level of computation privacy by hiding data access patterns from the hosting nodes on a single computer as well as in a P2P system. The supplied privacy is maybe even more secure than that provided by centralized cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Use Cases of Automata Network (ATA) Tokens

The Automata Network (ATA) token has the following use cases at present:

Attain Mining Rewards  

Storage and computation miners earn ATA tokens by processing transactions and running apps for other users on the network.

Allocation of Geode

Users can use ATA tokens to participate in Geode auctions by bonding them together.

Miners Receive Protocol Fees  

Miners are paid (protocol fees) by users for the storage and computing tasks they do.

Participate in Governance Activities 

Holders of ATA tokens can propose ideas, platform enhancements, and network settings, and vote on such decisions.

Automata Network (ATA) Tokenomics

The total supply of Automata Network (ATA) tokens is 1,000,000,000 ATA. The circulating supply currently stands at 172,252,000 ATA where the launch pool supply was set at 40,000,000 ATA.

Automata Network (ATA) Price

Automata Network (ATA) is now trading at $1.37, as of Sept. 1, 2021. Its 24-hour trading volume on exchanges is around USD $122,820,896.12.

Automata Network (ATA) Price Prediction and Future Outlook

As of Sept. 1, 2021, Automata Network (ATA) is trading at $1.37. Whether Automata Network (ATA) will hit $50 in the near future depends on a lot of factors.  
The DApps applicability and speed features may attract a lot of developers to host their decentralized application on the Automata Network (ATA). This also relates to the unique offering of nodes (Automata Validator & Geode) that provide a variety of features to DApp developers that few other blockchains offer. A rising influx of DApps on Automata Network (ATA) is expected to take the price of the ATA token to $50 and beyond. 
Security and decentralization is a major factor why many organizations have opted for the blockchain. However, as highlighted previously, not many blockchains fulfill this criterion. Automata Network (ATA) plans to fill the gap through its products like the Intel SGX which uses enclave and remote attestation to secure the privacy of the end-user from all angles. Automata Network (ATA) can bank on this feature and get more investments from potential organizations that value their security, which may take the price of ATA token beyond $50.
Automata Network (ATA) raised $2.4 million from Binance Launchpool which has given it a good reputation in the crypto market. Analysts believe that further investments from other platforms are going to come in the near future as ATA token dreams to break its all-time high of $2.55 and reach $50.
Now, considering a lot of volatile factors, it is very difficult to say in which direction Automata Network (ATA) will tilt, which is why it is advisable to keep an eye on market indicators and technical opinions of cryptocurrency experts before investing in this token.
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