Overview: Zilliqa (ZIL) the Next Generation, High Throughput Blockchain Platform Nutshell Zilliqa is a project that aims to tackle the problem of scalability by revolutionizing the technology behind sharding. It does so by implementing a sharding solution that scales with the network’s size via a method called linear scaling. This means that, at least in theory, there’s no limit to the number of transactions that the platform could process per second. Zilliqa ran an ICO where they raised $22M in January 2018. Usage and Tokens ZIL is currently ERC20 token but once the mainnet is launched, ZIL will be moved to the Zilliqa blockchain and used as an incentive for miners to verify transactions, pay for transaction fees, and pay for smart contract execution. Scalability is a very real problem in today’s blockchain industry, and Zilliqa is offering a head-on solution. It uses a variety of features like sharding where the data is esentially split and also hybrid consensus algorithm which mixes Proof-of-Work with Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance. Like every blockchain project Zilliqa includes smart contracts as well. Development Testnets versions 1.0 and 2.0 have been released. With 2.0 being released around 2 months ago. It concentrates on encouraging people to start programming applications in Scilla programming language. The release of the mainnet has been at the end of 2018 or January 2019 with the first dapps following soon after. They recently provided updates about the Project Proton which is an initiative between several important Zilliqa partners mostly from advertising. In Project Proton, they will explore solutions for advertising on the blockchain. Availability and price ZIL is listed on several significant exchanges with the main ones being: Binance (28% of volume), Bithumb (20%), Huobi (16%), Upbit (11%), Korbit (7%) and Coinone (5%). Also on BitForex, OKEx, Gate.io, UEX, GOPAX, Kucoin and more. Bitcoin is the most popular pairing but also paired with KRW, USDT, ETH, BNB, USD. Current price as of 14th of September is around $ $0.03 with ZIL being ranked on 34th place in terms of the market capitalisation and market cap of around $260M. 7.7B out of 12.6B of tokens are currently in circulation . Price graph ZIL has been one of the better altcoins this year with one major pump happening mid May. Since then the price has decreased however both in terms of BTC and fiat. The ATH is $0.23 and was achieved on 10th of May during that May pump so the loss is significant when compared to the current $0.03 Other aspects There are currently around 46 employees according to LinkedIn. They have office in Singapore. Zilliqa has been under research and development for two years. The Zilliqa team has a strong academic background, and 3 of the founders are alumni of the prestigious National University of Singapore. The partnerships include Mediamath, Mindshare and Rubicon Project which are massive global media, advertising and marketing services. There is a lot of competition in the sector since there are a lot of smart contract platforms out there. My verdict The competition include Ethereum, NEO, Ardor, EOS, Cardano, NEM, Aelf and many many more. The market cap is quite high considering the development stage: Zilliqa doesn't even have a mainnet currently. However the team is very experienced, large and active. Also the technology seems to be on point, testnet was successful and the marketing partnerships mean that Zilliqa should be able to achieve the needed popularity. It's a very promising project but I feel the valuation seems to be slightly too high. Yes, when compared to EOS or Cardano it's okay but there are also projects with lower valuation and further in development. Not a financial advice.