## What Is Aion (AION)?

Aion is the token used to secure and access The Open Application Network (OAN). Launched in 2018 in Canada, The OAN is a public network available to everyone. Managed by The Open Foundation, a registered not-for-profit organization, OAN aims to give the public an environment to create Open Apps.

The main purpose of The OAN is to facilitate interoperability between different blockchains, thus allowing users and developers to create a variety of applications. By making the AION token the core of the network, OAN enables users to execute [smart contracts](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/smart-contract), store data, and share it between different networks.


### Who Are the Founders of Aion?

The Open Application Network is run by CEO [Matthew Spoke](https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewspoke/) and COO [Ian Chan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianchanmoves/). Matthew Spoke is a University of Ottawa graduate and has worked for several blockchain-centric enterprises. He is also the founder of the Blockchain Technology Coalition of Canada. Spoke is also a founding member of Nuco, an enterprise [blockchain](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/blockchain) network solution. In 2020, he started working on Moves, an app designed to stimulate the booming gig economy. 

Ian Chan serves as the COO of OAN. He has several degrees from universities including Harvard and the University of Toronto. Specializing in growth mechanisms for the financial industry, Chan has had a wide array of professional experience. In 1998, he became the senior vice-president of the Thomas Cook Group. Later, he moved on to working at Hewlett Packard, and in 2005 he joined Deloitte. Since 2018, he has been focusing on developing The OAN.


#### What Makes Aion Unique?

The Open Application Network is a disrupting factor in the world of cryptocurrency, as it aims to bridge the gap between different blockchains. The AION token is essentially designed to allow developers and buyers to transfer from one blockchain to the other easily. Not only that, but AION provides for the execution of data transfers and smart contracts on blockchains like [Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/) and [NEO](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/neo/).

The lack of interoperability between blockchains is still one of the factors preventing the technology from entering the mainstream financial world. AION aims to create a platform that will effectively be able to replace the current way banks are running global finance. The OAN has already partnered with numerous big names in the industry like CryptoCurve, Nodesmith and BlockX Labs. Not only that, but AION is a member of the Blockchain Interoperability Alliance.


#### Related Pages:

Read more about [Akropolis](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/akropolis/).

Find out more about [Synthetix Network Token](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/synthetix-network-token/).

Learn more about [altcoins](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/altcoin).

Have a look at the [CoinMarketCap blog](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/categories/blog).


#### How Many Aion (AION) Coins Are There in Circulation?

There is a total supply of 487,496,874 AION tokens. Currently, all of the total supply has entered the market and is actively being traded. There is no information on whether OAN plans to release more tokens in the future or if the current total supply will also be the maximum supply for AION. 

Founders and other team members received about 40% of the total supply of AION tokens. Another 51.5% of AION tokens were directed towards Token Release Schedule Contracts, which will be gradually made available to the public over time. Finally, the remaining 8.5% of tokens were distributed among private investors interested in the seed phase of AION’s launch. 


### How Is the Aion Network Secured?

The OAN blockchain and AION token are secured by a combination of delegated proof-of-stake ([DPoS](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/delegated-proof-of-stake-dpos)) and proof-of-importance (PoI) consensus methods. One important characteristic of the blockchain is that it relies on a Byzantine Fault Tolerance for additional security. 

DPoS is a relatively new consensus mechanism, which relies on stakeholders for the validation of new blocks, and thus, the creation of new tokens. Unlike the [proof-of-work](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake) (PoW) consensus, which requires a lot of computing and electrical power for the mining process, PoS consensus mechanisms are more scalable and environmentally friendly. By placing importance on the number of coins staked. 


### Where Can You Buy Aion (AION)?

You can purchase AION tokens on several of the largest exchanges. 

[Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/) has the largest processed volume of AION/USD transactions at $8,419,408 as of February 2021. Other options for trading AION include [Bitrue](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/bitrue/), [Bithumb](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/bithumb/), and [Bitvavo](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/bitvavo/). 

[Read more](https://coinmarketcap.com/how-to-buy-bitcoin/) on buying crypto.


Aion

BitShares Blockchain is a decentralized “Blockchain as Organization” (BaO); an industrial-grade decentralized open source platform built to run high-performance financial technology operations. It represents the first decentralized autonomous decentralized community that enables its core utility token (BTS) holders to decide the Blockchain future direction in order to develop and maintain a wide range of decentralized financial technology products, features and functions. BitShares Blockchain is a Blockchain that permanently records financial technology operations between different Blockchain accounts and facilitates a wide range of access controls across BitShares Blockchain user financial means.

BitShares Blockchain is a technology that supports the digital generation entrepreneurs, investors, and developers with a common interest in building and participating in free market solutions by leveraging the power of globally decentralized consensus and decision making. Consensus technology has the power to do for economics what the internet did for information. It can harness the combined power of all humanity to coordinate the discovery and aggregation of real-time knowledge, previously unobtainable. This knowledge can be used to more effectively coordinate the allocation of resources toward their most productive and valuable use.

BitShares looks to extend the innovation of the Blockchain to all industries that rely upon the internet to provide their services. Whether its banking, stock exchanges, lotteries, voting, music, auctions or many others, a digital public ledger allows for the creation of distributed autonomous companies (or BaO) that provide better quality services at a fraction of the cost incurred by their more traditional, centralized counterparts. The advent of (BaO) ushers in a new paradigm in organizational structure in which companies can run without any human management and under the control of an incorruptible set of business rules. These rules are encoded in publicly auditable open source software distributed across the computers of the companies’ shareholders, who effortlessly secure the company from arbitrary control. BitShares does for business what bitcoin did for money by utilizing distributed consensus technology to create companies that are inherently global, transparent, trustworthy, efficient and most importantly profitable.

BitShares has went through many changes and has done its best to stay on top of Blockchain technology. BitShares is using Consensus as the mechanism by which organized people decide upon unitary rational action. While not considered technology in the traditional since, consensus “technology” is the basis of democratic governance and the coordination of free market activity first coined by Adam Smith as the “Invisible Hand.” The process of consensus decision-making allows for all participants to consent upon a resolution of action even if not the favored course of action for each individual participant. Bitcoin was the first system to integrate a fully decentralized consensus method with the modern technology of the internet and peer-to-peer networks in order to more efficiently facilitate the transfer of value through electronic communication. The proof-of-work structure that secures and maintains the Bitcoin network is one manner of organizing individuals who do not necessarily trust one another to act in the best interest of all participants of the network. The BitShares ecosystem employs Delegated Proof of Stake in order to find efficient solutions to distributed consensus decision making.

BitShares

Firo (FIRO), formerly known as Zcoin, is a cryptocurrency that focuses on being private digital cash. It created the Lelantus privacy protocol which allows users to burn their coins and redeem them later for brand new ones that do not have any transaction history.

Prior to Lelantus, it was also the first cryptocurrency to code and launch a practical implementation of the Zerocoin protocol which became one of the most prevalent privacy protocols in use, prior to it being replaced by Sigma and then Lelantus after cryptographic flaws were discovered in the Zerocoin protocol in 2019.

Firo

Ardor

Hifi (formerly Mainframe) is a Lending Protocol that allows anyone to borrow against their crypto. Hifi uses a bond-like instrument, representing an on-chain obligation that settles on a specific future date. Buying and selling the tokenized debt enables fixed-rate, fixed term lending and borrowing — something much needed in decentralized finance today. It is anticipated that a ticker symbol change will occur alongside future iterations on the Hifi Lending Protocol.

Mainframe Token (MFT) is the native utility token that is used for:

Governance votes

Staking to ensure the safety of the protocol

Rewarding contributors to the ecosystem

What can you do with the Hifi Lending Protocol:

Borrow:  Lock collateral in a vault to mint fixed-rate, fixed-term debt tokens.  These debt tokens can be swapped for instant liquidity allowing users to leverage long, yield farm, or pursue other strategic trades without selling their collateral tokens.

Lend:  Buy fixed-rate, fixed-term debt tokens for a discount.  When the term expires they can be redeemed for face value, earning lenders a predictable return on their investment.

Provide Liquidity:  Earn trading fees by providing liquidity between debt tokens and stablecoins on an Automated Market Maker (AMM).

Mainframe

Dock is building a gateway to Web3 by providing simple solutions for businesses and developers to build, manage, and present digital Verifiable Credentials and decentralized identities using blockchain.

Dock provides credentialing technology that can be used to create cryptographically secure and instantly verifiable digital credentials, including workforce certificates, academic achievements, identity documents, and KYC checks.

Since 2017, Dock has been building Decentralized Identity and Verifiable Credentials (VC) technology, which will act as a gateway to Web3 in the future. We have been collaborating with organizations to adapt and innovate in the Web3 ecosystem by helping them understand the true ownership of their data and making their documents, certificates, and credentials become digital, tamper-proof, and instantly verifiable. Web3 is about data ownership and by using Dock’s technology, individuals can now truly own and control their most important documents and regain control over their data.

Dock

Komodo

Steem is a community-focused blockchain that creates an instant earning opportunity for the network’s users. The protocol is designed to provide an earning opportunity for customers based on their value to the network. It is designed to provide users with a platform where they can post curated content online, and get paid in cryptocurrency.

The protocol is a publicly available, incentivized blockchain database that allows users to interact with each other and earn in return. It leverages technologies from both social media and cryptocurrency to provide users with value. The network ensures the fair treatment of contributors by running a reward structure that reflects each user’s contribution.

Steemit is the first app that was built on the Steem blockchain, and it launched on July 4, 2016. The protocol aims to provide value for its community of users in the following ways:

To provide thoughtfully chosen news and commentaries.

Creating an opportunity to earn.

As a source that offers answers to users’ inquiries.

Offering a stable cryptocurrency pegged to the USD.

Steem

Apps use ICON to operate cross-chain seamlessly, build momentum and gain reputation. ICON's Cross-Chain Framework simplifies cross-chain development with its easy-to-use xCall messaging standard and connections to secure bridging protocols.

ICON

Lisk is striving to on-board 100,000,000 users into crypto and web3 by offering an accessible blockchain application platform and an industry leading JavaScript SDK.

Released in 2019, the Lisk SDK enables developers to build application-specific blockchains entirely in JavaScript, the most widely used programming language in the world. To get a deep-dive into the Lisk SDK, please visit the Lisk SDK documentation or watch Lisk.js 2019 and Lisk.js 2022.

To be released in 2022, the Lisk blockchain application platform allows interoperability between all application-specific blockchains built with the Lisk SDK. With other words, users will be able to use DeFi, NFT or Metaverse blockchain applications on Lisk.

To better understand why Lisk is important watch the following videos: The Case for Lisk and The Ultimate Vision for Lisk.

If you are curious about Lisk’s history and journey, watch Looking Back on Lisk.

The Lisk project is managed by the Lisk Foundation, a non-profit entity based in Zug, Switzerland. A local team of experts specialized in law and finance, as well as yearly audits, ensure the proper handling of funds and regulatory compliance under the supervision of the Swiss Federal Foundation Supervisory Authority (ESA, Eidgenössische Stiftungsaufsicht).

The Lisk products are developed by the Lightcurve GmbH, a Berlin based blockchain studio. With a team of over 40 blockchain experts, Lightcurve is researching, developing and promoting the Lisk SDK and the Lisk blockchain application platform.

Lisk

Ontology is a project designed to bring trust, privacy, and security to Web3 through decentralized identity and data solutions. It is building the infrastructure to provide trusted access to Web3, allowing individuals and enterprises to rest assured that through regulatory compliant digital identity solutions, users and their privacy come first.

The Ontology blockchain is a high speed, low cost public blockchain. It is designed to bring decentralized identity and data solutions to Web3, with the goal of increasing privacy, transparency, and trust. To achieve this, users and enterprises are provided with the flexibility to build blockchain-based solutions that suit their needs, while also ensuring regulatory compliance. Through Ontology’s Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), Ontology ensures frictionless compatibility with Ethereum, the first step in the creation of the Ontology Multi-Virtual Machine and further interoperability for the chain.

At its launch, Ontology chose to forego the popular initial coin offering (ICO) model in favor of a series of community distributions and airdrops of its ONT cryptocurrency.

This helped to quickly establish both organic price discovery and a passionate community and helped the project to avoid subsequent regulatory scrutiny.

For example, for a brief period any person who signed up for the Ontology newsletter received an airdrop of free 1,000 ONT, which reached a value of $10 per token soon after the token became listed on major exchanges like Binance.

Ontology launched its own MainNet on June 30, 2018 and has been up and running smoothly since.

Ontology

NULS

Vite has built a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) based smart-contract platform, with a Snapshot Chain structure to facilitate zero-fee transactions and optimize transaction speed, reliability, and security. The Snapshot Chain of Vite utilizes Hierarchical Delegated Proof of Stake (“HDPoS”) to achieve network consensus, while supernodes take only staking rewards and no transaction fees. Vite virtual machine maintains compatibility with EVM, and utilizes asynchronous smart contract language, Solidity++.

The VITE token is the currency for simple token transactions and smart-contract executions on the Vite network, with users staking VITE for transaction quota instead of consuming gas. VITE can also be used to vote for Snapshot Block Producers (aka supernodes). In addition, a VITE staker with unused transaction quota can lease such quota to dApps in exchange for their tokens. For instance, users can stake VITE in exchange of ViteX’s native decentralized exchange token, VX.

Vite’s current products include a decentralized exchange (ViteX), a multi-purpose wallet application (Vite App), payments (VitePay), and government/enterprise blockchain applications (VitePlus):

ViteX is a decentralized exchange with on-chain orderbook and matching engine, and supports currently 20+ digital assets.

Vite App is a mobile application that allows trading (ViteX), asset management (wallet), dapps (e.g Vite-based games) in one place.

VitePay is a fast and feeless payment solution, currently available to use in Singapore’s Ce La Vi Sky Bar and taxi services under the Midwest Global network - Users can pay for merchants with Vite wallet, who in turn receive payment with zero fees with near-instant settlement. VitePay is also integrated with the e-commerce platform OpenCart, and one can utilize VitePay at the official Vite store.

VitePlus is a Vite-based enterprise blockchain solution for governments and enterprises. Vite has developed a pilot app, SyraCoin, for the Syracuse government, allowing city housing fund donors to receive blockchain-based coupons that are redeemable for goods and services within city bounds.

VITE

QuarkChain

Wanchain is a distributed ledger that allows for cross-chain transactions and the interoperability of multiple chains. Although Wanchain facilitates transactions between blockchains, it is also a stand-alone blockchain that runs autonomously. The protocol acts as a distributed ledger that processes and maintains records of cross-chain transactions.

Transactions on Wanchain do not only occur between different public blockchains but between private chains as well. As an Ethereum (ETH) fork, Wanchain enjoys some of the properties of the Ethereum blockchain. The protocol securely and autonomously processes applications via smart contracts.  The use cases for Wanchain include decentralized exchanges (DEXs), lending and borrowing platforms, stablecoins, crowdfunding, multi-currency payments and settlements.

The platform is totally decentralized and requires no custodian party to manage or confirm transactions. Unlike other cross-chain systems, Wanchain does not rely on a third-party platform to authenticate transactions. The locked account mechanism is used to secure and manage accounts on the network, eliminating third-party interferences.

Wanchain

Streamr (DATA) is an open source project and decentralized platform that relies on cryptography instead of trust. It is a P2P, real-time data infrastructure that houses a platform and tools for a new data economy. The technology stack includes a scalable real-time messaging network (pub/sub) hosted on computers worldwide, a marketplace for trading/selling data and a set of tools for working with real-time data.

Streamr (DATA) was crowdfunded in 2017. The main idea is to create decentralized infrastructure and data economy; the mission was formulated by the developers as “Unstoppable Data for Unstoppable Apps.” Streamr tokenizes the value of real-time information and makes it available on their marketplace and data unions. This is built for DApps, IoT devices and more, and they believe this is a crucial protocol for Web 3.0.

The tasks of Streamr DATA coin include creating a comfortable and prosperous information market, which is built on the basis of a data exchange network that is convenient and understandable for users. How it works: the decentralized pub/sub network is supported by nodes around the world, who earn DATA tokens in exchange for the bandwidth and validation they provide.

The competitive advantage lies in the fact that it is an off-chain network (for example, when compared to a similar IOTA service). Therefore, the risk that the project will face scalability and bandwidth issues is modest. The intention of the Streamr team is not to create some special blockchain, but to focus on the development of network optimization technologies. If Streamr lacks the capabilities of Ethereum, developers can always transfer the platform to another blockchain.

Streamr

NEM is a blockchain platform that was launched in March of 2015. It was one of the pioneers of the cryptocurrency industry, and sought to improve on the imperfections found on other chains at the time. It was one of the first non-turing complete chains to feature user-defined tokens (called mosaics), namespaces, multisignature accounts, and a P2P reputation system based on EigenTrust++. Its most notable contribution to the space is the proof-of-importance consensus mechanism, which sought to reward on-chain activity and deter the concentration of wealth commonly associated with proof-of-stake. Its client, NIS, is written in Java.

NEM has a global community. It sees the most utility as an alternative form of payment for businesses and vendors, and has a variety of social media apps built on top of it in Japan, such as nemgraph, a community-driven owned and operated alternative to Instagram.

In December 2021, NEM was hard forked by a pseudonymous team of cryptocurrency experts and enthusiasts alike. Titled Harlock, this hard fork signaled the community’s intent to take NEM from a shadow of its former self into the world’s leading payments platform for on-chain and off-chain media content.

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

IOST

Founded in 2015, StormX is one of the first global cryptocurrency-based solutions to reach worldwide markets. As a mobile app and browser extension, StormX aims to bring users cashback in crypto for most of their online purchases. With enterprise partners like Samsung, Nike and Lego. StormX also allows users to stake the native STMX token to boost their rewards.

The company has already attracted investments from Blockfolio, Litecoin Foundation and Kyber Network. StormX has successfully developed its product and has become an industry leader in the crypto cashback community. The company is also catching users’ attention by offering cashback of up to 87.5% for some purchases.

StormX

Qtum (pronounced ‘“quantum”)  is a proof-of-stake (PoS) smart contract open-source blockchain platform and value transfer protocol. It aims to bring together the strengths of Bitcoinand Ethereumin one chain. Qtum is built on Bitcoin's UTXO transaction model, with the added functionality of smart contract execution and DApps. Recently, the platform added support for DeFi applications. As of March 2021, there are more than 20 tokens created on the Qtum blockchain.

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

The project was announced in March 2016 and held an ICO a year after, in March 2017, which brought its founders $15 million USD. The Qtum main chain was released on Sept.13, 2017. Initially, the Qtum coin was issued as a ETH-20 token, but with the launch of the mainnet, it was converted to native blockchain.