ARK is a cryptocurrency- and blockchain- based development platform allowing anyone to create their own fully customizable and interoperable blockchain. Reducing the industries need for Smart Contracts by using custom transactions, logic and multiple programming languages.

ARK was founded in mid 2016, running an ICO later that year which raised $800K. Sound financial planning has allowed the team to become a well-funded entity since its inception.

On March 21, 2017, the ARK Public Network went live, hosting the native ARK crypto asset. The ARK business entity formed shortly after, called ARK ECOSYSTEM SCIC. The business entity is commonly referred to as 'ARK.io' which is part of the teams branding as well as the teams website.

The ARK Ecosystem consists of an open-source blockchain technology stack authored in TypeScript programming language. ARK’s public network acts as a live implementation of ARK technology, node operators acting as delegates on the network, standalone blockchains running on ARK technology with independent node operators, a business entity that develops products powered by ARK as well as assists in maintaining the code base, an enterprise division driving adoption as well as a community of users, developers and service providers.

The ARK Public Network supports special transaction types such as multi-payment, multisignature, various registration transactions, and IPFS hash transactions. ARK’s Deployer product, allows fully customizable interoperable blockchain creation using a graphical user interface. This plug and play creation method allows developers to fully utilize ARK’s consensus model, technology stack, product line and custom transactions.