Rollup - enables high scalability, fast and cheap transactions on the Metis blockchain
Security - shared security with the Ethereum blockchain
Layer-2 - like all layer-2s connected to the Ethereum blockchain, it enjoys the best of both worlds

Weaknesses

Slow withdrawal - bridging from Metis to the Ethereum blockchain takes 7 days
Competition - the Ethereum blockchain has a lot of L2s
Ranger - if something goes wrong, consensus must be reached on what is happening before transactions can be challenged from layer-1 and fraud proof can be initiated

Basic Information

Metis is an innovative layer-2 scaling protocol that utilizes optimistic rollup technology. This protocol enables developers to launch applications, process transactions, and store data on top of a base layer, such as the Ethereum blockchain, without compromising on security and settlement properties. By offloading data and processing to the second layer, the Metis blockchain is capable of providing a more scalable and cost-effective environment for creating and interacting with Web 3.0 applications.

It features a virtual machine that is compatible with the EVM, called the Metis Virtual Machine (MVM). This machine allows developers to construct contracts in a similar environment to Ethereum, making Metis an attractive choice for developers who already have experience with Ethereum and want to join the Web 3.0 ecosystem.

The Metis blockchain has its sights set on solving scalability while achieving security and decentralization. It also aims to create an affordable and scalable environment for dApps and the development of the DAO community.

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Functioning of the Chain

Within the Metis architecture, there are several chains, each of which has a specific role in the blockchain network and performs individual actions to achieve security, transaction speed, and a reliable decentralized network.

Metis Virtual Machine (MVM)

MVM is a layer-1 contract that enables Decentralized Autonomous Company (DAC) to collaborate on layer-2. DAC utilizes separate storage and computational power, which are dynamically adjusted to the system's needs, allowing the Metis blockchain to easily scale. Transaction execution is rewarded with fees that are distributed among peer network participants, while computational power providers can join the system and be rewarded for blocks they produce. Each DAC has a unique identifier and is protected against attacks. Creating a DAC provides new storage and computational power.

Decentralized Autonomous Company (DAC)

In the Metis Virtual Machine (MVM), there is a flexible permission system for accessing data in layer-2. Each DAC has a list of addresses where certain operations can or cannot be performed, and the MVM administrator controls permissions before an operation is performed. For example, some DACs may only allow a small group of people to create contracts or enter transactions, or prohibit some people from participating in transactions. This helps protect DACs from malicious participants. You can create a DAC using the Metis portal.

Rangers

MVM also includes Rangers who verify the validity of state roots using transactions and receive a reward in the form of METIS coin. They are members of a special DAC called MVM_RANGERS, who are capable of sampling blocks and verifying their validity. Decentralized Sequencers and a large pool of Rangers will help MVM significantly shorten the required window for proof, further increasing the efficiency of the network.

Sequencer

The Sequencer plays a crucial role, with responsibility for sorting transactions and recording them. According to the user's L2 schema, a request is made by executing a transaction. The Sequencer's task is to obtain the transaction and sort it, so that it can be sent to the Canonical Transaction Chain (CTC).

If the Sequencer is not functioning, users can send their transactions directly to the CTC. Due to security, the entire process will take longer.

Proposers

Proposers evaluate transactions in the CTC and then "submit" the resulting state by recording it in the State Commitment Chain (SCC). Proposers must deposit a bond to be eligible for this role. If proposers engage in fraudulent behavior at the root of the state, their bond will be forfeited. A Proposer may change in the future, but currently, they work with the Sequencer (as of 3 March 2023).

Verifier

The counterpart of the Sequencer, primarily responsible for monitoring the Sequencer to ensure it does not provide false/ invalid data.

Verifiers have a similar role to Proposers, but there are some differences to consider. Verifiers evaluate transactions in the CTC to determine the resulting root state after each transaction. In the verification process, correctly determining the root state is crucial in order to prevent fraud. If a Verifier identifies a wrongly proposed root state, it will be considered a case of fraud, and the Verifier will be rewarded for exposing it. Multiple accounts can contribute to the verification process, increasing the overall security of the process and earning rewards for their contribution.

Canonical Transaction Chain (CTC)
This is important for verifying the layer-2 state. It contains a list of transactions that are updated and managed by the administrator, with the data compressed into batches to save space. The CTC is not divided into blocks but is an ordered list of transactions.

State Commitment Chain (SCC)
This is a list that contains batches of state roots, where each batch is a summary of roots. The SCC is used to verify the layer-2 state and should only be used if there is suspicion of fraud. If fraud is confirmed, the L2 state can be reverted to the last correct version.

Peer network
This is a set of nodes that support the Metis blockchain. Participants receive a portion of transaction fees.

Development History

2019

Metis Labs founded

2021

in April, Metis Alpha testnet launched
in April, first community NFT - "Rebuilding The Tower Of Babel" - minted
in May, IDO launched on Gate.io, raising 3 million USD
in May, Metis Alpha testers rewarded with airdrop
in November, Mainnet launched

2022

in April, Community Ecosystem Governance (CEG) launched
in June, 100 million USD ecosystem support launched through Genesis DAC
in August, Metis Marathon Builder launched to promote the Metis ecosystem

2023

in January, first DAC KORIS launched

When connecting to the Metis portal and pairing your account with Polis, you will receive a faucet for your first swap of bridged assets. The UI is clear and intuitive, and transaction speed on the Metis blockchain is currently very fast (as of 2 March 2023).

Team

Elena Sinelnikova - Co-Founder & Decentralization Coordinator

Kevin Liu - Co-Founder & Product Lead

Yuan Su - Co-Founder

Pavel Sinelnikov - DAC Portal Co-Founder and CEO

Chelsea Kubo - DAC Portal Co-Founder and COO

Governance

The native coin of the Metis blockchain is $METIS, which is used for the following purposes:

Activating MVM to create DAC
Transaction mining
Paying for transactions
Voting

Metis blockchain has created the Community Ecosystem Governance (CEG) workflow, in which you can participate by using your vote to influence the entire ecosystem.

To further involve the community and decentralize the decision-making process, the Community Verified Projects (CVP) branch was created under CEG.

CVP allows projects to be verified and approved by the community, with project verification taking place on the Metis Candidac forum, followed by community voting. Projects that pass the vote receive the status of a community verified project.

Projects that are selected as CVP can receive social and marketing support, which helps increase their visibility in the community. With CVP, a project can gain exposure on Twitter, participate in AMAs on Telegram, and be featured in ‘The Weekly Wisdom’ podcast.

You can vote on news updates here.

Voting on a snapshot is done by sending a certain amount of $METIS to the voting address. A minimum of 1 $METIS is required to participate.

Revenue & Tokenomics

The Metis blockchain raised 3 million USD during their IDO in 2021 and secured a further 100 million USD in funding for ecosystem support through Genesis DAC in 2022.

Revenue is generated from fees for using the Metis blockchain, which are then used to finance and develop the project. These fees can come from transactions within the platform, and the estimated revenue for 2022 was approximately less than 5 million USD, which was used for employee salaries and operating the Metis blockchain.

The initial distribution of $METIS is as follows:

9 % for Community Development
7 % for the Founding Team
6 % for Liquidity Reserve
6 % for Airdrops
4 % for the MetisLab Foundation
3 % for Community Star
1.5 % for Advisors
1.5 % for Angel Investors
0.2 % for Paid Network IDO
0.1 % for Gate io IEO

The $METIS supply schedule is shown in the chart below:

The first 49.3 % of the total $METIS supply was issued in 2021 and was allocated for starting the project, the team, advisors and investors, and ecosystem /community development.

The remaining 50.7 % will be minted according to these categories:

32.84 % for transaction-related minting (including further Builder Mining phases and transaction mining, long-term Ranger mining, etc.)
10 % will be minted for Rangers
4.86 % will be minted for community purposes, such as layer-2 transaction mining
3 % will be minted and used for community development

The total $METIS supply is 10,000,000 coins, of which 5,410,000 have been issued as of 1 March 2023. The inflation rate of $METIS is approximately 11 % per year. All coins issued at the inception of the Metis blockchain will be distributed by June 2023, and the last $METIS coin will be issued in approximately December 2031.

The Uniqueness of the Chain

The Graph

Graph is an open-source code that allows for data storage and retrieval within blockchain networks. This helps developers and organizations improve efficiency and speed when creating decentralized applications (dApps). The Graph uses the GraphQL language to query data, and provides unique opportunities to customers. Blockchain data must be analyzed and collected before storage to ensure it is easily usable in the future.

MemoLab

Optimistic rollups are used for efficient data storage within blockchain networks. These rollups store all transaction data on layer-1 to ensure the lowest possible costs. The Metis blockchain only stores the minimal amount of necessary data on layer-1 and stores the rest of the transaction data off-chain. The transaction data itself is stored off-chain as a data component, and the Sequencer places it in the MemoLab storage. This means that transaction data is held separately from the blockchain, allowing for faster and cheaper processing. The storage in Memo Labs is significantly cheaper than layer-1 of the Ethereum blockchain.

DAC

The Metis DAC is a governing structure for autonomous and decentralized communities. This is different from DAO because DACs offer complete management of a company, including tasks such as salaries, marketing, and insurance. The Metis DAC also allows for the allocation of special permissions and the delegation of roles, allowing everyone to have different influences on business decisions.

KORIS

If you want to create a DAC on the Metis blockchain, you can use the Koris platform. This platform specializes in creating DACs for corporate clients, who can thus take advantage of smart contracts, giving them control over their financial and business operations.

Builder Mining Program

In the Metis blockchain, each transaction is charged in METIS coins. The Builder Mining program rewards projects integrated into the Metis ecosystem, and the more dApp transactions a project performs, the more they will participate in gas fees. 30 % of gas fees will be distributed among all projects on the Metis blockchain.

Polis

Polis is a Metis blockchain tool that facilitates the transition of existing dApps from the Ethereum blockchain to layer-2. This means that developers can use "low-to-no-code" templates to create new applications. With this tool, it is easy and inexpensive to create new applications, which can lead to more experiments and innovations.

How the Network is Secured

Optimistic Rollup has built-in fraud protection, but due to the long fraud verification window, it is less efficient than other types of blockchains. The Metis Virtual Machine (MVM) tries to minimize this window by decentralizing the rollup process and shifting the root state verification to a group of randomly selected sequencers. Additionally, MVM introduces a new role called Ranger, which allows for validation of block state roots in layer-2 with the help of a special DAC and rewards in the form of $METIS. The goal is to make the arbitration process more fair and attractive to Rangers and shorten the fraud verification window to increase blockchain efficiency.

So far, on the Metis blockchain, there is currently only one Sequencer functioning.

Bug Bounty Program

Since December 2021, Immunefi has been responsible for the Metis bug bounty program. You can find the form here.

Rewards are divided into four categories:

Critical - reward of 1,000,000 USD
High - reward of 30,000 USD
Medium - reward of 5,000 USD
Low - reward of 1,000 USD

The Metis blockchain has also undergone several audits by Hacken, Slowmist, and Armors Labs.

Nodes

Running a custom node

To run your own verification node, you will need the following hardware:

Linux (x86_64)
RAM: 8 GB
CPU: 4 core (x86_64)
SSD: 100 GB minimum
AWS instance recommended: c5.2xlarge
GCE instance recommended: c2-standard-4

For a detailed description of the setup and launch process, please visit Metis verifier.

Advantages

Rewards for uncovering fraud

Delegation

You can delegate your METIS coins directly to the DAC.

Go to the page
Select "Connect Account" (which will take you to the Polis page, where you can link your wallet and create an account)
Choose from a variety of DACs to start DAC mining

Advantages

Rewards received from the DAC for your delegated coins

Road Map

Road Map for 2023 has not been released yet. The team is currently focuses on the ZK and Optimistic rollup technology.

The Metis team focuses on developing a blockchain ecosystem that is easy to use and scalable for the general public. By utilizing Hybrid Rollup, the team aims to improve the efficiency and speed of transactions within their ecosystem. Hybrid Rollup combines the exceptional scalability of optimistic rollups with the security and fast finality of zk-rollups, enabling Metis to send larger amounts of data with smaller transaction fees, which will be very advantageous for users. With the implementation of this technology, the Metis ecosystem will be able to better compete with other layer-2 solutions that are also striving to improve their scalability and efficiency.

Ecosystem

There are currently 29 DeFi-focused dApps running on the Metis blockchain. The three largest among them are:

Hermes protocol - DEX
Agora - Lending
Hummus Exchange - DEX

The Metis blockchain is focused on supporting new projects that can contribute to the expansion of the ecosystem by creating new dApps and services on the platform. As part of this support for new projects, a 100 million USD fund has been allocated for ecosystem development. This investment enables developers to obtain the necessary funding for the development and testing of new projects and dApps on the Metis blockchain. With this support, Metis aims to become a more attractive choice for new developers seeking opportunities to create new dApps.

Community

The Discord community is quite large and its administrators are very willing to answer your questions and address your concerns. This community provides a lot of useful information and ideas that can be very helpful for users. It's a great place to communicate with other users and share experiences.

The Twitter account is associated with news about upgrades, events, and other important information regarding the project. By following the Twitter account, you can always stay up to date with the latest happenings in the community. You can also participate in discussions and get direct feedback from the team and other users.

On the Metis blockchain’s YouTube channel, you can learn many interesting things about how the entire blockchain ecosystem works. You can find not only useful guides and tutorials, but also presentations and interviews with team members. who will provide you with a deeper understanding of the Metis blockchain and its future.

Partners

Investors

Partners

Where to Buy

$METIS can be purchased on almost all centralized exchanges (CEXs).

When purchasing on a decentralizes exchange (DEX), use the Metis blockchain directly:

Hermes protocol

When buying on a CEX, always check whether it supports $METIS. The METIS coin is the 240th largest cryptocurrency and is therefore supported by almost all CEXs.

For example:

Supported Wallets

Ledger Nano X - the most widely used hardware wallet (HW) on the market. When paired with your software wallet, you get greater security for your cryptocurrencies.

TrustWallet - Software wallet (SW)

MetaMask wallet - Software wallet (SW)

Analyst Opinion

The Metis blockchain and its Ranger design look promising, and we will see how it performs in practice. This design comes from the founder of the Ethereum blockchain, Vitalik Buterin, who is no doubt glad to see his design come to life, and the Metis blockchain could be more popular than other layer-2 solutions on the Ethereum blockchain. I am very curious about their Hybrid Rollup, for which they have recently released some information after a long period of speculation.

The overall ecosystem layout with the DAC and Polis items looks good to me, as it could simplify implementation into the ecosystem in the future. But what looks good on paper doesn't always translate to reality. Only DAC Koris, which runs on the Metis blockchain, seems to be finding its footing among people, and will need to continue to find its place for some time.

In short, we will see how Metis competes with its competitors and whether it attracts enough users to its platform. It has certain prerequisites for success, such as a limited coin supply of 10 million and a vesting period until 2031. The METIS coin could surprise us with its price if the blockchain is adopted more widely by the mainstream.