Quantstamp is a security-auditing protocol for smart contracts. As a apps platform, Ethereum has proven its security time and again. However, apps and smart contracts on top of Ethereum may still have bugs in which malicious players can cause havoc on the network. The two most notable examples of these being the $55 million DAO hack and the $30 million Parity wallet bug. These issues not only affect the people who’ve had their funds stolen, but they also diminish the credibility of the entire ecosystem. Quantstamp is making smart contracts more secure through automated software testing and a system of bug bounties. Although starting with Ethereum, the team is building the protocol to be available on any DApp platform in the long run.In an industry where security is a primary concern and bugs have caused the theft of millions of dollars, Quantstamp should help to legitimize blockchain projects and ensure that large-scale smart contract hacks are a thing of the past. Quantstamp held a successful ICO in November 2017 in which the team raised a little over $30 million dollars. They distributed 650 million (65%) QSP out of the 1 billion total supply to ICO participants at a price of $0.072 per token. After the usual post-ICO volatility, the QSP price stabilized at around $0.10 (~0.000005 BTC) through the end of November. The price followed the trend of the altcoin market and rose rapidly to an all-time high of $0.82 (~0.000051 BTC) before slowly falling to its current price of ~$0.286. The QSP price weathered the beginning of the year market downfall better than most other altcoins.
Steem is a cryptocurrency that rewards users for community building by posting and upvoting valuable content for others. Steem was inspired from the success of Reddit where the community helped enrich the shareholders. Steem aims to help distribute the rewards to the community members who help create the community in the first place. Steem aims to provide various services to its members such as a source of curated news, Q&A, job boards etc. The founders of Steem came from BitShares with Dan Larimer involved as well. Steem’s main platform, called Steemit, is a social media network built on top of the Steem blockchain. Steemit is similar to popular content-driven social networks like Reddit and Medium, but it rewards users with cryptocurrency for their participation. Fundamentally, the more value a particular piece of content provides to a greater number of people, the more the individuals responsible for creating and curating that content can earn. Users cast votes, creating a hierarchy of content. The more upvotes a post gets, the more it will earn. The platform also allows for downvotes, giving participants more flexibility when it comes to rating content. Steemit is meritocratic, meaning users that hold more currency can cast votes with greater influence. The Steemit community even has another service to offer to its customers. D.tube, which is considered to be very similar to YouTube, is Blockchain based and the users can realize the difference between the traditional video publishing websites and D.tube, as the amount of money earned is also displayed beside the post apart from likes shares and comments. The Steemit community is accused of posting plagiarize contents on their publishing website. The irony seems to be reaching highest levels when the original content doesn’t receive much appreciation and income than the copied versions of it.'