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Uport, An Ethereum Based Identity Project Wins the Blockchain Competition

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:51 PM
Andrew Quentson
Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:51 PM

The biggest competition of its kind, Demo Day, hosted by ChainB during the International Blockchain Week, featured 17 ethereum based projects, out of 31, with the overall winner Uport, an Ethereum based blockchain identity project.

Uport Wins Demo Day - Image Credits Event Organizers
Uport Wins Demo Day – Image Credits Event Organizers

Speaking to CCN.com, Uport’s co-founder Rouven Heck, stated:

We are very excited about the great feedback for uPort over the last days at DevCon2. Winning the demo day event is a great endorsement from the community that we are building something valuable for the ecosystem.  We are looking forward to integrating with some of the exciting projects we have seen over the last days.

Uport addresses a number of public blockchain usability problems, such as private key management, through a blockchain based identity protocol that can be easily incorporated in other projects, allowing for a persistent identity across projects with means of identity recovery if, say, the phone is lost.

Moreover, official institutions, such as, say, the Passport Office, and others, can vouch for the correctness of an identity, making possible the signing of contracts through an ethereum public key.

WeiFund Wins Most Innovative Project at Demo Day Image Credits Orgenizers
WeiFund Wins One of the Most Innovative Project at Demo Day – Image Credits Event Organizers

There were four other projects that won the most innovative prize. We are aware of only three, starting with WeiFund , an ethereum based crowdfunding platform which allows independent film producers, such as Braid , artists, entrepreneurs and others to raise funds through smart contracts, potentially reducing scams as funds can be released incrementally.

Both of the above projects are Consensys spokes, with seemingly particular emphasis on integrating ethereum based projects. Many, for example, use MetaMask, as they probably will Uport and, perhaps, WeiFund.

Jesse Grushack, co-founder of Ujo Music, another consensys spoke, but not one of the winners, stated to CCN.com regarding demo day:

[I]t was a great showcase of projects and demonstrated what’s going on in the crypto space. We’re really happy to be a part of Consensys and even happier that a Consensys project won at all.

Qtum Wins One of the Most Innovative Projects at Demo Day
Qtum Wins One of the Most Innovative Projects at Demo Day – Image Credits Qtum

Not all winning projects were eth based. Qtum  is a new blockchain that, according to Patrick Dai, CTO, complements both bitcoin and ethereum’s blockchain. Speaking to CCN.com, Dai states:

“Qtum will become the first UTXO model based smart contract platform. Different from Rootstock, Qtum is using the Incentive proof of stake as the consensus protocol,also Qtum support EVM. We also divide the blockchain contract to Smart Contract and Master Contract. Through real world data feeds, you can build the Master Contract on QtumChain. We also offer identity on Qtum Blockchain. Qtum add value both to Bitcoin ecosystem and Ethereum ecosystem.”

They have signed a strategic partnership with PwC China, and recently signed a service contract with the world’s largest freight company for the use of VeChain, another project by the team, to better manage supply chains by adding blockchain capabilities to minimize fraud and theft.

Tendermint's Cosmos Wins One of the Most Innovative Projects at Demo Day - Image Credits Event Organizers
Tendermint’s Cosmos Wins One of the Most Innovative Projects at Demo Day – Image Credits Event Organizers

Another winner is Cosmos by Tendermint . Jae Kwon, CEO of Tendermint, states:

“One of the biggest challenges of cryptocurrencies today is they all exist in silos. Effectively, a Cosmos hub is a blockchain with many sidechains, but its use of proof-of-stake over proof-of-work leads to a dramatic reduction in overhead, improvements in speed and scalability, and a clear path to improved security.”

According to a press release shared with CCN.com, Cosmos allows for interoperability of blockchains. Therefore, you do not need an exchange to move between eth and btc:

“With Cosmos, users don’t need to go through a third-party exchange to trade currency. Instead they can trade directly between blockchains via the Cosmos hub, using a proprietary inter-blockchain communications (IBC) protocol.”

Demo Day at the International Blockchain Week - Image Credits Event Organizers
Demo Day at the International Blockchain Week – Image Credits Event Organizers

We will probably go into further detail in future articles, but today we congratulate the winners and look forward to all the projects. Tomorrow (or very late this evening for Americans and Europeans) is the big day. The blockchain summit opens and this time there is livestream! Numerous household names are to take the stage, with many announcements expected at the biggest blockchain event ever.

Featured image from International Blockchain Week.