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.
Shift is cryptocurrency that was launched in August 2015 based on Ethereum by a group of cryptocurrency enthusiast. Shift Storage Cluster - The default state of the IPFS infrastructure is represented as a globally shared network. This can lead to problems when it comes to verifying data integrity, availability, and custom implementation details such as earning token rewards for running a storage node. For this reason, Shift runs a private swarm. The storage nodes use a custom swarm key to ensure that they can only talk to other nodes using the same key. This also prevents Shift nodes being used to host and deliver content that was added outside of the Shift network which should improve reliability and performance. In order to store data permanently, IPFS implements a concept called pinning. Pinning content means that the content will be available permanently (or until it is unpinned). By default the pinning only applies to a single peer that it is pinned to, but that means if that machine goes offline, the content can be lost. The way around this is by using an IPFS cluster: a subnet (or private net) running the IPFS daemon, containing only Shift peers. The Shift cluster runs as a wrapper around the IPFS daemon. It allows the end user to connect a group of IPFS nodes together so that content can be stored and replicated within the group. The cluster elects a leader to be in charge of keeping track of which content is available in which locations. Shift is meant to disrupt the web hosting industry. The company has created Phantom which is a decentralized app to host websites. It does so through the Shift IPFS rather than the normal way a website is hosted. By using this ‘killer dApp’, the company is of the opinion that a business gets a chance of succeeding in the current competitive world. Because Shift is an open-source platform, developers of dApps are free to use the company’s script. This is made even easier by the fact that Shift Company has used Javascript which is popular language among dApp developers. According to the company, every dApp created using the Shift script can access the IPFS cluster to store data. This will be made possible by the use of a P2P hypermedia distribution protocol, an interplanetary file system which the company created. Even though the Shift has been around since 2015, the team only released the whitepaper on March the 5th 2018. The whitepaper is a bit technical but well detailed. Remember that the crypto is built with dApps developers in mind. It might not be a very good investment opportunity for a person who doesn’t understand dApps and Javascript. But at the end of the day, it is a volatile crypto which is one of the most important features to look for as a trader.