Explaining The Crypto China Narrative

## What Is NKN (NKN)? 

NKN (NKN), or New Kind of Network, is a network that focuses on creating a [decentralized](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized) and open-source network protocol for public [blockchain](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-a-blockchain)-based [peer-to-peer](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/peer-to-peer-p2p) (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.


## Who Are the Founders of NKN?

NKN was founded by Yanbo Li, Bruce Li, and Yilun Zhang. They have a background in networking software and blockchain technology. The project lists Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha, and Whitfield Diffie, inventor of public-key cryptography as advisors.


## What Makes NKN Unique?

NKN Mainnet was launched in July 2019 and has up to 25,000 full consensus nodes. According to NKN's whitepaper, the project has three main goals: decentralizing internet infrastructure, improving scalability, and promoting network security. Overall, the aim of NKN is to create a cost-effective platform for decentralized applications by harnessing the collective power of the community.

Notable use cases for NKN include: Content Delivery system (contract with Chinese video giant iQIYI); Edge computing (contract with China Mobile); D-chat (secure messaging app); nShell (secure remote terminal access). 

NKN’s consensus algorithm is based on Cellular Automata, where a simple local majority rule can lead to system-level convergence in a small number of iterations. The design goal is to scale to arbitrary numbers of equal consensus nodes.

NKN uses a global addressing scheme based on public keys, in order to enable direct peer to peer communication without centralized servers. The routing of packets is based on the Chord Distributed Hash Table (DHT), which maps each NKN address to a random and verifiable position on the Chord DHT ring.


### Related Pages:

Read about [Decentralized Applications (dApps)](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-are-dapps).

Learn more about Web 3.0 with [CMC glossary](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/web-3-0).

CoinMarketCap takes a deep dive into [DePin (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure)](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/a-deep-dive-into-depin-decentralized-physical-infrastructure).


## How Many NKN (NKN) Coins Are There in Circulation?

NKN is the native token of the NKN network. It has a maximum supply of 1,000,000,000 tokens, with 754,831,362 NKN in circulation.


## How Is the NKN Network Secured?

NKN utilizes a mechanism called Proof-of-Relay (PoR), also referred to as “useful Proof-of-Work”. Unlike traditional [proof-of-work](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/proof-of-work-pow) (PoW), such as the consensus mechanism deployed on Bitcoin, which rewards based on computing hash functions, PoR rewards miners for relaying real-world (useful) data along the network.


## Where Can You Buy NKN (NKN)?

NKN can be purchased on various centralized exchanges such as [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/), [Coinbase](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/coinbase-exchange/), [KuCoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/kucoin/), [Bittrex](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/bittrex/), [Huobi](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/huobi/), [Gate.io](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/gate-io/), [Bitget](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/bitget/), [Crypto.com](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/crypto-com-exchange/) and more.

Keep track of NKN live prices in real-time with the [CMC mobile app](https://coinmarketcap.com/mobile/).

Binance

The New Kind of Network Infra for Decentralized Internet. News: http://blog.nkn.org, Telegram: http://t.me/nknorg

Origin Protocol is one of Ethereum’s longest-standing DeFi projects, featuring a multichain feature set that unlocks vast opportunities for yield generation across the space. Origin’s products are built to be permissionless and composable, allowing for deep integration with novel primitives. All of Origin’s products streamline rewards to OGN stakers, cultivating a sustainable, user-first offering.

At its core proposition, Origin features:

Capital efficiency: Origin’s liquid staking products, Origin Ether and Origin Dollar, empower users to earn yield while retaining full capital control. The protocol’s unique Automated Redemption Manager (ARM) serves as a key liquidity hub for LST redemptions.

Vast composability: OETH’s robust peg and interoperability makes it an ideal building block for innovative DeFi strategies.

Broad access: Origin’s diverse integrations with partners such as EigenLayer and Pendle Finance, cater to power users and new entrants alike. Origin is built on core principles of seamless usability, cultivating one of the smoothest user experiences in the space.

Some of Origin Protocol’s key elements include:

Origin Ether (OETH): OETH is a leading liquid staking token that harnesses battle-tested mechanics to maintain a strong peg and vast composability for users. Users can mint OETH by depositing reserves of ETH. This ETH is staked to the Beacon Chain, with staking rewards distributed to users. OETH boasts broad DeFi integrations on ETH and leading Layer-2 networks.

Origin Dollar (OUSD): OUSD is a yield bearing stablecoin fully collateralized by reserves of USDT, USDC, and DAI. Users can deposit these stablecoins to mint OUSD, which generates yield. OUSD’s rebasing model automatically distributes rewards to holders’ wallets, removing the need for lockups and claiming rewards.

Automated Redemption Manager (ARM): The ARM is a groundbreaking platform that bolsters liquidity for redeemable assets, such as LSTs and LRTs. Users can take advantage of rapid redemptions for seamless swaps between leading LSTs and ETH with zero slippage.

Some of its key highlights include:

Versatile Utility: Origin’s product suite is deeply integrated across DeFi, allowing users to harness innovative instruments and opportunities. Origin Ether, for instance, is deeply integrated with the likes of Pendle and EigenLayer. Users can also take advantage of wOETH on leading L2 networks to explore more platforms and yield generating positions.

Transparent, best-in-class security: Both OUSD and OETH boast battle-tested, open-source codebases. Origin’s products have been rigorously audited by leading firms, including OpenZeppelin. Origin’s yield-generating products deliver yields without compromising on security, and feature rich analytics dashboards for users to monitor treasury flows and allocations.

Protocol Governance: Users can stake OGN for up to a year in exchange for non-transferable xOGN. xOGN accrues yield from a share of protocol fees earned by Origin’s products. xOGN holders can submit proposals, vote on active submissions, and vote on treasury allocations. This symbiotic structure creates a sustainable, rewarding governance system that upholds the core principles of decentralization.

World class team and investors: The project is led by serial entrepreneurs Matthew Liu and Josh Fraser, and seasoned team members from leading tech firms including PayPal, YouTube, Google, DropBox, etc. Origin has received backing from top investors such as Pantera Capital and Foundation Capital, as well as from individuals like Steve Chen, the founder of YouTube, and Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit.

Origin Protocol

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

Bancor is an ecosystem of decentralized, open-source protocols that promote on-chain trading and liquidity.

Its main protocol, Carbon, is a decentralized trading protocol allowing users to perform automated trading strategies using custom on-chain limit orders and range orders, with the option of combining orders together to create automated buy low, sell high strategies.

By design, Carbon orders are irreversible on execution, easily adjustable directly on-chain, and resistant to MEV sandwich attacks. These capabilities give users an unprecedented level of control and automation to perform novel trading strategies on-chain.

Fast Lane, a separate open-source arbitrage protocol, allows any user to perform arbitrage between Bancor ecosystem protocols and external on-chain exchanges and redirect arbitrage profits back to the Bancor ecosystem.

All Bancor ecosystem protocols are governed by the BancorDAO via staked BNT.

Bancor

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

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.

Radworks

Kyber Network is a multi-chain hub of liquidity protocols that aggregates liquidity from various sources to provide secure and instant transactions on any decentralized application (DApp). The main goal of Kyber Network is to enable DeFi DApps, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and other users easy access to deep liquidity pools that provide the best rates.

KyberSwap.com, its main DEX aggregator and liquidity platform, provides the best swap rates for traders in DeFi compared to individual exchanges. It also enables liquidity providers to maximize earnings via high capital efficiency. KyberSwap sources liquidity from multiple DEXes such as Uniswap, Sushi, Curve, QuickSwap, Pancakeswap, Traderjoe, Pangolin, SpookySwap, SpiritSwap, VVS Finance, Velodrome, GMX, and many others to achieve the best rates for traders on different chains. KyberSwap supports over 13 chains including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, Fantom, Cronos, Arbitrum, Optimism, Velas, Aurora, Oasis, BitTorrent, Ethereum PoW, and soon Solana.

KyberSwap is decentralized and permissionless, not requiring account sign-up or personal information. All transactions on KyberSwap are on-chain, which means transactions do not need a centralized third-party, like a centralized exchange, and they can be easily verified using the Ethereum or other chains’ block explorer.

Projects can build with KyberSwap to access its different features, such as the instant settlement of token swaps, liquidity aggregation for the best rates, liquidity pools, and a customizable business model. Kyber looks to solve the liquidity issue in the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry by allowing developers to build products and services without having to worry about liquidity for different needs.

The Kyber Network Crystal (KNC) token is a utility and governance token that is the "glue that connects different stakeholders in Kyber's ecosystem." KNC holders can stake their tokens in the KyberDAO to help govern the platform and vote on important proposals - and earn staking rewards in KNC that come from trading fees. Investors in KNC include #Hashed, Signum Capital, ParaFi Capital, HyperChain Capital.

Kyber Network Crystal v2

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.

Bluzelle

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.

Civic

iExec is the leading provider of blockchain-based decentralized computing. Blockchain is utilized to organize a market network where people can monetize their computing power as well as applications and even datasets.

It does this by providing on-demand access to cloud computing resources. IExec can support applications in fields such as big data, healthcare, AI, rendering and fintech. IExec was founded on Oct. 16, 2016, with the goal to reinvent cloud computing through the creation of a new cloud computing paradigm.

As such, iExec relies on the XtremWeb-HEP, an open-source desktop grid software that implements features such as multi-applications, fault-tolerance, multi-users, deployment of virtual images, private infrastructure, data management, security and much more.

iExec RLC

ARPA

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

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

Ardor

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

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

IOST describes itself as an “ultra-fast,” fully fledged and decentralized blockchain network and ecosystem with its own nodes, wallets and based on the “next-generation” consensus protocol dubbed “proof-of-believability.”

IOST

Idex claims to be the first hybrid liquidity DEX that combines an order book model with an automated market maker. It blends the performance and features of a traditional order book model with the security and liquidity of an AMM. Idex takes an innovative approach to decentralized exchanges by combining an off-chain trading engine with on-chain trade settlement. Users benefit from that in several ways.

First, this approach does away with failed trades and wasted money on gas fees, making the trading experience more pleasant and efficient. The instant trade execution means front-running or sandwich attacks are not possible and users can trade without waiting for previous trades to settle. As a result, more advanced order types and trading strategies can be executed since limit orders are possible, opening up arbitrage opportunities with other exchanges.

Idex follows an ambitious roadmap that envisions a multi-chain future for the exchange, which currently runs on Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain. For the remainder of 2021, it plans to launch on second layer solutions and Polkadot and implement a referral. For the future, Idex plans to implement leverage trading and launch on additional layer one and layer two blockchains.

IDEX

Enzyme

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.