**Sunny Lu** is the co-founder and chief commanding officer of [VeChain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/vechain), a [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain)-based platform that focuses on providing supply chain solutions for businesses. [\[1\]](#cite-id-tpvtj90yl9i)  
  
# Education  
  
Sunny Lu enrolled in Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1998 and graduated in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering. After graduation, became a Cisco certified engineer, receiving the Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) certification. [\[2\]](#cite-id-972a90q5p9q)[\[3\]](#cite-id-ejws9x200cv)  
  
# Career  
  
Soon after graduation in 2002, Sunny took a job at Netstar, a IT service company as the Global Network Center (GNC) Manager. This is where he first learned about data tracking and its significance which is later reflected in the use cases of VeChain. After he left Netstar in 2005, he became the IT infrastructure manager at 3M China, a manufacturing and distributing company in February 2006. He then moved on from 3M China in May 2009 to take a job at one of the leading spirits company, Bacardi as their IT manager in China. In 2010 he left Bacardi to join Louis Vuitton China where he was the chief technology officer as well as the organisation and performance (O&P) manager. He was later promoted to the position of chief information officer and the Information Systems and Technology director in June 2014, which he states had an impact on the work he does in the future. [\[2\]](#cite-id-972a90q5p9q)[\[4\]](#cite-id-eturkme3phk)[\[5\]](#cite-id-jfu6rri2tl)  
  
> “CIO is acting as a bridge between the technology and the business. So usually I’m doing two things, either I find new technology or I think about what business can benefit from the technology”  
  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](aEzFBkt8UA8)$$  
  
# Beginning of Lu's Crypto Career  
  
Sunny Lu first encountered [cryptocurrencies](https://iq.wiki/wiki/cryptocurrency) when he was offered to trade items for [Bitcoin](https://iq.wiki/wiki/bitcoin) whilst playing a game called World of Warcraft, which he thought was suspicious and didn't take the offer. However, years later around 2013, he became interested in studying Bitcoin after working on a project at Louis Vuitton where he proposed the idea of accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for stores when people traveled abroad. This is where he did a lot of research into the technology behind Bitcoin and was captivated by its capabilities and proposed that it would be a good solution for people who had difficulty carrying large amounts of cash or had credit card limitations. [\[5\]](#cite-id-jfu6rri2tl)[\[6\]](#cite-id-kal4qzt1m3l)[\[7\]](#cite-id-6d0mfljtefo)  
  
> “I took a study about the theory the technology even I read about the codes it's about like a 110 lines of codes of bitcoin, I was really impressed about the design about you know the simplicity of the coding so i was fascinated about the bitcoin, about the blockchain technology”  
  
After this revelation and new interest in blockchain technology, his position as CIO of Louis Vuitton helped him realise that “the profile missing from the entire blockchain space” was the integration of blockchain technology in businesses to bring back value for both sides of the partnership which was his starting point in creating VeChain. [\[5\]](#cite-id-jfu6rri2tl)[\[6\]](#cite-id-kal4qzt1m3l)  
  
# VeChain  
  
Sunny Lu founded [VeChain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/vechain) in 2015 with the help of [Changpeng Zhao](https://iq.wiki/wiki/changpeng-zhao), co-founder and CEO of [Binance](https://iq.wiki/wiki/binance). VeChain started from a “small idea” that rooted from Sunny Lu’s job at Louis Vuitton where he worked on a project called “track and trace” that aimed to track all products’ throughout the entire manufacturing process. He noticed that this was only possible within the premise of a single enterprise and wanted to create a solution to this. His idea was to replicate this project but make it accessible to multiple different entities by assuring trust and security through the use of blockchain technology. This idea was fully put into action when Sunny Lu had the chance to speak with the founder of [Ethereum](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ethereum), [Vitalik Buterin](https://iq.wiki/wiki/vitalik-buterin) in late 2015, where he realized the effectiveness and ingenuity of [smart contracts](https://iq.wiki/wiki/smart-contract) on the Ethereum [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) and decided to build VeChain on Ethereum. [\[4\]](#cite-id-eturkme3phk)[\[5\]](#cite-id-jfu6rri2tl)[\[6\]](#cite-id-kal4qzt1m3l)  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](9MmMIqmbG0g)$$  
Since then, Sunny Lu has led the VeChain team to create an enterprise friendly blockchain platform, leading to multiple partnerships with various enterprises and also has launched their own public blockchain, VeChainThor and multiple other applications that build off the blockchain such as VeChain ToolChain. [\[8\]](#cite-id-o26gdqwp8br)  
  


Sunny Lu is the co-founder and chief commanding officer of VeChain, a blockchain-based platform that focuses on providing supply chain solutions for businesses....

Sunny Lu

VeChain is a blockchain-based platform that focuses on providing supply chain solutions for businesses.

VeChain

# Overview  
  
The Open Network (TON), also known as TON Blockchain, is a decentralized layer-1 [proof-of-stake](https://iq.wiki/wiki/proof-of-stake) [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) created by the encrypted messaging platform, Telegram in 2018. The multi-blockchain architecture of The Open Network provides a platform for [decentralized applications](https://iq.wiki/wiki/decentralized-application) (dApps) and [smart contracts](https://iq.wiki/wiki/smart-contract). It consists of a master chain, multiple working [blockchains](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain), and sharding protocols. [\[1\]](#cite-id-odz1kxh9bxl)[\[2\]](#cite-id-df6fn7n65i)  
  
# $$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](XgzHmV_nnpY)$$  
  
# History  
  
Since 2017 the team at Telegram had been developing a new blockchain platform called the TON Blockchain and a native [cryptocurrency](https://iq.wiki/wiki/cryptocurrency) called Gram. [\[3\]](#cite-id-1f9dxwlvpao)  
  
Telegram Open Network (TON Network) is a blockchain project created by brothers [Nikolai](https://iq.wiki/wiki/nikolai-durov) and [Pavel Durov](https://iq.wiki/wiki/pavel-durov) to build a platform that disrupts the [decentralized application](https://iq.wiki/wiki/decentralized-application) space by leveraging Telegram’s wide user base. The platform promised the speed and scalability important for the mass adoption of [cryptocurrency](https://iq.wiki/wiki/cryptocurrency). Through TON, Telegram users were supposed to be able to buy, transfer, and store value in ID-verifiable wallets facilitated by the GRAM coin. [\[3\]](#cite-id-1f9dxwlvpao)  
  
Telegram and its affiliates had not made any promises or commitments to develop any applications or features for the TON Blockchain or otherwise contribute in any way to the TON Blockchain platform after its launch. Rather, the Telegram team hoped that the decentralized community of third-party developers would contribute to the TON ecosystem through the development of applications and [smart contracts](https://iq.wiki/wiki/smart-contract). In January 2018, the team released a white paper[\[4\]](#cite-id-vy2ngq6sz) and a detailed technical paper which gave an insight into the features and design of the project. TON was described as a platform for [decentralized apps](https://iq.wiki/wiki/decentralized-application) and services with the ability to scale and support millions of transactions per second. [\[3\]](#cite-id-1f9dxwlvpao)  
  
## Gram  
  
Gram is a [cryptocurrency](https://iq.wiki/wiki/cryptocurrency) based on the TON blockchain platform. In February and March 2018, investors bought the first Gram tokens at a price of $0.37 and $1.33, respectively. The company raised $1.7 Billion during the course of bidding.  
  
On the 2nd of October 2019, Telegram sent letters to investors with links to the TON key generator, which provided access to Gram tokens. This was in accordance with the obligation to send the first batch of digital money to depositors by October 31, 2019. However, the release of the project was delayed following the decision of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). [\[3\]](#cite-id-1f9dxwlvpao)  
  
## Telegram vs SEC  
  
On October 11, 2019, SEC intervened asking Telegram to temporarily restrict the distribution of Gram tokens. The agency argued that the initial purchasers of Gram would be acting as underwriters, and the resale of Gram, once distributed, would be an unregistered distribution of securities. [\[5\]](#cite-id-4yzbfwxg9wa)  
  
After deeming Telegram’s [initial coin offering](https://iq.wiki/wiki/initial-coin-offering) (ICO) illegal on account of the fact that the Token Offering wasn’t properly registered in the USA, the SEC also filed a temporary restraining order. After an exchange of filings, the hearing on the case was postponed until Feb. 18–19, 2020. The judge hearing the case, P. Kevin Castel, ruled that Telegram should not distribute its tokens before that date, and not until the court made its decision on the case. Hence, the official launch of the project was postponed until the end of April 2020. [\[3\]](#cite-id-1f9dxwlvpao)  
  
On March 24, 2020, Telegram lost its first court appeal when SDNY Judge Castel ruled in favor of the SEC's motion for a preliminary injunction on Telegram Group Inc.'s sale of Grams, determining that it was in breach of the Securities Act[\[7\]](#cite-id-lgtlip1szha).  
  
On May 12, 2020, after a long court fight, [Pavel Durov](https://iq.wiki/wiki/pavel-durov) announced the end of Telegram's active participation with the TON blockchain. Durov referenced third-party efforts to launch independent versions of the TON blockchain but said no Telegram employee is involved with these projects. [\[3\]](#cite-id-1f9dxwlvpao)[\[6\]](#cite-id-bzdt0rstkrf)  
  
> "While networks based on the technology we built for TON may appear, we won't have any affiliation with them and are unlikely to ever support them in any way. So be careful, and don't let anyone mislead you," Durov wrote. [\[8\]](#cite-id-q7c03mc8yv)  
  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](p945hv9Adbw)$$  
On the 11th of June 2020, Telegram settled with SEC and agreed to return $1.22 billion as "termination amounts" in Gram purchase agreements, and pay an $18.5 million penalty to SEC. The company also agreed to notify the SEC of any plans to issue digital assets over the next three years. The judge approved the settlement on June 26, 2020.  
  
> "New and innovative businesses are welcome to participate in our capital markets, but they cannot do so in violation of the registration requirements of the federal securities laws," Kristina Littman, chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Cyber Unit, in a statement. [\[9\]](#cite-id-h5c07wr2q9o)  
  
Telegram repaid TON investors $770 million and converted $443 million into a one-year debt at 10% interest, raising its total liabilities to $625.7 million in 2020. On the 10th of March 2021, the company made the placement of 5-year bonds worth $1 billion to cover the debts it had to return by 30th of April 2021. [\[10\]](#cite-id-xzy15q42s4b)  
  
# TONCOIN  
  
TON coin is the principal [cryptocurrency](https://iq.wiki/wiki/cryptocurrency) of The Open Network (TON) [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain), and in particular of its masterchain and basic workchain. It is used for transaction fees, securing the [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) through [staking](https://iq.wiki/wiki/staking), deciding how the network develops, gas payments (i.e., smart-contract message processing fees), and settling payments. [\[11\]](#cite-id-buczaq6gnfd)[\[4\]](#cite-id-vy2ngq6sz)  
  
## Background  
  
In November 2019, Telegram Open Network testnet2 launched and 5 billion coins were minted, with a small fraction (1.45%) distributed to developers and testers. In May 2020, after the SEC prohibited Telegram from issuing Grams to investors, Telegram ceased its work on the TON ecosystem and testnet2 tokens were placed into 20 [Proof of Work](https://iq.wiki/wiki/proof-of-work-pow) Giver [smart contracts](https://iq.wiki/wiki/smart-contract). Finally in May 2021, by a majority vote of network participants, testnet2 was promoted to [mainnet](https://iq.wiki/wiki/mainnet). Coins continued to be distributed by [Proof of Work](https://iq.wiki/wiki/proof-of-work-pow) Giver contracts. [\[11\]](#cite-id-buczaq6gnfd)  
  
## Tokenomics  
  
The total supply of TON coins is originally limited to 5 Gigatons (i.e., 5 billion TON coins). This supply will slowly increase, as rewards to validators for mining new masterchain and shardchain blocks accumulate. Expected inflation rate of 2% per year, will double the total supply of TON coins (to 10 Gigatons) in 35 years. This inflation represents a payment made by all members of the community to the validators for keeping the system up and running. [\[4\]](#cite-id-vy2ngq6sz)  
  
## Utility  
  
The TON coin can be used as a processing fee for [smart contracts](https://iq.wiki/wiki/smart-contract) transactions, cross-chain transaction fees, lending capital to validators to earn interest, and payment for blockchain-based domain names (DNS). It can also act as validators’ stakes required to maintain the [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain), and payments services provided by apps built on the platform, and it is integral to TON's on-chain governance program. [\[11\]](#cite-id-buczaq6gnfd)  
  
# Technology  
  
The Open Network utilizes the [proof-of-stake](https://iq.wiki/wiki/proof-of-stake) (PoS) consensus mechanism to validate transactions. TON consists of a three-layer network; the first is the **masterchain** which is the main chain of the TON network and is currently in operation. Every time an operation is performed in TON, it is performed on the masterchain. [\[5\]](#cite-id-4yzbfwxg9wa)  
  
In the second level is the **workchains**, which are secondary chains that connect to the masterchain and that can contain up to XNUMX^XNUMX different connected chains. Each of these secondary chains can have their own set of consensus rules, including different formats of account addresses and transactions, virtual machines for [smart contracts](https://iq.wiki/wiki/smart-contract) and basic [cryptocurrencies](https://iq.wiki/wiki/cryptocurrency), etc. All this while remaining compatible with the masterchain, being able to interact with it and with each other seamlessly. [\[5\]](#cite-id-4yzbfwxg9wa)  
  
In the third level are the **shardchains**. Shardchains are part of the workchains and their role is to provide a scalability boost, splitting the work and parallelizing it. This way, TON’s scalability soars to high levels. This is possible due to a bottom-up approach that TON uses for its shardchains, giving rise to the Infinite Sharding Paradigm. [\[5\]](#cite-id-4yzbfwxg9wa)  
  
# Key Components  
  
## TON Blockchain  
  
The backbone of The Open Network is a scalable multi-blockchain designed to process millions of transactions within seconds. It uses the [Proof-of-Stake](https://iq.wiki/wiki/proof-of-stake) consensus and can contain up to 2⁹² accompanying blockchains. [\[12\]](#cite-id-4oli7y07hi)  
  
## TON Payments  
  
It is a platform for micropayments and a micropayment channel network. It can be used for instant off-chain value transfers between users, bots, and other services. Safeguards built into the system ensure that these transfers are as secure as on-chain transactions. [\[12\]](#cite-id-4oli7y07hi)  
  
## TON Proxy  
  
This is a network proxy/anonymizer layer for TON nodes. Similar to I2P, it allows the building of decentralized VPN services and blockchain-based TOR alternatives to achieve anonymity and protect online privacy. Combined with the TON P2P Network and TON DNS, TON Proxy gives decentralized apps immunity to censorship. [\[12\]](#cite-id-4oli7y07hi)  
  
### Launch  
  
The TON Proxy compatible with HTTP Proxy launched on September 30, 2022. A host of TON wallets said they would implement TON Proxy directly in their wallet applications and extensions, meaning that the TON network would be accessed by all TON wallet owners without downloading additional applications. [\[22\]](#cite-id-3xwelpd1ghj)  
  
## TON DNS  
  
TON DNS makes [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) mainstream by assigning human-readable names to accounts, [smart contracts](https://iq.wiki/wiki/smart-contract), services, and network nodes. With TON DNS browsing blockchain becomes similar to surfing the World Wide Web. [\[12\]](#cite-id-4oli7y07hi)  
  
### Launch  
  
The TON Foundation on June 30, 2022 announced the launch of TON DNS. Similar to other popular crypto-related domain names like “.eth” or “.crypto” the domain zone for TON DNS is “.ton” and will enable users to access decentralized applications in a simple way. With TON DNS, users will be able to use simple and short domain names instead of typing in a long string of letters and numbers. A domain name will also be able to unlock a wallet address. [\[19\]](#cite-id-rd0dx9sq7la)  
  
## TON Storage  
  
TON Storage is a distributed file-storage technology accessible through the TON P2P Network. This torrent-like technology relies on [smart contracts](https://iq.wiki/wiki/smart-contract) for availability and has a strong potential with regard to storing and exchanging large amounts of data. [\[12\]](#cite-id-4oli7y07hi)  
  
### Launch  
  
The TON Storage was launched on January 5, 2023, taking on similar projects like Filecoin and Storj. TON Storage works similarly to internet-based peer-to-peer file sharing that uses torrents. But instead, it relies on the TON blockchain network to transfer data files of any size, which are backed-up and encrypted without needing centralized web servers. With the launch of TON Storage, TON-secured sites can be hosted on the network, a move that TON Foundation founding member Anatoly Makosov said marks:  
  
> “the next step in realizing our vision of a decentralized, open internet.” [\[13\]](#cite-id-5t1cti202qj)[\[14\]](#cite-id-2ck663q338h)  
  
## TON Services  
  
TON Services provides a versatile platform for third-party services. It enables smartphone-like friendly interfaces for [decentralized apps](https://iq.wiki/wiki/decentralized-application) and [smart contracts](https://iq.wiki/wiki/smart-contract), as well as a World Wide Web-like decentralized browsing experience. [\[12\]](#cite-id-4oli7y07hi)  
  
## TON Workchains  
  
TON consists of the masterchain and up to 2³² workchains with different rulesets, i.e. different formats of account addresses and transactions, virtual machines for [smart contracts](https://iq.wiki/wiki/smart-contract) and basic [cryptocurrencies](https://iq.wiki/wiki/cryptocurrency), etc. Yet, workchains can still interact using consistent basic rules. [\[12\]](#cite-id-4oli7y07hi)  
  
# TON Foundation  
  
After Telegram quit the project in May 2020, the open-source developer community led by Kirill EmelyanenkoK[\[23\]](#cite-id-3bbidtrjd3g) and Anatoliy Makosov[\[24\]](#cite-id-7pqnza4dan3) initiated Newton open-source community aimed at further development and support of TON on the open source principles. More developers who never worked for Telegram, members of the open developer community, validators, winners of public TON Blockchain Contests, and crypto enthusiasts from all over the world joined them. In May 2021, the Newton team was renamed as TON Foundation — a not-for-profit community focused on the support and development of the network. [\[12\]](#cite-id-4oli7y07hi)  
  
Telegram CEO [Pavel Durov](https://iq.wiki/wiki/pavel-durov) on December 23, 2021, published a post[\[25\]](#cite-id-6e8ee6j7hhu) on his official Telegram channel that gave backing to the project.  
  
> “When Telegram said goodbye to TON last year, I expressed the hope that future generations of developers would one day carry on with our vision of a mass-market blockchain platform, So I was inspired to see the champions of Telegram’s coding contests continue developing the open TON project, which they rebranded to Toncoin.” - he wrote. [\[26\]](#cite-id-uc89z8z4aso)  
  
# $$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](eT1cuAboTrk)$$  
  
# Governance  
  
By design, network modifications within TON are only possible if approved by the majority of validators via the [proof-of-stake](https://iq.wiki/wiki/proof-of-stake) consensus. It is not possible to change network software, configuration, or state by bypassing the vote. [\[12\]](#cite-id-4oli7y07hi)  
  
# Telegram Marketplace  
  
On October 26, 2022, Telegram announced the official launch of its new marketplace built on the Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain. The marketplace will serve as an auction platform on which rare Telegram handles would be sold. Telegram gave users the ability to buy usernames for its app via a blockchain-based platform called Fragment[\[18\]](#cite-id-j2wj98yfxch). The platform lets interested parties buy available usernames and secure ownership on TON.  
  
By November 30, 2022, Durov announced that Fragment[\[18\]](#cite-id-j2wj98yfxch) sales had surpassed $50 million. Some individual Telegram usernames have brought in large sums of money on Fragment. For example, the username @news was auctioned for 994,000 TON, about $1.7 million, per data from the official website. [\[15\]](#cite-id-rn8tmyptlli)[\[16\]](#cite-id-53uzm9nm64v)[\[17\]](#cite-id-34vrmlkeck9)  
  
# TON x Donate  
  
TON on December 23, 2021, announced a partnership with Donate, saying that users would soon be able to make donations and pay for their subscriptions in Toncoin. At the same time, channel administrators will be able to collect their income in [cryptocurrency](https://iq.wiki/wiki/cryptocurrency). [\[20\]](#cite-id-bsy2czo3yk6)[\[21\]](#cite-id-mjz3t4ewu68)  
  
<br>  


The Open Network (TON), also known as TON Blockchain, is a decentralized layer-1 blockchain created by the encrypted messaging platform, Telegram in 2018. 

The Open Network (TONCOIN)

Ethereum is an open source, distributed software platform that is based on blockchain technology.

Ethereum

**NEAR protocol** is a layer one public [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) based on [Proof-of-Stake](https://iq.wiki/wiki/proof-of-stake) where decentralized applications can be built. Its native token is NEAR, which is used to pay for transaction fees and storage. NEAR [mainnet](https://iq.wiki/wiki/mainnet) was launched in April 2020, and became community operated in September 2020. [\[1\]](#cite-id-l9n7won7p9q)[\[2\]](#cite-id-gwo9hfb9dbl)  
  
The NEAR Protocol is being developed by the NEAR Collective, a community-driven organization that maintains and updates the codebase. The goal of the NEAR Collective is to create a platform that is secure enough to handle valuable assets like money or identity, and efficient enough to be used by everyday people. [\[4\]](#cite-id-w6ttgk95j6)  
  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](aS_zb5Je4NI)$$  
  
# Overview  
  
NEAR protocol targets the scalability problem of traditional blockchains through the implementation of sharding. Sharding is a method used to reduce the computational load on the network by dividing it into smaller parts, called shards. Each node in the network only runs the code that is relevant to its specific shard, allowing the different shards to process information in parallel. This enables the network to handle more transactions and increase scalability as the number of nodes in the network grows. [\[1\]](#cite-id-l9n7won7p9q)  
  
## Nightshade  
  
![Artboard-23.png](https://ipfs.everipedia.org/ipfs/QmWCr9ojYVqMEFCYgvQ76xbP6wHnZk9V1MW8coaYXjW6ZV)  
The NEAR Protocol uses a technology called Nightshade to enhance transaction throughput. Nightshade is a type of sharding in which groups of validators process transactions simultaneously across multiple sharded chains, increasing the overall capacity of the blockchain. Unlike traditional sharding, Nightshade creates small portions of the next block called "chunks". This allows NEAR to handle up to 100,000 transactions per second and achieve near-instant finality on transactions, with a one-second block time while maintaining low transaction fees. [\[4\]](#cite-id-w6ttgk95j6)  
  
## Rainbow Bridge  
  
It is possible to transfer assets from [Ethereum](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ethereum) to NEAR and vice versa using the Rainbow Bridge, which is a tool built by Aurora that enables the movement of [ERC-20](https://iq.wiki/wiki/erc-20) assets between [Ethereum](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ethereum), Aurora, and NEAR. [\[14\]](#cite-id-23yvnam46t8)  
![Screen Shot 2023-01-26 at 9.38.21 PM.png](https://ipfs.everipedia.org/ipfs/QmQ5P4r7b7RSXVsjPQWwxYccCtnUTRdmLd7qyeFxeJUs27)  
Popular [ERC-20](https://iq.wiki/wiki/erc-20) tokens like stablecoins (USDT, [DAI](https://iq.wiki/wiki/dai), TUSD), wrapped assets (WBTC, WETH), DEX tokens ([UNI](https://iq.wiki/wiki/uni), [1INCH](https://iq.wiki/wiki/1inch)), lending tokens ([AAVE](https://iq.wiki/wiki/aave), [COMP](https://iq.wiki/wiki/compound)), and service company tokens (HT, [CRO](https://iq.wiki/wiki/cronos-cro)) are compatible with NEAR. These tokens can be transferred directly between [MetaMask](https://iq.wiki/wiki/metamask) or other Web3 wallets and NEAR wallets and apps, allowing for seamless interoperability between the two platforms. [\[15\]](#cite-id-avyi3fio1)  
  
# NEAR Token  
  
The NEAR token is the native cryptocurrency of the Near Protocol, it is used for various functions such as paying for transaction fees, and for storage. Additionally, it can also be staked by holders to participate in validating transactions and reaching network consensus. [\[1\]](#cite-id-l9n7won7p9q)  
  
The primary use of the NEAR token is to cover transaction fees and as collateral for data storage on the blockchain. Additionally, NEAR tokens are also distributed as rewards to different stakeholders on the blockchain, such as transaction validators, who receive a reward of 4.5% of the total annual NEAR supply for their services.[\[1\]](#cite-id-l9n7won7p9q)  
  
## Tokenomics  
  
One billion NEAR tokens are created at genesis, and its allocation is divided among several groups: 17.20% is allocated to Community Grants and Programs, 14.00% is allocated to Core Contributors, 12.00% is allocated to Community Sale, 11.76% is allocated to Early Ecosystem, 11.40% is allocated to Operations Grants, 10.00% is allocated to Foundation Endowment, 15.23% is allocated to Seed Round, and 8.41% is allocated to Venture Round. This allocation is designed to support and incentivize different stakeholders of the Near protocol ecosystem. [\[3\]](#cite-id-6jdbblsns9)  
![content_NEAR_Allocation.png](https://ipfs.everipedia.org/ipfs/QmTDnQbFCV5t8JGGqZnc9UMZNN9v8hQzJj9t9fDBVz7uH6)*Allocation of Genesis Tokens*  
  
# NEAR Foundation  
  
Created on April 22, 2020, the NEAR Foundation is a Swiss-based non-profit organization that utilizes its financial and operational resources to support the mission of the NEAR Collective, which is a group of active participants who drive the NEAR ecosystem. [\[5\]](#cite-id-kuuv0wjh2af) Its mission is:  
  
> …to accelerate the world’s transition to open technologies by growing and enabling a community of developers and creators.  
  
On the other side, the vision of the foundation is the following:  
  
> …a self-sufficient ecosystem of creators, developers, entrepreneurs, community members and tokenholders whose collaborative efforts make the NEAR ecosystem the best place to build massively impactful projects in the Open Web.  
  
The NEAR foundation is governed by an independent board of directors who are in charge to guide the direction of the foundation. Members include Mona El Isa, Richard Muirhead, and Illia Polosukhin. [\[6\]](#cite-id-j3nvvffv1ze)  
  
# Partnerships & Collaborations  
  
## NEAR Protocol x Google Cloud  
  
NEAR Protocol announced on October 4th, 2022, a strategic partnership with Google to accelerate web3 startups, where NEAR grant recipients will receive technical assistance from Google Cloud. [\[8\]](#cite-id-ym9l1tg8bai)  
![Screen Shot 2023-01-26 at 9.44.50 PM.png](https://ipfs.everipedia.org/ipfs/QmUTN86kzKYsXsgLJkGifJmE9da8kSBQF9ULqViA7f71bq)  
Google Cloud will be providing support for developers building and scaling their Web3 projects and dApps on the NEAR Protocol. With Google Cloud, developers can take advantage of core internet infrastructure to deploy their code quickly, securely, and seamlessly. This partnership gives the opportunity for NEAR projects to achieve scalability. [\[9\]](#cite-id-5d7o5u8z6hn)  
  
> "We will be supporting NEAR and giving Web3 developers the most secure, reliable, and sustainable cloud infrastructure on which they can build and scale. We continue to support tomorrow’s leaders in creating new products and services on blockchain-based platforms.” - Carlos Arena, Director of Digital Assets at Google Cloud  
  
## NEAR Protocol x SeatlabNFT  
  
SeatlabNFT is an NFT based event ticketing marketplace that is built on the NEAR blockchain. Nightshade, NEAR’s sharding architecture, helps solve the scalability problems, which allows the processing of large numbers of transactions without any negative impact on performance.  
  
SeatlabNFT allows artists to create and sell event tickets directly to fans, bypassing scalpers and ensuring the authenticity of the tickets through NFT technology. This ensures that the buyers will not have to pay the markup prices and will have the original ticket with them. [\[10\]](#cite-id-mynuycpl2pq)  
  
## NEAR Wallet x SWEAT  
  
London-based tech company Sweatcoin, which aims to promote healthier living by encouraging physical activity, has teamed up with the NEAR Foundation to launch SWEAT, an innovative new token. [\[11\]](#cite-id-sxgvn1c3sf)  
  
> “Sweatcoin was founded with a vision to create a new economy of wealth through health. For every 1,000 steps you take, you earn a Sweatcoin that can be redeemed for goods and services in the app from brands including Sonos and Reebok, or to donate to important charities such as Save the Children via Sweatcoin for Good.”  - Anton Derlyatka, Co-founder at Sweatcoin  
  
## NEAR Foundation x Binance Custody  
  
On November 7, 2022, NEAR Foundation announced an integration with Binance Custody, a secure digital asset custody solution for institutional investors. The NEP-141 standard is now supported, which allows any institutional investors with NEAR to use their secure storage infrastructure. Additionally, the integration makes it simpler for Binance Custody to provide support for any tokens that are compatible with NEP-141 from projects that are built on NEAR. [\[12\]](#cite-id-prsj55mqx7g)  
  
## NEAR Foundation x Grupo Nutresa Partner  
  
NEAR has partnered with Grupo Nutresa, a major food processor in South America, to bring blockchain technology to the grocery industry. Grupo Nutresa will create one of the first open-source loyalty point programs on the NEAR blockchain, with the goal of eventually reaching one million users in Colombia and Latin America. The partnership was made possible through the assistance of tech company Peersyst. [\[13\]](#cite-id-waci58z5qqo)  
  
# Funding  
  
Lead investors of NEAR Protocol are [\[7\]](#cite-id-ky3z6e3mh5):  
  
* Tiger Global Management  
* Accomplice  
* Dragonfly  
* Three Arrows Capital  
* a16z crypto

NEAR Protocol is a layer 1 public blockchain built on Proof-of-Stake

NEAR Protocol

Cardano is a decentralized proof of stake (PoS) blockchain designed to be a more efficient alternative to proof of work (PoW) networks.

Cardano

XRP is the cryptocurrency of the Ledger XRP [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) which was developed by Ripple Labs. XRP is used to instantly make and receive payments from anywhere in the world. XRP is accepted on some e-commerce sites. XRP is also used in Ripple products to facilitate quick conversion between different currencies. XRP Ledger is a platform created to help banks and companies carry out fast and cheap transactions.  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](dlxYUQIMzqo)$$  
  
# Overview  
  
XRP is the native cryptocurrency on the Ripple network, and it consistently ranks among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. XRP is a cryptocurrency that runs on the XRP Ledger, a [blockchain ](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain)engineered by [Jed McCaleb](https://iq.wiki/wiki/jed-mccaleb), [Arthur Britto](https://iq.wiki/wiki/arthur-britto) and [David Schwartz](https://iq.wiki/wiki/david-schwartz). [McCaleb ](https://iq.wiki/wiki/jed-mccaleb)and [Britto ](https://iq.wiki/wiki/arthur-britto)would go on to found [Ripple ](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ripple-labs)and use XRP to facilitate transactions on the network. Ripple Labs was rebranded to Ripple in October 2015. Since then, the interchangeability in the terminology used to describe the company, the network, the XRP Ledger and XRP itself has caused confusion to those new and old in the cryptocurrency space.[\[3\]](#cite-id-q9mw0omxsze)[\[4\]](#cite-id-jemy0gn22v)[\[5\]](#cite-id-694lu9q4uo)  
  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](QxbsWPuJSTg)$$  
  
# History  
  
**2011**  
[Jed McCaleb](https://iq.wiki/wiki/jed-mccaleb) started developing a digital currency system (XRP Ledger) together with [David Schwartz](https://iq.wiki/wiki/david-schwartz) and [Arthur Britto](https://iq.wiki/wiki/arthur-britto). They sought to create a more sustainable system for sending value. [\[6\]](#cite-id-fgqnt9h7n88)  
  
**2012**  
XRP Ledger launched its native currency, XRP. By June, [Schwartz](https://iq.wiki/wiki/david-schwartz), [McCaleb ](https://iq.wiki/wiki/jed-mccaleb)and [Britto ](https://iq.wiki/wiki/arthur-britto)finished code development, and the Ledger was complete. Once the XRP Ledger was live, 80% of the XRP was gifted to a new company that was set out to build use cases for the digital asset - initially called NewCoin and renamed quickly to OpenCoin.  
  
**2013**  
XRP was created in January 2013 by OpenCoin Inc.  
  
**2016**  
[Ripple Labs](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ripple-labs) and Jed Mccaleb reached an agreement to prevent dumping of McCaleb's XRP and subject his resales with multiple restrictions.  
  
**2017**  
In May 2017, Ripple committed to replacing 55 billion XRP in a secured escrow account to create certainty of XRP supply at any given time.  
In December 2017, Ripple confirmed that this lockup was completed.[\[13\]](#cite-id-ghel82knuf8)  
Ripple stated:  
  
> “This move underscores Ripple’s commitment to building XRP liquidity and a healthy and trusted market. Long term, the value of digital assets will be determined by their utility. XRP has emerged as the only digital asset with a clear institutional use case designed to solve a multi-trillion dollar problem – the global payment and liquidity challenge that banks, payment providers, and corporates face.”  
  
**2020**  
XRP Ledger (XRPL) Foundation was established in September 2020 and raised $5.5 million from Ripple, Coil, and GateHub. XRPL Foundation is an independent and nonprofit entity with a mission to accelerate the development and adoption of the decentralized XRP Ledger. [\[12\]](#cite-id-c9p1lbs38zt)  
Bharath Chari foundation consultant of XRP Ledger said:  
  
> “The Foundation is extremely happy to work with stakeholders in the ecosystem for further innovation and use of XRP Ledger. We are committed to providing full support to growing the developer ecosystem."  
  
**2021**  
In Q4 2021, three billion XRP were released out of escrow (one billion each month) in line with prior quarters and the official escrow arrangement. In total, 2.4 billion XRP were returned and subsequently put into new escrow contracts throughout the quarter.  
  
# Architecture  
  
XRP’s [blockchain ](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain)operates a little differently than most other cryptocurrencies. Other cryptocurrencies open their transaction ledgers and verification processes to anyone who can solve complex equations quickly. But transactions are secure as the majority of ledger holders must agree with the verification for them to be added.  
  
XRP’s Ripple network somewhat centralizes things and uses a consensus protocol - while anyone can download its validation software, it maintains unique node lists that users can select to verify their transactions based on which participants they think are least likely to defraud them.  
  
As new transactions come in, the validators update their ledgers every three to five seconds and make sure they match the other ledgers. If there’s a mismatch, they stop to figure out what went wrong. This allows the network to securely and efficiently validate transactions, which gives it an edge over other cryptocurrencies like [Bitcoin](https://iq.wiki/wiki/bitcoin).  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](eQucgiziWSU)$$  
  
# Mining XRP - Premining  
  
No one can mine Ripple and the only option is to mine other cryptocurrencies first and then look for exchanges that help you convert your BTC to XRP.  
XRP was "pre-mined", meaning the XRP Ledger created 100 billion units that are then periodically released publicly.  
  
Ripple owns a portion of XRP in circulation, and that is an incentive for its help the cryptocurrency grows and be successful over time. Another portion of XRPs is help in reserve for regular release into the market through sales.[\[2\]](#cite-id-f15fwpqrnj)  
This led to concerns that a lot of XRP could be released at once, diluting the value of other XRP already in circulation because part of what gives any currency its value is its comparative scarcity.  
  
# Tokenomics  
  
On December 7, 2017, Ripple Labs completed lockup of 55 billion XRP in its escrow accounts on the XRP Ledger (XRP's native blockchain). Since then, a comprehensive strategy has been employed in order to carefully increase the circulation supply while maintaining and increasing liquidity.  
  
## Creation of XRP  
  
On June 2, 2012, [Arthur Britto](https://iq.wiki/wiki/arthur-britto), one of the original three developers of the XRP Ledger, brought to existence 100 billion XRP. 20% was allocated to its founders. In 2017, Ripple locked 55 million XRP into a series of escrows that release a 1 billion XRP each month to the company to provide additional predictability to the XRP supply.  
At the end of the month, a new escrow is made for the remaining XRP and a new month is added to the release schedule.[\[7\]](#cite-id-7jzsep6s3tx)  
  
## Deflation of XRP  
  
As a mechanism to protect the XRP Ledger from spam attacks, every transaction carries a small transaction cost, which is then burned. So, XRP is slightly deflationary. This transaction cost varies depending on the load the transaction puts on the system, or the type of transaction. However, these costs remain very insignificant as the typical payment costs just fractions of a penny, or 0.0004 XRP Projections show that it will take up to 70,000 years before the XRP supply runs out.[\[8\]](#cite-id-7jzsep6s3tx)  
  
## Use cases  
  
You can use XRP like any other digital currency, either for transactions or as a potential investment. You could also use the RippleNet to process other types of transactions, like exchanging currencies.  
For example, if you are looking to swap U.S. dollars for euros, you could first exchange your U.S. dollars for XRP on the Ripple network, and then use those to buy euros, rather than handling the currency exchange directly through a bank or money changing exchange. This can be a much faster and cheaper approach versus paying the high fees banks and money remittance organizations may charge.[\[1\]](#cite-id-3qnot7mppbq)  
  
* Moneygram International Inc. is a US-based remittance company, the biggest name in the list of Ripple's partnerships. This financial service company used Ripple's products for its cross-border transaction before their partnership ended in March 2021.[\[8\]](#cite-id-4xuvbfi7mct)  
* In 2017, Ripple signed with 10 new banks including Axis Bank and Yes Bank in India, Akbank in Turkey and BBVA bank in Spain. 47-bank consortium from Japan joined Ripple and other 57 big customers from America and other regions joined the platform. Ripple also received a boost from Kraken adding four different XRP trading pairs, including XRP/CAD, XRP/JPY, XRP/EUR, and XRP/USD.[\[9\]](#cite-id-zjqz2ux95t)[\[10\]](#cite-id-wkq24cnah3i)[\[11\]](#cite-id-qq31yn2c2bs)

XRP is a cryptocurrency developed by Ripple that is used in Ripple products to facilitate quick conversion between different currencies. Ripple is a global paym...

Litecoin is a peer-to-peer [cryptocurrency](https://iq.wiki/wiki/cryptocurrency) and open-source software project created in 2011 by Charles Lee. It is intended to be a lighter version of [Bitcoin](https://iq.wiki/wiki/bitcoin), with a few technical differences and a faster confirmation time. It operates on a peer-to-peer network and utilizes a proof-of-work consensus algorithm. [\[1\]](#cite-id-rznvggk60b)  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](JMTJvXyHJGU)$$  
  
# History  
  
Litecoin was released via an open-source client on GitHub on October 7, 2011, by [Charlie Lee](https://iq.wiki/wiki/charlie-lee), a former Google employee.  The Litecoin network went live on October 13, 2011. It was a fork of the Bitcoin Core client, differing primarily by having a decreased block generation time (2.5 minutes), the increased maximum number of coins (84 million vs. 21 million for Bitcoin Core), a different hashing algorithm (scrypt, instead of SHA-256), and a slightly modified GUI.  
  
In May 2017, Litecoin became the first of the top-5 (by market cap) cryptocurrencies to adopt Segregated Witness. Later in May of the same year, the first Lightning Network transaction was completed through Litecoin, transferring 0.00000001 LTC from Zürich to San Francisco in under one second.  
  
# Overview  
  
Litecoin is a decentralized, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that allows for fast and inexpensive transactions all around the world. It is an open-source global payment network that operates independently of any central authority. The network is secured by mathematics and gives individuals control over their financial transactions. [\[2\]](#cite-id-q1cifquqjc)  
  
## Mining  
  
Litecoin was released with 150 pre-mined coins and has a total supply of 84 million coins. The cryptocurrency’s blockchain generates a new block every 2.5 minutes, and it is estimated that it will take over a century for all of the Litecoin that will ever be created to be mined due to the block reward halving schedule, where the number of tokens mined per block decreases every four years, and it is estimated to reach full dilution around the year 2140. [\[3\]](#cite-id-oyxr0tqd5w)  
  
### Litecoin Halving  
  
Halving refers to reducing the reward given when a block's hash and the transaction information within the block are validated and a new block is created. Halving reduces the number of Litecoins awarded by one-half, which helps to slow down the creation of new coins.  
Halving dates for LTC:  
  
* Aug. 25, 2015: 50 to 25 LTCs  
* Aug. 5, 2019: 25 to 12.5 LTCs  
* Aug. 23, 2023 (expected): 12.5 to 6.25 LTCs  
  
## Open source software  
  
Litecoin is an open-source software project that is released under the MIT/X11 license, which grants users the ability to run, modify, copy and distribute the software. The release process of this software is transparent, enabling independent verification of both the binaries and the corresponding source code. [\[3\]](#cite-id-oyxr0tqd5w)  
  
# Mimblewimble Upgrade  
  
The MimbleWimble upgrade, named after the tongue-tying spell in Harry Potter, is a proposed addition to the Litecoin network that aims to improve privacy for users during transactions. It was first suggested in November 2019 through a Litecoin Improvement Proposal (LIP) by a developer under the pen name Tom Elvis Jedusor, which is the French-language version of Voldemort from the books. The upgrade allows for more private transactions by breaking them down into a single transfer and recording only one input-output pair. Additionally, it reduces the amount of unnecessary data in blocks. The MimbleWimble Extension Blocks (MWEB) upgrade was implemented on May 19, 2022, which has caused some regulatory challenges as some countries are not supportive of privacy-focused cryptocurrencies. In response, several South Korean exchanges have delisted Litecoin from their platforms as they need to comply with regulations that prohibit money laundering and illegal activities. This regulation requires them to remove any currencies that provide users with additional privacy or anonymity. [\[3\]](#cite-id-oyxr0tqd5w) [\[4\]](#cite-id-v8efzkl9tfb)

Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open-source software project created in 2011 by Charles Lee. 

Litecoin

**Maofan Ted Yin** is the Co-founder and Chief Protocol System Architect of [Avalanche](https://iq.wiki/wiki/avalanche). Led by [Emin Gün Sirer](https://iq.wiki/wiki/emin-gun-sirer) (CEO) alongside [Kevin Sekniqi](https://iq.wiki/wiki/kevin-sekniqi) (COO), [Avalanche](https://iq.wiki/wiki/avalanche) is a decentralized, open-source [proof of stake](https://iq.wiki/wiki/proof-of-stake) [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) with [smart contract](https://iq.wiki/wiki/smart-contract) functionality. [\[2\]](#cite-id-owyw5d8qvy)  
  
# $$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](M7XyU0487I0)$$  
  
# Early Life & Education  
  
Ted Yin participated in a summer program at Cornell University in June 2015, during which he co-created the Research Trends website over the course of two weeks, starting with no background in Flask, Weaver, and HypderDex. [\[1\]](#cite-id-2k1suegvbwn) His main interest in research is to build provably correct and practically effective systems. He Is passionate about research collaboration and often seeks out promising interns. [\[4\]](#cite-id-08r3mr3ias6x)  
  
Ted Yin majored in Computer Science during his undergrad at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. In 2019, he received his MSc. in Computer Science from Cornell University. In 2021, he received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell University, co-advised by Prof. [Emin Gün Sirer](https://iq.wiki/wiki/emin-gun-sirer) and Prof. Robbert van Renesse. [\[5\]](#cite-id-aanw3o5ynp)[\[3\]](#cite-id-8ln10eczjtq)   
  
# Career  
  
## 2017  
  
Teaching Assistant at Cornell University  
  
## 2018  
  
Research Intern at VMware  
  
## 2019  
  
Founder and Chief Protocol Architect (System) at [AVA](https://iq.wiki/wiki/avalanche)  
  
# Demos & Talks  
  
* Scaling the Infrastructure of Practical Blockchain Systems (dissertation defense) [\[6\]](#cite-id-e8rr6ya24sn)  
* Byzantine Fault Tolerant Consensus (HotStuff) (Data Skeptic) [podcast] [\[7\]](#cite-id-2xjt4rgyzh7)  
* Sync HotStuff (S&P 2020) [\[8\]](#cite-id-q3d0u946xg)  
* The Infrastructure for Blockchain 3.0 (Upbit Developer Conference 2019) [\[9\]](#cite-id-yxeyvxpzyoa)  
* Snowball BFT Consensus Visualization [\[10\]](#cite-id-m03uwn9gs5m)  
* HotStuff Slides (PODC 2019) [\[11\]](#cite-id-muey3df3jm)  
* HotStuff Slides (2018 Xi'an International Workshop on Blockchain) [\[12\]](#cite-id-642btmsrg6n)  
  
  


Maofan Ted Yin is the Co-founder and Chief Protocol Architect (System) at AVA.

Maofan Ted Yin

Chris Larsen co-founded [Ripple](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ripple-labs) in 2012 to facilitate international payments for banks using [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) technology. Previously, Larsen served the company as its CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors. Larsen stepped down as Ripple CEO in December 2016 but remains executive chairman. Prior to Ripple, he co-founded online mortgage lender e-Loan in 1996 and Prosper Marketplace, a peer-to-peer lender, in 2005.  
Larsen serves at the Board and Advisory levels at numerous companies and organizations including Betable, CreditKarma, and Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).[\[1\]](#cite-id-vrbz66ks4v)[\[2\]](#cite-id-yd921ditstr)  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](xpqJQarGCEQ)$$  
  
# Education  
  
Larsen attended San Francisco State University and earned a B.S. in Accounting and Finance in 1984.  
He graduated with an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1991.  
  
# Career  
  
## Before Ripple Labs  
  
### E-Loan  
  
In 1996, Larsen founded E-Loan, oneline mortgage lender, with his colleague Janina Pawlowski. They saw the internet as a way to circumvent agent commissions and other fees.  
In 1997, the E-Loan website became accessible to the public and having success as one of the first online mortgage lenders in the United States. The website allows borrowers to search and shop for loans directly, without the fees charged by brokers and sales agents.  
In 1998, Larsen and Pawlowski were in talks with Intuit over a $130 million buyout. *Forbes* wrote:  
  
> "Pawlowski and Larsen, who together held a 40% stake and had placed 20% more in an employee stock plan, would each walk away with $10 million in cash and $16 million in Intuit stock."  
  
In March 1999, E-Loan filed for an initial public offering, and it went public in June 1999.  
In February 2000, E-Loan's market value was estimated at around $1 billion, with Larsen serving as both CEO and Chairman. During his tenure, E-Loan became the first company to freely provide consumers' FICO credit scores.  
In 2005, Larsen stepped down as CEO and remained Chairman until E-Loan was sold to Banco Popular.[\[3\]](#cite-id-jt1wzqlf4g)  
  
### Prosper Marketplace  
  
In 2005, Larsen and John Witchel co-founded Prosper Marketplace and Larsen served as CEO. Prosper Marketplace was an online auction marketplace with lenders and borrowers ultimately determining loan rates.  
In 2008, Prosper ran into regulatory opposition from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as current loan regulations were focused on traditional banks, not technology startups. Prosper filed its first prospectus with the SEC, changing its business model to use pre-set rates based on a formula evaluating each prospective borrower's credit risk.    
In 2012, Larsen announced that he would be resigning from his role as CEO, though he remained Chairman of the company.[\[5\]](#cite-id-ma0sualxok9)[\[6\]](#cite-id-zkltr3dd1hi)  
  
## With Ripple Labs  
  
In September 2012, Larsen co-founded the company OpenCoin, which began developing a new payment protocol called [Ripple](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ripple-labs), based on a concept developed by Ryan Fugger.[\[7\]](#cite-id-6oifhqqx4te)  
In 2013, OpenCoin changed its name to [Ripple Labs, Inc](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ripple-labs)., and Larsen remained as CEO.   
As of 2023, Larsen is Executive Chairman of [Ripple’s ](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ripple-labs)board of directors.   
  
# Activities  
  
Larsen had been a tireless champion for privacy rights nationally and in California where he co-founded and financially backed Californians for Privacy Now (CFPN). Mr. Larsen and CFPN led and supported grassroots efforts to safeguard consumers’ privacy, and played a critical role in pressing the California state legislature to pass the strongest financial privacy law in the nation.[\[8\]](#cite-id-99waxxsg0tk)  
In 2001, a bill sponsored by Assemblywoman Jackie Speier proposed a requirement for consumers to opt in before financial services companies could share or sell personal information such as bank balances, phone numbers, and social security numbers. While the bill had public support, it was initially defeated by pro-business legislators. In response, Larsen co-founded the coalition Californians for Privacy Now, helping fund the project with $1 million of his own money. Larsen spearheaded the collection of 600,000 signatures in support of Speier's bill, which was almost double the required amount to issue a ballot to state voters. The signatures, combined with a lobbying campaign by Consumer Watchdog throughout 2002, led to major financial firms and legislators withdrawing their opposition, and the bill passed in August 2003.[\[4\]](#cite-id-sm7y0h5p83e)  
 Speier acknowledged Larsen's influence on the ruling, stating:  
  
>  "without Chris Larsen, California's financial privacy law, which sets the standard for the rest of the nation, would never have become a reality."  
  
  


Chris Larsen co-founded Ripple in 2012 to facilitate international payments for banks using blockchain technology. Larsen stepped down as Ripple CEO in December...

Chris Larsen

**Solana** is a [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) network that utilizes a Delegated-[Proof-of-Stake](https://iq.wiki/wiki/proof-of-stake) consensus mechanism. It is designed to support decentralized apps, marketplaces, and enterprise applications and aims to provide scalability while maintaining decentralization.[\[1\]](#cite-id-q75sik2tkks)[\[2\]](#cite-id-5d8tamqojws)[\[3\]](#cite-id-qh8svb6rfge) It was founded in 2017 by [Anatoly Yakovenko](https://iq.wiki/wiki/anatoly-yakovenko).  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](s8M73S6Dde8)$$  
  
# History  
  
Solana was founded in 2017 by [Anatoly Yakovenko](https://iq.wiki/wiki/anatoly-yakovenko), among other engineers which include Greg Fitzgerald, Solana’s CTO, as well as Eric Williams, they conceptualized a new way of dealing with the throughput problems that were present in both the [Bitcoin](https://iq.wiki/wiki/bitcoin) and [Ethereum](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ethereum) blockchains. They envisioned a trustless and distributed protocol that allows for greater scalability, and this led to Solana's creation in late 2017.[\[4\]](#cite-id-w31n1t0bfzd)  
  
The company launched its alpha testnet in the summer of 2018 and was successfully able to raise a $20m initial investment, led by Multicoin Capital in 2019. The founder and CEO at Solana, [Anatoly Yakovenko](https://iq.wiki/wiki/anatoly-yakovenko), previously led the development of operating systems at Qualcomm, distributed systems at Mesosphere, Inc., and compression at Dropbox. Solana's core team mainly includes engineers from Qualcomm who are well experienced in managing big projects such as Firefox OS and the BREW Operating System.[\[4\]](#cite-id-w31n1t0bfzd)  
  
Solana became live on Mainnet Beta in March 2020 after raising $1.76 million in a CoinList public token sale. On the project's beta network, simple transactional features and smart contract capability were accessible. There were no staking rewards, either, as Solana was still formulating its continuous release schedule. The beta version was updated to a more production-ready version in Q1 2021 and as of Q4 2022 is yet to fully complete its move to the [mainnet](https://iq.wiki/wiki/mainnet) version.[\[5\]](#cite-id-frm2rvka0fc)  
  
## Outages  
  
Solana has a history of outages, with five occurring in 2022. The disruptions are due ​​to a high level of network usage combined with a limited number of validators to manage the workload, as well as issues with bugs in its blockchain system. The network experiences strain when there is an unusual influx of transactions, which often occurs as a result of targeted attacks on Solana (such as DDoS) or the use of bots during [non-fungible token](https://iq.wiki/wiki/non-fungible-token-nft) minting events.[\[14\]](#cite-id-wwvqi5doz5)  
  
### First Outage: December 4, 2020  
  
The network experienced a six-hour disruption due to the Mainnet Beta cluster's inability to generate new blocks. This caused the network's ability to process new transactions to come to a standstill. The problem was quickly rectified the following day by Solana's over 200 validators, who rebooted the network.[\[14\]](#cite-id-wwvqi5doz5)  
  
### Second Outage: September 14, 2021  
  
The network was hit with a 17-hour outage as a result of a DDoS attack, which is a cyber-attack where excessive traffic is flooded to the network, causing it to stop functioning. In this case, during an initial DEX offering on [Raydium](https://iq.wiki/wiki/raydium), the Grape Protocol flooded the network with 400,000 transactions per second, causing the longest outage in the network's history. The protocol's validators decided to restart the network in order to address the problem in the most efficient manner.[\[14\]](#cite-id-wwvqi5doz5)  
  
### Third Outage: December 2021  
  
Blockasset, a Solana-based NFT project, detected another DDoS attack, but the network appeared to have remained operational and did not experience any significant downtime. However, the network doesn’t officially recognize this incident. [\[14\]](#cite-id-wwvqi5doz5)  
  
### Fourth Outage: January 2022  
  
Network instability and degraded performance arose, but contradictory reports were declared, as Wu Blockchain, a web3 news outlet, reported a 4-hour network disruption, while Solana Status insisted that the platform was fully operational. [Anatoly Yakovenko](https://iq.wiki/wiki/anatoly-yakovenko) denied that this event was caused by a DDoS attack, and instead the company called this as a ‘performance degradation’.[\[14\]](#cite-id-wwvqi5doz5)  
  
### Fifth Outage: March 2022  
  
This particular network issue did not receive a lot of attention, but it was recorded in the protocol's incident records. According to the data, the platform experienced degraded performance on March 10 and 21. It also noted that on March 28, some of its remote procedure call (RPC) nodes were down. Although not as severe as previous incidents, it was partly caused by a malfunctioning update that led to some RPC nodes forking off.[\[14\]](#cite-id-wwvqi5doz5)  
  
### Sixth Outage: April 30, 2022  
  
On April 30, 2022, Solana's Mainnet Beta cluster froze due to a flood of transactions, clocking at 6 million tps and causing a seven-hour outage. It was later determined that the cause was bots programmed to win an NFT mint at Metaplex's Candy Machine and not a DDoS attack. The network was restarted to resume normal operation. The downtime occurred a couple of days after the Okay Bears NFT collection launch, which was heavily hyped and had a large number of bots.[\[14\]](#cite-id-wwvqi5doz5)  
  
### Seventh Outage: June 2022  
  
The network was down for four and a half hours because of a bug that generated different outputs, resulting in a major consensus failure.[\[14\]](#cite-id-wwvqi5doz5)  
  
### Eight Outage: September 30, 2022  
  
This outage lasted for six hours, and it was caused due to a misconfigured node, thus freezing the operations on the network.[\[14\]](#cite-id-wwvqi5doz5)  
  
## FTX Bankruptcy  
  
After the collapse of [FTX](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ftx), where [Sam Bankman-Fried](https://iq.wiki/wiki/sam-bankman-fried) (SBF) was the CEO, the value of SOL dropped 30%, as SOL was [Alameda](https://iq.wiki/wiki/alameda-research)’s second-largest holding. Fears that FTX and Alameda Research would unload SOL tokens to raise liquidity arose. Solana Labs raised $314.2 million in the summer of 2021 with heavy investment from Alameda Research, a crypto hedge fund founded by SBF. SBF also built a decentralized exchange called [Serum](https://iq.wiki/wiki/serum) on the Solana blockchain and invested a significant amount of money in SOL tokens through his companies.[\[17\]](#cite-id-wwbub24n54c) Nonetheless, even after the incident, the network has been steadily gaining users and developers. According to Austin Federa, head of strategy and communications at the Solana Foundation, developers are joining the protocol through a variety of projects.[\[18\]](#cite-id-l960ptdlyi)  
  
> “You're not really seeing any projects migrate off of Solana that need the performance and power of the network. There's a lot of stuff that you can only build on Solana, and those developers are continuing to build here.”  
  
# Overview  
  
Solana is a high-throughput blockchain. It is a web-scale blockchain, providing a solution that is capable of hosting applications with a computational bandwidth akin to the modern internet. Solana is the only blockchain in existence with the capability to power decentralized versions of Nasdaq, Facebook, Twitter, and all other existing blockchains – with more available area to spare. It is currently supporting 50,0000 to 65,0000 transactions per second and 400ms block times, without complex solutions like sharding or layer-two. As the world's first web-scale blockchain, Solana will unlock a whole new class of performant applications that facilitate larger-scale blockchain adoption. Utilizing an innovation called Proof of History, Solana is able to outperform any other existing layer 1 and provide fees at $0.00001 per transaction. The Cofounder and Managing Partner of Multicoin Capital Kyle Samani said:  
  
> “Solana is the closest thing to the ‘world computer’ Blockchain developers conceptualized in the early days of crypto.”  
  
Core to Solana's scaling solution is a decentralized clock titled Proof-of-History (PoH), which was built to solve the problem of time in distributed networks, where there is not a single, trusted, source of time.  
  
## Proof of History  
  
The central innovation that makes Solana possible is Proof of History, PoH, which creates a record that proves that an event has occurred at a specific moment in time. Whereas other networks require participants to communicate in a bid to agree that time has passed, each Solana Node maintains its clock by encoding the passage of time in a consecutive series of events.  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](7UE5UFd-b2c)$$  
  
## Proof of Stake  
  
Anyone can participate in Solana’s proof-of-stake and become a Validator. However, like any blockchain, running a full node requires hardware. Therefore, the network allows for “Delegators” who can delegate a Validator to participate in block production and receive interest from his block rewards. The PoS operates on a rotating leader schedule, where the Validator is determined according to their share of the entire staking pool. So the more Delegators stake for a particular Validator, the more blocks they will produce. Validators and Delegators receive their rewards from a combination of transaction fees and inflation.  
  
## Features  
  
Solana sets itself apart with:  
  
* Scalability: Solana network can handle over 50,000 transactions per second. It has a block-producing time of 400 milliseconds ideally  
* Turbine block propagation: This protocol supports the Solana network, making the handling of thousands of nodes possible and still achieving performance and scalability  
* Cheaper Transaction fees: Estimated Transaction cost on the network is 10 USD for 1 million transactions  
  
### Innovations supporting Scalability  
  
* Proof of History (PoH) - A clock before consensus  
* Tower BFT - A Proof of History-optimized version of PBFT(Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance)  
* Turbine - A block propagation protocol  
* Gulf Stream - Mempool-less transaction forwarding protocol  
* Sealevel - Parallel smart contracts run-time  
* Pipelining - A Transaction Processing Unit for validation optimization  
* Cloudbreak - Horizontally-Scaled Accounts Database  
* Archivers - Distributed ledger store  
  
### Wormhole  
  
On October 8, 2020, Solana announced that it is ready to launch Wormhole, a decentralized bridge, which means [Ethereum](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ethereum) liquidity will not have to go through FTX to get to Solana anymore. This product allowed users to transfer the value of their digital assets between different blockchains, such as turning [ERC-20](https://iq.wiki/wiki/erc-20) tokens into Solana's SPL Standard. The service is under audit by Kudelski Group, and is preparing for an official release towards the end of October. Prior to the official release, a beta version was released to developers for a hackathon on October 28.  In a Medium post, Solana Labs explained the advantages of Wormhole being implemented into the DeFi space:  
  
> "Wormhole enables DeFi platforms to leverage Solana for high speed, low-cost transactions, while still allowing for settlement on another base chain. As we look to expand the pie, adoption is contingent on DeFi applications being no less performant than centralized platforms."  
  
Wormhole protocol connects its SPL token standard with Ethereum's ERC-20 and ETH tokens, meaning that developers can move tokenized assets to either blockchain and use the services that come with that particular chain.  
  
#### Wormhole hack  
  
On February 2nd, 2022, the platform was hacked for $325 million. The hack took place due to an update to the project’s GitHub repository which revealed a fix to a bug that had not yet been deployed to the project itself.[\[19\]](#cite-id-woawc9n0ryl)  
![Screen Shot 2023-01-17 at 10.25.24 PM.png](https://ipfs.everipedia.org/ipfs/QmawWe9HvKxkj7EHHrYYXjU3f7aThSEtgqV6g9MeCbjBjW)The attack was discovered when a post on the Wormhole Twitter account announced that the network was being taken offline for maintenance while a potential exploit was investigated. Later, another post confirmed the hack and announced the amount stolen.[\[19\]](#cite-id-woawc9n0ryl)  
  
## SOL Token  
  
The Solana blockchain has its native token called $SOL. There is a fixed supply of one billion SOL tokens, which are used as an incentive for nodes in exchange for running an on-chain program or validating its output. SOL tokens are divisible by up to 34 times so that the system may perform fractional payouts of SOL as required.  
  
### Token Allocation  
  
The tokens were distributed in five funding rounds, where four were private sales. Venture capitals such as Muliticoin Capital, Distributed Global, [BlockTower Capital](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blocktower-capital), Foundation Capital, Blockchange VC, Slow Ventures, NEO Global Capital, Passport Capital, and Rockaway Ventures participated.[\[15\]](#cite-id-xkcvnfk595)  
  
The following is the initial distribution of SOL:  
  
* 15.86% to Seed Round investors  
* 2.63 to Founding Sale investors  
* 5.07% to Validator Sale investors  
* 1.84% to Strategic Sale investors  
* 1.6% to Public Auction Sale investors  
* 12.5% to team members  
* 12.5% to the Solana Foundation  
* 38% to the Community reserve fund (managed by the Solana Foundation)  
  
Meanwhile, the following are the funding rounds for the token:[\[16\]](#cite-id-q1u4zg79e5f)  
  
* $3.17M was raised in the Seed Sale on March 2018 with an average price of $0.04  
* $12.6M was raised in the Founding Sale on 3 June 2018 with an average price of $0.2  
* $5.7M was raised in the Validator Sale on 9 July 2019 with an average price of $0.225  
* $2.3M was raised in the Strategic Sale on 18 Feb 2020 with an average price of $0.25  
* $1.8M was raised in the Public Auction on 24 March 2020 with an average price of $0.22  
  
### Staking  
  
Solana is a [Proof-of-Stake (PoS)](https://iq.wiki/wiki/proof-of-stake) network with delegations. On Solana, validators process transactions and run the network. Since validators are also chosen based on the amount of stake they hold in the network, the biggest staked validators are likely to be chosen to input transactions on the blockchain and earn rewards. Validators are incentivized to attract delegators (i.e.non-validator SOL token holders) to designate tokens to them to stake in their stead. And for delegators to opt in, Validators need to offer lower commissions, which delegators must pay to validators in the form of a fee denoting a percentage of the rewards earned.  
To stake SOL tokens can also be another way for users to earn profits if they are just keeping their tokens.  
  
1. Token Transfer: Users interested in staking SOL tokens will need to first make a transfer of their tokens in wallets that support staking, such as Ledger Nano S  
2. Making of a stake account: Users will need a stake account that will have a different address from the supported wallet that it will be linked with  
3. Choosing a Validator: The user can choose from his/her Solana’s validators, to determine who will delegate the user's SOL after creating a stake account  
4. Stake Delegation: Once the user has chosen a validator, they can use their wallet to delegate their stake account to them  
5. As Solana uses Dpos, Token holders are given incentives to validate the transactions. All fees are paid in the SOL and will be burnt, so reducing the total supply. Network security is achieved by encouraging Token holders to stake more to earn more incentive  
  
# Solana Pay  
  
Solana Pay is a digital payment framework built on the Solana blockchain, which enables businesses and customers to engage in instant and low fees transactions. It has an open software development kit (SDK) that allows for the addition of new functionality and features over time. This enables developers to easily integrate their Solana-based [DApps](https://iq.wiki/wiki/decentralized-application) with Solana Pay and eliminate the need for financial intermediaries. Additionally, the platform allows users to build upon the base provided by Solana Pay and propose changes through contributions on GitHub.[\[12\]](#cite-id-oftuuwgl47)[\[13\]](#cite-id-5j9ty8e4ps)  
  
Some of the platforms that utilize Solana Pay include Phantom, Circle, Citcon, Checkout.com, Decaf, Kitepay, Solflare, and Elusiv.  
  
# Solana Saga Mobile Phone  
  
Saga is Solana’s Android mobile phone with Solana blockchain integrated, allowing for easy and secure transactions in web3 and managing digital assets. It utilizes the Solana Mobile Stack, a framework for Android developers to create wallets and apps on Solana.[\[20\]](#cite-id-nmekc6eici)  
![Saga-Black.webp](https://ipfs.everipedia.org/ipfs/QmNvNprYQtVudEJf9NbpY4XXh6aM8oSu47zFnH6gFZ8WoT)  
  
# Solana University  
  
Solana University is a program launched by Solana with the objective of educating university students about the Solana ecosystem and coding with Rust, while at the same creating projects utilizing these tools.[\[6\]](#cite-id-h5nhfvdnp1o)  
![solana-u-announcement.png](https://ipfs.everipedia.org/ipfs/QmdZnAUVfznUZMMghsTQUQbw9HY8hT4RvdEiXePp7ZtpR2)  
  
## Ambassador Program  
  
The Ambassadors Program is the main focus of the Solana Foundation and allows highly enthusiastic students at universities or in blockchain clubs to have a direct connection to the foundation and Solana Labs engineers. Ambassadors collaborate with foundation staff to create a plan for launching their school or club and receive the necessary educational materials, resources, and speakers to do so.[\[7\]](#cite-id-om4rgwe8hx9)  
  
# Partnerships and Collaborations  
  
## Solana X ASICS  
  
ASICS introduced the “UI Collection”, consisting of a set of two pairs of shoes that come with a non-fungible token (NFT) and can only be bought using USDC via Solana Pay. The collection includes two versions of the GT-2000 shoe: one in white called "light mode" and another in black called "dark mode.[\[8\]](#cite-id-3yl7r5llsao)[\[9\]](#cite-id-bnkf3hz0oh)  
![1011B813_DC01_SB_FL_GLB.webp](https://ipfs.everipedia.org/ipfs/Qmdrgw29xmz66hXSs4TcgjFh3ENCXqS6dX6FUwexAG1R3d)  
  
## Solana X ZepetoX  
  
ZepetoX, a crypto metaverse project, will be building its platform on the Solana blockchain, which will enable ZepetoX to offer players a highly immersive, web-based open world with advanced gamification features. In addition to this, the platform will also enable players to engage in social interactions, content creation, and other activities, while also giving them the chance to monetize their work, similar to other open-world titles.[\[10\]](#cite-id-17q6uirwn15)  
![ZEPETO_CAPTURE_-8585585034870723738.png](https://ipfs.everipedia.org/ipfs/QmYHZt8nmcNsqBYYKLvYsbP4GsyCvMNFJgaDZ6HvR1jNJt)This metaverse project is being incubated by ZEPETO, Asia's largest metaverse platform, in collaboration with global blockchain organizations including Jump Crypto. ZEPETO is owned by Naver Z, a subsidiary of Naver Corporation, a South Korean internet conglomerate.[\[11\]](#cite-id-ybl87u2c5s)

Solana is a blockchain network that utilizes a Delegated-Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. 

Solana

Sperax is a [stablecoin](https://iq.wiki/wiki/stablecoin) protocol behind USDs (SperaxUSD), a fully backed, auto-yielding, layer 2 algorithmic stablecoin on [Arbitrum](https://iq.wiki/wiki/arbitrum). [\[1\]](#cite-id-c5r6r1oz6e8)  
  
# Overview  
  
Sperax launched in 2020 and later transitioned into creating a auto-yielding stablecoin USDs, which was released in December 2021. USDs is a stablecoin that aims to address the limitations of existing stablecoins in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. It combines the benefits of different stablecoin designs by featuring a 100% backed model like CDP stablecoins, while also adding scalability benefits like those of fiat-backed stablecoins. This is achieved through an on-chain, redemption-based design aiming to make USDs highly scalable, trustless, and decentralized. [\[2\]](#cite-id-xme606giu9k)[\[3\]](#cite-id-tzfu5p9efm)  
  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](7YTTTQTkbIk)$$  
  
# SPA Token  
  
The Sperax ecosystem utilizes a governance and value accrual token known as SPA. Individuals who hold SPA can stake their tokens to receive veSPA (Vote-Escrowed SPA), which grants them the ability to earn [staking](https://iq.wiki/wiki/staking) rewards and manage the protocol's revenue through voting power in Sperax governance. Currently, off-chain governance is active and the community, represented by veSPA holders, can control various aspects of the USDs protocol such as yield strategies, eligible collateral, and new product features. [\[2\]](#cite-id-xme606giu9k)  
  
# Auto-Yield  
  
Auto-yield is a feature of the USDs stablecoin that allows users to earn rewards and grow their wallet balance without having to take any action. This feature uses the collateral received for minting USDs to generate yield by deploying it in other, audited DeFi projects. The yield, in the form of reward tokens and swapping fees from pools, is shared between USDs holders and SPA stakers. 50% of the yield is used to mint new USDs and distribute it to anyone who holds USDs in their wallet, making it a gas-free way to earn returns. The target yield rate is 11% APY and any additional yield generated above that is stored to help fund the APY during market downturns. Staked USDs are not eligible for auto-yield distribution and only USDs holders on non-contract addresses or externally owned account (EOA) wallets will receive regular auto-yields every 7 days. [\[4\]](#cite-id-g2m2oek60oh)  
  
### Yield strategies  
  
Different methods for generating yield are proposed by the community and evaluated for their potential and level of risk. The community then votes on which pools or farms to deploy the collateral in. The current strategies used for yield generation include: [\[4\]](#cite-id-g2m2oek60oh)  
  
1. Saddle - where [FRAX](https://iq.wiki/wiki/frax-finance) and [USDC](https://iq.wiki/wiki/usdc) from vault-core are deposited into the Saddle FRAX-USDC-BP pool and the LP tokens are staked in the Saddle gauge. This strategy generates revenue through fees in FRAX and USDC and farm rewards in SDL.  
2. [Frax](https://iq.wiki/wiki/frax-finance) \- where FRAX and VST from vault\-core are deposited into the Curve FRAX\-VST pool and the LP tokens are staked in the Frax gauge\. Revenue is generated through fees in FRAX and VST and farm rewards in [FXS](https://iq.wiki/wiki/frax-share) and VSTA.  
3. Stargate - where USDC from vault-core is deposited into the Stargate USDC pool and the LP tokens are staked in the Stargate farm. Revenue is generated through fees in USDC and farm rewards in STG.  
4. [Aave](https://iq.wiki/wiki/aave) \- where [DAI](https://iq.wiki/wiki/dai) from the vault-core is lent to the Aave DAI market. Revenue is generated through fees in DAI and rewards in Aave.  
  
# Staking  
  
Holders of SPA tokens can participate in staking by locking up their tokens on either the Arbitrum or [Ethereum](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ethereum) network in exchange for non-transferable veSPA tokens. The amount of veSPA received is proportional to the duration of the lockup period, with longer lockups resulting in greater rewards. Staking rewards are distributed based on the user's veSPA balance and include yield share rewards, fee rewards, and incentive rewards which are originally generated in USDs and are then swapped for SPA tokens before distribution. [\[5\]](#cite-id-huukqug4i45)  
  
* **Yield share rewards:** 25% of the yield generated by the USDs protocol  
* **Fee rewards:** 100% of the fee income from USDs mints and redemptions  
* **Incentive rewards:** sponsored by the treasury to boost the staking protocol  
  
When the governance protocol is launched, voting power will also be determined by the user's veSPA balance, with those who have locked up for longer periods having more voting power. However, it's important to note that veSPA balance will decrease over time and therefore, stakers can increase their veSPA balance and rewards by extending the locking period, locking up more SPA or by re-staking SPA rewards. [\[5\]](#cite-id-huukqug4i45)  
  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](JuQmvG1jfKE)$$  
  
# Liquidity Mining  
  
The Demeter protocol allows users to launch and manage decentralized exchange liquidity pools for their DAO's native token. The protocol provides engineering, marketing, and financial support to launch and manage the pool, including whitelisting on the Demeter active farms dashboard, fixed SPA emissions from the SPA gauge, and discounted launch fees for farms paired against USDs or SPA. Users can provide liquidity to the UNI-V3 SPA-USDs pool via the Sperax UI to create LP tokens, which can then be staked on the farm contracts for rewards. Users can choose to lock their LP tokens for additional rewards and a guaranteed minimum APR but must initiate a 21-day cooldown period before exiting the farm. [\[6\]](#cite-id-7g3ojrlpur7)  
  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](pJVq2wxQTPg)$$  
  
# Governance  
  
The Sperax off-chain governance process involves a three-phase process for submitting, discussing, and voting on proposals for the protocol. The first phase is casual ideation, where ideas are shared and discussed on the Sperax Discord channel. The second phase is the governance proposal, where formal proposals are submitted on the Sperax Governance Forum and discussed for a minimum of 48 hours. The third phase is the Snapshot vote, where a poll is created for community members with veSPA tokens to vote on the proposal. The proposal must receive more than 50% in "Yes" votes, and have a minimum quorum of 20 million veSPA votes to pass. If it passes, it moves on to the Sperax Improvement Plan (SIP) phase, where it is implemented. If it does not pass, it enters a cooldown period before it can be resubmitted. [\[7\]](#cite-id-yjy8n8z1ge)  
  
$$widget0 [YOUTUBE@VID](eOS12xByBRc)$$  
  
# Buybacks  
  
The Sperax buyback contract is designed to decentralize the process of buying back SPA tokens while also increasing the Total Value Locked (TVL) of USDs with protocol revenue. Users can purchase USDs directly with SPA through the contract. The USDs available for purchase come from two sources: mint/redeem fees and yield. 50% of the SPA bought back is distributed to veSPA holders as a reward, while the rest is burned. The protocol yield is collected in multiple tokens, converted to USDs, and a portion is sent to the buyback contract, while the rest is transferred to the auto-yield reserve. Protocol fees are also collected in USDs and deposited in the buyback contract. Any user or external wallet can sell their SPA for USDs, and 50% of the SPA received is burned and the remaining 50% is sent to the veSPA rewarder. The percentages for yield share and burn can be changed through governance. [\[8\]](#cite-id-cvluzfl4ozv)  
  
# Demeter Protocol  
  
The Demeter protocol is a tool that allows decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) to easily launch and manage decentralized exchange liquidity pools. It is designed to be user-friendly and eliminates the need for coding knowledge. The first version, Demeter V1, enables users to launch incentivized liquidity pools on [Uniswap V3](https://iq.wiki/wiki/uniswap), and future versions will support custom liquidity shapes on other major decentralized exchanges. Demeter is currently available on Arbitrum and will soon be expanded to other blockchains like Optimism, Polygon, and Ethereum. It offers engineering, marketing, and financial support for DAOs launching farms, including a discounted fee for launching farms against USDs or SPA, and a whitelisted farms dashboard for increased visibility. The fee paid for launching farms is used to burn SPA tokens, which helps reduce the SPA supply and increase its value. [\[9\]](#cite-id-y945xmhk2km)[\[10\]](#cite-id-okvcetm2gf)  
  
# ![demeter pro.PNG](https://ipfs.everipedia.org/ipfs/QmfUgaHVLRfjqqU53DqDkWNqdjaoxrUM9zgz1NdGcDERL4)Team  
  
* **Engineer:** Joe Yu  
* **Engineer:** David Zhao  
* **Product:** Atreyee Bhaumik  
* **Marketing and Business Development:** Alex Shaw  
* **Business Development:** Elliot  
  
[\[11\]](#cite-id-bmrayminxqe)  
  
# Advisors  
  
* **Economic Advisor:** Marco Di Maggio  
* **Product Advisor:** Subhajit  
* **Economic Advisor:** Nicolas Andreoulis  
* **Co-Founder at Amber Group:** Late Tiantian Kullander  
  
[\[11\]](#cite-id-bmrayminxqe)

Sperax is a stablecoin protocol behind USDs (Sperax USD), a fully backed auto-yielding layer 2 algorithmic stablecoin on Arbitrum.

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