Stratis was initially created to help with enterprise logistics with a blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) model, but its scope has since broadened to become a blockchain development network competing with Ethereum, Neo, Lisk, etc. This London-based project’s differentiator is the usage of the C# programming language for Microsoft’s .NET framework.

Although Ethereum’s smart contract network has first market advantage, many who adopted it stumbled developing in its Solidity language. Competitors like Lisk, Neo, and Stratis each uses a more familiar programming language to achieve the same skeletal blockchain as Ethereum, with the inclusion of sidechains.

The Stratis blockchain’s C# smart contract alpha launch in May 2018 will eventually make it an easier sell than Ethereum for interested enterprises. Onboarding any new system on that level is a complicated process, and many large organizations are still using platforms based in C#, so they have programmers available.

It has promise, but there’s a long development road ahead. Before digging into the Stratis blockchain and associated projects like the Breeze Wallet, let’s review the STRAT coin.

Breakdown of STRAT

Stratis has a market cap of $568,241,195 as of May 20, 2018. This is based on a circulating supply of 98,862,897 STRAT at an exchange rate of $5.75. The highest price of Stratis so far was $21.21 on January 8, 2018 and over $5 million STRAT is traded on an average day.

Stratis is a Proof of Stake blockchain, which limits miners to a proportion of their own coin supply. In simple terms, you can’t process blocks to mine STRAT unless you already own STRAT. PoS was created to fix the Proof of Work 51 percent vulnerability. Cryptos like Bitcoin and Litecoin are PoW.

In a PoW blockchain, miners and mining pools controlling 51 percent of network computational power can take over the network. With PoS, you would need to control 51 percent of the coin supply to control the network, and if you’re the 51 percent owner of coins, you have a greater stake in its survival.

The Stratis ICO occurred from June-July 2016, in which it earned nearly 1000 BTC and made it one of the first successful ICOs in history. Because of this, it launched an ICO platform in May 2018 to help others replicate its success. While a noble purpose, it could be a sign of the project facing trouble gaining adoption.

The Decline of the ICO

Many altcoins struggled to gain market acceptance in the wake of Bitcoin’s rise in popularity. Many, like Stratis, used a new strategy based on Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) where companies take their stock to public exchanges like Nasdaq. The Initial Coin Offering (ICO) became a popular way to release a new cryptocurrency or blockchain project.

Ethereum changed the game even further by hosting tokens on its blockchain, letting developers skip rebuilding the wheel to get to the ICO stage. Still, Ethereum uses a proprietary programming language called Solidity, which put a steep technical learning curve in front of developers.

Large volumes of money being raised drew a lot of bandwagoners to the industry, and by 2017 there were 913 ICOs attempted, raising $5.6 billion in capital. Unfortunately, only 48 percent of ICOs were successful, and $1 billion was lost to fraudulent ICOs. This drew the ire of government regulators worldwide, as complaints flooded in from those who lost investments.

Major ad networks like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and MailChimp soon followed up by banning advertising of ICOs on their platforms. Prices dropped across the industry, and people became wary of cryptos and blockchains. Crypto-friendly forums like Reddit, Steemit, and Telegram are the best places these days to keep up.

Many crypto projects in 2018 are eschewing the ICO altogether, instead using Airdrops to distribute cryptocoins. Hodling certain coins and tokens in supported wallets and exchanges or participating in social media forums earns people new tokens for free instead of having to donate to an ICO.

Stratis is a strong project with a big vision but launching an ICO platform seems a desperate bid to relive the glory days of the past. Although 2016 was only two years ago, that’s an eternity in cryptocurrency. It’s a new world now, and a turnkey ICO solution goes against the direction of both the industry and regulators worldwide.

Why the Stratis Blockchain Is Still Viable

Despite being seemingly out of touch with the rest of the cryptocurrency industry, Stratis is still an impressive blockchain project, and the STRAT coin consistently outperforms the U.S. dollar. CEO and Founder Chris Trew has a decade of Enterprise IT experience, and he got Stratis listed on Microsoft Azure’s BaaS platform.

Although this isn’t necessarily an endorsement of Stratis as an organization or blockchain. It’s because of the .NET support. There are currently 6 million .NET developers in the world. While this is a smaller pool than Java or JavaScript, it represents a sizable portion of enterprise developers, especially for older companies.

Microsoft developed the .NET framework, which encompasses the C# programming language, and heavy enterprise usage of Windows (Microsoft’s OS) means they’re deeply engrained in every industry to this day. Microsoft has a stake in .NET’s sustainability, and by simply existing, Stratis was already predestined as the tech giant’s poster child.

Enterprises looking to transition their hybrid cloud networks into blockchain-based solutions will find Stratis has the lowest barrier to entry. Existing C# development teams can be reassigned to this project and can pick up speed much faster than by learning an entirely new language from scratch.

This C# kit was vaporware until May 2018, however, and a lot of new projects caught up with and surpassed Stratis in this timeframe. The Breeze Wallet Mainnet beta wasn’t released until October 2017, and it’s not as revolutionary as it sounded in the summer of 2016.

While it has admirable ambitions, the team seems to be lagging further behind projects popping up from Asia and North America that support C++, JavaScript, and more. Early fanfare hasn’t translated to early adoption – its biggest partnership so far has been in 2017 with Earth Twine, an unknown startup seeking to disrupt seafood logistics using the blockchain.

Summary

Stratis is an impressive European blockchain project that has the distinction of being one of the first successful ICOs. It has all the right technical pieces in play, but it isn’t being adopted as quickly as many hoped. Still, it’s in a great position to grow with the blockchain industry, so long as it leverages its strengths.

Stratis is a London-based blockchain that supports C# and .NET development. Because of this, its featured in Microsoft Azure’s marketplace as part of its BaaS platform.

STRAT’s market price has consistently outperformed the U.S. dollar since the beta launch of the Stratis Mainnet.

Stratis launched an ICO platform in May 2018 to provide a turnkey solution for any ICO. This comes at a time when government regulation against ICOs is at an all-time high and consumer trust is at an all-time low.

Stratis improves upon Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work vulnerabilities with a Proof-of-Stake system that incentivizes majority coin holders to keep the network stable.

Stratis is slow-moving, but sometimes the slow and steady wins the race. It only takes one or two major wins to turn things around, and it has all the pieces in play for those hits to happen. Supporting older generations working for older enterprises is a risky play, but it’s bound to pay off if blockchain is adopted as an industry standard on a mass scale across all industries.