SKALE

The SKALE Staking UI is now live as part of the SKALE Portal V2.2 release! 🔒

It is now easier than ever for any SKL holder to stake their tokens, in just a few clicks. Stake your SKL now via the SKALE Portal at 

SKALE is the only interoperable blockchain network capable of running an unlimited number of fast, on-demand, pooled-security EVM blockchains with ZERO gas fees

The SKALE Staking UI is now live as part of the SKALE Portal V2.2 release! 🔒   It is now easier than ever for any SKL holder to stake their tokens, in just a few clicks. Stake your SKL now via the SKALE Portal at https://portal.skale.space/staking

## What Is SKALE Network (SKL)?
SKALE, described as a modular blockchain network, is designed to bring scalability to [Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/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](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-applications-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. 


### Who Are the Founders of SKALE Network?
SKALE Network was founded by Jack O’Holleran and Stan Kladko, both of whom have vast experience across the software industry. 

O’Holleran — the co-founder and CEO of SKALE — is a technology entrepreneur specializing in blockchain and decentralized systems. He continues to hold a strategic advisor role at Aktana, the life sciences company he co-founded in 2008.

According to his LinkedIn profile, O’Holleran began the early stages of his career as an account executive at Good Technology. He spent two years there before joining Motorola’s business development and product strategy division. 

Kladko spent many years obtaining a Ph.D. in physics prior to co-founding SKALE and worked for 16 years as a technology executive in San Francisco’s Silicon Valley. 

He has co-founded several other companies, including Galactic Exchange and Cloudessa.

#### What Makes SKALE Network Unique?

SKALE’s unique architecture not only addresses Ethereum’s scalability issues but also skyrockets gas fees when the Ethereum network is bustling, as SKALE offers zero gas fees to end users. Volatility in gas fee costs can affect entire Web3 ecosystems, including developers, users, NFT creators, and beyond. It’s an issue that also plagues other blockchains besides Ethereum.

SKALE is also unique in the sense that it has unlimited capacity. Capacity grows as new nodes join the network. Unlike monolithic L1s new nodes can be utilized to create new chains which increase throughput and computational power across the network. Using SKALE Network greatly improves the speed at which Ethereum-based smart contracts process transactions as SKALE can operate much faster and run up to a maximum of 2,000 transactions per second per SKALE chain, according to the team. 

#### How Many SKALE (SKL) Coins Are There in Circulation?

The total supply of SKL tokens at the launch of the SKALE Network was 4.1 billion. When it comes to the maximum supply, this figure is fixed at 7 billion tokens.

According to a white paper released by the SKALE Network in July 2020, one-third (33%) was allocated to validator rewards, 28.1% was earmarked for delegators, 16% was allocated to the broader founding team, 10% to the SKALE Foundation, 7.7% to the protocol development fund, 4% to the core team pool and 1.3% to the ecosystem fund. 

### How Is the SKALE Network Secured?

SKALE is a multichain network made of many chains that pool security. SKALE Chains don't share performance but share security across validator sets. Each validator node can run concurrently on 8 chains. Nodes are randomly assigned and rotated to create optimal collusion resistance.

The SKALE Network uses [proof-of-stake](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake) (PoS) to ensure the network is secured. 

### Where Can You Buy SKALE (SKL)?

There are several exchanges where one can buy SKL tokens. The first ones to list SKL include [Huobi](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/huobi-global/), [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/) and [Uniswap](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/uniswap-v2/). [Read more about how to convert fiat currencies to crypto here.](https://coinmarketcap.com/how-to-buy-bitcoin/)


Trust Wallet

MetaMask

Atomic wallet

Ethereum

Shiba Inu

Chainlink

UNUS SED LEO

Uniswap

SuperVerse

Ethereum Name Service

Livepeer

Ankr

ether.fi

0x Protocol

Holo

aelf

PAX Gold

MX TOKEN

ether.fi Staked ETH

ZynCoin

Pancake Games

LuckysLeprecoin

Dopex

LRC is the Ethereum-based cryptocurrency token of Loopring, an open protocol designed for the building of decentralized crypto exchanges.

In 2020, the average daily trading volume of the entire cryptocurrency market fluctuated in the approximate range of $50-$200 million. Most of that trading is conducted on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges — online platforms operated by private companies that store users’ funds and facilitate the matching of buy and sell orders.

Such platforms have a number of downsides common to all of them, so a new type of exchange — decentralized— has emerged to try to alleviate these disadvantages. However, fully decentralized exchanges are not without their own flaws.

Loopring’s purported goal is to combine centralized order matching with decentralized on-blockchain order settlement into a hybridized product that will take the best aspects of both centralized and decentralized exchanges.

LRC tokens became available to the public during an initial coin offering (ICO) in August 2017, while the Loopring protocol was first deployed on Ethereum mainnet in December 2019.

Loopring

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

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

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.

UMA was founded in 2018 by Allison Lu and Hart Lambur, two ex Goldman Sachs traders, with the goal of making global markets universally fair, accessible, secure and decentralized.

The team drew inspiration from traditional finance derivatives to define an open-source protocol to allow anyone, anywhere, to design and build trustless financial contracts.

Cartesi is an app-specific rollup protocol with a virtual machine that runs Linux distributions, creating a richer and broader design space for DApp developers.

Cartesi Rollups offer a modular scaling solution, deployable as L2, L3, or sovereign rollups, while maintaining strong base layer security guarantees.

Cartesi

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

0x is an infrastructure protocol that allows users to easily trade ERC20 tokens and other assets on the many different blockchains (including Ethereum) without relying on centralized intermediaries. It is a protocol for decentralized exchange.

0x achieves this decentralized exchange functionality using a collection of open-source, publicly auditable smart contracts that work together to produce a flexible, low-friction trading protocol that developers can easily weave into their products.

The protocol is used by companies building web3 apps such as wallets, DEXes, portfolio trackes, and others. It is a used by hundreds of developers for their projects. The protocol has facilitates over $200B in trading volume since its inception. One can track its usage in its dedicated https://explorer.0x.org/.

The protocol is powered by an ERC20 governance token known as ZRX. ZRX holders can participate in protocol governance, having direct power over protocol changes and its community treasury.

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

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

Launched in 2017, Livepeer is the first live video streaming network protocol that is fully decentralized. The platform aims to become a viable blockchain-based, economically efficient alternative to centralized broadcasting solutions for all new and existing broadcaster companies.

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

As stated in the official Livepeer whitepaper, the live video streaming and broadcasting industry is growing at a rapid pace, and the company is looking to ride this wave and introduce decentralization to the environment. Livepeer aims to streamline the broadcasting process by allowing producers to submit their work on the platform, taking care of reformatting and distributing the content to users and streaming platforms.

Starting as an open-source project in 2017, IoTeX has built a decentralized platform whose aim is to empower the open economics for machines — an open ecosystem where people and machines can interact with guaranteed trust, free will, and under properly designed economic incentives.

With a global team of over 40 research scientists and engineers, IoTeX has built their EVM-compatible blockchain from scratch using the innovative Roll-DPoS consensus and launched in 2019 April, which has been running by 100+ delegates worldwide and has processed more than 10 million transactions already. On top of the IoTeX blockchain, the team has built the essential blocks of infrastructures to connect with Ethereum, BSC, and Heco blockchains such as ioPay wallet (https://iopay.me/) and ioTube bridge (https://iotube.org/), which serve ten thousands of users. IoTeX helps EVM-based DApps scale without concerning expensive gas fees!

Besides, middleware such as Decentralized Identity, Confidential Computing, and Secure Hardware has been built on top of the IoTeX blockchain. This has enabled the creation of self-sovereign devices such as Ucam, and real-world data oracles like Pebble. Ucam (https://ucam.iotex.io/) has been deployed to over 3000 households (http://iott.network/). Meanwhile, Pebble has been launched to more than 300 developers initially, and enables innovative Dapps to connect the physical world with the crypto world, such as real-world NFTs, weather derivatives and machine learning-as-mining.

IoTeX

Balancer is an automated market maker (AMM) that was developed on the Ethereum blockchain and launched in March 2020. It was able to raise a $3M seed round by Placeholder and Accomplice. Balancer protocol functions as a self-balancing weighted portfolio, price sensor and liquidity provider. It allows users to earn profits through its recently introduced token ($BAL) by contributing to customizable liquidity pools.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Balancer(https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-balancer.

The protocol operates a few types of pools:

Private pools give the owner governance over the pool, and make the person the sole contributor of liquidity to the pool. Also, all the parameters are mutable by the owner.

Shared pools are for those who want to become liquidity providers (LPs). The LPs are rewarded with the Balancer Pool Tokens (BPTs).

Smart pools are similar to private pools but are controlled by a smart contract. They also reward using BPTs and allow anyone to contribute liquidity to the pool.

Balancer

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

Mask Network is a protocol that allows its users to send encrypted messages over Twitter and Facebook. It essentially acts as a bridge between the internet and a decentralized network running on top.

Mask Network was initially launched in July 2019, with its first use case of allowing Facebook and Twitter users to encrypt posts on the social media platforms. It then raised $2 million in a funding round in November 2020, co-led by HashKey and Hash Global, and a further $3 million funding round in February 2021 with participation from Digital Currency Group and Fundamental Labs.

Now, Mask Network offers the ability to fund Gitcoin grant campaigns directly from Twitter, as well as plans to offer peer-to-peer payments and decentralized storage functionality. It is a decentralized portal that also allows users to use DApps like crypto payments, decentralized finance, decentralized storage, e-commerce (digital goods/NFTs) and decentralized organizations (DAO) over the top of existing social networks without migrating, creating what is referred to as a decentralized Applet (DApplet) ecosystem.

Mask Network

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

Celo is a carbon-negative, permissionless, blockchain with a rich ecosystem of global partners building innovative Web3 dapps to support a more inclusive financial system. Accessible to anyone with a mobile phone, the Celo ecosystem consists of a decentralized, proof-of-stake blockchain technology stack (the Celo platform), CELO governance asset, and several Mento stable assets (cUSD, cEUR, cREAL) that allow for real-world users to use digital assets. The open source Celo mainnet launched on Earth Day 2020.  The Celo community passed an indicative on-chain governance proposal (temperature check) to have Celo migrate to an Ethereum layer-2.  Google Cloud, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, and many others run validators on the Celo Platform.  Today, the Platform supports 1,000+ projects in over 150 countries are building on Celo to, helping to create the conditions of prosperity for all.  For more information, please visit Celo.org.

Celo

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.

Compound

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

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.