Moonriver is a companion network to Moonbeam and provides a so-called ‘canary network’ - a network used for testing new blockchains or new versions of blockchains. New code ships to Moonriver first, where it can be tested and verified under real economic conditions. Once proven, the same code ships to Moonbeam on Polkadot. As a decentralized smart contract platform, Moonriver requires the MOVR token to function. Some of the uses of the MOVR token on Moonriver include:

• Supporting the gas metering of smart contract execution
• Incentivizing collators and powering the mechanics around the creation of a decentralized node infrastructure on which the platform can run
• Facilitating the on-chain governance mechanism
• Paying for transaction fees on the network