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The Graphene Family

Coins and tokens, side by sideA coin has a chain. A token is on one. Five coins here, and two tokensSTEEMcoin — has a chainHIVEcoin — has a chainBLURTcoin — has a chainMELEKcoin — has a chainPRANAcoin — has a chainVKBTtoken — on a chainCUREtoken — on a chainConsensusDPoS — 21 witnesses(20 elected + 1timeshare)DPoS — 21 witnessesDPoS — witnessesDPoS — witnesses; oneslot protected atconsensus for the AIwitness in year oneCompute-gatedProof-of-Work (usefulwork)Inherits its hostchain (engineside-chain)Inherits its hostchain (engineside-chain)Throughput classHigh for social ops(3-second blocks)High for social ops(3-second blocks)High for social opsHigh for social ops(3-second blocks)ModerateInherits hostInherits hostTypical fee tierFeeless; cost isResource Credits fromstaked POWERFeeless; ResourceCredits from staked HPFeeless; transactioncost from staked BLURTPOWERFeeless; ResourceCredits from stakedMELEK POWERGas-meteredEngine transaction feeEngine transaction feeToken standardsNative STEEM/SBD/SP;UIA via Steem-EngineNative HIVE/HBD/HP;UIA via Hive-EngineNative BLURT only (nosecond stablecoin)Native MELEK/MBD;side-tokens viaMELEK-EngineEVM token standardsEngine-issued sidetokenEngine-issued sidetokenSmart-contract VMNone on L1 (fixed opset); side-chain fortokensNone on L1;Hive-Engine side-chainfor tokensNone on L1None on L1;MELEK-Engineside-chainEVMEngine contract layer,not a general VMEngine contract layer,not a general VMGovernanceOn-chain witnessvoting; stake-weightedOn-chain witnessvoting; DHF proposalsystemOn-chain witnessvotingOn-chain witnessvotingOff-chain pluscontract-levelcontrolsIssuer-controlledIssuer-controlledLaunched2016202020202026 (testnet)in development——VKBT and CURE are engine tokens: they have no chain of their own and inherit the security and consensus of whatever chain hosts them.
STEEM, HIVE, BLURT, MELEK, PRANA, VKBT and CURE compared side by side

The Graphene family is the group of social blockchains that all descend from Steem (2016) and share the Graphene C++ codebase and its Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) design. MELEK is the newest member. Understanding the family — who cloned whom, who forked, and why — is how you understand what MELEK is: not a chain that appeared from nowhere, but a legitimate continuation of a well-worn lineage.

Same code, different chains

A Graphene chain is defined by a handful of constants (chain id, symbol, prefix), so the codebase is forked and re-launched again and again. The main line:

Other forks and DPoS social chains — Golos, Whaleshares, Weku, Serey, Scorum — fill out the rest of the family tree.

How DPoS works

In Delegated Proof of Stake, token-holders vote for a set of witnesses who take turns signing blocks. The chain is not mined — you witness it. This makes governance fast, feeless, and human-scale. It also makes a chain forkable: its value lives in its community and its code, not in any company.

The fork that proved the point — Steem → Hive

In 2020, Justin Sun's TRON acquired Steemit Inc and, with it, a large founder stake. When that stake — with exchanges voting user deposits — was used to swing the witness election and take control, the community hard-forked. Hive launched as a copy of Steem's state minus the contested stake: the company kept "Steem," the community kept the chain.

The lesson is forkability: if an owner turns hostile, the people can walk out the door and take the chain with them. This is load-bearing for MELEK — Hathor's character and corpus live in a public repo and on-chain precisely so the Witness survives any single operator or model.

See also: STEEM Blockchain · HIVE Blockchain · BLURT Blockchain · MELEK · Forking · Cloning · Hathor

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