Six years ago today the Lisk Mainnet went live. Though many changes have taken place since then, the same core values that Lisk had then remain today, and only grow stronger. Whether you were around for the initial launch, or recently joined the community, or anywhere in between, it is time to celebrate and reflect on this milestone. To celebrate 6 years, let's take a look at 6 important facts from the Lisk network and community:

1 - Development is Currently in the Sapphire Phase

The Lisk Roadmap contains 6 unique phases, Quartz, Amber, Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire, and Diamond. The development team has completed the first four phases, and is currently working on the fifth, Sapphire. The main aspect of the sapphire phase deals with interoperability within the Lisk ecosystem. Completion of this phase will mark the official launch of the Lisk blockchain application platform.

Development however won’t stop there. After the Sapphire phase is the diamond phase, the details of which were revealed at the AmpliFire event on December 2nd 2021. This phase expands on the interoperability protocol to third-party blockchains for full blockchain interoperability, which will be achieved through ‘Lisk bridges’. While blockchain candidates are still being considered, Ethereum, Polkadot, Cosmos, and Cardano were mentioned as possible candidates.

2 - The Largest Upgrade Took Place in August 2021

On August 21st, 2021, Lisk Mainnet v3 went live. This was the biggest protocol change to ever occur on the Lisk blockchain. Here is a summary of some of the bigger changes that occurred:

New Address System

The new address system offers longer addresses for extremely secure accounts. Not only that, it made the security requirement of having to initialize your address a thing of the past. You can read more about the new address system in the New Lisk Id System blog post.

Dynamic Fees

Prior to the upgrade, Lisk utilized static fees. The new dynamic fees system offers much cheaper fees. In fact, a transfer transaction that cost 0.1 LSK in the old system now usually only costs 0.00136 LSK. Read more about how these dynamic fees work in our Dynamic Fee System blog post.

Revamped DPoS system

A new Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus algorithm was introduced during this upgrade as well. Now, every LSK token can only be used for a single delegate. A vote lock mechanism was also introduced (~6 hours for regular votes, ~30 days for delegate self votes), as well as additional locks as punishments for a delegate misbehavior. Additionally, 2 stand-by delegate slots were also added to encourage new delegates to join the network. An entire overview of the new DPoS system can be found in the 3 New DPoS LIPs: Changing the Voting System for Lisk blog post.

Lisk BFT

With sidechains and interoperability coming into the Lisk ecosystem, blockchain applications will need to facilitate transactions across multiple blockchains. To achieve this, it is necessary to guarantee that a sent transaction can never be reverted again, which is what the Lisk BFT consensus algorithm does. Now, a block will become final after ~155 blocks or approximately 26 minutes after it was included in the blockchain.

Read Introducing Byzantine Fault Tolerance Consensus for Lisk for more on Lisk BFT.

3 - Lisk Foundation Currently has Over $110,000,000 in Funding

The Lisk Foundation holds a number of different assets, including EUR, CHF, USDC, BTC, and LSK. As of April 2022, these assets collectively are valued at just over $110,000,000.00.

In keeping with the ideals of transparency, the Lisk Foundation provides a financial report every month in which monthly expenditures are transparently broken down. You may view these monthly reports here.

In order to generate additional income, the Lisk Foundation is using BlockFi which provides an interest-bearing account with variable interest rates. To spread risks and liability, the foundation is also lending away directly to third-party companies with a low risk profile. This generates additional interest and usually ranges between 8% and 10% APY. The interest accrued is used to purchase LSK tokens directly from the markets on an hourly basis with the help of Bitcoin Suisse. These LSK tokens are then used to finance the Lisk Grant Program.

4 - Number of Lisk Projects Being Built has Increased Dramatically

While the Lisk blockchain application platform is still under development, there are still many projects currently being developed using the Lisk SDK. Many of these projects can be found on the Ecosystem page, however we will describe a few of them here briefly:

• Colecti - A Lisk-based NFT marketplace.
• Enevti - A decentralized social media NFT platform.
• Kalipo - A platform to support Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs).
• Idntty - An identity and public key infrastructure built with Lisk SDK.
• RGB - Community-driven NFT creation platform.
• Topas City - An immersive VR world Powered by Lisk.

A majority of the projects being built are earning funds through the Lisk Grant Program, which has so far been a major success. If you wish to build your own project on Lisk, be sure to check it out and apply.

5 - Lisk’s Inflation Rate is Currently ~2%

While the Lisk network does not have Maximum Supply, such as BTC, the yearly inflation rate is quite low when compared to other projects. The supply is increased with every block that is forged. This is because delegates that secure the network are rewarded in the form of block rewards. In the early days of the Lisk Network, these rewards were 5 LSK per block. They were gradually reduced until they reached 1 LSK per block, which is where they will remain forever.

A block is forged every 10 seconds. Assuming there are no missed blocks, and ignoring and LSK burns that typically occur on the network, there would be 3,153,600 new LSK created every year. The current supply is ~147,000,000 LSK. This means that yearly inflation is 3,153,600 / 147,000,000 = ~2.15%, and will decrease every year!

6 - Development Resources for the Lisk Network have Increased

Lightcurve, the company that focuses on developing the Lisk project, has grown over the years. In fact, there are currently over 50 employees working on making the Lisk project come to life. This includes teams from Development, Marketing, Operations, and Research. While most employees are based in Berlin Germany, many are actually employed remotely from all over the world.

The best part is that the growth hasn’t stopped! Lightcurve is currently hiring in many positions. If you are interested in a blockchain career, take a look at the opportunities currently available.

Stay Up To Date

Thank you for taking a moment to celebrate this milestone in the history of the Lisk network. We encourage you to continue to stay up to date with all of Lisk’s milestones as they happen. The best way to do that would be to join our community at lisk.chat. We hope to see you there and celebrate again with you next year!