Everyone is looking for the next crypto to overthrow bitcoin and with hundreds of blockchain projects out there, it is tough to bet on which horse will win the race. One such project that can rival not only bitcoin but all other crypto currencies is Stratis. Stratis is written from the ground up in C# , it uses an energy efficient proof of stake consensus model with a feature rich ecosystem that is compatible for Dapps and smart contracts.

First generation cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin uses POW consensus model which is a degenerate version of Stratis Proof of stake model. Stratis solves the drawbacks of these legacy protocols through greater scalability, transaction times and more efficient energy consumption for validating blocks.

One of the most promising feature of Stratis is its smart contracts. The opportunity of smart contracts is huge ranging from auctions, tokens, peer to peer lending, domain name registries, digital ownership of property and so on.

Stratis sets itself apart from the crowd by using smart contracts written in C#.

C# is a powerful and flexible programming language and like all programming languages, it can be used to create a variety of applications including smart contracts. Platforms which allow smart contracts such as Ethereum use a new virtual machine with a completely new instruction set. It requires developers to learn a new coding language such as solidity. Even Neo which is the only other platform to offer smart contracts in C# uses its own virtual machine. Stratis uses the existing and universally known Microsoft VM for developers. This opens up the door to millions of pre-existing C# coders to not only develop but audit the code clearly as essentially every C# developer has experience with the.net VM (CLR). Existing smart contract languages are often prone to bugs and vulnerabilities which can result to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars as seen with the infamous DAO hack. It is imperative to have a huge pool of proficient auditors and there is no doubt that Stratis is leading the charge with its universal codeset.

Furthermore C# developers can use the Stratis platform to write up dapps in C# and the opportunity of this is endless.

It is no surprise that Stratis was able to partner up with C# corner being the largest global community of C# developers and by doing so it is opening up its ecosystem to the biggest pool of programming talent in the world. The biggest opportunities for Stratis lies within large financial institutions who all use the C# programming language. Stratis is currently developing sidechains feature for the platform as part of its ‘Business as a service’ proposition. Businesses can use the Stratis platform to build their own custom blockchains (side-chains) which branch off from the main Stratis blockchain.

These side-chains are secured by the main Stratis blockchain and are fuelled by the native currency STRAT.

The upcoming breeze wallet for Stratis will no doubt be a game changer in the cryptocurrency scene. Stratis will be tapping into the popularity of bitcoin by offering a tumble mixing service to anonymise bitcoin transactions . The breeze wallet tumblebit mixer will be the first decentralised mixer in the space. The breeze wallet will be powered by masternodes which will require 250k stratis to be locked up. Owners of the masternodes will reap huge rewards for locking up their coins for the mixing service. This in turn will reduce the amount of coins on the market and create scarcity which will only increase its price.

Stratis uses proof of stake which is superior to bitcoins sha256 algorithm as it solves scaling issues by using less computation, bandwith and storage through achieving a better latency. A cool feature which is in the pipeline for Stratis is the ability of offline cold storage staking. Current POS platforms requires the holder to have their computer on at all times which poses security risks.

The best thing about Stratis is that it is currently extremely undervalued ($5 at time of writing) and has room for immense growth. The Chinese government has recently voted Stratis in the top ten crypto currencies and it is no surprise that it has just been listed by Bithumb, the largest crypto exchange in South Korea.

Despite being one of the best performing ICO’s of all time, it is nowhere near the valuation that its code base deserves. Only time will tell when Stratis will surpass bitcoin however its future is certainly promising.