NavCoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency that uses the peer-to-peer blockchain technology to operate with no central authority managing its transactions. The issuance of NavCoin is carried out collectively by the network of miners and joint development by the NavCoin commmunity. The project is open-source and decentralized. Nobody owns or have complete controls over the cryptocurrency. The NavCoin project is open source and available for everyone to take part. NavCoin was known as Navajo Coin, which was rebranding from SummerCoinv2. NavCoin is cryptocurrency designed to be anonymous and simple to use. Established in 2014, it belongs to an older class of cryptocurrencies that came before the current wave of ICOs. NavCoin has stood the test of time well. Over the past four years it has implemented various upgrades, features, and improvements. The team is dedicated and knowledgeable, and as a result the platform has seen consistent growth. However, NavCoin has not seen the kind of growth that the other competitors in the race to be the top privacy coin have seen. Dash, Zcash, and Monero have all outstripped NavCoin in terms of adoption and funding. Recently, the project has seen a comeback, as they’ve begun to emphasize design, usability, and experience. NavCoin wants to make it simple and fast to use private transactions. Since the early days, one of NavCoin’s strong suits has been its fast transaction times. NavCoin sees block confirmations every thirty seconds as opposed to Bitcoin’s ten minutes. This is faster than Monero (2 minutes) and Zcash (2.5 minutes). Dash also averages about 2.5 minute block times, but its masternodes make it possible to send instant transactions. That said, NavCoin has the fastest standard block time of any privacy coin. These fast transactions aren’t expensive either. Where currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are having trouble with high miner fees, NavCoin keeps its transaction costs low. The average fee is only 0.0001 NAV to send a standard transaction. Private, encrypted transactions can be more expensive. While most other cryptocurrencies implement some form of proof of work mining, NavCoin was among the first to implement proof of stake. Proof of stake relies on users putting up a portion of their NAV holdings in order to gain an opportunity to create a new block. If the network ratifies the new block you created, you’ll receive an award. If your block is bad or contains fraudulent transactions, the proof of work algorithm takes away all the coins you staked. This incentivizes honest block creation. With NavCoin, it’s possible to earn a 5% interest from staking your NAV. In order to do so, however, you’ll need to operate a staking node on the network. You can do this on your computer by downloading the NavCoin Core client and setting the amount of NAV you want to stake. The team behind NavCoin and Valence is Encrypt S Ltd. However, it’s an open source project. As such, they’ve built up a big community following, and anyone can contribute. NavCoin features a very active development team. New updates come out regularly, usually every week. The Lead Engineer is Crag MacGregor. He is also CEO of Encrypt S Ltd. They’re the blockchain development company behind the NavCoin project. He’s from New Zealand. Nav is also one of the most beautiful, easily understood coins out there. This is in large part thanks to their marketing and creative team. NavCoin’s focus on style, branding, and communication sets them apart in blockchain space. Usability is important for adoption of any early-stage project, and it’s nice to see NavCoin taking this element of the platform seriously. Check out CoinBureau for the full review of NavCoin.
Dai is a stablecoin. It is an Ethereum ERC20 token that is pegged to $1 USD — every Dai is worth $1, and will always be worth $1, regardless of how much Dai is in existence. There is no centralized authority like Tether that backs its value, and no traditional bank that backs each Dai with a real US dollar. There is nothing that can be shut down, and no centralized authority that needs to be trusted. Dai lives entirely within the Ethereum blockchain using smart contracts. *Features of Dai: 1. Dai is always worth $1 USD each 2. It can be freely traded like any other ERC20 token 3. Anyone with an Ethereum wallet can own, accept, and transfer it 4. It can be exchanged without any middleman 5. No individual person or company has control over it 6. No government or authority can shut it down *How Dai Works? Dai is a masterpiece of game theory that carefully balances economic incentives in the pursuit of one goal — a token that is continuously approaching the value of $1 USD. When Dai is worth above $1, mechanisms work to decrease the price. When Dai is worth below $1, mechanisms work to increase the price. The rational actors that take part in these mechanisms do so because they earn money anytime Dai is not perfectly worth $1. This is why Dai is always floating slightly above or below $1 — it is an endless wave function bouncing infinitely close to $1, but never quite achieving it. The farther Dai goes from $1, the more incentive there is to fix it. This is the magic of Dai. *How is Dai Created? Dai is simply a loan against Ethereum. By using the MakerDAO dApp, advanced users can take loans out in Dai against their ETH holdings. First, ETH is turned into “wrapped ETH” (WETH), which is simply an ERC20 wrapping around ETH. This “tokenizes” ETH so it can be used like any other ERC20 token. Next, WETH is turned into “pooled ETH” (PETH), which means it joins a large pool of Ethereum that is the collateral for all Dai created. Once you have PETH, you can create a “collateralized debt position” (CDP), which locks up your PETH and allows you to draw Dai against your collateral, which is PETH. As you draw out Dai, the ratio of debt in the CDP increases. There is a debt limit that sets a maximum amount of Dai you can draw against your CDP. Once you have Dai, you can spend or trade it freely like any other ERC20 token. *There are several important reasons why you would create Dai, despite the hassle: 1. You need a loan, and have an asset (ETH) to use as collateral for your loan 2. You believe ETH is going up in value. You can use your CDP to buy ETH on margin — you lock up your ETH in a CDP, draw Dai against it, use the Dai to buy more ETH on an exchange, and then use that ETH to further increase the size of your CDP. This can be accomplished without any third-party or centralized authority allowing you to do so — margin trading can be accomplished entirely on the blockchain. 3. The demand for Dai has driven the price above $1 USD. When this occurs, you can create Dai then immediately sell it on an exchange for greater than $1 USD. This is essentially free money, and is one of the mechanisms the Maker system uses to keep Dai pegged to $1 USD. Dai being worth over $1 USD encourages more Dai to be created. These three reasons are enough to ensure that Dai is continually created.