What is Lisk?

Lisk started as a fork of Crypti beginning with an ICO (Initial Coin Offering) to decide the initial distribution and raise development funds. The ICO raised $5.8 million and, at the time, was the second most successful cryptocurrency crowdfund (later that month, WAVES and The DAO would surpass it).[3][4] On May 24, 2016, the mainnet for Lisk went live and it became available for trading on major exchanges.[5] Quickly after trading started, Lisk briefly became the second most popular cryptocurrency traded against Bitcoin.[6][7]

Blockchain Applications[edit]
Lisk aims to be the first (successful) of its kind as a modular cryptocurrency.[8][9] The idea is that every Blockchain App is on its own sidechain, separate from the main blockchain. This should help with scalability issues that many cryptocurrencies were facing, such as bitcoin. The sidechain is secured by a group of 101 master nodes elected by the app's owner, and operate using the same Delegated-proof-of-stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism as the parent Lisk network. The Blockchain Apps are written using NodeJS/JavaScript on the backend and CSS3/HTML5/JavaScript for the frontend.[10]

DPoS Design[edit]
Lisk uses the DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake) algorithm originally created by BitShares.[11] What differentiates it from regular PoS (Proof of Stake) is that only the top 101 delegates (determined by voting weight of voters) are actively forging and securing the network.

Lisk DPoS functions through a series of rounds. Rounds consist of 101 individual blocks. Each of the 101 active delegates are randomly assigned 1 block within the round to forge. A full cycle round takes 17 minutes. If a selected delegate is unable to forge their assigned block, activity from that block moves to the next block in the round.[12]

Block Time[edit]
The Lisk network forges blocks in 10s intervals. In the event that a delegate fails to properly forge their assigned block, the transactions move to the next block in the round, causing the block to be extended by 10s. Each subsequent missed block results in a 10s delay for transaction processing and confirmations.

Forging[edit]
Lisk utilizes an inflationary forging rewards system which creates new LSK for every successful block. During year 1, the forging rewards are set at 5 LSK per block. Every 3,000,000 blocks (~1 year) forging rewards are reduced by 1 LSK, ending at 1 LSK per block after 5 years. The forging rewards will then stay at 1 LSK per block indefinitely.[12] The Forging Rewards will be equally distributed through all active (top 101) delegates, same as any network fees.