What Is Zilliqa (ZIL) How It Works & Where To Buy It?

Zilliqa is a public blockchain that has grown significantly in popularity over recent years. The protocol claims it is solving the current transactional throughput and scalability issues faced by traditional blockchains.

ZIL is the utility and governance token of the protocol, and users require ZIL tokens when performing any transactions on the network

The ZIL token is currently the 71st largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

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How Zilliqa (ZIL) Works

Zilliqa blockchain achieves its efficiency through the use of sharding. The use of sharding technology to reduce congestion is fundamental to the Zilliqa protocol. Sharding, in its simplified sense, is the segmentation of a network into several clusters of nodes, or “shards.”

Essentially, miners can validate transactions simultaneously when tasked to do so. Unlike most other cryptocurrencies, shards can execute transactions independently from one another rather than all at once in a huge group that becomes increasingly slower as it grows.

As the Zilliqa Network grows, the more nodes are required, the more transactions they can process at once – the bigger the network, the faster it can process transactions. Sharding mechanisms are essentially what makes Zilliqa work so efficiently.

Traditionally, obtaining consensus for a transaction verification has been increasingly difficult with sharding. Generally speaking, it has been a time and labor-intensive process, but Zilliqa provides a unique and seamless consensus process, achieved through sharding but utilizing an innovative mechanism.

Zilliqa uses a hybrid consensus mechanism, which processes transactions more quickly and efficiently than methods used by traditional blockchains like Ethereum and Bitcoin.

Essentially, verification takes place on the shard level, where nodes do not need to analyze data in its entirety. Zilliqa also features a second layer in which a collection of nodes creates a delivery service committee (DS Committee) that joins the smaller blocks into a single unit to guarantee the validity of this verification process.

The Zilliqa protocol utilizes the unique sharding mechanism, paired with both an innovative hybrid mechanism and smart contracts to optimize the Zilliqa network. The Zilliqa coin plays an integral role in facilitating all actions that take place on the network.

Users can also refer to the Zilliqa whitepaper for a more detailed explanation of the functionality of the protocol and what differentiates Zilliqa from other blockchains.

What Is Zilliqa (ZIL) Used For?

The Zilliqa team claims that the blockchain is the first of its kind to rely entirely on a sharded network. Practical byzantine fault tolerance is used within each individual shard.

Zilliqa coins are utilized to process transactions on the network. Essentially the cryptocurrency, Zilliqa, is the gas that’s needed to perform actions on the blockchain platform. Being the native token, it powers every action that occurs on the Zilliqa mainnet.

The Zilliqa project has made waves in the blockchain industry because of its unique system and because it is considered by many to be a huge competitor to the likes of VISA and Mastercard.

Many prime Zilliqa to be the perfect blockchain solution for leading global corporations in sectors like financial services, gaming, and other fast-growing industries. The blockchain platform is also written in a fairly unique language called Scilla. Zilliqa claims this language is made to be used for DeFi.

Where To Buy Zilliqa (ZIL) Token

Zilliqa has been a popularly traded cryptocurrency in recent years. The protocol has attracted a lot of attention in the crypto space, and this is reflected in the trading volumes of ZIL.

ZIL tokens are commonly traded on most centralized crypto exchanges. Before you’re able to purchase ZIL, you’ll need to deposit fiat money onto an exchange; sequentially, ZIL tokens will then be credited to your digital wallet on the exchange.

The crypto exchanges below are amongst the safest place where you can buy, sell and store tokens.

Token holders can transfer their tokens to compatible wallets, but it should be noted that this isn’t investment advice. However, users can earn interest on their tokens by making use of various decentralized platforms.

Token holders that purchase ZIL tokens on a centralized exchange will need to transfer their tokens to a digital wallet like MetaMask to use DeFi products liquidity pools and yield farming.

Transferring tokens off centralized exchanges is recommended because doing so gives them complete ownership of their cryptographic assets and private keys.

None of the abovementioned information is investment advice.

About Zilliqa (ZIL)

How long has Zilliqa (ZIL) existed?

Zilliqa was initially launched in 2017 as an innovative blockchain that can process more transactions and scales more efficiently than other blockchains.

The project’s co-founders are Amrit Kumar and Xinshu Don, who are two well-known researchers from the National University of Singapore. Zilliqa’s mainnet went live in January 2019, and the protocol has seen exponential adoption since then.

Zilliqa’s Initial Coin Offering (ICO) raised about $22 million in ETH in 2017. The ICO price was 1 ZIL = 0.0000084656 ETH.

What’s controversial about Zilliqa (ZIL)?

The cryptocurrency industry is famously controversial and unregulated in most regions. Before investing, users should always use discretion and educate themselves as much as possible on the basics of cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

Many scam operations are designed to take advantage of uninformed people who don’t do enough research before investing in a project. So never invest more than you’re willing to lose.

Let’s take a look at the top controversy surrounding Zilliqa (ZIL):

Soccer Partnerships – There are several cryptocurrency exchanges and projects that go into partnerships with athletes to generate more exposure for their projects. This has become increasingly popular as crypto adoption is increasing; one of these partnerships is between Zilliqa and James Rodrigues (a world-famous Colombian soccer player.)
Rodrigues launched his own cryptocurrency token in 2018 called JR10 – the initial supply of tokens sold out within 12 seconds and raised a total of $500,000. Later, further sales went on to raise an additional $5,000,000.
The biggest issue was that the token fizzled out and additional utility, partnerships, and listings never occurred – many would call this a rug pull. Following this, Rodrigues started promoting Zilliqa, which infuriated many people because they believed that the two parties were working together and ill-intentionally aligned.

How many Zilliqa (ZIL) Tokens are there?

At the time of writing, Zilliqa (ZIL) has a circulating supply of 12.97B ZIL

The total supply of Zilliqa (ZIL) is 16,266,257,372

The max supply of Zilliqa (ZIL) is 21,000,000,000

Can Zilliqa (ZIL) be mined?

ZIL tokens can be mined. The Zilliqa protocol uses a hybrid consensus mechanism to secure the network and sharding to facilitate the validation and verification of transactions. Like most mineable coins, which use a proof of work mechanism, ZIL tokens are mineable.

It’s also possible to earn yields on ZIL tokens by participating in various DeFi products such as staking, liquidity pools, and farming. Users will need to utilize decentralized platforms and connect their digital wallets to participate in these DeFi products.

Some centralized exchanges allow users to earn yields from staking their ZIL tokens.

What is the market cap of Zilliqa (ZIL)?

The market cap of Zilliqa (ZIL) is: the total amount of coins in circulation x the current market price of ZIL.

Zilliqa (ZIL) Market Cap = 12.97B ZIL x $0.4395 = $570 million (71st largest market cap)

ZIL is currently one of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.

Biggest Competitors Of Zilliqa (ZIL)

Zilliqa is a public blockchain, and it has numerous competitors. Several competing blockchains have millions of users and provide users with very similar solutions.

Zilliqa’s biggest competitors are:

What Are The Future Plans of Zilliqa (ZIL)?

Zilliqa has announced its intention to bolster user adoption, partnerships, and listings. The protocol will also focus on providing users will more value and growing its ecosystem to include more valuable decentralized products while prioritizing security.

The project is already known as one of the most valuable and credible blockchain projects. Zilliqa has amassed a large global following; currently, its ecosystem has more than 190 projects.

Pros And Cons Of Zilliqa (ZIL)

Pros:

Enhanced Scalability – The blockchain is much more scalable than many traditional blockchains; this is due to the unique sharding mechanism used to process transactions on the network. It ensures that as the nodes grow, so does the network, devoid of congestion and other restrictions.
Fast transactional Throughput – Zilliqa can handle up to 2,500 transactions per second.
Listed On Large Exchanges – ZIL is listed on most of the major cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance, KuCoin, ByBit, and HTX. This is beneficial because it generates a lot of exposure for the token and the blockchain network.
Mineable – Users can mine ZIL tokens and earn a reward for contributing to the security of the Zilliqa network.

Cons:

Competition – The Zilliqa blockchain has performed well in recent years and has managed to attract a significant amount of retail and institutional adoption. However, it is one of many blockchains that are performing well in the crypto space.
The crypto space is growing at an exponential rate, and users and investments entering the space are growing rapidly too. There are several top blockchains such as Solana, Avalanche, and Ethereum that have much higher market caps and more users than Zilliqa.
Zilliqa is going to need to remain innovative and provide superior solutions to existing blockchains to earn a top spot in the crypto space.