You know about crypto. Your friends know about crypto. News articles and social media discussions that we consume on a daily basis have been infiltrated by mentions of this coin and that token. It is hard not to have heard of crypto.
But can you actually tell me about the projects behind those coins and tokens?
In many ways, crypto and blockchain has become synonymous with a very small number of projects in the ecosystem. Household names such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple are bandied around as representing the best of the market with ‘the rest’ bundled into the term “altcoin”.
This is far from the truth. In terms of levels of innovation, there are an awful lot of top projects out there that slide under the radar. It is a rarity that these altcoins crop up in conversation as a discussion about the projects themselves. To most people, altcoins represent nothing more than huge price swings and a chance to make some money.
Yet, even for top cryptocurrencies, popularity does not necessarily correlate to understanding. Most people struggle to explain in basic terms what a Bitcoin is, does or represents, let alone the implications of Ethereum or the structure of Ripple. If we cannot yet achieve this level of knowledge with the most highly traded tokens, then altcoins do not stand a chance in getting their message across.
What is the Crypto Countdown series?
Over the course of the next, goodness knows how long (let’s call it 6 months to be ambitious), I will be slowly working my way through the Top 100 cryptocurrencies, by market capitalisation, and explaining in absolute layman’s terms what each project is setting out to achieve. As the shrewd token aficionados will be quick to point out, these projects change rank quite frequently. Thus, I will take a non-precise approach to the Crypto Countdown and pick a token at random for each article.
The aim of each post will be to convey the ultimate goal of the project in question. I will not be discussing the validity of their claims, the strengths and weaknesses of the teams, fluctuations in market caps nor, heaven forbid, a prediction on future token price. Each article will simply outline the following:
- What is the goal of the project?
- How does it work?
- What are the key features?
- How will we interact with this project in the future?
Why am I doing this?
There are a number of reasons why I feel this type of series is necessary. As a co-founder of a protocol that enables continuous value-transfer over non-trivial time periods, leveraging the Plasma design pattern and Tendermint consensus engine… blah blah blah… I sometimes struggle to explain my own project in simple terms ^. If you know what I am talking about, you are in the wrong place and should head to ethresearch where you can read more about Chronos…
Self-publicity aside, somewhat ironically, I actually don’t know what a large number of the Top 100 cryptocurrencies are working on, so clearly they aren’t doing a great job at getting their message across either.
This series is neither aiming to be complex, overwhelming nor confusing. If you are picking up on elements of the project’s technical white paper that I didn’t include, or nuances of cryptoeconomics that I haven’t explored, you are in the wrong place. There are plenty of sophisticated bloggers and writers who will delve into the technical details of all of these projects and, if you are lucky, read segments of the white paper to you in order to save you time.
But that is half the problem. As blockchain projects evolved and matured, with it came the assumption that the public had also kept up with the rapid pace of innovation. Now that we have got over the hype of explaining blockchain in simple terms to every Tom, Dick and Harry, there has been a huge reversal back to complex explanations, technical grandiloquence and exhaustive white papers.
I completely understand why. Founders (we are guilty of this), are competing to gain the attention of investors, prove themselves to a highly competent developer community and design the next big breakthrough idea.
Crypto Countdown: all in one place
Going forward, this mini-series will be your one-stop shop for understanding the core goals of the Top 100 projects in the cryptocurrency space. As always, I am welcome to comments, criticisms and contributions! At the end of each article, I will link you to further resources if you wish to take your learning further.
Short and sweet- let’s crack on with the first project post. Stay tuned!
