Smart contracts on Ethereum are fully self contained and any information or access to off-chain data is restricted. Tellor solves this problem by creating a system where parties can request the value of an off-chain data point (e.g. ETH/USD) and miners compete to add this value to an on-chain data bank, accessible by all Ethereum smart contracts. Inputs to a data series are secured by a network of staked miners. The main Tellor smart contract creates a time series of each requested data series and aims to become the standard source of high value data for decentralized applications. This oracle, “Tellor”, utilizes similar incentive mechanisms to other cryptocurrency systems through the issuance of Tellor’s token, Tributes, that are used to request a particular data series from miners.
Aeon is a mobile-friendly, lightweight privacy coin. Similar to the way that Litecoin is a lighter supplement to Bitcoin, you can look at Aeon as Monero’s little brother. The Monero community is wholly focused on privacy and anonymity for the end-user. This focus has its perks but has caused the coin to fall behind from a usability standpoint. Aeon builds upon Monero’s CryptoNote hash while adding some lightweight functionality of its own. Aeon is the lighter, faster version of Monero. Although both projects share the same underlying privacy protocol, CryptoNote, Aeon is striving to be more accessible. The project is doing so by implementing a lightweight mining algorithm, smaller blockchain, and optional anonymity. As Monero grows, Aeon could very well grow with it. While you would use Monero for transactions in which you want to assure privacy, you may find Aeon to be a suitable substitute for day-to-day exchanges in which guaranteed anonymity isn’t as important.