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.
Wanchain seeks to link the present to the future, through the exploration and implementation of blockchain technology. Wanchain aims to build a distributed “bank”. Just as traditional banks are the infrastructure of the current financial framework, Wanchain seeks to build a new, distributed infrastructure of digital assets to form an improved, modern framework - an ambitious goal indeed. Wanchain connects and exchanges value between different blockchain ledgers in a distributed manner. It uses the latest cryptographic theories to build a non-proprietary cross-chain protocol and a distributed ledger that records both cross-chain and intra-chain transactions. Any blockchain network, whether a public, private or consortium chain, can integrate with Wanchain to establish connections between different ledgers and perform low cost inter-ledger asset transfers. The Wanchain ledger supports not only smart contracts, but also token exchange privacy protection. With Wanchain, any institution or individual can set up their own virtual teller window in the “bank” and provide services such as loan origination, asset exchanges, credit payments and transaction settlements based on digital assets. Under the guarantee of “banks” based on the blockchain infrastructure, more people can participate in financial services based on digital assets. To describe it more accurately, Wanchain is a distributed super-financial market based on blockchain. Wanchain uses the Locked Account Generation Scheme to secure funds and keys when there are multiple parties involved. Based on Shamir’s Secret Sharing Scheme, it effectively breaks up a key into shares and distributes it to all included participants. The Storemen are responsible for maintaining and managing the appropriate key shares of the locked accounts for transactions. This method of key share distribution has a few benefits. Because Wanchain generates locked accounts through multi-party computations, there’s increased decentralization. And there’s more stability because you don’t need every key share to produce a signature for a locked account. If some of the Validators are offline, transactions can still be executed with a minimum number of shares. Finally, any transaction with a locked account is done via the original chain. This means that any chain can easily integrate and interact with Wanchain without the need for new transaction types or validators. The Wanchain Foundation is a non-profit organization primarily operating out of Singapore but also has a significant presence in Austin, TX. Wanchain was founded by Jack Lu, a respected player in the blockchain space. Before his current role, Lu co-founded Factom and started Wanglu Tech, a blockchain application development company. Wanglu Tech has been a primary contributor to the open-source Wanchain project. Dustin Byington serves as the Wanchain President. Byington is a blockchain veteran having founded Bitcoin College in 2014 as well as co-founding Tendermint, a software mechanism to securely and consistently replicate applications across machines. Byington also co-founded Satoshi Talent, a platform to connect blockchain entrepreneurs with developers. WAN tokens were initially distributed as ERC-20 tokens to ICO participants, but it’s now possible to exchange these for tokens on the Wanchain mainnet or buy them directly. It’s a common misconception that WAN is an ERC-20 coin. Wanchain is a pioneering and potentially disruptive project with its sights set on becoming a super financial market of the world. Although achieving its lofty goal(s) is going to require a lot more work, Wanchain is further along its roadmap than some projects. But there’s still a good bit of “in theory” going on here. As Wanchain is addressing the whole financial market, it has a number of competitors. Most notably Fusion, Pantos, Ark, and Qash; some may even consider big players the likes of Ripple, Stellar and Ethereum competitors. On the positive side, Wanchain has strong fundamentals, they’ve got a functional mainnet, the vitality of their use case is indisputable, the huge interest in their ICO showed a powerful vein of investor confidence, and the team has a track record of success.