I got into cryptocurrency at a time when adding the word 'chain' behind any cryptocurrency project seemed cool. There was Vechain, A-Chain, B-Chain, C-Chain and... ok, I hope you have guessed by now that I was joking. However, the one chain that caught my eye was WanChain. It did so for many reasons. For one, it holds a very unique niche as the first and only interoperable blockchain. That sounded complicated, so let me explain.
Wanchain's Niche & Roadmap
Let's imagine a near future where your boss asks if he could pay you in Ethereum. You agree, thinking that since Ethereum is the second highest marketcap cryptocurrency in the world, surely it will be accepted anywhere. After work, you head to your dentist for your routine dental appointment and they will only accept Dentacoin. Frustrated, you soon realize that every industry would accept only one coin and to gain their services, you would have to exchange your Ethereum for some of them. This is not only troublesome, but it gives you less buying power since all exchanges would collect a small fee if you use their services. This is where Wanchain comes in. Imagine if you could store your Ethereum in Wan Wallet (pun intended) and not multiple wallets. With Wan wallet as part of Wanchain, this gives you the ability to conduct cross-chain transactions.
What this means is that your Ethereum can be used to pay for other services without heading to any exchange. For now, Wanchain only supports cross-chain transactions with Ethereum. However, the team at Wanchain aims to support Bitcoin and at least two other ERC20 tokens by the end of 2018. This would make Wanchain a potential disruptor as you will likely depend less on exchanges to exchange your crypto assets. All you need is Wan coin to rule them all. Jokes aside, as much as interoperability is cool, exchanges are still relevant as not all coins are immediately supported by Wanchain. However, I believe their roadmap indicates that interoperability is only part of the story. I believe Wanchain is positioning itself to be the digital cryptobank or crypto financial hub of the future.
In Wanchain's commercial whitepaper, Wanchain indicated that they intend to conduct cryptocurrency cross-chain trading. However, an in-depth look into their plan shows that the Wanchain business team would be cooperating with digital currency exchanges, agencies and the traditional financial sector. This is to promote the use of Wanchain in the aforementioned institutions.
If this succeeds, Wanchain is poised to fulfill four of Wanchain's partner application use cases. These use cases include:
- Digital currency debit and credit
- Digital currency payment and settlement
- Digital currency exchange conversion
- Digital asset investing and financing
All these partner applications will connect Wanchain to banks, cryptocurrency exchanges and other financial institutions worldwide. Through Wanchain, banks will not have to create their own blockchain, instead, they can facilitate their business through any crypto assets. With Wanchain's interoperable blockchain, banks can also conduct any business with any other crypto assets. This makes it easier for payments, settlements and debit as well as credit cards using different crypto-assets. In other words, all crypto-assets can be connected via Wanchain.
Exchange conversion can also be facilitated with better security through Wanchain. Gone are the days when a trader is required to trust a suspicious exchange with their funds and trading. This is because Wanchain will be able to facilitate multi currency trading in the near future. In addition, Wanchain also plays the role of a distributed ledger and future investors holding Wanchain will likely be able to use this ledger to finance their business. This can be done through allowing banks to access the ledger to determine if a particular business deserves financing. Through the distributed ledger, the bank can check if that company has enough assets even in cryptocurrency as collateral to qualify for any line of credit.
All of these points to a strong use case for Wanchain. However, all this means nothing if none of it has been implemented. In that regard, Wanchain has been fulfilling its roadmap targets thus far. Its recent accomplishment being the launching of Wanchain 2.0. This gives me confidence that the team will continue to deliver their next roadmap target of executing Bitcoin cross-chain trading on time. I do think that Wanchain holds a lot of potential, that is why I am HODLing
Why I'm HODLing...
Despite a crazy fall in value to about 1 USD per coin, I am still holding on to my investment in Wanchain. Sure, it was about 10 USD per coin some time back. However, I find their use case extremely appealing in our current day and age. This is because with over 2000 different coins and tokens, Wanchain fulfills an interesting niche of facilitating easy transaction and interoperability between most, if not all of them. Because of that, I am sure this coin will slowly climb back up to its previous value, if not higher. I also particularly like how Wanchain is tackling the industry as a whole.
In the past, many coins and projects would come and claim to be the new disruptor in a particular field. They work on their product and try their very best to unseat old, established institutions. However, more often than naught, these projects tend to fail. Wanchain on the other hand, takes a rather different approach. Despite being the first and only interoperable blockchain project, they are trying to work with current exchanges and even banking institutions to connect everything. From old traditional banking institutions to cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets, Wanchain will be the blockchain to link it all together. I believe that this creates acceptance instead of resistance. Through acceptance, I think that it will create demand and eventually, this could propel Wanchain to new heights in terms of price.
Those are my thoughts with regards to Wanchain. If you are as excited as I am, do check out their project website below. I do recommend reading up on their commercial whitepaper to gain an understanding of what they are trying to achieve. Also, I like the video posted here and a statement that they made. Wan in mandarin can mean many and I think this is a great name for Wanchain, reflecting on their future use case of a chain that has many use cases as well as a means to connect the many blockchains out there.
Site and Social Media Links
· Project Website: https://wanchain.org/
· Products & Services: https://wanchain.org/product
· Documents: http://www.wanchaindocs.org/en/latest/
· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wanchainfoundation/
· Medium: https://medium.com/wanchain-foundation
· Telegram: https://t.me/WanchainANN
Sources
Disclaimer:
Many of the findings here are researched but are based on my own opinion. I welcome any debate and discussion but I am no financial adviser. As such, always do your own due diligence before selling your kidney to invest in anything.