Blockstream is a private, for profit, blockchain technology company, that has played a key role in helping to develop, and fund, many of the key features of the Bitcoin Core platform. Blockstream is focused on developing bitcoin applications and has raised significant funding from several large investment funds. The company also employs several developers that are very influential within the Bitcoin Core development project. This, as well as being of Bitcoin's largest donors, has led to some criticism about conflicts of interest.
Blockstream is developing a number of Bitcoin applications that are intended to encourage adoption and improve transaction times on the bitcoin network. Their primary focus is on Sidechains, which are are extensions to existing blockchains that improve their functionality. The company is also working closely with industry leaders to create the Bitcoin Lightning system that will support higher trading volume and faster transactions on the bitcoin network. Blockstream is also developing a data feed, satellite network, and other applications that they hope will make blockchain more accessible.

T‍he Flow Blockchain aims to be a developer-friendly blockchain for a new generation of DApps and digital assets that power them. Flow Blockchain is based on a unique, multi-role architecture, and is designed to scale without sharding, so that it can accommodate consumer applications with more users. The project was created by Dapper Labs, which previously created Crypto Kitties, one of the most popular blockchain collectible projects. Flow is now being used by NBA Top Shot, an officially licensed NBA platform for player related, blockchan-based collectibles. The founders: Roham Gharegozlou, Dieter Shirley, and Mikhael Naayem launched Flow with the goal of simplifying the DApp development experience.
Flow uses a Proof of Stake consensus mechanism. Flow coins are intended to be used as payment for validation services, data and computation, governance, as well as for collateral for secondary tokens that may be created on the platform in the future.