Blockchain Technology: Best Solutions Overview
Blockchain Nourishes a Bright Future for Humanity
Blockchain is currently invading almost every sphere and industry, and it has already established its implementation as a solution in a high number of cases. With crowdfunding events, it is easy to raise funds for your product launch if you set up the process in a detailed manner, though not all businesses need blockchain for their business processes.
At the end of June 2018, the total market cap of cryptocurrency rates was more than $256 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Preexisting market infrastructure conditions have become harsh, so startups should work hard to find the right solutions. Let’s check out the best new startup ideas suitable for blockchain technology.
The Most Suitable Spheres for Blockchain Startups
It is not in vain that blockchain has already been successfully endorsed in such spheres as fintech, healthcare, supply chain, artificial intelligence, etc. Various solutions have been found for diverse product ideas in which blockchain can serve as a fundamental issue for product release.
It is difficult to determine the most applicable field for blockchain implementation, so we are going to provide you with the brightest blockchain startups and the technical and business solutions they are bringing to our world to show you an ideal prototype of a product launch. This is the best way to pick up the most successful industries for blockchain technology usage.
Supply Chain: VeChain
Based in Singapore, VeChain is a blockchain platform that enables product management in the supply chain. VeChain started its historical development in 2015. Tracking goods in the supply chain has found a solution in blockchain technology, and VeChain demonstrates this perfectly. The idea is to create a trustful ecosystem for various business processes and transparency in enterprise-level solutions.
Famous clients and investors include BMW, Healthcare Co. Ltd, D.I.G., Kuehne & Nagel, C.I.Q., RENAULT, InfoCorp, Sentinel Chain, PWC, China Unicom, DNV GL, Givenchy, and many others.
Solution Overview
- Which blockchain do they use?
The skeleton of the VeCHain project is its blockchain. Firstly, they used the Ethereum blockchain. Now the team is developing their own VeChainThor blockchain. The VeChain blockchain is based on the Ethereum blockchain, with some improvements:
- The Ethereum network performs nearly 12,500 transactions per day. The VeChain blockchain is expected to perform more than 2 million transactions per day.
- Transaction nonce is replaced with transaction ID (TxID), which simplifies the process of sending multiple transactions at the same time.
- One transaction can execute multiple tasks (e.g., mass product registration, multiple payments, etc.).
- The price of VeChain tokens doesn’t influence transaction fees.
- The Vechain blockchain uses PoA consensus, which guarantees token security.
- Two levels: one for performing transactions and smart-contract execution, and one for business activities.
- It has neither fully decentralized nor centralized governance.
- Enterprise-based economic model.
The VeChainThor blockchain is based upon the SHA256 hash algorithm, which launches VID generation.
VeChain stakeholders have voting rights, depending upon the percentage of the amount of VET tokens and the availability of KYC and other conditions. So, the voting authority looks like this:
VeChainThor, or Blockchain X, consists of:
- token economics
- governance structure
- regulatory compliance
- community ecosystem
Participants in the VeChainThor platform include: business owners, application service providers, smart-contract providers, infrastructure service providers, the VeChain Foundation, the VeChain community, token-holders, and users.
2. Consensus Protocol
The VeChain Foundation uses Proof of Authority (PoA) as an optimal consensus protocol model.
- It is a beneficial protocol that has its advantages for enterprises, like lower computational power in comparison with other models (PoW, PoS, DPoS, and PBFT).
- Proof of Authority is neither a fully decentralized nor centralized (this is optimal.)
- 101 Authority Masternodes run the VeChainThor full-node software, validating and producing the nodes.
- In order to reach consensus, Authority Masternodes shouldn’t interact.
- The owners of Authority Masternode can contribute to the VeChain ecosystem only after validation.
- Masternodes maintain the platform and get rewards for it.
- The owners of the Authority Masternodes are divided into: enterprise users, blockchain development teams, business development ambassadors, community contributors, and academic research partners.
3. Token Economy
VeChain has developed a dual token system : VeChain Tokens (VET) and VeThor Token (VTHO).
The VET is a utility token, has a max supply, and grants users access to VeChain services.
The VeChain Token (VET), developed for crowdsales, will be used for transmission throughout the ecosystem. 70% of the tokens were to be distributed to communities, businesses, and users. The VeChain Token guarantees high-speed transactions and transfers.
VeChain token-holders receive VeThor (VTHO) tokens to cover some expenses for transactions. This is calculated in the following way: if the user holds 10K VET, he or she will get 4.32 VTHO every day.
If transaction cost is less than the number of VTHO tokens a user holds, transactions will be executed using VTHO tokens — in other words, for free.
Total supply: 1 billion ERC20 VeChain Tokens (VET).
According to the CoinMarketCap, at the moment of writing VET token is on the 17th place trading at $2,66 . In July, 2017, the token price was $0,25. The market capitalization of VET token is $1 ,458, 563, 524.
4. Roadmap
It all started in 2015 with the Technical Proof of Concept. Since 2015, VeChain has put out versions 0, 1, 2, and 3.
In 2018, the VeChainThor Blockchain was launched.
The next plans include VeChain crosschain, sidechain technology, and VeChainThor ecosystem expansion.
5. The Team
Sunny Lu，Project Leader, former CIO of LV China, has had experience with blockchain since 2015, when VeChain was established.
Scott Brsbin，General Counsel, is working on project security. His famous clients include the Rolling Stones, Disney, MGM, etc.
Jianliang Gu, Technical Director, is working on VeChain and IoT integration.
The Internet of Things: IOTA
IOTA is a permissionless, open-source distributed ledger that solves the problem of high-fee transactions, secure data transfer, offline transactions, long transaction performing time, etc.
IOTA is meant to perform transactions with zero fees among devices (machines) connected by the Internet of Things.
Solution Overview
1. Which blockchain do they use?
It is not about mining and block validation, as in the usual blockchain system. What’s more, there are no transaction fees.
The Tangle is a directed acyclic graph (DAG) for decentralized transaction storage, which stands for IOTA ledger data storage. All transactions and approvals are linked with each other, and the principle is as follows: one transaction is validated with the help of two previous ones, as demonstrated below.
The IOTA Tangle Explorer is used for tracking transactions, including those done in Bitcoin or Ethereum.
IOTA nodes should be validated by a centralized node. One more distinction from blockchain is that there are no blocks generated:
2. Consensus Protocol
Proof of Work is used in the IOTA Tangle in order to eliminate spam. With the help of proof-of-work computations or algorithms (like Hashcash), micropayments can be made more securely.
3. Token Economy
All coins are emitted at once, as there is no mining possibility provided.
The total supply of IOTA tokens is 2779 Ti(Terra Iota 1012). Here is the system of IOTA units:
According to CoinMarketCap at the time of this writing, the IOTA token is in 9th place, trading at $1.00. In July, 2017, the token price was $0.40. The market capitalization of the IOTA token is $2,782,754,538.
IOTA raised $434,511 USD during the ICO in 2015, reaching hard cap.
5. Roadmap
Project development since 2015 included the following stages:
- core client development
- alternative clients
- new features
- IOTA extension interface modules
- tools and libraries
- project ecosystem
The most useful step was the IOTA Tangle stress-test, which included:
- computational power
- user load
- latency of distributed nodes
5. The Team
The IOTA Foundation first established the IOTA project in 2015.
David Sønstebø, Founder, is an experienced entrepreneur in the field of IoT, and is former founder and CEO of a Stealth hardware startup.
The supervisors are a chief digital officer at Volkswagen, a CEO of OMG, and a head of FUJITSU, Central Europe.
Energy: Brooklyn MicroGrid
The Brooklyn MicroGrid is a revolutionary project of LO3 Energy, aimed at optimizing energy distribution. The idea is that houses that own solar energy can share excess electricity with their neighbors by submitting a transaction on the blockchain.
Situated in Brooklyn, the microgrid is also reserved energy recorded in the distributed network.
Big investor: SIEMENS became a partner of the project in order to create a pilot microgrid.
Solutions Overview
1. Which blockchain do they use?
The project started with the Ethereum blockchain. They used the chaincode Ethereum Consortium Chain, in which admins are able to validate transactions within the system. They testified this choice because Ethereum was the first platform with a robust ecosystem, and was/is widespread among ICO startups.
After a while, the team started developing their own proprietary blockchain — EXERGY — to find new solutions for scalability. EXERGY is run on a private, permissioned blockchain.
- The MicroGrid is a peer-to-peer energy provider. Its use cases are as follows:
- a prosumer who sells services and consumers who buy electricity.
- a rewards pool of XRG tokens used for token distribution among prosumers and consumers for participating in transaction performance.
- Blockchain is used for storing information as well as performing transactions.
- Blockchain needs the data (kilowatts, volts, etc.) to run a grid with flow calculations.
- Users can use XRG tokens to pay in the app, or fiat to pay for electricity.
2. Principle of Work
- All transactions serve as physical goods.
- Transactions distinguish energy resources and consumption.
- Meters measure energy, share information with each other, and “cooperate,”forming a distributed ledger. Meters serve as hosts of the blockchain.
- Legacy energy grid for local energy operations.
3. Token Economy
The XRG token is an ERC20-compliant token.
XRG tokens give permission to access the Exergy blockchain in order to trade energy resources.
4. Roadmap
2017 was the most efficient year, when the Siemens partnership was created and the BMG app was launched.
In 2017, LO3 Energy signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the European Power Exchange EPEX SPOT, taking MicroGrid to the global market.
Thanks to the partnership with Siemens, a pilot MicroGrid will be released on blockchain for tracking energy supply transactions.
5. The Team
Established in 2010, the American startup LO3 Energy, a distributed energy supply system, assembled a team that includes 25 people all over the world. The building of BMG blocks started in 2015.
Lawrence Orsini, CEO at LO3 Energy, has been involved in the energy industry since 1999.
Banking: Ripple
Blockchain technology is widely used in the banking industry, and most people think that blockchain startups are connected solely with money operations.
Ripple is a great example of implementing blockchain for international payments, providing solutions for fast, low-cost transactions, crypto-globality, and liquidity.
Big members include Crédit Agricole, MUFG, American Express, MoneyGram, UniCredit, Santander, Standard Chartered, BBVA, and many others.
Solutions Overview
1. Which blockchain do they use?
The RippleNet ecosystem uses its own blockchain, which solves lots of problems connected with traditional banking payments, including time-of-transaction performance:
- Ripple transactions are fast: its execution system takes approximately 4 seconds.
- Its servers almost don’t take fees, because they don’t do mining. There are only micro-fees in XRP, which are needed to prevent hacker attacks.
- The Ripple network is two-phase: there are Ripple coins in the P2P market, and if a bank wants to become a node of the Ripple network, it uses Ripple coins and also mints its own coins.
- Ripple is really a network for banks, and if any bank can join Ripple, all currencies can be accepted.
- RippleNet is a service provider for members (banks, payment providers) and users (platform businesses, corporate treasuries, banks and payment providers, and consumers).
- The RippleNet team has developed the following products: xCurrent (for payments), xRapid (for liquidity), and xVia (for transactions).
2. Consensus Protocol
- The Ripple Protocol is based upon the FBA (Federated Byzantine Agreement), and was developed to solve the Byzantine Generals Problem (in which 33% of the network can be non-resistant to frauds).
- Protocol components include: the server, ledger, last-closed ledger, open ledger, unique node list (UNL), and proposer.
- Each last-closed ledger achieves consensus. If the consensus algorithm is successful, all last-closed ledgers in the system should be identical.
- Each node, instead of validating, has to decide upon the value 0 or 1.
- The first principle of The Ripple protocol consensus algorithm is correctness: failed transactions cannot be confirmed.
- The second principle is agreement: in order for nodes to reach consensus, there must be the same set of transactions.
- The third principle is utility: the time for the consensus process is limited.
3. Token Economy
XRP is a central currency of the Ripple network, which takes part in all trading processes throughout the platform.
In order to prevent liquidity, Ripple’s solution is a liquidity pool.
Total supply — 100 billion XRP.
There is one unique feature of the XRP token: “a bridge currency” between two other currencies.
According to CoinMarketCap, at the moment of this writing, the XRP token is in third place, trading at $0.481,090. In July, 2017, the token price was $2.00 The market capitalization of the XRP token is $18,888,596,207.
4. Roadmap
The Ripple project was developed in 2012. One year later, the Ripple protocol was worked out.
From 2014 to 2017, Ripple Labs was penetrating the banking industry.
As Ripple is in the top 3 currencies, predictions are positive: the price will definitely rise in a few years.
5. The Team
Team members are located all over the world: San Francisco, New York, London, Sydney, India, Singapore, and Luxembourg.
When you investigate the board of directors, they will astonish you with their extensive professional experience:
Chris Larsen, CEO at Ripple, is a former CEO of Prosper and E-LOAN.
Susan Athey, Professor of Economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business, was previously a chief economist at Microsoft.
Zoe Cruz, former Co-President at Morgan Stanley, is founder and CEO of EOZ Global and a member of Old Mutual PLC’s Board of Directors.
Identity and Access: EmerCoin
EmerCoin is a decentralized blockchain platform for your business cybersecurity.
Big partners: Coca Cola, LLOYD’S, Microsoft, Bitfury, Deloitte, Prover, Unadesk, and many others.
Solutions Overview
1. Which blockchain do they use?
- The Emercoin blockchain is based upon Bitcoin’s code, but an improved one. For example, it takes only 200 megabytes, while the Bitcoin blockchain takes more than 100 gigabytes.
- Block speed is nearly 10 minutes.
- It is used for SSL-certificate storage.
- The Emercoin blockchain gives the ability to store data (Emercoin’s name-value storage).
- Blockchain services developed on the Emercoin blockchain include: EMCSSH (management system), EMCDNS (domain system), EMCLNX (advertising network), EMCSSL (password-less authentication), EMCTTS (storage), EMCSTREAM (media streaming), EMCDPO (digital proof of ownership), Magnet (distributed torrent tracker), and InfoCard (storage for electronic cards).
2. Consensus Protocol
- The main protocol is the Proof of Stake, though it also supports Proof-of-Work mining. A simple token-holder receives a 6% profit annually.
- Three-in-one hybrid mining: Proof-of-Stake (PoS), Proof-of-Work (PoW), and Merged Mining.
- The PoW algorithm SHA-256 is merged with Bitcoin mining. The PoW block reward is 5020 EMC, which fluctuates according to block difficulty.
- The PoS reward is 6% pa.
3. Token Economy
- EMC is an anonymous cryptocurrency because pf of the P2P system and information outflow is not possible.
- Emercoin is suitable for mining. In 2017, Emercoin was added to one of the world’s biggest mining pools, F2Pool.
- EMC was created for transactions, but mostly for various services within the system.
- According to CoinMarketCap, at the time of this writing, the EMC token is in 88th place, trading at $2.43. In July 2017, the token price was $1.65. The market capitalization of EMC is $101,707,013.
4. Roadmap
The project was launched in December 2013. In 2015, EmerCoin appeared in the top 20 cryptocurrencies according to CoinMarketCap, and released the first version of the EmerCoin Wallet.
In February 2018, Emercoin signed a partnership with the Blockchain Trust Accelerator (BTA), and in March, it signed with Coca Cola.
The roadmap is set for the next few years:
5. The Team
Oleg Khovayko, CTO of Emercoin, is Vice president at Jefferies & Company, and has extensive experience as a software engineer at Fidelis Security Systems, TAJ Technologies, and SXP Analytics.
Emercoin ambassadors are in Japan, the Caribbean, Korea, North America, and Europe.
Conclusions
We’ve just investigated the best blockchain solutions in the supply chain, energy, IoT, banking, and the identity and access industries. The inference is that there is no unique formula for reaching success when launching a blockchain project.
All projects mentioned above developed their own blockchain, which is efficient and secure for their industry of specialization and solves problems that other blockchains can’t. Most of them found a brand-new protocol consensus as a solution to replace previous ones.
Nowadays, the blockchain industry is moving fast, and in the near future, there will be a lot similar projects in other industries with similar solutions — or brand-new ones.
So, along with efficient solutions for specific industries, it is crucially important to release a workable product with technical innovations like proof of work, algorithms, consensus protocols, and transaction performance to encourage other people to believe in your idea and make the life easier!
