About

Reef is a Substrate-based layer-1 blockchain with smart contract functionality, that utilizes the Nominated Proof of Stake (NPoS) consensus mechanism to provide fast, scalable, and low-cost transfer of digital assets and liquidity between EVM chains and the Reef chain.

History

Reef was initially launched in 2019 by Denko Mancheski, as a decentralized platform that streamlines the process of accessing and utilizing liquidity across the crypto market. Through its Reef Yield Engine, the protocol could aggregate liquidity from both Centralized (CEX) and Decentralized Exchanges (DEX) to offer lending, borrowing, and staking services to users on its DEX platform.
However, in its quest to build a sustainable solution to DeFi’s age-long challenge of scalability, Reef pivoted its product offering to create a substrate-based smart contract platform that is reliable, efficient, extensible, and fast. Since Ethereum remains a leading choice for developers who prioritize security to deploy their dApps, much liquidity still sits untapped within the ecosystem due to the scalability (low transactions per second) issue. To resolve this issue, Reef was designed to make it easier for developers to port their existing dApps from Ethereum to the Reef chain without modifying their solidity code. In Q3 of 2021, Reef kicked off the deployment of EVM-compatible projects to its platform by launching its set of developer tools like the Python and JavaScript SDK, Hardhat, and Remix. With these tools, developers can easily deploy their dApps on Reef Chain and get automatic smart contract verification once successful. The project recently partnered with Mastercard to launch the ReefCard which allows its token holders to convert their crypto to fiat and be able to spend them in supported shops and platforms.
So far, Reef has raised $23.9M in funding from 4 rounds with $3.9M coming from seed funding with backers like Au21 Capital, NGC ventures, and others. Alameda initially came in as a long-term strategic partner by investing $20M into the project, but a misunderstanding between the teams severed their continuous partnership, leaving Reef to leverage its community support for further developments.