1. ARPA (China)
ARPA is developing a secure and confidential computing network that uses private smart contracts for data transmission. Consensus is reached "inside" the node, and the result is broadcast to the public network.
Each node in the ARPA ecosystem consists of two "layers": the Consensus Layer and the Computation Layer.
The Consensus Layer offers system participants the option of sharing their computing power in exchange for awards in the form of ARP tokens. A trust system based on the previous user history will be integrated into this layer. Thanks to Secret Sharing and Threshold Signatures (similar to that of Keep Network), random block generation will prevent teams with large computing powers from creating a “monopoly” on block signatures.
The Computation Layer will be responsible for the calculations and the correct operation of the confidential calculation protocol (MPC / Multiparty Computation) with rewards/penalties depending on the behavior of the nodes in the system.
The ARPA ecosystem will allow developers the option of running their own confidential dApps without deep knowledge of cryptography. In addition, users of the ARPA Data Marketplace which will feature a built-in reputation system will have access to the already processed and confirmed information without the need to operate on “raw data” and re-waste resources on processing them. Platform interactions will be paid for by ARP.
Members of the project team claim that their product will be most highly demanded in the financial, medical, energy and IoT sectors, wherein it is important to process large amounts of confidential data. For example, a bank offers a retail company data on purchases in the categories of goods of interest. ARPA handles bank’s and the business’s secrets and transfers arrays to the computational nodes that match the necessary data and send the result to the retail company while maintaining the confidentiality of the bank data. Thus, ARPA developers make a major bet on the Secret Sharing technology ensuring data privacy.
The main developments, the release of testnet and the mainnet are planned for 2019. By the end of 2018, the team promises to release a demo version of the confidential calculation protocol. Official information on the capitalization and timing of the ICO is not yet available.
The ARPA project team consists of the core and the research team. Among the core team there are:
a financial analyst with little experience in AIG;
from the fintech sphere, a cryptographer;
serial startupper Yemu Xu;
a former Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) engineer and systems architect with a little over 3 years experience.
The research team is represented by a Ph.D. student from the University of Bristol, a Ph.D. from Tsinghua University and another Ph.D. from the University of Delaware. A team with insufficient experience and an average level of competence.
In general, the project received investments from 6 business angel investors totaling $ 2.8 million. Of the well-known investors, there is Arrington XRP Capital. Partners are represented by an Australian bank, an energy company, and a machine learning company.
Summing up the ARPA project: it is a good product with a small number of competitors (Enigma, Origio, Keep Network). However, the average team and partners, the lack of information on tokenometrics and HardCap, and the estimated long-term product implementation period mean the project is not recommended for investment.
The preliminary assessment of Tokenbox is 5/10.
2. Celes Chain (China)
Celes Chain is a service for creating financial applications with a public network, which is based on a new and improved regulatory system by consensus. Consider the features of the project:
1. Celes Chain smart script, the service for creating financial applications. The language (CSSL) will be used to develop the business logic of the project, including services such as code, applications, intelligent contracts, and calculations.
2. The public network will be based on a new consensus. The entire project will be built on the public blockchain. Consensus Mechanism 3.0 will include regulation of the basic concepts of supporting cross-chain interactions and connection authentication on the side-chain as well as providing services to financial institutions for developing financial blockchain applications. The Celes blockchain itself will be built on the DPoW consensus (Delegated proof of work). This is a mix of two mining algorithms - PoW and PoB (proof of Burn).
3. The regulation system. There will be a “super administrator” in the Celes Chain, who is a supervisory agency that will regulate data in applications. Each code will be checked for legal compliance. Celes Chain will have a compiler specifically designed to translate business logic into legal documents.
Tokenometrics of the project:
HardCap - 35.000 ETH (15000ETH collected). The cost of 1CCHN = $0.1. A total of 2,100,000,000 tokens will be released. According to the roadmap, the test network will be launched before the end of 2018, and the mainnet at the beginning of 2019.
The project team:
Liu Zhijian (Founder) - BS at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, worked at the Royal Bank of Scotland (LON:RBS), London, China Development Bank (Hong Kong).
Liu Yilan (CTO) - BS of Computer Science at Central China Pedagogical University, 3.5 years of work as a technical director, 12 years as a senior engineer at Tencent Technology.
Gao Han (CEO) has MS and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago and has 20 years’ experience in financial services, previously worked with Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) as a private trader and with China Investment Corporation (CIC) as the head of a trading company.
Project Advisors:
Wang Dong - Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, USA, worked in the North American energy industry for 7 years. One of the first investors in NEO.
Shane Jing - MS & Ph.D., MIT, has more than 10 years of experience in the financial services industry in both New York and London.
Wang Shen. His practice includes a wide range of business operations in the field of mergers and acquisitions in the domestic market, development, and financing of projects.
The Celes Chain team received $10 million in venture capital from Northern Light Venture Capital (NLVC), Xinghe Capital.
Summarizing the project, we can distinguish the following negative points, despite the good technology: low hyip and empty social networks, weak tokenometrics, and capitalization too high for this market, the Whitepaper without a description of the technology, weak partnerships.
The evaluation of the Tokenbox analytical department is 5/10.