What is Wanchain? A beginner’s guide

Wanchain is a distributed financial network that aims to unite isolated digital assets (such as cryptocurrencies) with one another by using cross-chain smart contracts similar to those popularized by the Ethereum network. This enables tokens and assets to be traded between blockchains.

Wanchain’s name is a play on words which reflects it’s wider goals. In English, “WAN” stands for “Wide Area Network” a computing term that refers to connecting many computers over a vast area, similar to Wanchain’s goal of connecting all blockchains together in a massive network. In Mandarin, “WAN” means 10,000 – interpreted as a reference to the project’s goal of joining thousands of blockchains together.

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What is the Wanchain network and the WAN coin?

Icon	Symbol	Initial release date	Algorithm type	Max supply
	WAN	23 March 2018	Proof-of-stake	210 million WAN

Cryptocurrency is made up of thousands of digital assets and tokens, many with their own blockchains. This prevents them from being directly traded with one another or interacting in any way at all. Wanchain’s vision is to solve this by allowing such coins to be traded between blockchains, using the Wanchain network as a sort of middleware to facilitate transactions. Wanchain aims to plant itself firmly at the centre of the cryptocurrency ecosystem by doing so.

The Wanchain network also boasts privacy measures in particular ring signatures, which are used by the popular anonymity coin Monero. Simply put, ring signatures are associated with anonymity as they are able to hide an individual’s actions within a group of users. Ring signatures allow a message (or a transaction) from a group to be sent, without identifying who in the group sent it. This level of anonymity is favourable for various industries and users that require transactions to stay confidential.

Wanchain believe that the future of the economy and finance will be digital and thus proclaims to be a company that can help “rebuild finance”. It plans to do this by digitizing assets, making them transferrable on a blockchain. Normally we only think of cryptocurrency when discussing digital assets, but Wanchain sees a future where everything, from old photographs to music, is digitized and stored on a blockchain.

Where can you buy Wanchain (WAN) in Canada?

At the time of writing in March 2018, WAN can only be purchased on Binance, although more exchanges are likely to list the coin in the future.

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Name	Product	Deposit methods	Fiat Currencies	Cryptocurrencies
Binance Cryptocurrency Exchange		Bank transfer (ACH)	USD, AUD, GBP, EUR, RUB, TRY, NGN, UAH, PHP, CZK & 20+ more	306 cryptocurrencies	Trade an extensive range of reputable coins on this world-renowned exchange, popular for its high liquidity and multi-language support. US residents: As of September 2019, US-based users can only trade USD on the American dollar onramp of Binance, Binance.US. UK residents: In addition to normal crypto trading services, Binance offers margin lending. As this is a regulated activity which they are not authorised to offer in the UK, we advise you not to use this service. If you're interested in margin trading, see authorised providers.	Go to site View details	Compare	loading Fetching your data...

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Note that Binance does not accept fiat currency deposits such as Canadian dollars. Before transferring cryptocurrency to Binance, you will first need to acquire cryptocurrency at an exchange which accepts CAD (or other fiat currency like USD) deposits.

What sets Wanchain (WAN) apart from bitcoin (BTC) and other altcoins?

The Interoperability Alliance (WAN, ICX, AION)

The Interoperability Alliance is an agreement and strategic partnership between three blockchain organizations, Wanchain (WAN), Aion (AION) and Icon (ICX). The Alliance’s main goal is to collaborate on research, interchain transactions and communication in order to connect isolated blockchains with one another. It believes that isolation is a persistent problem in the blockchain industry that will affect scalability and future adoption.

The Kyber-Wanchain Decentralized Exchange (KWDEX)

KWDEX is a proposed decentralized exchange that will allow users to trade their digital assets on-chain. This means that instead of sending coins to an exchange and having them hosted there under the protection of that exchange, users will be able to keep their coins and tokens in their wallets, which is expected to increase security and reduce susceptibility to hacking. Wanchain’s involvement in the project also means that theoretically, an enormous variety of digital assets (as well as cryptocurrencies) will be available to trade on the exchange, potentially transforming the way cryptocurrency exchanges currently function.

To learn more about altcoins, check out our compiled reviews.

What’s scheduled for WAN?

After successfully rolling out its mainnet (Wanchain 1.0) in January 2018, Wanchain’s roadmap shows that Wanchain 2.0 is expected by Q3 2018, which will include integration with the Ethereum network, as well as a multi-coin wallet. To learn more about the Wanchain network and the WAN coin before buying, consider checking out the Wanchain whitepaper.

Source: Wanchain.org

At the time of writing the author holds ICX, AION, WAN, LINK, QASH, NEO, XMR.