Lisk (LSK) may have dropped a notch on the coinmarketcap ranking to the current 21st position, but you won’t be wrong if you said it was once destined to be a top 10 cryptocurrency.

Nevertheless, if I may ask, is the current Lisk project all you know? Well, here is a retrace of four things that you may have forgotten or missed about this cryptocurrency platform.

Lisk is a fork of Crypti

We all know Lisk as an open-source public blockchain whose aim is to provide a platform for the development of decentralized applications (dApps). However, what most may not know or may have forgotten is that this crypto is a fork of Crypti.

The fork occurred in February 2016, the new Lisk team being led by Max Kordek and colleague Oliver Beddows. One of their stated ambitions, as they finalized the fork and organized an ICO, was to have a platform that could give a challenge to Ethereum. You may want to comment on this point; which is right, but hold your breath until the end.

I mentioned that Lisk also organized an Initial Coin Offering. That was meant to give the team a way out on how to distribute the tokens and importantly, be able to raise development funds. I bet you forgot that the ICO raised 14,000 BTC. At today’s value, that would be equal to $103,600,000. By then, however, it was ranked as the second most successful token sale.

It should be forgotten that current Cardano chief and former Ethereum CEO Charles Hoskinson joined Lisk on June 8, 2018, as a senior advisor. Another ex-ethereum member Steven Nerayoff also joined to provide advice on Lisk product development.

Lisk and Microsoft partnered in 2016.

We all know the impact of a good partnership on the business prospects of a company. And if that company is a cryptocurrency platform, then it becomes even more significant. It indicates that the product has potential to gain traction. That is what Microsoft saw in Lisk (LSK).

Lisk, therefore, partnered with the software giant on its Azure program to help launch blockchain solutions using Azure Cloud. As such, Microsoft integrated Lisk into their Azure Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) initiative. The aim was to make it easy for app developers to use JavaScript.

Did that help Lisk? I think it did. It became easier for developers from all over the world to create, test, and even launch Lisk blockchain applications. All they needed was to tap into the cloud computing and Azure infrastructure provided by Microsoft.

The project gave developers an opportunity to use Lisk’s platform for the Internet of Things (IoT), customized blockchains, and dApps.

The sidechains are Lisk’s solution to slow networks

The concept of blockchain technology has so far lived up to its promise of revolutionizing digital transactions. However, the pioneer coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum have had one major stumbling block: network “bloating”.

This scalability issue is mainly brought about due to increase in transactions on the network. In most cases, the networks get bogged down with bad transactions, bloating blocks and slowing down the network.

It’s one of the problems newer coins sought to alleviate. That’s where Lisk’s Sidechain solution comes into the picture. Functioning independently of the main chain, sidechains help de-clutter the network. All the transactions don’t have to be recorded on the main blockchain.

By taking the high-volume transactions off the main chain, these sidechains help to maintain a faster network. This is one of the possible advantages Lisk holds over Ethereum as it tries to catch up.

LiskHub update is great for user experience

The LiskHub update was announced a few days ago, but this may have escaped the attention of many crypto watchers.

The update, v.0.3.0, targets to provide users with the quality interface. This has been made possible by way of integrating numerous features that make it easy for users to interact with the platform.

The incorporated features include account initialization, address copy functionality, lock ID, a HOME button, and a new desktop icon.

The account initialization and lock ID features are great for user protection. The former ensures a user’s public key is embedded into the blockchain. The user can easily be able to send negligible amounts of LSK to newer accounts at a very low cost.

The Lock ID feature has been incorporated, complete with a timer of sorts that automatically removes the user’s passphrase after a 10-minute countdown. Another way it protects the user is by saving the passphrase on apps that are in use and removing it immediately the app is closed.

All these features make Lisk (LSK) quite easy to use, in line with its aim of making the platform ready-use for every interested developer.