Gnosis: The Community- Run Chain
By Rayna Ishihara | Crescent City Capital Market Analyst Intern
What is Gnosis
Originally founded in 2015 as a decentralized prediction market, Gnosis has evolved into a provider of blockchain infrastructure solutions. While the team initially intended to develop a platform similar to Augur, they recognized a greater demand for tools that could enhance the functionality of the Ethereum ecosystem. So it developed products such as Safe, a decentralized custody and asset management platform, and CoW Protocol, a permissionless trading protocol that finds the best prices for trades across exchanges and aggregators.
Gnosis enables users to create markets where they can speculate on various outcomes or events. With the use of the Ethereum Protocol, Gnosis ensures a secure and transparent environment. Its ultimate goal is to revolutionize the forecasting industry by providing the most efficient tool and creating a global standard for prediction markets. Gnosis is designed to allow users to predict any event, ranging from the outcome of a sports game to the results of a local election. Being decentralized and enabling users to create their own markets, Gnosis offers a distinctive and secure platform for its users.
In November 2020, Gnosis announced the launch of GnosisDAO. It is a collective that relies on prediction markets to govern the Gnosis ecosystem through the use of futarchy – a governance approach where prediction markets play a vital role in determining which policies will have the most beneficial impact. The goal of GnosisDAO is to successfully manage the Gnosis ecosystem by leveraging this innovative form of governance.
Gnosis Tech
The Gnosis ecosystem has several components that help to improve the utility of Ethereum.
CoW Protocol
The CoW Protocol is a decentralized exchange that allows users to swap any ERC-20 token for another without requiring permission. Unlike most DEXs, it matches and settles trades on the platform instead of relying on an automated market maker system. The CoW Protocol utilizes multi-token batch auctions to group buy and sell orders every five minutes and settles trades at the best available price. This approach protects traders from miner extractable value (MEV). Ring trading is used to settle batches of orders, allowing liquidity to be sourced from any order in the batch.
Safe
Safe (formerly Gnosis Safe) is a customizable multisignature wallet infrastructure suitable for individuals and companies. It is a smart contract wallet on Ethereum that requires a minimum number of approvals for a transaction to occur, providing increased security. It supports Ether, ERC-20 tokens, and ERC-721 (NFTs) and can interact with various DeFi platforms. If one stakeholder’s private key is lost or compromised, the funds remain safe and can be retrieved by the remaining stakeholders.
Gnosis Chain
Gnosis Chain is an EVM execution-layer chain that uses the xDAI stablecoin for transactions and fees. Its security is guaranteed by the Gnosis Beacon Chain (GBC) consensus layer, which employs Proof-of-Stake (PoS) where users can earn GNO tokens as a reward for contributing to the validation of transactions by staking their GNO tokens.
GnosisDAO
The GnosisDAO governance process is permissionless and conducted on the Gnosis Forum where proposals must pass three phases before approval. Participation is open to any community member holding a minimum of 1 GNO token to participate in the GnosisDAO Snapshot poll. The treasury controls over 150,000 ETH and 8 million GNO tokens, which are vested over eight years
Gnosis Token
GNO is the native token of the Gnosis ecosystem. GNO tokens have value because they serve two main functions in the Gnosis ecosystem. Firstly, they are used for staking on the Gnosis Beacon Chain, with a minimum of 1 GNO token required to participate in transaction validation. Secondly, they act as the governance token for the GnosisDAO, with a minimum of 1 GNO token required to participate in guiding the development of the ecosystem. These two functions incentivize investors to hold GNO tokens, reducing market volatility and driving demand for the tokens in circulation..
Recent Updates
The live GNO price on July 6th is $116.46 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $1,200,001 USD. It has a circulating supply of 2,589,588 GNO tokens.
Summary
Gnosis is a blockchain infrastructure provider that offers a range of products and services designed to enhance the functionality of the Ethereum ecosystem. Its decentralized prediction market allows users to speculate on any event or arbitrary outcome, while the CoW Protocol enables permissionless trading of ERC-20 tokens. Safe is a customizable multisignature wallet infrastructure suitable for individuals and companies, and the Gnosis Chain is an EVM execution-layer chain that uses the xDAI stablecoin for transactions and fees. The GnosisDAO governance process is permissionless and conducted on the Gnosis Forum, with every successful proposal required to pass three phases before being approved. GNO is the native token of the Gnosis ecosystem, used for staking on the Gnosis Beacon Chain and acting as the governance token for the GnosisDAO.
References
https://www.kraken.com/learn/what-is-gnosis-gno
https://decrypt.co/resources/what-is-gnosis-learn-article
https://kriptomat.io/cryptocurrencies/gnosis/what-is-gnosis/
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/gnosis-gno/