Nxt uses the blockchain to create an entire ecosystem of decentralized features, all of which require the Nxt currency. Instead of modifying the original Bitcoin source code, as many altcoins have done, Nxt developers wrote their own code in Java from scratch. While Nxt is a public blockchain, licenses for private blockchains based on its software are also available for purchase. The developers refer to Nxt as Blockchain 2.0, providing numerous applications beyond simply keeping a public ledger of transactions. Jelurida BV took over the originally anonymously developed Nxt and now own the IP rights. Kristina Kalcheva, co-founder and legal expert of Jelurida, focuses on how to “explore the different open source licensing models and their enforceability in practice.” Currently, the main developer is an anonymous Star Trek fan, going by the name Jean-Luc Picard. While there is still the active development of Nxt, the parent company Jelurida is also working on a Nxt 2.0, known as Ardor, designed specifically to deal with scalability. Ardor will use the same blockchain technology as Nxt, combined with the idea of ‘child chains.’ According to Travin Keith, Nxt foundation Web and Marketing manager, Ardor allows for a “manageable blockchain size, which solves the problem of scalability by separating transactions and data that do not affect security from those that do, and moving all of those that don’t affect security onto child chains.” The core infrastructure of Nxt is complex. This adds risks as compared to the more lean bitcoin, but makes it easier for external services to be built on top of the blockchain. A peer-peer exchange allowing decentralized trading of shares, crypto assets. Since the blockchain is an unalterable public ledger of transactions, the Asset Exchange provides a trading record for items other than Nxt. To do this, Nxt allows the designation or ''coloring'' of a particular coin, which builds a bridge from the virtual crypto-currency world to the physical world. The ''colored coin'' can represent property, stocks/bonds, commodities, or even concepts. Arbitrary Messages enable the sending of encrypted or plain text, which can also function to send and store up to 1000 bytes of data permanently, or 42 kilobytes of data for a limited amount of time. As a result, it can be used to build file-sharing services, decentralized applications, and higher-level Nxt services. Nxt had no mining phase, all initial units were released to 73 people through a one-time fundraiser via bitcoins, after the announcement of the NXT project in the bitcointalk-forums by BCnext. Combine this with a PoS approach, and you have a situation where the big guys run the table. At one point, the Nxt community had a very public spat with Bitcoin developer Jeff Garzik. Garzik took issue with the Nxt marketing approach, its anonymous developers, and their responses to constructive criticism. Nxt responded to some of these claims, of course, but it remains one of the more controversial moments in its history. Another key problem the Nxt network ran into (like so many others) was blockchain bloat. Nodes get weighed down by the onerous task of having to store every transaction on the Nxt blockchain. This was one reason (among others) why Ardor/Ignis came into existence.'
Electroneum has coined the phrase 'enablement currency' as it is going to enable a new 3 trillion dollar market (Price Waterhouse Coopers predicts this market to be as large as USD 3 trillion in their 2017 Global Fintech Report) by allowing over 350m smartphone users in the developing world to enter the digital market for the first time. With immediate benefits to the mobile operators in those regions, including meaningful transactional cost savings, there are operators who could take us to well over 100 million users and many more operators in negotiation. Our unique mobile miner puts a small amount of ETN into the hands of users every day, providing market liquidity and driving viral growth. With 2,341,445 million registered users, we have a faster viral growth than both Facebook and Twitter over the same time period. The Electroneum manage to raise 40 million dollars through ICO. Their Github release was November 1st. However, before the launch of the mobile app, they were hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. The team had to shut down their servers and work over 26 hours straight to deal with the attack. Eventually, after some delay, ICO investors were distributed their coins and Electroneum continued working towards their goal of spreading ETN to the masses. Over 690 million ETN were transferring during the first 24 hours, requiring only 430 ETN in fees. Electroneum calls itself the first British based cryptocurrency. The team of 12, based in Kent, is led by Richard Ells, the co-founder of SiteWizard and Retortal.com. James Atkinson is the head of the Electroneum Development Team with over 10 years of experience in development. He’s leading the charge on the Electroneum App. Great respect is given to Dean Cole, the “member of the team with the least sleep… consuming giant quantities of caffeine.” He maintains and develops the servers required for mining and transacting in Electroneum. There are several gambling websites already accepting Bitcoin, but the problem is that it’s hard for most people to obtain it. The majority of online gambling takes place outside of America, where it’s especially hard to acquire Bitcoin. Most countries do not have access to Coinbase or Gemini and their local exchanges often have 7% fees or higher. Electroneum once again hopes to reduce friction and encouraging gambling sites to accept the currency. As mentioned previously, due to the ASIC resistant nature of the Electroneum mining algorithm, it’s still feasible to mine coins with just your CPU. You can complete a quick download and join a mining pool right away here. The average block reward is about 7000 ETN. Electroneum has also increased its palatability to the average consumer by capping the total number of coins at 21 billion, moving the decimal point two places to the right when compared to Bitcoin, which is capped at 21 million. Whereas a pizza in Bitcoin might cost 0.005 BTC, with Electroneum it would be a much more ‘real money’ figure. Richard Ells, founder of Electroneum and experienced tech entrepreneur, said: “I don’t know if you’ve ever tried buying any Bitcoin, but it’s really hard to do! I realized that what the world needs is a cryptocurrency that is genuinely easy to access and use. We’ve developed Electroneum with the ordinary mobile user in mind.”