Legacy blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum have begun seeing a lot of layer two solutions, which are intended to improve the performance of the blockchain being that their current layer 1 throughput has significant limitations.
For example, the Bitcoin blockchain is only able to process 7 transactions per second (TPS) but with its layer two solution, the lightning network, Bitcoin is touted to have the capacity to process about 25 million TPS.
Boba aims to improve the performance of the Ethereum blockchain as it is a layer two solution for the Ethereum blockchain which focuses on improving the Ethereum blockchain, specifically by reducing gas fees, and improving transaction throughput. It also extends the capabilities of smart contracts built on the biggest blockchain by Total Value Locked (TVL), which currently stands at $126.88 billion as of the time of this writing, according to DeFi Llama.
About Boba
Boba’s Ethereum scaling & augmenting solution was built by the Enya team, who were core contributors to the OMG Foundation. Boba offers fast exits backed by community-driven liquidity pools, shrinking the Optimistic Rollup exit period from seven days to only a few minutes, while giving Liquidity Providers (LPs) incentivized yield farming opportunities.
Boba is also touted to have extensible smart contracts that they claim will enable developers across the Ethereum ecosystem to build dApps that invoke code executed on web-scale infrastructure such as AWS Lambda, making it possible to use algorithms that are either too expensive or impossible to execute on-chain. The platform also touts of offering lightning-fast transactions and fees up to 60x less than Ethereum.
Boba has a native token, BOBA, which is used for governance of the Boba DAO. It will be used for community initiatives and direction for the network’s future. Each BOBA holder will get one vote for every token that they stake on the Boba Network. Token holders will be eligible to submit proposals, vote, and delegate votes for proposals on the DAO in accordance with the governance guidelines.
The platform also has support for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), as it touts to enable bridging between layer 1 and 2 solutions. This means that users can mint, move, and sell between L2 & L1, with ease and enhanced security.
According to Boba’s website, the network aspires “to be the People’s L2 that puts users and developers first. The goal is to build a pragmatic L2 that is the first step towards opening Ethereum to the next Billion users.”
BOBA Token Statistics
As previously mentioned, BOBA is the native token of the Boba Network, which will be used for governance of the Boba DAO, which will be used for community initiatives and direction for the network’s future.
BOBA holders have an opportunity to earn more tokens through staking. Staked BOBA on the Boba Network will receive a portion of the transaction fees earned by the network through an on-chain distribution governed by the community. BOBA stakers will receive equivalent xBOBA tokens that will still retain the same DAO voting rights at BOBA tokens.
According to CoinMarketCap, BOBA has a circulating supply of 158,960,846.86 out of a maximum of 500 million tokens. According to The Tokenomics, the circulating supply started off with exactly 150 million tokens and is expected to gradually increase over the next four years to reach its maximum supply. Some of the fees earned by Boba Network is allocated to purchase BOBA tokens on behalf of the Boba treasury over time. The treasury is deployed to fund liquidity mining incentives and build the Boba ecosystem.
The 500 million maximum supply is allocated as follows; OMG token holders get 28% or 140 million, the Treasury is allocated 42% or 210 million, current and future team members are allocated 20% or 100 million and Strategic investors get 10% or 50 million of the total supply of the maximum supply.
What you should know
- There has been a spike in BOBA’s trading volume, especially on FTX, as the platform announced it was able to raise $45 million in Series A funding, which puts the valuation of the platform at $1.5 billion, officially making it a unicorn. In fact, the news saw the token rally by over 30% as of the time of this writing.
- The funding round saw close to 400 participants, including crypto exchanges such as Crypto.com, Huobi, and BitMart, as well as successful crypto funds such as Hypersphere, Infinite Capital, Hack VC, GBV, Alliance DAO, The Venture City, Sanctor Capital, Shima Capital, DeFi Tech, 10X Capital, TRGC, D1, Portal, Genblock, Rarestone, and Kosmos. Investors with strong regional networks like Kinetic Capital, Ghaf Capital, LD Capital, Old Fashion Research (led by ex-Binance CFO), Krypital, Alphanonce, IOST, ROK Capital, and RedlineDAO also participated.
- Other notable investors include the Dreamers VC (Will Smith and Keisuke Honda), M13 (Paris Hilton and Carter Reum), Tony Robbins, Joe Montana, and KSHMR.
- Additional participants include founders of industry stalwarts Quantstamp, Origin Protocol, The Graph, Fractional Art, Highstreet, Hanbitco, ANKR, UMA, Nillion, deBridge, FEI Labs, DoinGud, Utopia Labs, and Sense Protocol.
- The Founder and CEO of Boba, Alan Chiu, stated, “This fundraise is about building a broad-based alliance to build the Boba ecosystem. Having so many amazing investors demonstrate their confidence in our vision and technology reinforces our belief that what we’re building is important and necessary. Hybrid Compute will scale Web3 development, enabling builders to deliver innovative products with greater functionality.”
Today, BOBA is ranked #186 on CoinMarketCap, with a market capitalization of $290.8 million as of the time of this writing as its token price trades $1.83. The token hit an all-time high of $7.99, last year, on the 25th of November. It hit its all-time low early last month of $1.01. From its low, the token has gained over 80% within 30 days. It is however, still below its highest point by approximately 76%.
