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.
Primecoin is a rather interesting digital currency. It was developed by Sunny King, one of the same developers that created PPCoin and invented Proof-of-stake. Primecoin does not follow the same rules as the other currencies, and has a built in mathematical benefit. Due to the way it is mined, Primecoin actually discovers previously unknown prime numbers. Primecoin is a rather interesting digital currency. It was developed by Sunny King, one of the same developers that created PPCoin and invented Proof-of-stake. Primecoin does not follow the same rules as the other currencies, and has a built in mathematical benefit. Due to the way it is mined, Primecoin actually discovers previously unknown prime numbers. The innovative prime proof-of-work in Primecoin not only provides security and minting to the network, but also generates a special form of prime number chains of interest to mathematical research. Thus primecoin network is energy-multiuse, compared to bitcoin network. Primecoin is designed to sustain a prosperous mining market and high level of security, while maintaining good scarcity property like gold. Primecoin also processes payment transactions 10x faster than bitcoin network. All in all, Primecoin presents itself as an extremely interesting experiment; for the first time, we have a currency whose mining algorithm has a secondary value, and at the same time Primecoin, unlike so many other coins before it, actually makes serious attempts to improve on Bitcoin in unrelated aspects. Not taking into account Bitcoin’s massive headstart, Primecoin may well be the first alternative coin to actually be better than Bitcoin, giving the currency the potential for a bright future ahead.