Summary
The growing demand for DeFi has spawned countless blockchain projects that aim to revolutionize this part of the crypto industry. But if you are a crypto enthusiast or even just someone interested in crypto, then you’d know that most DeFi projects are ETH-based. As a result, there has been a general shift to the Ethereum blockchain, causing an exponential rise in gas fees.
To change this narrative, a group of industry veterans has come up with Mintlayer to bring forth the future of DeFi but on the BTC network. This detailed review is dedicated to Mintlayer and will help our readers figure out whether its upcoming token generation event is worth the hype or not.
About the project
The best way to get into this review is to know more about the long-term blockchain project that is Mintlayer. According to its official website, it is built to offer a sustainable architecture for DeFi for the first time. But how does it do that?. By enabling smart contracts on Bitcoin, Mintlayer can effectively usher in the DeFi era on BTC.
Through this layer 2 bitcoin solution, one can enable DeFi, Smart Contracts, NFTs, and various other apps. Mintlayer is the first project that will enable an entire decentralized finance ecosystem on Bitcoin.
About the team
Mintlayer is the brainchild of a capable team that believes that the DeFi sector should be allowing all market participants to produce, exchange, store, and access various types of financial opportunities freely.
The company is located in San Marino, northern Italy, from where everything related to the project developer is handled. The CEO of Mintlayer is Enrico Rubboli, who brings 17 years of experience in this field as an alumni of Bitfinex, Macmillan Science and Education in London, and ELC Technology in the US.
Apart from Rubboli, Mintlayer’s tokenomics are implemented by Luca Viviani, who is a former JUR community manager and expert trader. The role of Chief Technical Officer is held by renowned cryptographer Ben Marsh. But what’s more interesting is the advisory board at Mintlayer which includes personalities like Charlie Shrem of the Bitcoin Foundation, who is best known for being an advocate of Bitcoin. Other than Shrem, Michael Terpin of Transform Ventures and Simon Schwerin of Economy Partners are also on the advisory board.
Project details overview
| Name | Mintlayer |
| Website | https://www.mintlayer.org |
| Founded on | May 2020 |
| Partners | ALPHABIT, Launchpool, A195 Capital, Iconomy, X21, Lotus Capital, 4SV, etc. |
| Tokenomics | Mintlayer utility token, abbreviated as ML |
So far, we have mentioned that the key features of this project are all about enabling the Bitcoin blockchain to bring forth a number of DeFi solutions and apps. But here’s a rundown of everything that counts as a feature of Mintlayer and separates it from existing similar projects (if any):
Key Features
- Mintlayer is a long-term scalability solution to achieve future-proof sustainability. All of this is guaranteed by the use of Lightning Network technology.
- Token porting with and from other networks is easy as well as cross-chain atomic swaps with BTC.
- With Turing incomplete smart contracts, Mintlayer reduces the risk of contract failure and increases outcome predictability. This feature also reduces on-chain congestion.
- It has access control list or Access control list (ACL) for improved compliance in security tokens such as whitelisting/blacklisting addresses, and such functionalities.
- Unlike Ethereum, users can choose any token to pay transaction fees.
- With multi-token transfers in a single transaction, Mintlayer makes aggregated payments a reality.
- Easy peg in/out actions for wrapped tokens from any other blockchains to stay on Mintlayer.
- By integrating the Lightning Network, Mintlayer users will enjoy high transactions per second to enable fast transactions.
- This project also has programmable pools for efficient tokenomics and evading Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) pollution.
Uses of Mintlayer Utility Token (ML)
- Holders of ML can stake a minimum amount (40,000 tokens) to participate in the consensus mechanism. By doing so, they can accept network fees in a token of their choice.
- ML tokens can also be staked in a pool meant for token owners who have less than 40,000 ML tokens
- It can be used to pay the network fees for the decentralized exchange.
- ML Tokens are also used to mint new tokens on the platform.
The difference between Mintlayer and its competitors can be explained through the following table provided in the below table.
Use cases
- Tokenization
Creating a token and its management is easy through Mintlayer. Additionally, the gas monopoly does not exist in this unique financial ecosystem. One may find Mintlayer exceptionally useful for primary and secondary market activities owing to its technical architecture. Other than that, Mintlayer can be utilized to raise decentralized capital by holding token launches and initial DEX offering events. With its token swap functionality for security tokens, one can enable confidential transactions on this network easily.
- Payments & Settlements
Mintlayer is Lightning Network enabled for all assets on Mintlayer, which allows for scalability, near-instant, and low-cost transactions. A two-way pegging system allows all cryptocurrencies to exist on a single network.
- DeFi and DEX
For DeFi and DEX, Mintlayer proves to be an emerging one-stop solution. It enables the storage, lending, borrowing, DEX trading, and staking of assets in a single wallet. Oracle support in Mintlayer allows users to verify identity, pricing, weather, and other such data from various reliable sources.
All of this allows DEX and DeFi to run efficiently. Its Turing incomplete environment for smart contracts can expand the number of projects with enhanced predictability and reliability. Mintlayer can also be used to create programmable pools for apps that require sufficient basic scripting.
Features
Use cases
Safety & Security
Customer service
4
(Overall Rating)
- It allows native Bitcoin integration and is highly scalable.
- It eliminates the dependence on centralized exchanges
- Enables direct swaps for any token or asset using BTC
- Users can batch multiple token transfers using UTXO model in one transaction
- Supports the Lightning Network for high-speed and low-cost transactions.
- Its turing incomplete environment is suitable for supporting a number of projects via smart contracts.
- Mintlayer features a capable Oracle to verify numerous data from reliable sources.
- The functionality of Mintlayer DSA consensus model is still unclear
- Having been founded in 2020, this project is fairly new which is a concern for investors.
- Alternatives to this project already exist but the distinguishing features of this project are not currently available.
Conclusion
Mintlayer is a notably one-of-a-kind project that allows participants to achieve more with their BTC without relying on centralized exchanges. In time, this layer-2 solution could introduce a number of real-world financial utilities by incorporating DeFi technology.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
When will the Mintlayer token launch occur?
The Mintlayer token generation or token launch event is scheduled to begin on March 21, 2023. In the beginning, ML tokens will be ERC-20 but after mainnet launch, they will migrate to Mintlayer.
How many ML tokens will be generated in its token generation event?
A total of 400,000,000 ML tokens will be generated during the TGE event. The initial unlocked token supply at launch is set to 15,820,000 ML.
Is Ethereum, Mintlayer’s main competitor in the DeFi sector, a privacy-oriented project?
Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency (by market size) in the world, is not privacy-oriented. It means that, unlike Mintlayer, ETH does not offer confidential transactions.
