What is Waves? And well, is it making waves?
Waves is a smart contract-compatible multi-purpose blockchain mainly used for decentralized applications (dApps).
When Waves was launched in 2016 by Ukrainian scientist Alexander Ivanov, the goal was to improve the user-friendliness and speed of the dominant blockchains of the time. The project has since experienced multiple advancements by adding new features to its design.
If we look at Waves objectively, it’s pretty similar to most other L1 blockchains on which decentralized apps are built and smart contracts are issued.
Waves primarily catered to the B2B market at first, focusing on existing businesses looking to improve processes by introducing blockchain technology. But since decision-making was transferred to participants in 2019, the project has explored the possibility of branching further into the retail space.
You can do all the standard crypto things we’ve learned about as we’ve studied blockchains, including building apps, exchanging coins, and transactions, partaking in DeFi, and so on with Waves.
Open, eco-friendly, scalable, and simple
Open: easily bridges to other ecosystems
Eco-friendly: very small carbon footprint
Scalable: fast and affordable
Simple: Easily build dApps, DAOs, and NFTs
Waves use a mechanism called WavesNG. It is a proof of stake consensus mechanism which is how it was able to improve on speed and security compared to the blockchains it was competing with at the time.
Tokenomics
The WAVES token is used to transact on the blockchain. Think of it as the ETH to Ethereum.
WAVES began as a fixed-cap token for the Waves platform with 100 million tokens available. In 2019 it was decided to remove this cap, and decision making was handed to participants.
The block reward is 6 WAVES. Users must choose whether or not to decrease the block reward by 0.5 WAVES every 110,000 blocks. The selection process is done via a vote.
The ICO Allocation breakdown
Sale participants: 85%
Developers: 9%
Supporters and partners: 4%
Early supporters: 1%
