Counterparty is a platform for user-created assets on Bitcoin. It’s a protocol, set of specifications, and an API. Taken together, it allows users to create and trade assets on top of Bitcoin’s blockchain. In this way, Counterparty is similar to platforms like Waves or Ethereum. Of course, the difference is Counterparty integrates directly with Bitcoin. Therefore, it comes will all the security and reliability (and issues) that are part of the Bitcoin blockchain. This is a fairly old project. In fact, it pre-dates Ethereum with its launch in 2014. It was the original asset creation mechanism. As you’re probably aware, Counterparty has faded from prominence over the years. This is largely due to the rise of the ERC-20 token standard on Ethereum. While we’ve become used to calling blockchain assets, tokens, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. An asset can represent anything that has value or is rare. As a result, Counterparty steers clear of the word “token” in their marketing and documentation. They’re much more interested in digital assets of all kinds, not just currencies, securities, and utility tokens. Digital assets can be a digital marker of a physical object, an easy way to manage shares in your company, or reputation karma for a website. These are all types of assets you could create on Counterparty (or Ethereum or Waves, for that matter). Counterparty creates the set of rules, requirements, integrations, etc that are necessary for assets on the Bitcoin blockchain. It’s the infrastructure behind user-created assets in much the same way that the ERC-20 protocol sets up guidelines and standards for asset creation on Ethereum. One useful function of digital assets is as a marker of ownership or voting rights. Imagine a scenario where you issued a digital asset to each of your company’s board members in proportion to the amount of voting power held. Or if you gave your stockholders a digital asset as a marker of the amount of stock they owned. If you issued your stock asset, you could then use Counterparty’s distribution function to pay out dividends in BTC based on the amount of digital stock asset each person owned. Counterparty addresses many of the same issues as Ethereum or Waves, but on the Bitcoin blockchain. While that does come with some advantages, ultimately it is not as strong a platform for development as its competitors. It’s best suited for applications that need to interface with Bitcoin or assets that have a specific connection to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
IONC is the official token of IONChain. It can be utilized by different participants in IONChain ecosystem. The maximum supply of IONC is 800 million. It is going to be released gradually for 20 years. After 20 years, the administrative committee elected by IONChain users using the consensus mechanism will decide whether to re-issue IONC tokens based on the amount of on-chain devices, amount of data being processed and the overall level of IONC abundance in the ecosystem. IoT devices and data access constitute the core parts of IONChain ecosystem, therefore IONC token is going to be used to reward devices and data providers. The yearly supply of IONC tokens increases along with the demand for data access. However, the upper limit is pre-set. IONC token is an indispensable part of the IONChain system as it is a single most crucial part of its ecIONChain aims to solve a wide range of the current problems of IoT networks in terms of data security, data circulation, data sharing and data transactions, thus enhancing the efficiency of the whole IoT ecosystem. IONChain introduces the concept of “One Device, One Coin, One Code” which facilitates the integration of IoT devices with the IONChain blockchain network. With the use of Edge Computing technology, it enables every device on the IoT network to be utilized as a mining machine, making every IoT device that uses IONChain subject to mining rewards. Owing to the use of blockchain technology, the data source will always be reliable and verifiable on the IONChain network. Furthermore, the value ofthe data is quantified and data transfers are fast and secured. This makes it easier for IoT standards to emerge, unlocks a plethora of new IoT application scenarios and boosts the whole industry to enter the next level of development.