With the plethora of projects relating to blockchain, there is inevitably going to be a lot of duds. This may come from the project lacking in management capability, simply not catching on with the mainstream so just fizzling out, or the project straight up being built on a bad idea.
This is where I am going to try and make myself some use to you all here by narrowing down many of these projects to the ones with the most potential. For a project to have potential, it will be analysed more on a fundamental basis than on a technical basis. I am not expecting there to be a profit turned, but there are many other metrics that measure a project's success. I will be looking at numbers such as users, basis of the idea, how much competition they have, management's track record and several other aspects.
So, without further ado, I introduce to you my list of blockchain projects that tick the above.
Medicalchain
Blockchain is an amazing technology that has many applications other than being a currency, and Medicalchain aims to fulfill this. Our current healthcare system relies on a clunky way to share medical information, and Medicalchain has realised that blockchain offers a far better solution. They state that their aim is to place the patient in control of their own medical data, and if it becomes mainstream, can allow quite a few middlemen to be eliminated.
One example of this is in health insurance. The health insurance company can simply look at the client’s medical history on the blockchain rather than going through a clinic or hospital. This makes it easier for everybody involved while lowering the costs.
The technology can also be used by research companies to get the optimal people for their project. I believe that they are only just scratching the surface however with what ledger technology can do to improve many current systems.
Aave
For DeFi to actually challenge traditional finance, it has to be able to allow the economy to function by providing capital to those who need it. Aave allows this to happen in a decentralised manner. Users of the platform can borrow and deposit a wide variety of coins, with the programming constantly changing these rates to match the supply and demand.
As Aave is built on the Ethereum blockchain, it functions on smart contracts. Unlike traditional finance where there has to be a level of trust between the institution and borrower, Aave users only have to trust the programming. Being a pure blockchain application, there is also a plethora of innovative products it offers such as flash loans. This concept in itself is an entire article so I am not going to delve into them here, but put simply, your local bank aren’t going to be offering them anytime soon.
Aave has the potential to provide users with a healthy amount of passive income if they are willing to put in some work from farming, or you can be more traditional and use Aave to simply borrow money and stop there.
Polkadot
With the rise of so many blockchains, DeFi is at risk of becoming far too clunky to actually have any utility. Polkadot aims to ameliorate this concern by allowing any asset, not just tokens, to be transferred across blockchains. This is truly innovative, but this isn’t all that Polkadot can do.
With the use of an application called Substrate, anybody with the right knowledge can create a blockchain that is connected to Polkadot. They advertise these blockchains as ‘future proof’, much like Polkadot itself, as they can be upgraded without a hard fork, which is often a controversial event as all of us on Hive know.
These upgrades of the Polkadot system rely purely on the stakeholders, giving every single one of them a voice. This is in direct contrast to many other cryptocurrencies where it is the miners who get the say. The website says that they have used the principles of game theory to ensure that the stakeholders are incentivised to act in an honest way.
The scalability of Polkadot is immense, and is likely to ensure that any blockchain worth knowing about will be in the ecosystem, reducing transaction costs and increasing connectivity between the world of DeFi.
Fantom
One of the greatest problems facing blockchain is the inability for it to scale, a problem that Fantom believes it can solve. It can supposedly handle around 100k TPS, which not only blows Bitcoin out of the water, but also traditional payment processors such as Visa.
The cause of these superior numbers is their consensus protocol called aBFT. On this mechanism, transactions can be accomplished in as little as 2 seconds while having barely any fees. These numbers allow Fantom to present themselves as serious competitors not just against other blockchains, but also traditional finance.
Importantly, there is an ecosystem growing around Fantom which is vital for the longevity of any project regardless of their other merits. Fantom works with Chainlink to produce DeFi projects such as stablecoins and synthetic assets that perform just like any other but just at a far greater speed.
Another interesting project that relies on Fantom is called Ankr. Ankr aims to connect Web 3 developers with blockchains such as Fantom. A developer can create an app and then connect it to Fantom which greatly increases the exposure of the blockchain and its benefits. While Ankr doesn’t solely work with Fantom, it does only work with top tier players in the blockchain space. Just have a look at the website.
Hive
Well, without any bias, I introduce Hive as one of the most promising blockchain projects. Not only is it ambitious, but it is also clearly working. I don’t say this in relation to the recent pump, in fact, I see the pump as completely irrelevant to the future of Hive. I say it in relation to the fact that Hive’s community has grown greatly even in the short time that I have been there. Dapps are constantly being created and projects like Leofinance only continue to strengthen the ecosystem.
Recently social media has changed a lot, transitioning from a great new technology that allowed people to communicate from anywhere in the globe to something a bit different but a lot worse. It has now become an advertising platform where the goal isn’t to make the experience as enjoyable as possible but rather make it as addictive as possible. Clearly this isn’t the greatest thing for society, yet it is clearly happening. On top of this, there is an exorbitant amount of censorship occurring on a daily basis. Hive is different by actually caring about their users, knowing that they are loyal to the platform because of the experience and not simply the name, and more importantly, the nature of Hive stops censorship, a great step in the world of social media.
Hive isn’t complacent with its recent success, so there is also a great pipeline of projects coming out that are likely to grow the base of users and improve the experience. Let's be honest, a lot of us enjoy social media, and if Hive can create a free platform that models the traditional ones, we will all be in for a great ride (and a higher Hive price!).
This brings us to the end of our journey through the blockchain universe, and I am sure there are likely to be many more great projects being done that I simply am not aware of. If you think I am missing something obvious or you know of some other great project, please let me know in the comments.