Paralink Network is a platform built on Polkadot sourcing crucial real-world data for decentralised finance (DeFi) applications.
Blockchain technology has huge potential, but blockchain applications are limited by what real-world data they can access. Without this crucial real-world data, blockchain cannot be used in areas like prediction markets, insurance, litigation, or other coordination problems that rely on social institutions and corporations. This is commonly known as the oracle problem.
While several solutions, like Chainlinkâs decentralized oracles, are already being used, Paralink has made its own headway through the development of a cheap and efficient solution.
Background
Jan Knezevic, Founder and CEO of Paralink, is a Slovenian auditor who had previously worked in financial units, such as KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting organizations, in 2018.
During his time there, he developed an appreciation of blockchain technology. Like many other cryptocurrency enthusiasts, he was able to recognize the restrictions of blockchain applications when exchanging real-world information.
He saw that for such applications to be useful for complex industries like the stock market, they had to have verified information flow from the real world. Realizing that the gambling industry also needed reliable data flow, especially for platforms like casino utan svensk licens, he set out to bring a scalable cost-effective solution to the problem. This led to the development of the project now known as Paralink.
What is Paralink?
Paralink is an oracle platform that provides real-world data ingress across multi-chain networks. The platform makes it possible for applications built on blockchain networks like Ethereum and Polkadotto interact with traditional web interfaces.
It is developed to help distributed systems communicate effectively with each other as well as the outside world. With Polkadot providing the supporting architecture and framework for its integration, Paralink functions as a substrate.
In addition to collecting and organizing real-world data for Blockchain application, the platform also confirms their validity. The data could be anything from sports, weather, elections to financial data, stock, foreign exchange, etc.
It can carry out all these functions through an open-source software called the ‘Paralink node’. The platform is currently designed with a focus on financial applications like the stock market and insurance.
How the Paralink Node Works
The Paralink node is the center of the platform. As stated, the node is open-source software. It is built to access and collect real-world data that channels back to smart contracts via callbacks.
The node can be run independently as a centralized medium for real-world data into blockchain applications. That way, the solution is much cheaper. However, it is more practical for a node to be operated by self-organizing quorums to provide a strong, sustainable data ingress service.
The node is compatible with different data protocols including JSON, HTML, XML, SQL and Grpc. The creators are working to improve its interaction on different APIs actively.
Developers can then query data from sources outside of the Blockchain using Paralink Query Language (PQL).
Currently, the Paralink node is built to support just the Ethereum and Polkadot blockchain network. However, the long term goal is to build a flexible node compatible with any public chain, thanks to the node’s architecture and open-source model.
How Paralink is Secured
To achieve the goal described in its whitepaper, Paralink has to be effectively flexible enough to be compatible with a wide range of Blockchain applications and protocols. To this end, the platform is offered in three different security models, each with varying characteristics concerning cost, convenience, and security.
Simple Ingress
This is the most cost-effective model available. Here, Paralink nodes are available for use on multi-chain networks via any third-party data source. The model is simple to implement through PQL definition. It is also fast and can certify the authenticity of multiple data sources.
It has a major drawback, however, in that it requires trust in a centralized node operator. Furthermore, it is also ineffective for complex financial applications.
Trusted Ingress
This model is an upgrade to the first-described simple ingress, which utilizes encrypting PQL results with cryptography. The results are accompanied by private decryption keys from reputable data providers.
As a step-up from the rudimentary model, it is highly functional for financial applications. Other types of applications like prediction markets and gambling platforms can be also covered.
Trusted ingress is also cheap and effortless to implement. Moreover, callback support is also available to all chains without the need for a bridge. However, it is susceptible to being breached due to a single point of failure.
On-chain Security
On-chain security is the last security model available, which does not depend on a single source for verification. Hence, it is almost impossible to break. This is especially useful for money markets, derivatives, and other financial applications that involve high-stakes.
On the other hand, the model needs linking networks (bridges) like Ethereum and Polkadot, hence, requires more chain coordination to pull off.
Para Token ($PARA)
PARA is the native governance token of the Paralink platform. Users are incentivized to hold PARA tokens in order to enjoy governance rights and earn APY based on the amount they hold (which in turn must be staked).
PARA tokenomics
There is a maximum supply of 10 billion PARA tokens. The allocation and distribution of PARA tokens are as follows:
The distribution system is quite similar to other crypto protocols. 13.5% of the total would be shared among the developing team after a vesting period of two years. About 18% would be kept as reserve to as a buffer. 20% would be disbursed as nominator rewards, another 20% for Validator rewards.
10% would be deployed for the ecosystem. This will serve as incentives for early Paralink adopters and relayers.
Paralink Network ($PARA) token public sale?
In an update on 1 February 2021, Paralink have confirmed that they will not be holding a public sale of the PARA token. Their reason for this is due to the inherent unfairness of the auction process, and difficulties in completing the KYC process for purchasers.
However, Paralink still wants its eventual token holders (who can purchase the token when it is listed on exchanges) to have more incentives. So the tokens that were initially reserved for the public sale will now go into the lockup rewards pool.
Conclusion
Without a doubt, the cryptocurrency industry’s future depends on how well its application can integrate with the real world. To elaborate, financial applications need to be able to exchange real-time information with real-world entities to ensure an accurate, reliable evaluation of assets for buyers and sellers â which is the basis for Paralink nodes’ development.
Blockchain networks would require secure and cost-effective solutions like this for seamless communication among the various chains, as well as the outside world before it can unleash its latent potentials.
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
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.
DAOVentures ($DVG) aims to simplify and create easy to use solutions for people to invest and manage their Decentralized Finance (DeFi) portfolio.
DeFi products are difficult and complex for users to interact with, especially for newbies. Quite a number of investors still have some distrusts about the space. Others have to deal with the possibility of risk and expensive gas fees. However, DAOventures was able to identify these problems and come up with solutions.
What Is DAOVentures?
DAOventures is a decentralized protocol that helps liquidity providers invest in DeFi projects by employing automated advisors and robo-fund managers to help users invest in DeFi products with great returns.
DAOventures relies on its beliefs as a guide to provide exceptional services for investors. The system uses the best strategies to consistently monitor performance, manage risk/reward ratios, as well as audit smart contract security. Some perks of the DAOventures platform include:
The risk/reward ratio is a very important aspect of any trade or investment. DAOventures strategies provide users with wide-ranging products based on their risk exposure level: low, medium, or high risk so newbie and intermediate traders can make more informed decisions before executing a trade.
Curated Information
The protocolâs team investigates, analyzes, and backtests new Dapps to sift out the bad from the good. They do this by matching up all protocols with the best performing algorithm to meet the demands of investors.
Security
The core value of the protocol is security. The platform audits and reviews all products to ensure that it is safe to deploy their crypto products.
The platform allows audits by third-party firms and performs other security tests to ensure that usersâ funds are secure. Since DAOVentures is a decentralized platform, it does not own any private keys as funds are secured by users themselves.
Transparency
DAOventuresâ investments are transparent since they can be viewed on the blockchain so users could see where and how their money is being moved, as well as be able to review and improve their portfolio to properly track their capital.
Reduced Gas Fees
Users can save a considerable amount of gas when they use DAOVentures. The protocol allows for a better gas calculation through properly managed pooled investment funds.
DAOventures Tokens ($DVG)
Liquidity providers can earn DAOventures governance tokens, denoted as DVG, which allow them to cast votes regarding changes in the protocolâs rules. The Launch for the DVG token would be done on Polkastarter, an auction protocol that is based on the Polkadot blockchain and is used for fund-raising by DeFi projects.
DVGs are basically âtokensâ on a smart contract that are developed to follow a fixed set of rules, which can be amended or upgraded through a consensus voting mechanism integrated into the smart contract.
The utility of DVG tokens is numerous. It will be used to incentivize LPs to drive long-term demand of the token, as well as the involvement of the DAOventures community. Users holding $DVG will benefit from staking incentives such as lower transaction fees and rewards.
DAOventures will release a total supply of 444,444 DVG tokens for public sale. The platform will offer a discounted sale of DVG token to POLS token holders and the public before it is listed on Uniswap.
How Does DAOventures Operate?
The protocol works similarly to a normal VC firm in the sense that it searches for better openings for investors to create higher earnings. The technological tools that the platform uses are built through a combined effort from the professional teams.
These tools explore deep into the markets and help liquidity providers deploy their funds into desirable DeFi investments. Examples of the tools used include an automated balancer, liquidity miner, arbitrage bot, and swap token.
DAOVentures employs smart contracts and robo-traders to help investors put money in the top-performing DeFi assets to get the best results. In addition, before smart contracts are deployed for use on the platform, they are first audited and vetted to ensure compliance.
The decentralized processes of the platform help to eliminate counterparty risks. DAOVentures ensures that users have full control of their funds and wallets. As a result, users can interact with smart contracts individually.
While other crypto investors find it difficult interacting with DeFi protocols, DAOventures employs algorithms to manage investorsâ funds. Robo-advisors distribute all the pooled funds and deploy them to the DeFi protocol with the best ROI%.
The products and services offered by DAOventures include:
Yield Farming
The platform offers various yield farming strategies for users in order to earn returns. Users can choose a yield farming strategy based on their risk level and profit target. The protocol provides users with investments based on their risk appetite.
Lending And Borrowing
DAOVentures plans to integrate with lending and borrowing protocols such as Uniswap in the near-term. This will help them better manage investor funds and expand the reach of DAOventures operations.
Automated Defi Manager
Through robo-advisors, users have the benefit of investing in the best DeFi projects and products. Investors can profit from the platformâs structured products and yield-farming aggregation via automated managers.
With the growth DeFi has seen, there is little doubt that its ecosystem is the future of finance. However, DeFiâs rise in popularity also brought along several opportunities, risks, and benefits. With that in mind, DAOventures continues to play its part to speed up DeFiâs transition to the much-anticipated future by constantly providing investors with proper solutions. The protocol aims to leverage cross-chain interoperability to provide its users with the best services.
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
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.
Recently, the news has been flooded with talks about crypto regulation and exchange investigations by the SEC. This has raised a lot of problems among investors as particular crypto exchanges they use might one day become restricted by international regulators. Therefore, one of the safest long-term solutions is to find yourself a fully regulated crypto exchange.
In this article, we will be comparing two of the top regulated crypto exchanges in the world: SwissBorg and eToro.
After having raised USD $53 million, SwissBorg was launched in 2017 by Anthony Lesoismier (CSO) and Cyrus Fazel (CEO). SwissBorg is based in Switzerland and is fully compliant with Swiss Law, making it a popular European crypto exchange. It is the first blockchain-based secure wealth management platform, aimed at simplifying the process of crypto investments. It integrates with major crypto exchanges, DeFi protocols, and features a community-based ownership model.
SwissBorg is available in over 115 countries, and they have plans to include many more in the future. However, as of now, SwissBorg is not supported in the U.S. If you want to see if your country is included, you can visit their Supported Countries page.
SwissBorg Team
Prior to founding the exchange, Lesoismier was Head of Financial Market Digital-Advisory at JFD Brokers, and Fazel was a multicultural FinTech professional with decades of experience in asset management and algorithmic trading.
The Wealth App is the smart command-and-control centre of SwissBorg. It lets users build, manage, and monitor their crypto portfolios, enabling easy and secure wealth management. Users can fund their accounts with 16 different fiat currencies, including USD, EUR, GBP, and CHZ. Additionally, similar to Coinbase, a limited number of high-cap digital assets are supported to ensure quality.
The biggest advantage that SwissBorg has is their Smart Engine. It ensures zero spreads and no inflated exchange rates or hidden fees, allowing users to trade at the best rates and lowest slippage. Moreover, the Smart Engine analyzes hundreds of live trading pairs in seconds by connecting to major crypto exchanges such as Binance or Kraken. As a result, SwissBorg finds the best route to execute customer orders in milliseconds, saving investors time to find the best exchange rates.
Smart Yield Account
SwissBorg’s Smart Yield is a feature on its app which allows users to potentially earn passive income through Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols and Centralized Finance (CeFi) platforms. Smart Yield’s user-friendly interface allows easy access to the benefits of DeFi and CeFi, even average crypto users without much pre-requisite knowledge can stand to gain from it.
There are a lot crypto themes, and within each theme there are hundreds of different tokens to choose from. Decision fatigue really sets in when you are opting to diversify your crypto portfolio. SwissBorg’s answer to this is their “Thematics”, expert-designed bundles of different crypto themes.
They provide exposure and diversification that is important for every crypto investor. SwissBorg’s Thematics lets you choose a category you have long-term belief in. For example, if you believe in layer-one protocols, you can choose a layer-one protocol bundle containing Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, Avalanche and so on.
If you are interested in upcoming layer one protocols, you can check out our comprehensive article on Aptos or Sui.
What is eToro?
eToro
Company Overview
Based in Tel-Aviv, eToro was established in 2007 by co-founders Ronen Assia (Executive Director), Yoni Assia (CEO), and David Ring (Former CTO). The company was originally a social trading exchange offering commodities, indices, and stocks before diving headfirst into the crypto industry in 2018 with the launch of eToroX and a crypto wallet. It has since grown to one of the largest crypto exchanges, with a user base of 25 million active users worldwide.
Before eToro was established, Yoni Assia had held managerial roles in the FinTech industry and is an expert in computer science and finance. On the other hand, his brother Ronen Assia is a specialist in product design and engineering, having created products across various platforms such as medical devices, household applications, and web applications.
The biggest innovative feature of eToro is their CopyTrader, which allows you to automatically copy top-performing traders, what they invest in and when. This is great for average crypto users and beginners as they can easily leverage other crypto traders’ expertise, instead of going through the hassle of constantly monitoring the market, unsure of whether to enter or exit. As a result, you can simply replicate their trading in your own portfolio. In a way, it is similar to KuCoin’s trading bot, where trading activities are already figured out for you.
Moreover, CopyTrader is also a social trading platform, where traders are part of a collaborative community. They can with chat with other traders, discuss strategies and benefit from each other. This is a great place to start for beginners and learn from the best on how the market moves, but keep in mind that their quality is not assured. Crypto investments are always volatile.
Smart Portfolios
Similar to SwissBorg’s Thematics, eToro’s Smart Portfolios are essential a grouping of several assets bundled together based on the theme. In addition to crypto, eToro also has portfolios of stocks, ETFs, commodities and even people, as per their business model in the early 2010s before crypto became mainstream.
Smart Portfolios leverages machine learning algorithms and data science to group the best performing bundles, taking into account factors such as balance, exposure, potential yield, risk, and more. Moreover, there are no management fees or commission, other than those applied with assets comprising each portfolio.
eToroX
eToroX is the company’s product specifically designed for professional crypto traders and institutional investors. It is not available to retail investors. It offers a suite of advanced trading tools, 30+ crypto assets including 17 unique stablecoins and 80+ tokenized asset pairs. eToroX has a highly competitive fee structure and is renowned for having deep liquidity for stabilizing large-volume trades.
SwissBorg vs eToro Overview
Cryptocurrencies and Products
Both SwissBorg and eToro only offer a limited number of cryptocurrencies, around 30-40. Most of these assets have large market cap like Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP (Ripple), BNB, and Polkadot. This is done to ensure quality, reducing exposure to high risk/high reward assets or degen projects that could incur a lot of loss. Both exchanges strictly adhere to standards set by financial regulatory agencies to protect the securities of investors.
In terms of trading, both exchanges offer a wide array of trading tools for all crypto users as well as deep liquidity to support large volume trades with zero spreads. However, trading on eToro only benefits whales and institutional investors as eToroX unlocks them the full benefit and is inaccessible to retail investors. In contrast, SwissBorg’s Wealth App, optimized with Smart Engine, performs just as well as eToroX and is accessible to everyone.
Furthermore, SwissBorg offers much more than crypto trading. Their Smart Yield feature works with numerous DeFi protocols and CeFi platforms, simplifying the process of earning and allowing users to stake and receive passive income. On the other hand, eToro also has their own staking reward programs, but is only limited to Cardano, Tron, and Ethereum. Although their monthly staking yield is high, only UK and US users have access to it.
Fees
Thanks to their Smart Engine, SwissBorg users do not have to worry about inflated exchange rates, floating spreads, and hidden fees. In other words, you will never end up with less crypto than what you paid for. There are no deposit fees, but crypto withdrawals are subject to an execution fee of at least 0.10%, which is relatively low compared to other exchanges. In terms of exchange fees, SwissBorg fees are among the lowest in the crypto industry, but vary greatly depending on loyalty tier and which fiat or crypto asset is being used. Moreover, 20% of their profits generated from the fees are reinvested back into the SwissBorg ecosystem.
On the other hand, eToro charges a 1% fee on crypto transactions plus a spread. Although this is still considered lower compared to other exchanges, it is not as competitive as SwissBorg. If you are planning to trade a lot of cryptocurrencies, paying more than 1% can eat into your profits. Unlike SwissBorg, eToro charges foreign transaction (FX) fees for non-USD deposits, and USD $5 for withdrawals. Furthermore, if you are planning to HODL assets long-term, it is important to note that eToro charges an inactivity fee for accounts that have not been online for a year. You can simply log in each day to negate that.
Overall, SwissBorg is the clear winner in terms of lower and transparent fees.
Security
As leading trading platforms, both SwissBorg and eToro have successfully ensured compliance with top regulatory authorities, placing the security of their platform and the safety of their clients’ funds as a top priority.
Both exchanges adhere to Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations, protecting traders from fraudulent and criminal activities. Much like all other major crypto exchanges, SwissBorg and eToro uses two-factor authentication (2FA), data encryption, network monitoring and other standard security protocols.
Both companies also store account funds in cold storage so that they cannot be hacked online. However, their methodology of cold storage security is different but impenetrable nevertheless.
eToro deploys a cold storage Custody as a Service (CaaS) solution in partnership with leading cybersecurity firm GK8. It is essentially the application of secure institutional model of custody and cryptographic security in crypto. The funds are also insured by Aon PLC against theft, loss, damage or destruction of assets.
On the other hand, instead of custody mechanism, SwissBorg addresses and enhances cold wallet security by implementing multi-party computation (MPC) keyless technology. It does not require a private key to be created, eliminating a single point of failure. MPC works by multiple parties jointly performing mathematical computations, without one party revealing its information to the others. SwissBorg achieves this in collaboration with Fireblocks as their security partner. Fireblocks is renowned for being the most secure and adaptable platform that leverages MPC technology to secure digital assets.
Crediting to their advanced security protocols and regulation compliances, there have been no known successful hacks on both SwissBorg and eToro to date.
Key Takeaways
Both SwissBorg and eToro are great crypto exchanges for investors to manage and expand their portfolio. While eToro’s CopyTrader feature is great for beginners to learn how expert traders maneuver the market, it is important to note that their quality is not assured. Crypto investments are always volatile, and no one can predict the market.
Overall, SwissBorg is relatively better than eToro in terms of trading efficiency, fees, and product variety. SwissBorg’s Smart Engine allows users of all levels to trade without inflated exchange rates, spread and hidden fees. Their exchange fees are also much lower than eToro’s, and have no deposit fees. Moreover, the company also brings DeFi benefits to its users, letting them earn high APY rewards in a simple process.
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.
Unido ($UDO), powered by Polkadot, provides enterprises crypto-asset management solutions, that specialize in governance, security, and interoperability within the crypto banking sphere guaranteeing the satisfaction of all users.
Background
Powered by Web3 blockchain Polkadot, Unido was founded by Chris Weddle who has over 20 years of experience within the blockchain sector. The project was initiated in 2017 and is anchored by an experienced team of finance experts, software developers, and blockchain developers. They all come from well-known financial and development firms such as Goldman Sachs, Wipro, and Macquarie.
Unido’s Founder: Chris Weddle (Source: Unido website)
Through the Unido project, the team has successfully managed to solve security and accessibility challenges with its distinct and dynamic implementation of a blockchain-based management tool that facilitates the handling of crypto assets.
What is Unido?
Unido is a technology ecosystem that addresses the governance, security, and accessibility challenges of decentralized applications, and enables companies to manage crypto assets and capitalize on DeFi.
Unidoâs distinct protocol facilitates investment in DeFi by leveraging its efficient proprietary and multi-sig key signing technology. Furthermore, users have the unique capability to manage crypto banking operations in complete security.
Under the decentralized platform, assets management enterprises and crypto native companies are ensured agility and efficiency for the custody of their respective digital assets. This creates a strong bridge for firms and organizations to interface with DeFi networks as they remain compliant with licensing and regulatory requirements.
The platformâs algorithm works best by leveraging, as well as supplying clients with a great deal of crypto trading, payments, and banking solutions.
Through Unidoâs user-friendly protocol, participants essentially have access to three main features all responsible for the systemâs special implementation of the blockchain, namely, Enterprise Crypto Banking Suite, DeFi Vault Access, and Governance/Security features.
A business banking portal, through which firms can manage day-to-day operations and capital expenditure. This feature empowers users with a multi-user wallet management protocol that creates, assigns, and manages clientsâ wallets.
Additionally, it is equipped with user governance tools providing access to rights and access requirements unique to the blockchain solution. Overall, this business banking portal is a simple and intuitive instrument with an interoperable, modular architecture that provides analytics on DeFi transactions, activities, and trends.
DeFi Vault Access
The vault access is a multi-signature enterprise wallet or DeFi vault used to store, manage, and invest digital assets in an efficient and safe manner.
The team behind the wallet describes it as a secured and most importantly, a well-integrated bridge into several prominent DeFi investment solutions such as UniSwap, Yearn Finance, and Balancer. Additionally, the vault provides users with a complete overview of investment opportunities within the DeFi space, as well as potential returns and benefits within specific DeFi networks.
Supported by a portfolio performance dashboard, this feature facilitates the management and investment of digital funds.
Governance and Security
Through this blockchain-based feature, the Unido enterprise platform (EP) provides users with an array of security and management instruments ensuring the safety of all funds within the platform.
The Unido platform guarantees blockchain-based security and agnostic architecture, rendering it versatile and applicable to any given on-chain use cases. Powered by a key signing technology, Unido EP ensures flexible and trustworthy governance, which provides assets access only to permitted entities and parties.
Unido Token ($UDO)
The platformâs utility token, $UDO, is the fuel behind Unidoâs efficient implementation as it is used to drive network access, ensure transaction security, governance, and network management. Overall, the token is built on a trustworthy smart contract algorithm guaranteeing the development and expansion of the Unido network in the future.
Furthermore, the token facilitates access to the platformâs variety of products to all users, including institutions and developers. UDO has three main use cases, being network access licenses, consumption fees, and DAO Governance.
$UDO Tokenomics
Total Supply: 115,000,000 UDO
Initial Market Cap:$487,813
Seed/Private/Pre-Public Sale Fundraising: $1,400,000
Seed Sale: $0.04, 0% TGE, 20% monthly unlock
Private Sale: $0.05, 25% TGE, 25% monthly unlock
Public Sale:: $0.06, full unlock
Deflationary Economics:
Phase 1: From consumption fees, 60% burn, 20% to EDF, and 20% into reserve. Phase 1 when token supply is reduced by 20%.
Phase 2: After enterprise products take off, 50% of fees to be invested into EDF & 50% into reserve.
UDO Use Cases
Network Access License
All applications and Unido EP features will only be available via a license purchasable with the UDO token. Once the license is bought, the tokens are removed from circulation and placed into a secured smart contract until the license eventually expires.
Companies are provided with annual licenses for the Unido platform, where fees are determined by the volume of usage for the target clients and the number of users.
Consumption Fees
All fees and consumption charges within the Unido ecosystem and auxiliary platform will be based on the volume of usage within the platforms. Additionally, UDO will be used to authenticate each transaction within its parent platform.
All operations from developers will either be charged under a subscription model, Freemium model, paid model, or In-App model, all depending on the user specifications and needs.
DAO Governance
In general, the DAO will oversee Unidoâs Ecosystem Development Fund (EDF) and allow for the subsidizing of new applications implementation and development, which will contribute to the diversification of the platform.
Unido EP aims to be a leader within the blockchain space by spearheading the race toward mass adoption; especially within the traditional financial sector. The platformâs drive to provide secured banking management tools is a great boost for wide DLT acceptance.
Overall the Polkadot-based platform is a dynamic implementation of decentralized technology, which guarantees total accessibility and security through key features lacking in most solutions of its genre on the market.
Unido Enterprise Platform is ahead of the curve as it provides a sure connection with blockchain giants, ensuring its growth and development in the future. Unido will likely become a leader within the blockchain given the protocolâs current algorithm and products.
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
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.
In the last months, we have witnessed the crypto space and blockchain industry go beyond the norm. With more decentralized finance (DeFi) projects than ever, it is clear that the next target should be greater adoption. However, the complexity of dealing with multiple (d)Apps interfaces in order to access a wide array of services, inevitably narrows down the number of participants. Reef Finance is built to change that.
The way Reef Finance works is by reuniting all blockchain services together in a single, unified interface. This makes the whole DeFi user experience seamless and convenient. In just a single dApp, anyone can buy crypto, perform trades, stake assets, take loans, farm, manage their portfolio and more without any fuss.
Tackling Defi’s Fragmentation
What Denko Mancheski, CEO of Reef Finance, and his team had in mind when they started working on the project, was to solve an inherent complexity. Mancheski believes that, while there have already been many useful innovations in crypto recently, mass adoption is still difficult to achieve. The reason he points out is the psychological barrier that dampens the DeFi communities’ growth. True enough, the DeFi space today seems very fragmented. There are features existing in a particular application that are unavailable in another, and there are contract functions that would complement each other, but only exist on separate platforms.
The space offers promising products, but they are too overwhelming to spur adoption, especially for beginners. This is why Reef Financeâs goal has been, according to Mancheski, to âabstract away complexitiesâ and try to âonboard a simple non-tech savvy user.â
What is Reef Finance?
Reef Finance (âReefâ) is a non-custodial multi-chain smart yield engine and liquidity aggregator. Powered by Polkadot, it enables cross-chain integrations across various DeFi protocols.
Essentially, it makes Decentralized Finance much easier to access, with the ability to diversify a portfolio in a single click. It functions as a one-stop-shop for DeFi projects that users can access without having to switch from different applications, one after another. Within its interface users can access different exchanges and, through the help of smart contracts, Reef combines the liquidity of these markets. Furthermore, trading can be easily done on the platform.
Reef Finance is the first Polkadot project ever launched on Binance Launchpool. The farming started on December the 23rd and will continue for 30 days. The platform will be beginner-friendly and will launch in Q1 2021, while the protocol has recently been audited by Halborn.
Why Polkadot?
Reefâs deployment on the Polkadot ecosystem will benefit users in terms of transaction costs and speed. As it is well known to many, the âtrafficâ on the Ethereum’s network has often resulted in skyrocketing fees and long transaction times. This will continue at least until Ethereum 2.0 is fully deployed, which isnât likely to happen for a while.
Polkadot, on the other hand, doesnât suffer from the same issues. Parachainsâ independence on the network prevents network congestion. It also powers Reefâs cross-chain functionality through the ‘Bridge’ protocol. By implementing this blockchain innovation, Reef can rely on products and services from different networks into a single interface.
The Reef platform is made of three major components that complement each other.
Global Liquidity Aggregator
Reef offers a simil-exchange service linked to some of the biggest trading platforms in the space. The uniqueness here is that the aggregated liquidity goes through CEXs and DEXs. In this way, users can hedge the downsides of the two types of liquidity sources, among which trading fees and high slippage.
Reef can access all the liquidity combined of CEXs and DEXs
The centralized exchange liquidity will be accessed through the use of brokerage services, such as Tagomi, Caspian or Quantreq. Conversely, decentralized liquidity will come from sources like on-chain order-books (0x) and AMMs (Uniswap, Balancer, Bancor….). Reef’s liquidity aggregation will also assist in protecting users from market manipulation and front-running attacks.
All of this will make trading on Reef not only easy and affordable, but also diverse.
Smart Yield Farming Aggregator
Reef Yield Engine enables staking in multiple asset baskets which can be automated through the help of an AI that users can configure based on their financial needs. Users can decide how much to allocate to each basket and the operating system will dynamically rebalance and adjust them, moving portions of the allocations to other more convenient assets/pools.
The purpose of the ‘Reef Intelligence Engine’ is to enable the AI to manage assets on user’s behalf. This helps automate the nitty-gritty of trading and staking for Reefâs newcomers. Planning a profitable allocation of assets according to each traderâs risk level has never been much easier in Defi. The engine is machine learning-powered, enabling its growth over time.
Since the AI is data-driven, the information it holds is fed by an off-chain oracle (they have a partnership with Chainlink also). The oracle supplies data to proxy smart contracts that serve as the AIâs backbone. It monitors every pertinent information concerning services offered on the platform, whether they are social media data, latest news, or on-chain data.
Reef also integrates with some Defi insurance protocols to provide coverages for its users.
Smart Asset Management
The third founding element of the platform is its asset management option. Users can seamlessly rebalance their allocations between their baskets through an easy UI accessible from mobile devices or computers. The AI engine will also make intelligent recommendations to help with taking decisions.
The $REEF Token
$REEF is the native, utility token of the Reef platform. It is mainly used to pay for transaction fees as well as support the protocol rewards structure.
An important role for the platform is that of Network Collators. They assure that the network is healthy by keeping a copy of the full state of Parachains at a given time. They are similar to miners producing blocks, supporting the Polkadot blockchain. The Collators receive $REEF tokens as a reward for all basic operations such as processing transactions, deploying smart contracts, submitting a proposal and more.
Staking and Governance
Reef Protocol utilizes Polkadot’s Proof of Stake base consensus mechanism and it’s governed through a DAO structure. By holding and staking $REEF tokens, users can take part in important protocol decisions concerning the structure of the asset baskets, reserve limits, yield rewards, liquidity pools, and others.
Stakers have the freedom to choose how they want to receive their rewards, whether in ETH/USDC or $REEF. Opting for the native token will lead to better rates.
New Partnerships and roadmap
Even though Reef Finance launched in late September, its development has been in progress for long. The project secured over 20 partnerships in 2020 and more are coming this year. Among them, important were those with Matic, Kava, Covalent, Bluzelle and Chainlink. Reef’s integration with Binance Access Api will also allow a FIAT ramp for cryptocurrency purchases along with a decentralized trading opportunity within their platform.
In January, they secured a new partnership with OpenDefi, a platform that allows the tokenization of insured and physically backed real-world assets, held by custodians. Users can stake to receive instant loans against their assets and enjoy yield opportunities. More on the partnerships and on OpenDefi can be found here and here.
Another notable collaboration is the one with Manta Network, a cross-chain privacy devoted Defi platform and price-stable Dex. Reef users will be able to access the liquidity offered by Manta Network Dex, reinforcing the core aspect of Reef Finance: liquidity aggregation.
On January the 20th a two-week “zero gas fee” initiative started on OpenOcean, a trading platform, which has given traders the opportunity to receive a refund for all the fees spent while trading $REEF. The offer was limited to a total of 40,000 $REEF.
The official Roadmap is constantly updated and more information on future news can be found on Reef Finance’s Medium page. This project is definitely one of the most anticipated and rumored in 2021!
Conclusion
DeFi innovation has to attract a lot more people to keep creating a vibrant and supportive community. After all, it is adoption that helps sustaining all these blockchain developments in the long run. Simplifying access to multiple DeFi products and creating a unified platform is exactly what the space needs today.
Reef Financeâs target to abstract (?) DeFi looks promising. Not only do they make it easier for users to tap into other exchanges, but the platform also introduced AI technology to make it convenient for traders to manage their assets. The project may be young, but it has the tools users need to efficiently and profitably take control of their funds.
Our interview with Denko Mancheski, CEO of Reef Finance
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
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.
Bitbuy is a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange platform that offers a secure and easy way to buy, sell, and trade digital assets. Today, we’ll concentrate on Bitbuy’s review and evaluation of the platform based on all of the most important factors.
Bitbuy is a leading Canadian cryptocurrency exchange platform founded in 2013 by Adam Goldman in Toronto. It is a secure and easy-to-use platform that supports popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Stellar Lumens and EOS. Bitbuy was originally called InstaBT but was re-branded to its current name as the company expanded. The main goal of the company is to provide Canadians with easy and secure access to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. As the platform continues to improve, more cryptocurrencies will be added in the near future.
Key Features of Bitbuy
Key features of Bitbuy include:
Exchange only for Canadian dollars (CAD). Bitbuy is only available to Canadian citizens and residents and is not available in any other country.
Simple to use. Bitbuy has two platforms available: Express and Pro. Pro trading caters to experienced traders, whereas Express allows you to buy cryptocurrencies quickly and easily.
The ability to buy and sell 25 different cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and many others are digital assets that are revolutionizing the way we transact and store value.
Regulatory compliance. Bitbuy is a regulatory-compliant platform that is registered as a Money Services Business (MSB) with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).
OTC desk. Bitbuy’s OTC trading platform is available to high-volume traders and institutional investors.
Excellent customer service. Bitbuy provides direct email customer support and responds within 12 hours or less.
Key Advantages of Bitbuy
Bitbuy crypto exchange has quite a lot to offer, so letâs take a look at each of the aspects separately and see what itâs all about.
Security is a top priority
Bitbuy is one of the most secure and reliable cryptocurrency exchanges in Canada. It is registered by FINTRAC as a Money Services Business (MSB) and is responsible for meeting all obligations under the PCMLTFA and associated Regulations. Every Bitbuy user has to confirm its identity, meaning that the platform ensures there are no fake accounts and scammers on the platform. Bitbuy is also responsible for keeping certain records and have to complete reports related to suspicious transactions, terrorist property, large cash transactions, and electronic funds transfers.
Centralized and decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges both have their advantages and disadvantages. Centralized exchanges are similar to banks and can be considered safer, but thereâs a third-party involvement and you donât have full autonomy over your wallet. Decentralized exchanges, on the other hand, donât involve a third party and you have full control over your assets. To ensure your security, whether youâre using a centralized or decentralized exchange, you should always keep your assets in a secure wallet, such as a hardware one.
Buy & Sell Major Cryptocurrencies
Bitbuy is a cryptocurrency platform that supports all major coins, including Bitcoin (BTC), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), EOS (EOS), Ripple (XRP), Decentraland (MANA), Chainlink (LINK), AAVE, Dogecoin (DOGE), Cardano (ADA), Polkadot (DOT), Uniswap (UNI), SushiSwap (SUSHI), Polygon (MATIC), and Solana (SOL). With 17 different coins to choose from, Bitbuy is a great option for those looking to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrencies. However, if youâre looking for less popular tokens, you may want to look elsewhere. Ultimately, it all depends on your personal needs.
Fiat Support (CAD)
Bitbuy is a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange that allows users to purchase Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies using fiat money. It supports Canadian dollars only, but users can also fund their accounts with cryptocurrencies. Bitbuy is a reliable platform with a variety of positive reviews, making it a great choice for Canadians looking to buy cryptocurrencies.
Useful Products & Services
It is easy to use and provides clear navigation with the Express Trade platform, perfect for beginners. PRO Trade platform is created for advanced traders, with additional features such as in-depth market charts, advanced orders, and live order book. Bitbuy OTC is suitable for big trades, allowing you to work directly with one of Bitbuyâs experienced traders and get a live price quote. Bitbuy API is for experienced developers, providing access to 10+ markets with CAD-to-crypto and crypto-to-crypto pairs. Bitbuy also makes it easier by providing automated sign-up and onboarding processes, as well as a new “username” feature for a smoother experience.”
Built-In Wallets for Every Account
Bitbuy is a Canadian exchange that takes security seriously. They offer an insured built-in wallet and have partnered with BitGo to provide an offline vault. For those looking for an extra layer of security, hardware wallets like the Ledger Nano X, Trezor Model T, and KeepKey are recommended. These wallets provide a secure way to store cryptocurrencies and are worth the investment for those looking to protect their digital assets. Bitbuy is committed to providing users with the best security measures available, so they can rest assured that their funds are safe.
Mobile App Available
Bitbuy is a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange that offers users the ability to buy, sell and trade 7 different cryptocurrencies. The provider offers both a desktop platform and a mobile app that is available for both iOS and Android users. The mobile app features a clear design, is easy to use and navigate and offers the same functionality as the desktop version. Users can fund and withdraw CAD using Interac e-Transfer or bank wire. Bitbuy reviews have praised the platform for its user-friendly design and features, making it a great choice for both beginner and experienced traders.
It has a 98%+ cold storage policy, 2FA on all transactions, 1:1 Bitcoin insurance, and a recent audit by a third-party blockchain security firm. The platform allows users to fund, buy, sell, and withdraw cryptocurrencies quickly and securely. It also has features that allow users to track currency market prices, orders, and view history. Bitbuy is also launching a new platform that will allow users to modify 2FA options based on their personal preferences. With its strong security and wide range of features, Bitbuy is a great choice for anyone looking to buy, sell, or trade cryptocurrencies.
Fees are Relatively Low
Bitbuy is a crypto exchange that supports fiat currencies and offers low deposit fees. When depositing or withdrawing Canada dollars, you will pay from 0.50% to 1.50% depending on the type of deposits and withdrawals – Bank Wire or Interac e-Transfer. Fees for trading are different for market makers and takers, with makers usually paying lower fees than takers. Market makers add liquidity to the market and increase the market depth, while market takers seek liquidity and take it off the book. Bitbuy is a great choice for those looking for a reliable and secure crypto exchange with low fees.
Bitbuy is a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange platform that offers competitive trading fees. The standard fee is 0.25%, however, when using the âBitbuy PROâ version, the fee for makers is 0.10% and for takers – 0.20%. When using the âExpress Tradeâ feature, you will only pay 0.20% for each instant trade. Digital cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals are free, however, processing times vary. Bitcoin deposits take 3 confirmations, Ethereum – 12 confirmations, while Stellar Lumens, Ripple and EOS processing is almost instant. Withdrawal fees vary depending on the currency, for example, Bitcoin (BTC) – 0.001 BTC, Stellar Lumens (XLM) – 26XLM, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) – 0.01 BCH, Ethereum (ETH) – 0.02 ETH, Litecoin (LTC) – 0.05 LTC, EOS (EOS) – 0.03 EOS and Ripple (XRP) – 25 XRP. Bitbuyâs fees are on par with the industry standard and get lower when using Bitbuy PRO.
Key Disadvantages of Bitbuy
It’s time to move on to the next section of this Bitbuy review: the platform’s drawbacks.
A Small Number of Cryptocurrencies
Bitbuy is a cryptocurrency exchange platform that offers 17 options to choose from, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, EOS, Ripple, Stellar Lumens, LINK, and AAVE. While this is enough for those looking to buy the most popular coins, it is much less than other international cryptocurrency exchange platforms such as Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken, which offer more than 30, 150, and 37 supported cryptocurrencies respectively. Therefore, if youâre looking for a platform with more options, then you should consider other options.
How to Use Bitbuy?
If this Bitbuy review convinced you that this platform is exactly what you’re looking for, I’d like to give you a head start by providing you with a step-by-step guide on how to create an account on Bitbuy as well as how to make a deposit to begin trading.
How to Create an Account on Bitbuy?
Step 1. The first thing you need to do is go to the Bitbuy main page and click âSign Up to Get Startedâ.
Step 2. You must now enter the required information: email address, password, and referral code (optional). After that, click “Create an account.”
Step 3. Check your email address; you should have received a letter from Bitbuy. If it isn’t there, click “Resend Verification Email.”
Step 4. Open the Bitbuy email you received and click “Verify My Email.”
Step 5. You can sign up for Bitbuy after your email has been verified.
How to Make a Deposit on Bitbuy?
Step 1. Sign in by clicking “Your Account” in the top right corner of the page.
Step 2. After signing in, click the “Add Funds” button.
Step 3. You have two funding options: e-Transfer or wire transfer. Remember that wire transfers take longer.
Step 4. Enter the amount to be transferred and click “Next.”
Step 5. Complete the transaction by logging in to your financial institution’s or online banking platform.
Conclusion
Bitbuy is a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2013. It offers a secure platform for buying and selling major cryptocurrencies, a built-in wallet, and a mobile app. However, it has relatively high fees, is only available to Canadian citizens, and has some concerning reviews online. It is suitable for beginners but may not be as good for experienced traders. Before buying cryptocurrencies, it is important to also get a secure wallet for your assets. Popular models include Ledger Nano X and Trezor Model T.
From now to 18th April, you can buy a Ledger Nano X and get $30 BTC for FREE! Click below to buy!
Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.
Vortex DeFi ($VTX) aims to provide users a one-stop access to all leading decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms and protocols from a single web-based user interface.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has evolved from a niche subcategory to the biggest catalyst driving the cryptocurrency and blockchain field today. Itâs primarily focused on the Ethereum network, which has the majority of the DeFi share. There are, however, a large number of core DeFi protocols, combinators, and countless forks. All of this can become confusing fast.
Fortunately, users donât have to delve into the complex workings and nuances of these protocols, which can be overwhelming even for long-term users. Vortex DeFi is introduced to simplify the access and exposure to the sector. It has integrations with different protocols, which abstracts away the complexity in a simple and yet intuitive interface, to level the playing field and ensure greater participation.
Background
Vortex DeFi launched in Aug 2020 through a private investment round. It accrued interest and funding from X21 Digital, DuckDao, Moonrock Capital, Magnus Capital, Pluto Digital Assets PLC, Faculty Capital, A195 Capital, etc. A public sale will be held soon.
It has a multicultural team, led by CEO Rahul Singh and strategic advisor Lester Lim. The other prominent team members are technical lead Arun Sunil and product lead Shaz. All team members have previous experiences in market-leading companies and blockchain projects.
What is Vortex DeFi?
Vortex DeFi is a web-based DeFi management system or a comprehensive DeFi aggregative solution platform, serving as a bridge between Ethereum and Polkadot. It combines the functionality and power of core protocols in a sleek dashboard to allow users of all categories to engage in yield farming. The core services provided are NFT asset management, lending and borrowing, insurance, and exchange.
Vortex DeFi will also utilize the yEarn finance protocol to access and extract value from various lending protocols to enable automated profitable yield farming. The added advantage of cross-chain compatibility ensures that users donât have to choose between two promising blockchains. Vortex DEFI also has several components, taking the guesswork and experimentation out of the process.
Being the Uniswap or Bancor equivalent of Vortex, V-Swap will offer an automated digital assets exchange on the Ethereum and Polkadot blockchain. Itâs likely to offer liquidity aggregation from multiple sources, so a peer to peer exchange of tokens can be performed without a direct counterparty or orderbook.
V-Pay
It will offer a fiat gateway for users, so they can acquire and sell crypto assets from FIAT, in their cards or bank accounts. This is required for onboarding new users, as well as ensuring that they have a way for realizing their returns.
V-Yield
A yield aggregator as the name goes, V-Yield will combine yield from different sources and optimize them according to the best return rate. It will spare users from the trouble of manually finding sources and having the need to rotate them.
V-NFTs
An asset management, V-NFTs will allow users to manage their asset collection and swap them for each other. Given that NFTs are an illiquid asset class and their infrastructure is scattered, itâs hugely important to develop a unified interface.
V-Insure
DeFi protocols are rife with exploits and smart contract risks. Therefore, to onboard new users and even to retain existing ones, itâs necessary to grant them peace of mind by ensuring the protection of their funds. V-Insure will seek to insure user funds by seeking out integrations with multiple DeFi insurance protocols.
Vortex DEFI Native Token ($VTX)
The native token of the platform is Vortex DeFi Token ($VTX), ERC-20 token, which will be used to incentivize users. It has four purposes:
Liquidity pools (LP) rewards are distributed in VTX
Usage for staking on the platform.
Holding VTX tokens allows users to save on the platform fees
The team has announced plans to regularly buy tokens and burn them every quarter to reduce supply and increase the value of existing tokens.
All of these benefits and value accrual mechanisms will motivate users to hold tokens, in anticipation of rising demand and prices.
$VTX Token Metrics
The VTX token has a total supply of 100M $VTX and an initial circulating supply of $0.4M $VTX.
Private Sale (concluded): 32,500,000 VTX sold at 0.0276 USD per token.(25% TGE, 75% vesting over 120 days)
Public Sale (on 28 February 2021): 2,500,000 VTX to be sold at 0.04 USD per token. No vesting period.*
Advantages of Vortex DeFi
The platform offers users the advantages of a unified DeFi management dashboard, the ability to fuse several protocols together offering a seamless experience with abstracted complexity, powerful lend and earn functionality, automated rotation of funds for optimized returns, non-custodial function, and insurance against loss of funds.
Vortex DEFI will have integrations with several key DEFI protocols, including but not limited to Maker DAO, Compound, Kava, Idle, Aave, Yearn, Uniswap, Nexus Mutual, Curve. This will allow for a powerful user experience, which is likely to improve penetration of decentralized finance.
Vortex Vision
The team hopes that Vortex will become the top one-stop solution for a userâs DeFi needs and allow them to simplify their experience. Vortex hopes to make financial applications accessible and simple for all users, regardless of their technical expertise. It will also allow saving on transaction fees (gas) by batching and combining transactions.
Vortex can also enhance the decentralization level of DeFi protocols by ensuring broad participation and an increase in user activity. Furthermore, it will feature the DAAS (DeFi-As-A-Service) business model. Currently, the product is in development and more changes are expected as the platform launch draws near.
Conclusion
DEFI was founded on the principle of openness, equal opportunity, transparency, trustlessness, lack of centralized control, fast processing, and lego-like composability. It is generally presented as a superior alternative to the traditional financial system, which differs heavily from the principles of the crypto community and disallows these services to a large number of people.
On the other hand, DeFi is accessible to almost everyone with an internet connection and a personal computing device or smartphone. However, primitive user interfaces and experiences of the existing DeFi protocols were a problem. Thankfully, Vortex will overlap the strong functionality of these protocols with an amazing and simple interface.
Currently, there is a lack of dashboard-style platforms connected to multiple DEFI protocols, aggregating their services and offering a one-stop solution. All of this is about to change with the Vortex launch, which is likely to onboard a large number of new users as well as provide a novel interesting solution to the existing ones.
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
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.
Polkastarter ($POLS) is a cross-chain decentralised protocol, powered by Polkadot, that allows start-ups to raise funds in a decentralised and interoperable environment.
In 2020, the decentralized finance ecosystem (DeFi) recorded encouraging figures in the number of DeFi protocols, as well as the number of funds locked in these platforms. On the number of protocols, the platforms addressed different spheres such as lending, trading, and insurance.
Unfortunately, not many protocols touched on revolutionizing conventional fundraising models such as initial coin offerings (ICOs), initial decentralized exchange offerings (IDOs), and initial exchange offerings (IEOs).
However, projects like Polkastarter are on their way to bring a sigh of relief to startups looking for innovative ways to attract funding. Before we dig deeper into the project and what it brings to startups, letâs take a look at the group behind it.
Background
Daniel Stockhaus and Tiago Martins are the top brains behind Polkastarter. As project co-founders, Stockhaus is the CEO, while Martins is the CTO. Notably, the two have vast experience spanning from tech entrepreneurship to software development.
Other members of the team include Danilo Carlucci and Matthew Dibb. Carlucci is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor, while Dibb is a strategic advisor.
What is Polkastarter?
Polkastarter is a decentralized platform enabling startups and other projects to attract capital through token auctions and inter-blockchain token pools. As you would have guessed from its name, the project is built on the Polkadot network that sits on Ethereum.
Polkadaot Network
Stockhaus settled on Polkadot because of the networkâs major strengths in scalability, speed, interoperability, upgradeability, and governance. To elaborate, Polkadot surpasses Ethereum and Bitcoin transaction speed thanks to its use of parachains, which power horizontal scalability, and Grandpa consensus mechanism, which drives vertical scalability.
Polkastarter taps into these strengths to enable governance through community voting and staking. The network also relies on Polkadot to drive liquidity mining.
Using these features, the project scores better than existing decentralized exchanges and swap protocols such as Uniswap, Bounce, and Primablock. For instance, these networks donât support cross-chain pools, while Bounce and Primablock support a limited array of virtual assets.
Polkastarterâs Use Cases and Major Features
Polkastarter expands outside the fundraising space to crowdfunding and allows participants to benefit from discounted sales. Additionally, the protocol can increase privacy to over the counter deals by enabling password protection during such trades.
The network differs from other similar projects since it allows:
Inter-chain swaps
Fixed and dynamic swaps
Community voting on critical governance issues
Decentralized and permissionless token listing
Comprehensive Know your customer (KYC) procedures
Users to spot scams from a distance through a built-in anti-scam feature
Notably, combining these features brings low-cost transactions, fast cross-chain token swaps, the ability to move virtual assets across decentralized platforms, and a user-friendly design.
How Polkastarter Handles Fixed Swaps?
Fixed swaps pools are significant components of the network. Unlike with automated market making, fixed swap counteracts price volatility. Also, fixed swaps provide a greater level of transparency on the amount raised during fundraising.
Polkastarter employs fixed swap pools instead of AMM swap pools. This approach solves, among other challenges, the risk of private investors artificially inflating the price and dumping their holdings and the cost of token offerings.
Additionally, fixed swap pools ensure a fair distribution of tokens while eliminating the risk of rug pulls in a liquidity pool.
Note that instead of using a bonding curve approach to determine token prices in a pool, Polkastarter sets a fixed price when swapping tokens. As such, itâs possible to add other parameters, such as how much a single user can contribute to a project. Additionally, itâs easier to set more parameters to ensure transparency and fairness on new token holders.
Immediate advantages of using fixed swaps are:
The amount raised and tokens sold can easily be calculated.
It attracts investors distributed both demographically and geographically.
Token holders are given a chance to acquire tokens at a standard price.
Polkastarterâs Native Token ($POLS)
Tokenomics
The network has a native token called $POLS, which it uses for various sections on the platform. POLSâs total supply is 100 million tokens. Exactly 42.5 percent of the tokens were sold during the seed sale, private sale, and Uniswap listing. Other tokens went to the marketing fund, team, advisors, and foundational reserve.
Funds raised during the sales periods went into legal/accountancy (5%), ecosystem growth (20%), liquidity/exchanges (30%), and product development (45%).
POLS is used on the Polkastarter ecosystem as a utility token. Among its major uses are governance and fees.
As a governance token, its holders can vote on crucial matters such as protocol features and tokens to be displayed on the network. On fees, transactions on the platform are paid using the native currency.
Other Utilities
Staking â The token can be staked to earn staking rewards on various fronts. For example, it can be staked to receive pool rewards or for pool access. Note that the option to stake POL for pool access is solely upon pool creators. However, the choice is ideal for giving top liquidity providers private access to high-end pools.
Liquidity mining â Additionally, Polkastarterâs native currency can be staked to participate in liquidity mining. Rewards are distributed to entities providing liquidity on the secondary markets, among other subsections.
Two Key Partnerships With Polkastarter
Although Stockhaus and the team have inked many partnerships with reputable decentralized platforms, two stand out.
Polkastarter and Covalent
Covalent is a platform capable of fetching intricate details about a crypto wallet. As such, it allows Polkastarter and its users to check the trustworthiness of a token contract. The users have access to the token contract age, verification, transaction volume, among other details.
Polkastarter and DIA
Decentralized Information Asset (DIA) is a platform that provides distributed oracles on Polkastarter. Thanks to the exceptional qualities of its oracles, DIA helps Polkastarter provide warnings against massive price slippage.
Other partnerships involve Moonbean, Shyft, and Orion Protocol.
Conclusion
By using fixed price swaps instead of AMM, Polkastarter sets the bar higher in decentralized funding. It adds the transparency and fairness aspect that has been missing on similar platforms. The projectlâs partnerships with Covalent and DIA gives its users peace of mind knowing that they can pick a suspicious project from the crowd and avoid price slippage.
Furthermore, Polkastarterâs native token opens the door to distributed governance while giving its holders an extra way to earn rewards through staking.
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
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.
Litentry ($LIT) is a decentralized cross-chain identity aggregator, built on Substrate, that features an identity matching and identity staking mechanism.
In today’s world, personal data and identity are everything. Some companies in the conventional world make millions by selling user data. In the decentralized world, blockchain-based firms make losses.
For example, one user can create multiple accounts to take advantage of free airdropped tokens. Also, platforms powering decentralized finance (DeFi) have no way of tracking users’ credit history, making them charge higher collateral when issuing loans.
Fortunately, there’s a new way to keep track of identities in the distributed ecosystem securely. Powered by Litentry, we can see blockchain-focused platforms do more than just power token swaps. It’s now possible to scan through user’s deposit and withdrawal actions on Uniswap. Furthermore, a user’s activity can also be assessed on a community-governed blockchain.
Since the platform is so diverse, below, we look at the major highlights.
Background
Litentry is developed by a team of blockchain professionals based in Germany. Its founder was among the early contributors of Parity, a decentralized network. Notably, the project engineering team’s background is rooted in Ethereum.
The protocol is funded through a Web3 Foundation grant. On its Github page, the project lists eight team members with organization permission.
What is Litentry?
The project focuses on decentralized identity (DID), allowing user identities to be linked to multiple distributed protocols. Litentry acts as a DID aggregator where it collects, indexes, and distributes DIDs to blockchains.
More importantly, it performs all these activities in a decentralized and verifiable way. Notably, built on the Substrate network, the platform works towards the greater goal of eradicating identity redundancy in the Web3-powered application ecosystem.
The problem
In the current internet world, third parties take control of storing user passwords and data pertaining to their online activity. Unfortunately, internet users are coerced into accepting unfavorable terms and conditions, consequently lessening the grip on their personal data.
Litentry brings the change by returning the control of user data to the users by powering a user-focused internet using blockchain technology. As such, the revenue emanating from using users’ data gets the users to share in the profits. Before Litentry, these profits went to third parties managing the user data.
Key Features of the Litentry platform
Apart from using decentralized ledger technology (DLT), the platform has other critical features that help it bring the much-needed revolution to the blockchain sector. Key among them include:
Identity management â The platform is all about identities, and their management sits at the protocol’s core. This feature powers anonymous and independent identities emanating from applications and or services used by the user.
Distributed storage â After collecting the data, the protocol stores them in a decentralized manner to enhance access from all corners of the distributed world.
Identity staking â This is a unique feature. Just like staking tokens and earning rewards, Litentry enables users to stake their identities and be rewarded.
Decentralized contributors â Instead of creating multiple accounts to use different platforms or services, the project allows users to use one identity to interact with various services anonymously. Interestingly, the user doesn’t have to provide passwords or any other registration details.
To bring all the above features to life, the protocol uses a layered architecture. On the top layer is the Litentry Runtime, which sits on Substrate. The Runtime layer is a Parachain of Polkadot and employs offline workers when generating identities.
The second layer is the User Side. Here, users flex their muscles when it comes to data under their control. Note that user data that comes from applications are anonymous, stored in a decentralized way, and cryptographically-separated.
On the Litentry Authenticator layer, we have the mobile data hub. The hub can be used to manage a user’s different identities. Additionally, the hub can be connected to various IoT devices that the user wants.
Next is the Litentry SDK enabling developers to fire up their creative juices to create completely decentralized applications and/or services. In addition, the Litentry IPFS data center offers users a chance to check the data attached to their identities.
The middleware layer comprises services such as off-chain catching and query servers. It is also made up of a client-side SDK library that helps connect front-end apps with decentralized networks.
Litentry Tokenomics
The incentive mechanism on the Litentry platform takes into account different participants such as an identity staker, validator, external storage, node, and data buyer.
Identity staker â This is the person who has an identity record and has a stake in the identities pool.
Identity validator â An identity staker becomes a validator of new blocks when their identity has been confirmed.
Storage â Stores all data about an identity in a decentralized manner.
Node â The node is a critical component of the Litentry platform. Its work is to perform functions such as invoking off-chain workers to validate identity correctness and connecting with external decentralized storages.
Data buyer â This is any entity on the blockchain that requests identity validation.
Data generator â These are entities generating data and can include applications, users, or services offering migration services.
Litentry’s base asset is called LIT. The network uses the asset to reward identity stakers in the identities pool. Two types of rewards the stakers get are the block reward and the matching fee.
Apart from stakers, validators are motivated to truthfully verify the correctness of data. On the other hand, data generators enjoy benefits from the Litentry Foundation in the form of grants.
External storage operators earn a section of the fee paid by users interfacing with the service. Others who are incentivized using LIT tokens are nodes.
Those who pay using LIT tokens include identity buyers. Observe that these entities only have access to the winning identity or identities during an identity matching process.
Conclusion
The identity problem is two-pronged; users can create multiple entities to defraud a company. On the other hand, malicious actors aggregate user data and sell it to the highest bidder without profiting the real data owners.
Fortunately, Litentry uses a layered approach to comprehensively tackle the problem to the benefit of both identity owners and decentralized platforms. Hereâs to another promising project with a unique approach to solving some of the most crucial problems that often go overlooked.
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
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.
Linear Finance ($LINA) understands that decentralized finance (DeFi) has opened new possibilities for derivative offerings and that many exchanges have the apparent problems of front-running, expensive gas fees, and liquidity issues. Linear Finance seeks to go around those issues with its cheap, quick, and transparent synthetic asset exchange platform. With Linear, users can simply make a synthetic asset that contains a portfolio of different underlying tokens based on the exposure that they are willing to take. This presents new yield-making opportunities for anyone based on their customized financial goals.
Check out our interview with Linear Finance!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcXsEwj5hpI
Background
Drey Ng and Kevin Tai, Co-founders of Linear Finance, built the project with a vision of an inclusive and more democratized access to investment opportunities. By their teamâs expertise in different crypto initiatives and financial instruments, Linear made a cross-chain, Ethereum-based protocol that seeks to fulfill their vision.
With Linear, users can make their own portfolio exposures and manage them on their own. This initiative enables investors to easily invest, save, and earn efficient profits from their assets.
What is Linear Finance?
Linear Finance is a decentralized delta-one asset protocol where users can make, manage, and trade synthetic assets. This gives users exposure to different kinds of assets without having to actually own their underlying assets.
An additional feature that Linear Finance has introduced is a cross-chain compatible and decentralized protocol that can support a faster, more affordable, and secure exchange of synthetic assets.
Linear Financeâs platform is powered by its native token, LINA. It can be used for many purposes such as payments, staking, liquidity mining, governance, and investing in âLiquids.â Liquids are Linearâs synthetic assets composed of different underlying tokens or investment options.
LinearDAO
LinearDAO is the governance community who controls important platform designs and system parameters including pledge ration, LINA inflation reward and frequency, transactions fees, proposal implementation, and many more. Furthermore, they also regulate the profit and loss regarding liquidation.
Perks and Special Features
The project promises infinite liquidity and no slippage. Here are some of the perks users can find with Linear Finance:
Convenience: The protocol promises quick transactions with low transaction fees. Any kind of user can enjoy the platform as well, whether they are a market maker, staker, or trader.
Transparency: To prevent front-running, every transaction made within the exchange is made transparent to all users. This also reduces systemic risks on the part of each network participant.
Ethereum-based: Because it is built on the Ethereum network with cross-chain compatibility, it can work alongside other DeFi projects too.
User-tailored options: There are different exposure options that users can freely choose from, such as other tokens, commodities, or market indices.
The whole Linear platform is built on two different blockchains but they complement each other thanks to cross-chain compatibility. For users, they only need to open an Ethereum-based wallet and an EVM-compatible wallet.
Linear automatically links these two together through smart contracts. Here are some of the advantages of an infrastructure modeled around that concept. They are:
Maximized DeFi support: While LinearDAO and LINA tokens are based on Ethereum, its use of EVM and smart contracts make it easy for the platform to interact with other DeFi protocols.
Affordability: Buildr and Exchange function through smart contracts on top of EVM-compatible blockchains. This enables Linear to support the building and trading of Liquids at very minimal gas fees.
Fewer risks of front-running: The block time confirmation for other EVM-compatible blockchains are much faster than Ethereum. This allows users to create their own Liquids at more updated prices through the help of oracles. This way, the risk of users front-running the exchange becomes much lower.
LINA Token
LINA can be used for payments, staking, and governance participation. But mainly, LINA functions as the base collateral needed to mint Liquids through Buildr, the decentralized application (dApp) designed to manage synthetic assets.
To create Liquids, users have to âpledgeâ 100% of their digital assets, which also means collateralization. This is to ensure that Liquids are fully-backed by an underlying asset, saving the stability of the system from the volatility of synthetic assets. The pledge requirement can be reduced eventually if the LinearDAO deems it necessary.
Collateralization
Buildr takes a hybrid approach in terms of collateralization. For Liquids, users need to deposit a mixture of LINA and other cryptocurrency tokens to generate a synthetic asset. The ratio is 80:20, where at least 80% of the collateral must be in LINA and 20% can be in other cryptocurrencies.
Staking
Staking LINA offers users many incentives. These are the following rewards that users can receive by doing so:
Exchange Fee Reward: The transaction fees collected from users of the Linear.Exchange platform, currently set at 0.25%, is redistributed weekly to LINA stakers on a pro-rata basis. For non-LINA stakers, these rewards can also be provided too but it will depend on the decision of the community governance council.
Inflationary Reward: LINA has a starting inflation rate of 75% which decreases on a weekly basis. The inflation reward is given to LINA stakers on a pro-rata basis as well.
Yield Farming: Yield farmers help maintain Linearâs debt pool and the whole platform. For the first two years of the project, users who actively use the exchange can receive token bonuses. These token bonuses can then be deposited by yield farmers in other liquidity pools such as Balancer, Curve, and Uniswap.
In facilitating faster trade activities with almost unlimited liquidity, Linear is building their own exchange. As of now, Liquid is collaborating with other public blockchains to reduce transaction settlement timeframes to as quick as one second every transaction coupled with instant finality.
With a plan of partnering with oracles, Linear also believes that they can solve problems with front-running as they gain the capability of refreshing prices on a frequent and quick basis at much lower prices for the underlying assets.
Linear Finance ($LINA) token public sale
The token public sale took place on 14th September 2020. A total of 47,222,222 LINA tokens were sold in 2 rounds. The first round had 25mil tokens at $0.00400 per token. The second round, 22,222,222 tokens at $0.00450 per token.
The sale was 40 times oversubscribed and closed earlier than expected (it was supposed to last for 24 hours). Each participant in the sale had to purchase 500 USDT/USDC worth of LINA. Hence only 400 participants were able to get the allocation on a FIRST COME FIRST SERVED basis. This was determined by the time/date stamp on their Google Form submission. The first 200 users were allocated LINA tokens from round 1, and the remaining 200 participants from round 2. This was however subject to the registrants completing the KYC process in a period of 24 hours.
$LINA was first listed on Uniswap and reached more than 20x from public sale price (and around 60x from private sale round 1). It is now stabilized at around $0.005 (as at 3 November 2020).
Linear pre-staking platform
Immediately after listing, Linear Finance has launched its staking platform. Holders can participate in the 8 weeks pre-staking program and get rewarded. The APY has been around 600% for weeks and has now decreased around 370%. All the earnings will be claimable 6 months after mainnet launch but users can withdraw their staked funds at anytime.
Partnership announcements
In the weeks following the launch, Linear has announced partnerships with Nervos, Moonbeam and Hex Trust.
Nervos is an open source blockchain that offers security and trustlessness without compromising on scalability and performance with its unique layered architecture. The collaboration is focused on improving Linear’s cross chain capabilities and penetration of the Chinese market.
Moonbeam, an Ethereum ($ETH) compatible smart contract parachain, is a strategic partner to help set the feet into the Polkadot ($DOT) ecosystem and level up Linear’s interoperability. Finally, the partnership with Hex Trust as a custody partner, will give Linear the chance to offer secure, institutional grade custodial services for institutional investors.
A next announcement has revealed a new partnership with 3Commas, a cryptocurrency trading platform that helps users build automated trading bots. The investment is meant “to include future integration of the platforms and tools, streamlining operations and allowing for a greater range of features and offerings”.
Testnet is live
On 16th October 2020, the first testnet for Buildr has been released. Buildr is one of the core dApps of the Linear suite, where users can stake their $LINA (and soon more collaterals) to build âUSD, the base currency of Linear Exchange. Stakers are entitled to rewards and to a part of the transaction fees generated by the exchange. âUSD tokens can be minted to purchase synthetic assets within the exchange itself and can be moved to other protocols.
The last testnet update has just come out allowing users to purchase “Liquids” with âUSD on Linear.Exchange. Meanwhile, mainnet launch is allegedly happening in a couple of weeks.
If you want to read more and discover how to contribute to the testnet, please have a look at the articles here and here.
More than 222 million of $LINA tokens are staked, for a total value of more than USD$1 million.
New Partnership with Band Protocol
In this article dated November 16, Linear Finance has ufficially announced their partnership with Band Protocol, cross-chain decentralised oracle.
The biggest problem this collaboration is trying to solve is front running. As Drey Ng, Co-Founder at Linear Finance said: âFront running is a fundamental problem not just for current synthetic asset trading but all trading in general”. Not solving this problem would jeopardize all “the benefits of cross-chain compatibility (such as speed and cost), and a superior creative selection of synthetic assets”.
How Band Protocol Oracle works with Linear
Other reasons why Band Protocol was chosen are the minimized network risk., end-to-end customizability for real-time data and truly decentralized oracle mechanism. The partnership will start securing the Linear Protocol on Binance smart Chain, the first project’s cross-integration, where the BEP token has just been created (the common $LINA we see on exchanges is an ERC-20 token).
The team is now working on features to allow users to seamlessly swap chains.
Linear Finance road to mainnet
Mainnet Buildr Launch and new staking program
The Linear Mainnet Buildr v1.0 went live on December the 21st, after months of extensive testing. The Buildr dApp is the heart of Linear’s decentralised application suite. Users can stake $LINA tokens to build âUSD and earn rewards. Here is a complete and detailed guide on how to use Buildr to the fullest.
Linear’s Buildr
All of the $LINA from the pre-staking program were migrated seamlessly to the mainnet and while previously earned rewards will be blocked until next June, new mainnet staking rewards will be locked for 1 year from launch. They will count towards the P-Ratio and can be used to build $LUSD. It is important to note that in order to be eligible for rewards, users are required build âUSD or any subsequent Liquids.
Binance Smart Chain’s Buildr v2.0 launch
As anticipated, Linear wants to bring Cross Chain compatibility and ease of use to Defi and Ethereum users. The team had, in fact, previously declared that “Linear was designed for all users (no matter how much LINA you hold) and transaction costs will not become a barrier to entry. Nobody will get left behind”.
The promise has been kept and Linear.Builder Mainnet v2.0 with full Binance Smart Chain (BSC) integration and swap has gone live on January the 15th, 2021. Users can now enjoy almost gasless fees when interacting with the platform.
The transaction was seamless and old stakers only have to connect to Buildr via MetaMask using the BSC Mainnet (they can also use Binance Chain Wallet) and they will see their Lina tokens and rewards already there. For new holders who would like to stake for the first time, there is an internal ERC-20 -> BEP20 swap whithin Buildr itself. More info and complete instructions can be found on the Medium article.
Be careful!: There are now two versions of the $LINA token. If you send the Etherum version to a BSC wallet or vice-versa (whether it is a custodial or non-custodial address) you will lose your tokens! If in doubt on what to do, contact the support team via the official channels which you can find on their Website.
Linear will be listed on Binance Innovation Zone
Binance has announced it will list Linear Finance’s $LINA token on its Innovation Zone. Trading for $LINA/$BTC, $LINA/$BUSD and $LINA/$USDT trading pairs will start at 12:00pm (UTC) on 18th March 2021.
Furthermore, Binance Launchpad is offering 21,084,000 LINA tokens for sale at at 0.00031044 BNB for 1 LINA. Subscription has already ended at 1:00p.m. (HKT) on 18th March 2021 and tokens will be sent to successful applicants at 6:00p.m. (HKT) on the same day.
Conclusion
With the rising gas prices in Ethereum, as well as the emerging trend of yield farming, the DeFi space is presented with new financial opportunities but is discouraged by its costs. Projects such as Linear is a promising addition to the space as it seeks to go around these problems.
With Linear as a platform to easily build and manage investments, users can now enjoy quick and affordable profit-building opportunities. And in recognition of the real purpose of decentralization, Linear appears to be on the right track after putting in the pipelines a roadmap for a planned transition to community governance.
Linear is certainly on the radar of a lot of renowned investors in this space. They have recently completed a USD$1.8m seed round with notable backers in the investment space such as NGC Ventures, Hashed, CMS Holdings, Genesis Block, Kenetic Capital, Alameda Research, Evernew Capital, Soul Capital, Moonrock Capital, Black Edge Capital and PANONY. According to Linear, this funding will go towards accelerating the development of their testnet and mainnet, as well as promoting their platform. It will certainly be exciting to see what the Linear Finance team will be releasing in the months to come.
Decentralised Finance (DeFi) series: tutorials, guides and more
With content for both beginners and more advanced users, check out our YouTube DeFi series containing tutorials on the ESSENTIAL TOOLS you need for trading in the DeFi space e.g. MetaMask and Uniswap. As well as a deep dive into popular DeFi topics such as decentralized exchanges, borrowing-lending platforms and NFT marketplaces
More videos and articles are coming soon as part of our DeFi series, so be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our Youtube channel so you can be notified as soon as they come out!
Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.
Shadows Network ($DOWS) aims to be a hub for people to issue, trade, lend and borrow synthetic assets. The protocol is built using the Substrate blockchain network and is compatible with the Polkadot ecosystem.
Background
Iror Chen and Bruce Lin lead the Shadows project. Apart from being the co-founders, they double as the CEO and CTO, respectively. The two have extensive experience in diverse fields. To elaborate, Chen previously worked for Amphenol Group while Lin worked for Baidu.
Other Shadows team members include Ted Shao (co-founder and COO), Claire Cai (co-founder and CMO), Sue Xia (overseas CMO), and Liang Li (risk control).
Shadows’ list of partners includes Consensys Lab, NGC Capital, Polka Fund, Blocksync, DuckDAO, OneMax Capital, Oasis Capital, among others.
What is Shadows?
Shadows is a distributed platform focusing on the issuance, borrowing, lending, and trading of synthetic assets. The project leverages the Substrate framework that powers other popular DeFi networks like Polkadot.
Note that synthetics are derivatives or clones of real-world assets. Derived assets can be of anything from cryptocurrencies, stocks, indices, fiat, and commodities. Also called synths, they enable holders to share in the profits and losses of an asset without necessarily having such asset in their portfolio. Doing so opens the DeFi scene to a global audience who would be locked out of the space.
The platform sits on the Polkadot network as a parallel thread. As such, it has inter-chain compatibility with other platforms leveraging EOS and Ethereum to focus on synthetic assets. Cross-chain support opens the network to more blockchain-based assets. For instance, users can use Ethereum (ETH) or Bitcoin (BTC) to create synths.
Shadows integrates an off-chain worker to help capture the system outside the blockchain. Note that the platform uses the worker to replicate trusted oracles. Furthermore, the oracles receive data from external decentralized platforms to trigger activities inside the blockchain. Unfortunately, traditional oracles suffer from security, efficiency, and scalability.
The worker employs Substrate allowing it to perform non-deterministic tasks such as encryption and web requests, and other long-running tasks. The Shadows network achieves the above features through a layered system, focusing on different aspects of synthesizing the assets.
Critical Areas on the Synthetic Network
Synthetic Asset Issuance Agreement
The platform secures the synths using its native asset, DOWS (more on this later). Users deposit the token into a smart contract for them to gain a right to create synthetics on the network.
Consequently, the created tokens are DOWS backed. To reclaim back their tokens, users have to burn their synths. Note that the platform needs a collateralization ratio of 800 percent.
Synthetic Asset Transaction Agreement
The agreements support the trading of synths. These agreements minimize slippage and insufficient liquidity. Also, they ease and provide efficient trading.
Debt Collateral Lending Agreement
The platform employs lending pools that hold users’ debt into the pool to facilitate lending activities. How this works is simple. To elaborate, the borrowers access the pool to place a synth debt.
Next, they pay interest and receive the loan in synthesized USD (xUSD). The need for xUSD funding is to provide flexible financing. This funding option offers a balance between demand, supply interest, and rates.
What Drives the Shadows Network?
Four significant aspects power the platform.
Rewards system â Users are rewarded when they use the native token to create synths. However, the rewards only apply to those who have reached the needed collateralization ratio.
Governance â In the DeFi scene, governance is everything. On Shadows, the native token gives holders a voice when making governance decisions. Some areas falling under community governance include upgrading.
Staking â The base asset does more than just governance, the token can be staked as collateral and at the same time benefit from staking rewards.
Trading bonus â This goes to DOWS holders and is generated by those trading on the platform.
How Does Shadows Work?
First, note that the platform is compatible and connects to Polkadot.
How Shadows Network works
It works as an off-chain enterprise that connects to various parts such as inflationary supply, fee pool, and external services. It connects to Polkadot as a single service.
The Protocol Offers Three Types of Incentives.
The first type of incentive is where a user is charged 0.3% as the trading fee. How is this an incentive? Itâs because they can send it to a fee pool and receive a mortgage in terms of DOWS.
However, the trading fee incentiveâs applicability varies between users because it’s dependent on the amount of debt that the user has and the amount in the debt pool.
The second type of incentive goes to mortgagors who benefit from holding the base asset on a weekly basis. Notably, the amount of bonus received depends on how much debt the mortgagor has in the debt pool.
Third comes rewards for lenders in the lending pool. These incentives have a weekly timeline.
The Shadow Token ($DOWS) tokenomics
DOWS is the backbone of the Shadows network. Apart from governance, casting synths, lending, and distributing rewards, the token can also be used to power the token destruction mechanism.
The destruction part utilizes the transactions and debit pool fee. And, it follows a fixed ratio of 30% per week. Note that the token’s destruction is automatically driven by a smart contract. Observe that this makes the native token a deflationary base asset.
Shadows did a double Initial DEX Offering (IDO) on Ignition and DuckSTARTER. The allocation of tokens were as follows:
Ecological Incentives: 63% â 63,000,000
Early Investors: 20% â 20,000,000
Foundation: 10% â 10,000,000
Advisors: 5% â5,000,000
Liquidity Provision: 2% â 2,000,000
The vesting periods for various allocations are as follows:
Shadows ($DOWS) vesting period
Is Shadows Network safe?
Recently the Shadows project faced some accusations because they are allegedly connected to another project that recently suffered an alleged “hack” of their smart contract.
On 6th March 2021, the Team Tweeted to address the concerns, saying that their smart contract codes were audited twice by Certik. And on both occasions the contracts were found to be secure and met the highest security standards.
The Team in their Tweet on 7th March 2021 also said that Shadows Network uses a proxy contract to upgrade its smart contract and deliver key functions such as issuing, trading, borrowing or lending synthetic assets on the network. Most notably, the proxy contract will deploy incentive DApps for users such as LP staking and DAO governance etc. From these Apps, 63 million $DOWS (representing 63% of the total supply of $DOWS) will be minted as a reward to the community. Once all 63 million $DOWS have been released, the Team will permanently remove the mint function from the Shadows smart contract. This has the effect of stopping the Team from producing any more $DOWS and most importantly, to potentially prevent the price of $DOWS from being diluted.
Further, this proxy contract and ERC20 contract are kept secure through multisig and is on Openzeppelin- an open-sourced protocol. The Team also notes that other popular names in the cryptocurrency scene i.e. Compound and Coinbase also use Openzeppelin.
Conclusion
Shadows helps bring traditional assets onto the blockchain. In doing so, the platform opens the conventional assets to more users. For instance, it brings these assets to DeFi users and those who don’t want to hold real crypto assets.
Notably, the platform takes on a layered-approach to bring these possibilities to life-enhancing functionalities. Furthermore, the DOWS token helps power different aspects of the Shadows network.
Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.
Binance Chain was launched by Binance in April 2019. Home of the Binance Token ($BNB) currency, it is optimized for ultra-fast trading. To achieve this, it had to make certain trade-offs, one being that it wasnât as flexible from a programmability standpoint as other blockchains. Smart contracts in a system optimized for fast trading could significantly congest the network. Like how CryptoKitties brought Ethereum blockchain to a standstill at the height of its popularity and scalability remains one of the most challenging hurdles to blockchain development.
Binance Smart Chain aims at changing this problem. It is a new blockchain with a full-fledged environment for developing high-performance decentralized applications. It was built for cross-chain compatibility with Binance Chain to ensure that users get the best of both worlds. Binance Smart Chain went live on mainnet on September 01, 2020, activating the parallel blockchain to Binance Chain, enabling the creation of smart contracts and the staking mechanism for BNB.
Binance Smart Chain (BSC) is best described as a blockchain that runs in parallel to the Binance Chain. However, unlike Binance Chain, BSC boasts smart contract functionality and compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). The design goal here was to leave the high throughput of Binance Chain intact while introducing smart contracts into its ecosystem.
BSC is not a layer two or off-chain scalability solution for the existing Binance Chain. Itâs an independent blockchain that could run even if Binance Chain went offline. Because BSC is EVM-compatible, it makes it easy for developers to port their projects over from Ethereum. For users, it means that applications like MetaMask can be easily configured to work with BSC with just tweaking a couple of settings.
Binance Smart Chain vs Binance Chain: Differences?
Binance Smart Chain was envisioned as an independent but complementary system to the existing Binance Chain with the idea being that users can seamlessly transfer assets from one blockchain to another. In this way, rapid trading can be enjoyed on Binance Chain, while powerful decentralized apps can be built on BSC.
Binance Smart Chain supports the BEP-20 token standard, which uses the same functions as its Ethereum counterpart ERC-20, while Binance Chain, supports the BEP-2 token standard. BEP20 is a developer-friendly token standard that allows anyone to deploy fungible digital currencies or tokens on Binance Smart Chain. Whatâs more, leading digital assets on other chains can be ported onto Binance Smart Chain in the form of pegged BEP20 tokens. For example, you could use Binance Bridge to swap bitcoin (BTC) for BTCB (BEP20) tokens backed by BTC. BTCB (BEP20) tokens can then be deployed in DeFi protocols to earn yield on bitcoin. The same goes for ETH, XRP, DOGE, and many more.
To move tokens from one chain to another, the simplest method is perhaps to use the Binance Chain Wallet, available on Chrome and Firefox. The cross-chain transfer is the key communication between the two blockchains. Essentially the logic is that the transfer-out blockchain will lock the amount from source owner addresses into a system-controlled address/contracts. The transfer-in blockchain will unlock the amount from the system-controlled address/contracts and send it to target addresses.
Binance cross-chain transfer (Image credit:BSC Whitepaper)
Ethereum-Compatible
Smart contracts, which are Ethereum-compatible, are supported by BSC. Through this feature, developers can build or migrate DApps, tools and other ecosystem components on the BSC network without much friction.
Proof-of-Staked-Authority
The platform runs on a proof-of-staked-authority consensus model. This combines both delegated PoS and proof-of-authority (PoA) to achieve network consensus and maintain blockchain security.
In this model, there are elected validators who take turns in confirming transactions on the network and are tasked to produce the blocks in a PoA manner, which puts the amount of their stake and their reputation in the community into consideration. To become a validator, a user must stake BNB.
This consensus model allows BSC to achieve around three-second block times. If a block proposed by the validator gets added to the chain, they receive the transaction fees incurred in that block as their reward. PoA is known for its capacity to thwart 51% attacks, as well as its tolerance for Byzantine attacks.
Validator Quorum
A validator quorum is required to secure the BSC network. The blockchain has 21 validators that are elected by BNB stakers every 24 hours. Anyone can be a candidate for election as a validator, but only those who belong to the top 21 highest-staked nodes will be chosen for the next validator set.
There is an âepochâ period for the platform, where validator sets can update the BSC network as needed. Every epoch period consists of 240 blocks, which is around 20 minutes. BSC also implements âslashingâ to disincentivize malicious actors from validating inaccurate transactions or double signing. Slashing is designed to expose an attacker and make their attempts extremely expensive to execute.
Key Metric Comparison
Binance Smart Chain has made immense traction in early 2021 so far partly thanks to Ethereumâs congestion and gas fee issues, which has caused developers and staking investors to look for other options.
BSC is the most used blockchain in terms of unique active wallets averaging 105,000 in March 2021.
Gas prices were almost 14 times lower on BSC if compared to Ethereum in 2021 Q1.
Although Ethereum is still leading in terms of TVL with $54 billion. BSC TVL saw 121% growth month-on-month.
BSC finance dapp Venus has surpassed Compound and Uniswap in terms of TVL reaching $6.3 billion at the end of Q1 2021.
The BSC community made the network even more appealing to new users as a cost-effective and stable alternative, by lowering its gas fee from 15 Gwei to 10 Gwei to counter Binance Coin (BNB)âs price jump to over $600 in April 2021. At the end of March 2021, BSC gas fees were 14 times lower than on Ethereum. As a result, in Q1 2021 BSC generated record-high figures.
BSC vs Ethereum gas price comparison (Image credit: DappRadar)
According to the âDappRadar Q1 industry reportâ, in terms of key metrics, daily unique active wallets grew by 639% year-on-year from 62,000 in 2020 Q1 to more than 458,000 in 2021 Q1. BSC has led the pack with average daily unique active wallets of 105,000. In March, the chain also had the biggest increase in terms of unique active wallets by 50% month-on-month. The Ethereum and Flow blockchains generated an average of around 75,000 and 53,000 daily unique active wallets respectively.
Unique active wallets by protocol
Binance Smart Chain dAPPs
Some of the most popular decentralized applications on BSC are listed below with the full list of dApps available in DappRadar:
PancakeSwapis the number one automated market maker (AMM) on Binance Smart Chain. The ascent of BSC in 2021 cannot be described properly without mentioning the PancakeSwap exchange. The BSC-based decentralized exchange has seen remarkable growth in 2021, both for trading volume as well as its governance token CAKE. Like Uniswap or SushiSwap, you can do token swaps for BEP-20 tokens on PancakeSwap. Users can also earn passive income by providing liquidity, take part in lottery to win NFTs, participate in token sales, compete for spots on the leaderboard, and so on. PancakeSwap has become the second most popular DEX after Ethereumâs UniSwap.
BakerySwap is a decentralized automated market-making (AMM) protocol on BSC and its first NFT trading platform, ‘Bakery NFT Supermarket’. BakerySwap aims to be a faster and cheaper version of Uniswap. BAKE token is the native BEP-20 governance token of the platform and users can earn BAKE tokens by providing liquidity on BakerySwap. BAKE can be used to compose a random combo meal, which is a unique NFT(None-fungible token). Your unique NFT combo is not only a collectible item, but also a BAKE farming tool. Each NFT combo has a staking power and can be staked to earn BAKE.
Venus can be seen as a hybrid of Compound and MakerDAO on BSC. It is a borrow-lending protocol like Compound or Aave on Ethereum. Itâs a decentralized money market where you can borrow and lend BEP-20 tokens with algorithmically set interest rates. Venus also enables a decentralized stablecoin called VAI, which is backed by a basket of cryptoassets.
Autofarm is a leading DeFi yield aggregator on BSC that has 3 products as part of the Autofarm ecosystem, namely Vaults (yield optimizer), AutoSwap (DEX Aggregator), and farmfolio. The yield optimizer implements the most optimal strategies at the lowest cost to maximize users’ yields and AutoSwap implements optimizations to route users swap trades so that users can find the best price and swap rates. Lastly, farmfolio is an intelligent portfolio manager and tracker which helps users manage their assets across various DeFi farming projects. The AUTO token is the platform’s native token. Tokenomics are deflationary and AUTO holders get to benefit from fees from cross-chain vaults, DEX aggregator, and the token will also be used for governance.
Spartan Protocolis a synthetic asset protocol on BSC. It allows users to create liquidity pools for BEP-20 tokens like other AMMs. However, it aims to allow for the creation of synthetic assets collateralized by liquidity pools, as well as lending and on-chain derivatives moving forward. Spartan Protocol provides community-governed and programmable token emissions functions to incentivize the formation of deep liquidity pools. This strong base of liquidity will be utilized to provide asset swaps, synthetic token generation, lending, derivatives and more. The common base asset SPARTA provides an internal pricing mechanism without reliance on external oracles. Binance Smart Chain was chosen as the protocol’s home to allow for near-instant settlement and extremely low gas fees.
To interact with the applications on BSC we require a wallet. Two of the most used wallets are MetaMask and the Binance Chain Wallet. In addition to these, you can also use Trust Wallet, Math Wallet, Ledger, TokenPocket, Bitkeep, ONTO, Safepal, and Arkane.
Connecting MetaMask to Binance Smart Chain
MetaMask can be downloaded on Chrome and Firefox, or on iOS and Android from the MetaMask Download page. From there, select whichever platform youâre using, and follow the steps to install it on your device and create a wallet.
MetaMask main page
The MetaMask wallet inherently interacts with the Ethereum public chain as seen from the top right corner of the screen which mentions the âMain Ethereum Networkâ. At this stage, we would be unable to interact with the Binance Smart Chain dApps. To change this, we need to access settings and point the wallet towards Binance Smart Chain nodes.
MetaMask drop down menu
On the Settings page, locate the Networks menu.
MetaMask settings page
Next click on Add Network in the top-right corner to manually add the Binance Smart Chain. Itâs important to note that there are two networks we can use here: the testnet or the mainnet. Below are the parameters to fill in for both Binance Smart Chain Mainnet and Testnet.
Once you Save the Network and return to the main view, youâll notice two things: the network has automatically been set to the one you just entered, and the units are no longer denominated in ETH, but in BNB. You might still see the Ethereum logo, but we are now interacting with the BSC.
MetaMask Binance Smart Chain
How to deposit cryptocurrencies on Binance Smart Chain using MetaMask
Once a wallet has been set up, we can withdraw from our Binance account or use the Binance Bridge.
To track our activity on the BSC blockchain, we can use BscScan which is made by the same team that made EtherScan.
Withdrawing from Binance Exchange to a BSC wallet
If you already have a Binance account, this may be the easiest option to simply withdraw from your Binance account to a BSC wallet.
Select the BEP20 compatible token, here we have taken BNB as an example. Select Withdraw and you will land on this page
MetaMask select coins
In the âAddressâ section, put in your BSC wallet address. Binance will automatically change the âNetworkâ to âBEP20 (BSC)â. If it doesnât, change it manually.
MetaMask select network
Then simply enter the amount you wish to send and click on withdraw. After a few conformations, you should see the funds arrive in your MetaMask BSC wallet.
MetaMask withdraw coin
How to use the Binance Chain Wallet Extension
Download the Binance Chain Wallet Extension from the web store. Binance Chain Wallet Extension is available ob Chrome and Firefox.
Binance Chain Wallet Extension
Transfer some funds from your Binance Exchange or MetaMask over to this Binance Chain wallet. We will use BNB as an example here.
Binance Chain Wallet Extension fund transfer
Click on âBinance Chain Networkâ on the top and change it to âBinance Smart Chain Networkâ. Copy the address and switch back to âBinance Chain Networkâ.
Switch to Binance Smart Chain NetworkSwitch back to Binance Chain Network
Click on Send. Paste the BSC address and click on the arrow next to send on the top left corner of the screen.
Copy address on Binance Chain Wallet Extension
Change the network back to âBinance Smart Chain Networkâ and congratulations, your funds will near instantly be transferred cross chain.
Another great way to bring assets to BSC is using the Binance Bridge. You can select many of the biggest blockchains, such as Ethereum or TRON, and convert their native tokens to wrapped tokens on BSC. The bridge works in both directions. You can monitor the on-chain reserve that ensures that the wrapped tokens on BSC are sufficiently collateralized by the native tokens in the Proof of Assets.
Go over to Binance Bridge and connect your MetaMask by clicking on âChange Walletâ in the top right corner of the screen. Make sure to change the settings over on MetaMask so that its pointing towards the BSC.
Binance Bridge
Once connected, pick you token you would wish to port over to your BSC. Here we have selected USDT as an example. Enter the amount you wish to send and click on next. Make sure to doublecheck the destination address.
Binance Bridge select token
Next you will be greeted with options on how you wish to complete the transaction. Select âI will send tokens from my own walletâ
Binance Bridge select transfer method
Once selected, a popup will appear with the truncation summary and confirmation. Click on Confirm.
Binance Bridge confirmation page
Next there will be a popup asking you to send the selected token and amount to an address.
Binance Bridge deposit page
Go back to your MetaMask, switch back to your Ethereum network, and send the funds from your Ethereum wallet to the address mentioned above. Switch the network back to BSC and after a few conformations, you should see your funds arrive in your MetaMask BSC wallet.
Closing thoughts
Binance Smart Chain greatly extends the functionality of the original Binance Chain. Though still in its infancy, the promise of BNB staking alongside EVM compatibility makes the platform an ideal engine for developers building powerful decentralized applications. And as long as the most popular smart contract-based blockchain, Ethereum, continues to struggle with congestion, slow transaction speeds, and exorbitant transaction fees, we can expect to see the increased adoption of more affordable alternatives like BSC, Polkadot and Cardano to continue.
However, we must keep in mind that the centralized nature of the BSC is a problem for its DeFi narrative. The only way to get onto BSC is via the central crypto exchange Binance or the central Binance Bridge. Here, the central provider has full control and can stop deposits and withdrawals on BSC at any time creating a direct bottleneck that centralizes BSC. Binance suspended withdrawals from the Binance Smart Chain to prevent a fraudster from laundering stolen cryptocurrencies. Although victims were happy about the measure, this intervention highlighted how centralized BSC ultimately is. Ethereum advocates, therefore, see BSC as more of a centralized database.
Regardless of the increasing demand for BSC and other options, Ethereum remains on top. Numerous detailed and tested documentation makes life easier for developers and the existing infrastructure, security, decentralization, and network effects adds to its appeal. The high transaction fees are an imposition, especially for smaller market participants, but at the same time show that the Ethereum network is more popular than ever before. Serious developers and companies still choose to develop their applications on Ethereum with the EIP-1559 update planned for July 2021 and Ethereum 2.0 in the horizon. Second layer solutions, such as Optimism, which promises faster and cheaper transactions, are also supposed to eliminate the scalability problem.
So, can Binance Smart Chain dethrone Ethereum? While the size and influence of the Binance exchange and the market cap of the BNB coin make it a strong contender, its centralized nature runs counter to the central ethos of the crypto economy, so it’s unlikely to replace Ethereum anytime sson. Ultimately, though, the crypto economy is not a zero sum game so a more likely scenario is that both will flourish, with the competition between them driving innovation on both networks. A deep dive into the BSC technical side can be found in the whitepaper.
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. (https://attap.umd.edu/) 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.
