PulseChain: An Innovative Attempt at an Ethereum Hard Fork

PulseChain is a full-state Hard Fork chain of Ethereum, preserving all transaction records, user accounts, and smart contract interaction history from the Ethereum blockchain. The platform aims to alleviate the computational pressure of the Ethereum blockchain, providing a more cost-effective option for smart contract developers.

PulseChain increases the value of the Ethereum network by alleviating some of the network load and reducing gas fees. Compared to Ethereum's 15-second block time, PulseChain has a block time of 12 seconds, which is said to make it faster and more scalable.

The project adopts a new Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA) consensus model, introducing native validator staking, rotation, and reward reduction contracts. Currently, the PulseChain network has 15,893 validator nodes. Users can become validators by staking 32,000,000 native PLS tokens and earn rewards from network transaction fees.

PulseChain completed the testing of versions V3 and V4 earlier this year and launched the official version on May 14.

Team Background

The founder of PulseChain is Richard Heart, who is also the founder of the HEX project. Richard Heart is an American cryptocurrency entrepreneur and became one of the early large-scale investors in Ethereum back in 2015. He has a large following on social media, but opinions about him are mixed.

Richard Heart is known for his marketing skills. He once purchased a 555.55-carat black diamond and named it "The HEX.COM Diamond" to symbolize HEX's maximum staking period of 5555 days. He also sponsored three-time champion JJ Yeley in the Daytona 500 race.

HEX Project Introduction

HEX is a project that claims to be the world's first high-yield blockchain certificate of deposit, launched on December 2, 2019. The project distributes HEX tokens to Bitcoin holders through a snapshot of the Bitcoin UTXO set, with an initial allocation ratio of 1 BTC : 10,000 HEX.

HEX holders can stake their tokens for 1-5555 days and receive the principal and interest upon maturity. Unstaked HEX holders will face inflation, and ending the stake early will result in losing half of the earnings as a penalty.

The project has designed a promotional reward mechanism, where users obtained through referrals can receive a 10% reward, while the referrer receives a 20% reward.

PulseChain Airdrop Mechanism

PulseChain will conduct an airdrop at the launch of the mainnet. Any user holding Ethereum tokens in a non-custodial wallet will receive a 1:1 balance of PLS tokens without needing to take any action. However, due to the extremely low initial price of PLS, the actual value of this airdrop is almost negligible.

Project Mechanism

Most projects on the PulseChain network are launched through the "Sacrifice event," where users receive corresponding token allocations by making donations. Initially, the PLS community donated $670 million, and the PLSX community donated $1 billion.

Tokenomics

PLS is the native token of PulseChain, used to pay network gas fees. The total supply is 135 trillion, with over 90% held by an address believed to be controlled by Richard Heart.

Validators receive 75% of the transaction fees, while the remaining 25% is burned to reduce the circulating supply. In the future, PLS tokens will also be used for community governance and on-chain voting.

PLSX is the platform token of the PulseX exchange, used for fee discounts and trader incentives. 21% of PulseX fees will be used to buy back and burn PLSX tokens.

The INC token is a reward token for staking mining, obtained by collateralizing LP.

Project Ecosystem

The PulseChain ecosystem includes the following main projects:

1. PulseX: The official DeFi token exchange platform, a fork version of Uniswap.

2. Liquid Loans: The largest third-party team on PulseChain, developing a native over-collateralized stablecoin.

3. Powercity: Composed of followers of Richard Heart, covering multiple sub-projects such as staking, cross-chain bridges, lending, and NFT exchanges.

4. Ph series projects: including Phiat (AAVE V2 fork), Phamous (GMX fork), Phux (Balancer V2 fork) and Phatty (a wallet aggregator similar to Debank).

Project Status

The PulseChain ecosystem is currently mainly led by Richard Heart and the HEX community, with most projects being forked versions of well-known projects on Ethereum. The project has yet to attract significant VC participation, with funding primarily raised from the community.

After the mainnet launch, PulseChain's total TVL on DeFiLlama quickly reached nearly $500 million, with the public chain ranking rising to 8th place at one point. However, the TVL is mainly concentrated in the PulseX project, with the PLSX-WPLS trading pair having the largest share. Recently, the TVL has started to show a downward trend, indicating that some funds are being withdrawn.

In terms of trading, OKX launched the PLS/USDT trading pair on May 24, providing users with a more convenient trading channel.