Top 25 Projects in Crypto — December 2020
By: Rochelle Guillou
Tags: Loopring, Blockchain, Twitter, Ethereum Classic, Cryptocurrency

December 2, 2020

Who is in, who is out?

Members of the FCAS 25 are reevaluated each month and must be ranked within the top 25 for at least 40 days to qualify. Today, a new set of members was released with Ethereum Classic, Loopring and Status replacing Augur, Basic Attention Token and Aragon.

Overall industry health can be assessed by taking the average FCAS of the 25 top projects. This Overall Industry Health metric works as a good proxy for how the industry is doing as a whole. The score increased 6-points since last month.

Loopring: Will the Paypal for Crypto Stay Relevant after Ethereum 2.0?

LRC FCAS climbed 81-points (10.3%) in the past month.

Loopring is a hybrid type of cryptocurrency exchange, which centrally manages orders but settles trades on Ethereum’s distributed ledger. This design seeks to keep the security and transparency of DEXes while increasing the efficiency of order execution, and enhancing liquidity.

The Loopring exchange also has its native token LRC, a token similar to most exchange tokens that allows users to stake and pay fees associated with trading and transfer.

In June, Loopring released a new payment product called Loopring Pay, which aspires to be the Paypal for crypto. Built on top of Loopring v3.0, Loopring Pay allows users to send ETH and ERC20 tokens without paying for Ethereum’s expensive gas fees.

Though the launch of Ethereum 2.0 is still several years out, it’s interesting to consider whether Loopring Pay will continue to have a real use-case once Ethereum turns to a faster, more scalable, consensus model (with lower transaction fees). The answer is, Ethereum 2.0 can’t hurt. L2 scalability solutions like Loopring’s will continue to exist on top of Ethereum 2.0, only improving scalability and ease of use for making payments.

Is Status’ Latest Upgrade Controversial?

SNT’s FCAS skyrocketed 138-points (18.5%) in the past month.

Status seeks to “enable the free flow of information, protect the right to private and secure conversations, and promote the sovereignty of individuals”. And while its focus is on upholding human rights, its most recent upgrade evokes the controversial aim of “the premier free speech social network”, Parler.

As an app built on the Ethereum blockchain, Status offers true privacy and data ownership through its messaging platform, crypto wallet and built-in web browser. Just last month the team announced a new upgrade which introduced an “unstoppable, censorship resistant Twitter feed” as a new addition to the app.

The debate around whether social media platforms should have the right to censor fake news and hate speech has become deeply political. In the U.S. at least, the majority of people who have turned to alternative social media sites like Parler, are conservatives who feel that Facebook and Twitter have a bias against them. In Europe too, there are talks of government imposed fines on platforms that failed to censor terrorist propaganda and other violent content.

“From our perspective, providing tools to uphold the basic human rights outlined in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights is common sense, not political in nature. Status is designed as an inherently apolitical tool. We are building an interface to access decentralized technology and protocols that are neutral. The technology we build attempts to protect basic human rights and provide tools for people to solve their own social issues.” commented Jonathan Zerah from the tatus team.

Although current news could make Status’ latest upgrade especially political, the lack of reaction from the crypto community is a reminder that a world order powered by public blockchains, i.e. a decentralized, private, and regulation-free environment, is already deeply controversial. Adding a private status feed is nothing new.