Lisk, the blockchain application platform, has announced that it has achieved first major milestone in its roadmap towards widespread adoption with the stabilization of its mainchain, along with the improvement in its governance model.

With this, the Lisk ecosystem becomes completely decentralized for the time. Delegates will now be able to generate/forge blocks and be rewarded for it, a process similar to bitcoin mining. Earlier, the network was under a managed system in which the nodes of 101 delegates were operated and controlled by the Lisk team, but now all delegates are operated by 101 different community members.

The mainchain stabilization, the first and most crucial step in the “Inception” phase of Lisk’s roadmap, brings massive advancements within the Lisk ecosystem:

• Firstly, Lisk is now a truly decentralized and trustless blockchain, allowing delegates to control their own nodes without supervision or governance by the Lisk team.
   
• Secondly, the activation of forging rewards means LSK holders can choose to either keep their income or reinvest it back to the Lisk network with the aim of financing proposed community projects.

Incentivizing a growing community with forging rewards encourages a friendly amount of competition because users will work harder and faster in securing votes in the hopes of gaining entry into the list of the top 101 delegates, Lisk said.

“This achievement bolsters Lisk in a big way, and parallels most of the very reasons blockchain technology exists; to allow greater financial freedom, to reward network contributors, to heighten the peer to peer experience and to do away with a central point of authority”, Lisk CEO Max Kordek said. “We’ve created opportunities for the strongest Lisk supporters to enter the top 101, earn LSK forging rewards, and give back to the system through their own proposals. To be a part of a decentralized community is appealing in its own right but building a decentralized system with active delegates is something entirely different.”

Lisk’s latest development follows a series of improvements launched last month including a Delegate Campaign, Proposal Contest and Community Fund. These three events paved the way for the Lisk community to grow their already successful network by empowering Lisk holders to make community led decisions.

Earlier in August, Lisk unveiled its development roadmap explaining the different phases that the platform will go through over the next few years. These phases have been categorized into Inception, Resilience, Expansion, Ascent and Eternity.

“We want to be as open and transparent as possible and unveiling our future commitments was a special moment for us. We believe the resulting outcome of our efforts will supercharge the democratic and decentralized nature of our blockchain while providing a foundation for long term sustainability and success,” Kordek added.

In May, Lisk conducted an Initial Coin Offering worth over 14000 BTC, which is now the equivalent to $10 million USD. This ICO made history by becoming the third most successful cryptocurrency crowdfund to date, the largest in Germany, and one of the top 25 crowdfunds ever.

Currently valued at over $13 million, LSK, the cryptocurrency underpinning the platform, sits in 19th place of the most valuable digital currencies.