## What Is NuCypher (NU)?

NuCypher is a decentralized encryption, access control and key management system (KMS), encryption service for public [blockchains](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/blockchain). NuCypher offers end-to-end encrypted data sharing on public blockchains and decentralized storage solutions.

NuCypher allows users to share private data between a number of participants in public consensus networks, using proxy re-encryption (PRE) technology. This decryption technology makes NuCypher much more secure and protected than traditional blockchain projects based on public-key encryption, according to NuCypher. 

NuCypher (NU) are the native tokens used on the larger NuCypher network. The tokens are used to incentivize network participants for performing key management services and accessing delegation/revocation operations on the network.

The NU tokens are also used for staking to run a NuCypher worker node. The NuCypher network is protected against malicious staking, and would automatically slash a suspected user’s rewards. 

NU is also used on the network for participating in the NuCypher DAO. The NuCypher DAO is the protocol that controls network parameters and smart contract upgrades on the network. Users who stake NU can also participate in validating DAO proposals.


### Who Are the Founders of NuCypher?

NuCypher was co-founded by Mikhail Egorov (the founder of Curve) and MacLane Wilkison. The white paper for NuCypher was first published in June 2017, but the testnet did not launch until November 2018.

Egorov formerly served as the CTO of NuCypher. He is a security researcher, physicist and scientist from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

Co-founder MacLane is a software engineer and the CEO of NuCypher. Prior to his involvement in blockchain, he worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, where he provided financial services to enterprises in technology, media and telecommunications.

Both Egorov and MacLane participated in the U.S. startup accelerator Y Combinator in the summer of 2016. The following year, the whitepaper for the NuCypher project was published.

NuCypher launched its private testnet in 2018. The private treatment launch saw participation from major staking infrastructure providers including Bison Trails, Figment, InfStones and Staked.us. 

The public testnet of NuCypher began in October 2019. However, the incentivized public testnet began in January 2020. The mainnet of NuCypher launched in October 2020 after distributing $45 million in NU tokens to nodes.


## What Makes NuCypher Unique?

Unlike most blockchain projects that are designed to serve customers, better transactions, IoT operations, voting mechanism, and the like, NuCypher was created for other blockchains. NuCypher is a privacy layer for blockchains.

NuCypher provides a privacy infrastructure for the decentralized web with proxy re-encryption (PRE), threshold signatures (TSS), distributed key generation (DKG), and other threshold cryptography.

Using the NuCypher network, users can conditionally grant and revoke access to data with multiple users at a time. NuCypher's encryption service provides almost unparalleled security for sensitive data transfer. It combines this with the trustless and censorship-resistant nature of conventional public blockchains.

The cryptographic libraries of NuCypher include;



*   [pyUmbral](https://github.com/nucypher/pyumbral/), the reference implementation of the Umbral threshold proxy re-encryption scheme;
*   [NuBLS](https://github.com/nucypher/nubls), a threshold BLS signature library, and
*   [rust-umbral](https://github.com/nucypher/rust-umbral), a Rust implementation of Umbral with bindings to JavaScript and Python.


## How Many NuCypher (NU) Tokens Are There in Circulation?

At NuCypher’s mainnet launch in October 2020, there was a total supply of 1 billion NU tokens. According to the release schedule, 3,335,938 and 4,460,000 NU tokens are released monthly to the SAFT Series 2 and Team/Equity investors every month.

The WorkLock, NuCypher’s novel network node setup mechanism, is expected to get 225,000,000 NU tokens in April 2021. Factoring in the monthly release of the NU tokens, 1,088,876,961 NU tokens have been issued with 392,750,000 currently in circulation.

The network has a max supply of ~3.89 billion NU tokens. The tokens are released monthly as rewards to stakers, according to the[ staking economics paper](https://github.com/nucypher/whitepaper/blob/master/economics/staking_protocol/NuCypher_Staking_Protocol_Economics.pdf).


## How Is the NuCypher Network Secured?

NuCypher is a layer 2 resource allocation protocol on Ethereum that uses a [proof-of-stake](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake) (PoS) mechanism to coordinate worker nodes.

The network runs on a novel node distribution mechanism which NuCypher calls the WorkLock. To run a NuCypher node, a minimum of 2,000 node operators would need to stake 353,913.

The minimum lockup staking period is 30 days. However, NuCypher doesn’t guarantee that staking for longer than one year will provide greater benefits in terms of earning rewards. Unless the user opts out after a staking period, staking rewards are automatically restaked after each period.


## Where Can You Buy Nucypher (NU)?

NuCypher (NU) is popular among online exchanges that trade ethereum tokens. The top exchanges where you can buy, sell, and trade NuCypher tokens currently are: 

*   [Coinbase Pro](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/coinbase-pro/)
*   [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/)
*   [UniSwap](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/uniswap-v2/)
*   [Huobi](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/huobi-global/)
*   [Hoo](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/hoo/)
*   [OKEx](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/okex/)
*   [Gate.io](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/gate-io/)
*   [Hotbit](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/hotbit/), and 
*   [1inch Exchange](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/1inch-exchange/)

If you are new, you can find our simplified guide for purchasing crypto and more exchanges where you can trade[ here](https://coinmarketcap.com/how-to-buy-bitcoin/).


NuCypher

Ledger

Trust Wallet

MetaMask

Ethereum

Shiba Inu

Chainlink

UNUS SED LEO

Uniswap

Bonk

Bitget Token

Immutable

Maker

Render

The Graph

Axie Infinity

Ethereum Name Service

Quant

MANTRA

NeuralAI

sudoswap

Zedxion

Cajutel

1ex Trading Board

Orchid (OXT) is the native token of Orchid, a cryptocurrency-powered virtual private network (VPN).

Launched in December 2019, Orchid describes itself as the world’s first incentivized, peer-to-peer privacy network.

Its aim is to overcome internet freedom limitations by using cryptocurrency payments to allow anyone to purchase bandwidth from any participating provider. This is done using so-called probabilistic nanopayments, which occur using OXT, an ERC-20 standard token on Ethereum.

Regular payments to providers occur off-chain, allowing Orchid to avoid problems with congestion and gas fees on the Ethereum network.

The service is pay-per-use, meaning that users only have to contribute funds when they actually connect, instead of paying monthly or annual fees.

Orchid

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

Bancor is an ecosystem of decentralized, open-source protocols that promote on-chain trading and liquidity.

Its main protocol, Carbon, is a decentralized trading protocol allowing users to perform automated trading strategies using custom on-chain limit orders and range orders, with the option of combining orders together to create automated buy low, sell high strategies.

By design, Carbon orders are irreversible on execution, easily adjustable directly on-chain, and resistant to MEV sandwich attacks. These capabilities give users an unprecedented level of control and automation to perform novel trading strategies on-chain.

Fast Lane, a separate open-source arbitrage protocol, allows any user to perform arbitrage between Bancor ecosystem protocols and external on-chain exchanges and redirect arbitrage profits back to the Bancor ecosystem.

All Bancor ecosystem protocols are governed by the BancorDAO via staked BNT.

Bancor

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.

Ren (REN) is an open protocol built to provide interoperability and liquidity between different blockchain platforms.

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

Formerly known as Republic Protocol, Ren launched RenVM, its virtual machine mainnet, in May 2020, having completed a $34 million initial coin offering (ICO) in 2018.

The protocol’s native token, REN, functions as a bond for those running nodes which power RenVM, known as Darknodes.

Ren aims to expand the interoperability, and hence accessibility, of decentralized finance (DeFi) by removing hurdles involved in liquidity between blockchains.

Rally

SKALE, described as a modular blockchain network, is designed to bring scalability to Ethereum. SKALE is the only blockchain network capable of running an unlimited number of fast, on-demand, pooled-security Blockchains with zero gas fees to end users. These individual chains are known as SKALE chains and can be dapp-specific or shared.

The project’s website says it wants to enable people to build and run DApps in a “decentralized modular cloud built for real-world needs and configured for your requirements.” This emphasis on decentralization isn’t at the expense of security.

According to SKALE, those who build on this platform can run Solidity smart contracts “thousands of times faster at a fraction of the mainnet cost” — with games and content streaming services among the projects that already take advantage of its infrastructure.

SKALE

Origin Protocol is one of Ethereum’s longest-standing DeFi projects, featuring a multichain feature set that unlocks vast opportunities for yield generation across the space. Origin’s products are built to be permissionless and composable, allowing for deep integration with novel primitives. All of Origin’s products streamline rewards to OGN stakers, cultivating a sustainable, user-first offering.

At its core proposition, Origin features:

Capital efficiency: Origin’s liquid staking products, Origin Ether and Origin Dollar, empower users to earn yield while retaining full capital control. The protocol’s unique Automated Redemption Manager (ARM) serves as a key liquidity hub for LST redemptions.

Vast composability: OETH’s robust peg and interoperability makes it an ideal building block for innovative DeFi strategies.

Broad access: Origin’s diverse integrations with partners such as EigenLayer and Pendle Finance, cater to power users and new entrants alike. Origin is built on core principles of seamless usability, cultivating one of the smoothest user experiences in the space.

Some of Origin Protocol’s key elements include:

Origin Ether (OETH): OETH is a leading liquid staking token that harnesses battle-tested mechanics to maintain a strong peg and vast composability for users. Users can mint OETH by depositing reserves of ETH. This ETH is staked to the Beacon Chain, with staking rewards distributed to users. OETH boasts broad DeFi integrations on ETH and leading Layer-2 networks.

Origin Dollar (OUSD): OUSD is a yield bearing stablecoin fully collateralized by reserves of USDT, USDC, and DAI. Users can deposit these stablecoins to mint OUSD, which generates yield. OUSD’s rebasing model automatically distributes rewards to holders’ wallets, removing the need for lockups and claiming rewards.

Automated Redemption Manager (ARM): The ARM is a groundbreaking platform that bolsters liquidity for redeemable assets, such as LSTs and LRTs. Users can take advantage of rapid redemptions for seamless swaps between leading LSTs and ETH with zero slippage.

Some of its key highlights include:

Versatile Utility: Origin’s product suite is deeply integrated across DeFi, allowing users to harness innovative instruments and opportunities. Origin Ether, for instance, is deeply integrated with the likes of Pendle and EigenLayer. Users can also take advantage of wOETH on leading L2 networks to explore more platforms and yield generating positions.

Transparent, best-in-class security: Both OUSD and OETH boast battle-tested, open-source codebases. Origin’s products have been rigorously audited by leading firms, including OpenZeppelin. Origin’s yield-generating products deliver yields without compromising on security, and feature rich analytics dashboards for users to monitor treasury flows and allocations.

Protocol Governance: Users can stake OGN for up to a year in exchange for non-transferable xOGN. xOGN accrues yield from a share of protocol fees earned by Origin’s products. xOGN holders can submit proposals, vote on active submissions, and vote on treasury allocations. This symbiotic structure creates a sustainable, rewarding governance system that upholds the core principles of decentralization.

World class team and investors: The project is led by serial entrepreneurs Matthew Liu and Josh Fraser, and seasoned team members from leading tech firms including PayPal, YouTube, Google, DropBox, etc. Origin has received backing from top investors such as Pantera Capital and Foundation Capital, as well as from individuals like Steve Chen, the founder of YouTube, and Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit.

Origin Protocol

UMA was founded in 2018 by Allison Lu and Hart Lambur, two ex Goldman Sachs traders, with the goal of making global markets universally fair, accessible, secure and decentralized.

The team drew inspiration from traditional finance derivatives to define an open-source protocol to allow anyone, anywhere, to design and build trustless financial contracts.

0x is an infrastructure protocol that allows users to easily trade ERC20 tokens and other assets on the many different blockchains (including Ethereum) without relying on centralized intermediaries. It is a protocol for decentralized exchange.

0x achieves this decentralized exchange functionality using a collection of open-source, publicly auditable smart contracts that work together to produce a flexible, low-friction trading protocol that developers can easily weave into their products.

The protocol is used by companies building web3 apps such as wallets, DEXes, portfolio trackes, and others. It is a used by hundreds of developers for their projects. The protocol has facilitates over $200B in trading volume since its inception. One can track its usage in its dedicated https://explorer.0x.org/.

The protocol is powered by an ERC20 governance token known as ZRX. ZRX holders can participate in protocol governance, having direct power over protocol changes and its community treasury.

0x Protocol

Billed as a "network of decentralized markets and communities," district0x is a platform that allows users to easily launch their own decentralized platforms which are governed by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) structure.

Each of these platforms is termed a “district” and can be launched free of charge on the district0x. The ecosystem is powered by the custom d0xINFRA framework, which provides a set of basic smart contracts and libraries users can use when building out their districts — enabling a wide array of potential use-cases.

The native token of the district0x ecosystem is DNT — an ERC-20 utility token that is mostly used for community governance.

The platform uses a combination of three main technologies: Ethereum, Aragon and the InterPlanetary File Transfer Protocol (IPFS).

The Ethereum blockchain is used for hosting districts, whereas Aragon is used as the governance layer for the district0x network, allowing DNT stakers to benefit from governance rights and help shape the development and operation of their chosen districts. Lastly, IPFS is used for serving the district0x website source code and for user uploads within districts.

district0x

Augur

OMG Network, formerly known as OmiseGo, is a non-custodial, layer-2 scaling solution built for the Ethereum blockchain. As an Ethereum scaling solution, OMG Network is designed to allow users to transfer ETH and ERC20 tokens significantly faster and cheaper than when transacting directly on the Ethereum network.

The network is based on a novel scaling solution called MoreViable Plasma, which uses a sidechain architecture to group several transactions off-chain into a batch, which can then be verified as a single transaction on the Ethereum root chain. According to OMG Network, this technology has the potential to scale Ethereum to thousands of transactions per second (TPS) — instead of the 10 to 14 tps Ethereum 1.0 is currently capable of.

The network is powered by the OMG utility token, which can be used as one of the payment methods for fees on the OMG Network, and will eventually be stakable — helping to secure the network in return for rewards.

OMG Network

Celo is a carbon-negative, permissionless, blockchain with a rich ecosystem of global partners building innovative Web3 dapps to support a more inclusive financial system. Accessible to anyone with a mobile phone, the Celo ecosystem consists of a decentralized, proof-of-stake blockchain technology stack (the Celo platform), CELO governance asset, and several Mento stable assets (cUSD, cEUR, cREAL) that allow for real-world users to use digital assets. The open source Celo mainnet launched on Earth Day 2020.  The Celo community passed an indicative on-chain governance proposal (temperature check) to have Celo migrate to an Ethereum layer-2.  Google Cloud, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, and many others run validators on the Celo Platform.  Today, the Platform supports 1,000+ projects in over 150 countries are building on Celo to, helping to create the conditions of prosperity for all.  For more information, please visit Celo.org.

Celo

Band Protocol is a cross-chain data oracle platform that is able to take real-world data and supply it to on-chain applications, while also connecting APIs to smart-contracts to facilitate the exchange of information between on-chain and off-chain data sources.

By supplying reputable, verifiable real-world data to blockchains, Band Protocol unlocks a range of new use cases for developers to explore — since they can now use any type of real-world data as part of their decentralized application (DApp) logic, including sports, weather, random numbers, price feed data and more.

Band Protocol initially launched as an ERC-20 project on the Ethereum blockchain in September 2019, but transitioned to the Cosmos network in June 2020 with the release of Band Protocol 2.0. The new protocol is built on BandChain using the Cosmos SDK. Oracle nodes on BandChain not only relay data but are also involved in block production/validation, giving them a dual role.

BAND is the native token of the Band Protocol ecosystem and is used as collateral by validators involved in fulfilling data requests, as well as the main medium of exchange on BandChain — being used to paying for private data.

Band Protocol

Serum is a decentralized exchange (DEX) and ecosystem that brings unprecedented speed and low transaction costs to decentralized finance (DeFi). (DeFi).

Serum is the only high-performant DEX designed around a fully on-chain central limit order book and matching engine. Ecosystem partners can compose with Serum’s on-chain orderbook to share liquidity and power their trading features for institutional and retail users.

In light of the popularity of DeFi and the growth of DEXes on Ethereum, users and developers are limited by high gas costs and slow transactions. Serum aims to resolve these traditional problems of DeFi, as well as issues of centralization, low capital efficiency, and liquidity segmentation.

The SRM utility and governance token enables users to receive discounts on protocol fees and voting rights; 100% of exchange fees flow back to SRM via buy-and-burn, staking rewards, and ecosystem grants.

Serum

LRC is the Ethereum-based cryptocurrency token of Loopring, an open protocol designed for the building of decentralized crypto exchanges.

In 2020, the average daily trading volume of the entire cryptocurrency market fluctuated in the approximate range of $50-$200 million. Most of that trading is conducted on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges — online platforms operated by private companies that store users’ funds and facilitate the matching of buy and sell orders.

Such platforms have a number of downsides common to all of them, so a new type of exchange — decentralized— has emerged to try to alleviate these disadvantages. However, fully decentralized exchanges are not without their own flaws.

Loopring’s purported goal is to combine centralized order matching with decentralized on-blockchain order settlement into a hybridized product that will take the best aspects of both centralized and decentralized exchanges.

LRC tokens became available to the public during an initial coin offering (ICO) in August 2017, while the Loopring protocol was first deployed on Ethereum mainnet in December 2019.

Loopring

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).

Mirror Protocol

REQ is listed on Coinbase, Binance, crypto.com, KuCoin and many other exchanges.

The REQ token powers the Request Network open-source protocol via a few mechanisms: anti-spam; governance; staking; discounts; independency.

The Request (REQ) utility token, launched in 2017, ensures the performance and stability of the Request Network. The Request Network itself is an Ethereum-based decentralized payment system where anyone can request a payment and receive money through secure means. It removes the requirement for third parties in order to provide a cheaper, more secure payment solution that works with all global currencies.

The original whitepaper is available here.

When a user creates a request for payment, they define to which address the payment needs to be allocated and what the amount is. The user can also define the terms and conditions of the payment, upgrading a simple request into an invoice. Once this is completed, the user can share their request to be paid by their counterparty.

Every step is documented and stored on the Request Network, allowing everyone involved to easily keep track of all the invoices and payments for accounting purposes.

Request is also integrated with legislation across the world to remain compliant with the trade laws of each individual country.

Request

Basic Attention Token, or BAT, is the token that powers a new blockchain-based digital advertising platform designed to fairly reward users for their attention, while providing advertisers with a better return on their ad spend.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Basic Attention Token.

This experience is delivered through the Brave Browser, where users can watch privacy-preserving adverts and receive BAT rewards for doing so. On the other hand, advertisers can deliver targeted ads to maximize engagement and cut down losses due to ad fraud and abuse.

The Basic Attention Token itself is the unit of reward in this advertising ecosystem, and is exchanged between advertisers, publishers and users. Advertisers pay for their advertising campaigns in BAT tokens. Out of this budget, a small portion is distributed to advertisers, while 70% is distributed to users — whereas the intermediaries that typically drive up advertising costs are cut out of the equation to improve cost-efficiency.

Basic Attention Token launched in 2017 following one of the fastest sell-out initial coin offerings (ICOs) of all time, with the platform raising a total of $35 million in under a minute. Since then, it has rolled out its attention-based advertising experience to users in most countries through its Brave Rewards program.

As of November 2020, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada had the most active advertising campaigns.