Ethereum: A Visual Look

Non-Fungible Thursdays: What Happened in NFTs This Week? [Mar. 24, 2022]

How to Use Layer-2 Rollups to Avoid Gas Fees

Sick Of High Ethereum Gas Fees? Do This Instead

## Τι Είναι το Loopring (LRC);

Το LRC είναι το token κρυπτονομισμάτων του Loopring που βασίζεται στο [Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/currencies/ethereum/), ένα ανοιχτό πρωτόκολλο σχεδιασμένο για τη δημιουργία αποκεντρωμένων χρηματιστηρίων κρυπτονομισμάτων.

Το 2020, ο μέσος ημερήσιος όγκος διαπραγματεύσεων ολόκληρης της αγοράς κρυπτονομισμάτων κυμάνθηκε μεταξύ 50 και 200 εκατομμυρίων δολαρίων. Το μεγαλύτερο μέρος αυτών των διαπραγματεύσεων διεξάγεται σε κεντρικά χρηματιστήρια κρυπτονομισμάτων — διαδικτυακές πλατφόρμες που λειτουργούν από ιδιωτικές εταιρείες που αποθηκεύουν τα κεφάλαια των χρηστών και διευκολύνουν την αντιστοίχιση των εντολών αγοράς και πώλησης.

Τέτοιες πλατφόρμες έχουν ορισμένα κοινά μειονεκτήματα, επομένως ένας νέος τύπος χρηματιστηρίου — αποκεντρωμένος — έχει εμφανιστεί για να προσπαθήσει να μετριάσει αυτά τα μειονεκτήματα. Ωστόσο, τα πλήρως αποκεντρωμένα χρηματιστήρια έχουν τα δικά τους ελαττώματα.

Ο υποτιθέμενος στόχος του Loopring είναι να συνδυάσει την κεντρικοποιημένη αντιστοίχιση εντολών με την αποκεντρωμένη διευθέτηση εντολών εντός του blockchain σε ένα υβριδοποιημένο προϊόν που θα έχει τα καλύτερα στοιχεία τόσο των κεντρικοποιημένων όσο και των αποκεντρωμένων χρηματιστηρίων.

Τα token LRC έγιναν διαθέσιμα στο κοινό κατά τη διάρκεια μιας αρχικής προσφοράς νομισμάτων ([ICO](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/initial-coin-offering-ico)) τον Αύγουστο του 2017, ενώ το πρωτόκολλο Loopring εισήχθη για πρώτη φορά στο κεντρικό δίκτυο Ethereum τον Δεκέμβριο του 2019.

### Ποιοι Είναι οι Ιδρυτές του Loopring;

Ο ιδρυτής και σημερινός διευθύνων σύμβουλος του Ιδρύματος Loopring, το οποίο διαχειρίζεται την ανάπτυξη του πρωτοκόλλου Loopring, είναι ο Daniel Wang, μηχανικός λογισμικού και επιχειρηματίας με έδρα τη Σαγκάη της Κίνας.

Ο Wang έχει πτυχίο στην πληροφορική από το Πανεπιστήμιο Επιστήμης και Τεχνολογίας της Κίνας, καθώς και μεταπτυχιακό στον ίδιο τομέα από το Πολιτειακό Πανεπιστήμιο της Αριζόνα.

Πριν ξεκινήσει να εργάζεται στο Loopring, ο Wang κατείχε πολλές διευθυντικές και εκτελεστικές θέσεις σε μεγάλες εταιρείες τεχνολογίας: ήταν επικεφαλής μηχανικός λογισμικού στην κατασκευάστρια ιατρικών συσκευών Boston Scientific, ανώτερος διευθυντής μηχανικής, αναζήτησης, συστάσεων και συστημάτων διαφημίσεων στο κινεζικό γίγαντα ηλεκτρονικού εμπορίου JD.com, καθώς και επικεφαλής τεχνολογίας και ανώτερος μηχανικός λογισμικού στην Google.

Ο Wang έχει επίσης συνιδρύσει πολλές εταιρείες: την Yunrang (Beijing) Information Technology Ltd. και εταιρεία υπηρεσιών κρυπτονομισμάτων Coinport Technology Ltd.

### Τι Κάνει το Loopring Μοναδικό;

Η κύρια ιδέα πίσω από το Loopring είναι ο συνδυασμός στοιχείων κεντρικοποιημένων και αποκεντρωμένων χρηματιστηρίων κρυπτονομισμάτων για τη δημιουργία ενός πρωτοκόλλου που θα απολαμβάνει τα μοναδικά τους πλεονεκτήματα και θα εξαλείφει τις αναποτελεσματικότητες.

Τα κεντρικοποιημένα χρηματιστήρια είναι επί του παρόντος ο κύριος τρόπος λειτουργίας των υπηρεσιών διαπραγματεύσεων κρυπτονομισμάτων. Αν και είναι ιδιαίτερα δημοφιλές και βολικό, η χρήση ενός κεντρικοποιημένου χρηματιστηρίου εγκυμονεί διάφορους κινδύνους, ο κύριος των οποίων είναι ο τρόπος φύλαξης. Επειδή αυτά τα χρηματιστήρια διατηρούν τα κεφάλαια των χρηστών μεταξύ των σημείων κατάθεσης και ανάληψης, αυτά τα κεφάλαια διατρέχουν τον κίνδυνο μερικής ή ολικής απώλειας λόγω πιθανών επιθέσεων παραβίασης ασφαλείας, κακόβουλων παραγόντων μέσα στο χρηματιστήριο ή ρυθμιστικής παρέμβασης.

Ένα άλλο σημαντικό πρόβλημα για τα κεντρικοποιημένα χρηματιστήρια είναι η έλλειψη διαφάνειας: το γεγονός ότι οι διαπραγματεύσεις δεν διευθετούνται στο blockchain, αλλά αποθηκεύονται στα εσωτερικά αρχεία του χρηματιστηρίου, καθιστά δυνατή τη χειραγώγηση των τιμών από το χρηματιστήριο και του επιτρέπει να χρησιμοποιεί κεφάλαια χρηστών, που διατηρεί, για μη εξουσιοδοτημένους σκοπούς.

Προκειμένου να εξαλειφθούν αυτά τα προβλήματα, ένας νέος τύπος υπηρεσίας διαπραγματεύσεων έχει εμφανιστεί τα τελευταία χρόνια: ένα αποκεντρωμένο χρηματιστήριο κρυπτονομισμάτων ([DEX](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-exchange-dex)). Αντί να διατηρεί τα κεφάλαια των χρηστών και να επεξεργάζεται τις διαπραγματεύσεις εσωτερικά, βοηθά τις εντολές αγοράς και πώλησης να συνδέονται απευθείας μεταξύ τους και να διακανονίζονται διαπραγματεύσεις σε ένα δημόσιο blockchain.

Ενώ αφαιρούν τους κινδύνους διατήρησης και διαφάνειας, τα DEX φέρνουν τα δικά τους μειονεκτήματα: κυρίως, χαμηλότερη αποτελεσματικότητα (σε σύγκριση με κεντρικοποιημένες εναλλακτικές) που σχετίζεται με τις περιορισμένες δυνατότητες των υποκείμενων blockchain και την κατακερματισμένη [ρευστότητα](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/liquidity).

Το πρωτόκολλο Loopring επιδιώκει να διατηρήσει τα πλεονεκτήματα των αποκεντρωμένων χρηματιστηρίων, ενώ παράλληλα μειώνει ή εξαλείφει την αναποτελεσματικότητά τους μέσω καινοτόμων υβριδικών λύσεων. Μέσω της διαχείρισης των εντολών με κεντρικοποιημένο τρόπο, αλλά της διευθέτησης των διαπραγματεύσεων στο blockchain, και του συνδυασμού έως και 16 εντολών σε κυκλικές διαπραγματεύσεις αντί να επιτρέπεται αυστηρά ένα έναντι ενός ζεύγους διαπραγματεύσεων, το Loopring αναμένει να αυξήσει την αποτελεσματικότητα της εκτέλεσης εντολών, καθώς και να ενισχύσει τη ρευστότητα των DEX.

#### Σχετικές σελίδες:

Το Loopring είναι μέρος της βιομηχανίας αποκεντρωμένης οικονομίας (DeFi) — διάβασε περισσότερα σχετικά στο [CoinMarketCap Alexandria](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-decentralized-finance)

Έχεις περιέργεια για τα κρυπτονομίσματα; Μάθε πώς μπορείς να αγοράσεις Bitcoin [εδώ](https://coinmarketcap.com/how-to-buy-bitcoin/).

### Πόσα Νομίσματα Loopring (LRC) Υπάρχουν σε Κυκλοφορία;

Η έκδοση των token LRC διέπεται από τα έξυπνα συμβόλαια που περιλαμβάνονται στο Πρωτόκολλο Loopring.

Ο κύριος τρόπος να κερδίσει κανείς LRC είναι μέσω της λεγόμενης εξόρυξης δακτυλίου: προκειμένου να βελτιωθεί η ρευστότητα του δικτύου Loopring, οι εντολές σε αυτό δεν αντιστοιχίζονται αυστηρά ως ζεύγη δύο κρυπτονομισμάτων. Αντίθετα, το πρωτόκολλο μπορεί να συνδυάσει και να συνδυάσει έως και 16 εντολές για διαφορετικά κρυπτονομίσματα σε μια κυκλική συναλλαγή, που ονομάζεται δακτύλιος εντολής.

Οι κόμβοι στο δίκτυο Loopring ανταμείβονται με token LRC για το συνδυασμό μεμονωμένων εντολών σε δακτυλίους εντολών, τη διατήρηση δημόσιων βιβλίων εντολών και ιστορικού διαπραγματεύσεων και σε ορισμένες περιπτώσεις για τη μετάδοση εντολών σε άλλους αναμεταδότες.

### Πώς Διασφαλίζεται το Δίκτυο Loopring;

Το Loopring τρέχει στα blockchain Ethereum και [Neo](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/currencies/neo/) με σχέδια για προσθήκη υποστήριξης για το blockchain [Qtum](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/currencies/qtum/). Κάθε ένα από αυτά τα δίκτυα έχει το δικό του token: LRC και LRN για το Ethereum και το Neo αντίστοιχα· κατά την εκκίνηση, το token του δικτύου Qtum θα ονομάζεται LRQ.

Αυτά τα token προστατεύονται από τις συναρτήσεις κατακερματισμού των υποκείμενων blockchain πλατφορμών τους: το LRC από το Ethash του Ethereum, το LRN από το SHA256 του Neo και το RIPEMD160 και το LRQ από τον αλγόριθμο απόδειξης συμμετοχής, PoSv3, του Qtum.

### Πού Μπορείς να Αγοράσεις Loopring (LRC);

Το LRC είναι διαθέσιμο σε πολλά χρηματιστήρια, μερικά από τα σημαντικότερα και πιο αξιόπιστα είναι:

* [Coinbase Pro](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/exchanges/coinbase-pro/)
* [Bilaxy](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/exchanges/bilaxy/)
* [OKEx](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/exchanges/okex/)
* [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/exchanges/binance/)

Loopring

Ledger

Coinbase

Trust Wallet

MetaMask

SolFlare

Backpack

Phantom

Atomic wallet

Ethereum

Shiba Inu

Chainlink

UNUS SED LEO

Uniswap

Flux

Yield Guild Games

ether.fi

Threshold

OriginTrail

Renzo Restaked ETH

Lido Staked ETH

SKALE

Illuvium

Altlayer

Derp

DORK LORD

LP 3pool Curve

Apes Go Bananas

wrapped POKT

Enjin Coin is a project of Enjin, a company that provides an ecosystem of interconnected, blockchain-based gaming products. Enjin's flagship offering is the Enjin Network, a social gaming platform through which users can create websites and clans, chat, and host virtual item stores.

Enjin allows game developers to tokenize in-game items on the Ethereum blockchain. It uses Enjin Coin, an ERC-20 token, to back the digital assets issued using its platform, meaning that items can be bought, sold and traded with real-world value.

Enjin Coin was first announced in July 2017, and it launched on the Ethereum mainnet in June 2018.

Enjin Coin (ENJ) is a digital store of value used to back the value of blockchain assets like non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Every asset minted with the Enjin Platform contains ENJ, a minting resource which is locked inside NFTs and removed from circulation. Minting blockchain assets with ENJ provides a variety of benefits to creators and users:

Infuses them with a reserve value

Ensures their transparency and scarcity

Gives them instant liquidity

Provides utility in games and apps

Anti-inflationary

Enjin's "melting" functionality allows users to destroy their blockchain assets at any time to retrieve the ENJ value from within.

The Enjin blockchain ecosystem aims to offer software products that make it easy for everyone to develop, trade, monetize, and market with blockchain.

Founded in 2009, Enjin has roots in the gaming industry, with the company’s first product, a gaming community platform called the Enjin Network, growing to 20 million users over the course of a decade.

In 2017 following an ICO, Enjin established itself as a leading blockchain ecosystem developer, building a suite of software products that enable anyone to easily mint, manage, trade, distribute, and integrate blockchain assets.

Enjin’s co-founder Witek Radomski wrote the code for one of the first ever non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and is also the co-author of the ERC-1155 Ethereum token standard.

Built on top of an on-chain infrastructure, the Enjin ecosystem enables game developers and businesses of all sizes to use tokenized digital assets as part of their acquisition, retention, engagement, and monetization strategies. The Enjin ecosystem is fueled by Enjin Coin (ENJ), a cryptocurrency used to back the value of blockchain assets.

Enjin Coin

Decentraland (MANA) defines itself as a virtual reality platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain that allows users to create, experience, and monetize content and applications.

In this virtual world, users purchase plots of land that they can later navigate, build upon and monetize.

Decentraland was launched following a $24 million initial coin offering (ICO) that was conducted in 2017. The virtual world launched its closed beta in 2019 and opened to the public in February 2020. Since then, users have created a wide range of experiences on their parcels of LAND, including interactive games, sprawling 3D scenes and a variety of other interactive experiences.

Decentraland uses two tokens: MANA and LAND. MANA is an ERC-20 token that must be burned to acquire non-fungible ERC-721 LAND tokens. MANA tokens can also be used to pay for a range of avatars, wearables, names, and more on the Decentraland marketplace.

Decentraland (MANA) is a decentralized virtual world platform with software based on the Ethereum blockchain, where users create, test and monetize content. In short: users buy virtual plots of land as NFTs with MANA tokens on the Decentraland platform. Progress in the game depends only on players themselves, their efforts and their imagination.

The digital platform is completely owned by its users. Within the Decentraland metaverse, participants can explore the virtual world, purchase plots of land that can be monetized, create works of art, own non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and take part in a decentralized autonomous organization of the platform Decentraland DAO. Due to the DAO, the community influences the development vector of the project.

In addition, users have access to interactive applications, in-world payments and peer-to-peer communication. The 3D world resonates with many participants as Decentraland has many applications, both entertainment for gamers and business for investors.

Two types of tokens called MANA and LAND govern operations in Decentraland. They also allow users to interact with the platform.

MANA is the official currency of Decentraland. It’s an ERC-20 standard token that powers the Decentraland platform. With MANA, users can purchase plots of LAND, as well as pay for in-game items and services.

MANA gives its holders the right to vote in Decentraland DAO. MANA can be purchased on a cryptocurrency exchange or by selling collectibles on Decentraland Marketplace. The owner of tokens converts them to wrapped MANA, or wMANA, and then commits them to the DAO. One wMANA equals one vote. MANA can be exchanged for fiat currency and other digital assets.

As for LAND, it’s a non-fungible token (NFT) based on Ethereum (ETH). It is used to track ownership of land parcels aka digital real estate. Like MANA, LAND is part of the protocol and confers voting rights, but LAND does not need to be fixed in the DAO. One LAND is equal to two thousand votes.

Players choose what to do with their land. Owners store tokens in crypto wallets and buy necessities with MANA tokens on the Decentraland Marketplace. Moreover, on the marketplace, participants can manage or exchange LAND tokens (priced in MANA). Holders use the marketplace to transact or transfer in-game items. All transactions are conducted, regulated and registered via the Ethereum blockchain.

Decentraland combines an online gaming space and blockchain technology. All control over the rules is given to the players, and token holders vote on in-game and organizational policies. The original goal was to form a decentralized virtual reality, but in practice, Decentraland has turned into a massive NFT market.

A special role in Decentraland is assigned to NFTs, such as collectibles, virtual equipment and real estate (LAND). However, for new players who want to join the universe and seize NFTs, the entry barrier will be high.

The Decentraland protocol is built on three levels using Ethereum smart contracts. On the consensus layer, the ownership of LAND is tracked and managed. The land content layer displays the content of the Decentraland virtual world. Finally, on the real-time layer, participants interact with each other.

The platform was co-founded by two blockchain experts, Ari Meilich and Esteban Ordano, in 2015. Officially it was launched a year later and became available only in February 2020, gradually turning from a 2D experiment into a full-fledged 3D world.

To sum up, Decentraland is a decentralized game and a 3D virtual reality platform where players own lands and create limitlessly. Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) software is at the core, and governance is in the hands of the community. Through the native token MANA, players participate in any proposals for managing and improving the ecosystem, the auction system, and the in-game policy.

Decentraland

The Graph is an indexing protocol for querying data for networks like Ethereum and IPFS, powering many applications in both DeFi and the broader Web3 ecosystem. Anyone can build and publish open APIs, called subgraphs, that applications can query using GraphQL to retrieve blockchain data. There is a hosted service in production that makes it easy for developers to get started building on The Graph and the decentralized network will be launching later this year. The Graph currently supports indexing data from Ethereum, IPFS and POA, with more networks coming soon.

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

To date, over3,000 subgraphs have been deployed by thousands of developers, for DApps like Uniswap, Synthetix, Aragon, AAVE, Gnosis, Balancer, Livepeer, DAOstack, Decentraland and many others. The Graph usage has been growing at over 50% MoM and hit over 7 billion queries during the month of September 2020.

The Graph has a global community, including over 200 Indexer Nodes in the testnet and more than 2,000 Curators in the Curator Program as of October 2020. To fund network development, The Graph raised funds from community members, strategic VCs and influential individuals in the blockchain community including Coinbase Ventures, DCG, Framework, ParaFi Capital, CoinFund, DTC, Multicoin, Reciprocal Ventures, SPC, Tally Capital and others. The Graph Foundation also successfully completed a public GRT Sale with participation from 99 countries (not including the U.S.). To date as of November 2020, The Graph has raised ~$25M.

The Graph

Fantom is a directed acyclic graph (DAG) smart contract platform providing decentralized finance (DeFi) services to developers using its own bespoke consensus algorithm.

Together with its in-house token FTM, Fantom aims to solve problems associated with smart-contract platforms, specifically transaction speed, which developers say they have reduced to under two seconds.

The Fantom Foundation, which oversees the Fantom product offering, was originally created in 2018, with the launch of OPERA, Fantom’s mainnet, coming in December 2019.

Fantom is an open-source decentralized smart contract platform for DApps and digital assets that was created as an alternative to Ethereum. Fantom has the goal of overcoming the limitations of previous generation blockchains and balancing three components: scalability, security and decentralization. The project offers a set of tools to simplify the process of integrating existing DApps, as well as a detailed staking reward system and built-in DeFi instruments.

Fantom is a Layer-1 blockchain that uses a scratch-built consensus mechanism and independent consensus layer, Lachesis, to facilitate DeFi and related services on the basis of smart contracts. Lachesis provides security for other layers as well, including Opera, Fantom's EVM-compatible smart contract chain. The long-playing mission of the project is to “grant compatibility between all transaction bodies around the world.”

One of Fantom's key strengths is its performance and efficient transaction processing, namely thousands of transactions per second, where transactions are settled in 1-2 seconds, and the cost is fractions of a cent per transaction. As a result, Fantom provides higher scalability but at a lower cost.

The ecosystem is based on two main technologies: Lachesis protocol and Opera.

The Lachesis protocol is the core consensus layer that secures the Fantom network by providing both transaction speed and security.

Lachesis is an aBFT consensus engine that uses a directed acyclic graph (DAG) algorithm. How it works: network data can be processed at different times, and the network filters the participants, allowing only one third, which are allocated due to erroneous or malicious behavior, without compromising network processes.

Fantom's Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerant (aBFT) Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism maintains the efficiency of the entire network, its design provides security at maximum speed. Fantom developers emphasize that the PoS mechanism is a leaderless phenomenon — there are no leaders of blocks and participants, and anyone can join (or leave) the network of nodes at a convenient moment.

The key qualities of Lachesis are: asynchronous, leaderless, Byzantine fault-tolerant, and near-instant finality.

As for Opera, it's an application development layer or Fantom's mainnet deployment platform, permissionless and open-source hosting DApps. Thanks to EVM integration and support for the Solidity programming language, Fantom has a full set of smart contract capabilities, which allows users to seamlessly interact with Ethereum platforms while maintaining the advantage of Fantom's transaction efficiency.

The Fantom Foundation concluded that removing block leaders improves network security, so Opera uses a PoS model and leaderless validators (validators do not determine which blocks are valid).

In addition to being a fast, secure and cheap payment platform that enables to make fast and secure payments at minimal cost, Fantom also features on-chain governance where users vote with FTM tokens (one token equals one vote). Of the features: users have the right to express the degree of agreement / disagreement on a scale from 0 to 4.

FTM is the native utility in-house PoS token of Fantom that powers the ecosystem and is applied for payments, network fees, staking, and governance. FTM forms the backbone of transactions, and allows fee collection and staking activities, along with the user rewards the latter represents.

Fantom

Algorand is a self-sustaining, decentralized, blockchain-based network that supports a wide range of applications. These systems are secure, scalable and efficient, all critical properties for effective applications in the real world. Algorand will support computations that require reliable performance guarantees to create new forms of trust.

The Algorand mainnet became live in June 2019, and was able to handle almost 1 million transactions per day as of December 2020. Algorand transaction metrics can be viewed here. Algorand initial coin offering (ICO) was held in June 2019, with the Algorand price of $0.24 per token.

Algorand

Launched in 2011 by Pixowl, The Sandbox is a blockchain-based virtual world allowing users to create, build, buy and sell digital assets in the form of a game. By combining the powers of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the Sandbox creates a decentralized platform for a thriving gaming community.

According to the official whitepaper, the Sandbox platform’s main mission is to introduce blockchain technology in mainstream gaming successfully. The platform focuses on facilitating a creative “play-to-earn” model, which allows users to be both creators and gamers simultaneously. The Sandbox employs the powers of blockchain technology by introducing the SAND utility token, which facilitates transactions on the platform.

The Sandbox

Harmony is a blockchain platform designed to facilitate the creation and use of decentralized applications (DApps). The network aims to innovate the way decentralized applications work by focusing on random state sharding, which allows creating blocks in seconds.

According to the project’s website, Harmony is expected to introduce cross-shard contracts and a cross-chain infrastructure by the end of 2021.

Harmony

Basic Attention Token, or BAT, is the token that powers a new blockchain-based digital advertising platform designed to fairly reward users for their attention, while providing advertisers with a better return on their ad spend.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Basic Attention Token.

This experience is delivered through the Brave Browser, where users can watch privacy-preserving adverts and receive BAT rewards for doing so. On the other hand, advertisers can deliver targeted ads to maximize engagement and cut down losses due to ad fraud and abuse.

The Basic Attention Token itself is the unit of reward in this advertising ecosystem, and is exchanged between advertisers, publishers and users. Advertisers pay for their advertising campaigns in BAT tokens. Out of this budget, a small portion is distributed to advertisers, while 70% is distributed to users — whereas the intermediaries that typically drive up advertising costs are cut out of the equation to improve cost-efficiency.

Basic Attention Token launched in 2017 following one of the fastest sell-out initial coin offerings (ICOs) of all time, with the platform raising a total of $35 million in under a minute. Since then, it has rolled out its attention-based advertising experience to users in most countries through its Brave Rewards program.

As of November 2020, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada had the most active advertising campaigns.

Basic Attention Token

Curve is a decentralized exchange for stablecoins that uses an automated market maker (AMM) to manage liquidity.

Launched in January 2020, Curve is now synonymous with the decentralized finance (DeFi) phenomenon, and has seen significant growth in the second half of 2020.

In August, Curve launched a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), with CRV as its in-house token. The DAO uses Ethereum-based creation tool Aragon to connect multiple smart contracts used for users’ deposited liquidity. Issues such as governance, however, differ from Aragon in their weighting and other respects.

Curve DAO Token

Gala is a web3 ecosystem powered by a layer-1 blockchain (GalaChain) built to power the Gala entertainment ecosystem that originally included Gala Games, Gala Music and Gala Film. More recently however, GalaChain has opened its doors to external developers and projects from any applicable industry, providing open source developer resources to simplify the process.

On a mission to empower users and creators across multiple industries throughout the world, Gala’s goal is to become the first billion user blockchain in the world. Innovators can extend the benefits of web3 to their users and communities more easily than ever before by leveraging open source tools like the GalaChain SDK and Creator Portal.

By elevating their ideas to web3 through GalaChain, developers can create custom tokens, smart contracts, reward opportunities and node networks for their communities and projects. Assets built on GalaChain can also be bridged to other blockchains, such as Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and more. Developers who wish to learn more about getting involved with GalaChain are welcome to reach out via GalaChain.com.

The core of GalaChain is powered by its DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) of Founder’s Nodes, whose operators earn daily $GALA rewards for actively providing resources to the ecosystem and enjoy governance voting rights on certain core Gala decisions. In addition to the Founder’s Node network’s foundational workload, individual projects can also create Node networks on GalaChain with more specific workloads.

Gala.com
News.Gala.com
Games.Gala.com
Music.Gala.com
Film.Gala.com

Gala

Chiliz is the leading digital currency for sports and entertainment by the eponymous Malta-based FinTech provider. It operates the blockchain-based sports entertainment platform Socios, which enables users to participate in the governance of their favorite sports brands. Multiple fan tokens by Socios.com are an example of that. For sports clubs and associations, fan tokens offer a way of connecting with their fans and unlocking new revenue streams.

For instance, fans can participate and influence club-related decisions through surveys and polls, such as messages the captain should wear on his armband. The company aims to bridge the gap between being an active and a passive fan. Chiliz has developed partnerships with some of the biggest sporting institutions in the world: FC Barcelona, Manchester City, Juventus Turin, and Paris Saint-Germain. It also boasts partnerships with the UFC and gaming organizations. By purchasing CHZ, fans get access to various fan tokens and literally have a stake in their club.

Chiliz

Tezos is a high-performing blockchain and open-source platform for assets and applications, with a strong focus on code security, on-chain governance, and decentralization. Tezos 2.0, the upcoming step in the evolution of Tezos, aims to improve scalability (via layer 2s), composability, and to implement support to mainstream programming languages (like Javascript, Typescript, Python, and many others).

Initially built with formal verification in mind, the Tezos protocol enables builders to avoid bugs when developing smart contracts, making it particularly suited to applications that require a high degree of security and certainty.

Tezos’ LPoS (Liquid Proof-of-Stake) consensus mechanism enables any stakeholder to take part, directly or by delegation, in the consensus process, and to be rewarded for securing the network. Rather uniquely, Tezos’ on-chain governance system also enables stakeholders to create and vote on protocol upgrade proposals. This pioneering system allows the protocol to self-amend and upgrade itself without leading to a split (or fork) in the blockchain, empowering the community without slowing down innovation.

First proposed in 2014 and launched in 2018, the Tezos Mainnet has a proven track record of running uninterrupted ever since, having earned a strong reputation for technical excellence and a supportive community.

Tezos

What Is Ankr (ANKR)?

Ankr is a decentralized blockchain infrastructure provider that operates an array of nodes globally distributed across over 50 Proof-of-Stake networks. This infrastructure helps drive the growth of the crypto economy while powering a full suite of multi-chain tools for Web3 users:

Ankr Build
Ankr provides comprehensive blockchain developer solutions, including traditional APIs, a decentralized multi-chain network of public RPC nodes used to access blockchain data and execute code, and tools like Ankr Scan to view on-chain information across blockchains.

Ankr Earn
Ankr Earn makes staking, liquid staking, and other yield-earning opportunities easy and accessible to any crypto investor. Ankr creates the most scalable and decentralized staking infrastructure solution that aims to solve the capital inefficiency of Proof-of-Stake networks and similar blockchain consensus mechanisms.

Ankr Learn
Through Ankr’s learning tools, tutorials, and docs, anyone can become a better user or developer of blockchain-based systems.

Ankr

Theta Network

Synthetix is building a decentralized liquidity provisioning protocol that any protocol can tap into for various purposes. Its deep liquidity and low fees serve as a backend for many exciting protocols on both Optimism and Ethereum. Many user-facing protocols in the Synthetix ecosystem, such as Kwenta (Spot and Futures), Lyra (Options), Polynomial (Automated Options), and 1inch & Curve (Atomic Swaps), tap into Synthetix liquidity to power their protocols. Synthetix is built on Optimism and Ethereum mainnet. The Synthetix Network is collateralized by SNX, ETH, and LUSD, enabling the issuance of synthetic assets (Synths). Synths track and provide returns on the underlying asset without requiring one to directly hold the asset. This pooled collateral enables an array of on-chain, composable financial instruments backed by liquidity from Synthetix. Some of the most exciting upcoming releases from SNX are Perps V2, which hopes to enable low-fee on-chain futures trading through the usage of off-chain oracles, and Synthetix V3, which aims to rebuild the protocol to achieve its earliest goal, being a fully permissionless derivatives protocol. Learn more about Synthetix on their blog or by joining the SNX Discord.

The platform aims to broaden the cryptocurrency space by introducing non-blockchain assets, providing access to a more robust financial market.

Synthetix

Zilliqa is a public, permissionless blockchain that is designed to offer high throughput with the ability to complete thousands of transactions per second. It seeks to solve the issue of blockchain scalability and speed by employing sharding as a second-layer scaling solution. The platform is home to many decentralized applications, and as of October 2020, it also allows for staking and yield farming.

Development work officially started on Zilliqa in June 2017, and its testnet went live in March 2018. A little over a year later, in June 2019, the platform launched its mainnet.

The native utility token of Zilliqa, ZIL, is used to process transactions on the network and execute smart contracts.

Zilliqa

Audius is a decentralized music streaming protocol initially built on POA network, but now living on Solana. Audius was launched to remedy the inefficiencies of the music industry, which is plagued by intransparent music rights ownership and intermediaries standing between artists and their audience.

Audius aims to align the interests of artists, fans, and node operators through its platform powered by its native AUDIO token. Artists can upload music, stored and distributed by content and discovery nodes, that fans can listen to for free. Currently, Audius rewards content creators through rewards like featuring in the weekly trending lists. In the future, it plans to integrate stablecoins for artists to offer paid content, as well as artist tokens that give fans the ability to access exclusive content, potentially cooperating with platforms like Rally.

Audius

Axie Infinity is a blockchain-based trading and battling game that is partially owned and operated by its players.

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

Inspired by popular games like Pokémon and Tamagotchi, Axie Infinity allows players to collect, breed, raise, battle and trade token-based creatures known as Axies.

These Axies can take various forms, and there are more than 500 different body parts available, including aquatic, beast, bird, bug, plant and reptile parts. Parts from each type class come in four different rarity scales: common, rare, ultra rare and legendary — and Axies can have any combination of body parts, making them highly variable and often rare and unique.

Each Axie is a non-fungible token (NFT) with different attributes and strengths and can be entered into 3v3 battles, with the winning team earning more experience (exp) points that are used to level up an Axie's stats or evolve their body parts. These Axies can be bred together to produce new and unique offspring, which can be used or sold on the Axie marketplace.

The Axie Infinity ecosystem also has its own unique governance token, known as Axie Infinity Shards (AXS). These are used to participate in key governance votes and will give holders a say in how funds in the Axie Community Treasury are spent.

Axie Infinity

VeChainThor (VET) is a versatile enterprise-grade L1 smart contract platform whose origins began in 2015. VeChain is known as a pioneer of real-world enterprise applications, and built a distributed platform powered by Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, NFC chips and blockchain to help various industries solve data-related challenges.

VeChain solves major blockchain adoption hurdles. The platform uses an intelligent two token model, VET and VTHO, separating the protocol's Store of Value and gas fee payment mechanisms, ensuring costs can be kept low and stable. Fee delegation allows smart contracts to pay gas fees on behalf of business users, and an advanced transaction model allows data to be packaged more efficiently while ensuring finality of data.

VeChain is focused on delivering a wave of incentive-based sustainability dApps through its new platform, VeBetterDAO, working closely with Boston Consulting Group to achieve adoption across enterprise and individual users, and helping  onboard the next billion users to Web3 over the coming decade.

From supply chains to sustainability, VeChain has continuously demonstrated its leading role as a driver of blockchain in business, and is dedicated to its role as a pioneer of driving real world adoption of blockchain technology.

VeChain

Compound is a DeFi lending protocol that allows users to earn interest on their cryptocurrencies by depositing them into one of several pools supported by the platform.

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

When a user deposits tokens to a Compound pool, they receive cTokens in return. These cTokens represent the individual’s stake in the pool and can be used to redeem the underlying cryptocurrency initially deposited into the pool at any time. For example, by depositing ETH into a pool, you will receive cETH in return. Over time, the exchange rate of these cTokens to the underlying asset increases, which means you can redeem them for more of the underlying asset than you initially put in — this is how the interest is distributed.

On the flip side, borrowers can take a secured loan from any Compound pool by depositing collateral. The maximum loan-to-value (LTV) ratio varies based on the collateral asset, but currently ranges from 50 to 75%. The interest rate paid varies by borrowed asset and borrowers can face automatic liquidation if their collateral falls below a specific maintenance threshold.

Since the launch of the Compound mainnet in September 2018, the platform has skyrocketed in popularity, and recently passed more than $800 million in total locked value.