High-Performance Blockchain tackles the concept of scalability from a completely different angle. Rather than just looking at the software side of things, the project also tackles the hardware aspect. To realize the optimal performance of blockchain applications, things will need to change in the near future. As such, this team is building an architecture which uses thousands of CPU and FPGA resources to create a more versatile and scalable ecosystem. There are a few aspects of the High-Performance Blockchain project to take into account. First of all, there is the chip-level acceleration engine which provides accelerated hardware chips to power this entire ecosystem. Secondly, the software side of the High-Performance Blockchain is integrated with the new dedicated hardware accelerated engine and focuses on depth and scaling customization. Third, the project claims it can produce a throughput in the millions of transactions without any major problems. While all of this sounds amazing, it is difficult to come by any real information regarding the technical aspects of either the hardware or the software side of High-Performance Blockchain. While the team mainly focuses on blockchain integration for real-world business cases, it remains to be seen how their chips will operate and how their algorithms are created. It seems the High-Performance Blockchain project is closely connected to the NEO infrastructure, which could introduce some interesting developments down the line. Building the High-Performance Blockchain infrastructure will take a lot of time and money. As such, the roadmap is filled with milestones which the team aims to achieve in the coming years. A testnet version of this project will be launched at some point in 2018, which will undergo further improvements for several months. The actual manner will launch in Q2 of 2018 if things go according to plan. However, the official version will not go live until mid-2019 at the earliest.
Enjin Coin is a cryptocurrency for virtual goods created by Enjin. Enjin is the “largest gaming community platform online” with over 250,000 gaming communities and 18.7 million registered gamers. The Enjin team is designing the coin completely around gaming with the goal of it being the most usable cryptocurrency for the industry. The project includes the Enjin Coin as well as a suite of software development kits (SDKs) that developers can integrate into their games and communities. Bringing blockchain to gaming helps to reduce the high fees and fraud that’s prevalent in the transfer of virtual goods. Enjin Coin is an ERC20 token built on the Ethereum network. With that, the project not only acts as a cryptocurrency but also has smart contract capabilities. It’s also one of the first projects testing the Raiden Network, Ethereum’s version of the Lightning Network. The Enjin Coin platform provides a laundry list of features through its public API and SDKs. To keep things brief, though, we’ll only be discussing a few of the major ones in this article. The largest value Enjin Coin brings to the gaming community is in its creation and management of virtual goods. Developers on each platform can easily create a currency unique to their community that’s backed by Enjin Coin as the parent currency. This gives the coins all the benefits of the blockchain (speed, cost, security, etc…) while still staying customized to their respective platforms. Enjin, the company behind Enjin Coin, is the largest online gaming community creation platform. Started in 2009, the company receives 60 million views per month and transacts millions of U.S. dollars each month in their community stores. The team is deploying Enjin Coin across the entire Enjin CMS platform – over 250,000 gaming websites. Advisors to the project consist of Anthony Diiorio (Ethereum co-founder) and Pat LaBine (previous producer and technical director at Bioware). Enjin has also formed partnerships with Unity, PC Gamer, and NRG eSports. The team held a successful ICO in late 2017 in which they raised ~$35 million between the private and public rounds. Although it’s still a young project, the team spent the last quarter of 2017 building the Platform API, Mobile Smart Wallet, and a Java SDK alongside creating a Minecraft plugin. They’ve got plenty in store for 2018, but the highlights include various platform plugins, the Efinity release, and numerous other SDKs. Enjin also features a tool known as TopLists, which allow users to rank games, servers, teams and any other item. TopLists will be deployed as a decentralized smart contract with functionalities that will allow for market bidding or democratic voting. List creators are incentivized to promote and market their list because these creators will receive tokens when users perform tasks such as voting on their list. Enjin Coin is an ambitious project that aims to integrate online virtual gaming with decentralized technologies. Enjin Coin project promises a lot, and it is only with the passage of time that we will able to see if it can deliver on those promises.