Cryptocurrency projects are a dime a dozen which is why it’s important to set yourself apart with not only your branding but more importantly your technology, your partnerships and your roadmap.

One may be forgiven to outright separate the Disney corporations from the crypto space, but Lion King’s very own mass media and entertainment company got involved with it’s very own blockchain platform as a smart contracts utility in 2014. The well famed Hollywood based company, who has produced classics such as Aladdin and Frozen, has been involved with cryptocurrency ‘Dragonchain‘ and were the first ones to start out research and development over it. Since then, it has been taken over by a private foundation.

The particular intent of developing Dragonchain was towards smart contracts. If you’ve not been keeping abreast of developments in the crypto world, smart contracts are arguably the single most valuable usability of blockchain technology. The programmable nature of cryptocurrencies, which aren’t necessarily to work money-like, enables developers to create decentralized applications that can work just about as anything required. Smart contracts is an application that can work as auto-enforcing negotiations between two or more parties. It can be programmed to simulate a variety to conditions that must be satisfied, following which payment and reciprocal services are delivered.

So, with that established, let’s learn how the once Disney-run Dragonchain works and what the future holds for it.

What is Dragonchain (DRGN)?

Dragonchain, as it is known today, was initiated in 2014 by Disney as the Disney Private Blockchain platform and was released as an open source.

In 2017, the Dragonchain Foundation, a non-profit organization was launched which had the responsibility of maintaining the open-source code of Disney Private Blockchain. But the foundation later went on to take over the platform, which gave birth to the Dragonchain platform, as we now know of it.

The Dragonchain platform was purpose built to assist developing smart contracts, which is neither easy nor user-friendly and convenient. Currently, it is limited to corporations with a high level of programming resources. Considering usability in smart contracts to be among mostly non-technical fields, it is imperative that the platform be as approachable and intuitive as possible.

Dragonchain’s aim is very much the same. To be able to create a secure, flexible and developer friendly platform that shares data and smart contracts. This feature of Dragonchain to be able to create smart contracts, with or without currency restrictions and support to multiple currencies, gives it a much broader appeal.

The number 1 player in this space is Ethereum, which itself is limited in quite a few capabilities. Comparatively, Dragonchain is very business oriented, striving to make integration of business applications simple, while focusing on protection of data and supporting different currencies. Such a smart contract is ideal for all platforms of this kind to look toward.

Does Dragonchain deserve your attention?

The Dragonchain platform’s goal of being the most convenient location on which to develop smart contracts shows in its distinguishing features.

On it’s Github page, the team has stated their guiding principle as:

The decentralized and singular approach to blockchain implementation is sometimes at odds with the real business need to protect information and control business processes.

Some of it’s key features are:

Developer friendly, flexible

The platform is built on a scalable, server-less structure and features buil-in protection for all business related data thanks to underlying programming languages. This protection also helps make it friendly for developers, in whichever programming language they prefer.

The platform is built on a scalable, server-less structure and features buil-in protection for all business related data thanks to underlying programming languages. This protection also helps make it friendly for developers, in whichever programming language they prefer. Privacy

Smart contracts are conditional performas that trigger when a specific condition(s) is met. These contracts are stored on the blockchain and are completely decentralized. Dragonchain plans to bring utmost privacy and transparency to these contracts, as they can contain sensitive information such as costumer records. It’s services promise to make the information as private as possible, without compromising on data accessibility.

Smart contracts are conditional performas that trigger when a specific condition(s) is met. These contracts are stored on the blockchain and are completely decentralized. Dragonchain plans to bring utmost privacy and transparency to these contracts, as they can contain sensitive information such as costumer records. It’s services promise to make the information as private as possible, without compromising on data accessibility. Limited exposure to contract data

Data exposure and security is a known issue to large institutions wanting to leverage blockchain technology, as they typically have very sensitive customer data that sometimes has regulatory or legal risks associated (e.g. banking, health, identity)

This data exposure risk is somewhat alleviated by extra design and development work upfront in Dragonchain design implementation.

Data exposure and security is a known issue to large institutions wanting to leverage blockchain technology, as they typically have very sensitive customer data that sometimes has regulatory or legal risks associated (e.g. banking, health, identity) This data exposure risk is somewhat alleviated by extra design and development work upfront in Dragonchain design implementation. Multiple currency support

Dragonchain simplifies the integration of real business applications onto blockchain and provides features such as easy integration and provides supports for multiple levels of currencies.

Dragonchain simplifies the integration of real business applications onto blockchain and provides features such as easy integration and provides supports for multiple levels of currencies. Serverless architecture

The combination of maintaining serverless architecture via Amazon Web Services is a unique forefront of the Dragonchain platform. Combine it to blockchain technologies and it becomes tremendously valuable. The explosive growth of clout computing over the past few years and emerging wave of Blockchain solutions really helps the highly strategic development of Dragonchain platform.

The combination of maintaining serverless architecture via Amazon Web Services is a unique forefront of the Dragonchain platform. Combine it to blockchain technologies and it becomes tremendously valuable. The explosive growth of clout computing over the past few years and emerging wave of Blockchain solutions really helps the highly strategic development of Dragonchain platform. Incubator and marketplace

Dragonchain promises to provide project incubation as well as professional services with strategic partnerships to develop successful tokenization ecosystems focusing on long term value.It claims to be an incubator; a place where subject matter experts, qualified vendors, pre-built libraries of smart contracts and incubated projects are present to help businesses fully utilize the flexibility of smart contracts. In a nutshell, businesses will have access to all the resources they need to conduct transactions.

How does Dragonchain work?

There are 3 primary services offered by the Dragonchain platform.

First is the platform itself, where developers are able to create smart contracts in a variety of languages in a server less, scalable environment.

The next is the DragonFund Incubator, which can help blockchain projects grow through crowdfunding. It is worth describing in detail. An incubator is a service that helps up coming businesses or startups in growing through training, exposure and consultation. Dragonchain’s incubator is doing the same. The stakeholders have communication access to legal, technical and financial experts who can advice non technical individuals in their areas of expertise.

Lastly, there is the marketplace that is able to help businesses with strategic planning via subject experts and reusable monetized smart contracts.

The Dragon Token (DRGN) is the commodity that allows interaction on all these services for the 3 main stakeholders on the Dragonchain network; founders, developers and the community.

The founders can use the Dragon token to incubate their project. The developers can become involved in the provision of smart contracts and the marketplace.. As a member of the community, you can use the token to gain early access to projects, in the same way that crowdfunding works today.

Dragonchain applications

There is a number of use cases for Dragoncoin such as identity systems, ticketing, decentralized processing, computing and storage framework, voting systems, smart contract, reporting and compliance, funding and accountancy and even reservation.

Since there is growing requisition to replace traditional contracts and payment systems with a more secure process, Dragonchain claims to be of huge benefit to industries suffering from fraud/scams. This means that companies dealing in real estate or law, for instance, could remove significant losses to fraud through Smart Contracts within Dragonchain’s ecosystem.

Another potential use case is found in the gaming industry. FlowPlay, a gaming company with over 75 million users, wants to use Dragonchain tokens to allow gamers to safely purchase virtual items. This will effectively create the first non fiat based marketplace for virtual goods, guaranteeing legitimacy.

Performance statistics

Price: $0.16

Rank: 128

Market Capitalization: $700,946,198

Circulating Supply: 238,421,940 DRGN

Max Supply: 433,494,437 DRGN

Average Trading Volume: $5,086,890

Consensus: Ethereum consensus

Since public sale began on October 2, 2017, 55% of the tokens have gone to the public, 20% to the team, 10% to the foundation, another 10% into Dragonchain’s reserves and the remaining 5% into the DragonFund Incubator. At the time of writing, the coin is now valued at roughly $0.16. They spiked in value at the beginning of 2018, hitting a peak market cap of $1.2 billion and around $3 per coin.

The team behind Dragonchain

Dragonchain is supported by a 7-member team with expertise in software architecture and cloud deployment. They started development in 2014 and are based in Seattle, Washington.

The company was founded by Joe Roets, who is also the CEO. He has over 20 years of experience in software architecture and has previously served as Blockchain Architect at Bloq and Senior Technical Advisor at Overstock.

The founder and president of Dragonchain, as well as the VP of Strategic Partnerships is Ellen Quenin. She has played a pivotal role in making this project open source and has over 7 years of experience with Walt Disney, having also worked notably at Amazon Payments.

George Sarhanis is the co-founder and CBO. He has over 17 years of experience in business management while the advisory board consists of some prominent names such as; Maria Smith – VP of Partnerships and Payments at Starbucks, Ed Fries – Co-founder of XBOX and Tom Bush – Former Assistant Director FBI.

Overall, the team has a wide range of experience evenly distributed across technology, business, marketing and strategy.

Challenges faced

Dragonchain is up against the whole field of smart contract players which, of course, includes Ethereum. Ethereum is a part of the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, which is a collection of top businesses. NEO is another smart contract platform with significant backing.

However, Dragonchain’s reiteration that it supports all nature is indication that they do not want to compete with other coins, rather, want to create the best possible environment for projects and funders. They are not competing, but merely aiding. They allow developers to use whatever tool and platform they feel appropriate and then sell on the Dragonchain marketplace with no currency restriction.

Final word

Dragonchain incetivises developers and eases businesses towards smart contracts via it’s chain of experts on demand. This is particularly necessary for the growth of smart contracts and Dragonchain hits the mark here. It also has an experienced team, pursuing a solid roadmap catering to noble goals.

However, the open-mindedness of the team could make them a playground for smart contracts and if one or the other smart contract platforms gain dominant ascendancy, say Ethereum, then there is little reason to use Dragonchain.

That being said, Dragonchain is definitely one to keep an eye on for the coming months, as it could well become a sudden contender in the smart contracts niche.