Ankr (ANKR) is an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency launched by Ankr, a web3 infrastructure provider company in 2019. It aims to enable resource providers and end-users to easily connect to blockchain technologies and DeFi applications.^[1]

Ankr prides itself as the fastest, most reliable Web3 infrastructure. It currently operates on the following blockchain Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, Fantom and Avalanche.
On the 2nd of September 2022. Ankr announced on its twitter a partnership with SSV.network to a Step Closer to Trustless ETH Liquid Staking.^[19][20][21]

Background

The Ankr Network was founded in 2017 at the University of California, Berkeley as a distributed computing platform that takes advantage of blockchain technologies.^[2] The platform enables the sharing economy, where any customer can access resources at an affordable rate, while also providing enterprises with the ability to monetize on their spare computing power that is not being utilized.^[3]

Ankr also utilizes verification nodes in the block validation process, to ensure that the quality of the network itself is maintained and that any bad actors are removed from the system.^[4]

Company

The company was founded in 2017 and is based in San Francisco, California. It currently has around 11-50 employees. The Ankr team is distributed globally alongside a community of over 30,000 supporters. Currently operating from San Francisco, Shanghai, Seoul, Moscow, Bucharest, India, Amsterdam, and London.^[5][6]

Fundraising

Ankr has raised a total of $15,000,000 in venture capital funding. Investors in the project include NEO Global Capital (NGC), JD Capital. DHCV, Ryan Fang, and Pantera Capital.

Features

Ethereum 2.0 Staking

Ankr provides decentralized staking services for Ethereum 2.0. Ankr's Eth2 staking protocol and platform combine staking and DeFi, implementing elements from traditional staking with non-custodial management, Micropools, instant liquidity, and decentralized governance.^[7]

One-Click Node Platform

The Ankr team has developed a one-click blockchain node platform built on a distributed cloud that allows users to run a node from anywhere in the world without any coding experience. It currently supports Bitcoin, Binance, ChainLink, Ethereum, EOS, Compound, Cardano, Polkadot, among others.^[8]

Decentralized Infrastructure

Ankr provides decentralized web 3 infrastructure blockchain services for decentralized applications (DApp) which run on a distributed cloud network.

Stability and Uptime

Using a distributed network, Ankr manages to achieve 100% uptime and more stability. Utilizing their distributed cloud network, exchanges have experienced no interference or suspension of their services. The distributed nature of the cloud makes it resilient against any kind of outage.^[9]

Ankr Cloud

By hosting on the Ankr cloud, developers are adopting an eco-friendly solution while saving heavily on their infrastructure expenses. It can save up to 80% of cloud expenses for them. Ankr acts as the DevOps for exchanges and implements and maintains their staking features for various cryptocurrencies. It takes away substantial hours, and costs from these exchanges by implementing and updating their staking solutions.^[10]

Tokenomics

ANKR is the native currency of the project. It is an ERC-20 Token created on an Ethereum blockchain. It has a total supply of 10,000,000,000 ANKR and a circulating supply of 5,829,566,044 ANKR.^[11]

It is used to pay providers who offer their idle compute resources to the ANKR network. This computation power forms the Ankr cloud which is utilized by Ankr consumers. Consumers pay Ankr tokens to utilize the cloud. Investors can stake Ankr tokens in the platform for a continual ROI. The Ankr acquired from consumers are used to pay providers, provide the ROI for staking , and continue to fund the company and progress the project. Staking tokens remove them from circulation, driving up value eventually.^[12]

Ankr Advanced APIs

Ankr’s Advanced APIs are designed to save developers time and money as they integrate Web3 capabilities into their projects. It is a collection of RPC methods that were created to simplify querying blockchain data of all types.

Ankr is launching three powerful and purpose-built APIs: NFT API, Query API, and Token API which already works on its across six EVM-compatible blockchains.

The advanced APIs will make a user Web3 development experience more efficient by helping them, Make fewer requests, Spend less on requests and also Query multiple chains at once.^[18]

Partnerships

Major partners include Matic Network, Harmony, Zilliqa, LTO Network, Digital Ocean, Linux Foundation, SAP, MultiVAC, Blockcloud, Prometheus Network, Celer Network, among others.^[13]

aETH

aETH is a synthetic derivative asset that acts as a bridge between currently illiquid Ethereum 2.0 and the regular Ethereum network. While the Ethereum 2.0 launch presents major opportunities to early adopters including rewards, the staked assets get locked in the network until at least phase 1.5 is released (which can take up to several years), stripping investors of the ability to use and access their capital. aETH allows them to access and utilize their capital while still reaping the benefits of being an Ethereum 2.0 staker.^[14]

aETH process

Users deposit ETH which then gets staked in an Eth2 node via a Stkr Micropool, automatically getting locked up for an uncertain period of time (until phase 1.5 goes live). They will automatically receive aETH on the Stkr platform.^[15]

Before the start of staking rewards, aETH is issued at a ratio of 1:1 to the amount of ETH the user staked. For example, if a user has 10 ETH staked, they will get 10 aETH.^[16]

aETH Liquidity Pool

On February 10, 2021, the project announced the aETH liquidity pool on Curve Finance. Users are able to earn $ONX and $ANKR double rewards by providing liquidity to the $aETH/ $ETH pool.^[17]

Team Members

• Chandler Song - CEO
• Ryan Fang - COO
• Stanley Wu - CTO
• Marco Robustelli - CMO
• Alexandre Mortreux - Head of Design
• Flavian Manea - Head of Blockchain
• Nima Beheshtian - Head of Sales
• Aleksandr Ishchenko - Frontend Team Lead
• Mobius Sun - Head of Infrastructure
• Ilya Dzhubanskiy - Frontend Engineer
• Chris Li - Ankr China Lead
• Yuvraj Chhibber - Community Lead
• Natasha Makarova - Product Designer
• Nickolay Illarionov - Product Designer^[22]