## What Is Opium (OPIUM)?

Opium is a new platform for launching and trading cryptocurrency derivatives. 

Having begun operations in May 2020, Opium uses [Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/) to run a decentralized derivatives marketplace in which any cryptocurrency owner can participate.

The aim of the platform is to democratize access to financial derivatives while using the benefits that decentralization affords traders over legacy alternatives.

Opium’s in-house token, OPIUM, launched in January 2021 and will fulfil various roles mostly centered around platform governance. Active users will be able to vote on some of the most important decisions involved in the platform’s operations.


### Who Are the Founders of Opium?

Opium has a team involved in the creation of decentralized finance ([DeFi](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-decentralized-finance)) tools since 2017. These include three products built on top of the Opium protocol.

The platform’s CEO and co-founder is Andrey Belyakov. A member of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute, Belyakov’s experience lies in the professional derivative trading and fund management sectors, in which he has over 20 years’ experience with assets under management portfolios of €20 million and over. He has been involved in the cryptocurrency sector since 2015.

Arjan van der Kooij, Opium’s second co-founder, is a Dutch entrepreneur and private investor with a focus in IT and technology startups. 


#### What Makes Opium Unique?

Opium in its official whitepaper states that it aims to become the “Bloomberg of decentralized derivatives.”

Built on the Ethereum network, its platform allows anyone with a wallet to begin trading crypto derivatives and build and launch associated contracts. 

Begun before the DeFi movement appeared, a longer-term strategy has always been to attract traders away from traditional derivatives platforms. When the first [Bitcoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/) (BTC) derivatives launched in the form of futures in late 2017, the floodgates were opened, but it took a long time for genuine interest to soar and for derivatives to become part of the cryptocurrency landscape. Opium intends to speed up the process by democratizing entry. 

Trades on the Opium platform attract an optional derivative fee, which if implemented sees 90% go to the creator and 10% retained by Opium.

Future plans include the launch of a V2 exchange, as well as so-called Layer 2 functionality which will decrease the likelihood of users facing losses when Ethereum [gas fees](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/gas-price) become overly high. 


#### Related Pages:

Read more about Uniswap (UNI) [here](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/uniswap/).

Read more about Aave (AAVE) [here](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/aave/).

Learn more about crypto derivatives markets [here](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/derivatives-market) with Alexandria, CoinMarketCap’s dedicated education resource.

Interested in more information about crypto? Check out the [CoinMarketCap blog](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/categories/blog).


#### How Many Opium (OPIUM) Coins Are There in Circulation?

The in-house token of Opium is OPIUM. Built as an [ERC-20](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/erc-20) token on Ethereum, OPIUM will be released according to a specific roadmap after launch.

Out of a total supply of 100 million, 60% of the tokens will go towards an active users fund, with users themselves deciding how many tokens will be available for release at set intervals. Users will also decide on what level of engagement constitutes being “active.”

Another 16% of the supply will go towards investors and advisors with a broad two-year vesting schedule.

The remaining 24% will be split — 14% will go to the Opium team, while 10% will form a so-called Governance Reserve Fund, once again under the control of users via decentralized autonomous organization ([DAO](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-autonomous-organizations-dao)).


### How Is the Opium Network Secured?

Opium completed a professional independent audit of its operations using SmartDec, the results of which are publicly available online.

SmartDec offers a disclaimer that a single audit is not enough to be entirely certain of the security Opium’s code. 

For everyday users, standard risks include those involved with derivatives more broadly. Without due diligence and a suitable strategy, it is possible to lose large amounts of money very quickly during times of market volatility.

CoinMarketCap has a dedicated introduction to [crypto derivatives](https://coinmarketcap.com/derivatives/) which offers more information.


### Where Can You Buy Opium (OPIUM)?

OPIUM is not yet freely tradeable as of the time of writing this page (January 2021), as distribution has only just started. As of Jan. 28, 2021, OPIUM is available on Zerion. This situation will soon change and the information will be updated as the token becomes supported by more exchanges. 

If you’re still a cryptocurrency newbie, read our [easy guide to buying Bitcoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/how-to-buy-bitcoin/) or any other cryptocurrency. 

Opium

Trust Wallet

MetaMask

Ethereum

Shiba Inu

Chainlink

UNUS SED LEO

Uniswap

Tokoin

Don-key

404Aliens

BlockWallet

Furucombo

Gather

PERL.eco

Finblox

Freeway Token

PlotX

Dogecoin20

Gorilla In A Coupe

Wrapped TAO

Mars Battle

Fideum

dHedge DAO

saffron.finance

Carbon Protocol

Ampleforth is an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency with an algorithmically adjusted circulating supply. It is designed to be the base money of the new decentralized economy, by providing an asset that cannot be diluted by supply inflation and remains decoupled to the price action of other cryptocurrencies—and Bitcoin (BTC) in particular.

With Ampleforth, token holders own a fixed fraction of the total AMPL circulating supply, rather than a fixed number of tokens. When the protocol detects that the price of AMPL is too high, it increases the circulating supply, whereas the supply is decreased if the price is too low.

This change is propagated to all Ampleforth wallets, which have their wallet balance adjusted proportionally. Irrespective of this change, AMPL holders will still retain the same percentage of the token supply.

This automatic supply adjustment process is known as a “rebase” and occurs once each day, with a positive rebase if the price goes above $1.06, and a negative rebase if it is below $0.96. The overall goal of the system is to create incentives that drive the market price of AMPL back to ~$1.

Ampleforth

Frontier is a chain-agnostic decentralized finance (DeFi) aggregator. The project aims to add DeFi support to several blockchains, including BandChain (BAND), Ethereum (ETH), Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Harmony (ONE).

Frontier’s applications allow users to manage staking, DeFi positions, best-rate asset swapping, liquidity mining, and collateralized debt position (CDP) creation and monitoring.

In a nutshell, Frontier is bringing the core functions of DeFi to users, regardless of the platforms they use.

Frontier began development in April 2019, and the beta platform launched in November 2019.

Frontier

Handshake is a decentralized permissionless system that is intended to incentivize a distributed network of computers to operate a system for domain name ownership.

Under Handshake, every peer is tasked with validating and managing the root DNS naming zone, with the objective of providing an alternative to current certificate authorities and naming systems.

Different participants across the internet such as social networking handles and domains rely on a centralized approach. This means the systems depend on a system of honesty — and are still prone to cyber attacks and fraud.

Handshake aims to eradicate this problem by creating a decentralized internet that relies on a peer-to-peer system.

Handshake

ThunderCore

Rally

C.R.E.A.M Finance is a decentralized  DeFi lending protocol for individuals, institutions and protocols to access financial services. Part of the yearn.finance ecosystem, C.R.E.A.M. Finance is a permissionless, open source and blockchain agnostic protocol serving users on Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain Polygon and Fantom.

Users who are passively holding Ether or wBTC can deposit their assets on C.R.E.A.M. to earn yield, similar to a traditional savings account. For more information visit https://app.cream.finance/.

The C.R.E.A.M. Finance protocol was created as a Compound Finance fork.

C.R.E.A.M Finance is open-source, permissionless, blockchain-agnostic and offers yield farming rewards to its users in order to inclusively develop its network.

The project (which stands for Crypto Runs Everything Around Me) was launched unexpectedly on the Ethereum network on Aug. 3, 2020 through the YOLO liquidity pool. In September 2020 it went live on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC).

The CREAM token allows users to lend, borrow, stake assets and help govern the network, allowing them to vote on assets to support or delist.

Cream Finance

RARI

MixMarvel

Lympo

Vega Protocol provides the derivatives scaling layer for Web3. It is a custom-built proof-of-stake blockchain, which makes it possible to trade derivatives on a decentralised network with comparable experience to using a centralised exchange.

VEGA is the network governance and staking token. It is used for:

Voting on the creation of new markets on the network

Running validator nodes on the network via staking VEGA tokens

Earning fees from traders through staking and delegation

Governing important network parameters which ensure markets are secure and fair

Vega Protocol

DODO is a DeFi protocoldecentralized finance (DeFi) protocol and on-chain liquidity provider whose unique proactive market maker (PMM) algorithm aims to offer better liquidity and price stability than automated market makers (AMM).

The PMM pricing mechanism, which mimics human trading, utilizes oracles to gather highly accurate market prices for assets. It then provides enough liquidity close to these prices in order to stabilize the portfolios of liquidity providers (LP), lower price slippage and negate impermanent loss by allowing arbitrage trading as reward.

DODO also caters for new crypto projects with a free ICO listing through its Initial DODO Offering (IDO) which requires issuers to only deposit their own tokens.

DODO’s smart contract operates as an ERC20 token on the Ethereum network.

DODO

Stella is the leveraged strategies protocol with 0% cost to borrow. Stella’s mission is to redefine how leveraged DeFi works. DeFi needs a good leverage system in order to drive more usages on DEXes and money markets, the fundamental building blocks of DeFi. With growing usages on these fundamentals, more protocols and new innovations can arise and tap into the deep liquidity and robust foundation.

Stella strives to become the go-to destination for DeFi users to access maximum yield potential. Whatever on-chain strategies that users want to use on leverage (and safe enough to be supported), then Stella will support at 0% cost to borrow.

The protocol is made up of two parts: Stella Strategy and Stella Lend.

Stella Strategy: Users can access multiple selections of leveraged strategies with 0% borrowing interest for the first time and get yields on leverage.

Stella Lend: Lenders can lend assets to the lending pools on Stella and get real yields. Yields generated from Stella Strategy are shared to lenders.

Stella

MIR is the governance token of Mirror Protocol, a synthetic assets protocol built by Terraform Labs (TFL) on the Terra blockchain.

Mirror Protocol is decentralized from day 1, with the on-chain treasury and code changes governed by holders of the MIR token. TFL has no intention of keeping or selling MIR tokens, and there are no admin keys or special access privileges granted. The intent for this is to be a completely decentralized, community-driven project.

Mirrored assets are blockchain tokens that behave like "mirror" versions of real-world assets by reflecting the exchange prices on-chain. They give traders the price exposure to real assets while enabling fractional ownership, open access and censorship resistance as any other cryptocurrency. Unlike traditional tokens which serve to represent a real, underlying asset, mAssets are purely synthetic and only capture the price movement of the corresponding asset.

Mirrored assets provide the following advantages:

Global Accessibility: In most markets outside of Europe & North America, access to foreign equities and forex markets is highly limited. Crypto allows global accessibility without entry barriers.

Fractional Orders: In traditional finance, to execute a fractional order, multiple fractional orders are bundled together to execute a unitary transaction. The process of gathering all the orders into one requires additional waiting time. By utilizing the blockchain, orders volume is simply represented as a number on the blockchain, so there is no need for the intermediary bundling process.

Nearly-Instantaneous Order Execution: Oftentimes due to the lack of liquidity (price-time-priority order book algorithm), orders can take up to a day to fully execute. Given the fact that Mirror relies on liquidity provided by each individual asset pool, orders can be executed as fast as the blocktime of the network (~ 6 seconds).