Our favorite crypto projects
How it all started?
The year 2012, the pre-final question in the Fidelity Investments tech quiz. The question is, ‘The currency sub-unit is called ‘Satoshis.’ It is created by an anonymous creator named ‘Satoshi Nakamoto.’ What are we talking about?
I answered in a flash. This is ‘Bitcoin.’ That made my team win the quiz competition that day. I started looking at it from time to time till the year 2017 and wondered what made Bitcoin so special. After years of hacking and learning, I realized how this could truly democratize the digital world, not just finance but everything in the digital world.
In 2019, I quit my job to start working on it full time. I never dreamed at that time and I would be working in the Crypto space full-time. Today, my team and I at BlockSurvey are lucky enough to know this space, and we are going to share our favorite projects that got us started and how it helped us create this journey.
List of Favorite Crypto Projects
Why Bitcoin?
It all started because of Bitcoin. It’s impossible to imagine any crypto or blockchain project would have existed if Bitcoin wasn’t there in the first place. Bitcoin is simply uncontested till today, and it is the primary reason we got into Crypto. It is the KING! A truly game-changing tech and application that helps to transition us to the next generation digitally, which is people owned internet. All crypto projects continue to take inspiration from Bitcoin even today, and it cannot be denied.
What is Bitcoin? Bitcoin provides an effective means of exchanging money over the Internet and is regulated by a decentralized network with a straightforward set of laws, thus providing an alternative to central bank-controlled fiat money. It is simply the peoples’ currency, which is owned by people. It’s game-changing.
Our journey started with Bitcoin too. My self with my friend Harini and Raja wrote high-frequency market-making algos for few exchanges to trade and experiment as a hobby on weekends. It was just the kick start as we were from the Fin-Tech space. Later, we widened our horizon on Bitcoin and discovered Lightning Network. This our second favorite project.
Why Lightning Network?
Near-instant payment and micro value transactions weren’t possible with Bitcoin. Micro near-instant transactions are a lifeline for day to day operations. Lightning Network (LN) solved this by making Bitcoin to be really usable for commerce. It’s an interesting project as it opened up possibilities for us to experiment with Bitcoin as a core monetary system at really low fees and speed.
What is LN? It is a layer 2 solution on top of Bitcoin’s blockchain and enables users to create payment channels between any two parties. It was collectively developed by Blockstream, Lightning Labs, and ACINQ. Interesting applications and use cases like Lightning Spin, Lightning Tip Bot for Twitter, Passing of Lightning Torch are really cool ones.
We also see a potential that it can help every individual to own Bitcoin for the first time without any friction. Today, using Lightning Wallets, you can own Bitcoin for as low as $1.
The larger population still believes that they have to own the whole Bitcoin. LN can change this notion today. It can help people to try and taste Bitcoin for the first time easily. LN is helping in breaking the barrier of entry to experiment and play with Bitcoin.
It is using LN, Raja, Harini, and I were able to give away Bitcoin during meetups and conferences to first-timers to experience. It wouldn’t have been possible without LN. We also hacked a lot on LN using OpenNode and built apps like CryptoAlly — a place for people to learn and own Bitcoin through Lightning Network. It is through one of the hackathons held by OpenNode + Blockstack in 2019, which introduced to our next favorite product, Blockstack(now Stacks)
Why Stacks?
While hacking in the Crypto space, there is always a question, ‘What is the value you create for the user?’, ‘Are you solving real problems for real people?’
Crypto and Blockchain tech is complex, and there never existed an easy stack for application developers to build products for the user-owned internet. There we discover ‘Blockstack’ (now Stacks) in a hackathon titled ‘Can’t Be Evil.’ And it is the project which helps you build user-owned applications in a quick time. It runs on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. The trust, security, and decentralization properties are inherited from Bitcoin. The biggest advantage of the apps being built on Stacks is that they have zero friction, and an average person can use it without even knowing that it is a DApp(Decentralized Applications). Stacks makes the blockchain programmable friendly for developers. By this, the application devs can focus on the application or use-case rather than Blockchain's inner workings.
And, BlockSurvey was built from this hackathon using Stacks Version 1.0. The community at Stacks is passionate and kind to help. It was through their App Mining Program in 2019, BlockSurvey got bootstrapped. It is truly a value-sharing ecosystem that is working towards taking web 2.0 to web 3.0.
Version 2.0 of Stacks is just around the corner, and it unlocks DeFi with Bitcoin, which is game-changing. Today’s total value locked in DeFi is $12B. Mostly on Ethereum. But, it is just the beginning—$ 300B of Bitcoin’s passive capital waiting to become active. Unlocking of financial services on Bitcoin is just waiting to happen. How can this not be everyone's favorite project? :)
Conclusion:
This is a quick write up on how we have traveled and what are some cool projects we have come across. Thanks for reading through it. We would like to hear yours? How did you get into Crypto? What are your favorites? Let us know in the comments.
If you are interested in growing together as a community or want to be a freeholder, do check out and join https://joinfreehold.com.
