AMP, the native cryptocurrency of the Amp blockchain, is a collateralized token designed to speed up transactions in cryptocurrency networks, including the two largest in the world – Bitcoin and Ethereum.

To do that, Amp allows users to provide AMP tokens as collateral for transactions on the Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrency networks. If transactions take too long to process or are unsuccessful, AMP tokens are liquidated to cover the costs so that the receiving party still gets paid.

AMP is capped at a total supply of 100 billion. Twenty-five percent of that goes to the Merchant Development Fund to encourage merchants to use the Flexa payment network. Flexa is the company behind Amp. Twenty-five percent goes to developer grants, to encourage developers to incorporate Amp into their apps. Twenty percent goes to the founding team of Flexa, and another 20 percent goes to token sales. The other 10% goes to Amp’s Network Development Fund to support development of the network during its first 10 years.

Before the AMP token was created in 2020, the Amp network used the flexacoin (FXC) token. In 2020, the old flexacoin tokens were “burned,” or removed from circulation, in favor of the new AMP token at a 1:1 rate.

When AMP started in September 2020, its price was worth a fraction of a cent. The price bounced between $0.003 and $0.01 until February 2021, when it started gaining steam and hit a peak of $0.037. AMP’s price reached its all-time high of $0.11 in June 2021 before crashing to $0.041. Since then (as of November 2021), the price has been volatile, sitting in the $0.04 to $0.08 range.

Blockchain networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum can be slow. Because they are global, distributed systems, it takes time for the whole system to come to a consensus about whether a transaction is valid.

Plus, there’s limited space on blockchain networks for transactions. In order to push a transaction through the network faster, users often need to pay an extra fee. Transactions with the largest fees are prioritized.

Transactions are needed for everything. Smart contracts in Ethereum, which replace intermediaries with computer programs, require transactions to move money, move non-fungible tokens or manage money in decentralized finance (DeFi) liquidity pools.

But, even with fees, there is uncertainty about when a transaction will go through, which can be a headache for users who need their transaction executed quickly.

Amp tries to address that concern by collateralizing fees so that the transaction has a foolproof way of getting through quickly. Instead of paying the required transaction fee, users can use AMP as a backup plan to pay for execution of a transaction or smart contract. Because this backup plan is supposed to be secure, users can assume the transaction has gone through instantly.

As explained in the Amp white paper, Amp is built on the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum. AMP can be staked to secure the Amp network and earn extra money for the token’s owner.

Development of Amp can be followed publicly on the Amp GitHub as the cryptocurrency is open source for anyone who wants to view it or even propose changes.

Amp was designed by the cryptocurrency company Flexa for its payment network. Flexa offers the SPEDN digital wallet for merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments. About 41,000 retail locations in the U.S. and Canada, including Nordstrom and Barnes & Noble stores, accept Flexa payments.

Amp went live in September 2020, and Flexa raised $6 million from Robot Ventures that December, bringing the total amount of funds raised of $20 million.