Harmony(ONE)

Harmony (ONE) is a Layer-1 blockchain, competing with the likes of Ethereum, Solana, Avax and Near to facilitate the creation, management and hosting of decentralized applications.

ONE coin is the native cryptocurrency of the Harmony network, and while it was initially launched as an ERC-20 and BEP-20 coin, the switch to its own mainnet was made in 2020.

Founded by Stephen Tse, a former Apple engineer and the current CEO of Harmony, the network is fully EVM-compatible and is promoted as a fast, open and secure platform for applications focused on identity, governance, collectibles, and more.

The Harmony (ONE) coin is used to pay for transactions on the network and also serves additional functions, including voting and governance rights and network security via staking.

Harmony (ONE) price

Harmony (ONE) price had a rocky start in 2020, failing to register any noteworthy changes before dipping to $0.0011 on March. 13, 2020 — an all-time low. However, the token made a slow recovery, going on to touch $0.01 on Aug. 14, 2020 — setting an all-time high for the year. Thereafter, ONE price continued to drop, failing to record any noticeable spikes. 

The price of ONE started a strong rally in early 2021 jumping from $0.007 on Jan. 24 to $0.22 on March. 29 — a 3,000%+ increase. However, as the market sentiment turned bearish the token also failed to sustain its growth. 

However, ONE price set an all-time high in late 2021, going from $0.05 in late July to around $0.38 on Oct. 26, in part thanks to a $300 million ecosystem development fund announced in September. This high put the fully diluted valuation of Harmony at around $5 billion. 

How ONE works

Harmony ONE uses the Effective proof-of-stake (EPoS) consensus mechanism which involves sharding, a technique used to solve the blockchain dilemma of security, scalability, and decentralization. 

The idea of sharding was first used by Zilliqa (ZIL) to increase network efficiency and to allow a more scalable environment for Dapps. Harmony uses this same sharding concept, splitting up the blockchain into different parts which work simultaneously to increase speed, reduce traffic and charge fewer fees for each transaction.

However, sharding can cause some security risks, which Harmony aims to address by using the EPoS mechanism. In order to eliminate collusion, it assigns each shard a random number of nodes every time a new block is formed. 

Furthermore, Harmony promises to deliver low latency and low fees (around $0.000001) and a block finalization time of 2 seconds. 

ONE news, update, and highlights

On April. 7, 2021 Sushi and Harmony partnered up to announce the launch of SushiSwap on the Harmony network. Sushi, a top decentralized exchange (DEX), running on the Harmony network, offers much lower transaction fees and transaction times compared to the Ethereum network.

In April 2021 Harmony partnered with Raze Network and announced that they would be increasing privacy protection in the Harmony ecosystem. Raze Network, a Layer-2 protocol, would be helping Harmony boost its cross-chain payment privacy by providing its self-developed encryption algorithm to encrypt user accounts and transactions.

Frequently asked questions about ONE

• Can you mine or stake ONE?

Since Harmony ONE uses an EPoS consensus mechanism you cannot mine it. However, you can stake your coins by creating a Harmony ONE wallet, transferring your ONE tokens there and then choosing a validator from the Harmony ONE staking website. Staking allows delegators to enable network decentralization, performance, and security. You can also use the Harmony Calculator to calculate staking rewards. 

• What are some of the best ONE wallets?

There are a vast variety of wallets to choose from, but given how Harmoney is an EVM-compatible blockchain, it works with MetaMask along with Trust Wallet, and the Harmony Chrome extension wallet. If you are looking for a hardware wallet then Ledger nano and Trezor are good options.

• What can you do with ONE?

Harmony ONE tokens can be used for paying transactions fees, voting and staking among other functions.

• How to buy ONE?

You can use the Horizon bridge to swap ETH for ONE, or you can go to any centralized exchange like HitBTC to exchange BTC and other crypto assets for ONE coins or buy Harmony (ONE) using fiat currency.