Week in DeFi: Is Popular Stablecoin DAI At Risk?

Week in DeFi: Wormhole's W Token Launching on April 3

Week in DeFi: BlackRock Drops $100M USDC to Ethereum Address

Week in DeFi: Dencun Upgrade Makes L2s Cheap Again

Week in DeFi: Yield-Bearing Stablecoins Are In Right Now 

## ’’آربِٹرم (ARB) کیا ہے؟ 

آربِٹرم [Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/currencies/ethereum/) کئ [دُوسری پرت](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/layer-2) (L2) پر موجود ایک پیمانہ کار حل ہے۔ یہ Ethereum پر کام کی رفتار، توسیع پذیری اور قیمتوں سے متعلق کارکردگی کے حصول کے لیے [مُثبت رول-اپس](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/optimistic-rollup) کا استعمال کرتا ہے۔ آربِٹرم Ethereum کے تحفّظ اور مطابقت سے استفادہ کرتا ہے۔ Ethereum کے مُقابلے میں اس کے دیگر فوائد ہیں؛ [تُھروپُٹ یعنی ماحاصل](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/throughput) اور کم فیسیں۔ یہ زیادہ تر کمپیوٹیشن، اور اسٹوریج-لوڈ کو آف-چین پر منتقل کرنے کی بدولت ہی مُمکن ہو سکا ہے۔ 

ARB کہلانے والے آربٹرم کا مُقامی ٹوکن [حاکمیت](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/governance) کے لیے استعمال کیا جاتا ہے۔ آربٹرم کے پس ِپشت موجود ڈویلپرز یعنی آف-چین لیبز (Offchain Labs) نے ایک غیر مرکزی اور خود مختار تنظیم (DAO) اسٹرکچر پر شفٹ ہونے کا اعلان کیا — آربٹرم DAO۔ ARB کے مالکان، اِِن خصوصیات یعنی پروتوکول اپ گریڈز، فنڈز کی تقسیم اور سکیورٹی کونسل کے الیکشن وغیرہ کو مُتاثٔر کرنے والی سفارشات پر رائے دہی میں حصّہ لے سکتے ہیں۔ 

آربٹرم کے پاس 2023 کے لیے ان عوامِل پر مشتمل ایک باہمّت روڈ میپ موجود ہے: Orbit نامی تیسری پرت والے حل کا آغاز کرنا؛ ڈویلپرز کو C++، اور Rust جیسی پروگرامنگ کرنے والی زبانوں، اور اسٹائیلس استعمال کرتے ہوئے بذریعہ دیگر ذرائع تحریر کی گئی ایپلیکیشنز کو تعینات کرنے کی استعداد بخشنا؛ مزید آزاد ادارہ جاتی تصدیق کنندگان کو شامل کرنے کے لیے اس کے توثیق کار سیٹ کو وسعت دینا؛ آربٹرم وَن کا استعمال کرتے ہوئے اس کے پروٹوکول کو دُوسری پرت پر مُنتقِل کرنا وغیرہ۔ 

16 مارچ سنہ 2023 کو Arbitrum نے ARB کے اپنے کثرت سے پیش-بینی شُدہ ایئر-ڈراپ کا اعلان کیا۔ کل سپلائی کے 12.75% پر مشتمل ٹوکن کی تعداد کو ابتدائی صارفین اور آربٹرم پر بننے والے DAOs کے لیے ائیر-ڈراپ کے ذریعے تقسیم کیا جائے گا۔ وصول کنندگان کو ایک قطعی تاریخ تک آبٹرم نیٹ-ورک کے ساتھ ان کے تعامُل کو مدِّنظر رکھتے ہوئے حاصل شُدہ پوائینٹس کی بُنیاد پر انعامات سے نوازا گیا۔ ٹوکن کی تخلیق کا انعقاد 23 مارچ سنہ 2023 کو ہو گا۔ 

### آربِٹرم کے بانی کون ہیں؟ 

آربٹرم کو نیویارک میں قائم ایک ترقیاتی کمپنی آف-چین لیبز (Offchain Labs) نے تیار کیا۔ اس کے بانی کمپیوٹر سائنس، کرپٹوگرافی اور بلاک-چین کے میدان میں برسوں پر مشتمل تجربے کے حامل اور پرنسٹن یونیورسٹی کے سابق محققین ایڈ فیلٹن (Ed Felten)، اسٹیون گولڈ فیڈر (Steven Goldfeder) اور ہیری کالوڈنر (Harry Kalodner) ہیں۔ 

پرنسٹن میں کمپیوٹر سائنس کے پروفیسر، ایڈ فیلٹن سابق صدر اوباما کے ڈپٹی CTO کے طور پر کام کر چکے ہیں۔ وہ آف-چین لیبز کے شریک بانی اور چیف سائنٹسٹ بھی ہیں۔ 

سٹیون گولڈ فیڈر ایک کمپیوٹر سائنسدان اور کاروباری شخصیت ہیں جنہوں نے پرنسٹن سے اپنی پی-ایچ-ڈی کی ڈگری حاصل کی۔ وہ آف-چین لیبز کے شریک بانی اور CEO بھی ہیں۔ 

ہیری کالوڈنر کمپیوٹر سائنس کے ایک پروفیسر اور پرنسٹن میں پی-ایچ-ڈی کی ڈگری کے لیے ایک اُمیدوار ہیں۔ وہ آف-چین لیبز کے شریک بانی اور CTO بھی ہیں۔ 

سنہ 2021 میں، آف-چین لیبز نے اعلان کیا کہ اس نے لائیٹ سپیڈ وینچر پارٹنرز (Lightspeed Venture Partners) کی قیادت میں اپنی تازہ ترین سیریز B فنڈنگ کی مد میں $120 ملین کے برابر فنڈ اکٹھا کیا، جس کی قدر و قیمت $1.2 بلین کے برابر ہے۔ دیگر معروف سرمایہ کاروں میں پولی-چین کیپیٹل (Polychain Capital), پینٹیرا کیپیٹل (Pantera Capital), مارک کیوبن (Mark Cuban) اور دوسرے کئی ادارے شامل ہیں۔ 

### کونسی چیز آربٹرم کو مُنفرد بناتی ہے؟ 

آربٹرم اپنے آپ کو Ethereum کے دیگر مقیاس پذیر حلوں کے مقابلے میں نُمایاں رکھنے کے لیے مثبت رول-اپس کا استعمال کرتا ہے۔ یہ دوسرے مُثبت رول-اپ حلوں سے بڑھ کر کئی دیگر فوائد پیش کرنے کا دعویٰ کرتا ہے، جیسے: 

مُطابقت: آربٹرم غیر ترمیم شدہ ای-وی-ایم معاہدوں اور لین-دین کی حمایت کرتا ہے، جسکے معنی یہ ہیں کہ Ethereum کا کوئی بھی موجودہ [DApp](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-applications-dapps)، کوڈ میں کسی قسم کی تبدیلی کے بغیر Arbitrum پرچل سکتا ہے۔ 

وسعت پذیری: آربٹرم Ethereum کی حفاظتی ضمانت کو برقرار رکھتے ہوئے کم فیس کے عوض ہزاروں لین-دین فی سیکنڈ کی تیز رفتار سے نمٹا سکتا ہے۔ 

لچک: آربٹرم ڈویلپرز کو C++، اور Rust جیسی پروگرامنگ کرنے والی زبانوں، اور اسٹائیلس استعمال کرتے ہوئے دیگر ذرائع استعمال کرتے ہوئے تحریر کی گئی ایپلیکیشنز کو لاگو کرنے کی اجازت دیتا ہے؛ جو آنے والے وقت میں EVM+ کے مُترادف اس کی ایک خصوصیت ہوگی۔ 

غیرمرکزیت: آربٹرم لین-دین کے آرڈر کی غرض سے کسی مرکزی آپریٹر یا ترتیب دهنده پر انحصار نہیں کرتا۔ اس کی بجائے، یہ توثیق کُنندگان کے ایک غیر مرکزی نیٹ-ورک کا استعمال کرتا ہے جس میں توثیق کنندگان ARB ٹوکنز پر شرط بندی کرتے ہیں اور نیٹ-ورک کو تحفّظ فراہم کرنے کے صلے میں ملنے والی فیسوں کی شکل میں کمائی کرتے ہیں۔ 

آربٹرم کے پاس DApps، بٹووں، ٹولز اور شراکت داروں پر مشتمل ایک متحرک ایکوسسٹم بھی موجود ہے جو اسے Ethereum کے لیے اسکیلنگ کے مُقّدم حلوں میں سے ایک کا درجہ دیتا ہے۔ 

نیٹ-ورک پر دستیاب کچھ پروٹوکولز میں شامل ہیں: [GMX (GMX)](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/currencies/gmx/), [Treasure (MAGIC)](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/currencies/magic-token/), [Camelot (GRAIL)](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/currencies/camelot-token/), [Radiant Capital (RDNT)](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/currencies/radiant-capital/), [Vela Exchange (VELA)](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/currencies/vela-token/), [ZyberSwap (ZYB)](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/currencies/zyberswap/), [Dopex (DPX)](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/currencies/dopex/), [PlutusDAO (PLS)](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/currencies/plutusdao/), [TridentDAO (PSI)](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/currencies/tridentdao/), [Jones DAO (JONES)](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/currencies/jones-dao/), اور کئی دیگر۔ 

آربٹرم ایکو-سسٹم کی نشو و نُما کو اس کی [کُل مُقفل قدر](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/total-value-locked-tvl) (TVL) پیمانے سے پرکھا جا سکتا ہے۔ DeFiLlama کے مُطابق, آربٹرم کی TVL نومبر سنہ 2021 کے دوران 3.2 بلین امریکی ڈالر کی بلند ترین سطح تک جا پہنچی تھی، جو کہ ان الفاظ کو ضبط تحریر میں لاتے وقت تقریباً 1.85 بلین امریکی ڈالر پر موقوف ہے۔ یہی بات اسے دوسری-پرت پر موجود دیگر ایکوسسٹمز کے مُقابلے میں بلند ترین TVL کا درجہ دیتی ہے۔ 

#### متعلقہ صفحات: 

Ethereum پر موجود ایک اور مثبت رول-اپ — [Optimism (OP)](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/currencies/optimism-ethereum/) — کے بارے میں مزید معلومات حاصل کیجیے۔ 

[آربٹرم کو Metamask میں شامل کرنے کا طریقہ](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/how-to-add-arbitrum-to-metamask) سیکھیے۔ 

[آربٹرم ایکو سسٹم کے بارے میں ہماری حتمی گائیڈ](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-arbitrum-the-ultimate-guide-to-the-arbitrum-ecosystem) کا مُطالعہ کیجیے۔ 

[آربٹرم پر معروف ترین پروٹوکولز کے بارے میں TVL کی حتمی گائیڈ](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/the-ultimate-guide-to-protocols-on-arbitrum) کا مُطالعہ کیجیے۔ 

[CoinMarketCap الیگزینڈریا](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria) پر کرپٹو کے حوالے سے تازہ ترین خبریں اور تجارتی بصیرت حاصل کیجیے۔ 

### فی الوقت کُل کتنے آربٹرم (ARB) کوائنز گردش میں ہیں؟ 

ARB آربٹرم کا مقامی حاکمیتی ٹوکن ہے۔ ARB ٹوکنز کی کُل سپلائی کا 12.75 فیصد، اہلیت رکھنے والے وصول کنندگان اور DAOs کے مابین تقسیم کرتے ہوئے اس کا آغاز 23 مارچ سنہ 2023 کو ہو گا۔ 

آربٹرم ایکوسسٹم کی غیر مرکزی حاکمیت کو فعال بنانا ARB ٹوکن کی افادیت ہے۔ ARB کے مالکان آربٹرم وَن (Arbitrum One) اور آربٹرن نووا (Arbitrum Nova) کے لیے حاکمیتی تجاویز پر رائے دہی کے ذریعے آربٹرم نیت-ورک پر حاکمیت کا حق رکھتے ہیں۔ وہ اس بات پر بھی اثر انداز ہو سکتے ہیں کہ DAO ٹریژری کے فنڈز کو کیسے استعمال کیا جائے۔ حاکمیتی تجاویز، اس سلسلے میں اپ گریڈز، نیٹ-ورک کے پیرامیٹرز میں تبدیلیوں، گرانٹس اور انعامات کی تخصیص، نئی خصوصیات کے انضمام اور بہت سے دیگر عوامل پر مشتمل ہو سکتی ہیں۔ 

ARB کسی گیس-فیس ٹوکن کی حیثیت سے ایسے کام نہیں کرتا جس طرح Ethereum پر ETH کام کرتا ہے۔ اس کی بجائے، Arbitrum پر فیسیں ETH یا DApps کے معاونت یافتہ کسی دوسرے [ERC-20](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/erc-20) ٹوکن کی شکل میں ادا کی جاتی ہے۔ جسکا مطلب یہ ہے کہ ARB کے مالکان کو آربٹرم کی طرف سے پیش کردہ خدمات استعمال کرنے کے لیے اپنے ٹوکنز خرچ کرنے کی ضرورت نہیں ہوتی، بلکہ شاید وہ ان پر شرط بندی کر کے نیٹ ورک کو محفوظ بنانے کے عوض فیسوں کی شکل میں کمائی کر سکتے ہیں۔ 

ARB ٹوکنز کی مُقرر کردہ کُل سپلائی 10 بلین پر مشتمل ہے۔ ٹوکنز کی تخصیص مندرجہ ذیل ہے: آربٹرم DAO تریژری: 42.78% (4.278 بلین)، آف-چین لیبز کی ٹیمیں اور مُشیران: 26.94% (2.694 بلین)، سرمایہ کار: 17.53% (1.753 بلین)، ایئر-ڈراپ برائے استعمال کنندگان: 11.62% (1.162 بلین)، DAOs کے لیے ایئر-ڈراپ: 1.13% (113 ملین)۔ 

### آربٹرم کو کیسے تحفُّظ فراہم کیا جاتا ہے۔ 

آربٹرم اپنا تحفُّظ Ethereum سے أخذ کرتا ہے، جو آربٹرم لین-دین کے لیے مُتفقہ رائے اور حتمی شکل مُہیّا کرتا ہے۔ با الفاظ دیگر، Ethereum رول-اپ سے متعلق آف-چین کمپیوٹیشن کی درستگی اور حساب-کتاب کے پیچھے موجود ڈیٹا کی دستیابی کے بارے میں ضمانت فراہم کرتا ہے۔ 

اثباتی رول-اپس کے استعمال کا مطلب یہ ہے کہ آربٹرم، Ethereum سے باہر رہ کر رول-اپ پر لین-دین کرتا ہے، اور مین-نیٹ پر پیش کرنے سے پہلے متعدد لین-دین کو ایک بیچ کی شکل میں بنڈل کر دیتا ہے۔ جیسا کہ اس اصطلاح یعنی "اُمید افزاء" سے ظاہر ہوتا ہے، آف-چین لین-دین کو معتبر مانا جاتا ہے اور اس کی درستگی کے بارے میں کوئی ثبوت پیش نہیں کیا جاتا۔ کسی تنازعہ کی صورت میں، رول-اپ جمع کروانے کے بعد ایک مُقررہ وقت کے دوران، کوئی بھی شخص کسی فراڈ کے بارے میں ثبوت فراہم کر کے لین-دین کو چیلنج کر سکتا ہے۔ 

### آپ آربٹرم (ARB) کہاں سے خرید سکتے ہیں؟ 

یہ الفاظ ضبط تحریر مہں لاتے وقت مرکزی ایکسچینجز [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/exchanges/binance/), [Bybit](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/exchanges/bybit/), [BitMEX](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/exchanges/bitmex/), [Poloniex](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/exchanges/poloniex/), [OKX](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/exchanges/okx/), [KuCoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/ur/exchanges/kucoin/) اور دیگر کئی نے ARB کو اپنی فہرست میں شامل کرنے کا اعلان کیا۔

Arbitrum

Treasure

ArbDoge AI

Vertex Protocol

POGAI

BullBear AI

Bitcoin XT

Avive World

xPET tech

Wall Street Games

BlueSale Finance

Zyberswap

Fluid USDC

Mozaic

SpaceCatch

Camelot Token

Grimace

Hydranet

RWA Finance

Optimism (OP) is a layer-two blockchain on top of Ethereum. Optimism benefits from the security of the Ethereum mainnet and helps scale the Ethereum ecosystem by using optimistic rollups. That means transactions are trustlessly recorded on Optimism but ultimately secured on Ethereum.

Optimism is one of the biggest scaling solutions for Ethereum with over $500 million in TVL. It is home to 97 protocols, the biggest being Synthetix (SNX), a derivatives exchange, Uniswap (UNI), a DEX, and Velodrome (VELO), an AMM. Users can begin their journey on Optimism by adding the chain on their Metamask and bridging tokens like ETH to the L2. On May 31, 2022, Optimism conducted a highly anticipated airdrop of its OP token.

Optimism

Aptos is a Layer 1 Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain that employs a novel smart contract programming language called Move, a Rust-based programming language that was independently developed by Meta (formerly Facebook)’s Diem blockchain engineers.

Aptos’s vision is a blockchain that brings mainstream adoption to web3 and empowers an ecosystem of DApps to solve real-world user problems.

The PoS blockchain can achieve a theoretical transaction throughput of over 150,000 transactions per second (tps) through parallel execution.

In March 2022, Aptos raised $200 million in a seed round led by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Other crypto heavyweights like Tiger Global and Multicoin Capital took part in the funding round. Fast forward to July, the startup raised another $200 million in a Series A round with participation from Dragonfly, Apollo Global, Franklin Templeton, Animoca, Jump Crypto and others.

Two months later, Binance Labs made a strategic investment of an undisclosed amount in Aptos.

On Oct. 18, 2022, Aptos announced the mainnet launch, while the Aptos genesis occurred on Oct. 12, 2022.

Aptos

Sui is a groundbreaking layer-1 blockchain platform designed to support the needs of global adoption by offering a secure, powerful, and scalable development platform. At its core, Sui leverages a novel object-centric data model and the secure Move programming language to address inefficiencies prevalent in existing blockchain architectures.

On top of strong technical foundations, Sui prioritizes user experience by eliminating barriers commonly associated with blockchain interactions. Through innovations like zkLogin, sponsored transactions, and programmable transaction blocks, Sui creates a higher standard for user experience within Web3 by ensuring applications are accessible and user-friendly.

Celestia

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

Injective is a blockchain built for finance. It is an open, interoperable layer-one blockchain powering next-generation DeFi applications, including decentralized spot and derivatives exchanges, prediction markets, lending protocols and more.

Injective uniquely provides powerful core financial infrastructure primitives that applications can leverage, including a fully decentralized MEV-resistant on-chain orderbook. In addition, all forms of financial markets such as spot, perpetual, futures and options are fully on-chain. The decentralized cross-chain bridging infrastructure is compatible with Ethereum, IBC-enabled blockchains, and non EVM chains such as Solana.

Injective also provides a next-generation, highly interoperable smart contract platform based on CosmWasm, with advanced interchain capabilities. Injective is custom built with the Cosmos SDK and utilizes Tendermint-based Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, providing instant transaction finality with the ability to sustain lightning-fast performance (10,000+ TPS).

The Injective ecosystem includes 100+ projects and over 150,000 community members globally. Injective is backed by a group of prominent investors such as Binance, Pantera Capital, Jump Crypto and Mark Cuban.

Injective’s core exchange module provides state-of-the-art capabilities including an advanced on-chain order book and matching engine for spot, perpetual, futures and options markets, resistance to Miner-Extractable Value (MEV) through frequent batch auction order matching, and zero gas fees for users.

Injective natively uses IBC and is highly-interoperable with multiple layer 1s, including, but not limited to, Polygon and Solana (through an upcoming Wormhole integration). It is also uniquely built to be interoperable with Ethereum, through its own decentralized ERC-20 token bridge, making Injective the first network within the Cosmos ecosystem to natively support Ethereum assets.

Smart contracts are implemented on Injective through CosmWasm, allowing for multi-chain smart contract transactions to occur seamlessly. Injective, however, is the only blockchain that enables automatic smart contract execution. This capability serves as a powerful building block for developers to create novel use cases that would not be possible on any other chain.

The use cases intended for INJ include but are not limited to: protocol governance, dApp value capture, Proof-of-Stake (PoS) security, developer incentives and staking. Further details regarding each of these use cases can be found below:

Protocol Governance: The INJ token governs every single component of Injective, including chain upgrades. Since its mainnet launch, the Injective community has actively contributed to governance, with all proposals passing through a DAO governance vote. The comprehensive governance page is available here.

Protocol Fee Value Capture: 60% of all fees generated from dApps enter an on-chain buy-back-and-burn auction to maintain the deflationary nature of INJ. The burn auction page is available here.

Tendermint-based Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Security: INJ is used to secure the Injective blockchain using a proof-of-stake mechanism. Validators and delegators can both participate in staking.

Developer Incentives: 40% of fees generated by users on dApps built on Injective go directly towards incentivizing new developers building on Injective which brings an ever growing funnel of builders to Injective.

Injective

RenderToken (RNDR) is a distributed GPU rendering network built on top of the Ethereum blockchain, aiming to connect artists and studios in need of GPU compute power with mining partners willing to rent their GPU capabilities out. Conceived in 2009 by OTOY, inc. CEO Jules Urbach and launched in 2017, RNDR held its first public token sale in October of that same year, followed by a private sale period lasting from January 2018 – May 2018, wherein a total of 117,843,239 RNDR were sold at a price of 1 RNDR = $0.25 USD equivalent of token.
During the private sale period, early adopters were onboarded onto the RNDR Beta Testnet, where beta node operators and artists worked collaboratively with the RNDR team in building and testing the network, up until its public launch on April 27th 2020.

Render

NEAR Protocol is a layer-one blockchain that was designed as a community-run cloud computing platform and that eliminates some of the limitations that have been bogging competing blockchains, such as low transaction speeds, low throughput and poor interoperability. This provides the ideal environment for DApps and creates a developer and user-friendly platform. For instance, NEAR uses human-readable account names, unlike the cryptographic wallet addresses common to Ethereum. NEAR also introduces unique solutions to scaling problems and has its own consensus mechanism called “Doomslug.”

NEAR Protocol is being built by the NEAR Collective, its community that is updating the initial code and releasing updates to the ecosystem. Its declared goal is to build a platform that is “secure enough to manage high value assets like money or identity and performant enough to make them useful for everyday people.”

Flux, a protocol that allows developers to create markets based on assets, commodities, real-world events, and Mintbase, an NFT minting platform are examples of projects being built on NEAR Protocol.

NEAR Protocol

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

Founded in 2017, Chainlink is a blockchain abstraction layer that enables universally connected smart contracts. Through a decentralized oracle network, Chainlink allows blockchains to securely interact with external data feeds, events and payment methods, providing the critical off-chain information needed by complex smart contracts to become the dominant form of digital agreement.

The Chainlink Network is driven by a large open-source community of data providers, node operators, smart contract developers, researchers, security auditors and more. The company focuses on ensuring that decentralized participation is guaranteed for all node operators and users looking to contribute to the network.

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

Chainlink

In a nutshell, Cosmos bills itself as a project that solves some of the “hardest problems” facing the blockchain industry. It aims to offer an antidote to “slow, expensive, unscalable and environmentally harmful” proof-of-work protocols, like those used by Bitcoin, by offering an ecosystem of connected blockchains.

The project’s other goals include making blockchain technology less complex and difficult for developers thanks to a modular framework that demystifies decentralized apps. Last but not least, an Interblockchain Communication protocol makes it easier for blockchain networks to communicate with each other — preventing fragmentation in the industry.

Cosmos’ origins can be dated back to 2014, when Tendermint, a core contributor to the network, was founded. In 2016, a white paper for Cosmos was published — and a token sale was held the following year. ATOM tokens are earned through a hybrid proof-of-stake algorithm, and they help to keep the Cosmos Hub, the project’s flagship blockchain, secure. This cryptocurrency also has a role in the network’s governance.

Cosmos

Immutable positions itself as the first layer-two scaling solution for NFTs on Ethereum. According to Immutable, its blockchain does away with Ethereum’s limitations like low scalability, a poor user experience, illiquidity, and a slow developer experience. Instead, users benefit from instant trading and massive scalability while enjoying zero gas fees for minting and trading NFTs without compromising user or asset security.

Thanks to this technology, users will be able to create and distribute assets like ERC-20 and ERC-721 tokens on a massive scale. Chris Clay, the game Director of Gods Unchained, a project already building on Immutable, stated that Immutable allows Gods Unchained to implement a new meta-system that was previously impossible. In this fashion, Immutable aims to create a world-class experience for users and developers alike.

Immutable

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

Founded in 2017 and launched via IEO on Binance in March 2019, Fetch.AI is an artificial intelligence (AI) lab building an open, permissionless, decentralized machine learning network with a crypto economy. Fetch.ai democratizes access to AI technology with a permissionless network upon which anyone can connect and access secure datasets by using autonomous AI to execute tasks that leverage its global network of data. The Fetch.AI model is rooted in  use cases like optimizing DeFi trading services, transportation networks (parking, micromobility), smart energy grids, travel — essentially any complex digital system that relies on large-scale datasets.

Fetch.ai

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

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

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

The Graph is an indexing protocol for querying data for networks like Ethereum and IPFS, powering many applications in both DeFi and the broader Web3 ecosystem. Anyone can build and publish open APIs, called subgraphs, that applications can query using GraphQL to retrieve blockchain data. There is a hosted service in production that makes it easy for developers to get started building on The Graph and the decentralized network will be launching later this year. The Graph currently supports indexing data from Ethereum, IPFS and POA, with more networks coming soon.

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

To date, over3,000 subgraphs have been deployed by thousands of developers, for DApps like Uniswap, Synthetix, Aragon, AAVE, Gnosis, Balancer, Livepeer, DAOstack, Decentraland and many others. The Graph usage has been growing at over 50% MoM and hit over 7 billion queries during the month of September 2020.

The Graph has a global community, including over 200 Indexer Nodes in the testnet and more than 2,000 Curators in the Curator Program as of October 2020. To fund network development, The Graph raised funds from community members, strategic VCs and influential individuals in the blockchain community including Coinbase Ventures, DCG, Framework, ParaFi Capital, CoinFund, DTC, Multicoin, Reciprocal Ventures, SPC, Tally Capital and others. The Graph Foundation also successfully completed a public GRT Sale with participation from 99 countries (not including the U.S.). To date as of November 2020, The Graph has raised ~$25M.