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.
Merculet proposes a growth methodology based on user attention: Merculet constructed Attention Value Network. This Network connects both the supply and demand sides of attention with an open protocol suite to promote a virtuous circulation of the Internet of Value. On the one hand, it provides diverse methods for user operation. On the other hand, it offers real users and business scenarios for various existing public chain projects, promoting the effective circulation of value. Attention Value Network realizes the value circulation in a distributed commercial society, brings a brand-new production relationship experience to users and entrepreneurs, and re-defines the structure of valuable user traffic. The core components of the project include: 1. User Attention Value (UAV) evaluation system: UAV System effectively evaluates user attention, completes digitalization and capitalization, and provides a proof of effective workload, that is, UAV. It established a long-lasting trust relationship between entrepreneur and user as well as a new mechanism for the community of interests; 2. Attention Incentive system: UAT (User Attention Token), Application Market of Merculet UAT Alliance Entrepreneurs can issue UAT to users based on UAV value. The UAT will be anchoring the basic MVP (Merculet Value Protocol) token, enabling the synergy and the value exchange between entrepreneurs, thus creating an era of the token, which is a means of the welfare, equity, entry admission, and identity. 3. To address the source of user attention, Merculet will provide a blockchain based Merculet Open Content Platform: Based on consensus and driven by token, it will provide a decentralized platform for the entire industry chain globally. It also dedicated to solving the problem of global content circulation brought by cultural differences.