DMarket is a decentralized game asset marketplace. The marketplace covers a wide variety of games and turns virtual items into real commodities that can be traded on the blockchain. The idea of tokenization is central to the blockchain where any item can be represented as a token on the blockchain. This creates an emerging economy around digital assets where they become real items. There are an estimated 2.3 billion gamers worldwide and ample opportunity to monetize digital assets. The gaming economy is estimated at $450 billion There are two types of assets available on DMarket. The first type is a virtual Steam item. This Steam item is an in-game asset this is available for a specific game. At the moment there is a horde of items available for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. There is also a DMarket Blockchain item that is an internal blockchain item that can be traded on the DMarket blockchain. Users can sell Steam items for US Dollars (USD) or DMarket items for USD or DMC, the internal DMarket cryptocurrency. Users can buy Steam items for USD or DMC or DMarket items for DMC. In order to sell Steam items on DMarket, users have to connect their Steam account to their DMarket account. DMarket blockchain items can be traded without connecting to Steam. Users have to register on DMarket. This creates a DMC wallet for them where they can store their DMC currency and DMarket items. The DMarket platform also has its own block explorer. All wallets and transactions are recorded in the public blockchain. DMarket has a future-proof use case as the demand for a universal gaming trading platform is imminent. Strategic partnerships between game title developers, the gaming community and gamers will ensure that DMarket lives well beyond its proprietary blockchain phase.
Aave is a decentralized lending platform that runs on Ethereum Network which offers secure, peer-to-peer lending Smart Contracts. Aave strives to break through the traditional bank loans system with a more efficient solution. Aave also uniquely allows a borrower and a lender to decide on important loan details that can eliminate the need of a middle man. Due to the elimination of middlemen, process fee for a loan does not exist on this platform. This provide convenience to any lender and borrower to create loans on their agreed terms. Decentralized lending has fixed many issues and one of the reasons why is the transparency of loan. The Ethereum network provides a transparent ledger where all transactions are available to be inspected. Secondly, it isn’t necessary to find a trusted loan provider because all collateral which is the digital asset for loans are stored and locked in a smart contract and broadcasted on the public ethereum blockchain. It is also flexible for borrower to manage the collateral by refilling or withdrawing part of it. Borrower may make such changes when the lender is notified and aware of such movement. If the lender finds out that the action is not communicated, the lender is allowed to initiate a margin call. This year, Aave has made a major upgrades in its Q1 2018. They have deployed the new development for their peer-to-peer lending application named Alpha 0.3. The development process of Alpha 0.3 has started since the early of 2017. The new release also includes a completely new user interface which targets to lower the learning curve of user experience on the app. Furthermore, the new user interface has new sections to make lending process simpler such as including a ‘My Loan’ section, collectible badges and more. Other than that, the team is also in the process of developing more updates for the smart contracts. Hence, the team has decided to provide zero-fee lending with the use of LEND token as a medium of exchange, as an alternative to borrowing in Ethereum. The purpose of this is to provide a cross-blockchain lending currency which will prompt users to use LEND as the medium of exchange.