and the distribution of digital products.
Understanding Swan Chain: A Comprehensive Overview
- Swan Chain aims to integrate crypto with AI by providing a comprehensive ecosystem that includes solutions for storage, computing, bandwidth, and payments. By tapping into underutilized computing power across a network of community data centers, its integration facilitates a reduction in computing costs by up to 70% while enabling the monetization of dormant computing assets.
- Swan Chain is built as an optimistic rollup using the OP Stack and is backed by Binance Labs, Chainlink, Filecoin, and Optimism. It integrates Kubernetes for container orchestration and incorporates zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs to enhance privacy and security.
- The SWAN token TGE was on December 16, 2024. It serves multiple purposes within the network, including for pricing for computing resources, payments, collateral for computing providers, network incentives, and governance participation.
- Swan Chain has successfully raised capital through multiple funding rounds, securing investment from over 20 investors. Notable backers include Chainlink Labs, Outlier Ventures, YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs), LD Capital, SNZ Holding, Protocol Labs, and FBG Capital.
- Charles Cao, Swan Chain’s Founder and CEO, brings 17 years of development experience, 7 years in blockchain, and mentorship roles at Filecoin, Techstars, and Outlier Ventures.
AI is one of the most transformative technologies of our time, yet access to the necessary compute remains a major challenge due to high costs. Blockchain and decentralized networks offer a solution by enabling access to distributed, secure, and cost-efficient computing resources. The intersection of AI and crypto has given rise to a number of categories, including decentralized compute, inference, AI agents, and data generation markets, creating alternatives to traditional AI infrastructure.
Founded in 2021 by Charles Cao, Swan Chain was designed to address these challenges. Originally launched as FilSwan, it evolved into an Ethereum Layer-2 (L2) built on the OP Stack. Swan Chain integrates decentralized storage, computing, bandwidth, and payments to lower AI deployment costs by up to 70% using underutilized computing resources from a global network of data centers.
Beyond cost reduction, Swan Chain provides essential developer tools to simplify AI and blockchain integration. Its ecosystem includes Lagrange, an all-in-one decentralized computing platform; Multi-Chain Storage for cross-chain storage; and the Swan SDK for seamless interaction with its infrastructure. Supported by investors like Binance Labs and Protocol Labs, Swan Chain has positioned itself as a critical infrastructure provider for decentralized AI and Web3 applications.
BackgroundTeam- Charles Cao (Founder and CEO) – Charles Cao is the Founder and CEO of Swan Chain. With over 17 years of experience in development management and more than 7 years in blockchain entrepreneurship, he brings extensive technical expertise to the project. He has held senior engineering roles at major corporations such as IBM, SAP, Autodesk, and Expedia. Additionally, he has served as a Filecoin Ambassador, Techstars Accelerator Mentor, and the mentor of Outlier Ventures Base Camp. His expertise lies in blockchain technology, particularly in Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum smart contracts.
- Jean-Luc Pellerin (Head of Global BD) – Jean-Luc Pellerin is responsible for global business development at Swan Chain. He is the Co-Founder and COO of Dunes Agency and a Co-Founder of Web3MTL, where he drives global community growth, event organization, and content creation. He also serves as an Avalanche Ambassador. With a diverse background as an investor, project manager, and board member, Jean-Luc plays a key role in expanding Swan Chain’s global presence and strategic partnerships.
Swan Chain has successfully raised capital through several fundraising rounds:
- Pre-Seed Round – June 2021: Swan Chain raised $1 million in its pre-seed round, led by Waterdrip Capital, Protocol Labs, FBG Capital, and Chain VC.
- Seed Round – June 2022: Swan Chain secured $1 million in its seed round, with Binance Labs and SNZ Holding as lead investors.
- Private Round & KOL Round – May 2023: A combined private and KOL round raised $1 million, led by SNZ Holding, Gate.io, and Outlier Ventures.
- Grant & Series A Funding – October 2024: Swan Chain secured a total of $2 million in funding, which includes an Optimism grant of OP tokens valued at approximately $850,000 at the time of distribution, along with additional investment from undisclosed investors.
Swan Chain aims to integrate crypto with AI by providing a comprehensive ecosystem that includes solutions for storage, computing, bandwidth, and payments. It is designed to facilitate the deployment and scaling of AI models efficiently, reducing computing costs significantly (up to 70%) by leveraging underutilized compute from a global network of community data centers. Its AI Agent Market and toolsets, including inference and development tools, aim to establish Swan Chain as a leading AI blockchain. According to Jarod Zhao, co-founder of Swan Chain's partner Nebula Block, utilizing the Swan Chain network reduces AI inference costs by 50%.
Built as an optimistic rollup using the OP Stack, Swan Chain enhances scalability and transaction efficiency. It integrates Kubernetes for container orchestration, ensuring seamless management of computational tasks across the network. Additionally, it employs zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs to enhance privacy and security in transactions and computing tasks.
Key Features- Decentralized AI Computing Marketplace – Swan Chain establishes a marketplace that connects AI developers with the computational resources needed to train and deploy advanced AI models on platforms like Lagrange.
- Infrastructure for Crypto Projects – Providing essential infrastructure for protocols, Swan Chain supports crypto development with decentralized storage, computing power, and services.
- Ecosystem Solutions – Swan Chain introduces a suite of products, including:
- MultiChain.storage – A decentralized data storage solution.
- Lagrange – An all-in-one decentralized computing platform for natural language processing development and deployment.
- Decentralized Task Orchestrator – A system for efficiently managing computing tasks across the network.
- Universal Basic Income (UBI) Model – Swan Chain implements a UBI model for computing providers, ensuring fair and sustainable compensation for their contributions while fostering inclusivity within the network.
Swan Chain operates on a multi-layered architecture. The protocol stack consists of several integrated components, each fulfilling a crucial role in the network's operation.
Consensus LayerThe consensus layer is responsible for maintaining the security and integrity of the network by validating transactions, ensuring data availability, and providing finality. Swan Chain uses Ethereum L1 as the foundation for security and finality, while the OP Stack L2 handles scalability and offchain processing. Additionally, Swan Chain can support L3s.
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) NetworkSwan Chain leverages a decentralized P2P network to facilitate efficient node discovery, communication, and coordination. This enables distributed storage and computing, ensuring high fault tolerance and minimizing central points of failure.
Payment ChannelsSwan Chain’s payment channels enable fast and cost-effective micropayments between clients and computing providers. By utilizing smart contracts, transactions can be conducted offchain and settled onchain only when necessary, significantly reducing transaction costs and improving efficiency. Swan Chain Payment Channels are used to pay for computing resources, AI model training, storage, and other services.
Service DiscoverySwan Chain incorporates a decentralized service discovery mechanism, enabling participants to locate and utilize available computing resources in a seamless manner. By leveraging a peer-to-peer network and decentralized naming systems, the platform ensures efficient resource allocation without reliance on centralized intermediaries.
Market ProviderMarket Providers act as intermediaries that supply computational and storage resources to the network. They support dataset management through storage solutions, facilitate network distribution tasks for content delivery networks, and enable high-performance computing for AI model training, ZK-proof generation, and complex computational workloads.
Storage LayerThe storage layer integrates multiple decentralized storage solutions to ensure data persistence, security, and accessibility. IPFS provides distributed file storage for efficient data sharing. Filecoin offers long-term data archival solutions, ensuring secure and verifiable storage. BNB Greenfield serves as a flexible data management platform that enhances support for decentralized applications, allowing seamless and scalable data storage within the Swan Chain ecosystem.
Computing LayerThe computing layer is at the core of Swan Chain’s AI-driven infrastructure. It facilitates the decentralized execution of computing tasks by enabling:
- Task submission and bidding: Clients can post computational tasks, allowing providers to bid based on availability and performance.
- Efficient task execution: Computation is distributed among trusted computing nodes, ensuring reliability and optimal workload management.
- Cross-chain payment processing: Enables multi-token transactions, allowing interoperability with various blockchain ecosystems.
Swan Chain provides a suite of developer tools designed to streamline crypto and AI development. These tools offer decentralized solutions for storage, computing, and application deployment, enabling developers to build, deploy, and manage AI and blockchain applications. Below are the key components of the Swan Chain developer ecosystem.
Lagrange: All-In-One Decentralized Computing PlatformLagrange is an all-in-one decentralized computing platform. Built on the Swan Chain computing network, it offers a cost-effective alternative to centralized cloud services, enhances security, and ensures interoperability. Lagrange provides a decentralized infrastructure for AI tasks, enabling AI developers to build and deploy models efficiently while benefiting from the security and scalability of Swan Chain.
Multi-Chain Storage (MCS)Multi-Chain Storage is a cross-chain compatible decentralized storage service. It integrates smart contract functionality to enhance security and provide a scalable solution for storing blockchain-related data. With its decentralized architecture, MCS enables seamless storage operations across multiple blockchain ecosystems.
Swan SDKThe Swan SDK is a developer-friendly toolkit that simplifies interactions with the Swan Chain Network. It allows developers to create and manage computational tasks, retrieve hardware information, process payments, and monitor task statuses. The SDK supports multiple programming languages and provides integration with Swan Chain's infrastructure.
TokenomicsSWAN Overview
SWAN is the native utility token of Swan Chain. The SWAN TGE was on December 16, 2024. It serves multiple purposes within the network:
- Payment: SWAN tokens are used to pay for computing resources within the Swan Chain network. Users requiring computational power for AI tasks use SWAN to compensate computing providers.
- Collateral for Providers: Computing Providers (Fog Computing Providers and Edge Computing Providers) must stake SWAN tokens as collateral to participate in the network. This staking mechanism ensures commitment and mitigates risks associated with fraudulent activities. Collateral can be slashed if tasks are not completed according to the network's rules.
- Incentivizing Participation: The token encourages network participation through mechanisms such as airdrops, staking rewards, and governance incentives.
- Governance: SWAN token holders can participate in governance, allowing them to influence the development and policies of the Swan Chain network.
The total supply of SWAN tokens is capped at 1 billion, with no plans for additional issuance. Tokens are distributed according to specific allocations:
- Early Purchasers (20%; 200 million) — Used to fund initial development and expansion. At the TGE, 1.8% (18 million tokens) were unlocked, with the remaining distributed linearly over 4–8 quarters after a 6-month cliff.
- DAO Treasury (20%; 200 million) — Manages network operations, governance initiatives, legal costs, and strategic investments. At TGE, 2% (20 million tokens) were unlocked, with the rest distributed linearly over 40 quarters.
- Ecosystem Fund (25%; 250 million) — Supports developer grants, partnerships, and ecosystem expansion. At TGE, 4% (40 million tokens) were unlocked, with the remaining distributed linearly over 16 quarters.
- Core Contributors (15%; 150 million) — Reserved for project developers and contributors. No tokens were unlocked at TGE, and distribution will occur linearly over 12 quarters after a 6-month cliff.
- Airdrops (20%; 200 million) — Incentivizes early adopters, boosts community engagement, and rewards computing providers. At TGE, 2% (20 million tokens) were unlocked, with the remaining distributed linearly over 32 quarters. 10% of the total supply is allocated for computing providers, with an annual airdrop rate not exceeding 10% of the current circulating supply.
The SWAN token is used for Swan Chain governance participation. Community members must stake tokens to participate in governance decisions. Active participants may receive governance rewards, such as 1% of the DAO Treasury, to encourage engagement and informed decision-making.
Market Capitalization
As of the time of writing, SWAN is priced at $0.042. It has a circulating market capitalization of $4.2 million and a fully diluted market capitalization of $42 million.
SWAN is currently available for trading on Gate.io, MEXC, and LBank.
StakingSwanFi was launched on January 6, 2025. Users who stake SWAN tokens into their smart contract receive fSwan, a tokenized representation of their stake. Rewards accumulate over time and must go through an unstaking period. SwanFi introduced an OP Reward Pool to incentivize SWAN token holders by rewarding them with OP tokens.
At the time of writing, SwanFi offers an APR of 19.6%, has 11 million SWAN staked ($286,000), and has 110 total stakers.
Governance OverviewThe SWAN DAO Governance is critical to the network, ensuring decentralized, transparent, and community-driven decision-making. It oversees strategic management, treasury allocations, and network policies. The governance model is structured around several key components:
Committee StructureThe governance committee consists of representatives from various stakeholder groups, including SWAN token holders, core developers, builders, and other contributors. Committee members are elected through a transparent voting process.
Decision-Making ProcessAny SWAN community member can submit proposals related to protocol upgrades, budget allocations, or strategic initiatives. Proposals undergo a voting process where outcomes are determined by the majority, with voting weight potentially influenced by factors such as token holdings and tenure in the community. Once approved, proposals move into the implementation phase under the supervision of relevant teams.
Transparency and Community EngagementGovernance decisions, financial transactions, and votes are recorded onchain for complete transparency. Regular reports keep the community informed about financial allocations, governance decisions, and other relevant updates. Multiple channels such as forums, town halls, and social platforms facilitate ongoing feedback and engagement.
Treasury ManagementThe SWAN Treasure DAO manages the network's treasury. Treasury funds are strategically allocated to:
- Collateral Rewards: Distributed to SWAN token holders who lock up their tokens, ensuring network security and long-term commitment.
- Investment Initiatives: Funds from collateral are deployed into vetted investment opportunities aligned with Swan Chain’s objectives, aiming for financial sustainability.
- Community Building: Resources are allocated for outreach campaigns, educational programs, and ecosystem expansion efforts.
- Universal Basic Income (UBI): Ensures a steady income stream for network nodes and providers.
- Network Tasks & Creator Grants: Supports ongoing activity within the network by incentivizing job creators and maintaining ecosystem activity.
Since launching on mainnet in mid-2024, Swan Chain has established a growing ecosystem and formed strategic partnerships with both native protocols and leading projects in crypto. With over 150 collaborators spanning AI, machine learning, DeFi, DePIN, and Social, Swan Chain is positioning itself as a key player in the decentralized computing landscape.
Key Partners- Superbridge – Facilitates seamless bridging of ETH and other tokens between supported rollups, ensuring smooth cross-chain transfers.
- Chainnode – Provides high-speed downloads of the latest blockchain snapshots, optimizing node synchronization and blockchain data accessibility.
- Nebula Block – A leading AI cloud computing provider in North America, serving public companies and Web3 AI startups. Key partners include NVIDIA, HPE, Dell, and Filecoin. Swan Chain, as Nebula Block’s primary compute provider, has secured a 100,000-hour GPU compute contract with the company.
- Filecoin – Enables decentralized AI infrastructure by integrating scalable compute with censorship-resistant storage.
- Parasail Network – Supports staking mechanisms and enhances Swan Chain’s sustainable token economic cycle.
- Chainlink – Integrates Chainlink price feeds to help secure multi-chain storage payments.
- Gaszip – Optimizes gas efficiency across Swan Chain transactions, improving cost-effectiveness and usability.
- Lagrange – Provides data sharing and analytic spaces for Decentralized Science (DeSci).
- Multi-Chain Storage – A storage service that works with multiple blockchain networks.
Swan Chain’s GPU network continues to expand, providing computational resources for AI and decentralized applications. In early January, the network displayed nearly 1,000 available GPUs, with over 160 actively in use. However, a change in the methodology for tracking computing provider (CP) and GPU data led to a reduction in reported available GPUs. Previously, the dashboard included all computing provider resources, including historical and intermittently online GPUs. The updated methodology now only counts GPUs that are consistently online every day, excluding expired or unstable GPUs from the total. As a result, the latest figures show 330 available GPUs, with 96 currently utilized.
Swan Chain’s network of computing providers spans multiple continents, ensuring a decentralized and geographically distributed network. As shown in the map, computing providers are located across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. This distribution enhances network resilience, reduces latency for users worldwide, and reinforces Swan Chain’s commitment to decentralization.
Swan Chain experienced moderate activity during its first quarter on mainnet. However, in mid-September, network activity surged, peaking at over 65,000 daily active addresses and 225,000 daily transactions, driven by the testnet and mainnet campaigns. Since launch, Swan Chain has maintained an average of 10,000 daily active addresses and 64,000 daily transactions.
RoadmapSwan Chain continues its expansion and development in 2025 with a focus on network infrastructure, governance, and ecosystem growth. In the first quarter, Swan Chain will integrate OP Stack Fault Proofs to enhance network security and reliability. Additionally, OP Grant Allocation will distribute funding to projects leveraging Swan Chain's infrastructure to foster innovation. The release of the AI Agent SDK will provide developers with tools for AI agent integration, while the Swan Spring Hackathon will encourage community-driven development and applications.
In the second quarter, the Proxima Chain Upgrade will bring significant improvements in scalability, performance, and interoperability. The Swan VC Initiative will launch to support startups and projects building within the ecosystem. Additionally, the integration of a decentralized Content Delivery Network will optimize data distribution and accessibility, and the introduction of the Swan App Marketplace will create a hub for AI and crypto applications powered by Swan Chain infrastructure.
Closing SummarySwan Chain is positioning itself at the forefront of decentralized AI infrastructure by bridging the gap between blockchain technology and the growing demand for accessible, cost-efficient computing resources. By integrating decentralized storage, computing, bandwidth, and payments within a single ecosystem, Swan Chain offers a comprehensive platform designed to lower the barriers to AI development while enhancing network transparency and resilience.
With over 150 collaborating projects across AI, DeFi, DePIN, and Social sectors, Swan Chain has built an ecosystem that fosters innovation and supports a wide range of decentralized applications. Its global network of computing providers ensures a geographically distributed infrastructure capable of delivering low-latency, cost-effective computational power for AI and crypto applications.
As Swan Chain moves through 2025, its focus on governance decentralization, ecosystem expansion, and infrastructure enhancements will further solidify its position as a critical player in decentralized computing.