XDC Network (XDC) is the native token of the XDC Network, a blockchain built for trade finance, payments and the tokenization of business assets such as invoices and trade documents. XDC pays transaction fees, is staked by validators to secure the chain, and is held and traded as a cryptocurrency. Fees on the network are a tiny fraction of a cent.
The network was created by XinFin, a Singapore-based project, and was known as XinFin Network until a rebrand around 2021; the token's older name, XinFin, still appears on some exchanges. The chain is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), so it runs the same smart contracts as Ethereum, but it is a separate network with its own validators. It describes itself as a hybrid blockchain because companies can run private networks that anchor records to the public chain.
XDC Network in plain terms
International trade still runs on stacks of paper: invoices, shipping documents and bank guarantees that are posted, stamped and checked by hand, sometimes several times over. XDC Network's pitch is to turn those papers into digital tokens on a shared ledger, so that a bank, an exporter and an investor can all see the same record and pass it along in seconds rather than days.
A useful comparison is a shared filing cabinet with a strict sign-in book. Anyone may look at what is filed, but only a fixed group of 108 approved clerks may add new pages, and each clerk has paid a large deposit that can be forfeited for cheating. The XDC token is what users pay to file a page, and what the clerks put down as their deposit.
History
XinFin was founded in 2017 by Ritesh Kakkad and Atul Khekade, and its mainnet went live in 2019. The project targeted the gap in trade finance, where small and mid-sized exporters often struggle to obtain funding. In 2021 it became the first blockchain to join the Trade Finance Distribution Initiative, an industry group of banks, insurers and funders, and in 2022 the Impel service launched on the network to carry ISO 20022 payment messages. In 2024 the mainnet moved to a second version of its consensus protocol, XDPoS 2.0, which gives faster and firmer finality.
How it works
XDC uses XinFin Delegated Proof of Stake (XDPoS), a form of delegated proof of stake. Anyone holding 10 million XDC can stand as a masternode candidate, and token holders vote for candidates with their XDC. The top 108 become active validators, with the rest on standby. XDPoS 2.0 is based on the HotStuff family of Byzantine fault-tolerant protocols: blocks arrive about every two seconds and are final within a few seconds, so a confirmed payment cannot be reversed. Validators and the holders who vote for them share the block rewards, and validators that misbehave can be penalised. Addresses are often written with an "xdc" prefix in place of Ethereum's "0x", but the underlying format is the same. The network had an initial supply of 37.5 billion XDC, with additional tokens issued over time as validator rewards.
Uses
- Trade finance. The TradeFinex platform lets lenders and investors fund trade assets such as invoices and letters of credit recorded on the chain.
- Trade documents. Projects on the network issue and transfer digital records such as the electronic bill of lading.
- Tokenized assets. Issuers use the chain for real-world assets, from trade receivables to fund units.
- Payments and fees. XDC pays for every transaction and can move value between businesses at very low cost.
ISO 20022 claims
ISO 20022 is a messaging standard for banks and payment systems, adopted by SWIFT and many central bank systems for cross-border and high-value payments. XDC is one of several cryptocurrencies often promoted as "ISO 20022 compliant". In practice, the standard governs the format of financial messages, not blockchains: there is no official ISO certification of a token, and adoption of ISO 20022 by banks does not mean they use XDC or any other coin. What the network offers is tools, such as Impel, that can read and write ISO 20022 messages and link them to transactions on the chain. Readers should treat claims that the standard will drive demand for a particular token with caution.
Criticism and risks
With only 108 active validators, each requiring a large stake, XDC is more concentrated than permissionless networks such as Ethereum, and critics argue that it depends heavily on the XinFin founders and the foundations around them. Much of its institutional adoption has come through pilots and partnerships announced by the project itself, which are hard to measure independently. Like other altcoins, its price is volatile, and the very low fees give the token little revenue to capture from network use. Its focus on trade finance also means it competes with permissioned platforms run by banks and with larger public chains that are courting the same tokenization business.