1. Sparkster (England) https://sparkster.me
Sparkster is a cloud platform for building decentralized applications. One notable feature of the project is the low threshold of technical literacy required of the user, who doesn’t even have to know how to code. The developers claim that their platform is the fastest with a bandwidth of 10 million transactions per second.
Storage of data is carried out through a decentralized cloud, which can become a full-fledged replacement for traditional cloud computing in the near future. Plans also include developing and opening a marketplace where everyone can trade their products in exchange for SPARK tokens. The entire Sparkster ecosystem is centered around using the Internet of Things and solves the following problems: the complexity of the software development cycle, the complexity of integrating blockchain, IoT and smart contracts, the extreme difficulty of integrating innovation within established companies, and the potential harm of cloud computing to the environment.
The idea of the project was born in 2009, and development started in 2012, on the basis of the company called Synchronized Communications, later renamed into Syncoms. Since 2014, the main team has been working full time. According to the CEO, he has already invested $8 mln in the project.
As the core of its system, the developers chose the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SPC) with additional adjustable features that are responsible for the awards of participants. To ensure anonymity, a combination of Zero Knowledge Proof (ZPF) and encryption systems is used.
The Testnet project is already running, and the figure of 6.467 TPS is indicated. The platform is available for work, and for 2018 the plan is to launch using ARM devices, release a smartphone app, launch a decentralized cloud and marketplace, which will be followed by support of NEO, Cardano and Stellar in 2019.
The approximate Hard Cap of the project is $30 mln. The total number of SPARK tokens is about 435 million, 290 (67%) of which are allocated for the ICO (250 for the presale and 40 for the crowdsale in the form of an auction); 20% goes to the early investors; 10% is for the team; 1% goes to Sparkster's Foundation.
Among the advantages of Sparkster are a unique idea, a working platform, a huge team of developers with solid experience and key partnerships. The downside is the way the crowdsale is being handled: the auctions are now not in high esteem, and the Hard Cap of $30 mln is more than would seem recommendable. It is also interesting to see how the platform will behave when developing very complex multi-level applications: constructor application in such cases often lose to pure code.
The Token Fund recommends the project for medium term affiliation. The preliminary assessment is 7/10.
2. Phantasma (Portugal) https://phantasma.io
The Phantasma project offers a decentralized content distribution system that works on blockchain. Particular attention is paid to privacy and security. Phantasma is a new platform that defines both the storage specification and the protocol for sending messages from one source to one or more destinations through smart contracts. With the help of Phantasma it is possible to set up e-mail, chat, databases, file transfer and other data exchange systems as messages in blockchain.
Phantasma works on top of a crypto-wallet address using NEO blockchain. He who has a secret wallet key owns all the content stored in the wallet. Because everything is encrypted, without a private key, no one can copy or steal content, and even Phantasma developers cannot access it.
Confidentiality is extremely important, so when distributed, all data in Phantasma is encrypted and guaranteed to be controlled only by the data owner. In addition, in order to create a healthy ecosystem, Phantasma will encourage all participants with tokens which will include end users of decentralized applications.
Project tokenometrics: the currency used is own SOUL token of NEP5 format (NEO). It will be accepted as a payment for access to data and for the use of storage space. A total of 100 million tokens will be issued, 65% of which will go to the crowdsdale. The hardcap is only $10 million. This is a very small amount, and the chances are that it will be collected very quickly. The private sale has already been closed; there will be no presale, and the main sale is scheduled for May 22. The maximum bonuses in private sale were 30%, and they are frozen for 3 months with the issuance of equal parts every month.
Phantasma is very rapidly gaining momentum. Within a few days the project has received more than 10K subscribers in Telegram. And they are all organic; there is no bounty or airdrop. Moreover, the hype has increased rapidly in one of the days in early May, and on the same day, the process of white-listing was stopped, since there were more than enough registered people.
The team is strong: SÉRGIO FLORES, a project cofounder with 19 years experience in programming, is a developer in the City of Zion team. This is a community of developers, translators and designers who work on the development of the NEO ecosystem. Sergio is also the creator of the Nachomen game based on NEO, which took the first place in the competition that NEO conducted jointly with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT).
The project has two top-level advisers. The first one is Neeraj Murarka, the CTO of Bluzelle Networks. Bluzelle held its ICO in January and now has 5.5xx in dollars and almost 8xx in ethereum. The second adviser is Gordon Hall, one of the leading developers of Storj. The capitalization of Storj Labs is now $139 million.
Analysts of The Token Fund 90% recommend the project for both short-term and long-term affiliation. Phantasma has the potential to dramatically change the segment of data exchange, as e-mail did many years ago. The final evaluation of the project is 8/10.