Harmony is a blockchain platform established in 2017 by Stephen Tse, who has Ph.D. in cryptographic protocols and type theory.
This project claims to have tackled the blockchain trilemma of scalability, security and decentralization by introducing sharding and staking on the mainnet. Sharding is proven to scale blockchains without compromising security and decentralization while simultaneously reducing node validation times.
Harmony has also introduced the Effective Proof-of-Stake (EPoS) that reduces centralization as it supports its stake delegation, reward compounding and double-sign slashing. Harmony aims to build an open network of nodes operated and governed by a large community.
The issue of security is addressed through Verifiable Random Function (VRF) which ensures randomized assignment of validators and nodes by providing random shard memberships.
In 2020 the Foundation introduced Harmony Grants where 154.2M tokens are allocated per month for the development of the Harmony mainnet. Currently, there are 12 grantees working on their projects.