Dragonchain is one of the newly launched cryptocurrencies that is attracting crypto enthusiasts following its relaunch. The coin seems to be leading on the technology front irrespective of its market capitalisation trends, which is why it's also being anticipated to be Ethereum’s competitor. Dragonchain is a hybrid blockchain platform, where sensitive business logic and smart contract functionality is held by the owner. Its cryptocurrency is denoted by the symbol DGRN & has a total supply of 433,494,437 coins. Dragonchain uses serverless smart contracts from its pre-built library. This feature is unique to this cryptocurrency, as it can create smart contracts, with or without cryptocurrencies. Dragonchain was developed by Joe Roets who is its CEO and Chief Architect with a team of 4 core developers. The team is backed by a strong advisory board with Jeff Garzik on board who is established icon in the Bitcoin network. It was developed after exploration of 20 use cases and applications. It was released under the Apache 2 license in October 2016 to integrate real business applications onto a blockchain, protect business data and operations, currency agnosticism and multi-currency support. The launch of Dragonchain Foundation, a non profit corporation, in January’17 maintains the ownership and responsibility of Dragonchain’s open source code. Enterprises can easily design smart contracts in a variety of languages like Python, Node, C# & Java. The contracts can be specific to their business needs to include both private internal and public blockchain interactions. The Currency Smart Contracts help organizations to retrieve and transfer specified currency amounts between wallet addresses and check balances which can be run on schemas like ERC20, ERC223, etc. Dragonchain helps enterprises to leverage their models using blockchain by allowing development and integration before the economic model is known. Monetization can be applied after sufficient real data is available & system is functioning. DragonChain’s platform is establishing a niche in the crypto world with its layered security feature. The 5-layer security model adds great credibility to their overall goal of facilitating business integration into the blockchain. Additionally, DragonChain is seen as a strong rival to Ethereum because of the platform’s ability to scale; an issue that Ethereum has been notorious for. As of January 2018, the DragonChain team is raising funds and finishing development of the platform. Although the exact date is currently unannounced, the DRGN platform is expected to fully launch sometime this year.
ICON is a blockchain technology and network framework designed to allow independent blockchains to interact with each other. ICON is supported through a cryptocurrency token, called ICX. ICON is a South Korean-based company that developed a blockchain technology and accompanying cryptocurrency token called ICX. The company bills itself as an interconnected blockchain network, allowing participants in a decentralized system to “converge” at a central point. This is done by connecting a community to other communities through ICON Republic and Citizen Nodes. While blockchains are most commonly associated with cryptocurrencies, enthusiasts point out other areas where the technology can be applied. Any exchange of information can technically be added to a blockchain, though adding some types may not be cost-effective. Transactions involving securities, currencies, business contracts, deeds and loans, intellectual property, and personal identification could be “tokenized. ICON’s blockchain is more like the Plasma or Ontology blockchain in that its purpose is to act as an intermediary between other blockchains and networks. This interconnectability makes the ICON project worth keeping an eye on over the next decade. ICON sports its very own decentralized exchange. This DEX sets currency reserves for each blockchain community so that ICON communities can exchange value in real time through the ICON Republic. In this way, DEX complements C-Rep portals by establishing another gateway for ICON Communities to connect to the ICON Republic.