Usually I just watch this thread but the fact that Ark dropped out of the top 100 recently made me want to drop a few lines here. For me the problem with Ark is that it is so far off its original plans right now. People initially invested on Ark for the features it initially promised to bring but the team seem to have taken a large detour to get there. I feel that it will take them one to three years of Ark core versions to go back to the original plans : interoperability, IPFS, NFC, Smart Card, ArkVM. Other original plan elements (IPDB, anonymous transactions) seem to have been scrapped or set aside without it being clearly stated by the team. ArkVM is morphing into ArkLogic in the latest whitepaper. Also Ark has not had any major partnership despite FX Thoorens' ties to members of the French government. Those partnerships with big companies or governments are oftenly what puts altcoins on the map. Another point : Ark arrived in early 2017 in the crypto sphere, that's pretty late (first mover advantage seem to be really important in the crypto sphere). Even despite the Roadmap it's not quite clear in which order and when the team intends to bring this and that feature. I do want to say however that the team has kept on delevering new things and advancements steadily and that Ark is undervalued.
NFC and Smart Cards are hardware-related features, aren't they? Had ARK initially promised to develop those systems? I hadn't heard of them.
Personally I'm here for ARKvm or ARK-Logic as it's now known. And I'm happy with the new way they approach this, they'll allow each DAPP blockchain that uses their smart-contracts-like platform to run their own sidechain. This way there won't be a case where a new start up gets famous and the spike in transactions volume affects every other application in the chain.
The ARKvm system will also give more control to developers.
They're also keeping to their promise to develop plugins that will allow developers to easily build their blockchain without having to code it.
All those features are missing from the Ethereum blockchain and for a developer like me are very convincing to make me choose ARK for a game.
I find their development speed slow, but if you watch their GitHub page you'll notice they have one of the most active teams. I believe their slow speed is because they decided to take some detours along the way and re-work some things, but trust me, that proves they are serious.
When you realise you can do something better, it's always much easier to ignore the though and keep doing what you do rather than deleting part of your work and redoing it better.I'm glad ARK has chosen not to be lazy but change part of their plans for the better.