Where 2017 was the year of promises and speculation, 2018 is becoming the year that projects have to deliver on their promises. An actual working product in the form of a mainnet is the first major step in this process. 2018 is filled with blockchain projects that migrate away from the protective wings of other blockchains and start operating on their own mainnet.
It’s nearly impossible to predict what a mainnet launch will do for a project’s token price. It seems likely that the quality of a mainnet will become more important than simply a launch of a mainnet.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the 6 of the most promising mainnet releases in May and June 2018. For an updated list, check out: Top 6 Mainnet Launches Coming Up in Q3 and Q4 2018
Oyster Pearls (May 29)
We already wrote an article on why Oyster Pearls is a project to keep an eye on, and the mainnet launch is yet another reason to do so. The hybrid blockchain, being built on IOTA’s Tangle technology and Ethereum’s smart contract framework, will see daylight on May 29, 2018. After the launch, the Oyster Pearl platform can be used for what it’s built for: disrupting the online advertisement model and directly connecting content creators with content consumers.
The team has been actively communicating their progress on the mainnet with their community and they have promised to keep doing this every week until the scheduled launch. Interesting features accompanying the launch are the Oyster Pearl smart contracts, their distributed reputation system, decentralized storage, and, of course, their entirely new website revenue model.
Tron (May 31)
Tron has recently been in the spotlight a lot—and the launch of their much anticipated platform will show whether Tron can live up to the high expectations surrounding the project. To boost enthusiasm even higher and as a sign of appreciation to the Ethereum community, Tron distributed 30 million tokens through an airdrop on April 21. This airdrop occurred because the Tron token will move from the Ethereum blockchain on to its own mainnet, a migration that’s being supported by most major exchanges.
The outspoken leader of Tron, Justin Sun, has continuously expressed his full confidence in the long-term success and ambitions of the Tron platform, stating that he expects their ecosystem to become much larger than the Ethereum ecosystem over time.
Once the mainnet is launched, many upgrades are expected to be in place. The Tron team is keeping their fans updated on the process, and recently published an exhaustive open letter to the community about the progress of the mainnet and what the community can expect the Tron ecosystem to look like.
NULS (May)
NULS could very well be a sleeping giant and has remained mostly under the radar for now. This could all change with the release of their mainnet. The NULS team has set out to deliver a customizable modular blockchain ecosystem that allows for smart contracts, multi-chain mechanisms, and cross chain consensus. This basically means that it will become a platform that allows for dapps and cross-blockchain transactions.
The team has been working around the clock to get the mainnet finished and they’ve assured the community that it will launch sometime in May. The successful public test of the mainnet from March 31 onwards has already sparked investor confidence that the team can pull it off. Together with recently announced multiple partnerships, their mainnet launch has the potential to put NULS on the map.
EOS (June 2)
EOS is another blockbuster blockchain about to launch its mainnet. Expectations are incredibly high, indicated by the market valuation of EOS being over $15 billion(!). Over the last couple of weeks, the price of EOS has exploded following several new exchange listings, a focus on inter-blockchain communication, a VC partnership announcement and the fact that already 18 dapps are planning to launch on the EOS blockchain.
Add the mainnet launch to this and it’s not too hard to understand why the price of EOS has climbed from its 2018 low of about $4 on March 18 to its valuation of about $15 at the time of writing.
EOS will be needed to buy into the ICOs of the dapps—these dapps and their users will also start using EOS to convert other tokens and for transactions on the blockchain, creating a genuine demand for the cryptocurrency.
EOS will be the next highly impressive blockchain launch by industry veteran Dan Larimer, who also launched Bitshares and Steemit. This, however, will be his biggest project by far. Larimer has been gathering quite a following in the blockchain space and investors are trusting the EOS project partly because of his leadership. We will see whether he and his high-potential EOS blockchain can live up to the expectations on June 2.
Ontology (June)
Ever since Ontology distributed its token through airdrops, the project’s cryptocurrency price has been on an absolute tear. Even though the exact date of launch is still a mystery, the highly promising roadmap of the Ontology project indicates that the launch will occur in Q2, of which June is the last month.
The release of the mainnet is a part of Ontology’s Socrates era, a phase in which the Ontology team is building the foundation for its blockchain ecosystem. As soon as the mainnet is launched, apps for Ontology’s growing list of partners are expected to roll out continuously.
VeChain (June 30)
The launch of the VeChain Thor mainnet might turn out to be the biggest one of this list. This is because of the potential applications that will be introduced to the public with the launch of their mainnet.
VeChain has an incredible network of partners and the VeChain team has indicated multiple times that they want to start rolling out dapps on their platform for these partners as soon as possible. Seeing dapps being launched with the mainnet is even more likely given the fact that the VeChain platform has already been functioning privately since 2015.
On May 1, the VeChain blockchain was launched for testing and the team has been continuously updating the community about the progress of the mainnet as well as the new features and dynamics of their platform. The launch also entails a new name for the token, from the ERC-20 based VEN to the VeChain Thor based VET. We’ll most likely see VEN becoming VET on June 30.
Concluding Remarks
These 6 mainnet launches are part of a bigger trend of 2018 in which a lot of projects currently operating on other blockchains will migrate to their own chain. These are our favorite mainnet launches in what remains of Q2 2018, but many more are expected over the course of 2018.
This trend will likely cause a trading paradigm shift, in which the quality of the mainnet and the applications ready to go on the platform will become more of a reason for major price movements than the launches themselves. It will be highly interesting to see how the market will react to the 6 launches highlighted in this article.
