Waves is an open-source blockchain platform, developed, marketed, and operated by Waves Platform AG, that allows users to launch their own custom cryptocurrency tokens.
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With the current trend of crypto-investors turning millionaires, even billionaires, your mind must have gushed about an investment in cryptocurrencies. Or if you have proper resources plus ample patience, you could have invested them in mining. Some might have even dreamed about becoming the next Nakamoto or the next Buterin with their own cryptocurrency venture. Well, however astonishing it may sound but here we have something that could help you create your own cryptocurrency.
An open source blockchain platform known as Waves allows users to launch their own customised cryptocurrency tokens. While Bitcoin and Ethereum are traded on external exchanges, Waves provides the facility in its own software and wallet. Users can create, transfer, transact and trade any form of cryptocurrency over this platform on a peer-to-peer basis but the transaction fees must be paid in the native WAVES token.
(Caption : The WAVES) (Source : https://goo.gl/images/zDNHF9 )
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Like almost all other cryptocurrency tokens, WAVES too restricts the number of supply, with the total number of tokens limited 100 million. The platform thus creates a network which is fueled by the token. The consensus algorithm used in the network is based on Bitcoin-NG, but has been update for proof-of-stake networks and has been named Waves-NG. The issue of blockchain tokens are backed by fiat and digital currencies for the use on this platform.
Alexander Ivanov, a Russian physicist is credited for founding Waves in 2016. A new crypto-venture does require a lot of funds to initiate. In this case, fundraising was cycled through a crowdsale event held during April and May 2016. The Waves community is an international forum with bases in different locations around the world. It hosts a wide range of initiatives that are built on the platform.
Let us have a look at how this platform took shape.
The history of WAVES
The cryptocurrency world has been addressing some apparent barrier like wider blockchain adoption, speed of transactions or mining, scalability as well as the user experience concerning all the comprising financial institutions. Affected with such issues, Alexander Ivanov—a Russian physicist who had the earlier founded Coinomat cryptocurrency exchange and had been a part of the Nxt cryptocurrency platform, created the proposal of Waves in early 2016. This proposal soon went into the development phase and was funded through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that raised an equivalent of $16 million. ICOs are still a revolutionary fund raising technique and the Waves ICO represented the second-largest successfully crowdfunded blockchain project collecting almost 30,000 Bitcoins at that time.
Waves was officially launched in November 2016 as a decentralised network. This included the release of facilities that helped developers create their own crypto-coins, also allowing them to build their own decentralised blockchain-based applications.
The network launched its first Bitcoin gateway in 2017 that allowed users to hold or transfer BTC tokens on the Waves network. They also launches a Euro and US dollar gateway in June 2017. In fact 2017 has been a happening year for the Waves network as they launched a Euro and a US dollar gateway in around June as well as an Ether (ETH) gateway. Similarly Litecoin (LTC) and Zcash were included in October. The Waves token also reached parity with dollar in May 2017 and climbed as high as $6 per token in subsequent weeks.
Most of the members of the WAVES team were members of the NXT project. It was the poor initial coin distribution, rotation schemes and controversial development decisions that led to these people leaving the project to start their own venture. They completely built Waves from scratch and it is the first production system built on top of the Scorex framework with emphasis on inherent fiat integration. It fills the demands for a stable blockchain currency for investors, beginners and regular users. The Waves liteclient also features a portfolio to keep track of all your assets. It provides a voting area as well to facilitate consensus on various projects.
Waves is planning to become a KYC and AML (Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering) platform. This would help create bank partnerships and the banks could provide a gateway for fiat currencies to be deposited and withdrawn from. The first such partnership made by waves is with Mycelium, the reputed wallet provider.
(Caption : Innovation -> Included) (Source : https://goo.gl/images/67Rx7S )
It is possible to earn waves through multiple methods. Like all other cryptocurrencies, Waves can be traded on exchanges. For mining, Waves can be dug up through LPoS (Leased Proof of Stake) mining, which needs you to have Waves in your wallet to earn more of it. It is a fully premined token which implies that the rewards come through transaction fees only. Users can run a Masternode to maintain their network or they can lease their waves to nodes allowing others to profit from the system. It has also introduced the concept of Faucets. If a user is only interested in owning a few WAVES coins and is short of money faucets is the solution for them. Through a faucet, you can earn upto 0.0001 WAVES every hour. You just need to enter your public WAVES address and confirm that you are not a robot. And yes, it’s free.
With its previous success through crowdfunding, this could really boost the number of projects and hence the inflow of currency in the system. Almost immediately after the ICO, the price of WAVES token jumped 80% with the value revolving around $0.20 (or 0.003 BTC) per token. The price remained relatively flat for some time but jumped to a high in December 2017. This was most likely because of the release of their road-map as well as partnerships with ICO Hub. The company has also partnered with Deloitte to provide clients with ICO services. Subsequently there would be a rise in the number of people in the community giving the right shape to development of the company.
The calibration of Waves is simple. Anyone can make a custom token with a few clicks wit little knowledge of the underlying technology and run their own venture over the network. The company’s main aim is to become the fastest blockchain in the world. The decentralised exchange also adds to the speed of the system which helps perform transactions much faster. Moreover, Waves can now be traded on numerous exchanges like Binance and BIttrex. Services like Changelly or Shapeshift can also be used to get WAVES.
The technology involved in developing new applications or creating new crypto coins on the platform is much easier than building them from scratch. This adds to the interests of the crypto-enthusiasts. Hence this platform becomes a app-development software as well as an exchange for users. Let us look at the technology behind it.
The Technology used in Waves
The Waves platform has been built using the Scala language. It is a proof-of-stake platform that uses Waves-NG to enable high volume of transactions and fast confirmations. The Waves token is the fuel for the system as every transactions happens in it. It also serves as a spam-prevention mechanism. The transaction fees for simple transactions is set at 0.001 WAVES while it costs around 1 WAVES to create a new token in the network.
To understand the proper implementation of Waves, there are a few key subjects that are needed to be understood :
# MRT
The Waves platform encourages useful participation. The Miners Reward Token (MRT) is distributed with every new block that is mined. It is intended to function as a secondary reward for the miners as the transaction fees keeps growing. MRT is given value by the businesses existing in the Waves system. These organisations motivate miners to accept their own tokens as transaction fees, and the reward is generated by distributing a share of tokens to MRT holders. MRT also serves as a voting right on network parameters.
# WCT
One of the primary aims of WAVES is to make users hold their coins, and for the users to keep their balances in native exchanges rather than on other exchanges. The Waves Community Token (WCT) is distributed among the holders on a monthly basis in proportion to their average balance of the previous month. It is like the interest you get in you savings bank account. This would keep the holders interested and they would keep their money in the Waves wallet rather than transferring it away. WCT could also be used as an authority to vote on the perceived feasibility and legitimacy of any upcoming projects or crowdsales.
# WAVES-NG
The Waves blockchain algorithm is based on proposal of Bitcoin-NG and was created by Emin Gune Sire. The Bitcoin system could earlier achieve a best of 3 to 6 transactions per second which is incompetent in front of 30,000 transactions by like of VISA. Through the update,NG elects a leader who then regulates the future transactions as soon as they happen. This approach can run much faster than the former approach, and the speed of transactions depends a lot on the network allowance. The adoption of this approach in the Waves model allows hundreds of transactions per second.
# Smart Contracts
Initially Waves was designed just for custom token operations but later they wanted to include some kind of contracts for users in the system. Learning from the DAO issues and the hardfork of the blockchain, Waves’ decided to create their own smart contracts that aren’t turing complete but allow business operations to take place smoothly, without inheriting the risks involved in offering such capabilities.
#DEX
The Decentralised Exchange (DEX) used in the Waves platform reduces a lot of the risks involved in using a centralised exchange. The funds are directly stored in your wallet. It is decentralised so no one can freeze or limit your funds and withdrawals. That means giving you the full control of your money and account. It uses an automated matcher to give you suggestions for buy/sell orders according to your needs. There are all kinds of trading pairs available on the platform with Litecoin, Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. By the way, just for the info, the most popular trades on Dex are between Waves and Bitcoin.
(Caption : Full control on your money with DEX) (Source : https://goo.gl/images/67Rx7S )
Though you need to give KYC or AML for fiat gateways, but the crypto transactions are completely anonymous.
How about putting your money in Waves?
Waves provides an easy and sophisticated platform to develop cryptocurrencies. Many crypto-enthusiasts today perceiving the benefits, with the rise in trend, are moving towards such operations or creating applications which include the use of the blockchain or cryptocurrencies or both. The platform is good for even those who are looking forward to support their ventures through crowdfunding or simply creating a loyalty coin for their self-owned businesses. It has found powerful partnerships with the Russian government as well as with Deloitte, a company with a worldwide stature. They are also including Smart Contracts which would certainly increase the liquidity and bring them in the forefront with other major currencies.
It has reflected great interest in investors with its price shooting up suddenly and reach its current value of $5. It has a fixed supply of 100 million tokens that has the potential to reach a great number of people with its low price. Considering that it uses the Delegated Proof-of-Stake Consensus (DPOS), a split happening in the blockchain becomes highly unlikely. Moreover, most of the other cryptocurrencies have yet not moved to POS.
One of the biggest advantages is that Waves also works as a decentralised exchange beyond being just a cryptocurrency or a platform for developers. This provides users complete control over their funds. In fact, if you hold your funds in the wallet, they might grow gradually but automatically, courtesy WCT.
Waves currently look like the best mixture of every trait that is best in other cryptocurrencies. The team has upgraded security, stability as well as fluency which was much needed in the crypto-world. Although it might appear to be new yet, putting your money in Waves does not like like a ‘waver’ with the potential that it shows. A new catch for investors? Most likely, Yes!
What competition does Waves face?
Although Waves is relatively new, but
# BTC
It might be that competing with BTC or overtaking it could appear a dream for now but the competition still exists. How? The algorithm-NG. Based on Bitcoin’s very own Bitcoin-NG, the WAVES-NG is an upgrade, instantly creating a competition in performance. It is the case of competition in technology and implementations, and most importantly the number of transactions that can be successfully processed in one second,
# ETH
Ethereum is the father of smart contracts in cryptos, again creating a competition in technology and performance. Although Waves does not use a fully turing complete smart contract, unlike Ether, but it does use them. Moreover, creating decentralised operations vs creating new customised cryptocurrencies! This is one big Developer-drawing-competition.
# XRP
What brough Ripple to the front was its innovation in the use of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Talking about innovation Waves is giving home to a lot of innovative ideas with its development platform, its uses of different techniques to regulate transactions and most importantly the Decentralised Exchange. Here exists the competition through/of innovation.