## What is Bluzelle (BLZ)?
 
Bluzelle is a decentralized storage network for the creator economy.

Bluzelle delivers high security, un-matched availability, and is censorship resistant. Whether you are an artist, musician, scientist, publisher, or developer, Bluzelle protects the intellectual property of all creators. Bluzelle is data storage, file storage, oracles, and more. Its is specific for NFTs and DeFi. 
 
* Bluzelle’s core products are all related to data and powered by its Tendermint Blockchain:
* Bluzelle DB - a decentralized database for software developers to store information
* Bluzelle Oracles - a truly decentralized pricing oracle that provides high speed and high security for Defi applications
* Bluzelle Staking - where BLZ holders can currently stake their tokens and earn rewards for providing storage and pricing data. 

## Who are the Founders of Bluzelle? 

Pavel Bains and Neeraj Murarka founded Bluzelle to address the fragmented data link in the blockchain and DeFi space. Both Pavel and Neeraj hold extensive technological experience with a demonstrated history of working with major global players. 
 
Pavel previously co-founded Storypanda, a digital book platform amassing the attention of acclaimed titles by DreamWorks, Warner Bros, and more. With a deep understanding of financial aspects, Pavel actively led the GM and CFO roles at Disney, handling budgets of tens of millions of dollars across 4 continents. Neeraj is an engineer and computer systems architect holding extensive experience of 20 years working with global players including Google, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Lufthansa, and Thales Avionics.
 
The Bluzelle team members have worked for Disney, Sony, Google, Lufthansa, Electronic Arts. They are recipients of the Technology Pioneer Award by the World Economic Forum and named Forrester as a top blockchain vendor in Asia. Its team is based in two locations, Singapore and Vancouver (Canada). Bluzelle is backed by industry funds like NGC, Hashed, KR1, and Kenetic.
 

## Who are Bluzelle’s Clients and Strategic Partners? 
 
Bluzelle has building an ecosystem of partners to enhance use of its database and oracles product:
 
* Cosmos/Tendermint
* Polkadot
* Polygon (formerly Matic)
* Ankr
* Equinix (NASDAQ $50B Company)

## What makes Bluzelle Unique? 

BluzelleNet powers the entire ecosystem as a 10,000 TPS Proof-of-Stake network. Becoming a validator was designed to be an easy process with minimal technical knowledge. The vision is to have a network of tens of thousands of nodes working together to provide the most available and secure database in the world. Bluzelle wants every device to become a node, from computer hard drives to video game consoles to mobile phones. Those who do not want to become a validator can delegate their tasks to another validator, ensuring everyone can be part of the network and generate fees.
 
## Where can you buy Bluzelle? 
 
As one of the tokens with increased utility, you can purchase $BLZ on various centralized and decentralized exchanges. Some of the exchanges having adequate liquidity of Bluzelle include Binance, Huobi Global, CoinTiger, BiONE, and HitBTC.

Bluzelle

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Wall Street Baby

Storj, pronounced as “storage,” is an open-source cloud storage platform. Basically, it uses a decentralized network of nodes to host user data. The platform also secures hosted data using advanced encryption.

In a white paper published in December,2014, Storj was first introduced to the world as a concept. It was to be a decentralized peer-to-peer encrypted cloud storage platform.

Two years later, an updated white paper was published. Here, a decentralized network  — connecting users who need cloud storage space with those who have hard drive space to sell — was described. The platform was launched in late 2018.

People with hard drive space and good internet connectivity can participate in the network. They become a unit in the network, called a node. Space providers are rewarded by Storj tokens.

Storj

ARPA

Celer is a blockchain interoperability
protocol enabling a one-click user experience accessing tokens, DeFi, GameFi, NFTs, governance, and more across multiple chains. Developers can build inter-chain-native Dapps using the Celer Inter-chain Messaging Framework to gain access to efficient liquidity utilization, coherent application logic, and shared states. Users of Celer-enabled dApps will enjoy the benefits of a diverse multi-blockchain ecosystem with the simplicity of a single-transaction UX, all from a single chain.

Celer Network

Tellor is a decentralized oracle protocol.

Oracles are a key part of blockchain infrastructure that update valuable off-chain data, making it available for on-chain smart contracts.

Tellor’s oracle supplies data that can be requested, validated and put on-chain permissionlessly with data reporters competing for incentives of TRB. Data reporters bring valuable information on-chain for a wide range of DeFi applications.

Tellor

NKN (NKN), or New Kind of Network, is a network that focuses on creating a decentralized and open-source network protocol for public blockchain-based peer-to-peer (P2P) networks to share network bandwidth and internet connectivity. Its main objective is to address the challenges faced by today's internet, such as centralization, scalability issues and security concerns.

SKALE, described as a modular blockchain network, is designed to bring scalability to Ethereum. SKALE is the only blockchain network capable of running an unlimited number of fast, on-demand, pooled-security Blockchains with zero gas fees to end users. These individual chains are known as SKALE chains and can be dapp-specific or shared.

The project’s website says it wants to enable people to build and run DApps in a “decentralized modular cloud built for real-world needs and configured for your requirements.” This emphasis on decentralization isn’t at the expense of security.

According to SKALE, those who build on this platform can run Solidity smart contracts “thousands of times faster at a fraction of the mainnet cost” — with games and content streaming services among the projects that already take advantage of its infrastructure.

SKALE

Orchid (OXT) is the native token of Orchid, a cryptocurrency-powered virtual private network (VPN).

Launched in December 2019, Orchid describes itself as the world’s first incentivized, peer-to-peer privacy network.

Its aim is to overcome internet freedom limitations by using cryptocurrency payments to allow anyone to purchase bandwidth from any participating provider. This is done using so-called probabilistic nanopayments, which occur using OXT, an ERC-20 standard token on Ethereum.

Regular payments to providers occur off-chain, allowing Orchid to avoid problems with congestion and gas fees on the Ethereum network.

The service is pay-per-use, meaning that users only have to contribute funds when they actually connect, instead of paying monthly or annual fees.

Orchid

Band Protocol is a cross-chain data oracle platform that is able to take real-world data and supply it to on-chain applications, while also connecting APIs to smart-contracts to facilitate the exchange of information between on-chain and off-chain data sources.

By supplying reputable, verifiable real-world data to blockchains, Band Protocol unlocks a range of new use cases for developers to explore — since they can now use any type of real-world data as part of their decentralized application (DApp) logic, including sports, weather, random numbers, price feed data and more.

Band Protocol initially launched as an ERC-20 project on the Ethereum blockchain in September 2019, but transitioned to the Cosmos network in June 2020 with the release of Band Protocol 2.0. The new protocol is built on BandChain using the Cosmos SDK. Oracle nodes on BandChain not only relay data but are also involved in block production/validation, giving them a dual role.

BAND is the native token of the Band Protocol ecosystem and is used as collateral by validators involved in fulfilling data requests, as well as the main medium of exchange on BandChain — being used to paying for private data.

Band Protocol

Origin Protocol develops web3 technologies with the intention of bringing non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) to the masses. The protocol’s unique tooling and diverse partnerships help in realizing these goals. Origin Protocol has two flagship products: Origin Story (governed by OGN), and Origin Dollar (governed by OGV).

Origin Story is a white label NFT marketplace solution that works with disrupters in various sectors by leveraging non-fungible tokens. The platform hosts NFT marketplaces and tooling in various industries, including the real estate, profile picture, music, art and entertainment industries.

Some of Origin Story’s partners include Roofstock onChain, Pudgy Penguins, Sappy Seals, Paris Hilton, 3LAU, BT, Inspiration4, and The Doge Pound. Origin Story Marketplaces seek to cast a wide net in various industries being impacted by NFTs, rather than focusing on any one area in particular. Investors may see OGN as the ‘picks and shovels’ approach to investing in NFTs.

Origin Protocol

Loom Network is a platform as a service that is built on top of Ethereum and allows developers to run large-scale decentralized applications. This platform was released on October 1st, 2017.

The goal of this is to allow application developers to have smart contracts that can access much more computing power when it is required, or maintain the same power at lower costs for tasks such as trials for onboarding new users or applications that simply do not need the full security of blockchain to begin with.

In this system you have the ability to interact with APIs developed by third parties which are not on chain. Loom attempts to be the ultimate platform that allows smart contract developers to create applications without the need to switch to another programming language.

As such, they can easily integrate their applications with the outside world.

The Loom Network runs on Plasma, which is a scaling solution that allows for faster transactions throughout the network.

Loom Network

Viction

Akropolis is a company that operates an Ethereum-based decentralized finance protocol that seeks to provide an autonomous financial ecosystem for saving and growing wealth, including through borrowing and lending. To do so, it offers a series of products including AkropolisOS, a framework for developing for-profit decentralized autonomous organizations, Sparta, a platform for uncollateralized lending, and Delphi, a yield farming aggregator and tool for dollar-cost averaging.

The project uses an ERC-20 token, AKRO, for protocol governance across its suite of products.

Akropoli was first announced in March 2018, launching on the Ethereum mainnet in June 2020.

Akropolis

Chromia is a modular, relational blockchain platform that aims to make it easy for people to build decentralized applications (DApps). It was founded by ChromaWay, a company that has been working on blockchain solutions since 2014 for various sectors such as finance, real estate, gaming and public services. ChromaWay is also known for creating colored coins, which are user-defined assets on a blockchain that can represent anything from currencies to stocks to collectibles.

Chromia’s vision is to enable a new generation of DApps that can scale beyond what is currently possible and address real-world problems in various domains such as gaming, social media, finance, healthcare, education, governance, and more.

Some examples of DApps on Chromia include: My Neighbor Alice (ALICE), a multiplayer blockchain game; LAC PropertyChain, a land registry system; Green Assets Wallet, a platform for green bond verification; Hedget (HGET),  a decentralized options protocol; Corite (CO), a music streaming service; Chain of Alliance (COA), a strategy game; Vault12, a digital asset custody solution; Domenation, a blockchain gaming project.

Chromia

Unifi Protocol DAO

Bella Protocol is a platform that provides a suite of DeFi products designed to make crypto banking simpler and more accessible. The protocol aims to create a better user experience by eliminating the high fee and slow transaction issues that can affect some blockchain platforms — while simultaneously improving the user experience through its simplified DeFi smart portal.

Bella's smart pool feature allows users to access the best yields available in the DeFi market, while benefiting from nearly zero gas fees — since these are directly subsidized by the platform.

The project launched in September 2020 as the first project distributed via Binance’s Launchpool platform, and has secured investments from several prominent firms, including Arrington XRP Capital and Ledger Capital.

The protocol was built by the ARPA team, a blockchain-based layer 2 solution for privacy-preserving computation. The BEL token is an essential component of the Bella Protocol ecosystem and serves as both a reward token that allows holders to participate in the governance of the platform.

BEL can be used to farm fee rewards from the network, get exclusive discounts on Bella protocol products (such as its robo-advisor tool), and for earning staking rewards.

Bella Protocol

Ren (REN) is an open protocol built to provide interoperability and liquidity between different blockchain platforms.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Ren.

Formerly known as Republic Protocol, Ren launched RenVM, its virtual machine mainnet, in May 2020, having completed a $34 million initial coin offering (ICO) in 2018.

The protocol’s native token, REN, functions as a bond for those running nodes which power RenVM, known as Darknodes.

Ren aims to expand the interoperability, and hence accessibility, of decentralized finance (DeFi) by removing hurdles involved in liquidity between blockchains.

REQ is listed on Coinbase, Binance, crypto.com, KuCoin and many other exchanges.

The REQ token powers the Request Network open-source protocol via a few mechanisms: anti-spam; governance; staking; discounts; independency.

The Request (REQ) utility token, launched in 2017, ensures the performance and stability of the Request Network. The Request Network itself is an Ethereum-based decentralized payment system where anyone can request a payment and receive money through secure means. It removes the requirement for third parties in order to provide a cheaper, more secure payment solution that works with all global currencies.

The original whitepaper is available here.

When a user creates a request for payment, they define to which address the payment needs to be allocated and what the amount is. The user can also define the terms and conditions of the payment, upgrading a simple request into an invoice. Once this is completed, the user can share their request to be paid by their counterparty.

Every step is documented and stored on the Request Network, allowing everyone involved to easily keep track of all the invoices and payments for accounting purposes.

Request is also integrated with legislation across the world to remain compliant with the trade laws of each individual country.

Request

Civic is a blockchain-based identity management solution that gives individuals and businesses the tools they need to control and protect personal identity information.

The platform is designed to change the way we think about identity verification by giving users more control over their personal data, while allowing them to access a wide range of services without needing to fork over excessive amounts of personal information.

Civic's identity verification solution uses distributed ledger technology to authorize identity usage in real time, and is used to sparingly share information with Civic partners after authorization by the user.

Unlike some other identity management services, Civic users store all their sensitive data on their mobile device. Users are able to authorize the sharing of specific personal data by providing a biometric signature through the Civic app.

The Civic ecosystem is enabled by a unique utility token known as the Civic token (CVC), which is used for the settlement of identity-related transactions between Civic participants — such as between a customer and service provider.

Users can earn CVC tokens for completing a variety of tasks, such as signing up for a service through the platform or introducing new users, while validators can earn CVCs for validating documents for service providers.

Civic was launched in 2018, following a sell-out initial coin offering (ICO) the year prior.