How and Where to Buy Akropolis (AKRO) – Detailed Guide

What is AKRO?

What Is Akropolis (AKRO)?

Akropolis is a company that operates an Ethereum-based decentralized finance protocol that seeks to provide an autonomous financial ecosystem for saving and growing wealth, including through borrowing and lending. To do so, it offers a series of products including AkropolisOS, a framework for developing for-profit decentralized autonomous organizations, Sparta, a platform for uncollateralized lending, and Delphi, a yield farming aggregator and tool for dollar-cost averaging.

The project uses an ERC-20 token, AKRO, for protocol governance across its suite of products.

Akropoli was first announced in March 2018, launching on the Ethereum mainnet in June 2020.

Who Are the Founders of Akropolis?

Akropoli was founded in 2017 by Ana Andrianova, with Kate Kurbanova joining later as a co-founder.

Prior to starting Akropolis and serving as its CEO, Andrianova co-founded and was managing director of Apiro Capital, a data- and technology-driven investment management firm, in addition to founding private equity advisory firm Sirin Capital. She has additional investment experience from serving as a fund manager for the Lehman Brothers and an emerging markets hedge fund analyst for Emergent Asset Management, where she was responsible for private equity fund strategy. In addition, Kurbanova has served as an advisor for The Bee Token, the Web3 Foundation, Tenzorum and OpenMaker.

Kurbanova first began with Akropolis in January 2018 as an advisor and was officially brought on as a full-time employee in June 2018, recognized for her contribution to the project by being named its co-founder. Prior to Akropolis, Kurbanova was head of analytics at crypto-asset intelligence company Cindicator, where she developed research tools and methodologies as well as co-authored the company's CND token model and white paper. She has also served as a community and product advisor for Svandis.

What Makes Akropolis Unique?

Akropolis was conceived as a distributed savings and pensions fund — a solution to what it described in its initial announcement as ""a looming pension deficit apocalypse"" resulting from the inevitable collapse of state pensions systems. But in August 2020, the company stated that it had shifted its focus to building the underlying framework for such a system by creating AkropolisOS to allow for the rapid launch of for-profit capital pools.

AkropolisOS is a Solidity-based, modular framework for the creation and management of distributed capital pools and serves as the base for the company's Sparta and Delphi platforms, with the former providing access to uncollateralized loans. Akropolis has claimed that unlike other DeFi protocols, its products reduce the risk associated with these loans by providing community incentives in the form of AKRO to those who provide accurate risk assessments.

The company provided some insight into its business model in December 2018, reporting that it would focus on building a pipeline of institutional partners and clients, developing technology and academic partnerships, and building out the Akropolis ecosystem. It also holds a significant number of AKRO to be used for internal operations such as marketing and partnership building.

Related Pages:

Learn about Aave, a major DeFi platform that offers uncollateralized loans.

Learn about Maker, the largest DeFi lending platform by total value locked.

New to DeFi? Read an in-depth guide on Alexandria, CoinMarketCap's online educational resource.

Stay up to date on the latest DeFi news with the CoinMarketCap Blog.

How Many Akropolis (AKRO) Coins Are There in Circulation?

Akropolis has a fixed maximum supply of 4 billion AKRO tokens. The company carried out two initial private token presales between January 2018 and June 2018. The first round was for investors, advisors and strategic partners, while the second was for active community members. The two sales combined represent 22.5% of the total token supply, and the AKRO sold was locked up for two months following its public sale, vesting monthly for another 12 months.

460 million AKRO — 11.5% of the total supply — was released to form the initial circulating supply once the token was listed publicly on cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Global in July 2019, with 8% going to the exchange and 3.5% going to the company. All additional AKRO was subject to lock-up periods following its public listing on the exchange. 9.5% was reserved for team members and advisors, with a one-year lock-up and vesting monthly for 12 months — later extended to January 2021; 14% for marketing and community initiatives, with a two-month lock up and vesting 2%, 1.5%, 1%, 2.5%, 4% and 3% of the total supply each month, respectively; and an additional 42.5% for the company, with 40.5% having a one-year lock-up and vesting monthly over two years, and 0.5%, 0.5% and 1% of the total token supply being unlocked after 90, 120 and 180 days, respectively.

Updates to Akropolis' vesting schedules are made publicly available on an online spreadsheet.

How Is the Akropolis Network Secured?

The Akropolis suite of products utilizes a governance token, AKRO, to help secure its protocol. As an ERC-20 token, AKRO transactions rely on the Ethereum blockchain's proof-of-work consensus algorithm to validate any on-chain records. With a PoW consensus, miners compete among each other to add new blocks to the blockchain, and a majority of all nodes in the network must confirm a record for it to be posted.

In August 2019, the smart contracts for AKRO were audited by blockchain security firm CertiK. The company found that the smart contracts — after Akropolis implemented some suggested changes — were ""structurally sound and not vulnerable to any classically known anti-patterns or security issues.""

In August 2020, Akropolis reported that there had been several attempted, but unsuccessful, hacks of its smart contracts. As a result, it moved all unlocked ARKO still in smart contracts to custodial wallets with higher-grade, institutional security. Later that month, it announced a bug bounty program, with rewards paid in AKRO or stablecoins to those who report a previously undiscovered security flaw.

Where Can You Buy Akropolis (AKRO)?

AKRO was first listed on Huobi Global, but it is now available for purchase on a number of major exchanges, including Binance, MXC.COM, KuCoin and Uniswap (V2). AKRO can be traded against fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) and stablecoins such as Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC)

Are you interested in buying AKRO or other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin? CoinMarketCap has a simple, step-by-step guide to teach you all about crypto and how to buy your first coins.

AKRO was first tradable on 19th Jul, 2019. It has a total supply of 5,000,000,000. As of right now AKRO has a market capitalization of USD $39,503,059.59. The current price of AKRO is $0.00790 and is ranked 723 on Coinmarketcap and has recently surged 25.92 percent at the time of writing.

AKRO has been listed on a number of crypto exchanges, unlike other main cryptocurrencies, it cannot be directly purchased with fiats money. However, You can still easily buy this coin by first buying Bitcoin from any fiat-to-crypto exchanges and then transfer to the exchange that offers to trade this coin, in this guide article we will walk you through in detail the steps to buy AKRO.

Step 1: Register on Fiat-to-Crypto Exchange

You will have to first buy one of the major cryptocurrencies, in this case, Bitcoin (BTC). In this article we will walk you through in details two of the most commonly-used fiat-to-crypto exchanges, Uphold.com and Coinbase. Both exchanges have their own fee policies and other features that we will go through in detail. It is recommended that you try both of them and figure out the one that suits you best.

uphold

Suitable for US traders

Select Fiat-to-Crypto Exchange for details:

AKRO

Being one of the most popular and convenient fiat-to-crypto exchanges, UpHold has the following advantages:

  • Easy to buy and trade among multiple assets, more than 50 and still adding
  • Currently more than 7M users worldwide
  • You can apply for UpHold Debit card where you can spend the crypto assets on your account like a normal debit card! (US only but will be in the UK later)
  • Easy to use mobile app where you can withdraw fund to a bank or any other altcoin exchanges easily
  • No hidden fees and any other account fees
  • There are limited buy/sell orders for more advanced users
  • You can easily set up recurring deposits for Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) if you intend to hold cryptos long term
  • USDT, which is one of the most popular USD-backed stablecoins (basically a crypto that is backed by real fiat money so they are less volatile and can be treated almost as the fiat money it's pegged with) is available, this is more convenient if the altcoin you intend to buy has only USDT trading pairs on the altcoin exchange so you don't have to go through another currency conversion while you buy the altcoin.
Show Details Steps ▾
AKRO

Type your email and click 'Next'. Make sure you provide your real name as UpHold will need it for account and identity verification. Choose a strong password so that your account isn't vulnerable to hackers.

AKRO

You will receive a confirmation email. Open it and click on the link within. You will then be required to provide a valid mobile number to set up two-factor authentication (2FA), it is an extra layer to the security of your account and it is highly recommended that you keep this feature turned on.

AKRO

Follow the next step to finish your identity verification. These steps are a bit daunting especially when you are waiting to buy an asset but just like any other financial institutions, UpHold is regulated in most countries such as the US, the UK and the EU. You can take this as a trade-off to using a trusted platform to make your first crypto purchase. Good news is that the whole so-called Know-Your-Customers (KYC) process is now fully automated and it shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to finish.

Step 2: Buy BTC with fiat money

AKRO

Once you finished the KYC process. You will be asked to add a payment method. Here you can either choose to provide a credit/debit card or use a bank transfer. You may be charged higher fees depending on your credit card company and the volatile prices when using cards but you will also make an instant purchase. While a bank transfer will be cheaper but slower, depending on the country of your residence, some countries will offer instant cash deposit with low fees.

AKRO

Now you are all set, on the 'Transact' screen under the 'From' field, select your fiat currency, and then on the 'To' field choose Bitcoin, click preview to review your transaction and the click confirm if everything looks good... and congrats! You've just made your first crypto purchase.

Step 3: Transfer BTC to an Altcoin Exchange

Select altcoin exchanges:

AKRO

But we are not done yet, since AKRO is an altcoin we need to transfer our BTC to an exchange that AKRO can be traded, here we will use Gate.io as our exchange. Gate.io is a popular exchange to trade altcoins and it has a large number of tradable altcoins pairs. Use the link below to register your new account.

Gate.io is an American cryptocurrency exchange that launched 2017. As the exchange is American, US-investors can of course trade here and we recommend US traders to sign up on this exchange. The exchange is available both in English and Chinese (the latter being very helpful for Chinese investors). Gate.io’s main selling factor is their wide selection of trading pairs. You can find most of the new altcoins here. Gate.io also demonstrates an impressive trading volume. It is almost every day one of the top 20 exchanges with the highest trading volume. The trading volume amounts to approx. USD 100 million on a daily basis. The top 10 trading pairs on Gate.io in terms of trading volume usually have USDT (Tether) as one part of the pair. So, to summarize the foregoing, Gate.io’s vast number of trading pairs and its extraordinary liquidity are both very impressive aspects of this exchange.

AKRO

After going through a similar process as we've done before with UpHold, you will be advised to set up 2FA authentication as well, finish it as it adds extra security to your account.

Step 4: Deposit BTC to exchange

AKRO

Depends on the policies of the exchange you might be required to go through another KYC process, this should usually take you from 30 minutes to possibly a few days maximum. Though the process should be straight-forward and easy to follow. Once you're done with it you should have full access to your exchange wallet.

AKRO

If this is your first time making a crypto deposit, the screen here may look a bit scary. But don't worry, it's basically simpler than making a bank transfer. At the box on the right, you will see a string of random numbers saying 'BTC address', this is a unique public address of your BTC wallet at Gate.io and you can receive BTC by giving this address to the person to send you the funds. Since we are now transferring our previously bought BTC on UpHold to this wallet, click on 'Copy Address' or right-click on the full address and click copy to grab this address to your clipboard.

Now head back to UpHold, go to the Transact screen and click on BTC on the "From" field, choose the amount you wan to send and on the "To" field choose BTC under "Crypto Network", then click "Preview withdraw".

On the next screen, paste the wallet address from your clipboard, for security consideration you should always check if both addresses are matching. It is known that there are certain computer malware that would alter the content in your clipboard into another wallet address and you will be essentially sending funds to another person.

After reviewing, click 'Confirm' to proceed, you should receive a confirmation email instantly, click on the confirmation link in the email and your coins are on the way to Gate.io!

AKRO

Now go back to Gate.io and head to your exchange wallets, don't worry if you haven't seen your deposit here. It is probably still being verified in the blockchain network and it should take a few minutes for your coins to arrive. Depending on the network traffic condition of the Bitcoin network, during busy times it may take even longer.

You should receive a confirmation notification from Gate.io once your BTC has arrived. And you are now finally ready to purchase AKRO!

Step 5: Trade AKRO

AKRO

Go back to Gate.io, then go to 'Exchange'. Boom! What a view! The constantly flicking figures might be a bit scary, but relax, let's get our heads around this.

AKRO

In the right column there is a search bar, now make sure "BTC" is selected as we are trading BTC to altcoin pair. Click on it and type in "AKRO", you should see AKRO/BTC, select that pair and you should see a price chart of AKRO/BTC in the middle of the page.

Below there is a box with a green button that says "Buy AKRO", inside of the box, choose the "Market" tab here as that is the most straight-forward type of buying orders. You can either type in your amount or choose what portion of your BTC deposit you would like to spend on buying, by clicking on the percentage buttons. When you have confirmed everything, click "Buy AKRO". Voila! You have finally bought AKRO!

AKRO

But we are not done yet, since AKRO is an altcoin we need to transfer our BTC to an exchange that AKRO can be traded, here we will use Binance as our exchange. Binance is a popular exchange to trade altcoins and it has a large number of tradable altcoins pairs. Use the link below to register your new account.

Binance is a popular cryptocurrency exchange which was started in China but then moved their headquarters to the crypto-friendly Island of Malta in the EU. Binance is popular for its crypto to crypto exchange services. Binance exploded onto the scene in the mania of 2017 and has since gone on to become the top crypto exchange in the world. Unfortunately, Binance does not allow US investors so we recommend you to sign up on other exchanges we recommend on this page.

AKRO

After going through a similar process as we've done before with UpHold, you will be advised to set up 2FA authentication as well, finish it as it adds extra security to your account.

Step 4: Deposit BTC to exchange

AKRO

Depends on the policies of the exchange you might be required to go through another KYC process, this should usually take you from 30 minutes to possibly a few days maximum. Though the process should be straight-forward and easy to follow. Once you're done with it you should have full access to your exchange wallet.

AKRO

If this is your first time making a crypto deposit, the screen here may look a bit scary. But don't worry, it's basically simpler than making a bank transfer. At the box on the right, you will see a string of random numbers saying 'BTC address', this is a unique public address of your BTC wallet at Binance and you can receive BTC by giving this address to the person to send you the funds. Since we are now transferring our previously bought BTC on UpHold to this wallet, click on 'Copy Address' or right-click on the full address and click copy to grab this address to your clipboard.

Now head back to UpHold, go to the Transact screen and click on BTC on the "From" field, choose the amount you wan to send and on the "To" field choose BTC under "Crypto Network", then click "Preview withdraw".

On the next screen, paste the wallet address from your clipboard, for security consideration you should always check if both addresses are matching. It is known that there are certain computer malware that would alter the content in your clipboard into another wallet address and you will be essentially sending funds to another person.

After reviewing, click 'Confirm' to proceed, you should receive a confirmation email instantly, click on the confirmation link in the email and your coins are on the way to Binance!

AKRO

Now go back to Binance and head to your exchange wallets, don't worry if you haven't seen your deposit here. It is probably still being verified in the blockchain network and it should take a few minutes for your coins to arrive. Depending on the network traffic condition of the Bitcoin network, during busy times it may take even longer.

You should receive a confirmation notification from Binance once your BTC has arrived. And you are now finally ready to purchase AKRO!

Step 5: Trade AKRO

AKRO

Go back to Binance, then go to 'Exchange'. Boom! What a view! The constantly flicking figures might be a bit scary, but relax, let's get our heads around this.

AKRO

In the right column there is a search bar, now make sure "BTC" is selected as we are trading BTC to altcoin pair. Click on it and type in "AKRO", you should see AKRO/BTC, select that pair and you should see a price chart of AKRO/BTC in the middle of the page.

Below there is a box with a green button that says "Buy AKRO", inside of the box, choose the "Market" tab here as that is the most straight-forward type of buying orders. You can either type in your amount or choose what portion of your BTC deposit you would like to spend on buying, by clicking on the percentage buttons. When you have confirmed everything, click "Buy AKRO". Voila! You have finally bought AKRO!

Last Step: Store AKRO securely in hardware wallets

Ledger Nano S

Ledger Nano S

  • Easy to set up and friendly interface
  • Can be used on desktops and laptops
  • Lightweight and Portable
  • Support most blockchains and wide range of (ERC-20/BEP-20) tokens
  • Multiple languages available
  • Built by a well-established company found in 2014 with great chip security
  • Affordable price
Ledger Nano X

Ledger Nano X

  • More powerful secure element chip (ST33) than Ledger Nano S
  • Can be used on desktop or laptop, or even smartphone and tablet through Bluetooth integration
  • Lightweight and Portable with built-in rechargeable battery
  • Larger screen
  • More storage space than Ledger Nano S
  • Support most blockchains and wide range of (ERC-20/BEP-20) tokens
  • Multiple languages available
  • Built by a well-established company found in 2014 with great chip security
  • Affordable price

If you are planning to keep("hodl" as some may say, basically misspelt "hold" which get popularised over time) your AKRO for a considerable long time, you may want to explore ways of keeping it safe, although Binance is one of the safest cryptocurrency exchange there had been hacking incidents and funds were lost. Because of the very nature of the wallets in exchanges, they will be always online("Hot Wallets" as we call them), therefore exposing certain aspects of vulnerabilities. The safest way of storing your coins to date is always putting them into a type of "Cold Wallets", where the wallet will only have access to the blockchain(or simply "go online") when you send out funds, reducing the chances of hacking incidents. A paper wallet is a type of free cold wallet, it's basically an offline-generated pair of public and private address and you will have it written somewhere, and keep it safe. However, it is not durable and is susceptible to various hazards.

Hardware wallet here is definitely a better option of cold wallets. They are usually USB-enabled devices that store the key information of your wallet in a more durable way. They are built with military-level security and their firmware are constantly maintained by their manufacturers and thus extremely safe. Ledger Nano S and Ledger Nano X and are the most popular options in this category, these wallets cost around $50 to $100 depending on the features they are offering. If you are holding your assets these wallets are a good investment in our opinion.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I buy AKRO with cash?

There is no direct way to buy AKRO with cash. However, you can use marketplaces such as LocalBitcoins to first purchase BTC, and finish the rest of the steps by transferring your BTC to respective AltCoin exchanges.

LocalBitcoins is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange. It is a marketplace where users can buy and sell Bitcoins to and from each other. Users, called traders, create advertisements with the price and the payment method they want to offer. You can choose to buy from sellers from a certain nearby region on the platform. is after all a good place to go to buy Bitcoins when you can't find your desired payment methods anywhere else. But prices are usually higher on this platform and you have to do your due diligence to avoid getting scammed.

Are there any quick ways to buy AKRO in Europe?

Yes, in fact, Europe is one of the easiest places to buy cryptos in general. There are even online banks which you can simply open an account and transfer money to exchanges such as Coinbase and Uphold.

Are there any alternative platforms to buy AKRO or Bitcoin with credit cards?

Yes. is also a very easy to use platform for buying Bitcoin with credit cards. It is an instant cryptocurrency exchange that allows you to exchange crypto fast and buy it with a bank card. Its user interface is very easy to use and the buying steps are pretty self-explanatory.

Read more on Akropolis's fundamentals and current price here.

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