Hey guys :) Today I’ve compiled a comprehensive list of questions with detailed answers for everybody’s favorite supply chain crypto – VeChain (VET).
In this piece, I divulge the nitty-gritty details of the VeChain project and VET cryptocurrency so that you can fundamentally understand what it's all about.
If you’ve been following me for a while now, you know what to expect in this piece. But if you’re new here, I hope you enjoy the article and be sure to check out my latest ones on Decred (DCR), Dash (DASH), and Zcash (ZEC).
Hope you enjoy it!
The list of Q&A is pretty long so first comes the list of questions that I have prepared the answers to:
- What is Vechain?
- Who and When Created Vechain?
- What is Vechain Token VET Used For?
- What is VeChainThor?
- What is VeResarch?
- Do You Mine or Stake Vechain?
- Is VeChain (VET) Anonymous?
- Does VeChain Have an Explorer?
- Where to Store Vechain?
- Where to Buy & Sell Vechain?
1. What is Vechain?
Various industries that VeChain serves around the world
Vechain is a blockchain-based platform focused on building a trustless and distributed business ecosystem to enable the transparent flow of information, efficient collaboration, and high-speed value transfer.
The main vision or goal of VeChain is to enhance supply chain management among enterprise businesses by bringing its blockchain technology to the real world. VeChain intends on doing this by providing enterprise businesses with robust and secure blockchain infrastructure, enterprise solutions, turnkey packages, and development tools in both software and hardware.
With these offerings, VeChain hopes to become a de facto standard blockchain platform with real-world business applications adopted by reputable enterprises across multiple sectors worldwide.
VeChain Blockchain-based Solutions
Some of VeChain’s blockchain-based solutions with real-world use cases for enterprise businesses include:
- Digital Carbon Ecosystem Solution
- For Companies Interested in Carbon Reduction
- Consumer Confidence Index Platform
- For Manufacturers of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)
- Automotive Passport Solution
- For Manufacturers of Automobiles and other OEMs
- Retail Solution
- For Manufacturers of High-value Retail Products and FMCG
- Logistics Solution
- For Companies with Complex Logistics, Inventory, and Warehousing Needs
- Liquefied Natural Gas Solution
- For Manufacturers and Importers of Liquefied Natural Gas
- Digital Content Distribution Solution
- For Creators and Distributors of Digital Content
- Electronic Document Deposit Solution
- For Enterprises and Governments
- Agriculture Solution
- For Farms and Ranches
All of the above mentioned blockchain-based solutions are made possible through the VeChainThor blockchain and VeChain’s prized Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform, ToolChain.
ToolChain offers VeChain clients a diverse range of services including product lifecycle management, supply chain process control, data deposit, data certification, and process certification. By offering these services, VeChain can increase efficiency and transparency, instill trust, and reduce costs of supply chains for enterprise businesses and governments across the globe.
2. Who and When Created Vechain?
Founders of VeChain, Sunny Lu and Jay Zhang respectively
The VeChain project first began to be conceptualized in June 2015 and was founded by its CEO Sunny Lu and CFO Jay Zhang with significant contributions from the project’s COO Kevin Feng and CTO Jianliang Gu.
Just 6 months after VeChain was conceptualized, the first VeChain blockchain Proof of Concept was finished (November 2015). Then 2 years later (September 2017), the VeChain project launched with an ICO on the Ethereum blockchain, and 1 year after that (August 2018), VeChain launched its mainnet.
Now going back to VeChain’s founders, Sunny Lu and Jay Zhang; both Lu and Zhang are highly educated and have extensive experience in important roles.
Lu graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University with a major in Electronics and Communication Engineering. He has over 15 years' experience as an IT executive in Fortune 500 companies, was the former CIO of Louis Vuitton Greater China, and has extensive experience in IT strategy management and enterprise digital transformation and innovation.
Zhang graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University with a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Following graduation, he had worked for PwC China and Deloitte UK as a senior manager in finance and risk management for 15 years before co-founding VeChain.
Both Lu and Zhang realized early on that blockchain technology could be used for more than just a medium of exchange, they knew it could also be used to revolutionize the supply chain industry, which led them down the path to creating VeChain.
VeChain (VET) Token Launch and Distribution
The VeChain (VET) initial coin offering (ICO) was carried out through August to September 2017, where the project’s native cryptocurrency launched as an ERC-20 token with the ticker symbol VEN, (which was later changed to VET).
The VeChain ICO raised $20 million selling tokens at a rate of 1.0 ETH = 350000.0 VEN.
1 billion VEN tokens were initially created but ~133 million were later burned as a consequence of the initial distribution plan yielding a total supply of 867,162,634 VEN. Out of this total supply, the distribution was as follows:
- 410 million VEN was sold in the public ICO
- 90 million VEN was sold in a private sale
- 128.5 million VEN was sold to ‘enterprise investors’
- 270 million VEN were allocated to the VeChain team
Following the ICO, VeChain’s mainnet went live in August 2018 and VEN tokens were migrated to VET tokens. VEN token holders received 100 mainnet VET tokens for every 1 VEN, making VeChain’s new total supply: 86,712,634,466 VET.
3. What is Vechain Token VET Used For?
VeChain (VET) logo
VeChain’s native cryptocurrency token VET is a utility token for Vechain’s blockchain system.
VET has the following use cases:
- VET is used as payment for VeChain’s products and services; meaning the more VET a person or enterprise holds, the higher priority they have when it comes to using VeChain’s resources.
- VET is used to transfer value from smart contracts and is used in transactions on decentralized applications powered by VeChain’s public blockchain.
- VET can be used to generate a secondary VeChain token called VeThor or Thor Power (VTHO), which provides access to VeChain’s supply chain technology.
- VET is used as a trading instrument by cryptocurrency traders. VET is also used by investors as a speculative cryptocurrency investment.
All in all, VeChain’s VET token has lots of utility within the expansive VeChain ecosystem, as well as in the speculative crypto trading markets.
4. What is VeChainThor?
VeChain website homepage
VeChainThor is a public blockchain designed for mass adoption of blockchain technology by enterprise users of all sizes.
It serves as a blockchain platform that can support a sustainable and scalable enterprise blockchain ecosystem complete with institutional partners, enterprise users, blockchain developers and startups, research partners, community investors, and the VeChain Foundation.
The VeChainThor blockchain is supported by novel governance and economic models as well as unique protocol enhancements such as various meta-transaction features to support complex, enterprise-grade decentralized applications (dapps).
VeChainThor Features:
- Meta-Transactions
- Proof of Authority (PoA)
- On-chain Governance Mechanism
- Dual Token Economic Model
Meta-Transactions
The VeChainThor blockchain protocol has various native meta-transaction features including multi-party payment, multi-task transaction, controllable transaction lifecycle, and transaction dependency. These meta-transaction features make development on VeChainThor more user-friendly for enterprise adoption.
Proof of Authority (PoA)
The VeChainThor protocol is maintained by Authority Masternode Operators who have an aligned interest in the development of the VeChain ecosystem in accordance with the Foundation's governance policy.
On-chain Governance Mechanism
The VeChainThor protocol utilizes a hybrid decentralized-centralized governance mechanism that ensures efficiency and transparency. It consists of a community-elected Steering Committee that facilitates decision making and execution supported by the on-chain governance mechanism.
Dual Token Economic Model
The VeChainThor protocol follows a two-token system (VET+VTHO) which significantly helps to separate the cost of using the blockchain from market speculation. VET is the payment used in VeChain's system and VTHO is used as energy or gas to power transactions and enable access to VeChain’s supply chain technology.
5. What is VeResarch?
VeResearch University Research Partners
VeResearch is a global research grant program that engages in research with academic institutions to do collaborative research for blockchain-related technological advancement.
VeResearch provides academic institutions and communities interested in joining forces with VeChain with a large pool of funding to research and develop new blockchain-related technologies.
As a result of this program, VeChain has collaborated and partnered with some of the top universities and research labs from around the world, including:
- City University of Hong Kong
- Dartmouth College
- Media Lab, MIT
- Michigan State University
- Shanghai University of Finance and Economics
- Stanford University
- South China Normal University (SCNU)
- University of Oxford
Some interesting research projects birthed from the VeResearch program include:
- Research topics on on-chain economic and governance models, foundation governance models, blockchain/cryptocurrency evaluation models, and more.
- Exploring the use of blockchain technologies to build decentralized healthcare data systems.
- Research on combining machine learning and artificial intelligence with blockchain technologies.
All in all, the VeResearch grant program is making great strides in its research and advancement of blockchain technologies and its potential use cases.
6. Do You Mine or Stake Vechain?
You can stake VeChain (VET) to earn rewards and participate in stakeholder voting, but you cannot mine VET.
Stakeholder Voting
VeVote website homepage
VeChain has introduced a governance charter that enables VET stakeholders to vote on the Steering committee and VeChain protocol proposals. VET stakeholders can vote on the VeVote platform through smart contracts.
In order to become a VET stakeholder and participate in VeChain’s governance model, you must become either an Authority Masternode (25M VET staked), Economic X Node (600,000 - 15.6M VET staked) or an Economic Node (1M - 15M VET staked).
The number of votes a stakeholder gets is based on the amount of VET staked.
Stake to Earn Rewards
Stake VeChain (VET) in Atomic Wallet
Vechain (VET) token holders can earn Vechain’s secondary token VTHO by simply holding VET in their cryptocurrency wallet. Most VeChain supported wallets support this staking function and the VTHO generation rate is 0.000432 VTHO per VET per day. Also, there are no minimum requirements to how much VET you must hold in your wallet to earn VTHO.
7. Is VeChain (VET) Anonymous?
No, VeChain (VET) is not anonymous. VET transactions are transparent and can be traced on the public VeChain blockchain ledger.
While VeChain is not anonymous, it is pseudonymous in that VeChain account addresses do not require identifying know-your-customer (KYC) information. A user’s identity is not required to be tied to their VeChain account and all VET transactions are encrypted, only allowing the actual transaction (not who was in the transaction) in the public ledger.
VeChain users can increase their transaction privacy by following these three simple tips:
- Use Tor and/or a VPN service when broadcasting your transaction to the blockchain.
- Use a newly generated address for every single transaction.
- Avoid exchanges that require KYC information.
8. Does VeChain Have an Explorer?
Official VeChain blockchain explorer
Yes, Vechain has an official block explorer called “VeChain Explorer”.
Alternative VeChain block explorers include:
The VeChain block explorers are generally quite detailed and feature the following search functions and stats:
- Accounts
- Blocks
- Transactions
- Authority Nodes
- Economic Nodes
- X-nodes
- VET circulation
- VET market cap
- VTHO circulation
- VTHO market cap
- VTHO burn
- VTHO calculator
- Rich lists
- Tokens
- Charts
- Mainnet records
9. Where to Store Vechain?
VeChain (VET) is a popular cryptocurrency and is therefore supported by a wide majority of reputable cryptocurrency wallets.
See the most popular VeChain (VET) wallets below:
Official Wallets
- VeChainThor Wallet (iOS)
- VeChainThor Wallet (Android)
- Sync (desktop)
Third-Party Wallets
- Trust Wallet (mobile)
- Cobo Wallet (mobile)
- Atomic Wallet (desktop, mobile)
- Arkane Wallet (web)
- MySafeWallet (web)
- Guarda Wallet (desktop, mobile, web)
- Ellipal (mobile, hardware)
- Ledger (hardware)
The above-listed wallets are all listed on the official VeChain website, but there are still various other cryptocurrency wallets that support VeChain’s VET token not listed here.
10. Where to Buy & Sell Vechain?
VeChain (VET) can be bought and sold on a peer-to-peer (P2P) basis but the most popular way to buy, sell, or trade VeChain is through cryptocurrency exchanges.
You can buy VET with cryptocurrency or fiat at the following top exchanges. In most cases, you will have to fund your account with fiat, buy Bitcoin or Ethereum, and then use BTC or ETH to buy VeChain (symbol VET).
- Binance - BTC, ETH, BNB, BUSD, USDT
- Kucoin - BTC, ETH, USDT
- Bitfinex - BTC, USD
- Bittrex - BTC, USDT
- Huobi Global - BTC, ETH, USDT
In addition to the exchanges listed above, VeChain (VET) is also traded on a wide array of other exchanges and platforms that enable people to buy, sell, or trade cryptocurrencies.
Hope you enjoyed that read :) Let me know if I have missed something in the comments.