Setting up a blockchain infrastructure is an expensive and complicated ordeal, and many may certainly be on the lookout for a solution that handles this for them. Simple Token is that solution.Simple Token enables all types of businesses to tokenize their assets. It empowers mainstream apps to have their own branded tokens, helping them set up their own crypto based economy on the Ethereum network. The Simple Token website lists over 35 people as part of its team, with other sections listing even more people as it advisors and extended team. Jason Goldberg is the CEO, with an 18 year career and experience in multiple countries and sectors. He is assisted by Sunil Khedar at the CTO position, and Ben Bollen as the Chief Blockchain Strategist. The team is well recognised by the investor community and markets in general. This is easy to see when you observe that it is backed by multiple VCs, including 500Startups, Greycroft, and China’s Tencent among others. OST is the future of business tokenization, allowing companies to have their own branded tokens without the costs of setting up a blockchain infrastructure. Faster transaction times, since transactions are run on their own side chains rather than the Ethereum Main Net, avoiding the Ethereum network congestion. With the team providing monthly updates, it’s evident there is still a lot of work to be done. The ostKIT alpha is close to being released, and serves as the first public version of the complete blockchain toolkit for businesses. ostKYC is already live, and uses the OST token for all billing purposes. Other tools currently in development include a block explorer and an enterprise-grade email marketing solution. There’s also the consumer-oriented wallet to keep an eye on, as well as an updated version of the Simple Token protocol itself. Check out CoinBureau for the complete review of OST.
Zcash is a decentralized and open-source cryptocurrency that offers privacy and selective transparency of transactions. Zcash payments are published on a public blockchain, but the sender, recipient, and amount of a transaction remain private. Zcash is based on peer-reviewed cryptographic research, and built by a security-specialized engineering team on an open source platform based on Bitcoin Core's battle-tested codebase. Our improvement over Bitcoin is the addition of privacy. Zcash uses advanced cryptographic techniques, namely zero-knowledge proofs, to guarantee the validity of transactions without revealing additional information about them. How Zcash works Zcash encrypts the contents of shielded transactions. Since the payment information is encrypted, the protocol uses a novel cryptographic method to verify their validity. Zcash uses a zero-knowledge proof construction called a zk-SNARK, developed by our team of experienced cryptographers based on recent breakthroughs in cryptography. These constructions allow the network to maintain a secure ledger of balances without disclosing the parties or amounts involved. Instead of publicly demonstrating spend-authority and transaction values, the transaction metadata is encrypted and zk-SNARKs are used to prove that nobody is cheating or stealing. Zcash also enables users to send public payments which work similarly to Bitcoin. With the support for both shielded and transparent addresses, users can choose to send Zcash privately or publicly. Zcash payments sent from a shielded address to a transparent address reveal the received balance, while payments from a transparent address to a shielded address protect the receiving value. Check out CoinBureau for guide on What is ZCash.