Waves(WAVES)

Waves is a multi-purpose blockchain that supports the development of smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps). The blockchain was founded back in June 2016 by entrepreneur Sasha Ivanov with WAVES coined as its native token. The Waves blockchain is designed with the intent to make the creation and trading of other cryptocurrencies easier by simplifying smart contracts.

Launched in June 2016 after an initial coin offering (ICO), Waves was initially built on the idea of tackling and improving previous blockchain platforms by increasing speed, utility, and user-friendliness.  

Over the years the platform has undergone many changes and upgrades with the  Waves development team adding the smart contract function to the Waves mainnet in 2018, allowing WAVES token holders and third parties to develop decentralized applications (DApps) on the blockchain.

It is worth noting that the total supply of WAVES tokens is not fixed and has an inflationary model which was approved by at least 80% of nodes.

WAVES price

The beginning of 2020 proved to be a tough start for the crypto market with the covid pandemic crisis causing the market to crash in March. However, the market slowly began to show signs of recovery in Q3 of 2020. According to our WAVES/USD live price chart, Waves saw its first bull run in mid-2020, when WAVES price soared from around $1 on May 20, to a high of $5 on Aug. 17, registering a gain of 370% in just 89 days. The token saw a sudden drop in September but rallied again in December setting an all-time high when it went from around $2.5 on Sept. 30, to roughly $9.48 on Dec. 17, 2020.

With the start of 2021, the crypto market started to show signs of volatility. According to our WAVES/USD live price chart, the token followed this sentiment as it failed to hold a steady upward trend when it went from around $6.5 on Jan. 6, to $14 on Feb.19, before dipping to $7. The token set another promising rally jumping from $10 on March 16 to just over $42 on May 4 — setting a new all-time high with an impressive gain of 340% in just 49 days. However, the token lost a fair share of gains, further extending losses as a severe crash hit the broader crypto market in late May 2021.

As the crypto market started to recover over the next couple of months the WAVES token showed promising signs, peaking at $36 in October. The token subsequently failed to appreciate in price, despite the market sentiment turning extremely bullish in November with BTC soaring to an all-time high of around $69,000. 

In spite of the poor performance in Q3 and Q4 of 2021, the Waves token managed to close Q2 2022 with a new all-time high of over $60.

How WAVES works

The Waves blockchain is run by two different groups of nodes, full nodes, and lightweight/light nodes. Full nodes have a complete history of transactions, while light nodes do not download the blockchain and are fully reliant on full nodes for any payment verification and network interaction.

Since light nodes cannot add blocks to the Waves blockchain they can lease their tokens to full nodes through the platform’s leased proof-of-stake (LPoS) consensus mechanism. Unlike a traditional proof-of-stake model, where any node that locks in a set number of tokens is eligible to add blocks to the blockchain. However, depending on how many tokens a node stakes can increase or decrease its chances of adding a block to the blockchain.

With the LPoS consensus mechanism, light nodes can lease their tokens to full nodes in order to earn rewards or an annual percentage yield (APY). This means when a full node is designated to complete a block and is reimbursed for doing so, light nodes who leased their tokens to that full node will earn the respective percentage of the payout. However, the cost of becoming a full node on the Waves blockchain is 1,000 WAVES tokens with light nodes having to pay 0.002 WAVES to lease their tokens.

Waves also uses a rather unique protocol called the Waves-NG technology, allowing its blockchain to process thousands of transactions per minute. Waves-NG determines which node will be responsible for producing the next block, by splitting the blockchain into two different blocks, ‘key blocks’ and ‘micro blocks’. A random proof-of-stake miner is selected by the Waves-NG protocol to create the key blocks. The public key of this block is then used by other nodes to create microblocks which include transactions. This allows for the Waves platform to confirm transactions as soon as the network allows while tackling the issues of scalability bottleneck and increased latency.  

WAVES news, updates, and highlights

Waves and Tron partnered on Aug. 13, 2020, to connect the two blockchain networks' DeFi (decentralized finance) infrastructure to provide full access to all the services both have to offer by utilizing the Gravity protocol. The two networks aim to provide user-friendly integrations with seamless inter-chain connectivity using their respective smart contract languages Ride and Solidity, allowing users access to Waves; native token on the Tron blockchain and vice versa. Hence, Waves’ decentralized exchanges (DEX) like Waves.Exchange will give traders and developers the opportunity to hold, trade, and use their TRC-20 tokens with this partnership.

On Aug. 19, 2020, Expobank, the former Russian subsidiary of global investment bank Barclays, issued a crypto-backed bank loan, using WAVES as collateral. The loan was issued to an entrepreneur and tax consultant, Mikhail Uspensky, who bought WAVES in an ICO. Waves founder Sasha Ivanov confirmed the news via a Tweet, noting that the loan used WAVES as collateral. This news came just a few weeks after Russia had just passed a law regulating any centrally issued digital securities and cryptocurrency as taxable property that can't be used as payment. 

On Oct. 22, 2020, Waves collaborated with Ethereum, issuing ERC-20 tokens to foster interoperability between the two protocols.  This collaboration will give WAVES token holders access to Ethereum’s vast decentralized application, exchanges, and DeFi protocols. Ethereum users in return will gain access to the WAVES token. The Waves-Ethereum bridging service will be available through the Waves.Exchange interface, allowing users to issue one ERC-20 WAVES by locking in one WAVES token on the Waves blockchain. Tokens can also be converted from Ethereum back to Waves. 

More recently, we saw a stablecoin, USDN, being launched on the Waves network, but the whole Luna-UST crash gave rise to new challenges and USDN, along with other stablecoins, struggled to maintain its dollar-peg.

Frequently asked questions about WAVES

• Can you mine or stake WAVES?

Waves is a leased proof-of-stake (LPoS) blockchain, which means that WAVES tokens cannot be mined. However, you can stake 1000 WAVES tokens to become a full node and earn rewards for staking or lease your WAVES tokens to a full node to earn a certain percentage of the payout.

• What are some of the best WAVES wallets?

Waves has its own wallet which can be found via official links. However, if you are looking for other options then Atomic Wallet and Guarda Wallet are good options. Hardware wallets, such as the Ledger Nano X and Ledger Nano S are also good options.

• What can you do with WAVES?

Users can use WAVES tokens to pay for transactions, vote on governance proposals, trade them against other cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, and USDT, or stake them for rewards.

• How to buy WAVES?

You can buy WAVES against WAVES/BTC, WAVES/ETH, and WAVES/USDT trading pairs on exchanges like HitBTC and OKX, or by using fiat currency with on-ramp services.