MonaCoin is an open source digital currency and a peer-to-peer (p2p) payment network. Dubbed by its creators as “the first Japanese cryptocurrency,” the coin has become somewhat of Japan’s national alternative to Bitcoin or Litecoin. Like its predecessors, the coin was created purely to serve as P2P electronic cash, a decentralized digital currency aimed at Japanese citizens. There are a few key differences that set it apart from the coins that came before it, and this guide is dedicated to drawing out these differences. Conceived in December of 2013, Monacoin was officially born on January 1st, 2014 with no premine. A Bitcoin Talk Forum on the same date details the coin’s launch and its specifications. A soft fork was executed at block 937440 to implement Segwit, a move made to keep it in line with Bitcoin, Litecoin, Vertcoin, and other payment-focused cryptocurrencies. In addition, the Monacoin team has reportedly implemented the Lightning Network for their coin. Speaking of soft forks, Monacoin is actually a hard fork of Litecoin, something we’ll take into account further as we look into its specs below. Monacoin was originally founded by the pseudonymous Mr. Wantanabe, no doubt in homage to Bitcoin’s Satoshi Nakamoto. Besides this pen name, the rest of the coin’s team is completely anonymous, so there’s nothing to report on here. In addition, the project has no visible roadmap on its site or anywhere else online. The team does seem to stay on top of updates and upgrades, however, as the Segwit and Lyra2REv2 updates and Lightning Network implementation suggest. It is popular in Japan where it was developed. It Uses Lyra2REv2 and Dark Gravity Wave v3 algorithm to ensure fairer mining opportunities, success rate and difficult levels of mining process respectively. Monacoin is the first cryptocurrency from Japan. It has received wide support and success in the country and is not crossing the national boundary to try and become a global phenomenon. While that is not going to happen in the next year or two, it does have the making of a good crypto token. It is steadily improving its service and has constantly strived to give its users the best possible experience. When Scrypt compliant ASIC miners appeared they switched to Lyra2REv2 to ensure the mining MONA remains a fair battle between miners from around the world. The instance of a Japanese national using Monacoin to buy land made news in the country and beyond, spreading the popularity of the coin.
DMarket is a decentralized game asset marketplace. The marketplace covers a wide variety of games and turns virtual items into real commodities that can be traded on the blockchain. The idea of tokenization is central to the blockchain where any item can be represented as a token on the blockchain. This creates an emerging economy around digital assets where they become real items. There are an estimated 2.3 billion gamers worldwide and ample opportunity to monetize digital assets. The gaming economy is estimated at $450 billion There are two types of assets available on DMarket. The first type is a virtual Steam item. This Steam item is an in-game asset this is available for a specific game. At the moment there is a horde of items available for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. There is also a DMarket Blockchain item that is an internal blockchain item that can be traded on the DMarket blockchain. Users can sell Steam items for US Dollars (USD) or DMarket items for USD or DMC, the internal DMarket cryptocurrency. Users can buy Steam items for USD or DMC or DMarket items for DMC. In order to sell Steam items on DMarket, users have to connect their Steam account to their DMarket account. DMarket blockchain items can be traded without connecting to Steam. Users have to register on DMarket. This creates a DMC wallet for them where they can store their DMC currency and DMarket items. The DMarket platform also has its own block explorer. All wallets and transactions are recorded in the public blockchain. DMarket has a future-proof use case as the demand for a universal gaming trading platform is imminent. Strategic partnerships between game title developers, the gaming community and gamers will ensure that DMarket lives well beyond its proprietary blockchain phase.