Stratis [Old]

What Is Stratis (STRAX)?
------------------------

Stratis is a blockchain-as-a-service platform that offers several products and services for enterprises, including launching private sidechains, running full nodes, developing and deploying [smart contracts](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/smart-contract), an initial coin offering platform, and a proof-of-identity application. The company also provides [cryptocurrency](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-are-cryptocurrencies) wallets and [blockchain](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/blockchain) consulting services.

Stratis operates its own blockchain powered by a native token, STRAX, used to purchase and operate services such as executing smart contracts, paying for sidechains, and [staking](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/staking) as collateral to operate a Masternode --- a node on the network that provides a specific needed service.

The platform was first [announced](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1512202.0) in June 2016, and it [launched](https://twitter.com/stratisplatform/status/762773889546129409) in August 2016. In November 2020, Stratis [deployed](https://twitter.com/stratisplatform/status/1327045046378651649) a new blockchain that uses STRAX instead of its previous STRAT token.

## Who Are the Founders of Stratis?

Stratis Group Ltd., the company behind the Stratis platform, was founded in 2016 by Chris Trew. He started the company with the purpose of developing an enterprise-focused blockchain platform, which he [felt](https://aithority.com/interviews/ait-megamind/aithority-interview-with-chris-trew-ceo-at-stratis-group/) was missing from the industry at the time. He decided to base the platform on the [Bitcoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin) (BTC) protocol, believing that Bitcoin would become dominant in the crypto space --- meaning that its codebase would be consistently improved over time.

Before starting Stratis, Trew's background was in enterprise information technology. He [taught](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dspDl0qTUjk) himself the programming language C# and spent 10 years serving in various IT roles in the legal, aviation and public sectors as well as with financial institutions such as Barclays. He also [operated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BS50vABJnI) an internet marketing and search engine optimization business.

Within the crypto and blockchain industry, Trew [was](https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/news/meet-chris-trew-at-csharpcon18-keynote) a volunteer developer for the cryptocurrency project Blitz and social networking platform The Viral Exchange.

## What Makes Stratis Unique?

According to its [whitepaper](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/whitepaper), the Stratis BaaS platform is [designed](https://www.stratisplatform.com/files/Stratis_Whitepaper.pdf) for financial service providers and other enterprises to test, develop and deploy blockchain-based applications in a way that avoids the overhead and security concerns of operating their own networks. To do so, Stratis offers businesses the opportunity to run permissioned, private sidechains that interact with its primary chain, as well as to host [decentralized applications](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-applications-dapps), launch smart contracts and utilize various privacy and identity verification tools. Its whitepaper argues that this approach gives enterprises the freedom to completely customize their platforms without the limitations of relying on a major blockchain, such as Bitcoin or [Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum) (ETH).

Stratis has announced business partnerships with companies such as software giant [Microsoft](https://www.stratisplatform.com/2018/10/24/19803-2/), technology markets intelligence firm [International Data Corporation](https://www.stratisplatform.com/2019/07/11/stratis-monthly-5/), and pharmaceutical blockchain development company [MediConnect](https://www.stratisplatform.com/2018/12/19/stratis-partnership-with-mediconnect/), among [others](https://www.stratisplatform.com/2017/03/03/stratis-group-partners-with-escalate-group/). In addition, it has [sponsored](https://www.stratisplatform.com/2019/03/07/stratis-monthly-1/) professional athletes as a way to raise awareness of the platform.

With the launch of its new STRAX-based blockchain in November 2020, Stratis [unveiled](https://www.stratisplatform.com/2020/11/26/stratis-development-roadmap/) an updated development roadmap for the end of 2020 and the first half of 2021. It includes interoperability with Ethereum, an Internet of Things software development kit, a [decentralized finance](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-decentralized-finance) software library, the launch of a [decentralized autonomous organization](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-autonomous-organizations-dao), and more.

## Related Pages:

Learn about [Dragonchain](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/dragonchain/), a BaaS platform for enterprises and startups.

Learn about [Ardor](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ardor/), another BaaS platform with a proof-of-stake consensus.

New to blockchain technology? [Explore the fundamentals](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-a-blockchain) with Alexandria, CoinMarketCap's online educational resource.

Stay up to date on the latest in enterprise blockchain adoption with the [CoinMarketCap Blog](https://blog.coinmarketcap.com/).

## How Many Stratis (STRAX) Coins Are There in Circulation?

Stratis launched its first STRAT token with a total supply of 98 million, with 84 million STRAT (85.7%) [sold](https://web.archive.org/web/20160727190959/https://stratisplatform.com/2016/06/14/ico-terms/) during an [initial coin offering](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/initial-coin-offering-ico) that ended in July 2016 and [raised](https://twitter.com/stratisplatform/status/762769022035386369) 915 BTC --- [worth](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/historical-data/?start=20160725&end=20160726) nearly $600,000 at the time. Of the remaining supply, 8 million STRAT (8.2%) was reserved for the Stratis team, 2 million STRAT (2%) for advisors and partners, and 4 million STRAT (4.1%) for bounties and campaigns.

In October 2020, Stratis [initiated](https://www.stratisplatform.com/2020/10/15/strax-token-swap/) a token swap process for STRAT holders to exchange their tokens for STRAX at a one-to-one ratio. As a part of the transition, 25 million STRAX was newly minted, of which 8.125 million STRAX was [reserved](https://www.stratisplatform.com/2020/09/25/introducing-strax/) for the Stratis Foundation, 6.375 million STRAX for network incentivization, 5.5 million STRAX for enterprise incentivization, and 5 million for the Stratis DAO. The tokens will be issued over the course of five years.

New STRAX is introduced through a [proof-of-stake](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake) mining process, and each block produces a block reward of 18 STRAX, putting its annual inflation rate at around 10%. Half of the block reward is awarded to the block producer, while the other half is sent to its Cirrus sidechain and distributed to block-producing masternodes.

## How Is the Stratis Network Secured?

The Stratis network is secured through its PoS [consensus](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/consensus) protocol in which nodes must stake STRAX to participate in the block validation process, and the more STRAX staked, the greater the chance of being able to create a block. According to Stratis, this [makes](https://academy.stratisplatform.com/Architecture%20Reference/FullNode/PoS/PoS-introduction.html) the network more secure because the more STRAX a user stakes, the less likely they are to want to manipulate the network, as they risk losing their stake or causing the value of their stake to plummet. A majority of nodes must agree that a transaction is accurate for it to be added to the blockchain.

With the launch of its STRAX-based blockchain in November 2020, Stratis announced new security-enhancing features, including the ability to "cold-stake" --- stake STRAX through an offline, cold wallet --- which it argued will increase network security by enabling more users to participate in the consensus process. It also reported that it would activate Segregated Witness, or SegWit, which will increase transaction security because transaction IDs are no longer malleable.

While Stratis is a private company, its blockchain's codebase is open source, meaning that it is [available](https://github.com/stratisproject) for community audit.

## Where Can You Buy Stratis (STRAX)?

STRAX can be purchased on exchanges such as [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/), [Upbit](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/upbit/) and [Bithumb](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/bithumb/). It can be traded on spot markets against fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar and the euro, cryptocurrencies such as [Bitcoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin) and [Ether](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum), and [stablecoins](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-a-stablecoin) such as [Tether](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/) (USDT) and [Binance USD](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/binance-usd) (BUSD).

Are you interested in buying STRAX or other cryptocurrencies such as [Bitcoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin)? CoinMarketCap has a simple, [step-by-step guide](https://coinmarketcap.com/how-to-buy-bitcoin/) to teach you all about crypto and how to buy your first coins.

Ardor

ARK is a cryptocurrency- and blockchain- based development platform allowing anyone to create their own fully customizable and interoperable blockchain. Reducing the industries need for Smart Contracts by using custom transactions, logic and multiple programming languages. ARK was founded in mid 2016, running a Toekn Exchange Campain(TEC) later that year which raised $800K in bitcoin and other exchanged cryptos. Sound financial planning has allowed the team to become a well-funded entity since its inception. On March 21, 2017, the ARK Public Network went live, hosting the native ARK crypto asset. The ARK business entity formed shortly after, called ARK ECOSYSTEM SCIC. The business entity is commonly referred to as 'ARK.io' which is part of the teams branding as well as the teams website.

The ARK Ecosystem consists of an open-source blockchain technology stack authored in TypeScript programming language. ARK’s public network acts as a live implementation of ARK technology, node operators acting as delegates on the network, standalone blockchains running on ARK technology with independent node operators, business entities that develop products powered by ARK as well as assist in maintaining the code base, an enterprise division driving adoption as well as a community of users, developers and service providers.

The ARK Public Network supports special transaction types such as multi-payment, multisignature, many various registration transactions, and IPFS hash transactions. ARK’s Launcher product, allows fully customizable interoperable blockchain creation using a graphical user interface. This plug and play creation method allows developers to fully utilize ARK’s consensus model, technology stack, product line and custom transactions.

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

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

Loom Network is a platform as a service that is built on top of Ethereum and allows developers to run large-scale decentralized applications. This platform was released on October 1st, 2017.

The goal of this is to allow application developers to have smart contracts that can access much more computing power when it is required, or maintain the same power at lower costs for tasks such as trials for onboarding new users or applications that simply do not need the full security of blockchain to begin with.

In this system you have the ability to interact with APIs developed by third parties which are not on chain. Loom attempts to be the ultimate platform that allows smart contract developers to create applications without the need to switch to another programming language.

As such, they can easily integrate their applications with the outside world.

The Loom Network runs on Plasma, which is a scaling solution that allows for faster transactions throughout the network.

Loom Network

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

Komodo

aelf

Status is categorized as a mobile and desktop operating system and decentralized browser that incorporates a messaging system. As such, Status allows you to interact with a network at any time, from anywhere. It was originally released in June in 2017.

It is a light client Ethereum node, and has the ability to give you access to all Ethereum decentralized applications (otherwise known as DApps) from an app that is installed on your mobile phone or tablet. This means that users can send encrypted messages as well as access decentralized applications, including a cryptocurrency wallet.

Status

Metal DAO

Ontology Gas

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

Civic is a blockchain-based identity management solution that gives individuals and businesses the tools they need to control and protect personal identity information.

The platform is designed to change the way we think about identity verification by giving users more control over their personal data, while allowing them to access a wide range of services without needing to fork over excessive amounts of personal information.

Civic's identity verification solution uses distributed ledger technology to authorize identity usage in real time, and is used to sparingly share information with Civic partners after authorization by the user.

Unlike some other identity management services, Civic users store all their sensitive data on their mobile device. Users are able to authorize the sharing of specific personal data by providing a biometric signature through the Civic app.

The Civic ecosystem is enabled by a unique utility token known as the Civic token (CVC), which is used for the settlement of identity-related transactions between Civic participants — such as between a customer and service provider.

Users can earn CVC tokens for completing a variety of tasks, such as signing up for a service through the platform or introducing new users, while validators can earn CVCs for validating documents for service providers.

Civic was launched in 2018, following a sell-out initial coin offering (ICO) the year prior.

Civic

Aragon

Augur

Hive (HIVE) is a blockchain running on a delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism. It launched in March 2020 as a hard fork of the centralized Steem blockchain and as a gateway from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0. The blockchain claims to offer “lightning-fast processing times and fee-less transactions.” Examples of use cases include social media with monetized rewards for content creators, interactive blockchain games, identity management, micro-loans and more. The platform powers decentralized applications (dApps) like Splinterlands, PeakD and HiveBlog.

Hive is a social network of apps and services, where users discover the capacity of blockchain technology, connect to the platform and securely share content through equitable redistribution of value. Thus, the users are the proprietors of the network, and sponsors can contact communities and artists directly without intermediaries.

Hive is an open source blockchain that focuses on scaling through layer-2 sidechains, while still benefiting from a common layer-1 blockchain backbone to ensure distributed data integrity. The Hive ecosystem runs on two cryptocurrencies — the native governance token, HIVE and the USD-pegged HBD stablecoin.

Hive

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.

Qtum

NKN (NKN), or New Kind of Network, is a network that focuses on creating a decentralized and open-source network protocol for public blockchain-based peer-to-peer (P2P) networks to share network bandwidth and internet connectivity. Its main objective is to address the challenges faced by today's internet, such as centralization, scalability issues and security concerns.

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.