Achain is a public blockchain platform that enables developers of all levels to issue tokens and create smart contracts, decentralized applications, and blockchain systems. Achain is committed to building a global blockchain network for information exchange and value transactions. Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, Achain utilizes a modified version of DPoS — RDPoS (Result-delegated Proof of Stake) to establish node consensus. Shortly, DPoS suggests that all coin holders vote for the validator nodes that will produce the next blocks. On the project website, only info about CEO Tony Cui is listed. Cui has a few significant accomplishments, including winning the Future Star award from the Zhongguancun Alliance and being listed in the 30 under 30 on CYZONE, a famous venture capital magazine. On LinkedIn, 51 people are listed as employees at Achain. Most of the team is based in Beijing. Achain also has a few key industry partners. It has even co-organized a “Blockchain Technology Open Course” with Tsinghua University, which is widely recognized as one of the world’s top universities. The roadmap for Achain development is fairly detailed. However, most goals listed are development-oriented rather than marketing or design. Still, it’s important to note that focusing on making the protocol interoperable and building a technology that is more accessible to mainstream adoption could also be considered a marketing-oriented part of this project. There are three major phases with projected completion dates listed. These include Singularity (completed Q1), Galaxy (ongoing), and Cosmos (complete at the end of Q4). One thing to note is that dates for these phases are not consistent between the homepage and the whitepaper. This could be simply due to a scenario in which phase names remain the same while new goals and timeline dates within those phases continue to change. In January 2019, the project will update the website to reflect roadmap goals for the new year. Looking at the current landscape of blockchain projects, Achain certainly offers the possibility of much-needed technical innovations. The ability to easily create an Achain fork, as well as, the protocol’s unique RDPoS consensus algorithm make this a promising project. It will be interesting to see how Achain builds upon its accomplishments, and how the project team continues to develop a long-term strategy for improving the protocol’s technical capabilities and increasing participation in its ecosystem.
Cosmochain is a complementary Company-to-Consumer platform that connects cosmetics product users and content creators to cosmetics product suppliers, including cosmetics companies, OEM/ODM manufacturers, R&D centers, and distributors. Through this platform, the Cosmochain Team aims to solve the aforementioned unmet needs of both companies and customers. All data collected from platform participants are kept confidential in this customer-centered ecosystem. Those who contribute their scarce time and attention toward producing and curating contents for others are compensated with tokens and receive pro-rata ownership of the contents they create. On the other hand, cosmetics product suppliers are able to actualize a wide variety of “on-demand” services on the platform by utilizing API that Cosmochain provides. Two different tokens and one internal virtual index make up the Cosmochain ecosystem: 1) The first token is an externally traded token called Cosmo Coin, 2) The second token as well as an index of contribution to the platform is Cosmo Power, which can be used to make payment within the platform and given out as rewards for activities, and 3) The one virtual index is called Cosmo Level. Cosmo Level, a reputation index, is designed to prevent abuse of power within the platform and can only be accumulated by actual activities and contribution. Having been assigned distinct roles within the Cosmochain platform, these three entities construct a healthy ecosystem. ● The success of the Cosmochain platform lies in the active participation of users – where customers create reliable data after trying out various cosmetics products and sharing the experience with one another on the platform. As a result, Cosmochain has designed its own transparent and fair reward system based on Steemit’s incentive model. ● The Cosmochain platform connects this user-created data to interested company participants and distributes the payment made by the company to customers as reward for use of the information. Through this reward system, Cosmochain aims to address two structural issues of social media-based platforms: 1) risk of inflation following the necessity of a long-term and great quantity of token issuance to grow the community, and 2) risk of decreasing attractiveness of contribution rewards after the inflation rate has been stabilized. ● In addition, the Cosmochain platform aims to realize an upgraded tokenization model that brings the power back to its users by redistributing the following: (i) the right to display ads in a user’s viewing space, (ii) the right to access a personally curated Marketplace, and (iii) the right to share personal data to partake in a study or survey. Simply speaking, the Cosmochain platform will go beyond simply allowing users to share onedimensional personal information. As such, Cosmochain serves the purpose of revolutionizing the cosmetics industry’s ecosystem by redistributing ownership and management authority of personal cosmetics data and contents to those in need, and through operations of transparent rewarding system for the redistribution of data.