5 blockchain projects worth watching in 2016

Brave (Bitcoin)

(Web browser)

Brendan Eich, inventor of JavaScript, co-founder of Mozilla, worked for Firefox until 2014, and is now CEO of Brave, a company focused on browser speed and privacy. Brave has integrated ad blocking into their browser and will soon support Bitcoin micropayments, which has led to him receiving cease-and-desist letters from the publishing industry.

“We do not manipulate first-party publisher content, including native advertising that is not tracked by third parties,” Eich said in response to the letter.

Brave's ad blocking users can block ads through micropayments. Ad replacement users can receive 15% of ad revenue by watching clear ads provided by the Brave network, and publishers can receive at least 55% of ad revenue.

Brave explains in the document: The money sent into this system comes from payments from users who remove ads and payments from ad providers based on impressions. Ad providers pay users who reset ads through this system, and publishers can receive part of the payment from users who share content.

Brave aims to develop a high-quality browser, and integrating Bitcoin micropayments can increase its potential for revolutionary innovation.

String (Ethereum)

(Autonomous Finance)

Imagine a world where 3.2 billion people can currently connect to the Internet, and this number is growing all the time. They use the Internet to access basic financial services: savings, account checking, loans, financing, and the ability to invest in stocks, bonds and other assets around the world.

This is what String is working towards. Software engineers will replace bankers and become the caretakers of a new global automated financial system. String will provide comprehensive digital assets to track traditional assets. Transactions and processing times will be completed in seconds or hours, not days.

For those who often deal with traditional financial services, this system will significantly improve their business. For other parts of the world that do not have bank services, this represents a turning point.

Liquidity partners is a key part of this system, which builds a DAO to complete the conversion between digital assets and traditional assets through virtual contracts. They operate under a "real-world compliance framework" that is managed by an association, which is continuously audited, legal, and uses a multi-signature system for security.

Skeptics might point out that Sting has no publicly available source code. This can be answered optimistically by saying that one of String’s founders graduated from college at age 14, founded his own startup at age 15, and got his MBA at age 20. Another founder is an entrepreneur and engineer who recently built and sold a 3 million user MMO. The team has already taken the first steps, getting startup funding from a well-known investor, and they have strong Ethereum programming skills (they developed an Ether IDE and a DAPP IDE).

Open Bazaar (Bitcoin)

(Decentralized Taobao)

Since its release, Open Bazaar has become one of the most anticipated Bitcoin projects. Think of it like Taobao, but without a giant company sitting in the middle of every transaction. Instead, Open Bazaar allows trusted parties to trade directly, without any fees and with an optional dispute mediator.

As of April 18, Open Bazaar has been downloaded 55,000 times, with 17,800 nodes and 2,200 selling items in the network. One hurdle to full popularization may be that users must be very careful to select trustworthy sellers and high-quality arbitrators. A friendly interface and censorship of dangerous content will help popularize it to the public.

Colony (Ethereum)

(Distributed Autonomous Organization)

Colony makes it easy to organize people from all corners of the world to come together to form companies and organizations online.

Colony reduces barriers to managing globally distributed employees. Unlike managers assigning tasks, Colony can form an autonomous organization, pool the intelligence of project employees, eliminate hierarchical management systems, and let employees invest their time to gain benefits, just as easily as angel investors invest their money.

Members of a Colony contribute ideas, suggestions, and decisions, provide feedback, and select candidates to perform tasks. The software system evaluates users, scores them by comparing their reputation with others, and weights their contributions by the value of their participation. A Colony distributes equity fairly to members based on the tasks they complete. These equity can be traded on an open market and can also weight their voice in the organization.

Colony will integrate with services like GitHub, Google Drive, Dropbox, Twitter, Stripe, and MailChimp. Community and commercial advertising models will be introduced. The team is working hard to release a Beta version by the end of the first quarter.

BitSquare (Bitcoin)

(Distributed Exchange)

BitSquare is a distributed exchange that supports trading of both virtual and traditional currencies. Like Open Bazaar, it runs on a P2P network, which means there is no central server, it does not store the customer's privacy and data, and hackers cannot steal currency or information from it.

The successful launch of BitSquare can significantly reduce the barriers to the popularization of digital currency. It does not require user registration, is not subject to anti-money laundering and real-name policies, and is a simple software that anyone can download. The project team may establish a DAO organization to ensure its sustainable development, and a test version may be released on April 27.