Harmony

Harmony is a blockchain with state sharding and peer-to-peer networking features. Its sharding utilizes proof-of-stake and decentralized randomness, and its networking enables cross-shard routing and block propagation.

The blockchain assists businesses in creating marketplaces of fungible tokens, like energy credits and loyalty points, and non-fungible assets, like game collectibles and real estate. Harmony is applying zero-knowledge proofs for data sharing. Industry use cases include ad exchanges, credit ratings, and other data consortia.

Harmony utilizes the Verifiable Random Function (VRF) for shard membership. Nodes and validators are randomly assigned and re-assigned. The blockchain's Horizon bridge enables crypto holders to move assets between Harmony's network and the Ethereum network, Binance Chain, and Bitcoin. In June 2022, after two of five validator nodes were compromised, Harmony's bridge was exploited for about $100 million in altcoins, which the hacker then swapped for Ethereum.