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DeFi News Technology

Aave Has Announced That It Is Developing a Mobile Wallet

In order to go mainstream, Aave is bringing DeFi closer to individuals in 2022. To the delight of its community, the project has announced the development of a mobile wallet.

With the announcement of the development of a mobile wallet, the protocol has taken 2022 by the scruff of the neck. Stani Kulechov, the project’s founder, made this announcement to the public.

In 2021, members of the community proposed creating a mobile app for Aave, which spurred interest in the ecosystem. The proposing team, 2001DeFi, intended that the new mobile app would make onboarding new users to the Aave protocol easier, resulting in an increase in Aave TVL.

Stani Kulechov, on the other hand, claims that the Aave mobile wallet is not the same as the previous idea. “Aave is developing something mind-blowing,” he added.

Based on the limited information available, it appears that the wallet will include multi-chain and NFC capabilities from the start. According to users, 2022 could be the year that Web 3.0 mobile apps become ubiquitous. “IOS and Android will be a little flexible on the guidance enabling this to aid with the existing rail on-ramp,” one user hoped. The protocol has a TVL of $12 billion and over 1.6 million ETH, according to DeFi Pulse.

The open-source protocol’s transaction volume has increased drastically in recent months as more investors flock to it. It attracts investors due to the variety of features it provides, including the chance to earn dividends on the platform.

Users can also borrow assets from Aave after providing the required collateral. Another element that has helped significantly to Aave’s success is the possibility to take out flash loans.

The development of a mobile wallet for the protocol will be a significant advance. The AAVE coin has been trading at $252 since the announcement, after reaching a 48-hour high of $270.11.

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News Regulation

Crypto.com Ads Banned By UK Regulator

As part of its ongoing fight against digital assets, the UK’s advertising authority has banned two “misleading” commercials by Crypto.com.
The first ad, which said “purchase Bitcoin with credit card instantly,” came on the Daily Mail app in September, while the second, which showed on the Love Ball app in July, claimed readers they could “make up to 3.5 percent every year.” The percentage in the text has risen to “8.5 percent.”
The Advertising Standards Agency accused Crypto.com of deceiving the public by failing to disclose danger, exploiting investor inexperience irresponsibly, and failing to explain how the 8.5 percent number was calculated in its judgement.

The second ad, which appeared on July 30 in Lion Studios’ Love Balls smartphone game, stated, “Earn up to 3.5 percent p.a.,” while the text stated, “8.5 percent p.a.” Consumers would believe their investment would rise by the higher amount presented, but the return would depend on the type of crypto invested and the length of time, according to the ASA.

The advertising were also irresponsible, according to the ASA, because they used customers’ “inexperience or credulity” and neglected to make clear that crypto investments are not regulated in the United Kingdom.

The advertisements failed to convey the investment’s risks, were reckless, and exploited buyers’ inexperience or credulity, according to the regulator.

The watchdog also took issue with the proposal that people acquire cryptocurrency on loan without being warned about the risks of debt.

There were no fines levied, only warnings that future commercials must include information stating that the value of bitcoin investments can go up as well as down.

Following the ASA’s engagement, both adverts were immediately withdrawn, according to a Crypto.com spokeswoman. The firm has agreed to go “above and beyond the ASA’s requirements” by guaranteeing continuing compliance with the Financial Conduct Authority’s Treating Customers Fairly outcomes 2 and 3, which deal with fair marketing practices.

“We believe building a fully regulated industry is the best way to accelerate the world’s transition to cryptocurrency, which has long been our mission. Engaging regulators to ensure compliance and building trust remain Crypto.com’s highest priorities. We appreciate the collaborative dialogue and engagement from the ASA regarding advertising in the UK in this relatively new industry, and remain committed to working with them and regulators around the world to ensure all of our activities are compliant with the most recent regulatory guidelines.”

As it aims to bring digital assets into the mainstream, the crypto platform has been pursuing a high-profile marketing approach.

Crypto.com has announced that it will collaborate with FTX to air the first cryptocurrency commercials during the Super Bowl. It comes after the Singapore-based crypto platform agreed to a $700 million, 20-year deal to name the Staples Center in Los Angeles after it.

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Altcoins Guides & Tutorials

What is Filecoin (FIL)? Everything to Know

The value of the underlying cryptocurrency, FIL, is projected to rise as the Filecoin network grows (with more miners providing storage space and more users putting their trust in it with their data). This is due to the fact that the number of transactions requiring digital currency will increase. If enough people use Filecoin, it might become the quickest and cheapest way to store data on the internet. As if that weren’t enough, the entire quantity of FIL that will ever be produced is capped to 2 billion tokens, giving it even more value.

Here’s everything you need to know about the cryptocurrency.

What is Filecoin?

Filecoin (FIL) is a decentralized file storage and sharing network that uses blockchain technology to give users access to a slew of new business opportunities. Decentralized file-sharing systems have never been more popular. Filecoin uses several technologies to present its customers with a unique experience that translates into more opportunities to earn cryptocurrency.

In its most basic form, Filecoin works in the same way as other file-sharing systems like Dropbox. The primary distinction is that instead of a centralized authority keeping data, users can bid on available storage given by miners. In this way, Filecoin is an example of a blockchain application that isn’t related to finance.

FIL, the network’s native cryptocurrency, is not an ERC-20 token because Filecoin manages the network using its own blockchain technology. Because Filecoin runs its own consensus, which incentivizes network participants to provide the best services, it requires its own token.

History

Protocol Labs, a firm founded by computer scientist Juan Benet, developed Filecoin as an open-source software. Protocol Labs is also the creator of IPFS and libp2p, two protocols that aspire to replace existing Internet protocols.

While studying computer science at Stanford, Juan Benet also cofounded the game production firm Loki Studios. Loki Studios was purchased by Yahoo in 2013. Juan Benet then founded Protocol Labs as part of the Y Combinator startup program.

The initial coin offering (ICO) for Filecoin, which took place in August and September 2017, raised $257 million, making it the largest ICO ever. Digital Currency Group, Coinbase cofounder Fred Ehrsam, Stanford University’s startup accelerator StartX, and AngelList founder Naval Ravikant were among the investors who supported Protocol Labs.

After the ICO, the Filecoin mainnet was released in October 2020, and by November 2020, the Filecoin network had a storage capacity of more than 1 exbibyte, thanks to the involvement of more than 70 enterprises.

How it Works

Filecoin is a peer-to-peer data storage network based on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) protocol that is decentralized. When a user wishes to save personal data using the network, they choose storage miners on the network and pay them in FIL to host their files. Miners are the computers that store the data of users and are critical to the Filecoin network’s security.

Files can be saved in an untrustworthy manner via a peer-to-peer network because to Filecoin’s decentralized nature. Users can select from a variety of Filecoin miners based on cost, redundancy, and performance, ensuring that each user has the optimal storage choice for their data.

Filecoin (FIL) can also be connected with decentralized applications (dApps), allowing data to be stored with any Filecoin miner. Miners will carry out these various types of “deals” for users while also collecting money for doing so. A new block will be added to the chain every 30 seconds, and miners will receive their FIL rewards.

A user can examine the proofs on the blockchain to ensure that their submitted data is saved appropriately. Proofs are publicly verifiable cryptographic math problems that miners on the Filecoin network submit on a regular and automatic basis. Proof of Replication (PoRep) is a technique used by Filecoin to show that a miner has received all of the data and has coded it in a unique way when compared to other miners.

That means two distinct disks will be used for the identical data in two different agreements. The usage of PoRep ensures that data is received in a secure and timestamped manner. The miner then employs Proof of Spacetime (PoSt), which necessitates the usage of random miners to verify the storage of random data fragments. This demonstrates that the data is still being securely saved during the transaction.

Bottomline

Filecoin could be the solution to a slew of inefficiencies in worldwide data storage and retrieval. More importantly, it gives clients more flexibility of choice, reducing their reliance on contracts with large storage providers like Amazon Web Services, Dell, or HPE. As a result, Filecoin may help to make the cloud storage business more competitive.

You should expect to see additional blockchain-based file sharing protocols enter the market if Filecoin is any indication of what’s to come in the future. These systems allow users to earn a passive income while also reducing their carbon footprint and waste by eliminating the need to purchase gear. As a result of these factors, Filecoin is expected to skyrocket in the next months.

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Gaming

A Look Into MetaWars: NFT Gaming in Space

Due to their rapid accessibility, entertainment value, and potential to disrupt the gaming industry, blockchain games have long been hailed as one of the primary on-ramps into the cryptocurrency and decentralized finance (DeFi) sphere.

Until recently, the majority of these games were underwhelming and lacked long-term entertainment value. By traditional gaming industry criteria, the majority of them would be classified as mini-games or MVPs. However, MetaWars, a new space exploration, conquest, and fighting game, aims to break the norm by offering a gameplay experience that rewards players with digital assets for their efforts and success. Here is everything you need to know about MetaWars.

What is MetaWars?

MetaWars is a multiplayer strategy/roleplaying game with a large cosmos fuelled by a burgeoning digital currency based on blockchain technology. Use a large collection of NFTs to forge your own path and have an impact on every major event in the Galaxy. It’s up to you to earn a piece of the great treasures that await when battles flare and regimes fall.

MetaWars is a multiplayer game set in a large world in which each player assumes the role of a warrior or an entrepreneur participating in galaxy-wide operations. Gamers will travel across the cosmos using a variety of NFTs to explore and battle. Furthermore, they will form alliances and compete against destructive pirates in order to transform the galaxy and make a large sum of money.

How it Works

MetaWars is a decentralized application (DApp) that will be released on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) blockchain in the near future. MetaWars and its features will be accessible via a conventional online browser and Web3 wallet, as with most blockchain games (such as MetaMask).

Thanks to the game’s story feature, which will progressively emerge via several alliance missions, players will be sent voyaging across the world. This could involve assisting with the defense of the alliance, building starports and ships, and exploring unknown space sectors.

Each main planet will be divided into different parts, which will be referred to as terrain. Players can buy and develop their land to generate money by mining, farming, and renting it out, but they must safeguard their assets against other players who want to loot their resources.

The following are the three main gameplay mechanics in MetaWars:

  • Combat: Players will face a variety of enemies as they travel across the MetaWars universe in this tactical exploration and fighting game. This will eventually lead to PvP and PvE battles, with the winners enjoying a rewarding experience.
  • Exploration: MetaWars has a large cosmos to explore, full of potential riches. Players will be able to explore a cosmos brimming with possibility and danger as the story progresses.
  • Development: Players will be able to create thriving businesses across the MetaWars realm, allowing them to monetize their conquests and efforts while also contributing to the larger, more sophisticated MetaWars player-to-player industry mechanic. Players will acquire and upgrade their fleet of ships, buy and develop their terrain and make use of the marketplace to buy or sell assets as they proceed through the game.

Understanding MetaWars

Users can earn money in the MetaWars game, which features a futuristic sci-fi concept and a multi-layered, key strategic battlefield. In essence, players are given the opportunity to envision themselves in a genuine space exploration with resources that they can conserve and employ. Users can unravel mysteries, find new universes, and defend their riches from adversaries while exploring. All of these challenges allow players to earn NFTs by playing to win. They can then profit from these digital treasures by monetizing them.

Your major purpose as a player is to work with several game commanders to “reshape the galaxy in missions.” Players would be able to have fun while earning NFTs and collecting limited edition robots through various auctions in the play-to-earn gaming ecosystem.

Conclusion

MetaWars’ play-to-earn concept is not only open, but also fair. Furthermore, the community controls the distribution of in-game tokens. MetaWars is destined to change the crypto market with NFT gameplay, thanks to all of the intriguing gameplay features and its unique and engaging setting.

Categories
News Regulation

Estonia Has No Plans of Banning Crypto

The Estonia Ministry of Finance said on Sunday that new draft legislation for virtual asset service providers (VASPs) will not prohibit customers from owning or trading cryptocurrency, but the proposed requirements for VASPs, which include high capital requirements, could apply to decentralized wallet creators.

Following reports that the planned measure will effectively ban decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-custodial wallets, the White House issued a statement on Sunday. Users have complete custody of their crypto and private keys with a non-custodial wallet.

The new draft legislation for virtual asset service providers (VASPs) does not prohibit consumers from owning or trading cryptocurrency, but the proposed conditions for VASPs, which include high capital requirements, could apply to decentralized wallet makers.

The measure, according to Estonian Finance Minister Keit Pentus-Rosimannus, is intended to tighten anti-money laundering (AML) standards for VASPs, reducing the formation of anonymous accounts in particular. If passed, Estonian VASPs will be compelled to identify their consumers while issuing accounts or wallets under the new regulation.

According to the statement, the legislation does not include any provisions prohibiting users from owning and exchanging virtual assets, nor does it force clients to reveal their private keys with wallets. Estonia’s new bill responds to the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) guidelines on VASP regulation.

The FATF advice specifies that DeFi apps are not VASPs in and of themselves, but that creators, owners, operators, or other persons who maintain control or substantial influence in DeFi arrangements can be considered VASPs under the FATF definition.

According to the Ministry’s announcement, developers, owners, or other persons who profit monetarily from such programs could likewise be deemed compelled entities as VASPs.

The Ministry reaffirmed that no services will be prohibited, and that businesses that want to provide such services in Estonia must merely follow the AML rules. The bill now needs to pass Parliament before it can take effect in the first half of 2022.

Categories
Bitcoin News

Melania Trump Celebrates Bitcoin’s Birthday

Melania Trump marveled at Satoshi Nakamoto’s life-changing creation as the crypto world celebrated Bitcoin’s 13th anniversary since the Genesis Block on Monday.

The first lady, who is swiftly becoming a force to be reckoned with in the blockchain sector, conveyed her pleasure over the first block, which has now become a major aspect of Bitcoin’s mystery and mythology, by sharing a screenshot of Block 0.

It is widely reported that Bitcoin’s market cap exceeds USD$1 Trillion.  Today marks the 13th anniversary of the Bitcoin Genesis Block.  Happy Anniversary, #SatoshiNakamoto #MelaniaNFT pic.twitter.com/aZqNJFcZmd— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) January 3, 2022

According to CoinGecko, the market capitalization of Bitcoin is just over $880 billion at the time of writing. In early December of last year, its market value surpassed $1 trillion for the first time.

At the time of writing, the post has over 30,000 likes and over 8,000 retweets. Following that, many in the bitcoin world, including Morgan Creek Digital co-founder Anthony Pompliano, speculated that Mrs. Trump might be a “Bitcoiner” or involved in the Bitcoin industry.

Others pointed to Mrs. Trump’s husband, former US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly attacked Bitcoin in recent years, calling it a “scam” and claiming that it is built on “thin air.”

In mid-December 2021, the former First Lady officially launched her NFT platform, releasing her first digital collectible, “Melania’s Vision.” The NFT sale took place on the Solana blockchain, according to Melania Trump’s official website, with the auction closing on December 31.

Categories
Altcoins Guides & Tutorials

Everything You Need To Know About Hedera (HBAR)

For its capacity to manage transactions in a decentralized and distributed ledger, blockchain has received a lot of traction.
Bitcoin was the first blockchain program to complete transactions without the use of a central authority. Despite the fact that Bitcoin is transparent, completing a transaction takes more than an hour. As a result, transactions on the blockchain network consume a significant amount of your time. The challenges that blockchain couldn’t solve led to the development of a new technology known as “Hedera Hashgraph.”

Hedera Hashgraph has the potential to dominate blockchain development. Continue reading to find out why.

What is Hedera?

Hedera is a public distributed ledger and governing body founded in 2018 by Leemon Baird, Mance Harmon, and Zenobia Godschalk. It was created from the ground up to accommodate new and existing web-scale applications. It incorporates distributed ledger technology into its products to embed computational trust, allowing enterprises and individuals who may not know or trust each other to interact rapidly and affordably. The public distributed ledgers assist in the creation and exchange of value, the verification and authentication of critical data, the proof of identity, and other tasks.

Hedera Hashgraph, based in Richardson, Texas, has raised a total of $125 million in funding over seven rounds. Boeing HorizonX Ventures, Tata Communications, BlacTower Capital, and Vestinwolf Alternatives are among the 19 investors who have put money into the company.

Hedera Hashgraph’s CEO and co-founder is Mance Harmon. With over 20 years of strategic leadership experience in global organizations, government agencies, and high-tech startups, he is an accomplished technology executive and entrepreneur. The Hedera public network was based on the hashgraph distributed consensus algorithm by Dr. Leemon Baird, co-founder and chief scientist of Hedera Hashgraph. Hedera Hashgraph has the advantage of not requiring a computationally intensive proof of work.

How it Works

The biggest distinguishing feature of Hedera Hashgraph is its hashgraph data structure for grouping transactions, which claims to execute more transactions more cheaply than existing blockchains.

The Hashgraph is a patented technique that was originally created for private usage, in which all nodes constantly communicate their information with one other.

The Hedera Hashgraph is the first public network implementation of the algorithm.

Hashgraph Consensus Service

Hedera Hashgraph employs the Hashgraph consensus method, which is powered by two types of nodes, to ensure that all computers in its distributed network agree on its transaction history.

Mirror nodes communicate this information to other stakeholders throughout the network, while consensus nodes determine transaction sequencing and history.

The Hedera model ensures that transactions will not be undone later by employing a small number of nodes to establish its history. This is in contrast to how most traditional blockchains establish consensus, which is determined by users proposing blocks to be added to the chain in a market competition open to everybody.

As a result, Hedera Hashgraph claims to incorporate the benefits of both public and private blockchain networks in its features.

Hedera Governance

The Hedera Hashgraph is governed by the Hedera Governing Council, which is in charge of the consensus nodes that determine transaction ordering.

The council will have 39 members by 2020, including Google, IBM, and Boeing. The network’s legal standing in various jurisdictions is safeguarded by the council, which manages the software, votes on improvements, ensures money are allocated correctly, and manages the network’s legal status.

It’s worth noting that the council has a limited number of seats. Each member can serve for a maximum of two three-year terms in a row. Members have an equal vote on network and platform decisions throughout this period.

While members of the Governing Council now manage mainnet nodes, the Hedera team plans to offer it up to anybody who wants to operate nodes in the future.

What the Future Holds

The company launched the Hedera Token Service on the Hedera mainnet in February 2021, allowing anyone to generate tokens on the network. More than 60 early ecosystem partners had joined Hedera at the time of launch, and they had integrated, were in the process of integrating, or were exploring the Hedera Token Service to help applications issue tokens across the supply chain, DeFi, payments, energy, and more.

The cost of transferring tokens using HTS is only $0.001. On Hedera, there are now a large number of projects developing tokens. This project is expected to be completed within the next few months, according to estimates. Simultaneously, the Hedera Hashgraph mainnet is projected to get a considerable number of updates in the next months.

According to Hedera’s future roadmap, measures have been made to reduce the amount of network downtime while maintenance is undertaken (unlike decentralized coins that work constantly even while being upgraded).

In addition, the Hedera network will implement a feature called scheduled transactions. It is a method by which a person can specify a future time for a transaction to take place. This can also be used when a transaction needs to be signed by a certain number of people before being sent.

Conclusion

Hashgraph promises to provide everything needed to build apps that can grow to millions of users while still performing well. Hashgraph may be the next generation of blockchain technology, allowing developers to create applications with high speed, efficiency, and security.

LeewayHertz has a staff of highly skilled specialists with a thorough understanding of the developing Hedera Hashgraph technology. Using Hashgraph, we assist businesses in developing cutting-edge and secure apps.

Categories
News NFT

Samsung To Launch NFTs For TVs

It’s good to stare at your non-fungible tokens on a smartphone or laptop screen, but why not display them on your TV screen to remind everyone who comes to your house of the money you spent on digital art NFTs? We seem to be living in a world where it is going to happen. Samsung announced that starting in 2022, its TV lineup will have comprehensive support for NFTs.

“Samsung Electronics Unveils Its 2022 MICRO LED, Neo QLED, and Lifestyle TVs, With Next-Generation Picture Quality and Range of Cutting-Edge Personalization Options,” according to a press statement from Samsung. Samsung is the first major television manufacturer to make a considerable investment in NFTs.

“With demand for NFTs on the rise, the need for a solution to today’s fragmented viewing and purchasing landscape has never been greater. In 2022, Samsung is introducing the world’s first TV screen-based NFT explorer and marketplace aggregator, a groundbreaking platform that lets you browse, purchase, and display your favorite art — all in one place.”

Apart from incorporating NFTs into its products, Samsung Next, the South Korean multinational conglomerate’s venture capital arm, has been aggressively investing in NFT and metaverse initiatives. The firm took part in an investment round for a metaverse gaming platform on Wednesday.

Aside from Samsung, several major corporations have jumped onto the NFT bandwagon. Coca-Cola entered the NFT market for charity purposes in July 2021. Visa paid $150,000 for a “CryptoPunk” NFT a month later.

Digital art collections and digital collectible NFT sales, on the other hand, dominated last year, accounting for 91% of total NFT sales. More NFT and metaverse-based enterprises are generating considerable sums of money to fund their initiatives as sales increase. Last year, blockchain gaming businesses raised over a billion dollars in funding.

When it comes to watching NFTs on Samsung’s 2022 televisions, the company is also paying attention to the finer points. The TVs’ smart calibration technology will adapt display settings to the creator’s preset values, so you can have peace of mind that your work appears immaculate, with true-to-the-original image quality, according to the company. You’ve probably heard of Dolby Vision and Netflix Calibrated Mode, and now NFTs are getting the same treatment.

Categories
Gaming

Everything To Know About AAA Blockchain Game Star Atlas

NFTs, the internet’s current craze, are expected to have a significant impact on the gaming industry. This innovative technology has the potential to transform the online video gaming industry’s economic potential. When you combine NFTs with the game business, as well as the concept of the metaverse, you’ll be witness to a technological revolution. One such initiative, Start Atlas, is setting the tone for the future generation of gaming. Star Atlas is creating a virtual game experience set in the far future with a dual token economy.

Star Atlas is a grand strategy game set in the distant future of 2620. Three factions compete for control of the space, vying for precious resources and assets. The ultimate goal of the project is to create a digital world that is parallel to our physical reality and has self-sustaining economies and business operations.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) components such as lending, yield farming, and automatic market-making, like those used by certain other decentralized autonomous organizations, help the project’s digital economy. The game will leverage Unreal Engine 5’s Nanite technology to achieve a full sense of immersion, allowing for hyper-realistic cinematic images.

Star Atlas allows users to explore the vastness of space in quest of valuable NFT-based jewels. It creates a new graphics technology by combining blockchain dynamics with NFT-based in-game items and a unique graphics engine.

Understanding Star Atlas

Star Atlas’ two tokens serve as the foundation for the entire system. The first is the standard in-game currency, $ATLAS. Players can earn $ATLAS by performing a variety of tasks, such as mining ore and selling it on the in-game market, or selling their assets. Almost everything in Star Atlas is an NFT, including starships, land, and mining platforms. “In the game, there are very few objects that aren’t held by gamers,” Wagner added.

Meanwhile, $POLIS allows you to participate in the game’s second aspect: political intrigue. From micro businesses and guilds to massive regional DAOs, Star Atlas has layers of government built in that are governed by players. Any player who owns $POLIS has the ability to make game decisions — and, perhaps most intriguingly, to outvote the creators.

“As $POLIS is spread, we relinquish our majority ownership, and it becomes very possible for the general public to enact changes that we don’t desire.” The concept is that in the future, we will not have complete control over the metaverse’s result.

Traditional gaming income structures, according to Wagner, are rent-based. When you become a player, you are buying entry to a game and renting time within the game universe. While you’re in the gaming world, you have access to things like your character’s appearance, clothing, and appearance. However, if you decide you no longer want to play that game, you will lose all of your things.

Gameplay

Players must embark on lonely and arduous excursions plagued with many risks as they acquire resources and attempt to outsmart other players in the metaverse in the Star Atlas game’s enormous environment.

In the game, players can design entire cities and micro-economies, or collaborate and form decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) to govern specific territories. The virtual in-game stuff that players gather while playing can even be converted into real-world money.

Unlike most centralized gaming systems, which limit resale and complete ownership of in-game items, Star Atlas embraces decentralization wholeheartedly. Players will own all of the assets they collect in the game and will be able to sell those NFT-enabled in-game products on secondary NFT marketplaces.

Bottomline

By combining cutting-edge blockchain, real-time graphics, multiplayer video games, and decentralized financial technology, Star Atlas is striving to reshape the future of the NFT-based blockchain gaming sector. Star Atlas’ desire for cinematic-quality graphics is also something that no other blockchain competitor has attempted. The game can also take advantage of the Solana blockchain’s low transaction fees and transactional throughput of up to 50,000 TPS.

Due to the project’s nature, however, its future launch, let alone eventual success, may be questionable, as it is subject to major operational, technological, financial, and regulatory uncertainties and dangers.

Additionally, because Star Atlas is a blockchain-based project, the price of the ATLAS and POLIS tokens, which fluctuate with the cryptocurrency market, may have a direct impact on the project.

We hope you enjoyed the guide and look forward to hearing from us again.

Categories
Altcoins News

Cardano Starting The Year Off With Plans of Upgrading dApps

According to Charles Hoskinson, CEO of the blockchain development arm, Input-Output Global (IOG), Cardano would spend the next six to nine months of 2022 perfecting its decentralized apps (DApps) ecosystem.

Hoskinson revealed this in his first instructional podcast of the year, a Whiteboard video on DApps and Development, which he released in January. The goal of the podcast was to illustrate the benefits of Cardano’s DApp development approach over competing platforms like Ethereum.

The architectural considerations that went into creating Cardano’s extended UTXO (eUTXO) model, as opposed to Bitcoin’s UTXO model and Ethereum’s accounts-based architecture, were a major focus of the podcast.

The main distinction between these models, according to Hoskinson, was their expressiveness, which is a computer science phrase that describes the range of ideas that can be represented and communicated in a programming language. In the field, the more expensive a language is, the more concepts it may represent in terms of variety and quantity.

The expressiveness of programming languages in the blockchain business, according to Hoskinson, can be thought of as a spectrum. With its highly secure but very restrictive UTXO architecture that uses a functional approach to building smart contracts, Bitcoin, the industry’s foundational paradigm, is at the bottom end of this scale.

The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is on the higher end of the spectrum, allowing nearly any type of programming to be done on it, but it is also extremely vulnerable to attack.

In his comparison, Hoskinson goes on to say that Ethereum’s EVM sits somewhere around the 80% mark of this spectrum because it has certain security limitations, but not enough to prevent assaults. Cardano, on the other hand, was designed to fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, or what Hoskinson calls to as the “sweet spot,” where transactions on both the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains may be carried out without being overly restrictive or compromising security.

“One of the first parts of the research agenda when we were looking at taking the UTXO model, because we really liked this functionality idea…, we said well let’s make it a bit more extensible and so we wrote the extended UTXO model. And really, we think that for a large class of applications, the sweet spot will be somewhere in the middle.”

Hoskinson’s study comes at a time when decentralized applications (DApps) are all the rage in the Cardano community. The community has been anticipating the release of several DApps that are in development since the announcement of the Alonzo hard fork, which added smart contract capabilities to the world’s largest proof-of-stake blockchain network, Cardano.

As we enter January, there is a lot of excitement because several DApps are set to launch in the next weeks. However, the price of ADA, the network’s native token, has not reflected the excitement. ADA is currently trading at $1.36, down 10.9 percent this week.

Categories
Altcoins Guides & Tutorials

Guide: What You Need To Know About Tezos (XTZ)

What is Tezos?

Tezos (XTZ) is a blockchain network that is connected to a digital token known as a “tez” or “tezzie.” Tezos is not dependant on tez mining. Instead, token holders are rewarded for participating in the blockchain’s proof-of-stake consensus method.

Tezos was beset by delays and legal concerns after a promising start and a highly successful initial coin offering (ICO). Tezos, on the other hand, survived the Bitcoin bear market thanks to its unique proof-of-stake system. Between October 2019 and February 2020, the price of tez more than tripled, reaching new highs. Tezos maintained its popularity in 2021, and it is still among the top 40 cryptocurrencies.

History

Arthur-breitman-and-kathleen-breitman
Arthur Breitman and Kathleen Breitman

Tezos’ origins begins in 2014, when Arthur and Kathleen Breitman, co-founders, began working on their next-generation blockchain. The Breitmans’ goal was to make Dapp creation easier and to create a unique decentralized ecosystem to meet the demands of the digital economy.

In September 2018, Tezos made its debut in Switzerland. Tezos used a dual company approach, as did many other projects in the field. Tezos was founded by Dynamic Ledger Solutions, a business that specializes in distributed ledger technology (DLS).

In addition, the organization raises funds through a foundation. The Tezos Foundation is the name of this non-profit organization. Importantly, the Tezos Foundation is the entity in charge of all operating funds, including those raised during the ICO.

Tezos jumped first into the market. In 2018, the firm hosted a world-record-breaking uncapped ICO. The event went off without a hitch. In just under two weeks, it was able to secure $232 million in Bitcoin and ether. The event’s success garnered international headlines. It also aided Tezos’ ascension into the limelight.

XTZ was given to investors in exchange for their Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Tezos ecosystem’s utility token, XTZ, is sometimes known as tez or tezzie. XTZ allows users to pay for services and execute smart contracts. There are now 741,546,948 XTZ in circulation.

Tezos has never stated how much XTZ it wants to issue in total. Developers left this option accessible in order to ensure that their platform never reaches market capacity.

How it Works

The backbone of the XTZ platform is made up of three major protocols.

The following are some of them:

Network Protocol

The network protocol’s purpose is to identify blocks and disseminate them throughout the chain. It essentially connects the “gossip” network and the entire protocol. The network protocol covers everything nodes need to keep the network running well, such as downloading the blockchain’s current status, connecting users, and publishing completed blocks to the network.

Transaction Pool:

The transaction protocol determines whether or not a transaction is valid. It keeps track of all blockchain data, especially that which is crucial to facilitating peer-to-peer transactions and blockchain activity.

Consensus Protocol

The consensus protocol allows the platform to reach a consensus on the blockchain’s current state. The DPoS model comes into play here as well. Any blockchain update, addition, or upgrade must be voted on by the platform’s stakeholders under this protocol.

The platform’s network shell is what connects all of these distinct protocols. The “blockchain protocol,” which combines the transaction and consensus protocols, is also referred to by the network shell.

The blockchain protocol’s shape is also the result of all network updates and revisions. The blocks that stakeholders add to the chain — which may contain transaction information or protocol updates — are allowed to execute changes to the whole network to enable the platform’s ability to “self-amend.”

What Makes it Unique?

Tezos’ governance is one of its distinctive features. To formulate new design decisions, most early blockchains rely on development teams and mining communities. Tezos, on the other hand, tries to incorporate the decision-making process within the user network itself. It generates incentives for user participation in the core development process as a result of this system. This decentralizes maintenance and democratizes the development process.

Tezos’ developers were also aware that some important attributes needed to be maintained throughout time. Tezos verifies that these qualities are preserved using formal mathematical proofs.

As a result, the Tezos network will stay decentralized. Tezos has a mechanism that allows for collaborative decision-making, despite the fact that other blockchains are decentralized.

Conclusion

The fascinating thing about cryptocurrencies is that blockchain technology is still improving, and many problems remain to be solved. At the moment, a number of programmable blockchains are vying for market share with Ethereum, the market leader. Although it was the first to market, it faces network congestion and hefty fees.

Tezos is undoubtedly a contender, and its latest tokenized asset deal demonstrates that its technology has real-world applications. However, it hasn’t seen the same price increases as its competitors. That gain could still happen, but there’s a risk investors won’t be able to forget about the company’s first issues.

Categories
News NFT

Eminem Buys Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT For $450k

Eminem paid an amazing 123.45 ETH for the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT, which is worth roughly $452,000. Because it was dressed in hip-hop gear, the monkey sporting a military-style hat with a magnificent look shows some likeness to the rapper.

Since then, Eminem has used the NFT as his profile photo on the microblogging site Twitter. The sale takes the rapper’s OpenSea NFT holdings to at least 15 NFTs, which he bought under the name Shady Holdings.

The ape’s previous owner, GeeGazza, who uses the handle GeeGazza on Twitter, described the sale as “madness” and claimed it seemed like a dream. Eminem has yet to comment publicly on the deal.

I’m living in a simulation.

Thank you @Eminem for buying my ape and joining the club!

Madness. Let me write a lyric in your next single 🤣 pic.twitter.com/myGNRmMLeD

— GeeGazza  (@Gee__Gazza) December 31, 2021

Eminem, GeeGazza had long believed, should be the one to own the NFT. In November, he voiced this belief in a tweet. “You have no idea how long I’ve been manifesting that Eminem buys my ape.”

Six, a brand servicing firm, has come out to say that they handled the purchase on behalf of the rapper, who is regarded as one of the best of all time by some.

On the Ethereum NFT marketplace, OpenSea, BAYC is now ranked second among the major NFT projects. It’s one of the most exclusive NFT ventures, and it’s gotten a lot of attention from sports and entertainment personalities.

SABC #2615, Shaq Gives Back #4077, and Adult Fantasy Sub-Dude (130/151) are among Eminem’s other NFTs. The Shady Holdings address, in reality, contains a slew of ERC721 NFTs. Eminem bought BAYC #9055 from Geegazza, the owner of the NFT, and shared his joy on Twitter.

Eminem isn’t new to the NFT world. “I’ve been collecting since I was a kid, everything from comic books to baseball cards to toys, as well as every rap album on cassette I could get my hands on,” the Grammy-winning rapper said after launching his collection. “Not much has changed for me as an adult… I’ve attempted to recreate some of those collections from that time in my life, and I know I’m not alone,” he continued.

The collection was eventually sold at Nifty Gateway for $1.78 million. Eminem was also an early investor in MakersPlace, another Ethereum NFT marketplace, in August.

Categories
Gaming

Illuvium: A Decentralized Ethereum RPG Game

The crypto industry’s recent boom has resulted in it establishing its footprint on a global scale. Apart from that, some of the primary contributing causes to this success include its very portable nature, volatility, ease of use, the convenience it provides to its customers, and, of course, large profit margins. The introduction of Play-to-Earn games, where you play and earn money, is one of the industry’s successes, and one of the greatest at the time is Illuvium. Everything you need to know about the Ethereum-based role-playing game may be found right here.

What is Illuvium?

Illuvium is a blockchain-based fantasy battle game set in an open environment. Illuvium is often referred to as the first AAA game on Ethereum, and it aims to provide a source of pleasure for both casual and die-hard DeFi aficionados with a variety of collecting and trading features.

The realm of Illuvium is inhabited by creatures known as Illuvials, which can be kidnapped and nursed back to health by players who defeat them in battle. They become a faithful part of the player’s collection after that and can be employed in Illuvium’s auto battler gameplay to fight other adventurers.

The game is a hybrid of an open-world exploration game and a multiplayer online battle game. Players can spend their time exploring the vastness of the game environment or assembling a formidable squad of monsters.

lluvium has been in development since 2020, and it is being constructed by a global team of over 40 people, including the co-founders, Kieran Warwick, a serial entrepreneur and early cryptocurrency adopter, and Aaron Warwick, an experienced game designer. (They are also the brothers of Kain Warwick, the co-founder of the DeFi platform Synthetix.)

How it Works

In conventional RPGs, players are immersed in an universe in which they manage a cast of characters and are in charge of making decisions that affect future events. The more a character is used, the faster they can progress and gain new abilities. In Illuvium, players (known as Hunters) hunt down deity-like entities known as Illuvials, which can be kept on Shards.

NFTs are used to represent illuvials in the player’s digital wallet. Illuvials are separated into multiple classes (Fighter, Guardian, Rogue, Psion, and Empath), as well as affinities (Water, Fire, Earth, Air, and Nature) with diverse abilities.

If a user captures multiple of the same Illuvial type, they can be fused together to become more powerful via a burning mechanism that scrapes the old NFT and mints a new one.

Users can earn in-game rewards in the form of ILV tokens by engaging in tournaments or completing quests in the blockchain-based game, which has a play-to-earn framework. Users can also capture Illuvials and gather resources to purchase and sell on Illuvidex, the game’s in-game marketplace.

Illuvium also has a multiplayer battle arena mode in which players compete for ILV awards and a better rank.

Game Plot

Your character is the wreckage’s sole survivor. You come across amazing animals with godlike elemental powers as you explore the land around you. Because your race has already mastered similar energies, you can catch and manipulate these beings, which are known as Illuvials, and store them in shards of crystal.

Characters assume the position of a hunter and journey over the land, capturing Illuvials and unlocking obelisks that provide access to new, more difficult locations of the globe, in order to unravel the mysteries of this unique planet.

What Makes it Unique?

lluvium is different from other blockchain-based games. It has a completely 3D environment with over 100 different Illuvials strewn over its various locations. Each Illuvial was created by a group of professional artists. This makes the game’s aesthetics pleasing to the eye, which gamers are sure to like.

It also has a number of features that set it apart from other blockchain-based AAA games and titles. These characteristics include:

  • Layer 2 incorporation
  • IlluviDEX
  • Yield farming
Layer 2 Incorporation

Illuvium inherits the Ethereum blockchain’s security. The network is also bolstered by Immutable X (IMX), a layer 2 solution designed to scale apps that leverage NFT features.

Illuvium makes use of ImmutableX’s features to ensure that players can trade and mint NFTs with near-instantaneous transaction completion and no gas costs. When using IMX, players have complete control over their assets.

The IlluviDEX 

Illuvium comes with its own decentralized exchange (DEX), the IlluviDEX. Illuvial assets, such as Illuvial NFTs, can be traded on IlluviDEX. Each sale generates a 5% commission that goes into the ILV stakers’ rewards pool.

Yield Farming

The Illuvium yield farm program has been allotted 3 million ILV, or 30% of the maximum supply of 10 million ILV. Participants who provide liquidity over the course of three years and who participate in various reward programs will receive this via distribution.

Conclusion

Illuvium is the most ambitious blockchain game to date, and the first to deliver AAA-rated gameplay on the blockchain. It heralds a new era in gaming, since it is a fully decentralized protocol that allows users to earn distributions and vote on game-related topics. The initiative is generating a lot of buzz, and rightfully so. This big endeavor is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Categories
Bitcoin

Nayib Bukele Shares Bitcoin Predictions For 2022

President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, recently made some Bitcoin-related predictions for the coming year on Twitter. Bukele is confident that at least two more governments will follow El Salvador’s lead and declare the largest cryptocurrency to be legal money.

2022 predictions on #Bitcoin:
•Will reach $100k
•2 more countries will adopt it as legal tender
•Will become a major electoral issue in US elections this year
•Bitcoin City will commence construction
•Volcano bonds will be oversubscribed
•Huge surprise at @TheBitcoinConf— Nayib Bukele 🇸🇻 (@nayibbukele) January 2, 2022

El Salvador, Central America’s smallest country, made Bitcoin its legal currency in early September, paving the way for “hyperbitcoinization.”

“Bitcoin Metropolis will begin building” this year, according to Bukele, signifying the establishment of the $1 billion BTC bonds-backed virtual city. He expects the Volcano bonds to be oversubscribed as a result of this development.

This tweet will age well— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) January 2, 2022

El Salvador’s two in-house BTC-based programs, Bitcoin City and Volcano bonds, are also expected to grow rapidly, according to Bukele. The president envisions Bitcoin Metropolis being a fully functional city with residential sections, shopping complexes, restaurants, a port, and “everything around Bitcoin”.

Bukele also believes that Bitcoin will become a big political topic in the United States this year, and warned his Twitter followers to expect a “great surprise” at the Bitcoin 2022 conference.

Finally, he promised a big surprise during the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, Florida this April. Last summer, Bukele said that he will be submitting a bill to Congress, with the help of Strike CEO Jack Mallers, to make bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador. One can only speculate as to what he has planned for this year’s convention, which he will be attending in person. Bukele’s predictions appear to be certain, but we’ll have to wait and see when and if they all come true this year.

Categories
Altcoins Guides & Tutorials

Getting To Know Theta Network (Theta)

Over the last two years, video streaming has exploded into a multibillion-dollar industry. In fact, in 2015, live video streaming accounted for nearly two-thirds of all internet traffic. However, the industry is far from flawless. Many of us have spent a lot of money on video streaming services only to be disappointed by the poor picture quality and frequent rebuffering. So, what’s the answer? According to Theta, blockchain-powered video transmission is the answer to the industry’s present problems. Read on and get to know Theta Network.

What is Theta?

Theta is a cryptocurrency and a decentralized video delivery network. This cutting-edge platform offers both technical and financial solutions to the streaming industry’s difficulties. As a result, the Theta blockchain was created to encourage bandwidth sharing across the network. Users can offer their unused bandwidth and computer resources in exchange for token payouts.

Theta’s engineers are using an innovative new blockchain to address several difficulties that the video streaming business is facing today. The platform’s design, in particular, removes bottlenecking in traditional content distribution pipelines. Professionals refer to this problem as the “last-mile” problem. For high-resolution, high-bitrate 4k, 8k, and next-generation streaming platforms, this is a serious challenge.

History

CEO Mitch Liu and CTO Jieyi Long created Theta in 2018. Liu earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from MIT and a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford Graduate School of Business. He’s also a co-founder of Gameview Studios, a mobile social gaming studio, Tapjoy, an advertising and app monetization platform, and THETA.tv, a live streaming dApp.

Long graduated from Northwestern University with a PhD in computer engineering and co-founded THETA.tv with Liu. He has patented a number of innovations, including instant replays in video games and virtual reality live broadcasting. CPO Ryan Nichols, who was previously Director of Tencent’s Wechat app, is also part of the Theta executive team.

Samsung, DHVC, IBC, and Sony Innovation Fund are among the project’s backers, while Theta’s media advisors include YouTube co-founder Steve Chen and Twitch co-founder Justin Kan.

How Does It Work?

The Theta blockchain is a peer-to-peer (P2P) network for content sharing and transaction processing. It, like Tendermint’s system, uses Proof-of-Stake consensus, which means that users can process blocks if their token holdings increase in value over time.

Participants are divided into three groups:

  • Enterprise Validator Nodes: Enterprises that stake THETA tokens to gain access to the network’s transaction processing. Google and Samsung are two of the current Validator Nodes.
  • Guardian Nodes: Users who verify that the transaction blocks offered by the Enterprise Validator Nodes are correct.
  • Edge Nodes: Users who, in exchange for TFUEL, contribute their bandwidth or relay video feeds across the Theta network.

The network allows players to be compensated in TFUEL whenever they distribute any material, such as Video Sharing, by using THETA and TFUEL as native tokens. THETA, on the other hand, is intended to handle network governance. Theta addresses difficulties such as low-quality video and large platform infrastructure expenses, which would otherwise prevent smooth delivery of Streaming services to end-users.

What Makes It Unique?

Theta’s breakthrough is bringing blockchain’s benefits to the video streaming sector. This decentralizes video distribution, resulting in higher quality. As data demands grow, the peer-to-peer network reduces infrastructure bottlenecks. It also generates a long-term environment that encourages network users to participate. This is made possible by a one-of-a-kind dual token economy, in which users are rewarded for both consuming network content and sharing network resources.

Multi-level BFT, a modified Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus that facilitates high transaction throughput; Aggregated Signature Gossip Scheme, which reduces messaging complexity; and Resource-Oriented Micropayment Pool, a double-spend resistant off-chain pool purpose-built for video streaming, were all introduced as part of the project.

Furthermore, the protocol is open source, allowing developers and partners to create decentralized applications (dApps) on the Theta blockchain. THETA.tv, created by the Theta team, was the first blockchain-based dApp, followed by Samsung VR, Cinedigm, Pandora.tv, and Play Labs.

Pros

  • Decentralized video streaming.
  • It aims to reduce the cost of streaming video by as much as 80%.
  • This project’s purpose is to improve the video quality of online video broadcasts.
  • Steve Chen, the co-founder of YouTube, works as a consultant for Theta.
  • Samsung Virtual Reality Collaboration

Cons

  • During Theta.tv’s testing, there was a lot of video buffering.
  • This is a brand-new initiative.
  • The initial coin offering (ICO) was a highly centralized and confidential process.
  • THETA has a low level of liquidity.
Categories
Bitcoin Price Analysis

Could Bitcoin Get to $200k This Year? Experts Think So

According to famous cryptocurrency analysts, Bitcoin’s price might reach $200,000 this year. Bitcoin is recovering from its worst month since May, after setting a new high this year. Cryptocurrency trading has decreased 16% in the last month, with many blaming the new Covid-19 version. However, Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founders Brock Pierce and Tom Lee anticipate Bitcoin will reach $200,000 in 2022.

Pierce discussed BTC’s performance over the last month in an interview with Fox. He stated that: “People like to speculate, claiming they have answers, but in truth, BTC’s market is volatile. According to him, BTC’s poor performance in December is a result of multiple events.”

BTC, according to Pierce, is a high-risk asset. BTC, he claims, is a store of value rather than an inflation hedge like gold or real estate. It does, however, have a more attractive return profile than the assets mentioned above. Pierce stated that financial volatility in the broader financial sector is what he expects will propel BTC past $100,000.00. “I would not be surprised if BTC goes beyond $100,000.00. It’s conceivable for it to break $200,000 for a moment and come back again,” he said.

He believes the leading cryptocurrency will briefly hit the price level stated before retracing down. Bitcoin’s price performance in 2022 will be determined by “external variables,” referring to the world’s huge money production. During the Market Rebellion Roundtable talk on December 23, Ton Lee forecasted $200,000 for BTC.

In the wake of ProShares releasing the first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States, Lee reiterated his $100,000 BTC price estimate for 2021. While many believe the COVID-19 Omicron variant started and drove the current bear market, Pierce took a more analytical approach, saying, “BTC’s price is down because there are more sellers than buyers in the market.”

He admitted that some investors are putting their money into other cryptos, which is one of the causes for BTC’s poor performance. Some cryptocurrencies are aiding the Bitcoin concept’s development.

Bitcoin is a digital currency, he continued, but Ethereum aspires to create programmable contracts. Because each idea is unique, Pierce compares the crypto realm to the internet in 1999.

Categories
Gaming

All You Need To Know About NBA Top Shot

NBA Top Shot is a blockchain-based platform that is catapulting the traditional playing card market to new heights. It’s essentially a classic trading card concept that employs the same principles or processes as bitcoin via non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NBA fans from all over the world may buy, sell, and trade virtual cards known as “moments” on Top Shot’s official website.

The most well-known example of digital collectible cards is NBA Top Shot. They’re similar to trading cards, however instead of being printed on paper, they’re stored on a blockchain. This means you can store them in your digital wallet and send them to others, or you can sell them on the internet.

There are numerous cards for each time, similar to trading cards. Smaller packs increase the rarity of the cards, whereas larger packs increase the rarity of the cards. Packs with 10,000 or more cards are on the common tier. Packs of 150-4,999 cards are available in the rare tier, while packs of 25-499 cards are available in the legendary tier.

Each card in each pack has its own unique serial number. However, this might lead to a wide range of prices. For example, the lowest ask for a Jayson Tatum jump shot is $52; the highest sell, serial #5206, is $28,000. That’s a significant difference for the same card, so keep that in mind if you want to resell them.

How it Works

The highlights that are being offered come from actual NBA in-game plays. The league retains ownership of the actual highlights, but fans can purchase a limited edition version of the highlight in the form of a virtual card/video through the Top Shot platform. The platform will categorize and virtually value these artifacts as Common, Rare, or Legendary based on their scarcity, uniqueness of the moment, and the stock of the NBA star. These highlights are then grouped and sold in packs containing various sets of highlights that range in price from $9 to $230. If you’re lucky, one of your pack purchases will include a six-figure value highlight.

These pack drops, however, are a little more difficult to come by than they appear. Each user can only buy one pack at a time, and the number of available packs is incredibly limited. Furthermore, the timing of these pack deliveries isn’t announced ahead of time. Top Shot has released 31 packs since the start of the 2019-20 NBA season.

If you manage to snag a highlight (or two), you may either keep them in your virtual collection or sell them on the platform’s official marketplace, which serves as a secondary market for the website. Individual moments that are being exchanged and sold by everyone in the NBA Top Shot universe can be purchased here by other NBA fans.

Aside from the aforementioned collectibles, there are a couple of Luka Doncic highlights that are currently valued at around $90,000. Highlights from Damian Lillard, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Devin Booker are also on the market for roughly $70,000 each.

Getting Started

These collectibles aren’t printed on paper and sold in stores like traditional trading cards. Rather, NBA Top Shot cards are stored on the Dapper Labs-developed Flow blockchain (the team behind early NFT phenomenon CryptoKitties). As a result, obtaining them is a little more difficult.

To begin, you must first register for NBA Top Shot with Dapper. You can do so by going to the Top Shot website and signing up. Creating a Dapper account provides you with a wallet where you may store your coins and buy crypto items.

Dapper’s registration process is simple. You sign in with Google or email, then supply and verify your phone number. Dapper then gives you a code, which you should keep safe in case you lose access to the device you’re using. Because it controls access to your account, it’s crucial to write it down somewhere and keep it safe.

Once you’ve signed up with Dapper, you can head straight to NBA Top Shot and login in using your account.

You’ll be welcomed with a handful of introductory films the first time you sign in, before being asked if you want to join the NBA Top Shot Discord channel. After that, you’ll be able to choose the team you want to support.

You’ll see your randomly generated username once you’ve logged in. You can easily change your username by clicking “change username,” heading to your Dapper Labs profile, and selecting a better option.

Now you can go through the available packs (which are almost always sold out!) and the marketplace where you can acquire used trading cards. However, in order to purchase anything, you’ll need actual money.

You’ll need to fill your Dapper account in order to purchase an NBA Top Shot moment.

You can do so by navigating to the site’s “Payment and Payouts” section. You can choose how much money to deposit into your account here, and you must agree to Dapper’s terms and conditions. Then you have the option of paying with a credit card, providing your information, or using cryptocurrencies. Dapper accepts Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, as well as the two stablecoins DAI and USDC.

Categories
News Regulation

Analysis: SEC vs. Ripple Lawsuit Could Come To An End In April

According to attorney Jeremy Hogan, the spectacular lawsuit between the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and payments processor Ripple over the XRP cryptocurrency is now nearing its conclusion.

Jeremy Hogan, a well-known XRP lawyer, has given an estimate on when the long-running SEC v. Ripple legal dispute will be resolved. When asked for his honest assessment on when the case would be over, Hogan said that even in the worst-case scenario, the chances of it being extended past summer are slim.

The best estimate for the end of the litigation, according to him, is April. The SEC’s fight with Ripple could be finished by 2022, according to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. Garlinghouse noted the significant progress made thus far “despite a slow-moving legal process” in an interview with CNBC in November.

The SEC filed the lawsuit in December 2020, claiming that XRP — Ripple’s native currency, which is used by the company and other payment companies on an open-source decentralized ledger — has been an unregistered security in violation of US securities law since its launch in 2013, and that Ripple executives and investors should have known about it.

Ripple’s high-profile collaborations were jeopardized as a result of the action. For example, in early March, the blockbuster collaboration with MoneyGram, a money transfer services provider, came to an end.

With legal expert Hogan predicting that the lawsuit will be settled in April 2022, the question we’ll be asking between now and then is how will this all play out for the two parties involved.

Ripple has won several important court cases so far. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn decided in July that Ripple can depose William H. Hinman, the former director of the SEC’s division of corporate finance.

Furthermore, despite the legal drama, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently stated during the one-year anniversary of the lawsuit that the business has had its best year yet.

Although expert discovery is set to end on January 14, the SEC and Ripple’s legal teams simultaneously submitted a motion on Dec. 10 asking the court to postpone the final expert deposition until January 19, 2022.

A victory for Ripple would surely be a setback for the SEC’s tedious pretense of “regulatory clarity,” as the agency has dubbed it. In addition to bringing cases, the US regulator will be compelled to provide clear, unequivocal recommendations to enterprises in the blockchain industry.

Categories
Altcoins Guides & Tutorials

Ethereum Classic (ETC): Everything You Need To Know

In 2016, a big issue shook the market when Ethereum (ETH) was divided into two distinct currencies. The Ethereum vs Ethereum Classic (ETC) controversy didn’t concentrate around fixing scalability concerns or introducing new features to the network, unlike some other well-known hard fork discussions. Instead, it was done to protect hackers from stealing millions of ETH. Read on to learn more about Ethereum Classic and the controversy.

What is Ethereum Classic?

Ethereum Classic (ETC) is a cryptocurrency that was created in 2016 as a permanent hard fork from Ethereum (ETH). Like the Ethereum network, the Ethereum Classic blockchain can handle smart contracts and decentralized apps, and it has its own Ethereum Classic currency.

In reaction to a severe hacking event, Ethereum Classic diverged from Ethereum, an uncommon but not unheard-of occurrence for cryptocurrency blockchains. 3.6 million Ethereum tokens were stolen as a result of the breach. The main Ethereum blockchain was updated to remove the erroneous transactions. Many in the original Ethereum community disagreed with this strategy, resulting in the fork. The unmodified Ethereum ledger, which retains the transactions from the hack, was used to build Ethereum Classic.

History

On July 30, 2015, the Ethereum Foundation, a Swiss non-profit created by Vitalik Buterin and the core Ethereum team, launched the Ethereum Classic mainnet via Frontier. The team’s main goal was to make the concept of executing smart contracts on the blockchain a reality.

In June 2016, the DAO, a popular dApp, was hacked, and $50 million was taken from users. The attacker took use of a flaw in the programming that allowed them to withdraw extra DAO tokens beyond the user’s first investment, depleting more than a third of the DAO’s capital. This generated a heated debate over how developers should react and whether or not the chain should fork.

The “Difficulty Bomb” is a method that was supposed to shift the Ethereum chain from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake in the future by raising the difficulty of mining rapidly. In an update named Ice Age, the upgrade was applied to the network on block 200,000. Following the hard split, Ethereum Classic updated its network on block 5,900,000 to permanently defuse the difficulty bomb, assuring the PoW consensus mechanism’s long-term viability.

How it Works

Ethereum Classic, like Bitcoin, relies on a Proof of Work (PoW) consensus process to validate transactions. Miners, who process transactions and build blocks using their time and processing capacity, are in charge of network security. When using the network, it’s critical that transactions take place in the correct order. Miners do this by solving computationally challenging riddles in order to generate blocks, which acts as a safeguard against malicious actors on the network.

The ability for users on the Ethereum Classic network to run smart contracts is a key feature. These smart contracts feature self-executing agreements, or if-then conditions, written in self-executing lines of code. Because the procedure is self-contained, no third party, such as a lawyer, is required to handle any transactions between a buyer and seller.

Ethereum Classic has said that it would continue to protect its blockchain using Proof of Work mining and will not include updates from the split Ethereum network. In addition, ETC has chosen a stable monetary policy.

Ethereum Classic vs. Ethereum

Ethereum Classic’s ETC has value as a speculative digital asset that investors may trade, while Ethereum’s ETH is the more legal and extensively traded. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) approved the trade of ether futures in early 2021. For such transactions, only Bitcoin and Ether have been allowed. Futures are contracts with a defined price and maturity date that are based on an underlying security. Ether futures allow investors to trade ether for speculative purposes as well as to hedge a stake in ETH or another cryptocurrency.

We can get a sense of how the investing community feels about ETC vs. ETH by looking at how much capital or investment dollars are invested in each currency. When the market capitalizations of the two cryptos are compared, ETH comes out on top. A cryptocurrency’s market cap is derived by multiplying the currency’s price (based on a fiat currency such as US dollars) by the total number of coins or tokens in circulation.

ETC has 129.5 million coins in circulation and a market capitalization of $5.1 billion, while ETH has 117.3 million coins in circulation and a market capitalization of almost $375 billion. As of August 29, 2021, ETC is worth $64.13, whereas ETH is worth more than $3,189 per coin.

Despite the fact that both networks support smart contracts, the aforementioned security concerns surrounding ETC will likely drive investors to invest in ETH and use Ethereum’s smart contracts rather than Ethereum’s Classic smart contracts.

Categories
Gaming

CryptoKitties: The Ethereum Blockchain P2E Game

What is CryptoKitties?

CryptoKitties is a game in which you can buy, sell, and breed virtual cats for real money. Each and every cat in the game is one-of-a-kind and difficult to duplicate. Because they are owned by a single individual, no one can take them away, and the virtual kittens cannot be destroyed.

Within the site, all of the kittens in the game may be traded, and some of them can even be sold for real money. The game is a dApp, which stands for Decentralized Application and is an important component of the DeFi industry. This signifies that the application is not owned by a single business or individual.

The game has recently risen in popularity, with stories of people gaining large sums of money by selling the virtual cats. The sales of these cats have skyrocketed, with sources claiming that over $12 million has been spent on virtual cat purchases.

How it Works

CryptoKitties are non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that were created utilizing the ERC721 token standard on the Ethereum network. Prior to the introduction of ERC721, blockchain tokens were fungible, or interchangeable; every Bitcoin or Ethereum token is identical to any other. ERC721 enabled the development of non-fungible, one-of-a-kind tokens.

Using smart contracts and ERC721 tokens, CryptoKitties was created to investigate the notion of digital scarcity. Each CryptoKitty has its own digital genome, which is kept in a smart contract. Any two CryptoKitties can be mated, and an offspring with its own distinct features is developed via a genetic algorithm (or “cattributes”). The immutable genotype contained in the smart contract determines its outward appearance, or phenotype.

Understanding CryptoKitties

The CryptoKitties game by Dapper Labs is largely responsible for the NFT mania. On March 11, 2021, digital artist Mike Winkelmann — popularly known as Beeple – sold a collage of 5,000 of his works on a non-fungible token at Christie’s for more than $69 million million.

CryptoKitties are unique and lucrative because they are based on non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Non-fungible simply implies that, unlike Ether or other ERC-20 tokens, one token is not identical to another. NFTs are based on a separate standard called ERC-721, which ensures that each token is distinct.

The first NFT collectibles to become popular were CryptoKitties. They were so popular when they were first released that they practically destroyed Ethereum, accounting for 95 percent of all transactions on the blockchain at one time, drowning out nearly all other DApps and spiking the price of Ethereum’s gas transaction fees. That turned out to be a foreshadowing of the No. 2 blockchain’s present difficulties in meeting the needs of the expanding DeFi and NFT businesses.

In a broader sense, the game CryptoKitties was the first Ethereum-based DApp aimed at a broad audience. CryptoKitties was founded by venture studio Axiom Labs during a hackathon at the ETH Waterloo conference in October 2017 and was quickly spun out into a new business, Dapper Labs.

“We launched CryptoKitties as an innovative and play-driven introduction to what blockchain can do and mean for consumers,” Dapper Labs’ CTO and ERC-721 standard creator Dieter Shirley told VentureBeat in 2018. “By engaging the community with fun and games, we reached much broader audiences.” 

Getting Started

Cryptokitties-1
The CryptoKitties MarketPlace. Credit: CryptoKitties

You’ll need a PC or mobile device, a cryptocurrency wallet like MetaMask, and some Ethereum to get your hands on your own CryptoKitty.

All you have to do now is go to the CryptoKitties marketplace, create an account, choose a cat you like, and click “buy now.” You’ll be met with a Dapper transaction window where you may complete your purchase if you have enough ETH in your wallet. You may also bid on a CryptoKitty that isn’t for sale, but the owner has the final say on whether or not to accept your offer.

Bottomline

You have now heard about CryptoKitties and how popular it has grown if you haven’t already. The game uses blockchain technology and allows you to buy and sell CryptoKitties to other players. It will cost you money to play, but if you’re skilled at breeding and want to make money, it is achievable with a little work.

CryptoKitties is the first step toward the creation of crypto-collectibles, a new type of digital goods that can be exchanged over the internet. CryptoKitties initially struggled with scalability, but the switch to a new blockchain has aided the growth of an entire new sector.

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Altcoins News

A Look At Binance Coin’s (BNB) 1300% Gain In 2021

Binance Coin, or BNB, surpassed its two rivals, Bitcoin and Ether, among the three largest digital assets by market capitalization. According to Arcane Research, the coin — created by crypto exchange Binance Holdings Ltd. — increased about 1,300 percent in 2021. In comparison, market leader Bitcoin surged by 65 percent, while the second-largest cryptocurrency, Ether, increased by 408 percent.

On Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, BNB is frequently utilized. Binance Smart Chain, a blockchain platform that allows smart contracts for use in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and other applications, uses it as its native currency. According to Arcane Research, the BNB coin has benefited from BSC’s growing popularity as a rival to the Ethereum network.

Altcoins made significant increases in 2021, owing to a surge in investor interest in digital assets and the growth of the crypto industry. For example, the returns of Solana and Fantom, currencies linked to other blockchain systems that enable smart contracts, outperformed Binance Coin’s.

In a report, the research group noted that while Bitcoin exhibited gains in 2021, they’ve witnessed a continual flood of wealth seeping down into altcoins. The largest momentum, according to the firm’s experts, would be seen in tokens associated to the metaverse and GameFi, as well as Ethereum killers.

During the month of October, the Binance coin quadrupled in value, reaching $670. The cryptocurrency has declined in value over the previous two months, but it has built a support level around $530, which has held for more than a month. So it appears like BNB is waiting for the crypto market’s attitude to change before resuming its climb.

Binance has already gained 1,300 percent this year, even if it does not become bullish by the end of the year. The $750,000 fine imposed by Turkish authorities on Binance earlier this month has had no impact on the price. As a result, BNB should be optimistic in the first half of next year.

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Altcoins News

Ripple CTO Says He Perfected The Bitcoin Code in 2011

Tiffany Hayden, a well-known XRP supporter, found on GitHub in 2017 that David Schwartz, one of the original architects of the XRP Ledger, was also a Bitcoin code developer.

When asked on Wednesday if he contributed to the Bitcoin code from the beginning or later, the Ripple CTO revealed that he did indeed optimize the code for mining pool apps in 2011. Other Bitcoin developers that attended were Peter Todd, Matt Corallo, and Gavin Andresen.

Andresen, who has since departed from Bitcoin operations, was chosen as the principal developer of the decentralized Bitcoin open-source software system by Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto. He then went on to work full-time at the Bitcoin Foundation, which was established to improve Bitcoin’s public awareness.

At the end of 2011, Schwartz, Arthur Britto, and Jed McCaleb were motivated by Bitcoin to start developing the XRP Ledger (XRPL). The trio aimed to build Bitcoin 2.0, a cryptocurrency that is similar to Bitcoin but better.

Ripple executives routinely highlight the advantages of XRP versus Bitcoin, primarily emphasizing the tons of emissions produced by BTC mining. For example, Ripple executive chairman Chris Larsen recently urged miners to convert to the (PoS) consensus method in order to reduce Bitcoin’s energy-intensive proof-of-work model’s carbon impact.

The executives also claim that, while Ripple is responsible for XRP’s market penetration and other achievements, the crypto asset can survive in the absence of the distributed ledger company.

Ripple is now looking at the prospect of establishing the red-hot (NFTs) market on the XRPL, in addition to XRP’s primary real-time payments use case. The company announced a $250 million creator fund in September to encourage tokenization innovation.

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Altcoins Guides & Tutorials

Everything to Know About Near Protocol (NEAR)

What is Near Protocol?

Near Protocol (NEAR) is a layer-one blockchain designed to address the issues of slow transaction rates, low throughput, and incompatibility. The Near Protocol (NEAR) is a decentralized application platform that has the potential to disrupt systems, generate apps, and transform how people use the internet in general.

NEAR Protocol, like any other blockchain system, uses a native cryptocurrency as its default transactional token — NEAR. The NEAR coin may also be used as collateral for storing data on the blockchain or staking in a liquidity pool or yield farming.

Furthermore, the utility token is used to pay validators and developers that design smart contracts.

History

The NEAR Protocol, formerly known as ‘NEAR.ai,’ is a product of the NEAR collective, a worldwide distributed network of teams comprised of many different companies and collaborators.

NEAR.ai, which was co-founded by Alex Skidanov and Illia Polosukhin, was mainly focused on program synthesis, a topic that analyzes automatic programming from human specifications, before transforming into a full-fledged blockchain system.

NEAR.ai’s mission was to push the frontiers of program synthesis research while simultaneously creating a game-changing product based on this technology.

According to the NEAR founders, programming contests were a fantastic source for gathering diverse challenges that were supposed to be solved using multiple programming languages, which was in keeping with their initial objective.

How it Works

NEAR is a decentralized application deployment and operation cloud infrastructure operated by the community. It combines the features of a decentralized database with those of a serverless computing platform. The token that powers this platform also enables apps built on top of it to interact in unique ways.

It’s a complex technology with a single goal: to make it simple for engineers and inventors to design solutions that protect high-value assets such as money and identity while still being performant and useful to customers.

NEAR was built from the ground up to provide end-users with easy interactions, scale capacity over millions of devices, and provide app developers with new and sustainable income options.

As a result, NEAR is building the world’s first community-run cloud, capable of expanding Open Finance and assuring the Open Web’s future. It’s a blockchain-based decentralized application platform designed to be permissionless, highly functional, and secure enough to provide a robust and decentralized data layer for the future web, and it runs on hundreds of servers across the world.

NEAR is primarily a platform for hosting apps that have access to a shared and secure pool of money, identity, and data that are controlled by its users. It combines partition-resistant networking, serverless compute, and distributed storage into an unique system in terms of technology.

What Does Sharding Means?

The sharding process is generally used to fragment a blockchain network database, and more specifically in this context, it is intended to lower the network’s computational burden and make network nodes easier to manage.

It becomes much easier for each node to perform efficiently inside allotted shards by separating network processes into shards, or pieces. In other words, each node will only be required to run the code that is most relevant to the allocated shards, rather than the whole network’s code.

Furthermore, the NEAR Protocol uses a horizontal split, which means that nodes in the network can handle activities in a sequential sequence rather than vertically, which could pose further problems.

Conclusion

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Altcoins

Polygon (MATIC) Was Hacked Earlier This Month

However, the attacker stole approximately 800,000 MATIC tokens (worth over $1.6 million) from the ecosystem before the vulnerability was rectified. The team stated:

“Polygon paid a total of about $3.46 million as bounty to two white hats who helped discover the bug. Despite our best efforts, a malicious hacker was able to use the exploit to steal 801,601 MATIC before the network upgrade took effect. The foundation will bear the cost of the theft.”

Following the hack, the Polygon team adopted a few measures to make its network more resilient in the future, as further stated in the blog post. The team improved its critical response processes and unified contact information and communication channels for partners. Finally, to minimize single points of failure during time-sensitive circumstances, the team identified and codified backups for critical internal resources.

MATIC, the Polygon ecosystem’s native token, has dropped more than 3% in the last 24 hours. For the time of publication, MATIC was selling at $2.48 per coin. MATIC’s value has increased by more than 13,000 percent year to date.

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Gaming

Gods Unchained: A Dive Into the Play-to-Earn Trading Card Game

What is Gods Unchained?

Gods Unchained is a play-to-earn trading card game where players engage in epic duels with fantasy cards. The game is designed to revolutionize the way games are played by utilizing Ethereum technology to empower players with genuine digital ownership as well as the ability to acquire items that actually matter. 

The native GODS token, which serves as a payment system throughout the game, can be earned by players. Rare cards have a distinct real-world worth since they can be sold for GODS, which can then be converted into fiat currency. This strategy incentivizes users to participate by giving them entire control of the valuable items they amass over time.

Founders

When the game’s first mythic card was sold in 2018, it was announced for the first time. They’ve sold millions of cards since then, earned $15 million in Series A investment, and released their first season of the game. The game, like other NFT and crypto-based games, is gaining in popularity, attracting people who wish to earn money while having fun.

How it Works

Gods Unchained functions similarly to other online strategy games, with its own currency such as “gold” or “credits.” These currencies, on the other hand, take users’ real money and convert it for a more pleasant in-game experience. The in-game currency in Gods Unchained is real money. Players can use the game’s marketplace to acquire and sell cards in order to construct a deck that will win more matches and collect more cards as they do so.

Gods Unchained has a large number of players and great sales since it became popular. Gods Unchained’s events and competitions have been a huge success in terms of promoting the game and the community. The Gods Unchained development team is also working on releasing a mobile version of the game so that more players can connect.

The 6 main characters of the game are : God of Light, Goddess of Death, God of War, Goddess of Nature, God of Magic, and Goddess of Deception 

Getting Started

To start playing Gods Unchained, simply follow the steps below:

  • Gods Unchained’s official website may be found here.
  • Complete the account creation process.
  • Download and install the program on your PC
  • A verification email will be sent to you to confirm your account.
  • Run the program in the “Immutable” mode.
  • To begin the game, you must first log in.

For their first experience, the new user will be requested to play a tutorial game. After learning the basics, the player can go on to the various game types. There are three game modes available right now:

Solo Game mode: The player may compete against the computer to see how good they are.
Ranked Game mode: The gamer can win rewards by rising through the ranks.
Direct challenge: In a duel, gamers can compete against their friends.

What’s Unique About It?

The most compelling feature of Gods Unchained is that it provides players complete control over all of the in-game things they acquire. These products have a market-determined real-world worth and can be exchanged on NFT markets in the same way that traditional printed cards can be bartered in physical card games.

Another major plus is that Gods Unchained intends to employ Immutable X to streamline deals more efficiently . Immutable X is a decentralized exchange that scales Ethereum trades and offers traders near-instantaneous transactions for very cheap or no gas costs.

On a layer 2 Ethereum network, Gods Unchained mints goods as NFTs. Players who hold one of these cards have a valuable digital asset. Cards can be traded in for the game’s GODS currency, which can then be exchanged for real money. The Gods Unchained initiative might tackle a major problem in gaming: in-game purchases can be rather costly for players, with billions spent each year. Gods Unchained allows users to earn money and trade cards just by playing the game.

Conclusion

Gods Unchained aims to break the game industry’s mold by granting users ultimate control over their digital assets. Future upgrades will include a slew of entertaining enhancements, according to the makers. The game quickly became popular, and it attracted a large number of players. As a result, gross sales have improved as well. By now, more than $7 million in cards have been swapped, and blockchain fans regard this game as the next best thing. It will become even more popular if the native coin, GODS, is made accessible on other markets. It is unquestionably a game worth playing and profiting from. Blockchain games will eventually conquer the market, so get started today and welcome to the future!

Categories
Bitcoin

Elon Musk Thinks He Knows Who Satoshi Nakamoto Is

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has spoken out on the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the enigmatic person or group credited with inventing bitcoin.

During a podcast published Tuesday, Musk addressed the mystery surrounding the bitcoin creator’s identity. During the interview, the host, Lex Fridman, questioned Musk if the fact that bitcoin’s originator has never been identified is a “feature or a flaw,” prompting Musk to provide his take on the matter.

Elon Musk appears to concur with many others that the ultra-secretive cryptocurrency specialist Nick Szabo is Satoshi Nakamoto, the enigmatic creator of bitcoin.

“You can look at the evolution of ideas before the launch of bitcoin and see who wrote about those ideas. It seems as though Nick Szabo is probably, more than anyone else, responsible for the evolution of those ideas. He claims not to be Nakamoto, but I’m not sure that’s neither here nor there. But he seems to be the one more responsible for the ideas behind bitcoin than anyone else.”

Over the last decade, Bitcoin has evolved to become a $2 trillion asset class, yet no one knows who invented it. Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous BTC founder, invented Bitcoin in 2008 and went completely anonymous following its introduction in 2019, wiping all potential digital signatures and leaving no trace. There have been several theories concerning the original creator’s identity, and many people have claimed to know who the genuine person behind it is, but no one has provided any definitive evidence.

A group of linguistics academics from the United Kingdom compared the renowned bitcoin whitepaper ascribed to Nakamoto to the work of 11 people suspected of being the creator in 2014. The researchers came to the conclusion that Szabo was the most likely suspect.

“The number of linguistic similarities between Szabo’s writing and the bitcoin whitepaper is uncanny,” the researchers said, adding that “none of the other possible authors were anywhere near as good of a match.”

Szabo, for one, has always denied being bitcoin’s founder, even writing in a 2014 tweet that he was “Not Satoshi, but thank you.”

While several people have been suggested as plausible possibilities, including Musk, the exact identity of bitcoin’s inventor — or creators — has yet to be established. Musk refuted again during the podcast interview that he is the genuine Satoshi Nakamoto.

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Altcoins Guides & Tutorials

What’s So Special About the Fantom Token (FTM)?

Fantom (FTM) is a large-scale project that aims to build a smart contract platform that would serve as the “nervous system for smart cities.”

This project seeks to deliver near limitless scalability and quick transactions at practically $0 cost by utilizing sophisticated Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) technology. They’re also developing a high-performance virtual computer that can execute smart contracts safely and securely. Can they, however, actually achieve such lofty goals? Here is everything you need to know about the Fantom token and what makes it so special.

What is Fantom?

Fantom, or FTM, is the world’s first smart contracts platform built on directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) that employs its own proprietary consensus method to provide developers with decentralized financial (DeFi) services.

Fantom believes that as an ultra-high-speed, high-performance platform, it can become the IT infrastructure backbone for burgeoning smart cities. Fantom thinks it is the solution to securely storing huge volumes of data, with a goal of processing 300,000 transactions per second and the capacity to interact across numerous service providers.

It wants to do this by making smart city data-driven smart contracts and dApp adoption available to all stakeholders. The Fantom team hopes to see the platform utilized in a number of industries, including public utilities, smart home systems, healthcare, education, traffic control, resource management, and environmental sustainability initiatives.

Understanding Fantom

Fantom, like many other Ethereum blockchain network competitors, focuses on offering far cheaper costs and scalability than the industry-leading smart contracts platform can offer in its Ethereum 1.0 version. By binding the network together with its Proof-of-Stake (PoS), Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerant (aBFT) consensus method, Fantom’s architecture helps to preserve the network’s operational efficiency. For those of you who aren’t sure what aBFT stands for, let me explain. The aBFT network topology was established with the goal of maximizing speed while maintaining network security.

Allow me to describe it in much simpler terms for a better comprehension. The new aBFT mechanism, also known as Lachesis, allows Fantom to be more cheaper and quicker than previous technologies while being extremely safe. Similarly, the platform aims to set itself apart with its Lachesis Protocol, which will be connected with the Fantom OPERA Chain. Fantom aims to prevent the low-cost danger of attack by removing leadership among network members, while staking helps to provide additional user incentives in order to protect operations with the assistance of holdings users have of the native FTM coin.

Furthermore, the Fantom network’s primary goal is to ensure interoperability with all transaction bodies throughout the world while also creating an environment that allows for data sharing and real-time transactions at a minimal cost. Fantom is also involved with a number of other initiatives, including Chainlink, Brand Protocol, Ethereum Classic Labs, and Coti, to mention a few. Aside from that, the Fantom protocol is separated into three primary levels, each with its own set of tasks that differ from the others. The Opera Ware Layer, Opera Core Layer, and Application Layer are the three layers.

How it Works

Fantom is a Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) blockchain with many layers. The architecture of the network may be divided into three tiers. These layers are able to exchange data and are fully compatible with all transactions and transaction tools.

Opera Core Layer

In the Fantom process, the Opera Core Layer is the initial protocol. This layer is in charge of ensuring that everyone stays on the same page. The network uses a proprietary DPoS consensus mechanism to perform this objective. To preserve validity, this structure employs both Validator and Witness nodes.

Opera Ware Layer

The Opera Ware Layer is a network layer that runs functions. This layer is also in charge of issuing incentives and payments. Opera Ware, in particular, is in charge of writing network Story Data. Fantom’s mechanism for tracking all previous transactions is called Story Data. When addressing logistical use cases or other instances where the network must allow endless data access, this functionality is crucial.

Application Layer

The Application Layer is where developers communicate with the network’s other levels. Users can locate public APIs in this section. These APIs offer safe and dependable network access for Dapps and other applications.

Benefits

When users join the Fantom ecosystem, they enjoy certain undeniable advantages. Payments, supply chain management, DeFi, and business applications have all benefited from the platform. Furthermore, developers are not required to learn a new programming language. Fantom is fully compatible with EVM.
Fantom is a top-performing network in terms of scalability. Transactions are almost instantaneous on the platform. The time-to-finality (TTF) is now approximately one second for users. The developers have set a target of completing 300,000 transactions per second as the network grows (tps).

This would place Fantom ahead of some of the world’s most well-known payment processors, including VISA and PayPal. According to VISA speed testing, the network can handle up to 36,000 tps. Fantom aims to deliver 10 times the speed.

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Bitcoin News

FTX CEO Thinks No Blockchain is Fast Enough

According to Sam Bankman-Fried or SBF, the founder and CEO of crypto derivatives exchange FTX, the crypto industry still has a long way to go before it changes the world. Improved scalability is one of them.

The FTX CEO noted in a lengthy thread on Twitter that Solana now holds the record for the quickest transaction per second throughput at roughly 50,000 TPS. Even Nevertheless, if the crypto sector is to be accepted on a worldwide basis, networks capable of handling millions of transactions per second are required.

“Well, blockchains are starting to scale, but it’s not enough yet. We’re at ~50k TPS; industrial-scale applications often require millions.” He noted, “I always laugh when a blockchain says they’re already fast.  None are! Fast means millions of TPS.  No one is there yet.” 

The most explosive year for the crypto sector has been 2021, according to SBF. He cited a large user base, additional blockchains with smart contract capabilities, more possible use cases, the introduction of scaling solutions, and the industry’s tremendous attention as the industry’s greatest successes. However, if scalability isn’t taken into account, all of this will be for nothing.

According to SBF, the crypto industry has demonstrated that those with significant network effects — those backed by a big number of buyers and sellers – are the winners. This is why the industry must strive towards scalability, as it will enable crypto to not only make payments and remittances possible on the blockchain, but also new use cases such as social media, information flow, and video games to be combined with NFTs.

While reaching scalability is one side of the coin for the future of crypto, according to SBF, it is not the industry’s sole pressing necessity. In addition, the young millionaire believes that the crypto business need substantial oversight. He stated that the sector must work together to fix present regulatory gaps while enabling liquidity to flow to the United States and Europe.

He also emphasizes that the industry must concentrate on security as well as enhance user experience in order to remain relevant.

Categories
Altcoins News

FTX Offers $1 Million For Banks to Accept Stablecoins

Stablecoin adoption is increasing thanks to the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In a tweet on Tuesday, FTX claimed it was looking at forging partnerships with banks in several regions to allow customers to make “near-instant and near-free deposits and withdrawals” using stablecoins. The exchange proposed a $1 million reward for the first bank in each region to accept the tokens, but suggested that it would be willing to provide more.

How much would it cost to convince a bank to accept stablecoins?
If we offered a $1m prize for the first bank in each region that does it is that enough?
Do you work for a bank and want to discuss this?

— FTX – Built By Traders, For Traders (@FTX_Official) December 28, 2021

In a follow-up tweet, the exchange confirmed the reason behind the proposal, saying, “We’d love to form a relationship like this if it means FTX users would enjoy near fast and near free deposits and withdrawals.”

Sending and receiving payments from banks to crypto exchanges is now a big source of frustration for many consumers. Deposits and withdrawals might incur considerable costs and take several days to settle, depending on the kind of transfer and bank.

Temasek, Sequoia Capital, Sea Capital, IVP, ICONIQ Growth, Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, and Lightspeed Venture Partners were among the foreign investors who contributed $420 million to FTX in a capital round in October 2021.

FTX is the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of trading volume. The exchange has climbed significantly in the last year owing to a massive marketing push that included a TV commercial featuring NFL star Tom Brady and collaborations with a number of sports teams, including the NBA’s Miami Heat and Golden State Warriors.

Many US regulators have been looking at stablecoins this year, with The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets publishing a report in November recommending that issuers be subject to “proper government monitoring” similar to that of banks. Nellie Liang, the Treasury’s Undersecretary for Domestic Finance, has also hinted at new coin-related legislation.

Categories
Bitcoin

A Final Glance At The Year BTC, ETH And BNB Had

As the year 2021 draws to a close, many would agree that it has been a major turning point for the cryptocurrency industry. Aside from the continual battle for domination between bulls and bears, the crypto market has seen a number of price-defining events. Despite this, the business has experienced widespread acceptance by institutions and substantial discussion about rules rather than outright prohibition.

Many people would want an overview of market performance and a prediction of what price particular leading assets will close at given the ups and downs that have occurred over the preceding 363 days, and this post is aimed to ease their fears. Let’s begin by looking at the global cryptocurrency market.

The Industry Peaked At $3 Trillion This Year

At the start of the year, the crypto market was valued at $778 billion, the lowest it has ever been. At the time of writing, the industry is valued at $2.3 trillion, down from $2.9 trillion at its height. The increase in value from the initial price to the most current valuation is more than 200 percent.

The industry’s rise is exciting, especially when we consider some of the events that have occurred in the previous 363 days. Nonetheless, the year in question saw a 200 percent growth, making it the second year in a row with such advances.

With only two days left in the year 2021, many are speculating on what various cryptocurrencies will end the year at. We’ll take a final glance at the three largest cryptocurrencies, BTC, ETH, and BNB.

BTC

The most valuable digital asset has increased by more than 70% in value since January 1, when it launched at $29,000 and is now valued at $47,797. Six of these periods concluded with BTC gaining heavily, dividing the months evenly between the two camps of traders.

Most traders were positive on BTC at the start of the year, and thought that the top cryptocurrency might exceed the $100k mark. The largest cryptocurrency asset gained 102 percent in the first quarter. BTC was at its high in Q1, and the following period witnessed relatively little growth.

The king coin had its worst quarter in the second quarter, with a low of $28,600 and a 40% loss. It then struggled to recover in the next six months, but in Q4 it soared to an all-time high of $69,000, a 16 percent gain.

In response to the issue of whether the bulls have finally woken up, a prior research indicated that December is known for the steadiness the top currency enjoys during this time. The price’s stability can be attributed to a drop in trading activity, since most traders are away for the holidays.

The article concluded by stating that, based on the foregoing remark, any increase at this time may be deemed short-term and may not endure as long as many people expect.

Regardless all the bearish and bullish battles, BTC has remained constant below and at $50k for the previous three days. If market circumstances stay unchanged, bitcoin might conclude the year somewhat above or slightly below $50,000.

ETH

Ether, like the majority of the top cryptocurrencies, has seen enormous growth. The currency began trading at $737 per unit in 2021. The second most valuable digital asset is now trading at $3,800 per token at the time of writing. We calculated that, ETH, under consideration had increased by more than 400%.

Throughout the four quarters of the year, the biggest alt experienced tremendous gains, reaching an all-time high of $4,868 last month. The initial price became the lowest the coin touched after continuing the increase from the previous 363 days to the present. Upgrades were also made.

On August 5, the long-awaited Ethereum London hard fork went live. The update, which replaced Ethereum’s existing “proof of work (PoW)” system with a “proof-of-stake (PoS)” protocol, is a significant step forward for ETH’s Tokenomics as well as the approaching launch of the Ethereum 2.0 project.

The objective of seeing ETH surpass $5,000 before the end of 2021 appears to be in jeopardy, as the current pricing predicts that it will be impossible to achieve in the next two days.

BNB 

Binance coin began 2021 with two figures, but will finish up with a third figure. BNB was trading at $44 per unit on January 1st. The digital asset is now trading at $540 per token. The third-largest coin now has a price rise of more than 1,000 percent.

It dropped 43% at the time, but recovered two months later to hit an all-time high of $696. BNB had a lot of volatility in 2021, as seen by the rises and corrections. After barely four months of bearish supremacy, the bulls have emerged victorious.

The asset has been trading over $530 for the past six days, indicating increased purchasing pressure. A deeper examination of the chart reveals that the exchange token is beginning to trend upwards. If the current increasing trend continues, crypto’s second most valuable asset might rise beyond $560. On the daily chart, however, there is a lot of volatility, which might dissuade any raise but keep prices over $530.

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Altcoins Guides & Tutorials

VeChain (VET): Everything You Need to Know

What is Vechain?

VeChain was one of the first blockchains designed specifically for the needs of business clients. The project’s creators want to leverage distributed ledger technology to improve supply chain and product lifecycle management (DLT). Furthermore, the platform provides customers with a number of additional features that make it suitable for companies looking to improve supply chain standards and business operations.

The logistics industry is currently plagued by an asymmetric information problem. While the systems in place acquire a significant quantity of data, it is not shared effectively. Severe compartmentalization, in most cases, forces the whole supply chain to rely on centralized data sources. This lack of cohesion leads to a lack of transparency and data transmission delays.

What is VET?

VET is a cryptocurrency that can be purchased on an exchange. Within the VeChain blockchain, it functions as a value increment. This cryptocurrency may be used to send money over the blockchain and to activate smart contracts. It’s also how consumers pay for transactions on the VeChain blockchain-based Dapps.

There are 55,454,734,800 VET in circulation right now. The VeChain system is set up to issue 86,712,634,466 VET in total. Based on market capitalization, VET is one of the top 30 cryptocurrencies in the world.

History

Sunny Lu, the former chief information officer (CIO) of Louis Vuitton China, established VeChain in 2015. It began as a subsidiary of Bitse, one of China’s major blockchain startups, and is one of the few blockchains with a considerable number of established enterprises as customers.

The VEN coin ran on the Ethereum network at first. In 2018, VeChain renamed itself and moved to its own blockchain. The VEN blockchain was renamed the VeChainThor (VET) blockchain as part of the rebranding.

The VeChain blockchain platform’s goals are laid forth in its white paper. Its primary goal was to disrupt the supply chain sector by making data more accessible and actionable. It also intends to be a pioneer in VeChain-based decentralized applications (dApps) and initial coin offerings (ICOs), as well as an IoT middleman.

In order to achieve this aim, VeChain has formed strategic alliances with a number of firms throughout the years. One of these is a deal with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to leverage VeChain’s blockchain-powered solutions to improve product verification and traceability for the accountancy firm’s clients.

VeChain has also teamed with Renault, developing a digital automobile maintenance book that cannot be tampered with in collaboration with Microsoft and Viseo, and is the government technology partner for Gui’an, the Central Chinese Government’s economic development zone.

How it Works

VeChain intends to let any organization to create new types of dApps. The VeChain team created a component called the VeChain ToolChain, a software development kit, to make the construction of dapps easier.

Proof of Authority

VeChain Thor employs a consensus technique known as proof of authority (PoA) to manage the process by which transactions between users are confirmed and posted to VeChain’s public ledger.

Authority Masternodes are users that verify and add transactions to the blockchain. To become one, individuals must stake a minimum of 25 million VET and provide identifying information to the VeChain Foundation.

While adopting a PoA method allows high transaction volumes to be processed quickly, it has the drawback of relying on a central authority to inspect and approve users who may participate in transaction processing.

It’s worth noting that VeChain is aiming to strengthen its PoA in order to assure a more randomized and distributed block generation method.

Two Token Design

VeChain’s software is powered by two native tokens: VET, which is used to store and transfer value, and VTHO, which is used for blockchain transactions.

This architecture aims to separate the price volatility of VET currency from the cost of network calculations, allowing VeChain apps to charge predictable fees (since the VTHOR supply can be adjusted to maintain a stable price for transactions).

Miners get VTHO fees for calculations executed by the network, similar to how the Ethereum blockchain utilizes ETH and gas. The more complicated the calculation, the more VTHO a software will need.

Finally, nodes who stake VET currencies can vote on network enhancements and are rewarded with VTHO per block.

Special Features

VeChain is distinct from other blockchains in that it offers a number of unique characteristics. VeChain, for example, shines up when it comes to data and commodities monitoring application cases. Any company that needs a verifiable ownership chain for shipping, production, or other procedures would benefit from it.

Users may utilize the VeChain smart contract capabilities to track and regulate the ownership of commodities, regardless of their quantity.

Aside from that, VeChainThor may be able to support new currencies as well as a variety of smart contracts. The blockchain’s currencies adhere to the VIP180 standard, which was created specifically for VeChain.

As a result, VeChain employs a proof-of-authority technique, as opposed to Ethereum’s and Bitcoin’s proof-of-work systems. The VeChain method would therefore make the network more efficient while consuming less power.

Conclusion

VeChain is a one-of-a-kind blockchain, and while the token cannot be mined, it can be purchased on numerous exchanges, including Binance and Crypto.com. If you’re interested in this token, you’ll need to purchase a secure cryptocurrency wallet to store it in. You’ll always have it safe and ready to use this way.

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News

Sportium Gets into Strategic Partnership With Dapper Labs

Sportium, a fast-growing multi-faceted sports Non-Fungible Token (NFT) platform with the purpose of bringing traditional sports to the Metaverse, has announced a strategic partnership with Dapper Labs and an investment. The blockchain business also stated that it has completed an investment round from Dapper Labs, but the amount raised was not disclosed. This round of fundraising follows a previous fundraiser headed by Libertus Capital, which included Animoca Brands and Folius Ventures.

Dapper Labs is a Canadian blockchain startup that recently attracted international notice thanks to the great success of NBA Top Shot, their sports NFT collectibles platform. However, due to their invention of CryptoKitties in 2017, they are regarded as an industry pioneer within the NFT community.

Sportium will expand out its multi-sports NFT platform on the Flow mainnet as part of the agreement, according to a signed MOU. Sportium stands to benefit a lot from Dapper Labs, which has a track record of successfully completing a number of NFT projects over the last four years. The announcement stated:

“Ever since the first moment we were introduced to the Sportium team and their vision, they never cease to impress us with the team’s engineering and execution capabilities. Combined with our know-how coming from experiences operating NBA Top Shot and our other successful NFT projects, we have a strong conviction that Sportium could be something of tremendous potential to make a dent in the NFT industry.”

Flow is the world’s first layer-one blockchain, developed by a team that has repeatedly delivered industry-leading consumer-scale web3 experiences such as CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot. Flow ecosystem partners include major companies like Warner Brothers, UFC, and Ubisoft, as well as e-commerce startups like Shopify and game creators like Animoca Brands.

Dapper Labs and Sportium’s Partnership is Strategic

The NFT and metaverse ecosystems are just getting started, and beyond the new ideas that new participants are bringing to the table, the sort of strategic relationships that these firms form is a decisive element in how quickly and well they will flourish.

The partnership between Sportium and Dapper Labs is strategic, as Dapper Labs contributes the knowledge of establishing and maintaining the world’s most successful sport NFT marketplace, which will serve as a model for the former company. The type of a startup’s partners and funding will also influence its acceleration mode.

Sportium’s efforts to become the world’s premier marketplace and ecosystem for playing with, trading, and earning sports NFTs will be bolstered by this new financial and strategic cooperation. Dapper Labs brings to the table the knowledge of building and running the world’s most successful sport NFT marketplace. The Sportium team is very enthusiastic about the significant value that Dapper Labs and Flow can bring to the Sportium project as a strategic investor.

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Bitcoin News

Review: $9.8 Billion Was Lost to Crypto Frauds This Year

The year 2021 will undoubtedly be remembered as the year when institutions finally acknowledged that cryptocurrency is not a fad but rather a viable alternative financial sector. However, as interest and usage increased, the number of security breaches and hackers increased as well. Crypto criminals managed to get their hands on a massive $9.8 billion USD stolen in different breaches and ransomware assaults, according to the latest data from Slowmist.

Ponzi schemes and rug pulls were the two most common forms of scams in 2021, accounting for more than 80% of total frauds. Due to the growth in the value of cryptos and the introduction of faster and faster technology, blockchain-based frauds have had a shorter execution lifespan, with fewer individuals being ripped off big sums of money, according to a Chainalysis research.

The average longevity of scams is two and a half months in the 2021 study, compared to the six-month maturity period it took to finish a fake last year.

According to the annual study by Slowmist, there were a total of 231 hacks and security breaches in the crypto ecosystem, with 171 of those events coming from various defi protocols. While the Defi ecosystem has evolved to be one of the most well-known in the crypto world, it is also one of the most misused. There hasn’t been a single week in the last year when there hasn’t been some form of security violation.

Due to the anonymity factor, the decentralized nature of the blockchain has made it nearly impossible for hackers to launder money out of the systems. It is also important to note that some of the biggest heists in crypto were eventually returned due to the decentralized nature of the blockchain, which made it nearly impossible for hackers to launder money out of the systems. PolyNetwork, the largest Defi attack to date, was a classic illustration of this, with hackers gaining access to assets valued more than $600 million.

The protocol notified all exchanges and stablecoin issuers of the hacked address, which resulted in the freezing of all stablecoins and the banning of all transactions from that account. As a result, the hacker had no choice but to return the money and instead get a white hack reward.

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Altcoins News

Cardano Founder Shares The Company’s Plans For 2022

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson presented a 30-minute Youtube video on Christmas Eve in which he reviewed some of Cardano’s key successes in 2021 and highlighted some of the company’s main ambitions for the next year. He also stated that a formal structure for open-source projects will be established.

Cardano Keeps Going Up

Cardano’s value has increased by 8% in the last 24 hours and by 25% in the last seven days. Cardano’s price shifted in response to information about the company’s new strategy.

Cardano was launched in 2015 and has since evolved into a viable competitor to Ethereum. It uses its local currency, ADA, to handle transactions for its clients. It’s also known for being one of the most popular bitcoin networks.

Hoskinson said: “There was a tweet from 2020 where I said, ‘I predict by next year we’ll have thousands of dApps and hundreds of assets on Cardano,’ and I got it wrong in both directions.”

According to him, instead of hundreds, the Cardano network now has over two million assets, the bulk of which are purportedly NFTs. “We have yet to see considerable momentum” in the expansion of decentralized apps (dApps) on the network, according to Hoskinson. He said that this was due to the Goguen upgrade, which added smart contracts to the network, being delayed.

With the Alonzo hard fork on September 12, Cardano added smart contract capability to the mainnet. However, because to a so-called concurrency issue, Minswap, the first decentralized exchange to function on the network, ran very immediate scalability issues.

Concurrency, to put it simply, is the ability for several agents to engage with the same smart contract at the same time. Due to this problem, Cardano’s EUTXO-based architecture has made it difficult for developers to create scalable decentralized apps using the protocol.

He also stated that over 15 firms are now working on Cardano all across the world. The company also hopes to expand the number of businesses with whom it collaborates.

Furthermore, in the future, states and institutions throughout the country will be able to communicate and work on commercial initiatives.

IOHK also produced a page outlining how people may introduce ADA to their friends and family, in addition to the video lecture. The essay goes on to say that Cardano is focused on decentralized finance, or DeFi, and refers to it as “Realfi.”

Plans to Expand Through Africa

“Next year, what’s going to happen is that a formal open-source structure is going to be formed, kind of like Hyperledger to Linux, and we’re going to see many institutions wired in,” said Hoskinson. 

Cardano’s aims for the coming year include strengthening the network’s institutions and extending its usage beyond Africa. Cardano’s objective is to create all of the required tools for on-chain peer-to-peer lending that is both accessible and compliant. One of the effects of this would be to entirely bypass Africa’s financial system, which, according to Hoskinson, is “very predatory at times and allows some of the worst individuals alive to continue in power.”

Hoskinson also offered a few unfavorable comments about some of the current trends and competing ventures in the sector. He stated on the present state of the industry:

“Decentralization, that’s what we were promised, and what did we get? Pictures of rocks that sell for million dollars, buzzword buzzword buzzword, networks that purport to be decentralized but when they stop working, somebody kicks them to restart them.”

While he didn’t name names, his remark was most likely addressed at Solana, a smart contract blockchain that has had repeated network outages in the past year. In September, for example, the network fell down for 18 hours, and validators had to reassemble and “restart” the network in order to get it back up and running.

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Altcoins Guides & Tutorials

Cosmos (ATOM): The Internet of Blockchains

Atom, a cryptocurrency based on the Cosmos blockchain, has a market value of $5.72 billion and has increased by more than 20% in the last week. Experts predict Atom will become more valuable in the future as the Cosmos network expands. Its price has risen by almost 295 percent in only one year, from $6.4 to over $25. But what exactly is Cosmos, and why are experts so enthusiastic about it? Here’s everything you need to know .

What is Cosmos?

Cosmos is a network of blockchain networks. This notion is referred to as the “Internet of Blockchains” by developers. The project’s purpose is to make it possible for different blockchains to connect with one another in a seamless manner. Cosmos transforms market friction into a positive driving force for progress by allowing any blockchain to interact, share data, and transact with any other.

Cosmos is more than just a link between blockchains. This platform also comes with a comprehensive set of products and services, making it a compelling contender in the market. Cosmos delivers a cutting-edge technological stack that gives developers access to strong tools that speed up the building of blockchains.

Within the Cosmos ecosystem, developers may design complicated blockchains in less than a week. In comparison, utilizing 2cd-generation blockchains, the identical procedure would take weeks. As a result, the network continues to witness a growing Dapp community, which contributes to more user involvement.

History

The network is built on Jae Kwon’s Tendermint consensus system, which he designed in 2014. Kwon was joined by Zarko Milosevic and Ethan Buchman to create the Cosmos interoperable ecosystem; he later stepped away from the project in 2020. It is the most comparable project to Polkadot, which likewise aims to build an ecosystem of interoperable blockchain networks. Cosmos, unlike Polkadot, places a premium on independent blockchains’ sovereignty, which means they must protect themselves, have their own government, and run their own validators.

How it Works

Cosmos is a project aimed at establishing an interoperable network of diverse blockchains. The network, which was founded in 2014 by Ethan Buchman and Jae Kwon, consists of a Proof of Stake mainnet and customizable blockchains known as Zones.

Cosmos Hub, the primary chain, transports assets and data between linked Zones while also providing a common layer of security. Tendermint, Cosmos’ unique consensus mechanism, and a generic application interface are used to connect them all. Cosmos fees are paid in ATOM, the network’s cryptocurrency. The network is comprised of three layers:

  1. Networking – Allows hub blockchains to connect with transaction confirmations and other consensus messages.
  2. Application – Notifies the network of changes in transaction and balance status.
  3. Consensus – Determines how nodes agree to add new transactions.
    A range of open-source tools and apps integrate these three levels. Tendermint, for example, combines the networking and consensus layers into a single, ready-to-use engine. Tendermint allows blockchain developers to focus solely on the application layer, saving them time and money.

Benefits

Cosmos brings a slew of benefits to the marketplace. For starters, the platform may be completely customized. Developers have the freedom to design and release new blockchain apps and platforms. Interestingly, the network operates without the assistance of a central body. The network facilitates inter-blockchain transactions in this way, allowing developers to programmatically transfer data and tokens.

The Internet of Blockchains

The Cosmos network allows developers to continually adding new chains to the hub, each with its own set of features. This results in a vast network of chains that are continually communicating and exchanging data in real time. This is similar to the Internet-of-Things (IoT) idea, in which all items in a network are linked and make adjustments on their own to improve the system’s overall performance. As a result, the network has been dubbed the “Internet of Blockchains.”

Conclusion

Cosmos was one of the earliest interoperable blockchain systems accessible, and it has remained a popular choice. Tendermint (BFT) and Cosmos SDK are two strong technologies that are still used to build blockchains today. Since 2017, however, there has been a greater emphasis on sidechains that operate with high-traffic blockchains like Ethereum. It remains to be seen if this tendency will continue. Cosmos, on the other hand, has plans to build on existing trends like as NFTs, DeFi collateralization, and interchain staking, allowing it to ride their popularity into the future.

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Altcoins News

Dogecoin Founder Reveals How Many DOGE He Owns

Billy Markus, who cofounded Dogecoin in 2013 but is no longer involved with the project, has revealed how much of the most popular meme cryptocurrency he owns. When asked if he plans to return to coding DOGE, he declared emphatically that he will never do it again, explaining why.

Markus (a.k.a. “Shibetoshi Nakamoto” on Twitter) revealed the figure in a tweet earlier today, confirming his present role in the Dogecoin community. He stated that he no longer speaks for Dogecoin or works on the project, and that he is simply a member of the community.

He claims to own over 220k DOGE, which is worth around $42 000 at today’s values.

Markus noted again, referring to a wide range of topics he tweets about, that because he owes no one in the crypto community anything, he is free to choose any topic for his tweets. However, he stated that he will continue to support people who are working to improve the crypto space while discouraging those who are not.

Markus’s laid-back demeanor contrasts with that of his co-creator Jackson Palmer, who has often expressed disdain for both Dogecoin and cryptocurrency. In July, he claimed that the entire space accentuates capitalism’s worst qualities, rewarding the wealthy while allowing them to unfairly avoid taxation.

Even when compared to other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Dogecoin distribution is excessively concentrated in the hands of a few rich people. Markus’ numbers, on the other hand, imply that he is not one of them. Though not insignificant, his holdings aren’t large enough to sway the market during a selloff or make him a huge fortune.

Billy Markus responded to a follower’s tweet by emphasizing that he will never code Dogecoin again (read: “I will not be its official leader”). The reason for this is because the more someone contributes for the community, the more he is mistreated. He added that he respects the developers a lot for volunteering to do so for all these years.

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News Regulation

Binance Gets Regulatory Nod From Bahrain and Canada

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has received an MSB license from Canadian regulatory authorities to offer cryptocurrency services as the year draws to a close. The firm also gained in-principle clearance from Bahrain’s central bank on the same day.

Binance’s Canadian subsidiary will be known as Binance Canada Capital Markets, according to an official filing with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC). In addition, it will deal in foreign exchange, money transfers, and virtual currencies.

On December 1st, 2021, the exchange was formed as a domestic organization, and the license is valid for the following four years, or until December 31st, 2024. CZ confirmed the news on Twitter:

Binance’s journey in 2021 has been nothing short of a rollercoaster, with the company being ostracized by some of the world’s most prominent regulatory bodies. In fact, the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) recently punished its Turkey unit over $750,000 for infractions discovered during liability inspections.

However, the most recent development proved that, despite these obstacles, Binance is making progress in its quest to extend its worldwide presence. The bitcoin exchange received a heads up from a Gulf country in addition to receiving an MSB license.

The Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) has given Binance preliminary license to operate as a cryptocurrency service provider. According to the official press release, the approval comes after the company applied for a license from the regulatory body to operate as a fully-regulated centralized cryptocurrency exchange.

With the most recent development, CBB has become the first agency in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to approve Binance. The exchange will still have to finish the whole application procedure as part of the permission, which it anticipates to be done in due course. CZ commented on the development, saying,

“The CBB has been a progressive pioneer in developing a robust crypto-asset framework focusing on compliance with global standards of anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing, transaction monitoring, consumer protection amongst others. It sets a benchmark bridging traditional financial systems and the crypto industry to facilitate safe adoption and deployment.”

Binance stated last week that it will collaborate with the Dubai World Trade Center Authority (DWTCA) to create a cryptocurrency center. The major goal of the MoU with the DWTCA is to increase the global crypto exchange’s efforts to develop a digital asset ecosystem that will bring long-term economic growth.

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Bitcoin News

NFL Players Take Salaries In Crypto, Increasing the Value of Digital Assets

In recent weeks, there’s been a lot of crypto sports news, as companies try to capitalize on sports media coverage for development. Crypto exchange Crypto.com (CRO) purchased Super Bowl LVI airtime last week as part of its 5-year plan to become a top 20 consumer brand. The move followed the announcement of a sponsorship contract with Angel City F.C., a female soccer side from the United States.

However, crypto platforms aren’t the only ones looking to sports. Players have also shown an increased interest in crypto or crypto-fiat blended compensation.

This week, word broke that a handful of prominent NFL players have entered the crypto arena by requesting to be paid entirely or partially in cryptocurrency. The developments follow an excellent year for both the crypto market and the NFL.

In late 2021, a number of the most popular cryptos, including Bitcoin (BTC), reached all-time highs. The newest news will continue to boost interest in Bitcoin (BTC) and the broader cryptocurrency market as crypto use continues to climb.

Seven NFL Players Take Crypto Salaries

Aaron Jones, Aaron Rodgers, Odell Beckham Jr, Saquon Barkley, Sean Culkin, Tom Brady, and Trever Lawrence are among the athletes who have lately declared that they would be paid in cryptocurrency. Sean Culkin is the only player on the list who pays his whole wage in Bitcoin. Others are exchanging a piece of their salaries or may get cryptocurrency endorsements.

Aaron Rodgers, the reigning 2020 NFL Most Valuable Player, stated his decision to take a percentage of his paycheck in Bitcoin last month in a video clip on Twitter, and disclosed that he will be shaking hands with the Cash App payment provider. In addition, he stated that he will give $1 million in Bitcoin.

Tom Brady, another high-profile NFL quarterback, dabbled with cryptocurrencies in 2021. Though he has not said if he gets paid in BTC by NFL, he will be compensated in bitcoin by FTX as a brand ambassador thanks to his ownership position in Sam Bankman-exchange. Fried’s The NFL great has recently unveiled his Autograph Non-Fungible Platform. Its goal is to attract fresh talent in the fields of sports, entertainment, fashion, and pop culture.

Saquon Barkley, the standout running back for the New York Giants, said in July that he will convert all of his endorsement revenue to BTC. He is not, however, compensated in crypto currencies and instead converts his money into BTC.

The seven players, however, are not the first to get paid in crypto. Russell Okung is said to be the first NFL player to accept a cryptocurrency paycheck. In 2020, he received half of his earning in Bitcoin (BTC).

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Altcoins Guides & Tutorials

Get to Know Stellar Lumens (XLM)

What is Stellar Lumens?

The network is called Stellar, and Lumens are its unit of cryptocurrency. Lumens (XLM) is the token that drives the Stellar Network, which is a decentralized peer-to-peer network. Stellar’s concept is that anyone who uses its service may transfer anything from traditional currency to tokens that represent new and current assets (dollars, euros, bitcoin, stocks, gold, and other tokens of value). Lumens can then be used to transfer these assets amongst users with minimal friction.

History

Jed McCaleb is the creator of Lumens and co-creator of Stellar. He is also the creator of the Stellar Development Foundation, which is the project’s developer team. In the crypto world, McCaleb is most known for founding Mt Gox, the first major Bitcoin exchange. McCaleb was the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Ripple, the business mainly responsible for the XRP Ledger’s creation. When he founded Stellar in 2013, he departed the project.

Other significant players in the XLM ecosystem include David Mazieres (developer of the Stellar consensus protocol), Denelle Dixon (SDF’s Executive Director and CEO), and Joyce Kim, in addition to McCaleb ( co-founder of Stellar and former Executive Director of the SDF).

The Stellar project was initially sponsored by Stripe, a payments firm, as well as donations from BlackRock, Google, and FastForward. The group receives tax-deductible public donations to pay its operating expenditures.

In 2018, Stellar partnered with TransferTo to offer cross-border payments to over 70 countries. It was also chosen as a partner by IBM (IBM) for a double-pegged stablecoin project and became the first distributed technology ledger to get a Shariah-compliance certificate for payments and asset tokenization.

How it Works

Stellar is a blockchain-based decentralized network of servers, each of which runs independently. This means that each node is linked, yet there is no central source of control. By synchronizing and achieving a consensus, the network lets transactions to take place, allowing the ledger to be spread broadly and equitably. Anyone may join the Stellar Core as a verification node (server), and they can do so via the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP).

The SCP is Stellar’s transaction verification algorithm. It enables the network to scale more fast and effectively than other proof-of-work blockchains like Bitcoin. Because it employs an intriguing feature called as “anchors,” the network is supposedly more decentralized.

Anchors are trusted entities that can manage people’s deposits and distribute credits to the blockchain. The anchors serve as a connection point between various digital assets and the Stellar blockchain.

What Makes it Unique

Stellar offers a wide range of services that you’d expect from a traditional bank, but with a few notable exceptions.  Transactions are processed on a decentralized network with far cheaper rates and faster processing times than a typical bank can provide. Payments are handled in 2-5 seconds, currency conversion is simple, and the network’s costs are infinitesimally cheap — a single 600,000th of a cent each transaction.

And, unlike many other crypto projects, all of these services are supplied with a unique method. Stellar has the admirable objective of building a more egalitarian digital economy, while many popular initiatives are focused on corporate alliances and profits. Stellar claims it would “fight poverty and enhance individual potential” by linking individuals all across the world to low-cost banking services.

Conclusion

Stellar is a fascinating project that is gaining a lot of traction in the cryptosphere. While it faces fierce competition, it has a diverse set of applications and a number of noteworthy features. Its partnership with IBM, as well as its increasing number of global partners, might pave the way for a prosperous future. However, before determining whether or not to acquire any XLM, make sure you do your own impartial assessment of what the future holds for Stellar.

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Blockchain Business News Regulation

Binance Gets Fined $750k By Turkey

Binance Turkey was reportedly fined 8 million lira by the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) for allegedly violating the Prevention of Laundering Proceeds of Crime monitoring system.

The crypto exchange failed MASAK’s Anti-Money Laundering monitoring examination on how money is obtained through unlawful means, according to the announcement.

The sanction levied against the exchange is the first since the authorities assumed responsibility for cryptocurrency regulation. Anadolu, Turkey’s state-owned news agency, said that the MASAK fined Binance’s local exchange business $751,314 without providing any details.

The authority has yet to release information on the violations discovered during the inspections. In response to the questions, a Binance spokeswoman stated that the firm does not reveal its discussions with regulators on weekends.

MASAK detected Binance Turkey for breaking the norms and regulations placed in place to combat AML operations in the country during the early phase of the law, also called as AML Law. The authority, on the other hand, levied a large sum of money on Binance Turkey as a deterrent to anyone.

Binance Turkey has become the first crypto exchange to be fined by the Turkish government, which is sad. Furthermore, this incidence occurs at the same time that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan stated that the country’s crypto law has been finished.

Meanwhile, President Recep Tayyip Erdoan announced on Friday that Turkey will soon take action to address cryptocurrencies, which have become a source of concern for many governments and central banks.

Erdoan said during a press conference in Istanbul that a law on cryptocurrencies is ready and will be debated soon in the national assembly. He also spoke about Turkey’s new economy and finance model.

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News

Crypto.Com CEO Lashes Out At CoinMarketCap

CoinMarketCap appears to be in hot water, with Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek slamming them for underreporting the former’s trade volume. According to Marszalek, CoinMarketCap has shifted the position to 14th with a $1.8 billion trading volume.

Crypto.com, on the other hand, was ranked third by CoinGecko, with a $3.1 billion trading volume.

In a tweet released on Christmas Day, Marszalek slammed CoinMarketCap, saying:

“Merry Christmas to team CoinMarketCap, who, a week after my response to their poorly worded tweet, arbitrarily reduced our exchange ranking to 14th. We are 2nd/3rd on CoinGecko, so you guys know where to look for real and market neutral data.”

The tweet referred to by the Crypto.com CEO is an exchange between the two, with Marszalek finally declaring that Crypto.com is attempting to remove CoinMarketCap’s faulty pricing feeds from their platform. Due to a malfunction that they were experiencing at the time, CoinMarketCap has witnessed a substantial increase in customer complaints.

CoinMarketCap showed a substantial surge in the price of cryptocurrencies as a result of the issue, which had a knock-on impact on crypto businesses that rely on its data.

The CoinMarketCap glitch drew a lot of attention to the aggregator, but it was for all the wrong reasons. Because of the issue, prices on CoinMarketCap skyrocketed, affecting all major cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin’s price was shown to be a mind-boggling $789 billion per coin. Engineers eventually sprung into action and patched the error after it had been active on the website for almost an hour.

CoinMarketCap has recently been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, with the price-tracking website also falling prey to a breach that exposed over 3.1 million users’ email information. “Have I Been Pwned?” was the first to disclose the data breach.

According to the website, the breach occurred on October 12th and was discovered after the obtained email addresses were traded on multiple hacker forums online. The company quickly reassured its users that the attack had only resulted in the theft of email addresses and that no passwords had been exposed.

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Bitcoin Ethereum

Bitcoin Goes Below $50k

On Dec. 26, Bitcoin (BTC) dropped $50,000 for the first time in many days, as exchange inflows matched the cautiously positive atmosphere.  Volatility hit the leading crypto and USD overnight on Saturday, according to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView.

After reaching $51,500, the pair began to retrace, resulting in a drop to $49,644. Bitcoin was back above $50,000 at the time of publication.  The increase coincided with a surge in inflows to major exchange Binance, with order book data indicating a fresh barrier of resistance at $50,000. The trend indicates that a large-volume investor is influencing market bias, and Binance has already been the target of such suspicion in recent days.

Material Scientist, a data analysis account, commented on Binance’s fast shifting order book arrangement, “This seems like a new player.”

According to statistics from on-chain monitoring site Coinglass, exchange balances have creeped up 60,000 BTC since Dec. 22, rising from 1.69 million to 1.75 million BTC.

Ethereum keeps its $4,000 defensive zone intact

Most large-cap tokens stayed largely undamaged following Bitcoin’s recent slump, providing some respite to altcoin traders. At the time of writing, Ether (ETH) was still trading above $4,000. Others among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization either maintained or increased their gains. Popular trader Pentoshi identified $3,940-$4,000 as a “key” target for bulls to defend in the future for ETH/USD.

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Altcoins Guides & Tutorials

What is Axie Infinity (AXS)? Everything to Know

Players and investors have been paying close attention to crypto games since early 2021. This is due to the fact that the profits on each token are steadily increasing. One of the tokens that everyone is talking about when it comes to the number of users and rising revenues on the platform is AXS. It’s based on the “Play-To-Earn” paradigm, which allows people to earn money by playing games. More crucially, even individuals who are unfamiliar with blockchain technology can participate in this game.

What is Axie Infinity?

A Vietnamese team created Axie Infinity, a blockchain-based game. It was influenced by the Pokemon and Tamagotchi games. Each player in the game has their own unique fantasy creature, known as Axie, with which they may engage in various activities such as combat, breeding, and trading in the marketplace.

Players can make money from the games in a variety of ways in addition to playing them (win the battle to gain rewards, trade pets). Axie Infinity was one of the first projects in DeFi to pioneer the “Play to Earn” approach. Because Axie Infinity is based on Ethereum, it is cognizant of its restricted scalability. As a result, Axie Infinity has created its own Ethereum side chain, Ronin Network, designed solely for Axie Infinity.

What is AXS Token?

AXS is the abbreviation for Axie Infinity Shard. It is an Ethereum Blockchain-based ERC-20 token with a maximum quantity of 270,000,000 AXS tokens. In fact, AXS was designed specifically for use on the Axie Infinity platform. Axie Infinity is a combat game inspired by Pokémon in which users may breed and develop their Axies to fight against other players.

When it comes to mating their Axies, players must consider the race and rank of their characters in order to have the best chance of creating formidable progeny. Players may also sell their Axies and trade their islands or any other things in the game on the NFT marketplace.

There are two game modes in Axie Infinity: Adventure Mode, in which players must fight and complete each level successfully, and Arena Mode, which contains combat contests and needs at least three Axies in the battle.

Holders of AXS tokens will have a voting right in the game’s development. They may also stake their tokens to get regular payouts and pay for anything on the site using AXS currency, such as Axies on the Marketplace. As a result, the rapid rise of AXS tokens is contingent on the success of Axie Infinity’s platform.

History

Sky Mavis, a technology-focused game developer with a staff mostly headquartered in Vietnam, founded Axie Infinity in 2018. Trung Nguyen and Aleksander Larsen co-founded it.

The platform’s current CEO is Trung Nguyen. Prior to starting Axie Infinity, Nguyen earned a BS in computer software engineering and worked as a software developer at Anduin Transactions.

Aleksander Larsen, a former competitive player, is acknowledged as a co-founder and COO of the platform. Larsen has worked in the blockchain gaming industry since 2017. He formerly served as the executive security officer for the Norwegian Government Security Organization and is currently the Secretary of the Blockchain Game Alliance’s Board of Directors.

The Axie Infinity team is made up of 25 full-time individuals, several of whom have prior game development expertise.

How it Works

The basic gameplay of Axie Infinity is focused on battling and reproducing Axies, the unique animals at the center of the game.

Axies have a collection of features that distinguish them from other Axies and determine their rarity. These characteristics include class and body parts.

Gameplay

Axies, like other turn-based games, are designed to fight, and their combat efficiency is measured by four statistics:

-Axie’s health dictates how much damage they can absorb before they are knocked out.
-The order of turns is determined by speed, with the quickest Axies attacking first.
When an Axie plays several ability cards in a combo, skill adds damage.
-Morale boosts an Axie’s critical strike chance, which decides whether or not it can knock out an opponent.

Battles

Players in Axie Infinity pit their Axies against other players in three-on-three fights, employing numerous tactics and strategies to place their Axie on the board. The Axie’s Ability Cards are at the heart of the game, determining the offensive maneuvers Axies can use to drain the health of their opponents. Because each Axie’s body configuration and class are different, each Ability Card is unique to them.

The best method to level up Axies and acquire Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) and Small Love Potion is to compete in arena battles and tournaments (SLP). Players can, however, choose a more adventure-oriented approach to their game. Players acquire more tokens and unique treasures by exploring the Axie Infinity environment and facing the in-game non-player combatants known as Chimera. These tokens and riches may be utilized to advance their characters.

Breeding

Axies, like their real-life counterparts, may produce children with their own distinct qualities and skills. Axies may reproduce up to seven times, each time requiring more SLP.

New Axie progeny can be utilized for fight, continued mating with other partners, or sold in the Axie Infinity Marketplace after five days of development.

Land

Players in Axie Infinity are not limited to merely collecting and trading creatures. It also enables users to acquire Lunacias, which are land pieces that serve as homes for Axies. The Lunacia software development kit will also allow developers to construct unique games inside these plots.

Players will be able to improve plots over time by collecting resources and crafting materials while on in-game adventures.

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Bitcoin News

Turkey Crypto Laws Sent to Parliament by the President

According to NTV, Turkey President, Tayyib Erdogan, announced during a news conference in Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul that the draft law on cryptocurrencies is ready and will be given to the Turkish parliament for discussion and approval. He expressed the expectation that the country would take a step ahead with the new economic model, and that the law would make crypto use easier in the country.

After two cryptocurrency exchanges crashed in April, the country has already accelerated its work on legislation for the digital tokens sector. Bloomberg reported at the time that the government was trying to establish a central custodian bank to remove counterparty risk, citing a senior official familiar with the plans.

“The law is ready, we will send it to Parliament soon without delay, We know there are risks, but there are opportunities as well. And we should take this risk.” ——Erdogan

Many crypto players were surprised by the Turkish government’s move because, in the past, both the Turkish government and central bank had never been supportive to the business. The Central Bank stated in April that crypto-assets cannot be utilized as a payment instrument either directly or indirectly.

For the tenth year in a row, the lira has lost ground against the dollar. Only the Cuban peso (-95.8%) and Libyan dinar (-70.9%) have performed worse than Lira since the beginning of the year.

Turkey’s citizens have become more aggressive in their adoption of cryptocurrency since the Lira’s depreciation. Local merchants are drawn to the unusual gains connected with coins like SHIB because of the lira’s fragility. Turkish citizens prioritize gold and the dollar, but they also purchase low-cost cryptocurrencies such as SHIB, VET, and XRP because BTC is too expensive. Tether is also used by Turkish traders as a proxy for dollar exposure.

Throughout the year, Turkey’s already booming crypto mania accelerated as investors joined a global rally in Bitcoin, seeking to profit from the cryptocurrency’s ascent as a kind of inflation protection.

Governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT), Şahap Kavcıoğlu, earlier stated that the Treasury and Finance Ministry is working on more comprehensive laws for cryptocurrencies, but that the bank does not aim to ban them.

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News NFT

Kraken Exchange Will Launch Custodial NFT Marketplace Next Year

Jesse Powell, the founder and CEO of Kraken cryptocurrency exchange, has announced plans to extend his company’s services to NFT customers in an effort to contribute to the expansion of the non-fungible token (NFT) market.

According to a Bloomberg article, the exchange would create an NFT marketplace that will allow enthusiasts to investigate the usage of NFTs for a variety of purposes, including collecting digital art and providing custodial and lending services.

During the event, Powell highlighted that the exchange will implement a mechanism that will allow consumers to use their NFTs as collateral to borrow cash.

“If you deposit a CryptoPunk on Kraken, we want to be able to reflect the value of that in your account. And if you want to borrow funds against that. Kraken is working on a system to determine the liquidation value of the NFT deposited.”

The planned expansion appears to have been prompted by a recent tendency among major cryptocurrency exchanges to enter the NFT field and begin to provide non-fungible tokens as a service.

Binance and FTX Exchange just opened their own NFT marketplaces, and Kraken is expected to follow suit early next year.

Powell added that the development is a means for the exchange to stay up to current on the usage of non-fungible tokens in 2022, as he anticipates that the number of use cases for non-fungible tokens would increase.

“Phase one was speculation, phase two was buying art and supporting artists, and phase three will be functional usage of NFTs,” he noted, citing current NFT use cases and forecasting the market’s prognosis for the future year.

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Bitcoin News

Michael Saylor Shows Again His Strong Belief In Bitcoin’s Potential

Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy and a self-described Bitcoin permabull, has given another another optimistic Bitcoin price forecast. According to Saylor, the price of Bitcoin will soon reach $600,000 and then a massive $6 million per Bitcoin.

In an interview with The Information, he predicted the Bitcoin price. Saylor further claimed that, in addition to MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin holdings, he had his own Bitcoin stockpile.

Saylor owns at least 17,732 Bitcoins, in addition to the 122,478 Bitcoins MicroStrategy has amassed over the last year, which are valued over $6 billion. His Bitcoin holdings are estimated to be worth over $800 million at the current price of Bitcoin, which is roughly $51,000.

According to The Information, he has never sold any of his Bitcoins and has no intentions to do so anytime soon. He explained that he believes “you should never sell your Bitcoin” in general.

His most recent remark comes after he indicated in November that he believes Bitcoin is a $100 trillion asset class. He predicted that if Bitcoin spot ETFs were permitted in the market, the value of the Bitcoin market will surpass the $10 trillion market capitalization of gold.

While Saylor’s Bitcoin price prediction is speculative and far-fetched, market participants remain confident about a massive price increase in the long run. While the price of Bitcoin will have to rise by roughly 12,000 percent from its present level to reach the stratospheric level, Saylor has already discussed the mechanics of how this might be accomplished.

Because Bitcoin is a superior form of money, the wealthy CEO believes that it will unavoidably absorb the value of other markets over time as it gains wider usage. The Bitcoin market appears to be on the mend after its recent downturn. Bitcoin has gained nearly $2000 in value today, up 4.27 percent, and is currently trading at $51,167. Bitcoin’s market forecasts are likewise overwhelmingly optimistic.

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Altcoins Guides & Tutorials

Chainlink (LINK): Blockchain Oracles for Hybrid Smart Contracts

Anyone who has been following the crypto charts recently can attest to Chainlink’s popularity. This success may be attributed to a number of factors, including the company’s distinctive business approach. Chainlink, unlike many other initiatives in the field at the moment, does not intend to compete with other cryptocurrencies. Instead, the platform aims to use its own protocols to promote the whole industry.

Chainlink is an Ethereum-based network of data sources that enables smart contracts on blockchains to react to real-world events. The LINK token is used to incentivize the maintenance of the Chainlink network in the same manner as ETH incentivizes the mining and maintenance of the Ethereum network and BTC incentivizes the mining and maintenance of the Bitcoin network.

History

For years, Chainlink has been a project to keep an eye on. SmartContract.com was the program’s original name when it launched in 2014. The platform’s name was changed to Chainlink shortly after its introduction to better reflect the platform’s main market. Today, Chainlink is assisting in new and innovative ways in bridging the expanding gap between external data sources and public blockchains.

In 2017, Chainlink launched an ICO that was one of the largest of its kind at the time. Since then, the network has been in the limelight. The site received a good sum of $32 million as a result of the crowdfunding event. Chainlink has been able to push the frontiers of oracle dependability and security to new heights because to this investment.

Chainlink formed one of its most significant collaborations to date in 2019. The company was able to secure a strategic collaboration with Google. Chainlink’s technology was included in Google’s smart contract strategy as a result of the partnership. Investors hailed this move as a huge victory since it allows consumers to access to Google’s two most popular cloud services – BigQuery and Cloud Storage – through API.

How Does It Work?

Chainlink aims to build the first blockchain oracle network in the world. An oracle blockchain network would be able to use the same technologies as standard blockchains to confirm that the nodes in operations are working correctly and that the data they are storing is correct.

This procedure begins in the Chainlink ecosystem when a user submits a Requesting Contract for information. Within the network, this notice will be recorded as a blockchain event. A Chainlink Service Level Agreement (SLA) Contract will be created as a result of this listing. Three more contracts in the system are launched as a result of this deal.

Chainlink Reputation Contract

The initial contract establishes the credibility of an oracle. This coding will go over each oracle’s history. The system examines the accuracy of this oracle’s previous contributions. The oracle is given a rank at the end of the evaluation. This rating makes it easier for the system to use the finest oracles.

Chainlink Order-Matching Contract

The Requesting Contract is delivered to the Chainlink nodes by the second contract. The nodes will begin bidding on this request as soon as they get it. Using preprogrammed requirements, the system automatically configures the number of nodes and node type required to perform the request.

Chainlink Aggregating Contract

The most recent contract corrects erroneous data. The system will go over all of the data that has been collected since the prior checks and balances were finished. Any information that does not match the other network inputs is ignored. The data is confirmed and made available to the blockchain once this stage is completed.

Conclusion

Despite its massive rise since early 2021, the value of LINK remains unpredictable. As a result, it could be desirable to buy LINK just to support the underlying technology. Otherwise, most investors may find the high level of volatility too much to stomach.

Nonetheless, as cryptocurrencies develop, Chainlink appears to be a significant technology. Having an oracle in place, such as Chainlink, will be critical to the long-term stability and survival of cryptocurrencies. If you feel Chainlink will become the industry standard as the most widely-used, decentralized oracle network, LINK might be a good investment.

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News

Crypto.com Seals Sponsorship Deal With New Football Club ACFC

The newly created Angel City Football Club (ACFC) has signed a sponsorship agreement with crypto exchange platform Crypto.com (ACFC).

Crypto.com will become the team’s official cryptocurrency exchange platform, NFT marketplace, and one of the club’s founding partners following the announcement.

The cryptocurrency exchange will be the first to sponsor a women’s sports team as a result of the relationship.

“We’re thrilled to be joining ACFC as a founding partner, deepening our relationship with the City of Los Angeles while supporting a team that shares our values and is equally committed to helping people achieve financial independence and self-determination,” Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com said.

The relationship will be used by Crypto.com to promote crypto, blockchain, and web3 technologies among Los Angeles enthusiasts, as well as providing financial education.

The ACFC is a newly formed women’s football team that will begin play in 2022. It will be the city of Los Angeles’ first women’s professional football team since the Los Angeles Sol of Women’s Professional Football shut down eleven years ago.

Crypto.com is continuing to grow its presence in Los Angeles, as the cryptocurrency exchange announced a $700 million naming rights deal with Anschutz Entertainment Group just last month.

The popular American professional basketball team Los Angeles Lakers play their home games at Staples Center, which is owned and operated by AEG.

Starting on Christmas Day, the multi-purpose arena will be renamed Crypto.com.