Category: Recently Added Whitepapers

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete” R. Buckminster Fuller

Throughout history we have witnessed many changes in our culture, technology, and governance. These changes are fueled by a necessity for the further evolution of mankind. Now humanity approaches another one of these times in history, where the way everything has been done must be changed; this is why we built Nexus. Peer-to-Peer technology fuels the backbone of a global blockchain-based cryptocurrency represented by the ticker: NXS which is traded world-wide as an alternative currency with the capacity to rival world economies. The framework, Nexus, utilizes new distributed database designs, mathematical trust, community governance, ground-based mesh networks, and a Low Earth Orbit Satellite Constellation. We are Nexus, a connection of people, ideas, and computers providing greater choice and therefore greater evolution with an aim towards our freedom. Welcome to the Future.

SALT is a membership based lending and borrowing network that allows users to leverage their blockchain assets to secure cash loans. Our Secured Automated Lending Technology is a protocol and asset agnostic architecture designed to adapt to the constantly growing class of blockchain assets. The system is designed such that, if you have an asset you want to hold on to, you can borrow the asset you want to spend, regardless of credit history or geographic constraints. The SALT Platform is automated, efficient, and cryptographically secure. It offers a compelling solution to the problem many consumers face when they need or want cash to make a purchase, but do not wish to liquidate their assets.

Instead of selling, SALT enables the members of the SALT Lending Platform (Members) to leverage the value of certain digital assets, thereby giving them access to cash, offsetting tax events, avoiding exchange fees and maintaining their long position in the asset they hold. SALT is a lending platform specifically designed for blockchain assets; operating as a second layer protocol which sits atop any public or permissioned blockchain, allowing the underlying asset to be used as collateral for access to credit.

SALT also offers lenders a powerful, globally available solution to access a rapidly expanding and immediately addressable borrower base, while providing new tools for managing lender risk. Unlike traditional forms of collateral, such as real estate and automobiles, blockchain assets are divisible, fungible, and in many cases instantly transferrable. These potential advantages can be fully realized with SALT’s volatility risk mitigating technology.

Executive summary The world is changing, barriers are falling, the usage of the Ethereum Blockchain and Smart Contracts is removing the middle-men and reducing costs across several industries. Banks are changing the way they do transactions while the industry is reducing complexity in manufacturing, supply chain and logistics. This white paper describes the DENT Exchange we are building: the transparent marketplace for selling, buying and donating mobile data packages. Mobile data is the next commodity to be liberated Mobile data access is becoming an essential human need, as much as hot water and electricity. However, according to GSMA, in 2016 still less than half of the world’s population uses mobile data. For data users, usage vary vastly across geographies, which shows the huge potential to be unlocked. Reasons are, besides network availability and handset affordability, the perceived high cost of data, which varies from below 1 USD / GB to well above 10 USD / GB between operators and regions for domestic usage. Furthermore, operators are locking-in customers with rigid data offerings that are made to expire when unused within a given time, which lead to even higher prices / GB that customers effectively pay. As a consequence of the customer lock-in, data usage abroad can become prohibitively expensive with prices / GB in the hundreds or thousands of USD. All this generates billions of dollars profit for operators but inhibits unlocking the full potential of mobile data. We want users to own their mobile data and bandwidth. They need to be able to freely sell or donate unused data to other users. World-wide.

Decentraland is a virtual reality platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain. Users can create, experience, and monetize content and applications. Land in Decentraland is permanently owned by the community, giving them full control over their creations. Users claim ownership of virtual land on a blockchain-based ledger of parcels. Landowners control what content is published to their portion of land, which is identified by a set of cartesian coordinates (x,y). Contents can range from static 3D scenes to interactive systems such as games.

Land is a non-fungible, transferrable, scarce digital asset stored in an Ethereum smart contract. It can be acquired by spending an ERC20 token called MANA. MANA can also be used to make in-world purchases of digital goods and services. People are spending increasingly more time in virtual worlds, for both leisure and work.

This occurs predominantly in 2D interfaces such as the web and mobile phones. But a traversable 3D world adds an immersive component as well as adjacency to other content, enabling physical clusters of communities. Unlike other virtual worlds and social networks, Decentraland is not controlled by a centralized organization. There is no single agent with the power to modify the rules of the software, contents of land, economics of the currency, or prevent others from accessing the world.

This document lays out the philosophical underpinnings, technical foundations, and economic mechanisms of Decentraland.

ICONOMI is about disruption – the “uberisation” of fund management. We are pairing the business-model fundamentals of the crypto-world and the obvious trend of platform domination with new technological possibilities.

Internet, Facebook, Android, Uber – those are all the big stories where it was impossible to invest at the early stages of development. It was either technically not possible (for example with the Internet) or it was only reserved for “big investors”, who in turn reaped all the high profits.

We believe that blockchains are game-changers for the investment world, linking those with disruptive ideas directly to those looking for investing opportunities, no matter the skill level or size of investment. Now it is possible to invest in disruptive technologies at the very early stages.

ICONOMI’s mission is to cater to investors looking for high profits, not possible in the old economy. It will do so through a simple and trustworthy entry point, providing them with excellent experience, which is crucial for keeping them investing in the new economy. With your help, ICONOMI will bring an influx of fresh capital into the distributed economy, providing funding for exciting new projects and boosting the value of digital assets along the way.

ICONOMI is creating the missing link between the old and the new economy. Speaking the language of the old economy and acting by the principles of the new one, ICONOMIs transparent management will be provided by an EU legislation compliant and regulated service operator.

Our timeline is ambitious – our journey already started in Q1 2016, when we first began offering Ether and learning what clients are missing. In Q3 2016 we will finalise the required infrastructure and in Q4 2016 we will introduce the first two ICONOMI investment funds.

2017 will be dedicated to our vision. We will launch the ICONOMI Open Fund Management platform with a simple promise to successful traders – anyone can be a professional fund manager; “You bring the crypto-expertise, we take care of everything else”.

Zen is an end-to-end-encrypted system with zero-knowledge technology over which communications, data, or value can be securely transmitted and stored. It is an integration of revolutionary technologies that create a system over which innovation can accelerate by combining three functions that are traditionally done separately: 1) transactions 2) communication, and 3) competitive governance. This is done in a secure and anonymous manner, using a worldwide distributed blockchain and computing infrastructure. The system integrates multiple best-in-class technologies to form an open platform for permissionless innovation that can evolve with user preferences.

Abstract—Bitcoin is the first e-cash system to see widespread adoption. While Bitcoin offers the potential for new types of financial interaction, it has significant limitations regarding privacy. Specifically, because the Bitcoin transaction log is completely public, users’ privacy is protected only through the use of pseudonyms.

In this paper we propose Zerocoin, a cryptographic extension to Bitcoin that augments the protocol to allow for fully anonymous currency transactions. Our system uses standard cryptographic assumptions and does not introduce new trusted parties or otherwise change the security model of Bitcoin. We detail Zerocoin’s cryptographic construction, its integration into Bitcoin, and examine its performance both in terms of computation and impact on the Bitcoin protocol.

A peer-to-peer cloud storage network implementing client-side encryption would allow users to transfer and share data without reliance on a third party storage provider. The removal of central controls would mitigate most traditional data failures and outages, as well as significantly increase security, privacy, and data control. Peer-to-peer networks are generally unfeasible for production storage systems, as data availability is a function of popularity, rather than utility. We propose a solution in the form of a challenge-response verification system coupled with direct payments. In this way we can periodically check data integrity, and offer rewards to peers maintaining data. We further propose a model for addressing access and performance concerns with a set of independent or federated nodes.