Filecoin is secured through proof-of-replication and proof-of-spacetime. In the Filecoin network, nodes that are also known as retrieval miners are in competition to serve clients with data as quickly as they can. They are then rewarded with FIL fees, which encourages a network of nodes that want to replicate and preserve files. Storage miner nodes are constantly competing for contracts to provide storage to clients to a specific length of time. When a storage miner and their client agree on a deal, the storage miner holds the client’s data in a sector and “seals” it to create a unique copy of that sector’s data. Storage miners are rewarded with FIL by clients as deal fees, and these miners can also mine blocks and receive a block reward.

Protocol Labs [describes](https://filecoin.io/blog/introducing-the-filecoin-economy/) Filecoin’s tokenomics, or economic model, as a “market for data” where users can sell their storage space to other users, who are looking to rent. Five stakeholders will be able to trade tokens: developers, clients, miners, token holders and ecosystem partners. There will also be three Filecoin markets, according to Protocol Labs: file storage, file retrieval and on-exchange token trading. In fall 2020, 400 miners participated in what was called the “Space Race” testnet phase, increasing Filecoin’s network data capacity by over 325 pebibytes; approximately 3.5 million FIL tokens will be released to the Space Race participants.

There are three parties involved in the Filecoin system: clients, storage miners, and retrieval miners. These groups of users interact closely with each other, concluding transactions, exchanging information, and making micropayments in $FIL. Clients pay for storing or retrieving data. They place an order on the online storage market, where a deal is subsequently concluded with storage miners. Storage miners, in turn, store client’s data and receive rewards. This group of users places files in free sectors of a hard drive, all actions are recorded in the blockchain, and clients receive private keys. Retrieval miners extract data at a request of a client. Clients place a trade on the off-chain Retrieval Market. Retrieval miners can also act as storage miners. Filecoin is based on IPFS where all data is stored on a peer-to-peer blockchain. To start the process, users choose miners to store personal data and pay for placement in FIL tokens. Thereby, miners execute trades, and receive participation fees and FIL rewards. The more storage miners offer, the higher the chances of getting rewarded. At any time, clients can check how their data is stored during a transaction, as proofs are fixed in the blockchain. The Filecoin network uses the Proof-of-Replication (PoRep), while the miners use the Proof-of-Spacetime (PoSt). Therefore, if a client wants to hopefully keep their data safe on the Filecoin network, then they must pay the miner. The cost is set by the open market, and the price is made up of several factors. In the open market, there is hyper competition among miners, where everyone puts forward their own minimum price for storage.

Filecoin aims to store data in a decentralized manner. Unlike cloud storage companies like Amazon Web Services or Cloudflare, which are prone to the problems of centralization, Filecoin leverages its decentralized nature to protect the integrity of a data’s location, making it easily retrievable and hard to censor. Decentralized storage systems like Filecoin allow people to be their own custodians of their data, as well as makes the web more accessible to people worldwide. Since participating in the Filecoin network by mining and storing is directly related to winning more block rewards, Filecoin incentives participants to act honestly and store as much data as possible.

Filecoin was founded by Juan Benet, who also created the Interplanetary File System. Benet is an American computer scientist who studied at Stanford University. After founding Protocol Labs in May 2014, he attended Y Combinator in the summer of 2014 with the intention of supporting both IPFS and Filecoin, as well as other projects.

Filecoin is a decentralized storage system that aims to “store humanity’s most important information.” The project raised $205 million in an [initial coin offering](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/initial-coin-offering-ico) (ICO) in 2017, and initially planned a launch date for mid-2019. However, the launch date for the Filecoin mainnet was pushed back until block 148,888, which is expected in mid-October 2020. The project was first described back in 2014 as an incentive layer for the [Interplanetary File System](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/interplanetary-file-system-ipfs) (IPFS), a peer-to-peer storage network where users pay for data storage and distribution services in $FIL. Filecoin is open protocol and backed by a blockchain that records commitments made by the network’s participants, with transactions made using FIL, the blockchain’s native currency. The blockchain is based on both [proof-of-replication](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/proof-of-replication) and [proof-of-spacetime](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/proof-of-spacetime). Filecoin is open-source and decentralized, which means that all governance is in the hands of the community. On the Filecoin platform, developers have the opportunity to create cloud file storage services like Dropbox or iCloud. Anyone can join Filecoin and start storing their data or earn money by providing space for someone else's funds. The creators of Filecoin opted for their blockchain technology to run the network and their token with their own consensus. $FIL is the native currency of Filecoin that powers the entire network and all processes. Clients pay for transactions in FIL tokens. Miners place FIL as collateral, guaranteeing their services. The developers claim that Filecoin solves the problem of inefficient file storage and retrieval. Customers can find the right solution with an efficient set of tools and its core development, IPFS.

It is now available across a number of major exchanges — many people choose to [buy Cosmos](https://www.binance.com/en/buy-Cosmos) on Binance, Coinbase and OKEx. It’s possible to find trading pairs with a number of fiat currencies, and you can find more about the process of converting dollars and euros to crypto[ here](https://coinmarketcap.com/how-to-buy-bitcoin/).

As we mentioned earlier, Cosmos uses a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm. Validator nodes that stake a higher quantity of ATOM tokens are more likely to be chosen to verify transactions and earn rewards. Nodes that are found to be acting dishonestly are penalized — and they can end up losing the tokens that they had at stake.

ATOM has a very specific total supply — 260,906,513 to be exact. Of these, at the time of writing, about 203,121,910 were in circulation. It is worth noting that these cryptocurrencies aren’t mined — instead, they are earned through [staking](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/staking). Two private sales were held in January 2017, followed by a public sale in April of that year. This raised a total of $16 million, which is the equivalent of about $0.10 per ATOM. Breaking down the token distribution, about 80% was allocated to investors, while the remaining 20% was split between two companies: All In Bits and the Interchain Foundation. Cosmos has compared ATOM tokens to the ASICs that are used to mine Bitcoin. As a technical paper written by the Tendermint team explained: “It is a piece of virtualized hardware (economic capital) that you need to obtain in order to participate as a keeper in the network.”

A major concern for some in the crypto industry centers on the levels of fragmentation seen in blockchain networks. There are hundreds in existence, but very few of them can communicate with each other. Cosmos aims to turn this on its head by making this possible. Cosmos is described as “Blockchain 3.0” — and as we mentioned earlier, a big goal is ensuring that its infrastructure is straightforward to use. To this end, the Cosmos software development kit focuses on modularity. This allows a network to be easily built using chunks of code that already exist. Long-term, it’s hoped that complex applications will be straightforward to construct as a result. Scalability is another priority, meaning substantially more transactions can be processed a second than more old-fashioned blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum. If blockchains are to ever achieve mainstream adoption, they’ll need to be able to cope with demand as well as existing payment processing companies or websites — or be even better.

The Cosmos network consists of three layers: the [application layer](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/application-layer), the networking layer and the consensus layer. The application layer processes transactions and updates the state of the network, while the networking layer allows communication between transactions and blockchains. The consensus layer helps nodes agree on the system's current state. Cosmos uses a set of open-source tools to connect the various layers together and enable developers to build [dApps](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-applications-dapps).

The co-founders of Tendermint — the gateway to the Cosmos ecosystem — were Jae Kwon, Zarko Milosevic and Ethan Buchman. Although Kwon is still listed as principal architect, he stepped down as CEO in 2020. He maintains he is still a part of the project but is mainly focusing on other initiatives. He has now been replaced as Tendermint’s CEO by Peng Zhong, and the whole board of directors was given quite a substantial refresh. Their goals include enhancing the experience for developers, creating an enthusiastic community for Cosmos and building educational resources so greater numbers of people are aware of what this network is capable of.

In a nutshell, Cosmos bills itself as a project that solves some of the “hardest problems” facing the blockchain industry. It aims to offer an antidote to “slow, expensive, unscalable and environmentally harmful” [proof-of-work](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake) protocols, like those used by Bitcoin, by offering an ecosystem of connected blockchains. The project’s other goals include making blockchain technology less complex and difficult for developers thanks to a modular framework that demystifies decentralized apps. Last but not least, an Interblockchain Communication protocol makes it easier for blockchain networks to communicate with each other — preventing fragmentation in the industry. Cosmos’ origins can be dated back to 2014, when Tendermint, a core contributor to the network, was founded. In 2016, a white paper for Cosmos was published — and a token sale was held the following year. ATOM tokens are earned through a hybrid proof-of-stake algorithm, and they help to keep the Cosmos Hub, the project’s flagship blockchain, secure. This cryptocurrency also has a role in the network’s governance.

ETC is a major market cap cryptocurrency and is freely tradable on a large number of major exchanges. Pairs are available against stablecoins, other cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies, while derivatives and institutional investment vehicles also exist. Exchanges that let you [buy Ethereum Classic](https://www.binance.com/en/buy-Ethereum-Classic) include [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/), [OKEx](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/okex/), [HTX](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/htx/) and [Coinbase](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/coinbase-exchange/). Crypto newbie? Read our [easy guide](https://coinmarketcap.com/how-to-buy-bitcoin/) to buying Bitcoin and any other cryptocurrency.

A subgroup of the nodes of the Ethereum Classic blockchain are miners. These miners group transactions in batches, add to them a time stamp, the previous block cryptographic stamp or hash, and a random iterating number called a nonce. Once they do this, they create a new cryptographic stamp for this new block specifically and immediately check if it hit a specific target that the protocol determines. If it didn’t hit the target, then the miners go back, change the random iterating number as soon as possible and try again. If they didn’t hit the target again, then they try again, and again, and again, until one of the miners hits the target. They may do this trillions of times per second, and this is what uses up so much energy and is referred to as “proof of work” because only by working in trying so many times, using so much computing power and electricity, is that, statistically, one of the miners will hit the target within the range of the standard block time, which is 13 seconds in ETC. When a miner hits the target, then they send the block to the rest of the network for verification and payment of the miner reward plus the block's transaction fees.

[Proof-of-Work](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/proof-of-work-pow) ([PoW](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/proof-of-work-pow)) When ETC was a minority chain, it suffered some attacks. These included 51% attacks to gain control of mining hashrate and execute spurious transactions and double spend coins, the most recent of which occurred in August 2020. Ethereum Classic uses the [Proof-of-Work](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/proof-of-work-pow) ([PoW](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/proof-of-work-pow)) consensus algorithm. By resolving computationally intensive puzzles to create and validate blocks of transactions, Ethereum Classic miners protect the network. The ETC blockchain is also fully replicated, which makes it redundant across many nodes worldwide making it practically impossible to take down or tamper with by natural disaters or man. Now that it is the largest proof of work smart contracts blockchain in the world, its security levels have significantly increased to the point that developers have removed the safety features they added after the 51% attacks of 2020.

ETC began in a very similar technical state to ETH, with the exception of how the DAO hack transactions were handled. Since launch, however, changes in [tokenomics](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-tokenomics) with Ethereum Classic establishing a cap to the supply in December 2017. The maximum supply is thus 210,700,000 ETC, roughly ten times that of [Bitcoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/) (BTC), while ETH has no cap. ETC uses a PoW mining algorithm, which functions like [Bitcoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/) — miners are rewarded with new coins for validating the blockchain in competition with each other. The ETC block reward decreases with time at a rate of 20% every two years or 5 million blocks, with the next drop due at block 20,000,000, roughly in June 2024 — from 2.56 ETC to 2.048 ETC per block.

Ethereum Classic ([ETC](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/ethereum-vs-ethereum-classic)) and Ethereum (ETH) are two separate blockchain networks that share a common history but have since diverged in philosophy and development. Ethereum Classic is the original version of Ethereum that was launched in 2015. It is a decentralized, open-source blockchain platform that allows developers to build and deploy decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts. Ethereum Classic secures its network using a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm. Ethereum, on the other hand, is a fork of the original Ethereum blockchain created in 2016. It emerged as a response to a hack that caused the loss of millions of dollars worth of Ether. The Ethereum community implemented a hard fork to reverse the hack and return the stolen funds to their owners. As a result, two separate blockchains, Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC), were created. One of the main differences between Ethereum Classic and Ethereum is their approach to governance. Ethereum has a more centralized system, with a core development team that makes decisions about the platform's future. In contrast, Ethereum Classic has a more decentralized approach to governance, with decisions made by the community through a consensus process. Another key difference between the two is their development roadmap. Ethereum has transitioned from a Proof-of-Work (POW) consensus algorithm to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm after The Merge in September 2022. Ethereum Classic, on the other hand, has focused on maintaining its original PoW algorithm and staying true to its decentralized philosophy.

Ethereum Classic’s unique attributes are a combination of the following features: * Proof-of-Work: ETC is a will remain as a [proof-of-work](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake) blockchain which is the most secure consensus mechanism known to man. * Sound money: ETC is digital gold because it is a proof of work blockchain, thus the cost ti produce the money is the same as the cost to produce the blocks, and it has a fixed monetary policy with a supply cap of 210,700,000. * Programmability: ETC is programmable with smart contracts making it much more versatile and useful than other simpler cryptocurrency chains such as Bitcoin or Litecoin. * Full replication: ETC is most secure because it is fully replicated across all nodes of the network. Where other smart contract blockchains are implementing “sharding”, “parachains”, or “sidechains” that reduce security, ETC will remain fully replicated. * Composability: Composability in ETC means that all the applications enabled by programmability are inside the same system, thus making them equally secure and also able to interact with each other in single complex transactions. * Size: The larger a blockchains is, and even more if it is the largest in its category, makes the system eve more secure. ETC is the largest smart contracts blockchain that is proof of work and has a fixed monetary policy. All the above unique features combined make ETC dapps the most secure daps in the world.

Ethereum Classic is in fact the legacy chain of Ethereum, and its true creator is therefore the original Ethereum founder — Vitalik Buterin. A [contentious hard fork on Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/ethereum-vs-ethereum-classic) occurred in July 2016, when participants disagreed over whether to revert the blockchain to cancel out the effects of a major hack. This impacted The DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization ([DAO](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-autonomous-organizations-dao)) which had raised approximately $150 million in an initial coin offering ([ICO](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/initial-coin-offering-ico)) several months earlier. Ethereum Classic came into being as the network which did not revert the chain. Developers state that there is no “official” team attached to the project, and that its “global development community is a permissionless 'do-ocracy,' where anyone can participate.”

Ethereum Classic (ETC) is the original [Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/) (ETH) blockchain that launched in July 2015. Its main function is as a [smart contract](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/smart-contract) network, with the ability to host and support decentralized applications ([DApps](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-applications-dapps)). Its native token is ETC. Since its launch, Ethereum Classic has sought to [differentiate itself from Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/ethereum-vs-ethereum-classic), with the two networks’ technical roadmap diverging further and further from each other with time. Ethereum Classic first set out to preserve the integrity of the existing Ethereum blockchain after a major hacking event led to the theft of 3.6 million ETH.

ARB can be purchased on numerous centralized exchanges, including [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/), [Coinbase](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/coinbase-exchange/), [KuCoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/kucoin/), [Bybit](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/bybit/), [Kraken](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/kraken/), [Bitfinex](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/bitfinex/) and more. It is also available for trading on decentralized exchanges like [Uniswap V3 (Ethereum)](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/uniswap-v3/), [Uniswap V3 (Arbitrum)](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/uniswap-v3-arbitrum/) and [SushiSwap (Arbitrum)](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/sushiswap-arbitrum/). Keep track of ARB live prices in real-time with the [CMC mobile app](https://coinmarketcap.com/mobile/).

Arbitrum derives its security from the Ethereum network, which provides consensus and finality for Arbitrum transactions. In other words, Ethereum guarantees the validity of the rollup’s off-chain computation and data availability behind the computation. The use of optimistic rollups means Arbitrum executes transactions on the rollup outside of Ethereum, and bundle multiple transactions in a batch before submitting it to mainnet. As the term “optimistic” suggests, the off-chain transactions are assumed to be valid and no proof-of-validity is submitted. In case of a dispute, there is a time period after the rollup is submitted where anyone can challenge the transaction by submitting a fraud proof.

ARB is the native governance token of Arbitrum. It will launch on March 23rd 2023, distributing 12.75% of the total supply of ARB tokens to eligible recipients and DAOs. The utility of the ARB token is to enable decentralized governance of the Arbitrum ecosystem. ARB holders govern the Arbitrum network by voting on governance proposals for the Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova chains. They can also influence how funds of the DAO treasury will be used. Governance proposals can include upgrades to the chain, changes to network parameters, allocation of grants and bounties, integration of new features and more. ARB does not work as a gas fee token like ETH does on the Ethereum network. Instead, the fees on Arbitrum are paid in ETH or any other [ERC-20](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/erc-20) token supported by DApps. This means that ARB holders do not need to spend their tokens to use Arbitrum services, but rather can stake them and earn fees for securing the network. The total supply of ARB tokens is fixed at 10 billion. The token allocation is as follows: Arbitrum DAO treasury: 42.78% (4.278 billion), Offchain Labs teams and advisors: 26.94% (2.694 billion), Investors: 17.53% (1.753 billion), airdrop to users: 11.62% (1.162 billion), airdrop to DAOs: 1.13% (113 million).

Arbitrum uses optimistic rollups to stand out from other scaling solutions for Ethereum. It claims to offer several advantages over other optimistic rollup solutions, such as: Compatibility: Arbitrum supports unmodified EVM contracts and transactions, meaning that any existing Ethereum [DApp](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-applications-dapps) can run on Arbitrum without any code changes. Scalability: Arbitrum can handle thousands of transactions per second with low fees and fast finality, while maintaining the security guarantees of Ethereum. Flexibility: Arbitrum allows developers to deploy programs written in popular programming languages like Rust, C++, and more using Stylus, its upcoming EVM+ equivalence feature. Decentralization: Arbitrum does not rely on any centralized operator or sequencer to order transactions. Instead, it uses a decentralized network of validators who stake ARB tokens and earn fees for securing the network. Arbitrum also has a vibrant ecosystem of DApps, wallets, tools and partners that make it one of the leading scaling solutions for Ethereum. Some of the protocols that are available on the network include: [GMX (GMX)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/gmx/), [Treasure (MAGIC)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/magic-token/), [Camelot (GRAIL)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/camelot-token/), [Radiant Capital (RDNT)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/radiant-capital/), [Vela Exchange (VELA)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/vela-token/), [ZyberSwap (ZYB)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/zyberswap/), [Dopex (DPX)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/dopex/), [PlutusDAO (PLS)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/plutusdao/), [TridentDAO (PSI)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tridentdao/), [Jones DAO (JONES)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/jones-dao/) and more. The growth of the Arbitrum ecosystem can be seen from its [total value locked](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/total-value-locked-tvl) (TVL) metric. According to DeFiLlama, Arbitrum's TVL reached a peak of $3.2 billion in November 2021 and currently stands at around $1.85 billion as of this writing. This makes it the highest TVL among all other Layer 2 ecosystems.

Arbitrum is developed by Offchain Labs, a New York-based development company. Its founders are Ed Felten, Steven Goldfeder and Harry Kalodner, former Princeton University researchers with years of experience in computer science, cryptography and blockchain. Ed Felten is a computer science professor at Princeton and served as President Obama’s Deputy CTO. He is the co-founder and Chief Scientist of Offchain Labs. Steven Goldfeder is a computer scientist and entrepreneur who received his Ph.D. from Princeton. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Offchain Labs. Harry Kalodner is a computer scientist and Ph.D. candidate at Princeton. He is also the co-founder and CTO of Offchain Labs. In 2021, Offchain Labs announced that it raised $120 million in its latest Series B funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, valuing it at $1.2 billion. Other prominent investors include Polychain Capital, Pantera Capital, Mark Cuban and more

Arbitrum is an [Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/) [layer-two](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/layer-2) (L2) scaling solution. It uses [optimistic rollups](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/optimistic-rollup) to achieve its goal of improving speed, scalability and cost-efficiency on Ethereum. Arbitrum benefits from the security and compatibility of Ethereum. Another benefit is the higher [throughput](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/throughput) and lower fees compared to Ethereum. That is made possible thanks to moving most of the computation and storage load off-chain. Arbitrum’s native token is called ARB and is used for [governance](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/governance). Offchain Labs, the developers behind Arbitrum, announced the shift to a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) structure — the Arbitrum DAO. ARB holders can vote on proposals that affect the features, protocol upgrades, funds allocation and election of a Security Council. Arbitrum has an ambitious roadmap for 2023, which includes: Launching its own layer-three solution called Orbit; Enabling developers to deploy programs written in popular programming languages like Rust, C++, and more using Stylus; Expanding its validator set to include more independent institutional validators; Moving its protocol to layer two with Arbitrum One. On March 16, 2023, Arbitrum announced their highly anticipated airdrop of ARB. The token will be airdropped to early users and DAOs building on Arbitrum, with 12.75% of the total supply to be distributed. Recipients were rewarded on a point-based system depending on their interaction with the Arbitrum network until a cutoff date of March 1, 2023. The token generation event is on March 23, 2023.

IMX is available on [OKEx](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/okex/), [ Huobi Global](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/huobi-global/), [ Bybit](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/bybit/) and [ Bitget](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/bitget/).

Immutable is a [layer-two](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/layer-2) blockchain with zero [gas](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/gas) fees, where operators can set their own trading fees. In contrast to other scaling solutions to Ethereum, a 51% attack on Immutable is unfeasible, as it is not a centralized side chain but benefits from inheriting the native security of the Ethereum blockchain. Immutable uses zk-rollups, meaning assets are traded on the second-layer blockchain, but the validity proof of a transaction is stored on the layer-one blockchain, in this case Ethereum. Immutable chose to stay on Ethereum as a first-layer solution because the team considers Ethereum best to represent the philosophy of trustless, decentralized asset ownership. In the team’s words, Ethereum has always prioritized centralization over short-term scalability upgrades, even though it has suffered from problematic gas fee spikes and network congestion, thus still remaining the main blockchain for NFT projects to build on.

IMX is the protocol’s native ERC-20 utility token. The token’s three core use cases are fees, staking and governance. 20% of the protocol’s fees must be paid in IMX, and users can stake IMX to receive a proportional share of the network’s fees. Token holders can also vote on governance proposals by holding IMX. The total supply of IMX is two billion, according to the following token distribution: * Ecosystem development - 51.74%: user rewards, developer grants, liquidity provision, marketing purposes. * Project development - 25% * Private sale - 14.26%: one year cliff, monthly unlock over two years. * Public sale - 5%: six-months unlock. * Foundation - 4%: ecosystem development-related initiatives like liquidity provision, one-year cliff, monthly unlock over four years.