## Τι Είναι το Terra (LUNA);

Το Terra είναι ένα πρωτόκολλο [blockchain](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/blockchain) που χρησιμοποιεί stablecoin συνδεδεμένα με [παραστατικά νομίσματα](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-a-stablecoin) για την τροφοδοσία παγκόσμιων συστημάτων πληρωμών με σταθερή τιμή. Σύμφωνα με το λευκό βιβλίο του, το Terra [συνδυάζει](https://terra.money/Terra_White_paper.pdf) τη σταθερότητα των τιμών και την ευρεία υιοθέτηση παραστατικών νομισμάτων με την αντίσταση στη λογοκρισία του [Bitcoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/currencies/bitcoin) (BTC) και προσφέρει γρήγορους και προσιτούς διακανονισμούς.

Η ανάπτυξη του Terra ξεκίνησε τον Ιανουάριο του 2018 και το κεντρικό δίκτυό του [κυκλοφόρισε](https://medium.com/terra-money/countdown-to-terra-mainnet-launch-f8c0b998c12a) επίσημα τον Απρίλιο του 2019. Από τον Σεπτέμβριο του 2020, [προσφέρει](https://medium.com/terra-money/announcing-terrausd-ust-the-interchain-stablecoin-53eab0f8f0ac) stablecoin συνδεδεμένα με το δολάριο ΗΠΑ, το γουόν Νότιας Κορέας, το τουγκρίκ Μογγολίας και το ειδικό καλάθι νομισμάτων με δικαιώματα ανάληψης του Διεθνούς Νομισματικού Ταμείου — και σκοπεύει να αναπτύξει πρόσθετες επιλογές.

Το εγγενές token του Terra, το LUNA, χρησιμοποιείται για τη σταθεροποίηση της τιμής των stablecoin του πρωτοκόλλου. Οι κάτοχοι του LUNA μπορούν επίσης να υποβάλλουν και να ψηφίζουν προτάσεις διακυβέρνησης.

### Ποιοι είναι οι ιδρυτές του Terra;

Το Terra ιδρύθηκε τον Ιανουάριο του 2018 από τους Daniel Shin και Do Kwon. Οι δύο τους [σχεδίασαν](https://medium.com/kucoinexchange/kucoin-ama-series-terra-luna-full-transcript-a3019e664195) το έργο ως έναν τρόπο να προωθήσουν την ταχεία υιοθέτηση της τεχνολογίας blockchain και του [κρυπτονομίσματος](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-are-cryptocurrencies) μέσω της εστίασης στη σταθερότητα των τιμών και τη χρηστικότητα. Ο Kwon ανέλαβε τη θέση του Διευθύνοντος Συμβούλου της Terraform Labs, της εταιρείας που βρίσκεται πίσω από το Terra.

Πριν από την ανάπτυξη του Terra, ο Shin [ήταν συνιδρυτής](https://www.inc.com/magazine/201112/the-returnees.html) και επικεφαλής του Ticket Monster, γνωστού και ως TMON - μιας κορυφαίας πλατφόρμας ηλεκτρονικού εμπορίου της Νότιας Κορέας. Αργότερα [συνίδρυσε](https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2020/03/133_162546.html) τη Fast Track Asia, ένα φυτώριο νεοφυών επιχειρήσεων που συνεργάζεται με επιχειρηματίες για τη δημιουργία πλήρως λειτουργικών εταιρειών.

Ο Kwon ίδρυσε και υπηρέτησε ως Διευθύνων Σύμβουλος της Anyfi, μιας startup που παρέχει αποκεντρωμένες λύσεις ασύρματης δικτύωσης. Έχει επίσης εργαστεί ως μηχανικός λογισμικού για τη Microsoft και την Apple.

### Τι Κάνει το Terra Μοναδικό;

Το Terra επιδιώκει να ξεχωρίσει μέσω της χρήσης stablecoin συνδεδεμένων με παραστατικά νομίσματα, δηλώνοντας ότι συνδυάζει τα πλεονεκτήματα των κρυπτονομισμάτων με την καθημερινή σταθερότητα τιμών των παραστατικών νομισμάτων. Διατηρεί το δεσμό του ενός προς ένα μέσω ενός αλγορίθμου που προσαρμόζει αυτόματα την προσφορά stablecoin με βάση τη ζήτησή του. Αυτό επιτυγχάνεται παροτρύνοντας τους κατόχους του LUNA να ανταλλάξουν LUNA και stablecoin σε κερδοφόρες συναλλαγματικές ισοτιμίες, ανάλογα με τις ανάγκες, είτε για να επεκτείνουν είτε για να συρρικνώσουν την προσφορά stablecoin ώστε να ανταποκρίνεται στη ζήτηση.

Το Terra έχει μια σειρά από συνεργασίες με πλατφόρμες πληρωμών, ιδιαίτερα στην περιοχή Ασίας-Ειρηνικού. Τον Ιούλιο του 2019, το Terra [ανακοίνωσε](https://medium.com/terra-money/terra-partners-with-mobile-payment-app-chai-29c593f0a364) μια συνεργασία με την Chai, μια εφαρμογή πληρωμών μέσω κινητού με έδρα τη Νότια Κορέα, στην οποία οι αγορές που πραγματοποιούνται χρησιμοποιώντας την εφαρμογή σε πλατφόρμες ηλεκτρονικού εμπορίου διεκπεραιώνονται μέσω του δικτύου blockchain Terra. Κάθε συναλλαγή υπόκειται (κατά μέσο όρο) σε προμήθεια 2%–3% που χρεώνεται στον έμπορο.

Επιπλέον, το Terra υποστηρίζεται από την Terra Alliance, μια ομάδα επιχειρήσεων και πλατφορμών που προωθούν την υιοθέτηση του Terra. Τον Φεβρουάριο του 2019, η εταιρεία [ανακοίνωσε](https://medium.com/terra-money/state-of-the-terra-alliance-d7f3ff8f6411) ότι πλατφόρμες ηλεκτρονικού εμπορίου από 10 διαφορετικές χώρες, που αντιπροσωπεύουν μια βάση χρηστών 45 εκατομμυρίων και μια ακαθάριστη αξία εμπορευμάτων 25 δισεκατομμυρίων δολαρίων, ήταν μέλη της συμμαχίας.

#### Σχετικές σελίδες:

Μάθε για το [Tether](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/currencies/tether/), το πιο δημοφιλές stablecoin κατά κεφαλαιοποίηση αγοράς.

Μάθε για το [Zilliqa](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/currencies/zilliqa/), ένα άλλο έργο κρυπτονομισμάτων που επιδιώκει να φέρει επανάσταση στον τομέα των πληρωμών.

Θέλεις να κατανοήσεις καλύτερα τα stablecoin; Διάβασε έναν [αναλυτικό οδηγό](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-a-stablecoin) στο Alexandria, το διαδικτυακό εκπαιδευτικό βοήθημα του CoinMarketCap.

Μείνε ενημερωμένος για τους τρόπους με τους οποίους τα stablecoin αλλάζουν τον κλάδο των πληρωμών με το [Blog του CoinMarketCap](https://blog.coinmarketcap.com/).

### Πόσα νομίσματα Terra (LUNA) υπάρχουν σε κυκλοφορία;

Το Terra έχει προσφορά 1 δισεκατομμυρίο token. Εάν ξεπεραστεί αυτός ο αριθμός, το LUNA καίγεται μέχρι να επιστρέψει στο επίπεδο ισορροπίας. Νέα token LUNA κόβονται μέσω του αλγόριθμου του πρωτοκόλλου, όπως απαιτείται, προκειμένου να διατηρηθεί η τιμή των stablecoin Terra.

Το LUNA διατέθηκε για πρώτη φορά για αγορά σε μια ιδιωτική πώληση token για αρχικούς επενδυτές, η οποία περιελάμβανε τους επενδυτικούς κλάδους μεγάλων χρηματιστηρίων όπως το [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/exchanges/binance/), το [OKEx](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/exchanges/okex/) και το [Huobi](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/exchanges/huobi-global/). Η πώληση ολοκληρώθηκε τον Αύγουστο του 2018 και ως αποτέλεσμα, το Terra [συγκέντρωσε](https://apnews.com/press-release/pr-businesswire/17b21abbc037464a94c721b9a60587f2) 32 εκατομμύρια δολάρια. Από τα 385.245.974 LUNA που κόπηκαν για πώληση, το 10% [προοριζόταν](https://huobiglobal.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/900001917543-LUNA-Terra-Introduction) για την Terraform Labs, 20% για υπαλλήλους και συνεργάτες του έργου, 20% για την Terra Alliance, 20% για αποθεματικά σταθερότητας τιμών, 26% για υποστηρικτές του έργου και 4% για ρευστότητα εκκίνησης.

### Πώς διασφαλίζεται το δίκτυο Cardano;

Το blockchain Terra διασφαλίζεται χρησιμοποιώντας έναν αλγόριθμο [συναίνεσης](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/consensus) [απόδειξης συμμετοχής](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake) που βασίζεται στο Tendermint, στον οποίο οι κάτοχοι token LUNA [ποντάρουν](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/staking) τα token τους ως εγγύηση για την επικύρωση των συναλλαγών, λαμβάνοντας ανταμοιβές ανάλογα με το ποσό των LUNA με τα οποία συμμετέχουν. Οι κάτοχοι token μπορούν επίσης να αναθέσουν σε άλλους να επικυρώσουν τις συναλλαγές για λογαριασμό τους, μοιράζοντας τυχόν έσοδα που προκύπτουν. Το Terra [προσφέρει](https://docs.terra.money/validator/security.html) επίσης πρόσθετη καθοδήγηση στους κόμβους επικύρωσης σχετικά με τις βέλτιστες πρακτικές που βοηθούν στη διατήρηση της ασφάλειας του δικτύου.

Τον Μάιο του 2019, λίγο μετά την έναρξη λειτουργίας του κεντρικού δικτύου του Terra, η εταιρεία επαλήθευσης blockchain και ελέγχου διείσδυσης CertiK [ολοκλήρωσε](https://medium.com/certik/certik-has-completed-a-security-audit-for-terra-project-e91fb81c371b) έναν έλεγχο ασφαλείας του δικτύου. Εξέτασε το οικονομικό του μοντέλο, την αρχιτεκτονική του και τη γλώσσα κωδικοποίησης του για να τα ελέγξει σε θέματα χειραγώγησης της αγοράς. Η CertiK διαπίστωσε ότι η «μοντελοποίηση και η μαθηματική λογική» του δικτύου Terra «θεωρούνταν υγιείς», αν και δεν σχολίασε την απόδοση του blockchain.

### Πού Μπορείς να Αγοράσεις Terra (LUNA);

Το εγγενές token του Terra, το LUNA, είναι εισηγμένο σε πολλά χρηματιστήρια κρυπτονομισμάτων — συμπεριλαμβανομένων των [Huobi](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/exchanges/huobi-global/), [Bitfinex](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/exchanges/bitfinex/) και [Upbit](https://coinmarketcap.com/el/exchanges/upbit/) — όπου είναι διαθέσιμο για διαπραγμάτευση έναντι παραστατικών νομισμάτων, stablecoin και άλλων κρυπτονομισμάτων.

Ενδιαφέρεσαι για την αγορά LUNA ή άλλων κρυπτονομισμάτων όπως το Bitcoin; Το CoinMarketCap έχει έναν απλό, βήμα προς βήμα οδηγό για να σου μάθει τα πάντα για τα κρυπτονομίσματα και το πώς να τα αγοράσεις.

Bitcoin Halving History: A Look Back in Time

The Story of Crypto & CoinMarketCap: How Far We’ve Come

What Makes Bull Market Winners So Successful?

New York Charges Do Kwon with Fraud — Hours After His Arrest

CoinMarketCap News, Mar 23: After Months on the Run, Do Kwon is in Custody

Terra Classic

Ledger

Trezor

Trust Wallet

Math Wallet

Terra Wallet

MetaMask

Binance Chain Wallet

SolFlare

Backpack

Phantom

Welcome to Terra Classic's Community channel aggregated by CoinMarketCap.

Anchor Protocol

SHIB is a decentralized, community-led currency held by millions across the globe. Since its inception in late 2020, the Ethereum-based SHIB token has grown to become a worldwide phenomenon, and is now accepted as a form of payment at hundreds of locations, either directly or through third-party intermediaries.

Shiba Inu coin was created anonymously in August 2020 under the pseudonym "Ryoshi." Ryoshi says about himself that he is a nobody and not important and that the efforts to unmask his identity, even if successful, would be underwhelming.

This meme coin quickly gained speed and value as a community of investors was drawn in by the cute charm of the coin paired with headlines and tweets from personalities like Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin.

Since release SHIB now trades on the ecosystem's proprietary DEX, ShibaSwap.

Shiba Inu

Cardano is a proof-of-stake blockchain platform that says its goal is to allow “changemakers, innovators and visionaries” to bring about positive global change.

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

The open-source project also aims to “redistribute power from unaccountable structures to the margins to individuals” — helping to create a society that is more secure, transparent and fair.

Cardano was founded back in 2017, and named after the 16th century Italian polymath Gerolamo Cardano. The native ADA token takes its name from the 19th century mathematician Ada Lovelace, widely regarded as the world’s first computer programmer. The ADA token is designed to ensure that owners can participate in the operation of the network. Because of this, those who hold the cryptocurrency have the right to vote on any proposed changes to the software.

The team behind the layered blockchain say that there have already been some compelling use cases for its technology, which aims to allow decentralized apps and smart contracts to be developed with modularity.

In August 2021, Charles Hoskinson announced the launch of the Alonzo hard fork, causing Cardano price to surge, gaining 116% in the following month. On Sept. 12, 2021, the Cardano ‘Alonzo’ hard fork officially launched, bringing smart contract functionality to the blockchain. Over 100 smart contracts were deployed in the following 24 hours after the launch.

Cardano is used by agricultural companies to track fresh produce from field to fork, while other products built on the platform allow educational credentials to be stored in a tamper-proof way, and retailers to clamp down on counterfeit goods.

Cardano

Terra (LUNA) is a public blockchain protocol that emerged from Terra Classic. Terra Classic is home to the algorithmic stablecoin TerraClassicUSD (UST). It's now-renamed LUNC token collateralized UST, which crashed in a bank run in May 2022. That devalued LUNA to virtually zero and caused a launch of a new chain — resulting in Terra Classic and Terra. Read a full breakdown of the Terra crash here.

The development of Terra Classic launched in January 2018 and the blockchain launched in April 2019. It attempted to combine the price stability and wide adoption of fiat currencies with the censorship-resistance of Bitcoin (BTC) and offer fast and affordable settlements through its UST stablecoin. Terra Classic offered stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar, South Korean won, Mongolian tugrik, and the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights basket of currencies.

The new Terra blockchain continues the legacy of Terra Classic without the UST stablecoin. It will keep building with the help of the LUNA community dubbed “LUNAtics” and evolve the world-class UX and UI that brought Terra Classic up to second place in total value locked (TVL) at its peak. Many DApps have agreed to migrate to Terra to continue their functionality.

Terra

Polygon (previously Matic Network) is the first well-structured, easy-to-use platform for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development. Its core component is Polygon SDK, a modular, flexible framework that supports building multiple types of applications.

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

Using Polygon, one can create optimistic rollup chains, ZK rollup chains, stand alone chains or any other kind of infra required by the developer.

Polygon effectively transforms Ethereum into a full-fledged multi-chain system (aka Internet of Blockchains). This multi-chain system is akin to other ones such as Polkadot, Cosmos, Avalanche etc. with the advantages of Ethereum’s security, vibrant ecosystem and openness.

The $MATIC token will continue to exist and will play an increasingly important role, securing the system and enabling governance.

Polygon (formerly Matic Network) is a Layer 2 scaling solution backed by Binance and Coinbase. The project seeks to stimulate mass adoption of cryptocurrencies by resolving the problems of scalability on many blockchains.

Polygon combines the Plasma Framework and the proof-of-stake blockchain architecture. The Plasma framework used by Polygon as proposed by the co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, allows for the easy execution of scalable and autonomous smart contracts.

Nothing will change for the existing ecosystem built on the Plasma-POS chain. With Polygon, new features are being built around the existing proven technology to expand the ability to cater to diverse needs from the developer ecosystem. Polygon will continue to develop the core technology so that it can scale to a larger ecosystem.

Polygon boasts of up to 65,000 transactions per second on a single side chain, along with a respectable block confirmation time of less than two seconds. The framework also allows for the creation of globally available decentralized financial applications on a single foundational blockchain.

The Plasma framework gives Polygon the potential of housing an unlimited number of decentralized applications on their infrastructure without experiencing the normal drawbacks common on proof-of-work blockchains. So far, Polygon has attracted more than 50 DApps to its PoS-secured Ethereum sidechain.

MATIC, the native tokens of Polygon, is an ERC-20 token running on the Ethereum blockchain. The tokens are used for payment services on Polygon and as a settlement currency between users who operate within the Polygon ecosystem. The transaction fees on Polygon sidechains are also paid in MATIC tokens.

Polygon

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

Solana is a highly functional open source project that banks on blockchain technology’s permissionless nature to provide decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions. While the idea and initial work on the project began in 2017, Solana was officially launched in March 2020 by the Solana Foundation with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

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

The Solana protocol is designed to facilitate decentralized app (DApp) creation. It aims to improve scalability by introducing a proof-of-history (PoH) consensus combined with the underlying proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus of the blockchain.

Because of the innovative hybrid consensus model, Solana enjoys interest from small-time traders and institutional traders alike. A significant focus for the Solana Foundation is to make decentralized finance accessible on a larger scale.

Solana

Launched in 2021, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is an open-source, permissionless and decentralized technology. Benefits of the XRP Ledger include its low-cost ($0.0002 to transact), speed  (settling transactions in 3-5 seconds), scalability (1,500 transactions per second) and inherently green attributes (carbon-neutral and energy-efficient). The XRP Ledger also features the first decentralized exchange (DEX) and custom tokenization capabilities built into the protocol. Since 2012, the XRP Ledger has been operating reliably, having closed 70 million ledgers.

Polkadot is an open-source sharded multichain protocol that connects and secures a network of specialized blockchains, facilitating cross-chain transfer of any data or asset types, not just tokens, thereby allowing blockchains to be interoperable with each other. Polkadot was designed to provide a foundation for a decentralized internet of blockchains, also known as Web3.

Polkadot is known as a layer-0 metaprotocol because it underlies and describes a format for a network of layer 1 blockchains known as parachains (parallel chains). As a metaprotocol, Polkadot is also capable of autonomously and forklessly updating its own codebase via on-chain governance according to the will of its token holder community.

Polkadot provides a foundation to support a decentralized web, controlled by its users, and to simplify the creation of new applications, institutions and services.

The Polkadot protocol can connect public and private chains, permissionless networks, oracles and future technologies, allowing these independent blockchains to trustlessly share information and transactions through the Polkadot Relay Chain (explained further down).

Polkadot’s native DOT token serves three clear purposes: staking for operations and security, facilitating network governance, and bonding tokens to  connect parachains .

Polkadot has four core components:

Relay Chain: Polkadot’s “heart,” helping to create consensus, interoperability and shared security across the network of different chains;

Parachains: independent chains that can have their own tokens and be optimized for specific use cases;

Parathreads: similar to parachains but with flexible connectivity based on an economical pay-as-you-go model;

Bridges: allow parachains and parathreads to connect and communicate with external blockchains like Ethereum.

Polkadot

Avalanche is a layer one blockchain that functions as a platform for decentralized applications and custom blockchain networks. It is one of Ethereum’s rivals, aiming to unseat Ethereum as the most popular blockchain for smart contracts. It aims to do so by having a higher transaction output of up to 6,500 transactions per second while not compromising scalability.

This is made possible by Avalanche’s unique architecture. The Avalanche network consists of three individual blockchains: the X-Chain, C-Chain and P-Chain. Each chain has a distinct purpose, which is radically different from the approach Bitcoin and Ethereum use, namely having all nodes validate all transactions. Avalanche blockchains even use different consensus mechanisms based on their use cases.

After its mainnet launch in 2020, Avalanche has worked on developing its own ecosystem of DApps and DeFi. Different Ethereum-based projects such as SushiSwap and TrueUSD have integrated with Avalanche. Furthermore, the platform is constantly working on improving interoperability between its own ecosystem and Ethereum, like through the development of bridges.

Avalanche

Dogecoin (DOGE) is based on the popular "doge" Internet meme and features a Shiba Inu on its logo. The open-source digital currency was created by Billy Markus from Portland, Oregon and Jackson Palmer from Sydney, Australia, and was forked from Litecoin in December 2013. Dogecoin's creators envisaged it as a fun, light-hearted cryptocurrency that would have greater appeal beyond the core Bitcoin audience, since it was based on a dog meme. Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted several tweets on social media that Dogecoin is his favorite coin.

Dogecoin

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

Bitcoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency originally described in a 2008 whitepaper by a person, or group of people, using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto. It was launched soon after, in January 2009.

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer online currency, meaning that all transactions happen directly between equal, independent network participants, without the need for any intermediary to permit or facilitate them. Bitcoin was created, according to Nakamoto’s own words, to allow “online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.”

Some concepts for a similar type of a decentralized electronic currency precede BTC, but Bitcoin holds the distinction of being the first-ever cryptocurrency to come into actual use.

Bitcoin

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

Ethereum is a decentralized open-source blockchain system that features its own cryptocurrency, Ether. ETH works as a platform for numerous other cryptocurrencies, as well as for the execution of decentralized smart contracts.

Ethereum was first described in a 2013 whitepaper by Vitalik Buterin. Buterin, along with other co-founders, secured funding for the project in an online public crowd sale in the summer of 2014. The project team managed to raise $18.3 million in Bitcoin, and Ethereum’s price in the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) was $0.311, with over 60 million Ether sold. Taking Ethereum’s price now, this puts the return on investment (ROI) at an annualized rate of over 270%, essentially almost quadrupling your investment every year since the summer of 2014.

The Ethereum Foundation officially launched the blockchain on July 30, 2015, under the prototype codenamed “Frontier.” Since then, there has been several network updates — “Constantinople” on Feb. 28, 2019, “Istanbul” on Dec. 8, 2019, “Muir Glacier” on Jan. 2, 2020, “Berlin” on April 14, 2021, and most recently on Aug. 5, 2021, the “London” hard fork.

Ethereum’s own purported goal is to become a global platform for decentralized applications, allowing users from all over the world to write and run software that is resistant to censorship, downtime and fraud.

Ethereum

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

Launched in July 2017, Binance is the biggest cryptocurrency exchange globally based on daily trading volume. Binance aims to bring cryptocurrency exchanges to the forefront of financial activity globally. The idea behind Binance’s name is to show this new paradigm in global finance — Binary Finance, or Binance.

Aside from being the largest cryptocurrency exchange globally, Binance has launched a whole ecosystem of functionalities for its users. The Binance network includes the Binance Chain, Binance Smart Chain, Binance Academy, Trust Wallet and Research projects, which all employ the powers of blockchain technology to bring new-age finance to the world. BNB is an integral part of the successful functioning of many of the Binance sub-projects.

Cronos (CRO) is the native cryptocurrency token of Cronos Chain — a decentralized, open-source blockchain developed by the Crypto.com payment, trading and financial services company.

Cronos Chain is one of the products in Crypto.com’s lineup of solutions designed to accelerate the global adoption of cryptocurrencies as a means of increasing personal control over money, safeguarding user data and protecting users’ identities. The CRO blockchain serves primarily as a vehicle that powers the Crypto.com Pay mobile payments app.

In the future, Crypto.com plans to expand the reach of the CRO platform to power its other products as well.

CRO went live in November-December 2018.

Cronos

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

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

TerraUSD (UST) is the decentralized and algorithmicstablecoin of the Terra blockchain. It is a scalable, yield-bearing coin that is value-pegged to the US Dollar. TerraUSD was created to deliver value to the Terra community and offer a scalable solution forDeFi amid severe scalability problems faced by other stablecoin leaders likeDai. Thus, TerraUSD promises users a higher level of scalability, interest rate accuracy, and interchain usage.

TerraUSD provides several benefits that have made it a stand-out stablecoin competitor. Due to its minting mechanism, UST meets the requirements of DeFi protocols that it uses without losing scalability. UST can also be easily added to crypto wallets by simply integrating TerraUSD as a payment method. Another area where TerraUSD has shown its power isDApps. For example, platforms that mint fungible synthetic assets and track real-life asset prices use UST as a pricing benchmark.

TerraUSD (UST) was launched in September 2020 (in collaboration with Bittrex Global) and has since gained the reputation as the most scalable stablecoin. UST can be used in conjunction withLUNA, Terra's non-stablecoin crypto, or as a standalone token.