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.
Paxos Standard (PAX) was created by Paxos, a financial technology company on a mission to modernize finance by mobilizing assets at the speed of the internet. Paxos was the first virtual currency company to receive a charter from the New York State Department of Financial Services. As a chartered limited purpose trust company with fiduciary powers under the Banking Law, Paxos is able to offer regulated services in the crypto-asset and virtual commodities space. The Paxos team comes from a wide variety of backgrounds with a diverse array of experiences ranging from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. It’s led by CEO and co-founder Charles Cascarilla, who has spent his career as a customer, analyst, investor and now creator of financial technology. Paxos describes itself as “the first regulated Trust company with blockchain expertise”, and it is using that expertise to create a modern settlement solution that can eliminate risk and simplify settlements. What many people may not know about Paxos is that it was actually founded in 2012 as Paxos Trust Company, and that for most of its life it ran the cryptocurrency exchange itBit, which is still operates. The creation of Paxos was a pivot from an exchange platform to a company focused on creating a modern settlement platform using blockchain technology. Paxos has become the most widely adopted cryptocurrency in the fastest time frame, with support from over 20 exchanges and OTC desks in the first five weeks of its existence. It’s been picked up and listed by six of the top ten cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance, OKEx, Gate.io, ZB, KuCoin and DigiFinex. These exchanges are offering PAX as an alternative to the controversial Tether. Unlike the controversy surrounding the people who control Tether, there is no such obscurity when it comes to the people behind Paxos. The CEO and co-founder is Charles Cascarilla. He has over 15 years in financial services and has co-founded Cedar Hill asset management back in 2005. He has also worked and Bank of America and Goldman Sachs prior to that. The Paxos Standard (PAX) is the first digital asset to be issued by a financial institution and to be fully secured by the U.S. dollar. While other similar stablecoins have existed, there has been no proof of full U.S. dollar reserves, nor have these earlier assets been issued by a financial institution. The Paxos team has been fairly clear in declaring the different base that PAX is working from.