Digix makes it possible to buy gold in an efficient manner via cryptocurrency by providing investors with a tokenized version of gold so you don’t have to physically own or store it. Digix has two cryptocurrencies, Digix Gold (DGX) and DigixDAO (DGD), each of which serves a key role in the structure. The company proudly gets 99.99 percent of its gold from LBMA-approved refiners, with zero percent from fractional reserves, delivering confidence. With Digix, investors can take advantage of the stability and value of gold as well as the ease of cryptocurrency. Digix essentially tokenizes gold within Ethereum. It takes advantage of the Distributed Ledger’s immutability, auditability, and transparency, applying all these benefits to the precious physical asset of gold. Additionally, Digix has developed multiple technologies, such as the DGX tokens and introduced a new Proof of Asset protocol (POA). A key feature of Digix is its physical gold bullion. By investing, users buy bullion from the LBMA refineries, including the Assay Certificates from refiners like Nadir Bullion, PAMP Suisse, Valcambi, and others. For security, Digix includes third-party auditing from Bureau Veritas. Every quarter, it audits each gold asset within the safehouse vaults. This auditor has been in business since 1828 and is a world leader in certification, inspection, and testing services. With such a long track record, investors should be able to trust Bureau Veritas for their auditing services. Finally, Digix involves recast, which means customers can take their DGX delivery at the partnering custodial vault. Digix incorporated in Singapore in December 2014 and the DGD crowdsale took place on March 30th, 2016. It was the first ever crowdsale and major Distributed Autonomous Organization hosted on the Ethereum network. The sale intended to run for 30 days but met its 5.5 million dollars hard cap in just 12 hours, selling 1.7 million DGD tokens and reserving 300,000 for the Digix team. Pledges who sent over 15,000 USD worth of Ether received a special badge which will allow them to submit proposals to the DigixDAO. For better or worse, when you see the word DAO, you might think of hacking. In July 2017, over 4000 DGD were indeed stolen due to a vulnerability in the crowdsale smart contract. The bug was eventually fixed and the tokens reimbursed to the 35 affected addresses. In January 2018, the vast majority of the cryptocurrency market crashed. DGD was the only coin in the top 100 to rise in value in that time. Perhaps this is an early indicator that people will seek gold as a safe haven during times of market uncertainty. The ICO price of DGD was about 3 dollars, but in 2018, DGD reached an all-time high of over 400 dollars. When Digix finally delivers the DGX tokens and the rewards to DGD participants start rolling in, we might see an even higher demand for DigixDAO. When DGX goes live, it will be available for purchase with Ether on the Digix marketplace.
Syscoin is “a global network, a distributed ledger, a decentralized database and a blockchain. It is also a cryptocurrency, an altcoin, a digital currency and a tradable token.” Originally launched in late 2014 and created through a Bitcoin fork, the current version brings us to Syscoin 2.1 and has an algorithm that allows it to be merge-mined with Bitcoin. Merge mining is simply the ability for miners to simultaneously mine two different cryptocurrencies based on the same algorithm. The project attempts to remove the middleman and put money directly back into merchants/consumers hands, eliminating hefty fees currently charged by big corporations like Amazon and eBay. To facilitate near-zero fee transactions, you can use its native cryptocurrency, Syscoin (SYS), to pay for goods on the marketplace. However, you can also pay using alternate cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Zcash. Syscoin is led by a team of developers and was created by its current core developer, Sebastian Schepis. According to Proof of Developer, a website that verifies, evaluates, and ranks developer teams, Syscoin received 5 stars in 2014. Blockchain Foundry maintains Syscoin as its flagship product, with a mission to “disrupt markets by leveraging the potential of blockchain technology”. In March of 2017, Blockchain Foundry partnered with the Microsoft Azure ecosystem and is one of the founding members of the Digital Identity Foundation (DIF). Other founding members of the DIF include the likes of corporate giants such as Microsoft, Accenture, ConsenSys, and more. Syscoin’s blockchain delivers faster speeds along with lower transaction fees than its predecessor, Bitcoin. It can support 750 tps, and with the upcoming masternode release, it will support more than 300,000 tps. For now, it’s one of the cheapest cryptocurrencies regarding transaction fees (behind zero-fee transaction cryptocurrencies such as NEO and NANO), even cheaper than XRP.' Some of the features highlighted on the SysCoin website includes :- 1. Buy/Selling goods on the blockchain 2. Brokerage on the blockchain 3. Issue and trade certificates on the blockchain 4. Merged Mining