Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Market cap in crypto is almost useless, and other things you may argue with me about.

The only thing we can use market cap for in crypto is to compare risk vs reward of alt coins to Bitcoin and even that has its limitations. Hear me out.

Market cap is dependent on price, not the other way around. So, where does price come from in crypto? From sentiment and majority opinion that gets translated into sell and buy orders. In crypto, that’s basically it. There are no balance sheets, P/E ratios and we don’t really know the actual circulating supply (float) of any cryptocurrency due to lost keys, forgotten wallets, wrapped coins and tokens, and many other factors.

Cryptocurrency market cap surpasses Italy’s market cap.

Bitcoin’s market cap is higher than Visa’s market cap

These types of comparisons are very misleading. Market cap in crypto is basically just a solution to a math problem that has some questionable inputs. They are Circulating supply (which we don’t really know) and price (which is just the price of the coin during the last executed transaction between a buyer and a seller that placed orders). Market cap is not a measure of how much money is invested in a coin or in crypto in general, not even close in most cases. Italy’s GDP and Vis’s market cap are based on actual figures that are not arbitrary. While prices in traditional markets are also reflections of the last traded price, we can use various markers to determine the future value of a traditional company.

Let me repeat that.

Market Cap is not a measure of how much money is invested into an asset.

Let’s all scoff at shitcoins together for a minute while I further ruin market cap for you. Create a token with 5,000,000,000,000 coins, provide some liquidity on a swap, and make a trade at at $.000001 and now you have a coin with a $5,000,000 market cap. Presto! Look at this gem!

Low volume, relative to other markets, is a hallmark of cryptocurrency. Low volume creates volatility because the spreads are wider, in other words, there’s a wide range in price between buy orders and sell orders. This is significant because it means the slightest bit of bad news can change sentiment quickly and cause high sell pressure. It also means that good news can create good sentiment and a growing imbalance in buying pressure can cause price to skyrocket.

Where’d this last $1 trillion dollars come from? Who are the whales?

It doesn’t take a whale and there wasn’t an inflow of $1 trillion. It’s imbalances in buying pressure and selling pressure that move price. Most importantly, shifting sentiment and the cancellation of existing buy/sell orders and undercutting buy and sell orders can cause massive shifts in price with small amounts of money. It’s not a large inflow or outflow of money entering or exiting the market. Remember when that news came out and you went and canceled your buy orders and set a stop loss? We are the whales.

What about supply? It only matters in the beginning. Some coins have an ICO or Pre mine event where the price is created either privately with no explanation or determined by the amount invested and the circulating supply. Once it hits the open market, the price is what someone is willing to pay if there’s a seller on the other end. After it trades for a while price is somewhat established, after that, well, inflation and deflation don’t matter as much unless it’s a very popular coin or the increase or decrease in supply is a massive amount in a short time frame.

That’ll be part two because this got long.

Tl:DR: Bitcoin passing Visa’s market cap (or insert any cryptocurrency and any other publicly traded company) is misleading and doesn’t really mean a whole lot. In crypto, the only application for Market cap is using it to measure risk against Bitcoin, and arguably, Ethereum.

Edit: I’m not saying to ignore market cap. It doesn’t mean the same thing in crypto as it does to anything else. Just like the term “cryptocurrency” doesn’t describe this space anymore, “market cap” doesn’t describe in crypto what we associate it with outside of crypto.

There’s no comparison to publicly traded companies, countries or anything else, not even fiat and forex markets. Use crypto market cap to compare crypto to Bitcoin unless it’s a new crypto, then the comparisons fall apart.


BabyMiami ~ Huge boat party in Miami at 5M Market Cap 🍾 7% BTCB rewards to all holders 💰 Already 200 holders and 600 members on telegram in 24 hours!

What is $BabyMiami?

BabyMiami is a new BSC token that rewards all holdings in plentiful BTC deposits! Miami is the world hub of crypto! Every holder gets 7% of bitcoin right back to their wallet!

Miami is the city of Vice, filled with greed and gluttony. With the Bitcoin Conference held in Miami, we decided to celebrate BTC with our own passive-yield generating token BabyMiami. Through advanced on-chain dividend yield Smart Contracts, Holders will passively earn Bitcoin from every transaction

The City of Miami in Florida, US, was hosted Bitcoin 2021, which was the biggest event ever organized based on the digital asset. Total attendance exceeded 50,000 for the event, which took place on 4-5 June, with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and MicroStrategy chairman & CEO Michael Saylor as one of the headline speakers. Some of the personalities expected at the event include Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and the Winklevoss twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss among others.

With Bitcoin catching up to the previous ATH and the BTC dominance increasing, having a source for passively earning BTC will provide safu backup while trading in low-cap altcoins. This mechanism will not only reward holders but also help hedge against BTC dominance in the cryptocurrency markets.

Tokenomics:

- 6% LP

- 4% Marketing + Team

- 7% BTC rewards (BTCB CA: 0x7130d2A12B9BCbFAe4f2634d864A1Ee1Ce3Ead9c)

Total tax = 17%

User higher slippage to account for price impact

Features:

Total supply

1,000,000,000 (one billion tokens)

Max wallet

25,000,000 (2.5% of total supply)

Max transaction

5,000,000 (0.5% of total supply)

Marketing plans so far:

Team stealth launched BabyMiami but they are already working on getting banner ads on poocoin, coinvote, and moonarch! Also, the team is picking randomly for a hourly random shilling giveaway winner, talking to all the main twitter promoters, and more!

Before Launch:

-Shilling giveaways

-Graphics are made and paid for by the team

-Website dev paid for and almost done with the perfect BabyMiami website!

After Launch:

- Poocoin and Coinvote banner ads

- daily shilling giveaways to come

- Plenty more influencer promotions on twitter, telegram, and more!

Links and social media:

🌐Website: Almost done!

📈 BabyMiami $0.0000128851 Price Chart (BabyMiami) - BOGCharts (bogged.finance)

Buy with ~20%: https://pancakeswap.finance/swap?outputCurrency=0xd8e932d3a5247dac879bc76297cad3cd8afdc3d5

CA: 0xd8e932d3a5247dac879bc76297cad3cd8afdc3d5

💬Telegram: https://t.me/BabyMiamiofficial

📱Twitter: https://twitter.com/BabyMiamitoken


Satire with a 0.08% chance of certainty.

People believe bitcoin could fall or rise and Ethereum is a smart alternative. How many cryptocurrency investors pay & pray? Not really seeing how to implement into lifestyle. Been keen on a special connection for Digibyte. The ace in the hole. Got a feeling like the economy goes to trash, Bitcoin mining becomes frowned upon and Ethereum network never lowers gas fees enough to send small amounts. Digibyte does a fix all solution as if from nowhere, acts a reset. After a series of unfortunate events, with our world on verge of complete economic flatline, decentralized cypto loans flops as renters can't pay landlords and American civil unrest breaks the back of governments and all seems doomsday by Friday. Lucky, Deadpool delivers the 4th wall a reality check buying humanity's time & available for "God's work". Redistribution of Digibyte to people of the world is a leg up on the centralized peers populating planet Earth. Marvel Cinematic Universe can't handle the truth!


BabyMiami 👶 Parties in Miami are coming for all BabyMiami holders!🍾website is live, poocoin banners are applied, and more marketing is on the way! 1 day old and there is already 250 telegram members with a 50k Market cap! 🏖

What is $BabyMiami?

BabyMiami is a new BSC token that rewards all holdings in plentiful BTC deposits! Miami is the world hub of crypto! Every holder gets 7% of bitcoin right back to their wallet!

Miami is the city of Vice, filled with greed and gluttony. With the Bitcoin Conference held in Miami, we decided to celebrate BTC with our own passive-yield generating token BabyMiami. Through advanced on-chain dividend yield Smart Contracts, Holders will passively earn Bitcoin from every transaction

The City of Miami in Florida, US, was hosted Bitcoin 2021, which was the biggest event ever organized based on the digital asset. Total attendance exceeded 50,000 for the event, which took place on 4-5 June, with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and MicroStrategy chairman & CEO Michael Saylor as one of the headline speakers. Some of the personalities expected at the event include Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and the Winklevoss twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss among others.

With Bitcoin catching up to the previous ATH and the BTC dominance increasing, having a source for passively earning BTC will provide safu backup while trading in low-cap altcoins. This mechanism will not only reward holders but also help hedge against BTC dominance in the cryptocurrency markets.

Tokenomics:

- 6% LP

- 4% Marketing + Team

- 7% BTC rewards (BTCB CA: 0x7130d2A12B9BCbFAe4f2634d864A1Ee1Ce3Ead9c)

Total tax = 17%

User higher slippage to account for price impact

Features:

Total supply

1,000,000,000 (one billion tokens)

Max wallet

25,000,000 (2.5% of total supply)

Max transaction

5,000,000 (0.5% of total supply)

Marketing plans so far:

Team stealth launched BabyMiami but they are already working on getting banner ads on poocoin, coinvote, and moonarch! Also, the team is picking randomly for a hourly random shilling giveaway winner, talking to all the main twitter promoters, and more!

Before Launch:

-Shilling giveaways

-Graphics are made and paid for by the team

-Website dev paid for and almost done with the perfect BabyMiami website!

After Launch:

- Poocoin and Coinvote banner ads

- Daily shilling giveaways to come

- Plenty more influencer promotions on twitter, telegram, and more!

Links and social media:

🌐Website: https://babymiami.net/

📈 BabyMiami $0.0000128851 Price Chart (BabyMiami) - BOGCharts (bogged.finance)

Buy with ~20%: https://pancakeswap.finance/swap?outputCurrency=0xd8e932d3a5247dac879bc76297cad3cd8afdc3d5

CA: 0xd8e932d3a5247dac879bc76297cad3cd8afdc3d5

💬Telegram: https://t.me/BabyMiamiofficial

📱Twitter: https://twitter.com/BabyMiamitoken


WARNING: Do not ruin your life because of taxes like so many in 2018!

PREFACE

Obviously this is dependent on tax laws in your specific country. This post is primarily about the US and other countries with similar taxation laws.

WHAT HAPPENED

In the 2017 bull run, people saw crazy gains (10x-100x) and then traded without considering the taxable events and liabilities being created.

Then when the 2018 crash happened they did not have money to pay their HUGE tax bill that was owed and ruined their financial life!

HOW IT WORKS

If you bought $10k worth of a coin and it 20x to $200k in 2021, and then you trade it for any other coins, you have a realized gain of $190k.

Assuming a 20% effective tax rate, you would owe $38,000 in taxes!

Now if your portfolio dropped 80% back down to $40k and you did not harvest the tax loss (sell to realize the loss then rebuy) before the end of the year… you would STILL owe $38k in taxes for that year, which is your entire stack!!!

WHAT TO DO

If you had substantial gains this year and traded during the peak earlier this year, the smart thing to do is to:

  1. Use a crypto tax reporting software to calculate how much in realized gains and tax liability you may have.

  2. Cash out a portion of your stack and set it aside for paying taxes when they’re due OR if you're okay with the risk, you can even convert to a stable coin and hold on a lending platform to still earn some interest. (keep in mind this trade creates another taxable event so you'll want to factor that in)

CONCLUSION

There were many stories of people in 2018 who owed HUGE sums in taxes that were near their entire stack or even more because they didn’t consider taxes and didn’t plan ahead.

Learn from their mistake so you don’t repeat it!

Hopefully we’re in a 2nd leg of the bull run but don’t risk being in this position if we're in a dead cat bounce and/or the market goes bearish.

EDIT: Want to answer the same questions I keep seeing get asked:

  • Yes, in the US, crypto to crypto trades ARE taxable events and are required to be reported. It’s not just if you sell to fiat.
  • The info in this post only applies if you trade or sell. If you just buy and hold or transfer a coin from wallet to wallet there is NO taxable event.
  • I use bitcoin.tax for crypto tax reporting. There are other options if you Google.
  • I use Celsius to hold/lend coins and stable coins to earn interest.
  • Google “tax loss harvesting” to learn about how to reduce your tax liability and when it would make sense to do so.

Wow nice green today right now 💚☘️

Was getting a little worried there. Of bitcoin surging to 46k or higher. And elongate was going downwards.

Was there any reason for hitting back up to 0.550 today? Was a whale or event? Nice gains though of +11.7% !!!


Crypto Glossary Expained - Beginner's Guide

From diamond hands to FUD, i'll be explaining all the popular crypto slangs.

If you are new in reddit, or in any social media about cryptocurrency, it's highly probable you've encountered by a lot of strange words and sentences related to crypto which you canT even comprehend.

Time to literate you with this beginner's guide.

English its not my first language. So beware of any bad writing.

ATH (All Time High)

This is not only used in cryptocurrency, but its quite popular here. Its when a new coin or token gets into a new highest price point it has never been traded before.

Whale

Describes an investor or entity, that owns 5% or more of a particular coin or token in circulation. For example, a whale in Bitcoin will be someone with 5% of its suppy, or 935,000 aprox coins.

To the Moon

Means the price has risen so much, reaching a peak value. Its used then a certain coin or token has done more than 100% within a short period

HODL

Means Holding a coin or token even if it crashes, aka, not selling it. This became trendy during the crash on 2018. It came originally from a Bitcoin talk in 2013.

Pump and Dump

Its a tactic that is used by groups of investors to manipulate the sentiments of the market of a certain coin or token.

The Flippening

Its an hypothetical event in which Ethereum's market cap will surpass Bitcoin's. It can also describe any similar situation where a smaller coin or token might overtake a bigger rival.

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)

Describes a psycological tactic when markets are rising or are intense and emotions make investors make bad decisions, since its so easy to regret the gains you would have made if you had timed all your trades perfectly.

DYOR (Do your own research)

Means investigating on your own and not investing based on somebody's else opinion, whether its a famous figure in the crypto world or not. Learning, educating yourself, and only then, investing.

Fiat

Its not a car. Its Dirty goverment money issued by central banks of any country.

BRRRRR

Describes central FIAT banks machine's noise when printing money and generating a huge supply with the same demand. Which derives to inflation.

Rekt

Means to sell the crypto too soon or too late, to suffer losses without coping with emotions

Paper Hands

An investor with paper hands will sell at the first sign of trouble. Also will sell as soon as their investment gets profit.

BHSL (Buy High Sell Low)

Describe when an investor does the opposite of basic trading. Instead of looking for profit, they look for burning money.

Laser Eyes

In 2021, many Bitcoin investors and fans, started signalling their support for the cryptocurrency by adding "laser eyes", on their Twitter profile pic. From Elon Musk, to Paris Hilton have taken part. The meme is associated with the hashtag #LaserRayUntil100k. Indicating support for Bitcoin's potential to pass 100K per coin.

Gas

Refers to transaction fees on the Ethereum Network

Diamond Hands

Its a meme popularized by crypto and stock traders on Reddit. Its often used by groups that have banded together to try to drive up the price of an asset by not selling. Similar to HODL. But more memeable.

Airdrop

Describes a free distribution of coins or tokens. It can be used to popularize a new coin or token which is not yet in exchanges.

FUD

This term describes a psychological trick used to spread fear and doubt, which can cause a coin or token to drop in price.

Sats

This is a short term of "Satoshi", the pseudonym of Bitcoins creator. Its refers to the smallets unit of Bitcoin stored on the blockchan. (0.00000001 BTC)

DCA (Dollar Cost Averaging)

Its an investment strategy where the investor puts an equal or aprox amount of money during a certain period of time.

For ex: Investor puts 50 usd every monday for "Your Favourite Crypto" .

Shitcoin

A shitcoin is a cryptocurrency that has no use or feature apart from being a coin or token. Its considered a bad investment.

Shitpost

This post.


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Subtipper has just tipped the top posts for this community! [11:53 GMT August 11, 2021]

Thanks to all posters for providing great content!

The top posts since the last payout (~1 week) have been tipped 1 US cent per vote, or 1646 sats per vote.

For an explanation of Subtipper and how it works, please see this article.

 

Winning posts:


Democracy of the technocrat, by the bureaucrat, for the plutocrat shall not perish from the earth. by u/Anen-o-me

[tip] - 737408 sats = 0.00737408 BCH = ~4.48 USD


Start of a big week in North Queensland at Bitcoin Cash City HQ by u/BitcoinCashCity

[tip] - 286404 sats = 0.00286404 BCH = ~1.74 USD


Onboarded this chocolate lady at BCH beach yesterday by u/Specialist-Artist462

[tip] - 265006 sats = 0.00265006 BCH = ~1.61 USD


I am pleased to announce that I have taken over CryptoWoo, the simple, self-hosted and non-custodial payment gateway for WooCommerce. My goal is for CryptoWoo to be the easiest and cheapest way for WooCommerce merchants to get started with taking Bitcoin Cash payments to increase the adoption of BCH by u/OlavOlsm

[tip] - 233732 sats = 0.00233732 BCH = ~1.42 USD


Myanmar, A Perfect Example of Current Need for Decentralized Currency by u/Unusual_Scientist_38

[tip] - 230440 sats = 0.00230440 BCH = ~1.40 USD


Tether prints $1 Billion just like that … this is fine. by u/Egon_1

[tip] - 230440 sats = 0.00230440 BCH = ~1.40 USD


Just when you think you’ve seen it all… by u/ChaosElephant

[tip] - 192582 sats = 0.00192582 BCH = ~1.17 USD


Congratulations on 600k r/btc! by u/rey4486

[tip] - 141556 sats = 0.00141556 BCH = ~0.86 USD


Was at a party where they had a Bitcoin enabled beer tab (price was super low on purpose) by u/Ima_Wreckyou

[tip] - 139910 sats = 0.00139910 BCH = ~0.85 USD


LN shill posts screen shot showing free txns for supposed "beer purchases," inadvertently demonstrates that LN is 3X more expensive than on-chain BCH for real world purchases by u/jessquit

[tip] - 133326 sats = 0.00133326 BCH = ~0.81 USD


 

Tips not claimed within 7 days will be returned to the Subtipper fund and tipped out to future posts.

 

To support this bot, help spread Bitcoin Cash, and encourage great content in the r/btc community, tip this post using Chaintip by including u/chaintip in your comment!

Thanks!

Note: this payout event was triggered by block 700301, which was mined more than 3 days since the last event and has the last three hex digits of its hash (joined as a number) strictly smaller than 7. The BCH price at the time of activation was $607.41


Cardano Rumor Rundown August 11, 2021

Hey Everyone!

Let's go...

Newly covered today:

  1. There’s a new CIP to create an off-chain metadata standard from Matthias Benkort, Michael Peyton Jones, and Polina Vinogradova. https://twitter.com/_KtorZ_/status/1425162918363111425 https://github.com/cardano-foundation/CIPs/pull/112
  2. The Biggest Lobster Trap Harvest ever!!! A hacker decided to harvest over $600 million from the Polynetwork Bridge. We learned this lesson in the 2016 DAO Hack, but it’s really time that people stop giving up custody of their coins. https://twitter.com/ksatyarth2/status/1425140128784084994
  3. Senator Shelby laughably tried to claim he actually supported the crypto amendment in a tweet. The derision from the crypto community flowed like water out of the Amazon. https://twitter.com/SenShelby/status/1425142857199980550
  4. IOHK’s “Essential Cardano” list of projects keeps growing! https://github.com/input-output-hk/essential-cardano/blob/main/essential-cardano-list.md

Previously Covered but still interesting:

  1. People are starting to realize that the Stakehound private key loss in ETH may attract unwanted regulatory attention to Ethereum 2.0 while this problem could never have occurred in Cardano. Also, only a few days later another ETH stakepool (this time SharedStake...the sixth biggest ETH Stakepool) allegedly experiences a rugpull that some are valuing at over $30MM. This is another problem that could not happen in Cardano staking. It feels like we stepped into the ring, they rang the bell, and ETH just started punching itself in the head. Eventually it’s going to KO itself. https://twitter.com/Madror7/status/1408505144984051716 https://twitter.com/JamesSpediacci/status/1407761823143645189 https://twitter.com/MeiTrades/status/1408117430656905219 https://sharedstake.medium.com/the-sharedstake-story-by-kairos-44d37aa7837a
  2. Here’s another great Cardano data site. This one is from the Cardano Fans stakepool. https://datastudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/3136c55b-635e-4f46-8e4b-b8ab54f2d460/page/r2LQC
  3. John O’Connor of IOHK points out that France still controls the monetary policy of 14 countries in Africa. There is definitely a built in market on the continent for a project that delivers monetary sovereignty to the people. https://twitter.com/jjtoconnor/status/1408978882129272832
  4. Here’s a great new interview with the CEO of World Mobile from Cardano Chats. https://youtu.be/w0Z2RP6a9HE
  5. New article from the Cardano Foundation on Governance. https://forum.cardano.org/t/blockchain-governance-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters/65493
  6. Sebastien explains some Alonzo HFC event changes. https://twitter.com/SebastienGllmt/status/1409485560012414978
  7. IOG Research update from Prof. Aggelos Kiayias. Really interesting bit right at the beginning on the history of cryptography as a field of study. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UAL_6f7PFw
  8. Sebastien of dcSpark submits a Cardano Improvement Proposal to allow wallets to implement collateral. https://twitter.com/SebastienGllmt/status/1409910858117877763
  9. Coti update from Shahaf Bar-Geffen. https://twitter.com/COTInetwork/status/1410644013863124992
  10. The Mithril paper (allows for trustless light wallets) is now available for your reading pleasure. https://iohk.io/en/research/library/papers/mithrilstake-based-threshold-multisignatures/
  11. The Ouroboros Chronos paper (allows for the blockchain to be its own timekeeper) is also now available. https://iohk.io/en/research/library/papers/ouroboros-chronospermissionless-clock-synchronization-via-proof-of-stake/
  12. Cardano is now a small part of Grayscale’s Digital Large Cap Fund. They actually sold off current holdings in other coins to buy ADA. This is big for institutional adoption! https://twitter.com/Grayscale/status/1410945118228692994
  13. Catalyst Fund 4 results are here. https://adapulse.io/fund-4-results-are-here/
  14. Robert Kornacki of dcSpark releases an article on why every Cardano dApp will use NFTs. The article contains some very interesting discussion on smart contracts in the EUTXO context including language instructing that “UTXOs have smart contracts attached to them and not the other way around” and “[...]the simplest way to think about it is that when a UTXO is created it has the option to have a smart contract attached to it.” https://medium.com/dcspark/every-eutxo-dapp-will-use-nfts-and-heres-why-fd87e6a8c9a6
  15. A very interesting medium article on the concurrency problem in eUTxO blockchains such as Cardano. (Article by Occam Fi....thanks to Muggy Pool for sending it my way). https://medium.com/occam-finance/the-occam-fi-technical-series-on-concurrency-cd5bee0b850c
  16. The concurrency issue in plutus smart contracts has also been recently commented on by Lars and Sebastien. https://twitter.com/LarsBrunjes/status/1390331642103877633 https://twitter.com/LarsBrunjes/status/1403761666383306757 https://twitter.com/SebastienGllmt/status/1410983827481108480
  17. The Cardano Foundation has released a video on its short and long-term strategies to get to one billion users by 2026. https://twitter.com/CardanoStiftung/status/1412137365318127626
  18. Ben O’Hanlon sets the record straight on developer interest in Cardano. https://twitter.com/benohanlon/status/1412136150404370432
  19. As always, Cardano is straight killing the competition in terms of assets staked. https://twitter.com/StakingRewards/status/1412389781003194395
  20. Between Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 of the Plutus Pioneers program there have been 4,300 potential future Cardano developers involved. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1412465643245424649
  21. Here’s an interesting chart purporting to show the dates on which various Cardano DeFi projects might have finished products. https://twitter.com/Cryptokev84/status/1412343821757730820/photo/2
  22. Cardano Gainz Calculator now has a graph showing 10 year growth. https://twitter.com/lesquive1/status/1413249312465866757
  23. Emurgo has released a guide on how to register for Catalyst voting with your Ledger Hardware Wallet. https://github.com/Emurgo/yoroi-mobile/blob/develop/catalyst5-instruction.md
  24. Great new interview with World Mobile’s Mickey Watkins, Charles, and John O’Connor. https://youtu.be/WSSpI8Rtif0
  25. This infographic shows just how big the Cardano DeFi space is getting. https://twitter.com/BPE_Crypto/status/1413973912396963840
  26. This infographic shows just how much DeFi volume is out there for Cardano to steal. https://twitter.com/Coin98Analytics/status/1413514041029394439/photo/1
  27. There is a new stakepool explorer available. https://www.cardanoworld.io/
  28. Very interesting timing with a) Grayscale Buying $50MM ETCG, b) Grayscale adding ADA, and c) Charles joining the ETC Cooperative board given that two of the members of the ETC Cooperative board seem to come from Grayscale and DCG. Maybe the world is starting to understand just what Charles and IOHK have been able to accomplish over the last few years. https://twitter.com/ETCCooperative/status/1410439775950082051 https://twitter.com/ETCCooperative/status/1413328106568421377 https://twitter.com/Grayscale/status/1410945118228692994
  29. There is currently a lawsuit challenging the notion that staking rewards should be taxed as income. The plaintiff argues that newly created property isn’t taxed as income and that this should also apply to staking rewards. A win here would be very nice for Cardano delegators. https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-staking-rewards-and-their-unfair-taxation-in-the-us
  30. The Cardano Foundation’s Cardano Developer Portal is now up and running. https://twitter.com/CardanoStiftung/status/1414640913612255234
  31. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s party has won re-election in a landslide election. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57791868
  32. Avanti Bank of Wyoming files comments with the Federal Reserve on their new guidelines that could massively impact how the traditional banking system interacts with cryptocurrencies like Cardano. Given what role ADA is likely to play in the future of crypto financial transactions, this is extremely relevant for ADA holders. https://avantibank.com/press/avanti-submits-comments-to-federal-reserve https://twitter.com/CaitlinLong_/status/1414783323193364482
  33. Cardano is still destroying everyone in terms of value staked! https://twitter.com/StakingRewards/status/1414895205384327168
  34. The Cardano ecosystem maps keep getting bigger and more complicated. https://poolg.de/Eco/CardanoEcosystemMap.html
  35. In news that could have significant repercussions for many stablecoin reliant Cardano DeFi projects, Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave some hard signals that they will regulate stablecoins in House Committee testimony. He revealed that the Fed will issue its long-awated paper on stablecoins, CBDCs, and other digital assets in September. Powell also went as far as to say "You wouldn't need stable coins you wouldn't need cryptocurrencies if you had a digital US currency, I think that's one of the stronger arguments in its favor." https://twitter.com/Nate_DiCamillo/status/1415349008034418691
  36. We experienced a successful fork to the Alonzo White testnet! https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1415399456841863177
  37. Very serious accusations are laid out against the Meld project. https://twitter.com/Bobme808/status/1415283648438358016
  38. The European Central Bank drops news of “a project to prepare for possibly issuing a digital euro.” A digital Euro is coming and regulation of private fiat-pegged stablecoins is coming with it. https://twitter.com/ecb/status/1415273625385644036
  39. IOHK releases a paper on a crypto-backed algorithmic stablecoin. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1415531260470972423
  40. A crypto media personality recently uncovered links between the Priviledge EU Project, Horizon Europe Grant Agreement 780477, and Cardano. https://twitter.com/BreakingADA/status/1415653936703295488
  41. Always the GitHub activity champs! https://twitter.com/ProofofGitHub/status/1416065097794002946
  42. We are now seeing the advent of a so-called “Fair Initial Stakepool Offering”. https://twitter.com/MinswapDEX/status/1416110973690122240
  43. The weekly development update is out. https://roadmap.cardano.org/en/status-updates/update/2021-07-16/
  44. Janet Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury, is calling a meeting of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets to discuss stablecoins on Monday. Prepare for regulation. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0276
  45. Coindesk really hates us. Now they are writing articles about Cardano and using words like “crypto-colonialism”. https://www.coindesk.com/the-headache-of-crypto-colonialism
  46. Liqwid says it is on target to be live on day 1 after the Alonzo hardfork combinator event. https://twitter.com/liqwidfinance/status/1416363542975074305
  47. According to maximalists you’re apparently not allowed to be busy with your company authoring papers if you’re in Cardano. https://twitter.com/woonomic/status/1415761569082789890
  48. The IOHK mid-month development update for July is out and available for viewing. https://youtu.be/U9K-8jILGcg
  49. Apparently “unsigned Phalices” are a thing in the Cardano ecosystem now. https://twitter.com/unsigned_algo/status/1416909454100992000
  50. The El Faro article reporting meetings between Cardano, Whizgrid of Cyprus, and the brothers of President Bukele of El Salvador definitely contain some extremely interesting details related to a possible Salvadorean national stablecoin by the end of the year and a possible digitization and blockchain storage of a wide range of government related documents next year. This could be huge!!!!!! https://elfaro.net/en/202107/el_salvador/25611/Bukele-Plans-to-Launch-a-National-Cryptocurrency-This-Year.htm
  51. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told regulators in the Presidents Working Group on Financial Markets that they must move quickly to regulate stablecoins. So, a Salvadorean market for stablecoins might be good for Cardano. https://www.reuters.com/technology/yellen-says-us-must-move-quickly-establish-stablecoin-rule-framework-2021-07-19/
  52. Notable news for upcoming Cardano DeFi projects. There may be slightly less competition in the “get a return on your crypto assets” game very soon. The New Jersey AG’s office has delivered a cease and desist letter to BlockFi. The AG’s press release cited BlockFi’s interest bearing deposit accounts as unregistered securities and also mentioned the lack of FDIC or SPIC insurance for it’s depositors. This leaves some lingering questions for Cardano DeFi projects that might be planning to accept deposits or other transfers of value and offering a return of sorts. You could argue that these projects are decentralized where BlockFi was not. But, the AG’s press release seems to cite decentralization as one of the risks of DeFi projects. Also, as a practical matter, there is a question whether decentralization will be a good shield from regulators since many of these projects have companies and real humans with faces and names behind them unlike a truly anonymous founder such as Satoshi Nakamoto. https://www.njoag.gov/new-jersey-bureau-of-securities-orders-cryptocurrency-company-blockfi-to-stop-offering-interest-bearing-accounts/ https://twitter.com/BlockFiZac/status/1417316834244796416
  53. EU is planning to introduce regulations on anonymous crypto wallets. This is a big deal. But, Cardano is probably more prepared than any with its identity solutions that could be used for KYC/AML. https://twitter.com/Wiiinnie/status/1417575921565978628
  54. Cardano didn’t come up in the Cathie Wood, Jack Dorsey, and Elon Musk panel discussion at “The B Word” event. But, given how Elon repeatedly shot down maximalist explanations for the shortcomings of proof-of-work chains in energy consumption and throughput, the whole thing ended up sounding like a long-form pitch for proof-of-stake and Cardano. Seriously, you should check it out. https://www.thebword.org/c/track-2-Bitcoin-As-A-Tool-For-Economic-Empowerment
  55. Gary Gensler, SEC Chair, indicates that crypto assets providing synthetic exposure to securities will be regulated as securities. This should be scary news for any Cardano projects that are aimed at exactly that! https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/gensler-remarks-aba-derivatives-futures-law-committee-virtual-mid-year-program-072121
  56. The mainstream press is suddenly realizing the behavioral economics tools that a central bank with CBDCs could wield. There is definitely a universe where this becomes a very dystopian and jarring introduction to virtual currencies for the mainstream. https://twitter.com/NeerajKA/status/1418168477429424135
  57. Wolfram CEO, John Woodard, drops a guest article with IOHK on NFT liveminting. The article seems to have a good amount of focus on the community building potential of NFTs. I think that could be a big growth area for the future. https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2021/07/22/wolfram-and-cardano-build-communities-with-nfts-and-liveminting/
  58. IOHK has released its Conclave paper on collective stakepools. https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/742.pdf
  59. Here’s the IOHK Development Update for July 23! https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1418635822987943939
  60. Cardano received some coverage in the Motley Fool as an eco-friendly crypto! https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/cryptocurrency/articles/4-eco-friendly-cryptos-you-should-know-about/
  61. Big lesson for future Cardano DeFi projects: Uniswap Labs just had to censor the Uniswap UI to ban synthetics of underlying securities. Bucket shops have been around for 150 years and illegal for 100 years. It turns out that you can’t do it in crypto either. https://twitter.com/Uniswap/status/1418697012095164420 https://twitter.com/haydenzadams/status/1418961999539712006
  62. Check out this new video of the World Mobile Team on the ground in Zanzibar. Doesn’t this feel like a better mission for our ecosystem than DeFi? https://twitter.com/WorldMobileTeam/status/1419051567878221828
  63. Reports are coming in that Amazon plans to integrate Bitcoin, Cardano, ETH, & BCH in the very near future. This has apparently been a work in progress for several years. https://www.cityam.com/amazon-definitely-lining-up-bitcoin-payments-and-token-confirms-insider/
  64. Adam Dean brings us open source code to accept ADA in your Woo Commerce store. https://twitter.com/adamKDean/status/1419495005983371264
  65. Weiss Crypto has very good things to say about Cardano. https://twitter.com/WeissCrypto/status/1419685634566938634
  66. Check out this new bot that tweets every time it discovers a Cardano Giveaway Scam! The tweets show ISP and geolocation info for the scammers. Follow this bot and report the scammers! Brought to us by @nicknikiforakis. Thanks for building this, Nick! https://twitter.com/CardanoPhishing
  67. The regulatory purge of stablecoins is getting into full swing now with Bloomberg running a piece on a DOJ criminal probe of the Tether founders. Of particular note for the Cardano ecosystem is that the first attack surface for regulators is the relationship of the stablecoin with legacy banking institutions. This is something that Cardano ecosystem stablecoin, Djed, may already fix with its own crypto backed reserve system. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-26/tether-executives-said-to-face-criminal-probe-into-bank-fraud?srnd=economics-vp
  68. Nami Wallet now allows you to mint NFTs for no extra fees (only Cardano network fees) inside the wallet. https://twitter.com/NamiWallet/status/1420031000017608717
  69. More pressure for Crypto regulation is coming to bear today in the U.S. This time it comes in the form of a letter from Senator Elizabethe Warren to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen (in her position as Chair of the Financial Stability Oversight Council which brings together 10 different financial regulators including the SEC, CFTC, and the Federal Reserve). The letter was sent after a Senate Banking Committee hearing titled “Cryptocurrencies: What are they good for?” https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/27/elizabeth-warren-presses-yellen-financial-regulator-to-manage-crypto.html
  70. Stephen Wolfram does the first NFT liveminting event where he creates NFTs of cellular automata from the computational universe while live on stream. The first two created were “Crashing Waves” and “Down Arrows”. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1420087229104283656
  71. A new Cardano NFT Marketplace is now live and receiving a lot of attention. https://twitter.com/CNFT_IO/status/1419655915226152961
  72. Project Catalyst now has 30k members! https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1420474342253678599
  73. Emurgo has released an article about what we can expect from the Yoroi dApp Connector. https://emurgo.io/blog/emurgo-is-thrilled-to-announce-the-yoroi-dapp-connector
  74. Reports are coming in that the new bipartisan Infrastructure Bill contains new provisions that might require a whole host of actors within crypto ecosystems like Cardano to report transactions over $10k. https://www.coindesk.com/new-infrastructure-bill-looks-to-raise-30b-through-crypto-tax https://www.marketwatch.com/story/crypto-allies-rally-against-ignorant-new-tax-rules-in-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal-11627578844 https://twitter.com/jerrybrito/status/1420724068286926853
  75. But this bill is an even bigger deal. If passed as-is, we can probably say RIP to the Wild West Era of crypto (2009-2021). https://beyer.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=5307
  76. The July Cardano 360 can now be viewed on Youtube. https://youtu.be/AG5DspF9tuA
  77. John O’Connor was on SkyNews discussing the Ethiopian Ministry of Education project! He stressed that this was not a profit center for IOHK, and had a chance to refute the “crypto colonialism” strain of thought. https://vimeo.com/581137605
  78. We are kings of the github commits once again! https://twitter.com/ProofofGitHub/status/1421138529908842502
  79. The differences between the currently dominant smart contract blockchain and Cardano’s upcoming smart contract architecture keep getting highlighted by dramatic failures of the former. https://twitter.com/WeissCrypto/status/1421064543900418048
  80. Don’t forget that registration for the Cardano Summit is live. https://summit.cardano.org
  81. In case you missed the July Cardano 360 and don’t have a lot of time. Here is the always great Cardano 360 Mini! https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1421803459997835266
  82. Reports are coming in that we’ve got final language from the crypto tax reporting piece of the Infrastructure Bill. It’s better but not great or even good. https://twitter.com/jerrybrito/status/1422002228102107142
  83. The Charles AMAs returned on August 1 after a brief break. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKY6VwVq02s
  84. A quarter million votes were cast in Catalyst Fund 5 voting! Apparently, this is over 10x what we saw in Fund 2. https://twitter.com/danny_cryptofay/status/1422253955816505345
  85. Here’s a very good read on one vision for prosperity via CBDC and how such a currency should interact with existing blockchains like Cardano. https://twitter.com/RealNatashaChe/status/1422270993498705921
  86. Cardano has been listed by Bitpoint in Japan! https://www.bitpoint.co.jp/news/info/info-2021080301/
  87. Senators Wyden and Toomey are trying to fix the crypto provisions in the Infrastructure Bill! https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-03/crypto-rules-in-infrastructure-bill-eyed-for-bipartisan-rewrite
  88. SEC Chair Gensler gave another speech strongly signaling that a lot of stablecoins, lending platforms, synthetics platforms, and other DeFi projects are probably non-compliant in the eyes of the SEC. I would heed this warning very carefully if I were one of those projects. https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/gensler-aspen-security-forum-2021-08-03 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tusQLLCgrDs
  89. The Yoroi Wallet is already making improvements in preparation for the dApp Connector release! https://twitter.com/YoroiWallet/status/1422905221793996809
  90. We’re now up to 5 different states that are getting after BlockFi for their crypto lending activities. Reportedly, this includes New Jersey, Vermont, Alabama, Kentucky, & Texas. Probably relevant for those building lending solutions on Cardano. https://www.coindesk.com/blockfi-receives-fifth-cease-and-desist-from-kentucky-financial-regulator
  91. Charles dropped an update to let us know that Light Purple Alonzo will come next week. That will bring in exchange partners. Mid-month there will be an update with official dates given for a primary date and a fallback date for triggering the hardfork combinator event. The fallback date will likely be one epoch (five days later). Part of this depends on how the exchange partners are doing with their integrations. Charles says it looks like late August or the first week of September. There will be a live HFC party where they will deploy “some things” minutes after the HFC. The Plutus Application Backend (PAB) might be integrated on something like September 10th. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y261_eImsE
  92. Cardano’s closest competitor, Ethereum, carries out it’s EIP-1559 London Fork which creates a new transaction fee scheme including some burning of fees and a more predictable base fee with an additional tip option on top. While the long term impact is unclear, the immediate aftermath of the fork seems to be even higher fees. We’ll see if this is just due to high transaction volume at the moment. Of course, part of this is already solved by Cardano’s deterministic fee system enabled by its local state as opposed to the global state in the Ethereum system. https://twitter.com/Birdson64827145/status/1423324771303972867
  93. Senators Toomey, Wyden, & Lummis took to the Senate Floor to plead for a vote on their amendment which would fix the overly broad crypto tax reporting provisions in the Infrastructure Bill. https://twitter.com/jerrybrito/status/1423381402905726983 https://twitter.com/jerrybrito/status/1423413806634577922
  94. The Toomey, Lummis, Wyden Amendment was then challenged by a competing amendment from Senators Warner, Portman, and Sinema which only excluded proof-of-work block validators and sellers of wallets from the tax reporting requirements. This terrible competing amendment was then immediately endorsed by the White House. This is a serious danger to our industry! Please call your Senators and ask them to support the Toomey/Wyden/Lummis Amendment! https://twitter.com/jerrybrito/status/1423429377459736577 https://twitter.com/WardDPatrick/status/1423464991441702912
  95. Charles announces the Alonzo Purple testnet is out! Many new segments of partners and others will be onboarding with availability to any developer soon! https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1423704788512952331 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTExHbqVHAM
  96. It turns out that Janet Yellen lobbied lawmakers on Thursday against the Wyden-Toomey-Lummis Amendment according to the Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/06/crypto-bitcoin-infrastructure-senat
  97. Check out this awesome “12 Facts” style article about Alonzo from Sebastien Guillemot form dcSpark. https://medium.com/dcspark/do-you-know-what-is-included-in-cardanos-alonzo-hardfork-changes-96cde16a8305
  98. Senator Warner made not one but two revisions to his amendment to the crypto provisions in the Infrastructure Bill. Both revisions were good for Cardano since they included proof-of-stake implicitly and then explicitly. https://twitter.com/jerrybrito/status/1424040216961114112 https://twitter.com/jerrybrito/status/1424074177770921992
  99. Both Gene Simmons and Ted Cruz came out in support of the competing Wyden-Lummis-Toomey Amendment to the Infrastructure Bill. Gene Simmons has previously revealed his Cardano purchases. https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1424097173172637697
  100. After the Senate called it a day on the Infrastructure Bill Amendment debate, it sounded like there might have been some dealmaking going on among Wyden, Portman, Warner, and Toomey. The Senate will be back at it tomorrow at Noon. https://twitter.com/mikedebonis/status/1424143941914566659
  101. No agreement on an amendment to the crypto tax reporting provisions of the Infrastructure Bill materialized today. https://twitter.com/jerrybrito/status/1424543439396429828
  102. Senator Lummis (a co-sponsor of the proposed crypto-friendly Toomey-Lummis-Wyden Amendment) is holding out hope that they may be able to get a vote on amendments tomorrow. https://twitter.com/SenLummis/status/1424556793506635776
  103. Charles is already planning a strategy for dealing with the bill once it’s in the House of Representatives. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1424561446973628421
  104. Very action packed day today (Aug 9). The Toomey-Lummis-Portman-Sinema came together and proposed a compromise amendment to the crypto tax reporting provisions in the Infrastructure Bill. They were not able to include any section for exclusion of developers from the “broker” definition but did cover the previous progress on transaction validators and wallet sellers. https://twitter.com/SenToomey/status/1424777137500864513
  105. Toomey-Lummis-Portman-Sinema sought the required unanimous consent, but their attempt was thwarted by a disagreement over $50 billion in defense spending. https://twitter.com/jerrybrito/status/1424832132204138503
  106. Several co-chairs of the Blockchain Caucus have already written a letter to all the members of the House of Representatives letting them know of the dire need to fix these crypto provisions once the bill hits the House. https://twitter.com/RepTomEmmer/status/1424845416697323522

~Army of Spies


Step Hero Announces Strategic Investor From The Seed Round & Private Round Token Sale

https://preview.redd.it/0lad8fkkcpg71.png?width=1400&format=png&auto=webp&s=2fc7a2bed1ac16bc678381c8f3d32f58e391d77d

We are excited to announce the completion of our seed and private sales.

Step Hero raised a total of $1,335,000 in funding from renowned investors. Specifically, the amount of capital raised in each round is as follow:

  • Seed round: $250,000
  • Private round 1: $825,000
  • Private round 2: $260,000

By the end of the sale, we were oversubscribed. We want to thank everyone whose interest results in our project raising $1,335,000 USD in funding.

What makes us even more grateful is that our strategic investors, who have expertise, network, and community, have greatly supported us in the development of the project.

We are excited by the days ahead on our journey to becoming one of the leading NFT ecosystems in the blockchain space.

About Our Investors

Icetea Labs

Founded in September 2019, Icetea Labs is a trusted incubator of blockchain businesses that primarily nurtures projects on the Polkadot network.

Mayor Capital

Mayor Capital is a Vietnam-based investment fund that exclusively consults in blockchain-enabled companies. Their mission is to realize the future of blockchain economy by consulting in game changing projects and companies. They participate in pre-sale, ICOs, IEO, and DeFi airdrop stages of token generation events and equity investments.

Dutch Crypto Investors

Dutch Crypto Investors assists crypto start-ups with Capital, Marketing, and Strategic partnerships. Their extensive network and expertise in blockchain business consultancy will strengthen and accelerate the success of their clients, especially in the European and Asian markets.

Kyros Ventures

Kyros Ventures is a pioneer in incubating early stage blockchain and cryptocurrency projects in Vietnam. It is built upon the solid foundation of the Coin68 ecosystem consisting of exclusive partnerships with the top crypto entities in the Vietnamese Blockchain industry. Coin68 is a leading crypto media outlet in Vietnam with nearly 3 million pageviews per month.

AV Star Capital

AV Star Capital is a digital asset injector in the form of a venture capital firm with outstanding development and marketing based on team research analysis.

They promote and develop potential companies in the field of digital assets, especially the use of the blockchain technology sector.

Oracles Investment Group

OIG provides one of a kind platform for Crypto Project teams to raise capital, grow supporters, and Crypto Investors to take part in promising projects.

The Mission of OIG is to allow everyone to invest in amazing projects, no matter their investment amount!

Exnetwork Capital

Exnetwork Capital is an investment firm focused on funding the innovation in the decentralization movement. A hybrid hyperconnected fund, idea lab and an incubator, Exnetwork Capital has been a key ingredient in the success of numerous projects launched since 2018.

ChoiVentures

ChoiVentures is a venture capital firm focusing on NFTs & Gaming Projects, powered by Danchoicoin.

Bull Perks

Bull Perks is the Ultimate and most fair platform for retail buyers to get access to private sale allocations to the most sought after crypto projects just like crypto funds do.

The BullPerks team and advisors have been around for a while and have over 20 years of combined crypto experience. Each member has managed tons of projects in the crypto space.

HG Ventures

HG Ventures supports innovation and growth across The Heritage Group by investing and partnering with private companies developing new technologies and approaches in both their core and adjacent markets.

1010 Capital

We’re a private investment office servicing a select group of entrepreneurs, families and family offices.

M6

M6 is the multi-disciplinary and one-stop solution to get to the market.

They work at the intersection of business, creativity, and technology. M6 collaborates with clients to build innovative products and immersive experiences.

CryptoThugs Capital

CryptoThugs Capital is a venture capital firm with the mission of accelerating the development of a better Web3.0 & Defi system.

Gains Associates

Gains Associates is a group of investors who are passionate about new technologies. They took an early interest in Bitcoin and started investing in ICOs in late 2017.

Evan Luthra

Mr. Evan Luthra is an internationally renowned investor, entrepreneur, speaker, and crypto thought leader. He is the investor and advisor of Step Hero.

Gate.io Labs

The Gate.io Labs initiative is aimed at talented entrepreneurs with disruptive ideas and the drive to take their startup to the next level.

Gate.io Labs will provide entrepreneurs with full support and resources to help them kickoff and grow their startups, as well as facilitate the development of their products and services in line with market demands.


Tencent makes more NFT and blockchain moves: Blockheads

TME.US-1.58%

Tencent Music to release “digital collections” built with non-fungible token (NFT) technology. The Chinese province of Guizhou reveals ambitious plans to turn freed-up crypto minng electricity into EV charging capacity. Tencent granted blockchain patent.

Tencent makes more NFT and blockchain moves

Tencent Music announced on Monday that it plans to release “digital collections” on its music streaming service QQ Music starting this month. The company confirmed with Chinese media that the collection will incorporate NFT technology. The collection will include video, audio, digital vinyl, and celebrity merchandise. The announcement came a week after Tencent launched an NFT trading platform called Huanhe. (TechWeb, in Chinese)

Chinese enterprise information database Tianyancha shows that Tencent has been granted a patent for “processing students’ identity information on blockchain networks.” The company applied for the patent in September 2019. The patent abstract shows that the technology can store users’ school identity information from different periods on a blockchain network and ensure the data is secure and can’t be tampered with. (China Star Market, in Chinese)

Crypto mining business disputes

China-based bitcoin miner manufacturer Ebang International said at a Monday press event that it is in the midst of an approximately RMB 400 million ($61.75 billion) business dispute with Huatie Emergency, a company listed in China. Chinese media previously reported that a Xinjiang-based subsidiary of Huatie had signed a contract to buy cloud computing servers worth roughly RMB 400 million from Ebang in 2018. (China Star Market, in Chinese)

Crypto ban accelerate EV adoption

China’s southwestern Guizhou province announced a recent plan to build 4,500 electric vehicle charging stations in 2021 and 10,000 more in the next two years. The province is using electricity freed up by China’s crackdown on bitcoin and crypto mining. Guizhou aims to install 38,000 EV charging stations by 2023, with at least one in each town. It will reserve 20% of car parking bays at shopping malls for EV charging points. (Cointelegraph)

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Correct Answer on SubDAO Do Your Own DAO Event #2

Correct Answer on SubDAO Do Your Own DAO Event #2

Dear SubDAO community,

The SubDAO official team is glad to see there are so many participants in our “Do Your Own DAO” event. All participants have shown a rich knowledge about the DAO and submitted a good answer on our test. Here is the answer to the doubt when you answer our question. Search for the correct answer right now!

1. How to define DAO from the perspective of sociology? 

A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is an organization whose essential operations are automated, agreeing to rules and principles assigned in code without human involvement. 

A DAO is a novel, scalable, self-organizing coordination on the blockchain, controlled by smart contracts”. In short, a DAO can be defined as people with common goals that join under a blockchain infrastructure that enforces a set of shared rules. DAO activity is recorded in the blockchain and, as a result, implies a cost. Validating and confirming transactions on the Ethereum blockchain requires a certain amount of work, called gas (paid in crypto-currency). This work is performed by blockchain miners in order to include transactions in a block. Gas ultimately translates into money and the amount of gas depends on the size and type of each transaction. As a result, it is expected that DAO activity is conditioned by this since users are required to pay small amounts of cryptocurrency if they want their operation to be executed. 

We can consider two kinds of DAOs, those built from scratch, and those created from a template provided by a DAO platform, i.e. DAOs as a service. In the first type, the members are usually developers who have specialized knowledge to create and manage them. Both types are described below. DAO is not only a sociological concept, but also a paradigm of organizational relations, even becoming a buzzword when breaking the circle in the encrypted world. Bitcoin itself can be understood as the earliest DAO. 

After 12 years of growth, DAO, like all collaborations, will produce the division of labor and development of participants, and it is necessary to follow the context of DAO to look at its future.

2. What is the roadmap of DAO development? 

The development of DAO and the development of the crypto market are following each other. In the pre-Ethereum era, DAO is embodied as Bitcoin’s on-chain consensus and community governance. With the diversification of the underlying public chain, here is the first differentiation of DAO implementation methods. 

The formulaic negotiation model of off-chain proposals represented by BIP provides continuous support for network upgrades, but there are still disputes over development efficiency and on-chain execution. Some communities believe that more events should occur on the chain, and Decred has appeared. And Tezos and other chains automatically execute the upgraded governance logic. 

In Dash, DashDAO, a node specifically responsible for governance, was created. After Ethereum went online, there was a watershed event “The DAO”, the earliest financing DAO project, which culminated in the successful raising of US$150 million and ended with the theft of funds. Although the project fell quickly, the model of “creative projects obtained financing from the community, DAO token holders and future benefits” remained and became the basic logic of the current popular venture DAO. 

Moloch, the prototype of the financing DAO, inherits this logic in its concise functional design. The development decisions of the underlying technology may be more concentrated among crypto enthusiasts and geeks, and the scope of participation in governance cannot be expanded, so governance can only be the self-entertainment of a few people. Encrypted users start to participate in governance extensively and personally, often starting from the application layer. 

MakerDAO is not only the originator of DeFi but also the beginning of the practicality of DAO. This kind of application layer protocol directly facing end-users makes people truly feel the rights they enjoy as currency holders. Before DeFi formed a prairie fire in 2019, due to the relatively concentrated economic distribution of tokens for most projects, and the limited capital and user scale, voting governance had not yet become a normal operation for crypto players. And some visionary practitioners recognize that DAO, as the prerequisite for the organization of the crypto world, is an essential requirement for any community-based organization. 

The DAO service platform represented by Aragon (2016) and DAOstack (2018) has provided DAO tools for thousands of community projects and has deposited hundreds of millions of dollars in governance. According to incomplete statistics, the number of DAO participants has exceeded 60,000 addresses, which has increased more than 60 times from 10,000 at the beginning of last year.

With the rapid development of the scale of the encryption industry and the refinement of services, DAO is also evolving rapidly. While Ehereum’s ecosystem of competitors is developing rapidly, its organizational paradigm is also seeking innovation. Polkadot adopts the mode of the timely upgrade of on-chain governance at the protocol layer, and the multi-chain architecture also provides new development soil for DAO. 

Different from Etetherem’s “strong application and weak protocol” status, rising stars like Polkadot rely on powerful tool support to provide a silky development experience for the project to help the application to be implemented at a low cost and efficiency. In this environment, a strong infrastructure is a necessary guarantee for latecomer advantages. 

DAO is an essential component, and the value of its service platform is particularly precious. SubDAO came into being. It helps the Polkadot ecological project to create and manage DAO agilely and can become a solid middle platform for the entire ecosystem, further realizing the value capture of DAO.

3. What is the specific application utility of DAO?

According to actual use cases, it is more widely present in all projects. There are relatively few decentralized communities on similar platforms DAOstack and Colony. What is interesting is that dozens of forked communities have been generated based on Moloch, which is the most common DAO model in financing. 

According to the scene classification of the application layer, we discuss the mechanism of DAO in the following environment. 

1)Financing scenario 

Purpose: To create a decentralized incubator for funding investment or grants to provide support for project development

Moloch Dao, Duckdao, Marketing Dao, DAOSquare, DAOX, DEPO

Extended application: Initial DAO Offering

In 2019, developers in the Ethereum community forked code to modify smart contracts to develop more complex DAO. MetaCartel Ventures and Marketing DAO, for example, are able to distribute and transfer shares and other assets among members. Since then, the for-profit DAO MetaCartel Ventures, which focuses on early investments in Ethereum projects, has raised nearly $24 million from its 64 members. 

DAOs like DUCKDAO and DAO Maker also run token public offerings. DAO Maker has even been approved by regulators in Malta. The project uses chain address analysis to find historical transactions to identify potential applicants for long-term token holders and to develop them into valuable community members.

2)DeFi scene

In the governance of each project of the application layer based on its business model, governance content is different, more representative of the following scenarios:

The DAO module in DeFi

Primarily used to decide key parameters in DeFi’s business in a decentralized manner, starting with MakerDAO, governance to Uniswap has become a landmark transaction for chain activities and is widely marked as a criterion for project screening of qualified users (e.g. for airdrops)

Cross-chain liquidity DAO

Represented by BadgerDAO, BoringDAO, and LidoDAO, it is designed to address the centralization of assets across chains.

3)NFT encryption art scene

DAO project focusing on investment and ecological construction of encrypted artworks. With the NFT boom (or bubble) peaking, the DAO that surrounds the NFT has also attracted attention.

4) Service aggregation scenario

The increase in project demand for DAAs, which specialize in providing developers and projects with easy-to-use standardized modules for integrated DAAs, will become standard in any blockchain ecosystem.

4. What kind of governance is decentralized?

Concepts of decentralization have changed rapidly over the past quarter of a century in tandem with the evolution in thinking about governance. Until the early 1980s government and the state were generally perceived interchangeably. The government was seen as the institutional embodiment of state sovereignty and as the dominant source of political and legal decision-making. 

The use of blockchain as an infrastructure for governance has confronted two points of view. The ones who have a high degree of techno-determinism, who embed the idea of “market” in the made decisions or the way that an organization has to operate, however, they tend to ignore the complexity of social organizations. On the other side, the critical ones defend the role of traditional central authorities. They consider central authorities necessary to enable democratic governance. 

These views usually advocate regulating blockchain markets in order to reinforce the role of the state. Moreover, governance under blockchain is challenging, since it is difficult to steer a decentralized community and promote its development without sacrificing decentralization. The tool that has emerged to enable organizations to operate in the blockchain is DAO.

5. How do we achieve “autonomy” with DAO?

Autonomy is dedicated to dealing with quantifiable transactions in DAO governance, such as development tasks, design work, financial processing accounting work, and so on. These transactions can usually be designed in advance to automate procedures. A good way to do this is Bounty. Bounty’s biggest advantage is standardization. We just need to design a perfect Bounty mechanism to handle different types of work. Bounty’s most important thing is “quantification”. As long as sufficient quantification is achieved, many tasks and tasks of DAO do not need to rely on communication or even communication. Generally speaking, if your DAO is a non-minimum feasible DAO, such as a product development team, or a decentralized company, then autonomy will definitely account for most of the workload of DAO governance.

6. The advantage of DAO should be to reduce the cost of communication between people through automatically executed code, but why does it seem that we did not reduce the cost of communication, but higher?

DAO technology could help improve the agency relationship, but also proposed the potential of blockchain technology as an emerging technology of governance design, in which many ideal models and theoretical evaluations were limited by the real world. First of all, the blockchain is a fundamental technology, and its transformative impact will take decades rather than years to establish and reform the system. In the corporate governance environment, the application of blockchain technology may develop in the existing centralized structure or decentralized environment. 

The former requires consensus on how and when to implement such technologies for governance use cases. For the latter, only when a true decentralized common blockchain emerges, with scalability and full security, can the proxy relationships be truly removed to overhaul them? With the complexity of the agency relationship, human behavior in the agency relationship needs a backstop, namely the continuous support of the human code. Without decentralized human support for code, the immutability of the blockchain and its cryptography security systems may not create true transactional guarantees and trust between principals and agents to maintain the integrity of their contractual relationships.

The blockchain-based corporate governance solution in DAO requires an incremental blockchain governance protocol. Thus, the socially optimal hard fork rule may not be applicable. Today, many companies are investing resources to develop and implement blockchain-based programs. In traditional contract governance, the effectiveness of contract management cooperation depends on the quality of the national legal system to a large extent. 

Conversely, DAO governance does not directly depend on the enforceability of external legal systems. Enforcement in a blockchain is achieved through prescribed code and algorithms, such as smart contracts. Even more, in governance, direct connections between collaborators are not required in a blockchain. Thus, blockchain may be considered the first form of governance that truly leverages digital technology’s computational- and data-based capabilities, well beyond traditional forms of social governance. DAO, like other governance mechanisms, does not govern all types of transactions equally well. DAO governance can reduce searching, monitoring, and enforcement costs but tends, but often means relatively high design costs.

7. I want to use DAO to complete the development of a product, how do I manage the project? 

This is the aim SubDAO wants to realize. SubDAO is primarily a tool for creating and managing DAOs for DeFi and NFT applications, helping applications to create and manage DAOs more quickly. 

Today, the governance approach of DAO has evolved into the organizational framework of DeFi projects today. As we progress further, we expect more projects to use governance like DAO. There are now some DAOs on the blockchain, and most DAOs have their own governance scenarios and systems, such as MakerDAO, TheLAO, etc., that develop their own systems for governance. Other organizations have developed basic chains of DAO governance tools, such as Aragon. 

As more and more applications become available, we will find that the development of DAO governance tools is not convenient for every application, only those organizations with sufficient research and development strength or sufficient initial capital reserves can afford the cost of building a DAO, but it is impossible for small organizations or organizations without capital reserves of their own research and development governance tools. In addition, current application requirements have the common needs of DAO, such as voting and money management, as a combination of multiple forms of decision-making, automated implementation of governance behavior, community day-to-day governance communications, etc. These demands are difficult to meet, while only some systems have open interfaces to customize personalized needs, and high requirements for personalized technical are very common. These conditions are almost impossible to achieve for small and medium-sized organizations. 

Enriching and refining the DAO governance toolchain as much as possible is the foundation for the DAO’s sustainable development, and allowing users to participate in the governance and expansion of the DAO as easily as possible is the way to enable the DAO to present a variety of approaches. SubDAO was born for this purpose as Polkadot’s DAO infrastructure to provide all DAO users with the tools they need for governance, while SubDAO also owns cross-chain capabilities to enable multi-asset management, enabling DAO organizations to manage and precipitate funds to maximize returns.

8. Is the DAO the final governance model? 

DAOs are particularly conditioned by the idiosyncrasies of the blockchain technology, which is decentralized and serverless, with immutable records, and where operations imply a cost. Furthermore, despite being in their infancy, these sociotechnical systems are already facing problems that may relate to those that affect other socio-technical systems and are already studied in the literature. 

Thus, we believe DAOs deserve interdisciplinary research attention to ascertain whether their problems are similar or not to those from other online and offline alternatives. Furthermore, to determine whether they provide an effective means for running a decentralized organization, or they only work under certain conditions, for example, when voters are known and the topics are limited in scope. 

  • DAOs are no gatherings of smart contracts, but socio-technical ecosystems consisting of mutually dependent parties. Organizational processes are thereby increasingly ingrained and enacted on-chain, blurring the division between systems and organizations. 
  • Even though motivated by strong enthusiasm, funds, and beliefs, DAOs face several inhibitors to decentralization and autonomy; it remains interesting, why these projects have not originated generativity, yet. One could argue that these DAOs may become the victims of their financial successes where, instead of experimenting freely on a large scale, legal issues or public feuds take center stage. 
  • Human intervention in DAOs is being displaced, transformed, but not marginalized. Instead of achieving autonomy, our DAOs showed the reliance on several central actors acting as gatekeepers, administrate funds, or accumulating expertise, which reintroduces trust into a system, which was repeatedly considered trust-free. 
  • Shortcomings of “Code is law” are met with “Code is Constitution”, where our studied DAOs show mechanisms to change fundamental processes when the need arises. As a consequence, blockchain’s immutability, one of its core characteristics, is questioned. 
  • DAOs need to invest heavily up-front in governance structures, while their infrastructures find limited use, which draws similarities from studies on the Internet and their bootstrap problem. Without considering infrastructure in practice, these upfront costs pass unseen, while only promises of more efficient transactions through smart contracts are highly applied.

9. How will DAO develop in the future? 

DAOs are coordinated by consensus mechanisms. Thus, DAOs are different from markets coordinated by the price mechanism, hierarchies coordinated by fiat, or networks coordinated by social relations. How should one make sense of DAOs? DAOs are not governed by principal-agent relationships, since they do not have shareholders or managers. Because they do not rely on fiat or hierarchies and operate transparently using public blockchains and open-source software, they are, to some extent, immune to the issues of opportunism and information asymmetry. And because they operate with little human coordination and do not incur costs for monitoring employees, they may behave in ways that traditional perspectives in organizational economics are ill-equipped to capture. 

In particular, the growth of DAOs is likely not bound by increases in the marginal cost of organizing (because DAOs are not hierarchies), and the cost of conducting additional transactions within DAOs can theoretically decrease with size owing to positive network externalities. Thus, at this stage, the scholarly community may lack the theoretical tools needed to understand either the growth of DAOs or, more generally speaking, what determines the boundaries of such organizations. The present study only begins to tackle this problem.

10. Is DAO An Alternative to the Public Corporation? 

There are fewer than half as many public corporations today as there were fifteen years ago. The public corporation in the US is now unnecessary for production. Meanwhile, over the last few months, over 150 DAOs have gone public through initial coin offerings, a public sale through which the general public can acquire, early on, cryptocurrency tokens to support the development of the organization. While the number of public corporations is dwindling — there are 37 percent fewer today than there were in 1997 — DAOs are on the rise. 

Outside the payments sector, DAOs are providing new solutions for supply-chain management in the luxury goods industry, record-keeping in trade finance, trusted-identity provision in online environments, and patient-history management in the healthcare sector. What these industries have in common is that their business activities are prone to moral hazards and behavioral uncertainty. As a result, expensive intermediaries are heavily relied upon to provide trust to the interacting parties. Going forward, DAOs may be able to provide competitive alternatives for organizing in those sectors. 

More than 30 years ago, Rothschild and Whitt identified factors that should lead to the development of “collective organizations.” These included the demystification of knowledge, defined as the process whereby “formerly exclusive, obscure, or esoteric bodies of knowledge are simplified, explicated, and made available to the membership at large”. By publishing all software related to the blockchain, protocol, and peer-to-network in an open-source format, DAOs are well on track to achieve this demystification. 

At a theoretical level, the shift from the public corporation to the DAO may be a radical one, and this research represents a first attempt at exploring its implications from the viewpoint of organizational scholarship. The organizational and management scholars will pay attention to these developments that are currently changing the face of the heavily intermediated form of capitalism that has prevailed in our economies since the seventeenth century.

About SubDAO

SubDAO is a DAO infrastructure based on Polkadot, where any decentralized organization is allowed to conveniently create and manage a DAO. SubDAO does not only connect DAO with DApps to realize DAO’s cross-chain management but also bridges Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.

The founding team of SubDAO is composed of the former Technical Team leader of the IBM Group and many early well-known developers from Polkadot. All team members own rich experiences in Internet companies such as IBM, Tencent, and Alibaba. Jack Platts, former Director of External Cooperation of the Web3 Foundation and Partner of Hypersphere Ventures, serves as a strategic contributor to SubDAO. So far SubDAO has completed multi-million dollar financing including Hypersphere, Huobi Ventures, and other institutions.

Follow SubDAO

Website: https://subdao.network

Github: https://github.com/SubDAO-Network/

Medium:https://medium.com/@subdao

Twitter: https://twitter.com/subdao_network

Telegram:https://t.me/subdao

Discord: https://discord.gg/Z8jtYqWbbN


TEST FORMATTING POST #2 - 2021/08/10 - The Ergo Team AMA hosted by Bitcoin.com - Q/A Summary

https://blog.bitcoin.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/1145843_ERGOAMA_1200x630_080621.png

Hosts & Participators:

  • Bitcoin.com Team:

    1. Antonio - AMA Co-ordinator
    2. Danish - Danish Chaudhry - CEO of Bitcoin.com
  • Ergo Team:

    1. kushti khusti - Alex Kushti - Co-Founder and Core Developer of the Ergo platform
    2. Glasgow - Mark Glasgow - Head of Community Management
    3. Armeanio - Joseph Armeanio - Ergo Foundation Business Developer

Starting Questions:

Question 1:

  • Antonio > To the Ergo team: What are your thoughts on blockchain adoption and what can Ergo do to continue to make this technology more accessible to the mainstream public?

Answer:

  • kushti khushi

    Ergo community is making a lot of efforts to clarify things around the cryptocurrencies. Please refer to Ergo Manifesto. Still, first principles matter! From technical perpective, the protocol is already capable for different known efficient on-chain scalability, offchain, and cross-chain solutions

  • Glasgow

    Ergo has been focused on building a concrete base these past years and build up solid foundations and financial tooling for the people. We strive to make Ergo more accessible each day and utilise our community in full to do this. Just this past week a community member has been organising a ‘Women in Crypto’ group to bring more women into the scene. And the Local Exchange Trading System (collective bartering) will certainly help there imo! More concretly, iteratively building up our tooling and systems to be usable and friendly to anyone and while giving them financial autonomy.

  • Armeanio

    Blockchain is an evolving technology. Personally, I think there are three areas that need development to push the development curve. The first is practical use cases for the common person. In Defi especially we need to position ourselves to produce functional tools at a lower cost than the traditional finance community. The second is user-friendly development tools and educational resources, I do think a part of this will be solved simply due to the technical capacity of younger generations. As building and interacting with blockchain becomes a widely adopted skill set I think we will see an influx of developers. The third is user-friendliness. User interfaces are always extremely important.


Question 2:

  • Antonio > To Danish: What in your opinion makes Ergo’s smart contracts different?

Answer:

  • Armeanio

    Personally, I am a fan of the concept of multistage contracts due to the lower cost/ computational processing involved since much of the logic runs off-chain. This aligns well with the first adoption goal mentioned above. It is cost-competitive.

  • Danish Chaudhry

    Ergo has many differentiators which make it shine amongst others in the sphere, the cryptographic statements (via their sigma-protocols) are truly a unique Ergo advantage. Let’s compare a project like Waves, which just has Bitcoin-like multi-sig. Ergo is also about UTXO. It is harder to do contracts in the UTXO model, but UTXOs are more friendly to off-chain and privacy protocols (also fewer safety issues). Ergo will develop lots of different new privacy-preserving dapps, and also should be a great showcase of its capabilities.

  • kushti khushi

    Ergo contracts are centered around protecting money with logic, not to be a thing per se. That's why we're talking about smart (or contractual money). After all, public blockchain means cryptocurrency, and cryptocurrency means that contracts are on top of money. Ergo continues Bitcoin ideas but with no Bitcoin Script limitations.

  • Antonio

    Cool beans guys! Thanks for jumping in @kushti_ru @Armeanio too!


Question 3:

  • Antonio > Next one.. to the Ergo team: The highly anticipated ErgoDEX release is coming very soon. What makes this DEX so special?

Answer:

  • kushti khushi

    ErgoDex allows for AMM pools and orderbooks co-exist, with a trade between possible in a single transaction. Moreover, there are known widgets on top of the DEX already discovered, such as tokensales with buyback guarantee, a stablecoin (DexyUSD) etc.

  • Glasgow

    There's several things that make ErgoDEX unique.

    For the unaware, ErgoDex is a decentralised exchange that will run natively on top of both the Cardano and Ergo blockchain. This means that it'll either ADA or ERG as the base token when needed. Compared to other DEXs on Cardano, ErgoDEX has the unique advanced of having developers that have been working on a live eUTXO blockchain for the past 2 years. (eUTXO or - the extended unspent transaction output model is based on the same research from IOHK that Cardano used when developing it's chain). This shared model allows ErgoDex to explore shared liquidity, trustless swaps and other cross-chain goodies once deployed and Cardano's smart contracts are live.

    Last but not least, the developers have shown they are taking every opportunity to develop a platform that prevents plutocracy at every opportunity. Instead of selling large parts to private investors - ensuring ErgoDEX remains truly decentralised. Something that is often forgotten these days.

    You can see the roadmap here: https://ergodex.io/ and a initial public beta will be launching shortly!

    For a more detailed breakdown see: https://ergoplatform.org/en/blog/2021-07-21-ergodex-a-cross-chain-workhorse/

  • Armeanio

    The ErgoDex has unique tokenomics and liquidity mechanisms. The future plan to port assets between Cardano and Ergo will offer benefits and tooling of both ecosystems.

    Cardano’s Voltaire project is something I really respect and watch closely. The powerful privacy tooling of Ergo also offers benefits for users that wish to enhance the privacy of their positions.

  • Antonio

    Awesome guys, it's like we're receiving answers from all aspects of the business: Tech/Marketing/Bizdev :) It's great!


Question 4:

  • Antonio > Next one, to Danish: If you had to give one piece of advice to individuals about how to make the most of their crypto and to companies about how to bring crypto into their business models, what would your advice be?

Answer:

  • Danish Chaudhry

    great question @antoniobileci

    Blockchain technology opens up many possibilities and opportunities for us to create solutions that can be highly disruptive and potentially very lucrative. Those can indeed improve on existing systems, so I always advocate for people to educate themselves, join conversations and never stop learning. Regarding businesses, we have seen very known payment providers like paypal or square starting to accept btc payments so my advice would be to keep an eye on the space and explore if adding crypto can add value to the business model

  • Armeanio

    I think the best way to look at crypto from a corporate perspective is to see it as a fractionalized open-source software license. Cryptocurrencies are tools for business and commerce. There are many crypto projects that offer a variety of tooling.

    Ergo is involved in the BPSAA and the tooling ranges from decentralized VPN's to decentralized content storage and management. There is a large range of commercial applications available just in that small group.

    The distributed nature of the technology is hardened to disruption and the consumer market access is greatly magnified, especially as we move into a multichain world.


Question 5:

  • Antonio > Onto the next one, to the Ergo team: You recently hosted a Hackathon. What kinds of projects came out of that venture? What aspect of development is Ergo the most excited about? Are there plans for another Ergo Hackathon?

Answer:

  • Glasgow

    Here are the results from our last hackathon - more info in this blogpost (https://ergoplatform.org/en/blog/2021-06-19-ergohack/), We should have the Raffle launching live shortly after going through some more development and testing - which also produced some great documentation for developers, and everyone is of course anxiously awaiting to see what ErgoTeam has in store for us.

    ErgoTeam was developed by the community developer and will allow for a simple joint-spending approach while retaining complex threshold signatures ensuring the security and anonymity of its users.

    Last but not least, pushing for decentralisation at every point is one of the things that makes the Ergo community so great. The SmartPools team had some great discussions and put out a research paper (https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/846). Leading to another community member offering to help fund this venture.)

    We have one or two more Hackthons planned this year - but I'll let kushti or Armeanio expand here :) Given the influx we seen last time (and how many stuck around). These events help us to continue to build up our dev tooling and guidance, and bring more people in to build ontop Ergo and see what it’s really about. Once people do, they tend to stick about.

  • kushti khushi

    the hackathon was highly successful in regards with attracting devs, we got first wave of newcomers few weeks before the event. Six projects submitted results. ErgoRaffle will be launched over the mainnet in coming days, maybe more in future. We are going to have another hackathon definitely, this Autumn!

  • Armeanio

    Hackathons are idea incubators. The truth for solutions and tooling is that often the individuals on the ground have the clearest perspective of the problem/solution and tooling needed to solve said problem/solution.

    My perspective is that the greatest asset in a cryptocurrency project is the community itself.

  • Armeanio

    Hackathons are a great way to use that asset to drive growth and evolution.

  • Antonio

    😊 fantastic to hear that it was very successful, looking forward to hearing more on the rest coming later this year!


Community Questions:

Question 6:

  • Ff

    Do you have any real world use cases that never implemented on any project and can change the world?

  • Glasgow

    As far as I’m aware - Ergo is the only blockchain talking about Trustless LETS.

    A local exchange trading system — or ‘LETS’ for short — facilitates exchange between members by providing a local currency and a directory of offers and needs. LETS allows people to create value within their community, and barter collectively - exchanging their skills and services in return for skills and services they would have otherwise paid for.

    Read more here : https://ergoplatform.org/en/blog/2021-07-01-lets-start-the-discussion/


Question 7:

  • Pakija

    How is this project different from the rest of the other outstanding projects currently in the market?

  • Glasgow

    The Ergo Manifesto should provide some insight here :)

    https://ergoplatform.org/en/blog/2021-04-26-the-ergo-manifesto/

    Ergo builds advanced cryptographic features and radically new DeFi functionality on the rock-solid foundations laid by a decade of blockchain theory and development. It complements tried and tested principles with the latest peer-reviewed academic research into cryptography, consensus models and digital currencies.

    Ergo is a unique Proof-of-Work (PoW) cryptocurrency and DeFi platform, building on the first principles of Bitcoin. With a research-driven but practical development model, Ergo has prioritized useful features without compromising on security. The platform's smart contracts are built on the extended UTXO (eUTXO) model with a unique data input concept, offering a radically different approach to provide robust, flexible cryptography and easy, safe scripting on privacy-centric Sigma Protocols (non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs). Storage rent (~.13 erg every 4 years) for long-term survivability, ultra-efficient light clients, and NiPoPoW technology. Too much to cover! 😂


Question 8:


Question 9:

  • Daniel

    Can newbies with little cryptographic knowledge be able to successfully Use , trust & invest on your platform?

  • kushti khushi

    Sure, I believe now many UIs around are simple enough, not to say about crypto knowledge. At the same time, the community is planning to clearly specify assumptions behind Ergo core protocols and dApps, so even with no cryptoknowledge an investor will know what is trust involved about.


Question 10:

  • Gia Hy

    1. There are some opinions that PoW now is obsolete so why Ergo chose PoW instead of PoS? How would you resolve the “staking issue” for Ergo?
    2. For almost projects in the industry they need private sale, seed sale, ICO, IEO, IDO… to fundraising in order to build the project vulnerably, so why didn’t Ergo do that. Where does the capital come from for Team to develop and Is it effected to the Ergo’s progess?

    Thank You very much, Brilliant Team!

  • Armeanio

    Gia Hy, Thanks for the question

    1. Proof of Work is still what I could call an emerging technology. Therefore I think having the PoW PoS debate is very premature. I would compare it to having the electric car vs internal combustion engine debate in the 1930s (both were around)

    Proof of Work is well studied and the security is well understood. Simplicity and complexity when married create elegant solutions. I think if I could sum it up in the shortest way possible Ergo is designed with this balance KISS keep it simple stupid. Layering complexity in design can create multiple issues and points of failure.

    1. Ergo was launched without fundraising due to supporting the concept of decentralization and preventing a tiered class system that so many projects release with. Many believe that buying market access out of the gate is the way to go, but they end up with technical debt. Meaning the technology is well behind their market position and adoption. Ergo is built on a very solid technical foundation, and that makes the driver of growth organic. It is slower, but in my opinion more robust.

Question 11:

  • Glenn McCarthy

    Do you have a Token Burning plan to increase Token value and attract Investors to invest?

  • Glasgow

    Wouldn’t really work like that on erg. The developers did not keep lots of tokens no there’s nothing to burn :)


Question 12:

  • Habu Vai

    How old is Your project? What are the major plans ahead? Could you show to us image of your roadmap?

  • Glasgow

    Mainnet launched July 2019 (The previous spike was Ergo-First Year Token). See more here

    https://ergoplatform.org/en/blog/2019_05_20-curve/


Question 13:

  • Xyz

    Is it true your project really support staking program? if yes, how does your stake work system look like, what are the requirements for users if they want to stake on your platform?Staking programme is very important for any project, Can i stake your token? Do you have any plan of starting staking programme?

  • Glasgow

    Yes through tokenisation of dApps - ErgoMixer is up first. You can read more (technical details) here - https://www.ergoforum.org/t/a-solution-for-staking/1057

    But I believe this is almost done so you’ll find out soon.


Question 14:

  • 🇲 🇴 🇷 🇮 🇳 🇦

    How can I trust not to rug pull? How many liquidity did you lock and how many months did you lock them?

  • Glasgow

    Because Ergo doesn’t own the rug. There was no premine, no ICO, no VC funds. A small amount (~5%) is taken from miner rewards for the first 2.5 years to support all development, marketing, etc. It’s already started reducing and should be complete by January. See https://ergoplatform.org/en/blog/2019_05_20-curve/ for more information


Question 15:

  • Hazana

    Any plans to make add more to content for learning Ergoscript? There is a a massive gap between starting and beginner, making it difficult to first approach learning to write Ergoscript smart contracts

  • kushti khushi

    Yes, we are always improving number and also quality of tutorials etc , for now please refer to ErgoScript by the example https://github.com/ergoplatform/ergoscript-by-example , https://github.com/anon-real/ergo-js-template (DApp template), and ready apps, they all are opensourced!


Question 16:

  • Hazana

    Any plans to make add more to content for learning Ergoscript? There is a a massive gap between starting and beginner, making it difficult to first approach learning to write Ergoscript smart contracts

  • Glasgow

    Yes! :)


Question 17:

  • Enajite

    Where does the project name you found? What does it mean for you and why did you choose that name for your project?

  • Glasgow

    Ergo means “therefore” in Latin, but “work” in Greek. Initially the name was chosen to point to the fact that the design of the cryptocurrency is ERGOnomical.


Question 18:

  • Arobi

    The common problem that often accours DeFi projects is that smart contract vulnerability can lead to loss of funds, what steps has your projects taken for solve to fix this major problem and prevent such occurrences in the future?

  • Armeanio

    Regarding security concerns UTxO operate much differently than the account model. In the account model, the token and the smart contract logic are separate, flaws in the programming between the two is often the vulnerability or point of failure that is exploited in the account based model.

    In extended UTxO the smart contract is embedded within the box (UTxO token) itself, there is no separation and each box is protected by a guard script making it much more difficult to manipulate.


Question 19:

  • I Am Back

    90% investors sell tokens after first listing exchange. Can you give us advice and tell benefits for hold your token in long term?

  • kushti khushi

    Ergo already listed on dozen of exchanges, and price going up mostly. Please note that this is mineable Proof-of-Work cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, so pricing mechanics and distribution is different from most of modern tokens.


Question 20:


Question 21:

  • Ayhan

    Platform security is very important,how strong is Ergo security?

  • Glasgow

    “In regards to security, we always tried to use the most straightforward and well-studied approach; otherwise, to cover a new direction with a published paper and a lot of testing.” - kushti

    Each script is applied to an unspent output. We have drawn this feature from the Bitcoin protocol, which uses UTXOs or the 'coin' model rather than an 'account' model like Ethereum's. We consider this a more secure approach since boxes are immutable, as well as being more flexible.

    Ergo's blockchain uses the Autolykos algorithm for consensus, which is a variant of Equihash and offers better ASIC resistance. This enables better decentralization. At the same time, we recognize that ordinary users who do not run a full node should enjoy the same security benefits as miners. Ergo's non-interactive proof-of-proof-of-work (NiPoPoW) allows anyone to make and verify transactions with complete confidence, without needing the storage, bandwidth and time required to download the full blockchain. As little as 1 MB of data is needed – meaning any device can be used.


Question 22:

  • Xyz

    Is it true your project really support staking program? if yes, how does your stake work system look like, what are the requirements for users if they want to stake on your platform?Staking programme is very important for any project, Can i stake your token? Do you have any plan of starting staking programme?

  • Armeanio

    Ergo has a dApp called the mixer. Developers are currently in the process of creating what is being called a staking contract. Now staking here has to do with owning a stake of the fees this dApp produces.

    Since there is no mechanism of securing consensus this is not akin to PoS but is more similar to earning passive rewards from an asset that produces a dividend.


Question 23:

  • Gia Hy

    1. There are some opinions that PoW now is obsolete so why Ergo chose PoW instead of PoS? How would you resolve the “staking issue” for Ergo?
    2. For almost projects in the industry they need private sale, seed sale, ICO, IEO, IDO… to fundraising in order to build the project vulnerably, so why didn’t Ergo do that. Where does the capital come from for Team to develop and Is it effected to the Ergo’s progess?
  • kushti khushi

    PoW is simpler and well studied to the moment.

    ICO was discussed back in 2017, but the result would be very different. No public tokensale/VC means totally different and natural growth of the ecosystem, which is worth long painful months of initial depression the team survived through.


Question 24:

  • Pakija

    How is this project different from the rest of the other outstanding projects currently in the market?

  • Glasgow

    Too many to list - It returns to Bitcoins roots - and is truly for the people! Only a handful of coins hand tokenomics which are as fair. Read the manifesto

    https://ergoplatform.org/en/blog/2021-04-26-the-ergo-manifesto/


Question 25:

  • I Am Back

    If we are in BEAR market, What are the plans on surviving on BEAR market? Surviving in a bear market is not easy for a new project entering to crypto, Do you have any plans on this?

  • Glasgow

    See the roadmap image above, Ergo has more functional tooling than many coins way above it.


Question 26:


Question 27:


Question 28:

  • I Am Back

    If we are in BEAR market, What are the plans on surviving on BEAR market? Surviving in a bear market is not easy for a new project entering to crypto, Do you have any plans on this?

  • Glasgow

    Ergo was born in the crypto winter and will do just fine :) It’s built to be adaptable and sustainable.


Question 29:

  • LUPIN

    Could you explain have you listed Your tokens on any exchange right now and where can I buy your tokens?

  • Glasgow

    bitcoin.com!!


Question 30:

  • Hello Sir😎

    Do you have a Token Burning plan to increase Token value and attract Investors to invest?

  • kushti khushi

    No, but native token has limited emission, and >40% already minted


Question 31:

  • I Am Back

    If we are in BEAR market, What are the plans on surviving on BEAR market? Surviving in a bear market is not easy for a new project entering to crypto, Do you have any plans on this?

  • Armeanio

    Ergo is building for the long term, it was born in crypto winter and the devs kept their head down focusing on research and development.

    The commitment to this is outlined in the Ergo Manifesto.


Question 32:


Question 33:

  • Hello Sir😎

    Binance smart Chain blockchain is having high transaction speed and cheap gas fees, Are you planning to launch your mainet or switch to other blockchains in the future?

  • kushti khushi

    Mainnet was launched in 2019, Ergo is oriented towards decentralization and security, unlike BSC


Question 34:


Question 35:

  • Hello Sir😎

    CAN you explain the background of your team? How will you and your team carry out this project during this current pandemic?

  • Glasgow

    See the Hall of Fame - https://ergoplatform.org/en/hall_of_fame/

    Ergo was set up for decentralisation before the pandemic hit!


Question 36:

  • Fd

    Do you have any plans to add more members to your team, as ambassadors or any other position?

  • Glasgow

    Yes, growing all the time :)


Question 37:

  • LUPIN

    Can you give me the list about all function of your token? what user possible to do by holding token? and do you have any new event for holder?

  • Glasgow

    I think I’d run out of space. See the FAQ here for a quick overview - https://www.reddit.com/r/ergonauts/wiki/faq


Question 38:

  • Rian

    I think the most unique of your project is ageusd (sigusd, and sigrsv) which is bring stable coin to our community, my question is for the next future could you also want to bring those stable coin to exchanges? And what is the benefits for us as ERG holder if sigusd and sigrsv token bring to exchange?! Thanks

  • kushti khushi

    It seems ErgoDEX will be the first exchange, but there are some talks with CEXes on sigUSD/RSV listings


Question 39:

  • 🌀ZARA VE🌀

    Could you share with us your approach to the community and your strategy to expand your community? Do you have practices that increase and encourage motivation for the community?

  • Armeanio

    Personally, I think the best way to grow crypto as a whole is simple, education which leads to growth and adoption. Ergo is a research-driven project.

    This is not simply on the user side. Although understanding the tools provided, their benefits, and their risks is always extremely important.

    It is also important for developers to learn from the community what tools are needed.

    It is important for developers to learn from other developers as the capacity and technology of a system evolve.

    That is a feedback cycle that drives growth and adoption.


Question 40:

  • 🌀ZARA VE🌀

    Q. These days, scammers can easily throw some fake projects for their interest. And event pretending to be the best service in the similar platform. As to counter this assumption, how do you assure the investor on this project?

  • Glasgow

    Reversible ICOs are possible ontop Ergo!

    https://ergoplatform.org/docs/paper_26.pdf


Question 41:

  • Hello Sir😎

    Binance smart Chain blockchain is having high transaction speed and cheap gas fees, Are you planning to launch your mainet or switch to other blockchains in the future?

  • Glasgow

    Ergo Platform is one of the most sophisticated protocols in the space with stateless clients (for true full-nodes), NiPoPoWs (for light clients), and the ability for miners to vote on parameter changes like increasing the block size easily. Here’s an outline of the scaling plan.

    L0: A lot of efficiency improvements in the node have been completed starting from v4.0.8. We are going to count every memory allocation and every operation. 20-50x improvements are likely still possible by just optimizing the node code. Implementations for bootstrapping with NiPoPoW proofs and UTXO set snapshots are planned.

    L1: Ergo's blocks have an extension section which allows the implementation of a wide variety of other scaling solutions such as BitcoinNG-style macroblocks and Sharding -- and even lets us do generic sidechains with velvet or soft forks.

    L2 (off-chain) - Ergo could support the Lightning Network, Rainbow network, Zero-Knowledge Contingent Payments, and FairSwap/FastSwap protocols - and many others. Our implementation here will depend on the applications.


Question 42:

  • Hello Sir😎

    Too many projects promise magic but never release any working product or prove any revenue, Within a short/long time of release. Is it like this? If not can u tell us, What makes it different from other projects?

  • kushti khushi

    Ergo mainnet was launched back in 2019, and it is fully functional unlike PolkaDot etc


Question 43:

  • Angel

    I believe your project have a good team that is ready to get the job done to the maximum, will you take into account the opinions, contributions, ideas of your community members at any time ??

  • Glasgow

    Of course! Join the chats and let us know your suggestions


Question 44:

  • Flipsah

    How can I trust Your project because I got scammed twice this year, did you ever get scammed by crypto projects personally?

  • Glasgow

    Yes my frog farm got rugged (Cardano incubator project). :(

    You can trust Ergo by doing your research, and realising the foundations it’s built upon.


Question 45:

  • Hello Sir😎

    Southeast Asia is a very vibrant market and there are many new platforms under development. So what do you think about Southeast Asia and do you have plans to grow there?

  • kushti khushi

    We had Asian roadshow back in 2019, with meetups in HK and Ho Chi Minh, next time Singapore and Bangkok also hopefully, but currently it is utterly hard to make roadshows


Question 46:

  • Hello Sir😎

    Can you list 1-3 killer features of Your Project that makes it ahead of its competitors? What is the competitive advantage your platform has that you feel most confident about?

  • Glasgow

    NiPoPoWs : Trustless Light Clients with Minimal Resource Requirements: Ergo block header supports NiPoPoWs that enable synchronizing network by downloading < 1Mb of data.

    Rigorous research and scientific approach: Ergo is based on original research, published at known peer-reviewed conferences. A list of scientific papers is available at https://apograf.io/c/7MEY3, but Ergo is not limited by research alone and continues to implement other novel scientific ideas.


Question 47:

  • 🌀ZARA VE🌀

    I'm still new to crypto, how do you make Your project easy for anyone? Including those who don't understand crypto will also use Your project?

  • kushti khushi

    Yes, you can learn crypto here, with the warmest community possible )


Question 48:

  • Cheese Ball

    Do you have plans to conduct LP staking for token long term holders?

  • Armeanio

    Ergodex will allow users to provide liquidity for the potential of passive yields with the caveat of impermanent loss. This loss however can be minimized as the liquidity provider will be able to select active ranges.