0x is an open protocol that is designed to offer a decentralized exchange as part of the Ethereum blockchain. 0x is made using a protocol that involves Ethereum smart contacts that allow those around the world to run a decentralized exchange. The team behind 0x strongly believes that in the future, you will find thousands of tokens from Ethereum and that 0x can provide an efficient and trustworthy way to exchange them. 0x have several benefits such as it can be any asset. The 0x protocol facilitates the exchange of a growing number of Ethereum-based tokens including currencies, game items, and many more digital assets. Besides, it has a networked liquidity. By sharing a standard API, relayers can easily aggregate liquidity pools, creating network effects around liquidity that compound as more relayers come online. 0x also can be exchanged anywhere. 0x allows trade functionality to fade into the background, enabling developers to focus on building while 0x handles the exchange. The co-founders of 0x are Will Warren and Amir Bandeali, the first of which is the CEO and the second of which is the CTO. Both are in smart contract research and development. Warren used to conduct applied physics research at the Los Alamos National Laboratory after studying mechanical engineering at UC San Diego. Bandeali used to be a fixed income trader with DRW after he studied finance at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. 0x doesn’t charge fees of any type to use their protocol; it is free. However, if someone chooses to create a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange using the protocol, that person, known as a Relayer, can charge fees. How does it work? 0x protocol works where : A “Creator” sends his request and at that same point the request is posted in an off-chain arrange/order book by the “Relayer”, next to which the request is acknowledged by the “Taker” by pushing the exchange into the task’s DEX smart contract. Thus, the 0x protocol uses off-chain order books, which is maintained by a relayer for settlement of trade between two parties. Relayers, being behind the maintenance and creation of these channels are incentivised by charging and collecting fees. 0x (ZRX) Token: ZRX token is the unique aspect of 0x project which will be used to pay ‘relayers the trading fees by the users of the protocol. It is also a governance token in a decentralized form for the 0x protocol’s upgrade.
Quantstamp is a security-auditing protocol for smart contracts. As a apps platform, Ethereum has proven its security time and again. However, apps and smart contracts on top of Ethereum may still have bugs in which malicious players can cause havoc on the network. The two most notable examples of these being the $55 million DAO hack and the $30 million Parity wallet bug. These issues not only affect the people who’ve had their funds stolen, but they also diminish the credibility of the entire ecosystem. Quantstamp is making smart contracts more secure through automated software testing and a system of bug bounties. Although starting with Ethereum, the team is building the protocol to be available on any DApp platform in the long run.In an industry where security is a primary concern and bugs have caused the theft of millions of dollars, Quantstamp should help to legitimize blockchain projects and ensure that large-scale smart contract hacks are a thing of the past. Quantstamp held a successful ICO in November 2017 in which the team raised a little over $30 million dollars. They distributed 650 million (65%) QSP out of the 1 billion total supply to ICO participants at a price of $0.072 per token. After the usual post-ICO volatility, the QSP price stabilized at around $0.10 (~0.000005 BTC) through the end of November. The price followed the trend of the altcoin market and rose rapidly to an all-time high of $0.82 (~0.000051 BTC) before slowly falling to its current price of ~$0.286. The QSP price weathered the beginning of the year market downfall better than most other altcoins.