About

Ankr provides a suite of infrastructure products and development tools that make building and operating blockchain-based applications easier.

History

Ankr was founded in 2017 by Chandler Song, Ryan Fang, and Stanley Wu. The initial goal was to build a distributed cloud computing network that would enable access to affordable computing power by repurposing the energy consumed for wasteful blockchain computations. Ankr’s mainnet launched in July 2019 and offered its first node hosting service for BNB Smart Chain in December 2019. However, in March 2020, the project team pivoted to blockchain node hosting while it expanded to offer several other blockchain-based infrastructure solutions in 2021.

Notable milestones in the project’s development history since its pivot include:

• Nov. 5, 2021 - Released ANKRscan, a multichain explorer for supported blockchains
• March 3, 2022 - Unveiled a gaming SDK with support for Unity and Unreal Engine
• April 11, 2022 - Released the second gaming SDK with support for Unreal Engine
• June 22, 2022 - Introduced application-specific chains.
• Oct. 20, 2022 - Released Chainscanner, a central hub for application-specific chains
• Nov. 1, 2022 - Introduced the Advanced API service offering modified API SDKs
• Dec. 1, 2022 - Announced token model change for reward-bearing and reward-earning tokens offered via its liquid staking service.
• Feb. 23, 2022 - Unveiled Chainsnap (with Storj) a blockchain state snapshot service
• Mar. 6, 2023 - Released AnkrETH v3, an improved version of its liquid staking offering
• June 5, 2023 - Launched Ankr Automate, a smart contract automation service.
• Nov. 14, 2023 - Launched its Rollup-as-a-Service offering in collaboration with Optimism
• Dec. 12, 2024 - Released Ankr Verify to enable onchain identity verification.