What is WAVES crypto?

Back in the mid-2010s, many high-tech platforms like Ethereum started to arise on the cryptocurrency landscape. Their main value was that they helped others realize their value — to build decentralized applications, attract new users, and implement new ideas for using cryptocurrency and blockchain. However, what they were lacking were usability and simplicity — it’s quite hard to launch and operate a project on Ethereum. 

Waves open-source platform was introduced in 2016, aiming to simplify and streamline the creation of tokens and dApps. With the Waves account, you can leverage its blockchain to create your token without excessive coding, trade it against other assets and fiat currencies on Waves exchange, and tokenize online and offline data. Over 5 years, Waves introduced such things as staking an algorithmic stablecoin USDN with a 15% APY, a cross-chain gateway with BINANCE Smart Chain, and many more. 

In this Waves review, we will see what Waves and Waves coin are, how they work, and how you can invest in Waves. 

What does Waves allow users to do?

Creation of tokens, smart contracts, and dApps. Any user with a Waves account can create a Waves blockchain-based token. To create a smart contract and a dApp, Waves offers Ride — a functional purpose-designed smart contract language. Create a script in Ride and deploy it in your account. All dApps are managed from there. 

Staking WAVES. Waves blockchain uses the Proof of Stake consensus algorithm. This means you can stake WAVES tokens to help the network run and to receive staking rewards. To run a full node that validates transactions itself, you need to have at least 1,000 WAVES. To stake a lesser amount of coins, run a light node. Lease your tokens to a full node to raise its chance of getting a block for validation, and get some WAVES as a reward in return.

Staking USDN stablecoin with a 15% APY. USDN, or Neutrino USD, is the first-ever stablecoin that you can stake. It is pegged by the US Dollar and is backed by cryptocurrency, not fiat. USDN is backed by the WAVES token that is also being staked, and its $1 value is maintained algorithmically. The APY for USDN staking is about 15%, and here’s its main value: when you stake regular crypto, you can earn many tokens, but if their price drops, you may ultimately lose. When you stake a stablecoin, you can rest assured that your profits will stay with you. 

Oracles. Let’s get back to decentralized applications. Some of the dApps need external data for proper functioning, and oracles are programs that collect this data and bring it to the blockchain. In Waves, Gravity is a decentralized cross-chain and oracle network that helps developers bring this data to Waves from the outside world, including other blockchains.

Interchain connectivity. Today, there are many blockchains out there that serve different yet overlapping purposes. Overcoming this fragmentation could help the crypto world become more integrated and valuable. This is one of the Waves’ main points of focus: the team is working on bridging blockchains together. In November 2020, Waves launched Gravity in Alpha — a bridge between Waves and Binance Smart Chain. 

DeFo (Decentralized Forex). Besides USDN, Waves blockchain is also home to 9 stablecoins pegged by national currencies of the European Union (EURN), Japan (JPYN), Russia (RUBN), and other countries. Waves Exchange allows trading them in a decentralized way, introducing the unique Decentralized Forex. 

What is a WAVES token? 

WAVES is the native cryptocurrency of the Waves platform. It is used for the following purposes: 

• Payments. You need to pay some WAVES when you create a token, launch and operate your dApp. WAVES tokens are also paid for transactions within the network. 
• Staking. As described above, validators receive WAVES tokens as staking rewards for helping the network run and keeping it secure. Users with minimal amounts of WAVES can participate in staking by leasing their tokens to the network’s full nodes.

What is the dynamic of the WAVES’ price? 

WAVES price took much profit from a late-2020 bull run. After a significant correction in the second part of May 2021, WAVES’ price is $14.84. It’s ranking 59 on Coinmarketcap with a $1.5 billion market capitalization. WAVES’ overall ROI counting from June 2016 is slightly over 1000%. Take a look at the Waves crypto chart:

Where should I buy WAVES? 

You can buy WAVES on any of the popular exchanges such as Binance, Kraken, or OKEx. These are centralized exchanges, meaning that to use them, you need to sign up and deposit funds that they further store. This makes the trade go very fast as it happens off-chain, but also imposes risk: sometimes centralized exchanges limit your ability to withdraw money, so you lose access to your funds for some time. And what is worse, if there’s an attack, your money can be stolen from an exchange. 

If you store your money in a crypto wallet, there’s much less chance that anything will ever happen to your coins. If you have a secure wallet, this chance is close to zero. ChangeNOW is the service that can help you buy WAVES coins without storing them on an exchange — and trading them right from your wallet. 

Why buy Waves from ChangeNOW?

An average crypto swap on ChangeNOW takes 5 minutes. You set the currency and the sum, deposit your coin to the address provided, and get your exchange coin right into your wallet. No registration is needed. You can buy Waves with 200+ crypto coins and the most popular fiat currencies. 

Don’t worry about the rates: ChangeNOW partners with plenty of liquidity providers, which gives us many options to choose between. At the moment of the exchange, we pick the rate that is most favorable for you and display it in the calculator. There are no hidden fees: every fee that we have is already included in the estimated amount. What you see is what you get.

ChangeNOW is rated 4.6 on Trustpilot (3.6K reviews). 

Where should I store WAVES?

Waves official 

Waves used to have their own wallet, but later, they have integrated it into their exchange. To store your WAVES tokens in the Waves ecosystem, create a Waves account, and the key pair and address will be created automatically. See here the official info where you can create a Waves account and what things are worth paying attention to in this process.

Atomic Wallet

Atomic Wallet is a simple multi-asset wallet with a built-in crypto swap service. Here, you can store WAVES along with over 500 crypto assets. Atomic is non-custodial, which means it doesn’t have access to your private keys (hence to your funds) — they are stored on your device, not inside the wallet app. In Atomic, you can buy crypto with a debit card. For crypto swaps and purchases, Atomic grants you with AWC, Atomic Wallet Coins, that you can stake to earn extra rewards. The wallet is available for desktop and mobile. 

Guarda Wallet

Guarda is another multi-asset non-custodial wallet for WAVES. It also has a built-in crypto exchange service. Some of the coins stored on Guarda you can stake. It is available for web, mobile, desktop, and as a browser extension. Guarda is rated 4.2 on App Store and 4.6 on Google Play. 

What is the future for Waves?

Since 2016, the year of Waves’ launch, a lot of changes have happened to the platform. The team has abandoned Waves Wallet and Waves DEX, but instead, launched a dozen of other projects including Waves oracles, Decentralized Forex with stakeable algorithmic stablecoins (Neutrino), and cross-chain bridge (Gravity). Only a committed team of blockchain enthusiasts could reach these goals in a 5-year time span, and we expect to see many more advancements from Waves in the years to come.