What Is THORSwap (THOR)?

The Thorswap is a DEX aggregator built using the cross-chain liquidity protocol implemented by THORChain. The platform functions as an interface to all THORChain services, including THORNames and Synthetic Assets. Besides these utilities, the THORSwap supports an open and inclusive cross-chain world that aims to make the platform and products decentralized, scalable, and secure. This structure facilitates users of the platform (such as liquidity providers, traders, and stakers) to be treated as first-class citizens, providing them with everything they need to operate on the platform.

According to the whitepaper, through THORSwap, users can access liquidity for more than 25 crypto-assets across primary Layer1 blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Chain, Dogecoin, Litecoin, and more. These cryptos are supported by THORChain on the platform. This THORChain is based on Tendermint and Cosmos-SDK, enabling cross-chain liquidity using Threshold Signature Schemes (TSS), allowing the assets to be moved based on user actions rather than being pinned or wrapped.

Besides these facilities, THORChain also allows users to place their tokens into vaults, process business logic (swaps, liquidity additions/removals), and execute outbound transactions. THORChain primarily functions as a leaderless vault manager, seeking to ensure that every step of the process is byzantine-fault tolerant. Byzantine Fault Tolerance refers to a computer system's ability to continue functioning even if some nodes fail or act maliciously. Additionally, THORChain aims to avoid centralization and capture while facilitating cross-chain liquidity. As a result, THORChain only secures assets in its vaults, providing economic guarantees that those assets are safe. In order to support this overall structure, THORChain introduced its cryptocurrency, the THOR token. 

THOR is the native token of the entire THOR ecosystem and serves as a governance token, utility token, and proof of membership token. THOR encourages and optimizes the trading process and provides users with the following benefits:

• Facilitates trading on the platform;

• Provides a decentralized management protocol;

• Assists in the gradual decentralization of ownership towards majority ownership by the community;

• Provides apps and content with security via permission to access them;

• Contributes to growth efforts and community projects;

• Enhances the $RUNE token, the THORSwap community, and other THORChain assets. 

Besides these benefits, the THOR provides users with Liquidity Pool rewards, mining rewards, trading fee gains, and the possibility to stake THOR for $vTHOR to receive cashback, fee discounts, governance rights, value accrual, and more with Version 2.0 of Single-Sided Thor Staking. 

History of ThorSwap (THOR)

The first version of THORSwap was launched in 2020 and was restructured to its latest version in April 2021, which was launched as an interchain DEX based on THORChain's multi-chain chaos net (MCCN). The token of the platform has a maximum supply of 500,000,000 THOR.