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Practical Applications for the Internet of Things

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Binance Chain Wallet

Trinity

Algorand is a self-sustaining, decentralized, blockchain-based network that supports a wide range of applications. These systems are secure, scalable and efficient, all critical properties for effective applications in the real world. Algorand will support computations that require reliable performance guarantees to create new forms of trust.

The Algorand mainnet became live in June 2019, and was able to handle almost 1 million transactions per day as of December 2020. Algorand transaction metrics can be viewed here. Algorand initial coin offering (ICO) was held in June 2019, with the Algorand price of $0.24 per token.

Algorand

Stellar (XLM) is a peer-to-peer (P2P) decentralized network created in 2014 by The Stellar Development Foundation or Stellar.org. The network officially launched in 2015 with the purpose of connecting the world's financial systems and ensuring a protocol for payment providers and financial institutions. The platform is designed to move financial resources swiftly and reliably at minimal cost. Stellar links people, banks, payment processors and allows users to create, send and trade multiple types of crypto.

The basis of the network is its native digital currency - XLM or Lumens. XLM acts as an intermediate currency for operations and is also used to pay transaction fees. How it works: the protocol converts money in a few seconds, first into XLM, and then into the requested currency.

The Stellar payment protocol is based on distributed ledger technology -- an open-source development, community-owned and distributed by community. The crypto asset of the Stellar platform helps with cross-border transactions, overcoming the problems of high fees and slow procedures. XLM is more focused on assisting individuals transfer money than they are with institutions. Thus, Stellar offers access to financial systems, and people can send money at low cost and promptly around the world.

Moreover, Stellar serves as a decentralized exchange and marketplace, with a built-in order book that tracks ownership of Stellar assets. Platform users can manage buy/sell orders, as well as select and set their preferred assets in settlements. XLM is a built-in coin that helps reduce transaction fees.

The network maintains a high level of security.  XLM holders must have at least one token in order to remain active on the network. This nuance performs a global goal - the execution of network transactions efficiently and with minimal time costs. Plus, Lumens offers protection against flood attacks by making microtransactions too expensive for hackers with no chance of profit, which keeps Stellar Network safe from serious threats.

The target audience of Stellar is the inhabitants of developing countries, ordinary users who are provided access to the global economy through fast, simple and inexpensive transactions. Stellar Network makes extensive use of Lumens to produce live convection as well as to send cash in multiple currencies; currency is sent from one peer, and the recipient can receive the amount in another currency. This feature is beneficial when a transaction is made between currencies without widely traded pairs.

Support for multi-currency transactions is another competitive advantage of Stellar, and the ability for cross-currency transactions has only enhanced processes with foreign operations. Moreover, stable speed and low transaction costs are a privilege that users receive.

This functionality is powered by a development called Anchors (a bridge between different currencies and the network), which simplifies the exchange within the network and helps speed up the whole process.

In summary, the benefits of Stellar (XLM) include:

Stellar

VeChainThor (VET) is a versatile enterprise-grade L1 smart contract platform whose origins began in 2015. VeChain is known as a pioneer of real-world enterprise applications, and built a distributed platform powered by Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, NFC chips and blockchain to help various industries solve data-related challenges.

VeChain solves major blockchain adoption hurdles. The platform uses an intelligent two token model, VET and VTHO, separating the protocol's Store of Value and gas fee payment mechanisms, ensuring costs can be kept low and stable. Fee delegation allows smart contracts to pay gas fees on behalf of business users, and an advanced transaction model allows data to be packaged more efficiently while ensuring finality of data.

VeChain is focused on delivering a wave of incentive-based sustainability dApps through its new platform, VeBetterDAO, working closely with Boston Consulting Group to achieve adoption across enterprise and individual users, and helping  onboard the next billion users to Web3 over the coming decade.

From supply chains to sustainability, VeChain has continuously demonstrated its leading role as a driver of blockchain in business, and is dedicated to its role as a pioneer of driving real world adoption of blockchain technology.

VeChain

Hedera is the most used, sustainable, enterprise-grade public network for the decentralized economy that allows individuals and businesses to create powerful decentralized applications (DApps).

It is designed to be a fairer, more efficient system that eliminates some of the limitations that older blockchain-based platforms face — such as slow performance and instability.

It was funded through an initial coin offering (ICO) in August 2018 and first launched open access to its mainnet just over a year later in September 2019. As part of the ICO, investors were able to purchase the platform’s native utility token (HBAR) at the lowest possible pricing.

The HBAR token has a dual role within the Hedera public network.

First and foremost, HBAR the fuel that powers Hedera services, such as smart contracts, file storage and regular transactions. Second, it's used to help secure the network, since HBAR users can stake their tokens to assist with maintaining the integrity of the platform.

Hedera (HBAR) is the native cryptocurrency of Hedera Hashgraph, a platform that is positioned as an alternative to traditional blockchain technology and aims to excel in speed, efficiency and security.

Older blockchains tend to use a consensus mechanism like proof-of-work (PoW) to validate transactions, while younger blockchains opted for proof-of-stake (PoS). The Hedera Hashgraph system has a structure that was created from scratch particularly for the project. Hedera is based on a PoS model that is believed to increase the efficiency of transaction verification in the network, provide a high level of security, and protect the network from hacker attacks. Its ecosystem has the underlying hashgraph consensus algorithm and the global enterprise governing body.

Hedera Hashgraph is a distributed ledger technology (DLT). According to the project website, Hedera differs from other blockchains because it uses a new consensus algorithm called hashgraph. It intends to process and execute transactions faster, eliminate delays, and smooth out the TPS (transactions per second) indicator. Hashgraph is claimed to be an upgrade in transaction speed, cost, and scalability.

Core network services by Hedera:

Consensus Service (HCS). With HCS, clients send messages to the network to negotiate consensus timestamping and order. In this case, the state is stored offline, and users can define privacy and access control.

Hedera Token Service (HTS). Thanks to HTS, token creation and management are available to customers. It supports built-in tokenization.

The goal of Hedera’s hashgraph is to increase the speed of transactions. Moreover, the network is also focused on high-volume operations: micropayments, data integrity and tokenization.

Like the EVM, the Hedera network maintains a virtual machine that writes smart contracts in the Solidity programming language. On top of that, Hedera offers a set of built-in KYC and AML checks.

From a technical point of view, Hedera is a form of distributed ledger technology. It is a hashgraph, or consensus algorithm, where users agree on the order in which transactions should be performed. However, Hedera is not exactly a blockchain. It has its own distinctiveness and works differently. With hashgraph, all transaction branches are merged, no block equivalent is thrown away, and each is used to reach consensus.

One of the most noticeable features of the network is the Gossip-about-Gossip protocol. According to Dr. Leemon Baird, Hedera's inventor, within the system nodes randomly transmit data about themselves to other nodes via hashgraph using the Gossip protocol. Soon, all nodes in a cluster become familiar with each other. Then a certain data structure is formed. It consists of a payload of transactions, a timestamp, a digital signature, and hashes to the previous structures.

HBAR is Hedera's native token that powers applications on the Hedera network. HBAR is utilized to pay for network services, transaction fees, in-app payments and micropayments. Developers can pay network fees with HBAR tokens, namely: work with smart contracts, file storage and currency exchange. HBAR is used to incentivize and pay network nodes.

Hedera Hashgraph has a decentralized governance system that is set apart. All critical decisions about pricing policy, software updates, and wealth management are made by the Governing Council.

Hedera

The EOS Network is an open-source blockchain platform that prioritizes high performance, flexibility, security, and developer experience. As a third-generation blockchain platform powered by the EOS virtual machine, EOS has an extensible WebAssembly engine for deterministic execution of near fee-less transactions.

EOS is the market's most scalable, divisible, and programmable digital currency. EOS is a Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) network where stakeholders have the authority to select node operators. EOS is fully decentralized power doesn't reside in the hands of block miners, but rather all parties involved in the EOS Network.

The EOS Network is attractive because of its technology and community. It allows developers to build projects that other blockchains cannot support. The network is straightforward and has multiple tools and educational resources to help users acclimate to the blockchain.

Tezos is a high-performing blockchain and open-source platform for assets and applications, with a strong focus on code security, on-chain governance, and decentralization. Tezos 2.0, the upcoming step in the evolution of Tezos, aims to improve scalability (via layer 2s), composability, and to implement support to mainstream programming languages (like Javascript, Typescript, Python, and many others).

Initially built with formal verification in mind, the Tezos protocol enables builders to avoid bugs when developing smart contracts, making it particularly suited to applications that require a high degree of security and certainty.

Tezos’ LPoS (Liquid Proof-of-Stake) consensus mechanism enables any stakeholder to take part, directly or by delegation, in the consensus process, and to be rewarded for securing the network. Rather uniquely, Tezos’ on-chain governance system also enables stakeholders to create and vote on protocol upgrade proposals. This pioneering system allows the protocol to self-amend and upgrade itself without leading to a split (or fork) in the blockchain, empowering the community without slowing down innovation.

First proposed in 2014 and launched in 2018, the Tezos Mainnet has a proven track record of running uninterrupted ever since, having earned a strong reputation for technical excellence and a supportive community.

Tezos

Decentraland (MANA) defines itself as a virtual reality platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain that allows users to create, experience, and monetize content and applications.

In this virtual world, users purchase plots of land that they can later navigate, build upon and monetize.

Decentraland was launched following a $24 million initial coin offering (ICO) that was conducted in 2017. The virtual world launched its closed beta in 2019 and opened to the public in February 2020. Since then, users have created a wide range of experiences on their parcels of LAND, including interactive games, sprawling 3D scenes and a variety of other interactive experiences.

Decentraland uses two tokens: MANA and LAND. MANA is an ERC-20 token that must be burned to acquire non-fungible ERC-721 LAND tokens. MANA tokens can also be used to pay for a range of avatars, wearables, names, and more on the Decentraland marketplace.

Decentraland (MANA) is a decentralized virtual world platform with software based on the Ethereum blockchain, where users create, test and monetize content. In short: users buy virtual plots of land as NFTs with MANA tokens on the Decentraland platform. Progress in the game depends only on players themselves, their efforts and their imagination.

The digital platform is completely owned by its users. Within the Decentraland metaverse, participants can explore the virtual world, purchase plots of land that can be monetized, create works of art, own non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and take part in a decentralized autonomous organization of the platform Decentraland DAO. Due to the DAO, the community influences the development vector of the project.

In addition, users have access to interactive applications, in-world payments and peer-to-peer communication. The 3D world resonates with many participants as Decentraland has many applications, both entertainment for gamers and business for investors.

Two types of tokens called MANA and LAND govern operations in Decentraland. They also allow users to interact with the platform.

MANA is the official currency of Decentraland. It’s an ERC-20 standard token that powers the Decentraland platform. With MANA, users can purchase plots of LAND, as well as pay for in-game items and services.

MANA gives its holders the right to vote in Decentraland DAO. MANA can be purchased on a cryptocurrency exchange or by selling collectibles on Decentraland Marketplace. The owner of tokens converts them to wrapped MANA, or wMANA, and then commits them to the DAO. One wMANA equals one vote. MANA can be exchanged for fiat currency and other digital assets.

As for LAND, it’s a non-fungible token (NFT) based on Ethereum (ETH). It is used to track ownership of land parcels aka digital real estate. Like MANA, LAND is part of the protocol and confers voting rights, but LAND does not need to be fixed in the DAO. One LAND is equal to two thousand votes.

Players choose what to do with their land. Owners store tokens in crypto wallets and buy necessities with MANA tokens on the Decentraland Marketplace. Moreover, on the marketplace, participants can manage or exchange LAND tokens (priced in MANA). Holders use the marketplace to transact or transfer in-game items. All transactions are conducted, regulated and registered via the Ethereum blockchain.

Decentraland combines an online gaming space and blockchain technology. All control over the rules is given to the players, and token holders vote on in-game and organizational policies. The original goal was to form a decentralized virtual reality, but in practice, Decentraland has turned into a massive NFT market.

A special role in Decentraland is assigned to NFTs, such as collectibles, virtual equipment and real estate (LAND). However, for new players who want to join the universe and seize NFTs, the entry barrier will be high.

The Decentraland protocol is built on three levels using Ethereum smart contracts. On the consensus layer, the ownership of LAND is tracked and managed. The land content layer displays the content of the Decentraland virtual world. Finally, on the real-time layer, participants interact with each other.

The platform was co-founded by two blockchain experts, Ari Meilich and Esteban Ordano, in 2015. Officially it was launched a year later and became available only in February 2020, gradually turning from a 2D experiment into a full-fledged 3D world.

To sum up, Decentraland is a decentralized game and a 3D virtual reality platform where players own lands and create limitlessly. Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) software is at the core, and governance is in the hands of the community. Through the native token MANA, players participate in any proposals for managing and improving the ecosystem, the auction system, and the in-game policy.

Decentraland

Chiliz is the leading digital currency for sports and entertainment by the eponymous Malta-based FinTech provider. It operates the blockchain-based sports entertainment platform Socios, which enables users to participate in the governance of their favorite sports brands. Multiple fan tokens by Socios.com are an example of that. For sports clubs and associations, fan tokens offer a way of connecting with their fans and unlocking new revenue streams.

For instance, fans can participate and influence club-related decisions through surveys and polls, such as messages the captain should wear on his armband. The company aims to bridge the gap between being an active and a passive fan. Chiliz has developed partnerships with some of the biggest sporting institutions in the world: FC Barcelona, Manchester City, Juventus Turin, and Paris Saint-Germain. It also boasts partnerships with the UFC and gaming organizations. By purchasing CHZ, fans get access to various fan tokens and literally have a stake in their club.

Chiliz

Cardano is a proof-of-stake blockchain platform that says its goal is to allow “changemakers, innovators and visionaries” to bring about positive global change.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Cardano.

The open-source project also aims to “redistribute power from unaccountable structures to the margins to individuals” — helping to create a society that is more secure, transparent and fair.

Cardano was founded back in 2017, and named after the 16th century Italian polymath Gerolamo Cardano. The native ADA token takes its name from the 19th century mathematician Ada Lovelace, widely regarded as the world’s first computer programmer. The ADA token is designed to ensure that owners can participate in the operation of the network. Because of this, those who hold the cryptocurrency have the right to vote on any proposed changes to the software.

The team behind the layered blockchain say that there have already been some compelling use cases for its technology, which aims to allow decentralized apps and smart contracts to be developed with modularity.

In August 2021, Charles Hoskinson announced the launch of the Alonzo hard fork, causing Cardano price to surge, gaining 116% in the following month. On Sept. 12, 2021, the Cardano ‘Alonzo’ hard fork officially launched, bringing smart contract functionality to the blockchain. Over 100 smart contracts were deployed in the following 24 hours after the launch.

Cardano is used by agricultural companies to track fresh produce from field to fork, while other products built on the platform allow educational credentials to be stored in a tamper-proof way, and retailers to clamp down on counterfeit goods.

Cardano

Theta Network

Zilliqa is a public, permissionless blockchain that is designed to offer high throughput with the ability to complete thousands of transactions per second. It seeks to solve the issue of blockchain scalability and speed by employing sharding as a second-layer scaling solution. The platform is home to many decentralized applications, and as of October 2020, it also allows for staking and yield farming.

Development work officially started on Zilliqa in June 2017, and its testnet went live in March 2018. A little over a year later, in June 2019, the platform launched its mainnet.

The native utility token of Zilliqa, ZIL, is used to process transactions on the network and execute smart contracts.

Zilliqa

Quant launched in June 2018 with the goal of connecting blockchains and networks on a global scale, without reducing the efficiency and interoperability of the network. It is the first project to solve the interoperability problem through the creation of the first blockchain operating system.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Quant.

The project is built as an operating system distributed ledger technology— and Overledger Network — for connecting different blockchain networks. The project is billed as the first OS to be built for blockchains.

The main aim of Quant — using Overledger — is to bridge the gap that exists between different blockchains. The backbone of the project is the Overledger network, which Quant bills as the ecosystem on which the future digital economy ecosystem will be built.

Overledger allows developers to build decentralized multi-chain applications (known as MApps) for their customers. For developers to build a Mapp on the network, they must hold a certain amount of Quant tokens (QNT).

Quant

In a nutshell, Cosmos bills itself as a project that solves some of the “hardest problems” facing the blockchain industry. It aims to offer an antidote to “slow, expensive, unscalable and environmentally harmful” proof-of-work protocols, like those used by Bitcoin, by offering an ecosystem of connected blockchains.

The project’s other goals include making blockchain technology less complex and difficult for developers thanks to a modular framework that demystifies decentralized apps. Last but not least, an Interblockchain Communication protocol makes it easier for blockchain networks to communicate with each other — preventing fragmentation in the industry.

Cosmos’ origins can be dated back to 2014, when Tendermint, a core contributor to the network, was founded. In 2016, a white paper for Cosmos was published — and a token sale was held the following year. ATOM tokens are earned through a hybrid proof-of-stake algorithm, and they help to keep the Cosmos Hub, the project’s flagship blockchain, secure. This cryptocurrency also has a role in the network’s governance.

Cosmos

Polkadot is an open-source sharded multichain protocol that connects and secures a network of specialized blockchains, facilitating cross-chain transfer of any data or asset types, not just tokens, thereby allowing blockchains to be interoperable with each other. Polkadot was designed to provide a foundation for a decentralized internet of blockchains, also known as Web3.

Polkadot is known as a layer-0 metaprotocol because it underlies and describes a format for a network of layer 1 blockchains known as parachains (parallel chains). As a metaprotocol, Polkadot is also capable of autonomously and forklessly updating its own codebase via on-chain governance according to the will of its token holder community.

Polkadot provides a foundation to support a decentralized web, controlled by its users, and to simplify the creation of new applications, institutions and services.

The Polkadot protocol can connect public and private chains, permissionless networks, oracles and future technologies, allowing these independent blockchains to trustlessly share information and transactions through the Polkadot Relay Chain (explained further down).

Polkadot’s native DOT token serves three clear purposes: staking for operations and security, facilitating network governance, and bonding tokens to  connect parachains .

Polkadot has four core components:

Relay Chain: Polkadot’s “heart,” helping to create consensus, interoperability and shared security across the network of different chains;

Parachains: independent chains that can have their own tokens and be optimized for specific use cases;

Parathreads: similar to parachains but with flexible connectivity based on an economical pay-as-you-go model;

Bridges: allow parachains and parathreads to connect and communicate with external blockchains like Ethereum.

Polkadot

Enjin Coin is a project of Enjin, a company that provides an ecosystem of interconnected, blockchain-based gaming products. Enjin's flagship offering is the Enjin Network, a social gaming platform through which users can create websites and clans, chat, and host virtual item stores.

Enjin allows game developers to tokenize in-game items on the Ethereum blockchain. It uses Enjin Coin, an ERC-20 token, to back the digital assets issued using its platform, meaning that items can be bought, sold and traded with real-world value.

Enjin Coin was first announced in July 2017, and it launched on the Ethereum mainnet in June 2018.

Enjin Coin (ENJ) is a digital store of value used to back the value of blockchain assets like non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Every asset minted with the Enjin Platform contains ENJ, a minting resource which is locked inside NFTs and removed from circulation. Minting blockchain assets with ENJ provides a variety of benefits to creators and users:

Infuses them with a reserve value

Ensures their transparency and scarcity

Gives them instant liquidity

Provides utility in games and apps

Anti-inflationary

Enjin's "melting" functionality allows users to destroy their blockchain assets at any time to retrieve the ENJ value from within.

The Enjin blockchain ecosystem aims to offer software products that make it easy for everyone to develop, trade, monetize, and market with blockchain.

Founded in 2009, Enjin has roots in the gaming industry, with the company’s first product, a gaming community platform called the Enjin Network, growing to 20 million users over the course of a decade.

In 2017 following an ICO, Enjin established itself as a leading blockchain ecosystem developer, building a suite of software products that enable anyone to easily mint, manage, trade, distribute, and integrate blockchain assets.

Enjin’s co-founder Witek Radomski wrote the code for one of the first ever non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and is also the co-author of the ERC-1155 Ethereum token standard.

Built on top of an on-chain infrastructure, the Enjin ecosystem enables game developers and businesses of all sizes to use tokenized digital assets as part of their acquisition, retention, engagement, and monetization strategies. The Enjin ecosystem is fueled by Enjin Coin (ENJ), a cryptocurrency used to back the value of blockchain assets.

Enjin Coin

The Graph is an indexing protocol for querying data for networks like Ethereum and IPFS, powering many applications in both DeFi and the broader Web3 ecosystem. Anyone can build and publish open APIs, called subgraphs, that applications can query using GraphQL to retrieve blockchain data. There is a hosted service in production that makes it easy for developers to get started building on The Graph and the decentralized network will be launching later this year. The Graph currently supports indexing data from Ethereum, IPFS and POA, with more networks coming soon.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of The Graph.

To date, over3,000 subgraphs have been deployed by thousands of developers, for DApps like Uniswap, Synthetix, Aragon, AAVE, Gnosis, Balancer, Livepeer, DAOstack, Decentraland and many others. The Graph usage has been growing at over 50% MoM and hit over 7 billion queries during the month of September 2020.

The Graph has a global community, including over 200 Indexer Nodes in the testnet and more than 2,000 Curators in the Curator Program as of October 2020. To fund network development, The Graph raised funds from community members, strategic VCs and influential individuals in the blockchain community including Coinbase Ventures, DCG, Framework, ParaFi Capital, CoinFund, DTC, Multicoin, Reciprocal Ventures, SPC, Tally Capital and others. The Graph Foundation also successfully completed a public GRT Sale with participation from 99 countries (not including the U.S.). To date as of November 2020, The Graph has raised ~$25M.

The Graph

Founded in 2017, Chainlink is a blockchain abstraction layer that enables universally connected smart contracts. Through a decentralized oracle network, Chainlink allows blockchains to securely interact with external data feeds, events and payment methods, providing the critical off-chain information needed by complex smart contracts to become the dominant form of digital agreement.

The Chainlink Network is driven by a large open-source community of data providers, node operators, smart contract developers, researchers, security auditors and more. The company focuses on ensuring that decentralized participation is guaranteed for all node operators and users looking to contribute to the network.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Chainlink.

Chainlink

The XDC Network is a blockchain developed to support trade finance and the tokenization of RWAs. A highly optimized, EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain, XDC Network reaches consensus through a delegated proof-of-stake (dPoS) mechanism, which allows for a transaction time of mere seconds, near zero gas fees, and a high number of transactions per second (TPS).

Secure, scalable, and highly efficient, the XDC Network powers a wide range of novel blockchain use cases and provides state-of-the-art infrastructure for enterprise-grade blockchain applications. With architecture that enables the creation of sovereign sub-networks, XDC Network is uniquely equipped to support those who require dedicated blockchain environments for enhanced permissions and control, such as government agencies, financial institutions, and businesses.

As of April 25, 2024, there are 312 XDC Network validator masternode candidates, of which 108 actively operate as validator masternodes, and the remainder are standby masternodes. Each masternode operator is required to stake 10M XDC.

A forthcoming upgrade to the consensus mechanism, dubbed XDC 2.0, is currently running on testnet. It and subsequent iterations of the XDC Network protocol will further enhance the security of the consensus mechanism and incorporate a novel "judiciary branch" into the consensus mechanism.

Developed by Princeton University's Pramod Viswanath, Hash Laboratories' Fisher Yu, and their team, XDC 2.0’s cutting-edge compliance technology will ensure unprecedented Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) by holding validators accountable for their actions on an automated yet discretionary basis.

XDC Network

Launched in 2021, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is an open-source, permissionless and decentralized technology. Benefits of the XRP Ledger include its low-cost ($0.0002 to transact), speed  (settling transactions in 3-5 seconds), scalability (1,500 transactions per second) and inherently green attributes (carbon-neutral and energy-efficient). The XRP Ledger also features the first decentralized exchange (DEX) and custom tokenization capabilities built into the protocol. Since 2012, the XRP Ledger has been operating reliably, having closed 70 million ledgers.