Populous is a peer-to-peer invoice platform founded in 2017 at a high point in the blockchain and cryptocurrency craze. It makes use of blockchain's distributed ledger technology to provide a global trading platform for invoice financing. According to the Populous website, 'invoice finance is a form of funding that instantly unlocks the cash tied up in outstanding sales invoices. Business owners allow invoice buyers to buy invoices at a discounted rate in order to unlock their cash quicker. Once invoices are paid by the invoice debtor, the invoice buyer receives the amount previously agreed upon.' In order to offer funds to invoice sellers, Populous maintains a Liquidity Pool. This is tied in with the Populous cryptocurrency (PPT). An investor securitizes PPT by making an initial purchase. PPT is then held in escrow as collateral throughout the process. Transactions between invoice buyers and sellers take place with Pokens, exchanged for PPT and used as the currency for buying and selling invoices, either drawing from or contributing to the Liquidity Pool in the process. As a result of this built-in liquidity component, Populous at this point requires no transaction fees. In fact, the only fees levied are those associated with late payments. Populous invoice transactions can cover a huge array of industries, including many which are not typically available to traditional financing companies. The PPT tokens not released during the ICO were retained by the founding and development team. PPT can either be held or used as collateral to invest in Populous invoices. In exchange for collateralizing, you’re given an amount of Pokens based on a percentage of market value. Currently it’s the lesser of 50%, or a 30 day market average. These are automatically used to purchase an invoice. If the invoice is repaid, you receive both your PPT investment and Pokens profit.
Feathercoin (FTC or ₣) is an open source cryptocurrency, published under the license of MIT / X11.1, based on the Litecoin protocol. On 16 April 2013 Feathercoin successfully forked from Litecoin by the creation of its genesis block. As a cryptocurrency, creation and transfer of coins is based on an open source cryptographic protocol (the blockchain) and is not managed by any central authority. The hashing algorithm chosen for Feathercoin was the Proof-of-Work NeoScrypt, which had premiered on Phoenixcoin. NeoScrypt is 25% more memory intense, which makes it less feasible to create ASICs for it. The main programmer is Peter Bushnell, at the time running the information technology for the Brasenose College of Oxford University. He explained his motivation for developing the coin in an interview with Vitalik Buterin. One month after launching Feathercoin, Peter Bushnell left his job as head of IT at the Brasenose College of Oxford University and lived off his Litecoin savings. Feathercoin was launched on 16th April 2013 and as developed by Peter Bushnell. It was forked from Litecoin, with the aim of making Feathercoin what Litecoin was supposed to be: a faster, more secure, and stable version of Bitcoin. The consensus mechanism is based on the Proof of Work (PoW) concept. The Feathercoin network runs on the NeoScrypt hashing algorithm, making it much easier and faster to mine. Feathercoin enjoyed rapid adoption by users soon after its launch, gaining immense popularity, and establishing itself as a worthy contender in a BTC/LTC dominated market. Feathercoin can be mined using either processors (CPUs) or graphics cards (GPUs). Due to the hashing algorithm of FTC, it cannot be mined with an ASIC card. Mining software is available for download at their official site. Wallets for FTC can be found over at their official website, including both desktop and mobile wallets.. While the paper money you are used to carrying around is (or can be) stored in a physical wallet, cryptocurrencies, like all digital currencies, have to be stored in a software-based digital wallet. Although you will find links to feathercoin wallets throughout the web, the only safe way to know that you're downloading the latest and correct version is by scrolling to the bottom of the coin's official home page and selecting the button for your particular operating system. Feathercoin wallets are available for Android, Linux, macOS and Windows platforms.