Being one of the newer kids on the blockchains, Waves (WAVES) is famous for its Decentralized Exchange (DEX) and made it simple for a WAVES holder to create their own custom token on the Waves Platform. Managing to remain in the top 50 coins by market cap, Waves is ranked #44 at the time of this writing.

Forming the Swells

Waves made its first ripples in the water in 2016 with a successful Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that raised over $16 million for the sale of the WAVES community token. It was foreseen many years ago that DEXs would be necessary for crypto holders in the future as regulations clamped down and custodial exchanges would have its risks. DEXs allow users to trade between assets and other coins from different blockchains and maintain custody of their own keys.

The Waves Platform is unique with its DEX that includes Custom Application Tokens (CATs) and Smart Contract features.

Custom Application Tokens (CATs)

The main feature of the Waves Platform is the ability to create custom tokens for a cost of 1 WAVE ($1.01 at the time of this writing). The tokens can be bought, sold, traded, and customized with a very simple setup without the requirement of knowing coding or any type of command line. This makes it ideal for ICOs, crowdfunding, DApps, airdrops, and loyalty programs.

Smart Contracts

The first set of smart contract functionality was implemented back in September 2018 and included many features:

Multi-sig Addresses

Atomic Swaps

Voting

Oracles

Token Freezing

Waves smart contracts use a programming language specifically designed for it called RIDE. When comparing Waves smart contracts with Ethereum's, Gas is required for Ethereum smart contracts while Waves does not. Waves charge a minimal flat fee with the basic network transaction fee being 0.001 WAVES and smart accounts pay an additional 0.004 WAVES for each transaction with the total fee being 0.005 WAVES.

Smart assets include the CATs where custom tokens that are created can have specific operations attached to the asset.

If we plan to apply constraints on all operations for a specific asset, we cannot use a smart account. In our paradigm, we have smart assets for this purpose: the script will be attached to the asset and will work in a similar way. Transactions for such assets are valid only if the script returns True. For example, a script can verify proofs from a transaction, check if a notary/escrow approves the transaction, and that operations with the asset are not locked for a specified time. The script for the token is invoked upon the following operations with an asset: Transfer Transaction

MassTransfer Transaction

Reissue Transaction

Burn Transaction

ExchangeTransaction

SetAssetScriptTransaction -Waves Platform

DEX

The Waves DEX is the main feature that stands out on the Waves Platform and partially solves the issue of using centralized exchanges. Since you remain custody of your private keys, the funds stored on the wallet are safe from an exchange hack as there is no chance of the DEX being hacked.

Compared to most DEXs, Waves supports many of the top coins on the market such as BTC, XMR, BCH, LTC, USDT, DASH, ZEC and more. While the majority of DEXs only support pairs of assets that are for the blockchain ecosystem they were created in, having support for top coins on the market makes it easier to diversify assets without having to move around on different DEXs.

Leased Proof-of-Stake

Waves uses an enhanced Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol called Leased Proof-of-Stake (LPoS) where WAVES holders can lease their tokens to nodes and then can be used to generate blocks and get a percentage of a mining reward. This allows smaller holders to participate with a larger amount leased together to increase the chances of generating the next block. The minimum to have a node begin generating blocks is 1000 WAVES.

The node owner may send to leaser a part of rewards according to his conditions.

The more transactions that are made on the network, the more rewards leasers get.

These rewards mostly are in WAVES but also they can be in the form of different tokens with the unique Waves feature where different tokens can be accepted as a fee.

Leased tokens are locked and the owner keeps full control over their funds.

Read the Whitepaper for full details.

Growth into a Breaker

With the short amount of time the Waves Platform has been around, it has managed to gain some traction and stay competitive with the other coins on the market.

In June 2019, Waves introduced an upgrade to its blockchain that finally enables Decentralized Apps (DApps) on the platform. This was a crucial feature to have as most of the leading blockchain projects seen continued growth thanks to DApps.

In August 2019, the Waves DEX added support for Ethereum ERC-20 tokens.

Recently back in December 2019, Waves relaunched its DEX as a hybrid exchange to Waves.Exchange and enabled Tether USDT trading. The relaunch was due to market conditions and regulations and to reshift focus on the project.

We are no longer focused only on decentralization — our main focus is user experience. We will gradually and thoroughly rebuild all of the existing clients (web/desktop/mobile). We will add some tech, such as WebSockets and a special backend to boost the clients. Meanwhile, key decentralized features we have developed will be maintained. This includes seed phrase storage (seed phrases and keys will never leave your device) and the matcher/settlement (all transactions will be written to the blockchain). All other elements will be made as fast and user-friendly as possible. -Waves.Exchange Blog

Waves have already had a couple of upgrades in 2020. To stay competitive, Waves added staking with the Neutrino USDN stablecoin and more recently added a prediction market as a charity campaign to help battle the current epidemic.

Waves had launched its enterprise blockchain in June 2019. It was rebranded to Waves Enterprise and it is a hybrid private and public permission blockchain that is self-explanatory in its name and is geared towards businesses. Waves Enterprise recently had an upgrade to its network that increased its smart contract speeds of up to 70 times. Along with a few other improvements, the update also introduced Licensing.

Firstly, we are introducing licensing for Waves Enterprise proprietary technologies. Any newly-created private network will be able to operate in test mode without a license until reaching block height 30,000, which roughly corresponds to a two-week period. After that, a license must be purchased to continue operation. The following types of license are available: Trial license for testing the platform and technology

Commercial license

Non-commercial license

Mainnet license, valid only for use of technology on the Waves Enterprise mainnet. This is free but requires the node to hold a certain amount of WEST tokens in its balance. Licenses can be purchased for a one- or two-year period, as well as for indefinite use. In future, the option of renting a license for the period of use will also be added. Upon license expiration, the node will no longer be able to create transactions, but will still be able to read data. -Waves Enterprise Blog

Waves has managed to show continued growth despite the bearish market in 2018-2019. However, with the current pandemic going on it is unclear what the future holds for Waves and almost every other cryptocurrency as we have been seeing blockchain projects layoff their staff, canceling or postponing events to a later date, and many other issues. Having newer projects and protocols may be making it difficult for Waves to stay competitive in the market but only time will tell.

This is not investment advice. Do your own research.

Be safe out there.