Bitcoin pulse, guides and news

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Smarter To Stake?

An Introduction to Cryptocurrency Staking

On the surface level, staking is a way of earning rewards for holding some cryptocurrencies. It involves locking up a portion of your cryptocurrency for a specific period as a way of contributing to a blockchain network. Stakers get rewarded typically in the form of additional coins or tokens.

Staking can be considered similar to traditional investment instruments, such as depositing money in a bank and agreeing not to withdraw it for a set period. This generates interest for the depositor. Staking involves delegating a certain number of tokens towards the administrative model of the blockchain. These tokens are out of circulation for a specified length of time.

How does staking work?

If a cryptocurrency allows staking, such as the MARS Coin - the holder can volunteer to stack his tokens. In exchange, the holder may earn rewards. The staked tokens generate rewards because they work in a consensus mechanism called Proof of Stake.

With the lack of a central governing authority in decentralised networks, all transactions are verified using a consensus mechanism. Blockchain networks employ a consensus mechanism to achieve a necessary agreement on various transactions by synchronising the majority of the nodes on the network. There are two types of consensus mechanisms used by blockchain networks: Proof of Work and Proof of Stake.

Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake

Via proof of work, the network throws an incredible amount of processing power at solving mathematical problems for validating transactions and ensuring the legitimacy of the same. Miners are involved in solving these cryptographic puzzles. The first to solve these equations earns the right to add the latest block to the blockchain and receive some crypto tokens for their effort.

Proof of work is a scalable solution for simpler blockchains such as Bitcoin, which track incoming and outgoing transactions like a ledger. But it may cause bottlenecks when applied to complex blockchains such as Ethereum.

On the other hand, Proof of Stake omits the idea of miners solving math problems through an energy-intensive process. Instead, users put their tokens to stake to be eligible to add a new block onto the blockchain in exchange for a reward. These staked tokens act as a guarantee of the legitimacy of the transactions they add to the blockchain.

Validators are chosen by the network, depending on the size of their stake and the length of time they have held it. If transactions approved by a validator are found to be invalid, a certain amount of their stake can be burnt by the network. The burning of such stakes is called a slashing event.

Benefits of Staking?

Stakers get voting rights. These give the investor a say in the development of the protocol for a cryptocurrency. Additionally, as staking is a cost-effective method of verification, validators get to contribute to the security and efficiency of the blockchain they have invested in.

With tokens such as MARS, investors can simply opt to stake their holding and watch it grow without stressing about mining. Staking requires lesser resources as opposed to mining which uses intensive mining equipment and power. Long term cryptocurrency holders reap the benefits of earning additional crypto tokens by putting them at stake.

Staking surely is great a beginner-friendly way for all investors to reap the benefits of the cryptocurrency boom.

Rollercoin is an online bitcoin mining simulator in which you can mine real bitcoins for free without paying for electricity - get a 1000 satoshi now!

Rollercoin is a game that you compete with your friends, who will have a bigger farm to mine bitcoin, ethereum or dogecoin. Аll you have to do is register and customize your avatar, then you're ready to start the race.

The best part is that this game does not require depositing money to grow your farm, it is enough to play games, raise enough money and buy your first miner.

Once you have collected the sufficient minimum amount (about 4-6$) you can withdraw your money to your personal wallet. You can take 1000 satoshi which will help for the development of your farm. They are equal to 0.00001 BTC.

1000 FREE SATOSHI HERE

It is possible to progress quickly with the new "Event Pass" in the game. If you buy it and take all the prizes you will increase the power of mining by 2.5 Ph/s. Of course, if you do not want to give real money for "Event Pass" there are also free prizes.

FOR THE FIRST TIME YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE FREE MINERS AND OTHER FREE PRIZES, some of which are: 300 Gh/s for 1 day, 500 Gh/s for 3 days.

ALSO FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE GAME YOU CAN TRY YOUR LUCK WITH LOOTBOXES, FROM WHICH YOU CAN WIN UP TO 500 "RLT" OR MINERS WITH POWER UP TO 1.5 Ph/s.

1000 FREE SATOSHI HERE

There are also weekly offers that offer a limited series of miners, as well as discounts for miners up to 60%.

Hint:

• At Rollercoin you will never mine at a loss because you will not pay for electricity! The game is made you always mine to profit!

• If you decide to invest the money you earn in miners, you will start earning more.

• The cheapest miner costs only 2.6 RLT which is 2.6$.

• With the upcoming season (season 3), it will be possible to buy miners with any cryptocurrency available on the site. Start collecting coins now to buy better miners next season.

Notes on using Rollercoin

• All purchases from the site require RLT, which is Rollercoin's own cryptocurrency.

• You may withdraw your crypto from the site once it reaches the required quota, or deposit them to a different currency.

• You can only split power from mining crypto once every 12 hours.

• You must win at least one game per day to maintain the current level of your "PC", otherwise it will go back to the lowest level.

• The more games you win, the more difficult it is, and the longer the cooldown. On the flipside, you get a bigger score which adds to your mining power.

• You can bring down the difficulty of any game by simply not playing them for awhile. Use this to diversify the games you play and earn as much mining power as possible. 1000 FREE SATOSHI HERE

• The higher your mining power, the more crypto you can get from each completed block.

Rollercoin is an online bitcoin mining simulator in which you can mine real bitcoins for free without paying for electricity - get a 1000 satoshi now!

The best part is that this game does not require depositing money to grow your farm, it is enough to play games, raise enough money and buy your first miner.

1000 FREE SATOSHI HERE

FOR THE FIRST TIME YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE FREE MINERS AND OTHER FREE PRIZES, some of which are: 300 Gh/s for 1 day, 500 Gh/s for 3 days.

ALSO FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE GAME YOU CAN TRY YOUR LUCK WITH LOOTBOXES, FROM WHICH YOU CAN WIN UP TO 500 "RLT" OR MINERS WITH POWER UP TO 1.5 Ph/s.

1000 FREE SATOSHI HERE

There are also weekly offers that offer a limited series of miners, as well as discounts for miners up to 60%.

Hint:

• At Rollercoin you will never mine at a loss because you will not pay for electricity! The game is made you always mine to profit!

• If you decide to invest the money you earn in miners, you will start earning more.

• The cheapest miner costs only 2.6 RLT which is 2.6$.

• With the upcoming season (season 3), it will be possible to buy miners with any cryptocurrency available on the site. Start collecting coins now to buy better miners next season.

Notes on using Rollercoin

• All purchases from the site require RLT, which is Rollercoin's own cryptocurrency.

• You may withdraw your crypto from the site once it reaches the required quota, or deposit them to a different currency.

• You can only split power from mining crypto once every 12 hours.

• You must win at least one game per day to maintain the current level of your "PC", otherwise it will go back to the lowest level.

• The more games you win, the more difficult it is, and the longer the cooldown. On the flipside, you get a bigger score which adds to your mining power.

• You can bring down the difficulty of any game by simply not playing them for awhile. Use this to diversify the games you play and earn as much mining power as possible. 1000 FREE SATOSHI HERE

• The higher your mining power, the more crypto you can get from each completed block.

What is your biggest "what if..." in your crypto experience

We all make mistakes, and many of us are ashamed of them, but I think it's time to embrace them and start learning from them. When it comes to investing in cryptocurrencies, it is very easy to think of an upcoming event that ends up not happening, or worse, the opposite ends up happening.

In my personal experience, there have been quite a few, if not many. For example, not buying some Bitcoin in 2013, selling Polkadot at $4 and failing several x10 and x20 due to impatience and wanting to sell early.

Many times I wonder what would have happened if everything in my experience as a cryptocurrency investor had been relatively perfect. Maybe I could have enjoyed the money more, but in the long run and even if it hurts me, I think I have experience, which is often more valuable than the money itself.

In your experience, what is your biggest regret or "what if…" when it comes to investing in crypto?

CoolWallet Now Accepts CRO, BTC, ETH, LTC, and XRP With Crypto.com Pay

Get 10% off Crypto.com branded CoolWallet Pro using promo code ‘CRYPTO’ at checkout

We are excited to announce the integration of Crypto.com Pay with CoolBitX. CoolBitX developed CoolWallet, a leading credit card-sized hardware wallet provider. CoolWallet now accepts CRO, along with BTC, LTC, ETH, DOGE, and 20+ coins through Crypto.com Pay.

To celebrate our partnership, Crypto.com has designed and released a new Crypto.com branded CoolWallet Pro. From now till 10 November 2021, the first 100 buyers of the Crypto.com branded CoolWallet Pro can enjoy:

10% off with promo code: CRYPTO
A complimentary cardholder
Free shipping

In addition, Crypto.com users can get an upgraded benefit of 5x Pay Rewards with Crypto.com Pay, receiving up to 10% back for purchases, paid in CRO, until 10 November 2021.

Crypto.com Pay helps online merchants expand their reach by making it more accessible for customers to transact with crypto, paving the way for the global adoption of crypto payments.

Since launching in 2018, Crypto.com Pay has helped merchants like TIME Magazine, Ledger, and Coinzilla, as well as platforms including WooCommerce and Oveit, tap into the global cryptocurrency economy by accepting crypto payments. Crypto.com Pay features zero transaction fees and only 0.5% for settlements—an 80% savings on fees compared to typical payment processors. The integration only takes minutes for merchants to complete. For more details, please visit the Crypto.com Pay FAQ for merchants and retail customers.

About CoolWallet

Developed by CoolBitX, CoolWallet is a credit card-sized Bluetooth hardware wallet that supports various tokens, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, and many more ERC20 tokens.

Visit: https://www.coolwallet.io/

Notes

From 26 October 2021, 09:00 UTC to 10 November 2021, 09:00 UTC (“Campaign Period”), the first 100 users who purchase the Crypto.com branded CoolWallet Pro and use the promo code “CRYPTO” at checkout will enjoy 10% savings.
The complimentary cardholders and free shipping are only applicable for the first 100 users who purchase the Crypto.com branded CoolWallet Pro during the campaign period.
During the campaign period, users who purchase CoolWallet products with Crypto.com Pay and use CRO for payments will enjoy 10% back in CRO if the user has staked 10,000 or more CRO tokens in Crypto.com App or Crypto.com Exchange. Without the required staking, the user will enjoy 5% back in CRO. After the campaign period, the user will revert to a regular earn rate of 2% or 1%. Please find more details here.
The CoolWallet offer is valid till 10 November 2021, 09:00 UTC and is not valid with any other offers or promotional programmes, and is non-transferable and non-exchangeable for cash or any other items. Crypto.com and CoolWallet reserve the right to terminate the offers and/or replace the offers with another offer of similar value without prior notice. Merchant’s Terms and Conditions apply. Crypto.com is not responsible or liable in the event that such services, activities or benefits are not provided or fulfilled by the merchant. CoolWallet is solely responsible for the fulfilment of offers and all relevant privileges.
Crypto.com and CoolWallet reserve the right to cancel or amend the promotion rules at our sole discretion.

Source: https://blog.crypto.com/coolwallet-now-integrated-with-crypto-com-pay/.

The bot crisis is NOT only a TF2 problem

I decided to try and play some F2P CS:GO by using a new account, since I bought the game a day before it became free to play on my main, it automatically gave me the premium matchmaking. I never encountered a single bot or a single DDoS attack on that, but I figured that was because I was using the premium paid matchmaker. I don't like CS:GO, and I knew that Valve paid a lot more attention to that game, so I wondered if it had the same problem as TF2.

TLDR: It does, but it is quite minimal compared to TF2.

I queued up for a match. I told the friendly lobby that I was a new player and was wondering if this game has as big of a bot and DDoS problem as TF2. After asking this and them replying "we have a lot of cheaters but I've never seen a bot", the server started to lag to an unbelievable degree. Everyone on the server complained and did not understand how this was happening. I then told them this seems very similar to TF2. When the match was completed, I encountered my first CS:GO bot. The bot started mic spamming and was named "BUY BITCOIN NOW" or some garbage like that. I then proceeded to queue in several other game modes and most of the servers I played on suffered from this server-wide lag; it wasn't on my end. I didn't see another micspamming bot, but for all I know, there could have been more bots that I didn't notice due to the TTK in CS:GO being so quick I can't really identify cheaters very well, but that is my own lack of experience at the game.

My conclusion from this little experiment is that, shockingly enough, Valve's fucktoy CS:GO has a mild bot problem, but nothing compared to TF2. Trying to join the new event maps is impossible because EVERY single game you find has ~50% bots.

This begs the question "why doesn't valve improve the security on all their games if this is a problem observed even on CS:GO"? I really couldn't say, I am slowly losing my faith in Valve, most companies would be calling a company-wide fire and putting everything aside to solve such a crisis, all hands on deck. My mind is boggled by this and the only way I can sleep at night is thinking that maybe Valve is developing a massive solution behind the scenes since this seems to not just be limited to TF2.

I'm curious to see if this issue can also be observed in DOTA 2, but I really couldn't stomach more than 2 hours of that god-awful game. If anyone has insight on that game, please let us know!

Thanks for reading <3

Monday, October 25, 2021

Cardano Rumor Rundown October 26, 2021

Hey Everyone!

Let's go...

Newly covered today:

Atala Prism named a top 50 Most Influential Project by PMI. https://twitter.com/IOHKMedia/status/1452544441005248514
Pavia Game Jam is coming. It sounds like they are looking to hire some Unity (game engine) developers and 3D artists. This produce interesting results in a few years. https://twitter.com/Pavia_io/status/1451596816659763213
Charles is releasing some images of meetings with heads of state on his Africa tour. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1452671287977971726 https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1452672734580838409/photo/2
There is currently ongoing discussion about the possibility of unexpected tax liability from participation in even Fair Initial Stake Pool Offerings where there are accompanying Initial Dex Offerings. There is even discussion about the potential of exploits that could amplify this unexpected tax liability for all participants. https://twitter.com/mikerogero/status/1452502065381404675 https://medium.com/@mikerogero/tax-implications-of-the-minswap-ido-on-fiso-delegators-and-the-cardano-community-4db219ea8932

Previously Covered but still interesting:

Here’s a great article on Cardano’s Determinism by IOG’s Polina Vinogradova. https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2021/09/06/no-surprises-transaction-validation-on-cardano/
World Mobile has released a new video of towers going up in Zanzibar! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoGx_hwupsc
Charles releases a new video on the Alonzo Update Proposal (on Aug. 7) being submitted so that we can go live on the 12th. He also gives some hints as to his thoughts on the short-term planning of some “flavor of the week” blockchains vs. the long term planning of Cardano. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhujKbMpTEA
Weiss Crypto lays down yet another very positive thread about Cardano. They acknowledge that they can’t see the future of Cardano, but they vehemently reject a lot of the anti-hype. https://twitter.com/WeissCrypto/status/1435261343456768005
Coinbase reveals they received a Wells Notice from the SEC on their crypto loan product. This is relevant for Cardano loan projects. A low professor subsequently posted a takedown of the Coinbase Chief Legal Officer’s view on the SEC notice. https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1435439291715358721 https://twitter.com/AdamLevitin/status/1435650584271589376
We just saw a record number of daily transactions on Cardano (Sept 7)! https://twitter.com/matiwinnetou/status/1435559731133825031
Messari has updated its “Initial Token Distribution” chart to include a previously missing project and Cardano is still among the very best in the Gen 3 space in terms of broad public coin ownership. https://twitter.com/CryptoIRELAND1/status/1435708439951552513
After lots of criticism of Cardano layer 2 possibilities by ETH maximalists, Vitalik has ironically announced that ETH NFTs need to be moved to layer 2. https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1435413681588736007
We seem to already have at least five projects who have worked out their approach to eUTxO concurrency. https://twitter.com/SmaugPool/status/1435928968423673859 https://www.yahoo.com/now/cardano-decentralized-exchange-occamx-reaches-163000898.html
Here’s the tweet with the link for the Alonzo smart contract launch watch party tomorrow (Sept 12) at 21:30 UTC. This is going to be fun! Enjoy it, guys! https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1436325831199141888
A Weiss Crypto analyst calls the smart contract launch an alleged event and also doesn’t realize we already have NFTS. The Cardano community was quick to correct the analyst. Weiss was then also quick to apologize. https://twitter.com/WeissCrypto/status/1436369016545857566 https://twitter.com/WeissCrypto/status/1436402039085576193
There is still the mystery of the lobster. Will it end up being connected to a fun smart contract to be launched tomorrow by IOHK? https://twitter.com/crypto_reflect/status/1435738017608740866
Over 100 smart contracts are already running on Cardano Mainnet! https://twitter.com/IOHKMedia/status/1437821632307994628
One of Cardano’s biggest competitors is once again suffering network problems. This time it started out as just being characterized as (more) “instability”, then they started saying that something had caused the blockchain to “start forking”. This followed their September 2 “instability” and “performance degradation” event. It’ll be interesting to see how well their community tolerates this in the future if it’s happening with their planned slashing model in effect. https://twitter.com/SolanaStatus/status/1437856638279487493 https://twitter.com/SolanaStatus/status/1437757547235131396 https://twitter.com/SolanaStatus/status/1433429598230876173
The Cardano Foundation subtly hints (okay just straight up says) it has some mindblowing partnerships to announce at the Cardano Summit. https://twitter.com/SidneyVollmer/status/1437855888237338627
Gary Gensler says that there are probably many tokens traded on Coinbase that are securities. https://youtu.be/XLc4c7vL3rM
Looks like Cardano Summit segments are being recorded and completed. https://twitter.com/ch1bo_/status/1437803839319691271
In macro news that could impact Cardano & all of crypto, it has been announced that China’s Evergrande Group will not be able to make interest payments on its loans in a few days. https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1438143063306690560 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-15/evergrande-gives-china-an-impossible-equation-to-solve-with-its-liquidity-crunch
It looks like we’ll get some news about further collaboration with Baia’s Wine of Georgia at the Cardano Summit. https://twitter.com/ThornhillPublic/status/1438157239982956545
Now one of Cardano’s most highly visible critics is implying that the Cardano community has something in common with anti-vaxxers. Unfortunately for him, it was one of his pet blockchains that was down a few days ago while Cardano just kept healthily trucking right along. https://twitter.com/spudiot1/status/1438402783040790532
Cardano is still crushing it in terms of daily transaction volume. https://twitter.com/Eilert/status/1438521555638644746
We might have gotten a peek at the virtual world that will be part of the Cardano Summit this month. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1438668061813342209/photo/1
Smaug gives us a rundown of how many actual Plutus scripts (19)are running on mainnet vs. timelock scripts (21k) as of Sept 17 and explains simple definitions for both. But, he also mentions down below how many Plutus scripts (213) are reportedly running on “the main testnet” not counting “other Alonzo testnets”. https://twitter.com/SmaugPool/status/1438816898234343432
The weekly IOHK development update is out for Sept 17. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1438921968590499843
Now the TX and NJ state securities regulators are after Celsius for crypto loans (BlockFi already got this treatment). Cardano loan projects should probably take note. https://www.njoag.gov/new-jersey-bureau-of-securities-orders-cryptocurrency-firm-celsius-to-halt-the-offer-and-sale-of-unregistered-interest-bearing-investments/ https://www.ssb.texas.gov/sites/default/files/2021-09/20210917_FINAL_Celsius_NOH_js_signed.pdf
After the Senate hearing on Tuesday September 14th, Gary Gensler (SEC Chairman) gave a quote to a crypto publication indicating that custodial lending and possibly even staking platforms might be considered securities. This is very relevant for Cardano since it has non-custodial staking whereas many of its competitors have the kind of custodial staking that Gensler may have been contemplating. https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/117675/crypto-lending-staking-custody-gensler-sec
New IOHK blog entry on Hydra (Sept 17)! https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2021/09/17/hydra-cardano-s-solution-for-ultimate-scalability/
It looks like we may get an announcement of a new Cardano/COTI product at the Summit. https://twitter.com/theCOTIinvestor/status/1439551052764925957
We’re inching closer to the 500 votes required to name the lobster. https://twitter.com/Ada4Soil/status/1439745733079355394
Here’s a great description from Sebastien on where ADA staking rewards come from. https://twitter.com/SebastienGllmt/status/1439542246764793857
Apparently the SEC is now serving crypto people at crypto conferences. Gensler is getting serious. https://twitter.com/gogoSlava/status/1439972015910408195 https://mainnet.events/agenda-2021/
Accusations of wash trading surface in the Cardano NFT scene. https://twitter.com/mintaCNFT/status/1439752114276904960
Christine Lagarde (European Central Bank President) goes on the offensive and tries to tell the world that cryptocurrencies are not currencies. https://twitter.com/BloombergTV/status/1438498107965288449
DIGI tweets out a great infographic explaining how Hydra layer two solution works. https://twitter.com/DIGI_StakePool/status/1440322046869737482
Senators Lummis & Sinema are planning to introduce a bill for responsible innovation in crypto. Caitlin Long says it will focus on (1) definitions to clarify regulatory jurisdiction, (2) consumer protection, (3) digital asset custody requirements https://twitter.com/CaitlinLong_/status/1440327869293465600
The Hoskinson Center for Formal Mathematics has been established at Carnegie Mellon. Given the blockchain activity at the university it seems like the Cardano founder having ties there can’t really hurt us. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1440443081183019017
dcSpark is launching a new wallet called Flint that will be able to interact with Cardano dApps. https://youtu.be/dDwuwVR75HU https://twitter.com/SebastienGllmt/status/1440659191731945482
The AWS Exec has clarified his tweet about the Cardano Summit to express that people shouldn’t read too much into it. https://twitter.com/theCOTIinvestor/status/1440662585309745152
There’s a fresh blog and video on the Cardano Smart Contract Certification standards and new Plutus dApp Store. https://twitter.com/timbharrison/status/1440799199684022283
Apparently RuntimeVerification is now in the Cardano audit business! This is awesome to see! We’’ll take some NASA mission-critical level auditing for our ecosystem’s projects. https://twitter.com/SundaeSwap/status/1441077920215310343
The Summit Agenda is now out. https://summit.cardano.org/agenda
dcSpark’s new open source project Fracada will allow you to fractionalize NFTs. https://twitter.com/dcspark_io/status/1441043274911866880
dcSpark has released Fracada which is an open source Plutus dApp for fractionalizing NFTs. https://twitter.com/SebastienGllmt/status/1443011920349462533
The Wall Street Journal runs a Cardano 101 type video on their main youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBKnEZYCkTo
Senator Toomey and SEC Chair Powell have an interesting exchange about how a US CBDC should be formulated and how it should be sharing the space with private cryptos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-46kqEn6JLc
As promised at the Cardano Summit, Emurgo has already made seed investments into Milkomeda from dcSpark, Adanian Labs, & ADAverse. https://twitter.com/emurgo_io/status/1442210147405684745
The ecosystem map continues getting bigger and bigger (Sept 29). https://twitter.com/seal_kiman/status/1441418051237425153/photo/1
dcSpark has dropped a new video explaining Fracada and the future of NFTs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FvKUlh7Fs8&t=4s
The CFTC hits Kraken with a $1.25 Million fine for it’s margin products. Cardano DeFi projects planning to offer some kind of margin trading take note. https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8433-21
In late 2008/early 2009 it turns out Hal Finney was learning Haskell and trying to figure out how to reduce C02 emissions from a (future) widely used Bitcoin. That sounds a lot like Cardano. https://twitter.com/seal_kiman/status/1443593563846193155
Adam Dean gives us a great post-mortem on the network load created yesterday by the NFT drop(s). https://twitter.com/adamKDean/status/1443599818845081600
Wow! It’s looking like Meld has landed a partnership with a mobile provider in Nigeria with nine million customers. Not many details out at this point (Sept 30). But, that certainly sounds like it could be gigantic. https://twitter.com/MELD_labs/status/1443548879966949382
Two factor authentication via SMS once again turns out to be a bad bet. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/hackers-rob-thousands-coinbase-customers-sms-mfa-flaw
Grayscale releases a report on Cardano which shocks many due to its (actually) fair reporting. https://twitter.com/Grayscale/status/1443625454146097152 https://twitter.com/cardano_whale/status/1443786596721967104
The Wall Street Journal has dropped a video on stablecoins. A lot of the video surrounds the Tether dollar reserve controversy. It’s notable that Cardano’s Djed solves this. https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-administration-seeks-to-regulate-stablecoin-issuers-as-banks-11633103156
The Biden Administration has announced they are investigating the prospect of regulating stablecoin providers like banks. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/stablecoin-regulation-cryptocurrency-banks-biden-treasury-bitcoin-circle-tether-binance-2021-10
Cardano users on twitter piece together that Charles was talking about visiting u/Pezesha_Africa (in regard to microfinance) in Kenya. This is big because Pezesha operates in countries with a combined population of over $300MM. https://twitter.com/thr33strikes/status/1444898320070086659
Crypto twitter users try to depict US Whitehouse comments out of context to fuel an economic doom narrative. However, if you listen to the whole press briefing, you will understand that these comments were based on a “what if” scenario involving the US debt ceiling somehow not being raised. https://twitter.com/100trillionUSD/status/1445059673401528328
The so-called “Pandora Papers” reveal globally widespread cases of wealth concealment by public officials and bring up the question of whether blockchains like Cardano should take this into account when dealing with nation-state regimes as partners. https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/
Remember! There is no mobile Daedalus wallet. There is no browser extension version of Daedalus. These are fakes! They will steal your ADA. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1445380773096398853
A human readable address project is launching on Cardano on Saturday at 4pm UTC.https://medium.com/ada-handle/creating-a-fair-beta-launch-discord-community-is-live-7f580cd98235
Brazil is looking to follow the El Salvador example and accept crypto as legal tender with a new bill to be voted within days. While the crypto in question is BTC and not ADA, we can hope that the biggest market cap project is just our gateway drug. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-set-become-legal-payment-154644863.html
The “Zombie Lobster” collaboration between Charles Hoskinson and Paul Oakenfold is actually getting coverage by the EDM media outlets! https://edm.com/news/paul-oakenfold-album-cardano-blockchain
Sounds like we are getting close to the Cardano Summit NFT winners being announced. It’s still unclear how many actual winners there will be. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1445672250435248131
dcSpark releases some mockups from the experimental version of its upcoming Flint Wallet. The mockups seem to indicate that the wallet will allow for dApp interaction from hardware wallets. https://twitter.com/FlintWallet/status/1444902727956508674
Charles is interviewed in the Harvard International Review. https://hir.harvard.edu/charles-hoskinson-1/
We now have a PAB (Plutus Application Backend) pre-release. Hopefully that means PAB soon! https://twitter.com/matiwinnetou/status/1446589902674665473
The Biden Administration has revealed that it is considering an executive order to establish a government wide approach to crypto regulation. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-08/white-house-weighs-wide-ranging-push-for-crypto-oversight
The New York Times is now talking about the difficult balancing act the Fed has before it with high inflation and less than promising jobs data creating conflicting priorities. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/business/economy/fed-jobs-full-employment-inflation.html
Representative Tom Emmer clashes with SEC Head Gensler over the direction of crypto regulation. However, it’s unclear how much Rep. Emmer’s solution (his Securities Clarity Act bill) would solve the problem given that it only relieves issuers of securities regulation burdens after they have already complied with the “registration or exemption” hurdle. https://twitter.com/RepTomEmmer/status/1445465912375590913 https://emmer.house.gov/2021/7/emmer-introduces-legislation-to-provide-certainty-for-digital-assets-under-securities-law
Caitlin Long revisits the articles she wrote years ago about fears of circulation credit in crypto markets. Spoiler: it came and crypto did it to itself. https://twitter.com/CaitlinLong_/status/1446874905241210880
COTI is a licensed payment institution in Singapore. This could get very interesting given their status as the issuer of Djed and the ongoing Monetary Authority of Singapore Blockchain Challenge in which Cardano is a finalist. https://cotinetwork.medium.com/coti-lists-as-a-payment-institution-in-singapore-666c6fcaaab4
Goldman says Evergrande is nothing compared to the potential $8.2 Trillion problem with local government financing vehicles in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/williampesek/2021/09/30/goldman-flags-82-trillion-threat-worse-than-china-evergrande/?sh=3296c9d515cc https://www.wsj.com/articles/beyond-evergrande-chinas-property-market-faces-a-5-trillion-reckoning-11633882048
Cardano isn’t wrong about Africa. It’s just first. Google is investing $1 Billion in African internet access over the next five years. https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/06/google-confirms-1b-investment-into-africa-including-subsea-cable-for-faster-internet/ https://twitter.com/ghostchainer/status/1445964578257395714
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce (cryptomom) delivers an opinion piece that investors should be allowed to make their own decisions without SEC paternalism. https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/11/perspectives/sec-commissioner-investors-regulators/index.html
COTI has another AMA that reveals there may be more news soon for Djed. https://twitter.com/theCOTIinvestor/status/1447546724868935684
Heads up: scammers are posing as Yoroi support staff! https://twitter.com/YoroiWallet/status/1446554949782016009
Catalyst Fund 6 has 711 projects on the ballot! https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1448015757216976903
Coinbase is launching an NFT market. How will this impact the CNFT scene? Coinbase tells us: “...initial launch will support Ethereum based ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards with multi-chain support planned soon after.” https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-nft-is-coming-soon-join-the-waitlist-today-for-early-access-cc7bac29fd72 https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/12/coinbase-is-launching-a-marketplace-for-nfts.html
Eric Rosengren (who recently left the Boston Fed) let’s us know that the Fed/MIT CBDC project is pretty far along and will release a working paper soon. This would obviously be impactful for all of crypto and for Cardano. https://youtu.be/ivqFo9C2Jdo?t=409
The first project that actually looks like it may one day be a virtual world launches on Cardano and it already has a community built parcel explorer. https://pavia.luiscarlos.pt/
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce (cryptomom) gave a polite but scathing speech at the Texas Blockchain Summit where she laid bare all the problems with the SEC’s current approach to crypto. After her recent opinion piece and this speech, it’s fair to say that she and SEC Chairman Gensler are in open war over crypto. How this gets resolved will determine the regulatory landscape for Cardano and all of crypto going forward. Sadly, Gensler is in charge and not vice versa. https://twitter.com/HesterPeirce/status/1448011388841037830 https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/peirce-2021-10-08
The Fed may begin tapering it’s Treasury and mortgage backed securities purchases in mid November. This is relevant for the whole economy including crypto. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/13/federal-reserve-releases-minutes-from-its-september-policy-meeting.html
Sounds like the Milkomeda sidechain is making good progress. https://twitter.com/NicoArqueros/status/1448447729689059332
Apparently, Putin kind of accepts that crypto might choose to exist. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-14/putin-defends-cryptocurrencies-amid-global-regulation-push
Don’t forget: today (Oct 15) is the October Mid-Month Development Update! https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1448715241961963520
Sounds like Binance was not allowing ADA withdrawals for some period of time. https://twitter.com/Katsumoto87/status/1449723293632634882
The Cardano Africa Tour has commenced with Charles popping up in South Africa. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1449304264849993731
We got a nice Triple H update from Harrison/Hemsley/Hammond joined by Jan Müller in the October mid-Month Dev Update. We learned that we’ll have a maintenance upgrade toward the end of October and then PAB a few weeks later. This is extremely important since it will finally allow for the last bits of dApp buildout. The PAB is already available on the tesnet. The test dApp the team is using is an NFT marketplace. The team is watching as we see high loads around events like NFT drops. But, the network is reacting as expected. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzdTyV5Jejc
Here’s video of the Fireside chat with Charles, Dynal Patel, and John O’Connor at the Cape Innovation & Technology Initiative in South Africa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmuJFc5Qrr4&t
A brief update dropped from Charles this morning in Africa. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1450124410095030280
Duncan & Sebastien have an interesting discussion on Github that fuels Cardanophobia on the part of ETH maximalists about three weeks later. https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-node/issues/3247
The Cardano Foundation is changing its delegation strategy. They will go from primarily delegating to promote decentralization to a new framework focused on delegating to promote ecosystem buildout. https://forum.cardano.org/t/cardano-foundations-new-delegation-methodology-supporting-the-architects-of-the-future/79594
Shahaf Bar-Geffen gives us some more details about the Djed launch. He says IOHK is doing the coding and COTI is doing the business side. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlPmIgJ0tE0
In the Cap Innovation & Technology Initiative Fireside Q&A, Charles mentioned he is talking to Colossol Labs about the possibility of having the Mammoth DeExtinction Project take place on his bison ranch. There are probably some obvious NFT or tokenization use cases there. https://colossal.com/mammoth/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmuJFc5Qrr4
Three U.S. Senators ask Facebook to discontinue its Novi crypto wallet which just launched. https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/19/22735171/facebook-novi-diem-libra-calibra-cryptocurrency-digital-wallet-zuckerberg-senate https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/facebook-scales-back-its-crypto-ambitions-once-again/
There’s a new Frederik Gregaard interview out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJdRAclhL0Q
People are buying luxury real estate in Portugal with Cardano. https://twitter.com/danny_cryptofay/status/1451113239669092356
Over 292,000 votes were cast in Catalyst Fund 6. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1451269575140589577
IOHK announces a partnership with Bondly to create an NFT bridge so that users can move their non-fungible tokens back and forth between Cardano and Ethereum. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1451251954496180229
Interesting small thread on how further stumbles by the Chinese economy could affect the global economy which in turn might impact crypto and Cardano. https://twitter.com/i/events/1452290004433125378
Here’s a very nice overview of the Maladex Whitepaper by ADA Whale that breaks down the hidden strengths of eUTxO for DeFi including programmable swaps composability. https://twitter.com/cardano_whale/status/1451835809913470986
The Cardano ecosystem maps are getting so big and dense that they can’t even display logos for the projects anymore. https://twitter.com/Meapool1/status/1450576470133379072/photo/1
There is a report that unstaked ADA is at an all time low of under 8MM ADA. https://twitter.com/IbanxStaking/status/1451944344294883331
Check out this medium article explaining the validator underlying the Spacebudz Market. It’s very elegantly and concisely explained if you have no Haskell/Plutus understanding. It’s even more interesting if you have a tiny bit of understanding of Haskell. https://spacebudz.medium.com/spacebudz-market-71e79d1bbf34

~Army of Spies