From the beginning of this year, we can tell that a massive amount of money has been invested into the crypto markets. Unlike recent years, bitcoin and altcoins have a direct correlation. That means new money buys bitcoin as an entrance ticket to the altcoins. Among the thousands of crypto projects, we noticed three that in our opinion have a bright future, this series of articles will kindly inspect crypto projects we think are interesting.
Ubiq allows developers to roll out smart contracts and decentralized applications on their own platform. As you will notice, the platform is comparable with Ethereum. Ethereum is a cutting edge technology and is continuously evolving. This results in a technology which is stuck in an alpha phase. I don’t want to discourage innovation, but on the other hand this continuous process of modification can frighten developers. At the moment, code that you wrote 6 months ago, won’t work anymore. As a developer it is difficult to keep up to date with the latest developments on Ethereum. Therefore, Ubiq tries to bring a solution to this problem by being an enterprise-ready build of the Ethereum blockchain. It tries to offer stability by only implementing well-tested pieces of code.
Pros and cons of Ubiq: Ubiq has a very strong community behind the project, with some individuals who are very experienced in cryptocurrency. As an example, they coded their own Mist wallet called Fusion to store Ubiq coins. Fun fact, Julian Yap, one of the major developers of Ubiq, is also a developer of Bittrex exchange.
On the other hand, the platform that Ubiq offers is not unique. Roughly, it is the same idea as the Ethereum platform. However, the idea behind Ubiq to create a stable blockchain platform for the developers is unique. Looking at the longer term, more copies of Ethereum will be developed, each with its on specifications and aims. Generally speaking, the competition will grow and it will become harder to differentiate as a platform. Yet, Ubiq is one of the early adopters of a Blockchain as a Service (BaaS).
Total Supply: 37M UBQ Market Cap: 95 million USD. One Ubiq is worth 2.5$.
MaidSafecoin (MAID) is not a new project (when was it founded?), on the other hand it still has to make some good progress. Maidsafe announced a new concept, namely Proof of Resource. This concept takes following criteria into account: storage space, CPU, bandwidth and online time. Online time enables users to transfer and retrieve chunks of encrypted data. Safecoins tokens are rewarded to users providing their resources, so called Farmers. Each Safecoin has its own identity, which makes them unique in the network. The altcoin can be exchanged for network services. After usage, the coin will be recycled by the SAFE Network in order to provide enough funds for Farmers.
Maidsafe has implemented a more dynamic resource usage algorithm to diversify the ownership of the network as much as possible. A greater diversity in ownership of nodes, has the effect that the network has a greater resistance against attacks from users owning many nodes. To make this clearer, I will use the terms ‘less decentralized’ and ‘more decentralized’. In a less decentralized network, it is possible that some nodes have so many connections that you can label them as ‘semi centralized’. Maidsafe uses ‘more centralized’. Their algorithm forces the network to spread the connections more equally. This following image illustrates this principle.
Roadmap: Maidsafe is a 10-year old company. Its first success with the SAFE Network was accomplished at the beginning of 2016. Their alpha version was released in the following summer. Next, Maidsafe aims to create a technology which can assure that data is recoverable after suffering a total internet blackout. This offers many opportunities for critical data systems in the fields of science, banking and healthcare.
Maidsafe’s future roadmap provides some very interesting features such as data chains. This idea can be presented as a gathering of all hashes of chunks. The hashes can be used by users for proving which chunk of data they own in case of a network blackout. This is the first step towards a network that can survive a total internet crash.
Innovation in technology: The SAFE Network aims to be a highly secure network for data transmission and storage. Each chunk of data is encrypted and distributed through a broad network of servers. The data is stored decentralized and that prevents unwanted deletion. The lack of central points is what makes it truly unique. The SAFE Network decentralizes each Internet service and tries to eliminate central points of weakness. This reaction against central points has some beneficial effects like increased security and anonymity.
Total Supply: 542M MAID Market Cap: 240 million USD. One MAID is worth 0.53$.
The Golem Network is one of the most advanced ideas amongst the crypto projects. This explains the big interest of investors for the Golem Network Token (GNT). The basic idea of Golem is based on renting resources. Everyone with a computer can rent CPU space on their laptop to the network. Next, the resources can be used by other users for hosting, for example, a web application. It is very similar to a centralized cloud provider which supplies resources. The main difference, is its decentralized aspect. Imagine, your web application requires 20GB of CPU space in order to run. The Golem algorithm will search for several computers which are capable of renting you some CPU space. So the core business of the Golem Network is comparable with Amazon Web Services (AWS) but on a much smaller scale.
Who can use the platform? Everyone who needs extra computing power, in addition to their own computer. Besides that, Golem offers flexible tools for developers to deploy and monetize their software.
Roadmap: The Golem project timeline indicates four years of work to be done. The roadmap is divided into four main projects. Their first working project for the platform (called Brass) will be available in June. With Brass Golem, it will be possible to create basic tasks to request CPU power.
In essence, Golem offers a marketplace to rent computing power. It is the first decentralized market. But its value lies within the dedicated software integrations for developers. The Golem Network offers an easy way to use the platform to distribute and monetize software. Developers are able to customize the payment system to create unique mechanisms for their own software. Golem has the potential to become a small scale web services provider. Besides that, in the future, it is possible that the scientific world (CERN, NASA) will adopt Golem.
Total Supply: 829M GNT Market Cap: 475 million USD. One GNT is worth 0.57$.
Bonus: Golem Technical Analysis: As we can see, GOLEM is following an uptrend line, and is accumulating between 0.00017 level and 0.00021 level from above. Positive sign would be above this accumulating tunnel.
