Something I'm confused. So in what coin of the three is it now profitable to invest in Ardor? NXT? Or Janus? Help to understand please
No idea what Janus is but the whole NXT/Ardor/Ignis thing was confusing the heck out of me for a very long time. That is, until I found
this thread on Reddit. It's a long read but it's quite a good explanation of the differences between NXT and Ardor (and Ignis):
Ardor is a blockchain ecosystem where people can create their own child chain. It's like being able to clone a blockchain and starting your own, but much easier and without the need to worry about having enough nodes to secure it, all while having lots of features readily available to you.
Ignis is a child chain on Ardor. It's like what the other child chains will be, just with a lot of users starting off from launch. It solves the problem that the Ardor main chain will be stripped down to the bare minimum and thus won't have all of the features. Meanwhile, Ignis will have the features that you can find on Nxt today. The Ardor main chain will be where transaction processing for all child chains, including Ignis, will happen.
I guess if one were to visualize it, it would kinda be like a human being. Ardor is the body minus the limbs and Ignis is an arm. Blood is pumped to the arm from the heart as well as has its sensory functions processed by the brain. Meanwhile, the arm can do all the cool things like draw, type, wave, shake hands, etc. The brain doesn't want to waste storage capacity so it doesn't remember the details of its actions after a while. But, if the arm wanted to, it could write a diary of its actions.
I can't seem to come up with the right words in my head, but Ignis will sort of be the main attraction child chain for Ardor. If Ardor was launched with no child chain, there wouldn't really be much to see and nothing to show to potential people who would be interested.
More child chains on Ardor = more demand for ARDR to pay processing fees. Also, ARDR might be more demanded by users who wish to forge because it's 100% PoS. More ARDR = higher chance of processing the block and then getting the transaction fee, which is a bundle of all the child chains combined.
Nxt is a blockchain while Ardor is a blockchain ecosystem. Ardor and Nxt are separate so Ardor and Nxt will be independent of each other. Nxt has a lot of features to run projects on, as I've included in my original response, and you need NXT to run them. Creating a child chain will be expensive, so for projects that don't need to have a child chain to themselves, Nxt would be the better option. Same reason why one would drive a car for 15 minutes to a shop instead of hopping on a helicopter.
Nxt remains as the tried and tested system that has existed for about 3 years. Companies, assets, other coins, and projects like Debune, LQD, OpenTrade Docs, and NAUT currently operate on/using the Nxt blockchain. Some people have stated a preference on using a tried-and-tested system for their projects so I expect Nxt to continue to be used down the road, on top of not every project needing their own child chain.
As for the economic value of Nxt, I've touched on it a bit above. It is solid and has loads of good features. I'm not saying Ardor isn't, but some people need all the documentation, references, etc. I'm not a core dev, or a dev at all, so I'm not so sure about the details on that bit. But I do know that businesses that run important stuff would pick a system with years of experience over a newer one when both can do exactly what they need to be done.
So Ardor is sort of like a body minus the limbs. The limbs are the child chains, of which Ignis is one such limb. The child chains have their own currency (e.g. IGNIS) but transact with the Ardor main chain using ARDR to pay fees. So lots of child chains = more demand for ARDR = higher ARDR price.
NXT is completely separate from all of this but it will continue to be maintained in parallel with Ardor (and its child chains). Meanwhile, companies that wish to use a tried-and-tested tech would continue to stick with NXT.
EDIT: According to wolffang, Janus seems to be another child chain built on Ardor. So sort of like another limb, I guess.
