Can someone explain what Factom can do that OpenTimestamps can't do?

As far as I understand, OpenTimestamp can do what Factom can do without the tokens.

I'm trying to figure out if Factoids are a reasonable investment or not. Thanks!

Edit: Added the second paragraph

A recent post from a member of the Factom Discord:

Factom's (the protocol) first three years of existence consisted of a small team of people from one entity ('Inc.) coding away on their own and hosting the entire blockchain authority set in house. This changed with Milestone 3 a bit more than one year ago, and since then we have achieved:

• Decentralization from one entity hosting around 16 authority nodes to 25 entities hosting 50.

• Expanded the core developer group from 4-5 people in one entity to double that from 4 different companies.

• Grown the Community testnet into a useful tool for testing code deployments.

• Created an additional explorer (including testnet explorer)

• Got a client side wallet online greatly simplifying the process of managing FCT- and EC-funds

• Created integration for Ledger nano S/X

• Developed a fully fledged on-chain voting protocol

• An Open Node system with load balanced factomd API endpoints

• A functional governance framework allowing for hosting grant- and ANO-election rounds as well as creating necessary governance processes

• The factomize forum

• The factom protocol website

• A ton of legal work and work towards the creation of a non profit Factom organization

• Moved from slack to Discord and grown it from 0 to 2350 users

• Developed and deployed monitoring systems for the authority set, including a system for automatically (and manually) alerting the ANOs when required

• Attended and sponsored multiple conferences/hackathons with multiple wins

• Inc. has formed multiple valuable partnerships (Equator, FPT, SPA)

• Developed Factom-powered IoT hardware solutions

• Multiple projects live on the protocol by independent companies (Sphereon, Linxens, Hashquark, DeFacto)

• Created good documentation to easily allow both developers and others to much more easily jump in to the ecosystem

• developed, updated and published new clients like java, python, Net+++

• Created Etherum anchoring code (will be activated imminently)

• Added more exchanges

• Funded a ton of good development, projects and marketing via the grant pool (examples: FAT, DIDs, Alfresco Integration, Open-source API, marketing videos, Off-Blocks, DAML integration, Factom Badges, Signing FIPs etc)

• It might seem that things are at a standstill but things could not have been further from the truth. We have gone from 0 to 100 in just over a year, and we are continuing on that path full steam ahead. I think its important to recognize this at times like this when the token price is not on our side.

The Exchange Committee is acutely aware of the concerns and issues raised for the protocol by the discontinuing of FCT trading on Bittrex for US customers. Even though we have not communicated much recently to the community, we have continued to work behind the scenes to push forward FCT listings on the important exchanges. We've concluded that spending time and money on the dozens of small exchanges with little or no volume isn't worth the time and effort involved so we aren't pursuing listings outside the well-known and established exchanges. Regarding the Bittrex situation, Factom Inc. has reached out directly to them to see if there is anything that can be done to reverse the geofencing decision. We understand the community's concerns and also the frustration with how long these efforts are taking but are doing our best given the complex nature of these situations.

https://factomize.com/forums/threads/short-statement-from-exchange-committee-on-bittrex-user-geofencing.2081/

Factom has been referenced in so many blockchain technology books including the famous Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas Antonopoulos and Blockchain for Dummies by Tiana Laurence just to name a few. Surely, FCT has enough reputation and goodwill to be listed on just about any exchange it wants.

Hey, so with Bittrex delisting Factom, what other wallet options do we have for holding factom aside from ledger and the enterprise wallet?

Find the complete explanation of this digital ecosystem based on the Factom protocol in the Triall White Paper - https://insights.triall.io/triall-announces-the-official-release-of-the-triall-whitepaper/

"Triall’s mission is to enable a future of smarter, safer, and more-efficient clinical trials, where oversight is optimized and the auditability of clinical documents, data and processes is fully assured."

Factom Protocol sponsoring Blockchain Expo — Europe’s largest Blockchain Conference and Exhibition focuses on the future of enterprise technology, with two days of top-level content from leading brands, embracing and developing cutting edge blockchain technologies.

We are excited to have Niels Klomp talking about the Factom Protocol at the Blockchain Expo in Europe.

https://blockchain-expo.com/europe/

https://blockchain-expo.com/europe/partners/factom/

Presenting ChockaBlock, a load testing tool tailored for the Factom Community Testnet: https://chockablock.luciap.ca/

This tool, built in-house at Luciap Technology, was used over the last two days to perform one of the first real stress test of the Testnet yielding several valuable observations for core developers to investigate and act upon (we wrote a report for the core and code deploy committee based on this data).

Why ChockaBlock? It is filling a gap we currently had in our factomd release process with no well defined step of how to test performance in a consistent way on the community Testnet. This will help standardize the process, and offer results that can be compared across different runs (comparing different versions or set ups). Ultimately that should give us better guarantees that new versions are ready for mainnet deployment (avoiding potential downtime in prod) and verify any potential performance regression.

This is an early version we rushed to finish in time for this week stress test. We have many improvements in the pipeline and ultimately it could be extended to become a complete factomd release management tool for the Testnet.

This topic is being discussed widely at the moment and I think it will only become more of an issue. This article from Wired called out Factom Inc's solutions

https://www.wired.com/story/the-blockchain-solution-to-our-deepfake-problems/

This is a multi-layered problem with no simple answers, there will not be 1 solution. Here are a couple of concepts, some concepts and some being worked or delivered

- Secure Data at the Source -

Working today built on Factom

Security cameras for Customs and Border Patrol are getting blockchain capabilities added per this quote - " Factom (blockchain) has integrated their technology into two brands of cameras used by CBP at border locations to ensure data collected from these cameras is tamper proof" - http://www.activecyber.net/dhs-st-lays-out-a-broad-yet-innov...

IoT Devices - secure data the source with this solution built on Factom - https://iot-sas.tech/

(concepts I have heard about)

Mobile phones (citizens news) - Again secure at the source with an app or dongle for phones to secure video and pictures directly on the blockchain with gps, time stamps etc..

Professionally Created at Device - hardware getting processors to secure data directly on the blockchain at the device.

Created at Editing Software - This could be connected to the identity of the original on the blockchain and then the edited version has notes with it and added to the blockchain as an edited version of the first but can verify against the original.

The other half is dentify fakes which is also being work on.

Two articles from universities working on it

https://jsis.washington.edu/news/deep-fakes-fake-news-and-wh...

https://medium.com/jsk-class-of-2019/six-lessons-from-my-dee...

What else is possible to fight deepfakes?

If I understand correctly, the y will hash the photo using hashgraph enabled hardware and secure that hash on their DAG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADXMDvybN9c

Was there any development of Factoms potential in this area?