Who are Tixl's competitors?

Introduction

Before I start, let me say that all I write here is based on what I know and what I think. I might be wrong. I might be imprecise on some of the stories. I don't care if I'm exaggerating something somewhere. Things might not be exactly how I say, but I hope you agree that, at least, it makes sense.

It is funny how many people like to think that, in the world you either win or lose. It is like there is no cooperation. My last years in the corporate world, I heard this term a lot: coopetition. It was supposed to be the sum of cooperation and competition. I think corporations like to invent these terms and then misuse them but, looking back, this one seems quite interesting.

In my conversations, I heard a lot of: "if Tixl gets there before the others, it's game over for the others, and if the others get there before Tixl, it's game over for Tixl". It doesn't matter what we were talking about. My point is: why do I have to kill the other one? And why does he need to kill me?

Who are Tixl's competitors?

Criteria I used to find competitors

People who just think of crypto just as an investment, and are just looking at graphics and numbers only, would say that everybody competes against Tixl. I don't want to analyze everybody so, in the category, I will put BTC and ETH because they represent 55% of total crypto market cap today. The line of thought these people follow is: people have to sell their BTC/ETH and buy TXL.

Some people studied TXL and concluded that all that Tixl brings is fast and cheap transactions. They will say that Lightning and any other solutions that say they solve these problems are Tixl's competitors.

People who did research on other cryptos, trying to understand what they do, what problems they solve, would find another list. I'd say ADA (Cardano), XRP, LTC and any other crypto that has their own blockchain network (I think this is called a Level 1 solution).

And finally there are those who understand there is the "interoperability" issue to be solved also. To be really honest, I just started to understand this term a few weeks ago (hahaha). So I don't know who I would put in this list.

Just keep in mind that, in order to be actually competing against Tixl, a solution would have to do everything at once: a level 1 solution with high performance, low cost and interoperability.

It takes time to develop a Level 1 solution

Bitcoin was the first. I saw that Vitalik Buterin (I think this is how his name is written) was a BTC early adopter and he very quickly understood that so much more could be done. So he created ETH. And I think the basic difference was that this new blockchain now would have smart contracts.

It seems, however, that Vitalik didn't get it all. I mean, if ETH was using the same proof-of-work logic that was used by BTC, it would also inherit the same problems that BTC would have in the future (the future being today). The Cardano founder is part of the initial ETH team. Apparently, he discussed the problems that ETH would have in the future but wasn't heard so he left and started a new blockchain - Cardano - with a different algorithm that would validate the transactions.

While all this was happening, we had Litecoin going on, cloned from the Bitcoin chain. However, unlike Cardano, LTC is not a new blockchain, it uses the BTC chain and does some kind of magic so it's transactions are cheap and quick. Ripple came and developed something else and they created XRP.

At this point, there was something going on in the market in general. I will call that the crypto fever of 2017. There were already the BTC billionaires and BTC was climbing from $4,000 to $20,000. Smart people decided to make money in this market and create their own cryptos and do an ICO.

What do you think is faster: develop a blockchain from the ground up to create your crypto coin or use an existing blockchain and create your own token there?

No doubt here. It is MUCH easier to create your crypto on top of an existing foundation. And these new creators, they wanted to show something fast, so they could make money on their ICO. ETH was the platform that most of the new cryptos decided to use for their projects. That's why there are so many ERC20 tokens around.

Hey Diego, why are you telling us all this?

The first reason is to explain why I say that Tixl has done a lot yet some do not see anything. The Autobahn is a Level 1 solution. It is the foundation and everything else will be built on top of it. It's like when you're building a house: the foundation feels like you're just sinking money and you don't see anything happening except a hole in the ground. Well, just like the house, if your foundation is not done properly, what could happen to the 30 story building you put on top of it?

Tixl has done a lot but we don't see it because that was the foundation. Now they have developed a Level 2 application: the wallet. That's why I say the wallet is the showcase: it will show how good the foundation is.

Cardano faces the same problem. Their network is there and, even today, they still don't have smart contracts. It's been around longer than Tixl though.

Going back to the question "who are Tixl's competitors?" Let me try to organize what comes next here in this post. I will discuss in this order:

1. The first "competitors" - BTC and ETH - for this who just see graphs and numbers
2. The fast and cheap competitors - Lightning network and any other one that didn't develop a Level 1 solution
3. The Level 1 competitors
4. The Interoperable competitors - I'm not going to discuss these ones here because I don't have enough knowledge for it

The first "competitors"

Simply put, BTC and ETH are not Tixl's competitors. From my point of view, they are the ones that will mostly benefit from TXL. For me, TXL will save them both from becoming obsolete.

I think I make my point in my post Is it possible to use BTC to buy a coffee in Starbucks?". I'm not going to develop this line of thought here.

The fast and cheap competitors

A solution like the Lightning Network was built on top of another blockchain. They did some magic and so they are able to make BTC transaction go faster and cheaper. But how fast and how cheap? Not as fast or cheap as you can get with Tixl, that's for sure.

And why? Because Tixl built a foundation that was built from the beginning on these parameters. Lightning was not so it will always be limited, at some point, by it's foundation. No matter what kind of magic or "optimization" they make. I heard their team is "optimizing" their systems so they get faster. I believe they will achieve something but here is what I think about "optimization": when you optimize something, you can get gains of 10%, 20% and in extreme cases, even 100%. But a 500% optimization is something that doesn't exist. If they want their network to perform 10x or 20x faster, they have to build a new foundation. What do you think would happen to them if they announce to the world that they are building a new foundation?

The Level 1 competitors

I will just mention Cardano here. Please don't be mad at me if you love Cardano. I like that project too. I hear what Charles Hoskinson says and it seems like he has the right technical ideas. And I like the fact that he says "I don't care for pump. I have a vision and this is where I'm going, no matter what the price is".

However, from a strategy point of view, I think he is very wrong. I could be wrong but the impression I have of Cardano is that you should leave BTC and ETH and adopt ADA. It's like he's saying to the whole world "hey, you're all stupid because you use BTC and ETH. Look at my solution, it is much faster and cheaper. Get rid of this garbage you have and get ADA instead". I'm probably exaggerating. But put yourself as a BTC holder. How much convincing would you need in order to exchange your BTC - that thing that everyone else has - for ADA?

Now compare it to this: "Hey, bring your BTC and ETH to this new place. You keep your BTC and ETH but now, instead of paying huge fees and having to wait forever to get your transaction confirmed, now they will take seconds and cost almost nothing".

Doesn't it seem friendlier? Doesn't it seem safer?

Why compete?

This brings me back to what I mentioned in the beginning of this post. Why do we like to think of everything as a competition? I don't believe that Tixl competes against BTC or ETH.

I don't believe that Tixl competes against Lightning because they are completely different approaches. And I think that Lightning will not survive for long...

I don't believe that Tixl competes against Cardano because of the interoperability subject. Cardano could see Tixl as a competitor but then, again, that would be just stupid, in my opinion. I know that, given the opportunity, Tixl will be very happy to welcome ADA into the Autobahn (and DOT, XRP and all others).

For those who think that Tixl will die if Cardano builds a DEX before Tixl I ask: why? Uniswap is there, Pancakeswap is there. What makes a Cardano DEX so much better that people will not want a Tixl based DEX anymore?

In my opinion, Tixl is developing the right technology, has the right mindset and is implementing the right strategy. It will take time though. The early investors have to be patient but will be well rewarded.