You must have heard a lot of noise about the digital revolution of money. In fact, every minute, a lot of people do transactions numbering hundreds of thousands in the blockchain ecosystem.
Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency out there, but looking away from it, there are in fact a lot of other cryptocurrencies coming in and going out of the blockchain ecosystem at any time.
We would take a good look at Ripple, Dash, and Steam as platforms in the crypto revolution and see what they are up to and how to get them if you would like to.
RIPPLE (XRP)
Ripple describes itself in its homepage as the worlds only enterprise solution for blockchain payment. Ripple is simply a decentralized platform that provides real-time transactions across borders for banks and for their customers. Sending money today from a person in a country like the United States to another person elsewhere say the Philipines would need a lot of intermediaries. This makes th transaction process slow and expensive too. Another thing you may not like is that there are reasonable chances that such transactions would fail, making it all the more unacceptable. Ripple is built on the blockchain technology having the ability to improve performance with increasing demand. It enables an end to end visibility of transactions throughout the entire process from sending to receiving. Ripple works by allowing banks enabled on its platform everywhere in the world to exchange sender and recipient information following risk and compliance requirements. This process is unique because no information about any person touches the ripple network and information is encrypted and secure using HTTPs. Transactions on the Ripple network are completed within seconds and all ledgers are updatedsimultaneously reducing the risk of failure and time.
Ripple’s solution the xcurrent is built around a neutral protocol the inter ledger protocol. The inter ledger protocol allows different ledgers in different networks to work harmoniously and simultaneously. Messanger, built on xcurrent technology is used to communicate information relating to transactions beforehand to enable validation. An ID is also attached during the end to end payments. This ID allows query of payment status during the process of execution reducing the possibility offailure. A validator confirms success or failure of transactions between parties. The ILP Ledger contains the record of debits and credits by all parties involved in the transaction. The last is the FX Ticker and this facilitates exchange between ILP ledgers by providing the rate.
DASH
Dash is simply digital cash. That is how it is described on its official website. Dash is a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin but dash allows users full control of their funds. This makes dash easy and simple to use for anyone. The transaction fees are low, everything on the dash network is secured and everything is also instantaneous. To start using Dashcoin, intending users would have to simply download the wallet. Dash proposes a decentralized system to manage its funds and to maintain its project. To achieve this, Dash adopts a system that is different from what has been used by other cryptocurrency platforms. This method introduces master node operators who are not the lone persons with interest in Dash but are the most consistent. They do not trade their coins or assets for any other purpose. The budget of Dash is created and paid for directly from the blockchain, and developers can also be hired and compensated by the network. This system of a decentralized master node operators is expedient in one way. If master node operators decide to sell their coins, the network would survive since new owners would set up their master node and with it, acquire the right to vote on budgets and projects. This is how the Dash system would sustain itself.
STEEM
Now let’s look at Steem. Steem is a new way for publishers to monetize their contents online based on reliable blockchain technology. It sets out to solve the difficulty faced by content creators as they continue to grapple with getting the money worth of their contents. It has become increasingly difficult for publishers to get a large number of subscribers which would be important for payment especially. The revenue from ads is decreasing so fast as a result of ad blockers now built in a lot of browsers. Donations and tips from the audience would not also be valuable because of the cost of micropayments. The last problem is that the robust social networks we currently have. These networks benefit from the contents of these creators but do not share the profit with them.
The solution to these problems in one word as Steem puts it is to enable publishers to create tokens that help monetize content and grow communities. This would work since tokens would enable publishers to create mutual communities that everyone can benefit from. These communities would utilize incentives to drive platform growth. The use of smart tokens with close to immediate settlements and no fees for transactions creates new nonadvertising business models. The tokens can be used for fundraising through an initial coin offering.
Like the cash or electronic currency, people get paid for using ad services like Google’s Adsense and Chitika. The Smart media tokens are Steemit’s native digital assets that can be launched by any person to get the money value for online contents. This token is what creates the incentive for desired user behavior which for the case of Steemit is the development of quality contents. This system of allocating incentive, decided by pooling the decision of the crowd to determine the quality of a content is called proof of brain. The proof of brain is much like Bitcoins proof of work suggested by Satoshi Nakamoto in the Bitcoin whitepaper published in 2008. The tokens are also similar to the Etherium ERC 20 tokens but differ from it only because of its unique proof of brain system and it is designed specifically for digital content and businesses.
The instant settlement of Steem and its high number of transactions is remarkable. With this in place, developers of contents can focus on creating unique contents for their communities, since the tech aspect is already taken care of.
Tokens can be integrated into the website of content creators using Steem connect. Publishers can launch a Steem based comment widget that integrates into existing blogs built on platforms like Blogger and WordPress.
Now it would be good to know how to buy these coins. For ripple, the XRP is its digital asset for payment. The Ripple XRP proves a swift and scalable option for banks and payment providers to settle transactions. XRP is available on the following exchanges and its value is put at USD $3.4 per XRP at the time of writing by Coingecko. You can also check out the list of providers.
There are many ways to buy Dash, and each way comes with its pros and cons too. Exchanges could be a good way to buy and sell Dashcoin but not all exchangesaccept fiat money, and decentralized exchanges may incur extra fees since activities are on a peer-to-peer basis. Instant exchanges function like normal exchanges. They also effectively convert from one currency to another. Although their exchange limit and rates could be less advantageous. Peer-to-peer networks offering to sell or enabling the sale of Dashcoin are available. There is also an ATM payment option.
Unlike the others on the list, the Smart media tokens proposed by Steemit is not something to be traded like the ordinary cryptocurrency. To understand it, you would have to think of it as a currency that exists only for the purpose it was created. Smart media tokens are gotten from integrating Steemit to your website or by becoming a participant in Steemit based platforms.
There is really a lot to know about cryptocurrencies, isn’t it? A lot of platforms are coming up and making the right choice goes closer by the day to sitting between the devil and the deep blue sea.