Grid + (GRID) (became Phonon)
Basics
| Type | Token |
|---|---|
| Total supply | 300,000,000 GRID |
| Website | https://gridplus.io/ |
- Leveraged the public Ethereum blockchain to give consumers direct access to wholesale energy markets.
- Distributed electricity provider built as a layer above existing grid.
- Hub & Spoke of Consensys. Was part of Consensys Labs portfolio (7-2019)
- Went live in February 2019, and now serves electricity customers in Texas. Rebranded and seased to exist in 10-2021, turned into Phonon DAO.
- From this Consensys blog:
" Grid+ obtained a certificate from the Public Utility Commission of Texas to operate a Retail Energy Provider and in coming weeks will begin accepting GRID tokens from customers to access wholesale energy prices. By moving the transaction
logic for both energy and payments onto the Ethereum blockchain’s trusted architecture, Grid+ reduces the administrative burden of processing transactions over legacy rails (traditional payment processors typically charge fees of 1.5–2.5%). Moreover, by pushing market signals to customers, Grid+’s energy trading solution enables customers to make smarter decisions about their energy usage and react to the economics of the demand response market.
Released The Phonon Network; A scalable, off-chain, hardware-secured protocol for transacting with digital assets. The Phonon network can be thought of as an alternative Layer2 to Plasma and Lightning, with its main feature being the absence of nodes (and the fact that it is multichain).
That doesn't mean you don't have to trust anyone, because to achieve the ability to send directly from A to B without a node, they have used "secure" hardware in the form of cards. The quotes are used because it's hard to assess just how secure the hardware can be (even if their explanation seems plausible). It's a novel and, importantly, implementable idea that can generate a host of new use cases. Transaction fees are still (6-2019) a bit high for BTC (~$0.5), but reasonable for ETH. And there is a concept of microPhonons."
Team, investors, etc.
- In the case of Grid+, Forbes estimates that Lubin walked away with no less than 20% of its tokens, in addition to half of its equity.
