Libra Credit is a decentralized lending ecosystem that facilitates open access to credit anywhere and anytime based on the Ethereum blockchain. Libra Credit is a global initiative with a mission to provide financial inclusion and lower the cost of financial services. Powered by its proprietary big data, AI-based credit assessment technology and existing global partnership networks, Libra Credit has the expertise and capabilities to realize its mission. Libra Credit aims to offer a seamless digital lending process that can be completed in 5 steps: application, verification and credit assessment, confirmation, collateral deposit, and disbursement. The Libra Credit platform will focus on a dual-credit risk scoring mechanism that considers the creditworthiness of the pledged collateral as well as the credit information of the borrower. Borrowers will be able to pledge any crypto-assets as collateral and receive loans in their desired asset. Using smart contracts and a proprietary collateral valuation and liquidation system, Libra Credit will lock in agreed terms between borrows, lenders, custodians, guarantors and liquidators. Libra Credit was founded in 2017 and operates out of San Francisco, USA. They are backed by investors such as FBG Capital, GBIC, DHVC, Dekypt Capital, Crypto Parency, and others. Lu Hua, Co-Founder & CEO has experience in the payments, financing, and risk management industries. He was previously the CEO of moKredit, one of China’s top digital credit servicing companies. Lu was also the Head of Core Payments for PayPal China and the Head of Global Banking Platform for PayPal US. Dan Schatt, Co-Founder & COO has previously worked as the Chief Commercial Officer at Stockpile Inc., a leading fintech company, and as General Manager of Financial Innovations at PayPal. Howard Wu, Chief Scientist, he is a blockchain and cryptography expert who is a Founding Partner of Dekrypt Capital, Advisor of Blockchain at Berkeley, and Software Engineer at Google. He advises the project in a technical capacity and has received a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley. There are already quite a few blockchain lending projects, so competition is stiff. Libra Credit’s development progress is rather early compared to its competitors. The crypto-to-crypto lending part seems to be well thought out. However, not so much with the crypto-to-fiat part. According to the roadmap, crypto-to-fiat lending is scheduled to launch in 2018 Q3. With details lacking in the weekly blog update about crypto-to-fiat lending, it is difficult to gauge whether the proposed timeline is reasonable.
Augur is a trustless, decentralized platform for prediction markets. Augur is an Ethereum-based decentralized prediction market that leverages the wisdom of the crowds to create a search engine for the future that runs on its own token, REP. Augur allows users to create their markets for specific questions they may have and to profit from the trading buys while allowing users to buy positive or negative shares regarding the outcome of a future event. Prediction markets are markets created to trade the probability of an event happening. The market prices indicate what the crowd thinks the probability of an event happening. Predictive markets have shown to have been effective in accurately forecasting many results however it is still not widely used due to the many regulatory hurdles involved in setting up such a market. Augur aims to set up such a market in a decentralized manner. Augur is an Ethereum-based decentralized prediction market that leverages the wisdom of the crowds to create a search engine for the future that runs on its own token, REP. Augur allows users to create their markets for specific questions they may have and to profit from the trading buys while allowing users to buy positive or negative shares regarding the outcome of a future event. Augur REP is the gambling cryptocurrency. It’s the crypto token you can use to bet on sporting events, political outcomes, economies and just about everything else in the prediction markets. Online gambling is a $52 billion a year industry. At its founding the project included Intrade founder Ron Bernstein, Robin Hanson, and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin among its advisers. In April 2015, Augur's first contract was uploaded to the Ethereum network.The first beta version was released in March 2016. In October 2016, all the reputation tokens that were for sale during the 2015 crowdfunding campaign were distributed to their owners on the live Ethereum network and the two largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Poloniex and Kraken, added support for these tokens on their trading platforms. The project was delayed until it was launched in July 2018.