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.
Skychain is an open infrastructure, based on blockchain, which provides the possibility to create, train and use high-quality medical neural networks. IBM estimates the artificial intelligence market in the healthcare sector to reach $200 billion in a few years. Skychain’s goal is to control more than 70% of that market! The way to achieve this goal is to create the best open infrastructure that will accumulate the resources of the majority of participants of this industry and surpass any closed corporate product. The mission of Skychain is to save 10 million patients from premature death due to medical errors within 10 years. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death, but artificial intelligence can dramatically reduce the number of such errors! Skychain intends to provide an infrastructure to radically increase the efficiency of healthcare AI development and training. It will make diagnostic AI systems far more accessible and affordable for the consumer by using blockchain technologies to facilitate safe transactions between the key parties. Skychain is unique. The project is based on the revolutionary approach of using smart contracts to bring together many healthcare big data providers whose data is vital for AI training, thousands of independent AI developers, computational resource providers (crypto miners), and millions of consumers.