MaidSafeCoin serves as a token for Safecoin, a decentralized currency for a decentralized network. Safecoin will serve as the currency for the SAFE network, a network made up of the extra hard disk space, processing power, and data connectivity of its users. Think of it as the sharing economy but for your digital resources. MaidSafe is the company developing the SAFE network to save the world from the perils of centralized data storage. In the current paradigm, the best case is corporations use your data to better target you to their advertisers. The worst case is they leak your private data to the public, as Yahoo, Equifax, Target, and many other companies have already done. The SAFE network ultimately wants to “create a secure, autonomous, data-centric, peer-to-peer network as an alternative to the current server-centric model.” There will be two main users of the network: clients and farmers. The client accesses the various features of the network, such as browsing, storing data, or transferring money. The farmers store and look after your data until it’s needed, at which point they might receive a reward for their efforts. The SAFE network is an “encrypted layer that sits on top of the current internet, allowing for autonomous data storage and networking by replacing three” of the OSI networking layers. MaidSafe, a Scotland based company, started developing the SAFE network in 2006. The presale on April 22nd, 2014 sold 10% of all MaidSafeCoins. You could buy 17,000 MaidSafeCoins for 1 BTC at that time. The company allowed 30 days to try and reach their 8 million dollar fundraising goal, but they reached the target in just 5 hours. The team is currently in stage Alpha 2 on their roadmap. the future of this crypto, quite like other presently available cryptos such as BitShares, Cardano, Dent, looks bright because the concept of having a decentralized internet is a fresh one. As more and more networks—whether data networks or social media—make the shift to decentralization, MaidSafeCoin coins’ value will grow. Just keep an eye on MAID because it is all set to seriously disrupt the internet landscape for the better. The future of this crypto, quite like other presently available cryptos such as BitShares, Cardano, Dent, looks bright because the concept of having a decentralized internet is a fresh one. As more and more networks—whether data networks or social media—make the shift to decentralization, MaidSafeCoin coins’ value will grow. Just keep an eye on MAID because it is all set to seriously disrupt the internet landscape for the better.'
The Stellar network is an open source, distributed, and community owned network used to facilitate cross-asset transfers of value. Stellar aims to help facilitate cross-asset transfer of value at a fraction of a penny while aiming to be an open financial system that gives people of all income levels access to low-cost financial services. Stellar can handle exchanges between fiat-based currencies and between cryptocurrencies. Stellar.org, the organization that supports Stellar, is centralized like XRP and meant to handle cross platform transactions and micro transactions like XRP. However, unlike Ripple, Stellar.org is non-profit and their platform itself is open source and decentralized. Stellar was founded by Jed McCaleb in 2014. Jed McCaleb is also the founder of Mt. Gox and co-founder of Ripple, launched the network system Stellar with former lawyer Joyce Kim. Stellar is also a payment technology that aims to connect financial institutions and drastically reduce the cost and time required for cross-border transfers. In fact, both payment networks used the same protocol initially. Distributed Exchange Through the use of its intermediary currency Lumens (XLM), a user can send any currency that they own to anyone else in a different currency. For instance, if Joe wanted to send USD to Mary using her EUR, an offer is submitted to the distributed exchange selling USD for EUR. This submitted offer forms is known as an order book. The network will use the order book to find the best exchange rate for the transaction in-order to minimize the fee paid by a user. This multi-currency transaction is possible because of 'Anchors'. Anchors are trusted entities that hold people’s deposits and can issue credit. In essence, Anchors serves as the bridge between different currencies and the Stellar network. Lumens (XLM) Lumens are the native asset (digital currency) that exist on the Stellar network that helps to facilitate multi-currency transactions and prevent spams. For multi-currency transactions, XLM is the digital intermediary that allows for such a transaction to occur at a low cost. In-order to prevent DoS attacks (aka spams) that would inevitably occur on the Stellar network, a small fee of 0.00001 XLM is associated with every transaction that occurs on the network. This fee is small enough so it does not significantly affect the cost of transaction, but large enough so it dissuades bad actors from spamming the network. The collected fee is then redistributed and added to an inflation pool. This inflation pool releases Lumens at a rate of 1% each year.