The Interplanetary File System (IPFS) is a decentralized network protocol for sharing hypermedia in a distributed file system. IPFS can be used to link blockchain transactions This effectively timestamps and secures the content, without having to put the data on the chain itself. Filecoin, an IPFS-based decentralized storage cloud, is closely related with the IPFS protocol, and provides the incentive system.

TrueChain is developing a secure and scalable blockchain platform with a strong developer community. TrueChain hopes to improve upon current platforms with a hybrid consensus protocol called Minerva. This hybrid model will combine a consensus mechanism based on Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (pBFT) with a FruitChain-based Proof-of-Work protocol. Fruitchain is designed to minimize the incentives of mining pools by decreasing the variance of mining rewards; making the network more decentralized.
TrueChain's architecture also hopes to improve transaction times and reduce fees, by including a sharding mechanism that is locked to Gas fees. The first use cases for their platform will be digital advertising solutions.
The company is backed by several large Chinese blockchain companies, including ZB.com; one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges. digital advertising industry

QuarkChain is building a blockchain with a focus on speed and scalability. They hope to significantly improve transaction times and reduce fees with an architecture that will rely on a two-layered blockchain and elastic sharding. QuarkChain uses a hybrid Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism that is ASIC-resistant. Transactions are first confirmed on one blockchain layer, and then on the second. The network will be powered by the QKC coin.