Why Moonriver Should Be On Your Radar ($MOVR)

As I promised you in our previous video before, there will be a dedicated Moonriver video coming. Recently, there has been a lot of attention aimed at Moonriver, which is innovative Kusama paraching that allows developers to test their programming language before deploying on Polkadot. And if you missed out our Polkadot auction update video, make sure you click the link on the top right corner to watch it. So the name Moonriver sounds very promising, but well, Moonriver literally bring us to the Moon. Well, I promised you after watching this video, you have a clearer picture of what it does and why do you believe Moonriver have so much potential and we'll also be discussing its pros and cons as usual. Well, first thing first, what is Moonriver? Moonriver is a decentralized smart contract platform that is deployed as a system network of Moonbeam on the Kusama network. Moonbeam is the yet to be released production version of Moonriver living on the Polkadot network. What it means is that Moonriver will do all the testing and experiments on the network first in a simulated real world economy, make sure everything is okay, nothing crazy going on. Moonriver is an EVM compatible chain, meaning that any dApps is running on Ethereum could be deployed over here without the crazy gas fees and also interoperable with all other chains on Kusama. So all these dApps will look and run exactly like their Ethereum counterparts, only enjoying that sweet six second block finality and drastically reduced transaction fee. In the future, crosschain bridges will allow the transfer of REPS tokens between Ethereum and Kusama as well as instant deployment of changes made to the base code. Moonbeam and Moonriver will essentially be the same project existing on different blockchains. Moonriver will have earlier access to the latest builds, integration and test features before they are deployed on Moonbeam. Moonriver, since it's built on Kusama, it will be quicker to adoption because of the lower barrier to entry from the point of the requirements of being on board. Kusama is also seen a more affordable chain where everyone else will build their substrate chain on. On the other hand, Moonbeam is built on Polkadot which means it will take a bit longer but that gives a much better opportunity to consolidate a solid bet ahead of it booming later on. Moonbeam is probably one of the most hyped Polkadot perishing projects. Though it didn't win the first slot in the auction, it still managed to secure its second slot. Now moving on to the tokenomics, like most blockchain ecosystems, the native token of Moonriver is primarily used to pay for transactions or gas fees. It also provides an on-chain governance mechanism that allows users to participate in governance activities like voting for various council members and proposing network updates. It has a genesis supply of 10 million MOVR tokens. 30% went to pay back the parachain crowd loan that was required to purchase the Kusama parachain slot in the first place. 40% was distributed as part of community initiatives and parachain slot reserves while 24.5% was dedicated to long-term network stewardship and adoption. The remainder was set aside for developer adoption programs, treasury and parachain bond reserves. Being under Kusama or Polkadot blockchains, Moonriver also inherits the same staking mechanism that these networks enjoy. A minimum of 5 MOVR tokens is required for staking to work, with rewards being distributed to both collectors and nominators. A tiny portion of each transaction fee is set aside into the community treasury. This treasury is a rainy day fund that is used to pay for proposals and that have been approved by the governance council. Each network or system within Moonriver will also have its own personalised treasury that allows for easier management and allocation of funds. That's the tokenomics part. As usual, we'll be moving on to the advantages and disadvantages of the platform. First advantage of the platform, well, you wouldn't have guessed it, it is the tokenomics. Moonriver's tokenomics are particularly strong with a massive focus on decentralisation. There's no allocation to the funding team, nor any private sales. No VC need that and the only way for VC to participate is to get the MOVR tokens in the same way that you and I would. No portion of the supply was sold at a discount before the launch of the token. This means a very clear majority of the MOVR tokens on the network belongs to the community members. This is not very commonly seen in the crypto space. They also have a very healthy DABS ecosystem already with over a hundred different applications ranging from DAGs, DeFi, stablecoins, wallets, explorers, NFT solutions and oracles. This suggests to me that they are expanding at a very rapid rate. An other advantage I could think of is since Moonriver is building on Kusama, it may have new features faster than PokerDoor which is good for associated parrotchains. Moonriver is already running and has value with many DABS onboarding. There could be interesting projects launching on Kusama that don't have a duplicate project on PokerDoor. Also if Kusama grows at a larger pace than PokerDoor, that means there will be a bigger demand for Moonriver network as they will be able to talk to other chains and unlock cross-chain opportunities via Kusama Relay. Things are looking really good for Moonriver and maybe that's why Wallet Investor and GovCapital both predicted that the MOVR token will go over $6,000 in a one-year timeframe. Well of course it's speculative and not financial advice. Moving on to the disadvantages of the platform. While this may be reaching a little, one disadvantage of Moonriver is to do with how the project is selected to be parrachain in the first place. On Kusama or PokerDoor, parrachain slots are auctioned off in 6 months to 24 months lease period as part of the native crowd loan mechanism. To participate in a crowd loan, users agree to lock up a portion of the DOT or KSM for the duration of the parachain slot lease period, after which they are unlocked. While this lock up period is, even though it's non-custodian, that means your lock up DOT stays in your wallet, this can be restrictive to DOT holders that actively traded their balances. Again, this only affects users that participate in DOT community, while it's not necessarily the Ethereum DEB developers building on Moonriver. I personally heard the Polkadot tokens, the Kusama tokens and the Moonriver tokens because that's just how much a huge Polkadot fan I am. While Moonriver maybe marketed themselves as a testnet, it is a critical part of the ecosystem. It allows for more innovation by working as a testing ground for future Moonbeam builds without disrupting live working builds. A lot of companies will want to leverage both. They'll rapidly develop on Kusama, then carry on an automated deployment to Polkadot once they've reached a certain point. And this is why both Moonriver and Moonbeam exist, to serve both at layer 1. What we are seeing is a lower budget, a faster moving network, whereas Polkadot will cater more to its institutional-grade projects. Also know that some projects like Kilt went to Kusama exclusively. Kusama will have its own unique ecosystem and Moonriver will serve that. It's already seen a wave of dabs and solutions go live in a few months since deploying, and that's only going to increase as time goes on. With Moonbeam deploying on Polkadot in December, the majority of these apps have already had months to run their projects through their pace. It makes sense that many of these applications will have no trouble switching over to the mainnet on day 1, and I'll definitely keep my eye on this one. Well, there you have it! A quick overview of Moonriver and Moonbeam. Let me know whether you have Moonriver in your portfolio by commenting down below. If you like this type of content, make sure you smash up the like button and subscribe to the BoxMining channel. Remember to turn on the notification bell so you won't miss out of any of our future videos. If you want more regular updates from me, follow me on Instagram and Twitter, and I'll see you guys very soon! Bye!