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Category: Guide

  • Four.meme review: Everything you wanted to know

    Four.meme review: Everything you wanted to know

    Four.meme is the first memecoin launchpad on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) network. The platform aims to be a streamlined and low-cost pathway to bring more meme tokens into this world. Here is our Four.meme review.

    Check out our video Four.meme review and guide!

    Four.meme Guide: BSC Memecoin Fair Launch like Pump Fun

    What is Four.meme?

    Four.meme is the first memecoin fair launch platform on Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Here are the main features of Four.meme:

    1. Fair Launch: Every meme coin launched on Four.meme uses a fair launch mechanism. This ensures there will be no pre-sale, seed round, or team allocation. As a result, this creates a level playing field for all participants.
    2. Community-Driven: Four.meme is built around the power of community, empowering creators, traders, and opportunists in the BNB Chain ecosystem.

    Four.meme fees

    Here are some of the fees for using the Four.meme platform as a memecoin creator or trader:

    • Launching fee: To launch a memecoin, you will only need to pay for the transaction fee which is around 0.005 BNB.
    • Seeding fee: Once your memecoin project reaches 100% of the bonding curve (approximately 24 BNB), the seeding process begins. The platform will then set up a liquidity pool on Pancake paired with 24 BNB.
    • Trading fee: Memecoin traders will need to pay a transaction fee the platform a 0.5% trading fee (minimum 0.001 BNB).

    What is the Four.meme token?

    Four.meme has not announced its own token yet. However, they currently have an airdrop campaign where you can receive Four.meme Points. These Four.meme Points are redeemable for rewards. For example, you can exchange Four.meme Points for USDT and memetokens such as $FOUR and $WHY, which are strategic partners of Four.meme. The type of token redeemable and exchange ratios will be announced after the end of the airdrop campaign. Four.meme Points can also be redeemed for special airdrop packages of meme tokens and exclusive NFTs.

    Check out our Four.meme ($FOUR, $WHY) token airdrop guide!

    How does Four.Meme work?

    Time needed: 15 minutes

    Four.meme has a launchpad which allows creators to make their own meme coins and tokens efficiently. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to launch your own project on Four.meme:

    1. Configure Your Token

      Set up your token’s name, symbol, and other key details. Then, use the user-friendly interface to configure these settings efficiently.

    2. Launch Your Project

      Launching requires no technical skills and takes only a few seconds. Developers can purchase a portion of their token supply to protect against snipers. To launch your project, simply confirm the transaction to complete the launch.

    3. Pay fees

      Launching Fee: Only the transaction fee (~0.005 BNB).
      Trading Fee: 0.5% per trade (minimum 0.001 BNB).
      Seeding Fee: Once the project reaches 100% of the bonding curve (24 BNB), a liquidity pool is established on PancakeSwap.

    4. Optional settings

      You can set the start time for trading, as well as limiting the maximum buy-in per user (e.g., 10,000,000 tokens = 1%).

    Is Four.Meme safe?

    Four.meme is the first memecoin fair launch platform on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Here are some key points to consider:

    1. Fair Launch: Every meme coin launched on Four.meme uses a fair launch mechanism, ensuring no pre-sale, seed round, or team allocation. This aims to create a level playing field for all participants.
    2. Community-Driven: Four.meme emphasizes community involvement. Users should assess their financial situation, risk tolerance, and do their own research before trading in any meme coins on the platform.
    3. Hacks and exploits:  While the Four.meme platform itself hasn’t been hacked or exploited yet, remember that investing in highly volatile meme tokens carries risks, so users may want to always be cautious.

    Therefore, while Four.meme aims to provide a fair and transparent environment, remember that all investments carry inherent risks.

    Conclusion: Pros and Cons of Four.meme

    In conclusion, here is a review of some pros and cons of the Four.meme platform:

    Pros

    1. Fair Launch: Every meme coin on Four.meme uses a fair launch mechanism, ensuring no pre-sale, seed round, or team allocation. This promotes a level playing field for all participants.
    2. Community-Driven: Four.meme empowers creators to launch meme coins directly, connecting with their audience. It fosters community engagement and support.
    3. Integrated Trading Tools: The platform plans to integrate with trading bots and AI-powered market analysis services, enhancing utility and informed investment decisions.
    4. Built on Binance Smart Chain (BSC): BSC offers fast transactions, low costs, liquidity, and security.

    Cons

    1. Risk: As with any investment, meme coins carry inherent risks. Users should exercise caution and conduct due diligence.
    2. Market Volatility: Meme coins can experience extreme price fluctuations due to market sentiment and trends.
    3. Short-Lived Relevance: Some meme tokens may lose relevance quickly, impacting their value.

    Further reading

    Check out our other memecoin platform reviews:

    SunPump ($SUN) review: Everything you wanted to know

    Learn how to trade memecoins and get an early advantage!

    How to snipe Solana ($SOL) memecoins early

  • SunPump ($SUN) review: Everything you wanted to know

    SunPump ($SUN) review: Everything you wanted to know

    SunPump ($SUN) is the world’s first platform dedicated to the fair launch and trading of meme coins, offering a user-friendly, low-cost, and secure environment for creators and traders on the TRON network. The SunPump platform is part of SUN.io, Tron’s first decentralized autonomous platform integrating stablecoin and token exchanges whilst supporting liquidity mining. Here is our review on everything you wanted to know about SunPump ($SUN).

    What is SunPump?

    SunPump is a platform on TRON that facilitates the fair launch and trading of meme coins. It offers creators an accessible, low-cost way to create their own meme coins in a secure and user-friendly environment. Here are SunPump’s main features:

    1. One-click token generation: Users can easily create meme coins by providing a token name, symbol, image, and paying a small fee.
    2. Bonding curve mechanism: SunPump adjusts prices based on token supply, ensuring fairness and transparency.
    3. Instant market access: Newly created tokens are immediately listed, allowing seamless buying and selling.
    4. Liquidity and token burn: When a token’s market cap meets specific criteria, SunPump injects liquidity funds into SunSwap and executes a token burn.
    5. Transparency: All transactions are public, allowing users to monitor activity. Additionally, SunPump has introduced a gas fee reduction program to make participation more accessible.

    Fees

    SunPump charges its fees at a very competitive rate for both meme coin creators and traders. SunPump fees are as follows:

    • Trading fee: There is a 1% trading fee on transactions conducted on the SunPump platform.
    • Creation fee: SunPump charges a creation fee of around 20 $TRX for launching a memecoin on the platform.
    • Liquidity fee: When a project reaches 100% of the Bonding Curve, the smart contract will automatically add around 100,000 TRX and 200 million tokens to the SunSwap V2 liquidity pool, deducting about 3,000 TRX as a liquidity addition fee.
    • Deposit/withdrawal fees: SunPump does not charge any additional deposit/withdrawal fees aside from the usual gas fees for blockchain transactions.

    What is the SUN.io ($SUN) token?

    The SUN.io ($SUN) token is the platform’s native token. As a governance token, $SUN grants holders voting rights to influence the platform’s direction, including decisions on upgrades and protocol updates. The $SUN token can also be locked up to earn veSUN rewards. In turn, holding veSUN entitles to multiple rewards such as TUSD rewards, accelerated liquidity pool mining and voting rights to decide the weights of liquidity pools.

    How does SunPump work?

    SunPump’s main features for traders are they they provide a secure and verifiable token contract, with no presale and no team allocation. You can trade on SunPump in 5 simple steps as follows:

    • Explore Meme Coins: Visit the SunPump platform and browse through the available meme coins.
    • Select a Coin: Choose the meme coin that interests you the most.
    • Purchase Tokens: Use the Bonding Curve mechanism on the platform to buy tokens.
    • Trade Tokens: You can sell your tokens at any time to lock in profits or cut losses.
    • Engage with the Community: Participate in community activities to help increase the market value of your chosen meme coin.

    Is SunPump safe?

    SunPump launched just 11 days ago on the Tron network, has already generated over $1 million in revenue. While SunPump itself hasn’t been hacked, remember that investing in highly volatile meme tokens carries risks, so users may want to always be cautious.

    Conclusion: Pros and Cons of SunPump

    SunPump ($SUN) is a world’s first platform on TRON that facilitates the fair launch and trading of meme coins. Here are some of SunPump’s main pros and cons.

    Pros

    1. One-Click Token Generation: Creators can easily create meme coins by providing a token name, symbol, image, and paying a small fee.
    2. No token presale: The benefit of no token presale means the token launch is more fair and allows for wider community participation.
    3. No team allocation: This prevents concentration of pair and ensures a fairer ecosystem. In addition, it means team members are motivated to work for the project’s success without a guaranteed allocation and will only be rewarded on the project’s performance.
    4. Bonding Curve Mechanism: SunPump adjusts prices based on token supply, ensuring fairness and transparency.
    5. Instant Market Access: Newly created tokens are immediately listed for seamless buying and selling.
    6. Transparency: All transactions are public, allowing users to monitor activity.
    7. Gas Fee Reduction Program: SunPump introduced the gas fee reduction program to make participation more accessible.

    Cons

    1. Inherent Risks: Meme coins can be subject to price manipulation and fraudulent activities such as hacks.
    2. Costs: SunPump charges a creation fee for launching meme coins, and there’s a 1% trading fee on transactions.
    3. Space for Improvement: While successful, SunPump may need ongoing enhancements to address challenges. However, SunPump has only recently launched so it’s expected they will continuously improve on their platform.

    Further reading

    Check out our other memecoin platform reviews:

    Four.meme review: Everything you wanted to know

    Learn how to trade memecoins and get an early advantage!

    How to snipe Solana ($SOL) memecoins early

  • Cosmos Inscriptions: Mint FREE CFT-20 tokens on Asteroid Protocol

    Cosmos Inscriptions: Mint FREE CFT-20 tokens on Asteroid Protocol

    Cosmos Inscriptions are a type of Non-Fungible Token (NFT) that are minted on the Cosmos blockchain network. Asteroid Protocol now enables the creation of these Cosmos Inscriptions and CFT-20 tokens. Here’s our guide on Cosmos Inscriptions and how to mint free CFT-20 tokens on Asteroid Protocol.

    Check out our video on Cosmos Inscriptions: Mint FREE CFT-20 tokens before they go LIVE!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PR8m1I1ZKE

    What are Cosmos Inscriptions?

    Cosmos inscriptions are a type of NFT minted on the Cosmos blockchain network. Inscriptions are essentially individual JPEG images permanently written onto the Cosmos blockchain. This concept is deeply related to the Ordinals Protocol on the Cosmos Hub but extends to Cosmos ecosystem. They can be minted, traded, and potentially hold significant value based on their rarity and desirability within the community. These inscriptions can be unique and collectible, similar to how NFTs work on other blockchains like Ethereum.

    How to mint Cosmos Inscriptions (CFT-20 tokens) for free?

    Time needed: 5 minutes

    Here’s how to mint Cosmos Inscriptions (CFT-20 tokens) for free:

    1. Set up wallet

      Download and set up a Keplr or Leap wallet.

    2. Fund wallet with Cosmos ($ATOM) tokens

      You will need to buy or transfer Cosmos $ATOM tokens to your Keplr wallet in order to stake it on validators. You can buy Cosmos $ATOM tokens on major exchanges such as Bybit. Note: 1 ATOM allows approximately 2000 inscriptions.

      Sign up for Bybit here!

    3. Connect to Asteroid Protocol

      Connect your wallet to https://asteroidprotocol.io/app

    4. Prepare inscriptions

      Choose what kind of JPEG image you want to inscribe on the blockchain. This JPEG image will then be your token. Note the JPEG must have minimum dimensions of 250×250, and maximum dimensions of 1024×1024. There is also a maximum file size limit of 550kb.

    5. Create CFT-20 token

      Click “CFT-20 Tokens” and then “Create”. Here you can create your token. Fill in the token information such as the title and ticker. Also, define the maximum supply of your token and then set the maximum you can mint at one time. Upload your JPEG and click “Create token”. Note you will need to pay transaction fees in $ATOM.

    6. See your CFT-20 token

      Go to “CFT-20 Tokens” and “Browse” to look up your token using the ticker you’ve assigned it. Then click “mint”. Remember, the number of times you can mint is determined by how much ATOM you have in your wallet, and you will need to click “mint” each time to mint 1 token. Please note, inscriptions haven’t started trading yet. However, you can mint and get ready for when the marketplace opens.

    Mint Cosmos Inscriptions (CFT-20 tokens) on Asteroid Protocol
    Mint Cosmos Inscriptions (CFT-20 tokens) on Asteroid Protocol

    Conclusion

    Cosmos Inscriptions are a type of Non-Fungible Token (NFT) that are created on the Cosmos blockchain network. The Asteroid Protocol now allows for the creation of these Cosmos Inscriptions and CFT-20 tokens. This is a little known yet potentially valuable avenue in the Cosmos Hub that could offer exciting opportunities. With our guide on how to mint free CFT-20 tokens on Asteroid Protocol, it is very simple and definitely worth a try. What’s more, it may only be free to mint CFT-20 tokens for a limited time!

  • Sui Blockchain Guide: Token sale details announced!

    Sui Blockchain Guide: Token sale details announced!

    What is Sui?

    Sui is the world’s first permissionless Layer 1 blockchain completely designed from the ground up. They are a decentralized, proof-of-stake blockchain with horizontally scaleable throughput and storage.

    Ex-members of the Meta team came together to form Mysten Labs– the company behind Sui. They are also building Move, which is an open-source smart contract programming language.

    However, Sui is not a derivative or an add-on of the Diem network. Instead, it is a step-function advancement in blockchain technology that is designed to allow creators and developers to build experiences for web3 users.

    Who is the team behind Sui?

    Evan Cheng, Adeniyi Abiodun, Sam Blackshear, George Danezis and Kostas Chalkias co-founded Sui. They are co-founders are former senior leaders of Facebook’s (Meta) advanced blockchain research and development organization. They were responsible for delivering some of the most advanced open source components such as the programming language, execution engine and cryptography of the Diem network.

    What are Sui’s main features?

    Sui has the following main features:

    • Sui is able to scale horizontally without any upper bounds. This enables them to meet application demand whilst maintaining extremely low operating costs per transaction.
    • The design of Sui is groundbreaking in that it eliminates a critical bottleneck in existing blockchains. In traditional blockchains, transactions (though independent of each other) are pushed into sequential blocks which creates wasteful computational power. Sui’s innovation is that they will organise data into independent objects, meaning that transactions can be executed in parallel.
    • The network is also able to scale throughput horizontally because it enables parallel agreement on causally independent transactions. They achieve this through Byzantine consistent broadcast, which eliminates the overhead caused by global consensus yet without sacrificing safety and liveness guarantees.

    Sui’s unique features mean there will be unmatched scalability and instant settlement of transactions. The platform can scale horizontally to meet the increasing demands of applications. Sui’s authorities can add workers to increase processing power in order to meet growing network capacity. The result of this would be lower gas fees even when network traffic is high, and thus better user experiences for web3 apps.

    How do users participate in Sui?

    There will be 3 types of participants: Users, token holders and Validators.

    • Users will be responsible for submitting transactions to the platform in order to create, change and transfer digital assets or interact with more complex applications.
    • Token holders have the option of delegating their tokens to validators and participating in their proof-of-work mechanism. SUI token holders also have the right to participate in Sui’s governance and decide on the future direction of the project.
    • Validators manage the processing and execution of transactions on the Sui platform.

    Who are Sui blockchain’s investors?

    Sui has so far raised US$36 million in Series A funding. Sui’s Series A funding round was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z. Other participants in Sui’s funding include Redpoint, Lightspeed, Coinbase Ventures, Electric Capital, Samsung Next, Slow Ventures, Standard Crypto, NFX, and Scribble Ventures, among others.

    Mysten Labs’ Series B funding round is well underway, with Sui being valued at over US$2 billion. Mysten has recently closed a US$300 million fundraise led by FTX Ventures. Other Series B investors include Coinbase Ventures, Jump Crypto, Circle Ventures, a16z (again), Binance Labs, and O’Leary Ventures, among others.

    What is the $SUI crypto token?

    The SUI token is the native asset of the Sui platform with a total supply capped at 10,000,000 (i.e. 10 billion). A portion of SUI’s total supply will be released at the mainnet launch of the platform. The remaining tokens will be vested over the coming years or distributed as future stake reward subsidies.

    The SUI token will have 4 main purposes: Staking, gas fees, as an underlying asset of the economy, and lastly for governance. Specifically:

    • SUI can be staked in order to participate in the platform’s proof-of-work mechanism.
    • SUI is the asset used for paying gas fees required to execute and store transactions or do various operations on the platform.
    • SUI is used as an asset on the platform with all the standard features of traditional money- used as a unit of account, a medium of exchange, and a store of value. It can even have more complex functions enabled by smart contracts across the Sui platform.
    • SUI token holders have the right to participate in on-chain governance voting on various issues affecting the Sui platform such as protocol upgrades.

    What is the $SUI token allocation?

    Over 50% of $SUI tokens will be held by the Community Reserve, which will in turn be managed by the Sui Foundation. The Community Reserve intends to use the SUI tokens through various community programs. For example:

    • Delegation Program: The SUI Delegation Program will allow community members seeking to run a validator to apply for delegated $SUI tokens. This helps bootstrap community-run validators and promotes an even stake distribution across the network validators.
    • Grant Programs: $SUI tokens will be distributed directly to developers, community ambassadors and others who are building or creating educational materials for Sui.
    • Research and Development: Tokens will be allocated for the advancement of the Sui protocol.
    • Validator Subsidies: Tokens will be distributed to subsidize staking rewards.

    As for the remainder of the $SUI tokens, 20% will go to early contributors, 14% to investors, 10% to the Mysten Labs Treasury, and 6% to the Community Access Program and App testers. Click here for more details on SUI tokenomics.

    Those who are eligible under the SUI Token Community Access Program will either receive retrospective rewards or be able to participate in the Recognition Sale. There will also be a General Sale. However, these are subject to geographical restrictions.

    Will there be a $SUI token airdrop?

    Sui had a $SUI token airdrop for its Testnet Wave 1 and 2 validators. Validators were rewarded with 2,000 SUI for every testnet “wave” they participated in. The airdropped tokens were subject to a 1-year vesting period. Although registration has been closed, there is a possibility of a third testnet “wave”. However, in their latest blog post, it seems that an airdrop is unlikely. Instead, Sui has announced a SUI Token Community Access Program which will distribute retrospective rewards or allow access to an earlier Recognition Sale to those who are eligible.

    Learn more about the Community Access Program and how to check your eligibility here: Sui ($SUI) token airdrop guide.

    $SUI token sale details?

    There will be 2 rounds of SUI token sale, the Recognition Sale and the General Sale. Note there are exclusions for participating in the token sales. (Klonopin)

    Sui has confirmed it will officially launch its mainnet on 3rd May 2023.

    For more details on the SUI token sales for each exchange, see here: Bybit, KuCoin, OKX.

    Sui Recognition Sale

    The Recognition Sale is only available to those whitelisted by the Sui Foundation. Those who are eligible can purchase up to 1,500 SUI from a pool for US$0.03. The tokens will be fully unlocked during the mainnet launch on 3rd May 2023.

    According to Sui, over 340k Discord accounts were eligible for the Recognition Sale, and 180k accounts made submissions. Sui randomly selected submissions, and it is estimated that around 96k supporters will be able to participate in the Recognition Sale. Sui has emailed these allowlisted participants with instructions. S

    The following exchanges will participate in the SUI Recognition Sale: ByBit, KuCoin and OKX. SUI Tokens will be distributed to successful Recognition Sale participants at the following times:

    • Kucoin: From 01:00 on 2nd May to 09:00 on 3rd May UTC
    • Bybit: 06:00 on 3rd May UTC
    • OKX: 06:00 on 3rd May UTC.

    We suggest signing up for Bybit because they have the largest number of tokens allocated for sale compared to KuCoin and OKX (94M SUI vs 25M SUI). This means you are more likely to get an allocation compared to the other 2 exchanges.

    Sign up for Bybit here:

    Sui General Sale

    General Sale participants will be able to purchase up to 10,000 SUI at US$0.10. Only KuCoin and OKX will be hosting the General Sale, and each exchange has been allocated 225m SUI for sale in this round. Here are the details for the General Sale on KuCoin and OKX:

    • KuCoin: Subscription period ends on 22nd April 2023 at 16:00:00 UTC, ticket draw will be announced on 23rd April 2023 at 13:00 UTC. Tokens will be distributed on 2nd May 2023 at 01:00:00 UTC.
    • OKX: General Sale subscription period will be from 23 April 2023 02:00 UTC to 24 April 2023 02:00 UTC. Tokens will be distributed once mainnet launches.

    SUI tokens bought during the General Sale are subject to a vesting period. 1/13 will be unlocked at the Token Generation Event (TGE). After 30 days, an additional 1/13 will be released monthly. So that all purchased tokens will be released within twelve months from the TGE date. All purchased tokens will automatically be sent to your exchange wallet.

    What is the Sui economic model?

    There are five major components of the Sui economic model:

    Sui blockchain’s economic model (Source: Medium)
    • SUI token: the platform’s native token.
    • Gas fees: all network operations on the platform require gas fees. Gas fees are rewarded to participants in the proof-of-stake mechanism. It can also be used to prevent spam and denial-of-service attacks.
    • Storage fund: This fund is used to redistribute past transaction fees to future validators. That is, users will pay fees upfront for both computation and storage. The storage fees which are collected are deposited into a fund used to adjust the future share of staking rewards. This is so that when there is a high demand for on-chain storage, validators will receive additional rewards to compensate for their costs. When demand is lower, rewards will also be adjusted accordingly. Users however will be able to save funds through a “deletion option” which allows them to delete previously-stored on-chain data. By exercising this option, users can receive a storage fund rebate.
    • Proof-of-stake mechanism: Used to select, incentivize and reward platform operators i.e. the validators and SUI delegators.
    • On-chain voting: for voting and deciding on governance and protocol upgrades.

    What is the Sui Explorer (Suiscan)?

    The Sui Explorer (known as Suiscan) was launched in August 2022 and is a trusted transparency tool for those who are using and building on Sui. The main purposes of the Sui Explorer are as follows:

    • Maintain the most updated and accurate on-chain data, activity, and metrics;
    • act as a fast, reliable, and transparent tool for debugging issues and auditing;
    • enable the lookup, verification, and tracking of assets and contracts; and
    • provide useful smart contract development and features that will be unique to Sui Move.

    Major features of Sui Explorer are as follows:

    • Sui Explorer builds on existing blockchain explorers by providing go-to-definition support for all smart contracts. Clicking on any struct will direct users to the package and defining module which improves code navigation, readability, and learnability;
    • object details are rendered recursively, thereby providing an optimized view of objects on the Sui Explorer;
    • address details are divided into (1) Coins; and (2) NFTs for convenient navigation. Users will be able to have a clear view of the assets and transactions with this address. Coins that are of the same type are also automatically aggregated. However, an expanded paginated view of the information is also available;
    • transactions will show more details such as gas fees paid, objects updated, token amount and the relevant addressing. For some transactions, additional information such as bytecode of published modules and emitted events can also be included;
    • Sui Explorer will also have a validator table and node map showing the active full nodes and their locations. The purpose of this is to provide information on Sui’s network operations as the network continues to mature.

    Suiscan is currently running on Devnet and eventually also on Testnet when it is live.

    What is the Sui Wallet?

    The Sui Wallet allows users to create addresses and view and manage their assets on the Sui network. The Sui Wallet can also interact with dApps. Similar to MetaMask, Sui Wallet will be a Google Chrome extension so users can simply access it on their Chrome browsers.

    What is the development progress of Sui?

    Sui has confirmed it will officially launch its mainnet on 3rd May 2023.

    Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

    When will Sui be released?

    There is no release date for the Sui platform yet.

    When is the SUI crypto token sale?

    There is currently no information on when the SUI token will be sold.

    When is the SUI ICO?

    No announcement has been made on the timing of the SUI ICO yet.

    Is Sui the same or related to Aptos?

    No, Sui and Aptos and completely different and unrelated projects. The only connection between the two projects is that both teams have previously worked in blockchain development at Facebook (Meta).

    When is the Sui mainnet launch?

    Sui has confirmed it will officially launch its mainnet on 3rd May 2023.

    Will there be a Sui token airdrop?

    There is no official announcement of a Sui token airdrop. Instead, it seems that there will be a Community Access Program which will not involve airdrops.

  • What is Vechain? Blockchain for Enterprise in 2023

    What is Vechain? Blockchain for Enterprise in 2023

    What is Vechain? VeChain ($VET) is a next-generation smart contract blockchain platform focused on solving enterprise and supply chain management solutions. The blockchain supports the creation of smart contracts – self-executing contacts that have a guaranteed outcome without third-party trust. Vechain’s unique advantage is that it has close relations with the big four auditing firms, such as Pricewaterhouse Cooper, who will use blockchains to audit firms.

    Vechain is designed to can solve enterprise problems such as:

    • Anti-counterfeit for Luxury Brands – through the use of smart chips, Vechain tracks each individual item and prevents duplication. Vechain Toolchain allows anyone to create anti-counterfeit tags.
    • Cold-chain Logistics – ensure that food doesn’t spoil during transportation and storage by using smart IoT sensors that automatically report crucial information to the blockchain.
    • Automobile – keep a tamper-proof record of vehicle data including repair history, insurance, registration, and driver habits.
    • Carbon Credits – Quantitatively track the carbon contributions of a particular company to reduce carbon emissions. For retail users, the app is already available on WeChat. Consumers engaging in low-carbon behaviors (e.g. purchasing low-carbon products) would be rewarded with credits that can be redeemed for environmentally friendly goods or donated to charity.
    • Clinical trial traceability platform – with a partnership with Bayer China, Vechain will use blockchain to solve problems of digitalized clinical trial traceability.

    Using blockchain technology, VeChain makes it simple and secure for product manufacturers to collect, manage, and share important product data with vendors and consumers throughout the life-cycle of a product.

    Key Features of Vechain

    • Public blockchain Anyone can read, write and deploy decentralized applications and smart contracts onto the VeChainThor blockchain.
    • In-house IOT and supply chain management technology Proven blockchain implementation experiences in industries such as luxury goods, liquor, and agriculture.
    • Native Fee Delegation The blockchain supports the implementation of native fee delegation, which means dApp users do not need to hold VET or VTHO to write transactions if associated gas costs are specified by the developers to be sponsored.

    VeChain Ecosystem

    To achieve its ambitious vision, VeChain has developed a powerful blockchain-enabled enterprise software platform. The Platform enables manufacturers to assign products with unique identities, which then allows manufacturers, supply chain partners, and even consumers to interact with the product through the platform. It uses blockchain technology to ensure the security of the data collected, allocating private keys to all participants within the supply chain.

    Products are assigned a unique ID, which is stored simultaneously on the blockchain and attributed to the product with an NFC chip, RFID tag or QR code. At any point during the product’s life, the chip, tag or code can be interacted with, whether by a distribution or retail partner ascertaining batch membership, or a consumer wanting to learn more about a product. The Company envisages a broad range of applications, including brand protection, anti-counterfeit, and food safety.

    VeChain has existed since 2015 and migrated its previous private and consortium blockchain to its public VeChainThor blockchain in 2018. This move opens up the advanced features found on the blockchain to any developer or third party to develop and write applications on the platform. There have been several companies that chose to build their business on top of VeChainThor, including Plair and 8Hours Foundation, as well as several independent community developers.

    Vechain Roadmap in 2023

    Vechain Token Economics

    Vechain uses a dual-token economic model. The primary token, VeChain Token (VET) is used to represent value on the network, with various mechanisms designed to stabilize the price of VET over time.

    VET holders will also automatically generate the utility token, VeChain Thor Token (VTHO). VTHO is a “gas” currency, and is required to send transactions or perform actions on the network. Regular network users do not have to worry about separately buying VTHO though, as it is automatically generated in proportion to the amount of VET held. When a transaction is executed, 70% of VTHO is permanently destroyed (“burned”) and 30% is given as a block reward to Authority Node holders.

    This dual-token economic model was introduced to improve network economics. This system is designed to help developers on the network. Developers holding enough VET will be able to use the network for free, as the VTHO generated will be enough to pay for transactions. If a developer is developing a transaction-intensive app, they can also look to use the multi-party payment protocol.

    [wp-compear id=”5256″]

    In short:

    • Vechain Token (VET) serves as a reserve for economic staking and value transfer on the platform. VET can be “staked” in various economic nodes and generate VTHO which powers transactions on the network.
    • VeThor Token (VTHO) is the “gas” required to perform transactions and interact with smart contracts. Each time a transaction is made, VTHO is consumed and destroyed.

    Using and Storing Vechain

    Vechain can be stored safely on the VeChainThor Wallet which is available on smartphones (iOS and Android). The mobile wallet securely encrypts and provides keys to provide maximum security for Vechain holders.

    What are VeChain Nodes?

    Nodes are traceable wallets (such as the VeChainThor wallet) that have a specified minimum amount of VeChain stored inside. There are 2 types of nodes: Authority Nodes and Economic Nodes, both of which have their own requirements, functions, and benefits.

    Authority (Thrudheim) Nodes: Securing Vechain by Proof of Authority

    At the heart of Vechain are the 101 Authority Nodes that process and validate all the blockchain transactions, as well as govern the network via a voting mechanism. These Authority Nodes are selected by the Vechain Foundation and go through a full application and KYC procedure. As a reward, Authority Node holders receive the highest VTHO production rate and voting rights. Authority Nodes are generally owned by large enterprises and trusted individuals to ensure decentralized trust. Little is known about the identity of these Authority Node holders for security reasons, but several large enterprises such as DNV GL and PwC have come forward saying they hold Authority Nodes.

    Economic Nodes: Providing stability to the ecosystem through staking

    Economic Nodes do not validate blockchain transactions, rather they keep the Vechain ecosystem stable by keeping a certain amount of VET tokens in their VeChain Thor mobile wallet. There are different tiers of economic nodes and the more VET tokens staked for a longer period of time, the higher the rewards.

    To become a Normal Economic Node holder, a minimum of 1,000.000 VET for 10 days is required.

    More dedicated node holders can join VeChain’s X Node program which offer even more rewards. For X Node holders, holding a minimum of 600.000 VET at all times is required.

    There are 4 types of rewards depending on the type of Node held. These range from earning a sum of VTHO per day, rewards from the Company’s Foundation Reward Pool, to whitelist access to VeChain ICOs.

    Learn more about the various types of Nodes and rewards.

    History of Vechain

    VeChain started in 2015 with the establishment of its company in Shanghai. Founded by CEO Sunny Lu (ex-CIO of Louis Vuitton China), the Company has been developing enterprise-focused solutions based on its private blockchain. As the trend towards better decentralization occurred in the blockchain industry, VeChain migrated to a consortium blockchain before finally establishing the VeChain Foundation and starting their final migration to a Proof of Authority (PoA)-based public blockchain platform.

    The Foundation’s vision is to create greater market transparency and provide consumers with access to more detailed information about the products they buy, sell, and interact with. By having a full 360-degree view of the supply chain, with all components securely recorded and stored in a tamper-proof distributed ledger, retailers and manufacturers can be certain of the quality and authenticity of their products, guaranteeing consumers that what they are buying is really what they think it is.

    VeChain boasts partnerships and lives use cases with many notable partners, including DNV GL, PwC, Deloitte, Walmart China, BMW, BYD Auto, Bayer China, H&M, LVMH, ENN, AWS, PICC, ASI Group, etc.

    Key VeChain Partnerships

    DNV GL

    DNV GL was founded in 1864 and has 300 offices worldwide. They provide quality assurance services to companies in the maritime, oil and gas, and power and renewables industries.

    DNV GL issues Management System Certificates at the end of their inspection and certification process. This evidences that the company’s processes and products meet international standards.

    DNV GL Luca Crisciotti presenting benefits of Digital Assurance

    DNV GL is a partner and shareholder of VeChain. Both Companies share the belief that the future of assurance lies in blockchain technologyAt VeChain Summit 2019, DNVGL announced it has completely migrated its private blockchain to the VechainThor

    Since the partnership announcement, DNV GL has jointly developed several products including the Low Carbon Ecosystem and MyStory, a traceability and marketing solution. DNV GL has also reaffirmed its commitment to the VeChain ecosystem by migrating its private blockchain onto the VeChainThor public blockchain for its clients. DNV GL also gave each client a digital Non-Fungible Token (NFT) wallet so that each customer has a digital identity and can access and interact with the DNV GL ecosystem. Through this, DNV GL has issued more than 900,000 wallets, compared to Ethereum which only has 400,000 wallets.

    BMW

    In March 2018, BMW confirmed VeChain’s participation in the BMW Startup Garage Programme, a partnership program whereby BMW will work with the participant to develop their technology and purchase it for BMW’s use.

    During the 2019 VeChain Summit, it was confirmed that VeChain and BMW will jointly develop a DApp called VerifyCar for BMW cars. VerifyCar will record vehicle information onto the VeChainThor blockchain. Examples of information which will be recorded include a vehicle’s mileage, insurance and service records.

    Cihan Albay, Leader at IT Tech Office Singapore, BMW Group gives a presentation on VerifyCar

    PriceWaterHouseCoopers (PwC)

    PwC is known as one of the “Big Four” auditors. They are a network of firms in over 150 countries and provide services to 420 of the Fortune 500 companies.

    PwC has 3 major service lines:

    • Assurance providing financial audits;
    • Advisory on actuarial and insurance management solutions and human resource services; and
    • Tax planning and consultancy services.

    VeChain has partnered with PwC since May 2017 to jointly develop and promote the adoption of blockchain technology. After much speculation, details of their partnership were announced during a joint press conference with PwC and Walmart in June 2019. It was announced that Vechain and PwC were also working with Walmart China, and had launched the Walmart China Blockchain Traceability Platform built on the VeChainThor Blockchain. The Platform takes on the challenge of food safety by using VeChain’s technology to allow Walmart China to implement a traceability strategy for its products. Consumers can scan the products and would be able to view detailed information on the product, such as its source, logistics process, product inspection reports etc.

    At the time of the announcement, an initial 23 Walmart product lines were tested and launched on the Platform. By the end of 2020, it is expected that Walmart’s China’s traceability system will see traceable fresh meat account for 50% of its fresh meat sales, traceable vegetables will account for 40% of its total sales of vegetables, and traceable seafood will account for 12.5% of the total sales of seafood.

    Products on the Walmart Blockchain Traceability Platform
    Products on the Walmart Blockchain Traceability Platform

    Bayer China

    The partnership between VeChain and Bayer China, the Greater China arm of one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies was announced on 28th May 2020. VeChain has created CSecure, a clinical trial traceability platform to be used in Bayer’s research and development of medical interventions such as drugs and other treatments. Learn more about Vechain and Bayer’s partnership.

    Additional reading

    Check out VeChain Insider’s complete list of VeChain’s partnerships and details and our recap of the announcements at the 2019 VeChain Summit.

    FAQ

    What is VeChain?

    VeChain is a blockchain-enabled platform that provides a comprehensive governance structure, a robust economic model, and advanced IoT integration to help enterprises improve supply chain management, asset tracking, data management, and more.

    What are the benefits of using VeChain?

    VeChain offers a wide range of benefits, including improved transparency, enhanced security, improved traceability, increased efficiency, cost savings, and more.

    How does VeChain work?

    VeChain uses a combination of blockchain technology, smart contracts, and IoT devices to create an immutable, distributed ledger that can be used to track and manage assets, contracts, and data.

    What industries can benefit from VeChain?

    VeChain has applications in a variety of industries, including supply chain management, asset tracking, data management, healthcare, finance, and more.

    What is VeChain Thor?

    VeChain Thor is the native blockchain platform of VeChain, which enables users to develop decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts.

    Where can I buy Vechain

    Currently, the best exchange to trade both the $VET and $VTHO token is Binance – it has the most number of traders and highest liquidity. You can purchase VET on cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance, Huobi, and OKEx.

    What is VeChain’s token?

    VeChain’s token is called VET, and it is used to power the VeChain network and reward users for their contributions.

    What is VeChain’s roadmap in 2023?

    The VeChain Foundation says the project’s developers plan to spend the first half of the year at work on a carbon footprint explorer, a wallet browser extension and an Ethereum (ETH) token bridge, among other projects.

    Resources:

    Website https://www.vechain.com

    Foundation: https://www.vechain.org

    Medium (update and key articles): https://medium.com/@vechainofficial

    Development Plan https://cdn.vechain.com/vechain_ico_ideas_of_development_en.pdf

    Telegram https://t.me/vechain_official_english

    Vechain Mainnet Launch Guide http://www.asiacryptotoday.com/vechain-mainnet-launch

  • Aptos Blockchain Guide: the Next Big Innovation in Blockchain Scaling (Layer 1)?

    Aptos Blockchain Guide: the Next Big Innovation in Blockchain Scaling (Layer 1)?

    Aptos, a repurposed blockchain initiative of Meta’s abandoned web3 project (formerly Facebook). Its mainnet and token launch were hugely anticipated owing to its revolutionary infrastructure that might just surpass all other layer-one protocols. All you need to know about Aptos is in this article, made simple to understand and updated in real time.

    What is Aptos?

    Origin of Aptos

    Aptos also known as Aptos Labs is a web3 startup focused on building a scalable layer-1 blockchain. I know what you’re thinking, not another new smart-contract layer claiming to be more scalable than the others.

    But Aptos is not a new entity of its own, in fact, the company was founded by developers who formerly worked on Diem, Meta’s blockchain initiative that was abandoned in January. This means that the project already has a solid foundation to build its products off of.

    Key Features of Aptos Blockchain

    Aptos utilizes key elements of the former Diem blockchain and Move, a Rust-based programming language independently developed by Meta. The company also claims the network will be able to process over 130k transactions per second using its parallel execution engine (Block-STM), which results in low transaction costs for users.

    For context, most blockchains either execute smart contracts sequentially or require a massive parallel workload for improved performance, which requires a lot of power. Aptos differs from other blockchains because a single failed transaction will not hold up the entire chain. Instead, all transactions are processed simultaneously and validated afterwards. The ones that failed are aborted and re-executed, thanks to their STM (software transactional memory) libraries which detect and manage conflicts.

    As a result, the combination of these technologies streamlines the entire network’s throughput capacity, which has been a major bottleneck for other layer-1 blockchains. This is a short summary of Aptos’ smart contract execution according to their white paper published in August 2022. Their model is based on cloud infrastructure as a scalable and cost-efficient platform for building widely-used applications.

    Aptos enables DeFi projects to be built on its blockchain. So far, there are over 30 DeFi projects on the ecosystem. These projects include decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, and liquid staking. An example of this is Aries Markets– a margin trading protocol.

    Who is the Team behind Aptos?

    Aptos is co-founded by Mo Shaikh (CEO) and Avery Ching (CTO), both former Meta employees who have years of experience as a senior developer and engineer in the blockchain industry.

    The team consists of a battle-hardened group of PhDs, researchers, engineers, designers and strategists. They are the original creators, designers and builders of Diem.

    What’s Happening with Aptos?

    Aptos Funding

    Aptos has been securing a sizeable amount of funding from numerous crypto heavyweights despite the bear market. In March 2022, the company received $200 million in funding from a16z, Tiger Global, and Multicoin Capital, among many other venture capitalists.

    In July, the company raised $150 million in a Series A financing round led by Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto.

    Moreover, during the Venture Round on 15th September, Binance Labs doubled down on Aptos, bringing up the blockchain startup’s valuation to a massive $4 billion according to Bloomberg. With the new funding from Binance, Aptos quadrupled its valuation in six months as per Crunchbase’s report.

    A few days later on 28th September, an undisclosed amount was also raised during the Venture Round by Dragonfly Capital.

    Being backed by Binance Labs is a good sign that the project shows promise. In fact, Yi He, co-founder of Binance and the head of Binance Labs, chose to invest in Aptos in part because of the Move programming language the company is using to build its blockchain.

    Aptos Team and Ecosystem Expansion

    Moreover, the team at Aptos has been actively hiring, most notably they have acquired several former Solana staff such as Austin Virts, former Head of Marketing at Solana.

    Not only Solana staff but a lot of hardcore Solana proponents have jumped ship for Aptos as well. With the narrative of Aptos being the next Solana, people are speculating whether investors actually believe in their tech long-term, or it is simply a pump and dump for venture capital firms (VC) and whales to make back their money due to the series of liquidation across the market. VC-heavy projects should be considered a red flag, but in the case of Aptos, there is more than meets the eye.

    Aptos Testnet

    Aptos has been focusing on driving the growth of their ecosystem. Since May, Aptos has launched their testnet campaign named “Aptos Incentivized Testnet” (AIT) and is divided into four stages according to their roadmap: AIT1, AIT2, AIT3 and AIT4. The goal is to invite and reward node operators, developers, ecosystem builders, and auditors alike to deploy applications and stress-test the decentralized network, ensuring the community is ready to launch a production-grade Aptos mainnet. Each stage focuses on executing different deliverables that contribute to the overall function of the blockchain.

    AIT3 concluded on 9th September 2022, preparing for the final testnet which will lead to the mainnet launch if successful. Throughout the series of testnets, millions of transactions have been carried out, tens of thousands of nodes have been put up, and more than 1,500 have forked the Aptos-core repository. The codebase is open-source and the project has onboarded well over 100 projects. Teams such as Pontem Network, Protagonist, PayMagic, MartianDAO, Solrise Finance and more have already been building and testing on the network.

    Furthermore, Aptos also has a grant program to offer project teams and individuals non-dilutive funding in order to further develop the ecosystem. One thing is certain that the earliest projects to develop on a blockchain are the ones that tend to moon if the blockchain is successful.

    Aptos Mainnet Launch

    Aptos Labs officially launched its mainnet “Aptos Autumn” on 12th October 2022, making it the first blockchain to debut Move technology. The mainnet is currently using the latest version of AptosBFT (version 4), which leverages a Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus protocol with responsive production optimization. To put it simply, this mechanism quickly minimizes the impact of failed validators on throughput and latency, significantly improving the blockchain’s performance. Aptos team has announced that they are developing AptosBFT (version 5) and will release it in a future upgrade.

    The Aptos Bridge

    The Aptos Bridge went live on 19th October 2022, powered by LayerZero, a trustless omnichain interoperability protocol. With this deployment, users will be able to move USDC, USDT, and ETH into Aptos from Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, Polygon, and Binance Smart Chain. Users can also withdraw their funds out of the Aptos ecosystem, but as of now, there will be a 3-day transfer window to keep the network stable. According to LayerZero Labs, this will decrease as stability and time in production increase.

    Another thing to note is that there is a rate limit to the bridge, starting at an outbound value cap of $1 million every 24 hours. As stability and time in production increase, this will also increase. Finally, since Aptos is an entirely new ecosystem, native assets outside of the APT token do not exist. This means that the only way to get other assets into the ecosystem is via “wrapped assets” from other chains.

    Aptos Goes into Web3 Gaming

    Aptos has recently announced its partnership with NPIXEL, a Korean Triple-A gaming studio. NIPXEL have been behind popular massively multiplayer online role-playing games such as Gran Saga, which boasts 4 million downloads since its launch in Korea and Japan.

    Aptos and NPIXEL are joining forces to create METAPIXEL, a Web3 gaming ecosystem. This partnership sees NPIXEL creating games on the Aptos network. The goal of their partnership is to create a triple-A game that boasts true ownership of game assets.

    Partnership with Google Cloud

    Google Cloud and Aptos Labs have announced an expansion of their partnership, which now includes Google Cloud running a validator for Aptos. Additionally, Aptos has selected Google Cloud as the preferred infrastructure provider for its ecosystem, and the two companies will collaborate on an accelerator program through the Aptos Foundation that supports Web3 startups and developers working on Aptos.

    Moreover, Aptos and Google Cloud will collaborate in hosting global hackathons and other events. The purpose of these hackathons is to bring decentralized developer communities together to collaborate and address common challenges. They will also invite both the Google developer community and the Aptos community to participate and work alongside engineers from both companies to deploy projects that can be quickly scaled globally. In line with their joint events at Bitcoin, Consensus, and Converge last year, they also plan to continue engaging their communities through happy hours and panels in 2023.

    MoonPay Fiat On-Ramp Integration into Petra Wallet

    Aptos Labs and MoonPay have teamed up to make it easier for billions of people to join the web3 space. This means that users can now purchase APT using Apple Pay. Aptos Labs’ wallet, Petra, now features an easy-to-use interface for exchanging value within the Aptos ecosystem. The partnership began in November 2022 when APT became available on MoonPay.

    The integration of the MoonPay fiat on-ramp into Petra was a crucial step in enhancing the web3 user experience. The fiat on-ramp makes it easy for both new users and early adopters to get started on the Aptos network, as they can purchase APT using a variety of payment methods, including Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.

    Securing Move as the Underlying Programming Model

    To ensure that Aptos is secure, their team has been developing bug-free code through a combination of disciplined software engineering practices and the right tools. This includes mandatory code review, continuous testing and integration, and best practices in the Rust ecosystem.

    Moreover, Aptos has contracted auditing companies (Certik, Holburn), conducted community auditing, and worked closely with OtterSec. They also run a bug bounty program that offers rewards of up to $1,000,000 for critical bugs and $100,000 for crash bugs. Aptos has invested in fuzzing and added redundancy through a paranoid mode in the Move Virtual Machine.

    Lowering Gas Fees with Community-Driven Feedback

    Aptos is engaging with community builders to improve its ecosystem, with a focus on reducing gas fees. The team has analyzed on-chain data and interviewed builders to gather insights. Their three-stage plan includes reducing costs for dynamic NFTs, developing gas-efficient data structures, and creating a demand-driven gas model.

    The current gas framework combines execution and storage fees, leading to an unbalanced gas price. The team will separate storage and execution fees and provide storage refunds to solve these issues. The team is committed to delivering these improvements in the coming months to better serve the network’s demand.

    What is the APT token?

    APT is the native token of the Aptos platform. The APT token is used to pay for transaction and network fees on Aptos.

    Fees will be charged on all transactions on the network and are specified in Aptos tokens. Validators will have the opportunity to prioitise the highest-value transactions on the Aptos network, and to discard transactions of lower value. The result is that the blockchain would still be able to operate efficiently when the system is at capacity. Eventually, network fees will also be deployed so that the cost of using Aptos would be proportionate to the costs of deploying hardware, maintenance, and node operation.

    In addition, APT can be used for governance voting on upgrades to the protocol and on/off-chain processes, and to secure the blockchain by way of a proof-of-stake model.

    Validators holding a minimum number of staked APT tokens can participate in transaction validation on the Aptos blockchain. The benefit of being a validator is that they can decide on the division of rewards between themselves and their respective stakers. On the other hand, stakers can select any number of validators to stake their tokens with in order to receive a pre-agreed split of the rewards. Rewards will be distributed to validators and stakers at the end of every epoch.

    At present, the maximum reward rate for stakers starts at 7% per annum and this amount is evaluated at every epoch. The maximum staking reward however will decrease by 1.5% per year until it reaches 3.25% per year. However, all reward amounts and mechanisms can be changed by governance voting.

    Aptos Token Listing

    Binance announced the listing of Aptos (APT) on their exchange and trading of the APT token commenced on 19th October 2022, 01:00 UTC. The spot trading pairs include APT/BTC, APT/BUSD, and APT/USDT, and withdrawals for APT will open on 20th October 2022, 01:00 UTC. Moreover, the listing fee for APT is at 0 BNB and users can now start depositing APT in preparation for trading.

    In addition, Binance will add APT as a new borrowable asset on cross margin and isolated margin within 48 hours from 19th October 2022, 01:00 UTC. Both margin pairs include APT/BUSD and APT/USDT.

    Where can I buy the Aptos ($APT) token?

    Aptos and MoonPay have recently partnered up to allow Petra wallet fiat on-ramps. So users can now buy APT using Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay.

    The APT token can also be purchased and traded on the following exchanges: Binance, Coinbase Exchange, OKX, and Digifinex.

    Start trading $APT on Binance and enjoy 20% off trading fees by signing up here.

    Is Aptos Worth Investing?

    Aptos offers unique and promising features that cannot be found in other layer-1 protocols (except for Sui which is also a Diem-based blockchain). As such, Aptos has the potential to compete with Ethereum and Solana in terms of scalability and overall network capacity.

    However, Aptos is heavily backed by venture capitals (VC), and in light of the VC bankruptcy domino effect toppling across the industry, investors should be cautious when dealing with VC-heavy projects. In fact, according to Aptos Explorer, its total supply is over 1 billion and more than 800 million of the tokens are actively staked, suggesting that early investors, private buyers, and the Aptos team collectively control 80% of the token supply.

    Nevertheless, at the end of the day, Move technology is most likely here to stay as it is a revolutionary programming foundation for blockchain scalability and security. And with decades of experience in the blockchain industry as well as Meta, Aptos Labs stakes its reputation on the long-term success of the blockchain.

    Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

    What is Aptos?

    Aptos is a layer-1 blockchain that uses key elements of the former Diem blockchain and Move, a Rust-based programming language independently developed by Meta.

    How to buy Aptos?

    Binance announced the listing of Aptos (APT) on their exchange, and will be available for spot trading at 19th October 2022, 01:00 UTC.

    Does Aptos have a coin?

    Binance announced the listing of Aptos (APT) on their exchange, and will be available for spot trading at 19th October 2022, 01:00 UTC.

    When is Aptos ICO?

    Binance announced the listing of Aptos (APT) on their exchange, and will be available for spot trading at 19th October 2022, 01:00 UTC.

    Who is the Aptos team?

    The Aptos team consists of researchers, designers and engineers of Diem, Meta’s blockchain initiative that was abandoned in January 2022. Aptos currently has 60 employees on their team.

    Who is the founder of Aptos?

    Aptos Labs is co-founded by Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, both former Meta employees who have years of experience in the blockchain industry.

    Is Aptos funded?

    Aptos Labs has raised $350 million in total from FTX Ventures, Jump Crypto, a16z, Tiger Global, Multicoin Capital, among many other capital ventures. Currently, Aptos Labs has 28 investors. Aptos Labs also received an undisclosed amount in strategic investment from Binance Labs, bringing its valuation to $4 billion.

    What is the Aptos testnet?

    Aptos has an incentivized testnet program where the Aptos team welcomes community members to help with testing. The first testnet was Aptos Incentivized Testnet 1 (AIT1) where the community and the Aptos team created and deployed a decentralized network for over a week. Those who met a 95% participation rate were rewarded. Eligible individuals who were unable to meet the original expectation, but still participated in at least 5% of the testing rounds were also offered 50% of the rewards.

    Aptos Incentivized Testnet 2 (AIT2) was concluded in late July 2022.

    The latest Aptos Incentivized Testnet 3 (AIT3) opened for registration on 19th August 2022 and will launch on 30th August 2022. Participants that meet the team’s success criteria will receive 800 Aptos tokens. For more details and signup, check out the Aptos blog.

    Is Aptos Labs listed on any stock exchange?

    Aptos Labs is a private company and is not listed on any stock exchange.

    What is the price of Aptos Labs (APTOS) cryptocurrency?

    Aptos Labs (APTOS) does not currently have a cryptocurrency token. Binance announced the listing of Aptos (APT) on their exchange, and will be available for spot trading at 19th October 2022, 01:00 UTC.

    Is Aptos the same or related to Sui?

    No, Aptos and Sui and completely different and unrelated projects. The only connection between the two projects is that both teams have previously worked in blockchain development at Meta (formerly Facebook).

    Is Aptos worth investing?

    Aptos shows a lot of promise but investors should be cautious as the project is heavily funded by venture capitals. But at its core, Aptos’ programming language, Move, is most likely here to stay as it offers better scalability and security compared to other layer-1 blockchains.

    Is Aptos backed by Binance?

    Aptos Labs received an undisclosed amount in strategic investment from Binance Labs, bringing its valuation to $4 billion. In fact, Yi He, co-founder of Binance and the head of Binance Labs, chose to invest in Aptos in part because of the Move programming language Aptos is using to build its blockchain.

    Is there any Aptos $APT token airdrop?

    Early Aptos network participants were given an airdrop of APT tokens. A total of 20,067,150 APT tokens were airdropped to 110,235 participants.

    How do I participate or be eligible for an Aptos APT airdrop?

    Previous Aptos users who had completed an application to join the Aptos Incentivized Testnet or minted an APTOS:ZERO testnet NFT were eligible to claim APT tokens. Those who were eligible to receive APT tokens were notified by the Aptos team via email. There are no plans for further airdrops for the time being.

    Which wallet support Aptos?

    Petra Wallet and Pontem Wallet are native non-custodial wallets for the Aptos ecosystem, and can integrate with many Aptos DApps.

    Why is Aptos dumping?

    Aptos’ price usually comes under pressure whenever there is a token unlock event. This is because early investors will typically sell those unlocked tokens to take profit. The next one will unlock on February 12, 2023.

    What is the price prediction for Aptos in 2023?

    Aptos will most likely increase in value, as the narrative for layer-1 blockchain scaling solution is trending in 2023.

  • Ispolink ($ISP): A better LinkedIn?

    Ispolink ($ISP): A better LinkedIn?

    Ispolink is a blockchain-based matchmaking job platform combined with AI to enhance the experience of job seekers and employers.

    As the unemployment rate rises worldwide, individuals without jobs have to look for clever ways to impress potential employers. One of the ways is to craft an impressive curriculum vitae (CV) with false statements. While this may possibly get them a job, the quality of their work would be on the line and may lead to loss of business revenue.

    Apart from finding qualified professionals, businesses have to deal with a resource-consuming recruitment process, hefty agency fees, and manual processes. On the other hand, qualified candidates feel unappreciated when they don’t receive feedback on applied positions. To provide a lasting solution, Ispolink combines decentralized technology and artificial intelligence to minimize the time and cost it takes to fill a position and to get hired. 

    Background

    Emanuil Pavlov and Nikolay Pavlov head the Ispolink platform at the CEO and CTO level while also being co-founders. Emanuil has a strong educational background in business management. Before co-founding the protocol, he was a blockchain analyst at Industria Technology, a business development manager at Latoken, and a vendor manager at Manpower.

    On the other hand, prior to joining Ispolink, Nikolay worked in software-related departments in leading companies such as Industria Technology, Devision, and SAP.

    Apart from a reputable founding team, the platform is backed by top investment firms like Magnus Capital, Lotus Capital, Titans, Moon Whale, and AU21 Capital. Ispolink partners include DAO Maker, Polygon, Besco, Junior Enterprises Europe, and Iron Hack.

    What is Ispolink?

    Ispolink is a blockchain-based matchmaking job platform. It uses a combination of blockchain, AI, and other carefully selected ingredients to enhance the experience of job seekers and employers. The platform concentrates on serving the IT and blockchain industry.

    Ispolink features
    Ispolink features (Image credit: Ispolink)

    Automated CV Screening

    Instead of recruiters manually going through prospective employees’ resumes, the platform automatically screens a CV. Depending on the targeted vacancy, the protocol automatically calculates a match score that shows how qualified a candidate is for the position.

    Video Resumes

    A video resume goes past the regular text-based version to indicate qualities like communication skills.

    Referral System and Instant Feedback

    Ispolink rewards existing users for bringing qualified users to the platform. However, the disbursement of incentives happens when a referee is hired. The network provides instant feedback to candidates during the entire hiring process.

    ML-powered Matchmaking

    The protocol uses machine learning-driven algorithms to match candidates to open positions. Additionally, the project employs natural language processing (NLP) to extract and interpret information from the CV.

    The matching process considers a candidate’s work experience, technology stack, specific job-required, and soft skills.

    Blockchain-based Degree Verification

    Ispolink confirms degree authenticity for degrees stored on the blockchain to prevent candidates from intentionally providing misleading education qualifications. However, for this to have the desired impact, the protocol works with learning institutions to help them register the issuance of qualification documents on a decentralized network.

    Company Pages

    The protocol enables companies to create their pages and express intimate details such as core values and guiding culture. Additionally, it gives enough room for firms to showcase their accomplishments. In a nutshell, it’s a way for companies to portray their brand and attract the necessary talents.

    Revenue Streams

    Ispolink provides different revenue streams for users. For example, it supports liquidity mining and staking. Other ways users earn incentives include when they sign up and when they get verified.

    Cryptocurrency Payments

    The platform supports virtual currency payments for all hiring services. Although the blockchain payment system is complex, the platform simplifies it into logical steps. For instance, the payment process starts when a user chooses an action that requires payment.

    Next, it indicates the applicable price in both fiat and crypto. If the user wishes to pay through crypto, they must have supported tokens in their wallet. A successful payment procedure leads to a confirmation message from the platform.

    Fortunately, the platform will guide you on the entire process and indicate errors whenever they occur. Note that Ispolink gives users the ability to deposit and withdraw tokens from the platform wallet.

    Critical Technologies Used by Ispolink

    Ispolink runs on the Ethereum blockchain due to its highest number of users. However, due to the platform’s congestion concerns, Ispolink is shifting to layer two scaling solutions such as Polygon. Additionally, the protocol employs Matic Network’s scaling solution on an Ethereum base.

    While the second-largest decentralized network uses a proof of work (PoW) consensus mechanism, Matic uses the proof of stake (PoS) mechanism. As such, Matic can process up to 10,000 transactions per second. Apart from Ethereum, the platform also targets the Binance Smart Chain (BSC).

    Ispolink’s Token Economy

    ISP is the platform’s base assets. The token follows Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standards and powers different aspects to the protocol, such as purchasing hiring packages, paying referral bonuses, rewarding verified users, staking, and governance.

    The token’s total supply is 10,000,000,000 coins. The largest distributions of the tokens go to the ecosystem and marketing that account for 40 and 19 percent, respectively. Other ISP token allocations go to the team, advisors, liquidity, seed, strategic, private, and public sales.

    Note that tokens not sold during the four phases are burnt while the rest remains in active circulation.

    Ispolink recently conducted its triple token sale on DAO Maker, gate.io and Ignition.

    Ispolink Roadmap

    The platform has an extremely detailed roadmap giving a glimpse of what the future holds for its users. For example, it looks to provide a comprehensive mobile application for iOS and Android-powered mobile gadgets, activating ATS integration, and in-platform staking.

    Conclusion

    Ispolink is among very few blockchain-based platforms targeting job seekers and employers. In addition, integrating AI functionalities and in-built crypto payment options puts the project ahead of the line. Notably, the use of a decentralized protocol ensures its activities are immutable and verifiable.

    Placing and verifying educational qualifications on the blockchain captures the presence of falsified information on a CV. Consequently, it leads to quality hires. The use of scaling solutions built on top of Ethereum saves its users from the high transactional fees occasionally experienced on the Ethereum network.

    Additionally, instant feedback to candidates and a match score enhance the quality of job searches. On the other hand, company branding gives room for companies to express themselves and attract qualified candidates.

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • Enjin (ENJ) Explained: Blockchain Gaming Platform

    Enjin (ENJ) Explained: Blockchain Gaming Platform

    Enjin is a blockchain gaming platform focused on the creation of digital collectible items that are truly owned by the user. The platform offers methods for creating digital assets (known as ERC1155 tokens) for use across multiple Video Games. Their uses include collectible art or even in-shop coupons. Blockchain gaming allows gamers to have true ownership of their in-game items and trade them for value.

    Enjin Platform uses Blockchain technology for these key benefits:

    • True item ownership – with transactions that cannot be censored powered by the Ethereum blockchain.
    • Convenient Exchange of value – digital items can be traded or sold instantly. The Enjin Wallet also allows users to access decentralised exchanges such as Kyber Network and Changelly.
    • Reserve Value – unwanted digital items can be “melted” into the Enjin Coin cryptocurrency.
    • Single Wallet for all items – the Enjin Wallet users to keep all digital assets in one single location.
    • ERC-1155 Token Standard – a superior version of the ERC20 and ERC721 token. Its transaction bundling and multi-send features mean it will save users’ costs.

    What is Enjin Coin (ENJ)?

    Enjin coin’s (ENJ) value comes from its use case as a stored reserve value in every item created on the Enjin Platform. $ENJ is locked up when items are created and released when items are destroyed.

    Items store (lock up) a certain amount of ENJ, with items such as the infamous “Monolith” storing 1,155,777 ENJ. ENJ from items can only be extracted by destroying the item (“via the melting process”). This creates a situation where more and more ENJ is locked up and overall supply is reduced as the platform is used by more games.

    #meltismurder
    Popular meme “Melt is Murder” discourages the destruction of items

    In terms of economics ENJ is a scarce resource and each game acts as a “value trap” for ENJ – locking up ENJ reserve and increasing the scarcity of $ENJ. With a limited supply of 1,000,000,000 $ENJ, this cryptocurrency acts as a form of “Digital Gold” – its value determined by the dynamics of supply and demand within the game’s ecosystem.

    Enjinx showcases all valuable assets and games on the Enjin Plastofrm

    Cross-game items – Enjin Multiverse

    One of the unique advantages of Blockchain gaming is the ability to create items that can be used across different games by different developers. This means players can carry their items between games like it is a single world (also known as the Multiverse).

    Multiverse items are possible because assets are stored on a decentralised blockchain – so independent developers can all access the item. To encourage the development of cross game items, Enjin announced its newest asset the Stormwall. It is an example of what we can expect with its gaming assets. Stormwall is a shield that moves across Enjin’s Multiverse of games.

    In the below video we see Stormwall being as a playable item in 32 different games including 9Lives Arena, Age of Rust, Cats in Mechs and more.

    Why is a Multiverse Beneficial?

    One of the biggest questions asked about cross-game items is – why is it beneficial for game developers and players? For developers, supporting cross-game items mean that they gain the benefits of additional exposure from games participating in the multiverse and increased retention from players who want to test out the item. This is especially important in this age as player attention is extremely valuable and having players “check out” how an items works in a different game drastically improves player interest.

    For players, having cross-game items mean that their items are naturally move valuable, especially long term value. This means that the effort used to earn valuable items are not wasted if they can be used in new upcoming games.

    The Enjin Coin Ecosystem

    Enjin have created an entire ecosystem where you can create, store, trade and use these items.

    • Enjin Wallet – Cryptocurrency wallet to safely store cryptocurrencies, blockchain gaming assets and exchange value. For more information check our EnjinWallet review.
    • EnjinX – Blockchain explorer to view transactions and items
    • Unity Plugin – Allows game developers to directly implement and issue items in games on multiple platforms like iOS, android, PC and MacOS.
    • Marketplace – buy and list items with the safety of smart contracts that independently facilitate the trade.
    • The Enjin Ecosystem

    Enjin for Mobile Games

    One of the biggest use case for non-fungible tokens is in mobile games. Mobile gaming is currently valued at $63.2 billion USD globally and growing on a year by year basis (Source: newzoo). Enjin has a direct partnership with game engine Unity which hosts the Enjin SDK which allows for easy integration of Blockchain assets directly into the game.

    Enjin Partnerships

    Enjin has a strategic partnerships with increase the rate of adoption of Blockchain Gaming and growth of the ecosystem. On the gaming side there is a partnership is with cross-platform game engine Unity with the introduction of the SDK

    The Enjinwallet has recently become the first wallet to offer full Binance Chain and all BEP-2 (Mithril, ChangeNow) based tokens.

    Enjin and Samsung Partnership

    Samsung’s s10 presentation at MWC Barcelona 2019 that broke the internet

    Enjin has been partnered with smartphone manufacturer Samsung Electronics to as a technology provider. Enjin Wallet directly interacts with the Samsung’s Blockchain Keystore, a trusted zone on new Samsung devices which is specifically designed to key cryptographic private keys safe. Samsung will also support Enjin’s ERC-1155 token standard and increase the adoption of Blockchain based non-fungible tokens.

    Enjin and Microsoft Partnership

    Microsoft Azure Heroes using Enjin ERC 1155
    Microsoft Azure Heroes using Enjin ERC 1155

    Microsoft has chosen Enjin as technology provider with the deployment of Azure Heroes, a program that will directly use ERC-1155 non-fungible tokens as a reward. This Blockchain-based reward will be given to contributors who help produce material for the Microsoft Azure platform, with participants given cute badge(r)s. For example, makers that contribute to the developer community or content heroes will be given rare badgers.

    These collectable badgers are a proof of achievement as an Azure Hero which you can show off on your social media. As these are tokenized assets on the blockchain, they cannot be faked. So no fake achievements or heroes here!

    https://twitter.com/AzureHeroes/status/1310851813164412928

    Enjin has entered the (DeFi) game

    Enjin Coin (ENJ) is now supported by the Aave Protocol. This means users can deposit ENJ in the Aave Protocol and earn interest whilst others borrow your ENJ. The Aave Protocol protects your deposits as it is controlled by immutable and transparent Ethereum smart contracts. Your ENJ is also secured by other cryptocurrencies left on the Protocol as collateral.

    How to connect Enjin Wallet to Aave Protocol

    Now with the Enjin-Aave partnership, you can directly interact with the Aave Protocol with your Enjin Wallet (which in our opinion is the best mobile wallet EVER). Here’s how: On the Enjin wallet, go to “DApp Browser”. On the search bar, go to app.aave.com. Click “Browser wallet” and when asked to choose your market, choose “Aave Market”.

    Connect Enjin Wallet to Aave Protocol
    Connect Enjin Wallet to Aave Protocol

    Enjin and BMW

    After much speculation, Enjin has confirmed they are partnering up with BMW to integrate Enjin Coin token swap into BMW’s Vantage App. The Vantage App is a Korean customer loyalty app for car-owners. Users can use the app to pay for goods/services such as gas, highway tolls and parking fees. There will also be referral rewards for dining and shopping.

    Purchases on the BMW Vantage app are rewarded with BMW Coins which can be used as spending for various activities and be swapped for ENJ.

    Note the token swap feature is not available on the Vantage App yet and according to Enjin, more details will be available once it is live.

    Enjin putting property on NFTs with LABS Group partnership

    Enjin is helping LABS Group put property on NFTs and the blockchain with its partnership.

    LABS Group will be using Enjin’s NFT minting platform to tokenise real estate on the blockchain. LABS Group will be offering fractionalized deeds of real estate for as low as USD$100, allowing retail investors (particularly millennials) to finally enter and invest in the real estate market.

    The range of real estate on offer will include buildings, hotel rooms and apartments. Trades will all take place securely through the regulated LABS Security Exchange.

    This marks the introduction of blockchain into the world’s oldest and largest asset class, valued at approximately USD$228 trillion.

    Enjin enters Japanese cryptocurrency market

    Enjin will be the FIRST gaming cryptocurrency to be listed on Japanese cryptocurrency exchanges. And it is going straight for the top with one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges- Coincheck.

    Enjin ($ENJ) will be listed on Coincheck from 26th January 2021.

    This is a significant first step for Enjin into the Japanese market. Enjin’s aims are twofold- for ENJ to be approved by Japan’s finance regulators and to promote adoption of the Enjin Platform in the Japanese gaming industry.

    This listing was one and a half years in the making, having to pass the rigorous auditing and monitoring of the Japanese Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA)- formally recognised by Japanese financial regulators, the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA). The approval process for cryptocurrencies in Japan is notoriously difficult, with only 15 cryptocurrencies (including Enjin) being approved for listing on Coincheck.

    Japan also has a fiercely competitive cryptocurrency exchange market with over 20 exchanges in operation. Coincheck is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan based on volume, founded in 2014 with over 1.7m users and counting, and prides itself on being the top downloaded cryptocurrency app in Japan.

    As Enjin now has its foot in the door of the Japanese market, the Enjin team is now in discussions with various domestic companies and projects. With Japan being the pioneers of the gaming world (think Super Mario, Pokemon and Final Fantasy), it will be interesting to see what innovations Enjin can bring to the space.

    See Enjin’s official announcement on the Coincheck listing.

    Enjin Japan Coincheck
    Enjin is going to Japan! (Image credit: Coincheck)

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Does it cost ENJ to transfer tokens on Enjin Chain?

    Enjin isn’t a blockchain, rather it’s a project built on Ethereum. In order to transfer Items (non-fungible tokens), you’ll need to use ethereum (similar to how ERC20 tokens work). In the future Enjin is explorer additional scaling options (Efinity) to allow for free item transfers.

    What is the most EXPENSIVE item on ENJIN

    The Monolith is the most expensive item on ENJIN, with 1,155,777 ENJ locked in the item. At the time of writing, this item is worth $168,000 USD!

    What makes ENJIN valuable

    ENJIN is a scarce resource, used to lock value into ever item created on the ENJIN platform. This means as time progresses and more games create items on ENJIN, more and more $ENJ will be locked up creating scarcity in supply

    Where can I buy Enjin

    $Enj is listed on all major exchanges, such as Binance.

    Other Resources:

    EnjinX – Blockchain explorer that tracks the Ethereum Blockchain, ERC-20 and ERC-1155 items
    Egamers – Enjin Games news website
    Everything Enjin – Great site covering Enjin Related News
    Multiverse Era – Telegram Channel about the Enjin Multiverse
    Castle Crypto – Coverage of Enjin games
    AsiaCryptoToday – cover of Enjin Platform

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • Atari ($ATRI) – Powering the Gaming Industry

    Atari ($ATRI) – Powering the Gaming Industry

    Atari, the pioneer of the videogame industry, is venturing into the crypto space by creating their own token, Atari Token, ($ATRI), to power the future of the interactive entertainment industry. The global entertainment and media market is projected to be worth approximately $2.2 trillion by 2021. Interestingly, gaming is continually accounting for a more significant chunk of the industry’s value and is projected to be worth $200 billion within the next few years, according to Statista. With the integration of blockchain technology and the Atari Token, the company believes that this will revolutionize the global gaming industry.

    Background

    Atari token is developed by icons in the gaming scene, Atari. The firm has over 200 games under its name. If you are a gamer, their titles would not be able to you as games like Pong, Missile Command, and Roller Coaster Tycoon were once very popular.

    Atari has been developing games since 1972. Therefore, its knowledge of the interactive has been enjoyed by gamers through generations.

    Notably, to be alive from 1972 means that the company has been able to adapt to the changing needs in its environment swiftly. It’s this open-mindedness that has seen the introduction of the Atari Token. Frédéric Chesnais leads the project as the CEO, with Manfred Mantschev heading the business development division.

    Atari's Partners
    Atari’s Partners (Image credit: AtariChain Website)

    Additionally, the project has partnered with notable firms in the cryptocurrency and blockchain fields. They include the Litecoin Foundation, Arkane Network, Chain Games, and Blockchain Game Alliance (BGA).

    What is the Atari Token ($ATRI)?

    Atari Token ($ATRI) is a blockchain-based currency aimed at streamlining payments in the interactive entertainment space. The token is developed using Ethereum’s ERC-20 standards and is powered by the Ethereum blockchain.

    However, before expanding to the entire area, the token sought to first make an impact on the gaming ecosystem. Although the project is driven by a blockchain system with a relatively low transaction speed (around 20 transactions per second), the network is exploring a layer-two scaling solution to enhance the network speed.

    With the token, the Atari team is keen on removing the barriers presented by other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. For example, instead of limiting themselves to particular use cases, the cryptocurrency can be used in a wide range of use cases in the long run.

    Simply put, the Atari team is keen on developing a token that can be used in everyday activities even outside gaming.

    Atari Token ($ATRI)
    Atari Token ($ATRI) (Image credit: AtariChain Whitepaper)

    Despite being an in-game currency, ATRI can be exchanged for real-world items. Also, it can be converted to fiat.

    ATRI is stored in an ATARI Omni wallet that’s available on iOS and Android-powered mobile devices. The wallet has notable functionalities such as:

    • Support for human-readable addresses.
    • Chat support.
    • Ability to send payments through SMS, Email, and chat.
    • Ability to initiate crypto-based payments via a credit card.
    • Support for government-issued currencies such as the Euro or Dollar.
    • Also, with the right regulatory approvals, the Atari Omni wallet can swap crypto for fiat.
    Atari Ecosystem
    Atari Ecosystem (Image credit: AtariChain Website)

    ATRI occupies a critical role in the Atari ecosystem. For instance, the token is used to power activities on smart contracts. In addition, it acts as a medium of exchange on supported platforms. As a start, the token forms a key pillar in the Atari system that has the Atari Casino, Atari Exchange, and Atari Betting.

    Atari ($ATRI) Public Sale

    The public sale of the Atari Token will begin on 29 October 2020 on Bitcoin.com Exchange. The price per token is set at $0.25 per token with a hard cap for the public sale of $1 million. The Atari Token will be listed on the Bitcoin.com Exchange following the completion of the public sale. For more information, please refer to their telegram or twitter.

    Atari Tokenomics

    The circulating supply of Atari Token is 65,389,000 and the total supply is 7,771,000,000. Atari Chain applies a token burn/buyback economic policy that aims to track network growth, demand and usage with the emission of new tokens into circulating supply. Any unsold tokens during the Private or Public Sale will ultimately be burned.

    Atari Tokenomics
    Atari Tokenomics (Image credit: Atari Tokenomics)

    Atari Token Governance

    Since it’s a community-focused project, the governance of the token is done through a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). But, the basic rules have to be developed before welcoming community involvement. Therefore, the project will smoothly transition from centralized to decentralized governance.

    However, after decentralization, the Atari network will have 12 distributed parties that will oversee consensus among the Atari community.

    Advantages of ATRI

    Within such an expansive industry, such as interactive entertainment, the token has a wide range of advantages. Top among them include, but not limited to:

    Easy Integration

    The token is built to be the universal token on gaming platforms. For this reason, the fact that it is based on the Ethereum protocol puts it at its rightful path, considering that the blockchain platform has more than triple the number of developers compared to other decentralized networks.

    High Liquidity

    ATRI banks on attracting liquidity from a multitude of internet-based entertainment platforms. Notably, the coin will be integrated on platforms that are secure, as well as with high transaction volumes.

    Auditable

    The cryptocurrency industry has been filled with scams and poorly secured platforms for a long time, leading to security breaches and loss of investors’ funds. ATRI solves this by opening up to independent audits. This powers secure smart contracts and prompt the use of standardized safety policies. (https://www.srmfre.com)

    ATRI Use Cases

    The token can be used by gamers and developers alike. For gamers, the ATRI is ideal for making micro-transactions inside games, making digital representations of avatars, and allows participation in casino games centered around cryptocurrency.

    Atari’s Vision (Image credit: AtariChain Website)

    Developers, on the other hand, enjoy an enhanced payment process during development and an incentive to build blockchain-based games. For example, developers can easily integrate in-app purchases and collaboratively program, test, and translate their work.

    Conclusion

    In an industry expected to reach a valuation of 2.2 trillion US dollars, putting those who matter, gamers and developers, at the heart of the growth is the key to foster a motivated community and a vibrant interactive entertainment industry. This can only be achieved through innovative solutions like the Atari token.

    From powering in-game purchases to facilitating chat-based payments, ATRI sits at the core of the gaming sub-industry and forms a core pillar in the entire internet-based entertainment sector. Through its key partnerships, easy integration, high liquidity, and openness for auditing, the Atari token is ready to conquer all the sectors of crypto-based online entertainment.

    Importantly, its success in these realms would naturally lead to its adoption for daily uses outside the entertainment space.

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • Exeedme (XED): allowing every gamer to earn with blockchain and NFTs?

    Exeedme (XED): allowing every gamer to earn with blockchain and NFTs?

    Exeedme (XED) is a blockchain-powered gaming tournament platform designed to finally give professional gamers the income and recognition they deserve.

    There are over 2.5 billion gamers worldwide, making the gaming industry twice the size of the music and movie industries combined.

    But while producers and developers in the entertainment industry are able to rake in millions, the same cannot be said for gamers who find it almost impossible to earn a living playing video games.

    Although we do have cases of professional gamers generating substantial income through livestreaming, their numbers are considerably low as it requires a very high amount of creativity, skill, and time to build a big-enough audience and thrive. This challenge is what Exeedme is trying to solve.

    Background

    Francisco Varela and Nuno Fernandes teamed up to come up with this innovative idea of rewarding gamers for their devotion and skills to playing the game they love.

    To truly ensure the project caters to the professional gamer, their Head of Engineering- Arlindo Torres, is himself a game analyst and professional CS:GO player. Exeedme also has Ricardo “FOX” Pacheco Miguel, a professional CG:GO player and world champion as their Ambassador

    What is Exeedme?

    Exeedme is looking to revolutionize the gaming industry by providing Play2Earn platform for gamers, developers, and organizers a place to monetize their skills through blockchain-based gaming tournaments.

    The tournament platform is built on Polkadot, a next-generation multi-chain protocol that has grown exponentially in the last few months.

    Exeedme chose to build its system on top of Polkadot in order to benefit from its decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible token (NFT) innovations. This would allow it to move fungible and non-fungible assets across multiple chains seamlessly, which could expand its horizons to larger communities.

    The Exeedme team recognizes the fact that the current game monetization models leave a lot to be desired since current models favor a few privileged gamers but do not provide an avenue for an average player to earn an income through gaming.

    Hence, Exeedme has come to give gamers a place to exercise a real sense of ownership and earn money as they play.

    Exeedme Gaming Solutions

    The central idea behind Exeedme is to provide a platform where gamers can be able to earn money from doing what they love. The platform seeks to reward gamers of all skill levels without any discrimination, which means you don’t need to become a top professional gamer in order to earn an income.

    And in this ecosystem, the biggest winners would be the game developers, as well as players.

    Virtual Assets

    Many games today have systems where they allow gamers to earn or buy virtual assets. The downside to this is that these assets cannot be monetized or transferred outside of the gaming system.

    Exeedme is looking to change all that through its XED native token, plus the use of NFTs. Gamers would be allowed to transfer their game’s “virtual assets” to different game universes, even if they are on different blockchains, which would result in an interoperable digital multiverse.

    Since DeFi and NFTs would be pre-built into the gaming platform, peer-to-peer gaming economy platforms could readily grow. These growing economies would be geared towards rewarding gamers instead of the side chain advertising industries.

    How Gamers Earn on the Platform

    Gamers can earn on the Exeedme platform in 3 ways: winning, participating, and progressing.

    To earn through winning, a gamer has to pick his favorite game to play, then stake it via funding with crypto assets. The player then selects his opponent or lets the system match him with similarly skilled players. The gamer could bet on himself to win and if he succeeds, he can take his earnings.

    Gamers can also win simply by participating and progressing in any game or tournament they play.

    In addition to the 3 methods mentioned above, Exeedme also allows players to earn NFTs when they progress such as trophies, collectibles and in-game assets. These an be used across different games, traded or monetized.

    Advantages of Exeedme

    Exeedme holds a number of advantages over the old gaming models, some of them are:

    • Exeedme’s XED tokens are far better than participation trophies that some of the other games reward. Regardless of the outcome of a game, a gamer can be assured of earning a token that can be spent. This is because every time there is a bet on the gamer winning, XED tokens are being mined.
    • Newly-minted XED and crafted NFTs can also be earned just by progressing in a game’s tournament or winning it. They are also won when a gamer reaches a milestone, completes a new mission, or achieves a higher ranking.
    • Earned XED and NFT tokens can be traded or monetized, making it a very fun way of earning.

    XED Token

    Exeedme’s $XED is their native token. Players are rewarded with XED tokens through winning or progressing in a game.

    Earn XED tokens
    Earn XED tokens (Image credit: Exeedme)

    The project has designed its platform in such a way that its governance system is led by gamers who would also be major participants on the blockchain. Accordingly, the best way to help improve the platform and push it into success would be to stake XED tokens.

    Gamers who stake the token would enjoy certain privileges like lower fees, a cut of the match fees, access to free and special tournaments, access to exclusive NFT launches, exclusive badges, and other perks.

    Exeedme would also be deploying community pools in its bid to fund general improvements to the protocol. Developers can also obtain funding through various methods depending on their project.

    XED token uses
    XED token uses (Image credit：Exeedme whitepaper)

    XED token metrics and tokenomics

    The XED token was listed on Uniswap and released as a Polkastater Initial DEX Offering on 30th December 2020. Details on the XED token are as follows.

    Total Circulating Supply: 100,000,000 $XED

    Initial Market Cap: $875,000 USD

    Seed/Private/Pre-Public Sale Fundraising: $900,000 USD

    Distribution and release

    Seed: $0.0125 USD, 20% released on TGE, then 10% monthly over 8 months

    Private sale price: $0.025 USD, 25% relased on TGE, then 25% monthly over 3 months

    Pre-Public: $0.03 USD, 25% released on TGE, then 25% monthly over 3 months

    Uniswap listing price: $0.05 USD

    XED token distribution
    XED token distribution (Image credit: Exeedme)

    Exeedme Use of Funds Raised

    • 45% of the funds raised will help support the product development team;
    • 30% will be for growing the ecosystem;
    • 15% will be for providing liquidity to Uniswap and other exchanges;
    • 5% will be for Legal, Regulatory and Security; and
    • 5% will be for general and administrative expenses.

    Exeedme Staking Pool

    The gaming platform would deploy community pools to fund general improvements to the protocol. Developers on the protocol would have access to various funding methods which would be determined by their project.

    For instance, XED rewards and NFT rewards pools would have access to fees garnered from tournaments. They would also be able to receive mints and melts of NFTs and fungible tokens.

    Conclusion

    Exeedme is a uniqueue blockchain gaming platform designed in a way to create a playing field for any skill leveled gamera chance to earn from doing what they love. And despite having other gaming-based blockchain protocols in the space, Exeedme is quite unique in its approach.

    While the previous gaming models do not give adequate room for gamers to earn from their skill, the innovative platform looks to correct that by providing an ample opportunity for gamers to earn from whatever skill levels they have.

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • Decentral Games ($DG): a decentralised crypto casino

    Decentral Games ($DG): a decentralised crypto casino

    Decentral Games is the first community-owned casino ecosystem offering a chance to participate in a seamless, anonymous and decentralized gaming ecosystem, all the while being rewarded for your participation.

    Thrill-seekers from any part of the world have had the pleasure of enjoying their favorite casino games on-the-go. Despite the fact that these games have been available on the internet since the 90s, their popularity has only recently soared to the roof! This is in part thanks to the abundance and accessibility of mobile devices.


    Background

    In 2019, with the power of Blockchain technology, a group of innovators has been able to give the online casino sphere a gigantic push forward with the formation of Decentral Games.

    The founders were able to seize an opportunity to leverage the Ethereum blockchain to develop a non-custodial social 3D casino on the internet. The team, which is made up of about ten people, is based in San Ana, Costa Rica.         

    What is Decentral Games?

    Decentral games is a casino ecosystem that is owned, governed, and maintained by its users (holders of the $DG token), through a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). Essentially, the platform allows casino game lovers to control its system and ensure that rules are followed and issues are resolved through the DAO.

    The ecosystem leverages two previously existing Blockchain platforms. One is Decentraland, where its users are able to create, experience, and monetize contents and applications. The other is Matic Network, which provides seamless, fast, and cost-effective transactions on the Ethereum network.

    Decentral Games puts the affairs of the game itself into the hands of its users. For instance, the users are in-charge of funds. And thanks to its open-source logic, a fair evaluation for every result (in case of disputes). Furthermore, each user is able to enjoy fast transactions and anonymous participation.

    Decentral Games Ecosystem

    Every element on the ecosystem interacts with the $DG token. And these interactions all happen via the dgTreasury, which serves as the casino house fund. It is open and observable to all users.

    Decentral Games ecosystem
    Decentral Games ecosystem (Image credit: Decentral Games)

    The treasury is responsible for bankrolling and funding all games. Therefore, for it to function effectively at all times, it must always have enough funds. Fees collected from players (in $MANA and $DAI) would be collected and kept in the dgTreasury, which is also from where winnings would be paid out.

    By incentivizing players to stake their digital assets, the treasury gets enough buffer to fund gaming activities.

    And players who stake digital assets are rewarded with $DG tokens, a process popularly known as mining. However, this is not the only means by which you can mine on Decentral Games.

    What is $DG token?

    $DG is Decentral Games’ native utility token based on Ethereum’s ERC-20 standard and made mainly for use on the DG platform. There are 3 main uses and ways to earn the $DG token which will be explored in detail later on in this article. These are: governance, liquidity mining, and gaming rewards.

    Holders of the token can propose and vote on governance proposals concerning the features and/or parameters of Decentral Games’ ecosystem. Decentral Games also has a staking mechanism which rewards users with $DG tokens. Finally, $DG tokens are also rewarded to players for playing games with MANA or DAI.

    $DG Allocation and tokenomics

    At launch, a total of 1 million $DG will become accessible to be distributed strategically over 6 years. 62% (620,000 DG) would be allocated to the community, 20% (200,000 DG) to the development team with 3 years vesting, and the remaining 18% (180,000 DG) to early participants with 2 years vesting.

    DG token distribution
    DG token distribution (Image credit: Decentral Games)

    How to earn $DG tokens on Decentral Games

    Governance incentives

    As a DAO-based community, users are able to come together to deliberate on important decisions. And decisions are made through the results of a vote. With this system, the platform’s future is carved and decorum is maintained.

    This system of self-regulation is known as Governance.

    To submit a proposal or vote on them, you must own $DG tokens. Users can stake their token to submit proposals, as well as vote on them.

    According to the encoded rules of the DAO, 1% of the total $DG supply is required to submit a proposal. While at least 4% of the total $DG supply must be pooled together within 7-days for a decision to be made.

    The amount of $DG you have staked determines your voting power. Users are able to stake their tokens through the governance dashboard available to every user.

    Participants in governance are often rewarded with more $DG tokens. This makes the second means by which you can mine on the Decentral Games.

    It should be noted that issues deliberated and voted on are restricted to those within the platform and its eco-system itself. It does not extend to the management of the staff, assets, or affiliates. It also does not represent any right with respect to Decentral Games itself.

    Liquidity Incentives: mining/farming $DG

    The earning process, also known as mining, is conducted through several different processes on DG. It enables users to get $DG in return for providing liquidity to the MANA-DG and DAI-DG 98/2 balancer pools. Farming on $DG is done in 4 simple steps:

    1. Hold $MANA or $DAI on your Ethereum Mainnet wallet on Metamask. and connect your wallet to Decentral Games.
    2. Choose either Pool 1 (98% MANA- 2% DG) or Pool 2 (98% DAI- 2% DG).
    3. Select “Add liquidity” and fill in your preferred deposit amount. If you are a first-time Balancer user you may have to sign up to 4 transactions: setup proxy, MANA/DAI authorisation, $DG authorisation, and add liquidity to pool. Once you have added liquidity to the pool, you will receive balancer pool tokens (BPTs) which can be staked to farm $DG.
    4. Connect your Metamask wallet to the $DG Liquidity Farming Dashboard. Then, enter the BPT amount you wish to stake and confirm by selecting “Stake BPT”.
    Farming $DG tokens
    Farming $DG tokens (Image credit: Decentral Games)

    More details on how to farm $DG are available here.

    Gameplay Rewards

    But perhaps the most important means of mining on the platform is through gameplay. As you are enjoying the thrill of your games, you get rewarded in DG tokens.

    Rewards are distributed based on specific activities you perform during gameplay. Some of those activities involve placing a wager, playing with multiple players on the same table, referring other players, and having your avatar wear DG non-fungible token-based wearables when playing.

    You can bring your digital assets into the ecosystem using MANA or DAI tokens, both of which are fast and effective transactional stablecoins that run on Ethereum and are noted for their value exchange stability.

    So in addition to any winnings players may receive, they will also receive $DG.

    Available games on Decentral Games

    At present, a good number of popular casino games are already available on Decentral Games. These include: Blackjack, Roulette, Slots, Backgammon, and Poker.

    Decentral Games expanding into virtual land ownership?

    On 21 January 2021 Decentral Games has transferred 403 Decentraland LAND parcels to the $DG DAO worth USD $500,000. Each of these land parcels is a unique and transferable non-fungible token representing 16×16 meters of virtual space in a specific location on the Decentralad map. Users can choose to own adjacent land parcels for building structures such as casinos and galleries. (https://escapecitybuffalo.com/)

    $DG holders will be able to create proposals to direct how these land parcels should be developed.

    Conclusion

    As people spend more hours within virtual worlds, Decentral Games aims to grow to hundreds of thousands of users by the end of the year. And since it is part of a greater ecosystem called Decentraland, the casino platform can easily tap into a vast network of users.

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • ChainGuardians ($CGG): play games to earn cryptocurrency?

    ChainGuardians ($CGG): play games to earn cryptocurrency?

    ChainGuardians is powered by the technology that allows digital asset tokenization, creating an ecosystem where blockchain meets play. Here, users can have fun on the platform while earning rewards in the form of cryptocurrency. They can also participate in popular blockchain activities such as mining or staking without much complexity.

    Check out our interview with Co-founders Emma Liu and Idon Liu (from 23:00 onwards)

    Background

    The team behind ChainGuardians built the platform to create an enjoyable and worthwhile blockchain gaming experience for its players. According to the team, the majority of the gaming content is still currently only accessible on web browsers but they are planning to create an independent gaming platform for it.

    What is ChainGuardians?

    ChainGuardians is a cryptocurrency-meets-anime-themed blockchain collectible game powered by non-fungible tokens (NFT). The game is available both on mobile and web platforms, making it very accessible to its users. It is also built on top of Ethereum while its in-game assets are based on the ERC-721 standard.

    The goal of ChainGuardians is to introduce a gaming element in the blockchain ecosystem, implementing chain analysis technology and advanced game economics to govern the platform’s mechanics.

    All in-game assets are considered crypto-collectible NFTs. These are, for example, weapons, armors, and even the in-game characters i.e. Guardians. The purpose of having them tokenized is to make sure that they are unique and safe against counterfeiting.

    All the collectibles, as well, are of limited quantity. They can also be either bought or sold on secondary NFT marketplaces.

    While there are a lot of blockchain-based games today, according to the team behind ChainGuardians, their difference is that their governance is more community-based. There are other steps that the team said they were doing differently against others, which are:

    • The constant development of end-game content and platform playability;
    • Introduction of multiple game modes, including player-versus-player modes;
    • Rebalancing of Guardians, lower ranking characters, items, and game economy, as they are needed;
    • The constant development of the battle meta;
    • Introduction of ‘Bring Your Own NFT,’ where users can integrate their own NFTs on the platform;
    • Loyalty reward system;
    • Bot prevention system; and
    • Commencement of events and competitions to encourage player activity.

    The platform offers a free-to-play NFT mining game and a role-playing game (RPG). Players can earn rewards for participating in either of the two.

    For the game’s newcomers who just want to try out the game modes first, the platform offers a guardian simulation mode. For this mode, users will not need to own any crypto-collectible, or NFTs. This means, however, that their progress will not be factored in the actual game economy. They will also not be entitled to rewards in the simulation mode as well.

    Crypto Boost is another feature made available on the platform. This gives existing cryptocurrency holders additional incentives in playing the game. To ensure that the accounts are in good crypto standing, their transaction history and holdings will be evaluated through Chain Analysis.

    NFT Mining Game

    Players can choose to participate in the game’s ecosystem by staking NFTs partnered by ChainGuardians. The process here is really simple. Users can either purchase their own NFT for staking or select from its supported projects called the “CryptoVerse Alliance.”

    After a player has chosen an NFT to mine, they can start mining. Rewards for mining NFTs are ChainGuardians Credits (CGC). These can be used to make in-game purchases on ChainGuardians RPG or for conversion to the ChainGuardians Governance (CGG) token (more on this later). Furthermore, this is free-to-play.

    ChainGuardians RPG

    Playing the RPG is another option for users to earn rewards from the platform. Basic game achievements, such as the increase in your character’s level or winning against other in-game enemies, can give the player CGC rewards.

    The goal of the players here is to work together to take down in-game enemies such as GateKeepers. This will help their characters gain power, credits, armaments, and other tools that they’ll need to progress in the game.

    The game is also a turn-based battle game, but when a player is not active, the platform allows AI-based battles that factor in the attribute of a player’s character.

    CGC rewards can be redeemed for CGG tokens or other available services on the platform.

    There is a daily schedule for the redemption of CGG and it factors in the activity of the player on the platform. The RPG is also free-to-play. 

    ChainGuardians play and earn
    How to play and earn on the ChainGuardians ecosystem (Image credit: ChainGuardians)

    CGG Token

    CGG is ChainGuardians’ Governance token. It is an ERC-20 token that represents a user’s stake in the platform. CGG holders can take part in important protocol decisions as well as earn rewards for continuously participating in the ecosystem.

    Chainguardians CGG tokenomics
    ChainGuardians ($CGG) tokenomics (Image Credit: ChainGuardians)

    There are many ways to earn an income from using CGG. Here are some ways:

    Liquidity Provider Token

    The platform has a liquidity pool backed by the POWER token. This is the ecosystem’s liquidity provider token. Users who stake CGG in the platform’s liquidity pool are entitled to POWER rewards which they can redeem later on. The pool supports the CGG and ETH trading pair of the platform.

    In addition, users can choose to just provide CGG pairs on the platform’s liquidity pool. They can also earn POWER in doing so.

    NFT Staking

    CGG holders can stake their tokens on the platform’s supported NFTs. This way, they can potentially earn more NFTs and partner tokens as their reward.

    Governance

    The platform’s governance is community-based, which means that CGG holders are the ones voting on the ecosystem’s mechanics and protocols. Some of these decisions cover the following:

    • Future in-game characters and their abilities;
    • Game economics and balancing schemes;
    • APY for stakers and the supported NFTs; and,
    • Hash rates for NFT miners.

    Conclusion

    The game is indeed an interesting use case for blockchain technology. Apart from the introduction of NFTs, it also features a liquidity mining and staking option that many cryptocurrency holders find easy to work with. 

    The project has done good work in integrating advanced blockchain concepts into a more gamified experience for users.

    With the successful application of most blockchain technologies such as governance tokens, NFTs, mining, perhaps the next step for ChainGuardians is to make a scalable platform should more players join. All in all, the project is a promising display of the blockchain’s capacity while easing them towards the basic concepts that back most projects in DeFi.

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.