I'm sure any of you who have been following the charts recently has seen AntShares (ANS) spike in price, with a 60% increase this week. After looking at the cryptic website and the goofy-looking ant, you must have been confused about all the hype around this currency. To find out more, I teamed up with my friend (who is a native Mandarin speaker) and decided to look a bit deeper.

AntShares is essentially an improved Ethereum, with smart contracts, but they can run in any language - including Java, C, C++, C#, Python and JavaScript, as well as optional anti-laundering and KYC built in.

AntShares was created by Shanghai startup OnChain in 2014, aiming to create "digital assets for everyone." It is China's first and most mature public blockchain. It has various other additions such as Byzantine fault tolerance, which aims to lower energy usage with more efficient settlement and processing, and having anti-laundering and Know Your Customer built into the blockchain, which seems to have caused the Chinese government to favor it (in a move to prevent corruption).

Market

As of today, AntShares has a market cap of 307,142,000 (USD) - which is tiny in comparison to those of 1bil+ caps such as DASH and NEM. Considering the fact that it has so much potential in China, along with its many benefits, it could definitely be worth a look.

The reason for the lack of AntShares' traction appears to be that OnChain has had trouble promoting the currency in the western world - the website makes AntShares look like an unfinished product, half-translated into English. The only non-Chinese exchange it is listed on is Bittrex. The main reason for this appears to be that the AntShares team seems to be very busy at work promoting the product in China first. If you look at AntFans (an AntShares forum) there appears to be much discussion about the coin, compared to English communities such as the /r/antshares subreddit.

Hype

The recent price rise appears to be due to hype for the upcoming ANS conference on June 22, which will mark the release of AntShares V2 and increase adoption of the technology in China. AntShares will also be rebranded. In my opinion, a rebrand could help ANS take off in western countries - where the ant logo might be a little too cute :)

Adoption & Government Support

It appears that the Chinese government has been in support of AntShares. Based on an interview with OnChain it seems that the government has encouraged the growth of AntShares (and blockchain technology in general), citing advances in security and technology. Considering China's extremely rapid market expansion AntShares has a lot potential.

OnChain has also partnered with Alibaba, one of the largest e-commerce corporations in China. If their relationship continues to expand then we could see high adoption rates in China very soon.

Final Words

In my opinion, AntShares has an incredible amount of potential and I would consider taking a closer look at it. When I first heard of AntShares a few months ago I was honestly not impressed, since their presentation did not tell me anything about the network at all. AntShares seems to improve a lot on the Ethereum network, and it could very well be a competitor.

This is my first time posting on Steemit, so thank you for reading. I'm looking forward to joining this community!