AX Trading LLC (AX), a technology-enabled registered broker-dealer and Alternative Trading System (ATS) operator, today announced a strategic partnership with Quant Network a pioneering technology company providing financial and regulatory technology as well as interoperability in financial services, payments and capital markets infrastructure. Through this partnership, Quant Network’s technology, Overledger a blockchain operating system, will enable universal interoperability for regulatory-compliant security tokens and digital assets to be traded on AX ATS, a regulated secondary trading market. AX intends to integrate Overledger to help foster the evolution of traditional capital markets infrastructure to facilitate the mass implementation of interoperable regulated digital assets. With the increased market adoption of digital assets and banking “coins” such as JPMorgan Coin, AX and Quant Network are at the forefront to enable the transferability and movement of digital assets. George O’Krepkie, AX CEO said: “we look forward to partnering with Quant. Their technology will allow our blockchain agnostic security token exchange to communicate seamlessly with issuers, traders, investors, and regulators across different blockchain protocols. This is a key technological breakthrough that will help us bring the benefits of security tokens to Main Street and Wall Street.” It is expected that the first interoperable digital asset offering may commence as soon as January 2020, and that the AX Trading ATS may be ready to enable and list interoperable digital assets and securities in 2020.

Let’s have a closer look at what that means to truly appreciate the significance of the partnership by covering the basics for those not familiar with wall street.
https://preview.redd.it/2z8h6uqos0m31.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=a1c02216ce4eda8f3e06abdb6fe519b36efd1be6

What is an Institutional Investor / Trader?

An institutional investor is an organization that invests on behalf of the organization's members. They consist of hedge funds, banks, investment banks, pension funds, insurance companies, endowment funds, or any other type of money management firm.
Institutional investors account for about three-quarters of the volume on the New York Stock Exchange (which alone handles more than $20 Trillion a year in volume). In the US, Institutional investors own about 80 % of the total market value of the equity (stock) market, which globally is worth more than $73 trillion.
Wall Street refers to the institutional investors I mentioned above whereas Main Street refers collectively to members of the general public who are not accredited investors and the overall economy as a whole.
Whilst the Equity Market is huge, Institutional investors also invest in other securities which are prime to be tokenised such as Real Estate Market (Globally worth $217 trillion), the Debt Market (Globally worth $215 trillion) and the Derivatives Market (Low end estimates at $544 trillion and high-end estimates at $1.2 quadrillion). All of which makes the current market cap for cryptocurrencies look like a drop in the ocean.

Who are AX Trading?

AX Trading is a SEC-registered broker-dealer and Alternative Trading System (ATS) Operator. They are a member of FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority)and SIPC ( Securities Investor Protection Corporation) regulated authorities. The SEC has some of the most stringent regulations in the world for listing securities and there are fewer than 50 SEC-registered Alternative Trading System Operators in the United States, of which only a handful are currently implementing Digital Assets. Others are awaiting regulatory approval with Coinbase, Circle etc are all looking at getting into this huge market.
https://www.coindesk.com/stonewalled-by-finra-up-to-40-crypto-securities-wait-in-limbo-for-launch
AX Trading have investors and sponsored brokers including the likes of Credit Suisse, (a multinational investment Bank and Financial services company worth $27.5 billion). AX currently have over 800 Institutional traders (these are not individuals, but corporations such as hedge funds, banks, investment banks, pension funds, insurance companies, endowment funds etc).
AX Trading have also partnered with Euronext, the largest Stock Exchange in Europe with a market cap of $4.65 trillion as of 2018, in the creation of Euronext Block which utilises AX Trading.

What is an Alternative Trading System?

An Alternative Trading System (ATS) is an SEC-regulated trading venue which serves as an alternative to trading at a public exchange. ATS account for much of the liquidity found in publicly traded issues worldwide. They are known as multilateral trading facilities in Europe, electronic communication networks (ECNs), cross networks, and call networks
AX is the world’s first “Electronic Trading Network” (ETN) where institutional traders can proactively connect and trade with other counterparties in a secure environment. Unlike traditional stock exchanges/ECNs that show orders to everyone and traditional dark pools/crossing systems that show orders — presumably — to no one, AX allows institutional traders to pick and choose WHOM they want to notify and also WHAT information they want to share with them.
Institutional investors may use an ATS to find counterparties for transactions instead of trading large blocks of shares on national stock exchanges. These actions may be designed to conceal trading from public view since ATS transactions do not appear on national exchange order books. The benefit of using an ATS to execute such orders is that it reduces the domino effect that large trades might have on the price of an equity.

How does AX Trading Work?

The AX Trading process begins when one trader sends an “initiated” order to AX. The order can be routed to the AX ATS via one of our broker sponsors such as Credit Suisse. The initiated order triggers a “Call Auction” on AX, a period of time when the order will rest in AX to be matched against other orders from auction responders.
The Initiator of an AX auction decides who they want to invite to participate in the auction, whether they be all 800+ institutional members or targeted to specific ones, as well as how much info they want to disclose about the order. Based on these instructions, the AX ATS then notifies the members inviting them to participate in the trade.
The invited members can then participate in the trade by either placing buy orders of their own or placing sell orders. At the end of the AX auction period, all orders are brought together, and a match is performed.
In the traditional, continuous market with displayed bids and offers, traders are often chasing liquidity. In other words, the price may move away from them the more they buy or sell to what is commonly called “market impact.” On AX, the advantage of their call auction model is it brings liquidity — in the form of participant orders to the buyer rather than them chasing liquidity.

What is a Security Token?

Security Tokens are different than Utility Tokens or Cryptocurrencies. A security token is a digital representation of a traditional security. It may represent shares in a company, interest in a fund, real estate, art collectables, or essentially any asset a party can own. Anthony Pompliano wrote an article explaining tokenised securities in more detail which you can see here

Security Tokens are digital assets subject to federal security regulations. In layman terms, they are the intersection of digital assets (tokens) with traditional financial products — a new technology improving old things. If cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are considered “programmable money” then you can consider Security Tokens a version of “programmable ownership.” This means that any asset with ownership can and will be tokenized (public & private equities, debt, real estate, etc).

https://preview.redd.it/21cz6zvus0m31.png?width=569&format=png&auto=webp&s=883eb844e1061cddd585903549dde829098765c2
Quant Network community member David W also wrote an excellent piece on the benefits of tokenisation of assets in a lot more detail than what I will briefly cover here and strongly recommend you check it out.

The Tokenisation of assets is therefore inevitable, because it is a better way to record, exchange and monitor asset ownership for all parties involved. The amounts at stake represent many hundreds of trillions of US dollars

What are the benefits of a security token?

Lower Fees — having Smart Contracts and compliance programmed into the token itself removes the need for middlemen, reducing costs. Post Trade businesses such as clearing houses would also no longer be required further reducing costs.
24/7 markets — Currently the major US stock markets trade between 9:30am and 3pm during weekdays only. Trading can be done 24/7 and globally whilst remaining compliant.
Fractional Ownership — This greatly increases liquidity for previously illiquid assets. Real estate, Artwork, even assets such as Oil Refineries are already in talks about being tokenised through Overledger. If you have an asset such as an oil refinery worth billions of dollars, then naturally this limits the market should you ever want to sell it. However with fractional ownership you could own a tiny percentage of it and receive profits from the oil refinery based upon the percentage you own, which exponentially increases the number ofpotential buyers, increasing liquidity.
Rapid Settlement — Currently it takes 3 working days to settle a securities trade, this can be reduced to minutes by having the asset and fiat represented on a blockchain and handled through smart contracts.
Automated compliance — Security tokens are programmable, and rules and regulations are hard-coded into the architecture of the token to ensure they always remain compliant. This means that they can be traded globally and still ensure they respect the relevant countries regulations that the participants are located in.
The benefits that a blockchain provide such as transparency, security, immutability, high availability. Regulators can also run a node and verify compliance in real time.

Security Token Issuance Platforms

Security token issuance platforms allow issuers to issue Security tokens that represent the security such as Shares in their company etc in return for capital. This is known as a Primary Market. Importantly it’s not just the issuance that they look after, it’s the whole life cycle of a digital security to ensure they remain continuously in compliance as they are traded etc. They also provide reporting to the issuer so they can see who owns the tokens and what dividends to pay out.
Securitize are one of the leading security tokens issuing platforms. They have created the DS Protocol, a blockchain agnostic protocol for security tokens which manages the whole lifecycle of a digital security, ensuring it remains continuously in compliance. They have issued a number of security tokens on the Ethereum network as well as recently working with IBM to tokenise the Corporate Debt Market (worth $82 Trillion). On the back of this they joined Hyperledger, an open source project which includes Enterprise blockchains such as Hyperledger Fabric which IBM is heavily involved with.
https://tokenpost.com/Quant-Network-Securitize-and-others-join-Hyperledger-blockchain-project-1544
They recently also became the first SEC-registered transfer agent, which means Securitize can now act as the official keeper of records about changes of ownership in securities.
There are many companies in this sector which are utilising various blockchains, Other examples include:

Harber — R Token protocol for Ethereum
Polymath — ST20 protocol for Ethereum
Blockstate — a security token issuance platform recently announced plans to migrate a number of ERC-20 tokens from the public Ethereum blockchain to the permissioned blockchain R3 Corda
Dusk — Uses the Dusk blockchain
Own — Uses the Own blockchain

And many more such as Nefund, Bankex, Capexmove, Swarm, Symbiont, Tokeny etc

https://preview.redd.it/vr6c7jdzs0m31.png?width=520&format=png&auto=webp&s=88431b27906099bb09f31ef1fdee0222dd96674f

Trading Venues

Whilst the issuance platforms above generally also include their own exchange where the token can be traded on, secondary markets such as those offered through traditional stock exchanges and Alternative Trading Systems provide significantly more liquidity.
Traditional Stock Exchanges have been very active in blockchain with some going through proof of concepts, to those like SIX SDX Digital Exchange which is due to launch later this year. They are using various blockchains and cover the full process from Issuance, Trading and Post Trade / Settlement services. I have briefly outlined which blockchain they are using / testing with along with source to read more about it below:

Switzerland’s Stock Exchange — SIX Digital Exchange issue, trading, settlement, custody — Corda — Source
Largest Stock Exchange in Germany — Deutsche Borse Franfurt Stock Exchange — Corda — Source and Source
South Korea’s Stock Exchange — Korea Exchange — Hyperledger Fabric — Source and Source
Japan’s Stock Exchange — Tokyo Stock Exchange — Hyperledger Fabric — Source which the consortium has now grown to 44 companies. Tokyo Stock Exchange are also testing JP Morgan’s Quorum for voting on the blockchain — Source
London Stock Exchange Group — Hyperledger Fabric — Source . They are also invested in Nivaura which utilises Ethereum — Source
Largest Stock Exchange in Europe — Euronext — Permissioned Ethereum via Liquidshare — Source as well as recently investing in Tokeny a blockchain based project based on public version of Ethereum — Source
Singapore Stock Exchange — Ethereum — Source

Post Trade — Central Security Depositories

Situated at the end of the post-trading process, CSDs are systemically important intermediaries. They thereby form a critical part of the securities market’s post-trade infrastructure, as they are where changes of securities ownership are ultimately registered.
CSDs play a special role both as a depository, involving the legal safekeeping and maintenance of securities in a ‘central depository’ on behalf of custodians (both in materialised or dematerialised form); as well as for the issuer, involving the issuance of further securities by issuers, and their onboarding onto CSDs’ platforms.
CSDs are also keeping a number of other important functions, including: dividend, interest, and principal processing; corporate actions including proxy voting; payment to transfer agents, and issuers involved in these processes; securities lending and borrowing; and, provide pledging of share and securities.
Blockchain technology will enable real-time settlement finality in the securities world. This could mean the end of a number of players in the post-trade area, such as central counterparty clearing houses (CCPs), custodians and others. Central Security Despositories (CSD) will still play an important role according to reports:
“CSDs could have an important role to play in a blockchain-based settlement system. As ‘custodians of the code, CSDs could exercise oversight of, and take responsibility for, the operation of the relevant blockchain protocol and any associated smart contracts.” Euroclear Report
Another group of 30 central securities depositories (CSDs) in Europe and Asia are researching possible ways to “join hands” in developing a new infrastructure to custody digital assets. The CSDs will attempt to figure out how to apply their experience in guarding stock certificates to security solutions for crypto assets.
“A new world of tokenized assets and blockchain is coming. It will probably disrupt our role as CSDs. The whole group decided we will be focusing on tokenized assets, not just blockchain but on real digital assets.”
You can read more about how blockchain will affect CSD’s here
Examples of CSD’s in blockchain

SIX Digital Exchange and Deutsche Borse are utilising Corda as explained in the trading venues section
DTCC the largest in the US process 1.7 Quadrillion US Dollars of securities every year and are planning on moving their Trade Information Warehouse to Axoni’s AXCore Blockchain (Based on permissioned version of Ethereum) later this year — Source
Canada CDS are using the Quartz blockchain from Indian IT Services Company Tata Consultancy Services — Source
Euroclear in collaboration with the European Investment Bank (EIB), Banco Santander, and EY are developing a blockchain solution — Source
French CSD’s too soon go live on Setl Blockchain — Source and Source
Russia’s National Settlement Depository is launching a blockchain project using D3ledger (based off Hyperledger) — Source

The Importance Of Interoperability

The evolution of DLT and the wide adoption across industries and across different market segments is resulting in many different ledgers networks, but the ultimate promise of DLT can only be realized when all ledger networks can seamlessly interoperate. — from the recent DTCC whitepaper with Accenture
Some challenges and constraints related to the market infrastructure ecosystem remain open and will need to be addressed in the future to sustain the development of DLT platforms for trading and the post-trade process. At this stage, the questions of interoperability and standardization across these DLT (probably permissioned) platforms remain open and we may see a list of platforms offering no scope for interconnection. This will prevent them from fulfilling the key “distribution” criterion of DLT. Another related challenge that may determine whether or not the technology is adopted is the ability to provide Delivery versus Payment (DvP) settlement, in particular in central bank money. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that settlement can also be facilitated in commercial bank money. — https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/lu/Documents/technology/lu-token-assets-securities-tomorrow.pdf

It’s clear from the above that interoperability will be crucial in order to unlock the true potential of Distributed Ledger Technology. Issuance platforms will seek to interoperate with as many secondary exchanges as possible to provide maximum liquidity for issuers. Issuance platforms and secondary exchanges are each using a wide range of different blockchains that all need to interoperate as part of the trade process. CSD’s will also need to have interoperability between other CSD’s as well as to the secondary exchanges (again each using different blockchains).

Enter Quant Network’s Overledger

Quant Network’s blockchain operating system, Overledger, provides interoperability between any current and future distributed ledger technology as well as easily connecting Off Chain / Legacy networks as well as plans to connect directly to the Internet. Within 10 months it has proven it can provide interoperability with the full range of DLT technologies from all the leading Enterprise Permissioned blockchains such as Hyperledger, R3’s Corda, JP Morgan’s Quorum, permissioned variants of Ethereum and Ripple (XRPL) as well as the leading Public Permissionless blockchains / DAGs such as Bitcoin, Stellar, Ethereum, IOTA and EOS as well as the most recent blockchain to get added Binance Chain. All without imposing restrictions on connected chains, being Internet scalable and able to easily integrate into existing networks / infrastructure.
https://preview.redd.it/8p6hi942t0m31.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=b0536ea9981306feb8bd95788c66e9a5727a4d58
Overledger a blockchain operating system, will enable universal interoperability for regulatory-compliant security tokens and digital assets to be traded on AX ATS, a regulated secondary trading market. AX intends to integrate Overledger to help foster the evolution of traditional capital markets infrastructure to facilitate the mass implementation of regulated digital assets. With the increased market adoption of digital assets and banking “coins” such as JPMorgan Coin, AX and Quant Network are at the forefront to enable the transferability and movement of digital assets
https://www.quant.network/blog/redefining-wall-st-with-decentralised-capital-market-infrastructure-the-possibilities-of-quant-networks-overledger-technology-in-regulated-capital-markets
Overledger enables Universal Interoperability where digital assets can move across blockchains so that they can interact with smart contracts on different blockchains. It does this by locking the asset on one blockchain and then representing it on another blockchain either by creating a representing token or representing it via metadata. This will enable all of these different parties such as Issuance platforms, Exchanges, CSD’s, traders etc to move the digital asset from their respective blockchain onto AX Trading’s platform for secure, immediate and immutable trading to take place. Potentially it would even allow Digital Assets / Securities to settled on a public permissionless blockchain such as the recently connected Binance Chain in a completely safe, secure and compliant way.
https://preview.redd.it/a3o9qxq5t0m31.png?width=443&format=png&auto=webp&s=78d7a7e7d47213bbb354336ba9d5ad92c1c2254a
Regulators would be able to run a node and view transactions in real time ensuring that compliance is being kept. Potentially they could also benefit from using Quant Networks Multichain Search capability http://search.quant.network/ to be able to fully track assets as they move across blockchains.

George O’Krepkie, AX CEO said: “we look forward to partnering with Quant. Their technology will allow our blockchain agnostic security token exchange to communicate seamlessly with issuers, traders, investors, and regulators across different blockchain protocols. This is a key technological breakthrough that will help us bring the benefits of security tokens to Main Street and Wall Street.”

Securrency

AX Trading have also partnered with Securrency (who have previously tokenised over $260 million in real estate assets). Securrency provide a protocol that enables security tokens to remain in compliance regardless of what blockchain the token is on. Due to the layered approach that Overledger has adopted from the learnings of TCP/IP, this protocol can be easily integrated on top of Overledger to enable security tokens to move across blockchains as well as ensuring they remain in compliance with regulations programmed into the token.
https://youtu.be/vSQ2fu9iZGs

Delivery vs Payment (DvP)

A DvP transaction involves the settlement of two linked obligations, namely the delivery of securities and the payment of cash. DvP avoids counterparties being exposed to principal risk, i.e. the risk that the seller of securities could deliver but would not receive payment or that the buyer of securities could make payment but would not receive delivery. Following this requirement, a DvP securities settlement mechanism has to ensure that the delivery of securities and the payment of cash are linked in a way where one leg (obligation) of the securities trade is conditioned to the final settlement of the other leg (obligation) of the trade. Thereby final settlement is defined as “the irrevocable and unconditional transfer of an asset or financial instrument, or the discharge of an obligation by the FMI or its participants in accordance with the terms of the underlying contract”. — STELLA — a joint research project of the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan

We have seen how Overledger can provide interoperability for the securities to move across Issuers platforms, integrate with Stock exchanges, Central Security Depositories and AX Trading. Now we need to be able to ensure that payment is guaranteed and in a way that offers immediate settlement which is irrevocable. To do this we need to represent FIAT on the blockchain so that it can interact with smart contracts and settle transactions on the blockchain.

J.P.Morgan’s Coin

J.P.Morgan is the largest bank in the United States and ranked by S&P Global as the sixth largest bank in the world by total assets as of 2018, to the amount of $2.535 trillion.
J.P. Morgan was the first U.S. bank to create and successfully test a digital coin representing a fiat currency. The JPM Coin is based on blockchain-based technology enabling the instantaneous transfer of payments between institutional clients.
With J.P.Morgan’s $2.6 trillion balance sheet, expertise in blockchain and global payments network, J.P. Morgan can seamlessly and securely transfer and settle money for clients around the world. J.P. Morgan are supervised by banking regulators in the United States and in the international jurisdictions in which it operates.

How does JPM Coin work?

A Buyer purchases JPM coins in advance which get represented on the Permissioned Quorum blockchain ($1 =1 JPM Coin). Quant Network’s Overledger could then provide interoperability to lock those tokens on Quorum and represent those onto another blockchain / AX Trading’s Network. By being able to represent securities and FIAT on the same blockchain (even though the underlying assets are on different blockchains) this provides instant finality / settlements to occur.
Once the seller receives the JPM coin in exchange for the securities they have sold they will be able to redeem them for USD. It also doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to have a JP Morgan account to redeem them, you could imagine in the future that the Bank instead redeems the JPM Coin and credits the users account. Similarly the buyer of the security token redeems the represented token and unlocks the security token on the original blockchain.
You can read more about JP Morgan’s Coin here as well as its use cases

J.P Morgan is betting that its first-mover status and large market share in corporate payments — it banks 80 percent of the companies in the Fortune 500 — will give its technology a good chance of getting adopted, even if other banks create their own coins. “Pretty much every big corporation is our client, and most of the major banks in the world are, too,” Farooq said. “Even if this was limited to JPM clients at the institutional level, it shouldn’t hold us back.”

Overledger enables different securities tokens / digital coins representing FIAT currencies to be brought together from the various permissioned / permissionless blockchains onto one platform where trading / settlement can take place. Overledger is the only technology that can do this today across the leading permissioned and permissionless blockchains as well as existing networks, all in a secure, scalable and easy to integrate way.
https://preview.redd.it/ngt7q7hdt0m31.png?width=738&format=png&auto=webp&s=60166bdc0fcdf72a502e3472a09de5ddb5e1eb69
Quant Network are working with AX Trading to bring more digital assets, securities and tokenised assets to their existing 800 institutional traders in an already live and connected FINRA and SEC regulated exchange. AX Trading is not just about trading securities but other digital assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and potentially even Quant in the Future.
https://preview.redd.it/ibecorcft0m31.png?width=1286&format=png&auto=webp&s=94540cf49654e36a8155f424c2a4bdb5fd549558
This is a multi-trillion dollar market with huge global enterprises, traditional exchanges and global banks are all adopting DLT at a rapid pace and going into production at scale in a matter of months, examples include the NYSE Bakkt launching Bitcoin futures later this month, Swiss Stock Exchange ($1.6 Trillion market Cap) is due to launch their digital exchange running on Corda (SDX) by the end of the year. The DTCC are due to launch their Trade Information Warehouse which processes $10 Trillion of cleared and bilateral derivatives by the end of the year. JP Morgan who transfer $6 Trillion every day are due to launch their JPM coin at the end of year and AX Trading is due to offer their first digital asset by January 2020.
Quant Network’ Overledger enables the bridging of traditional finance infrastructure with the new decentralised finance infrastructure DeFi of the future, helping to redefine Wall Street and Capital Markets.
https://medium.com/@CryptoSeq/wall-street-2-0-17252ffd8919

https://preview.redd.it/df5uq5q9v6f31.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=850703897711eba01cfe177773d8e75894161af8

Despite all of the bad press that the digital asset industry continues to receive on an almost daily basis, it appears as though the overall sentiment of the online communities in regard to this burgeoning domain is still pretty positive. For example, Comparitech — a research firm that provides its consumers with a host of specialized data that allows one to make more informed decisions — recently used a machine learning-based analysis tool to study more than 48K Redditposts to determine which cryptocurrencies were viewed most favorably by the masses. Not only that, the study also took into consideration a total of 7,500 crypto/blockchain-related articles from a variety of different national and international media outlets.

All of the posts, tweets and articles analyzed by the researchers were scored on the basis of their positive/negative sentiment — primarily in relation to other articles included in the study. In this regard, there were a few notable trends that jump out at the reader upon first glance. While over 85% of the analyzed Reddit posts were deemed to be positive in nature, articles published by various mainstream media publications such as HuffPost, Business Insider and The International Business Times were, by and large, dismissive of the crypto market.
To get a better overview of the matter, Cointelegraph has reached out to Craig Russo, owner of Peer, a Boston-based startup that is behind the popular crypto and gaming media outlet SludgeFeed. When asked about what the overall sentiment of the average social media user toward the crypto industry (at large) was like, Russo pointed out:

“While there will always be different camps or schools of thought on the crypto industry, the overall sentiment across social media continues to be bullish, both on future price growth and mainstream adoption of the technology.”

A similar point of view is also shared by Sritanshu Sinha, an independent crypto author and analyst, whose work has been shared online by the likes of John McAfee and Kim DotCom. Sinha pointed out that the overall reception that the crypto industry has received thus far on forums such as Reddit and Twitter has been quite warm. He is also quick to point out that, since the Reddit community as a whole views itself as being anti-establishment, the platform’s users are usually drawn to crypto much more than your average investor. Similarly, in the case of Twitter, he believes that there are a few independent analysts who have hundreds of thousands of followers and therefore have the power to influence the community toward fostering a positive view regarding various altcoins/digital offerings.

Has the public views on crypto changed over the years?

Another pertinent question is how the crypto industry’s general perception has evolved since the novel asset class came into the spotlight a few years back. For example, it is no secret that all through 2018, investor confidence in this space has been dwindling. However, Russo believes that Bitcoin’s (BTC) financial upswing over the last eight months has been a turning point for the industry, especially across different social media outlets. Further elaborating on his views, Russo added:

“This is in stark contrast to those invested in the altcoin markets, as many are in disbelief towards the poor performance of their assets. The regulatory environment definitely plays into the latter, as increasing pressure from the U.S. government has undoubtedly hurt investor interest in Bitcoin alternatives (i.e., Binance shutting down to U.S. customers).”

When compared to the previous years, the general sentiment toward the crypto sector has certainly become less hostile. For example, back in 2017, a time when Bitcoin was witnessing astronomical growth, the industry was still facing a lot of heat from many financial experts of differing pedigree. And while the market, at the time, was replete with countless scams(especially Twitter bots) such activities have largely died out now.
As mentioned earlier, a host of recent surveys seem to suggest that more than 80% of all crypto talk online is positive. This number seems abnormally large for an industry that is usually on the receiving end of a lot of criticism from various traditional media outlets. Sharing his thoughts on the subject, Sinha pointed out:

“80% seems about right. Mostly, because that’s the nature of evangelism. Most of us on social media seems to be crypto-evangelists. However, positive sentiments and bull markets are highly correlated and they seem to be feeding off each other to create a positive feedback loop. If I have to prophesize, the 80% positive sentiment will not be the case during a bear run. Then the voices of the skeptics will become louder and sentiments will turn increasingly negative.”

Tweet interpreters are being used to gauge global investor interest

A number of hedge funds and asset managers are currently turning tosoftware developers to help them interpret and harness sentiment signals to their advantage. Speaking to Reuters on the subject, Bin Ren — CEO of Elwood Asset Management — was quoted as saying that this latest trend of identifying price clues from tweets and other social media messages is slowly turning into an “arms race for money managers.”
To put things into perspective, it can be seen that the costs involved with conducting such types of research analyses are quite steep. As per Andrea Leccese, president of New York-based investment firm Bluesky Capital, a simple bot-driven Twitter data exploration can cost firms anywhere between $500,000-$1 million.

Will increasing regulations stifle the industry’s growth?

Ever since Facebook announced its decision to enter the digital asset market — via its much-hyped stablecoin offering called Libra, which is backed by the Libra Foundation — the regulatory noose surrounding this space seems to have tightened considerably. However, contrary to popular belief, a number of crypto analysts seem to believe that increased regulations can be a good thing for the industry.
Cointelegraph spoke to Mohanned Halawani, the founder and CEO of Crypto PR, one of the first blockchain-specialized communication firms. He seems to be quite optimistic and believes that some of the latest regulations are actually quite advantageous for prospective investors, especially those regarding security token offerings (STOs) and initial coin offerings (ICOs). Halawani went on to add:

“The SEC has facilitated the emergence of Security Token Offerings which it felt was a more worthy investment vehicle when compared to traditional Initial Coin Offerings… Security tokens allow their investors to get information about the issuer on a fully transparent framework, providing complete visibility on all token allocations. Thanks to the regulatory benefits of these assets, authorities are beginning to their raise their standards among tradable asset classes and even support their implementation.”

Similar opinions are also provided by Joe Mercurio, project manager for Comparitech, who believes that the goal behind these regulations is to ultimately make consumers and businesses more comfortable with using cryptocurrencies on a regular basis. Mercurio shared his thoughts with Cointelegraph:

“I think that government entities will eventually adopt blockchain technology and new cryptocurrencies will begin to emerge. That said, I do believe that the market will remain volatile.”

Whether we like it or not, government regulations are crucial for any financial commodity — be it crypto or otherwise — to gain mainstream acceptance. And while these rules and guidelines may appear to hamper an asset’s growth at times, a majority of these regulations are a step in the right direction. Also, because Bitcoin and other digital currencies are basically tools for individual financial freedom, governments do not want to give up financial control over their citizens.
Simply put, when we see the history of such revolutionary technologies getting adopted by countries en masse’, we are sadly faced with a long and painful path that eventually leads to widespread human well-being.

How much of a role does social media play in shaping the public’s opinion on crypto?

Mercurio, whose core field of work includes the analysis of tweets and other online content to gauge public sentiment, is of the belief that there currently exists a strong correlation between the volume of social media posts related to a particular digital asset and its price. As part of his research, he claims to have often observed spikes in online articles when the price of a specific cryptocurrency changes. Mercurio went on to add:

“Social media posts remain more positive during times of price fluctuation compared to media coverage overall. Online enthusiasm regarding crypto has been overwhelmingly warm. We found that cryptocurrency-related subreddits were 55% more likely than media publications to have content with positive sentiment toward various cryptocurrencies.”

In a similar vein, to look at the impact that social media influencers have on the crypto industry, we can turn to a few high-profile individuals such as Elon Musk and LA Chargers’ star Russell Okung, both of whom have been advocating for the widespread adoption of crypto for quite some time now. In fact, Okung has sent out several requests to the NFL, asking the league (since the start of 2019) to provide its employees with the option of getting paid in crypto — a petition that is backed by fellow NFL star Matt Barkley.

Looking ahead

It thus appears as though the crypto market will continue to grow, mainly because people want to find newer economic avenues that are free from the involvement of any corporations or government-controlled agencies. However, a lot of this growth will depend on the use cases that emerge from this space. Also, as social media continues to play an ever-increasing role in arenas such as politics and public affairs, there is no reason to doubt its utility when it comes to crypto adoption.

Hello Everyone,
I know I had mentioned earlier that I would be doing these reports weekly, however, I had mentioned if there was a slew of information, that I would do an impromptu post just so things dont get stretched too far apart or some news is lost.
That being said, I have decided to do an early post for now and will do a recap on Sunday to include any other news that comes up! Before reading the latest news, check out my previous three recaps which are quite full of information. They can be found here:

Please note, any comments I make about news events are of my own personal opinion. As always, I recommend every person to do their own due diligence and research each event when they find the chance! So lets get to it! (news is in no particular order)

A lot of people have been posting saying their funds 'disappeared' from their wallets, this is not the case. The NEON wallet has released the 0.0.5 version. PLEASE UPGRADE to this latest version as the older versions have been phased out and may show a balance of 0 and will not let you claim gas! The link to the wallet is https://github.com/CityOfZion/neon-wallet/releases This wallet has encrypted keys which a big step up in security.
NEO London Meetup on September 27th! ( https://www.meetup.com/London-NEO-Meetup/events/242798070/ ). This is a great initiative to begin development on the NEO platform and I hope things go very smoothly. Please do note that this event will not have any talks or core developers from the NEO team present, it is a community organized and run event!
NEO, Onchain, and China. There is a huge theory that Neo, Onchain, and the Chinese government have some sort of huge ultimate plan to make NEO the only blockchain. While yes, NEO and Onchain have some relations due to Da Hongfei and Erik, and yes Onchain has relations with the Chinese government, it is EXTREMELY OPTIMISTIC to think that there is a big plan set. Instead, it remains hopeful that NEO has an advantage compared to most due to the implementation of compliance and digital identity. Please read this article as it has a tons of information about these relations, but please take it with a grain of salt. (https://hackernoon.com/neo-onchain-and-its-ultimate-plan-dna-4c33e9b6bfaa) (https://www.reddit.com/NEO/comments/706ind/hey_guys_you_can_now_visit_onchain_reddit_fo?st=j7l7aq6l&sh=47e9c5a8)
Poloniex has listed GAS/BTC and GAS/ETH markets. https://twitter.com/Poloniex/status/908401865653735425 . It is really interesting that GAS was added before NEO was. As I always say, being added to new exchanges is great for liquidity as the coin is less susceptible to manipulation. There a rumors that this is just the first step and that NEO will be added soon. As far as I know, there is no proof of this and is still a rumor.
Korea. Speaking of being added to exchanges, the same rumor I mentioned last article of NEO being added to Korean exchanges is circulating with even more force. As I mentioned, there is NO PROOF of this, and should be treated as a rumor.
NEO Ledger Nano S integration was successful! Thanks to our wonderful community member coranos2 for doing this. Please check out his latest post about this and donate to him for his efforts! https://www.reddit.com/NEO/comments/6zs0sv/neo_ledger_nano_s_integration_successful/?st=j7l4roox&sh=2289accd
Da Hongfei interviewed on CNBC South Africa! There was some great discussion and Da cleared up a lot of misinformation about NEO, what the purpose of NEO is, and how it works. Please try to watch the interview if you can (am still searching for a link to the video) but in the meantime, check out this for some information: https://mobile.twitter.com/deenyotweets/status/908401724049817606 . What I really enjoyed about this interview is the clarification on digital identity being crucial to NEO's compliance with regulations and its use for REAL ECONOMIES to use NEO as well as the clarification that NEO is not a platform that solely will be used for ICOs.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, stated that bitcoin is 'fraud' and that it won't last. Lets all just remember that this is one man's opinion, and that there are many others such as John McAfee who believe in bitcoin. Also, lets not forget that JP Morgan is part of the EEA. Honestly, I personally do not know why people went crazy after hearing this. To me it means nothing, just FUD.
China to ban exchanges, not bitcoin. Initially there was fear that China was going to ban bitcoin, but this was proven to be false. The rumor is now that they will be banning exchanges until further regulations are set in place. One reason I find that this may be true is the announcement by BTC China (BTCC) that they will close their exchange on Sept 30th. We have yet to hear from other chinese exchanges, so we will just have to wait and see. I do want to note that this news came out quite early, around September 4th, so any new news about other exchanges suspending trade is just originated from the same news release. Binance released a statement saying they are operational and not affected! (https://m.sosobtc.com/do/mobile/view?id=24045) (http://bittox.com/2017/09/14/chinese-bitcoin-exchanges-will-likely-not-banned/) (https://www.reddit.com/NEO/comments/701kye/btc_china_confirm_exchange_to_stop_all_trading_30/?st=j7l7f9se&sh=772280b0) (https://binance.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001567991)
INNO x Austrade China and NEO. (http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/FWm6wh-LP4ajhaBDaQ5G7A) (http://trademinister.gov.au/releases/Pages/2017/sc_mr_170913.aspx) (http://elastos.org/) Please read through the three articles I linked and look for the connection. It looks to me like there are some big things in the works and that NEO is a part of it. Props to Da Hongfei and NEO for getting their feet into this. I believe its going be a big deal and a great push to have NEO utilized! Also, note the Elastos and NEO parternership on their website!

On September 14th, INNO x Austrade China-Australia chain high-end exchange will be successfully held. Activities, the core members of the NEO Council, also to cloud founder Chen Rong and a number of Chinese block chain experts invited to attend the exchange. And the Australian delegation ADCA (Australian E-Commerce Association), the Australian Bureau of Standards, the University of Science and Technology, Sydney and many other block-chain project experts on the block chain in the global development of the exchange of seminars.
NEO CoZ Art Competition. Pretty self explanatory! https://www.reddit.com/NEO/comments/6zk5zd/neo_art_competition/?st=j7l7o7rp&sh=9f1da268
NEO CoZ dApp competition. Please check this link if you want to participate! They have quite a large sum in terms of rewards. Registration begins on Sept 16! https://cityofzion.io/dapps/1

Please comment below as to have a civil discussion, I always love hearing other peoples ideas and thoughts about this!
If you are new to cryptocurrency and want to purchase some NEO, check out this guide by peacheswithpeaches at:
https://buyneo.info/
If you are new to NEO but have been in crypto for a bit, check out my other post on some things to know and getting started!
https://www.reddit.com/NEO/comments/6su31n/here_are_some_things_you_should_know_if_you_are/?st=j79j497u&sh=bd949ddc
Also, I was approached about including a tip address and will do so, however, please keep hold of your hard earned NEO! If you really do wish to send anything, I will accept GAS. Thank You! AFu5zvPCNZbX8bd7nRt3kUBrHorsNXo4cU
EDIT: https://www.reddit.com/NEO/comments/7032bi/inno_x_austrade%E4%B8%AD%E6%BE%B3%E5%8C%BA%E5%9D%97%E9%93%BE%E9%AB%98%E7%AB%AF%E4%BA%A4%E6%B5%81%E4%BC%9A%E5%9C%86%E6%BB%A1%E4%B8%BE%E5%8A%9E/?st=j7l8qne8&sh=20070602 This link has great information on the INNO x Austrade China (read the first comment with main bullet points from the translation)

Have you heard anything about Alibaba, Jack Ma, Tim Draper, Ripple, JP Morgan? ..
Why am I asking this? Recently I discovered an interesting blockchain project from China. Since I have just returned from China, where I promoted innovative technologies, I was amazed by the scale of the changes taking place in the country and now my focus is primarily on this market.
So, the project is called Tron (www.tronlab.com) and it has an ambitious goal that can not be described in two words. I'll try to list:
1) to replace game currencies with the project's crypto currency - Tronix (TRX). Unlike gaming currencies, this currency will be "real", it has real market value. What is the advantage? According to the idea, all projects connected to the Tron ecosystem will use the common currency Tronix or tokens based on the Tron protocol, which can be freely exchanged for Tronix (TRX). This will allow you to freely move assets between different games and applications.
Imagine, you played in Call of Duty, bought there weapons, then some amount left. Later you decide to play Fifa 201x. Move the existing TRX from Call of Duty to Fifa and buy Messi ;) Then go to the social network and buy a virtual gift to someone for the same TRX, open the online cinema and pay for the movie... And all this quickly, safely, conveniently.
2) integrate the TRX crypto currency into the online entertainment industry, which includes not only games, but also social networks, dating sites, etc. This will allow you to enter the premium group, vote for your favorite entries, present virtual gifts. And these are not just plans, but a working model. The first application, which integrates the TRX crypto currency, is Peiwo with an audience of 10 million users. For comparison, according to the evaluation of experts there are about 20 million Bitcoin owners in the world.
3) use its own mainnet blockchain and protocol for the online entertainment industry. At the moment, the TRX crypto currency is a token on the ERC20 protocol. What will it give? Companies will be able to conduct ICO on the basis of the Tron platform and protocol, which will lead to an increase in the value of TRX's internal crypto currency. One of the main disadvantages of Ethereum is the lack of a hard cap, that is why the system requires constant external funding to maintain the value of the ETH crypto currency. At the same time, the TRX has the same advantages as the ETH but has a hard cap of 100 000 000 000 TRX, with a circulation supply of 65 000 000 000. Many investors in crypto-currencies are concerned about such high circulation supply, but this has its advantages. First, the online games market alone exceeds 100 billion dollars. And this is only a small part of the online entertainment market. For example, in China I was surprised to see how pretty Chinese woman earned more than $ 50 in the form of tips just for eating her dinner on the air in the video-streaming app... And gamers who demonstrate in real time how to play DOTa earn several thousand dollars per month.
Thus, such a circulation supply even with the current development of online entertainment will quickly disperse and there will soon be an increased demand for TRX, which will lead to a steady increase in the price of TRX. For example, at the time of writing, TRX costs about $ 0.0024 (0.0000082ETH). If each user of the Peiwo application purchases 6500 TRX (which is only $ 15.6), then there will already be a deficit of tokens. But most importantly, among investors there are such people as Binshen Tang, the owner of the game Clash of Kings with an audience of 40 000 000 people.
Secondly, there are rumors that the Chinese authorities are considering the prohibition of buying and selling the fractions of cryptocurrencies, so you can not buy 0.5 BTC, but only 1, 2 ... BTC to limit the circulation of crypto-currencies. Such circulation supply of TRX will allow free trade on exchanges with these restrictions. In addition, it will allow you to carry out micropayments, such as watching a few minutes of a movie and pay some cents in TRX.
4) create a decentralized data warehouse based on p2p technologies. This means that the content will be the property of authors, not for example of such services as Facebook, Youtube or Google. In other words, users will pay to the authors directly. To date, the authors receive small earnings from the sale of advertising by these services. In addition, it will ensure the constant availability, permanence and reliability of the information, as it will be stored in the blockchain.
My experience of work with innovative technologies showed that the most important thing in the success of the project is his team. And with this, Tron is all right.
CEO of Tron Foundation is Justin Sun, the former representative of Bitcoin settlement platform Ripple in China. Ripple is now the third cryptocurrency by market cap after Bitcoin and Ethereum. It is used for transactions between banks, like SWIFT.
He was awarded by the next titles:

```
 2015 Forbes China, 30 under 30 
```
```
 2017 Forbes Asia, 30 under 30 
```
```
 Davos Global Shaper in 2014 
```

He founded Peiwo, an app aspiring to become China's Snapchat.
Justin Sun was the student of Jack Ma (Alibaba) at Hupan University. Now he is in the Tim Draper’s University.
Recently to a team of more than 60 people, including experts in p2p and blockchain technologies, joined the senior expert Lucien Chen from Alibaba and Tencent (Wechat app).
So, what about investors? Among them are:

Binshen Tang, the owner of the game Clash of Kings with an audience of 40 million people
Jihan Wu, CEO of Bitmain. Everyone who is familiar with Bitcoin mining knows well this name. Bitmain is the manufacturer of ASICs Antminers and one of the most powerful Bitcoin miner company in the world.
Weixing Chen, the founder of Kuaidi (Chinese Uber)
Linke Yang, founder of BTC China

Separately, it should be noted that Justin Sun is a protégé of Jack Ma and teaches a course about blockchain technology at his university. In addition, Jack Ma in his recent interview noted that in the future the society should be healthy and happy. Entertainment brings happiness, so it will be part of Alibaba's business.
There are also rumors that Tim Draper invested in Tron. Tim Draper was one of the first to invest in Tesla, Skype, Baidu (Chinese Google).
Lately Justin Sun tweeted that Fund that supported Ripple and some Hedge Funds invested in Tron Foundation.
And some background information.
ICO from Tron passed in several stages from the second half of August to the beginning of September. The price of 1 TRX during the ICO period was 0.00000488 ETH.
A few interesting facts about the ICO Tron. The stage that was held at the Binance exchange was successfully completed in 39 seconds!!! This heated the interest of investors and at the next stage, which was conducted on another site, the desire of investors to get tokens as quickly as possible led to a system’s crash, such a powerful was "ddos attack". In total, according to preliminary estimates, during the ICO about $ 60 million was raised.
Total supply of TRX is 100 000 000 000, circulation supply is 65 000 000 000. The number of decimals is 6. By coin market cap at present TRX is between the 30th and 40th place among all cryptocurrencies.
At the time of writing, TRX traded on the exchanges HitBTC, Liqui, Qryptos, EtherDelta. Some more exchanges on the way, one of which is Korean and another is Australian coolcoin.com. To see TRX in Etherdelta you have to choose to Add custom token and fill the next data:
Address: 0xf230b790E05390FC8295F4d3F60332c93Bed42e2
Token Symbol: TRX
Decimals: 6
And the most pleasant thing is, until October 30, 2017, you can still buy TRX to get a free 10% airdrop after this date.
Links:
1) twitter.com/justinsuntron
2) https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2017/08/12/could-this-millennial-crypto-tech-visionary-be-the-next-jack-ma/#77315aa87064

AMA with CEO William Heyn
“Good Morning fellow, TIOnauts, Bill here, getting ready to answer your questions in the upcoming AMA
I wanted to get an early start by addressing one big question we have been getting. It is always a bit unsettling when a big name leaves a company's board, we understand. However, please remember, there is a lot more to being on a corporate board than just advising a company on its business path. There are meetings, board votes, board minutes and so on, all of the things that the public doesn't see that directors do - and spend a lot of time on.
But let's be honest about what you all want from a big player like Chien, you want him to be involved in advising the company and helping us move forward and grow, right? Do you care if he is going to cast a vote to second the board motion to approve the minutes from the last board meeting?
So as we have said, Chien is going to stay involved as an advisor, he is just letting go on some of the more mundane aspects of being a board member. As most of you know, Chien is a rock star and we are lucky to have had him on the board for the last year, now he is going to spend some of his time on other things - most importantly Forbes Crypto, which directly benefits trade.io - but he is still going to be involved in the strategic direction of the company.”
Q. how much trade.io own from Forbes?A. Hi Pacimaker, got it, thanks for the question, so all I can say is that it is a meaningful amount - beyond that I am not at liberty to say
Q. Bill what are your thoughts on both trade.io for 2019 & the crypto market in general?A. Thanks for the question CB, so I mentioned in my first letter that I am a market optimist, I feel that crypto in general will find its natural bottom and come back. As for trade.io, we are looking forward to a great year with lots of things to develop and improve
Q. What are the changes in the company strategy with the recent changes in trade.io management and the crypto market as well?A. I don't think that we have changed a lot in the company strategy, we just have some new faces to help move the company forward as we see best
Q. Why do much dump? Just because of Chien Lee?A. You got me Ironfist - I don't know why anyone would be dumping - it sure wasn't me
Q As trade.io is into many initiatives it is good to know how much already spent and how much they have reserves.
A. Agreed and understood, please keep faith, we are committed to transparency and openness, we are in good shape for now, but some things we need to keep a little quiet on - so no exact number just yet
Q. Hope it won't seem too negative but I'm wondering if in the future the company will try more to consider the optics of moving around the big names. Maybe the news that Mr Presissler was stepping down could have been done at the same time as this latest announcement to get it all over with instead of pulling off the band-aid much slower.
A. Thanks for the question, so you are completely right, optics are important, and I think you will believe me when I say if there was a way for it to be less painful we would have found it but in these cases we need to be transparent - so for example, waiting a significant amount of time after I took over just to make it one announcement with Chien wouldn't have been responsible.
Krisoffer added “Thanks guys, I appreciate the answer. But as you know, a lot of people might just see the headlines and make decisions based on that, that was my concern. But thank you!”
Bill “Agreed Kristoffer, but we need to balance being as transparent as possible with what is easy, right?”
Jim P added: “Agreed, but we are still working closely with Bill. We are in constant communication.”
Q. Who do you think is the most difficult thing to be done now?A. So, I'm not sure my fingers would take the typing of the full list here, lots to be done, but in general, I look at it like this, trade.io is growing up, companies go through stages and we are entering a new one, we have grown so fast and done so many great things we need to take stock now and see what is working and what is not going exactly as planned and then adjust - very typical for a company of this stage
Q. Is the Forex platform planned before the end of this year?
A. That is planned for Q1 2019
Q. Bill, what was your previous experience in the management of startups like trade.io? You look like to me like a SP500 guy.....that’s the reason of my question.
A. I'm not ashamed to admit were talking about my favorite subject now (me) - So Carlos, boiling it down to the most relevant, I left Merrill Lynch in 2001 after working there and at JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley and founded my own investment bank, just me and a computer. I have built that up over the last 17 years into a full service registered investment bank - so I have done lots of other startups in the past but I think that is most relevant
Q. So u are better than Jim?
A. Pacimaker - Jim and I have been friends for nearly 30 years... you trying to break that up?
Kidding aside, Pacimaker, Jim and I have worked together for almost 20 years now
Q. How are things going to be any different with you as CEO as opposed to Jim?
A. We have different skill sets and have always used them in conjunction with each other on projects, just like now. Between the two of us, Jim is an idea and inception guy, he is brilliant with coming up with new ideas, launching them and getting them through their first stages. I am more of the second stage development guy. Once the company is up and running that's where I can add value. I'll admit, not nearly as exciting as what Jim does but we feel what trade.io needs at this stage.
Q. Do you think at some time trade.io will focus also on Advertise itself on communities whose tokens are listed here? Ex: OMG, BAT etc.... I personally asked this in their TG group and they seemed neither aware that we are listing their tokens.
A. So many of these tokens are already listed on other exchanges, we are working to differentiate ourselves by offering more product, the LP, FX trading etc., we need to get these up and running first
Q. Okay the exchange is getting pretty damn good, now I feel like it’s time to be innovative like setting up a "crypto/forex university" where folks are drawn to and can learn and communicate and plan the future together, is there a timetable for the "learn platform"? And what are your main marketing strategies?
A. Something like this?

Preview

Preview
Q. Is this accessible somewhere already?
A. No we are still developing it. It's in the pipeline and I didn't want to share until it was further along (within a few weeks of deployment) but I figured since you asked now is as just a good of time as any.
Q. Where u can see trade.io in next 3 months?
A. So three months, you have seen all of the timelines and things we are planning to roll out so I won’t repeat them - but more importantly within three months we will have taken stock of the company - like I have said, what is going well, what, if anything isn't and we will hopefully have fixed or being on the way to fixing everything that we can.
Q. Why did you take this challenge?
A. Got it, thanks Carlos, I love challenges, so that's easy, this is what I like to do, help build new companies, so this challenge is right up my alley. Why this one as opposed to others? I genuinely believe that DLT is going to upend the finance world that I have been a part of for decades, I want to be a part of that
Q. Good morning Bill. I think one pressing question on everyone's mind, is the state of finances of the company. We see not much trading going on, so obviously no revenue there, and we don’t have any idea of the other areas making profit... The bear market can be long and drawn out, and those companies that can weather the storm, will prosper obviously. Question is straightforward.... do you feel comfortable that trade.io is in a position to continue operating for 6 more months under current conditions?
A. Hi Dustin, good morning, and thanks for the question. Easy answer is yes, I'm comfortable that we are good to go for 6 months and beyond, the bear market is rough on all of us but our reserves are just fine. But this is always something we focus on, every day making sure that we are keeping operations running
Q. One other thing I know everyone wants an explanation of: is how the liquidity providers work on the exchange. We see lots of small trades by bots that appear as wash trading, which is one thing trade.io has always been against.. Can you give a brief explanation of how that works?
A. Sure, very briefly, as you know the market markers are there to create liquidity and orderly markets - just like the old time guys on the floor of the NYSE, right? So while it may look like a wash, it should only be liquidity and matching - keeping the market moving. That's the market theory, if you want more of the technical aspects of how they work I might have to leave that for our tech guys
Q. Great... I know it is a major question for everyone, and to understand how that works would be a great help
A. From Jim P market makers are there to create an orderly market, and provide a minimal level of liquidity. That’s what ours are doing. We are not manipulating the tape, fake buy walls or sell walls, spoofing, or inflating with millions of fake volume like many others.
Q. Bill Do you think the future is the STO’s?
A. So the STO question is a good one, and really boils down to all of the regulatory issues out there, as the markets have changed and regulations have been maturing I do think that STO's will be part of the path forward - basically between the ICO and the traditional IPO, but there is a lot of evaluation left to do and regulations are changing
Thank you all, I do have to run, it has been a pleasure talking with you all this morning (for me), I look forward to working with you all going forward
Q. Do we have any bombastic announcements to the short and mid terms???
A) We always may have some surprises, but for now we’re focused on executing the initiatives outlined in https://howsitcoming.trade.io in a timely manner.
Q: According to Jim Preissler, trade.io had plans to dual-list traditional stocks on our exchange at some point in the future. There isnt much talk about it anymore. Is that something that we could expect next year?
A) Yes, the goal has always been having a multi-asset platform; we are still hopeful that we will have this running in 2019, but do not have a specific timeline yet.
Q: What coins will be available for depositing on FX platform of trade.io in first time?
A) Ethereum, Bitcoin, TIOx with reduced commissions for TIOx users.
Q: When will fiat be available for depositing on FX platform?
A) Targeting early Q1 2019
Q: Why hasn't the company endorsed and advertised trade.io into communities of the Tokens that we are listing (BAT, OMG etc...)? Thx
A) There is no specific reason, and I agree we need to do a better job of doing this going forward, as it gains more exposure to to trade.io and TIOx.
Q: Hi Mr. William Heyn. May I know when does the "Stop Limit" function to be added into our platform? As a trader, I believe that becoming more important as trading in the downtrend market now.
A) Targeting Q1 2019
Q: Will the launch of forex be a beta or Full version?
A) We’re expecting full version, with standalone FX sites to be up in early Q1 2019.
Q. Will trade.io become dex in the future?
A) Possibly, but its not on our timeline at this point.
Q. What do you think of the idea to take another fast token as the base like XRP or maybe even something like nano? That would still be pretty unique…
A) Something we are considering.
Q. When we can use TIOx to get discount when we trade( same like BNB)?
A) TIOx is used for the LIquidity Pool, and can be used on the FX platform, once released, for discounted commissions.
Q. Any news about that stores where TIOx should be implement this year?
A) We will be starting with our NEST shared workspaces where TIOx can be used for payment and significant discounts.
Q. What is the reason trade.io list so hard ERC- 20?
A) We’re starting to ramp up roll outs of tokens, as you witnessed last week, we added 4 new ERC-20’s including a stable coin. New chains are on the horizon, as well, as can be seen in our timeline.
Q. My question is related to trading competitions. Lastly we added MITH token but at the same time Binance added the same with trading competition. Then how new traders will be attracted towards trade.io? Not a single trading competition since exchange launch!
A) I’ve already spoken to the team about the trading competition and agree its needed, and have given them directives to launch a trading competition in Q1 of 2019.
Q. December-Q1 sounds like an amazing month with lots of good stuff, but do you have a rough time-frame for when the exchange will be able to accept fiat? That's a feature I'm really looking forward to.
A) Q1 as well, as you noted there is a lot that I have the team working on, with tight timelines, as I want to see progress in a fairly short amount of time.
Q. But what is not fair is they are using the API is open to these and not to the other traders? These are trade.io or third party partners?
A) API will be open for everyone, very, very shortly.

Top 50 Cryptocurrencies
I thought this might be of real help for the ones that are just joining crypto and still want to read.
Let’s face it: there are a lot of cryptocurrencies out there, with new ones coming out almost daily and old ones disappearing seemingly just as fast as they appeared. It’s easy to get overwhelmed.
If you are new to cryptocurrencies, this is an excellent starting point to learn about each of the top 50 cryptocurrencies (by market cap). Even if you’re a crypto veteran, this is a great resource to reference if you ever get any of the top 50 confused, or if you want to read more about a new coin which has joined the ranks.
Our hope is to point you in the right direction, spur your interest to do more research, and steer you away from the potential scams out there (And yes, there are potential scam coins in the top 50!)
Here at Invest In Blockchain, we are obsessed with researching the internet for all things crypto. The information found in this post is the result of hundreds of hours of painstaking research by me and other writers on our team.
Note that this list is constantly changing and I will do my best to keep it up-to-date, but the top 50 moves almost daily! Please refer to coinmarketcap.com for the latest information on the top 50 cryptocurrencies and their prices.
Let’s get started!
(Information accurate as of May 23, 2018)

#1 – Bitcoin (BTC)

📷
The king of the crypto world, Bitcoin is now a household name; to many, it is synonymous with “cryptocurrency”. Its purpose is to provide a peer-to-peer electronic version of cash to allow payments to be sent online without the need for a third party (such as Mastercard).
The rapid rise in Bitcoin’s price has brought about an explosion of new Bitcoin investors. With the huge increase in interest has come a rise in merchants accepting Bitcoin as a legitimate form of payment. Bitcoin is fast moving towards its goal of becoming a currency accepted worldwide.
Bitcoin’s development is led by Bitcoin Core developer Wladimir J. van der Laan, who took over the role on April 8, 2014. Bitcoin’s changes are decided democratically by the community.
For an in-depth look at Bitcoin, including an explanation of Bitcoin mining, Bitcoin’s history, an analysis of Bitcoins’ value and a description on how bitcoin actually works, see our comprehensive guide “What is Bitcoin? Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin, Explained“.
For a more detailed description of Bitcoin’s economics, what makes money and how Bitcoin works in the economy as a whole see: “Bitcoin Explained” and “Bitcoin is a Deflationary Currency”.

#2 – Ethereum (ETH)

📷
Ethereum is the revolutionary platform which brought the concept of “smart contracts” to the blockchain. First released to the world in July 2015 by then 21-year-old Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum has quickly risen from obscurity to cryptocurrency celebrity status.
Buterin has a full team of developers working behind him to further develop the Ethereum platform. For more background information on Buterin, read our article, “Vitalik Buterin: The Face of Blockchain”.
Ethereum has the ability to process transactions quickly and cheaply over the blockchain similar to Bitcoin, but also has the ability to run smart contracts. For future reading on smart contracts, see “What’s the Difference Between Bitcoin and Ethereum”; but for now, think automated processes which can do just about anything.
For further reading on Ethereum, including an analysis of the platform’s strengths and future prospects, read “What is Ethereum, Everything You Need to Know Explained“.

#3 – Ripple (XRP)

📷
Ripple aims to improve the speed of financial transactions, specifically international banking transactions.
Anyone who has ever sent money internationally knows that today it currently takes anywhere from 3-5 business days for a transaction to clear. It is faster to withdraw money, get on a plane, and fly it to your destination than it is to send it electronically! Not to mention you will be paying exorbitant transaction fees — usually somewhere around 6% but it can vary depending on the financial institution.
Ripple’s goal is to make these transactions fast (it only takes around 4 seconds for a transaction to clear) and cheap.
The Ripple team currently comprises over 150 people, making it one of the biggest in the cryptocurrency world. They are led by CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who has an impressive resume which includes high positions in other organizations such as Yahoo and Hightail.
Check out “What is Ripple” for more information, including a closer look at what they do, controversies and future prospects.

#4 – Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

📷
Bitcoin Cash was created on August 1, 2017 after a “hard fork” of the Bitcoin blockchain. For years, a debate has been raging in the Bitcoin community on whether to increase the block size in the hope of alleviating some of the network bottleneck which has plagued Bitcoin due to its increased popularity.
Because no agreement could be reached, the original Bitcoin blockchain was forked, leaving the Bitcoin chain untouched and in effect creating a new blockchain which would allow developers to modify some of Bitcoin’s original programmed features.
Generally speaking, the argument for Bitcoin Cash is that by allowing the block size to increase, more transactions can be processed in the same amount of time. Those opposed to Bitcoin Cash argue that increasing the block size will increase the storage and bandwidth requirement, and in effect will price out normal users. This could lead to increased centralization, the exact thing Bitcoin set out to avoid.
Bitcoin Cash does not have one single development team like Bitcoin. There are now multiple independent teams of developers.
Read “What is Bitcoin Cash” for more information. You can also check out their reddit and official webpage.

#5 – EOS (EOS)

📷
Billed as a potential “Ethereum Killer”, EOS proposes improvements that can challenge Ethereum as the dominant smart contract platform. One main issue EOS looks to improve is the scalability problems which has plagued the Ethereum network during times of high transaction volume, specifically during popular ICOs.
A perhaps more profound difference EOS has, compared to Ethereum, is the way in which you use the EOS network. With Ethereum, every time you make modifications or interact with the network, you need to pay a fee. With EOS, the creator of the DAPP (decentralized app) can foot the bill, while the user pays nothing. And if you think about it, this makes sense. Would you want to have to pay every time you post something on social media? No, of course not!
In addition to this, EOS has a few other technical advantages over Ethereum such as delegated proof of stake and other protocol changes. Just know that EOS has some serious power under the hood to back up the claim of “Ethereum Killer”.
EOS was created by Dan Larrimer who is no stranger to blockchain or start ups. He has been the driving force behind multiple successful projects in the past such as BitShares, Graphene and Steem.
For more information on EOS such as how and where to buy EOS tokens, EOS’s vision and potential challenges, see “What is EOS”.

#6 – Litecoin (LTC)

📷
Similar to Bitcoin, Litecoin is a peer-to-peer transaction platform designed to be used as a digital currency. Due to some notable technical improvements, Litecoin is able to handle more transactions at lower costs. Litecoin has been designed to process the small transactions we make daily.
Litecoin is sometimes referred to “digital silver” while Bitcoin is known as “digital gold”. This is because traditionally silver was used for small daily transactions while gold was used as a store of wealth and was not used in everyday life.
The Litecoin blockchain is a fork from the Bitcoin chain. It was initially launched in 2011 when its founder, Charlie Lee, was still working for Google. Well-known as a cryptocurrency expert, Charlie Lee is backed by a strong development team who appear to be achieving what they set out to do. They have recently achieved a very notable accomplishment with the first successful atomic swap.
For an in-depth discussion on what Litecoin does, how it is different than Bitcoin and the team backing up the development, see “What is Litecoin”.

#7 – Cardano (ADA)

📷
Cardano is a smart contract-focused blockchain. It was originally released under the name Input Output Hong Kong by Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood, a few of the early team members of Ethereum, and later rebranded into Cardano.
Cardano is trying to fix some of the largest problems the cryptocurrency world which have been causing ongoing issues for years such as scalability issues and democratized voting.
They have the potential to challenge Ethereum’s dominance in the smart contract world. Cardano is developing their own programing language similar to Ethereum; however, they are focusing more heavily on being interoperable between other cryptocurrencies.
While some cryptocurrencies are all bite but no bark, Cardano is quite the opposite. They are quietly focusing on a strong software which will be completely open-source.
Cardano’s team comprises some of the best minds in the industry, and they seek to create a strong foundation which others can build upon for years to come.
For up-to-date information on Cardano’s status see their Reddit page or official website. You can also read our article “What is Cardano” to learn more about them.

#8 – Stellar Lumens (XLM)

📷
In a nutshell, Stellar Lumens seeks to use blockchain to make very fast international payments with small fees. The network can handle thousands of transactions a second with only a 3-5 second confirmation time.
As you may know, Bitcoin can sometimes take 10-15 minutes for a transaction to confirm, can only handle a few transactions a second and, in turn, has very high transaction fees.
If this sounds a lot like Ripple, you’re right! Stellar Lumens was based off of the Ripple protocol) and is attempting to do similar things. Some of Stellar Lumens’ main uses will be for making small daily payments (micropayments), sending money internationally, and mobile payments.
Stellar Lumens is focusing on the developing world and, more specifically, the multi-billion dollar industry of migrant workers who send money back to their family in impoverished countries.
The Stellar Lumens team is led by Jed McCaleb, who has worked in numerous successful startups in the past such as eDonkey, Overnet, Ripple, and the infamous Mt. Gox.
For more information on Stellar Lumens, including the history and what sets Stellar Lumens apart, see “What are Stellar Lumens”. You can also learn about the differences between Stellar Lumens and Ripple.

#9 – TRON (TRX)

📷
As stated in TRON’s whitepaper, “TRON is an attempt to heal the internet”. The TRON founders believe that the internet has deviated from its original intention of allowing people to freely create content and post as they please; instead, the internet has been taken over by huge corporations like Amazon, Google, Alibaba and others.
TRON is attempting to take the internet back from these companies by constructing a free content entertainment system. This will enable users to freely store, publish and own data, giving them the power to decide where and how to share.
The project is led by founder Justin Sun, who has been listed on the Forbes 30 under 30 list twice (in 2015 and 2017). In addition, Sun is a protégé of Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, China’s former Ripple representative and the founder of Peiwo APP.
Sun has assembled a strong team with heavy hitters including Binshen Tang (founder of Clash of King), Wei Dai (founder of ofo, the biggest shared bicycles provider in China), and Chaoyong Wang (founder of ChinaEquity Group). Sun has also secured the support of a few notable angel investors such as Xue Manzi.
For up-to-date information on Tron and further discussion of the technology and team, see “What is Tron” and their website.

#10 – IOTA (MIOTA)

📷
IOTA has seen many of the issues Bitcoin and Ethereum have with the POW (proof-of-work) and POI (proof-of-importance) models and looks to improve them with their revolutionary transaction validation network simply called “tangle”.
When issuing a transaction in IOTA, you validate 2 previous transactions. This means you no longer outsource validation to miners which requires wasteful amounts of computing power and usually a large stake of coins. These required resources are, in effect, centralizing the currencies which many believe were created to be decentralized in the first place.
With IOTA, the more active a ledger is, the more validation there is. In other words, the more people who use it, the faster it gets. You don’t have to subsidize miners, so there are no fees on transactions. That’s right: zero.
The IOTA team has been actively developing blockchain technology since 2011, and created the IOTA foundation and company in 2016. Since its emergence, the team has been continuously growing, attracting exceptional talent from around the world.
For more information on IOTA’s team and their revolutionary“tangle” technology, check out “What is IOTA”.

#11 – NEO (NEO)

📷
A leading platform for smart contracts and sometimes referred to as “China’s Ethereum”. NEO (formally Antshares) hopes to digitize many types of assets which were formerly kept in more traditional means, and therefore make it possible to use them in smart contracts.
To imagine a potential use case of NEO, think digitizing the title to a house into a smart asset, and then setting up that asset to automatically transfer to another person after payment for the house has been received. This would be, in effect, a simple smart contract.
NEO founder Da Hongfei is a leading figure in the cryptocurrency world and has worked on numerous blockchain projects in the past. The development team consists of 6 in-house investors and a large community of third-party developers.
For a complete overview of NEO, including the team, history and competitive analysis, check out “What is NEO”.

#12 – Dash (DASH)

📷
Dash (which comes from ‘digital cash’) aims to be the most user-friendly and scalable cryptocurrency in the world. It has the ability to send funds instantly confirmed by “double-send-proof” security with the added functionality of erasable transaction history and the ability to send transactions anonymously.
Like Bitcoin, Dash is meant to be used as a digital currency but has some added values such as much faster transaction times and lower fees. For a slightly higher fee, Dash has the added function of “instant send” which allows transactions to be confirmed almost instantly. This is one of the main selling points of Dash because many believe that this feature would allow it to be used in brick and mortar establishments.
The Dash development team consists of over 50 members and is led by former financial services professional Evan Duffield.
For the latest on Dash, see their official website and reddit page. You can also read “What is Dash” to learn more about the project.

#13 – Monero (XMR)

📷
Monero is a digital currency designed to be used as a completely anonymous payment system.
A common misconception with Bitcoin is that it is completely anonymous. In reality, all payments processed on the Bitcoin network are recorded on a public ledger (blockchain), so Bitcoin is actually only partially anonymous or “pseudonymous”.
This means that you can, in theory, trace back every transaction a coin has been involved with from its creation. Though users aren’t able to inherently link the public key on the blockchain with the private keys used to store the coins themselves, there will always exist a correlation between the two.
Monero has solved this problem by implementing cryptonic hashing of receiving addresses, therefore separating the coin from the address it is going to. This can be hugely valuable for anyone wishing to conceal their purchases.
The Monero development team consists of 7 core developers, only two of which are publicly known. There have been over 200 additional contributors to the project and software updates are implemented every six months or so.
To learn more about Monero including its competitors and challenges, read “What is Monero”. If you’re thinking about investing in Monero, check out our opinion piece “Should You Invest In Monero?“.

#14 – Tether (UDST)

📷
Tether is a cryptocurrency token issued on the Bitcoin blockchain. Each Tether coin is allegedly backed by one US Dollar. The goal is to facilitate transactions with a rate fixed to the USD.
Amongst other things, Tether looks to fix some of the legal issues which can arise when trading cryptocurrencies and it aims to protect people from market volatility.
Tether has faced controversy regarding their business model, and some consider it a scam. More info can be seen on reddit posts such as this.

#15 – NEM (XEM)

📷
NEM (New Economy Movement) is the world’s first proof-of-importance (POI) enterprise based on blockchain technology. With a focus on business use cases, the software was built from the ground up with adaptability in mind. NEM’s goal is for companies to use their “smart asset system” to implement customizable blockchains. A smart asset can be almost anything: a cryptocurrency token, a business’s stock or a company’s invoicing and records.
Some potential use cases for NEM’s technology include: voting, crowdfunding, stock ownership, keeping secure records, loyalty rewards point programs, mobile payments and escrow services. A list of NEM’s use cases can be found here.
The development of NEM is monitored by the Singapore-based NEM Foundation.
For more information on what NEM does and what sets NEM apart from its competitors, see “What is NEM”.

#16 – VeChain (VEN)

📷
As described in VeChain’s development plan, the organization’s purpose is to build “a trustfree and distributed business ecosystem based on the Blockchain technology self-circulated and expanding”.
They plan to do this by creating an efficient trustless business ecosystem to significantly reduce the wasteful information transfer systems of today.
Some of the areas and industries the VeChain platform is focusing on include eliminating counterfeiting in the fashion and luxury industry, food safety tracking systems, digitizing maintenance in the car industry and many other global supply chain processes.
For more information on VeChain, see their reddit and website. Read “What is Vechain” to learn about the project, and our investment opinion piece “5 Reasons to Invest in Vechain“.

#17 – Ethereum Classic (ETC)

📷
Ethereum Classic came about after a hard fork of Ethereum in 2016. The fork was a result of the infamous DOA hack where around 50 million dollars worth of Ethereum was stolen due to what was considered an oversight in the code.
The blockchain was forked in order to recoup the losses from this attack, but a small portion of the community did not wish to go back and change the original blockchain. Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, and subsequently the development team chose to go with the hard fork and work on what is now “Ethereum” today.
There is a lot of ongoing controversy with Ethereum Classic which can be better described on this reddit thread. For an in-depth discussion of Ethereum Classic, see”What is Ethereum Classic“.

#18 – Binance Coin (BNB)

📷
Binance Coin is the coin used to facilitate operations on the Binance platform, a cryptocurrency exchange that is capable of processing 1.4 million orders per second. The name “Binance” is derived from the combination of the terms “binary” and “finance”, referring to the integration of digital technology and finance.
The BNB coin is used to pay exchange fees, withdrawal fees, listing fees, and all other possible transaction expenses on the Binance platform. In order to incentivize new users to do their cryptocurrency trading on Binance, the team is offering discounts when BNB is used to pay fees. The discount will be 50% in the first year, 25% in the second, 12.5% in the third, and 6.25% in the fourth year before the discount ends.
Binance was primarily marketed to Chinese cryptocurrency investors at first, but they also have English, Korean, Japanese, French, Spanish, and Russian versions of the platform.
For a deeper look into Binance, you can read the whitepaper or check out the trading platform here.

#19 – Bytecoin (BCN)

📷
Bytecoin describes itself as “a private, decentralized cryptocurrency with with open source code that allows everyone to take part in the Bytecoin network development”. It is the first coin to offer untraceable payments, unlinkable transactions and resistance to blockchain analysis.
With Bytecoin, it is possible to send instant transactions anywhere around the world, which are totally untraceable and don’t require additional fees.
Bytecoin’s development is community-driven and a list of all of the different community websites can be found here.
For more information on Bytecoin, see: “What is Bytecoin“.

#20 – QTUM (QTUM)

📷
QTUM (pronounced Quantum) is an open-source value transfer platform which focuses on mobile decentralized apps or Dapps. QTUM is the world’s first proof-of-stake smart contracts platform.
QTUM is meant to be used as both a value transfer protocol, like Bitcoin, and a smart contract platform, like Ethereum. They have a number of technical innovations which some consider to make it superior to Ethereum, and they are focusing on mobile applications.
The platform itself is very new. It came about in March 2017, after a highly successful crowdfunding campaign raised them nearly 16 million dollars in only 5 days. QTUM has a small but strong development team and an impressive list of investors backing their ideas. QTUM’s development is lead by the Singapore based QTUM Foundation.
For further reading on the background of QTUM and what sets them apart, see “What is QTUM”.

#21 – Zcash (ZEC)

📷
ZCash is a value transfer protocol forked off of the Bitcoin blockchain. ZCash can be used like Bitcoin, with a few added improvements. With “zero cash technology”, ZCash shields both the amount transferred and the senders, making transactions truly anonymous.
ZCash is one of the new kids on the block in the world of “private transactions”.
An interesting note is that Ethereum is in the process of implementing some of ZCash’s technologies to enable transactions on the Ethereum network to be anonymous as well.
ZCash is being developed by the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company. They’ve had some great successes, most notably JP Morgan’s announcement that they would implement Zcash’s privacy technology to Quarum, a technology JP built on Ethereum.
Interested in investing in ZCash? Here’s the opinion of one of our writers: Should You Invest In ZCash?
ZCash was recently featured on the Radiolab episode The Ceremony.

#22 – OmiseGO (OMG)

📷
“Unbank the Banked” is the slogan of Omise’s online platform OmiseGo and that’s exactly what Omise has set out to do. Founded in 2013 off of the Ethereum blockchain, Omise aims to revolutionize the financial dynamics in Southeast Asia.
Omise is targeting individuals and businesses of all sizes by improving the current financial system which is slow, outdated, and inaccessible to most “everyday” people in these countries.
With their planned online exchange OmiseGO, Omise seeks to speed up the way money is spent and sent, both domestically and internationally in Southeast Asia and beyond.
They have a lot to celebrate too. OmiseGo has been building partnerships in the region and recently partnered with McDonald’s and Credit Saison.
Omise has established a strong team of over 130 staff members located in different countries. CEO and founder of Omise, Jun Hasegawa, has been involved in multiple startups and worked for Google for over 16 years.
The OmiseGO platform has been endorsed by some of the heavy hitters in the cryptocurrency world such as Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood, the co-founders of Ethereum.
For more information on what OmiseGO aims to do, see “What is OmiseGo”.

#23 – ICON (ICX)

📷
Fresh off a successful ICO, the Korea-based startup ICON is looking to provide a medium to connect all the different blockchains together. This puts ICON in the same field as Ark, which is attempting to accomplish similar goals.
The main concept of ICON is their idea of a “loopchain”. As stated in their whitepaper, a loopchain can be described as a “high-performance blockchain that can provide real-time transaction, which is based on enhanced Smart Contract.” Through ICON, participants will be able to connect to any blockchain without relying on the current centralized exchanges.
ICON has a relatively large team from various backgrounds. They have also secured the help of a few notable advisors such as Jason Best and Don Tapscott.
For more information on ICON and the work they’re doing, see “What is ICON“.

#24 – Lisk (LSK)

📷 Lisk is a decentralized network, like Bitcoin and Litecoin, which enables developers to deploy their own side chains off the main Lisk blockchain. These side chains are fully customizable blockchains which enable you to change the parameters you want to fit your own blockchain application.
This is similar to Ethereum and QTUM in some ways. With Lisk, the main difference is that the customizable blockchains split into their own separate side chains. This saves developers the grueling legwork of designing something from scratch. At the end of the day, side chains are only decentralized databases of blockchain applications.
Lisk is being developed by a small but quickly growing Berlin-based team. They are led by co-founders Max Kordek and Olivier Beddows who are veterans in the cryptocurrency and development world.
For a thorough look into Lisk including more on what Lisk does, its competitors, challenges and teams, see “What is Lisk”. You can also check out our case study of an accountant who invested all his life savings in Lisk: “Accountant Invests All in Lisk”.

#25 – Zilliqa – (ZIL)

📷
Zilliqa is a blockchain platform which focuses on solving the problem of scaling on public blockchains. With Zilliqa’s network, the number of transactions increases at a linear rate to the number of nodes.
This means that as nodes increase, so will its ability to handle high transaction volume. Zilliqa has already run a successful test on their network, where they were able to achieve 1,200 transactions per second with only 2,400 nodes.
Zilliqa also is the first blockchain to successfully integrate “sharding” into a public blockchain. This concept is extremely useful in improving the rate of scalability, bandwidth and performance in blockchains. Sharding, in effect, splits nodes into “shards” which can then conduct micro-transactions in each blockchain block.
In addition to this, Zilliqa claims to be more energy-efficient to mine. They also plan to implement dapps into their platform in the future.
For more information on Zilliqa, see their website and reddit. Our article “What is Zilliqa” can provide you with an overview of the project.

Bitcoin Price Could Triple Even After a Modest Switch From ...

Wall Street 2.0: How Blockchain will revolutionise Wall Street and a closer look at Quant Network’s Partnership with AX Trading