Worldcoin was founded by Sam Altman, Alex Blania, and Max Novendstern (Max Novendstern left the project in July 2021). The most well-known of the co-founders, Sam Altman, is also the co-founder and current CEO of OpenAI and former president of Y Combinator, a startup incubator. Initial research and development for the Worldcoin project was conducted by Tools for Humanity (TFH) and other partners. Worldcoin has raised over 250M USD across several funding rounds from investors such as a16z, Khosla Ventures, Bain Capital Crypto, Blockchain Capital, and Tiger Global, among others.

The mission of the Worldcoin project is to build the world’s largest identity and financial network as a public utility, giving ownership to everyone. The Worldcoin system revolves around [World ID](https://worldcoin.org/world-id), a privacy-preserving global identity network. World ID enables users to verify their humanness online ("Proof of Personhood") while maintaining their privacy through [zero-knowledge proofs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof). To engage with the Worldcoin protocol, individuals must first download [World App](https://worldcoin.org/world-app), the first wallet app that supports the creation of a World ID. Individuals visit a physical imaging device called the [Orb ](https://worldcoin.org/blog/worldcoin/orb-faqs) to get their World ID *Orb-verified*. Most Orbs are operated by a network of independent local businesses called [Orb Operators](https://worldcoin.org/blog/worldcoin/what-is-worldcoin-operator). The Orb uses multispectral sensors to verify humanness and uniqueness, with all images being promptly deleted on-device per default (absent explicit consent to Data Custody). All Orb-verified World IDs holders are entitled to claim recurring grants of free WLD tokens (WLD tokens are not available in the US; see the [Worldcoin Tokenomics](https://whitepaper.worldcoin.org/tokenomics) section of the project's whitepaper for details). This has the potential to make WLD the most widely distributed digital currency. The WLD token is designed as a utility token with governance properties, empowering users by giving them a say over the future of the protocol. Beyond conventional "one-token-one-vote" governance mechanisms, the introduction of World ID paves the way for "one-person-one-vote" mechanisms. These two mechanisms can also be combined to enable new ways of governance. After launch, the Worldcoin Foundation will solicit proposals and work with the community on how World ID and the WLD token should interact in Worldcoin's governance model (see the [project's whitepaper](https://whitepaper.worldcoin.org) for details on governance and decentralization). The community of users will determine the token's utility, but a few other use cases in addition to governance could emerge. For example, users may decide to use the WLD token to pay for certain actions in World App or another wallet app, to make other payments, or to signal their approval for certain initiatives or causes. WLD is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. Individuals will receive their user grants on Optimism Mainnet. Therefore, most WLD transactions will likely take place on the Optimism network.

[eCash](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ecash/) (XEC) is available for purchase via [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/), [Huobi Global](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/huobi-global/), [OKEx](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/okex/), [Mandala Exchange](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/mandala/) and [Upbit](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/upbit/).

In contrast to the [Bitcoin Cash ABC](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-cash-abc-2/) (BCHA) network, which is secured using a [proof-of-work](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake) (PoW) [consensus mechanism](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/consensus-mechanism), the developers of eCash plan to add proof-of-stake (PoS) in order to speed up transactions. What they term “Avalanche post-consensus” would see enhanced security and fork-free upgrades and allow for advanced opcodes thanks to enhanced script capability. The Avalanche layer will be added on top of the existing PoW in order to leverage the benefits of both. XEC is not an ERC-20 token, it is its own blockchain similar to Bitcoin (BTC).

There is no [tokenomics](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/tokenomics) of [eCash](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ecash/) (XEC) but it follows many of the same rules already established for [Bitcoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/) (BTC). It shares Bitcoin’s supply and distribution model, meaning that every 210,000 [blocks](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/block), approximately every four years, [miner](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/miners) rewards are cut in half. ECash has the same supply cap as Bitcoin of 2.1 quadrillion [satoshis](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/satoshi-sats), yet instead of those 2.1 quadrillion SATS being divided by 100 million to yield 21 million BTC, it was divided by 100, yielding 21 trillion XEC. The reason for this is simply that it is easier for users to mentally grasp integers and this decision aligns with the coin’s goal of mass adoption.

The developers of [eCash](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ecash/) (XEC) intend the coin to support [Ethereum Virtual Machine](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/ethereum-virtual-machine-evm) (EVM)-compatibility and to be interoperable with the [decentralized finance](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-decentralized-finance) (DeFi) sector on [Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/) (ETH). For the coin to become successful, eCash’s developers intend to fulfill five core missions: * Ensuring anonymous transactions * Ensuring the immutability of transactions * Guaranteeing that transactions remain almost free * Enforcing globally secure transactions with a finality of fewer than three seconds * Designing the coin’s infrastructure as a public good, funded via its social contract To achieve this, the developers of eCash have laid out an ambitious roadmap, with plans to have: * Canonical transaction ordering to enable scalable block processing * Schnorr Signatures to enable batched signature validation * Faster block propagation through graphene or other * UTXO commitment with blockchain pruning and faster initial sync * Merklix-Meta Tree to enable scalable block processing * Adaptive block sizes to support market-driven growth to 1TB blocks These highly ambitious solutions would propel eCash to 50 transactions per user per day for up to 10 billion users.

[eCash](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ecash/) (XEC) is led by its lead developer Amaury Sechet, who was the lead developer of [Bitcoin Cash](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-cash/) (BCH) and forked that [blockchain](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/blockchain) to establish the predecessor of eCash, [Bitcoin Cash ABC](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-cash-abc-2/) (BCHA). That fork happened on November 15, 2020. Sechet then decided to rebrand Bitcoin Cash ABC to establish a new brand identity for eCash, explaining that a reduction of decimal places would help with the adoption of the coin: “No other money has eight decimal places. Why should crypto? Cryptocurrencies with a lower unit price also enjoy higher bull market appreciation. Because the eCash team is incentivized by both tech and price improvement, this improvement was a no-brainer.” Sechet was highly active in the development of Bitcoin Cash, leading its initial fork away from Bitcoin in August 2017, its continuation after [Bitcoin SV](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-sv/) (BSV) was forked from it in November 2018, and its most recent fork from Bitcoin Cash in November 2020. Before his involvement in cryptocurrencies, he was a software engineer at Facebook and a lead developer at Stupid D Compiler.

[eCash](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ecash/) (XEC) is the rebranded version of [Bitcoin Cash ABC](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-cash-abc-2/) (BCHA), itself a [fork](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/fork-blockchain) of [Bitcoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/) (BTC) and [Bitcoin Cash](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-cash/) (BCH). It calls itself a “[cryptocurrency](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-are-cryptocurrencies) that’s designed to be used as electronic cash.” eCash strictly aims to be a means of transaction used to pay for goods and services. The coin was rebranded on July 1, 2021, and has since tried to distinguish itself from its predecessor. The base units of eCash are called “bits” and replace the unwieldy decimal places of Bitcoin Cash ABC. Instead of sending 0.00001000 BTC, you would send 10 bits with eCash. ECash integrates a [proof-of-stake](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/proof-of-stake-pos) (PoS) [consensus](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/consensus) layer called “Avalanche,” which is not to be mistaken for the blockchain [Avalanche](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/avalanche/) (AVAX). Upon rebranding, eCash announced that it would convert all BCHA coins to XEC at a ratio of one to one million. The cryptocurrency’s developers have set their sights on three main improvements: * Scaling transaction [throughput](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/throughput) from 100 transactions per second to more than five million transactions per second * Improving the payment experience by reducing transaction finality time * Extending the protocol and establishing fork-free upgrades

The Pyth Network is the largest and fastest-growing first-party oracle network. Pyth delivers real-time market data to financial dApps across 40+ blockchains and provides 380+ low-latency price feeds across cryptocurrencies, equities, ETFs, FX pairs, and commodities. The network comprises some of the world's largest exchanges, market makers, and financial services providers who contribute their own price data for use by smart contracts. Participants in the network include Binance, OKX, Jane Street, Bybit, Cboe Global Markets and more. The Pyth oracle program aggregates their data on-chain to guard against inaccuracies and manipulation. Finally, the protocol allows users to "pull" the latest price onto their blockchain when needed. In less than a year since the launch of the cross-chain pull oracle, the network has secured over $1B in total value. The Pyth Network has been used by over 250 applications to secure $100B in trading volume. Integration with Pyth Price Feeds is permissionless.

Mina is similar to Bitcoin, apart from how it handles transactions, but also employs the account model used in Ethereum. In this respect, the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum is that the state of the Bitcoin blockchain contains a list of unspent coins, while Ethereum’s state is made up of account balances. Mina, on the other hand, uses a prover (or snarker, if you will), an equivalent of a miner, to ensure each block commits to the state. Mina employs the Ouroboros Samasika, a type of PoS mechanism specially designed for succinct decentralized networks since it provides bootstrapping from a genesis block. Succinct blockchains contain two major functions: verify and update. Verification touches on consensus, blockchain summary and blocks, while the update function interacts with consensus and chain summary. Apart from the above implementations, the project uses a parallel scan state to optimize transaction processing speed, which works by grouping unproven blocks and assigning the process to parallel provers.

Mina is working on achieving an efficient distributed payment system that enables users to natively verify the platform right from the genesis block. Its technical whitepaper calls this a “succinct blockchain.” The protocol uses Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge (zk-SNARKs), a cryptographic proof that enables someone to authenticate information without revealing said information. However, enabling a user to trace the platform back to its genesis block can be impractical in a large network. As such, Mina incrementally computes SNARKS that concentrate only on the last few blocks — meaning that end-users check that zk-SNARK-compressed proof, instead of a block’s entire transaction history. At the heart of Mina protocol is MINA, its native currency, which functions as a utility coin and medium of exchange.

Mina Protocol is a minimal “succinct blockchain” built to curtail computational requirements in order to run DApps more efficiently. Mina has been described as the world’s lightest blockchain since its size is designed to remain constant despite growth in usage. Furthermore, it remains balanced in terms of security and decentralization. The project was rebranded from Coda Protocol to Mina in October 2020. To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of [Mina Protocol](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-mina-protocol). The Mina network has a size of only 22 KB, which is miniscule when compared to Bitcoin’s 300 GB blockchain.

CHZ is available on [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/), [Huobi](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/huobi-global/), [Coinbase](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/coinbase-exchange/) and many other exchanges. Cryptocurrency newbie? You can read more about how to enter the market and how to buy CITY or any other token in the CoinMarketCap education portal — [Alexandria](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/).

Chiliz launched in October 2018 on the Ethereum mainnet.

CHZ is available on several blockchains, such as Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and Tron. Fan tokens are minted on its Socios [sidechain](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/side-chain) with a proprietary crowd control mechanism, so fans are in a protected environment and vote only in publicly audited polls. The sidechain uses a [proof-of-authority](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/proof-of-authority-poa) consensus mechanism. Proof-of-authority is mostly used by private organizations that have closed blockchains and only users within its ecosystem participating. It is less decentralized than other consensus mechanisms but is easily scalable and highly secure, making it the ideal choice for a sidechain. The CHZ token has been [audited by Certik](https://www.certik.org/projects/chiliz).

The total supply of CHZ is 8.8 billion, minted at its launch in October 2018 and distributed to early contributors with no public sales beyond what was made available through exchanges. The token distribution is as follows: 15 % – Strategic Acquisitions 5% – Team 7% – Seed investors 3% – Advisory board 15% – Marketing 20% – Userbase reserve 34.5% – Token sale Initially, CHZ launched as [ERC-20](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/erc-20) token, but it was later also designed to be [BEP-2](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/bep-2-binance-chain-tokenization-standard) compatible, owning Binance Launchpool’s role in releasing fan tokens as part of a strategic partnership. CHZ is also available as [TRC-20](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tron/) token on the Tron blockchain.

Every sporting organization using the Chiliz technology has a limited supply of fan tokens that are offered at an initial FTO (fan token offering). These tokens are offered on a first-come-first-serve basis, with the opening price and fully diluted market cap disclosed by Chiliz beforehand. The native CHZ token is used to purchase fan tokens and acts as the platform’s internal currency. Fans can then vote on the Socios platform with their fan tokens, a process made possible using [smart contracts](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/smart-contract). Clubs determine the amount of influence fans have. Decisions can range from new jersey designs to deciding team matchups in exhibition games. Chiliz pioneered direct participation for average sport fans in the decision-making process of clubs and organizations. The company is constantly creating new ways for fans to engage, with the establishment of the Chiliz Blockchain Campus, a privately-owned crypto incubator focused on accelerating blockchain technology adoption across Asia and Europe as an example. The company estimates to be at about 10% of its potential, despite the fact that it will likely have 80-100 teams as a part of its network by the end of 2021.

Chiliz was founded by Alexandre Dreyfus, its current CEO. Dreyfus has over 20 years of experience founding and growing web-based companies. For instance, he developed Webcity, an interactive travel guide, and Winamax and Chilipoker, both online poker projects, before founding Chiliz in 2017. His explicit goal with the company is to “work harder than ever on our mission to fully establish Fan Tokens as the ultimate fan engagement tool and as a powerful new revenue generator for the sports industry.” This has been highlighted in the aggressive expansion of fan tokens that have seen numerous European football powerhouses, but also smaller clubs sign on.

[Chiliz](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/chiliz/) is the leading digital currency for sports and entertainment by the eponymous Malta-based FinTech provider. It operates the blockchain-based sports entertainment platform Socios, which enables users to participate in the governance of their favorite sports brands. Multiple [fan tokens](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-are-fan-tokens) by [Socios.com](https://www.socios.com/) are an example of that. For sports clubs and associations, fan tokens offer a way of connecting with their fans and unlocking new revenue streams. For instance, fans can participate and influence club-related decisions through surveys and polls, such as messages the captain should wear on his armband. The company aims to bridge the gap between being an active and a passive fan. Chiliz has developed partnerships with some of the biggest sporting institutions in the world: [FC Barcelona](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/fc-barcelona-fan-token/), [Manchester City](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/manchester-city-fan-token/), [Juventus Turin](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/juventus-fan-token/), and [Paris Saint-Germain](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/paris-saint-germain-fan-token/). It also boasts partnerships with the UFC and gaming organizations. By purchasing CHZ, fans get access to various fan tokens and literally have a stake in their club.

The MANA token currently benefits from excellent [liquidity](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/liquidity) and can be purchased, traded or sold on around 100 different exchange platforms. As of January 2021, [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/), [OKEx](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/okex/) and [Coinbase Pro](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/coinbase-pro/) are among the most liquid exchanges for MANA tokens. A full list of available markets can be found in the “Markets” section. MANA can currently be traded against [Bitcoin (BTC)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/), [Tether (USDT)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/), and Ethereum (ETH) — and can be purchased with a [range of fiat currencies](https://coinmarketcap.com/how-to-buy-bitcoin/), including KRW and USD.

MANA is an ERC-20 token. This means it is based on the [Ethereum blockchain](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/). Ethereum is secured by a massive decentralized network of miners, which work together with thousands of nodes to ensure the Ethereum blockchain—and hence the MANA tokens—is protected against [attacks](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/51-attack). As one of the most battle-tested [blockchains](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/blockchain) in current usage, Ethereum is currently the most popular network for crypto tokens that don’t have their own native blockchain.

As of January 2021, just north of 1.49 billion MANA tokens were in circulation. This is equivalent to around 68% of the current total supply of 2.19 billion MANA. The original total supply was set at 2.8 billion MANA, but has been reduced as more than 600 million MANA have been burned as a result of LAND auctions. There is also a range of further burn mechanisms in place to further reduce the circulating supply of MANA, including a 2.5% MANA burn on Decentraland marketplace transactions. MANA was originally designed to inflate at 8 percent in the first year, decreasing gradually over time to reduce the rate of inflation. But inflation is currently disabled. As per the [Decentraland glossary](https://docs.decentraland.org/decentraland/glossary/), there are no plans to initiate this inflation "until necessary". In total, 40% of the MANA supply was sold during the 2017 initial coin offering (ICO). In addition, 20% was reserved to incentivize the community, 20% went to the development team and other early contributors, and the remaining 20% was held by Decentraland. Project lead tokens are no longer vested.

Decentraland is built for content creators, businesses and individuals that are looking for a new artistic medium, business opportunity, or source of entertainment. In total, the Decentraland gameworld — termed the “Metaverse” — is divided into 90,601 individual parcels of LAND, each of which is represented by an [ERC-721](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/erc-721) non-fungible token. Each LAND is exactly 16m x 16m (256 square meters) and can be found at a particular coordinate in the Metaverse. Though LAND holders are free to develop their plot into whatever they choose, much of the Metaverse is broadly divided into several districts, each of which has a different size and theme. These districts were generated through individual crowdsales for MANA tokens, and parcels of LAND in these districts cannot be traded. As of January 2021, the cyberpunk-themed Aetheria is the largest district — comprising a total of 8,008 LAND. Decentraland is also one of the growing number of projects to use a decentralized autonomous organization ([DAO](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-autonomous-organizations-dao)) structure for governance decisions. As a result, MANA token holders are in control of how the Decentraland world behaves, by proposing and voting on policy updates, the specifics of upcoming LAND auctions and the types of content that are allowed with the Metaverse. Besides being a creative outlet, many Decentraland users currently monetize their LAND through leasing, advertising and paid experiences. Likewise, other users generate an income by creating and selling items on the Decentraland marketplace for MANA tokens.

Decentraland was co-founded by Ariel Meilich and Esteban Ordano — both of whom have stepped down from major positions at the project, but still work alongside Decentraland as advisors. Ariel Meilich previously held the role of project lead at Decentraland between 2017 and 2020, and is a serial entrepreneur that has founded several other startups, including an online translation agency and a CRM platform. He also worked as an analyst at Charles River Ventures, a prominent Silicon Valley venture fund. On the other hand, Esteban Ordano is Decentraland's former tech lead and has a long and varied history in the cryptocurrency space working as a software engineer at BitPay, Inc., an advisor to [Matic Network](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/matic-network/) and briefly operated his own smart contract development firm known as Smart Contract Solutions. Esteban is also credited with co-founding Zeppelin Solutions, an established blockchain technology infrastructure company. Although Ariel and Estaban are no longer leading the project, the development of Decentraland is still ongoing, with efforts being directed by the recently established Decentraland Foundation.

Decentraland (MANA) defines itself as a virtual reality platform powered by the [Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/) blockchain that allows users to create, experience, and monetize content and applications. In this virtual world, users purchase plots of land that they can later navigate, build upon and monetize. Decentraland was launched following a $24 million initial coin offering ([ICO](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/initial-coin-offering-ico)) that was conducted in 2017. The virtual world launched its closed beta in 2019 and opened to the public in February 2020. Since then, users have created a wide range of experiences on their parcels of LAND, including interactive games, sprawling 3D scenes and a variety of other interactive experiences. Decentraland uses two tokens: MANA and LAND. MANA is an [ERC-20](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/erc-20) token that must be burned to acquire non-fungible ERC-721 LAND tokens. MANA tokens can also be used to pay for a range of avatars, wearables, names, and more on the Decentraland marketplace. Decentraland (MANA) is a decentralized virtual world platform with software based on the Ethereum blockchain, where users create, test and monetize content. In short: users buy virtual plots of land as [NFTs](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/non-fungible-token) with MANA tokens on the Decentraland platform. Progress in the game depends only on players themselves, their efforts and their imagination. The digital platform is completely owned by its users. Within the Decentraland metaverse, participants can explore the virtual world, purchase plots of land that can be monetized, create works of art, own non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and take part in a decentralized autonomous organization of the platform Decentraland [DAO](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-autonomous-organizations-dao). Due to the DAO, the community influences the development vector of the project. In addition, users have access to interactive applications, in-world payments and peer-to-peer communication. The 3D world resonates with many participants as Decentraland has many applications, both entertainment for gamers and business for investors. Two types of tokens called MANA and LAND govern operations in Decentraland. They also allow users to interact with the platform. MANA is the official currency of Decentraland. It’s an [ERC-20](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/erc-20) standard token that powers the Decentraland platform. With MANA, users can purchase plots of LAND, as well as pay for in-game items and services. MANA gives its holders the right to vote in Decentraland DAO. MANA can be purchased on a cryptocurrency exchange or by selling collectibles on Decentraland Marketplace. The owner of tokens converts them to wrapped MANA, or wMANA, and then commits them to the DAO. One wMANA equals one vote. MANA can be exchanged for fiat currency and other digital assets. As for LAND, it’s a non-fungible token (NFT) based on [Ethereum (ETH)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/). It is used to track ownership of land parcels aka digital real estate. Like MANA, LAND is part of the protocol and confers voting rights, but LAND does not need to be fixed in the DAO. One LAND is equal to two thousand votes. Players choose what to do with their land. Owners store tokens in crypto wallets and buy necessities with MANA tokens on the Decentraland Marketplace. Moreover, on the marketplace, participants can manage or exchange LAND tokens (priced in MANA). Holders use the marketplace to transact or transfer in-game items. All transactions are conducted, regulated and registered via the Ethereum blockchain. Decentraland combines an online gaming space and blockchain technology. All control over the rules is given to the players, and token holders vote on in-game and organizational policies. The original goal was to form a decentralized virtual reality, but in practice, Decentraland has turned into a massive NFT market. A special role in Decentraland is assigned to NFTs, such as collectibles, virtual equipment and real estate (LAND). However, for new players who want to join the universe and seize NFTs, the entry barrier will be high. The Decentraland protocol is built on three levels using Ethereum smart contracts. On the consensus layer, the ownership of LAND is tracked and managed. The land content layer displays the content of the Decentraland virtual world. Finally, on the real-time layer, participants interact with each other. The platform was co-founded by two blockchain experts, Ari Meilich and Esteban Ordano, in 2015. Officially it was launched a year later and became available only in February 2020, gradually turning from a 2D experiment into a full-fledged 3D world. To sum up, Decentraland is a decentralized game and a 3D virtual reality platform where players own lands and create limitlessly. Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) software is at the core, and governance is in the hands of the community. Through the native token MANA, players participate in any proposals for managing and improving the ecosystem, the auction system, and the in-game policy.

Axelar (AXL) tokens can be purchased on numerous exchanges, including: [Coinbase](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/coinbase-exchange/), [Kraken](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/kraken/), [Uniswap v3](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/uniswap-v3/), [Huobi](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/axelar/markets/), [KuCoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/kucoin/) and more. Keep track of AXL live prices in real-time with the [CMC mobile app](https://coinmarketcap.com/mobile/).

Axelar has a total token supply of 1,070,075,609 AXL tokens. At the time of writing, the circulating supply is 301,937,372 AXL. According to the company, the allocations of AXL tokens are as follows: Backers: 29.5%; Team: 17%; Company operations: 12.5%; Community sale: 5%; Community programs (incl. insurance fund): 36%.

One thing that sets Axelar apart is its secure cross-chain communication over a dynamic validator. While a handful of projects are using optimistic setups and federated multi-sig, Axelar claims to be the only network building these capabilities on Proof-of-Stake. Furthermore, the blockchain project has built protocols, APIs, and developer tools that make it easy for application developers to build cross-chain, without the need to learn a new programming language. “Our value proposition to the developer is that they can build on the chain that best suits their use case and background, while letting their users access anything on the decentralized web, with one click,” said co-founder Georgios Vlachos.

The blockchain platform was launched in 2020 by Georgios Vlachos and Sergey Gorbunov, both part of the founding team at [Algorand](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/algorand/). While Georgios designed the Algorand consensus protocol, Sergey led the effort to standardize BLS signatures, a standard that is now adopted as a draft in CFRG and was followed by Ethereum 2.0 implementations and others. Sergey is an assistant professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Axelar claims to deliver “secure cross-chain communication for Web3.” The project provides a [decentralized](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized) network and tools to help builders of [decentralized applications](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-applications-dapps) (dApps) with seamless [cross-chain communication](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/cross-chain-communication) through its protocol suite, tools and APIs. Axelar features three core components – a decentralized network, a software development kit of protocols and APIs, and a set of gateway [smart contracts](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/smart-contract) for [cross-chain](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/cross-chain) connectivity. Powered by a decentralized network of [validators](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/validator), anyone can join the network, build on it, or use it. Apps builders can interact with a simple API atop a permissionless network that routes messages and ensures network security via [proof-of-stake](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/proof-of-stake-pos) (PoS) [consensus mechanism](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/consensus-mechanism). AXL is the native token of the Axelar network. The protocol also supports the cross-chain transfer of several native tokens via their wrapped [ERC-20](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/erc-20) versions, including [AVAX](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/avalanche/) (Avalanche), [ETH](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/) (Ethereum), [FTM](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/fantom/) (Fantom), [GLMR](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/moonbeam/) (Moonbeam), and [MATIC](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/polygon/) (Polygon). Meanwhile, Axelar has raised capital from top-tier investors, including Binance, Coinbase Ventures, Dragonfly Capital, Polychain Capital and others.