Boxmining

Category: Latest News

  • Top NFT Games in 2021: Ranked

    Top NFT Games in 2021: Ranked

    The introduction of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) has continued to prove time and time again that they have the ability to transform the gaming industry as we know it. The emergence of NFTs brings about a new and exciting era in which gamers take on even more critical roles in the gaming economy and receive lucrative rewards in the process.

    This gaming paradigm is beginning to take shape as game developers are progressively adopting blockchain technology to produce more immersive gaming experiences. In this guide, we will go through some of the top NFT games introduced this year.

    But before diving in, let’s first discuss the basics of an NFT-based game.

    What Are NFT Games?

    NFT games combine conventional gaming features with novel gameplay mechanisms to provide players more control over in-game assets such as skins, characters, weapons, virtual lands, and much more. This is made possible by launching games on blockchains and anchoring them in economies powered by digital assets. These digital assets are often NFTs so that they are distinctive and tamper-proof. 

    The adoption of NFT token standards have allowed game developers to preserve the rarity and uniqueness of some of these in-game items. This is why some blockchain game assets are considered more expensive than others. 

    With the NFT system in place, the players can claim ownership of game assets through 3 main strategies. They can create or breed new characters, purchase digital items on native or third-party marketplaces, or unlock and earn new items. Regardless of how the player chooses to access these game assets, they have exclusive ownership rights over them. The player may then distribute or sell these assets and keep all the profits.

    What Are the Top NFT Games in 2021?

    Like all emerging and established sectors, certain platforms have positioned themselves at the top of the NFT gaming world. These games are at the forefront of the current NFT craze because they have successfully integrated NFTs with popular game themes. As a result, players get to enjoy some of their favourite game genres and at the same time engage with a profitable NFT market. 

    Without further ado, here are some of the top NFT games in 2021.

    1. Axie Infinity

    axie infinity

    Axie Infinity takes inspiration from the Pokemon game franchise and adds a blockchain twist to make the final product even more interesting. Players breed and gather NFT-based digital creatures called Axies in this Ethereum-based game with the primary goal of combating other players. 

    Each Axie has its own unique genetic fingerprint. As a result, the strengths and shortcomings of Axies are handed down to their descendants. These digital creatures can be traded on Ethereum NFT markets, with prices varying depending on their rarity and distinctive characteristics. To begin playing the game, players have to purchase 3 Axies. 

    Smooth Love Potion ($SLP) — the platform’s native ERC-20 utility token – is awarded for each mission, player-versus-player (PvP) fight, and adventure mode that the player completes. Players pay a certain amount of $SLP for each attempt to breed a new Axie. $SLP can also be bought through exchanges. 

    Another ERC-20 token native to Axie Infinity is Axis Infinity Shard ($AXS), which functions as the platform’s governance token. It will anchor the game’s staking service scheduled to go live at some point in 2021.

    2. MetaWars

    metawars

    MetaWars is a futuristic sci-fi multiplayer strategy and roleplaying game in space that allows players to monetize and earn from the game’s war economy. Players can immerse themselves in realistic space exploration through the vast MetaWars galaxy that is constantly evolving and shifting from the collective actions of every player. 

    MetaWars enables cooperation with other players to discover and revolutionize different galaxies through missions while earning NFTs and collecting limited edition robots through various auctions. Players can stake and complete challenges to earn $WARS tokens, the in-game and governance token.

    The gameplay also allows players to widen their army with unique ships, classes, and various optimization options. Players can combine modules, weapons, devices and equip perks, helping their characters level up their strength, rank up and receive amazing rewards across the metaverse.

    Learn more about MetaWars in our article MetaWars ($WARS, $GAM): NFT Gaming in Space.

    3. Splinterlands

    splinterlands

    Splinterlands is a tradable card game that lets users earn as they play, similar to Gods Unchained. Players can earn rewards when they win card matches. 

    To begin playing Splinterlands, you must first purchase a starting pack of cards, create a Steem account, and then reveal the purchased cards in the game. 

    You could be lucky and get rare cards in your first set of bought cards in some situations. You could also come across multiples of the same sort of card. If that’s the case, you can combine identical cards to increase their strength or sell one of them in exchange for cryptocurrency.

    After you’ve become comfortable with the cards, you may go on to combat other players or take part in missions. The outcome of these actions will influence whether or not you earn more cards.

    4. The Three Kingdoms

    the three kingdoms

    The Three Kingdoms is a strategic third-generation NFT game that is based on the historical characters of the Three Kingdoms period in ancient China. The play-to-earn game is the first to incorporate the idea of battling and besieging cities through staking, complete with a deep and engaging storyline, providing a breath of fresh air to the blockchain gaming landscape.

    The team behind The Three Kingdoms set out to build an NFT game that features multiple methods never seen before in the blockchain gaming market to earn tokens. $TTK is the game’s native token, used to purchase new characters in the NFT marketplace, upgrade armies, and invest in land. It can also be staked to farm more valuable NFTs.

    $TTK will also be needed to acquire $CHI, the secondary in-game token. Inspired by the actual use of Chi in Chinese history as the energy that runs through all living things, players will be able to convert $TTK to $CHI through the mastering of energy. Some future uses of $CHI include the ability to besiege cities, battle other players and even fuse new heroes.

    Read more about it in our article The Three Kingdoms: The New Era of GameFi.

    5. Gods Unchained

    gods unchained

    Gods Unchained is a free-to-play game designed to infuse elements of NFT into a familiar card trading gaming genre. Players accumulate cards by purchasing them from other players or winning PvP matchups where the quality of cards and the gaming skill of players often determine the winner. Notably, more emphasis is being placed on skills and strategy. This is because the game utilizes a ranked game mode where players with the same ratings are matched.

    You win matches when your gameplay causes your opponent’s life to drop to zero before yours. For every win, you receive experience points. As soon as the experience bar is filled up, you will move to the next rating or level and receive a new pack of cards to add to your collection.

    Note that each card is backed by an ERC-721 token. Therefore, you can trade them on the platform’s native marketplace or the open market. Those opting to sell cards within the game ecosystem will receive the platform’s native token, $GODS, as payment. 

    It is worth noting that the $GODS token has not been officially launched at the time of writing. Be sure to confirm that the development team has released GODS tokens to the crypto market before proceeding to purchase or receive any token marketed as GODS tokens.

    6. The Sandbox 3D

    the sandbox 3d

    The Sandbox is a voxel-based game metaverse and one of the most popular NFT gaming platforms for creating and trading virtual assets. Players may modify and monetize voxel objects in this game. 

    Consider it a blockchain-based version of popular games like Minecraft and Roblox. The platforms provide tools for creating and animating objects, which can then be sold on markets. On the platform, users can also develop and play their own games.

    $SAND, an ERC-20 coin, has been presented as the metaverse’s native token by Sandbox 3D. Players may use this to buy in-game products from the platform’s marketplace. There are also $LAND tokens, which are NFT tokens that are among the most valuable and sought-after assets in the Sandbox game.

    7. Battle Racers

    battle racers

    Battle Racers is inspired by popular games such as Super Mario Kart and F-Zero, as its name suggests. The goal of the game is to mix various weaponry and equipment to build the most powerful vehicles possible. Players may mix and match various components and weaponry to get an edge on the arcade-style circuits. You may register your treasured or winning automobiles as NFTs on the blockchain and then sell them for cryptocurrency on OpenSea.

    Each player aims to build the ultimate automobile by prioritizing various talents and attributes. You could choose handling over speed or defense over firepower, all in the hopes of emerging victorious.

    8. Cryptosnake

    The gameplay of Cryptosnake is really easy. It’s based on the old-school snake game. Cryptocurrencies on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) blockchain provide food for your snake. The more you consume, the higher your pet’s stats will be. You may also use fiat to level up your snake, which will allow you to earn even more money in the future.

    If the snake doesn’t make you nostalgic, the gameplay may appear monotonous. On the other hand, you spend less time on in-game activities that aren’t essential and instead earn more consistently.

    9. Gold Fever

    gold fever

    Gold Fever is a jungle-themed role-playing game where players choose a character and try to outplay other players for a chance of mining gold in the form of the game’s native token, $NGL. Players also go about collecting limited NFT-based items like clothes, weapons and other supplies. 

    Similar to the workings of most NFT games, Gold Fever tries to enable blockchain-initiated scarcity for its in-game assets. You can pick any of the main characters of the game and play your part in the formation of a fiercely contested gold economy. 

    Note that the in-app game items are tradable on marketplaces. Therefore, you can exchange $NGL earned for fiat or cryptocurrencies on exchanges or earn by trading collectibles on NFT marketplaces.

     10. Neon District

    neon district

    Neon District is a cyberpunk role-playing game (RPG) that allows users to collect characters, gears and crafts. All of the game objects are blockchain components and almost everything may be purchased or sold. As is usually the case, the price is determined by supply and demand.

    The goal is to build a team and compete against other players in missions or real-time combats. One multiplayer competitive game mode, called Neon Pizza, in particular, pitches players against each other for the chance of earning the platform’s native token – $Neon, as well as gears, parts and so on. 

    All you need to do is send your characters on pizza delivery runs to feed hungry citizens. You can also take up a more villainous strategy by ambushing the pizza delivery team of other players and stealing their earnings. 

    $Neon earnings can be used to purchase characters, weapons, parts, armors, juice, and other in-game items required to upgrade characters. The tokens are now NFTs that are linked to the blockchain, but they cannot yet be traded on a genuine cryptocurrency exchange.

    Conclusion

    NFT games are not tough to master as they make use of popular gaming genres, with the added combination of blockchain features that are ideal for establishing rarity and uniqueness. With the raging popularity of NFT games, more and more people are starting to realize that it is possible to make a decent profit from these games. 

    These games are also highly entertaining and have made great strides for the understanding and adoption of blockchain. It is exciting to see the next big game that will emerge and where the industry will go from here. 

  • The Three Kingdoms (TTK): Token Listing on PancakeSwap and Gate.io

    The Three Kingdoms (TTK): Token Listing on PancakeSwap and Gate.io

    The Three Kingdoms (TTK) will be listing their token, $TTK on PancakeSwap and Gate.io.

    About The Three Kingdoms

    The Three Kingdoms is a third-generation NFT (non-fungible token) Game based on historical figures from ancient China’s Three Kingdoms era. TTK Tokens can be earned in a variety of ways. Players can win NFT characters via raffles, completing tasks, and participating in siege games.

    What makes The Three Kingdoms truly unique is that it is the first game to use staking as a gameplay mechanic for attacking and capturing cities.

    About PancakeSwap

    PancakeSwap is a popular exchange on Binance Smart Chain that offers numerous support functions such as Swapping, Staking, and Bridging assets all in one easy-to-use platform.

    About Gate.io

    Gate.io is one of the fastest-growing cryptocurrency exchanges with a stable trading environment with additional features such as Wallet.io, Gate Code, and anti-purchase solutions. The Gate.io platform is also innovating new technologies to protect assets.

    $TTK Token Listing Details

    DEX listing on PancakeSwap: 11:35 AM UTC on 13th October 2021

    CEX listing on Gate.io: 12:05 PM UTC on 13th October 2021

    Please refer to the official announcement for more details on the listing and the $TTK token.

    About The Three Kingdoms

    Collect ultra-rare characters, weapons and a land that you can truly own!

    The Three Kingdoms is a 3rd Generation NFT Game that adopts the three Kingdoms storyline. Prepare to immerse yourself in a gaming experience enriched with extensive history, multifaceted characters, progression gameplay and more. Prepare your heroes for battle, siege cities, and win battles to expand your own land.

    Be your own hero in the land of The Three Kingdoms!

    Follow The Three Kingdoms on social media to stay up to date with the latest news:

    Website — https://ttk.gg/
    Twitter — https://twitter.com/PlayTTK
    Telegram Announcements — https://t.me/TTK_Official
    Telegram Official Community — https://t.me/PlayTTK
    Discord — https://discord.com/invite/kg4SMdCCM5
    Reddit — https://www.reddit.com/r/PlayTTK
    Medium — https://medium.com/@PlayTTK

  • The Three Kingdoms: The New Era of GameFi

    The Three Kingdoms: The New Era of GameFi

    Ever wanted to be your own hero in ancient China and earn cryptocurrencies while you’re at it? Well, now you can. The Three Kingdoms is a highly strategic third-generation GameFi (blockchain game finance) that is based on the historical characters of the Three Kingdoms period in ancient China. 

    The play-to-earn metaverse allows players to immerse themselves in a gaming experience enriched with extensive history, well-developed characters, progression gameplay and more. Prepare your heroes for battle, siege cities, and win battles to expand your own land.

    Learn more about The Three Kingdoms (TTK):

    URGENT: Next BIGGEST NFT Game REVEALED

    What is GameFi?

    Combining the words Game and DeFi (decentralized finance) in one name, GameFi is the gamification of financial mechanisms where users can earn money by playing games. Another popular term for this industry is “play-to-earn.” On the surface, the keyword is “game”, but at its core, “finance” is the most important thing for blockchains.

    The spike of popularity in GameFi plays a major role in cryptocurrency adoption on the whole. Blockchain gamification makes it easier for the DeFi ideology to be accepted, incorporated, and advanced. 

    The Next Generation of GameFi

    CryptoKitties was the first to bring blockchain gaming to life, and games such as Axie Infinity have taken it to the next level. The Three Kingdoms team set out to build a blockchain game that features multiple methods never seen before in the GameFi market to earn tokens. Additionally, they are creating an authentic gaming experience that compares better to the games by major publishers that gamers have been accustomed to playing.

    CryptoKitties
    Cryptokitties

    To achieve this, The Three Kingdoms will feature high-end graphics, the ability to collect NFT characters, complete quests, and join siege gameplays to earn NFTs. The Three Kingdoms will be the first play-to-earn game that incorporates the idea of battling and besieging cities through staking, complete with a deep and engaging storyline, providing a breath of fresh air to the GameFi landscape.

    In the game, users will be able to build their base, expand their territories, upgrade their character’s attributes, win battles and emerge victorious in PvE (player versus environment) and PvP (player versus player) battles.

    The History of the Three Kingdoms

    The Three Kingdoms
    The Three Kingdoms

    The Three Kingdoms is based in 220 AD, during the final years of the Eastern Han dynasty. The Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out, with cities and regions forming their alliance for survival. Warlord Dong Zhuo seized control of the capital under the pretext of protecting the young emperor. Cao Cao, who had gradually taken control of territories in the North, saved the emperor and led the central government. Still, formed clans are already eager for the chance to rule over China.

    The country broke into civil war, and soon, China was divided into three spheres of influence: Cao Cao dominating the North, Sun Quan the South, and Liu Bei, the West. The three kingdoms fought for sixty years to conquer China, and this is where the story for the user begins.

    The Three Kingdoms land is modelled after the historical map of China split into Wei, Shu, and Wu regions. The land will be split into unique squares and within these lands, users can host, stake, and monetize events. Users can conquer and own their base of operations where they can fight and expand their territory.

    Roadmap for the Three Kingdoms

    The Three Kingdoms is well underway, with plans to begin passive gameplay in Q4 of 2021. Referred to as Phase 0, users will be able to earn NFTs by recruiting heroes via outskirts. The team plans to include additional gameplay features such as the ability to siege empty cities (stake NFTs) and occupy cities (earn APY, in-game currency, and NFTs) in 2022 (Phase 1).

    Phase 2 will feature PvP, where users can attack and defend cities. The attacker and defender both stake NFTs, with the winner earning an APY, currency, NFTs, and attributes.

    Finally, Phase 3 will be the introduction of active gameplay via Arena and Tournaments. Players will be able to stake their NFTs against other players in a winner-takes-all battle.

    NFTs In The Three Kingdoms

    Similar to popular gacha games with their randomized loot boxes, The Three Kingdoms utilises NFTs (non-fungible tokens) to bring added excitement to the gameplay experience. Players can recruit unique and powerful characters to build up their army to occupy cities and win battles.

    Raffles – A raffle will be held every so often that will enable players to draw a character card at random, for a price. Players will be able to draw as many cards as they wish. 

    Characters – Characters will be randomly assigned six attributes: attack power, defence power, energy, luck, leadership, and intellect. The combination of these attributes determines whether a card is normal, rare, super rare or legendary.

    Quests – Another method to recruit NFTs is where players send out one of their characters to recruit other heroes. Each found hero is another NFT of varying quality, which could help strengthen their forces.

    Farming – Special NFTs can also be farmed by staking $TTK, the game’s native currency.

    The Native Token – $TTK

    The game’s native token is $TTK, which will be the lifeblood of this ancient yet modern metaverse. Players will use $TTK to purchase new characters in the NFT marketplace, upgrade armies, and invest in land. It can also be staked to farm more valuable NFTs.

    $TTK will also be needed to acquire $CHI, the secondary in-game token. 

    $TTK tokens should be viewed as powers originating from the spirits of the dead that perished on the battlefield, so attaining them will be important to gather energy that will help players on their journey.

    The In-Game Token – $CHI

    Inspired by the actual use of Chi in Chinese history as the energy that runs through all living things, The Three Kingdoms will have a secondary in-game token that will be important to the gameplay.

    As players gather energy through $TTK tokens for their journey of The Three Kingdoms, they are able to convert the energy to $CHI through harmonization. Only through mastering the energy of $TTK can warriors advance ahead with their well-balanced Chi.

    $CHI can be earned by staking $TTK-LP + NFTs to receive NFTs + $CHI as rewards.

    Some future uses of $CHI include the ability to besiege cities, battle other players and even fuse new heroes. As a fair launch token, any player is able to ascend into their ultimate self and transform their $TTK into $CHI.

    The Three Kingdoms Receives $3.2M in Funding

    In October 2021, The Three Kingdoms successfully raised $3.2 million USD from supporting investors. The investors included DAO Maker, Magnus Capital, LinkPad, SMO Capital, CoinUnited.io, Double Peak, x21, ZBS Capital, ReBlock and CryptoDiffer.

    The Three Kingdoms will be utilising the funds to innovate new projects and further the growth of the ecosystem, expanding the community and strengthening the foundation of the ecosystem for users to maximize the use of the platform. 

    The game will be hosted on the Binance Smart Chain network and is currently underway. Passive gameplay is aimed to be released later this year. 

    To know more about The Three Kingdom and its future developments, visit their social media channels listed below.

    Website — https://ttk.gg/

    Twitter — https://twitter.com/PlayTTK

    Telegram Announcements — https://t.me/TTK_Official

    Telegram Official Community — https://t.me/PlayTTK

    Discord — https://discord.com/invite/kg4SMdCCM5

    Reddit — https://www.reddit.com/r/PlayTTK

    Medium — https://medium.com/@PlayTTK

    Sources:

    https://latestnews.plus/gamefi-altcoins-are-growing-crazy-so-what-is-gamefi/ https://medium.com/@PlayTTK/the-three-kingdoms-introducing-the-new-era-of-play-to-earn-d569264ffb11
    https://medium.com/@PlayTTK/introducing-ttk-and-chi-let-the-spirit-of-ttk-help-you-find-your-chi-2394d2895f7a
    https://medium.com/@PlayTTK/the-art-of-chi-the-life-force-that-enriches-play-to-earn-in-the-three-kingdoms-274959efee24
    https://news.bitcoin.com/the-three-kingdoms-the-new-era-of-play-to-earn-games/ https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/the-three-kingdoms-successfully-closes-3-2m-investment-round/

  • Fantom: A Fast and Flexible Next-Generation Blockchain

    Fantom: A Fast and Flexible Next-Generation Blockchain

    Fantom (FTM) is a smart contract-enabled blockchain that provides a robust environment for dApp (decentralized application) development. 

    Using advanced Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) technology, this project aims to provide near-infinite scalability and instant transactions at nearly zero cost. They are also working on a high-performance virtual machine with safe, secure smart contract execution.

    Check out our explainer video on Fantom (FTM) will it be the next hotbed for DeFi?

    Fantom (FTM) explained: Will it be the next hotbed for DeFi?

    The Blockchain Trilemma: What is it?

    blockchain trilemma
    blockchain trilemma

    The blockchain trilemma is a concept coined by Vitalik Buterin that proposes a set of three main issues that developers encounter when building blockchains. More often than not, creators are forced to sacrifice one aspect for the sake of the other two.

    • Decentralization – creating a blockchain system that does not rely on a central point of control
    • Scalability – the ability for a blockchain system to handle an increasingly growing amount of transactions
    • Security – the ability of the blockchain system to operate as expected, defend itself from attacks, bugs, and other unforeseen issues

    For some in the industry, achieving all three aspects is an impossible feat that will never be done, at least in the near future. 

    Fantom is designed to overcome these limitations of old-generation blockchain platforms by providing a steady balance of scalability, security, and decentralization.

    Fantom Overview

    Fantom operates atop a bespoke “leaderless” PoS consensus mechanism dubbed Lachesis that secures the Fantom network and ensures both transactional speed and security. Lachesis is an aBFT consensus mechanism, which means that network data can be processed at different times, and the network can tolerate up to one third of participants engaging in faulty or malicious behavior without causing undue harm to network processes.

    Lachesis also boasts near-instant finality. This means that transactions are confirmed and finalized in an average of one second, without the need to wait for laborious block confirmation as experienced in Proof-of-Work (PoW) networks. By avoiding the relatively lengthy block confirmation process, this aBFT system is much faster and more scalable than many of its Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) counterparts.

    The Fantom Foundation has turned its focus towards decentralized finance (DeFi) use cases with the help of Yearn Finance founder Andre Cronje, who serves as a technical advisor to Fantom. Andre has advised and helped promote Fantom’s multi-chain efforts, such as the launch of Fantom’s bridge to Ethereum.

    As an ultra-high speed and high-performance platform, Fantom believes it can become the IT infrastructure backbone for the emerging smart cities. With a goal of executing 300,000 transactions per second, and the ability to communicate across multiple service providers, Fantom believes it is the solution to storing vast amounts of data securely.

    It hopes to achieve this by being accessible to stakeholders for smart city data-driven smart contracts and dApp adoption. The Fantom team envisions the platform being used across a wide variety of sectors, including public utilities, smart home systems, healthcare, education, traffic management, resource management, and environmental sustainability projects.

    Fantom Technology

    Fantom features two core technologies:

    1. Lachesis protocol – the core consensus layer
    2. Opera – an application development layer

    Lachesis uses a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) based algorithm to achieve asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerance (aBFT). Lachesis has four key qualities:

    • Asynchronous: Participants have the freedom to process commands at different times
    • Leaderless: No participant plays a “special” role in block production
    • Byzantine Fault-Tolerant: Supports one-third of faulty nodes
    • Near-Instant Finality: Transactions are confirmed in 1-2 seconds.

    Fantom has implemented Lachesis as a consensus layer that can extend to additional layers within the system.

    byzantine fault tolerance
    Byzantine Fault Tolerance

    Opera is a permissionless and open-source environment for development. It boasts the full range of smart contract capability that Ethereum has due to its support of the Solidity programming language and integration with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Applications built on Fantom can be designed to be interoperable with platforms built on Ethereum, while still maintaining the transactional efficiency of the Fantom network.

    A proprietary software development kit (SDK) known as the Fantom Virtual Machine will eventually be released for native Fantom-based development alongside continued support for the EVM — a strategy meant to entice Ethereum-based dApp developers to make an easy transition over to building applications on Fantom.

    Fantom DeFi and FTM Token

    Fantom promises to be the all-in-one DeFi (decentralized finance) suite for users. Fantom’s EVM-compatible blockchain gives users the ability to mint, trade, lend and borrow digital assets directly from their wallets. And all of this comes with near zero fees and instant transactions, making DeFi ideal on Fantom.

    Fantom currently supports the following:

    • Liquid staking – using staked FTM tokens as collateral for DeFi applications. All FTM delegations are liquid within the Fantom ecosystem.
    • fMint – users can mint dozens of synthetic assets on Fantom, including cryptocurrencies, national currencies, and commodities.
    • fLend – lending and borrowing digital assets to trade and to earn interests without losing exposure to held FTM.
    • fTrade – trading Fantom-based digital assets without leaving the wallet. This makes for a fully non-custodial and decentralized AMM exchange.

    What is the FTM token?

    FTM is the primary token on the Fantom network. FTM tokens and sFTM tokens can be used as collateral to mint fUSD, which can then be used to trade and swap for synthetic tokens and fiat, and much more. All of this is accomplished through the progressive web app Fantom fWallet, where users can store, send, receive, and stake FTM tokens.

    Fantom partnerships 

    Fantom is working together with Chainlink to build secure and scalable DeFi products like decentralized stablecoins, lending protocols, and synthetic assets. All developers building on Fantom can access Chainlink’s oracle infrastructure. The integration enables the whole Fantom ecosystem to combine tamper-proof real-time data for on-chain and off-chain assets from trusted sources.

    Travala, a blockchain-based travel booking platform, is leveraging Fantom to help users book over 3,000,000 travel products worldwide, including hotels, homes, flights, tours, and activities. This will be a huge boost to Fantom’s adoption.

    SuperFarm, a growing NFT ecosystem, simplifies the process for builders on projects like Fantom to set up NFT farms and expand use cases for their tokens. In addition to launching exclusive NFT drops for Fantom users, SuperFarm offers Fantom builders new ways to engage their communities. By setting up NFT farms via the SuperFarm platform’s intuitive and simple interface, builders can incentivize community members to stake their tokens, earn rewards, and interact with each other.

    DABS is Afghanistan’s national and fastest-growing electricity company. It manages electricity production, import, transmission, and distribution across the country. Fantom has signed an MoU with DABS where they have agreed to cooperate on the digitalization and implementation of advanced audit software within DABS’s operations. This a huge partnership to support smart energy in Afghanistan, which can help more adoption & validation of the Fantom platform.

    Fantom has secured many partnerships and integrations in its quest to become the “nervous system for smart cities.” 

    More details about these partnerships can be found on their official website: https://fantom.foundation/partners/

    Conclusion

    Fantom’s approach to the DeFi and dApp landscape is innovative — as is its staking reward program structure. Further proposed use cases for Fantom’s highly scalable smart contract platform are dApps related to supply chain management, payments, and smart city programs, some of which are already being piloted around the world.

    As the first of its kind with its complex and unique infrastructure, Fantom’s approach to fast, scalable dApp development is still establishing its place in the wider blockchain ecosystem. Although there is already much competition in the burgeoning dApp sector, the speed and benefits that Fantom offers dApp developers are notable, and the platform is poised to gain further traction.

    FAQ

    What is Fantom?

    Fantom is a smart contract-enabled blockchain that provides a robust environment for dApp development.

    What does Fantom do?

    The Fantom network architecture intends to provide a viable solution to the blockchain trilemma by providing a steady balance of scalability, security, and decentralization.

    How does Fantom work?

    Fantom’s fast, scalable platform for decentralized applications (dApps) draws its speed from a unique consensus mechanism called Lachesis. Fantom also offers tools that make it easy to integrate existing dApps, a nuanced system of staking rewards, and a suite of built-in decentralized finance (DeFi) tools.

    What is Lachesis?

    Fantom is a Layer-1 blockchain that uses a single consensus layer to support the creation of multiple execution chains. The network’s independent consensus layer called Lachesis, featuring a novel consensus mechanism developed by the Fantom Foundation dubbed the “Lachesis Protocol.” Lachesis can provide security to multiple other layers, the first of which is Fantom’s EVM-compatible smart contract chain called Opera.

    Has Fantom been adopted?

    Yes. Fantom is an ambitious project that has already partnered with numerous blockchain projects, as well as governments and enterprises.

    Sources:

    https://medium.com/certik/the-blockchain-trilemma-decentralized-scalable-and-secure-e9d8c41a87b3 https://fantom.foundation/lachesis-consensus-algorithm/ https://fantom.foundation/what-is-fantom-opera/ https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/fantom-wallet-fantom-crypto-ftm-token https://messari.io/asset/fantom/profile/technology https://medium.com/geekculture/what-is-fantom-ftm-token-why-it-is-the-potential-hidden-gem-67be22a51254
    https://www.coinbureau.com/review/fantom-ftm/ https://fantom.foundation/partners/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=pmd_qs_MOAP6cGW1uLpLEUYyT98dB0iKkE4DXjCrhQSs3Ps-1632701162-0-gqNtZGzNAdCjcnBszQo9

  • CyberFi ($CFi): Automating decentralised finance?

    CyberFi ($CFi): Automating decentralised finance?

    Decentralised Platforms (DeFi) platforms have exploded in 2020, however, their complicated user interface and user experience have hindered adoption from investors that outside into the crypto industry. And even those who are already accustomed to the mechanics of these networks still fear one thing: impermanent loss.

    Most DeFi platforms use automated market making to determine asset prices in liquidity pools. Therefore, the value of an asset inside the pool may differ from the value of the same asset outside the pool. Since the prices shift radically, it’s hard for liquidity providers to withdraw assets on time to prevent a loss.

    The solution is to use automated trading and liquidity provision on these platforms. CyberFi is among the few projects exploring this path and aiming to bring the functionality of centralized exchanges to decentralised exchanges and automatic market makers.

    Check out our podcast interview with Geralt, CEO of CyberFi.

    Background

    Geralt, Igor Sokolov, and Darius Greicius head the project as the CEO, CTO, and CMO, respectively. The CEO has over five years experience in senior management positions, four years being in the crypto sector, with three years spent in creating DeFi, centralized exchanges (CEX), and other blockchain and crypto activities.

    On the other hand, Sokolov has four years of experience in cryptocurrency, including participating in Hackathons and creating decentralized applications. Greicius is well-versed in the financial markets, crypto, and marketing.

    What is CyberFi?

    CyberFi is a blockchain-based platform allowing users to automate critical tasks when interacting with DeFi protocols. The platform uses intelligent automation to know when to exit or enter a position. The network handles the automation of tasks related to lending, trading, liquidity provision, and inter-blockchain interaction.

    Notably, CyberFi is not a know-it-all platform. Instead, it gives users the chance to define parameters on how they need things to be done.

    For example, liquidity providers (LPs) can automate processes to remove or add liquidity in a pool using set price points. Consequently, LPs don’t get rekt (wrecked) when sleeping since DeFi is a 24-hour industry.

    Geralt and his team have the vision to help DeFi enthusiasts to mitigate risks while lowering entry barriers and enhancing user experience.

    Most importantly, Cyberfi takes a non-custodial approach, minimizing the security risk to users’ funds. In addition, the protocol contains features to cater to both novice and experienced DeFi users.

    Three Areas Cyberfi Seeks to Automate

    CyberFi seeks to automate 3 major areas: Trading, Automation and MultiChian.

    Trading

    Limit orders have dominated crypto trading on centralized exchanges. CyberFi moves beyond the simplicity to tap into price divergent indicators (PDI) to enable smart order handling in DeFi. With no centralized order books, as in CEXs, the protocol uses PDIs that tap into reputable oracles to initiate controlled orders on decentralized exchanges using liquidity pools.

    To ensure its users get the best price in the market, the protocol uses the best trade value (BTV). Apart from the price, the concept also caters to the lowest fees.

    That’s not all. CyberFi uses additional tools to hedge against volatility. For example, the Change Speed (CS) tool coupled with PDIs, is baked inside the smart order feature.

    Consequently, a trader can use the price or its percentage to mark specific points during a trading session that key decisions need to be made. Some of the decisions may be to sell a token when its price falls at a given percentage within a given timeframe.

    Automation System

    CyberFi’s Automation System will feature multiple complex actions in farming, staking, Liquidity Pools and LP tokens.

    The platform uses high-end price triggers and BTV to guard users against inflation, price reduction, and other unforeseen risks.

    In addition, it makes it smoother for a user to enter or exit a strategy without the need to sign an array of transactions. As such, users can engage in high-risk yield farming, which is associated with high returns. Note that interaction with this type of DeFi strategy requires pre-defined parameters from the user.

    Multichain Activities

    The idea of moving crypto assets across different blockchains is finally catching up. Unfortunately, in the DeFi scene, the activity is still mostly manually handled. But not anymore.

    Cyberfi automates inter-blockchain activities to allow users to automate activities on popular decentralized networks such as Polkadot and COSMOS. Notably, with this functionally, DeFi users can automatically participate or move their assets on another blockchain.

    Cyberfi’s CFi token

    CFi is the protocol’s base asset and can be used in the CyberFi ecosystem. The main uses of the CFi token are:

    • Paying for gas prices;
    • access to unique products;
    • reduced commission fees; and
    • payment for multi-chain operations.

    CFi tokenomics

    CFi has a total supply of 2,400,000 CFi tokens. Key beneficiaries during distribution include strategic partners who account for 500K tokens, development (300,000 CFis), and initial liquidity team (250K).

    Around 300,000 CFi tokens were set aside for marketing and community growth, while staking rewards and liquidity providers (LPs) took 200,000 tokens. Additionally, the transaction mining program was allocated 50,000 CFi coins while the two sale rounds removed 800,000 tokens from the total supply.

    Note that allocated coins have different lock-up periods. For instance, tokens allocated to strategic partners have a six-month vesting period, while those on the transaction mining program have 24-weeks unlock period.

    The token’s major use cases include giving holders a voice on the governance table, paying for fees, paying for automation strategies, and giving holders the right to private products.

    However, automation-based activities also use ETH to cover fees. In this case, ETH coins are automatically converted to the native currency.

    Apart from exclusive access and having a voice in the decision-making table, the token gives its holders a right to earn part of the platform’s revenue. And it’s a lot! CyberFi distributes 80% of all fees collected in the native currency to CFi holders. These include those converted from ETH.

    Staking on CyberFi

    CyberFi’s staking product is called CyberEra. The offering is open for CFi and Ethereum (ETH) investors. One pool supports the native asset while the other interacts with CFi/ETH.

    Staking on CyberFi
    Staking on CyberFi

    However, staking rewards differ depending on the pool. On the CFi pool, 10,000 CFi tokens (roughly $30K) are up for grabs, while 25,000 (approximately $76K) CFi tokens are available for rewards on the CFi/ETH pool.

    Each pool has room for any amount of tokens, and each staking session lasts for 40 days upon which the staked funds are locked. Apart from the staked funds, rewards accrued during this period are also locked for the first half of the 40 days.

    On the CFi pool, the daily reward is estimated at around $750 (250 CFi tokens), while those staking on the CFi/ETH LP expect to receive about $1,898 after every 24 hours.

    Interestingly, locking the assets during the staking period attracts only serious users who share in the project’s vision. So far, over 1.5mil worth of CFi has been staked.

    However, the duration of CyberEra isn’t fixed. Depending on its success, the team will decide on how long the next staking era will last.

    A few months into its launch, the platform already boasts over $1 million total value staked. The CFi pool accounts for the largest share, with roughly $670,000, with the CFi/ETH LP having slightly above $390,000.

    CyberFi mega month January- February 2021

    CyberFi are doing huge things in January-February 2021 with product rollouts, integrations, partnerships, new development plans etc.

    The mega month will begin on 20th January 2021 with 3 major accouncements and product rollouts on-board, together with a full update of Q1 and recap.

    23rd January 2021 will be another wave of announcement including “v2” of CyberFi.

    Conclusion

    CyberFi’s entrance into the space has the right timing. Although the DeFi industry has recorded massive gains so far, the protocol could potentially boost the amount of funds locked in DeFi networks. How? By lowering the entry barriers, guarding against impermanent losses, and allowing users to comfortably initiate high-risk yield farming strategies.

    In addition, CyberFi’s implementation of CFi has more benefits to its holders. For instance, sharing 80% of all fees collected with CFi investors and keeping 20% is among the few occurrences in the cryptocurrency industry.

  • Bonfida ($FIDA), the leading Serum DEX

    Bonfida ($FIDA), the leading Serum DEX

    Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) in the cryptocurrency space are faced with problems concerning increasing gas fees and low transaction throughput. This is common especially for platforms that are built on top of Bitcoin and Ethereum networks. To establish a platform that won’t suffer from those issues, the Bonfida Foundation decided to build on top of Serum Project, which runs on Solana.

    As it turns out, Solana is one of the fastest blockchains in the space at present. With the capacity of processing over 50,000 tps, users can enjoy faster transaction settlements without having huge gas fees.

    What is Bonfida?

    Bonfida is a decentralized and non-custodial exchange on top of the Serum trading protocol on the Solana blockchain. It has a wide array of trading products powered by Solana’s on-chain order book. They facilitate faster transactions speed without the expensive gas fees experienced by users on other networks.

    Bonfida DEX layout
    Bonfida DEX layout

    Bonfida can be a useful trading platform for both beginner and advanced users. It integrates various handy features, such as trading charts and TradingView data in its interface. This helps users gather important analytics information on the exchange’s activity, including data on Serum DEX and Swap’s volumes, spread percentage, and total value locked.

    $SRM dashboard on Bonfida Dex
    $SRM dashboard on Bonfida Dex

    Background

    Bonfida is Project Serum’s flagship interface; currently, over 60% of the users that interact with Serum use Bonfida’s GUI. Serum was built to connect users within the Serum/Solana ecosystem and it is the first amongst exchanges to take advantage of Solana blockchain’s data to power its decentralized platform.

    The Bonfida API has been used by a lot of market makers in the industry and the number of requests are increasing 25% week over week. During December 2020, before the launch, Bonfida has raised over $4.5 million. The seed round was led by CMS Holdings with the participation of big firms like Genesis Block Ventures, Sino Global, Spartan Group, and Three Arrows Capital.

    Why build on Serum?

    An order-book DEX has to be fast. To have a responsive platform, the underlying blockchain has to meet certain requirements. There are the reasons why the Bonfida team has chosen Solana and its DEX Serum as a foundation for their project.

    • High transaction throughput – Solana has the ability to facilitate more than 50,000 transactions per second. This will increase further as the chain grows
    • Lower gas costs – Gas costs on averages less than $0.001 per transaction
    • Composability – Given that the Serum protocol is open-source, anyone in the community can work on developments that could add value to the ecosystem
    • Decentralization – Transactions and storage of crypto holdings are entirely free from any third-party control

    Users will have to set-up a compatible wallet to connect to the platform, which requires SPL (Solana Program Library) tokens. The three options are bonfida.com/wallet, solongwallet.com, sollet.io. Don’t forget to keep some spare $SOL tokens to pay for fees! You can follow this complete guide to set everything up.

    Here you can find our interview with Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of FTX, which is behind the development of Project Serum.

    Interview eith Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO at FTX, the team behind Serum Project

    The FIDA Token

    $FIDA is Bonfida’s native utility token. It is mainly used to pay for gas fees on the platform but it can also be used for the following purposes.

    • Access to VIP API
    • Bot payments
    • Consulting services (for people who want to get started on Serum)

    The maximum supply is 1 billion and 95.4% of all tokens are locked for four years; the vesting will start 12 months after the launch. The team decided to keep the circulatin supply very low during the first year. In this way they also hope that the project and the community will grow in a healthy way, with no big holders ready to dump their bags.

    $FIDA, when staked, will also enable more features for its holders like exclusive API endpoints, access to rare Solible (see after) markets and advanced analytics. In the future, the Bonfida’s Governance model will also require $FIDA tokens to grant its users voting abilities on certain protocol parameters.

    For updated and full tokenomics please refer to the white-paper.

    Bonfida’s features

    The team, with vast expertise in “creating seamless frontend experience combined with backend API’s and on-chain analytics”, has spotted an opportunity to be an early participant in the new Solana ecosystem. They evaluated the possible upside as huge, so they couldn’t pass up the chance. Among the platform’s features we find:

    • Exclusive markets and listing

    Bonfida has access to exclusive markets on Serum. $FIDA holders (more on $FIDA token later) can vote on which listings will be available on the platform. Market makers ensure liquidity through the help of partnerships with organizations like Alameda Research.

    • On-chain advanced order types

    Both Limit and Market orders are already available on Serum while others like take-profit and stop-loss are currently being developed on by Bonfida. However, advanced on/off chain order types will require users to keep their $FIDA staked.

    • Order Placement through TradingView Charts

    Bonfida is the first to have TradingView charts linked to on-chain data; users will be able to place orders through them.

    • Advanced UI and Basic UI

    To accommodate both basic and advanced traders, Bonfida will have two trading modes for Serum. The advanced mode will have features like ‘Bonfida Bots’ and the aforementioned advanced order types.

    On top, Bonfida offers now leveraged tokens such as BULL/BEAR pairs like those you can find on FTX, an Ecosystem Pool with indexes and AMM swaps.

    Serum API

    Bonfida has built a backend infrastructure where all the on-chain transactions information can be stored for Serum. Through a “REST API”, other platforms like Coingecko can request data whenever they need it (more than 6 million requests per day as of now). Given that the official Serum GUI uses it to load historical trades, users who connect with the standard Serum code are using Bonfida’s data in the background. This is the reason why they can provide on-chain TradingView charts, a feature unique to Bonfida. This feature continue to be developed in order to deliver important information to users while improving the UX and UI of the platform.

    Bonfida Bots

    To make it easier for traders to manage their positions on the platform, Bonfida is working on a ‘bot’ that users can customize accordingly to their targeted technical indicators. The customization can be referred to as ‘Rules,’ which a person can freely design on his own and use to earn $FIDA. There are three possibilities.

    • People can pay to utilize existing trading rules. Using $FIDA, users can pay who owns the rules they utilize in the trading bots. The creator decides the costs.
    • Pledge assets to other rule owners. Rules’ owners can determine how much they wish to charge, whether a share of the daily percentage fees or a portion of the profits.
    • Tokenize rules. Owners can tokenize their strategy as a SPL token which can then be bought/burned.

    Solible

    Solible, a NFT exchange on Bonfida
    Solible, a NFT exchange on Bonfida

    Solible is an exchange for non-fungible tokens (NFT) featured on top of the Bonfida platform. It supports all the features that are usually available on most NFT exchanges, without the classic Ethereum network costs. The aim of the platform, which also serves as a bridge for connecting NFTs with other blockchains, is to establish an e-commerce store. People will purchase collectible items which can also be redeemed in real life.

    First Serum ICO

    Bonfida has been the first project built on Serum to have an initial coin offering (ICO). The initial offering was conducted in three parts for a total of 6 million $FIDA tokens on auction.

    The two IEOs (Initial Exchange Offering) took place on FTX and Bitmax, while the third part was a ISO (Initial Serum Offering) on Serum. All of them had a maximum price offer of $0.1 per token and a max allocation of 4000 $FIDA per person. For the few lucky ones who managed to get in at this price, it resulted in an incredible 7x on listing day. The token is currently at $0.37.

    Conclusion

    Most DEXs find it difficult to meet the needs of their traders, both beginners and advanced alike. High-frequency traders are always on the lookout for platforms where it wouldn’t cost huge gas fees to have their transactions processed quickly. This is why it is ideal for developers to look for a network that enables such a feature if they wish to go above and beyond the existing DeFi-based exchanges out there.

    Serum Project’s Bonfida was a successful venture into creating an exchange that is not only capable of fast transactions but also of fully-automated and decentralized trading. With Bonfida, users can customize their own trading strategies and set their goals with sophisticated trading indicators, all without the hassle of their transactions getting stuck in a congested blockchain.

    Decentralised Finance (DeFi) series: tutorials, guides and more

    With content for both beginners and more advanced users, check out our YouTube DeFi series containing tutorials on the ESSENTIAL TOOLS you need for trading in the DeFi space e.g. MetaMask and Uniswap. As well as a deep dive into popular DeFi topics such as decentralized exchanges, borrowing-lending platforms and NFT marketplaces

    The DeFi series on this website also covers topics not explored on YouTube. For an introduction on what is DeFi, check out Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Overview: A guide to the HOTTEST trend in cryptocurrency

    Tutorials and guides for the ESSENTIAL DEFI TOOLS:

    More videos and articles are coming soon as part of our DeFi series, so be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our Youtube channel so you can be notified as soon as they come out!

    The information provided in this article is intended for general guidance and information purposes only. Contents of this article are under no circumstances intended to be considered as investment, business, legal or tax advice. We do not accept any responsibility for individual decisions made based on this article and we strongly encourage you to do your own research before taking any action. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information provided herein is accurate and up to date, omissions, errors, or mistakes may occur.

  • Newsletter #18: Bitcoin prices reach all-time highs

    Newsletter #18: Bitcoin prices reach all-time highs

    As we near the holiday season we would like to wish everyone a happy and safe holidays! Here’s hoping for gifts of Bitcoin and altcoin pumps!

    Bitcoin reaches ATH of USD$24k!

    It has been awaited for a very long time, but after exactly 3 years the moment has arrived. Bitcoin has literally smashed through the previous high reaching the incredible price of $24,000!

    All the charts look stunning, whichever you look at: daily, weekly and monthly they all say the same thing: Bull Season is here!

    While nobody knows how exactly this will play out people believe that we are in a bull market now. Many actually believe it started right after last March’s Black Swan, where all markets (not only crypto) basically flash crashed within a day.

    If we take a look at the weekly chart, we are still far above the 21 EMA (Exponential Moving Average) and the Relative Strength Index (RSI) is at 2017 peak levels. On the weekly chart it has only been decisively higher a couple of times in 2013. As we repeatedly said in previous issues of the newsletter, big retraces (around 30-40%) are to be expected in bull markets. Until now, the maximum negative “delta” in price we had since last March has been around 20%. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a massive dump is going to happen now though (could happen like not). (https://www.apolloclinic.com/)

    $BTC weekly chart, RSI at top 2017 levels
    $BTC weekly chart, RSI at top 2017 levels

    Bitcoin still not “hot” on Google Trends

    If we have a quick glance at Google Trends we can notice how the query “bitcoin” is still not very much searched worldwide, especially when compared to 2017’s peaks. This is a sign that even though mass media exposure has recently picked up the $BTC trend, the retail FOMO is probably still distant from where we are now. This could hopefully mean that the upside is still gigantic!

    Google Trends $BTC December 2020
    Google Trends $BTC December 2020

    Every $BTC holder is now in profit

    Thanks to the recent pump, Bitcoin is now #12 in assets’ ranking by Market Cap. Just behind Visa and ahead of Walmart! Moreover, the fact that we are beyond ATH, in unexplored price territory, automatically means that each person that has ever bought a fraction of the coin before last week, is now in profit!

    As a consequence, as Glassnode reported, the number of addresses holding more than $1 millions worth of $BTC has increased +150%, equal to 66,540 single wallets now!

    Ethereum follows Bitcoin’s upside while Grayscale continues to load up

    After “The King” moves, the rest usually tends to follow, starting with Ethereum. ETH prices have been going up reaching a new high of almost $680 this week. Differently from $BTC though, its ATH is still way higher than this level, at more than $1400. 2021 could look like the year price will finally reach unexplored territory.

    Meanwhile it doesn’t come as a surprise anymore that big investors continue to accumulate crypto, despite the continuous rise in price, spreading positivity about crypto’s future. According to a report, Grayscale keeps accumulating $ETH. Their Grayscale Ethereum Trust is still considered “the only SEC-registered way to invest in Ethereum.”

    Are you interested in staking on your Ethereum? Learn how to make passive income with ETH 2.0!

    The FinCEN is proposing new KYC reinforcements

    As anticipated in the last weeks, it is now official. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is “proposing a rule on certain digital currencies that will protect national security, assist law enforcement and increase transparency while minimizing the impact on responsible innovation”, said Steven Mnuchin, lead of the U.S. Treasury Department.

    The proposal will impose new regulations on transaction records including those to self-hosted wallets. Especially used in Defi where users prefer to keep their funds in decentralized manners, where they are the only ones responsible for what happens, these private wallets have not required KYCs until now. As a result of the changes (CVC stands for convertible virtual currency while LTDA for legal tender digital asset.):

    “The proposed rule complements existing BSA requirements applicable to banks and MSBs by proposing to add reporting requirements for CVC and LTDA transactions exceeding $10,000 in value. Pursuant to the proposed rule, banks and MSBs will have 15 days from the date on which a reportable transaction occurs to file a report with FinCEN. Further, this proposed rule would require banks and MSBs to keep records of a customer’s CVC or LTDA transactions and counterparties, including verifying the identity of their customers, if a counterparty uses an unhosted or otherwise covered wallet and the transaction is greater than $3,000.”

    This embitterment in regulations was firstly revealed by Brians Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, in a tweet at the end of November, where he expressed his doubts and concerning on the matter, together with many other public figures. Four U.S Congressmen wrote a public letter and Wyoming Senator-Elect Cynthia Lummis shared her concerns as well in a tweet. The major point of debate are the fact that the proposal could do more harm than good to investors and could leave the U.S. behind in blockchain technology, deviating principal investments outside the county.

    Coinbase IPO is getting closer

    Coinbase, the known U.S. exchange, has “submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 with the SEC. The file is now being reviewed. If approved, its IPO will be one of the biggest and most awaited in crypto, considering that Coinbase is already the most valuable American crypto company.

    It is not actually easy to determine exactly how much the company is worth at the moment. The Last evaluation in a funding round in 2018, was of $8 billion, but Coinbase is certainly worth more now, especially considering what prices has Bitcoin arrived at in 2020.

    The Graph goes live on mainnet

    The Graph ($GRT), “the first global and easily searchable index of blockchain data”, has launched its mainnet after 3 years of development. The indexing protocol aims at making web3 accessible to everyone and helping create applications that require no servers.

    The listing was one of the most successful ones recently and the token is already tradable on many exchanges, including first tier ones like Binance and Coinbase. The price is now 24 times higher than that of the token sale which happened last October. At that time, it was offered at $0.03!

    The first phase after launch will be useful to stress and improve mainnet performances before the queries amount will increase exponentially. Following, in the next months, the team will be building a “production-ready Graph Explorer dApp and Gateway” to support all network contributors.

    Here’s everything you need to know about The Graph in our article.

    Red Flags

    Ledger Email Breach – 270,000 emails & addresses leaked publicly

    On July the 14th, Ledger’s database got breached when a hacker stole 1,075,382 email addresses and 272,853 hardware wallet orders. This meant that personal data such as emails, phone numbers and physical addresses (for people who actually bought a device) were probably available behind payment to the hacker himself. As a matter of fact, numerous have been the phishing attempts reported in the last months, usually via emails and/or text messages to their phones.

    Today, as if this wasn’t bad enough itself, the whole database has been dumped for free by an anonymous profile on Raidforum. While funds are still technically safe, users, at the very leas, should expect a new and massive wave of phishing tentatives.

    Check out our video where we explain everything on the Ledger data breach: what happened, who is affected and what NOT to do right now.

    URGENT: Ledger Email Breach – 270,000 emails & addresses leaked publicly

    The company commented on twitter confirming that “early signs” tell them this content is probably from their database.

    They also shared a page with phishing news and tips, like the classic “Never share the 24 words of your recovery phrase with anyone under any circumstances”. While this is certainly important, it is difficult to imagine that hardware wallets’ users still need to hear it. Considering that now anyone can see where the devices owners live, they would probably rather know that the company is actively doing things to prevent future breaches and more.

    Even though protecting funds with col wallets is not something for just rich crypto holders, this is what most people think, and we can all imagine what criminals can do with those addresses in their hands.

    Unfortunately, it appears that new phishing messages are already coming.

    You can use this website to check whether your personal data (and what) was compromised https://haveibeenpwned.com/

    Nexus Mutual’s CEO personal address got hacked

    Unfortunately, this week brought new red flags. The most prominent one involves a project whose mission is (almost ironically) that of protecting protocols’ users from malicious actors.

    Hugh Harp, founder of Nexus Mutual, has seen his personal wallet directly attacked. The hacker has mysteriously managed to install a malicious version of Metamask on his computer, misleading him into confirming a transaction to a different recipient address. The hacker himself. It is one of those cases where using a hardware wallet to sign transactions as second layer of security can’t help.

    The CEO, recognizing this hack was “next level stuff”, has offered a bounty of $300,000 to the hacker in case he decided to send everything back. The unknown figure answered via input data on a subsequent empty transaction.

    “Hello Hugh. I will not sell wNXM any more until wNXM recovers his value or you send me 4.5k ETH. If you need any negotiation with me, send msg to my eth address…..“

    The text end targeting other Hugh’s personal addresses, exposing Hugh’s private details even more.

    We will see how this story unfolds. Meanwhile, someone has started a gitcoin grant to directly compensate Karp for what happened. As a response, he has proposed that all the money raised would be used for improving smart contracts security.

    Boxmining happenings

    • Worried about your funds? Learn more about Cover Protocol ($COVER), one of the most successful platform where to buy coverages.

    Cover Protocol ($COVER): peer-to-peer coverage market for DeFi

    • Yearn Finance ($YFI) has recently partnered with many other top level protocols. Here’s our introduction to the Yearn extended family!

    Yearn.Finance merging the DeFi Ecosystem

    • Interested in lending-borrowing? Is a credit scoring system appealing to you? Listen to what is $WING and how can you profit off of it!
    • Wootrade ($WOO): Boosting the power of cryptocurrency trading?

    Wootrade ($WOO): Boosting the power of cryptocurrency trading?

  • Newsletter #16: Ethereum 2.0 Launches successfully

    Newsletter #16: Ethereum 2.0 Launches successfully

    Market situation: Is the $BTC sale over?

    This week we have witnessed a very strong Bitcoin comeback after the approx. 20% price dump. The price has been going sideways in the USD $18-19,000 area for a few days now in the anticipation of the next move. The bottom of the dip was $16200 (Bitstamp) and many hope this could be the right time to pass the critical wall at $20k (which many have been dreaming about for years). The Relative Strength Index (RSI) on the weekly chart is still in overbought territory and we are far above the 21 Moving Average, an indicator that has historically been respected pretty well by previous bull runs, when the price repeatedly bounced over it during retraces.


    In the meantime, some altcoins have had relief rallies like $SUSHI (2.25x in 10 days) and $RAMP (x2 in the same period), which is now at 6x since the after-launch bottom in October 2020. 

    BTC hovering around highest weekly ressistence
    BTC hovering around highest weekly ressistence

    On the daily chart, we can observe that after the initial spike to almost ATH at the highest existing weekly resistance on the chart, Bitcoin dropped quite abruptly back to the previous weekly support before bouncing back strongly. This channel has then been respected perfectly until now. The price seems to be consolidating at its top and we all hope this could be the launchpad for the next run up!

    Facebook’s Libra to launch in January 2021?

    Libra, the awaited digital currency project founded by Facebook in 2019, could see the light of day at the beginning of 2021.

    In an article published by Coindesk on November 27th, sources claim that the Libra (now re-named Diem) may launch with only one stablecoin, backed by the dollar, unlike the original plan which included a basket of different FIAT currencies (we wrote about Libra/Diem in depth here). 

    Libra/Diem’s journey has been quite tormented by regulators in its short history and some of the initial members have already left the project, like Paypal, Mastercard  and Ebay. Many others have declared that they are waiting to see how the launch will go before even considering an investment.

    Regulatory approvals by the Swiss Financial Market Supervision Authority (FINMA) are still pending. There is no official date.

    US regulators tighten grip on stablecoins

    One of the issues related to stablecoins (like Facebook’s Diem) could now become the Stablecoin Tethering and Bank Licensing Enforcement (STABLE) Act.

    Introduced by the United State Congress, it aims at reinforcing regulations for stablecoins and stablecoin-related products. In particular, it would require issuers of stable coins to get bank charters and regulatory approval prior to circulating stablecoins.

    The justification for this regulation, according to US Representative Rashida Tlaib is that it would prevent cryptocurrency providers from repeating the crimes by “big banks” against low-moderate income minorities.

    Under the proposed regulations, cryptocurrency providers would be required to fulfill a list of actions like “Require any prospective issuer of a stablecoin to obtain a banking charter” or “Require that any company offering stablecoin services must follow the appropriate banking regulations under the existing regulatory jurisdictions” and more.

    While this should mainly impact private stablecoins provided by big tech companies or big exchanges (and probably less the DeFi movement), many in the cryptocurrency space have raised their voices and doubts. The problem being that, in the end, these regulations if they do become law could have the opposite outcome of what is proposed. Cryptocurrencies have always been totally transparent and equal to all the people who want to invest in it. Costs involved in maintaining your portfolio are mostly negligible, unlike the traditional financial sector, there is no need to wait weeks for approvals, everyone can control their own money and you can access them from anywhere in the world, no matter your “social class” or bank account. Could these regulations in fact increase costs and deter poor people from accessing these services?

    European Central Bank is working on the Digital Euro…will it surpass China’s DCEP?

    Speaking about digital currencies Fabio Panetta, board member of the European Central Bank (ECBD), outlined last week four major areas they are mainly working on to bring forward the digital Euro:

    1. The Target Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS), which allows “individuals and firms to transfer money between each other within seconds”. In particular the ECBD needs to establish that it will be able to function with hundreds of millions of customers;
    2. interoperability between centralized systems and distributed ledger technology (DLT);
    3. use of “payment-dedicated blockchains with electronic identity”; and
    4. study of hardware devices able to maintain the privacy.

    Read the whole article by ledgerinsights. 

    Will it surpass China’s national currency DCEP? For now it seems unlikely as DCEP is in much more advanced stages of testing. The most recent test being a large scale airdrop of RMB 10mil to around 50,000 Shenzhen residents to spend. 

    Learn more about China’s DCEP.

    ETH2 is live!

    On 1st December 2020 the Ethereum 2 Beacon Chain went live exactly one week after the threshold deadline!

    If you are interested in becoming a validator, you can read our full guide here or watch our dedicated livestream on how to set up an Ethereum 2.0 Node!

    GBV acquires OMG Network

    Genesis Block Ventures (GBV), an investment company working with Genesis Block, has announced the acquisition of OMG Network.

    This decision was taken to “leverage its (GBV) network strength, to promote the accelerated growth of OMG Network, and further enhance the adoption of OMG blockchain in Asia and beyond”.

    This is the first acquisition for GBV, an “investment company with a mission of building the future through blockchain” which has been pretty active in Defi this year and has so far worked on building meaningful relationships and collaborations in the area.

    OMG, which launched in 2017 as Omisego, is a second-layer scaling solution for Ethereum platform capable of high-speed transactions (thousands per second).

    Find out more in our upcoming livestream

    See HERE for back issues of our newsletter! 

  • Swag Finance Token Launch guide

    Swag Finance Token Launch guide

    Swag.live is a popular adult entertainment platform with over 10 Million users worldwide with over $12,000,000 USD annual revenue (source). SWAG pioneered the Asian adult entertainment industry, offering both streaming and pay per view videos for over 10,000 content producers. The team is headed by Sam Liu and had origins in Taiwan. Currently, SWAG has set up offices in Montreal in charge of expanding operations to North America and worldwide. SWAG has signed up top global talents such as Eva Elfie to produce content for the platform.

    Swag is offering a decentralized community governance token – SWAG – to continue the expansion and move to a Decentralized Autonomous Organisation (DAO). Overall, SWAG is issuing a total of 540 Million tokens to achieve decentralized governance.


    Swag Governance Tokens

    SWAG Live platform

    SWAG has decided that instead of growing the community in a centralized fashion with few participants, they are choosing to embrace community governance. The key is to allow more participants in their ecosystem, allowing for faster product iteration and better product design by including community feedback and design making. The key is to harness the power of the community and decentralization to push SWAG’s growth to the next level. In many ways, SWAG’s token offering is an experiment, as the adult industry has been traditionally shrouded in secrecy – with big players making most of the decisions and taking most of the profit.

    Each SWAG token is entitled one vote in community governance. Governance voters will be rewarded via “Squirt pool” that have valuable rewards (see below).

    Token information:

    Initial offering price: $0.10 per SWAG
    SWAG Total Supply: 625,000,000 SWAG tokens.

    To guarantee the governance of the SWAG community, the team has stated the following

    • Team will not privately coordinate any decisions
    • Team will no actively participate in DAO governance
    • Team will not pay for DAO maintenance, and DAO management is not hired by the team.

    SWAG token offering – First Swap Event

    Swag will offer tokens via a “First Swap Event” (FSE) held on Cream.finance (you can read our take on CREAM here). The FSE event will take place on the 14th October 2020 at 2:00pm (UTC), with an initial price of $0.10 per SWAG. Cream offers the ability to swap tokens via its decentralized exchange component. The FSE will start with each SWAG token through two 50/50 pools:

    SWAG/USDC (500,000 / 50,000)
    SWAG/CREAM (500,000 / 50,000 USDC equiv)

    To swap for SWAG in the FSE, participants will need to have both $USDC and $CREAM, along with $ETH (for gas fees). The Team does remind people that after submitting a transaction, it could take 1-2 minutes for confirmation. Also, CreamSwap runs on an Automated Market Maker (AMM) mechanism. Hence it is possible that prices of SWAG may change whilst the transaction is pending confirmation. However if this happens the transaction will simply fail, but your tokens will not be lost.

    After the FSE, participates will also be able to earn extra SWAG tokens via a yield farming event on CREAM. Users will be able to provide liquidity to SWAG trading pairs, thus increasing the size of the liquidity pools for SWAG. Cream liquidity pools function same as Balancer, so the more liquidity that is added, the more stable a trading pair will be. To find out more about liquidity pools and how they work, you an check out our article on Balancer and Liquidity Pools.

    To reward community liquidity providers, those who provide liquidity to the SWAG/USDC and SWAG/CREAM pair will able to stake their liquidity tokens (CRPT) for additional SWAG rewards. A total of 1,015,000 SWAG has been allocated for yield farming. This event is designed allow the community to provide extra liquidity token trading.

    How to participate in the First Swap Event by swapping SWAG

    To participate, you will need to go on Cream Finance. There you can choose the ERC-20 tokens (either $CREAM or $USDC) you want to swap for SWAG, remember to select $SWAG in the lower row. Then unlock and swap your ERC 20 tokens by clicking “Unlock” and then “Swap”. (https://www.nelsongreerpainting.com/)

    SWAG Reward Pools

    SWAG will have yield farming features. There will be 2 Reward Pools: $SWAG/$CREAM and $SWAG/$USDC. SWAG holders who want to join these Reward Pools must provide their tokens, known as liquidity. The purpose of this is to increase the depth of trading pairs, reduce the likelihood of price slippage and keep the stability of SWAG tokens. In return, SWAG hotels can benefit through earning passive returns by means of swap fees.

    How to add liquidity to SWAG Reward Pools

    Go to the Cream Finance Pools and select the trading pair (i.e. either $SWAG/$CREAM and $SWAG/$USDC). Unlock the permission to transfer ERC-20 tokens by clicking the lock icon for both tokens. Click “add liquidity”- after doing this you will get CRPT tokens.

    Then, go to the Cream Finance Rewards page. There, choose the Reward Pool (i.e. either $SWAG/$CREAM and $SWAG/$USDC). Click “Enable” to unlock CRPT transfer permission. Then click “Stake” to stake your tokens.

    Claiming your rewards is easy, simply click “Claim Reward” on the Rewards page on the side bar.

    SQUIRT and Rewards for DAO participants

    The SWAG community is rewarded in the form of “SQUIRTS” (yes, this is what they are actually naming it). SQUIRTS are a reward for SWAG token holders that participate in community governance by contributing their time to debate important issues, research and discuss important business matters to help grow the platform. To join SQUIRTS, SWAG holders can debate on a particular governance proposal, and then stake their SWAG tokens to vote.

    Squirts can be rewards in the form of a stablecoin, SWAG token, or other tokens, and are designed to be rewarded pro-rata to all voters on the SWAG DAO. The rewards are split according to votes entered – with 1 token being 1 vote. This will drastically improve SWAG governance and community participation, as users are rewarded for taking part in the DAO.

    SQUIRT 2 is ongoing and will end at 10:59 on 30th October 2020 (UTC) and note that your tokens will be locked up for 7 days from the time of your vote. There will be a total of 4 SQUIRTS in November 2020, with a total of 1million USDC to be distributed as follows:

    November 2020 SQUIRTS
    November 2020 SQUIRTS

    SQUIRT 3: Oct 30 — Nov 6: 300,000 USDC
    SQUIRT 4: Nov 6 — Nov 13: 200,000 USDC
    SQUIRT 5: Nov 13 — Nov 20 300,000 USDC
    SQUIRT 6: Nov 20 — Nov 27 200,000 USDC

    How to stake SWAG to join SQUIRTS

    Go onto the voting page. There, stake your SWAG tokens by clicking “Stake Token”. Register to vote for a proposal by clicking “Register to Vote”, and “For” or “Against” depending on your inclination. You can then collect you SQUIRT rewards by clicking “Collect”.

    SWAG exchange pool on Uniswap

    SWAG token holders can exchange their tokens through the SWAG/USDC Pool to get Uniswap LP tokens (UNI-V2). The Team have also set up a new reward pool for Uniswap liquidity providers who can stake their LP tokens to the reward pool.

    Between 22nd to 28th October 2020, as an initial incentive for liquidity providers LP Token reward distribution will be available. Rewards will be given at each block with 25,000 SWAG available daily, totaling 175,000 SWAG for staking SWAG/USDC Uniswap LP tokens. Note however that there will be a 3 day lock for any LP tokens which are staked.

    As a side note, our community has found there is a price discrepency between CREAM and Uniswap. So users who want to sell their SWAG may want to check and compare the prices on these two platforms!

    Project: Referral Rewards- Refer a friend and get SWAG

    From 12:00 on 14th October 2020 to 12:00 on 14th November (UTC+8) SWAG will be having their referral program. A total of 50,000 SWAG will be released as rewards for those who help promote and grow the SWAG community.

    To participate, go to their event website: https://referrals.swag.finance/ and complete their Referral Rewards checklist. This checklist involves tasks such as following their Twitter, Discord and Telegram and afterwards completing the form on the site. Then you will be able to get an invitation code to send to your friends.

    Completing the Referral Rewards checklist earns you 1 entry. Then if you refer a friend both you and your friend will each get one entry. So as an example, if you refer 5 friends, you would get a total of 6 entries. At 6:00p.m. on 14th November 2020 (UTC+8), the team will draw 1,000 winners who will receive 50 SWAG as a reward. There are no restrictions on multiple entries so you can refer more friends to increase your chances of winning more SWAG!

    SWAG NFTs

    SWAG will be doing non-fungible tokens (NFTs), it was only a matter of time. The NFT market is a huge opportunity for budding artists, and apparently now also the tens of thousands of SWAGGERs (i.e. SWAG content creators).

    SWAG NFTs will soon be available on Opensea– a NFT marketplace and feature the best SWAGGERs on SWAG’s platform. They will be limited edition NFTs that will also be attached to various SWAG events and rewards.

    SWAG roadmap: What’s coming up next?

    Reward pools

    The SWAG team observed that many SWAG token holders who participated in the reward pools were unable to participate in the SQUIRTS voting sessions. Therefore in future, SWAG will host less reward pool events that would result in decreased participation in SQUIRTS.

    SWAG diamond drip

    SWAG.Live is one of the leading premium adult content platforms in Asia, and many $SWAG holders also have accounts at SWAG.Live. Therefore to reward these holders, starting in November 2020, SWAG finance will build a system that would detect the amount of $SWAG in the wallets of registered SWAG.Live members. SWAG finance would then drip SWAG Diamonds which can be collected and used on SWAG.Live app for live chat, accessing stories, live streams and gifts to content creators.

    Diamond distribution time: 4:00pm every Monday (UTC +8).
    Diamond ratio: 1 SWAG.Live diamond for every 50 $SWAG in your wallet (this includes any tokens staked in the SQUIRT pools)
    Distribution method: SWAG.Live diamonds will be sent direct to your SWAG.Live account.
    Restrictions: Only one Ethereum address can be bound to one SWAG.Live account.

    How to sign up for the SWAG diamond drip

    Bind your Wallet and SWAG.Live ID:

    1. Go to diamonds.swag.finance and connect your Ethereum wallet.
    2. Enter your SWAG.Live ID and click “Sign and bind”. Your SWAG.Live ID can be found on the SWAG.Live site under “Me”.
    4. After the binding process is complete, SWAG.Live diamonds will be sent to your SWAG.Live account every week.

    VIP group

    Holders with over 200 $SWAG can join a VIP Discord group. In addition to having access to this more exclusive discussion channel with fellow SWAG holders, the SWAG.Live team have also agreed to give a number of perks such as behind the scenes access to the SWAG.Live content creation process, limited access to SWAG short films and SWAG diamond giveaways.

    Exchange listings for $SWAG

    SWAG is currently listed on Uniswap and Hotbit. Trading will begin on Bitmart from 8:00pm on 6th November 2020 (HKT) onwards.

    The team mentioned in their latest article that their mid-term strategy is to maximise the number of potential SWAG buyers and are in discussions with the following exchanges to list their token: Binance, Upbit, Bitflyer, Bitthumb, Huobi, Bitkub, Probit, Kucoin and ZG.

    See here for our picks for top cryptocurrency exchanges.

    Conclusion

    SWAG is strongly embracing decentralization and decentralized governance allows participation in the future direction of their adult industry platform. SWAG is an already profitable business of over $12,000,000 USD annual revenue (source) and a growing audience of over 10 Million users. This Decentralized Autonomous Organisation (DAO) is designed to take SWAG to the next level, fuelling future developments, and global expansion.

    Resources:

    Swag Live (18+ only): https://app.swag.live/
    Swag Finance Medium: https://medium.com/@swag.finance
    Asia Crypto Today Coverage: https://www.asiacryptotoday.com/swagfinance/
    Block Tempo Coverage: https://www.blocktempo.com/adult-streaming-platform-swag-finance-will-issue-swag/
    SQUIRTS, Rewards Pool & FSE participation walkthrough: https://medium.com/@swag.finance/squirt-voting-rewards-pool-fse-participation-walkthrough-1dad83cb4348

  • We hear you! Don’t miss out the chance to win Boxmining NFTs!

    We hear you! Don’t miss out the chance to win Boxmining NFTs!

    We have received an overwhelming response in our previous contest. For those that didn’t manage to win our giveaway the last round, here’s your chance!

    Simply follow the steps below:

    Boxmining Limited Edition NFTs Up For Grabs!

    Contest ends: 16 November 2020, 11.59pm HKT

    Winner announcement: 18 November 2020. Winners will be contacted directly via email.

    Don’t miss out your chance to win!

    Terms & Conditions:

    1. Contest duration: 30 Oct, 10am (HKT) – 16 Nov, 11.59pm (HKT). 
    2. Contest ends on 16 November 2020, 11.59pm HKT. Entries received after this time period will not be considered.
    3. Entrants to this contest shall be deemed to have accepted these Terms and Conditions.
    4. Winners will be chosen at random by computer software, from all entries received and verified by Boxmining. 
    5. Boxmining reserves the right to cancel or amend the competition and these terms and conditions without prior notice.
    6. There is no entry fee and no purchase necessary to enter this competition.
    7. Winners will be notified via email on or before 18 November 2020. If the winner does not respond within 7 days after being notified by Boxmining, then the winner’s prize will be forfeited. If a winner rejects their prize or the entry is invalid or in breach of these Terms and Conditions, the winner’s prize will be forfeited. (tesseraonlaketravis)
  • KIRA Network ($KEX): What is it?

    KIRA Network ($KEX): What is it?

    KIRA Network ($KEX) is an interchain exchange protocol that allows users to earn block and fee rewards while staking any digital assets, such as cryptocurrency, stablecoins and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

    Background

    KIRA is developed by a strong team consisting of full-stack developers, blockchain engineers, back-end developers, and technical architects. The team is led by Milana Valmont (CEO) and Mateusz Grzelak (CTO).

    In the past, Valmont had held different roles which include being a blockchain consultant at Adcoin, as well as a strategy advisor at KNOKS. Grzelak had also held prominent positions in firms such as Settle Finance, Barclays, and Bity.

    KIRA Network’s strategic partners include AlphaBit, TRG Capital, Swingby, and Math Wallet. In addition, the team also includes Roger Lim from NGC Ventures and Alssio Treglia from Tendermint.

    What is KIRA Network?

    KIRA Network is a blockchain-based protocol that brings liquid staking into the DeFi market. It enables access to all virtual currencies, digital fiat, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) within a cross-chain ecosystem.

    KIRA Network: Liquid Staking
    KIRA Network: Liquid Staking (Image credit: KIRA Network Whitepaper)

    With liquid staking, liquidity providers can stake any digital asset. Consequently, they earn incentives emanating from new blocks and transaction fees.

    The protocol’s idea of liquid staking stems from the current staking space. Here, centralized cryptocurrency exchanges provide crypto trading, acquisition, as well as act as a hub for a host of digital currencies.

    Currently, a large number of those coins that are available for staking are found on centralized exchange platforms. For this reason, KIRA wants to change this by providing a decentralized platform that mirrors what traditional virtual currency exchanges offer.

    As such, even small actors in the PoS ecosystem will have access to liquidity and evade security risks found on centralized platforms. Also, the protocol removes the cap on fee and block incentives for liquidity providers.

    KIRA Network: 8 Key Pillars

    To have a profound impact on the DeFi scene, KIRA Network is supported by eight pillars, which include:

    Security

    Using the Multi-Bonded PoS (MBPoS) consensus mechanism, the network can harness its security from staked assets. In addition, MBPoS helps remove the barrier as to which virtual assets can be staked and/or can attract rewards.

    Utility

    KIRA uses IXP (Interchain Exchange Protocol) to provide market access to the wide range of assets staked on the system.

    Liquidity

    KIRA supports liquidity provision through staking derivatives. The platform has a 1:1 ratio between staking derivatives and staked tokens.

    Expansibility

    The protocol uses validators to ensure the credibility of transactions. Also, the validators operate Initial Validator Offerings (IVOs) that allow investors to raise funds for new projects without affecting their liquidity.

    KIRA Network: On-chain IVO
    KIRA Network: On-chain IVO (Image credit: KIRA Network Whitepaper)

    Investors delegate their tokens to the validators while the validators mine new tokens. Correspondingly, the former earn block rewards.

    Upgradeability

    Upgrading the system relies on developers. Therefore, to drive development, the protocol uses an on-chain contracting system as an incentive scheme.

    Sustainability

    To ensure the platform has long term viability, it uses an on-chain governance structure. To elaborate, the governing body touches on the network’s economic aspects that include inflation and interest rates.

    Scalability

    KIRA tackles scalability by removing restrictions on the number of validators and the stake value. In turn, this makes it possible to introduce shards or zones.

    KIRA Network: DeFi zones
    KIRA Network: DeFi zones (Image credit: KIRA Network website)

    Interoperability

    The Network makes use of Polkadot, Cosmos, and other cross-chain systems to power liquid staking. Notably, this staking mechanism does not discriminate against cryptocurrency assets.

    KIRA Token ($KEX)

    KEX is KIRA Network’s native token. Apart from being used as a staking token on the network, KEX is also used as a base asset upon which other currencies are valued.

    Additionally, KIRA’s native currency is a requirement when participating in the system’s governance issues. Moreover, it’s used to reward holders, delegators, and validators. Note that KEX holders are rewarded by being offered low transaction and exchange costs.

    In contrast, delegators earn almost 99 percent of all block rewards and close to 50 percent of all network fees. Validators, on the other hand, earn a commission depending on their configuration and sit on the system’s governance table. Their earnings could go up to 50 percent network fees.

    KEX is allocated to developers/team (15%), advisors (7%), the KIRA Foundation (20%), as well as reserve and liquidity (26.6%)

    $KEX Token Allocation
    $KEX Token Allocation (Image Credit: “KIRA Network Token Metrics” medium article)

    KIRA Network ($KEX) – Public Sale

    KEX token is not available to trade yet and the public sale is soon to be announced. KEX will be launching ERC-20 KEX token on Ethereum network before KIRA Network is launched with the initial supply of 300,000,000 KEX token. Users will be able to swap for the native KEX token with the equal amount of value once the mainnet is launched.

    KIRA Network has raised 3.6M during the seed (priced at $0.025) and private sale rounds (priced at $0.05), with a vesting period of 18 months starting at mainnet launch. All seed and private round participants will receive approximately 2.5% of their token after finalization of all stages of the public round distribution.

    Public round has a $400k cap, token price at $0.075. Find out more here.

    Governance on KIRA Network

    The protocol uses a governance structure that slowly hedges away from full dependency on stake and or wealth distribution. Governance is guided by rules that exclusively put whitelisted actors to execute on-chain actions that are cleared for execution.

    KIRA Network: Governance Structure
    KIRA Network: Governance Structure (Image credit: KIRA Network Whitepaper)

    On top of these rules are parameters and individually assigned permissions. The network puts checks and balances on its governance model through operators, a voting council, an electorate council, and a proposal council.

    Notable KIRA Network Partnerships

    To drive the adoption and usability of the KIRA protocol, the platform has partnered with notable players in the DeFi Space. Some of the most conspicuous are:

    • KIRA and Finance.vote – The partnership enabled KIRA to provide liquidity to Finance.vote’s social trading layer. For this reason, it opened a new revenue stream for Finance.vote users by allowing them to conduct yield farming using digital assets in their portfolios.
    • KIRA Network and Math Foundation – Here, the Math Foundation benefited from staking KEX (KIRA’s native token) tokens and the interaction with KIRA’s MBPoS.
    • KIRA Network and Swingby – The partnership brought staking functionalities to Skybridge users. Skybridge is a decentralized inter-chain asset bridge.
    • KIRA and Blockparty – This partnership made Blockparty one of KIRA’s validators.

    Conclusion

    From crucial partnerships to using a new consensus mechanism, KIRA Network is keen on expanding the possibilities in the DeFi space for liquidity miners and yield farmers. Furthermore, the protocol’s eight pillars help it to enhance security, sustainability, utility, scalability, among other functionalities that are key in driving DeFi adoption.

    Decentralised Finance (DeFi) series: tutorials, guides and more

    With content for both beginners and more advanced users, check out our YouTube DeFi series containing tutorials on the ESSENTIAL TOOLS you need for trading in the DeFi space e.g. MetaMask and Uniswap. As well as a deep dive into popular DeFi topics such as decentralized exchanges, borrowing-lending platforms and NFT marketplaces

    The DeFi series on this website also covers topics not explored on YouTube. For an introduction on what is DeFi, check out Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Overview: A guide to the HOTTEST trend in cryptocurrency

    Tutorials and guides for the ESSENTIAL DEFI TOOLS:

    More videos and articles are coming soon as part of our DeFi series, so be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our Youtube channel so you can be notified as soon as they come out!

    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.

  • OpenSea: Peer to peer NFT marketplace

    OpenSea: Peer to peer NFT marketplace

    OpenSea sees itself as an industry-leading decentralised exchange (DEX) for peer to peer trading of Ethereum-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NFTs are tokens that are one of each kind thanks to specific features or signatures that differentiate them from those in related packages. As a result, many secondary markets have developed solely for the trading of unique assets, which became popular following the rise of NFT collectors.

    What is OpenSea?

    OpenSea is a global market for buying and selling digital items. Items include digital goods based on digital art, crypto-collectables, gaming items, digital art, and other digital assets built on the Ethereum ERC-721  and ERC-1155 standards. On OpenSea, you can purchase, sell, and exchange all of these tokens with anyone in the world. At present, OpenSea is the largest decentralized marketplace for digital goods with over 700 different initiatives, including trading card games such as Gods Unchained and CryptoSpells, collectable games such as Axie Infinity and CryptoKitties.

    These goods have multiple categories and are 100% tokenized and digital. As the proof of ownership and transactions are stored permanently on the blockchain, you get to become the valid owner once you pay for them. And unlike physical items, they cannot be “stolen” from you and sold elsewhere as the record of your ownership and any subsequent chain of ownership is permanently recorded on the blockchain.

    Trading on this platform occurs through a smart contract, meaning that your NFTs are never held in custody by any central authority. It also means that parties can trust that the trade will occur as per their agreement without needing to rely on a middleman. NFTs can be stored in a software wallet such as Enjin wallet, Coinbase Wallet or Opera Touch, and even an in-browser chrome plugin like MetaMask.

    Background

    Alex Atallah and Devin Finzer laid the foundation of the OpenSea platform in January 2018. Both have expertise from their backgrounds in Palantir, UC Berkeley, Google, Stanford, Facebook, and Pinterest to form a strong team with experience.

    Major OpenSea partners are Quantstamp, BlockStack, Blockchain Capital, Trust Wallet, Combinator, Coinbase, Founders Fund, and 1C. The platform has raised more than $4 million, with $2.1 million led by Animoca Brands, David Pazdan of MetaMask, and Stanford StartX.

    OpenSea platform
    OpenSea platform

    OpenSea Marketplace guide and tutorial

    How to use the OpenSea marketplace?

    Initially, you need to install MetaMask on your computer.  Furthermore, you must create an account with the necessary details. Learn how to install and use a MetaMask account.

    Once your account is live, you can start using OpenSea by clicking on the person icon on the top right-hand corner of the page and connect your MetaMask. OpenSea can search your wallet automatically for any collectables you have and the money you need to purchase products on the market (like Ether).

    You can also read posts or check for something unique on the platform, and even participate in an auction or design items for your own auction. Most items prices are valued at a set price, whilst auctions typically market rare or unsold goods at a higher cost.

    The price of the goods varies widely based on the kind of item, what discounts are available, etc. You will be able to purchase or sell intangible properties on the platform, which ensures that after you have acquired the rights to their possession, you will be able to sell them again at a later day if you so wish.

    How to purchase or bid on NFTs in OpenSea?

    You can browse the various NFTs offered for sale on the platform. On the front page, the NFTs are organised by categories such as digital art, and virtual worlds and collectibles for various blockchain games etc. You can also see the sales history for the NFTs and see how much others have paid for the same item.

    The platform uses Wrapped ETH (WTH) for bidding as it allows the user to bid on multiple items on the same Ether pool.

    To start bidding, go to your bids section of your OpenSea account and follow the below steps :

    1. Select the item of your choice: Firstly, select the item you desire and hit “Make an offer” to initiate a bid. Then, enter the amount that you would be willing to pay for it. (https://www.visitinfinity.com/)
    2. Wrap your ETH: Once you click on  “Continue”, ETH will be upgraded to WETH via WETH station. In order to make more bids, the platform upgrades .05 WETH.

     It is worth noting that you’ll need to make two transactions the first time you upgrade your ETH.

    1. Place a bid: Once both the transactions are confirmed,  add the offer amount, and click “Confirm Offer”. Now your Bid is posted.
    2. Share your Email: Finally, you need to submit your email so you could get a notification once your bid is accepted.

    To purchase an NFT, users have the option to enter a bid for the listed goods by using the “make offer feature”. Alternatively, some sellers have a fixed price for their items.

    How to list NFTs for sale on OpenSea

    To post a listing, first, find the item on your Account page located on the top right-hand corner. Then click on “My Items”, find the desired item and click “Sell”. Here, one can select the price and duration of the deal and form of bid.

    Listing an item is free of charge, but note that OpenSea can charge a 2.5% fee on the final selling price if goods are sold successfully.

    Conclusion

    As NFTs are still relatively new, its use cases are still an area that is constantly being explored. However, if the crypto community steps into more innovation in the NFT ecosystem, they have a high chance of attracting vast audiences from gamers and collectors. OpenSea is the biggest global marketplace in the world for crypto-collectibles and NFTs, including assets such as ERC-721 and ERC-1155.

    OpenSea has a good track record as a secure platform for specific blockchain-based assets. For many large games like My Crypto Heroes, Etheremon Adventure, CryptoVoxels, ChainBreakers, CryptoBeasties, Ether Kingdoms, etc., OpenSea has served as the key marketplace. In particular, one of the most popular NFT assets is Etheremon. Etheremon is another game based on Ethereum that is quite similar to Pokemon. The minimum cost for an Etheremon is 0.04 ETH and some can even go as high as 0.3 ETH for one of these NFTs.

    Overall, the platform is playing a valuable role in the crypto sector by providing an easy-to-use marketplace that allows the NFT ecosystem to thrive.

    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.