PulseChain: A New Attempt at an Ethereum Hard Fork Chain

PulseChain is a full-state hard fork chain of Ethereum, preserving the complete record of every transaction, user account, and smart contract interaction on the Ethereum blockchain. The platform aims to alleviate the network load on Ethereum, providing developers with a more cost-effective option.

The design goal of PulseChain is to increase the value of the Ethereum network by offloading network traffic and reducing gas fees. Compared to Ethereum's block time of 15 seconds, PulseChain has a block time of 12 seconds, which reportedly makes the network faster and more scalable.

In terms of consensus mechanism, PulseChain 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 PLS tokens and earn 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 was one of the earliest large-scale investors in the Ethereum crowdfunding back in 2015.

Richard Heart has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, but his reputation is mixed. Some people see him as an innovator, while others believe that his projects carry risks.

HEX Project

HEX is a blockchain certificate of deposit project that allows users to earn high returns by locking up tokens. The project was launched on December 2, 2019, and was initially distributed to Bitcoin holders.

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

The Token Economics of PulseChain

PLS is the native token of PulseChain, used to pay for network gas fees. The total supply is 135 trillion, with over 90% held by a single address, which has sparked some controversy.

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

Ecosystem

The PulseChain ecosystem includes several main projects:

1. PulseX: Official Decentralized Trading Platform
2. Liquid Loans: Over-collateralized stablecoin project
3. Powercity: Includes multiple sub-projects such as staking, cross-chain bridges, lending, and NFT exchanges.
4. Ph series projects: including Phiat (lending platform), Phamous (perpetual contract exchange), Phux (multi-currency liquidity pool exchange) and Phatty (wallet aggregator)

Current Development Status

After the launch of the PulseChain mainnet, its total value locked (TVL) on DeFiLlama quickly reached nearly $500 million, and its public chain ranking once soared to 8th place. However, the vast majority of the TVL comes from PulseX, with the PLSX-WPLS trading pair accounting for over 40%.

Currently, the PulseChain ecosystem is still mainly dominated by Richard Heart and the HEX community, with most projects being forked versions of well-known projects on Ethereum. This ecosystem has yet to attract participation from mainstream venture capital, with funding mainly coming from community fundraising.

Overall, PulseChain is an emerging public chain project that is controversial but may also contain opportunities. Investors should conduct thorough research and risk assessment before participating.