Loopring is a decentralized exchange protocol and an “automated execution system” built on Ethereum that will allow its users to trade assets across exchanges. It isn’t a decentralized exchange. Rather, it facilitates decentralized exchanging through ring-sharing and order matching. Decentralized and centralized exchanges alike will be able to implement Loopring, giving the exchanges access to cross blockchain and cross exchange liquidity and giving investors access to the best prices available on the broader market. Moreover, Loopring is blockchain agnostic, meaning that any platform that uses smart contracts (e.g., NEO, Ethereum, Qtum) can integrate with Loopring. Serving as its head, Loopring founder Daniel Wang used to run a centralized exchange called Coin Port back in 2014. “At that time,” he told Coin Central in an interview, “[I was] trying to solve the problems of centralized exchanges, and then I realized that it’s not possible. Those problems are inherent to the centralized exchange model.” Thus, he began conceptualizing what would become Loopring. In the past, he’s also held a position as a Google Tech Lead and was a co-founder and VP of Yunrang Technology. Loopring’s CMO, Jay Zhou, was formerly employed by Ernst and Young, helped found SJ Consulting, and used to work in PayPal’s Risk Operations unit. Johnston Chen, the project’s COO, has worked as the chief information officer at 3NOD. Loopring is not a DEX, but a modular protocol for building DEXs on multiple blockchains. We disassemble the component parts of a traditional exchange and offer a set of public smart contracts and decentralized actors in its place. The roles in the network include wallets, relays, liquidity-sharing consortium blockchains, order book browsers, Ring-Miners, and asset tokenization services. Before defining each, we should first understand Loopring orders. At its root, the Loopring protocol is a social protocol in the sense that it relies on coordination amongst members to operate effectively towards a goal. This is not dissimilar to cryptoeconomic protocols at large, and indeed, its usefulness is largely protected by the same mechanisms of coordination problems [20], grim trigger equilibrium, and bounded rationality. The Loopring Protocol can facilitate trading between ERC20 tokens. Loopr needs to convert Ether to Ether Token for trading as Ether is not ERC20 compatible, but Ether Token is. Converting between Ether and Ether Token will be done for you automatically when you submit an order, but if you want to trade frequently, we strongly suggest you to convert some Ether to Ether Token beforehand manually; otherwise each order will take one more blockchain transaction just for the ETH-WETH conversion which takes time and gas. Conversions between ETH and WETH are done on-chain through Ethereum transactions. ETH and WETH are always converted 1:1 which is guaranteed by the WETH smart contract. The WETH smart contract also guarantees the total WETH issued is exactly the total ETH deposited. In other words, ETH and WETH is equiviate in value, and WETH is just the ERC20 form of ETH. The Loopring blockchain project had managed to raise almost 15 million US dollars during the period of the Loopring ICO, as all the regulatory experts watched this unprecedented crowdfunding. Daniel Wang, the founder and the main person behind the Loopring ICO, hand made it very transparent that the interface is quite bad but the underlying mechanism and the Order matching facility is very great. Loopring mining can be initiated very easily by using various performance calculating devices such as CPU, GPU, as well as application specific integrated circuits. The Loopring mining process can be initiated through the high-end Linux systems, according to reports. Loopring mining is basically a metaphor which is not similar to the Bitcoin mining but here the users need to match the specific orders from a huge database. Specifically, Loopring mining requires the usage of the ethereum nodes along with JSON API, IPFS, etc. Check out CoinBureau for the full review of Loopring.
Factom is the first usable blockchain technology to solve real-world business problems by providing an unalterable record-keeping system. By creating a data layer on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, Factom’s distributed ledger technology secures millions of real-time records in the blockchain with a single hash using cryptographic isolation. Businesses and governments alike can use Factom to document their information so that it cannot be modified, deleted or backdated. Factom’s technology decentralizes record keeping by ensuring that the integrity of stored data remains intact, providing complete transparency, while at the same time maintaining user privacy in an increasingly digital world. The Factom project began in 2014 which puts it on the older end of the blockchain spectrum. The team has made steady progress since then. They released the first version of Factom in early 2015 and had their token sale in the middle of that year. In August of 2015, they were accepted into the Plug and Play FinTech accelerator and were chosen as one of Austin’s A-List start-ups in May 2016. Based out of Austin, TX, the core team has multiple members with several years of experience in the blockchain space. Peter Kirby, Factom Co-founder and CEO, and Abhi Dobhal, VP Product Management, previously worked together at CoinTerra, Inc – a producer of ASIC miners for Bitcoin. The price of a Factoid is directly tied to the amount of network usage. As more businesses join the network, it will become more costly to submit Entries which will, in turn, affect the Factoid price. Once the number of Factoids being burned outpaces the 73,000 that are created each month, the currency will become deflationary. This may drive the price up even further.