Friday, March 19, 2021

ETHEREUM ETH could replace BITCOIN BTC to become TOP 🤯🤔

Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain network by valuation, has the potential to jump to replace Bitcoin to become the top digital asset, says Ryan Watkins of Messari.
The senior research analyst cited a flurry of catalysts that could lead to the so-called flippening event. Firstly, Ethereum’s full protocol upgrade to proof-of-stake from proof-of-work blockchain would lead to introducing a “burn mechanism.” It means the network would pre-algorithmically destroy more ETH tokens than its active supply, leading to better scarcity.
Secondly, Mr. Watkins noted that the imminent Ethereum upgrade would make its network more secure than Bitcoin. As a result, it would assume the most active blockchain’s role in the space, attracting new projects and users from the emerging decentralized finance and non-fungible token sector. Bitcoin would lack those features as it transitions to become an anti-inflation, anti-fiat store-of-value asset.
“The selling point of Bitcoin over Ethereum as a store of value asset boils down its monetary policy being very predictable and the Bitcoin blockchain being very secure,” Mr. Watkins said. “I think that with the shift to Eth2 and to Proof-of-Stake, […] Ethereum may actually potentially be more secure than Bitcoin.”
“If Ethereum is more secure and it [has] a stronger monetary policy, well, then what is the bull case for Bitcoin in this scenario,” the researcher added.

https://preview.redd.it/366ts6dse4o61.jpg?width=595&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=35a72819ffa45867725273205fe4ea84d9248cbb

Cardano Rumor Rundown 03.20.2021

Hey Guys!

I've been obsessively consuming all the Cardano news and media on a daily basis for years now. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to share a list of what I'm seeing for anyone else who's interested. Feel free to make additions as you see fit. Many of your additions from yesterday are in the “Newly Covered” list for today. Also let me know if you think any of the “Previously Covered but Still Interesting” items are no longer interesting and should leave the list.

Also, there’s now a daily audio version available for anyone interested: https://youtu.be/g0yTiQonfkc

Let's go....

Newly covered today:

ADA is now live on coinbase.com as well as Coinbase Pro! So, you don’t even need to understand orderbooks to buy ADA now. https://blog.coinbase.com/cardano-ada-is-now-available-on-coinbase-dd30c1e0d93a
Tim Harrison of IOG sums up this week perfectly: “Glass of nice red tonight, I think. Quite a week.” https://twitter.com/timbharrison/status/1372985361794760705
Never imagined there would be a holiday light display that flashed “Screw Doge Coin; ADA is Best” to the original Doge music. Friendly rivalry is probably good in crypto. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM135pv72mY&t=31s
Charles doubles down on the declaration that Cardano’s defining moment will be when it can provide the rails for micro finance from the developed world to the developing world not as a form of charity but as a profitable financial activity for both lender and loan recipient. He thinks it will be the biggest transfer of wealth in the history of the world. He says the base infrastructure for this is being rolled out over the next 24-36 months. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMRGUCLQPYo
The ADA adoption numbers are looking really good lately! https://twitter.com/nierop_pieter/status/1372686310901747712
Max Keiser is also not romantically in love with us. Charles lays down the stick pretty hard on this one. My reaction: "good". If you can't take the heat, stay out of the Cardano kitchen, my man. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1373027224509542403

Previously Covered but still interesting:

Charles posts a pic of a taxidermy African bird called a Turacos. He follows up that post by saying " Guys sometimes a stuffed Ethiopian exotic bird next to an old identity book is just a stuffed Ethiopian exotic bird next to an old identity book. Stop reading into things". Everyone enjoys speculating what exactly this could mean with the obvious implication being that the African bird announcement involves digital identity in Ethiopia. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1369397063583227911 https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1369402020067766275
Famed crypto enthusiast and billionaire Mike Novogratz asks the Cardano world "Can anyone make a real bull case for $ADA? Does anyone build on it? Use it? Why is market cap so high? Should it be a funding asset? It’s one of the few cryptos I haven’t traded in my life." https://twitter.com/novogratz/status/1369255782462746624
It's announced that 591 different assets have been minted on Cardano in the last eight days. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1369347294324162561
Catalyst Fund 3 Voting is ongoing, it looks like the Yoroi team has worked out the voting problem in the Yoroi wallet. https://twitter.com/YoroiWallet/status/1369050858546200585
Charles was on Real Vision earlier this week. https://twitter.com/RaoulGMI/status/1367804256783372288
Cardano SPO Schweta Chauhan was profiled by Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommywilliams1/2021/03/08/meet-30-inspirational-women-this-womens-history-month/?sh=383b28405208
UAE Fund FD7 Ventures calls for ADA to 20x in next 2-3 years https://twitter.com/CardanoPoolXYZ/status/1367927864658690054/photo/1
Charles will be speaking at the Blockchain Africa Conference this week which may or may not give us more clues as to the African Bird announcement. https://blockchainafrica.co/
SingularityNet collaboration with Cardano going down. How else is Skynet gonna pay the Terminators? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWdp33bYJpQ https://www.youtube.com/c/SingularityNET/videos
Wolfram Alpha collaboration with Cardano. What will it look like? Mentioned in several recent AMAs. Sounds like Charles and Stephen Wolfram want to be best brohs. That feels good broh.
~~What did Charles actually do (if anything) on the day of the recent Thanos Infinity Gauntlet snap pic? Just general or was something specific happening behind the scenes?~~ https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1367874091722694656/photo/1 RETIRED!
Alonzo hard fork (non)event to complete Goguen and add smart contracts in Q2. You’ll barely feel it broh. Not even an event. Lots of combinator broh.
Actual target date of Alonzo hardfork combinator event (smart contracts) will be revealed at Cardano 360 show at end of March. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1366519588519731203
Charles claimed Elon was trolling Cardano with “meta for k” on twitter. Can anyone argue one way or another on this? https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1364350825271685122
Ourobouros omega is slated to bring significant innovation to the Cardano consensus protocol. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1357364560504709120
Possible Soulja Boy Cardano collab on NFT. Maybe Soulja Boy could be best brohs with Charles and Stephen Wolfram broh? https://twitter.com/souljaboy/status/1355770383396347907
~~Coinbase Listing of ADA. Will the DCG Mafia ever allow ADA to compete on an even playing field with “their precious” (read in Gollum voice) ETH? Maybe we don’t even need them?~~ RETIRED!
Twitter revamp via Cardano? Charles did a whole vid on fixing social media curation. ~~Other hand: they won’t even give Charles a blue check mark.~~ (Retired: he finally got it) Other other hand: Jack has a mutual love of Africa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JilEb42q-CI&t=2325s
In the Protocol Parameters vid, Charles suggested they will introduce a CIP (Cardano Improvement Proposal) to change the inflation model to accommodate pay for stakepools for processing transactions/data from the ETH, IELE, and Catalyst sidechains. We’ll get to vote on CIPs like this. Kablam! Democracy! Kablam! Voltaire! Kablam! More duckets for staking! Don’t worry broh. They’re gonna stay serious here broh. Charles squinting real hard/blinking/talking slower/using hands a lot here broh. Not planning to violate the things learned from the long Oxford research arc and the input of the Prism Group (Harvard dudes) broh. Snake still eats tail broh. Kablam! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJorRPk767s
Charles mentioned a seven person anti-corruption committee reviewing the Ethiopia project. Hopefully no shenanigans there broh.
Charles is scheduled to appear on Lex Fridman’s Podcast in June. Lex seems like a nice guy broh. He’ll probably end up best brohs with Charles, Stephen Wolfram, & Soulja Boy. Ben Goertzel is also in broh. Lex needs a girlfriend but no paying ADA to romance the androids. Just take lion’s mane, maybe some ‘83 Gordon & McPhail, and solve global issues together broh.
Will a Joe Rogan appearance follow this? It was always ”Goguen before Rogan.” They both love meat and you can barely tell they’re both filthy rich. Match made in heaven?
100% Decentralization of block validation incoming this month!!!!
~~Liquidity bird to land sometime soon? What is it?~~ RETIRED!
What about the whispers of a telecom deal? Part of the Ethiopia project?
What about paying for utilities and transportation? Part of the Ethiopia deal?
Academic credentialing project in the nation state of Georgia. Lots of mentions of this over the years.
Mongolia project. Also lots of mentions of this over the years.
Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Ghana, & South Africa. It seems like there have been a decent number of indicators over the years that these governments are also already in play or targeted for the pan-Africa strategy of 100 MM users in 5-10 years.
In the recent Cardano 360 show there was talk of Emurgo possibly being in the process of building something that sounded kind of like a Metamask for Cardano. Sebastian building stuff works good broh. If not, what will fill the Metamask role in the Cardano ecosystem as a sort of universal(ish) bridge for users of smart contracts? Daedalus? Or something new that would be standalone?
Justin Roiland knows about Cardano. What if they ever mention it on the show broh? https://twitter.com/JustinRoiland/status/1363000121248473088
There is also the looming possibility of a Bitstamp listing. https://www.bitstamp.net/article/bitstamp-continues-exploring-support-additional-di/
Yoroi reaches 100k installs! https://twitter.com/YoroiWallet/status/1369952496307736578
Cardano tattoos are starting to get elaborate. https://twitter.com/BloomPool_io/status/1370148734177325056
There will be a “Mastering Cardano” book. No author signed on yet. Hopefully he or she will have a hairline that is even more dracula than Andreas Antonopoulos. I kid. Love Andreas.
Cardano reached 550k wallets in half the time it took BTC https://twitter.com/nierop_pieter/status/1369933366368362496
Cardano now has it’s own thirst trap twitter accounts. I won’t list them. But, you probably already know which ones those are if you follow #cardano. It’s probably bullish that we are now big enough for them to target us.
We can now claim that Catalyst is the world’s biggest DAO! Luckily, I think it is safe to suspect that ours is less susceptible to recursive call attacks than ETH’s first big DAO. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1369961368946946053
IOHK releases a good article contrasting the various blockchain accounting methods: EUTXO (Cardano) vs. UTXO (Bitcoin) vs. Account Balance (Ethereum). This is one of those nice articles where the British guy pleasantly reads it to you if you want. Use this one to convince all your friends you are the ultimate blockchain expert: “listen Kyle...the shortcoming of UTXO accounting is....” https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2021/03/11/cardanos-extended-utxo-accounting-model/
Cardano devs at IOHK are the most productive in the industry! Already 3,170 commits and climbing this week! I sleep better at night knowing they are not allowed to sleep. Kidding….kidding. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1369589307720269825
~~Actual spycam footage of Brian Armstrong watching Coinbase customers discover ADA.~~ https://twitter.com/ArmySpies/status/1370516335298420736 RETIRED!
Novogratz follows up that he’s bearish for now but will jump on a call with Charles next week. https://twitter.com/novogratz/status/1370482108553105408
Apparently the first $1200 stimulus check if invested in ADA would be $44,800 now. https://twitter.com/CryptoIRELAND1/status/1369426234883645443/photo/1
Charles gives us that real talk about why a young billionaire would devote his life to this Cardano thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7Da6sFAxuI
Cardano uses a tiny fraction of the energy some other top-ten blockchains use. This factoid alone should allow you to hook up with eco-obsessed nature people. https://twitter.com/RichardMcCrackn/status/1370571904969551875
Now you can drive your drinking buddies crazy with your ADA obsession without even saying a word! https://twitter.com/KenzieByrne6/status/1370566690073935872
Will Babel Fees in Cardano lead to delegators receiving an almost index fund like assortment of native tokens? Will SPOs be willing to accept a wide assortment as payment for transaction fees? Will the economics of the delegation/staking landscape require SPOs to share those Babel Fee tokens with their delegators?
Will NFTs be a glaring exclusion from Babel Fees? Will I have to pay for the transaction fees on my NFT in ADA because I don’t want to give an SPO a small piece of the ownership interest in the digital art or other asset represented by the NFT?
There’s a new Crypto Time Traveler and this one loves Cardano. https://twitter.com/CryptoTimeTrav2
Business Insider covers Cardano among four other coins. https://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/news/5-altcoins-under-the-radar-avalanche-cardano-polkadot-cosmos-graph-2021-3-1030187382
The “Cardano Pizza” event becomes an NFT. https://twitter.com/RichardMcCrackn/status/1370924728534376449
Bloomberg covers Cardano, Cites Charles as saying 100 Companies Coming Over https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-14/crypto-s-next-big-thing-raises-questions-while-the-price-surges
Cardano definition added to search function in Bloomberg Terminal https://twitter.com/CryptoJeromeFR/status/1371195771798884352
Commenter Report: Africa Special has finished recording
Cryptoviser apparently is not romantically in love with us. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1371097989968666626
There is a Part 2 to the IOHK EUTXO discussion we reported under item 39. Good read for verbally upstaging your ETH & BTC supporting co-workers. Be the king of the post-zoom call crypto banter! https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2021/03/12/cardanos-extended-utxo-accounting-model-part-2/
Commenter Report: the “metamask of Cardano” speculated about previously in item 30 is the “Yoroi dApp connector”. It’ll be rolled out “with Ergo first and Cardano once Plutus is released.” https://github.com/Emurgo/yoroi-ergo-connector
It looks like this Yoroi dApp Connector info has even been detailed by Sebastien and Rob on yt. Not sure if we can link directly to this video. But, here is the link to the link. Looks like the dApp Connector talk starts at 1:23:10. https://twitter.com/NicoArqueros/status/1353203943195734017
The visionaries among us are already thinking about advanced NFT derivative instruments (some even created by AI) in our ecosystem. https://twitter.com/NicoArqueros/status/1370150347113648132
Today is staking rewards day for Epoch 253! Let’s get those duckets!
Cardano is getting a disproportionate cut of the attention market compared to its CMC neighbors. https://twitter.com/CardanoRise/status/1371431289895665665
“Ask the Doctor” is switching from ERC-20 to Cardano. Note that Ask the Doctor is linked to FD7 Ventures in Item 7 below. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210315005744/en/Global-Healthcare-Platform-Ask-The-Doctor-to-Use-Cardano-for-World
We get another People of Input Output Global video. This one features Dan Friedman. He currently lives in Japan. But, the interview starts off with some very interesting stories about his youth in 1980s Kiev, Ukraine. His speaking and story-telling style is similar to the captain in a 1990s buddy cop movie (in a good way). Very interesting and compelling guy. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1371574441637937153
St. Patrick brings us the green today! The Liquidity Bird has landed!!!!!! We begin going live on Coinbase Pro tomorrow!!!! https://blog.coinbase.com/cardano-ada-is-launching-on-coinbase-pro-694b1cb8c778 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2gcNkeJ4Rk
Native Token Minting Workshop released on the Slack Dev Community Channel. https://files.slack.com/files-pri/T01G2PY2E1M-F01RF61QVQS/download/minting_native_tokens.mp4
This Minting Workshop above is a follow up after a previous Native Token Workshop from 03.04.2021. https://iohkdevcommunity.slack.com/files/U01H7BUQAKS/F01Q3GT4GP7/native_tokens_workshop.mp4
The Coinbase News is allowing us to retire rumors 11, 17, and 41 above.
Today is Coinbase day! Finally! Rejoice. Trading on Coinbase Pro is supposed to open at or after 9am Pacific! https://pro.coinbase.com/ https://blog.coinbase.com/cardano-ada-is-launching-on-coinbase-pro-694b1cb8c778
Charles finally gets the blue check on twitter. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1372182831430955008
Perceptions are shifting on which platform will be #1 for smart contracts over the next decade. Here’s the biggest crypto youtuber asking his co-host if he’s losing faith in the traditional #1. If you’re in Cardano, you can guess which coin his answer is shifting away from. https://youtu.be/4jRCmdWva40?t=3270
Even septuagenarians are getting in on Cardano. https://twitter.com/Emini_Scalper/status/1371061383975030787
Coinbase Pro did actually happen yesterday morning. Congratulations everyone. It’s been a long road and it was beautiful watching those initial candles build on the chart after all these years. https://pro.coinbase.com/
The Crypto Time Traveler mentioned last week (Item 49) has apparently left us and now gone back to the future. It definitely adds a touch of realism when they actually leave. https://twitter.com/CryptoTimeTrav2/status/1371492636884865029
Charles delivered his pre-recorded keynote address at the Blockchain Africa Conference. His remarks support the rumor that the initial Ethiopia project will be around identity. He specifically mentioned Atala Prism. There was talk of the digital identity being able to be linked to wallets, payment systems, and property. He also reasserted that the deals on the table in Africa would bring “millions of users” into the Cardano ecosystem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGEs99I6qV8
If you haven’t seen it in the past, the Atala Prism website has a demo that works with the mobile app showing how the identity solution (along with academic credentialing, health insurance, and proof of employment) would run on Cardano. https://www.atalaprism.io/

~Army of Spies

I was one of the original developers on Dogecoin; Here's some very biased DD on the DeFi token I'm hanging my hat on this time round.

If you want the tl,dr; the relevant stuff starts under the heading "The Token".

Preamble

A loooong time ago, I worked with the Digibyte team to implement the Gravity Well algo into Dogecoin.

The purpose of this algo was to stop multipools from literally dumping on everyone who was genuinely interested in/mining the coin. The market cap increased by about 10% immediately after launch, because who tf likes getting dumped on?

Well, nobody. But people sure do like dumping on you! Later in my journey, I had to whistleblow on my then-employer, who rugpulled millions from investors. That was expensive, and a harsh lesson learned in not trusting people in crypto. So, uh, following that then, I trusted cryptsy with all my coins - who "got hacked", claiming all the coins were now gone.

After that, I stepped out of crypto. Everything felt like a rug-pull.

Anyway, enter recent history - when I remembered that myself and the Digibyte devs did a Doge/DGB exchange after we worked together. I found the DGB wallet on an old HDD, which had matured to an amount that made crypto worth jumping back into.

Sea of Memes

So, let's cut to the chase - I, obviously having learned very little, jumped straight in to searching for the next thing that felt like Doge in the DeFi world.

Well, no - I think I learned a bit, in hindsight. For a start, it was spotting coins that were CLEARLY operating what were essentially just Ponzi Schemes. New coins appearing every 10 seconds, most of which can be sussed out by speaking with the developers, or community team managing a coin. But when 3 minutes of hesitation can cost someone 10x their gains, people are apeing into coins without even checking for liquidity locks, and getting absolutely flattened by the end of the day.

What's made these coins worse was that many of them had already been rugged, and abandoned by their developers - and the bagholders then come together to ~~find new bagholders~~ start building a community around the dumped coin. And often times, I only discovered that the coin had been dumped by the dev team when speaking privately with the token's new "community team", after offering to help out. So, the actual communities had no idea at all.

One of these coins in particular - which has now done pretty well - still has an absolutely massive amount of coins being held by the developers who previously rugged the project. The new community team made the nonplussed Developers into multi-millionaires; pending the dev team are willing to dump large portions of their wallets. The devs unfortunately, have been doing that - while the community blame it on "bots".

The community team behind this coin asked me if I'd speak to the community on behalf of them (posting from this reddit account, and hosting an AMA on their token), which I turned down - my coins were pulled the second they gave me the low-down on how literally everyone invested into that token were on thin ice under a group which already dumped on them. The response from one of the community team members was "Sir, this is a Casino" before posting a link to some t-shirt merch in the main group chat. So, eh, time to hop out, yeah?

Nah, I found one more token, but it had literally just started. Had a tiny bit of traction in February, but not a lot beyond that. Telegram group was small, but atmosphere was pretty good. Dev was active, as were other core team members. The team were chatting with the community, and everyone was in pretty high spirits. Coin's tokenomics were really interesting; essentially built to punish sellers, and reward holders. More on that in a bit - but anyway, I threw in 0.5 ETH at around $0.005/token, and went to bed.

I woke up to my ETH having quadrupled in value, and the community telegram was suddenly popping off. Alright, so, probably time to check out what this token can do in the long-term! And thus, I present to you:

The Token

Dogira

Site: https://dogira.lol

TG: @dogiratoken

Discord: fkUvG3z4fA

Subreddit (brand new!): /r/Dogira

TX for DexTools/Uniswap: 0xe9bd6ddc2b13f46715382f74534950e004399d10

Ether: https://etherscan.io/token/0x4b86e0295e7d32433ffa6411b82b4f4e56a581e1

The Good

Microcap Token; currently < $3mil in Market Cap
Grew to this level organically - not yet listed on CoinGecko, or CoinMarketCap
Core Team are active, friendly, and well-versed
Deflationary in nature; each TX restributes 1% of tokens across all users, and an additional 1% of tokens into the DogeCity fund
DogeCity fund is used to reward users who buy after someone sells - awarding them up to 5% of the sell fee in bonus tokens. This means that if you "buy the dip", you're awarded bonus coins, paid for by the seller!
DogeCity fund additionally rewards every 10th buyer with the prize pool from previous purchases
DogeCity wallet allows for transferring up to 0.1% of its contents to users who advertise the token, and bring in new hodlers
Officially Partnered with Feed All Gorillas, with 4 million Dogira tokens being allocated to FEG's staking pool
Audited, and approved by War on Rugs
Project Lead is self-doxxed
Community are super friendly and engaged - very reminiscent of old Doge.

What could be better

I don't believe in any "perfect coin" - there's always some problems. If you're not seeing them in your own holdings, being frank, you're not looking hard enough. Here's what I think Dogira needs to improve on;

Utility - right now, Dogira is a hodl token. I think when it comes to DeFi, the hodler tokens are established. Tokens need Utility, difficult as it can be to implement it while gas fees are enormous.
Display bug - the current codebase of Dogira contains a display bug which affects the Uniswap exchange; showing all sellers as the Uniswap wallet ID, rather than the actual seller's ID. Some have argued that this is a "feature", mind. Source code is available at https://etherscan.io/address/0x4b86e0295e7d32433ffa6411b82b4f4e56a581e1#code . Obviously, this is just a display bug - the actual coins go to the seller.
Hype - while community members have been posting about the coin, they're not spamming up groups shouting "SAFE PUMP, GET IN FAST"; and while that's great for keeping a massive wave of bagholders out, it also meant the token stayed relatively undiscovered.
Only on Uniswap - Uniswap is awesome, but tokens need to be on an exchange that accepts Fiat payments.

Where Dogira is going from here

As of last night, I joined Dogira's core founding team. The community and team have everything I loved about Doge, but without the multipool and ASIC-Driven mining problems that plagued Doge in the early days.

Priority #1 right now is in getting a public roadmap made available, outlining where we're taking the token in the medium, and long-term future. We've outlined that Utility, and Community will undoubtedly be at the core of our plans, alongside making the token more easily accessible for purchase.

Secondary to that, with the core team in agreement on where the coin should be going, we're now starting to ramp up our marketing efforts. We'll be going live with FEG over the weekend, creating hundreds/thousands of new holders. I'm also currently in the process of repurposing my Steam Game to allow users to win Dogira tokens in an event/competition basis. While it's already had its big heyday, it's still got a small active community along with a 3,000-person Discord. (Yes, I'd love to build a full Dogira version - but gas fees are prohibitive right now).

Lastly, in the more immediate short-term, we'll be organising for Fireside chats with the core team on our Discord. We'll be speaking directly with the community and answering questions during these, making sure everyone's on the same page as far as Dogira's future development goes.

From there, the team will be looking towards Utility (my short time in creating NFTs, and more extensive time in working in Games Development will be up for discussion here), along with creating long-term value for Dogira hodlers and traders.

Wen Moon?

This isn't a quick moon coin. Or at least, it's not intended to be. It might well go parabolic, but the team behind it are in it for the long haul.

Our collective goal for Dogira is to hit $1 per token - requiring around 20x our current market cap. But given we've not yet appeared on CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, or any fiat-supported exchanges - yet still hit a $2-3mil market cap, recovering strongly from every early-investor sell-off?

Personally, I'm insanely bullish on the future that the Dogira token has in store. And psyched to be on board.

And of course, it goes without saying - I am completely, and utterly biased in everything I've written above. I have bought into the token personally, and have now also invested my time into it. I am not a financial advisor - I've been rugged too many times to ever have that title. Do your own research, don't get carpet burns. They take a long fucking time to get out.

Defending energy consumption?

A common and fair rebuttal I see online to cryptocurrencies is the very large amounts of energy consumption needed for bitcoin (PoW) mining. Please correct me if i'm wrong but my dumbed-down version of a counter-argument would be something like:

-Bitcoin mining reward halving events lower the profit margins for many miners forcing them to shut down

-Proof of Stake blockchains will lead the way and do not 'mine' tokens in the same way thus phasing out the need to mine PoW tokens as well as putting less strain on network validators

I am nowhere near an expert on this topic so if you can think of other points to add or know of any good digestible media (<10min video, brief article, infographic, etc) on this topic please post it below.

I was one of the original developers on Dogecoin; Here's some very biased DD on the DeFi token I'm hanging my hat on this time round.

If you want the tl,dr; the relevant stuff starts under the heading "The Token".

Preamble

A loooong time ago, I worked with the Digibyte team to implement the Gravity Well algo into Dogecoin.

After that, I stepped out of crypto. Everything felt like a rug-pull.

Sea of Memes

So, let's cut to the chase - I, obviously having learned very little, jumped straight in to searching for the next thing that felt like Doge in the DeFi world.

The Token

Dogira

Site: https://dogira.lol

TG: @dogiratoken

Discord: fkUvG3z4fA

Subreddit (brand new!): /r/Dogira

TX for DexTools/Uniswap: 0xe9bd6ddc2b13f46715382f74534950e004399d10

Ether: https://etherscan.io/token/0x4b86e0295e7d32433ffa6411b82b4f4e56a581e1

The Good

Microcap Token; currently < $3mil in Market Cap
Grew to this level organically - not yet listed on CoinGecko, or CoinMarketCap
Core Team are active, friendly, and well-versed
Deflationary in nature; each TX restributes 1% of tokens across all users, and an additional 1% of tokens into the DogeCity fund
DogeCity fund is used to reward users who buy after someone sells - awarding them up to 5% of the sell fee in bonus tokens. This means that if you "buy the dip", you're awarded bonus coins, paid for by the seller!
DogeCity fund additionally rewards every 10th buyer with the prize pool from previous purchases
DogeCity wallet allows for transferring up to 0.1% of its contents to users who advertise the token, and bring in new hodlers
Officially Partnered with Feed All Gorillas, with 4 million Dogira tokens being allocated to FEG's staking pool
Audited, and approved by War on Rugs
Project Lead is self-doxxed
Community are super friendly and engaged - very reminiscent of old Doge.

What could be better

Utility - right now, Dogira is a hodl token. I think when it comes to DeFi, the hodler tokens are established. Tokens need Utility, difficult as it can be to implement it while gas fees are enormous.
Display bug - the current codebase of Dogira contains a display bug which affects the Uniswap exchange; showing all sellers as the Uniswap wallet ID, rather than the actual seller's ID. Some have argued that this is a "feature", mind. Source code is available at https://etherscan.io/address/0x4b86e0295e7d32433ffa6411b82b4f4e56a581e1#code . Obviously, this is just a display bug - the actual coins go to the seller.
Hype - while community members have been posting about the coin, they're not spamming up groups shouting "SAFE PUMP, GET IN FAST"; and while that's great for keeping a massive wave of bagholders out, it also meant the token stayed relatively undiscovered.
Only on Uniswap - Uniswap is awesome, but tokens need to be on an exchange that accepts Fiat payments.

Where Dogira is going from here

Wen Moon?

This isn't a quick moon coin. Or at least, it's not intended to be. It might well go parabolic, but the team behind it are in it for the long haul.

Personally, I'm insanely bullish on the future that the Dogira token has in store. And psyched to be on board.

BITCOIN & ALTCOINS RALLY!! HUGE EVENTS COMING TO THIS CHANNEL!!! | Blockchained.news Crypto News LIVE Media

https://www.blockchained.news/2021/03/bitcoin-altcoins-rally-huge-events.html

$ARBKF: A Diamond Hiding Behind a Foreign Exchange Fee -- How Argo Blockchain stands to disrupt $MARA and $RIOT in Market Cap

Background

Several publicly-traded companies are competing for market share in the emerging cryptocurrency mining and management industry. The three companies discussed in this post are Marathon Patent (MARA), Riot Blockchain (RIOT), and Argo Blockchain (ARBKF, ARB.L). A massive opportunity exists in Argo Blockchain due to its current and future comparative advantages in mining, its stock price relative to similar companies, and its intra-industry agreements and partnerships.

Miners’ growth prospects are inherently linked to the increasing adoption of cryptocurrencies as an alternative to fiat currency and centralized finance. Over the past year, many institutions have hopped aboard the blockchain and cryptocurrency phenomenon, which we believe reflects a growing appreciation for the purposes of this technology -- to improve the security of financial instruments on a worldwide scale, to protect wealth against inflationary policies, and to eliminate bureaucratic and administrative sludge in accommodating large transactions of money. A Bank of America report indicated that 21% of banks analyzed incorporate blockchain technology into their business in some way, to include JPMorgan and Citibank.

That said, many retail investors are cautious to speculate in cryptocurrency at this time due to massive gains and volatility that the market has seen over the last several months and years. In this report, we outline a way to invest in stock as a proxy for cryptocurrency with less downside risk while maintaining plentiful potential for growth.

Vocabulary helpful to know:

Blockchain -- more simple than it seems, blockchain is just a string of files that hold data and has a ledger (an immutable digital record of previous transactions).
Hash rate -- a measurement of how many times a Bitcoin mining operation is able to attempt to complete calculations each second. Higher hash rates increase a miner’s chances of finding/solving/unlocking the next available block and receiving a bitcoin reward.
Mining machine -- a computer that runs calculations to “complete” blocks and “mine” bitcoin. Hundreds of thousands of machines around the world work to confirm transactions, in turn helping to keep the ledger honest and secure.
Halving -- an event that occurs about every four years which causes the block reward for miners to be cut in half (miners receive half the reward in bitcoin to mine a block), inducing a supply shortage to the bitcoin market.

Comparables

Marathon Digital Asset Group (MARA)

Marathon stated on February 1 that they currently have 2,560 bitmain miners generating

248PH/s. They took possession of 4,000 additional bitmain miners which will push their hash

rate to 688PH/s, and this supposedly happened towards the end of February. Marathon also plans to add another 6,300 miners to their operation in March and 4,800 more in April. As of writing this, MARA has a market capitalization of $3.602B. Marathon has 5,067 bitcoin on its balance sheet, worth $278.7 million with bitcoin priced at $55,000.

Riot Blockchain (RIOT)

Riot Blockchain states that they operate at a deployed hash rate capacity of 566PH/s while

using 19.7MW of energy. They plan to have a fully deployed fleet of 15,040 miners by April of 2021, with about 1,446PH/s hash rate at that time. As of writing this, RIOT has a market capitalization of $4.283B. Riot has 1,175 bitcoin on its balance sheet, worth $64.6 million with bitcoin priced at $55,000.

What sets Argo apart

Mining efficiency

~$9,000/per bitcoin to mine, giving Argo a 85% profit margin on mining if bitcoin is priced at $60,000.
- As of March 1, 2021, Argo mined 222 bitcoin YTD, including 129 bitcoin in February (about 4.6 bitcoin per day). This increase was due to new machines that Argo purchased from Celcius Network.
- At this rate, even if Argo does not expand mining capacity, they will mine ~1650 bitcoin in 2021. We project that Argo will mine about 2200 bitcoin in 2021 after upgrades.
1075 PH/s with contracts in place to expand to 1685 PH/s incrementally by end of Q2 2021.
25% stake in Pluto Digital Assets. Investment in Luxor Technologies.
- Pluto is a digital currency custody firm, advises decentralized technology and decentralized finance projects, and supports the operations of proof-of-stake networks by staking and operating validator nodes. This stake in Pluto complements Argo’s bitcoin positions by giving Argo exposure to the altcoin market.
- Luxor Technologies is a hashrate management firm whose algorithms maximize earnings for miners by switching between blockchains to maximize hashrate rewards.
Contract to purchase 320 acres of land in Texas with access to 800 MW of power, mostly from renewable sources with “some of the lowest rates in the world.” Argo plans to build a 200 MW mining facility here. Argo also owns facilities in Quebec, Canada where it operates some of its mining operations.
- Argo has the greatest diversity of mining locations that we know about, with mining farms located in the UK and Canada and plans to expand to the United States.
Priority supply agreement with ePIC Blockchain Technologies (supplier of mining machines) which will be helpful for scaling during the global semiconductor shortage.
- Argo has already purchased $8,000,000 worth of ePIC’s machines which will be delivered by Q4 2021. Machines have been built specifically to Argo’s specifications.
- Argo has priority for delivery of ePIC machines that they want for expanding their mining operation through the end of 2022.
Debt-free, but have access to $100,000,000 of credit. Just completed a £26,800,000 share offering to raise capital.
Argo also mines Zcash, another cryptocurrency. Argo has about 5% of the global Zcash mining power.

Weaknesses of Argo

Argo has 599 bitcoin on its balance sheet, worth $32.9 million with bitcoin priced at $55,000. This figure is much smaller than that of Riot or Marathon as well as less than another one of its OTC market competitors, Hut 8 (who have 3,012 bitcoin on their balance sheet).

Price Predictions

Bull case

The OTC market, where Argo is currently listed in the United States, is not the optimal marketplace for a company to reach investors because it requires extra fees to purchase stock and cannot be traded on many brokerages. On February 19th, ARBKF met all the requirements to be listed on the Nasdaq exchange. Listing on Nasdaq is a clear catalyst for Argo because more investors will have access to purchase stock on this market. Clear evidence of this is in ARBKF’s current volume. As of writing, MARA’s 10-day average volume is 20.06 million shares (21.4% of shares outstanding), RIOT’s is 26.10 million (38.6%) while ARBKF’s is 3.13 million shares (just 0.82% of shares outstanding). Argo is not getting the attention it deserves due to the market it is listed on.

We believe that in order to achieve fair value Argo must at least reach the market value of its Nasdaq competitors, MARA and RIOT (3.82B and 4.12B, respectively, as of the time of writing). Since Argo’s market cap is currently just 1.33B, we believe that a 3X in share price would bring ARBKF to fair value in the capital markets compared to competitors. However, this discounts more important fundamental features of Argo. First, Argo has more than double the hashrate of either MARA or RIOT, with plans to increase this by about 50% over the next several months (see above section). Since all of these companies center around mining bitcoin, this is perhaps the most important fundamental metric of these companies. Assuming a 1:1 relationship between hashrate increase and bitcoin mined (which is a conservative estimate; in reality, as hashrate grows, number of bitcoin mined increases at a better than 1:1 rate because mining is all about hashrate and who has the ability to mine a block first), Argo should be valued about 50% better than peers (this discounts current absolute advantages in hashrate and only looks at growth). This assumption justifies a 4.5X increase in stock price in the next few months if a Nasdaq listing, which we believe to be imminent, occurs.

https://preview.redd.it/etptk1tqe0o61.png?width=662&format=png&auto=webp&s=d27fcdcdfdf6eb3d77c13bf777030ed2ab380f3c

These predictions, however, do not account for an increasing price of bitcoin. As of writing this report, the price of 1 bitcoin is about $55,000. Conservative estimates based on the stock-to-flow model of bitcoin price mean we could see 1 bitcoin be priced at $100,000 this year. A Citibank analyst, as well as other experts in the field, believe bitcoin could see prices of anywhere from $250,000-$318,000 by the end of this year. We believe a 1% increase in bitcoin will lead to a 2.5% increase in ARBKF stock price due to the historical relationship between bitcoin price and the price of miners.

https://preview.redd.it/dt9of8q0f0o61.png?width=641&format=png&auto=webp&s=ee67fa05d63847163e8f83f73254208dd8bc3e12

As we can see, since the bitcoin halving, bitcoin has grown tremendously in price, but the miners have grown much more. As the bull market has matured (from the start of 2021 onward), we have seen more consistent returns from the miners.

https://preview.redd.it/zzr8rtt3f0o61.png?width=612&format=png&auto=webp&s=63797c67b8bbba41109f28bb94d9f8f9465b5e9d

Typically the miners are down when bitcoin is down and up when bitcoin is up. On a few occasions, we see the miners’ price change much more than bitcoin (typically when bitcoin has a deep green or deep red day and investors are either FOMOing in or panic selling). However, the median for this range is that the miners change 2.4% for every 1% change in bitcoin price. We will assume that as prices increase, miners will see decreasing marginal returns and only increase 1% for every 1% increase of bitcoin price in order to arrive at more conservative estimates that maintain price-to-earning ratio. However, you will see that the price targets are still astronomical.

Accounting for all of this, from our baseline prediction of a 4.5X in stock price from here given a Nasdaq listing, we outline where the price could go based on the price of 1 bitcoin over this year assuming a 1% increase in price for every 1% increase of bitcoin price:

https://preview.redd.it/epde67z6f0o61.png?width=688&format=png&auto=webp&s=dd2c8cda7f1ae84aa7f0ac89457d4bac4b523254

Competitors MARA and RIOT mined 157 bitcoin and 302 bitcoin in Q4 2020, respectively. Assuming these numbers remain consistent, and each company holds their bitcoin instead of selling, they would have P/Revenue ratios of 104.3 and 64.5, respectively. These are high estimates since both miners are expanding their mining capacity, but Argo’s conservative estimate for bitcoin mined still puts the listed price targets at a competitive P/Rratio (P/R ratios are based on price of all bitcoin mined over 1 year[these firms hold their bitcoin instead of selling] divided by market cap or hypothetical market cap).

Bear case

A couple of scenarios could play out which could result in Argo not rising as expected. First, the price of bitcoin could crash, ending the bull market which began last year. Although we are in uncharted price territory for bitcoin, we believe the end of this bull run will not happen until Q4 2021 at the earliest. Based on historical cycles, it would be an anomaly for bitcoin to crash this soon after the halving, especially with how bullish the sentiment in the market is. In particular, we expect a number of large, publicly-traded companies to disclose a bitcoin purchase over the next several weeks, just as Tesla did in February. We believe this because six weeks ago, Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, held a conference for companies like this to learn how to get bitcoin onto their balance sheets. This resulted in bitcoin’s largest daily gain in history, up over 18%. If Tesla had this effect, imagine the size of the candles that will be produced when Twitter, Google, Apple, or other companies inevitably follow suit. The sentiment is extremely bullish right now, and the CEO of NYDIG, a firm helping these companies to acquire bitcoin, recently confirmed that we should expect to hear this kind of news soon.

More realistically, two other scenarios could stop Argo from having the growth we project. First, for whatever reason, Argo could fail to get uplisted to the Nasdaq. We believe this is unlikely because it makes the most sense for Argo’s leadership to want its stock to be available for trading to more investors, but it is certainly a possibility. Another scenario is that Argo and other miners, such as Hut 8 Mining Farms (HUTMF) and Bitfarms (BFARF) get uplisted from the OTC market to Nasdaq and the market becomes oversaturated with miners. We believe this scenario is more likely than Argo not being listed on the Nasdaq at all, but that it will still end up fine for Argo. Argo has a competitive edge over all of its peers due to its mining capabilities and partnerships and will take the largest market share of any publicly-traded miner. Additionally, all of these miners will have room to grow as bitcoin’s price appreciates. Seeing as ARBKF currently has a P/R ratio in the range of 10.6-14.1 (based on our two estimates of bitcoin mined in 2021, with bitcoin priced at $55,000), it will still grow into a more aggressive P/R ratio as more investors look for crypto exposure.

Disclaimer

I own 17285 shares of ARBKF. I am not a financial advisor and this is not financial advise. It is just my research and belief of where ARBKF’s price is headed.

DAO — Decentralization with Use Case

A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) seeks to handle governance problems in various sectors. Smart contracts and blockchain act as governance technologies with the ability to promote higher levels of transparency. DAOs are created to help minimize existing principle-agent problems of organizations and companies’ moral hazards. In the absence of third parties, tokens of distributed networks seek to provide incentives to align organization interests automatically.

Attracting and Incentivizing Contributors
DAOs incentivizes contributors and users on the platform by giving them a say in an organization’s operations not just in the present time but also in the organization’s future.
Pooling Funds
DAOs implement the use of cryptocurrencies which allows people from any part of the globe to pool funds.
Govern Funds
DAOs allow users on a platform to channel funds towards a common mission collaboratively.

DAO decentralization use cases aim to improve the Work Quest ecosystem. The functions vary from simple to complex actions. These actions include:

Addition of new platform features
Improving the available business model
Changing methods on how to use an asset
Changing a market model
Changing asset support factors

Governance model

The Work Quest token’s primary function is governance over the platform protocol and the platform’s accumulated funds. The token’s utility is also its position as a potential revenue share.

The governance contract allows a switch, enabling token holders to earn part of the protocol’s fee when turned on. After the switch approval, there is a time lock that gives liquidity providers and investors time to prepare for the shift to a possible new revenue sharing model in the event it occurs.

Work Quest DAO transition to community governance is going to be gradual as well as follow the principle of increasing decentralization. Work Quest decentralization process allows for the distribution of actions and decision-making processes to get away from a central, authoritative group. All token holders have the right to vote towards a suggestion. The concept of allowing a few people to decide on behalf of others is eliminated thanks to Work Quest DAO decentralization.

Decisions about the Work Quest protocol will include allocating funds from the governance treasury with a provided percentage that has been allocated to the total token supply and updating and modifying the protocol’s logic.

Delegation

Work Quest DAO uses a delegate system from which token holders may delegate their voting rights to a different representative.

The right to vote is a choice meaning that participants do not have to vote every time. Alternatively, a user can select a confidant (delegate) who can vote on their behalf. Keep in mind that voting rights are dependent on the shares an individual owns. The better users are rated, the more trustworthy they are and the more their reward.

There is a percentage that is required to reach quorum during decision-making processes. This percentage represents the minimum number of “yes” votes for any proposal to pass. This is in addition to the minimum shares of the total supply required from a potential representative. The combination of these two requirements provides a challenge for the community-driven governance vote.

WUSD Protocol/ Liquidity Mining

Liquidity providers earn a percentage on every trade, proportional to the total amount of liquidity, for a specific token pair. Keep in mind that anyone can submit tokens as a reserve. Trades are facilitated against the provided tokens. The added advantage is the absence of middlemen in the process. Via the liquidity mine, the community receives an extra percentage of the Work Quest token.

Work Quest features a Work Net liquidity incentive program where users receive WUSD that provides liquidity on Automated Market Maker (AMM) platforms. The more liquidity a user provides the more shares in the WUSD pool they receive. These liquidity providers have the opportunity to take part in the seeing of WUSD from providing liquidity to the WUSD/ETH trading pair and receiving token rewards.

Retirement Savings Program

As a recruiting platform, it is important to consider the aspect of retirement. A shareholder chooses a percentage of the total of completed smart contracts. Once the sum of the total is realized, it is automatically paid off to the user’s savings account. Another added advantage is that the savings accrue profit in the form of annual interest. Therefore, DAO’s autonomous nature comes to play as the percentage is not dictated by the management meaning there is no outside control.

P2P Insurance

Work Quest P2P insurance offers protection from the community’s inability to perform their official duties. The concept behind P2P is the bringing together of like-minded people who have a mutual interest group their insurance policies.

While the Work Quest model of insurance includes the traditional pooling and sharing of profits and losses, it also provides a product for increasingly savvy consumers whose key objective is transparency in an on-demand economy. When an insured event arises, the fund’s team has the responsibility to vote.

With DAO, every decision is arrived at through an open discussion and voting. The added advantage is that there is no central entity that can interfere with a client’s funds. A user can transfer contributions by forming an insurance fund. From the insurance fund, part of these funds goes to payments of insured events. At the end of a financial year, takes a vote on whether to leave the raised amounts in the insurance fund or whether to distribute the funds among the participants.

A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is the formal description for the Ethereum blockchain providing basic rules for the transfer of funds, managers’ appointment, electing representatives, and assigning tasks alongside performing other actions in a community may seek to adopt an ecosystem that will suit their needs. Work Quest DAO is, therefore, responsible for the maintenance and regulation of the Work Quest platform. Many other organizations are adopting the use of DAO decentralization in different industries to promote better functionality and transparency. DAOs enable organizations to attract and incentivize contributors as well as the pool and govern funds.

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Work Quest DAO decentralization use case

Building OSS infrastructure to help improve community management, communication, organization and ultimately contributions

I've started working on a series of systems to improve communication and organization infrastructure for the Nano community and ecosystem.

Primary Goals

Help new members discover and understand existing ideas, discussions in an easily consumable manner (short descriptions, status, counter-arguements, etc) and guide them to focused discussions.
Help existing members point new members to old ideas, discussions, conclusions, etc
Help new member onboarding, especially contributions from developers

Secondary Goals

Serve as a chronicle of notable events, discussions, comments, ideas, etc
Keep the community at large informed — serve as a centralized place to easily and quickly track an open and distributed project
Measure community support for or against ideas by nano account based voting

Design Principles

Open
Distributed — operate indefinitely without reliance on centralized elements (servers, people, etc)

Systems

Nano Improvement Proposals (i.e. RFC, BIPs, EIPs, etc )
Nano Wiki (more info on design/organization to come) — main site, acting as an overlay over the existing ecosystem
Nano Based Accounts & Voting
Auto & Manual Post Chronicler (automatic importing, organization, etc)
- Forumn
- Discord
- Reddit
- Twitter

The goal of these systems is to enable a large number of loosely affiliated volunteers to collaborate as efficiently as possible

by minimizing existing members having to engage in old discussions with new members who are trying to get up to speed
by allowing new members to know the status of certain ideas and identify areas where they could help

Develop Workflows & Contribution Guides

The goal is to allow for an idea to be efficiently vetted by the community at large before it boils down to focused discussions and gets the attention of contributors and core contributors. This applies to ideas and contributions to the entire nano ecosystem and not just the core repo.

Example workflow for ideas:

Check the site to see if it exists. If it exists, it will point you to focused discussions on the idea (forum, discord channel, reddit). If it doesn't, you should vet the idea on discord, or jump right to a reddit post (or perhaps a forum post) — post the created forum/reddit post on the appropriate discord. Forum posts should be for focused discussions. If the idea survives these various steps and pertains to the core repo, it can be formalized into an improvement proposal.

Examples workflow for contributions:

Check the site to find an idea you want to work on and/or is not being worked on. Check in with the connected discord channel to see if anyone is working on it and let people know you are working on it. Share updates on reddit or the forum.

Site/System Design

I plan on designing the site entirely on top of IPFS, as that will allow for any one person to host all of the content, the rest will be on github. I'm still finializing a few elements, mostly how to structure the data, but will follow up shortly with some code on github and the initial design as a starting point for discussion.

Nano Based Accounts & Voting

You do not need an account but it will be advised as it will be used to prevent spam on the site. An account is simply a keypair. The site will generate one for you and you will sign the publickey with your nano private key (can be done on nault). This methods allows for voting tied to nano accounts without increasing the risk/attack surface for your nano private key.

Final Thoughts

We all know this is needed as I've seen comments about lack of communication from the NF (despite this being an OSS project), people wanting to contribute but not knowing where to start or what to work on, and new members unaware of existing ideas/discussions (i.e. account minimums). Thus, please focus your comments on how this is a bad idea, or how it can be improved. Also, suggestions for a name for the site/domain would be appreciated.

We don't need to reinvent the wheel on workflows and organization so please feel free to share existing designs for other open source communities and projects. I'm pulling a lot from my past experiences with Bitcoin, Ethereum and IPFS. My main focus is building these existing systems/designs but in a fully distributed and resilient manner. I'm all too aware of projects being abandoned when a maintainer decides to abandon it.

Decentralization, privacy, and transparency update

In February and March, we collected a lot of constructive feedback from everyone here. Happily, it showed that the community and core team continue to agree about what really matters, but it also showed us that we need to focus, walk the talk, and actually make it happen.

Utility over hype
Long-term vision over short-term wins

Thank you as always for your support, and for keeping us on the right track.

Main takeaways from your feedback

Decentralization
It’s not clear which aspects of the network are decentralized and trustless, and which are centralized and trusted. There is no clear timeline for decentralization.

Transparency
We’re missing clarity and structure in our communication. Information is scattered, incomplete, and outdated. Important questions are lost in the shuffle.

What we’re doing about it

The way we work was originally designed around pragmatism: design many basic tools, validate demand, then iterate towards their final forms. Demand was validated. But this experimental approach has spread our attention and dev resources too broadly, and it’s time to refocus. Sustainable products can only be built on strong foundations.

At the end of the day, Incognito needs to be a resilient, unstoppable privacy network if it’s ever to achieve its ambitions.

What needs to get done

Complete the core tech - Reprioritize what we’re building to finish the features necessary to release the network safely.
Communicate clearly - Be precise and transparent about what’s been done and what we’re currently building.

Re-prioritize the tech roadmap

Privacy and decentralization first.

Privacy v2 (ETA: May 2021)
Privacy v1 offers basic privacy. With privacy v2, everything that happens in Incognito, from shielding to sending, receiving, trading, and unshielding will be private. This improvement is of the utmost importance.
Additionally, as you may know, Incognito currently uses temporary addresses to preserve privacy. This intermediary step and other hindrances to decentralization will be removed with Privacy v.2.

@hieutran leads the development and implementation of Privacy v2. If you have any questions related to the privacy of Incognito, do not hesitate to ask and tag him.

Dynamic committee size & Slashing (ETA: Jun 2021)
Currently, for initial network stability, the dev team operates the majority of validators in shard committees (22/32 in each shard’s committee). When slashing and dynamic committee size are implemented, there will be no need for this temporarily centralized setup.
With slashing, the network will be able to detect inoperative and misbehaving validators and replace them with better validators. After slashing has been active for some time, this will increase the stability of the network as the network will utilize “healthy” validators.
Dynamic committee size will secure the network in the worst-case scenario where the network has many inoperative validators and does not have sufficient votes to create a new block. In this scenario, the network will be able to adjust its committee size, so the minimum required votes for creating a new block are lessened in order to get the network up and running as quickly as possible.

@hungngo leads the development of Dynamic committee size & Slashing. If you have any questions related to how slashing will work and how to be ready for it, do not hesitate to tag and ask him.

Block time reduction & full beacon chain validation (ETA: TBD)
The Incognito block time is currently about 40s. This is comparable to proof of work blockchains but incomparable to other proof of stake blockchains at this stage. To fix this, we’ve been running benchmarks to find out where we can optimize chain processes. By reducing block time, we can improve speed for users across Incognito features by cutting block time in half (to 20s).
In a financial platform like Incognito, security is paramount. Security is not only about bugs in the code, but protocol design as a whole. Incognito needs to prevent malicious behavior from a shard committee, especially collusion. For example, if a shard’s validators collude to create a malicious block with double-spending transactions, the beacon chain should verify and reject the block. Then the shard committee will be replaced by another. So far, we’ve accomplished this by keeping control of fixed shards. Full validation in the beacon chain will give Incognito the ability to release fixed shards.

The development of this proposal will start in April. @0xkumi will lead the development, so feel free to tag him for any questions related to this development, as well as for consensus or scalability.

Shielding/unshielding redesign (ETA: May-Jun 2021)
Incognito is building bridges to bring privacy to other mainstream blockchains like Ethereum, Bitcoin, Monero, etc. Although each bridge usually requires a different mechanism to compliment the other blockchain’s protocol, we’re searching for ways to decentralize this building process as much as possible, in both the protocol and app layers.
For the protocol layer, the dev team has been rebuilding the Bitcoin bridge in a more decentralized and secure way. For example, assets can only be unlocked if they have multiple signatures from the beacon committee. When that beacon is decentralized, so is the bridge. We’re doing the same for the Ethereum bridge as well, and eventually every bridge after that.
For the app layer, we will be redesigning the UX to remove the need for a temporary Ethereum address during the shielding process. This way, you can interact directly with the Incognito smart contract and have full control of your assets without a need to trust any intermediary. Ultimately, it would be better to offer a similar experience for both the Ethereum and Bitcoin bridges, despite the different mechanisms that comprise them.

@hiennguyen is building Portal v4, and @binh is working on decentralizing shielding for Ethereum and Ethereum-based assets. Feel free to tag them if you have questions related to cross-chain transactions.

Decentralize pDEX and liquidity (remove temporary addresses, migrate liquidity to a decentralized set up) (ETA: May-Jun 2021)
The pDEX is the most popular feature in the Incognito ecosystem, but trading and liquidity rely on centralized setups at the moment.
As mentioned earlier, the Privacy v.2 upgrades will remove intermediary steps and let you trade directly using the AMM, while still preserving privacy.
As for liquidity provision, the most popular method is currently the Provide feature, which is centralized. We’re going to end Provide and replace it with a decentralized system that enables you to earn crypto in return for providing liquidity. This will make the pDEX more sustainable and organic in the long term, and remove concerns around trusting the core team with your funds in Provide.

I’ll lead this development. So feel free to tag me (@andrey) for any related questions.

Complete the Privacy Quest (ETA: April 2021)

It was a unique growth initiative, but the timing was poor and we didn’t take enough time to flesh it out well. So, we’re putting it to bed. This month we’ll wrap up the event.

In the next week, we will share instructions on how and when the final part of the Quest will take place.

De-prioritize some aspects of layer-2 development

pNode & Node Tree - production will be stopped.

Considerable resources are needed to maintain production, support, and logistics for both the pNode and the Node Tree, especially with the current supply shortages. These resources will now be rerouted towards core development. We hope to see many community-built Node devices in the near future.

Web pDEX and Incognito wallet browser extension - paused until Privacy v.2 is released

Not only is it distracting to develop these tools when layer 1 is still in need of upgrades, but it also doesn’t make sense to release extensions that will need to be reworked when Privacy v.2 goes live. Additionally, there are security concerns about releasing the extensions without thorough audits. For these reasons, we’ve decided to delay these and will revisit them after the Privacy v2 upgrade.

Incognito Pay - paused until the network is released

We were so excited for this tool that we couldn’t wait to start building it - and built it too early. Once the infrastructure is there and the Incognito network is self-sufficient, we’ll resume and release Incognito Pay.

Builder rewards v.2 - paused until the network is released

Rather than keep changing the requirements for builders and requiring strict oversight, we’ve decided to delay the new program until the network is released and a proper community governance structure is in place.

Communication & transparency

During the next few months, all devs will be fully focused on releasing the network and decentralizing all aspects. Our communication strategy will be similarly focused on foundational aspects.

Development progress will be published weekly under each proposal.
Transparency reports will be published every week, addressing key issues and community concerns.
Validators will be given useful tools and dedicated support before slashing is released.
Application users will continue to have full support with any issues that may arise.

Please continue to share your feedback and ideas. Keep reporting bugs and suggesting improvements. Keep building Incognito with us. And once again, thank you for being part of this and keeping us focused on the end goal.

Got into SOS in early March after hearing about the extremely high SI. I was hoping to ride the hype of busting shorts but after looking into Hindenberg's past as well as discovering the extremely solid DD and community strength in sub's like this, I AM ALL IN! 🚀(DD + Positions Inside)🚀

Positions

TD ThinkorSwim ~ $18k

Robinhood ~ $9k

🚨Trust me I want my shit off Robinhood too but too much volatility right now to wait for 3+ day transfer

My entries are anywhere between $7.50 & $5.50. I loaded up throughout March as I dug deeper into Hindenberg's past & discovered all the amazing 💎✋ communities like this sub. I realized earlier today that my portfolio is about 95% SOS, yet I have never been less worried about an investment over my entire time in the market. You guys are amazing. The DD on SOS I have seen on this sub and others has been far more advanced than anything produced by Hindenberg. ( I don't even understand what they are thinking at this point ). I credit my seat on the 🚀 to all of you amazing apes whose hands stayed strong through the first rip no matter what lies were thrown your way. We wouldn't be here without you.

The more I research, the angrier I get that these hedge funds have been getting away with tearing down strong companies and hiding blatant lies and slander behind the guise of "short reports". They have been tearing down people's businesses and robbing retail traders blind for years, but they are going to get burnt on this one. We are leaving the solar system. 🚀🌌

🧠The DD

🚀 Every Hindenberg & Culper Research Lie Disputed w/ Strong Evidence 🚀

🚨 Hindenberg Research 1st Twitter "Short Report"

https://preview.redd.it/lzy3z329tzn61.png?width=579&format=png&auto=webp&s=66f3654d1b15021508d21056317f95d7f7c528fc

Hindenberg's first short report, which read more like a slanderous Twitter rant, was heavily focused on the idea that SOS was a fabricated company due to the fact that they could not locate their facilities.
- To start, this idea was extremely blown out of proportion in the 1st place. I have an Uncle who owns a business that would have been in this exact position. This is a normal business practice and is done for tax purposes.
  - Hypothetical Example: tax rate to have HQ "located" on paper in PA is 6%, but only 3% in NJ. To take advantage of this, a business owner would buy a small location in NJ, state it to be the HQ, then continue to run the bulk of operations in PA. This allows the business to save 3% in taxes and is 100% legal. (What blows my mind is Hindenberg had to know this and still went ahead with the lie)

🚨 SOS Executive Team 1st Response

https://preview.redd.it/32o914cdtzn61.png?width=466&format=png&auto=webp&s=8ae092d3b7aa05a6987f0b0b9dc0200165e83041

About a week after Hindenberg releasing the first smear campaign on Twitter, SOS executives, rightfully so, decided they had enough of the lies and made a statement dispelling all of the lies and misconceptions in the first "short report". Secondly, executives stated they had a much more detailed response being prepared for the next week.
- Hindenberg, Culper & other short sellers even went as far as to impersonate & disable some of the SOS social media accounts. This is where I began to get a feeling the shorts were paranoid...
- To confirm my hypothesis the shorts were getting shaken up, days later a one-page article began circulating the internet, stating anyone involved in trading SOS should call the Hagen Berman attorney office to seek assistance for being "scammed by a fraudulent stock"
  - Aside from the big scary headline, the rest of the page was filler. They wanted that title to scare people off, too bad it didn't... 💎👐
- It was soon found out that not only was Hindenberg involved with that article being released, but he was actually the one to hire the attorney!
  - It was at this moment I went from believing we had the shorts starting to sweat, to believing we had them by the balls ⚾⚾

Link to Attorney Article: Hagen Berman Attorney Article $SOS

🚨 Hindenberg & Culper Research 2nd Twitter "Short Report"

https://preview.redd.it/1dzuliuetzn61.png?width=564&format=png&auto=webp&s=f0f962eb8e1ce96aaf8f0e25ad3e8485f569ffd3

In what I believe to be a last-ditch effort, Culper Research once again pounces on the release of SOS's detailed statement.
- Culper was of the belief that SOS had had not been preparing a detailed response, rather "only pathetically attempting to cover its tracks".
- On March 3rd, Culper tweets again, this time accusing SOS executives of never actually purchasing the second batch of 5,000 miners they had promised.
  - Keep in mind, the sole basis of this accusation was a delay in shipment and set-up times.
🎉🎊 Put your party hats on for this one...
- The very next day, March 4th, SOS Executives released a video touring their entire mining facility along with showing off the 5,000 new miners Culper Research was so sure were fake.
  - This was a big push for me and was where I moved a majority of my funds into SOS
Culper Research went quiet for a while after this incident, but that didn't stop big bad Hindenberg from attempting to come back and save his fellow hedgie...
- On March 9th, Hindenberg tweets for the fifth time about the previously disproven lies regarding SOS "not having any facilities or even an HQ"
  - Hindenberg continues on to slander SOS for choosing to keep their rigs in "various confidential locations" and uses MARA and RIOT as examples of how SOS "should be doing business.
To be completely honest, this would have been the first red flag for if it was not for the fact that Hindenberg Research was, wait for it... also slandering and short on the cryptocurrency mining company RIOT at the time of the statement.
- This is where the deal was sealed for me. Hindenberg Research is a fund that should be comprised of smart individuals with one goal, making smart investment decisions. Not to mention they have all the tools to do so. It left my jaw wide to see how hypocritical of a statement they would make when even an average retard like myself could have guessed it to be a horrible idea.

Link to Hindenberg short report on RIOT: RIOT Short Report - Hindenberg
Hindenberg finishes off his tweet mocking the fact that SOS will relocate its miners from time to time in order to waste the least amount of electricity. I do not see how this statement even makes sense in itself since my interpretation is that operating in this way makes SOS is the smart one.
Maybe that's the reason SOS is already cash-flow positive, and even further, was able to recapitalize in February with $300 Million in successful offerings...

https://preview.redd.it/c9yplh4euzn61.png?width=878&format=png&auto=webp&s=c421d5b61067f3beca35cae3249510e76e09d2b1

That brings me to my final point of the section. A snippet of DD I found in this sub last week that I do not believe has gotten the exposure it deserves yet, states how SOS is poised to beat out other popular mining stocks RIOT & MARA in BOTH the short and long term time horizons.
- Short Term Outlook: Since it is now clear SOS is not lying about its miner purchases, as long as we stay on the course were riding at the moment, SOS will quickly begin to outperform any other major mining company. Not only will it outperform, but as time goes on it will begin to do so exponentially.

https://preview.redd.it/t569navjtzn61.png?width=380&format=png&auto=webp&s=5a99e0d9460a8b4c4421c25e8e6e4e6523dd8ff0

Long Term Outlook: Remember how Hindenberg criticized SOS for relocating its miners in order to reap the lowest electricity costs? Well, we can all get in the second laugh of the day. While Hindenberg for whatever reason saw efficient energy utilization as a negative, SOS's attention to detail with their resource usage is the reason they will beat out all other mining companies long term.
- SOS recently secured an agreement with Leibodong Hydropower Station, which will be supplying the electricity to SOS's cloud crypto mining center.
- Leibodong, located in Hejiang, Luzhou, Sichuan Province, offers richer and cheaper hydropower resources than the rest of China and will supply SOS's cloud mining center with electricity for a price between 0e.22-0.38kW/h
Direct Statement from SOS Chairman Yandai Wang: "one of the key success factors for cloud crypto mining is to secure cheap power in regions with rich renewable energy resources. Southwest China, such as Sichuan province, is one of such regions. SOS will continue to search for cheap and sustainable electricity to execute its aspiring cloud crypto mining strategy."

Link to SOS Energy Deal: SOS & Leibodong Hydropower Station Agreement

🚨 SOS Institutional Holdings

All we have heard so far from Hindenberg & Culper Research is how SOS is a shell company that is lying about its cryptocurrency mining endeavors in an attempt to scam investors with a classic pump and dump scheme.

🚀 I am about to provide you with two facts that in my mind, 100% nullify any such claims. 🚀

🚨 1) SOS Institutional Holdings

Direct quote from Fintel: Largest shareholders include Prelude Capital Management LLC, Susquehanna International Group, LLP, Klingenstein Fields & Co LP, Cutler Group LP, Bank Of America Corporation, Morgan Stanley, Cutler Group LP, Penserra Capital Management LLC, Edge Wealth Management LLC, and Advisor Group Holdings Inc.

The day I discovered this information another 15% of my portfolio went right into SOS on a same-day dip. This sealed the deal for me. How can you even say SOS is a "shell" company when such large and well-respected banks & institutions are holding decent-sized positions. While nothing is ever a 100% chance, I am willing to be wrong if Morgan Stanley & Bank of America are too.

🚨 2) On top of the large, well-respected American institutions cutting themselves a piece of the SOS pie, SOS is also a big player in the world of cloud and marketing services. While I personally am heavy on SOS for the cryptocurrency play, SOS services some very large and well-respected insurance companies, financial institutions, medical institutions, healthcare providers, auto manufacturers, security providers, senior living assistance providers, and other service providers in the emergency rescue services industry across the globe.

Seems to me like almost everyone believes in SOS besides Hindenberg and Culper, I wonder why...

https://preview.redd.it/tnoe0goltzn61.png?width=370&format=png&auto=webp&s=a948876e6ffca37b1a9735cc16c28523a9c01614

🚀 Now that we've gotten the fundamentals out of the way, its time for some technical and social sentiment analysis on SOS 🚀

🚨 Extremely High Short Interest Data

Just to clear things up

Short Volume: # of shares that have been shorted over a given time period
Short Interest: # of shares that have yet to be covered or closed out by short-sellers
Short Interest Ratio = # Shares Shorted / Average Volume of Daily Trades
Short Borrow Fee Rate: % of interest charged to any short position for borrowing the shares, think of it as a mortgage, but your borrowing shares of SOS instead of money
- SOS's most recent borrow fee is 13.59%, while it might not seem significant without a comparison, AMC currently has a borrow fee of around 11% and is extremely hyped for a short squeeze. SOS BORROW FEE IS EVEN HIGHER!
Short Shares Availability: # of shares available to borrow and use to short
- extremely low compared to SOS's overall float

https://preview.redd.it/e6f11zfntzn61.png?width=483&format=png&auto=webp&s=30aa6a16643c8e2a8149ae151f9640f98a8f8492

As you can see in the above image, the borrowing fee and short shares availability has slowly gotten lower and lower over the past few days. At first glance, it might seem scary and make you think there would be less of a chance for a potential squeeze, but let me explain.
- While some shorts have begun trying to exit their positions, so far it's been a minuscule amount. Look at what that minuscule change has done to the price action over the past few days.
  - We are ahead of schedule price-wise for even my extremely bullish outlook and the majority of the shorts are still balls deep. They pulled out the tip and were up almost $3 in 3 days.

Bottom Line: When SOS has its real squeeze, it is going straight out of the fucking solar system. It isn't even going to stop and say hi to all the GME apes chillin' on the Moon. 💎✋🚀🌗

🚨 Charting

https://preview.redd.it/45f4jraptzn61.png?width=595&format=png&auto=webp&s=f7fefc282e2a414de7dbd46047cd385787e58d7d

The above charts may be a little hard to read, but bear with me, I've been learning to edit pictures on the fly as I make this post 😅

Left Two Charts

- Far left: SOS 1 Year 1 Day

- SOS 5 Day 15 Minutes

Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) ( Bottom of Chart): Trend-following momentum indicator that shows the relationship between two moving averages of a security's price. The MACD is calculated by subtracting the 26-period exponential moving average (EMA) from the 12-period EMA.
- MACD line first crosses the signal line (bullish), then continues its follow through to cross the centerline (bullish)
  - I am extremely bullish here because while on lower timeframe charts such as the 5 Day 15 Minute, MACD tends to have a lot more movement, seeing a lineup across time frames just gives it an even higher success probability.

Relative Strength Index (RSI) (Above MACD): Momentum indicator used in technical analysis that measures the magnitude of recent price changes to evaluate overbought or oversold conditions in the price of a stock or other asset. The RSI is displayed as an oscillator (a line graph that moves between two extremes) and can have a reading from 0 to 100.
- RSI line in general terms represents the strength of the bulls vs the bears. The higher the RSI, the stronger the bullish momentum and vice versa.
  - Again, we see this trend not just on the 15-minute chart, but also lining up with the daily

Lastly, we are seeing extreme volume over the past few days relative to the average, as well as the On Balance Volume (OBV) steadily increasing over the daily chart

The other chart on the right does not require any in-depth technical explanation but shows us where the shorts entered their positions.

This is extremely important because anyone short will begin to lose money as we push above their short entry. The further we push, the harder they begin to panic, and the second they do... Houston, we have fucking liftoff! 🚀🌗

🚨 Social Sentiment Analysis

Social media has played a major role in the short squeeze events that have been occurring over the past few months and I have found social sentiment indicators to be extremely accurate during such times.

https://preview.redd.it/65eoze4rtzn61.png?width=474&format=png&auto=webp&s=8fc17872269a2ccbf4f9f241902722d6ed792cb6

Shown above is SOS's Memeberg Terminal statistics
- Memeberg Terminal is a free social sentiment tracker that shows how many mentions a stock ticker gets across Reddit as a whole as well as individual subreddits such as WallStreetBets.
Below Memeberg Terminal is Google Trends, another free social sentiment tracker, but for the entire internet, rather than just Reddit.
- As you can see, SOS is rapidly gaining traction on both Reddit and with the general public. In the past, this has been an extremely bullish signal for hot stocks like SOS.
  - Another bonus is since SOS is still trading under $10, new investors see that as a steal due to the psychological barrier of double digits.

🚨 Analyst Price Forecasts

https://preview.redd.it/fx4aizystzn61.png?width=429&format=png&auto=webp&s=a2f1a849257cff82dbcbe6a41ed9b1a52e3c98d9

Pictured above are the three price targets given to SOS by professional analysts.
Scorpio VC: $40
CNN: ~$20
SeekingAlpha: Fair value of $18, upside to $36+
While their target is essentially just their prediction, the word spreads and tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- Also, I was not expecting suits like CNN to hop on our side so quickly and would be feeling bullish with price targets of even $12+ so the fact we have a high of $40 and our average is mid $ 20s is pretty wild.

🚨 Unusual Option Chain Volume ( Gamma Squeeze )

https://preview.redd.it/5lrqapowtzn61.png?width=1243&format=png&auto=webp&s=60f76f89a1427fae9619d8c2264593d1afab2850

Pictured above is one of the many unusual option volume notifications I have received from Benzinga Pro over the trading week. I wish I could add the rest but I could not figure out how to fit them in properly for the life of me.
- Essentially, this shows you when a large order is placed on a stock option contract. Large call orders are bullish and large put orders are bearish. While it in no way guarantees a price follow-through, it is a well-known strategy to follow the big money. Typically the rich are in the know before the average retail investor and the thought process is if they feel strongly enough to put $1 Million+ on the line, they are not doing it randomly.

🚨 Lastly: Bitcoin

https://preview.redd.it/0pi5u8bvtzn61.png?width=503&format=png&auto=webp&s=73c56f2cad73739b87dad2bf9f6bcdeb0006df8e

I saved the Bitcoin analysis for last because I am assuming the majority of you are following Bitcoin, but for those that are new or not into cryptocurrency, BTC is about to take its next leg up in its bull run
- I believe this may be one of the most aggressive rips we have seen in Bitcoin yet due to Jerome Powell announcing interest rates will remain low for at least another year if not two.
  - Long story short, that destroys the value of the dollar which has a direct negative correlation to Bitcoin (Dollar goes down, Bitcoin goes up)
  - Worth it to compare the DXY (US Dollar Index) chart next to Bitcoin just to see the correlation yourself.

🚨 Miscellaneous

https://preview.redd.it/latfc6iytzn61.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=d10f7a9da48f5abd32e51b078ee0a386ed1884cd

Above are some screenshots I couldn't find a place for in the DD, but still find extremely interesting. Feel free to add any insights on said images in the comments or through PM.

🎊 Conclusion 🎊

Congratulations if you've made it here, we'll have to meet up somewhere in space. 🚀🌌

😄 Please take it easy on me if I fucked anything up with formatting or images, this is my first ever extensive DD post. Feel free to leave any feedback in the comments. I had an amazing time drafting this and will definitely be doing more in the future.

On a serious note, I've learned almost everything I know about trading from Reddit DD and can not express how appreciative I am of not only this sub but any trading sub out there that sees this and Reddit as a whole. Anyone reading this, you are part of a community that has been able to get me excited and put a smile on my face on a daily basis. I know times are tough for everybody right now, but we really have been making the best of it and I can guarantee you these memories will last me a lifetime.

I genuinely believe we are going to the moon one way or another because this movie isn't ending until the good guys win. Never let anybody tell you how to live your life and follow your dreams!

💎 PS: If you have any questions about any of the information or want to know where I find my data, feel free to reach out through PM. I don't believe I am allowed to "promote" any of the services I use directly in a post. Happy hunting tomorrow you fucking apes! 🚀🌗🦍

🚨 EDIT: ADDED MY 9K ROBINHOOD POSITION DIDNT UPLOAD AT FIRST! 🚨