Five blockchain projects growing amid falling national currencies

News channels are full of negativity in relation to national currencies. At the same time, non-blockchain-based currencies continue to grow. The rate of some of them has increased by more than 1200% over the past year. To make it easier to imagine the scale of change - imagine that silver would have reached $ 180 per ounce. There are hundreds of blockchain-currencies with strange names and, in principle, everyone can create their own copy of Bitcoin in half a day. How to recognize a truly unique and promising projects from a variety of useless and fraudulent? This article will talk about promising cryptocurrencies, something stand out against the background of Bitcoin and its copies.



Each of the five projects listed below has something unique, which is not the case with the well-known Bitcoin, who could consider introducing some of their properties that distinguish 2nd and 3rd generations of cryptocurrencies against the background of many crypto coins claimed on the website www .coinmarketcap.com

Projects are described in descending order of their market capitalization.



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Ethereum (Ethereum) ethereum.org

This open source blockchain serves as the foundation for other blockchains that use their own digital tokens as a higher-level functional add-in. Ethereum can be compared to the Internet as a foundation platform, on top of which email, voice file transfer and many other functions that use the Internet as a foundation are built on. Thus, Ethereum has a radically different functionality from Bitcoin and therefore is not considered as its competitor. Ethereum, rather, organically complements Bitcoin, expanding the functionality of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Ethereum is unique in that it is intended, first of all, to act as the “fuel” used in smart contracts that work without human intervention and can be executed when the programmed conditions have been fulfilled. After that, a certain value can be transferred through the network to the recipient. This is a holistic programming language that embodies many of the original ideas of the creator of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto.

It is important to note that the advent of Ethereum gave rise to the enthusiasm of developers and the whole world of cryptocurrencies, creating the necessary network effect that is important for the survival and prosperity of the system. It turned out that a new type of computer world was created in which decentralized applications can work autonomously. Imagine a corporation without a board of directors, a CEO, or even a physical location. Whose laws will govern such a system if it exists only in the “cloud”, like a bittorrent network? Application owners can determine the terms of contracts - this is in fact the usual companies are engaged in, which makes them self-sufficient. Ethereum attracts users the opportunity to use the blockchain to enter into agreements and futures transactions, the terms of which can change in a complex way.

Imagine the shortcomings of conventional fixed contracts that you sign today and are subject to change in the future. Remember the frustration of users who signed a user agreement when registering a Facebook or Gmail account, and which were then arbitrarily changed ... Or, for example, a privacy policy that changes arbitrarily after you register and start using the service ...



DASH : (DASH) www.dash.org

DASH is digital cash with enhanced privacy and anonymity. The key advantage of Bitcoin was a reliable decentralized system of exchange of value between people who had all the reasons not to trust each other.

Such is the nature of the Dark (Darknet-) markets. The infamous "Silk Road" was closed by the US authorities for drug trafficking, forged passports and other illegal goods. People who used this system in many countries obviously worked outside the law - one can safely assume that the majority of users of this system were criminals. How can two criminals who have every reason not to trust each other, can securely make a deal over the Internet? This is where the primary “killer” application for Bitcoin was found (although the actual cases of payment for contract killings through this trading platform are not known). Unfortunately, the screaming headlines in the press of those years captured the attention and imagination of the public in such a way that crime and cryptocurrency are still closely associated with each other. Everyone “forgot” that the criminals were also the first users of mobile communications, pagers, radio communications, cars, email and all other advanced technologies. It seems that the police are always in the role of a catch-up. Today, with a high degree of probability, we can say that any Bitcoin transaction can be tracked, and several criminals from Darknet have already experienced this in their own skin. So Bitcoin’s seeming confidentiality quickly disappears when the authorities really need to find someone.

DASH brings us back to those early days of pristine confidentiality based on the principles of cash. Cash, like any instrument, does not in itself have a morality — it cannot be “bad” or “good.” It is simply a means to convey value. And it’s quite natural that people want to keep their finances confidential. Laws in different countries can be very different, and trying to buy a Bible in North Korea can end up in prison ... or something worse ...

DASH provides anonymization of transactions at the network protocol level, which allows to preserve the uncertainty of the source and recipient of remittances. And if the governments expressed their claims even in relation to Bitcoin, then they don’t really like the possibilities of DASH ... This functionality is quite interesting, and most importantly, it is in demand in the modern world of total surveillance. In addition, DASH implements a mechanism for instant confirmation of transactions, as well as a unique management and self-financing model - Bitcoin has a lot to learn here.



Maidsafecoin (maidsafe.net)

Maidsafecoin is probably the beginning of the blockchain-era distributed economy — AirBnB and Uber of a distributed Internet economy. Members of this network are encouraged to provide computing power and storage services in a decentralized system, and payment within the system is made in tokens of the same system. The user benefit lies in the infrastructure for non-censored applications and websites. They preserve confidentiality, rather than, like regular websites, treat users as a product for advertisers and agencies that track every click.

The purpose of the tokens used in the system is to pay for the efforts of the community to provide confidentiality and protection from spying on personal data, from the actions of the powerful, who continue to restrict freedom of speech, and from self-proclaimed censors. The network is still in the process of becoming and is managed by a centralized company. The plans are to create a worldwide decentralized network for applications and communications, operating on the principles of bittorrent.



Bitshares : bitshares.org

Bitshares positions itself as a 3rd generation blockchain.

His tokens can be used as proof of ownership of objects. Even property in the physical world can be associated with these tokens for its recognition and identification. This allows you to trade and track the change of ownership in a decentralized network. Bitshares also operates as a decentralized trading platform for the exchange of property objects. At the same time, their current price can be fixed by expressing it in more stable units, such as a dollar or gold.

It is argued that bidding can be conducted on a global scale. Bitshares could well become something like the next generation e-commerce platform for any kind of objects.



Fact (factom) factom.org

Who should be the arbiter of the smart contract, determining the “true” fulfillment of the conditions and the correct execution of the contract? Factom can act as the “oracle” of truth. The system can record the state of ownership or any other evidence of the state of affairs at a certain time - independently and permanently. We are working on an open interface to ensure compatibility of Factom with other blockchains, so that they can use this service to check the state of “truth”. “Truth” is hashed forever on the blockchain and can be reliably verified at any time. The network has its own token-coin, which is used to pay for internal recording operations and subsequent verification of the states of "truth" that are in demand in relations between the parties who do not want to rely on anyone.

The fact may be the “Google” of the next generation, and the word itself may become a common noun — to denote the authentic verification of any records. Maybe in the future we will hear something like: “Have you already played it?” :)



Probably, there are other developing blockchain projects, the technology of which will be able to reach the stage of widespread use and rise above the ocean of “junk” and scam blockchain projects. The search for promising cryptocurrency today has become a modern kind of “treasure hunt”. It is always nice to have some kind of guide in this difficult mission, and here you have one of them.



(For fans of “minus”, I remind you that I am not the author, the article is transferable. I would be grateful for the support of the translation efforts into Russian. Thank you!)