Vertcoin is a decentralized currency owned by its users, a P2P cryptocurrency in the same vein as Bitcoin and Litecoin. Like its two predecessors, Vertcoin exists solely as a currency, and it uses proof of work to reach distributed consensus. Unlike its two predecessors, however, Vertcoin is dedicated to keeping its mining functions decentralized, so contrary to most PoW coins, it’s ASIC resistant. Branding their project as “The people’s coin,” Vertcoin’s team believes that ASIC resistance invites a fairer, more democratized currency for both users and miners. Along these lines, Vertcoin sports its very own 1-click miner, a program meant to make mining more accessible to the general public. The motivation of Vertcoin was the fact that Scrypt-based ASIC mining chip that is used to mine Scrypt derivative coins such as Litecoin and Dogecoin is entering the mass market. That coupled with strong mining pool causes the strength of a cryptocoin to drop as it becomes easier for a specific party to pull a 51% attack and even monopolize the network. Scrypt-Adaptive-Nfactor was created to address that issue. Vertcoin is zero premined and as of the current design, only 84 million coins would ever be created. Vertcoin is said to be the next generation of coins due to its unique hashing algorithm. There may be more altcoins created based on this hashing algorithm in order to defend their network against ASIC miners. Like most all pre-2015 coins, Vertcoin took a deathblow after Mt. Gox was hacked, throwing the entire market into a crypto winter. As such, it was relatively inactive until the revival last spring/summer. Since then, it has had steady climb up the market cap ladder. A 2014 International Business Times article mentions Vertcoin as a potential Bitcoin successor. The article notes that it ''hopes to offer an alternative. By taking the foundations of Bitcoin and making some adjustments, Vertcoin punishes miners who use powerful machines and work together in 'pools' to monopolise the mining market.'' On July 1, 2014, Vertcoin released a wallet supporting Stealth Address transactions. On December 13, 2014 (block 208301), Vertcoin forked from Scrypt-Adaptive-N proof-of-work function to Lyra2RE as a proactive defense against emerging Scrypt-Adaptive-N capable ASICs. On August 10, 2015 (block 347000), Vertcoin forked from Lyra2RE to Lyra2REv2 because a botnet was controlling more than 50% of the hashing power of Vertcoin network. On May 7, 2017, Segregated Witness (SegWit) feature was activated in the main network. SegWit update includes the Lightning Network technology that was also demonstrated in action during the same day.'
VeChain is a blockchain-enabled platform that is designed to enhance supply chain management processes. By utilizing tamper-proof and distributed ledger technology, VeChain provides retailers and consumers with the ability to determine the quality and authenticity of products that are bought. From product source materials, to servicing history, and spare part replacements, every single piece of information about the supply chain movement of a product can be recorded and verified to bring about a supply chain management ecosystem that is secure for all participants. VeChain plans to achieve this secure supply chain management ecosystem via the method of asset digitization. VeChain enables manufactures to assign products with unique identities to the platform. This will allow manufacturers, supply chain partners, and even consumers, to track the movement of products through their supply chain. There is also the VeChain Foundation. The Vechain Foundation is a non - profit entity established in Singapore in July 2017 and is responsible for the construction of the network, and technological research and development. The Foundation also plays an important role in business development. The Foundation encourages and supports partnerships with enterprises that may be interested in utilizing blockchain technology as a service. This includes payment services, private key management, smart contract development, and wallet development. There is no doubt that blockchain technology can be an important innovation to supply chain management. With a growing list of business partnerships and technological developments, VeChain is positioning itself to be THE disruptive, and innovative force that reshapes the way we think about supply chain management. The solution of 'hard forking' has made people question the idea of 'de-centering' of Ethereum and even Blockchain. This way of governance is not so much a 'democracy' as an 'anarchy.' VeChain development team highly regards blockchain’s decentralizing nature, yet intends to adopt some traditional corporate governance and thus improve the efficient formulation and implementation of the VeChain development and strategy for the benefit of the community to prevent and avoid serious blockchain design philosophy differences and irreconcilability. Sunny Lu is the CEO of the VeChain Foundation and has already become an important figure in the blockchain space. Before he established VeChain, he co-founded the Chinese Internet start-up which developed Qtum, a very important digital asset in the crypto space. He was previously the CIO and COO of Louis Vuitton China.The team behind VeChain consists of over 90+ employees, most of them being developers. Chief Technology Officer, Gu Jianliang, has over 18 years of experience in areas such as mobile devices and the IoT field, and has created over a 100 patents in several technological fields. Kevin Feng serves as the Chief Operations Officer of the VeChain Foundation. Feng has been actively involved in many technology projects in his 12 years working for VeChain’s partner, PWC, as a consultant and assurance advisor.