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There are no summer vacations planned for the staff at these projects… because there’s plenty to be nervous about when cryptocurrency ICOs open themselves to the public.

For developers and programmers, it’s a chance to find any bugs that are still hiding under the carpet. For investors, it’s an occasion for intense nail-biting and finger crossing as they discover exactly what their money’s been used for. And for everyone else, it’s a chance to try out what could be the next Amazon—or the next Geocities.

This summer is full of high-profile launches. EOS has already shown off its little bundle of joy, but here are some of our FAVE new launches for summer: Fusion, Aeternity, VeChain, Enigma.

VeChain

Mainnet Launch: June 30.

Market Cap: $1,723,406,415 USD

Wikipedia claims that the VeChain project was actually founded in 2007, making it perhaps the only idea in crypto-space that’s older than Bitcoin—although it seems like that may be a stretch. The token was originally launched on Ethereum, but the long-term goal has always been to develop and launch an independent, highly-scaleable blockchain for multiple industries. Earlier this year, CEO Sunny Lu announced the migration of VEN tokens to the newly-launched VeChainThor.

Despite having an inexcusably silly name, VeChainThor is very much the blockchain platform for grownups. Instead of sending drugs or virtual cats, the hybrid system will be used for cross-industrial purposes: tracking shipments across international borders, verifying the authenticity of easy-to-fake goods, and ensuring the safety and quality of food and drugs with a short shelf life.

If you’ve ever wondered if that imported French wine is actually expired grape juice from Queens, the VeChain platform could put your mind at ease.

The company has crossed a lot of ground since the token first launched, having already developed a hardware system of smart chips and sensors that can be integrated with the Internet of Things.

VeChain has been accused of embellishing its partnerships, but the list was already shiny enough: the company has already partnered with several highly-ranked companies, universities, and Chinese local governments.

Enigma Project

(Not to be confused with that other Enigma)

Testnet Launch: June 30.

Mainnet Launch: Sometime in Q3.

(The Enigma data marketplace launched on mainnet earlier this year.)

Market Cap: $122,672,948

Blockchains are great for transparency, but sometimes you need a little privacy. As smart contracts become more sophisticated, people are going to be a lot more reluctant to record sensitive data to an immutable public ledger.

That’s the motivation for Enigma, which aims to solve both scaling and privacy. While there are lots of privacy coins, Enigma is the first platform for privacy dApps, via a system of “secret contracts” that allow verifiable computations outside of the main blockchain.

A trading platform, the Catalyst, has already been launched and can be integrated with 90 exchanges.

Although Enigma’s still a bit behind some other projects, the MIT-based team has wasted little time in looking for partners and talent. Enigma has already paired up with Aion, potentially making secret contracts available to every blockchain network.

Aeternity

Market Cap: $602,290,344 USD

Mainnet Launch: Originally scheduled for June 30, now slated for August.

While other blockchains serve important purposes like streamlining business and shipping, Aeternity has a more noble cause: inventing a plumbing system that doesn’t get clogged by cat hair.*

Aeternity’s solution to the scaling problem is a combination of sharding and moving execution off the main blockchain. Instead of having the entire Aeternity network verify each transaction, most transactions will me moved to side channels, in a way somewhat similar to Bitcoin’s lightning network. Where disputes arise, they can still be resolved by the blockchain—but otherwise the clutter stays out of the system.

There’s another element that adds a dimension of extra functionality: The oracle machine, a simple way off accessing external data. Oracles allow off-chain data to be used as input for a smart contract: you could design a dApp that reacts to the price of a certain stock, or who wins a football game,

As Crypto Briefing has already reported, Aeternity has plenty of competition, and the mainnet delay will make it harder to catch up. If they can’t, it may be an ‘aeternity’ before this project shows results. I’ll see myself out now.

Fusion:

Mainnet launch: End of June

Market Cap: $122,968,826

Part of the fun of crypto is sorting out all the different chains and their tokens: figuring out which coins go in your ERC-20 wallet and which ones go with NEO, and making sure that you use the correct address each time. Wait, did I say fun? I meant excruciating pain.

Fusion is promising to spoil the game with a system that can interact with just about any blockchain token, along with a system of smart contracts that replicate the most sophisticated financial instruments. If successful, it could turn crypto from an obscure way to send geek money into a fully-developed system for electronic finance.

These smart contracts are a lot more complex than the timelocks and escrow wallets you may have seen on other chains. Fusion says that its contracts will allow “time and event based triggers,” allowing the development of more complicated financial instruments.

But don’t get your hopes up. As Crypto Briefing has already reported, Fusion is big on ideas but sparse on code. We’ll soon see if they’ve managed to flesh their system out.

The Author is invested in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and NEO, which are mentioned here.

*Sorry, Vitalik.