What Is Band Protocol (BAND)? All About BAND Token

What is Band Protocol?

Band Protocol is a cross-chain data oracle platform that aggregates and connects real-world information to smart contracts. With Band Protocol, users can build on-chain networks of decentralized apps (Dapps), token issuance systems, and reputation scores for digital assets.

The network’s mission is to connect blockchains and smart contracts with trusted data sources. They want other services that are not on the blockchain, such as real-world or off-chain information, to be able to communicate seamlessly with these networks so they will function better together for users in different industries.

What is BandChain?

The protocol is built on top of BandChain, a Cosmos-SDK based blockchain designed to be compatible with most smart contracts and blockchains. BandChain is built in 3 phases with the Phase is the foundational version that will enable BAND token staking and transfer for validators. The next Phase 1-3 will supports querying data sources, private oracle scripts and other functions.

Band v1 originally launched on Ethereum in September 2019 using a bonding curve design, but received little interest from developers and ultimately failed to gain traction.

After the abandonment of Band v1 due to lack of interest from users, the team launched Band v2, referred to as BandChain, an oracle network running on its own Tendermint based blockchain (using the Cosmos SDK) with the main objective of increasing the functionality of the project and gaining more user adoption.

The Design Goals

The existing smart contract platforms lack access to real-world data, which limits the potential of applications built on those platforms.

Thus, Band Protocol was created to solve these important issues when connecting public blockchain to real-world, off-chain information:

• Speed and Scalability: The system is required to be able to serve a large quantity of data while maintaining high throughput. The response time must be in the order of seconds.
• Cross-Chain Compatibility: The system must serve data to the most publicly available blockchains and be able to verify authenticity efficiently.
• Data Flexibility: The system must be able to support different methods of receiving and aggregating data, including both public information that anyone can access as well as private information.

How does Band Protocol work?

BAND Protocol connects two distinct ecosystems: on-chain and off-chain. More specifically, it uses a decentralized data oracle that provides blockchain queries with accurate results while guaranteeing the integrity of its entries through delegated proof of stake (DPoS).

It also serves as an infrastructure layer for Web 3.0 applications by allowing smart contracts to access its massive amounts of relevant information via dPoS consensus mechanisms in real-time.

Band Protocol has two primary forms of governance: One over the broader or complete protocol, and another for each dataset. Each dataset is governed by its corresponding token curated data set, which transfers into BAND tokens and datasets themselves.

Band Protocol has created Dataset Governance Groups as the basic unit of their protocol. There will be many Data groups in Band Protocol, and each group owns its own token called a "Dataset" token.

This token is built on the ERC-20 standard and holders can use the dataset tokens to become data providers or join the community to vote for data providers. The mechanism encourages more people to vote for good Providers, as the better information they have and the greater rewards that will be received.

What is Band Token?

BAND is the native token of Band Protocol and represents all data sets' collective value within the protocol. It can be used for various purposes such as:

• Collateral: the BAND token is used as collateral for issuing record tokens whose price and supply are algorithmically determined by a continuous on-chain bonding curve.
• Management: BAND token is used to vote for decisions to control the network.
• Participation in BandChain consensus algorithm: BAND is used for voting to secure the network through a delegated proof-of-stake (dPoS) consensus mechanism after deployment from mainnet.
• Governance Group: Users can use BAND to pay the Data Governance Group and guarantee the value of the token.

Detailed information about BAND Token

Band Key Metrics

• Token Name: Band Token
• Ticker: BAND.
• Blockchain: Ethereum.
• Token Standard: ERC-20
• Contract: 0xba11d00c5f74255f56a5e366f4f77f5a186d7f55
• Token type: Utility Token.
• Total Supply: 100,000,000 BAND.
• Circulating Supply: 35,191,821 BAND.

Band Token Allocation

Band Token Sale

The Band token sale will follow a lottery and airdrop format for distribution, with the recordance of users’ BNB balances already started on 2019/08/17 at 00:00 AM (UTC).

Band Token Release Schedule

And the BAND Token Release Schedule is as below:

How to buy BAND Token

You can use Coin98 Exchange to swap other tokens for BAND following these simple steps:

Step 1: Connect Coin98 Extension Wallet.

Step 2: Select Uniswap.

Step 3: Choose coins/tokens for trading:

• Search BAND.
• If the search does not come up, you can paste the contract of BAND into the search box: 0xba11d00c5f74255f56a5e366f4f77f5a186d7f55

Step 4: Adjust the amount you want to swap.

Step 5: Adjust the gas fee, then click Approve.

Alternatively, you can apply the same steps for Coin98 Super Wallet to swap for BAND Token.

How to mine BAND Token

Users can become Validators or Delegators on Bandchain to receive transaction fees paid in BAND.

Otherwise, you can stake BAND tokens and earn rewards on supported platforms.

How to store BAND Token

You can store BAND token on Coin98 Super Wallet with these below steps:

Step 1: Open Coin98 Super Wallet & click Receive on the home screen.

Step 2: Search BAND Token.

Step 3: Click on the correct result.

Step 4: Copy the wallet address and send BAND to this address.

Roadmaps and Updates

BandChain Phase 2 will be launched in the second half of 2021 which will empower institutional data providers with more flexibility to monetize and commercialize their solutions.

Team, Investors and Partners

Team

Soravis Srinawakoon (CEO): Former management consultant at BCG, and Forbes once honored him.

Sorawit Suriyakarn (CTO): Used to be a developer at Hudson River Trading, a Software Engineer at Quora and Dropbox.

Paul Nattapatsiri (CPO): Former web developer at Turfmapp, an engineer at TripAdvisor. He has a bronze medal in the Asia-Pacific Informatics Olympiad.

Investors

Band Protocol has raised a total of $7.9M in funding over 5 rounds, and they finished their latest round on Sep 17th, 2019 with the backing of Binance.

They are also funded by 11 investors: Evernew Capital is the most recent investor to join this list alongside some other big names such as Binance.

Partners

Band Protocol has partnered up with more than 55 projects including popular blockchains such as Cosmos, Terra.

Recently on Jun 11th, 2021, Coin98 Super Wallet also expanded the integration of Band Protocol Oracle to create more transparent and better experiences for users.

Is BAND a good investment?

This article has provided some of the main ideas related to the BAND token and its implications. Still, it is important to note that there are a few key points that investors should take into account before making investment decisions:

• BandChain operates using Tendermint BFT consensus and the number of validators is limited to 100 nodes at any given point in time. This will limit the maximum level of decentralization that Band Protocol will be able to reach.
• BAND is built on its own blockchain whereas other oracle providers such as Chainlink are not. This will open up more opportunities for the project to scale up its ecosystem in the future. However, being on its own blockchain hasn’t put any extra value on data delivery. We will have to wait and see.
• BAND was initially built on Ethereum and now on Cosmos, but the protocol itself is not restricted to any infrastructure. If the popularity of the project gains more adoption, it will be able to support more contract platforms.