Waves is a cryptocurrency platform with a corresponding token of the same name which launched in 2016 following an ICO which raised around 30,000 BTC. The aim of the platform is to facilitate the trading of digital assets of all kinds as well as real-world commodities. A Russian physicist, Sasha Ivanov, is the creator of the Waves platform. Using the Waves token, anyone can create their own custom token and trade it on the Waves platform. A number of companies have held ICOs using Waves, whose decentralized design is one of its primary selling points. The platform is known as a DEX – Decentralized Exchange – and it is intended to be highly scalable, with the ability to conduct around 1,000 transactions per second. Waves launched in 2016 after an ICO raised over $16 million in Bitcoin. At the time, the platform’s Chief Development Office described Waves as being a combination of Ripple, Next and Tether in terms of how it operates.