2021 was quite the year for crypto overall. Major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum reached new all-time highs, and we’ve seen a flurry of activity on new layer-1 blockchains such as Avalanche, Terra, and Solana.
NFTs have captured more than just the usual crypto-enthusiasts attention, with major brands like Adidas now getting into the space.
At the same time, we’ve been focusing on building our complete decentralized network at Minima. This post will cover our highlights this year as we’re preparing for our mainnet launch in 2022. This sentiment is echoed by our CEO Hugo Feiler:
“It’s been great to see our community grow and guide us with their feedback to create the most decentralized network in existence. We’re grateful to every community member, our early supporters, and investors who have made all this possible. We are looking forward to putting Minima into the hands of our community of a million node runners when we launch Mainnet next year.”
A few of the key highlights include:
- Launch of The IncentiveCash Programme
- Our successful Series A fundraising of $6.5 Million
- Growing our team to more than 30 contributors.
- Over 10,000 nodes in more than 94 countries
- Minima Hard Fork in December
Blockrocket’s startup of the Month
In February 2021, our CEO Hugo Feiler pitched at Blockrocket’s monthly pitch competition, where promising blockchain startups compete against each other.
Sharing the mission for Minima as the “ubiquitous value transfer layer of the internet connecting people and devices trustlessly.” resonated with the jury, and Minima was voted Startup of the Month.
Launch of IncentiveCash
In July 2021, we launched our IncentiveCash program, which rewards early node runners with Minima Coins. Each day they run a node, they receive 1 Minima Coin, which will be exchanged for main net coins at launch. We’ve continued growing the network through the program and received valuable feedback to build Minima in collaboration with the community.
We’ve started IncentiveCash because our core philosophy at Minima is that everyone involved must play an equal part to create the most robust, secure, and scalable network. Therefore, we’re encouraging and rewarding anyone helping us achieve our goal of becoming a truly decentralized network.
Featured on Entrepreneur.com
Our main value proposition is to be truly decentralized. Today, no such network exists, which is often down to competitive Mining or the use of Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithms. With China cracking down on Mining, it became apparent that the network might not be as decentralized as one had assumed.
Entrepreneur.com featured us in their article encouraging people to “If you think the decentralized blockchain platforms of today are truly decentralized, think again.”
We’re looking forward to more media picking up the topic of decentralization and will relentlessly continue to educate on how it can be achieved and what one must keep in mind.
Arm Podcast on Data Empowerment
In October, our CEO Hugo Feiler, our CTO Paddy Cerri, and our CMO Jon MacDonald joined the Arm Podcast to speak about Data Empowerment and their vision for the connected future. Thanks to the Arm team for hosting us.
You can find the full recording below:
Hackernoon Interview featuring our CTO Paddy Cerri
Our CTO, Paddy Cerri, who goes by Spartacus Rex in the digital world spoke to Ishan Pandey sharing how he fell in love with Bitcoin but then had to realize that he’d never be able to be equal on the network. That’s how the idea for Minima was born.
To create a truly decentralized protocol, every participant on the network has to be equal — both fully validating and fully involved in the construction of the blocks. Everyone. — Paddy Cerri, CTO Minima
For the full interview, head to hackernoon.
Successful Series A
In autumn 2021, we successfully closed our Series A, raising $6.5 million from investors, including GSR, DEX Ventures, AGE Crypto, SMO Capital, and Vinny Lingham. Thanks to our investors for the trust put in us. This fundraising round will enable us to put everything in place for our mainnet launch in 2022.
Read more on our fundraiser also here.
10,000 nodes in more than 94 countries
Throughout the year, our community and node count continued growing. In November, we hit a milestone of reaching more than half of the node count of Bitcoin with our 8000 node runners across 94 countries. And in December, we surpassed that milestone with more than 10,000 nodes now running Minima on their devices.
We believe that everyone should be able to run a complete node, and we can’t wait to grow our network to surpass the node count of Bitcoin and any other blockchain out there.
Minima Hard Fork
We went through a significant protocol upgrade (Hard Fork) during the last month of the year. This upgrade marked an important milestone as we accelerate development towards our launch. With the Hard Fork, we laid the foundation for our peer-to-peer network, which will enhance the network’s security and scalability. We’ll start speaking more about Maxima soon.
Thanks to all our node runners who quickly updated their nodes and reconnected their IncentiveCash accounts.
In 2021, we were laying the foundations to launch Minima in 2022. These are just a few of our key highlights. We enjoy every interaction with our Minimalists and can’t wait to launch further initiatives to reward all those taking the time to get involved and help us make Minima the most decentralized network.
The evolution will not be centralized.
Your Minima team.