Elena Sinelnikova, Kevin Liu, and Yuan Su founded Metis in 2019, but the business didn't officially launch until Nov. 17, 2021.

Sinelnikova established other crypto projects prior to founding Metis, including the non-profit blockchain educational hub ‘Crypto Chicks,’ in 2017. She has a Master’s degree in computer science and experience working in blockchain, cybersecurity, software development, and as a full-stack programmer.

Kevin Liu worked as an investment manager and in strategic development before launching Metis. He has an undergraduate degree in management and an MBA from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Yuan Su studied computer science as an undergraduate and then did an MBA at the University of Toronto. After graduating, he worked as a software engineer and manager at IBM until 2019, when he co-founded Metis. He now also heads up development at CaseWare International.

MetisDAO differentiates itself from other protocols in a few different ways.

Metis users can transact quickly and cheaply on the Ethereum blockchain thanks to Optimistic Rollups, which batch multiple transactions into one transaction that is then processed on Ethereum. Its Layer 2 infrastructure uses Ethereum's security and decentralization to make transactions cheaper and faster.

Transaction data is usually stored on layer-1, whereas Metis stores most of its transaction data off-chain, with only the minimum viable data stored on its layer-1. This off-chain data is then placed in Memolabs storage by the Sequencer. When compared with a Layer 1 like Ethereum, storage on Memo Labs is substantially cheaper.

Metis also offers a modular framework, allowing developers to build and customize their own dApps using Metis’ infrastructure.

MetisDAO is both a Layer 2 scaling solution and a platform for building and running decentralized autonomous companies (DACs).

The MetisDAO Foundation has launched a grants program to empower contributors and communities to kickoff their DACs on KORIS called the DAOTribution Campaign. Through the DAOtribution Campaign, the MetisDAO Foundation opens weekly Kohorts for qualified applicants to submit grant proposals and receive funding through the Metis token.

The tokenomics of MetisDAO (METIS) is as follows: a maximum supply of 10,000,000 tokens. The first 49.3% of the total supply of METIS tokens was minted in 2021 for “cold launch, team, advisors’ and investors’ allocation, and ecosystem/community development.”

The rest of the 50.7% of METIS tokens will be allocated to: 4.86% for community benefits (including mining), 10% for early-stage Rangers mining, 3% for community development in upcoming Discovery Age, 32.84% for transaction-related mining in upcoming Discovery Age.

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