Friday, January 22, 2021

Typing with lots of overdone shortenings and "SMS language" is extremely annoying.

"hw r u ?"
I'm not okay. I'm not okay because you thought it would be okay to text someone while typing like you're trying not to engage more than 3 brain cells moving your fingers across your keyboard. I don't understand why anyone would shorten a 3/4 letter word to a single letter while writing something to be posted online - it just comes off as lazy, like you absolutely don't care about what or who you're addressing this to.

After all these years of texting/posting with one letter words and making the internet a more difficult place to understand, tell me what have you done with all the time you've saved? You must have accumulated a lot of time given the half a second it would take to type a letter or two extra. What have you done with it? Did you build a f*cking nuclear reactor in your garage? Did you manually solve the math problems instead of making your computer do it while mining bitcoin? Where's your third college degree? You've been using the internet for quite a few years now.

Also, how difficult is it to Google some basic grammar like the difference between they're/their/there, where to put an apostrophe, etc.? It takes 3 minutes to read an article/ watch a video explaining the differences or whatever, yet you couldn't be bothered to. You'll go ahead and make memes and write tweets and in the unfortunate event more than two people find it interesting or it gets reposted and so on, you'll be bothering thousands of people with your pathetic methods of expression and make them think you had a stroke while typing, and make their days a little bit more difficult because they had the misfortune of coming across a product of your existence. It is extremely easy to fix your ways, to find the required understanding of the language that you speak daily, but you still choose to type like a degenerate.

ps. This is exaggerated for some comedic effect, but the point still stands. (I'd be crucified if I didn't mention this, even if it's obvious.)

Help pleaseee

Help please

Hey guys. To make a long story short, I’m being extorted and stalked. I am a 20 something year old female, and decided to use Only Fans to pay for my masters degree in engineering (judge me, it’s alright lol). However, I noticed someone logging into my accounts and changing passwords. I was able to locate the IP addresses and location they were at, which were in places in my city. They were always buildings that had internet and cable businesses. So either this person is dumb, it’s an unrelated event, or a VPN. This man is trying to extort me for $5,340 in Bitcoin or he’ll send everything to my friends and family. I basically told him to eff off, but now I’m receiving emails about credit cards being opened, health services for pregnant women emailing me my “results”, etc. The local police will not do anything for me and in fact got mad that I figured out this persons IP and traced it.

If anyone knows how I should handle this or where to go from here, your help would be greatly appreciated!

Extortion?

Help please

If anyone knows how I should handle this or where to go from here, your help would be greatly appreciated!

Orion tetralogy of Substrate block programming technology

ORION and ARROW are a new generation of general blockchain development platform. In order to achieve it, ORION adopts a programming framework based on the Substrate blockchain. In fact, almost all current blockchain systems have evolved from the Bitcoin/Ethereum model. Generally speaking, a blockchain system should have: the basic parts of the blockchain system, such as the consensus system (blockchain distributed cornerstone), p2p connection and broadcasting system, storage system, etc., as well as the function of the chain. The basic part of the system is a component that will be available in the current blockchain model, among which consensus and P2P reflect the distributed nature of the blockchain. The function of the chain is the key part of the competition between blockchains. This part is very different from the basic part of the system, providing that the chain can provide specific functions in addition to the blockchain model. In general, the basic part of the system changes less, while the functional part of the chain changes more. In particular, many primary chains do not have complex advanced functions at the beginning, and the version is very low. In the subsequent gradual development, the development speed will be increased to achieve the effect of gradually upgrading other functions. As a blockchain framework, Substrate believes that all chains should have the basic part of the blockchain system, and developers can freely customize the functional parts of the chain.

https://preview.redd.it/4cg21oo4ozc61.png?width=522&format=png&auto=webp&s=18c062fce7904447b2d3192ca97b492bfab35e8a

Gavin Wood, as the developer behind the actual core of Ethereum, is naturally well aware of the framework of the system, so since Substrate Framework was proposed (September 2018), he has made two key distinctions about the blockchain system:

Substrate Core and Runtime

The Core part is the system foundation part mentioned above, and the Runtime part is the chain function, such as fund management transfer, equity calculation, etc.

When Orion uses the Substrate framework, due to such a clear division of basics and functions, it is not necessary to care about the basic function of the blockchain, which is the work of the Core part, but only care about the function that its chain can provide, which is the work of the Runtime part.

Orion uses Substrate to achieve a function that all previous blockchains could not achieve: the blockchain system upgrade. For a centralized Internet system, since the control of the code and data is in your hands, you can upgrade and modify the version at any time. However, only the background code of webpage H5 can be upgraded at any time. In the mobile Internet, APP still needs to be updated by users themselves. In order to simplify this problem, the Android ecosystem has launched a number of frameworks with different functions, so that users can carry out "hot update" without updating the APP, which has become famous previously. These hot update frameworks essentially allow you to download a piece of updated code from the background and then load and run the new code in a variety of ways. Generally, the functions provided by such hot update will bring a certain performance loss. Although part of the update problem is solved, the update code is still in the control of the centralized organization.

https://preview.redd.it/nguzim26ozc61.png?width=441&format=png&auto=webp&s=2fb5351894f51275b9323ab2de1e35ccf1e8e3f1

Orion's use of the Substrate framework has significant advantages. Even if the power to update the code is centralized in one place, the people running the code may not necessarily follow its command, and cannot efficiently order the distributed nodes to deploy and update the new code uniformly. This is the benefit of the distributed autonomy that blockchain brings, but also a huge drawback. The Bitcoin community is a typical one in this field. Due to the split of the Bitcoin community, some people do not agree to adopt the scheme of isolated witness instead of changing the block size, which splits BCH and brings great damage to the ecology of BTC. Upgrading ETH is also difficult, with each upgrade requiring a long wait to prevent forks caused by unupgraded nodes. EOS makes upgrades a little easier due to its centralized nature, but there are still vicious incidents of forks due to upgrades. Compared to centrally controlled systems, blockchain systems are more difficult and risky to upgrade.

https://preview.redd.it/4bruqkm7ozc61.png?width=625&format=png&auto=webp&s=3e5b11bfc459f3eedd8096d70a77f0320074d913

In general, Orion uses the Substrate framework for programming with the following advantages:

High degree of abstraction, more general purpose, and less development workload. In fact, with the template provided by the framework, developers only need to focus on the storage, function logic and event writing required by their application. An application like CryptoKitties is only a few hundred lines of code. At the same time, using the official front end, you can directly interact with the chain without additional programming.
The ecology of peripheral tools is relatively complete. For example, based on the official front-end library, it is easy to develop the front-end interactive page of the application chain.
Since all Runtimes are written in Wasm, the Substrate-based application chain can support online upgrades. This means that when on-chain governance passes an upgrade resolution, the whole node will run the latest version of logic even if it does not manually upgrade the software. This makes on-chain governance and upgrades seamless.
Currently, the modules of WASM and EVM have been officially given, and it will be very fast to develop a chain that supports smart contracts.

Two of them, 1 and 2, make Substrate-based application chain development very small-team friendly.

The value of blockchain technology lies in application, and developers are the cornerstone of exploring application scenarios and improving user experience. Substrate is a bridge between public chain technology, ecology, and alliance chains and is the most advanced blockchain technology. Polkadot's Relay chain serves as an intermediary chain, while other parachains authenticate and interact with parachains through block validation nodes Validators. Similarly, each parachain can also exist as the Relay chain of other peripheral parachains with infinite expansion. Blockchains developed by Orion using the Substrate framework can still expand the network in the future.

Pro-Trump dark money groups organized the rally that led to deadly Capitol Riot and were paid by the Trump Campaign and a suicidal ALt-Right Frenchman to do it.

The fiery rallies that preceded the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 were organized and promoted by an array of established conservative insiders and activists, documents and videos show.

The Republican Attorneys General Association was involved, as were the activist groups Turning Point Action and Tea Party Patriots. At least six current or former members of the Council for National Policy (CNP), an influential group that for decades has served as a hub for conservative and Christian activists, also played roles in promoting the rallies.

Weeks before a mob of President Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, right-wing activist Ali Alexander told his followers he was planning something big for Jan. 6.

Alexander, who organized the “Stop the Steal” movement, said he hatched the plan — coinciding with Congress’s vote to certify the electoral college votes — alongside three GOP lawmakers: Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Mo Brooks (Ala.) and Paul A. Gosar (Ariz.), all hard-line Trump supporters.

“We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Alexander said in a since-deleted video on Periscope highlighted by the Project on Government Oversight, an investigative nonprofit. The plan, he said, was to “change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.”

Unless Congress responds to the protests, “everyone can guess what me and 500,000 others will do to that building,” tweeted Ali Alexander, a former CNP fellow who organized the “Stop the Steal” movement. “1776 is *always* an option.”

On Jan. 5, at Freedom Plaza in D.C., Alexander led protesters in a chant of “Victory or death.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/13/ali-alexander-capitol-biggs-gosar/

$500,000 in Bitcoin Funneled to Capital Riot Organizers

ProPublica reports that in the weeks leading up, many Trump supporters discussed turning the event violent on Parler, a rightwing social media app now banned by most major tech platforms. However, we now have evidence that many alt-right groups and personalities, including Proudboys organizer, Nick Fuentes, received large Bitcoin donations in a single transaction that occurred a month before the riot on December 8. We have also gathered evidence that strongly suggests the donor was a now-deceased computer programmer based in France.

Nick Fuentes received 13.5 BTC — worth approximately $250,000 at the time of the transfer — making him by far the biggest beneficiary of the donation.

While there’s no evidence yet that Fuentes entered the Capitol — in fact, he explicitly denies entering the building — he was present at the initial rally and seen outside the Capitol as the rioting began. Fuentes promoted the rally that preceded the violence in the month before on social media. PBS notes that in the days leading up, Fuentes encouraged his audience to engage in extreme behavior to prevent Joe Biden’s election from being certified, even implying that they should kill state legislators.

The December 8 donation of over $250,000 worth of Bitcoin is by far the largest cryptocurrency donation Fuentes has ever received. Previously, the most he had ever received in a single month was $2,707 worth of Bitcoin.

1/15/21 Updates: Media outlets have confirmed the French donor’s death. French publication 20 Minutes confirmed the death of a French computer programmer who appears to have been the owner of the Bitcoin wallet from which the extremist donations were sent in December, and the blog on which the suicide note we posted above was published.

Trump campaign had paid $2.7M to organizers of rally ahead of Capitol riot

A Trump campaign adviser said the campaign had no role in organizing, operating or paying for the rally. No campaign staff worked on it, said the adviser, who asked not to be named. He added that any employees or contractors who worked on the event did not do so at the campaign’s direction.

The biggest recipient of campaign funds according to the report, was Event Strategies Inc., which was paid more than $1.7 million by Trump’s campaign and joint fundraising committee. The firm’s owners, Justin Caporale and Tim Unes, served as rally production manager and stage manager, respectively.

Why is Trump Campaign distancing itself from funding the rally?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/capitol-rally-organizers-before-riots/2021/01/16/c5b40250-552d-11eb-a931-5b162d0d033d_story.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/09/pro-trump-dark-money-groups-organized-the-rally-that-led-to-deadly-capitol-hill-riot.html

https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/500000-in-bitcoin-funneled-to-capital-riot-organizers

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-22/trump-campaign-paid-organizers-of-pre-riot-rally-2-7-million

Bitcoin rush: similarities with the 1929 stock exchange crash

I started on this article just after the New Year. So much is going on all over the place, and it seems like '21 will be 'very eventful'.

http://jelmerdehaan.blogspot.com/2021/01/bitcoin-rush-similarities-with-1929.html

Bitcoin rush: similarities with the 1929 stock exchange crash

I started on this one just after the New Year. So much is going on all over the place, and it seems like '21 will be 'very eventful'. Is bitcoin the red pill for an era of economic hardship, or does it stretch beyond that?

http://jelmerdehaan.blogspot.com/2021/01/bitcoin-rush-similarities-with-1929.html

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Bitcoin rush: similarities with the 1929 stock exchange crash

I started on this article just after the New Year. So much is going on all over the place, and it seems like '21 will be 'very eventful'.

http://jelmerdehaan.blogspot.com/2021/01/bitcoin-rush-similarities-with-1929.html

Bitcoin rush: similarities with the 1929 stock exchange crash

I started on this article just after the New Year. So much is going on all over the place, and it seems like '21 will be 'very eventful'.

http://jelmerdehaan.blogspot.com/2021/01/bitcoin-rush-similarities-with-1929.html

Bitcoin rush: similarities with the 1929 stock exchange crash

I started on this article just after the New Year. So much is going on all over the place, and it seems like '21 will be 'very eventful'.

http://jelmerdehaan.blogspot.com/2021/01/bitcoin-rush-similarities-with-1929.html

Ergo and Cardano teams to explore key DeFi challenges at Ergo Summit

The cross-organisation event held on Saturday, Jan. 23, will unveil new technologies developed in partnerships between the blockchain initiatives.

2020 proved two things: Decentralized finance is here to stay, and significant challenges still remain. While Ethereum remains the largest DeFi infrastructure platform, more recent projects have sought to address some of the first smart contract blockchain’s shortcomings.

Ergo Platform, a DeFi blockchain launched in 2019 by former Nxt and IOHK developer Alexander Chepurnoy, showcases an impressive set of new smart contract technologies built on the foundations of Bitcoin’s UTXO model and proven track record of security. The team has collaborated with Cardano via a partnership with Emurgo, a leading blockchain company, to explore solutions that will further both platforms and the DeFi space as a whole.

This weekend, the online Ergo Summit will feature speakers from across these organizations. They will discuss the fast-moving nature of the DeFi space, the challenges that still exist, and how Ergo and its partners aim to address them.

Additionally, the team will unveil the design of a new stablecoin, AgeUSD, based on a model that brings the benefits of simplicity, security and full decentralization.

“We’re very excited to see what 2021 brings for DeFi,” said Chepurnoy. “The summit will give a taste of what we have in store for Ergo over the coming months, with some amazing technical developments for the wider DeFi ecosystem.”

Hosted by long-standing Ergo community member Ollie, speakers for the event consist of:

Alexander Chepurnoy, Ergo Foundation member and core developer
Robert Kornacki, Ergo Foundation member and head of research at Emurgo
Amitabh Saxena, Ergo researcher and core developer
Nicolas Arqueros, chief technology officer of Emurgo
Sebastien Guillemot, co-vice president of engineering at Emurgo and a project manager at Cardano
Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo, technical project director at IOHK
Marek Mahut, Co-founder of Five Binaries
Guy Brandon, Ergo writer and blockchain communicator

Ergo and Emurgo have already released a number of ground-breaking developments, including Sigma Protocols — highly flexible, composable cryptographic signatures — and oracle pools, a new and sustainable way of feeding data to the blockchain from the outside world.

Find out more at the online Ergo Summit 2021 on Jan. 23, 2021.

Ergo and Cardano teams to explore key DeFi challenges at Ergo Summit

The cross-organisation event held on Saturday, Jan. 23, will unveil new technologies developed in partnerships between the blockchain initiatives.

Additionally, the team will unveil the design of a new stablecoin, AgeUSD, based on a model that brings the benefits of simplicity, security and full decentralization.

Hosted by long-standing Ergo community member Ollie, speakers for the event consist of:

Alexander Chepurnoy, Ergo Foundation member and core developer
Robert Kornacki, Ergo Foundation member and head of research at Emurgo
Amitabh Saxena, Ergo researcher and core developer
Nicolas Arqueros, chief technology officer of Emurgo
Sebastien Guillemot, co-vice president of engineering at Emurgo and a project manager at Cardano
Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo, technical project director at IOHK
Marek Mahut, Co-founder of Five Binaries
Guy Brandon, Ergo writer and blockchain communicator

Find out more at the online Ergo Summit 2021 on Jan. 23, 2021.

Ergo and Cardano teams to explore key DeFi challenges at Ergo Summit

The cross-organisation event held on Saturday, Jan. 23, will unveil new technologies developed in partnerships between the blockchain initiatives.

Additionally, the team will unveil the design of a new stablecoin, AgeUSD, based on a model that brings the benefits of simplicity, security and full decentralization.

Hosted by long-standing Ergo community member Ollie, speakers for the event consist of:

Alexander Chepurnoy, Ergo Foundation member and core developer
Robert Kornacki, Ergo Foundation member and head of research at Emurgo
Amitabh Saxena, Ergo researcher and core developer
Nicolas Arqueros, chief technology officer of Emurgo
Sebastien Guillemot, co-vice president of engineering at Emurgo and a project manager at Cardano
Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo, technical project director at IOHK
Marek Mahut, Co-founder of Five Binaries
Guy Brandon, Ergo writer and blockchain communicator

Find out more at the online Ergo Summit 2021 on Jan. 23, 2021.

Ergo and Cardano teams to explore key DeFi challenges at Ergo Summit

The cross-organisation event held on Saturday, Jan. 23, will unveil new technologies developed in partnerships between the blockchain initiatives.

Additionally, the team will unveil the design of a new stablecoin, AgeUSD, based on a model that brings the benefits of simplicity, security and full decentralization.

Hosted by long-standing Ergo community member Ollie, speakers for the event consist of:

Alexander Chepurnoy, Ergo Foundation member and core developer
Robert Kornacki, Ergo Foundation member and head of research at Emurgo
Amitabh Saxena, Ergo researcher and core developer
Nicolas Arqueros, chief technology officer of Emurgo
Sebastien Guillemot, co-vice president of engineering at Emurgo and a project manager at Cardano
Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo, technical project director at IOHK
Marek Mahut, Co-founder of Five Binaries
Guy Brandon, Ergo writer and blockchain communicator

Find out more at the online Ergo Summit 2021 on Jan. 23, 2021.

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Ergo and Cardano teams to explore key DeFi challenges at Ergo Summit

The cross-organisation event held on Saturday, Jan. 23, will unveil new technologies developed in partnerships between the blockchain initiatives.

Additionally, the team will unveil the design of a new stablecoin, AgeUSD, based on a model that brings the benefits of simplicity, security and full decentralization.

Hosted by long-standing Ergo community member Ollie, speakers for the event consist of:

Alexander Chepurnoy, Ergo Foundation member and core developer
Robert Kornacki, Ergo Foundation member and head of research at Emurgo
Amitabh Saxena, Ergo researcher and core developer
Nicolas Arqueros, chief technology officer of Emurgo
Sebastien Guillemot, co-vice president of engineering at Emurgo and a project manager at Cardano
Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo, technical project director at IOHK
Marek Mahut, Co-founder of Five Binaries
Guy Brandon, Ergo writer and blockchain communicator

Find out more at the online Ergo Summit 2021 on Jan. 23, 2021.

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Prepaid, Debit, Credit

Superb customer support via web chat or email

Message me for more information.

Commercial Awareness - Bitcoin

A currency is a medium that allows for exchange of goods and services; Bitcoin is a digital currency.

Sounds dull as heck, so what is the reason for the current Bitcoin mania? The new kid on the block is a currency independent of any government; Bitcoin operates on a ‘peer-to-peer’ basis meaning that it is decentralised. An argument for this is that banks take a cut for processing transactions, not so with Bitcoin. Also some level we all have to take it on trust that a bank will do everything right, again, this is not the case for Bitcoin.

It has been argued that Bitcoin is similar in nature to gold. Like gold, there is a limited supply of the currency - there will only ever be twenty-one million Bitcoins. A result of this Bitcoin is guarded against hyper-inflation , a factor that can pose an issue for traditional currencies when governments print money.

Another characteristic that Bitcoin shares with gold is that its value is recognised internationally. So in the event that capital controls are re-introduced around the world, say, Bitcoin could be the best way of transferring value internationally.

Another positive trait that Bitcoin has over gold is that the digital currency is not expensive to physically store. Transactions with Bitcoin are also faster than traditional currencies and it fits in the ecosystem our ever increasingly tech-orientated world. To quote Merryn Webb on the MoneyWeek podcast, “All the marginal wealth over [the next few decades]… is going to be made in the tech sector, and what fits with that? A digital currency.”

'Where do I sign up?' I hear you say, well you should know there are drawbacks to Bitcoin. Price volatility for one, this time last year one Bitcoin would set you back $8,653 (USD) , today ( 22 January 2021) that figure was $32,585. There is also the issue of anonymity, while the details of cryptocurrency users and transactions are often held in a public ledger, names and locations are encrypted. This can pose an issue when complying with KYC regulations or fraud protection.

Let's discuss - I have a few days off work and I am bored as heck!

Do you own any Bitcoin? Do you think it will emerge as a new dominant worldwide currency?

How to discuss Bitcoin with clients for Beginners (and resources for learning)

Presentation on Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency from Jan. 15th 2021.

Abstract***:*** I was asked to present to a group of estate planners/investment advisors and provide a resource they could use to help have conversations with their clients asking about Bitcoin. I created this slide deck and delivered this presentation to help people get a good basic introduction. While the information is simplified, it is accurate and peer-reviewed by several quality sources. Please feel free to use this in your discussions and message me with any questions.

(https://youtu.be/ZH4Oy_cTSKs)

-How to discuss bitcoin with clients for registered investment advisors, estate planners, or family and friends.

-How to buy and custody bitcoin, discussing the different ways to safely custody bitcoin and where to buy bitcoin.

-Live Q&A session 20-30 minutes.

-Slide deck contains large appendix of FAQs & hot takes + Beginner - Advanced Learning Resources

-Intended audience = Investment Advisors and their clients with little to no experience.

-Slide deck link below: https://docs.google.com/presentation/...@HeraldHoss on twitter[hoss_herald@protonmail.com](mailto:hoss_herald@protonmail.com)

Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, nor is it a recommendation to purchase bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency product. The opinions shared are my own and the products and services mentioned within are based on my own research from publicly available information.

Swarm 2020 Recap

As 2020 is becoming a thing of the past, it is time to evaluate what Swarm achieved throughout the year and share its plans for this year. The entire team is extremely proud of what we delivered. 2020 was the year of many opportunities and challenges, organizational as well as code-wise. In many ways, the project matured ready for the release of 1.0 which is just around the corner. In this post, you’ll find a recap of the defining moments of 2020.,

A new Swarm Network, four versions of Bee

In 2020, a new Swarm Network was created, parallel to the “old” Swarm network. There were also four Bee releases. Bee is the brand-new client implementation that saw the light in 2002. It took courage from the whole team to start from scratch, and it’s clear that the effort is already paying off. The Bee node became much more stable and modular, paving the way for the 1.0 release and beyond!

However, each release was not only a Bee release. With each release, the organization and community also grew and became better organised.

June 2020 — Swarm Alpha release
This release lay down strong foundations and the Bee client base protocols.
August 2020 — Swarm Summer release
New features were added and bugs from the Alpha release were resolved.
September 2020 — Swarm Beta release
With this release, new features for dApp developers were enabled.
November 2020 — Swarm Live release
Improved stability, improved performance. All high-level features of Swarm 1.0 were implemented and released with the Live release.

Book Of Swarm

In early 2020, the research team consolidated their findings. Book of Swarm, like Swarm itself, is free and open source and available freely for download from the Swarm network. Book of Swarm takes a deep dive into the system architecture, specifications, protocols, potential use cases, APIs and the formalizations and evidence underlying the Swarm protocol.

The Swarm team invites everyone to comment, try the implementations and prove or disprove any of the materials presented. This book also prepares the ground for multiple client implementations.

Fair Data Society

Fair Data Society is a non-profit initiative that is reimagining the data economy and creating a fair and decentralized data layer. Fair Data Society recognizes online privacy as a basic human right and the basis for progress for all.

In 2020, Swarm and Fair Data Society came closer together than ever before. Swarm is seen as one of the solutions for FDS to reach its long-term goal of liberating data.

With the support of Swarm, FairOS and Fairdrive were launched. Both projects aim to become the standard of user data storage and management. Through its principles, Fair Data Society creates solutions that can inspire the broader ecosystem of the decentralized web.

In 2021, Fair Data Society will enjoy incubation at Swarm Foundation, giving it every opportunity to grow and stand on its own two feet.

Swarm Enterprise Hub

Swarm enables new fair data business models and ethical services that respect human rights and enable a fair distribution of value. Adoption by enterprise is thus key to facilitate paradigm change. Questions like “how should an enterprise deal with GDPR?” are common for many businesses. These are common challenges and it only makes sense that the enterprise ecosystem collaborates.

Clear answers and best practices related to satisfying regulatory requirements make the decision to build on Swarm easier, but even more importantly, faster, cheaper, and safer.

With Swarm Enterprise Hub, we created a knowledge base tailored to enterprise use of Swarm. Check out these valuable resources and get in touch with the team working on this topic.

We grew in numbers

Our team grew. We now number 32 people in the core team, working together like a well-oiled organization. Parting from the Ethereum Foundation required us to get our own legal entity (Swarm Association, formed in Switzerland) and our own funding source. We restructured our team several times during the year and we now finally have 8 well-organized sub-teams: Leet Squad, Bee team, Bee-JS team, Comms, HR, DevOps, Ops and Knowledge Management.

Swarm 1.0 is just around the corner

Our next big milestone is, of course, Swarm 1.0 which we are expecting to release in Q2 2021. Until then we will be pushing out updates regularly — every 14 days or so. Keep following our Twitter or Reddit for updates.

Projects are joining — our ecosystem is rising

2020 saw the start of Swarm Grant Waves. Many interesting projects are being supported through Swarm grants and online events. Those projects are already building their products on top of Swarm. Swarm not only supports these projects financially, but also mentors the developers and founders. The projects also enjoy public attention, as Swarm tries to be a podium on which they can shine.

Read the announcements to see the full list of grantees. The last, third wave of grants was announced at the Swarm Live event. There is still time to apply if you haven’t done so already.

Unstoppable towards Swarm 1.0 — and beyond

We are especially happy to have managed to ensure proper funding for the completion of a mainnet release. The cooperation with Bitcoin Suisse was a success. We are now fully funded and moving unstoppable towards Swarm 1.0, with enough funds to further expand the team and to ensure Swarm 1.0 will be executed on time. The final details are being attended to and a more comprehensive update will be published soon.

A look at 2021

We concluded 2020 with a feeling of satisfaction. All major milestones were met, all plans well-executed and we can’t wait to continue our work early next year.

The pace we established in 2020 will continue in the new year. In January 2021, we already have a few very interesting things in the pipeline:

Swarm incentives on Goerli

Node operators can now earn goerli BZZ tokens by running the Bee client. In early 2021, Swarm might launch a campaign to incentivize this testnet to simulate the economics of the real mainnet that will launch later this year.

Liberate Data Week & Hackathon

From 8–14 February, Fair Data Society is hosting Liberate Data Week.

Liberate Data Week is a hackathon packed with valuable announcements, talks, demos, and presentations. The programme is still being crafted, but from what we know already, each day of the hackathon is going to be dedicated to a specific topic, each relevant to the Fair Data economy. To join this event, register here.

Click here to read the announcement blog post.

Thank you for following us!

The only thing left to do now is to thank all of you who follow us and believe in our vision. Together we will revolutionize the web and make the vision of the World Computer a reality.

Happy New PLUR Year!

How to use your current ETH/BTC to make more ETH/BTC by trading the market fluctuations using Pionex Margin Trading Bot

TLDR: Use your ETH as collateral borrow USDT on margin to make extra ETH. Set a wide lower/upper limit so that you don’t have to worry about crashes and price dips, and watch the grid bot do the work for you trading algorithmically while you sit back and HODL

Preface: I don’t work for Pionex, I’ve just been using their platform for a couple months and it has been working for me. This post will explain my thought process on why I feel like this is a good long term strategy for people that are looking for ways to increase their crypto holdings while not wanting to time the market by selling in and out of USDT, with pretty low risk as long as you are willing to HODL over the dips. I am not a financial adviser, so please trade at your own risk.

What is my goal?

I am a long term believer in cryptocurrency, and I specifically support Ethereum. I am also very bullish on Bitcoin as a store of value and understand that it is more robust and secure, but I believe Ethereum has a bigger upside and also have more potential because of how much more the network can do. The strategy that I use works for both ETH/USDT and BTC/USDT pairs. Because of this, I am trying to accumulate as much ETH and BTC as possible without worrying too much about the current price of these two coins. I believe that ETH will hit 5k, BTC 100k within the next couple years, so short term price fluctuations don’t bother me very much and only presents itself as potential opportunities to increase my coin count in the upcoming digital economy. But I also don’t want to time the market by selling into USDT at any given moment, because I can potentially be caught in a situation where I made the wrong choice and now have less ETH when buying back in if ETH happens to go on a huge bull run that never looks back. I want to find a strategy that can maximize my beliefs and goals. This mindset is very important when using this strategy because it will help you hold through the various bull and bear cycles. If you get easily spooked by dips and will sell out or stop the bot, you might end up getting caught up in a bear cycle and will end up realizing paper losses. Having said that, only trade coin amounts that you absolutely do not need to convert to fiat in order to pay bills or for other life things. This strategy requires you to hold during big dips.

What is Pionex?

Pionex is a crypto exchange that consolidates their trades which in turn provides liquidity and market makes for Binance and Huobi, two of the largest crypto exchanges in the world. The advantage of using Pionex instead of trading on Binance directly is that it has several algorithmic trading bots baked in that will help you hit your goals by setting various different parameters. For the purposes of this writeup, I will only be talking about Margin Grid Bot because this is the one I use for 99% of my trade as it is the one that best helps me achieve my goals. Pionex is owned by Bituniverse, which provides API trading directly with Binance but has much more limited functionalities and bot strategies. I would actually prefer API trading directly with Binance as Binance is much larger and therefore would be a safer exchange to trade on, but Pionex support have told me that they have discontinued a lot of trading bots for Bituniverse because of the instability of API calls, which is unfortunate.

Margin Grid Bot

The Margin Grid Bot is the bot I use for 99% my trades on Pionex, but I also use other bots that help me achieve other goals with alt coins. If you guys are interested in those other strategies, let me know and I’ll do a more in depth writeup of those bots I have running. So what is Margin Grid Bot? Essentially, it is a trading strategy that allows you to use the ETH you own as collatoral to borrow USDT in order to facilitate Buy Low/Sell High strategy on the ETH/USDT pair. The important thing about this strategy is that the profit is settled in ETH, not USDT. The basic interface of the Margin Grid Bot looks like this:

Photo: Setting up your parameters

There are some parameters you need to fill in for you to initiate the bot and have it start trading automatically for you:

Lower Price (USDT)
Upper Price (USDT)
Arithmetic/Geometric
Grids (2-150)
Leverage (0.2x, 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x)
Margin

When you initiate the strategy, the bot will instantly buy into ETH a portion of the USDT you borrowed in order to begin taking a position in the ETH/USD market using market orders. The percentage of the USDT it uses to buy into ETH to take its opening position will depend on what the current spot price of ETH is in relation to what you have filled for the Lower Price and Upper Price. You will be charged a small amount of interest (rates fluctuate based on pool liquidity) and is charged hourly. But don’t worry, as long as there is grid profits, it will more than cover your interest.

For Example: Current spot price of ETH is $1000. You set the upper lower price as $500, and upper price as $1500, and you initiate the bot. The bot will use 50% of its current borrowed cash and buy into ETH to take a position in the market.

It will begin building sell orders above the current spot price and buy orders below the current spot price. Buy low, sell high right? The number of buy/sell orders will be determined by the number of grids you have chosen. I suggest playing around with the # of grids so that you are targeting between 3-5% profits so you aren’t trading too frequently which will eat into your profits. Any time that you hit a specific buy or sell limit order, the bot will readjust itself so that it can re-target that 3-5% profit that you have set. During the fluctuations of the market while it is going sideways, you are constantly locking in that 3-5% of the current position it is holding. That is basically the basis of how the bot works to gain you extra profit during market fluctuations. The profits it earns is considered “grid profit” which will always be positive as soon as you start making your first transaction. When the spot price hits the bottom limit order, it will have used up all it’s cash and have its whole borrowed cash completely in ETH(because you are telling the bot that you think it’s the lowest ETH will possibly go), and when the spot price hits the Upper limit, it will be completely back in USDT borrowed cash (because you are telling the bot that you think this is the highest ETH will possibly go).

Photo: Dashboard

However, this is not to be confused with your “total profit”, as you still took a position on ETH when you initiated the bot - if the current spot price of ETH is below what you initiated the bot at, then you will have unrealized profit(loss). The calculation for your total profit(loss) = Grid Profit - Interest + Unrealized Profit(loss). This is automatically calculated for you.

Parameter Suggestion

Lower Price: 600 USDT - recent ATH is ~$1400, I don’t believe ETH will ever fall below 600 again as now we have institutional players at play. If you want to be extra safe, you can put 300 or 400 here, but just understand that when price hits 600, the bot will still have extra cash on hand because it is expecting the price to drop even further. You want to be able to sleep at night, so put a low enough number here so that you ensure grid bot is always making grid profits in the event the price dips substantially
Upper Price: 3000 USDT - here, I always put at least 2x or 3x of ATH prices. This prevents me from having to readjust the bot because the spot price has outgrown my current bot parameters
Arithmetic/Geometric - I always use geometric
Grids - play around with the grid number until you get around 3-5% profit numbers. The bot will hit limit orders lest frequently, but you will lock up more grid profits this way
Leverage - set a leverage amount that is below your lower limit price. I would advise against anything over 1x if you don’t know exactly what you are doing. After inputting the leverage it will show you the liquidation price. Make sure your liquidation price is below your lower limit price. IF SPOT PRICE HITS YOUR LIQUIDATION PRICE WITHOUT YOU PUTTING IN MORE MARGIN USING ETH YOUR WHOLE INVESTMENT WILL GET LIQUIDATED. To avoid this you can add margin to the account to further lower your liquidation price. Try to avoid doing this as you would possibly lose more than your original investment.
- IF SPOT PRICE HITS YOUR LIQUIDATION PRICE WITHOUT YOU PUTTING IN MORE MARGIN USING ETH YOUR WHOLE INVESTMENT WILL GET LIQUIDATED
Margin - How much you want to invest in this bot

Why use Margin Grid Bot?

You already own ETH or BTC. You are watching the price fluctuate every day already, and you are long term bullish on ETH or BTC prices. You want to earn more coins during this time, and you don’t get scared by dips since you are just gonna HODL anyways. Dips are opportunities for you to make extra coin using grid profit, and because you take an ETH position using borrowed USDT, you will make even more ETH if the price of ETH rises happens to rise right after you initiate the bot. I look at the Margin Grid Bot as buying insurance - if it drops when you enter the position, your grid profit is doing most of the heavy lifting and earning a bit extra than if it was just sitting there. If you enter the position during a bull run and you let it run, you could potentially double your ETH amount when you decide to exit out of the position and realize the position. You can open this position at any point and feel like your money is working for you instead of just sitting around (since you expect it to recover to this price point anyways)

Scenario 1: Price of ETH start dropping as soon as you initiate the bot

Grid bot will buy on the way down hitting buy limit orders. And anytime there is retrace, it will hit sell limit orders locking in 3-5% of profits based on its current holdings. All you have to do is to have patience while you wait for the price to recover. If price recovers to where you initiated the bot (opening price), you will be net positive grid profits. This is extra coin that you otherwise wouldn’t have had if you just HODL’ed without using the bot!

Scenario 2: Price of ETH start to rise as soon as you initiate the bot

Grid bot will hit sell limit orders on the way up, locking in grid profits of 3-5%. Because you initiated an ETH position with borrowed USD, you are also make extra ETH. You can choose to let the bot continue to run and rack up ETH, or you can close the bot in order to lock in your profit.

When is the best time to open Margin Grid Bot?

The best time to open margin grid bot is always when you feel like the price is low or when there is a major crash in the market. However, one of the problems with Pionex is that it doesn’t always have liquidity to borrow enough USDT as everyone else is also trying to do the same thing.

NOTE: Your capital appreciation will always much much more than grid profits, the bot will be taking a sizeable position in ETH when it first initiates.

Risks

There is no investment that doesn’t come with risks, so I want to go through all the potential risks that I have come up with.

Pionex goes down/gets hacked - always the biggest risk when it comes to centralized exchanges. If Pionex goes down or goes rogue, you will not be able to recover your funds. Not your key, not your coin
You are using your ETH as collatoral to buy more ETH positions - when the price of ETH falls, you are losing money on both your original ETH and the ETH you have bought on margin. Your USDT value of your account will be extremely painful because you are losing USDT value on both sides. Conversely though, when the price of ETH goes up, you are making money on both the capital appreciation on your original ETH and the ETH you have purchased, basically double dipping on both sides. Because I am bullish on ETH, I am willing to take this risk of short term USDT value pain for long term potential gains by accruing more ETH
Price falls out of grid profit lower limit, so you are holding extra coin on margin - that’s why you want to make sure you set a lower limit that you are absolutely comfortable with, or else if it starts trading sideways below your lower limit you will be left holding the bag on margin without making money on grid profits while paying interest. But if you follow this tutorial and choose a low enough lower limit, plus don’t over leverage yourself, you basically just sit and hold and watch the bot make you at the very least grid profit ETH until it recovers to the price you initiated the bot, and at best make you extra ETH when it goes above that price
You initiate the bot and you need to sell the ETH into fiat in order to pay off some bills and so you need to realize your loss before it comes back to the current price. If you need the ETH for fiat in the near future this bot is not for you.

Other than those two major risks, I’d say this strategy is pretty risk and hassle free, without you really having to worry about price dips and fluctuations. I feel comfortable opening this bot at basically any price point because I feel like ETH is still heavily undervalued long term. When the price starts dropping, you cheer the bot on as it is buying cheap ETH. When the price recovers, you lock in profits on it’s way back up. If you happen to enter the position on a bull run, you make extra ETH while ALSO making grid profits. Win Win, Win.