Ryll Rull

Binaryx is a licensed exchange of digital assets and cryptocurrencies with offices in Tallinn and Kiev.

• Founder and CEO - Oleg Kurchenko

• Binaryx was founded by entrepreneur and investor Oleg Kurchenko in 2019 in Tallinn, Estonia.

• In 2020, Binaryx launched a trading terminal that features a lean-based interface with a highly accurate matching system

Since 2020, Binaryx has a training hub, the Binaryx Academy, where users can take free trading courses and businesses can get the necessary documentation

• In 2021, the company received a license FVT000465 from the Estonian Money Laundering Data Bureau, which complies with European law and allows users to provide cryptocurrency transaction services. Transactions with 6 cryptocurrencies were available on the platform: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum, Litecoin, Bit Ripple, USDT. Fiat currencies are also available: hryvnia, US dollar, euro, Chinese yuan and Russian ruble.

• In June 2021 the following coins were added: ChainLink, Binance Coin, OMG Network, Enigma, Compound, Uniswap

• In July 2021, the exchange launched an asset tokenization platform The first platform to tokenize its business with the Binaryx platform was Eastern European company Genius Marketing.

Basics

• Based in: Bangalore, India and British Virgin Islands

• Started in: 2017

• Mainnet release: In steps (12-5-2020), with the first step on 17-5-2020.

• After its rebrand into Polygon, it wants to be a multichain, instead of purely Ethereum linked (9-2-2021). Is called a sidechain, but could be seen as its own Layer 1, since it has its own consensus and native token.

• From CMC:

"Matic Network describes itself as is a Layer 2 scaling solution that uses sidechains for off-chain computation while ensuring asset security using the Plasma framework and a decentralized network of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) validators. Matic aims to be the de-facto platform on which developers will deploy and run decentralized applications in a secure and decentralized manner.

Matic Network claims to have worked on implementations of Plasma MVP (Minimum Viable Plasma), WalletConnect protocol, and the Ethereum event notification engine - Dagger. Matic intends to provide Matic wallet, payment APIs and SDKs, products and other solutions that will allow developers to design, implement, and migrate DApps built on platforms like Ethereum. Matic plans to support other blockchains in the future to offer interoperability alongside scalability to existing public blockchains."

"Matic’s incentivised staking testnet, CS-2001, is now live! Stage 1a of Counter Stake is now underway, with the purpose of preparing for the basic network rollout. Beginning with 20 active validators, we will add more as the stage progresses."

History

Originally was called Matic Network, but rebranded into Polygon (9-2-2021).

Audits & Exploits

• Polygon Bug Bounty is live on Immunefi with a maximum bounty of $2,000,000 per critical bug found (28-9-2021). Got paid out multiple times, see below.

• Bugs/Exploits

90% of MATIC could have been stolen (30-12-2021), from Unchained:

"The issue arose from a “critical network vulnerability” found within the genesis block of Polygon. According to Immunefi, the vulnerability left 9,276,584,332 MATIC available to steal – which is a truly astounding number when considering MATIC’s supply cap is 10,000,000.

A post-mortem from Polygon explains that the bug was fixed in a “silent patch” just two days after a white hat hacker reported the possibility of an exploit to Immunefi. “Considering the nature of this upgrade, it had to be executed without attracting too much attention,” wrote the Polygon team in an attempt to explain why it upgraded the network without announcing much information. Once the code to patch the bug was written, the validator and code community upgraded 80% of the Polygon network in under 24 hours to initiate the fix (without knowing much because of the “silent patch” decision).

The white hat hackers (a second white hat noticed the vulnerability shortly after the first) were paid a total of $3.46 million for their help – a small amount compared to the billions at stake (MATIC has a market cap of over $10 billion). That being said, before the bug could be fixed, one hacker was able to get away with 801,601 MATIC, of which the Polygon Foundation will bear the cost."

• Polygon Plasma bridge double spend vulnerability (23-10-2021):

• $2 million bounty paid

• Exit transaction could be resubmitted 223 times

• ~$850 million was at risk

• After getting more active accounts than even Ethereum, Polygon's founder recommends (5-10-2021) higher minimum gas prices due to a flood of spamming txs (probably causing the activity spike).

• From BlockThreat (25-8-2021):

"Polygon patched a DoS vulnerability in its StakeManagerProxy and StakeManager contracts after it was responsibly disclosed by Ashiq Amien."

Governance

• Admin Key

• When Polygon pushed a hard fork through in a very short time, discussions arose over its decentralization. Answers from the team were not very clear nor conclusive (17-12-2021).

From their Transparency Report (15-5-2021):

"Polygon uses three different multisigs, each for a different purpose.

MS1: PoS/Plasma contract upgrades

MS2: Custom "Child ERC20" contract upgrades

MS3: Mapping of "Child ERC20" contracts

• The first two require 5 out of 8 signers. The signers are Polygon cofounders and people* from reputable Polygon/Ethereum projects:

1)CurveFinance

2)QuickswapDEX

3)MUSTCometh

4)0xHorizonGames

As the contracts secured by multisigs become battle-tested, we will be exploring introducing the following optimizations/changes:

• Moving from multisigs to governance-controlled proxies

• Introducing timelocks

• (Eventually) Completely removing multisigs/upgradability."

One of the reasons the above was made public was due to DeFi Watch asking questions. Most of its questions revolved around the multisig and what they held and how they were generated.

Token

Token allocation

• Will start liquidity mining for Aave on its chain (14-4-2021):

"The team behind the protocol has allocated $40 million in rewards for lenders and borrowers, the bulk of which is made up of 1% of the total MATIC supply. Users will be able to earn rewards by depositing and borrowing assets on Aave’s Polygon market."

• From Binance Research:

1)Private Sale tokens comprise 3.80% of the total supply

2)Launchpad sale tokens comprise 19% of total supply.

3)Team tokens comprise 16% of the total supply.

4)Advisors tokens comprise 4% of the total supply.

5)Network Operations tokens comprise 12% of the total supply [staking].

6)Foundation tokens comprise 21.86% of the total supply.

7)Ecosystem tokens comprise 23.33% of the total supply.

Jae Kwon aBasics

• Created by Tendermint

• A network of distributed ledgers “Building a Network of Blockchains”

• Based in:

• Started in 2016

• Launched 4-2019.

• Mainnet release:

• From Crypto Briefing (7-6-2020): "Cosmos is a far-reaching project that seeks to add a communication layer between various blockchains. Although it’s primary focus is interoperability, it also enjoys robust smart contract functionality."

• From the CoinDesk 50:

"Cosmos is building the tools to connect a multiverse of blockchain projects together. Launched in April 2019, the $590 million network places interoperability at the core of its project, a blockchain that will be able to translate data from one chain to another, in any programming language and across all consensus algorithms. “The premise for Cosmos is that we are the least-maximalist-possible project,” All in Bits, Inc. core developer Sunny Aggarwal said. “We just want to connect everything together.” While concord is Cosmos’ aim, the project has been rife with internal fragmentation. All in Bits director Zaki Manian left the project and criticized its CEO Jae Kwon for focusing on a side project, while the company itself has split in two. Despite this, Cosmos has attracted the participation of about 100 validators on its proof-of-stake network, and is used by more than 80 companies and projects including Binance and the Thailand government's National ID program."

• From their blog (16-6-2021):

"What began as Jae Kwon and Ethan Buchman’s creation of what is now the Tendermint consensus algorithm has evolved into a thriving community that grew from the Fundraiser in 2017, to the current multi-entity virtual organization that powers hundreds of innovative blockchain apps and services today."

Audits & Exploits

• Bug bounty program can be found [insert here]. None according to Blockchain Security DB (29-6-2020), which does show 1 audit(4-2017).

• IBC has gone through 'an intensive internal code audit conducted jointly with Informal Systems' (16-12-2020).

Bugs/Exploits

• From Blockthreat (2-11-2021):

"Cosmos patched a critical vulnerability which may have resulted in chain halting. Node operators are advised to update to the latest version."

• Cosmos Hub developers released Gaia v4.2.0 on Mar. 25, 2021. This release a critical security vulnerability found in the Gaia v4.1 release line. The vulnerability doesn't put user funds at risk; however, it can result in a chain halt.

Hard Fork

• On 28th May 2019 "a critical security vulnerability in the CosmosSDK was reported to the Tendermint team through security@tendermint.com. In response to this issue, we are currently coordinating a hard fork to upgrade the Cosmos mainnet, and we are reaching out to validators to ensure that they are available to respond during the network transition at block height 482100.”

• The “percentage of voting rights” retained by the “top 10 block producers (BPs)” on Cosmos stands at 57.3% (as of 13-4-2019). And the top 20 validators own more than 70% of the voting power (27-4-2019)

• From this piece (27-4-2019):

'The Cosmos Network has no fixed rules of membership — anyone can build a hub or a zone. Hubs are themselves sovereign blockchains built with the intention of connecting a bunch of other blockchains. Two examples are the Cosmos Hub, which was recently launched by the Tendermint team, and the Iris Hub, a Hub that plans to connect blockchains which primarily operate in China and other parts of Asia. This hub-and-zone model makes inter-chain communication more efficient, because instead of connecting to every other blockchain, each blockchain only needs to connect to a hub."

"there is no single “governance” process for the Cosmos Network. Each hub and zone has its own governance processes and there is no central set of rules that apply to the entire network of blockchains. When people talk about “governance of Cosmos”, they are referring to is the governance of the Cosmos Hub, the blockchain launched by the Tendermint team. The Cosmos Hub has a set of rules that lets anyone send a text proposal, and Atom holders are allowed to vote on it, where their votes are weighted by the number of Atoms they own. This is an example of what a proposal looks like. To learn more about the intricacies of the governance process, this blog post by Chorus One is a good primer on the governance of the Cosmos Hub."

• From this blog (27-4-2019):

"Validators are required to vote on all proposals. Failing to do so in a timely manner will invoke a temporary suspension of the validator identity for one week. The on-chain governance system of Cosmos can be divided into three phases:

Phase 1: Proposing

Anyone could submit proposals to the voting system. To enter the voting phase, the proposal needs to attract a minimum deposit from the proposer or other atom token holders. Phase 1 lasts maximally two weeks.

Phase 2: Voting

Atom token holders gain voting power by staking tokens in the system. The voting power is proportional to the number of staked tokens.

Voters have five options: Yea, Yea with Force, Nay, Nay with Force and Abstain.

Token delegators could cast their own votes. Otherwise, they automatically inherit the delegatee’s vote (a.k.a. liquid democracy). Phase 2 lasts two weeks.

Phase 3: Tallying

A proposal is considered passed if and only if the following two criteria are both satisfied:

• More than half of the voting tokens have voted Yea and Yea with Force

• Less than one third of the voting tokens have voted Nay with Force

The deposit staked in the proposal will be confiscated to the reserve pool if the majority of voters consider it as a spamming proposal. Otherwise, it will be returned to the original owners. Successful proposals will be implemented by validators."

Vote Delegation/Buying?

• From this report by Chorus One (6-2020):

"In protocols where validators set commission rates, validators may deploy a strategy to gather voting rights through offering validation services for free (as demonstrated by the Sikka validator on the Cosmos Hub)."

This can be seen as delegation of votes, or as a form of vote buying.

• Seem to be funded by their self funding mechanism.

• On-chain gov has been added (18-12-2020). Before, validators could only signal, but since this upgrade they can also vote on it and spend the treasury.

• From Our Network #15 (3-4-2020):

"The Cosmos Hub community tax pool had been slowly accumulating ATOMs since the launch of the mainnet to having over 340 thousand ATOMs. At the end of January 2020, the very first community spend vote was passed: Prop 23 (source)

Prop 23 stated that it would pay 5250 ATOMs to instantiate a Cosmos Governance Working Group. It passed with ~91% Yes in which 63% of the voters were validators while the other 37% of the voters were non-validating ATOM holders who overrode their validators' vote.

In Cosmos, there is a semi-liquid democracy whereby votes are by default cast by validators and individuals with voting power inherit the votes of the validators they're staked with. However, if individuals choose to cast their own votes, they can override their validators' votes, which is what we have seen happen with this proposal. Because of this governance feature, Cosmos governance differentiates itself from representative democracies as seen in DPOS protocols like EOS."

• From their own blog (24-2-2020):

"This is a retroactive grant awarded to people who have done exceptional work throughout the process of bootstrapping the Cosmos community since 2019 and—for some—even earlier. While this blog post outlines recipients of a “grant”, know that there was no explicit “grant program” that was in place for applications to be processed. These Community Contributors neither asked for funds nor applied for any such grants. They were simply chosen because they each took the initiative to build their respective communities out of passion for the project. All we did was take note."

Chosen by who? It seems by Tendermint itself.

"As of this past weekend, on February 23 2020, all of the recipients have been onboarded as vendors to All in Bits Inc (dba Tendermint Inc), where each vendor received between $1000-$3000 USD in Q1. With that, ambassadors are now able to kick off and get reimbursed for future meetups in regions all over the world for the next 12 months. In total, there were 27 Community Contributors who we recognize as stellar stewards of the network."

Launch

Token allocation

Utility

• Has Atoms, which are used to pay the gas fee. You can stake ATOM in return for fees and staking rewards.

"Users pay gas fee in “atom” (the native token of Cosmos). 2% of the gas fee flows to a reserve pool. The fund accumulated in the pool is saved for system upgrades and is determined by the Cosmos governance system."

This could be looked at as a self funding mechanism.

"The rest of the gas fee, together with newly minted atom tokens in each block, is distributed to validators in proportion to the percentage of atom tokens they stake in the system. The more atom tokens staked, the higher reward received. Validators run full nodes and secure the Cosmos network by collecting, assembling and broadcasting transactions according to the Tendermint consensus protocol.

Cosmos sets atom token inflation rate between 7–20%. High inflation rate, i.e. high block rewards, dilutes the wealth of the atom token holders who do not stake their tokens and thus incentivizes them to stake their tokens in the system. The inflation rate is automatically adjusted so that the percentage of staked token attains the target of 66.7%. Specifically, when the staking ratio is lower than the target, the inflation rate is raised so that atom token holders are more encouraged to stake their tokens. Vice versa."

Tech

• Whitepaper can be found

• Code can be viewed

• Built on: Tendermint

• Programming language used:

Transaction Details

• Capacity (TPS):

• Latency:

How it works

• Uses a Bonded Proof-of-Stake protocol (BPoS).

"In Bonded Proof-of-Stake protocols (BPoS) such as Cosmos or IRISnet, both the validator and its delegators are directly punished.” As noted in Bakerz blog, slashing can occur in cases where there’s a “liveness fault” detected on Cosmos or IRISnet. This occurs when the “validator node does not participate in the network consensus for a long time and misses several blocks.”

• “In some protocols,” Bakerz noted, the “validator can also be jailed, a process prohibiting [them] from re-entering the networks for a certain period of time.” Meanwhile, in BPoS) protocols such as Cosmos and IRISnet, the “delegators are also at risk of punishment,” so POS Bakerz recommended that users “carefully choose [their] validator.”

Upgrades

• From State of Stake (23-11-2021):

"The Cosmos Hub Vega upgrade was successfully executed. The upgrade contains several new features, including authz and feegrant modules, packet-forward-middleware and IBC as a standalone module."

• From Paradigm (11-11-2021):

"Full details of the Vega upgrade can be found here, but essentially, the upgrade includes various versioning updates to ensure the security of the core components that the Cosmos Hub relies on, like Cosmos SDK, Tendermint Core, and IBC. The updates will also serve to avoid consensus errors, and improve efficiency through features like fee and voting delegation. The Vega upgrade is essential to enhance the performance of the Cosmos Hub and ensure that future upgrades occur seamlessly."

• Stargate has been launched (24-2-2021):

"Cosmos’s Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol, released last Thursday as part of the network’s so-called Stargate upgrade, enables token and data transfer across Cosmos-based blockchains. With the launch, Cosmos goal of creating a universe of interconnected blockchains can now become a reality. Over $6B in value, of which $2.8B comes from the Terra blockchain, can now move freely across chains built with the Cosmos SDK, according to Tendermint, core contributor to the Cosmos Network."

• Introduction

Mining is the process of adding transaction records to Bitcoin's public ledger of past transactions (and a "mining rig" is a colloquial metaphor for a single computer system that performs the necessary computations for "mining". This ledger of past transactions is called the block chain as it is a chain of blocks. The blockchain serves to confirm transactions to the rest of the network as having taken place. Bitcoin nodes use the blockchain to distinguish legitimate Bitcoin transactions from attempts to re-spend coins that have already been spent elsewhere.

Mining is intentionally designed to be resource-intensive and difficult so that the number of blocks found each day by miners remains steady. Individual blocks must contain a proof of work to be considered valid. This proof of work is verified by other Bitcoin nodes each time they receive a block. Bitcoin uses the hashcash proof-of-work function.

The primary purpose of mining is to set the history of transactions in a way that is computationally impractical to modify by any one entity. By downloading and verifying the blockchain, bitcoin nodes are able to reach consensus about the ordering of events in bitcoin.

Mining is also the mechanism used to introduce Bitcoins into the system: Miners are paid any transaction fees as well as a "subsidy" of newly created coins. This both serves the purpose of disseminating new coins in a decentralized manner as well as motivating people to provide security for the system.

Bitcoin mining is so called because it resembles the mining of other commodities: it requires exertion and it slowly makes new units available to anybody who wishes to take part. An important difference is that the supply does not depend on the amount of mining. In general changing total miner hashpower does not change how many bitcoins are created over the long term.

• Difficulty

The Computationally-Difficult Problem

Mining a block is difficult because the SHA-256 hash of a block's header must be lower than or equal to the target in order for the block to be accepted by the network. This problem can be simplified for explanation purposes: The hash of a block must start with a certain number of zeros. The probability of calculating a hash that starts with many zeros is very low, therefore many attempts must be made. In order to generate a new hash each round, a nonce is incremented. See Proof of work for more information.

• The Difficulty Metric

The difficulty is the measure of how difficult it is to find a new block compared to the easiest it can ever be. The rate is recalculated every 2,016 blocks to a value such that the previous 2,016 blocks would have been generated in exactly one fortnight (two weeks) had everyone been mining at this difficulty. This is expected yield, on average, one block every ten minutes.

As more miners join, the rate of block creation increases. As the rate of block generation increases, the difficulty rises to compensate, which has a balancing of effect due to reducing the rate of block-creation. Any blocks released by malicious miners that do not meet the required difficulty target will simply be rejected by the other participants in the network.

• Reward

When a block is discovered, the discoverer may award themselves a certain number of bitcoins, which is agreed-upon by everyone in the network. Currently this bounty is 6.25 bitcoins; this value will halve every 210,000 blocks. See Controlled Currency Supply.

Additionally, the miner is awarded the fees paid by users sending transactions. The fee is an incentive for the miner to include the transaction in their block. In the future, as the number of new bitcoins miners are allowed to create in each block dwindles, the fees will make up a much more important percentage of mining income.

• The mining ecosystem

Hardware

Users have used various types of hardware over time to mine blocks. Hardware specifications and performance statistics are detailed on the Mining Hardware Comparison page.

CPU Mining

Early Bitcoin client versions allowed users to use their CPUs to mine. The advent of GPU mining made CPU mining financially unwise as the hashrate of the network grew to such a degree that the amount of bitcoins produced by CPU mining became lower than the cost of power to operate a CPU. The option was therefore removed from the core Bitcoin client's user interface.

GPU Mining

GPU Mining is drastically faster and more efficient than CPU mining. See the main article: Why a GPU mines faster than a CPU. A variety of popular mining rigs have been documented.

FPGA Mining

FPGA mining is a very efficient and fast way to mine, comparable to GPU mining and drastically outperforming CPU mining. FPGAs typically consume very small amounts of power with relatively high hash ratings, making them more viable and efficient than GPU mining. See Mining Hardware Comparison for FPGA hardware specifications and statistics.

ASIC Mining

An application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC, is a microchip designed and manufactured for a very specific purpose. ASICs designed for Bitcoin mining were first released in 2013. For the amount of power they consume, they are vastly faster than all previous technologies and already have made GPU mining financially.

Mining services (Cloud mining)

Mining contractors provide mining services with performance specified by contract, often referred to as a "Mining Contract." They may, for example, rent out a specific level of mining capacity for a set price at a specific duration.

Pools

As more and more miners competed for the limited supply of blocks, individuals found that they were working for months without finding a block and receiving any reward for their mining efforts. This made mining something of a gamble. To address the variance in their income miners started organizing themselves into pools so that they could share rewards more evenly. See Pooled mining and Comparison of mining pools.

History

Bitcoin's public ledger (the "block chain") was started on January 3rd, 2009 at 18:15 UTC presumably by Satoshi Nakamoto. The first block is known as the genesis block. The first transaction recorded in the first block was a single transaction paying the reward of 50 new bitcoins to its creator.

• Staking

Staking is a concept in the Delegated proof of stake coins, closely resembling pooled mining of proof of work coins. According to the proof of share principle, instead of computing powers, the partaking users are pooling their stakes, certain amounts of money, blocked on their wallets and delegated to the pool’s staking balance.

The network periodically selects a pre-defined number of top staking pools (usually between 20 and 100), based on their staking balances, and allows them to validate transactions in order to get a reward. The rewards are then shared with the delegators, according to their stakes with the pool.

Although staking doesn’t require lots of computing power as mining, it still needs very stable and fast Internet connection in order to collect, verify and sign all transactions in the queue within a small timespan, which can be as short as one second. If a pool fails to do so, it doesn’t get the reward, and it may be shared with the next pool in order.

A lot of altcoins are using staking. Staking is often marketed as a much more efficient alternative. Unfortunately staking has the potential to not be much different than politics. A good example is that it's easy for a big actor to take over the network by simply buying enough coins. This actually happened in 2020 when TRON's Justin Sun took over the Steem "forum" network and then did some things that made some people unhappy.

Steam is a video game digital distribution service by Valve. It was launched as a standalone software client in September 2003 as a way for Valve to provide automatic updates for their games, and expanded to include games from third-party publishers. Steam has also expanded into an online web-based and mobile digital storefront. Steam offers digital rights management (DRM), server hosting, video streaming, and social networking services. It also provides the user with installation and automatic updating of games, and community features such as friends lists and groups, cloud storage, and in-game voice and chat functionality.

The software provides a freely available application programming interface (API) called Steamworks, which developers can use to integrate many of Steam's functions into their products, including in-game achievements, microtransactions, and support for user-created content through Steam Workshop. Though initially developed for use on Microsoft Windows operating systems, versions for macOS and Linux were later released. Mobile apps were also released for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone in the 2010s. The platform also offers a small selection of other content, including design software, hardware, game soundtracks, anime, and films.

The Steam platform is the largest digital distribution platform for PC gaming, holding around 75% of the market share in 2013. By 2017, users purchasing games through Steam totaled roughly US$4.3 billion, representing at least 18% of global PC game sales.By 2019, the service had over 34,000 games with over 95 million monthly active users. The success of Steam has led to the development of a line of Steam Machine microconsoles, which include the SteamOS operating system and Steam Controllers, Steam Link devices for local game streaming, and the Steam Deck, a handheld personal computer system tailored for running Steam games.

• History

Valve had entered into a publishing contract with Sierra Studios in 1997 ahead of the 1998 release of Half-Life. The contract had given some intellectual property (IP) rights to Sierra in addition to publishing control. Valve published additional games through Sierra, including expansions for Half-Life and Counter-Strike. Around 1999, as Valve started work on Half-Life 2 and the new Source engine, they became concerned about their contract with Sierra related to the IP rights, and the two companies renegotiated a new contract by 2001. The new contract eliminated Sierra's IP rights and gave Valve rights to digital distribution of its games.

Around this time, Valve had problems updating the published games. They could provide downloadable patches, but for multiplayer games, new patches would result in most of the online user base disconnecting for several days until everyone had implemented the patch. Valve decided to create a platform that would update games automatically and implement stronger anti-piracy and anti-cheat measures. Through user polls at the time of its announcement in 2002, Valve also recognized that at least 75% of their users had access to high-speed Internet connections, which would continue to grow with planned broadband expansion in the following years, and recognized that they could deliver game content faster to players than through retail channels.Valve approached several companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo!, and RealNetworks to build a client with these features, but were declined.

Steam's development began in 2002, with working names for the platform being "Grid" and "Gazelle". It was publicly announced at the Game Developers Conference event on March 22, 2002, and released for beta testing the same day. To demonstrate the ease of integrating Steam with a game, Relic Entertainment created a special version of Impossible Creatures. Valve partnered with several companies, including AT&T, Acer, and GameSpy. The first mod released on the system was Day of Defeat. In 2002, the president of Valve, Gabe Newell, said he was offering mod teams a game engine license and distribution over Steam for US$995

Prior to the announcement of Steam, Valve found that Sierra had been distributing their games in PC cafes which they claimed was against the terms of the contract, and took Sierra and their owners, Vivendi Games, to court. Sierra countersued, asserting that with the announcement of Steam, Valve had been working to undermine the contract to offer a digital storefront for their games, directly competing with Sierra. The case was initially ruled in Valve's favor, allowing them to leave the contract due to the breach and seek other publishing partners for retail copies of its games while continuing their work on Steam. One such company had been Microsoft, but Ed Fries stated that they turned down the offer due to Valve's intent to continue to sell their games over Steam.

Between 80,000 and 300,000 players participated in the beta test before Steam's official release on September 12, 2003. The client and website choked under the strain of thousands of users simultaneously attempting to play the game.At the time, Steam's primary function was streamlining the patch process common in online computer games, and was an optional component for all other games. In 2004, the World Opponent Network was shut down and replaced by Steam, with any online features of games that required it ceasing to work unless they converted over to Steam.

Half-Life 2 was the first game to require installation of the Steam client to play, even for retail copies. This decision was met with concerns about software ownership, software requirements, and problems with overloaded servers demonstrated previously by the Counter-Strike rollout. During this time users faced problems attempting to play the game.

Beginning in 2005, Valve began negotiating contracts with several third-party publishers to release their products, such as Rag Doll Kung Fu and Darwinia, on Steam.Valve announced that Steam had become profitable because of some highly successful Valve games.Although digital distribution could not yet match retail volume, profit margins for Valve and developers were far larger on Steam. Larger publishers, such as id Software,Eidos Interactive, and Capcom, began distributing their games on Steam in 2007. By May of that year, 13 million accounts had been created on the service, and 150 games were for sale on the platform. By 2014, total annual game sales on Steam were estimated at around $1.5 billion. By 2018, the service had over 90 million monthly active users.

• Client features and functionality

Software delivery and maintenance

Steam's primary service is to allow its users to download games and other software that they have in their virtual software libraries to their local computers as game cache files (GCFs). Initially, Valve was required to be the publisher for these games since they had sole access to the Steam's database and engine, but with the introduction of the Steamworks software development kit (SDK) in May 2008, anyone could publish to Steam without Valve's direct involvement.

Prior to 2009, most games released on Steam had traditional anti-piracy measures, including the assignment and distribution of product keys and support for digital rights management software tools such as SecuROM or non-malicious rootkits. With an update to the Steamworks SDK in March 2009, Valve added its "Custom Executable Generation" (CEG) approach into the Steamworks SDK that removed the need for these other measures. The CEG technology creates a unique, encrypted copy of the game's executable files for the given user, which allows them to install it multiple times and on multiple devices, and make backup copies of their software. Once the software is downloaded and installed, the user must then authenticate through Steam to de-encrypt the executable files to play the game. Normally this is done while connected to the Internet following the user's credential validation, but once they have logged into Steam once, a user can instruct Steam to launch in a special offline mode to be able to play their games without a network connection.Developers are not limited to Steam's CEG and may include other forms of DRM (or none at all) and other authentication services than Steam; for example, some games from publisher Ubisoft require the use of their UPlay gaming service, and prior to its shutdown in 2014, some other games required Games for Windows – Live, though many of these games have since transitioned to using the Steamworks CEG approach.

In September 2008, Valve added support for Steam Cloud, a service that can automatically store saved game and related custom files on Valve's servers; users can access this data from any machine running the Steam client. Games must use the appropriate features of Steamworks for Steam Cloud to work. Users can disable this feature on a per-game and per-account basis. In May 2012, the service added the ability for users to manage their game libraries from remote clients, including computers and mobile devices; users can instruct Steam to download and install games they own through this service if their Steam client is currently active and running. Product keys sold through third-party retailers can also be redeemed on Steam. For games that incorporate Steamworks, users can buy redemption codes from other vendors and redeem these in the Steam client to add the title to their libraries. Steam also offers a framework for selling and distributing downloadable content (DLC) for games.

In September 2013, Steam introduced the ability to share most games with family members and close friends by authorizing machines to access one's library. Authorized players can install the game locally and play it separately from the owning account. Users can access their saved games and achievements providing the main owner is not playing. When the main player initiates a game while a shared account is using it, the shared account user is allowed a few minutes to either save their progress and close the game or purchase the game for his or her own account. Within Family View, introduced in January 2014, parents can adjust settings for their children's tied accounts, limiting the functionality and accessibility to the Steam client and purchased games.

In accordance with its acceptable use policy, Valve retains the right to block customers' access to their games and Steam services when Valve's Anti-Cheat (VAC) software determines that the user is cheating in multiplayer games, selling accounts to others, or trading games to exploit regional price differences. Blocking such users initially removed access to his or her other games, leading to some users with high-value accounts losing access because of minor infractions. Valve later changed its policy to be similar to that of Electronic Arts' Origin platform, in which blocked users can still access their games but are heavily restricted, limited to playing in offline mode and unable to participate in Steam Community features. Customers also lose access to their games and Steam account if they refuse to accept changes to Steam's end user license agreements; this last occurred in August 2012. In April 2015, Valve began allowing developers to set bans on players for their games, but enacted and enforced at the Steam level, which allowed them to police their own gaming communities in a customizable manner.

• Storefront features

The Steam client includes a digital storefront called the Steam Store through which users can purchase computer games. Once the game is bought, a software license is permanently attached to the user's Steam account, allowing them to download the software on any compatible device. Game licenses can be given to other accounts under certain conditions. Content is delivered from an international network of servers using a proprietary file transfer protocol. Steam sells its products in US and Canadian dollars, euros, pounds sterling, Brazilian reais, Russian rubles, Indonesian rupiah and Indian rupees depending on the user's location. In December 2010, the client began supporting the WebMoney payment system, which is popular in many European, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries. From April 2016 until December 2017, Steam accepted payments in Bitcoin with transactions handled by BitPay before dropping support for it due to high fluctuation in value and costly service fees. The Steam storefront validates the user's region; the purchase of games may be restricted to specific regions because of release dates, game classification, or agreements with publishers. Since 2010, the Steam Translation Server project offers Steam users to assist with the translation of the Steam client, storefront, and a selected library of Steam games for twenty-eight languages. Steam also allows users to purchase downloadable content for games, and for some specific games such as Team Fortress 2, the ability to purchase in-game inventory items. In February 2015, Steam began to open similar options for in-game item purchases for third-party games.

Users of Steam's storefront can also purchase games and other software as gifts to be given to another Steam user. Prior to May 2017, users could purchase these gifts to be held in their profile's inventory until they opted to gift them. However, this feature enabled a gray market around some games, where a user in a country where the price of a game was substantially lower than elsewhere could stockpile giftable copies of games to sell to others, particularly in regions with much higher prices. In August 2016, Valve changed its gifting policy to require that games with VAC and Game Ban-enabled games be gifted immediately to another Steam user, which also served to combat players that worked around VAC and Game Bans, while in May 2017, Valve expanded this policy to all games. The changes also placed limitations on gifts between users of different countries if there is a large difference in pricing for the game between two different regions.

The Steam store also enables users to redeem store product keys to add software from their library. The keys are sold by third-party providers such as Humble Bundle (in which a portion of the sale is given back to the publisher or distributor), distributed as part of a physical release to redeem the game, or given to a user as part of promotions, often used to deliver Kickstarter and other crowd funding rewards. A grey market exists around Steam keys, where less reputable buyers purchase a large number of Steam keys for a game when it is offered for a low cost, and then resell these keys to users or other third-party sites at a higher price, generating profit for themselves. This caused some of these third-party sites, such as G2A, to be embroiled in this grey market. It is possible for publishers to have Valve to track down where specific keys have been used and cancel them, removing the product from the user's libraries, leaving the user to seek any recourse with the third-party they purchased from. Other legitimate storefronts, like Humble Bundle, have set a minimum price that must be spent to obtain Steam keys as to discourage mass purchases that would enter the grey market. In June 2021, Valve began limiting how frequently Steam users could change their default region to prevent them from purchasing games from outside their home region for cheaper.

In 2013, Steam began to accept player reviews of games. Other users can subsequently rate these reviews as helpful, humorous, or otherwise unhelpful, which are then used to highlight the most useful reviews on the game's Steam store page. Steam also aggregates these reviews and enables users to sort products based on this feedback while browsing the store. In May 2016, Steam further broke out these aggregations between all reviews overall and those made more recently in the last 30 days, a change Valve acknowledges to how game updates, particularly those in Early Access, can alter the impression of a game to users. To prevent observed abuse of the review system by developers or other third-party agents, Valve modified the review system in September 2016 to discount review scores for a game from users that activated the product through a product key rather than directly purchased by the Steam Store, though their reviews remain visible. Alongside this, Valve announced that it would end business relations with any developer or publisher that they have found to be abusing the review system. Separately, Valve has taken actions to minimize the effects of review bombs on Steam. In particular, Valve announced in March 2019 that it mark reviews they believe are "off-topic" as a result of a review bomb, and eliminate their contribution to summary review scores; the first such games they took action on with this was the Borderlands games after it was announced Borderlands 3 would be a timed-exclusive to the Epic Games Store.

During mid-2011, Valve began to offer free-to-play games, such as Global Agenda, Spiral Knights and Champions Online; this offer was linked to the company's move to make Team Fortress 2 a free-to-play title. Valve included support via Steamworks for microtransactions for in-game items in these games through Steam's purchasing channels, in a similar manner to the in-game store for Team Fortress 2. Later that year, Valve added the ability to trade in-game items and "unopened" game gifts between users. Steam Coupons, which was introduced in December 2011, provides single-use coupons that provide a discount to the cost of items. Steam Coupons can be provided to users by developers and publishers; users can trade these coupons between friends in a similar fashion to gifts and in-game items. Steam Market, a feature introduced in beta in December 2012 that would allow users to sell virtual items to others via Steam Wallet funds, further extended the idea. Valve levies a transaction fee of 15% on such sales and game publishers that use Steam Market pay a transaction fee. For example, Team Fortress 2—the first game supported at the beta phase—incurred both fees. Full support for other games was expected to be available in early 2013. In April 2013, Valve added subscription-based game support to Steam; the first game to use this service was Darkfall Unholy Wars.

In October 2012, Steam introduced non-gaming applications, which are sold through the service in the same manner as games. Creativity and productivity applications can access the core functions of the Steamworks API, allowing them to use Steam's simplified installation and updating process, and incorporate features including cloud saving and Steam Workshop. Steam also allows game soundtracks to be purchased to be played via Steam Music or integrated with the user's other media players. Valve adjusted its approach to soundtracks in 2020, no longer requiring them to be offered as DLC, meaning that users can buy soundtracks to games they do not own, and publishers can offer soundtracks to games not on Steam.

Valve have also added the ability for publishers to rent and sell digital movies via the service, with initially most being video game documentaries. Following Warner Bros. Entertainment offering the Mad Max films alongside the September 2015 release of the game based on the series, Lionsgate entered into agreement with Valve to rent over one hundred feature films from its catalog through Steam starting in April 2016, with more films following later. In March 2017, Crunchyroll started offering various anime for purchase or rent through Steam. However, by February 2019, Valve shuttered video from its storefront save for videos directly related to gaming content. While available, users could also purchase Steam Machine related hardware.

In conjunction with developers and publishers, Valve frequently provides discounted sales on games on a daily and weekly basis, sometimes oriented around a publisher, genre, or holiday theme, and sometimes allow games to be tried for free during the days of these sales. The site normally offers a large selection of games at discount during its annual Summer and Holiday sales, including gamification of these sales to incentive users to purchase more games. While Steam allows developers to offer demo versions of their games at any time, Valve worked with Geoff Keighley in 2019 in conjunction with The Game Awards to hold a week-long Steam Game Festival to feature a large selection of game demos of current and upcoming games, alongside sales for games already released. This event has since been repeated two or three times a year, typically in conjunction with game expositions or award events, and since has been renamed as the Steam Next Fest.

• Privacy and security

The popularity of Steam has led to the service's being attacked by hackers. An attempt occurred in November 2011, when Valve temporarily closed the community forums, citing potential hacking threats to the service. Days later, Valve reported that the hack had compromised one of its customer databases, potentially allowing the perpetrators to access customer information; including encrypted password and credit card details. At that time, Valve was not aware whether the intruders actually accessed this information or discovered the encryption method, but nevertheless warned users to be alert for fraudulent activity.

Valve added Steam Guard functionality to the Steam client in March 2011 to protect against the hijacking of accounts via phishing schemes, one of the largest support problems Valve had at the time. Steam Guard was advertised to take advantage of the identity protection provided by Intel's second-generation Core processors and compatible motherboard hardware, which allows users to lock their account to a specific computer. Once locked, activity by that account on other computers must first be approved by the user on the locked computer. Support APIs for Steam Guard are available to third-party developers through Steamworks. Steam Guard also offers two-factor, risk-based authentication that uses a one-time verification code sent to a verified email address associated with the Steam account; this was later expanded to include two-factor authentication through the Steam mobile application, known as Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator. If Steam Guard is enabled, the verification code is sent each time the account is used from an unknown machine.

In 2015, between Steam-based game inventories, trading cards, and other virtual goods attached to a user's account, Valve stated that the potential monetary value had drawn hackers to try to access user accounts for financial benefit, and continue to encourage users to secure accounts with Steam Guard, when trading was introduced in 2011. Valve reported that in December 2015, around 77,000 accounts per month were hijacked, enabling the hijackers to empty out the user's inventory of items through the trading features. To improve security, the company announced that new restrictions would be added in March 2016, under which 15-day holds are placed on traded items unless they activate, and authenticate with Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator.

ReVuln, a commercial vulnerability research firm, published a paper in October 2012 that said the Steam browser protocol was posing a security risk by enabling malicious exploits through a simple user click on a maliciously crafted steam:// URL in a browser. This was the second serious vulnerability of gaming-related software following a recent problem with Ubisoft's own game distribution platform Uplay. German IT platform Heise online recommended strict separation of gaming and sensitive data, for example using a PC dedicated to gaming, gaming from a second Windows installation, or using a computer account with limited rights dedicated to gaming.

In July 2015, a bug in the software allowed anyone to reset the password to any account by using the "forgot password" function of the client. High-profile professional gamers and streamers lost access to their accounts. In December 2015, Steam's content delivery network was misconfigured in response to a DDoS attack, causing cached store pages containing personal information to be temporarily exposed for 34,000 users.

In April 2018, Valve added new privacy settings for Steam users, who are able to set if their current activity status is private, visible to friends only, or public; in addition to being able to hide their game lists, inventory, and other profile elements in a similar manner. While these changes brought Steam's privacy settings inline with approaches used by game console services, it also impacted third-party services such as Steam Spy, which relied on the public data to estimate Steam sales count.

Valve established a HackerOne bug bounty program in May 2018, a crowdsourced method to test and improve security features of the Steam client. In August 2019, a security researcher exposed a zero-day vulnerability in the Windows client of Steam, which allowed for any user to run arbitrary code with LocalSystem privileges using just a few simple commands. The vulnerability was then reported to Valve via the program, but it was initially rejected for being "out-of-scope". Following a second vulnerability found by the same user, Valve apologised and patched them both, and expanded the program's rules to accept any other similar problems in the future.

• User interface

Since November 2013, Steam has allowed for users to review their purchased games and organize them into categories set by the user and add to favorite lists for quick access. Players can add non-Steam games to their libraries, allowing the game to be easily accessed from the Steam client and providing support where possible for Steam Overlay features. The Steam interface allows for user-defined shortcuts to be added. In this way, third-party modifications and games not purchased through the Steam Store can use Steam features. Valve sponsors and distributes some modifications free of charge; and modifications that use Steamworks can also use VAC, Friends, the server browser, and any Steam features supported by their parent game. For most games launched from Steam, the client provides an in-game overlay that can be accessed by a keystroke. From the overlay, the user can access his or her Steam Community lists and participate in chat, manage selected Steam settings, and access a built-in web browser without having to exit the game. Since the beginning of February 2011 as a beta version, the overlay also allows players to take screenshots of the games in process; it automatically stores these and allows the player to review, delete, or share them during or after his or her game session. As a full version on February 24, 2011, this feature was reimplemented so that users could share screenshots on websites of Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit straight from a user's screenshot manager.

In-Home Streaming was introduced in May 2014; it allows users to stream games installed on one computer to another—regardless of platform—on the same home network with low latency. By June 2019, Valve renamed this feature to Remote Play, allowing users to stream games across devices that may be outside of their home network. Steam's "Remote Play Together", added in November 2019 after a month of beta testing, gives the ability for local multiplayer games to be played by people in disparate locations, though will not necessary resolve latency problems typical of these types of games. Remote Play Together was expanded in February 2021 to give the ability to invite non-Steam players to play though a Steam Link app approach.

The Steam client, as part of a social network service, allows users to identify friends and join groups using the Steam Community feature. Through the Steam Chat feature, users can use text chat and peer-to-peer VoIP with other users, identify which games their friends and other group members are playing, and join and invite friends to Steamworks-based multiplayer games that support this feature. Users can participate in forums hosted by Valve to discuss Steam games. Each user has a unique page that shows his or her groups and friends, game library including earned achievements, game wishlists, and other social features; users can choose to keep this information private. In January 2010, Valve reported that 10 million of the 25 million active Steam accounts had signed up to Steam Community. In conjunction with the 2012 Steam Summer Sale, user profiles were updated with Badges reflecting the user's participation in the Steam community and past events. Steam Trading Cards, a system where players earn virtual trading cards based on games they own, were introduced in May 2013. Using them, players can trade with other Steam users on the Steam Marketplace and use them to craft "Badges", which grant rewards such as game discount coupons, emoticons, and the ability to customize their user profile page. In 2010, the Steam client became an OpenID provider, allowing third-party websites to use a Steam user's identity without requiring the user to expose his or her Steam credentials. In order to prevent abuse, access to most community features is restricted until a one-time payment of at least US$5 is made to Valve. This requirement can be fulfilled by making any purchase of five dollars or more on Steam, or by adding at the same amount to their wallet.

Through Steamworks, Steam provides a means of server browsing for multiplayer games that use the Steam Community features, allowing users to create lobbies with friends or members of common groups. Steamworks also provides Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC), Valve's proprietary anti-cheat system; game servers automatically detect and report users who are using cheats in online, multiplayer games. In August 2012, Valve added new features—including dedicated hub pages for games that highlight the best user-created content, top forum posts, and screenshots—to the Community area. In December 2012, a feature where users can upload walkthroughs and guides detailing game strategy was added. Starting in January 2015, the Steam client allowed players to livestream to Steam friends or the public while playing games on the platform. For the main event of The International 2018 Dota 2 tournament, Valve launched Steam.tv as a major update to Steam Broadcasting, adding Steam chat and Steamworks integration for spectating matches played at the event. It has also been used for other events, such as a pre-release tournament for the digital card game Artifact and for The Game Awards 2018 and Steam Awards award shows.

In September 2014, Steam Music was added to the Steam client, allowing users to play through music stored on their computer or to stream from a locally networked computer directly in Steam. An update to the friends and chat system was released in July 2018, allowing for non-peer-to-peer chats integrated with voice chat and other features that were compared to Discord. A standalone mobile app based on this for Android and iOS was released in May 2019.

A major visual overhaul of the Library and game profile pages were released in October 2019. These redesigns are aimed to aid users to organize their games, help showcase what shared games a user's friends are playing, games that are being live-streamed, and new content that may be available, along with more customization options for sorting games. Associated with that, Valve gave developers means of communicating when special in-game events are approaching through Steam Events, which appear to players on the revamped Library and game profile pages.

A Steam Points system and storefront was added in June 2020, which mirrored similar temporary points systems that had been used in prior sales on the storefront. Users earn points through purchases on Steam or by receiving community recognition for helpful reviews or discussion comments. These points do not expire as they had in the prior sales, and can be redeemed in the separate storefront for cosmetics that apply to the user's profile and chat interface.

• Developer features

Valve provides developers the ability to create storefront pages for games ahead of time to help generate interest in their game ahead of release. This is also necessary to fix a release date that functions into Valve's "build review", a free service performed by Valve about a week before this release date to make sure the game can be installed and run, and other checks to make sure the game's launch is otherwise trouble-free. Recent updates related to Discovery queues have given developers more options for customizing their storefront page and how these pages integration with users' experiences with the Steam client.

Valve offers Steamworks, an application programming interface (API) that provides development and publishing tools to take advantage of Steam client's features, free-of-charge to game and software developers. Steamworks provides networking and player authentication tools for both server and peer-to-peer multiplayer games, matchmaking services, support for Steam community friends and groups, Steam statistics and achievements, integrated voice communications, and Steam Cloud support, allowing games to integrate with the Steam client. The API also provides anti-cheating devices and digital copy management. After introducing the Steam Controller and improvements to the Steam interface to support numerous customization options, the Steamworks API was also updated to provide a generic controller library for developers and these customization features for other third-party controllers, starting with the DualShock 4. Steam's API has since been updated to include official support for other console controllers such as the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, the Xbox Wireless Controller for the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles, and the PlayStation 5's DualSense, as well as compatible controllers from third-party manufacturers.

Developers of software available on Steam are able to track sales of their games through the Steam store. In February 2014, Valve announced that it would begin to allow developers to set up their own sales for their games independent of any sales that Valve may set. Valve may also work with developers to suggest their participation in sales on themed days.

Valve added the ability for developers to sell games under an early access model with a special section of the Steam store, starting in March 2013. This program allows for developers to release functional, but not finished, products such as beta versions to the service to allow users to buy the games and help provide testing and feedback towards the final production. Early access also helps to provide funding to the developers to help complete their games. The early access approach allowed more developers to publish games onto the Steam service without the need for Valve's direct curation of games, significantly increasing the number of available games on the service.

Developers are able to request Steam keys of their products to use as they see fit, such as to give away in promotions, to provide to selected users for review, or to give to key resellers for different profitization. Valve generally honors all such requests, but clarified that they would evaluate some requests to avoid giving keys to games or other offerings that are designed to manipulate the Steam storefront and other features. For example, Valve said that a request for 500,000 keys for a game that has significantly negative reviews and 1,000 sales on Steam is unlikely to be granted.

Valve enabled the ability for multiple developers to create bundles of games from their offerings without the need for Valve's staff to create these on their behalf in June 2021.

• Steam Workshop

The Steam Workshop is a Steam account-based hosting service for videogame user-created content. Depending on the title, new levels, art assets, gameplay modifications, or other content may be published to or installed from the Steam Workshop through an automated, online account-based process. The Workshop was originally used for distribution of new items for Team Fortress 2; it was redesigned to extend support for any game in early 2012, including modifications for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. A May 2012 patch for Portal 2, enabled by a new map-making tool through the Steam Workshop, introduced the ability to share user-created levels. Independently developed games, including Dungeons of Dredmor, are able to provide Steam Workshop support for user-generated content. Dota 2 became Valve's third published title available for the Steam Workshop in June 2012; its features include customizable accessories, character skins, and announcer packs. Workshop content may be monetized; Newell said that the Workshop was inspired by gold farming from World of Warcraft to find a way to incentive both players and content creators in video games, and which had informed them of their approach to Team Fortress 2 and their later multiplayer games.

By January 2015, Valve themselves had provided some user-developed Workshop content as paid-for features in Valve-developed games, including Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2; with over $57 million being paid to content creators using the Workshop. Valve began allowing developers to use these advanced features in January 2015; both the developer and content generator share the profits of the sale of these items; the feature went live in April 2015, starting with various mods for Skyrim. This feature was pulled a few days afterward following negative user feedback and reports of pricing and copyright misuse. Six months later, Valve stated they were still interested in offering this type of functionality in the future, but would review the implementation to avoid these previous mistakes. In November 2015, the Steam client was updated with the ability for game developers to offer in-game items for direct sale via the store interface, with Rust being the first game to use the feature.

• Steam for Schools

Steam for Schools (discontinued) was function-limited version of the Steam client that was available free of charge for use in schools. It was part of Valve's initiative to support gamification of learning for classroom instruction. It was released alongside free versions of Portal 2 and a standalone program called "Puzzle Maker" that allowed teachers and students to create and manipulate levels. It featured additional authentication security that allowed teachers to share and distribute content via a Steam Workshop-type interface, but blocks access from students.

• SteamVR

SteamVR is a virtual reality hardware and software platform developed by Valve, with a focus on allowing "room-scale" experiences using positional tracking base stations, as opposed to those requiring the player to stay in a singular location. SteamVR was first introduced for the Oculus Rift headset in 2014, and later expanded to support other virtual reality headsets, such as the HTC Vive and Valve Index. Though released for support on Windows, macOS, and Linux, Valve dropped macOS support for SteamVR in May 2020.

Nivea (German pronunciation: [niˈveːa]) is a German personal care brand that specializes in skin and body-care. It is owned by the Hamburg-based company Beiersdorf Global AG. The company was founded on 28 March 1882, by Paul Carl Beiersdorf. In 1890, it was sold to Oscar Troplowitz. Troplowitz working with Beiersdorf's associate, Dr Paul Gerson Unna, and the German chemist Isaac Lifschütz, developed a new skin care cream. In 1900, Lifschütz developed the first stable water-in-oil emulsion, Eucerit. This was the origin of Eucerin. Nivea comes from the Latin adjective niveus, nivea, niveum, meaning "snow-white".

During the 1930s, Beiersdorf produced various products such as tanning oils, shaving creams, shampoo, facial cleanser, and toners. In World War II, the trademark "NIVEA" was expropriated in many countries. After the war, Beiersdorf bought the rights back. During the 1980s, the NIVEA brand expanded into a wider global market.

Timeline

Before World War I

1882: Paul Carl Beiersdorf established the company on March 28. NIVEA originated in Germany. The date of the patent document for the manufacture of medical plasters is taken as the date of the company’s formation.

Beiersdorf produced gutta-percha plasters in his laboratory on the basis of his patent, laying the foundations for modern plaster technology.

1890: Pharmacist Oskar Troplowitz (born in 1863 in the Prussian City of Gleiwitz - now Gliwice, Poland) took over the company.

1893: The first international cooperation agreement was concluded with U.S. trading company Lehn & Fink for the U.S.

1900: Patent application for Eucerit, an emulsifying agent. Eucerit was the basis for Eucerin and, later on, for NIVEA Creme.

1906: The first overseas branch was established in London.

1909: Labello was launched on the market. It was the first lip care product in sliding tube packaging. The term Labello is derived from Latin for "beautiful lip" (labea = lip; bello = beautiful).

1911: NIVEA Creme – the first stable water-in-oil emulsion – was introduced. The emulsifying agent Eucerit is made from lanolin, found in sheep's wool, and is the key to NIVEA Creme's unique properties.

1918: The deaths of Oskar Troplowitz and his partner Otto Hanns Mankiewicz resulted in the formation of a formal company on June 1, 1922.

1920s

1922: Willy Jacobsohn took over as Chairman of the Executive Board of the newly formed stock corporation. The first self-adhesive plaster was introduced under the name Hansaplast.

In 1925, NIVEA remodeled its cream in a blue tin with a white logo.

1925: NIVEA is relaunched in blue packaging.

1928: Beiersdorf shares were listed on the Hamburg stock exchange for the first time. Over 20 production sites worldwide were already in operation.

Nazi period in Germany and aftermath

1933: Under pressure of National Socialist propaganda, the Jewish members of the Executive Board stepped down. Willy Jacobsohn, the former Chairman of the Executive Board, headed the foreign affiliates from Amsterdam until 1938.

By adopting a policy of "honorable tactics", the Beiersdorf Executive Board, under the leadership of Carl Claussen, steered the company through the Nazi period. Although Beiersdorf retained its own business culture, it still cooperated with the regime.

1936: tesafilm, an innovative transparent adhesive film, was launched.

1941: tesa was introduced as the umbrella brand for self-adhesive technology.

During World War II, The marketing manager Elly Heuss-Knapp distanced the brand from Nazi ideology. In 1949 her husband Theodor Heuss became first President of the Federal Republic of Germany.

1945: At the end of the Second World War, most of the Hamburg production plants and administrative buildings in Hamburg were destroyed during bombing in WW2.

1945–1949: Most of the affiliates and the international trademarks in almost all countries, in particular in the USA, the UK and the Commonwealth, and France, are lost. The Beiersdorf company began to regain its trademarks again.

Rest of 20th century

1950: ph5 Eucerin was launched on the market. This innovative ointment focuses on the importance of the skin’s own natural protective acid barrier in maintaining good skin health.

1951: The first deodorizing soap was introduced under the name of 8x4. The brand was extended into a product family during the 1950s and 1960s.

1955: Beiersdorf launched a protective hand cream on the market under the name of atrix.

1963: NIVEA milk, liquid NIVEA Creme in the form of water-in-oil emulsion, was introduced "for all-over body care".

1974: Beiersdorf diversified its business and introduced a divisional structure. At this time, the divisions are cosmed, medical, pharma and tesa.

1982: Start of steady expansion of NIVEA as a brand for skin and body care through large number of subbrands with international focus. Introduction of NIVEA Gesicht (face) in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

1989: Change of strategy: Start of the implementation of a strategic re-orientation process focusing on the core competencies of skin care, wound care and adhesive technology.

1990: Acquisition of the Juvena brand, developed by the Divapharma pharmaceutical laboratory, founded in 1945 in Zurich.

1991: Acquisition of the La Prairie brand, originated in the famous La Prairie clinic in Montreux, Switzerland.

1992: Launch of NIVEA's Blue Harmony advertising campaign. It was placed the last time in 2005.

1995: Acquisition of the Futuro brand. The company was founded in Ohio, USA in 1917 by Georg Jung, a German, and produced bandages right from the start. The "Futuro" brand with its black and yellow packaging was born in 1936.

1999: The company's strategy is streamlined further to focus on a few strong consumer brands. Professional wound care and self-adhesive technology were given the opportunity to introduce their own organizational structures.

Twenty-first century

2001: The new strategy enabled tesa to become an independent affiliate. Tesa AG was formed as a wholly owned affiliate of Beiersdorf, enabling it to react more flexibly to consumers and industrial customers.

Professional wound care was spun off in line with the new strategy and contributed to a joint venture between Beiersdorf and Smith & Nephew. BSN medical, domiciled in Hamburg, was founded.

2002: Florena became a wholly owned Beiersdorf subsidiary. The cooperation dates back to 1989, and was intensified following the reunification of Germany.

2003: A new functional group organization focusing on the areas of brands, supply chain management, finance and human resources replaced the previous divisional organization

2004: The new skin research center opened in Hamburg, underscoring the innovative strength of the globally successful Beiersdorf group.

2008: NIVEA began to sponsor the Times Square New Year's Ball Drop starting with the December 31, 2008 event, along with Carson's Countdown on New Year's Eve with Carson Daly.

2010: NIVEA launched its new product, NIVEA Happiness Sensation, featuring the song "Touch" by singer-songwriter Natasha Bedingfield in the commercial.

2011: NIVEA celebrates its "100 Years of Skincare" festivities featuring several performances by Barbadian singer and actress Rihanna. Rihanna's song "California King Bed" was featured as a part of the "100 Years of Skincare" commercial campaign.

Controversies

In 2011, NIVEA was fined $900,000 by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for falsely claiming that consumers could slim down by regularly applying NIVEA My Silhouette! cream to their skin. The same year, NIVEA published a world map on its website that omitted Israel; Simon Wiesenthal Center protests.

In June, 2019, marketing and media industry journal Ad Age reported on June 26, 2019 that FCB, Nivea’s long-time ad agency, had ended its relationship with the company. Among the primary reasons cited was NIVEA's rejection of a proposed ad that featured two men's hands touching because, according to a NIVEA executive, “we don't do gay at NIVEA.” Crain's Chicago Business reported that FCB had ended the relationship of more than a century. Noting that the breakup occurred at the end of Gay pride month, Crain's noted that FCB would be forgoing the management of NIVEA's $21.8 million U.S. advertising budget. It represented 1% of FCB's revenue globally.

Stephen Hawking, in full Stephen William Hawking, (born January 8, 1942, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England—died March 14, 2018, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire), English theoretical physicist whose theory of exploding black holes drew upon both relativity theory and quantum mechanics. He also worked with space-time singularities.

Hawking studied physics at University College, Oxford (B.A., 1962), and Trinity Hall, Cambridge (Ph.D., 1966). He was elected a research fellow at Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge. In the early 1960s Hawking contracted amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an incurable degenerative neuromuscular disease. He continued to work despite the disease’s progressively disabling effects.

Hawking worked primarily in the field of general relativity and particularly on the physics of black holes. In 1971 he suggested the formation, following the big bang, of numerous objects containing as much as one billion tons of mass but occupying only the space of a proton. These objects, called mini black holes, are unique in that their immense mass and gravity require that they be ruled by the laws of relativity, while their minute size requires that the laws of quantum mechanics apply to them also. In 1974 Hawking proposed that, in accordance with the predictions of quantum theory, black holes emit subatomic particles until they exhaust their energy and finally explode. Hawking’s work greatly spurred efforts to theoretically delineate the properties of black holes, objects about which it was previously thought that nothing could be known. His work was also important because it showed these properties’ relationship to the laws of classical thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.

Hawking’s contributions to physics earned him many exceptional honours. In 1974 the Royal Society elected him one of its youngest fellows. He became professor of gravitational physics at Cambridge in 1977, and in 1979 he was appointed to Cambridge’s Lucasian professorship of mathematics, a post once held by Isaac Newton. Hawking was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1982 and a Companion of Honour in 1989. He also received the Copley Medal from the Royal Society in 2006 and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. In 2008 he accepted a visiting research chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

His publications included The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time (1973; coauthored with G.F.R. Ellis), Superspace and Supergravity (1981), The Very Early Universe (1983), and the best sellers A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (1988), The Universe in a Nutshell (2001), A Briefer History of Time (2005), and The Grand Design (2010; coauthored with Leonard Mlodinow).

In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus and Pompey formed the First Triumvirate, a political alliance that dominated Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power as Populares were opposed by the Optimates within the Roman Senate, among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar rose to become one of the most powerful politicians in the Roman Republic through a string of military victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, which greatly extended Roman territory. During this time he both invaded Britain and built a bridge across the Rhine river. These achievements and the support of his veteran army threatened to eclipse the standing of Pompey, who had realigned himself with the Senate after the death of Crassus in 53 BC. With the Gallic Wars concluded, the Senate ordered Caesar to step down from his military command and return to Rome. In 49 BC, Caesar openly defied the Senate's authority by crossing the Rubicon and marching towards Rome at the head of an army.[2] This began Caesar's civil war, which he won, leaving him in a position of near unchallenged power and influence in 45 BC.

After assuming control of government, Caesar began a program of social and governmental reforms, including the creation of the Julian calendar. He gave citizenship to many residents of far regions of the Roman Republic. He initiated land reform and support for veterans. He centralized the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed "dictator for life" (dictator perpetuo). His populist and authoritarian reforms angered the elites, who began to conspire against him. On the Ides of March (15 March), 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated by a group of rebellious senators led by Brutus and Cassius, who stabbed him to death.[3][4] A new series of civil wars broke out and the constitutional government of the Republic was never fully restored. Caesar's great-nephew and adopted heir Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to sole power after defeating his opponents in the last civil war of the Roman Republic. Octavian set about solidifying his power, and the era of the Roman Empire began.

Caesar was an accomplished author and historian as well as a statesman; much of his life is known from his own accounts of his military campaigns. Other contemporary sources include the letters and speeches of Cicero and the historical writings of Sallust. Later biographies of Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch are also important sources. Caesar is considered by many historians to be one of the greatest military commanders in history.[5] His cognomen was subsequently adopted as a synonym for "Emperor"; the title "Caesar" was used throughout the Roman Empire, giving rise to modern cognates such as Kaiser and Tsar. He has frequently appeared in literary and artistic works, and his political philosophy, known as Caesarism, inspired politicians into the modern era.

Gaius Julius Caesar (Latin: [ˈɡaːiʊs ˈjuːliʊs ˈkae̯sar]; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator of Rome from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus and Pompey formed the First Triumvirate, a political alliance that dominated Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power as Populares were opposed by the Optimates within the Roman Senate, among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar rose to become one of the most powerful politicians in the Roman Republic through a string of military victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, which greatly extended Roman territory. During this time he both invaded Britain and built a bridge across the Rhine river. These achievements and the support of his veteran army threatened to eclipse the standing of Pompey, who had realigned himself with the Senate after the death of Crassus in 53 BC. With the Gallic Wars concluded, the Senate ordered Caesar to step down from his military command and return to Rome. In 49 BC, Caesar openly defied the Senate's authority by crossing the Rubicon and marching towards Rome at the head of an army.[2] This began Caesar's civil war, which he won, leaving him in a position of near unchallenged power and influence in 45 BC.

After assuming control of government, Caesar began a program of social and governmental reforms, including the creation of the Julian calendar. He gave citizenship to many residents of far regions of the Roman Republic. He initiated land reform and support for veterans. He centralized the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed "dictator for life" (dictator perpetuo). His populist and authoritarian reforms angered the elites, who began to conspire against him. On the Ides of March (15 March), 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated by a group of rebellious senators led by Brutus and Cassius, who stabbed him to death.[3][4] A new series of civil wars broke out and the constitutional government of the Republic was never fully restored. Caesar's great-nephew and adopted heir Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to sole power after defeating his opponents in the last civil war of the Roman Republic. Octavian set about solidifying his power, and the era of the Roman Empire began.

Caesar was an accomplished author and historian as well as a statesman; much of his life is known from his own accounts of his military campaigns. Other contemporary sources include the letters and speeches of Cicero and the historical writings of Sallust. Later biographies of Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch are also important sources. Caesar is considered by many historians to be one of the greatest military commanders in history.[5] His cognomen was subsequently adopted as a synonym for "Emperor"; the title "Caesar" was used throughout the Roman Empire, giving rise to modern cognates such as Kaiser and Tsar. He has frequently appeared in literary and artistic works, and his political philosophy, known as Caesarism, inspired politicians into the modern era.