This Crypto Asset Doesn't Exist Yet, But Soon You'll Be Able to Stake It

Perlin hasn't even had the token generation event for its PERL cryptocurrency, and already a leading staking-as-a-service startup has agreed to add it to the list of assets it supports.

Staked – which has the backing of some of the most notable funds in crypto, including Pantera, Winklevoss Capital and Coinbase Ventures – helps holders of proof-of-stake tokens maximize their returns.

Its new listing, PERL, allows access to a suite of applications designed to aid the international trade and trade finance industry, which is still very much bogged down by paperwork, according to Perlin CEO Dorjee Sun.

"If you were to send a container to Indonesia, it takes two days for the container to go but five days for the paperwork," Sun explained in call with CoinDesk from Singapore.

Sun said the Singapore-based company raised $50 million last year from investors that include Arrington XRP Capital, FBG, BlockTower Capital and Global Brain.

Grassroots consensus

Underlying PERL is the Perlin-built Wavelet blockchain, which maintains consensus across various records held in Perlin's logistics applications.

Wavelet was designed to use what it calls leaderless proof-of-stake consensus. That is, one in which even users with small stakes have a chance to benefit from participating in the network's consensus.

A very simple way to think about how it works, according to Perlin, is to imagine thousands of nodes tracking transactions as they come in. Wavelet randomly surveys and re-surveys nodes at each block to verify that everyone agrees.

That way, it doesn't have to default to the largest holders of its cryptocurrency, ensuring the rich get richer and shutting out the small-time PERL holder.

Consensus rewards come from transaction fees paid by users of Perlin's applications. The current economic model of Perlin is fixed with its initial supply 1,033,200,000 PERL. It's currently selling a little under 86,530,500 PERL on Binance Launchpad, with a hard cap of $6.7 million.

Because Binance uses a lottery system, Perlin will distribute an additional 3,874,500 PERL to launchpad participants that do not come out with a winning ticket, in an airdrop.

That said, Sun explained that PERL is also a governance token, and if users want to change the economic model later (such as creating some kind of inflationary mechanism), they can do so.

Multi-pronged democratization

While the company argues it's not resource-intensive to run a Wavelet node, the company also believes joining a network like Staked further enhances its openness, by providing an option to take part for users who don't have the wherewithal (in time, skill or equipment) to set up a node.

For more technically minded users, though, Wavelet is built to work with WebAssembly. Not only does this make participating in consensus easier, but it opens up decentralized applications to almost any developer doing work with today's internet.

Vincent Zhou, founder of FBG Capital, said in a press release that both companies were inviting more people into crypto.

"I believe their immense contributions to the space will raise up the entire ecosystem," Zhou said. "Staked by making staking dead easy for investors and Perlin by vastly simplifying smart contract and dApp development with ground-breaking WebAssembly support."

Staked currently supports Algorand, Tezos, Livepeer, Cosmos, Dash, Decred and others.

"On Perlin, we were attracted by a big vision that we think has strong real-world potential," Staked CEO Tim Ogilvie told CoinDesk, adding:

"It's also important that we support our customers' investments. Many of the Perlin investors are existing customers of ours."

CEO Dorjee Sun speaks in Singapore (photo courtesy of Perlin)