Ripio Credit Network (RCN) is a global peer-to-peer credit network based on cosigned smart contracts that facilitates connections between lenders and borrowers across the world, on any currency. It enables people across the globe to access credit, and to provide loans. The RCN token is a typical ERC-20 token. This protocol has the smart contract technology embedded into the Ethereum blockchain which facilitates peer-to-peer lending without the hefty transaction fees that are charged in traditional banking processes. The RCN token functions at the core of the system. The inherent value of the token is directly correlated to the demand for its use in the network. Based in Argentina, Latin America, Ripio was launched at the TechCrunch Disrupt in May 2016. Sebastian Serrano, founder and CEO of the Ripio Credit Network is a technology enthusiast. He along with his team of technology experts, analysts and developers have designed an impressive concept along with the website, whitepaper and its implementation within the last 2 years. The team comprises of David Garcia (SVP & Board Member), Eugenio Cocimano (Data Scientist), Antonio Ceraso (CTO & Lead Blockchain developer) and Agustin Aguilar (Smart Contracts Developer) among many others. Ripio started off with a primary objective - to democratize the digital economy in Latin America, by offering digital payment alternatives within everyone's reach in a region where 65% remain unbanked. The smart contract is an integral part of the underlying technology of the Ripio Credit Network. It is generated by the Wallet Provider and executed when it is matched by the Credit Exchange. This smart contract contains information like the relevant credit terms, borrower obligations, events of default along with the signatures or verifications from all other agents. RCN tokens facilitate interaction with the smart contracts among different agents within the RCN. Every credit flow starts when the Borrower makes a credit request. The Borrower performs the request from its Wallet Provider, which has already integrated into the RCN protocol. Post this, the Borrower waits for an approval before any further action can be performed.
Auroracoin is a decentralised, peer-to-peer, and secure cryptocurrency released as an alternative to the Icelandic Króna to bypass governmental restrictions associated with the national fiat currency. It was launched with the aim of becoming the ‘official’ cryptocurrency of Iceland. AUR was a pioneer in the area of country-specific cryptocurrencies. AUR was launched on the 25th of January, 2014, by an anonymous developer who went by the pseudonym of Baldur Friggjar Óðinsson. It was originally based on Litecoin, using the Scrypt algorithm with a Proof of Work mechanism, but was later updated to use a multi-algorithm architecture in 2016, forked from DigiByte. Auroracoin uses the PoW consensus mechanism, which utilises device hashing power to solve a complex mathematical problem in order to authenticate a transaction proposed to be stored in the blockchain. The difficulty of solving the problem ensures that authenticating forged transactions is very difficult unless the attacker owns an impractically large chunk of the network’s total hashing power. AUR is one of the only cryptocurrencies to use a combination of five different hashing algorithms, namely Grøstl, Qubit, scrypt, SHA-256, and Skein. While initially very popular, Auroracoin has seen little to no activity for a while, with poor marketing, and frequent dev team changes. Reasons for little growth have been various, from slow adoption in Iceland, to developers leaving and joining the project midway. However, it is expected to not go lower than the recent low, and might see a rise as AUR plans to launch a more aggressive marketing campaign in Iceland to promote the coin among the masses. Unlike most other altcoins, Auroracoin has made extensive changes to the original codebase. It has introduced security measures such as Automatic checkpointing, and protecting against known flaws present in the BTC blockchain, such as 51% block replacement attacks.