Dock is building a gateway to Web3 by providing simple solutions for businesses and developers to build, manage, and present digital Verifiable Credentials and decentralized identities using blockchain.

Dock provides credentialing technology that can be used to create cryptographically secure and instantly verifiable digital credentials, including workforce certificates, academic achievements, identity documents, and KYC checks.

Since 2017, Dock has been building Decentralized Identity and Verifiable Credentials (VC) technology, which will act as a gateway to Web3 in the future. We have been collaborating with organizations to adapt and innovate in the Web3 ecosystem by helping them understand the true ownership of their data and making their documents, certificates, and credentials become digital, tamper-proof, and instantly verifiable. Web3 is about data ownership and by using Dock’s technology, individuals can now truly own and control their most important documents and regain control over their data.

## What is Dock Blockchain?
Dock’s blockchain provides an open-source, decentralized, and low-cost platform for organizations and developers to build Decentralized Identity and data applications for the Web3.
Everyone using Web3 will need their own Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) which are globally unique identifiers made up of a string of letters and numbers that is stored on the blockchain. DIDs enable people to securely sign-into websites and apps without revealing unnecessary information, fully own and control their digital identity, and prevent user tracking. The Dock blockchain serves as the entry point with a protocol layer for all things Web3. Their blockchain-based credentialing system complies with W3C standards.
Dock runs its own validator network and the blockchain is built on Substrate (which is the same framework used throughout the Polkadot ecosystem). It uses the consensus mechanism offered by Substrate, which is a hybrid as it separates block production and finality and achieves them through different methods. The blockchain has the same consensus and governance mechanism as Polkadot.

## Who are in Dock's Team?

The team is led by Nick Lambert and Elina Cadouri who come with a wealth of experience in the blockchain and data tech industry. Nick, CEO at Dock, has been working in the blockchain industry since 2011 and was the COO of one of the earliest companies working in the Blockchain space, MaidSafe. Elina, COO of Dock, has remarkable experience in the data network industry. Lead Developer Lovesh Harchandani is an expert in the Verifiable Credentials and Decentralized Identity industry creating one of the most innovative solutions at Dock.

## What are the utilities of Dock token?
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DOCK is the native utility on the Dock mainnet, it is used as:
1. An integrated payment mechanism for performing network operations including: the creation of decentralized identities (DIDs), issuing credentials, creating schemas and more.
2. Emission rewards for validators who provide their resources to the network by producing blocks and confirming transactions.
3. Decentralized governance, DOCK will be utilized to manage changes to the network. How the mainnet is run and by whom will be decided on by voting, and Dock tokens will be the mechanism by which members of the network will vote.


## How Many Dock Tokens Are There in Circulation?

Dock launched its mainnet on September 30th, 2020. DOCK has a fixed total supply of 1 billion tokens and at the time of writing around 800 million of these are in circulation with the general public. 150 million tokens were set aside at the launch of the network to be distributed as emission rewards (to the treasury and validators) over the next 15 years. The remaining tokens are held by the Dock treasury and will be used to fund the ongoing development, marketing and adoption of the network.