The Crypto market witnessed a hurricane of ICOs this year. While many projects raised millions of dollars, most of them are years from providing a direct utility to the token holders. A more poignant fact is that most of them will likely never reach a point in development that will provide a genuine utility.

However, there were certainly some exceptions.
Some projects launched their ICOs with the MVP ready to roll. The ICO funds provided them with the capital needed to advance the development. Vena Network, which completed its token sale last month, has already made the improved version of its MVP available to the public.

The Development

Vena Network is a protocol aimed at decentralizing financial interactions. It provides smart contracts that can hold funds in escrow; the funds are released once contract terms are met. The smart contract structure is generic enough to support virtually any financial interaction.

While some financial interactions, like OTC trades, are simple enough for smart contracts to manage independently, others are complex and need the mental dexterity of a person. Since real world financial interactions, like loans, are quite complex, Vena Network only allows nodes, which have staked VENA tokens, to be the providers of loans. The network provides a jury system to arbitrate a solution in case a smart contract cannot sufficiently resolve a financial interaction due to unexpected real-world events.

The Next Step

Vena Network has already provided the first utilities of its protocol. The Vena App is ready for handling loans and OTC trades.

To kickstart platform usage, Vena Network is providing up to 20% return on Tether loans. Given that we’re in a bear market, a large number of people are holding large sums of stablecoins, including Tether.

This is an opportunity to get an interest on that Tether while waiting for the market to improve. While the 20% is limited to token sale participants—a testament to the team’s value for the early community members—anyone can access the platform and access a return on lent Tether. In time, the platform will add additional tokens and coins that can be lent.

The launch of the OTC trading facility and the lending platform is a means to display the functionality of the protocol. As the development reaches further stages of the roadmap, the VENA tokens play a more vital role.

Stepped Decentralization

For the time being, Vena Network is itself handling the financial interactions.

The platform has a long-term approach to slowly decentralizing the network. As the development reaches a point where the system needs limited upgrades, it’d be possible to hand over the operations to a decentralized network of nodes. This is when VENA tokens will come into play as nodes would need to stake the tokens to operate.

While many projects pursue a hastened decentralization of their development, this limits advancements to the platform. Thus, Vena Network is having the initial control of the system to advance it efficiently and effectively. Decentralization of the platform will be slow but steady process.