AlphaRay leads overall strategy, operations, product direction and business development for Raydium. With a background in algorithmic trading in commodities, Alpha transitioned to market making and liquidity providing for cryptocurrency in 2017 and hasn't looked back. After diving into DeFi in the summer of 2020, Alpha saw a market need for an order book AMM to aggregate liquidity, and with the release of Serum, pulled together a team of experienced trading developers to tackle the problem head on. XRay is Raydium's Chief of Technology and Dev Team leader. X has 8 years of experience as a trading and low latency systems architect for both traditional and crypto markets. X designs all of Raydium’s systems and infrastructure as needed. GammaRay heads up marketing and communications while also playing a key role in strategy and product direction. Gamma spent a large part of his career at a leading data analytics and market research firm, working on both client engagements and corporate marketing. Prior to Raydium, Gamma's focus within cryptocurrency has been technical analysis and discretionary trading.

Raydium launched its main net on February 21st, 2021 with 555,000,000 tokens created at genesis. 34% of all tokens will be released as liquidity mining incentives over a 3-year period. 30% of tokens are earmarked for partnerships and the expansion of the Raydium ecosystem. This includes giving grants to projects building projects around Raydium or helping our communities in general. These tokens are generally locked for 1 year and unlock linearly for the next 2 years.

Raydium is an automated market maker (AMM) and liquidity provider built on the Solana blockchain for the Serum decentralized exchange (DEX). Unlike any other AMMs, Raydium provides on-chain liquidity to a central limit orderbook meaning that funds deposited into Raydium are converted into limit orders which sit on Serum’s orderbooks. This gives Raydium LPs access to all of Serum’s order flow as well as their existing liquidity. RAY is the native utility token used for: * Staking to earn protocol fees * Staking to receive IDO allocations * Governance votes on protocol decisions

Zcash is a high-ranking cryptocurrency. It is possible to [buy Zcash](https://www.binance.com/en/buy-Zcash) on a number of major exchanges, some of which are: * [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/) * [HitBTC](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/hitbtc/) * [Huobi Global](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/huobi-global/) * [BKEX](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/bkex/) * [OKEx](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/okex/)

Zcash network is secured by the [proof-of-work](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake) [SHA-256](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/sha-256) hash function which belongs to the SHA-2 set of algorithms — same as Bitcoin.

Overall, Zcash tokenomics is similar to that of Bitcoin: it is a scarce [mineable](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-are-mined-coins) token with a total supply limit of 21 million coins. New ZECs are created in the form of “block subsidies”: whenever [a new block is mined](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/mining-zcash-explained) and added to the end of the blockchain, a certain amount of coins is minted and split into “miner subsidy” and “founders’ reward” at a ratio of 80 to 20 percent respectively. The block subsidy is halved at regular intervals to slow down the issuance rate as the total supply of ZEC approaches its limit of 21 million. The miner subsidy goes to the miner who has mined the latest block and the founders’ reward is distributed between Electronic Coin Company (ECC) founders, Zcash Foundation and ECC itself, as well as its employees. On Nov. 18, 2020, the block subsidy was halved from 6.25 ZEC to 3.125 ZEC, which was triggered at block 1,046,400. This was introduced under the [Zcash Canopy](https://z.cash/upgrade/canopy/) upgrade, which also removed the Founders Reward. Instead, the remaining 20% will be divided among the Major Grants Fund, ECC and Zcash Foundation, at 8%, 7% and 5% respectively. The next, and fifth, [Zcash network upgrade](https://z.cash/upgrade/) — [Zcash NU5](https://z.cash/upgrade/nu5/) — is estimated to go live on the testnet on Sept. 30, 2021. Since launch there has been substantial interest in the [ZEC to AUD](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/zcash/zec/aud/) and [ZEC to EUR](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/zcash/zec/eur/) price pairs.

Zcash’s main advantage lies in its optional anonymity, which allows for a level of privacy unattainable with regular, pseudonymous cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or [Ethereum](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/). ZEC transactions can be sent in two ways: transparent and shielded. Transparent transactions work in about the same way as in [Bitcoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/how-long-does-a-bitcoin-transaction-take), whose codebase Zcash was originally based on: they are sent between public addresses and are recorded on an immutable public ledger (the blockchain). All essential information about these transactions is available online for anyone to see, including the sending and receiving addresses and the amount sent. These public transactions do not reveal user identities in an overt manner: the only identifiers an outside observer can access from the blockchain are public addresses. However, through the efforts of data scientists and law enforcement over recent years, the methods of blockchain analysis have been developed to the point where an interested party can fairly reliably connect a public address on a blockchain to the real-world identity of its owner, essentially making private transactions impossible. Shielded ZEC transactions, on the other hand, leverage the technology of zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge, or [zk-SNARKs](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/zk-snarks), in order to enable completely anonymous transactions to be sent over a public immutable blockchain. The fact that the transaction _has _happened is recorded on the ledger, but the sending and receiving addresses and the amount sent is not revealed to the public. This allows Zcash to offer its users the right to privacy while still enjoying the advantages of a decentralized, permissionless digital currency.

Zcash was founded in 2016 by cypherpunk, computer security expert and entrepreneur Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn. He is also the founder of the for-profit Electronic Coin Company (ECC), which manages the development of Zcash. Wilcox-O’Hearn has spent more than 25 years in the industry of cryptography and information security and has contributed to a number of projects, including the now-defunct electronic money firm DigiCash, peer-to-peer data storing software Mojo Nation and the Tahoe Least-Authority File Store filesystem. He also founded Least Authority Enterprises, a technology company focused on improving digital security and preserving the fundamental right to privacy, and co-invented the BLAKE3 cryptographic hash function.

Zcash is a decentralized cryptocurrency focused on [privacy](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-are-privacy-coins) and anonymity. It uses the zk-SNARK zero-knowledge proof technology that allows nodes on the network to verify transactions without revealing any sensitive information about those transactions. Contrary to a common misunderstanding, the majority of cryptocurrencies on the market, including Bitcoin ([BTC](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/)), are not anonymous, but rather [pseudonymous](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/is-cryptocurrency-anonymous); while they do not explicitly reveal the identities of their users, each user has their own public address or addresses which can be traced back to them via the methods of data science and [blockchain](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/blockchain) forensics. Zcash transactions, on the other hand, still have to be relayed via a public blockchain, but unlike pseudonymous cryptocurrencies, ZEC transactions by default do not reveal the sending and receiving addresses or the amount being sent. There is an option, however, to reveal this data for the purposes of auditing or regulatory compliance. Zcash was first released on October 28, 2016, and it was originally based on Bitcoin’s codebase.

QTUM is a freely-tradable token, available on most exchanges. Pairs available for trading include Bitcoin and altcoins, stablecoins and fiat money. The top exchanges for trading in Qtum are currently [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/), [Huobi Global](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/huobi-global/), [OKEx](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/okex/), [HBTC](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/hbtc/) and [Hydax Exchange](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/hydax-exchange/). You can find others listed on our [crypto exchanges page](https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/). New to crypto and want to know how to buy Bitcoin (BTC) or any other token? Find out the details [here](https://coinmarketcap.com/how-to-buy-bitcoin/).

The technical approach to Qtum is not the same as Bitcoin and Ethereum currently use. Qtum chose the MPoS (mutualized proof-of-stake) consensus mechanism for network security. It is a modified version of [Proof-of-Stake 3.0](https://forum.bitbay.market/uploads/default/original/1X/a82b35edf21dee2cded2624d82fad28e6c1f4682.pdf). The protocol incentivizes users to keep their coins locked to facilitate and secure the block validation. This is called staking. Confirming each block is a competition between coin holders, where based on connectivity to the network and random chance they get to right to validate the block. Unlike the early PoS protocols, here the block reward is constant and does not depend on coin age for determining the likeliness of getting it. The rewards are spread proportionally to the stake, so the more coins are staked, the more reward the user gets. On top of that, the MPoS protocol is protected against “junk contract” attacks by splitting 10% of the block reward between the block producing miner and nine previous miners and delaying the remaining 90% by 500 blocks in the future. Unlike the proof-of-work mechanism used in Bitcoin, the proof-of-stake algorithms are significantly less costly to maintain, are more environmentally friendly and can provide a great deal of decentralization, which is the cornerstone of blockchain security.

According to the Qtum whitepaper, the initial supply of QTUM coins was 100 million, all of which were minted instantly before the project went online. 51 million coins were sold to the public through an ICO process in March 2017. Over that, 8 million coins went to the early private investors and 12 million were allocated to the project team with a four-year lock-up. The rest is controlled by the Qtum Chain Foundation, a non-profit company registered in Singapore, which will receive it in four parts by March-2021. These are 20 million coins allocated for business development purposes and 9% for academic research and promotion. The coin supply is not fixed, new tokens can be mined with block reward halving every four years from the initial block reward subsidy of 4.0 QTUM per block, going through seven halvings to eventually reaching zero by year 2045, when the maximum supply will reach 107,822,406 QTUM.

Qtum is a general purpose blockchain that tries to address four issues its founders found most problematic in BTC and ETH blockchain platforms: interoperability, governance, rigidity and costliness of proof-of-work mechanism and difficulty of connecting smart contracts with real life applications. The Qtum blockchain has two unique technologies that aim to solve that: Account Abstraction Layer (AAL) and Decentralized Governance Protocol (DGP). The Account Abstraction Layer integrates the UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) account layer inherited from Bitcoin with the smart contract layer, inspired by Ethereum. It allows users to build applications and host them on virtual machines, including the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), and the x86 virtual machine. It also supports i686 instruction set and several programming languages like C, C++, Rust and Python, which makes it very easy to adopt existing apps and compile for Qtum. Not only does it allow turing-complete smart contracts, Qtum also plans to integrate common programming libraries in the form of smart contracts. The Decentralized Governance Protocol allows smart contracts to change the core parameters of the network such as block size and gas fees without ever needing to hard fork the blockchain, which may save a lot of trouble as the network is evolving. Miners (stakers), developers and QTUM holders within the entire ecosystem are involved in blockchain governance through voting, and the blockchain can realize self-management, upgrades and iteration.

Patrick Dai is the project’s founder and the chairman of the Qtum Foundation. He studied computer science in Draper University and then dropped out of PhD from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He started his career as a product manager at Alibaba and then worked on a series of blockchain projects, including Factom, Vechain, Bitse Group and Meilink before starting Qtum in 2016. The other two co-founders are the CTO and blockchain architect Neil Mahi and lead developer Jordan Earls. Many of the team members listed on the Qtum official website seem to not have an active Linkedin page or a Github profile. It is confirmed though that Qtum has several high-profile backers, including the Bitcoin.com’s Roger Ver and Jeremy Gardner, an early crypto investor turned skincare professional, co-founder of Augur and EIR in Blockchain Capital.

Qtum (pronounced ‘“quantum”) is a [proof-of-stake](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/proof-of-stake-pos) (PoS) smart contract open-source blockchain platform and value transfer protocol. It aims to bring together the strengths of [Bitcoin ](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/)and [Ethereum ](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/)in one chain. Qtum is built on Bitcoin's UTXO transaction model, with the added functionality of smart contract execution and [DApps](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-applications-dapps). Recently, the platform added support for DeFi applications. As of March 2021, there are more than 20 tokens created on the Qtum blockchain. To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of [Qtum](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-qtum). The project was announced in March 2016 and held an ICO a year after, in March 2017, which brought its founders $15 million USD. The Qtum main chain was released on Sept.13, 2017. Initially, the Qtum coin was issued as a ETH-20 token, but with the launch of the mainnet, it was converted to native blockchain.

As one of the largest USD stablecoins, TUSD is freely available on major exchanges, with pairs for cryptocurrencies and other stablecoins available. Among the largest volume currently belongs to [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/) and DeFi automated market maker [Curve](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/curve-finance/). New to crypto? Read our [easy guide](https://coinmarketcap.com/how-to-buy-bitcoin/) to buying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies."

TrustToken aims to deliver maximum transparency using tools such as real-time auditing of TUSD’s backing and reliability. Beyond trusting the validity of its USD peg, any security issues relate to those which affect all ERC-20 standard tokens. Transactions, for example, can suffer from abnormally high fees if [gas prices](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/gas-price) on the Ethereum blockchain spike.

There was around 2 billion TUSD in circulation as of March 2023. Given its status as a stablecoin, the supply is uncapped, and will continue to expand according to demand.

TUSD is the first digital asset with live on-chain attestations by independent third-party institutions and is backed 1:1 with the U.S. dollar (USD). So far, it has been listed on more than 100 trading platforms such as Binance and Huobi and is live on 12 mainstream public chains, including Ethereum, TRON, Avalanche, BSC, Fantom, and Polygon. TrueUSD is attested to in real-time by an independent, industry-specialized accounting firm in the U.S., to ensure the 1:1 ratio of its USD reserve to the circulating token supply and the 100% collateral rate. With the integration of Chainlink PoR, TrueUSD becomes the first USD-Backed stablecoin to secure minting and further ensure transparency and reliability. Users can access the relevant data via the official website tusd.io at any time. TUSD is granted statutory status as authorized digital currency and medium of exchange in the Commonwealth of Dominica, a country in the Caribbean, effective on October 7th 2022.

Basic Attention Token can currently be traded on the majority of popular cryptocurrency exchange platforms, and currently has excellent liquidity. [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/), Coinbase Pro and [Huobi Global](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/huobi-global/) count among the most reputable exchanges for BAT trades. Like many cryptocurrencies, BAT can be [purchased directly using fiat](https://coinmarketcap.com/how-to-buy-bitcoin/) at a variety of brokers or can be traded against fiat assets on platforms like [Kraken](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/kraken/) and Bithumb.

Basic Network Token (BAT) is an [ERC-20 token](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/erc-20). As such, it is built on the Ethereum [blockchain](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/blockchain). Like any ERC-20 token, BAT is secured by a rigorously tested [proof-of-work](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake) (POW) consensus algorithm supported by an extensive Ethereum miner network. This [consensus](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/consensus) algorithm ensures only valid transactions are confirmed, while the combined work of the Ethereum mining network ensures BAT transactions are essentially irreversible once confirmed.

Basic Attention Token has a maximum total supply of 1.5 billion [tokens](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/a-deep-dive-into-tokenization). This cannot be increased without switching to a new token smart contract. Almost all of this supply is in current circulation. As a result, Basic Attention Token can be considered almost fully diluted. In its 2017 ICO, a total of 1 billion BAT tokens were sold to investors, whereas the remaining 200 million tokens were locked in a development pool, and 300 million BAT was reserved for the user growth pool (UGP). As of November 2020, both the development pool and UGP pool addresses are nearly empty.

The primary use case for the Basic Attention Token is as a payment token for running advertising campaigns through Brave Ads. As of November 2020, advertisers must commit to a minimum ad spend of $2,500 per month to be able to launch their campaign, but a self-serve platform with potentially lower limits is currently in the pipeline. Currently, this advertising budget must be paid entirely in Basic Attention Tokens, which advertisers can acquire from a variety of third-party exchange platforms. Out of this, Brave takes a small commission, and the rest is distributed to publishers and users. One of the main distinguishing features about Basic Attention Token and the Brave Browser ecosystem is the capacity to reward (tip) users who are not yet part of the network — this includes both websites and individual Twitter users. These users can then securely register to the platform to collect any tips they have accumulated. Both Basic Attention Token and Brave Browser have achieved significant user uptake since their launch. As of October 2020, Brave Browser has a total of 20.5 million active monthly users, whereas the Basic Attention Token is now held by a total of more than 368,000 unique wallets.

Basic Attention Token has two founders: Brendan Eich and Brian Bondy — two highly distinguished individuals in the internet browsing software industry. Brendan Eich is the CEO of Brave Software, Inc — the parent firm behind the Brave browser and Basic Attention Token. Prior to his role at Brave, Eich was the founder and CTO of Mozilla and also invented JavaScript in 1995. He also helped launch one of the world's most popular web browsers in 2004 — Mozilla Firefox. Likewise, Brian Bondy joins as Brave's and Basic Attention Token’s CTO. Bondy is a heavily experienced engineer with previous experience working as a senior software engineer at Mozilla, software developer at Corel Corporation and software development lead at Khan Academy. Together, Eich and Bondy have a combined 50+ years of software development experience. In total, the Basic Attention Token website lists 16 team members, many of whom have a development, engineering or research background.

Basic Attention Token, or BAT, is the token that powers a new blockchain-based digital advertising platform designed to fairly reward users for their attention, while providing advertisers with a better return on their ad spend. To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of [Basic Attention Token](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-basic-attention-token). This experience is delivered through the Brave Browser, where users can watch privacy-preserving adverts and receive BAT rewards for doing so. On the other hand, advertisers can deliver targeted ads to maximize engagement and cut down losses due to ad fraud and abuse. The Basic Attention Token itself is the unit of reward in this advertising ecosystem, and is exchanged between advertisers, publishers and users. Advertisers pay for their advertising campaigns in BAT tokens. Out of this budget, a small portion is distributed to advertisers, while 70% is distributed to users — whereas the intermediaries that typically drive up advertising costs are cut out of the equation to improve cost-efficiency. Basic Attention Token launched in 2017 following one of the fastest sell-out initial coin offerings ([ICOs](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/initial-coin-offering-ico)) of all time, with the platform raising a total of $35 million in under a minute. Since then, it has rolled out its attention-based advertising experience to users in most countries through its Brave Rewards program. As of November 2020, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada had the most active advertising campaigns.

ZetaChain is a Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain built on Cosmos SDK and Tendermint consensus, which can connect to external blockchains (e.g., Ethereum, BSC, Solana, Avalanche, Terra, Bitcoin) and layers (e.g., Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum) in a decentralized (without a single point of failure, trustless, permissionless), transparent, and efficient way. The ZetaChain architecture consists of validators, observers, and signers. Validators participate in block production and receive rewards proportional to their bonded staking coins, observers reach consensus on external chain events and states, and signers, in a distributed fashion, hold standard ECDSA/EdDSA keys to sign messages on behalf of ZetaChain. ZetaChain utilizes GG20 leaderless Threshold Signature Scheme (TSS), which does distributed key generation and key signing. No single ZetaChain node or other individual has access to the complete private key at any point in time. All the inbound/outbound transactions and decisions made (through state change) are recorded in the ZetaChain blocks, which are available, immutable, verifiable, and completely transparent. The only native value that can go cross-chain is the ZETA coin. The mechanism is a one way peg (i.e. burning X amount on chain A and then minting X amount on chain B). This value-transfer architecture reduces the attack surface substantially, resulting in an easier to understand audit and superior security compared to approaches that involve bridging and wrapping, which put users’ assets at risk when trading between chains. For example, total supply checks may be implemented directly at the contract mint site.

ZetaChain is a blockchain that connects everything. It enables interoperability between any blockchains or layers by providing cross-chain value transfer and message delivery, as well as native omnichain smart contract support. Applications built on ZetaChain — omnichain dApps (odApps) — can leverage liquidity and data on multiple networks and read and update state on all connected networks. ZetaChain’s native omnichain smart contract platform lets developers deploy contracts with the same ease as developing dApps for a single network like Ethereum, that orchestrate data and value across many or all chains. ZetaChain’s connectivity is chain-agnostic and can connect to and bring smart contract capabilities to even non-smart-contract chains like Bitcoin and Dogecoin. The ZETA coin powers ZetaChain, facilitating cross-chain value transfer, securing the blockchain through slashing/bonding/staking, paying for gas fees, processing transactions, and storing data. Through ZETA, users are able to safely transfer native value across chains without the common risks of bridging or wrapping assets.

ZetaChain’s founder was an early Coinbase employee and one of the creators of Basic Attention Token (BAT). Investors include all major market makers, top exchanges, early Coinbase and Binance employees including Dan Romero, Sam Rosenblum, and John Yi, as well as major contributors to some of the industry’s most widely adopted protocols and well known funds, including Polygon’s JD Kanani. Advisors to the project include Coinbase’s first Head of People Nathalie McGrath who scaled the industry leading exchange from 10 employees to over 800, and Juan Suarez, who served as in-house counsel at Coinbase from 2013 to 2022.

ZetaChain is a novel L1 that has chain-agnostic interoperability built-in (EVM-compatible, Cosmos/IBC, Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Tron, etc.). Developers currently use ZetaChain’s messaging capabilities to send data and native value (without wrapping assets) between any chains. ZetaChain will also support native smart contracts, which let developers build omnichain dApps that orchestrate funds across chains from a single contract.

aelf is an open-source blockchain network designed as a complete business solution. The structure of ‘one main-chain + multiple side-chains’ can support developers to independently deploy or run DApps on individual side-chains to achieve resource isolation. aelf technology adopts Parallel Processing & AEDPoS Consensus Mechanism. Based on the cross-chain technology of the main-chain index and verification mechanisms, aelf achieves secure communication between the main-chain and all side-chains, as a result, allows direct interoperability between side-chains. aelf meets the governance needs of varying applications by providing different models, including a Parliament Governance Model, an Association Governance Model, and a Referendum Governance Model. Through the incentive model, the network is equipped with a self-sustainable system and can roll out self-development on a practical basis. Simultaneously, developers can debug, develop and deploy applications based on a mature IDE, provided by aelf. aelf has launched aelf Enterprise, an enterprise-level integrated blockchain solution. aelf Enterprise is based on the requirements of different business scenarios. To meet the requirements of several industries including supply chain management, credit establishment, user incentives, and property protection, aelf Enterprise provides enterprise-level users with a flexible, but practical modularized blockchain solution. This promotes the hand-in-hand development of both Blockchain and other core economies.