It’s getting more difficult by the day to keep up with the changes in the ever-evolving cryptocurrency market. Even for the lucky few of us who get to spend our days reading whitepapers and refreshing coinmarketcap.com, the sheer volume of information is overwhelming.

The first way we sought to address the problem was with long-form articles such as the Top 50 Cryptocurrencies and the Top 20 Ethereum Tokens. These articles help to introduce investors to new projects in a concise manner, as well as provide links to resources for further research.

However, we felt that the information could be distilled even further. And so, in an effort to create the most concise possible overview of the cryptocurrency market, we began work on a Periodic Table of Cryptocurrencies.

Do note that there wasn’t a set criteria for deciding which cryptocurrencies would make the table, nor for determining the order in which they are included.

The cryptocurrency market changes incredibly quickly, so we may update this table in the future to include new projects that have gained relevance and to take out any projects that have lost it.

For a more scientific take on a periodic table of cryptocurrencies, check out Dr Aleksandar Arsov’s proposal on blockchain categoization. His paper puts forth the idea of a “theory of cryptocurrency periodic table policy in Altcoin markets with focus on supply rigidities identified with aggregate supply in cryptocurrency markets.

”If you’d like a quick summary of cryptocurrency porjects, you may like Top 100 Cryptocurrencies Described in 10 Words or Less.

The Periodic Table of Cryptocurrencies

(Click here to download the table)

Categories of Cryptocurrencies

The Periodic Table of Elements consists of 118 elements that fall into 8 different categories. Try as we might, 8 categories couldn’t quite cut it for cryptocurrencies, but we managed 9. These categories are listed below, along with brief explanations of the factors that contribute to a coin or token being included in a given category.

Note that there are many cryptocurrencies that could fall into multiple categories. That’s particularly the case with Business & Enterprise vs. Platforms.

We tried to place each coin and token in the category that was most appropriate, but it’s expected that some readers might feel that different categorizations work better for specific cryptocurrencies.(If we receive strong feedback that a coin or token has been miscategorized, we may consider updating it in future editions of the table.)

• Currencies – Coins used primarily for payments and to store value.
  
• Protocols, Exchanges, and Interoperability – Projects building decentralized infrastructure to exchange cryptocurrencies and enable communication between different blockchains.
  
• Computing, Data Management & Cloud Services – Projects related to computing, data storage and security, and cloud services including file storage and cloud computing.
• Others – Projects that didn’t fit into any of the other categories. These include prediction markets, oracles, betting platforms, and AI-related projects.
• Platforms – Smart contract and decentralized application (dapp) platforms.
• Gaming, Media, and Social Networking Platforms – Projects related to the gaming industry, online content publishing and distribution, and social media.
• Privacy Coins – Currencies with features to make transactions anonymous and/or untraceable.
• FinTech – Financial services and technology.
• Business/Enterprise – Platforms meant to help businesses improve efficiency, transparency, and security, among other things.

Currencies (13)

Bitcoin (BTC)

Website: https://bitcoin.org/en/
Whitepaper: https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-paper
Learn more: What is Bitcoin? Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin, Explained, Bitcoin is a Deflationary Currency: What Does it Mean?, How the Lighting Network Can Resolve Bitcoin’s Scaling Issues, How to Buy Bitcoin

Litecoin (LTC)

Website: https://litecoin.org/
Whitepaper: None (A Litecoin whitepaper would be almost identical to the Bitcoin whitepaper)
Learn More: What is Litecoin?, How to Buy Litecoin

Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

Website: https://www.bitcoincash.org/
Whitepaper: None (Bitcoin Cash closely follows the original Bitcoin whitepaper)
Learn More: What is Bitcoin Cash?, What’s Up With Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash?

Dash (DASH)

Website: https://www.dash.org/
Whitepaper: https://docs.dash.org/en/latest/introduction/about.html#whitepaper
Learn More: What is Dash?, Will Dash Hit its Stride in 2018 Despite Development Delays?

Nano (NANO)

Website: https://nano.org/en
Whitepaper: https://nano.org/en/whitepaper
Learn More: What is Nano (Formerly RaiBlocks)?

Decred (DCR)

Website: https://decred.org/
Whitepaper: https://docs.decred.org/
Learn More: What is Decred?, Decred 2018 Roadmap: Will Decred Finally Grab the Attention of More Crypto Enthusiasts?

Bitcoin Gold (BTG)

Website: https://bitcoingold.org/
Whitepaper: None (The BTG team is supposedly writing a whitepaper, but it is not yet available)
Learn More: Find BTG in The Top 50 Cryptocurrencies

Dogecoin (DOGE)

Website: http://dogecoin.com/
Whitepaper: None (DogeCoin is based on Litecoin)
Learn More: What is DogeCoin?

MonaCoin (MONA)

Website: https://monacoin.org/
Whitepaper: None (Technical specifications are available on the project website)
Learn More: Find MONA in The Top 50 Cryptocurrencies

DigiByte (DGB)

Website: https://www.digibyte.co/
Whitepaper: None (Technical specifications are available in the FAQ)
Learn More: What is DigiByte?

Electroneum (ETN)

Website: https://electroneum.com/
Whitepaper: http://electroneum.com/overview-white-paper.pdf
Learn More: What is Electroneum?

USD Tether (USDT)

Website: https://tether.to/
Whitepaper: https://tether.to/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TetherWhitePaper.pdf
Learn More: Find Tether in The Top 50 Cryptocurrencies

Protocols (6), Exchanges (6) & Interoperability (6)

Binance Coin (BNB)

Website: https://www.binance.com/
Whitepaper: https://www.binance.com/resources/ico/Binance_WhitePaper_en.pdf
Learn More: 3 Cryptocurrencies That Stood Strong Against the Bears, find BNB in The Top 20 Ethereum Tokens

Waves (WAVES)

Website: https://wavesplatform.com/
Whitepaper: (Published on Waves Platform’s Medium channel) https://blog.wavesplatform.com/waves-whitepaper-164dd6ca6a23?gi=22eeb0cd792b
Learn More: What is Waves?, Could Waves Become the Top ICO Platform?, What 2018 Holds For Waves: A Look At Its Progress So Far and What’s Next

Kyber Network (KNC)

Website: https://kyber.network/
Whitepaper: https://home.kyber.network/assets/KyberNetworkWhitepaper.pdf
Learn More: Find KNC in The Top 50 Cryptocurrencies

Huobi Token (HT)

Website: https://www.huobi.pro/ht/
Whitepaper: None, but here’s an About Page

BitShares (BTS)

Website: https://bitshares.org/
Whitepaper: Currently unavailable, may be found here in the future.
Learn More: What is Bitshares?

KuCoin Shares (KCS)

Website: https://kucoinshares.com/
Whitepaper: https://assets.kucoin.com/kucoin_whitepaper_en.pdf
Learn More: Find KCS in The Top 20 Ethereum Tokens and Cryptocurrencies to HODL for Passive Income

0x (ZRX)

Website: https://0xproject.com/
Whitepaper: https://0xproject.com/pdfs/0x_white_paper.pdf
Learn More: What is 0x Protocol?

Bytom (BTM)

Website: https://bytom.io/
Whitepaper: https://bytom.io/wp-content/themes/freddo/book/BytomWhitePaperV1.0_En.pdf
Learn More: Find BTM in The Top 20 Ethereum Tokens

Loopring (LRC)

Website: https://loopring.org/
Whitepaper: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Loopring/whitepaper/master/en_whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: Find LRC in The Top 20 Ethereum Tokens

Gifto (GTO)

Website: https://gifto.io/
Whitepaper: https://gifto.io/GIFTO_Whitepaper_V2.0_20171204.pdf

Bancor (BNT)

Website: https://www.bancor.network/discover
Whitepaper: https://storage.googleapis.com/website-bancor/2018/04/01ba8253-bancor_protocol_whitepaper_en.pdf
Learn More: 5 Undervalued Dapps to Keep an Eye On, Dbrain Integrates Bancor Protocol to Facilitate Secure Token Liquidity

QuantStamp (QSP)

Website: https://www.quantstamp.com/
Whitepaper: https://docsend.com/view/shcsmhe
Learn More: 5 Penny Cryptos Set to Explode in 2018

ICON (ICX)

Website: https://icon.foundation/?lang=en
Whitepaper: https://icon.foundation/?lang=en
Learn More: What is ICON?

Wanchain (WAN)

Website: https://wanchain.org/
Whitepaper: https://wanchain.org/files/Wanchain-Whitepaper-EN-version.pdf
Learn More: What is Wanchain?

Ark (ARK)

Website: https://ark.io/
Whitepaper: https://ark.io/Whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: What is Ark?, Should You Invest in Ark?, Highlights of Ark’s Progress and What the Future Holds

Mixin (XIN)

Website: https://mixin.one/
Whitepaper: https://mixin.one/assets/Mixin-Draft-2017-12-22.pdf

Aion (AION)

Website: https://aion.network/
Whitepaper: https://aion.network/media/en-aion-network-technical-introduction.pdf
Learn More: Could Aion’s Newly Live Network Solve One of Blockchain’s Biggest Problems?, find AION in The Top 20 Ethereum Tokens

Hshare (HSR)

Website: https://h.cash/
Whitepaper: https://h.cash/themes/en/dist/pdf/Hcash+Whitepaper+V0.8.1.pdf
Learn More: Find HSR in The Top 50 Cryptocurrencies

Computing, Data Management & Cloud Services (10)

Golem (GNT)

Website: https://golem.network/
Whitepaper: Currently unavailable, may be found here in the future.
Learn More: Golem Takes Shape as Brass Beta Launches on the Ethereum Mainent, Highlights of Golem’s April Reddit AMA, Golem 2018 Roadmap: What the Future Holds

SONM (SONM)

Website: https://sonm.com/
Whitepaper: https://docs.sonm.com/
Learn More: SONM: A Computer Power Marketplace, SONM 2018 Roadmap: What’s Next for SONM?, Blockchain Supercomputer SONM Quietly Hits Milestones

Siacoin (SIA)

Website: https://sia.tech/
Whitepaper: https://sia.tech/sia.pdf
Learn More: What is Siacoin?, Siacoin 2018 Roadmap: What the Future Holds

Byteball Bytes (GBYTE)

Website: https://byteball.org/
Whitepaper: https://byteball.org/Byteball.pdf
Learn More: What is Byteball?, Is Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) Blockchain’s New Competitor?

Aelf (ELF)

Website: https://aelf.io/ 
Whitepaper: https://grid.hoopox.com/aelf_whitepaper_EN.pdf?v=1

MaidSafeCoin (MAID)

Website: https://www.maidsafe.net/
Whitepaper: https://github.com/maidsafe/Whitepapers/blob/master/Project-Safe.md or see the Safe Network Primer
Learn More: What is Maidsafe?

iEx.ec (RLC)

Website: https://iex.ec/
Whitepaper: http://iex.ec/whitepaper/iExec-WPv3.0-English.pdf
Learn More: Find RLC in Distributed Computing on the Blockchain: 5 Projects to Watch Out For

Storj (STORJ)

Website: https://storj.io/
Whitepaper: https://storj.io/storj.pdf

GXChain (GXS)

Website: https://gxs.gxb.io/en/
Whitepaper: https://github.com/gxchain/whitepaper/blob/master/en/whitepaper.md

Holo (HOT)

Website: https://holo.host/
Whitepaper: https://holo.host/whitepapers/

Others (10)

Augur (REP)

Website: https://www.augur.net/
Whitepaper: https://docs.augur.net/
Learn More: What is Augur?

Aragon (ANT)

Website: https://aragon.one/
Whitepaper: https://wiki.aragon.one/documentation/whitepaper/
Learn More: Aragon: Can the Economy Be Built on Blockchain?

DentaCoin (DCN)

Website: https://dentacoin.com/
Whitepaper: https://dentacoin.com/web/white-paper/Whitepaper-en1.pdf

Power Ledger (POWR)

Website: https://powerledger.io/
Whitepaper: https://powerledger.io/media/Power-Ledger-Whitepaper-v8.pdf
Learn More: Energy, Blockchain, and the Role of Tokens, 3 Blockchain Projects Set to Revolutionize the Energy Industry

Aeternity (AE)

Website: https://aeternity.com/
Whitepaper: https://aeternity.com/aeternity-blockchain-whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: What is Aeternity?

IOTA (IOTA)

Website: https://www.iota.org/
Whitepaper: https://docs.iota.org/introduction
Learn More: What is IOTA?, What the Future Holds for IOTA, IOTA Strengthens Its Network WIth the IOTA Ecosystem and Qubic

Storm (STORM)

Website: https://www.stormx.io/
Whitepaper: https://s3.amazonaws.com/cakecodes/pdf/storm_web/STORM_Token_White_Paper_Market_Research_Network_Development_vFINAL_.pdf
Learn More: Find STORM in 10 Sub-100 Million Market Cap Cryptocurrencies to Watch in 2018

Substratum (SUB)

Website: https://substratum.net/
Whitepaper: https://substratum.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Substratum-Whitepaper-English.pdf
Learn More: Substratum Node Early Open Beta is Live!, 5 Blockchain Projects That Are Increasing Our Freedom

Cortex (CTXC)

Website: http://www.cortexlabs.ai/
Whitepaper: http://www.cortexlabs.ai/Cortex_AI_on_Blockchain_EN.pdf

WaykiChain (WICC)

Website: https://www.waykichain.com/index_en.html
Whitepaper: http://waykichain.com/ico/whitePaper/English_white_paper.pdf

Platforms (13)

Ethereum (ETH)

Website: https://www.ethereum.org/
Whitepaper: https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper
Learn More: What is Ethereum? Everything You Need to Know About Ethereum, Explained, What is the Ethereum Casper Protocol?, The Top 20 Ethereum Tokens

Cardano (ADA)

Website: https://www.cardano.org/en/home/
Whitepaper: https://www.cardano.org/en/academic-papers/
Learn More: What is Cardano?, Cardano Roadmap and What the Future Holds, Cardano Announces Their First Use Case: Proof of Diplomas for Greek Universities

EOS (EOS)

Website: https://eos.io/
Whitepaper: https://eoscollective.org/papers/
Learn More: What is EOS?, 6 Reasons to Invest in EOS, Ethereum vs EOS

NEO (NEO)

Website: https://neo.org/
Whitepaper: http://docs.neo.org/en-us/
Learn More: What is NEO?, 5 NEO Projects to Get Excited About, Will NEO Have a Smooth Road Ahead?

Ethereum Classic (ETC)

Website: https://ethereumclassic.github.io/
FAQ: https://github.com/ethereumclassic/faq
Learn More: What is Ethereum Classic?, Exclusive Interview With Ethereum Classic Community Manager

Qtum (QTUM)

Website: https://qtum.org/en/
Whitepaper: https://qtum.org/en/white-papers
Learn More: What is Qtum?, Qtum Continues to Grow With New Partners and Dapps, Qtum X86 Virtual Machine Arrives On Testnet

Zilliqa (ZIL)

Website: https://www.zilliqa.com/
Whitepaper: https://docs.zilliqa.com/whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: What is Zilliqa?, Zilliqa Releases Public Testnet, Top 5 Cryptocurrency Projects to Watch in June 2018

NEM (NEM)

Website: https://nem.io/
Whitepaper: https://docs.nem.io/en
Learn More: What is NEM?

Lisk (LSK)

Website: https://lisk.io/
Whitepaper: No whitepaper, but you can read in-depth documentation here.
Learn More: What is Lisk?, Understanding Lisk (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4), Lisk Continues Its Forward Momentum With New Developments, Lisk Launches a New Version of Lisk Hub, Plus Other News

RChain (RHOC)

Website: https://www.rchain.coop/
Whitepaper: Rchain Architecture Documentation
Learn More: Find RHOC in The Top 20 Ethereum Tokens

Nxt (NXT)

Website: https://nxtplatform.org/
Whitepaper: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cbuwrorf672c0yy/NxtWhitepaper_v122_rev4.pdf
Learn More: What is Nxt?

Elastos (ELA)

Website: https://www.elastos.org/en/
Whitepaper: https://www.elastos.org/en/whitepaper/
Learn More: The 5 Most Successful ICOs of 2018 (So Far)

Skycoin (SKY)

Website: https://www.skycoin.net/
Whitepaper: https://www.skycoin.net/skycoin_whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: Skywire: Building an Internet For the People, Run By the People

Gaming, Media & Social (11)

Steem (STEEM)

Website: https://steem.io/
Whitepaper: https://steem.io/steem-whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: What is Steem?, Steemit Review: How Does it Work and Can You Really Earn From It?

Tron (TRX)

Website: https://tron.network/index?=en
Whitepaper: https://o836fhe91.qnssl.com/tron/whitebook/TronWhitepaper_en.pdf
Learn More: What is Tron?, Weekly Wrap Up: BTC, EOS, TRX, and GNT Price Analysis

Basic Attention Token (BAT)

Website: https://www.basicattentiontoken.org/
Whitepaper: https://basicattentiontoken.org/BasicAttentionTokenWhitePaper-4.pdf
Learn More: What is Basic Attention Token?, BAT 2018 Roadmap: What the Future Holds, Brave Browser Announces $1 Million BAT Token Giveaway

Loom Network (LOOM)

Website: https://loomx.io/
Whitepaper: Why Loom Doesn’t Have a Whitepaper

Nebulas (NAS)

Website: https://nebulas.io/
Whitepaper: https://nebulas.io/docs/NebulasTechnicalWhitepaper.pdf
Learn More: What is Nebulas?

Status (SNT)

Website: https://status.im/
Whitepaper: https://status.im/whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: What is Status?, Status Development Roundup: Highlights From Townhalls and Recent Updates

Reddcoin (RDD)

Website: https://reddcoin.com/
Whitepaper: Proof of Stake Velocity Paper
Learn More: Find RDD in 12 Best Proof-of-Stake Coins For Passive Income

Kin (KIN)

Website: https://kinecosystem.org/
Whitepaper: https://kinecosystem.org/static/files/Kin_Whitepaper_V1_English.pdf

FunFair (FUN)

Website: https://funfair.io/
Whitepaper: https://funfair.io/how-it-works/whitepapers/

Worldwide Asset Exchange (WAX)

Website: https://wax.io/
Whitepaper: https://wax.io/documents/WAX_White_Paper.pdf?1527702355396
Learn More: Find WAX in 10 Sub-100 Million Market Cap Cryptocurrencies to Watch in 2018

Revain (R)

Website: https://revain.org/
Whitepaper: http://revain.org/pdf/wp/en-wp.pdf
Learn More: Find R in The Top 20 Ethereum Tokens

Privacy Coins (13)

Monero (XMR)

Website: https://getmonero.org/
Whitepaper: Original and Annotated
Learn More: What is Monero?, Should You Invest in Monero?,  Monero 2018 Roadmap: The Future of Private Digital Currency Looks Bright

Zcash (ZEC)

Website: https://z.cash/
Whitepaper: http://zerocash-project.org/media/pdf/zerocash-extended-20140518.pdf
Learn More: Should You Invest in Zcash, What the Future Holds For Zcash: Can it Win the Battle of the Privacy Coins?

Bytecoin (BCN)

Website: https://bytecoin.org/
Whitepaper: https://bytecoin.org/resources/whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: What is Bytecoin?

Verge (XVG)

Website: https://vergecurrency.com/
Whitepaper: https://vergecurrency.com/static/blackpaper/Verge-Anonymity-Centric-CryptoCurrency.pdf
Learn More: What is Verge?, Verge Announces Successful Hard Fork Which Allows Processing of Stealth Transactions

Bitcoin Diamond (BCD)

Website: http://btcd.io/#/
Whitepaper: None, see FAQ
Learn More: Find BCD in The Top 50 Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin Private (BTCP)

Website: https://btcprivate.org/
Whitepaper: https://btcprivate.org/whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: Find BTCP in The Top 50 Cryptocurrencies

Komodo (KMD)

Website: https://komodoplatform.com/
Whitepaper: https://komodoplatform.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2018-05-09-Komodo-White-Paper-Full.pdf
Learn More: Find KMD in The Top 50 Cryptocurrencies & 10 Promising Cryptocurrencies to Watch in Q1 2018

NavCoin (NAV)

Website: https://navcoin.org/
Whitepaper: Taken down from website, was previously here.
Learn More:  Find NAV in Top 8 Privacy Coins, 12 Best Proof-of-Stake Coins For Passive Income & 10 Promising Cryptocurrencies to Watch in Q1 2018

Enigma (ENG)

Website: https://enigma.co/
Whitepaper: https://s3.amazonaws.com/enigmaco-website/uploads/pdf/enigma_full.pdf
Learn More: Find ENG in Top 8 Privacy Coins

PIVX (PIVX)

Website: https://pivx.org/
Whitepaper: https://pivx.org/what-is-pivx/white-papers/
Learn More: Find PIVX in Top 8 Privacy Coins & 12 Best Proof-of-Stake Coins For Passive Income

Zcoin (XZC)

Website: https://zcoin.io/
Whitepaper: None, see About Zcoin Tech

ZenCash (ZEN)

Website: https://zencash.com/
Whitepaper: https://zencash.com/#white-paper

CloakCoin (CLOAK)

Website: https://www.cloakcoin.com/
Whitepaper: https://www.cloakcoin.com/cloakcoin-enigma%20revised%20whitepaper
Learn More: Find CLOAK in Top 8 Privacy Coins

FinTech (15)

Ripple (XRP)

Website: https://ripple.com/
Whitepaper: https://ripple.com/files/ripple_consensus_whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: What is Ripple?, Stellar Lumens vs Ripple

Stellar (XLM)

Website: https://www.stellar.org/
Whitepaper: https://www.stellar.org/papers/stellar-consensus-protocol.pdf
Learn More: What Are Stellar Lumens?, Stellar Rockets Ahead of Competition With New Partnership and Updates, Struck by Lightning: Stellar to Implement Scaling Solution by December 2018

OmiseGo (OMG)

Website: https://omisego.network/
Whitepaper: https://cdn.omise.co/omg/whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: What is OmiseGo?, OmiseGo 2018 Roadmap: Will This Be OMG’s Breakout Year?, OmiseGo Releases Roadmap Update and Clarifies Agenda

Populous (PPT)

Website: https://populous.world/index.html
Whitepaper: https://populous.world/business-intelligence/pxp-whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: What is Populous?, 10 Most Successful ICOs of All Time

Polymath (POLY)

Website: https://polymath.network/
Whitepaper: https://polymath.network/whitepaper.html
Learn More: The SelfKey and Polymath Partnership: KYC and Securities Can Prosper on the Blockchain

MakerDAO (MKR)

Website: https://makerdao.com/
Whitepaper: https://makerdao.com/whitepaper/
Learn More: What is Maker?, What is a Stable Coin and Does the Crypto Market Need Them?, OmiseGo and MakerDAO Collaborate to Create a World With Disintermediated Finance

DigixDAO (DGD)

Website: https://digix.global/
Whitepaper: https://dgx.io/whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: Find DGD in The Top 20 Ethereum Tokens, The Rise of Asset-Backed Cryptocurrencies, & 3 Cryptocurrencies That Stood Strong Against the Bears

Request Network (REQ)

Website: https://request.network/#/
Whitepaper: https://request.network/assets/pdf/request_whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: What is Request Network and Why Should You Invest?, Request Network Goes Live, Allows You To Integrate Crypto Payments On Your Website, What’s New With Request Network: Revamped Roadmap, Bitcoin Support, Partnerships, and More

QASH (QASH)

Website: https://liquid.plus/
Whitepaper: https://s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/liquid-site/quoine-liquid_v1.9.pdf
Learn More: What is QASH?, Top 5 Cryptocurrency Projects to Watch in June 2018

Iconomi (ICN)

Website: https://www.iconomi.net/
Whitepaper: https://coss.io/documents/white-papers/iconomi.pdf
Learn More: What is Iconomi?

TenX (PAY)

Website: https://www.tenx.tech/
Whitepaper: https://www.tenx.tech/whitepaper/tenx_whitepaper_final.pdf
Learn More: Exclusive Interview With Brendon From TenX

Fusion (FSN)

Website: https://www.fusion.org/
Whitepaper: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/76b9ac_6919c49798d84a65bfb2e421cefbfbd3.pdf

Salt (SALT)

Website: https://www.saltlending.com/
Whitepaper: https://membership.saltlending.com/files/abstract.pdf
Learn More: What is Salt?

Ethos (ETHOS)

Website: https://www.ethos.io/
Whitepaper: https://www.ethos.io/Ethos_Whitepaper.pdf

Monaco (MCO)

Website: https://mona.co/en/
Whitepaper: Currently unreleased, see here.

Business/Enterprise (14)

VeChainThor (VET)

Website: https://www.vechain.org/
Whitepaper: https://cdn.vechain.com/vechainthor_development_plan_and_whitepaper_en_v1.0.pdf
Learn More: What is VeChain?, VEN to VET: The VeChain Thor Rebranding and What the Future Holds, 5 Reasons to Invest in VeChain

Waltonchain (WTC)

Website: https://www.waltonchain.org/
Whitepaper: https://www.waltonchain.org/#white_paper_cont
Learn More: Waltonchain: An Interconnection Between the Physical and Virtual Ecosystems, Match Made in Blockchain: Waltonchain + Request Network (Analytical Speculation), Waltonchain Pushes Forward: Huodull Agreement, AMA Highlights, and Other Updates

Stratis (STRAT)

Website: https://stratisplatform.com/
Whitepaper: https://stratisplatform.com/files/Stratis_Whitepaper.pdf
Learn More: What is Stratis?, Stratis Launches ICO Platform, Stratis Strides Forward With the Launch of Smart Contracts in C# Alpha, Should You Invest in Stratis? (Opinion)

Ontology (ONT)

Website: https://ont.io/
Whitepaper: https://ont.io/documents
Learn More: Ontology: The Road to Achieving $1 Billion Market Cap

Ardor (ARDR)

Website: https://www.ardorplatform.org/ 
Whitepaper: https://www.jelurida.com/sites/default/files/JeluridaWhitepaper.pdf
Learn More: What is Ardor?, Ardor Roadmap and What the Near Future Holds

IOStoken (IOST)

Website: https://iost.io/
Whitepaper: https://docsend.com/view/ihwqcdg
Learn More: Find IOST in The Top 20 Ethereum Tokens

Dragonchain (DRGN)

Website: https://dragonchain.com/
Whitepaper: https://dragonchain.com/dd6d7a464346349a6659b8c1075e6772.pdf
Learn More: What is Dragonchain?

Factom (FCT)

Website: https://www.factom.com/
Whitepaper: https://www.factom.com/devs/docs/guide/factom-white-paper-1-0
Learn More: What is Factom?, Factom is Building Fast, Reliable Document Auditing Services on the Blockchain

Centrality (CENNZ)

Website: https://www.centrality.ai/
Whitepaper: https://www.centrality.ai/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Centrality-Whitepaper-final-2018020.pdf

Ubiq (UBQ)

Website: https://ubiqsmart.com/
Whitepaper: None, see Quarterly Report
Learn More: What is Ubiq?, A Guide to the Ubiq Token Economy, Ubiq: The Future of Stable Smart Contracts

Emercoin (EMC)

Website: https://emercoin.com/en
Whitepaper: https://prod.coss.io/documents/white-papers/emercoin.pdf

Nuls (NULS)

Website: https://nuls.io/
Whitepaper: https://nuls.io/pdf/NulsWhitepaper1.1.pdf
Learn More: Top 6 Mainnet Launches to Look Forward to in May and June 2018

Neblio (NEBL)

Website: https://nebl.io/
Whitepaper: https://nebl.io/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/NeblioWhitepaper.pdf
Learn More: Find NEBL in 12 Best Proof-of-Stake Coins For Passive Income & Top 5 Cryptocurrency Projects to Watch in June 2018

Syscoin (SYS)

Website: https://www.syscoin.org/
Whitepaper: https://www.syscoin.org/whitepaper/  Follow us on Telegram

There's a lot going on in the world of decentralised networking and not just the daily rollercoaster ride of the cryptocurrency markets. A decade after the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto first unleashed Bitcoin on an unsuspecting world, the blockchain has grown and branched out and now a thousand flowers blossom, some of them rather peculiar blooms indeed.

Look around and you'll see that blockchains are apparently the answer to every problem. From replacing the global banking system to guaranteeing the provenance of diamonds to paying your dentist - there's a blockchain for that.

Overhyped they may be, but blockchains actually are a big deal and they will get bigger.

Their potential for secure 'trustless' interchange is too great to ignore and once the silliness has died down inevitably some serious use cases will emerge.Indeed that's already starting to happen, hence this blog. We'll be updating this page every few days to reflect the serious innovations bubbling up in this most interesting and volatile of spaces. (Also check out our rolling 5G coverage.) 

15/08/2018 Blockchain-based smart contracts present a unique risk, and companies should be wary of deploying them for anything with serious real-world repurcussions. That's according to code verification and programming language expert Grigore Rosu, professor of computer science at the University of Illinois. Smart contracts are small programs coded on top of a blockchain that run automatically as soon as conditions are right.

An example might be an insurance payout after extreme weather, or a machine ordering its own consumables once stocks decline to a certain level. Nothing new in that, you might say, but smart contracts have the potential for automating such conditions-based transactions on a massive scale, removing the need for a trusted human third party, even in white collar sectors such as law and finance.

Smart contracts are immutable; they're validated by multiple parties and can't be changed or corrupted. This is at once their strength and their weakness.

"There are two big problems with smart contracts," said Rosu. "One is that the code is public so you can work out how to attack it. Secondly, once you have a smart contract - that's it. It deploys and you cannot change it. So if you find a bug you can't fix it, you have to deploy a different version of the contract in a different account and exchange it with the old one which is a very heavy process.

"He points to the example of the now-defunct cryptocurrency Beautycoin (BEC), which was killed off by a so-called batch overflow attack in April. Two attackers, presumably having studied the code and spotted an eventuality the designers hadn't thought of, initiated simultaneous transactions using input parameters chosen to create a sort of feedback loop.

Unprepared, the smart contract went beserk, generating tokens that were ostensibly worth more than five octodecillion dollars (five and eighty zeros). While no-one had to pay back that impossible sum, the coin was dead and worryingly it took two days for the hack to even be discovered.

Blockchain enthusiasts, it seems, suffer from a form of myopia; because of all that energy burned in proof of work they believe their beloved innovation is all but impregnable. But it turns out cryptocurrencies - which are after all basically just transactions stored on a blockchain - are plagued by glitches, as the number of crypto exchange hacks makes clear.

Recently, MIT researcher Corey Fields discovered a flaw in the signature verification code that would have been fatal to Bitcoin Cash had it been exploited.

"The threat of software bugs is severely underestimated in the cryptocurrency world," he said. Bugs and vulnerabilities can pop up all over the place, including the code of the smart contract itself, the programming language it's written in and the compiler that translates that code into machine-readable language.

Smart contracts tend to be coded in specialised languages such as Solidity which are modified versions of general purpose languages like JavaScript.

Rosu declined to single out a particular language for criticism, but said they all have flaws when it comes to smart contracts. "I'm scared because these languages are not very well designed.

If a language is poorly designed then as a developer of smart contract blockchain you may struggle to understand what your program actually does, and then the compiler can add its own bugs and then the program itself may have bugs such as buffer overflow and all sorts of programming language specific errors," Rosu said.

"Compilers also have bugs, and if you understand how the compiler works as a hacker you can exploit those. "Human verifiers are are worthless in this regard since a flawed compiler produces corruptions in the bytecode, which is only really readable by machines.

However, there are proven mathematical means of verifying the ‘correctness' of the machine code. While time-consuming, these techniques can be applied to smart contracts since they tend to consist of just a couple of hundred lines of code.

Indeed, for the sake of us all, they should be said Rosu, who came up with the K-framework described as a 'rewrite-based executable semantic framework in which programming languages, type systems and formal analysis tools can be defined using configurations, computations and rules", fifteen years ago (It should be pointed out that Ruso has a vested interest here.

His K-framework has been monetised via a business spun out of the University of Illinois called Runtime Verification). While a smart contract might take two weeks to audit mathematically at the bytecode level and more complex code such as the CASPER consensus algorithm six months, most of that time is spent in specifying what the code is meant to do, said Rosu.

"If you make a mistake in the specification level then no matter what you do the proof is meaningless because the specification was wrong. "Given the complex mix of ethical and technical considerations, the specification of algorithms will require intensive human input for the foreseeable future. Coding, on the other hand, could perhaps be better done by machines.

For safe smart contracts, the ultimate aim should be schematic-based compilation, or code that generates itself automatically based on what it's supposed to do, Rosu said. "The question that many people in the blockchain space should ask themselves is why should we even write code at all?

We should generate code that's automatically correct by construction, from the formal specification. This is feasible, and we are working on it."


06/08/2018 



Have we reached peak blockchain hype? How much further can the bubble of expectations continue to inflate? Calling the top of any hype cycle is a finger-in-the-air exercise at best (unless you happen to be holding a pin behind your back), but there are signs that rationality may be taking hold.

Analyst firm Forrester reports that many blockchain pilot projects are being wound down having failed to come up with any persuasive use cases. Early adopter Nasdaq, which had high hopes for blockchain for managing shareholder meetings and issuing stock has not seen ideas come to fruition as quickly as it had envisaged two years back, according to Bloomberg.

"The disconnect between the hype and the reality is significant - I've never seen anything like it," said Gartner analyst Rajesh Kandaswamy. "In terms of actual production use, it's very rare.

"Certainly, the number of organisations actively adopting blockchain is vanishingly small - just one per cent of CIOs surveyed by Gartner put themselves in that category, while 80 per cent had no interest whatsoever.

This could spell bad news for platform providers such as IBM and Microsoft which made most of the early running, although one would suspect they would have factored the hype cycle into their strategies. The biggest hurdle is compatibility between alternative blockchains.

Companies don't want to be locked into one platform at this early stage of development and are playing a game of wait-and-see. Then there are the familiar problems of scalability and throughput - all of which are being worked on but with few mature solutions to show for these efforts as yet.

That said, blockchain investment in the first half of this year has already exceeded that for the whole of 2017 with fintech applications a particular focus of that investment, according to a report by KPMG. The closed pilots may simply demonstrate a growing understanding that blockchain is not the answer to every problem after all, but could be a game changer for some.





24/07/2018 Google Cloud is nailing its colours to the blockchain mast, partnering with a couple of startups, Digital Asset and BlockApps. More details will be revealed today at the Google Cloud Next 18 event in San Francisco in a session covering Google Cloud's approach to distributed ledger technology (DLT) partnerships.

"Customers can now explore ways they might use distributed ledger technology (DLT) frameworks on GCP [Google Cloud Platform] with launch partners including Digital Asset and BlockApps, and try open-source integrations for Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum later this year in our GCP Marketplace," Google says in a perfunctory paragraph in its cloud partnerships blog.

Google has been slower off the mark than rival cloud vendors. Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS and IBM have had blockchain partnerships for a couple of years now and are beginning to boast of real-world projects.

Google doesn't go into a lot of detail in its blog, presumably not wanting to spoil the fun for paying delegates, but its chosen partners are more effusive.

"Google's entrance into the blockchain space is a landmark event for the growing blockchain ecosystem and cements the continued investment in blockchain solutions for Enterprises," says BlockApps on its website.

"As GCP adoption grows, the developer-friendly BlockApps STRATO platform enables more enterprises the ability to test and implement blockchain application solutions across any business sector, "STRATO is a blockchain-as-a-service platform which the company claims lowers the barriers to creating decentralised applications (dApps) as it offers a RESTful API to communicate with the blockchain backend.

The company is based in New York.Digital Asset is also headquartered in New York. It provides a distributed ledger platform and smart contract modelling language called DAML. "In collaboration with Google Cloud, Digital Asset has expanded its developer program to include the DAML Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) on Google Cloud Platform.

The DAML PaaS is a fully-managed solution that developers can use to test and deploy DLT applications, accessible through Google Cloud's Orbitera application marketplace technologies. Combined with the DAML SDK, developers now have an end-to-end toolkit to build and deploy sophisticated distributed applications," the company says in a press release.



17/07/2018 Consortium-based efforts to rationalise supply chains are perhaps the main real-world use cases for blockchains to emerge so far, outside of the world of cryptocurrencies. Another such venture was unveiled this week when consultancy Accenture and defence firm Thales announced a blockchain-based system to secure and improve the efficiency of aerospace and defence (A&D) supply chains at the Farnborough Air Show on Monday.

The system, which is based on the Linux  Foundation's Hyperledger blockchain framework, also uses Thales's "physically unclonable function (PUF) solution for silicon chips and Chronicled's tamper-proof cryptoseals" in order to keep track of parts and materials  used in aircraft manufacture, where counterfeit components have been a cause for concern, according to Accenture's website.

"Identifying counterfeit and grey-market goods in the A&D supply chain can be challenging," said Gareth Williams, vice president for secure communications and information systems at Thales UK.

"Using blockchain in combination with cryptoseals and physically unclonable functions allows you to build a trusted history behind parts. This demonstration builds on the strong relationship Accenture and Thales have created developing innovative digital solutions for a variety of industries.

"Like similar systems being developed by the likes of FedEx and Maersk, the system is designed to provide transparency to all participants in the supply chain, as well as creating an immutable record of all transactions in the supply chain.

"The aerospace and defence industry has one of the world's most vast and complex supply chains. Blockchain technology offers a new, elegant and secure way for the industry to track and trace myriad components while deterring counterfeiting and improving maintenance capabilities," said John Schmidt, the head of Accenture's A&D unit.

"Used in combination with technologies like digital twins and digital threads, blockchain could ultimately be a game-changing innovation for this sector."




03/07/2018  A consortium of European banks has announced the first commercial trades on its blockchain-based we.trade platform.

The we.trade platform is a collaborative effort that was kicked off by a consortium of seven banks: Deutsche Bank; HSBC; KBC; Natixis; Rabobank; Societe Generale; and UniCredit. They were later joined by Santander and Nordea. we.trade is headquartered in Dublin.

The consortium announced Tuesday that seven commercial trade transactions have now been completed by 10 companies on the platform across five countries. "We are delighted to have launched for the first time in the world, a blockchain-based platform that enhances the overall customer experience, when trading internationally.

The next step will be getting buy-in from additional banks and their customers in Europe and further afield", said we.trade COO Roberto Mancone in a statement.

By directly connecting all the parties  - the buyer, the buyer's bank, the seller, the seller's bank and transporter - in a domestic or transnational transaction in a way that covers all of the governance rules and regulations that apply to the individual banks, we.trade aims to make trades more straightforward.

Presently it covers 11 European countries: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK.we.trade is built on the IBM Blockchain Platform and based on Hyperledger Fabric, the open-source blockchain framework implementation hosted by The Linux Foundation.

Hyperledger Fabric is designed to simplify the act of developing blockchain-based applications and smart contracts by allowing components such as consensus and membership services to be plug-and-play. Originally introduced by IBM and Digital Asset, many of the banks that make up the we.trade consortium are also members of the Hyperedger project.

"As we.trade has moved from pilot applications to conducting live transactions across borders, it has demonstrated the power of blockchain technology in an enterprise setting," said Parm Sangha, GBS blockchain leader at IBM.

"To convene a large network of regulated banks and demonstrate how blockchain technology can help them gain efficiencies and provide greater transparency in live transactions is a disruptive model that has the potential to reshape the future of global trade finance.

"The consortium aims to move outwards from its base of founding members, offering the service to other banks by making we.trade available on a licence-type basis in order to expand the platform as quickly as possible.

29/06/2018 UK blockchain-as-a-service firm Stratis has unveiled programmable sidechains as an alpha release.




A sidechain is a blockchain that's based on the core code of the main chain and is interoperable with it, but which allows for bespoke operations without affecting the main branch. This allows companies to experiment with creating blockchain applications without risk of adversely affecting the main chain or compromising privacy by making data public.

At the same time, any updates to the main blockchain code are propagated down to the sidechains.

"Stratis sidechains have been designed so that in the future enterprises can run smart contracts on sidechains, opening up a wide range of use case such as exchanging documents between a range of companies within an industry, for example invoices or order forms," lead developer Jeremy Bokobza told Computing, adding that the sidechain can be customised by changing parameters like block interval and block size.

"One of the main advantages of sidechains are the ability to improve scalability for applications like payments and IoT, which could be hundreds of thousands of transactions. "The Stratis blockchain runs on the Microsoft .Net framework and is written in the familiar C# rather than using a specialist language and environment, a decision the company took to make creating decentralised applications and smart contracts more accessible to enterprise developers.

It says it will soon provide support for Microsoft's functional programming language F# which is particularly popular in the financial sector, the main area of focus for the London-based firm.

Stratis is based on the Bitcoin blockchain but with the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism (essentially security through burning electricity) replaced by Proof-of-Stake (decision-making powers dished out according the stake - e.g. number of coins - held by each player) to increase scalability in the enterprise setting.

 It is designed to support smart contracts, enabling actions to be undertaken without human intervention once predefined conditions are met.

Among the use cases for the programmable blockchain, the company lists auctions and peer-to-peer lending to investment funds, insurance settlements, real estate transactions, domain name registries and digital copyright.

The sidechains will increase the flexibility of deploying smart contracts and decentralised applications, according to CEO Chris Trew. "As an example, if an enterprise wants to improve efficiency by moving invoicing or asset tracking to a blockchain solution, it's likely that they will not want to publicise that data.

That's when a private sidechain becomes a flexible solution that's quick to test and deploy, as well as easy to maintain," he said.

"Sidechains are a critical step in making blockchain accessible to enterprises wanting to benefit from blockchain while retaining full control of their business processes and privacy. "As essentially restricted private blockchains, each sidechain would be overseen by those using it, said Bokobza.

"Sidechains are governed by a foundation which is made up of say a group of banks or a group of automotive firms that wish to collaborate on a blockchain cross-industry project. Or more simply, a collection of senior managers from an individual organisation that make decisions on the direction the sidechain takes."

26/06/2018 Some of the world's biggest food producers have come together to build a blockchain-based system for tracking the provenance of food items.

  


The ability to trace food through the supply chain is particularly important in the event of contamination. An outbreak of E. coli in the US involving romaine lettuce that began in April has killed five people to date with almost 200 cases reported across 35 states. The source has been tracked down to an area of Arizona, although no individual farm has yet been identified.

The complex nature of the supply chain makes it very difficult for the authorities to trace dangerous or contaminated food quickly. Each company in the chain is required to record only a small fraction of the overall steps and the authorities must reproduce the full picure from a disjointed and often incomplete set of records. In cases such as the above such delays can be fatal.

Ten companies Walmart, Nestlé, Dole Food, Driscoll's, Golden State Foods, Kroger, McCormick, McLane, Tyson Foods and Unilever have come together to create a consortium called the Food Trust which aims to reduce the product recall time using a blockchain architecture. It should also improve the efficiences in other areas of the supply chain.

Built in partnership with IBM, the system has been in development for a year and is still pre-release. The blockchain currently contains information about one million food products, and initial tests have been encouraging, reports the WSJ.

"You're capturing real-time data at every point, on every single food product," said Frank Yiannas, vice president of food safety at Walmart, adding: "It's the equivalent of FedEx tracking for food. "Yiannas said that in tests, a consignment of Mexican mangos sold in a US Walmart store was traced back to its supplier in 2.2 seconds. Using the traditional method with barcodes and paper receipts it took a week.

22/06/18 London-based professional services giant EY and Microsoft have teamed up to launch a blockchain that's designed to simplify the fiddly and time-consuming business of managing digital rights and royalties. Intellectual property (IP) owners such as authors, songwriters, artists, production houses, developers and others will be able to track how their creations are used and monitor revenues coming in from partnerships and licencing arrangements in near real-time.

Built on the Quorum blockchain developed by investment bank JP Morgan, the EY press release says it's designed to increase efficiencies in the system. Calculations about what is owed to whom currently tends to be a manual process, it notes, and generally managed via offline data sources.

Since it will provide visibility of sales transactions as they happen, content providers will be able to react quickly to market demand, claims EY. This is made possible by smart contracts that are written into the blockchain.

"The embedded smart contract architecture is designed to enable accurate and real-time calculation of each participant's royalty position, providing enhanced visibility for recording and reconciling of royalty transactions," the blurb says. JP Morgan's Quorum is based on Go Ethereum, an implementation of the Ethereum blockchain written in the Go language, but with a few tweaks.

The first is that it's permissioned (private), meaning that only approved nodes can join it. Because of this, it can use a simplified consensus mechanism that relies on a majority vote, which also makes transactions significantly faster than Ethereum, which is a public or unpermissioned blockchain. And since it is designed to manage financial transactions more privacy is built in.

The new rights and royalties management solution runs on Microsoft Azure cloud. It has already been rolled out to a few games producers that use Microsoft's platform, among the first being Ubisoft, which is currently testing the system.

It will later be extended to other gaming companies and eventually to authors and musicians and other creative types too. While the EY press release doesn't actually give the new system an official name, Redmond seems to have already dubbed it the 'Microsoft Rights and Royalties blockchain network' with no mention of EY in the title. Now, how to manage who gets naming rights?

We spend a lot of time discussing crypto markets and values, but the underlying blockchain technology is what truly makes cryptocurrency disruptive. This month, I’ll be explaining an overview of how blockchain technology is being adopted in different industries.

Today we’ll be talking about blockchain in retail.U.S. retail reached a record-setting $5.7 trillion of sales in 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And Boston Consulting Group reports retailers using technology and data to personalize experiences see 6-10 percent revenue increases.

The industry has several components that both blockchain and cryptocurrency will completely disrupt. The most obvious is in accepting cryptocurrency as a form of payment, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Retailers depend heavily on credit card companies like Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.

They also utilize the SWIFT network for payment processing.Then there’s inventory and shipping of products being sold in retail. Amazon’s fast delivery model made these issues even more vital to retailer success, and brick-and-mortar stores like Borders and Toys R Us that failed to adapt to Amazon’s ecommerce model became cautionary tales.Let’s not forget about changing consumer tastes, especially in consumables like groceries, liquor, and cannabis.

Even with clothing and jewelry, people want to know where their ingredients came from, whether it’s organic, fair trade, etc. And marketing, to get people in the door, is the lifeblood of any retail operation.Blockchain technology has answers to retail’s most important operational and logistical challenges.

Here’s how retailers are using blockchain and cryptocurrency to transform their businesses.

Crypto as Currency

It’s no secret that cryptocurrency’s pricing volatility stifles its mainstream adoption. In March, the crypto market lost $60 billion in one day, and in July, it gained $13 billion in a matter of hours. This volatility is fun for investors, but it makes businesses weary of accepting crypto as a form of payment.Still, retailers like Overstock, Newegg, Microsoft, and Expedia accept at least one crypto as payment.

Overstock reports it earns $120,000 a week in cryptocurrency revenue. KFC Canada even kicked off 2018 with The Bitcoin Bucket, a promotional bucket of chicken and waffle fries that quickly sold out and is still up on its website for marketing purposes.

Even retailers who don’t plan to accept cryptocurrency payments anytime soon may still find themselves doing so. Canada-based crypto exchange CoinField recently announced moonGO, which will be available to the public in the first quarter of 2019.MoonGO includes an app and physical card that would let consumers use crypto to pay anywhere credit cards are accepted.

Thailand-based Omise is working on similar functionality for its OmiseGO payment platform that would allow the use of its proprietary OMG token as payment on its merchant network that includes McDonalds Thailand and Alipay.


With over 2 billion unbanked people around the world, retailers that accept crypto open new revenue streams, while enabling consumers who previously couldn’t shop with them.

Blockchain-based Payment Networks

While we’re on the subject of Omise, the company eventually plans to replace the SWIFT network. This is the secure network used by point-of-sale systems to send and receive financial information when you use your debit or credit card for payments

.Approximately 24 million messages are sent through the SWIFT network every day, and members have to pay annual membership fees to use it.On top of these fees, credit card processors charge retailers credit card processing fees up to 5 percent, along with transaction fees of $0.20 or more for every transaction they process.

These fees are often hidden, and many processors will charge multiple fees for every transaction, especially for online retailers, since the physical card isn’t present during online transactions.Because cryptocurrency transactions depend on the amount of data being processed rather than the actual transaction amount, fees can be much cheaper.

 This is why crypto payment processors like Coinbase, Coingate, and BitPay can offer much lower transaction rates of 1 percent (and all offer free transactions up to a certain threshold).Cryptocurrencies also eliminate chargebacks, where the credit card company demands the business refund money in the event of customer disputes. This forces retailers and customers to work out their own grievances.

Blockchain in Retail Supply Chains

One of the biggest concerns shoppers have is how much we can truly trust a product’s labeling. How do we know whether the cotton in our clothing is truly organic, that the battery in our iPhone wasn’t made by child labor, or that the honey in our bottle is actually honey?With so many horror stories circulating around the internet, it’s no wonder people are worried.

Major retailers like Walmart and Kroger, along with brands like Unilever and Nestle, are turning to the blockchain to resolve these issues. Walmart partnered with IBM to use the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain to track its goods with distributed ledger technology.

At the moment, it’s only being used in backend operations, but it’s only a matter of time before you can scan a product UPC or QR codes to trace their origins back to the original farms and factories producing them. Not only will this bring security and transparency to the shopping experience, but it’ll make recalls much easier.Just last month, a parasite called cyclosporin contaminated salads and wraps at McDonalds, Trader Joe’s Walgreens, and Kroger.

A mass recall was issued, and these companies were forced to destroy possibly uncontaminated products to be safe. Had blockchain technology been implemented, data would have been available to pinpoint every contaminated item to control costs and cut losses.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology are disrupting the retail sector on every end, and we’ll soon see it permeating the entire industry. From payments to products, those adopting this technology now are getting ahead in the technological arms race.

Those that resist could find themselves becoming the next Blockbuster Video.

Perhaps the two most talked about trends in technology today are blockchain and artificial intelligence. Bitcoin and cryptocurrency have come into the public eye over the past year, and most major tech companies are now using AI to impact our daily lives. This post is about the intersection of those two technologies. A marriage between blockchain and AI could put consumers back in control of their data and incentivize fairer, more secure AI development.

The Current AI Landscape

The more data you have, the better your AI model will be. As such, major tech companies dominate artificial intelligence. They have the computing resources and enormous data pools necessary to train AI algorithms. In addition, they have the funds and motivation to hire top AI experts, often for salaries in the mid-six figures.

Right now, researching, training, and deploying AI is a game for companies that can gather, store, and analyze as much data as possible. This means that companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple dominate the rest of the field.

If a company wants to get involved in AI, they’ll need significant capital to invest in research and development. They’ll also need a wide reach or access to huge datasets for model training.The current paradigm is highly centralized. Companies hoard their data, protect their algorithms, and see hiring experts as a zero-sum game.

Can We Trust Centralized AI?

Of course, a high degree of centralization in AI calls into question many of our assumptions about AI. For example, we commonly assume that AI has access to so much information that it will inevitably be an unbiased source of truth. However, multiple studies and tests have shown that AIs take on the biases of the scientists who write their algorithms and the datasets they’re trained on.In a centralized system, Amazon or Google isn’t likely to grant access for anyone to review their training datasets.

But this is an essential consideration when asking if we can trust the integrity and security of the resulting AI.The same goes for the algorithms themselves. The algorithms have a status as trade secrets right now, but in order to trust the AIs they produce, there ought to be review of how the AI learned in the first place.

Centralized data, secret algorithms, and nearly all industry experts working for a handful of companies is a serious problem. We want the AI revolution to succeed, but not at the expense of truth, fairness, and security. This is why decentralization of AI is such an important issue.

Democratizing Access to AI

Small companies, hobbyists, and everyday consumers should have the ability to create their own AI applications, in addition to the big companies that dominate the space right now.The key to democratizing access to AI is decentralizing data and lowering computing costs for training algorithms. Blockchain technology can help with this transition on both counts.

Decentralizing Data

As identity services and consumer applications move to the blockchain, users will begin to have more control over the types of data trails they create. They’ll also be able to decide who can see that data. Eventually, many blockchain enthusiasts hope that decentralization will allow consumers to sell the data they’re creating everyday back to the companies that want to sell them products.

This commoditization of data means users would get paid for the data they share. They can also choose not share data. An additional benefit is decentralization creates a marketplace for data. Instead of big companies storing and hoarding their customers’ data. The data lives on the blockchain and consumers can choose to share it across companies and organizations.

Training Algorithms

Once data is commoditized, the value shifts away from hoarding data and toward creating algorithms on top of openly available data. The power will shift from owners of big data sets to people who build good algorithms. Those people could be anywhere. With openly accessible data, anyone could learn to write useful algorithms.

Much like the early days of computer programming and internet companies, a great entrepreneur in AI could come from anywhere once we have decentralized data.

Blockchain technology could also drive down the cost of training AI algorithms. Miners for cryptocurrencies have enormous amounts of computing power at their disposal. A decentralized network of miners could work on training neural networks for a fraction of the cost of building and operating dedicated algorithm training servers.

As it becomes cheaper to train algorithms, we’ll see more companies and individuals experimenting with and creating new applications for AI.

Artificially Intelligent DAOs

For many blockchain enthusiasts, the ultimate marriage between AI and the blockchain is artificially intelligent decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). These are essentially autonomous companies managed by an AI.

In a DAO, the AI would have access to resources and the ability to earn more resources over time. A truly autonomous organization would also have no way for humans to take control or shut it down once started on the blockchain. The first AI-run billion-dollar company is on its way.

More importantly, however, the AI could be written to prioritize other things besides money. One idea is for an AI DAO that buys forest land over time to protect wildlife and guard against deforestation. Another idea is social benefit DAOs designed to give back any income they generate to good causes, redistributing wealth in an intelligent way.

There Are Still Problems with Decentralized AI

While this seems utopian at first glance, there are still some big issues with moving data and computing power onto the blockchain. We’ll need to decide how decentralized data gets stored in a decentralized manner, what marketplaces people use to discover and use data, and how to incentivize consumers to share their data on the blockchain in the first place.

Additionally, the blockchain won’t erase the huge advantage major tech companies have built in the AI space. However, it is a first step toward levelling the playing field. Answering these questions are the major hurdles facing blockchain-based AI today.

If successfully implemented, blockchain and AI together could address many of the issues of centralization of power and wealth that affect society today.