PulseChain: An Intriguing Ethereum 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 Ethereum. The platform aims to alleviate the computational pressure on the Ethereum blockchain and provide a more cost-effective option for smart contract developers.

PulseChain increases the value of the Ethereum network by offloading some of the network's 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 from the network transaction fees.

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

Project Team

PulseChain's founder is Richard Heart, who is also the founder of the HEX project. Richard Heart is an American cryptocurrency entrepreneur and was one of the first large-scale investors in Ethereum's 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 a visionary innovator, while others question whether his projects are Ponzi schemes.

The HEX project he founded allows holders to earn an annualized return of up to 40% by locking tokens. HEX raised $60 million on its first day of issuance, setting a record for fundraising in blockchain token offerings at that time. From 2019 to 2021, HEX experienced a maximum increase of ten thousand times, further enhancing Richard Heart's visibility.

HEX Project Introduction

HEX claims to be the world's first high-yield blockchain certificate of deposit, providing substantial investment returns for early participants. The project was launched on December 2, 2019, distributing HEX tokens to Bitcoin holders through a snapshot of the Bitcoin UTXO set.

The initial allocation ratio is 10,000 HEX for every 1 BTC. Bitcoin holders can only claim HEX within the first year of its issuance. In addition, users can also obtain HEX by donating ETH to the HEX smart contract.

HEX holders can stake their tokens for 1 to 5555 days, and upon maturity, they will receive both principal and interest. Unstaked HEX holders will face inflation losses, and ending the stake early will incur a penalty of half the earnings.

With an inflation rate of 3.69%, if the staking rate is 10%, the annualized yield for stakers can reach 36.9%. It is worth noting that there is an address known as OA that holds 90% of the total HEX tokens, and the community claims that this address has never sold tokens in the past three years.

PulseChain Airdrop

PulseChain will airdrop at the time of mainnet launch. Any user holding Ether tokens in a non-custodial wallet will receive a corresponding PLS token balance at a 1:1 ratio, without needing to take any action. ETH in non-custodial wallets will be replaced with an equivalent amount of PLS balance, while all ERC-20 tokens will retain their original names.

However, the actual value of this airdrop may be relatively limited, as the initial price of PLS is very low, and the 1:1 exchange ratio does not actually yield significant returns.

Project Mechanism

Most projects on the PulseChain network are launched through the "Sacrifice activity", which is a donation mechanism. This mechanism has no upper limit, and the distribution of tokens is determined by the amount donated.

During the initial donation phase, the PLS community donated $670 million, while the PLSX community donated $1 billion. As the donation period was about to end, an OA wallet believed to be controlled by Richard Heart donated approximately $13 billion and $54 billion to the two projects respectively.

Token Economics

PLS is the native token of PulseChain, used to pay for network gas fees. It adopts the PRC-20 token standard, which is a variant of the Ethereum ERC-20 standard.

The total supply of PLS tokens is 1.35 trillion, with the OA address holding over 90% of the tokens. Community members are optimistic about this, believing that this portion of tokens will not participate in market circulation, but external observers see it as a potential risk.

Validators receive 75% of the fees generated from transactions in PLS tokens, 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 PulseX exchange, used for fee discounts and trader incentives. Holders can benefit from PLS airdrops and transaction fee reductions. 21% of the fees collected by PulseX will be used to buy back and burn PLSX tokens.

The INC token is a reward token for staking mining, which users can obtain by pledging LP tokens.

Project Ecosystem

1. PulseX: The official DeFi token exchange platform of PulseChain, similar to Uniswap.

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

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

4. Ph series projects:

   • Phiat: A fork of AAVE V2, offering collateral and lending services for various tokens.
   • Phamous: A forked version of GMX on PulseChain, serving as a perpetual contract exchange.
   • Phux: A fork of Balancer V2, focused on stablecoin swaps and multi-asset liquidity pool indexing.
   • Phatty: A wallet aggregator similar to Debank, capable of displaying assets on the PulseChain.

Project Status

The PulseChain ecosystem is currently primarily led by Richard Heart and the HEX community, with most projects being forked versions of well-known projects on Ethereum. The project's exposure on social media is still low, mainly relying on the Pulse community for promotion.

It is worth noting that the project currently has no VC involvement, and the funding mainly comes from community fundraising. The PLSX community alone has raised $1 billion, with a total fundraising amount of $55.4 billion, most of which was donated in the form of HEX.

After the mainnet launch, PulseChain's total value locked (TVL) on DeFiLlama quickly reached nearly $500 million, ranking 8th among public chains, surpassing well-known public chains like Solana and FTM. However, almost all of the TVL comes from PulseX, with the PLSX-WPLS trading pair accounting for over 40%. Recently, the TVL has seen a decline, indicating that some funds are being withdrawn.

In terms of trading, a certain trading platform has opened the PLS/USDT trading pair on May 24. Previously, users needed to cross-chain their funds to the Pulse network to purchase PLS.

Currently, the project only has one official Telegram group, and there are few other channels such as documents and blogs. The official Twitter updates are infrequent, but the founder Richard Heart's personal account is updated more frequently.