Even though it’s not the most popular crypto/blockchain project out there, Stratis has enough
innovations under its belt to make it worthy of any serious investor’s attention.
Below, we will look at some of the reasons why Stratis is still very much a relevant crypto project
and why it could or couldn’t be the next big thing in crypto.
What is Stratis?
Stratis is a BaaS (Blockchain-as-a-Service) built on top of the Ethereum blockchain and written
in the C# programming language.
Stratis started in life as a platform whereby developers could create their very own blockchain
projects. It was a service specifically tailored for big organizations that were interested in
launching their own blockchain platforms.
Since the project was first announced, the world of crypto changed drastically and, with it, so did
Stratis’ scope. The project’s main goal now is to build the world’s largest blockchain
development network and take on head-to-head giants the likes of Ethereum and NEO.
What sets Stratis apart from its competition?
The main difference between Stratis and most of its main competitors is the fact that while
various projects are forcing developers to work with new, in-house programming languages (i.e.,
Ethereum uses Solidity), Stratis is currently using C# for Microsoft’s .NET Framework.
To be more precise, Stratis uses a more popular programming language, one that appeals and
is more familiar to a great number of programmers out there. The Stratis team has been hard at
work over the past couple of years and, in May 2018, have launched smart contracts, as well as
alpha sidechains.
Stratis aims to attract as many companies as possible due to their C# programming language,
and the fact that its blockchain now supports smart contracts and sidechains. Since there are
close to 6 million C# developers worldwide, it’s easy to see how Stratis aims to smoothly mesh
with the existing systems of employed by traditional tech companies across the globe.
Stratis team
Stratis was founded in 2016 by Chris Trew who is currently the company’s CEO. Chris is a
backend developer who worked a lot with C# and ASP.NET and has over ten years of
experience in enterprise IT. The company behind Stratis is called the Stratis Group Ltd and is
currently based in London.
The team roster also includes:
- Nicolas Dorier who developed NBitcoin
- Carlton Pringle
- Krushang Patel
The STRAT Token
Since Stratis uses a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm for reaching consensus, there’s no
incentive to mine in order to secure the network. This also means that Stratis will never be
affected by the so-called 51 percent vulnerability, where miners or mining pools can end up
owning and controlling 51% of the network’s computational power.
One very interesting aspect of Stratis’ token is the fact that it doesn’t allow the processing of
blocks to mine STRAT unless someone already owns STRAT. Operating a masternode requires
users to stake 250,000 STRAT.
The blockchain’s native token is the STRAT which is currently ranked at a respectable 56 th place
on CoinMarketCap with a market cap of $79,538,699, and a total circulating supply of
99,117,326 STRAT.
Can Stratis be the next big thing in Crypto?
Stratis has made most investors, and crypto enthusiasts raise their eyebrows when they
decided to launch an ICO platform back in May 2018. Two thousand seventeen saw an
explosion of ICOs as Ethereum began hosting tokens on its blockchain, allowing companies to
bypass the expensive and complex process of creating their own blockchains.
Fast forward to 2018, and nearly 50% of all ICOs turned out to be total scams, and online giants
such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter soon banned ICO ads from their platforms.
To make matters worse, 2018 has not been a very good year for crypto in general, hence,
STRAT has also seen a big decline. On the upside, Stratis has been recently listed in the
Microsoft Azure Marketplace, which might help with the project’s exposure among developers.
Unfortunately, it seems that the development rate on the Stratis project is somewhat slow,
especially when compared to that of other projects from Asia. The company did, however,
announced a new partnership with online pharmacy service UK Meds.
Conclusion
Stratis is still a very interesting crypto project despite its somewhat questionable decisions in
2018. The project has a very experienced team behind it, solid technology, and not many, but a
few strong partnerships.
At the end of the day, the use of C# makes Stratis a very attractive platform for a great number
of traditional tech companies which, as cryptocurrencies enter mainstream more and more with
each passing day, may play a key role in the future of Stratis.
Featured image: CoinSwitch