Ethereum is gradually moving towards the rollup-centric roadmap. One of the EIPs, which will help in scaling Ethereum is EIP-4844, popularly known as “Proto-Danksharding.” In this blog, we will dive into one pre-requisite of this EIP, the KZG Ceremony.
The Ethereum network, like most blockchain networks, currently faces limitations in terms of scalability. As more and more users join the network and the amount of data on the blockchain grows, the network's ability to process and validate transactions in a timely manner becomes increasingly constrained. This can lead to delays in confirmation times, high transaction fees, and a lack of overall network efficiency. To address these scalability concerns, the concept of sharding came around.
Sharding is a method to split data so that it is easier to handle that data. With time, the overall size of the blockchain increases because blocks keep getting added up to the existing chains. So, in Ethereum, the idea is to split up the amount of processed data into multiple concurrent chains. So as to increase the total throughput of the blockchain.
Initially, these shards would not just hold data but were also going to perform computation on that data set. Still, the approach introduced some other complexities, such as how cross-shard communication will work in the ecosystem. As the data could have been siloed so, how will the consensus work? So the idea of how to scale Ethereum was altered and now we have Proto-Danksharding, in which instead of having multiple chains, we have one chain, and the node operator is not responsible for the whole chain; he is responsible for part of the chain.
Furthermore, the computation won’t be taking place on these shards. Instead, rollups will take care of that, as per the rollup-centric roadmap.
Danksharding is the initial proposal that is too complex to discuss in this blog. So, let’s have a look at the main innovation that came with Danksharding, i.e., the merged fee market. According to this, “one” proposer node is responsible for choosing all transitions and the data to be added in the shards. This will increase the hardware requirements for the node operator. Hence, another concept of propose/builder separation was introduced.
This requires more time to implement as it has a lot more technical complexities, so now we have a more simplified version, Proto-Danksharding that will be upgraded to danksharding in the future. However, in the short term, this solution will still drastically help with the data constraints we currently have.
Proto-Danksharding is a forward-compatible implementation for smoothening the implementation of Danksharding. The use of rollups and the merged fee market can improve scalability by offloading computation and data storage to other entities.
With Proto-Danksharding, we will have a new type of transaction, i.e., “Shard Blob Transaction”, which is like a normal translation with the exception that it will have space for blobs. EVM cannot access the blob data, it can only access commitment to the blob. A blob is a collection of 4096 units of information, each consisting of 32 bytes. With Proto-Danksharding, a maximum of 16 blobs can be stored in each block. With Danksharding, this number increases to 256 blobs, which limits the total number of data transactions that can be processed in a block. This allows for a target block size of approximately 1 MB and a maximum of 2 MB.
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Currently, In Ethereum, users pay a one-time fee for some data to be stored, and then the blockchain keeps the data on it forever. One of the ideas behind Danksharding is to give this responsibility to someone else so that the validator nodes don’t have to store this huge amount of data in perpetuity. So, what will happen is the validator will be assigned data that it must download and make it available for everyone. L2 solutions can access this data and download all the relevant portions that they need, and after a certain period, validators will discard this data.
Coming back to the validators, the important thing here is that individual validators won’t be worrying about this anymore. And as more scalability is added to the blockchain, the data that validators need to store will only increase. So, now entities who need the data are going to be responsible. But this is something rollups and protocols can take care of.
What about normal users? Normal users obviously have the option to trust the sequencers if they have their transactions on L2s. But in the case where they don’t trust the sequencer, they can store data locally. There are more options we can explore about this. On a side note, we will probably see different solutions coming forward to download and keep this data in their own archives nodes, and users will then be able to query data from those archive nodes.
KZG ceremony is a prerequisite for Proto-Danksharding. It will provide the cryptographic foundation via the trusted setup. The KZG ceremony is taking place to create a structured reference string for the Proto-Danksharding. The ceremony is to be held by the Ethereum community and will provide the necessary security for the network.
It uses multiparty computation, as different individuals first set their secret values, each mixed with some randomness. Then each contributor runs a computation to mix it with previous contributions. The output is made public and passed to the next contributor. The ceremony will be live for two months. Anyone can contribute in that time frame.
Why do we need commitment in Proto-Danksharding? So, we already know by now that the blob transaction types will have the data blob in it, which is kind of like a sidecar to the actual data block. To refer to this “sidecar,” Proto-Danksharding uses KZG commitments.
KZG commitment also enables erasure coding, which is useful in case a percentage of the data is lost.
The KZG ceremony is live for a duration of 2 months. In the KZG ceremony, we have an entity called the sequencer and as the name suggests, is literally to sequence who's next. So, if we have many people trying to contribute, how do we decide the sequence?
Since the computation is sequential and cannot be parallelized, so the sequencer sees if there is a free slot. Then the sequencer gives you the file, and then you add your secret value to the sequence. It combines your Randomness with the randomness of the people that came
before you, and then you send your file back to the sequencer, and then the sequencer checks that you didn't try to lead someone else's secret or do other inaccurate things. Then the file is sent to the next person.
The sequencer can basically see what the ceremony looked like after each contribution, but that is what everyone sees, so it's not like the sequencer has more access to data that could be used to break it. All sequencer has is more control over who goes next.
Sequencers can prevent someone from participating. But even that can be countered, as users can do their computation and send it back to the sequencer. But, again, the sequencer can reject the file by claiming that the file is not correctly computed. The sequencer has to send you the file back with their signature on it. Now, users can take the file to other sequencers and prove that the sequencer is censoring the user.
To avoid this, the Ethereum foundation put the sequencer through some audits.
The Ethereum community has several ways to participate in the creation of the Common Reference String (CRS) that is used to create zk-SNARKs for private transactions on the Ethereum blockchain, as proposed in EIP-4844. The methods for participation range in technical difficulty, from simple browser interfaces to writing your own implementation.
One of the easiest ways to participate is through a browser interface, such as ceremony.ethereum.org. To prevent spam contributions, participants will need to provide an Ethereum address (which has sent at least 4 transactions as of 2023/01/13) or GitHub account.
If you're comfortable using a command line, you can check out some of the CLI implementations to contribute from your local machine.
You can generate some randomness using a unique and creative method and use one of the above methods to add it to the ceremony.
For those who want to convince themselves that the secret hasn't been leaked, writing your own implementation using BLS12-381 for the ceremony is possible. There are resources available to make this process as simple as possible.
Note that the sequencer will reject wrong calculations.
If you participate through the browser method. There is no queue. There is a general lobby, and accounts are picked at random from the lobby. This makes it nicer that you just show up to participate. But, the trade-off is that you don't know exactly when you're going to get included. So, the lobby could have thousands of participants and you may have to wait for a while.
By being in the lobby what essentially happens is time to time, your computer asks a sequencer for the file, then the request is denied or accepted based on the file’s availability status. The file being unavailable just means that someone else is contributing.
The participation process is quite easy. The trust assumption of the ceremony is based on the concept of "1-of-N," where the security of the entire ceremony relies on the fact that only one participant is honest and hasn’t given out the secret. To compromise the ceremony, each and every participant would have to work together to extract and combine their secrets, or there would have to be a flaw in every single implementation.
In summary, Proto-Danksharding, as outlined in EIP-4844, is a promising solution for addressing scalability limitations on the Ethereum network. Its implementation will greatly improve the scalability and efficiency of the network by splitting data into multiple concurrent chains and utilizing rollups. You can participate in the KZG ceremony for the next 2 months since 13th January 2023.
So much has been said about Ethereum Fork. Through this article, you will learn beyond the verbal meaning of the Ethereum fork to how to fork an Ethereum blockchain. However, it is still necessary to intimate our readers on the basics of the Ethereum fork to get them abreast with the subject.
Ethereum fork is the product of copying, updating, and building on an Ethereum blockchain. This process sometimes results in two cryptocurrencies. However, it is often not the intention of forking. Rather, it is meant to upgrade an existing blockchain. Ethereum fork like others can be soft or hard fork; it is left for the developers to know which fork to perform.
If the developer intends a backward compatible and a non-consensual fork, they should consider soft forking, but if it is a non-backward compatible and consensus fork, the best approach should be a hard fork.
Before going deeper to learn how to fork the Ethereum blockchain, note that a fork can be unintentional or accidental. When two or more miners find a block at the same time, it is an accidental fork. On the other hand, an intentional fork refers to a deliberate move to modify the rules of the blockchain.
Blockchain could be forked for several reasons. Meanwhile, the onus of forking a blockchain is to improve the scalability, decentralization, cost of the transaction, security, and affect other changes worthwhile on the existing chain instead of building a new one. For instance, the Ethereum blockchain even from its frontier stage up till the awaiting serenity stage has proven to be sturdy, robust, and has many untapped potentials. Therefore, forking is the best since it will take more resources, time, and effort to create a similar blockchain.
If you ever considered forking an Ethereum blockchain, there are prerequisites you must meet. The requirement for forking a blockchain ranges from software to hardware requirements. Below are the prerequisites;
Step 1; Basic knowledge of the blockchain
It will be difficult to fork a blockchain you know nothing about. Every developer must know how the blockchain works to enable him/her to fork the blockchain. Particularly for the Ethereum blockchain, the developer has to know how the Ethereum development environment works as well as how it interacts with other environments beyond the local environment.
Step 2; Basic development skills including JavaScript, Linux command, etc
Every blockchain has its compliant programming tools and language. However, JavaScript, Python, and Linux command lines are the basic language of most blockchains including Ethereum.
Step 3; Windows, Linux, or a Mac OS
Various blockchain forking tools are designed for various operating systems. It is expected that you run on either Linux, Windows, or Mac OS. That way, you simply download and install the operating system version of the tool you use. However, Linux and its distros are more in demand and a must-have for the best development experience.
Step 4; Ethereum client for instance; Ganache GUI or Ganache CLI, RPC, Ruffle, etc.
An 'Ethereum client' is just a term that refers to any node able to parse and verify the blockchain, its smart contracts, and everything related. It also allows you to provide interfaces to create transactions and mine blocks which is the key for any blockchain interaction. To fork an Ethereum blockchain, we will be using Ganache-Cli.
Step 5; Ethereum nodes include Infura, QuikNode, Geth, Nethermind, etc.
Ethereum Nodes allows you to run your own nodes which helps you to run a private, trustless, and self-sufficient application. However, it's somewhat costly and tasking. Instead of going through the hassle of using Geth, Open Ethereum, etc., you can simply use third-party APIs like Infura, quikNode, and the likes.
Having got the requirements to forking the Ethereum blockchain, it is time to get started. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to fork an Ethereum blockchain. It is expected that after going through this guide, you'd be akin to having your first Ethereum fork. Read on;
Let's start by choosing the Ethereum client that will help us in creating an Ethereum endpoint. There are varieties of Ethereum nodes such as Geth, Nethermind, Open Ethereum, Infura, QuikNode, and so on. You can run your node, but that requires more resources and technicalities. Therefore, you can use third-party APIs like Infura, QuikNode, Alchemy to run your node.
For the sake of this article, we will choose to create our Ethereum endpoint using Infura or QuikNode. To create the Ethereum endpoint, sign up on any of the third-party APIs; Infura or QuikNode and follow the process.
Login and verify your account to create a node. Make sure you verify the email before choosing a subscription that suits the node you want to deploy.
Once you have access to your account, endpoint details will be generated for your node. Head to node and copy the HTTP protocol as follows;
If you prefer to create your endpoint using Infura, you can do the following;
Remember to set the endpoint to the Mainnet before copying the HTTP Protocol.
Note; whether you use QuikNode or Infura, don't forget to save the HTTP Provider Endpoint you copied because you will use it after setting up Ganache CLI.
Ganache-CLI is one of the major components of the Turtle client. It is the command-line interface of the Ganache Ethereum client that allows you to connect to a local blockchain for testing your decentralized application. Instead of forking the main-net directly, the ganache CLI allows you to have a local environment for your developments.
Ganache CLI uses ethereumjs to simulate full client behavior making development on Ethereum faster, easier, and safer. If you want to fork the Ethereum blockchain, it allows you to connect to a local Ethereum blockchain. For simplicity of illustration, we will be using Ganache-CLI to create a local blockchain on localhost:8545.
Linux users can download, install and run Ganache-Cli in two ways:
$ npm install -g ganache-cli.
$ yarn global add ganache-cli
Now you have installed Ganache-Cli, it is time to fork the mainnet. Open your terminal/cmd and copy-paste the following:
$ ganache-cli --fork <ADD_YOUR_QUICKNODE_URL_HERE>
Remember to replace ADD_YOUR_QUICKNODE_URL_HERE with the QuickNode or Infura HTTP URL you got earlier and run the command; you should see something similar to the figure below;
What happened is that it forked the mainnet at the blockchain’s latest block, 12200647. To find out, you can query the forked chain by pinging localhost:8545 as will be shown later.
Note the specific block in the blockchain you would like to fork. Fork it by appending "@" followed by the block number as shown below:
$ ganache-cli --fork <ADD_YOUR_QUICKNODE_URL_HERE>@<block_number>
Assuming we want to copy and make changes to a certain say xDai chain residing on the Ethereum blockchain network and use xDai for gas. Proceed to ETHExplorer and scroll to the holder's section. View the biggest Dai holders copy the address and run the following:
$ ganache-cli --fork <ADD_YOUR_QUICKNODE_URL_HERE> -u <address of token holder>
The above command line allows ganache to fork the Ethereum blockchain and unlock (-u) the attached Dai account for the local ganache environment. By implication, we used ganache-cli to impersonate a particular account address which is usually locked for the use which also helps us to make transactions on the simulated blockchain from that account address.
Impressive! You have forked a certain Dai account and will be happy to query the forked chain. Querying the forked chain allows you to get certain information about the forked chain such as transactions, gas used in the block, timestamp, miner’s address, etc.
You can do that by making an eth_getBlockByNumber call that will return information about the block at which we forked the chain.
The command should look as follows;
$ curl --data '{"method":"eth_getBlockByNumber","params":["0xBA29D2",false],"id":1,"jsonrpc":"2.0"}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST localhost:8545
After you have run the code shown above, your terminal should look like these;
After going through this guide, it is expected that you know how to use Ganache-Cli to fork a blockchain. You can deploy and fork a blockchain on a local environment using Ganache-Cli. To do that, you need to master basic command lines and understand the Ethereum development environment.
Also Read; Defi 2.0: An Upgrade to The First Generation of Defi
In this article we will explore the concept behind Layer 2 Solutions and the problems they are solving in blockchain.
According to the CAP theorem (also known as Brewer's theorem) first proposed in 1998 by Eric Brewer before Seth Gilbert and Nancy Lynch propounded it in 2002, a distributed system cannot attain consistency, availability, and partition tolerance simultaneously. This same opinion holds sway among blockchain experts for blockchain protocols. The belief often referred to as blockchain trilemma suggests that blockchain cannot achieve three of its core principles: security, scalability, and decentralization simultaneously.
By implication, the blockchain trilemma said, a protocol can achieve decentralization and security while sacrificing scalability and vice versa. The blockchain trilemma provided an answer to why centralized networks can boast thousands of transactions per second and the blockchain networks like bitcoin and Ethereum can only afford a few tens of transactions per second. In that light, the trading system sacrifices decentralization while achieving high throughput, secure and scalable network. To scale up blockchain protocols, developers began looking to salvage the situation.
So far, to solve the trilemma belief, several approaches are taken. The proposed solutions to achieving scalability are Layer 2 and Layer 1 solutions respectively.
Although this article focuses on Layer 2 solutions, it will be necessary to lay a background that includes Layer 1 solutions. It will highlight several Layer 1 and Layer 2 solutions as well as references to top Layer 2 implementations you should know about.
Often referred to as on-chain solutions, Layer-1 solutions are the scalability solutions that require redesigning the underlying protocols of the base protocol. Look at the Layer-1 solution as say, redesigning Ethereum or Bitcoin protocols to increase throughput and reduce fees. For instance, Visa, MasterCard, and other payment processors process an average transaction per second of 5000 while Bitcoin and Ethereum process 4 and 15, respectively. Going by the current design of these blockchain networks, as users of the networks grow, the TPS will keep reducing and transactions keep getting unnecessarily slow, hence, the need for a redesign. The Layer-1 solution entails redesigning the underlying protocols of the networks to allow for throughput, energy efficiency, and cheaper transaction fees.
There are thus several methodologies employed to redesign the base protocols. Although some of them are still at their experimental stage, they include:
This consists of redesigning the consensus protocol of the base protocol to scale transactions and efficiency. The leading blockchain networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum have leveraged PoW consensus that allows miners to solve cryptographic puzzles to validate and verify blocks thereby making it energy-demanding and tedious. Nonetheless, PoW systems are secured but often characterized by high transaction fees and low throughput when there is network congestion. To mitigate this risk and achieve a scalable network, PoS consensus becomes a good choice. Instead of miners solving cryptographic puzzles using enormous energy, users stake coins on the blockchain.
PoS consensus is set to cut down the high cost of transaction and throughput of the PoW networks. It is yet in its experimental stage, but some protocols are already developing on it. Among the top projects are Solana, Avalanche, and Ethereum. Ethereum termed its proposed PoS version Ethereum 2.0. From a frontier phase, Ethereum will be going full serenity next year by launching a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm. Unlike the high cost of transaction and low TPS of Ethereum 1.0, Ethereum 2.0 is expected to dramatically and fundamentally increase the capacity of the Ethereum network while increasing decentralization and preserving network security.
Also in an experimental stage, sharding is adapted from distributed databases as one of the Layer-1 scaling solutions. Employing a Sharding Layer-1 scaling solution means breaking the state of the base protocol into distinct datasets called "shards". Here, tasks are managed by shards, simultaneously processed in parallel and they collectively maintain the entire network.
Each node in a network represents a shard instead of maintaining a copy of the entire main chain to allow scalability. Each shard across the network provides proofs to the mainchain and interacts with one another to share addresses, balances, and general states using cross-shard communication protocols. Although in an experimental stage, awaiting its launch in 2022, Ethereum 2.0 is exploring the implementations of shards.
Instead of implementing the changes of the parent protocols of the blockchain, Layer-2 solutions took scalability to a whole new height. Layer-2 solutions are those scalability solutions that entail adding a layer to the base protocol to increase throughput. They take transactions off the main chain, hence, are called off-chain solutions.
The off-chain solution doesn't allow base protocol structural changes since the second layer is added as an extra layer. For that reason, Layer-2 scaling solutions have the potential to achieve high throughput without sacrificing network security.
Layer-2 solutions consist of smart contracts built on top of the main blockchain. Those secondary layers are for scaling payments and off-chain computation. Layer-2 solutions can be achieved in various ways. For example;
Rollups are one of the Layer-2 scaling solutions built on the Ethereum blockchain. Unlike the Layer-1 solutions, they are secondary layers that allow users to perform transactions off the main Ethereum chain (Layer-1). It is designed to post transactional data on Layer-1 thereafter, hence, inheriting the security of the base protocol. Rollups possess the following properties:
Rollups can either be zero-knowledge or optimistic Rollups. They both differ in their security model:
Optimistic rollups is a Layer 2 solution designed to enable autonomous smart contracts using the Optimistic Virtual Machine. By default it doesn't perform any computation, hence, can offer up to 10-100x improvements in scalability depending on the transaction. It sits parallel to the main Ethereum chain on Layer-2. Transactions on Optimistic rollups are written on the main Ethereum chain in form of call data thereby further reducing the gas cost.
As stated ab initio, Optimistic rollups do compute transactions outside of the main layer in the form of batches and submit only the root hash of the block to the main chain. Hence, the need for a mechanism (fraud proofs) to ensure transactions are legitimate That way, when someone notices a fraudulent transaction, the rollups initiate fraud proofs before running a transactional computation using available state data. By implication, Optimistic rollups take significantly longer to confirm transactions than zero knowledge rollups.
There are currently multiple implementations of Optimistic rollups that you can integrate into your dApps. They include; Optimism, Off-chain Labs Arbitrum Rollup, Fuel Network, Cartesi, OMGX
This is a type of rollup on the ethereum blockchain. It bundles hundreds of transactions off-chain and generates a cryptographic proof known as Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge (SNARK), often called validity proof.
The ZK-rollup smart contract maintains and updates the state of all transfers on Layer 2 with validity proof. Instead of the entire transactional data, the ZK Rollups needs only the validity proof, which goes on to simplify transactions on the network. Validating a block is quicker and cheaper in ZK Rollups because less data is included.
There are multiple implementations of ZK-rollups that you can integrate into your dApps. They include; Loopring, Starkware, Matter Labs zkSync, zkTube, Aztec 2.0, and so on.
A State Channel is a Layer-2 scaling solution that facilitates two-way communication between the participants which will allow them to perform transactions off the main blockchain. Typically, for a recurring payment State Channel does not require a recurring validation by nodes of the Layer-1 network to improve overall transaction capacity and speed. The underlying blockchain is sealed off via a set of smart contracts or multi-signature seals off. Leveraging the smart contract pre-defined by participants, they can directly interact with each other without the need of the miners. Upon the completion of the transaction or batch of transactions on a state channel, the final “state” of the “channel” and all its inherent transitions are recorded to the underlying blockchain. Some projects including Liquid Network, Celer, Bitcoin Lightning, and Ethereum's Raiden Network are currently deploying state channels scaling solutions.
A Sidechain is a secondary blockchain linked to the main blockchain via a two-way peg. Like most layer 2 scaling solutions, it uses an independent consensus and contracts to optimize throughput. On the sidechain, the main chain takes up security roles, confirming batched transaction records and resolving disputes.
They are somewhat similar to channels, however, it differs in how they process transactions and the security impacts. Transactions are recorded publicly on the ledger, unlike the private records of the channels. Sidechains enable tokens and other digital assets to move back and forth freely from the main chain. When the sidechain completes a transaction, a confirmation is relayed across the chains, followed by a waiting period for added security. Due to their allowance to move assets around freely on the new network, a user who wants to send the coins/assets back to the main chain can do that by simply reversing the process.
Plasma is a secondary chain on the Ethereum blockchain, proposed by Joseph Poon and Vitalik Buterin in their paper Plasma: Scalable Autonomous Smart Contracts. It comprises Merkel trees and smart contracts which create unlimited smaller versions of the main chain (Ethereum), called child chains. Integrating these child chains enables fast and cheap transactions off the main Ethereum blockchain into child chains.
Users can deposit and withdraw plasma chain funds, enabled by fraud proofs. For such a transaction to go on, there has to be communication between the child chains and the root chain, secured by the fraud proofs. Users deposit by sending the asset on the smart contract, managed by the plasma chain. Then the plasma chain proceeds to assign a unique ID to the deposited assets while the operator generates a batch of plasma transactions received off-chain at intervals. On the other hand, the contract initiates a challenging period during which anyone can use the Merkle branches to invalidate withdrawals if they can.
Like the CAP theorem in distributed systems, the blockchain trilemma suggests that blockchain cannot achieve scalability, security, and decentralization simultaneously. However, the Layer-2 scaling solutions have come to challenge the thought system. It allows the mainchain to take care of security while maintaining scalable networks in its additional layers.
Also Read Arbitrum: Scaling without Compromise
One who is familiar with digital terms will not be new to the term "Metaverse". Metaverse create physical realities in a virtual world.
Just as there are entertainment Metaverses, there are art, social and medical Metaverses as well.
In fact, several games are built on the concept of Metaverses. Some of these games include Fortnite, Animal Crossing, and Roblox. These games and many more present a concept of virtual reality in an augmented superset.
Over the years, several industries are beginning to see reasons to build their applications on the concept of the Metaverse. The government is seeking to hold virtual-physical meetings with leaders from around the world and artists are seeing potential in using the Metaverse to hold concerts too.
What then is the importance of the Metaverse that the crypto world is seeking to adopt?
This article will extensively discuss all you need to know about Metaverse. We will also discuss it's importance with respect to blockchains and the digital world at large.
But first, what exactly is a Metaverse?
Simply put, a Metaverse is a concept of creating virtual spaces using a 3D augmented spectrum.
For instance, games that allow one to own lands, build cities, go outside space all operate on the concept of Metaverses. Any concept that presents a realistic virtual world is a Metaverse. This can be seen in plenty of Sci-Fi movies and even in novels.
The word Metaverse was first used in a fiction novel in 1992. The novel – Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson described it as a world outside our world.
Other examples are seen in virtual reality games like the Minecraft. Minecraft presents a unique medium for social interaction and relationships.
Students of the UC Berkeley were able to create a virtual campus on the Minecraft game. The students even conducted a virtual ceremony where each person joined with Minecraft characters.
Another application is the Roblox game. The Roblox game allows developers to create games and receive tokens as incentives. Afterwards, the developers withdraw their tokens outside of the game’s platform.
Furthermore, there is a wide application of Metaverse in the crypto world. There, Metaverses will allow users to own tokens, lands, and assets which can easily be traded while virtual money is converted to real money simultaneously.
Aside from this, there are other applications of a Metaverse in the crypto world. We’ll discuss these shortly. Before we do, here is what to know about Metaverse basic foundation.
The basic Metaverse foundation explains the components put together to build a blockchain Metaverse. These components are open standards, the internet, hardware, open programming language, and a decentralized ledger and smart contract.
The internet is essential in creating a connection for digital assets. But the internet connection for blockchain Metaverse is highly secured.
Connections between computers on a decentralized network restrict authorized individuals or bodies like the government from gaining access. It only allows users of that network to gain total authority over their decentralized network.
Metaverses use programming languages like web XR, javascript, WebAssembly, and HTML. Open standards of the media like 3D audio, images, and texts. It also uses 3D sequences and geometric figures and vectors.
Metaverses are incorporated in blockchains, so they exhibit features of blockchain technology. They offer secure and plain transactions as well as public availability and support to the blockchain ecosystem.
Many refer to the Metaverse as a replacement for the internet, whereas, it’s in actual sense the successor of the internet. Perhaps, it can be the next trillion-dollar project.
In the crypto world, Metaverses offer new experiences to gamers and creators of NFTs. Even in the decentralized platform, it offers permissionless and transparent transactions at high speed.
NFTs serve a foundational role in a Metaverse as they offer users the complete ownership of their lands. Afterward, one can sell off their virtual properties and exchange their money for real money.
A 259 parcel of virtual land in Sandbox was sold for over $900000 and it’s still the largest to date.
Arthur Madrid says people are easily blown away by the number of money players spend on digital assets. He thinks that making NFTs assets can add a layer to the already existing digital economy.
Mark Zuckerberg even said and I quote,
"We want to get as many people as possible to be able to experience virtual reality and be able to jump into the Metaverse and to have these social experiences…",
This he said while referring to Horizon - the company’s experimental virtual reality project. Mark Zuckerberg is hoping to explore this using Facebook's oculus headsets.
Here are the main advantages of a Metaverse
Metaverses will allow fans to attend concerts virtually with characters that represent them. In April, Travis Scott helped a convert which had about 1 Million concurrent views. The concert which he held at on a Fortnite with half the attendee using the creative modes.
While we cannot predict the future of Metaverses in the crypto world, we are certain that they will cause exponential growth in blockchains.
Up till now, the application of Metaverse is not popular among people and only a few projects use them.
Just like decentralized blockchains, Metaverses aren't owned by a single individual. The project is for everyone, and is owned by everyone. So, be sure of secured transactions on the Metaverse.
To own a part of the Metaverse, one has to invest in its architecture, services, and development.
Since the project is still in its early phase, here is how it works and why it's the perfect successor of the internet.
Metaverse creators have been able to create certain items. These items are virtual assets and can be sold and exchanged for real money.
Likewise, you can transfer these items from one application to another without interference. Hence, the contents of the Metaverse is not "siloed"
Currently, there are over a thousand nodes that host the Ethereum network. Hence, the ethereum network is not held by an individual. So, one will not need any permission before carrying out any transaction.
The Ethereum network can do this due to its Metaverse projects as it will allow for permissionless transactions; transparent and quick.
And as you'll expect, the decentralized nodes are of great importance to the blockchain Metaverse. It also offers high-level security through its consensus mechanism.
Blockchain Metaverse is changing the way we interact in the digital world. It's changing the way we carry out virtual activities by providing more acceptable and realistic features to games and apps.
One common app that is looking to adopt this concept is Facebook. And other apps are looking to work with the project as governments are looking to enhance their modes of operation. Government officials are seeking to meet via virtual-physical platforms provided by Metaverse.
The importance of Metaverse on blockchains cannot be undermined. It allows users to transact easily and is permissionless. It also enables users to accrue virtual assets for themselves and exchange them for real money. To top it all, they can transfer assets from one app to another without any interference.
In a nutshell, the essentiality of the Metaverse cannot be undermined.
Also read Loot: The First On-Chain Community-Driven NFT Platform
A new technology of blockchain, serving and acting as an optimistic roll-up called Arbitrum, just surfaced in the cryptocurrency world. This system allows Ethereum holders, users, protocols, and participants to participate and settle all transactions on the Ethereum mainnet. This serves as linkup loops to the main Ethereum crypto body.
Arbitrum, therefore, serves as a Layer 2 cryptocurrency platform. By implication, the security and protection of the Arbitrum interface and network come from Ethereum itself.
Generally, this makes the transactions scalable, faster, and interoperable, enabling compatibility and bonding of the Ethereum based applications with the Ethereum Cryptocurrency market.
Arbitrum, based on development, has passed and served as a system that ensured efficiency in the management and marketing of Ethereum amongst other layer 2 solutions. It is achieving several goals through the combination of Virtual machine crypto-architecture, networking design, and incentives.
It has 4 significant benefits. They include;
During the regular operation of Arbitrum, decentralized apps (DApps) using Arbitrum only have to navigate the main startup catalog or a chain of startups when they make transactions outside of Arbitrum. This allows ease of expansion and upgrades based on the general demand of the server network, unlike other blockchains.
Generally, this is an advantage of enabling easy transmission of information from the user network to the server's network. It further lengthens the time and duration of the transactions without issues of connection or 'interface error'. This might arise due to an increase in the level of traffic on the Ethereum mainnet within or beyond the proxy counts.
Only the validated participants can be granted an entry and exit on the DApps, and only such participants need to know what is in the DApps code and storage margin.
This system of upgrade to Arbitrum has enabled a user-network secure network, and all that is being published within this cryptocurrency margin are recognition of the DApps state. The users enabled sector such that messaging, recordings, messages, and currencies have end-to-end encryption between the network and the user's interface.
The DApps creator also has free will to allow the user to see the internal server information. This is based strictly on the user demand, and the Arbitrum network verifying information and disclosure is purely optional.
Arbitrum is unlike many other cryptocurrency channels for trading, storage, and transaction of coins such as state channel, sidechain, blockchain, main wallet, or private chain solution. It guarantees an exact, precise, and accurate execution as long as the validator of a DApp, which is usually the user acts honestly.
No system upgrade allows liquidation of funds or turndown in the rate of transactions and amount of transactions made using Arbitrum.
Arbitrum is an interoperable and interchangeable system that allows the open-source Arbitrum compiler to generate Arbitrum-ready code. You can also transfer Ether or any other Ethereum based token back and forth within the Ethereum and Arbitrum network.
Interoperation scaling is enabled as the Ethereum system now runs as a significant interface in the Ethereum network system. This gives an overall boost to the Ethereum mainnet. Consequently, it reduces the cost of operation and gas fee that comes with the rush in the Ethereum mainnet by network users.
Arbitrum platform is technically designed and centralized, making it better and more reliable than most blockchains. Proof of work platform by leveraging on general accessibility to the public and a lower costs of user-network leverage, this innovation of Arbitrum supports standard EVM contract deployment allowing standard Solidity smart contracts to be deployed on Arbitrum Chains using existing developer tools; an entire interface network of cryptocurrencies and tokens could be deployed but this deployment tool is set on the Arbitrum roll-up only and not the Ethereum.
Arbitrum uses roll-ups (a setup tool) to record batches of transactions on the Ethereum mainstream. The chain and execution of these transactions are on a scalable sidechain, while leverage is placed on the Ethereum network for security and result.
The major reason for Ethereum deployment on Arbitrum is to achieve better throughput and make transactions on the ethereum blockchain cost-efficient.
This led to the advanced improvement of Ethereum by the community to make it more scalable and deployed on other scaling-solution channels like Arbitrum.
In recent times, cryptocurrencies have gained popularity in the world's exchange market. Unlike the stock exchange market, the crypto market is almost entirely online, and coins, tokens, and artifacts are being traded by various merchants worldwide. However, Arbitrum has solved significant problems in some of this retrospect. Insecurity and lack of fast servers have posed disturbance in the trading and merchanting of cryptocurrency for years till today. This is one of the many problems the Arbitrum helps in the general overview and boost of the system.
Arbitrum is faster gaining popularity as it now scales 80% of all hurdles posed on using the Ethereum mainnet. This has not only given Ethereum the boost in its exchange as a cryptocurrency but has also helped to increase the general value of the Ethereum coin.
So, many discussions have been done on the centralization and tactical approach of the Arbitrum network in helping to scale Ethereum during an increase in the demand for Ethereum on the main site leading to various cases such as an increase in gas fee and a slower network; however certain infrastructure has been put in place to allow transactions on the Arbitrum Scaling Solution, this infrastructure is basically by the creation of Arbitrum Virtual Machines (VMs).
The Arbitrum Virtual Machines are first-class actors that perform specific functions logged into the Ethereum network, this form a send-receive network which helps to send and receive funds and messages as well as perform calculations and store data offline according to the code program on the network, generally this is a mechanism that helps reduce gas fee either during an increase in traffic on the Ethereum site or a crashing of the site.
This infrastructure has made the Arbitrum VMs more scalable and private than the conventional way of implementing smart contracts on other scaling solutions such as Polygon and Optimism.
Arbitrum manages the VMs off-grid the mainnet with minimal activity online to ensure correct execution. When someone creates an Arbitrum VM, they select a set of operatives responsible for executing the VM. The set of operatives are called Managers. They are responsible for the execution of the VM. Arbitrum thereby guarantees the correct and exact execution [even if other selected managers are corrupt]; because of the low on-chain work, Arbitrum VM is made more private.
Arbitrum has posed many advantages to cryptocurrencies, many of these advantages are listed below;
Arbitrum has, over some time, gained publicity as a network operative system of Ethereum, leveraging over several system setups that have placed it above many layer 2 solutions and serving as an alternative route during network effect on the Ethereum mainnet.
Arbitrum is not just a solution to the problems posed by the Ethereum mainnet. It is a scaling option that has diverted and enhanced the usage and navigation of Ethereum, geometrically boosting the system by almost 100% and enabling many onsite users of the Ethereum.
Cryptocurrency traders and merchants are advised to engage in the Arbitrum network as more than an alternative but a new phase of Ethereum.
Also read Casper: The Future-Proof Blockchain
In this article, we will be exploring the Connext Network and its working mechanism.
Since its inception in 2015, Ethereum has become the most sought-after blockchain due to its vast benefits, ranging from developing decentralized applications (dApps) to the ease of building other projects. However, as the popularity of Ethereum increases, it led to the congestion of the network, which resulted in slower transaction time and increased gas fees to carry out a transaction on the blockchain.
Since these problems have been encountered, various solutions have been proposed to mitigate the issues. One of which is layer 2 - which enables transactions to be carried out outside the Ethereum mainnet but records the data on the Ethereum mainnet. Connext is a layer 2 solution that aims to solve the problem.
Connext is an Ethereum based interoperable platform that connects Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible chains and layer 2 solutions. Connext achieves its function without the use of a new external validator.
Connext works through the Noncustodial Xchain Transfer Protocol (NXTP) for its cross-chain transfer without depending on any external validator.
The NXTP model consists of a locking pattern, off-chain routers, and SDK. The locking pattern prepares a transaction and fulfills it; the off-chain router passes call-data between chains, and the SDK prompts an on-chain transaction.
All transactions on the NXTP follow three stages which are:
i) Route auction: This is the route that users select for their transactions to follow. There are different routes that a transaction can follow. A user places a request on auction for the router to bid, and selects the route they prefer, the system (routers) seals the offer - which means that there is a price range and time limit for the transaction to be done.
ii) Prepare: This is the stage where the transaction is audited before being sent. The prepare stage involves both the sender-side chain and the receiver-side chain. The users send their transactions to a contract on the sender-side chain that manages transactions. The contract now has the router's sealed bid, which prompts the router to submit the same transaction to the transaction manager on the receiver-side chain, after which a specific amount is set aside and locked as liquidity. This stage ensures that there is an incentive for the router to carry out the transaction.
iii) Fulfill: This is the stage where a transaction is executed, or the transaction is returned if it doesn't complete. After the preparation stage on the receiver-side chain, the user sends a signed message to a relayer (it could be the router) which relays the signed message to the transaction manager on the receiver-side chain to complete a transaction and claim the funds locked by the router.
The router also submits the same message to the sender-side chain to complete the transaction and unlock the original amount.
Learn more about NXTP
Connext is an Ethereum based interoperability system that is highly capital efficient and truly trust-minimized. No other Ethereum based interoperable system has this advantage that Connext has.
Connext is a protocol that is easy to use on any Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible chain. It also supports non-EVM compatible chains though it requires rewriting the transaction and porting the contract.
Also read The Cosmos Network: A Comprehensive Guide
Before the Ethereum Blockchain could reach its potential, it needed several transformations. Such transformations include migrating to Ethereum 2.0 also known as Serenity. ETH 2.0 is the much-awaited Ethereum upgrade that allows a more scalable, cheaper, decentralized, and secure network.
Ethereum has since chanted the course to migrating from the POW to POS consensus for cheaper transaction costs and better decentralization. Accompanying the upgrades are various hard forks promising various Ethereum Implementation Proposals, EIPs.
By the way, what is a fork, and what exactly is a hard fork? The fork is the process of copying and improving on an existing protocol, similar to the traditional software upgrades.
A fork can be soft, hard, accident, and intentional. It is a hard fork when it changes the rules of the blockchain protocol so that the old blockchain and the resulting blockchain are incompatible.
A hard fork is a radical upgrade that can make previous transactions and blocks either valid or invalid and requires all validators in a network to upgrade to a newer version. It’s not backward-compatible. A soft fork is an upgrade to the software that is backward-compatible and has validators in an older version of the chain that sees the new version as valid.
When two or more miners find a block at the same time, an accidental fork occurs but it is intentional when the rules of the network are being modified.
Similar to other blockchain networks with active communities, Ethereum Blockchain has undergone soft and hard forks over time. For a brief, we need to reference other non-Ethereum hard forks before explaining Ethereum hard forks in detail.
So far, Bitcoin, the first implementation of blockchain launched by Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudo-anonymous entity, has also undergone several hard forks. The most prominent Bitcoin hard forks are; Bitcoin XT, Bitcoin Classic, Bitcoin Unlimited, Segregated Witness (SegWit), Bitcoin Cash, and many others. From records, one common thing about the various hard forks, both Ethereum and Bitcoin hard fork, is that they are geared towards protocol upgrades which are done by network consensus.
Similar to other network and software upgrades, Ethereum concerns birthed the various hard forks. It ranges from security, centralization, fees, scalability, and other Eth 1.0 limitations. For instance, despite having a good run in Q1 and Q2 2021, Ethereum had its highest fees that scare developers. A simple swap on the Uniswap for example is as high as $100 while others could be $16-20.
While we are set to discuss Ethereum Hard forks fully, it is important to note the Ethereum journey so far and link them to the hard forks accordingly. The journey as referred to here is the Ethereum developmental roadmap.
Ethereum has a four-stage development roadmap. They include; frontier, Homestead, Metropolis, and Serenity. Recall that, unlike most POW networks, Ethereum is way beyond currency and has to measure up to accommodate varying use cases and features. Hence, the need for a roadmap.
Below explains the various journey so far;
The frontier is the first developmental roadmap of the Ethereum blockchain. It went live on July 30, 2015. Although it went live as a beta, it performed better than expectations. Developers began writing smart contracts and decentralized applications to deploy on the Ethereum Blockchain. Shortly after its launch, it experienced a hard fork called Ice Age.
Ice Age, also known as “Frontier Thawing”, was the first (unplanned) fork of the Ethereum blockchain aimed at providing security and speed updates to the network.
While the Frontier phase of Ethereum laid the groundwork for experimenting in Ethereum, the Homestead steps it up to its first production release. Homestead, the second major version of the Ethereum release, comes with several protocol changes and a networking change that provides the ability to do further network upgrades.
The upgrades changes was activated at Block >= 1,150,000 on Mainnet
Block >= 494,000 on Morden
Block >= 0 on future testnets. The homestead hard forks include:
EIP-2: Main homestead hard fork changes
EIP-7: Hard fork EVM update. DELEGATECALL
EIP-8: devp2p forward compatibility.
The Ethereum Classic hard fork is a child of necessity after the homestead hard fork. It was in 2016 when hackers exploited DAO, one of the most notable Ethereum projects. As a result, developers initiated the Ethereum Classic hard fork to mitigate the DAO loss.
The DAO, also called Distributed Autonomous Organization, raised $150m in Ether in a public crowd sale.
The DAO, in principle, was to operate as a form of decentralized venture capital fund where investors would send Ether to the DAO to receive voting rights, whereafter those who had invested (and voted) would democratically decide on which projects to which the DAO should disperse those funds.
Contrary to the arrangement, the DAO was unable to complete its vision when millions of Ether vanished.
As a response, the Ethereum community moved to recover the funds by voting to change Ethereum’s baseline code to recover the lost funds and reimburse investors. As a result of the majority vote in the favor of this proposal, a hard fork and two separate blockchains were created.
EtherZero is the second intentional Ethereum hard fork that took place in 2018. The hard fork went live at 4936270 block on 29 Jan 2018. Unlike the Ethereum Classic hard Fork, it was started by a group of tech geeks looking to provide a better platform for creating decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contract deployment. Contrary to other forks, it has no specific interest to speed up transaction rates. Rather, the development team was determined to make transactions completely free.
This is the third phase of the Ethereum upgrade and one of the notable hard forks. It is the forerunner to Serenity in the sense that it lays the background for early proof of stake (POS). Metropolis upgrade includes Byzantium, Constantinople, and early serenity. Byzantium is a backward-compatible upgrade aimed at integrating zero-knowledge protocol and delay of the network difficulty bomb. On the other hand, Constantinople is a non-backward compatible upgrade.
It represents a hard fork deployed to solve a security weakness allowing hackers to access users' funds and integrates a smart contract functionality that enhances the verification process as well as the reduction of gas price. Lastly, as a forerunner to serenity, it made the first attempt of implementing POS and account abstraction.
Also known as the Ethereum 2.0, serenity is the latest Ethereum upgrade. It builds and improves on the successes of the previous upgrades and hard forks. The major improvement of the Serenity upgrade is porting from POW to POS fully.
By implication, serenity increases its transaction capacity, changing gas fees and achieving scalability while achieving more eco-friendly coin generating and validating networks.
The launch of the Beacon chain is Serenity's first step to revolutionizing the Ethereum network. From the Beacon chain, it pushes through to; Berin hard fork, London hard fork, and the upcoming Shanghai hard fork.
The Berlin hard fork is a forerunner to the London hard fork. It is named after the host city of the inaugural Ethereum Devcon convention. Berlin hard fork incorporates several EIPs which addresses gas price and introduces new transaction types.
The Berlin hard fork went live at 12,244,000 on April 15 and proposes several EIPs. The EIPs include; EIP 2565, EIP 2718, EIP 2929 and EIP 2930.
Before the Berlin hard fork went live, several delays were citing possible vulnerabilities and centralization concerns. Some believed the Berlin hard fork will be less impactful in the short term, but will further pave the way for the upcoming London hard fork.
After the Berlin Hard Fork comes London hard fork, scheduled for July before being delayed to August 4. In preparation for the ETH 2.0 launch in 2022, London hard fork makes significant changes to Ethereum’s transaction fee system, which has long been a contentious subject.
Ethereum's London hard fork introduces two new known Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP), namely: EIP-1559 and EIP-3238. EIP-1559 is a proposed change to the way users pay gas fees on the Ethereum network. It also proposes a new transaction pricing mechanism that will create a base fee for each block. Usually, users enter a bid to pay their gas fees, but the EIP-1559 allows miners to prioritize transactions based on the fee added and use the fee as a reward for adding it to a block. Now, each block will have a fixed, associated fee instead. The EIP design allows the blockchain to burn the fee, reducing the overall supply of Ether (ETH). Thereby creating deflationary pressure on the cryptocurrency.
Ethereum 1.0 has a difficulty in mining called the difficulty time bomb. As miners reach the difficulty time bomb, it takes longer to mine a new block, and thus reward gets lower as well as slower transaction. To motivate users and encourage them to move to Ethereum 2.0 upon launch, EIP-3238 will delay the time bomb to enable the network to incentivize validators to Ethereum 2.0’s Proof of Stake consensus model at the correct time. It is suspected that if there is no consensus to move to the awaiting Ethereum 2.0, the scenario of Ethereum Classic will happen. Delaying the time bomb will lead to a 30-second block time ice age around Q2 of 2022, therefore, enabling "The merging" of Ethereum 1.0 with Ethereum 2.0.
The upgrade didn't stop at Berlin and London hard Fork. It proceeded to the Shanghai hard fork scheduled for OCTOBER 2021. Shanghai hard fork is promised to include the following EIPs;
The new opcode BEGINDATA indicates that the remaining bytes of the contract should be regarded as data rather than contract code and cannot be executed.
Ethereum Blockchain so far has been a work in progress. It started from a four developmental roadmap Viz: frontier, homestead, metropolis, and serenity to achieve what we will call ETH 2.0 2022. Every upgrade of Ethereum accompanied an associated hard fork. The major Ethereum hard forks are Ethereum Classic, Shanghai, London, Berlin, Homestead, Constantinople, and Ice Age hard forks. It is expected that the Ethereum network will attain scalability with eco-friendly network fees and better decentralization. The ETH 2.0 is promised to provide a sustainable blockchain network that doesn't compromise any of the above features.
Over the years, cryptocurrency has grown in leaps and bounds. There has been a significant improvement from the day it was first launched, and today the cryptocurrency space has more than a trillion-dollar market cap. Despite the growth associated with cryptocurrency, its volatility has made it increasingly difficult for new investors to put their money into it. ETF provides safety against risk and volatility. Many investors can invest in cryptocurrency through the ETF.
An ETF stands for exchange-traded fund. An exchange-traded fund means buying and selling an ETF the same way you buy and sell a stock. An ETF gives you the ability to spread your investment money across many underlying assets rather than have all your investment in one underlying asset. It can be used for diversification and security of investment because you can use it to get many assets.
An ETF tracks the price of an underlying asset. For example, copper ETF tracks the price of copper.
A cryptocurrency ETF is an exchange-traded fund that tracks the price of the cryptocurrency. Investors can buy or sell a cryptocurrency ETF in the stock exchange the same way they buy and sell other stocks. An investor trades cryptocurrency ETF in the traditional market exchange and not a cryptocurrency exchange.
The cryptocurrency ETF works the same way as other ETFs. The organization in charge of funds would need to own cryptocurrencies which serve as the underlying assets. The cryptocurrency would serve as shares that investors can buy. Once the investors purchase the shares as ETFs, they already own cryptocurrencies indirectly.
Since you cannot trade a cryptocurrency ETF on the cryptocurrency market exchange, you do not need a wallet to store it. For example, if you want to invest in bitcoin, you can get the bitcoin ETF from the stock exchange, and it would have the same value as the bitcoin. If the price of bitcoin increases, then the price of bitcoin ETF increases. If the price of bitcoin reduces, the price of bitcoin ETF also reduces. In essence, the price of the bitcoin ETF is dependent on the price of bitcoin.
There are cryptocurrency ETFs, and it is not surprising that the bitcoin ETF was the first. The first country to approve a bitcoin ETF was Canada. The name of the ETF is the purpose Bitcoin ETF and goes by the ticker BTCC on the Toronto Stock Exchange. BTCC was launched in February 2021. Three more bitcoin ETFs have been launched in Canada, bringing the total number of bitcoin ETFs to four.
Presently, Canada has approved four new Ethereum ETFs: CI Galaxy Ethereum ETF, Purpose Ether ETF, Evolve ETF, and Ether ETF. Toronto Stock Exchange is the place where all ETFs are currently trading.
The year 2021 might be the year of the cryptocurrency ETF as countries like the United States of America, Brazil, Chile, and the UAE, are considering launching it. To date, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has rejected all proposals to launch a crypto ETF. The reason cited by SEC for the rejection is related to crypto being volatile and non-regulation of the crypto market.
Despite all the rejections, we await a positive announcement from the SEC later by June. There is a high probability that a crypto ETF would be launched then.
Apart from the cryptocurrency ETF, we also have the blockchains ETF trading on the stock exchange. The popular blockchain ETFs are:
Cryptocurrency ETF makes it easy to invest in cryptocurrency because you do not need a wallet. You also do not have to sign up on any cryptocurrency exchange market. The use of an ETF reduces the chances of losing your cryptocurrency. And it also reduces the risk associated with having cryptocurrency directly.
For example, if you store your cryptocurrency in a personal wallet, you could lose it once the password is lost. If a centralized exchange is compromised, you can also lose your funds if you have it there. In summary, a cryptocurrency ETF gives you leverage over the risk and volatility associated with cryptocurrency.
It is easy to diversify with an ETF. You could invest in more than one underlying asset from different companies in your ETF. For example, you could have bitcoin, Ethereum, Google stocks, Tesla stocks, Facebook stocks, Guinness stocks, Coca Cola stocks, and more in your cryptocurrency ETF. The advantage of this ETF is that it helps you to reduce your risk and diversify your portfolio.
The United States of America Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) regulate financial institutions. Cryptocurrencies are decentralized, and hence, no financial institution regulates them. Cryptocurrency ETF won't trade on decentralized platforms but regulated exchanges such as New York Stock Exchange, making it open to most tax havens and pension funds.
Investors that want to invest in cryptocurrency and make better long-term returns can use cryptocurrency ETF.
There are two ways a cryptocurrency ETF can be managed. It can either be managed actively or passively. An actively managed fund has a higher management fee than a passively managed fund. The management fee is higher for an investor with many cryptocurrency ETFs when compared with those with less.
For instance, you can trade bitcoin for Ethereum, but you cant trade bitcoin ETF for Ethereum. It is impossible to trade bitcoin ETF for Ethereum because it is an investment fund and not a cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrencies were created not to be centrally regulated. They were created to be decentralized and not regulated by any financial institution such as the central banks. Cryptocurrency ETF won't enjoy all these benefits because they are regulated by the financial institution where they are listed.
One of the advantages of ETF is the fact that you can use it to diversify your portfolio. The diversification advantage can also be a disadvantage as ETF may not track the accurate price of a cryptocurrency because of the value of its other holdings.
For example, a drop of 5% in Ethereum may not reflect a 5% drop in the price of an ETF that tracks numerous assets.
While you can directly use your cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin, to buy things and make payments, you cannot use your ETF to do such.
For Institutional investors who could not get into the crypto market for many reasons, crypto ETFs could provide an entry point for them to invest.
Cryptocurrency ETF would open up a new era of investment all over the world if it is accepted. It would allow people who have low-risk tolerance to invest in cryptocurrency. However, if you have high-risk tolerance, there might be no need to invest in cryptocurrency ETFs since the return of cryptocurrency is higher than in ETFs.
Also, read about Opyn Protocol.
Opyn is an Ethereum based decentralized Options trading platform, which allows you to buy, sell and create Options. It is a trustless and permissionless insurance platform that protects user’s decentralized finance (DeFi) assets from risks. There are three categories of Opyn users which are:
To understand Opyn and how it works, you must understand some terms associated with DeFi and Options trading. Below is an explanation of the words.
Options are the contract that gives you the right to buy or sell an underlying asset at a set price within a particular time frame. It is not a must to purchase or sell the underlying asset at the expiration time. You can decide to honor the contract or not.
We have two types of Options which are Call Options and Put Options. Option buyers are known as holders, while Option sellers are known as writers.
A Call Option contract gives you the right to buy a specified asset at a set price within a particular time frame. You have a choice to either accept or not, as the contract does not make it compulsory for you to buy at the expiration time. A Call Option could be a Call Option buyer or a Call Option seller.
A Call Option buyer is also known as a “Call Holder”. As a call holder, you can decide to exercise the right to buy an Option contract or not. To have the right to buy, you will pay a fee to the Option seller called the Premium.
A Call Option seller is also known as a “Call Writer”. As a call writer, you must sell an Option contract to the buyer if he or she exercises the right to buy at the strike price.
A Put Option contract gives you the right to sell a specified asset at a set price within a particular time frame. You have a choice to either sell or not, as the contract does not make it compulsory for you to sell at the expiration time. A Put Option could be a Put Option buyer or a Put Option seller.
A Put Option buyer is also known as a “Put Holder”. As a put holder, you have the right to sell an Option contract but are not obligated to do it. You can decide to exercise your right to sell or not.
A Put Option Seller is also known as a “Put Writer”. As a put writer, you do not have an obligation to buy the underlying asset at the strike price.
The money an Option buyer pays to the Option seller to buy a contract is called a Premium. It is the income a seller gets for selling a contract.
The “Bid price” is when a buyer is willing to pay a specific price to own an Option contract.
The “Ask Price” is the price at which a seller accepts to sell an Option contract. The money you are willing to pay to buy an option contract is the premium.
When exercised, the price at which a seller can sell an Option contract or buy an Option contract is the strike price.
This term is different for both the Call Option and the Put Option. For the Call Option, ITM is when the current price of an underlying asset is greater than the strike price. While for the Put Option, ITM is when the current price of an asset is lower than the strike price.
For a Call Option, OTM refers to the position where the strike price is greater than the current price for an asset. While for a Put Option, OTM is when the strike price is lower than the current price for an underlying asset.
ATM is the same for both Put and Call Options. It refers to the position where the price of an underlying asset is the same as the strike price.
Rich wants to sell 1 ETH for 3,000 USDT before 10 am on May 28, 2021. Stone is willing to buy 3,000 USDT for 1 ETH at Rich’s request. Rich pays Stone 5 USDT for having the right but not the obligation to sell his ETH. After the expiry date of May 28, 2021, Stone must buy from Rich if he decides to sell. If Rich doesn’t sell, he only loses 5 USDT and keeps his 1 ETH while Stone keeps his 3,000 USDT plus the 5 USDT.
In the above example,
The reasons for using Options differ for people. People use Options basically for:
To sell Call Options and sell Put Options, you should follow the steps below:
Opyn is an Ethereum based decentralized, trustless, and permissionless Options trading platform, which allows you to buy, sell and create Options. It is flexible, secured, and easy to use for three categories of users - sellers, buyers, and market makers to ensure against financial and technical risk in a DeFi, and also help users generate income.
With Opyn, you can buy and sell a call option, or buy and sell a put option. To start trading options using Opyn, you can use the guide in the article.
Also, read about Hegic Protocol.
OpenSea is a decentralized peer-to-peer marketplace to buy, sell and trade non-fungible tokens (NFTs). OpenSea markets itself as the largest NFT marketplace. Therefore, It is worth walking to explore the world of OpenSea and discover what it offers in the trade of NFT.
This article will take you through the questions like what OpenSea is, And what is the user journey in the platform.
With the surging popularity of CryptoKitties, Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah decided to create a decentralized platform to trade NFT. Hence, in 2018, OpenSea was formed. Since then, OpenSea is witnessing significant growth in the NFT market. Artwork by Beeple for $70 million and flying Pop-Tarts rainbow cat for $600,000 is trading on OpenSea.
The Growth rate of OpenSea is astonishing. OpenSea in March 2021, recorded $82.5 million in transaction volume.
Recently Logan Paul has announced the launch of his first NFT on Twitter, with networth of over $3.5 million. These announcements from influencers are adding fuel to the burning fire.
NFTs acquire huge significance for Digital art. They are non-replicable digital assets which require a unique marketplace for its trade. Thats where OpenSea came into play. But before we take a deep dive into the OpenSea marketplace. If you still have some ambiguity regarding NFTs you may read more on this.
OpenSea is like an amazon for NFTs. It has millions of unique digital assets. Besides having digital art it has multiple categories of collectibles, games items, music and other digital representations of physical assets.
Wallet is a tool to connect with the blockchain, and to store, buy, and sell NFT. One thing to remember here is that OpenSea doesn’t provide the infrastructure to store the assets. So we need to connect with the external wallet. In this case we are using MetaMask.
Trading on OpenSea is more to rely on smart contracts than the counterparty. You don’t need to trust the buyer or the third party. This is because OpenSea uses the Wyvern protocol. This protocol enables the swap to change the state of NFT ownership as soon as the seller receives the cryptocurrency ownership.
After setting up the wallet, now it's time to connect with OpenSea and discover the world of it. To do so, click on the top right corner, then my profile, select MetaMask, sign in and follow the instructions in your wallet.
Your page is empty for now. To create one, you can click on create, fill the description and hit Add. You can now see your collections at the window.
The marketplace option is the heart of OpenSea. You can search for any NFT by typing name or can use various filter options.
To create your first NFT, click on the Add new Item. A new window will be open. You can add your metadata such as images/audio/video files with the NFT name below. You can also add external links and descriptions of the NFT.
This method can create only one NFT at a time. However, if you want to make multiple versions of the same artwork you can add the Edition numbers in the stats below.
You can also add unlockable content such as high-resolution files and private keys of Physical assets to ensure security. Once you are satisfied, you click on create and a new window of your NFT statistics will be open.
To buy NFT you first need to buy ETHs. Users also need to ensure that they accommodate gas cost by themselves.
Once you have finished purchasing ETH, bid on the NFT you intend to buy. You can also follow the auction. If you are the highest bidder in the auction you’ll get the NFT.
OpenSea claims to charge the lowest fee in the NFT space. They take 2.5% of the sales price. There are no service charges for buyers. You can learn more about their gas fee structure from here .
The NFT market is growing vigorously and it can only be limited by imagination.There is no doubt that the NFT markets such as OpenSea and Rarible are poised to prosper in future.
Recently, AIRNFTs build on Binance smart chain has also launched. Apart from that Aleph.im has also announced a partnership with the polygon to offer an unstoppable storage solution for NFTs marketplace.
Also read about blockchain architecture.
Hegic protocol is the non-custodial, decentralized, and on-chain Option trading platform built on the Ethereum blockchain. Hegic allows you to buy WBTC and ETH Options or sell ETH Options using the Hegic token. To sell, you have to provide liquidity.
An Option is a smart contract that gives you the right to buy or sell an underlying asset at a specific price within a certain time frame. There are two types of Options which are the Call and Put Option.
A Call Option is a contract that gives you the right but not the obligation to buy an asset at a certain price on or before a particular date. A buyer is known as a holder.
A Put Option is a contract that gives you the right but not the obligation to sell an asset at a specific price within a particular time frame. A seller is called a writer.
A Strike Price is the fixed price at which you can buy or sell an underlying asset if the Option is exercised (i.e., if you decide to buy or sell an asset). For example, the Strike Price is the buying price for Call Options and the selling price for a Put Option.
The price of an Option contract is called an Option Premium. There are four ways to trade Options, which are:
A Buy Call is a price above the Strike Price that you can exercise your right to buy. You may be wondering why you should buy an asset above the current price. The reason is explained with the example below. A Premium is paid to make a Buy Call. The risk involved with a Buy Call is minimal, as the maximum amount you can lose is the premium paid.
For example, if the Strike Price of Ethereum is $500, you can place a call to buy it at $600 within a week. Instead of paying $500 for the Ethereum now, you will pay $100 (Premium), and once the price gets to $700, you can exercise your right to buy and have made a net profit of $100. Your net profit is $100 because the Premium is subtracted from the total profit.
If the price is at $600 or below at expiration, the Option will expire worthless, and you will lose $100 (Premium) rather than $500 if you had bought without using an Option.
A Buy Put is the price below the Strike Price that you can exercise your right to buy. A Premium is also paid to make a Buy Put. The risk involved with a Buy Put is minimal, as the maximum amount you can lose is the Premium paid.
For example, if the Strike Price of Ethereum is $500, and you place a Put-Call at $400 within a week at a premium fee of $10, you can exercise your right to buy once the price gets to $400 or below before the expiry date. You will make a profit of $90 because the Premium will be subtracted from the gain. If the price does not decrease below $500 at the end of the week, you will lose just $10.
A Sell Call is a choice you make to sell a Call Option when the price falls below the Strike Price. A Premium is paid by the buyer of the call to you. Risk is high, as you are obliged to sell at the Strike Price if the buyer exercises the right to buy.
For example, if the Strike Price of Ethereum is $300, and the price falls below the Strike Price at the contract’s expiration. The seller will get a profit from the Premium paid. If the price becomes higher than the Strike Price, the seller will have an obligation to sell Ethereum at $300.
A Sell Put is the choice you make to sell a Put Option when the price falls below the Strike Price. A Premium is paid by the buyer of the call to you. Risk is high, as you are obliged to sell at the Strike Price if the buyer exercises the right to sell.
For example, if the Strike Price of Ethereum is $300, the price rises above the Strike Price at the contract’s expiration. The seller will get a profit from the Premium paid. If the price becomes lower than the Strike Price, the seller will have an obligation to buy Ethereum at $300.
Three elements affect the Options price. These elements are:
The time remaining for an Option contract to expire is called the Time to Expiration. A holder or writer can decide to exercise the, stop the contract to take profit or loss before the contracts expire, or let the contract expire and become worthless.
This is the Strike Price set for an asset. Any price above the underlying asset’s price in the Call Option is called out of the money. At the same time, any price below it is called in the money. The reverse is the case for the Put options. An increase in the underlying asset price causes an increase in the Call Option Premium and a decrease in the Put Option. A reduction in the asset price causes a decrease in the Call Option Premium and an increase in the Put Option.
This is the extent to which an asset’s price swings. It can be a high volatility asset or a low volatility asset. The higher the volatility, the higher the price, and the lower the volatility, the lower the price.
In conclusion, Hegic uses the American style Options to exercise your right before the expiration date. This style of usage is an excellent advantage of Hegic over the other decentralized Option trading platform.
Also read about Opium protocol.
Flow is a user-friendly, decentralized, and, scalable Blockchain designed to support the creation of crypto-related games, digital assets, and applications that power them. Flow ensures scalability without sharding which makes it possible to keep transactions atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable (ACID).
Developed in 2018 by dapper labs, the Flow was licensed for use in 2020 for developers interested in creating and trading NFT. It gives the power to control data to the consumers, and it also gives the liberty to create any digital asset that can be traded anywhere in the world. Flow is an open-source Blockchain with its smart contract, which can be used by billions of people to power their applications.
In 2017, the dapper team launched CryptoKitties on the Ethereum network. CryptoKitties is a crypto-related game that allows you to buy, train, and sell cats online. The game became so popular that it brought congestion to the Ethereum Blockchain, causing it to stop. This event made the dapper’s team develop another Blockchain called FLOW.
Flow was designed to meet the demand of crypto-games like CryptoKitties and other non-fungible token collectibles.
Flow uses the multi-approach model to operate. This model is grouped into four pillars.
Traditionally, nodes operate and process Blockchain transactions and carry out all the operations involved in transactions. The roles result in a slow transaction and cause the transaction not to be serialized. Flow was able to solve this problem without compromising scaling productivity with pipelining – a technique used for dividing the roles of the validator nodes into four.
They are as follows:
The consensus and verification nodes handle the security of the Blockchain. The nodes ensure that the network is functional and accountable through the use of crypto-economic incentives. If a faulty collection or execution node introduces erroneous data into the Blockchain, any other honest node can punish and recover from the erroneous data. The consensus and verification node only allows a high level of participation from individuals.
The execution and collection node takes care of the scalability and security of the network. The beauty of the multi-role architecture is that all nodes are accountable and verifiable by one another.
Learn about TRON Blockchain.
Flow uses a high-level programming language called "Cadence". Cadence is easy to read and enjoy because of its ergonomic syntax. It is easy to learn, audit, and highly productive. It was designed to be secure, minimize runtime error, and easy to use to create unique and durable applications. To learn Cadence, visit the Flow playground on play.onflow.org.
A developer determines the tools that can affect their productivity. The criteria for selecting the tools depends upon the installation process, configuration, administration, usage, and maintenance. Flow has designed open-source tools that meet the above criteria. The tools are:
Also, Flow made it possible for developers that built their smart contracts to deploy it to the mainnet in a ‘beta form'. This gives room to update before releasing it. Once released, the contract becomes immutable. Furthermore, Flow alerts the users that the code is not complete, so they can decide to wait until completion before use. This method of smart contract deployment is a deviation from the previous ways where a smart contract cannot be updated after launch.
Flow reduces finality i.e. time taken for a transaction to be included in a block permanently - on Blockchains. Finality happens on Flow in seconds, which was previously not possible with other Blockchains.
You can pay with fiat, FLOW token or other crypto tokens for you to access the Flow network. Flow also gives the flexibility of owning a smart contract wallet that does not require seed phrases. You can easily create a smart user account on your wallet that is secured and supports automated processes.
Flow was designed as a solution to the “slow finality” of the Blockchain without sharding. It had achieved this without compromising the safety and serialization of the Blockchain. The Flow team partnered with the NBA, and this partnership has increased the popularity of the Flow network. Flow has made it possible to build an application that users can enjoy worldwide.
Also, read about Azure Blockchain.
Since the launch of the first cryptocurrency blockchain, the possibility associated with it has been eternal. One such possibility is the introduction of yield farming – a reward scheme that enables you to get more from decentralized finance (DeFi) - that gained popularity in 2020. Some years back, a crypto enthusiast could only generate a reward by trading or holding it. Today, the story is different through the power of yield farming.
Yield farming gives you a new way to generate rewards from crypto. It might be challenging to benefit if you start, or you begin without adequate knowledge about it. Whichever one it is, you don’t have to panic or be scared. You can also benefit from yield farming, and that is why we have written all you need to know about DeFi yield farming below.
Yield farming is a process where you get rewards from your cryptocurrency by investing it in a DeFi platform. It is simply a process of allowing your crypto to work for you while you earn passively. Sounds lovely right? Yield farming works like a bank loan, where you are paid interest on the money you lent. You can lend out your crypto or borrow crypto from a platform that supports it in yield farming.
Yield farming operates on smart contracts. The majority of yield farming is on the Ethereum network using the ERC-20 tokens. Yield farming is also on the Binance smart chain. This is possible because the Binance smart chain is compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and can also operate with the Ethereum native protocols.
Total value locked (TVL) is the sum of all funds locked in the liquidity pool. This is very important to measure how healthy a yield farming platform is. An increase in the total value locked leads to an increase in the yield farming on a platform. The current TVL for DeFi is approximately 77billion dollars. You can monitor the total value locked through Defi Pulse.
There are various platforms where you can farm tokens. They have the same way of operating, though the reward system might be different. Below are some of the yield platforms that run on the ethereum and Binance smart chain.
Compound is an Ethereum based protocol that allows borrowing and lending. The lender provides a loan by providing liquidity in terms of assets in the platform. The lender gets an interest in the loan supplied. The supply and demand of crypto determine the interest generated. The compound has a native token called cTokens used to pay interest for users. cTokens can also be used in other applications. For example, if you deposit 5Eth on the protocol, the system automatically generates 5c-Eth for you with interest. You can redeem your c-Eth for Eth at any time plus your stake. The compound protocol uses any ERC-20 token. The compound protocol also has the advantage of moving or trading the c-Tokens on other decentralized apps (dApps).
Aave is a smart contract-based protocol that allows borrowers to borrow loans and lenders to lend. All that is required for a lender to do is put their cryptocurrency funds into the liquidity pool. Collateral in terms of cryptocurrency must be provided to borrow from the aave’s protocol. A borrower can only borrow a fraction of the collateral. It boasts a high annual percentage yield (APY) ranging from 6% to 13% on stable coins such as USDT and USDC.
PancakeSwap is the leading automated market maker on Binance Smart Chain. Though it is an automated market maker, its yield farming has continued to grow and is one of the most used in BSC. Presently, Pancakeswap has more than 10 pairs of cryptocurrency for yield farming.
Venus is now one of the leading Binance smart chain protocols for borrowing and lending assets. Users deposit cryptocurrencies such as BNB, USDT, USDC, and ETH to earn interest. The interest is helpful for other purposes such as minting venus stablecoin called VAI or used as collateral to borrow.
Autofarm has a total value locked of 1.3billion dollars. It currently has more than 30 liquidity pools and is very good for farming.
Yearn.finance is a platform that chooses the best platform to make a profit. It takes the user’s fund from one protocol, such as Aave, to the other to make a profit. It has a native token called yToken. All deposited funds are automatically converted to the yToken.
Just like everything that has to do with life, yield farming has its own risk. The higher the risk you take, the more profit you make. It is always advisable not to invest more than you can afford to lose.
Liquidity risk occurs when the price of your loan is greater than the collateral you deposited. You run into loss if this happens. Liquidity risk is familiar with crypto that has high volatility, such as BCH or ETH.
Defi protocols are open-sourced and can be open to bugs. These bugs can affect the token price, causing a high drop in the price of the token.
An increased gas fee occurs on the ethereum smart chain. The increase in eth gas fee has been on the rise, which poses a challenge for an average investor.
Composability risk is also known as “money legos,” which means that all defi applications and platforms can interact without permission; this means that the whole defi platform relies on each of its building blocks. Naturally, composability should not be a risk but an advantage. It is a risk because if any of the building blocks stops working, the whole platform can be down.
Decentralized finance is a platform that uses technology to remove the intermediary barrier in carrying out a financial transaction. It is simple to use and very efficient when compared with centralized exchanges like banks. To use Defi, you do not need an identity card, social security number, or a KYC.
There are risks associated with using the DeFi platforms, and as such, you should ensure you research the platform you are using and invest what you can afford to lose.
You can also read about Curve finance and Uniswap v3 protocol.
You must have heard about non-fungible tokens and wondering what’s all about and their benefits to you. As a Blockchain enthusiast, hearing about a piece of Blockchain news and knowing nothing about it can leave you helpless and thinking. Reading about Beeple making $69 million off something you know nothing about can create a lot of curiosity.
Recently, the CEO of Twitter put up the first tweet for sale as an NFT. This tells you about the future potential of NFTs. Now, you may be wondering what an NFT is and why there is so much buzz about it. In this post, we shall thoroughly explore and explain the concept of NFTs, and how they are gradually transforming the acquisition of tangible assets.
They are cryptographic assets integrated on the Blockchain and can be used to represent real-world items like artworks and real estate. These NFTs come with unique identification codes as well as metadata that sets them apart from each other. They are not like cryptocurrencies that we can trade and exchange at equivalency. Cryptocurrencies are fungible tokens that are identical to each other and can be used for commercial transactions.
Today, we are seeing how these NFTs are taking the world of digital art and collectibles by storm. We are seeing the lives of digital artists change for the better. Also, many celebrities are joining the fray as they see it as an opportunity to further connect with their fans. You can use these non-fungible tokens to represent any unique asset. It is like a deed for an item in the physical or digital realm.
NFTs, let us tokenize items like art, real estate, collectibles, etc. There is only one official owner at any given time. The Ethereum Blockchain network secures the NFTs. You cannot modify the record of ownership and neither can you copy/paste a new non-fungible token into existence. Four years ago in 2017, Ethereum Request for Comments 721 (ERC-721) was released as a cryptocurrency standard for non-fungible tokens. The ERC-721 standard makes it much easier for the implementation of NFTS. It wasn’t long after that and NFTs hit the mainstream with CryptoKitties leading the way. The NFT ecosystem has expanded and is constantly growing. Today, there have been several companies finding novel applications of NFTs like domain names. Others utilize them as crypto art museums, physical collectibles, art marketplace, etc.
NFTs are designed to offer you something that cannot be duplicated or copied. For example in the use of NFTs for art or other collectibles, you will retain 100% ownership of the work but the artist will still have the copyright and reproduction rights. This is just like what we experience with physical artworks where anyone can buy a Monet print, but only one person owns the original piece.
The major characteristics of non-fungible tokens include the following:
You cannot use a CryptoPunk character on the CryptoKitties games, and vice versa. It is also the same thing with NFT collectibles like trading cards where you cannot use a Blockchain Heroes card on the Gods Unchained trading card game.
Unlike bitcoin or other fungible tokens, NFTs cannot be divided into smaller components. You can only get them as a “whole” item and they exist exclusively like that.
Since they are stored on the Blockchain, you cannot replicate, destroy, or remove any NFT data. Therefore, all ownership of these tokens is immutable. Thus, gamers and item collectors own their NFTs and not the companies that created them. This is unlike what we experience on iTunes stores where you can buy songs but you don’t own them. You only purchase the license to listen to those songs.
One of the major characteristics of NFTs is that they can be traced back to the original creator. Therefore, you can authenticate the art or collectibles without the need for third-party verification.
Also read our article Consensys Quorum Blockchain A Comprehensive Review.
Today, these NFTs have become so popular in the crypto and Blockchain space due to the way they have revolutionized the collectibles, arts, and gaming industry. Since November 2017, more than $174 million has been spent on NFT projects. The advent of Blockchain technology has made it possible for collectors and gamers to be immutable owners of in-game items and other unique items.
There have been cases where people create and monetize structures like casinos as well as virtual parks in virtual worlds like Decentraland and Sandbox.
A good example is William Shatner, popularly known as Captain Kirk from “Star Trek.” He ventured into digital collectible last year (2020) and issued about 90,000 digital cards on the WAX Blockchain network. These digital cards showcased different images of himself. Whenever any of those cards are sold, Shatner receives passive royalty income.
Like every asset, supply and demand are the key determinants of price. The scarce nature of NFTs and the high demand for them have made them valuable in the market. There are always gamers, collectors, and investors readily prepared to pay huge sums for these NFTs.
Some of these tokens have the potential to make a lot of money for their owners. A gamer on the Decentraland virtual land platform bought 64 lots and then infused them into one estate. The estate was dubbed “The Secrets of Satoshis Tea Garden” the estate sold out for $80,000 because of its good location and road access. Recently Beeple made a whopping $69 million from an NFT art piece. There was also an investor who paid $200,000 for a segment of the digital Monaco racing track in the Formula 1 Delta Time game.
The non-fungible token industry is still unfolding and the full potential is yet to be realized. It is certainly opening a new frontier in the crypto space. Time shall tell how this newfound marketplace unravels, but it certainly is a great one.
Read about Elastic Cryptocurrency, Ampleforth.
Many people have been asking what is Ampleforth and how does it come into play in decentralized finance? Some protocols like Compound, MakerDao, and Aave have introduced a new dimension of financial possibilities in recent times. These financial possibilities were supply-based interest rates, flash loans, and crypto-collateralized stablecoins. Among these game-changing protocols, Ampleforth has recently taken the spotlight, and many believe it is for a good reason.
Ampleforth aims to redefine how money works. It combines the best of Bitcoin and stablecoins. In this post, we are going to explore all there is about Ampleforth and its impact on the decentralized finance industry.
In simple terms, Ampleforth is a cryptocurrency that is trying to reinvent money. Technically, Ampleforth is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol that seeks to completely overhaul how money is designed both inside and outside of cryptocurrency. By creating a stable but flexible currency that can accommodate both inflation and deflation, Ampleforth addresses the problems of traditional finance and decentralized finance.
As a cryptocurrency, Ampleforth can adjust its supply based on demand. It is built on the Ethereum blockchain, and its token is AMPL, an ERC-20 token. When there is an increase in demand, the total supply of AMPL increases. Also, when the demand goes down, AMPL's total supply decreases. It is adaptive money that adjusts supply based on market conditions. The essence of this is to maintain purchasing power irrespective of economic power. AMPL supply adjustments are made directly to all AMPL wallet balances. This helps to maintain the same percentage of total AMPL supply no matter the raw numerical change.
Many people make the mistake of thinking that Ampleforth is a stablecoin like DAI, Tether, etc. Although the purpose of Ampleforth is to provide the same function as a stablecoin, US dollars do not back Ampleforth. Ampleforth is an adaptive base-money that only seeks to reduce volatility.
Read about Tendermint Core.
Ampleforth's smart contract automatically decreases or increases its money supply based on the market conditions. The interesting part is that the system does this without the control of a "central bank." Therefore, wallet balances increase or decrease when the demand is high or low, respectively. This doesn't mean that Ampleforth is dilutive in any way.
When central banks flood the market with the different currencies, they dilute the money supply with inflation. As a holder of the AMPL token, you cannot be diluted by supply inflation. The reason is that adjustments occur proportionally across all users' balances. Therefore, with Ampleforth, your percentage ownership always remains fixed.
For example, let's say you are a whale who owns 15% of the network. In this case, you will always own 15% until you decide to sell your stake. The supply of AMPL can expand and contract out of your wallet. This means that the number of AMPL you own can change depending on the market condition. However, your network percentage remains the same. This daily supply adjustment is known as rebasing.
We have already answered the question, what is Ampleforth? Let's go on to look into the unique token dynamics of the AMPL token. The demand and supply mechanics are what make AMPL token different from other crypto primitives. Primitives are the basis for building a complex system. For example, bitcoin is the base primitive for a censorship-resistant payment rail. However, Ethereum took it a step further by integrating smart contracts to run over the network.
Rebasing is one of the unique attributes of the Ampleforth platform. The AMPL token is a "supply elastic" token. Therefore, the supply of the town changes in response to the price per unit. This price adjustment happens every night at exactly 7 pm Pacific time. This process of supply adjustment is known as rebasing. However, rebase is non-dilutive in the sense that it doesn't change the percentage of the token you hold in your wallet.
According to economists, when demand and supply in a market are in perfect balance with each other, they are in a state of equilibrium. In the case of Ampleforth, equilibrium is attained when a change in demand gives rise to a one-for-one change in supply. For example, if there are 50,000 AMPLs and the price increases from $1 to $2 due to an increase in market demand, the network will set its target price at $1 and expand supply by 100,000 AMPL. The process whereby the supply would increase from 50,000 AMPLs to 100,000 AMPLs is called a "rebase."
Most people think that rebase dilutes existing token holders, but that's not the case. It would be best if you thought about it as owning a fixed amount of the network instead of a fixed amount of tokens. The process is executed in a decentralized manner leveraging the unique capabilities of ERC-20 tokens. Therefore, without the Ampleforth system stealing market share from any holder, these 150,000 AMPLs created by the protocol will be proportionally shared to all AMPL holding addresses. Equilibrium will be achieved when a proportionate 2× decrease in price meets the 2× increase in supply. This keeps the market capitalization stable at $100,000, from our cited example.
By creating a financial incentive for users, Ampleforth helps the network to reach equilibrium. However, the network relies on profit-seeking traders to ensure equilibrium is returned on the demand side immediately the change in supply goes through. The AMPL token is an asset whose price is determined by the free market. Arbitrageurs can sell their newly acquired AMPLs for $2, thus creating market pressure and returning AMPL's cost to equilibrium at the initial $1.
We have known what Ampleforth and its token dynamics are. Do we have any use for AMPL tokens? The answer is a big yes. AMPL tokens serve as a medium of exchange. Ampleforth can scale its supply to meet the demands of billions of users worldwide. However, it can also contract supply if it is only serving a paltry number of 1,000 users.
Due to its elastic supply, Ampleforth is an ideal asset to build a digital economy around. In this form, it can become the perfect collateral for DeFi. The countercyclical behavior of Ampleforth makes it an excellent addition to a crypto portfolio. From a broader perspective, Ampleforth aims to offer an independent alternative to central bank money. This is a long-term goal, and Ampleforth must first gain the trust of the community. It has to prove its utility as a reliable medium of exchange and store of value. Ampleforth also aims to become a multichain asset in the future. A multichain platform helps in the creation and deployment of private blockchains.
Also read Nexus Mutual: A Deep Dive.
Knowing what Ampleforth is and its use cases are essential for every DeFi enthusiast. Although the project is still in its experimental stage, the potential is vast. For the project to achieve its goals, the broader crypto market needs to accept that it is primitive that offers value to users. The project is currently a high-risk play with an immense payoff provided the network achieves its vision.
Read about Binance Ecosystem
Decentralized finance (DeFi) has been the center of attraction in the crypto space these days, and Nexus Mutual will play a vital role in insurance. One of the most significant risks in DeFi lies in the failure of the smart contract. It doesn't matter if it is hacked or bugged; smart contract failure is the fastest way to lose your money. You can agree with me that it will be nice to hedge against this risk. The Nexus Protocol has made it possible for us to mitigate the threat of losing your money on DeFi.
In this article, we will take a closer look at decentralized insurance like Nexus Mutual.
It is an Ethereum-based decentralized platform that creates insurance products with community-based management and financials. You can also see it as a blockchain-based platform that offers decentralized insurance products. The first product of Nexus is the smart contract cover. This protects users against smart contract vulnerabilities. This only covers smart contracts used on the different decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.
Today, the insurance industry is dominated by complex conglomerates that utilize models driven by profit margins, premiums, and reinvestments. The Nexus Mutual blockchain aims to disrupt the traditional insurance business model. It hopes to rewire stakeholder incentives to assess risks proactively and, at the same time, collectivizing financials.
Learn about Binance DeFi project
Nexus Mutual was launched with only one type of cover: Smart Contract Coverage. It uses a system of democratized risk assessment and pooled claim staking to protect against any financial loss. It means that staking can be executed on multiple contracts at the same time in order to increase potential rewards and minimize losses. Also, any reward earned from purchasing covers will be equally shared among all stakeholders of that particular contract. Anyone can become a member of Nexus and can purchase the Nexus Mutual native token called NXM. The NXM can be used to purchase insurance coverage and also to be part of the Nexus governance process.
The governance protocol of NXM involves the ability to assess the risks of covering a particular smart contract. The holders of NXM will have to vote on whether to accept claims or not. This usage makes NXM a multifaceted utility token that drives the Nexus ecosystem. You can only buy the NXM token on the Nexus platform, and it is not available on exchanges. Also, the utility token can only be transferred between Nexus Mutual members. The NXM token price fluctuates in response to the amount of capital the mutual holds in comparison to the amount of money needed to fulfill its existing liability across claims. When the mutual have enough funds, the price of NXM increases. On the other hand, it decreases when the mutual requires more funds.
To purchase a Smart Contract Cover, you must do the following:
The price coverage is determined by the members of Nexus Mutual, known as risk assessors. These people are experts in smart contract auditing. If these risk assessors determine that a smart contract is safe, coverage can be initiated. Now, the risk assessors have to stake NXM towards the coverage pool. The stakes will be used to pay for claims if there happens to be a breach of the smart contract. Therefore, these Risk Assessors are incentivized to only stake on smart contracts that they know to be secure. Once the staking has been made, the tokens are locked up for 90 days.
The Nexus Mutual insurance can cover all Ethereum smart contract addresses. However, there must be a sufficient amount of NXM token that is staked to cover the claim liability. Examples of smart contracts that have been covered include Compound, Uniswap, Maker, Curve, and Aave. Nexus coverage can last from a single to a number of years. Whereas the staked insurance ranges from 1ETH to 50000 DAI.
The members of Nexus Mutual and an advisory board through its DAO are responsible for the platform's governance. The Advisory board comprises five members that include company founders, industry experts in smart contract security, insurance and mutuals, and legal and regulatory bodies. Also, any member can be voted into the advisory board to replace an already existing member.
A member can suggest changes to the blockchain protocol by submitting a proposal through its governance platform. Once a member submits a proposal, the advisory board will verify the proposal and suggest an outcome for it. They will also determine the total NXM token rewards shared amongst members who participated in the voting process. The voting itself is also executed through NXM. The weight of a member's vote is proportional to the amount of NXM token the members staked for voting. One thing to note is that rewards are shared among the number of those who vote. The sharing is not proportional to the number of tokens that voted. In the end, this process helps to ensure a more equitable reward-based structure that is not dependent on NXM holdings.
Also, read about Ethereum Enterprise Alliance
In the case of traditional insurance, the insurance agency decides on what to do with its customers' money. The insurance agency decides on how to invest, the risks to cover, when stakeholders are paid, and so on. They always carry out lengthy damage assessments and rarely pay the actual worth of the damaged asset. The reason is that the interest of both the insured and the insurer are more adversarial than cooperative.
On Nexus Mutual, membership tokens and incentives are more aligned to help develop the community. It is far better than the adversarial relationship described above.
Although blockchain for insurance has been growing as a sector, Nexus Mutual is the first decentralized model being applied in insurance. Its Smart Contract Cover has been essential in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. Some future Nexus insurance products include coverage for crypto wallets, etc.
Read Compound Chain: A Comprehensive Guide
Ethereum name service (ENS) is a lookup system that links information to a name. However, it is not exclusively a naming service for Ethereum. Instead, ENS is a name service that is built on Ethereum. ENS provides a secure and decentralized way to address resources with the help of human-readable names.
During the early years of the internet era, you will need to type in the IP address of a website before accessing the site. An IP address is a series of complicated numbers to remember and almost impossible to guess. Later, there were human-readable names to make it easier for people to surf the web. For example, instead of having something like 134.33.136, we now have DNS. Today, cryptocurrency is still in the IP address phase, and users need long and difficult to remember addresses to gain access to the services they need.
This is where the Ethereum name service (ENS) comes in. ENS wants to make using crypto as easy as surfing the web. This post will explore how ENS works and how anybody can secure a domain name on it.
Ethereum Name Service is a special system created to provide shorter and more friendly names in place of long addresses. This is more like the Ethereum addresses or the Swarm hashes often used in the Ethereum ecosystem. In other words, ENS is an Ethereum-based dApp that is built on smart contracts.
It allows you to register a domain name for your wallet address, thus allowing the transfer of funds. This means that someone can transfer funds directly to a name instead of an address. ENS is built on Ethereum smart contracts, and these smart contracts are completely decentralized. Therefore, the ENS doesn't suffer from the same lack of security as the Domain Name System (DNS). You can register for a ".eth" domain name by taking part in an auction process on the blockchain.
Users will have to wait for the name to become available before they can submit their bid. A user with the highest bid will win the name, and the auctioned ETH locked in a smart contract. The name will be locked in the smart contract for one year. During this period, the user will be able to add extra data, create sub-domains, lease, loan, or sell it.
It is important to note that these ENS names are sold to the highest bidder or leased by any party or entity. Although claiming a name involves locking or burning funds, it is created to discourage spamming. This will ensure that names are only claimed by users who will make use of them. Every ether spent on the process will either be sent to a burn address or a miner or will be given back to the bidder after some time.
The process of claiming a name on the Ethereum Name Service takes five days. It requires multiple transactions that are very time-sensitive, and most times, it is irreversible. Therefore, it is essential that you have a good understanding of the process, so you don't lose your money.
You start the process by opening a public auction for the name you want. An alert will be sent immediately to everyone watching the blockchain for that particular name. Once the auction has been opened, bidders who know how to spell that name can bid on it in the next five days. These bidders do this by sending a transaction with the maximum amount they are willing to pay for that name.
The network will continue accepting bids until 72 hours after the initial auction opens. Next comes the "reveal phase" that will last for 48 hours. During this phase, bidders must reveal their bids.
Domains like “.eth” are executed by smart contracts. Architecture of the ENS has two main components:
The backbone of the service is the ENS registry smart contract, which maintains a list of all domains and subdomains which map representations of domain names to ENS resolvers’ smart contracts. Those, in turn, target Ethereum address to map. Looking at the diagram, if an application wanted to resolve the ENS address alice.metamask.eth, it would first query the ENS Registry for the corresponding ENS Resolver and then ask the resolver for the mapping Ethereum address which would respond with 0x890AB…
Also Learn about Compound Chain
During the auction process, names are hashed to increase privacy. You can own any name, string, or file through the auction process. Currently, names that are shorter than seven characters are reserved until when the network mature. If you go ahead to register such a name, it can be invalidated, thus leading to irreversible loss of funds.
Names that are not within the alphanumeric, hyphen, and the underscore may be valid, but they are not guaranteed to be resolved by the wallet or client software. On the ENS network, anyone can invalidate a name. Once a name is invalidated, 50% of the deposit will go to the person doing invalidation. The remaining 50% goes back to the bidder.
There are several tools which are offering ENS like ENSListing, MyCrypto. (I find ENS Manager, seems a bit more user-friendly.)
Unlike the internet domains, which ICANN manages, ENS is not a domain system. However, it can be used in fashion apps that replicate browser functionality like Mist or Metamask. Also, you need to note that ENS does not grant a trademark or any kind of ownership claim. Registering an Ethereum Name Service is an entirely automated process. It is not a proof of ownership or any kind of trademark, copyright, or any type of intellectual property.
The Ethereum Name Service is not just for ".eth," which is only a top-level domain. ENS plans to integrate the entire DNS namespace (more than 1,300) top-level domains. This will enable the owners of these DNS sites to claim the use of that name on ENS. The implication is that realodili.org can be linked to "realodili.eth" and visitors can view content and send money to the same location. The future potential of ENS is undoubtedly promising.
Also read our article Ethereum Enterprise Alliance
Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA) was launched in 2017 to bring together different industry players. The aim is for these “players” to work together on Ethereum as an enterprise-grade technology. In the hierarchy of cryptocurrencies, Ethereum’s ether is right close to the top. Much of the potential of ether is based on the smart contract capabilities of Ethereum’s blockchain.
Smart contracts allow different parties to conduct transactions amongst themselves using the Ethereum blockchain. These smart contract transactions are not only limited to the finance industry. For instance, we can employ the Ethereum blockchain to streamline transactions in commercial real estate.
Despite the great potential and obvious utility of Ethereum’s blockchain to different sectors, mainstream adoption has been slow. The major reason for such occurrence is the fundamental disconnect between Ethereum and these corporations. These large corporations have constructed hierarchies and permissioned access to their information systems. Meanwhile, Ethereum is built on the philosophy of transparency and decentralized authority.
Therefore, to reconcile these two parallel perspectives demands work of an order of magnitude. The Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA) is a start to reconciling Ethereum blockchain and mainstream corporations.
Read about Ethereum Plasma
It is an association of Fortune 500 enterprises (Microsoft, JP Morgan, Accenture, etc.), startups, Academics, and Ethereum blockchain experts. Although these companies have different objectives, they are all blockchain enthusiasts. EEA is established to customize Ethereum for industry players. The core mission of EEA is to build, promote, and broadly support all Ethereum based technology best practices.
What it means is that participants can develop their in-house private Ethereum blockchain. Also, if one member company makes a codebase on the Ethereum blockchain and it is useful to another member company, the code can be shared. The EEA has four visions, which are all listed on their official website. These visions include the following:
Ethereum Enterprise Alliance will define open-source standards for the development and operation of Ethereum’s blockchain across all member companies.
EEA will facilitate and control cross-deployment across its members for different business needs and use cases where they are applicable. For instance, if a member implements a blockchain-based KYC platform on Ethereum, EEA can assist another member in implementing the same when and where required. This will save a lot of development costs for EEA member companies.
The members of EEA will be making their private blockchain leveraging Ethereum technology. However, they can always get experts on the subject matter from the existing public blockchain of Ethereum. Therefore, both the public and private versions will advance together.
The Ethereum public blockchain was launched in 2015, thus making it 6 years already. Therefore, new blockchains formed by EEA in the future can leverage the standards of the old blockchain.
Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is a collaboration of more than 100 members. Meanwhile, organizations with the mindset of developing and improving private or public blockchain are welcome to be a member. Before you become a member, you have to fill out an application form specifying your name and other personal details. You will be required to provide your company size and other relevant details. Once you complete and submit the form, you will receive a DocuSign document for the membership agreement and other information.
Although EEA has many members, the founding members are Accenture, JP Morgan, Microsoft, Intel, ConsenSys, Banco Santander, Nuco, BlockApps, CME Group, BNY Mellon, and IC3.
Also, members from other regions of the world include Mitsubishi UFJ, Samsung SDS, Toyota Research Institute, National Bank of Canada, etc.
Before the launch of EEA, many technology giants and businesses had been offering support to Ethereum through cloud services. However, most of the efforts toward’s Ethereum’s scalability, privacy, and interoperability remained scattered until the advent of EEA.
The alliance aims to build, promote, and support all Ethereum blockchain best practices and standards. EEA also aims to develop a reference architecture with the capability of handling its real-world applications and usage. Ethereum as a blockchain system was launched in 2015. Ethereum blockchain enabled the building and running of smart contracts and distributed applications (Dapps) without downtime, fraud, or interference.
Meanwhile, Ethereum is not just a platform; it is also a programming language (Turing complete) that runs on blockchain. It helps developers to build and publish distributed applications. There are various ways to apply Ethereum, so Ethereum has attracted many enterprises to explore the technology.
Enterprise Ethereum Clients implement at least the Clique Proof of Authority Consensus Algorithm. Most clients implement more than one consensus algorithm, and clients that also operate on Mainnet will need to implement EthHash. The Our Working Group expects to agree on a Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus algorithm as an additional implementation requirement for Enterprise Ethereum Client. The consensus algorithm implementaion should ve modular and configurable.
Ethereum Ethereum clinets might support local key management allowing users to secure their private keys. Clients might also support secure interaction with an external key management system for key generation and secure storage. The alliance aims to build, promote, and support all Ethereum blockchain best practices and standards. EEA also aims to develop a reference archhitecture with the capability of handling its real world applications and usage. Ethereum as a blockchain system was launched in 2015. Ethereum blockchain enabled the building and running of smart contracts and distributed applications (Dapps) without downtine, fraud, or interference.
With EEA, you can send private transactions. These are transactions where thye metadata or payload data are readable only by parties participating in those transactions. Meahwhile, Ethereum is not just a platform; it is also a programming language (Turing complete) that runs on blockchain. It helps developers to build and publish distributed applications. There are various ways to apply Ethereum, so Ethereum has attracted many enterprises to explore the technology.
Since the launch of EEA in 2017, multiple pilot projects have been initiated and worked on by member companies. These pilot projects cover areas like supply chain provenance tracking, inter-bank payments, reference data, securities settlement, and many others.
However, real-world enterprise use demands collaborative efforts to build systems that allow both permissioned and public Ethereum networks. The establishment of EEA is an essential step to achieving this goal. EEA also educates and trains its members, publishes newsletters, releases videos and webinars as part of its public service mission.
Yes, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is not the only one trying to standardize blockchain development and deployment. The rivals include the likes of IBM’s Hyperledger and R3 Corda.
Although EEA is the youngest amongst them, its future looks promising as it keeps gaining huge support. Since the day it was launched, EEA has more tripled in size.
Ethereum Enterprise Alliance is undoubtedly a great body, but time will tell if it will flourish or flounder. Also, Ethereum’s blockchain has to overcome many roadblocks (technical and regulatory) to become fully functional for business transactions. Alliances like EEA will surely help smoothen Ethereum’s road to mainstream adoption.
Also learn about Stellar Payment Network.
Ontology Network is a relatively new public blockchain created in 2017 by a Chinese company called OnChain. The Ontology Network is designed to help companies with little or no knowledge of cryptocurrencies to integrate blockchain into their business. It allows users to customize public blockchains for different types of applications. The approach helps businesses to make the most out of blockchain technology.
For supporting decentralized applications, Onology platforms are seen as direct competition to Ethereum blockchain. The Ontology Network features two coins; the Ontology coin called ONT and the Ontology Gas token known as ONG. Ontology Gas token was released alongside the Ontology MainNet in 2018. The Ontology Gas token serves as a form of compensation for users that contributes to the platform.
Ontology platform is designed to allow companies to install blockchain technology without altering their internal systems. The goal of the founders is to simplify the process of integrating blockchain technologies. They also hope to make the use of blockchain possible for everyone.
Since it was the same parent company that founded both the Ontology Network and NEO blockchain, it was smart to connect the two. They leveraged the NEO community to help boost the popularity of the Ontology platform.
We cited earlier that there are two distinct coins available on the Ontology Network. However, the main coin is the Ontology Token (ONT); and it officially went on sale in March 2018. There is a belief in the blockchain space that ONT was invented for private needs.
Meanwhile, after Ontology's MainNet launch, a new type of coin was introduced to the network. It was the Ontology Gas token (ONG), unique to the Ontology blockchain. The purpose of creating the ONG coin was to use it as a reward for people that contributed to the platform. Users can earn transaction fees in the form of ONG. It encourages users to remain active within the Ontology network.
The ontology platform's major reason is gaining wide attention because it allows businesses to use private and public blockchains. Since it is not a single blockchain, the Ontology platform will enable users to control how they share data using blockchain. This makes ONT so attractive because it permits separate chains and also has multiple purposes.
Ontology network employs a unique consensus mechanism known as VBFT. The VBFT consensus mechanism combines three different consensus models. These models include the Proof-of-Stake consensus (PoS), the Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT), and the Verifiable Random Function (VRF). The developers of the Ontology Network claim that it will able to execute thousands of transactions per second. Their reason is that the VBFT consensus mechanism allows cheaper and faster transactions.
Read about Filecoin Netowork
There are lots of use cases of the Ontology platform. So it can be applied in the automotive industry, serve as a data marketplace, digital finance, and data attestation. It can also be used to support decentralized exchanges. ONT ID serves as a decentralized identity framework that helps users manage their own data. It also permits blockchain-based authentification offered by global verifies. ONT ID is the key product of ONTology and has great potential for an individual’s identity management. There is also an ONTO wallet that helps to manage users' digital identities, data, and assets.
Let us consider some of the top decentralized exchanges built on the Ontology Network.
The rise in decentralized finance (DeFi) projects has taken up most of the transaction capacity of the Ethereum network. This has led to much traffic and costly gas fees on the Ethereum blockchain; thus making it hard for users to transact on it. The congestion has had a negative impact on the broader DeFi space and hindering its adoption. Some DeFi platforms have tapped on to the Ontology network to get around this concern. Below are some of the decentralized platforms built on the Ontology network:
Chocoswap is one of the top cross-chain decentralized exchange that is supported by the Ontology platform. It is the first cross-chain decentralized exchange that is built on Ontology. The team recently announced a strategic cooperation with ONTO, Ontology's self-sovereign wallet. Through this strategic partnership, users can gain access to Chocoswap through their mobile devices. The partnership also allows both companies to offer comprehensive asset management to their customers. Also, users of both Chocoswap and Ontology now have access to cross-chain swap services. Such accessibility reduces the threshold of user participation.
Shawn You, the co-founder of Chocoswap, revealed that ONTO's large user base would serve as the foundation of Chocoswap's further development. Shawn also said that users should expect to enjoy safer and more user-friendly decentralized exchange services. Chocoswap indicated that it would share its profits with ecosystem members. They hope to sustain such a feat by not only buying back Choco from the secondary market. Chocoswap will also share dividends with all Choco holders.
Chocoswap runs on the Ontology Network to provide better-decentralized exchange services to users. Users enjoy lower fees, better user experience, and cross-chain asset management. One of the key features of the Chocoswap partnership with the Ontology platform is the fact that ONTO will help aggregate the decentralized finance mining feature of Chocoswap.
Oin Finance is another one of the thriving decentralized exchanges supported on the Ontology Network. It is the perfect gateway to having a greater decentralized finance ecosystem. Oin Finance is specifically a DeFi company that develops a liquidity lending platform. It is built on the Ontology blockchain with cross-chain functionality.
Oin Finance aims to become the first DeFi platform to offer liquidity mining and loans on the Ontology platform. The ecosystem of OIN Finance functions through its native applications like OINSwap, OINLend, OINWallet, and USDO stable coin. Once OIN Finance deploys its bridge technology, the applications can start working cross-chain. Like other Defi platforms, OIN Finance also offers yield farming opportunities through its services like OINLend. With Finland, users can borrow assets to earn from interest fees or to leverage their funds.
The Ontology network has a variety of use cases and can be applied in different sectors and fields. Decentralized exchanges have been gaining momentum as they provide efficient services to users. Leveraging the Ontology platform to provide quality service to users further is a great move. There is no doubt about the future applications of Ontology; it is currently making waves already.
Also read Flash Ecosystem: An In-depth Explanation
Ethereum is looking to build a network to carry out calculations beyond the blockchain, hence developing Ethereum plasma technology. The reason to carry out the calculations beyond the blockchain is to ensure the chain scales billions of calculations in a second. Another goal is to achieve this with the least possible amount of chain updates.
With Ethereum Plasma technology, nodes are not required to confirm all data as the next smart contract concludes. According to the Ethereum blockchain developers, the use of their Plasma technology allows transactions between trusted nodes. You can use the Plasma technology without referring to the main block, and you can execute it in a variety of projects. Cryptocurrency exchanges, blockchain systems, and decentralized social networks can use Plasma technology to improve pace and protection parameters.
Ethereum plasma technology is a second-layer scaling solution for growth. It is likely to become the second fully deployed scaling solution on the Ethereum mainnet, only behind state channels. Plasma is a framework that gives developers the opportunity to create child blockchains that use the Ethereum mainnet as a layer of trust. The Plasma technology enables child chains to be designed to meet specific use cases; especially those not currently feasible on the Ethereum blockchain. All decentralized applications that require users to pay huge transaction fees are best suited for Ethereum Plasma.
The Ethereum Plasma is made up of the following elements:
Ethereum plasma aims to establish a framework of secondary chains that will rarely communicate and interact with the main chain. The main chain is the Ethereum blockchain system. This Ethereum plasma framework is built to function as a blockchain tree. The blockchain tree is arranged hierarchically to ensure smaller chains are created on top of the main one.
These smaller chains are also called Plasma chains or child chains. It is vital that note that Plasma chains are similar to sidechains, but they are not the same thing. The plasma structure is built using smart contracts and Merkel trees, thus enabling the creation of an unlimited number of child chains. These child chains are smaller copies of the parent Ethereum blockchain. More chains can be created on top of each child chain, giving rise to a tree-like structure.
Generally, every child chain is a customizable smart contract designed to work singularly, serving different needs. The implication is that the chains can coexist and still be operating independently. In the end, Plasma will enable companies and businesses to implement scalable solutions in various ways.
Therefore, the successful development and deployment of Ethereum Plasma technology will ensure the main chain will be less likely to get congested. Each child chain is designed to work in a distinct way to achieve a specific goal. These goals are not necessarily related to the goals of the main chain. In essence, child chains would reduce the overall work of the main chain.
How Stellar Architecture works? Read here
The Ethereum Plasma constitutes blockchains in a tree-like structure, and each is managed as a separate blockchain. An enforced blockchain background and MapReducible calculations are embedded in Merkel proofs. By reframing a block into a child blockchain supported by the parent chain, users can achieve a broad scale application. The implication is that there will be reduced trust in the root blockchain presence and accuracy.
All blockchain calculations are framed into a community of MapReduce structures. They also include an additional way to execute Proof-of-Stake token linkage ahead of preexisting blockchains. However, it comes with the conception that Nakamoto Consensus Drivers discipline with block any restraint. This is guaranteed by implementing a smart contract on the root blockchain using the Proof-of-Fraud method.
In the Ethereum Plasma architecture, the decision to ensure correctness typically depends on all participants testing the chain. Participants must thoroughly check each block to ensure accuracy before they can be considered. A temporary obligation is used to create a reliable bond so that the claimed data is subject to a controversial period. Within this period, participants are allowed to ensure the data conforms with the state.
Plasma technology also provides a framework that allows participants to enforce consequences. However, it can only happen if an incorrect state is claimed. The proof model enables interested participants to claim ground truths to non-interested participants on the parent blockchain. This architecture is used for both payments and commutation; thus, making blockchain the decision-maker for contracts.
Fraud proofs secure all communications between the child chains and the main chain. Therefore, the root chain is responsible for maintaining the security of the network and punishing malicious actors. Each child chain has a specific mechanism for validating blocks. Fraud proof ensures that users can report dishonest nodes in case of any malicious activity. Users can also protect their funds and exit the transaction whenever there is malicious activity. The fraud proofs are mechanisms that allow a plasma child chain to file a complaint to its parent chain to the root chain.
Plasma employs the Ethereum blockchain as an arbitration layer, and users can still return to the root chain as a trusted source. The Ethereum main chain is linked to child chains through root contracts. These root contracts are smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.
The Ethereum Plasma has all it takes to enhance the scalability of blockchain systems. At the moment, the Plasma protocol is still under test. However, experts who were part of the test noted a high throughput of up to 5,000 transactions per second. The implication is that increase in the number of projects on the Ethereum platform will not be correlated with network transaction delays.
Also learn about Optimistic Rollups in our article.
So you probably already know about IPFS(Interplanetary File system) and how awesome it is. But, if not, it’s a peer-to-peer distributed file system used to store and access files, websites, applications, etc. The unique thing about it is that your data is not just stored on servers but stored in various computers around the world in various chunks. IPFS seems to be a very interesting concept to learn about, but, a bit scary to actually start using. Despite that, using IPFS is very simple. Anyone who even has slight know-how of the command line can use it.
So here we will be implementing IPFS first in the command line and then using the JavaScript package ipfs-core.
For this tutorial, we will be implementing IPFS using Ubuntu.
To implement IPFS on the command line you need go-ipfs. You can either download go-ipfs Or you can just execute the following command in your terminal.
$ wget https://dist.ipfs.io/go-ipfs/v0.7.0/go-ipfs_v0.7.0_linux-amd64.tar.gz
At the time of writing this, the latest version is 0.7.0. If there is a newer version you can download that instead.
After downloading go-ipfs you will have a .gz file, you will need to extract the file. You can do that easily by opening the terminal in the directory where the .gz file is located and execute it using the following command.
$ tar -xvzf go-ipfs_v0.7.0_linux-amd64.tar.gz
This will extract the go-ipfs folder. Now to install IPFS first traverse into the folder.
$ cd go-ipfs
Inside you will find an install.sh file, you just need to execute it using sudo bash.
$ sudo bash install.sh
With this, you have installed IPFS successfully. You verify this through the following command.
$ ipfs --version
> ipfs version 0.7.0
After this, you need to do one last thing before you can start using IPFS properly and that is initializing your ipfs repository. IPFS stores all its configuration and internal files in this directory and if you are using it for the first time you will need to initialize that first.
You can do that simply, by using
$ ipfs init
With this, your repository has been initialized and the Merkle-DAG hash of your repository has also been generated. In case you are wondering what a Merkle-DAG is, it stands for Merkle Direct Acyclic Graph. DAG is a graph consisting of various nodes connected to each other with direction and Merkle-DAG is the root hash of all the nodes. Since IPFS breaks our files into different chunks, it uses DAG as a manner of storing the file in a secured way such that retrieving it would be easily possible.
You can use this generated hash to view the contents of the ipfs readme file and quickstart file present in the directory. You can read them using the "ipfs cat" command.
$ ipfs cat /ipfs/<your directory hash>/readme
$ ipfs cat /ipfs/<your directory hash>/quick-start
You have now successfully installed and set up ipfs in your command line. Now you are ready to store and retrieve files from the IPFS network.
Now let's begin using IPFS by creating a Hello_World.txt file, adding it to the network, and reading its content. You can upload files to IPFS by using the "ipfs add" command. Execute the following lines.
$ echo “Hello World” >Hello.txt
$ ipfs add Hello.txt
You have now successfully uploaded your Hello.txt file to the IPFS network and have been given a unique Merkle-DAG of your file which you can use to access data and give it to your friends so they too can get your file.
You can read your file using the "ipfs cat" command
$ ipfs cat <your Merkle DAG>
This outputs the content of the file which in this case is “Hello World”. Similarly, go to a different directory and execute
$ ipfs get <your Merkle DAG>
The "ipfs get" command can retrieve any file from the IPFS, given it is available. You now have the Hello_World file having its name as the MerkDAG of the file.
Now let’s try something, here is the hash to my desktop wallpaper QmYA2fn8cMbVWo4v95RwcwJVyQsNtnEwHerfWR8UNtEwoE
Try retrieving it using "ipfs get", you would probably be getting the following message.
So far what we have been doing is just creating our files and notifying our ipfs client where to find our file. For us, that is simple since the file in question is located on our local storage, hence, fetching that is easy. However, for other users that won’t be possible since we haven't connected our client to the IPFS network and notified everyone where our files are located. The same applies to us, the reason we can't find this file is that we are not connected to the ipfs network and our ipfs can only search our local storage where the file is not available. To connect to the ipfs network we need to start a daemon process which we can do with the following command.
$ ipfs daemon
You will see the following messages.
Once its daemon is ready let's try fetching the file which I was trying to share.
$ ipfs get QmYA2fn8cMbVWo4v95RwcwJVyQsNtnEwHerfWR8UNtEwoE
This may take some time depending upon your geographical distance from the hosted file, but eventually, you will be able to get the file. As mentioned above it is my desktop's wallpaper so feel free to use it as you wish.
That concludes our tutorial on the basic usage of IPFS for adding and fetching files using the command line. You can simply enter "ipfs" on the command line to view all its commands with descriptions. Now let’s try to do the same with the IPFS JS package ‘ipfs-core’.
If you are a developer you will most probably prefer doing all the above tasks through your javascript code rather than the command line. So for that, we have npm package called "ipfs-core". You can install that using the following command.
$ npm install ipfs-core
This package requires a node version of 12.0.0 or higher. If you attempt to use it with an older version you will be able to install it but while using it, errors may occur.
Let’s start by connecting to the ipfs network. First, create an ipfs instance for us to interact with and get its version.
const IPFS = require('ipfs-core')
const ipfs = await IPFS.create()
const version = await ipfs.version()
console.log(version)
Now with this ipfs instance, we can execute all the command line(add, cat, view) functionalities. Let's start with adding an ipfs Hello World file.
const IPFS = require('ipfs-core')
async function main(){
const ipfs = await IPFS.create()
const fileAdded = await ipfs.add({
path: './Hello_World.txt',
content: 'Hello'
})
console.log('Added file:', fileAdded.path)
}
This will simply create a file named Hello_World.txt with Hello in its content.
However, this way we can only insert text files to the IPFS, what if you want to upload an image or a video? For that, we need some help from the js package ‘fs’.
const IPFS = require('ipfs-core')
const fs = require('fs')
async function main(){
const ipfs = await IPFS.create()
fs.readFile('<Your File Path>', async function(err, data) {
console.log(data)
const fileAdded = await ipfs.add({
path: '<path of the file you want on the IPFS>',
content: data
})
console.log('Added file:', fileAdded.path)
});
}
You can always view the files you are uploading using their Merkle-DAG in the "ipfs get" command or you can also view by visiting the ipfs.io.
You can also do that by using ‘ipfs-core’. The following code gets the content from our uploaded file.
const IPFS = require('ipfs-core')
async function main(){
const ipfs = await IPFS.create()
const chunks = []
for await (const chunk of ipfs.cat('QmVZdicceMroeHLYiVvCc2CkPzrR5uoHF4Ks9uFhSyhX8z/Hello_World.txt')) {
chunks.push(chunk)
}
console.log('file contents:', chunks.join())
}
And that concludes our tutorial for implementing IPFS using the JS library.
And so with that, we have covered how to add, view, and retrieve files using IPFS. As a basic user, this is all that you need but there are deeper concepts in IPFS worth exploring such as Pinning, IPNS, and IPFS Buckets. We shall explore these concepts in detail in the future where I will make part 2 explaining how to make IPFS buckets.
Also Read How To Deploy The Subgraph.
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Ethereum blockchain has been working on an upgrade of its Ethereum network to Ethereum 2.0. In this article, we will provide you with comprehensive information about the significance of this upgrade by Ethereum. The Ethereum upgrade will soon be released to the public, but what are the advantages of this new mainnet? How does Ethereum 2.0 work, and how will it inspire the blockchain revolution.
There have been raging debates within the technology circles on which cryptocurrency and blockchain pair will dominate the rest and rule the market. Since the onset of the cryptocurrency wave, Bitcoin has remained the clear consensus choice. BTC has remained on top of the market capitalization chart for day one. Meanwhile, most experts have said they don’t expect Bitcoin to maintain that position forever. Although several blockchain implementations have tried to solve some of the inherent problems associated with Bitcoin’s blockchain, none have been able to successfully capture a significant part of the market.
Ethereum has been the lone and large-scale competitor to the Bitcoin blockchain. To establish its dominance, Ethereum will have to overcome some issues too. The founders of Ethereum hope to achieve this through this upcoming Ethereum blockchain upgrade. You will learn about all these and more as we go through this article together. Therefore, let’s ride along as it promises to be engaging and undoubtedly informative.
Although the Ethereum blockchain processes about three times as many transactions as Bitcoin, it is still not enough. Therefore, in the bid to meet the increasing user demand for the cryptocurrency and mitigate network congestion, the team initiated a software upgrade. This software upgrade is Ethereum 2.0 (Eth2). According to Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum; Ethereum 2.0 will boost the speed of the Ethereum network
The long-planned upgrade to the Ethereum network will give it the scalability and security required to serve the booming market. Phase 0 of Eth2 is scheduled to launch before the end of 2020. The upgrade will have an enormous impact on how Ethereum works, and the prospects are promising. This new Eth2 upgrade will only impact the Ethereum infrastructure. If you are an ETH holder, a dapp user, or a developer, you have nothing to worry about. The new upgrade will remain compatible with the main Ethereum network that you already use today.
Vitalik Buterin disclosed that the roadmap of Ethereum 2.0 provides scalability. However, base-layer scalability applications will come as the last major phase of Eth2 that is still a couple of years away. Vitalik further went ahead to disclose that the usability of Eth2 as a data availability layer or roll ups is available in phase 1. However, that will be long before Eth2 becomes usable or “traditional” layer-1-applications.
There will be many changes that will come with the Eth2 upgrade, but we will highlight the major ones.
Early blockchain implementations like Bitcoin and Ethereum suffered performance issues because they mostly relied on the processing-power intensive process called proof-of-work to record and validate transactions. In the proof-of-work system, participating computer nodes compete to generate cryptographic hashes that satisfy the network’s determined level of complexity. For security to be maintained, the complexity level is kept high enough to deter anyone from attacking the network. It will be too costly to operate the required hardware for such an attack.
The major problem with the proof-of-work concept is that it is grossly inefficient.
Proof of work requires that all miners attempt to solve its complex mathematical problems. The winner is often always the person with the most powerful hardware, hence the high energy consumption. On the contrary, proof of stake consensus protocol randomly chooses the winner based on the amount they have staked.
The inefficiency of proof of work lies majorly in its energy consumption. The Bitcoin network uses about 0.14% of global energy consumption and consumes more power than several developing countries. With such power consumption, the proof of work protocol can only verify ten transactions per second while new blocks can be added to the blockchain every 10 minutes.
To solve this problem, Ethereum 2.0 will transition its blockchain to a more efficient proof-of-stake system. In the proof-of-stake system, the algorithm selects the node that records each transaction. The chances of selection increases with the amount of the currency the node’s owner holds.
This approach dramatically decreases the complexity of the cryptographic work, hence leading to enormous throughput for the entire network. Each node stakes its currency before it can participate, hence making it expensive for anyone to attack the Eth2 network.
To improve Ethereum’s efficiency and scalability, Eth2 will introduce a processing technique called sharding. The current version of the Ethereum blockchain ensures that all data added to the chain undergoes verification by all participating nodes. Therefore, this means that the processing speed of the whole system is dependent on the speed of its slowest participant. This creates a hitch that increases transaction costs and also decreases throughput.
Ethereum 2.0 uses sharding to increase efficiency. Firstly, let's get to understand sharing.
Sharding is the process of breaking up large amounts of data into smaller chunks. These chunks are "shards". These shards are spread across multiple servers and they serve a portion of the overall workload of the total data set.
In this case, applying sharding helps to break data verification among sets of nodes, and each node is only responsible for the verification of the data received. This way, the whole blockchain uses parallel processing which in turn increases the overall capacity of the network. With the combination of sharding and proof-of-stake, the Eth2 upgrade will make the Ethereum blockchain more efficient and faster than its predecessor.
The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is one of the many features that made Ethereum a worthy challenger of Bitcoin. Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is an execution environment that runs on all network nodes that facilitates the use of smart contracts. It is these smart contracts that made the Ethereum blockchain a globally renowned computational device, and not just a mere financial system. The smart contracts on EVM have the ability to run games, execute complex financial transactions, or operate social networks.
Although the usage of EVM is on a large scale, to people with programming skills it is still a mystery. Therefore, in a bid to address this, Ethereum 2.0 will launch the use of web assembly language. This web assembly language will be in a system they are calling eWASM. eWASM will make it possible to execute the Ethereum app code in today’s web browsers. This is a massive improvement over the initial EVM. It will also enable programmers to choose from different languages like Rust, C, and C++ to write code to run on the blockchain. This will increase the number of potential programmers for the ecosystem because it opens the door to users who don’t need to learn a native Ethereum-only language.
This is undoubtedly a new dawn for Ethereum, although the process won’t be a quick one. The Eth2 upgrade is expected to be put in place via three stages and would take place within a space of at least three years. These stages are outlined below:
The Beacon chain is launched and it will run a simplified proof-of-stake blockchain in parallel with the existing system. This will help to facilitate the transition between the two types of validation concepts.
Sharding is introduced at the second stage and it will initiate the first divisions of processing, thereby enabling parallel transaction validation.
The replacement of EVM with eWASM.
At each of these stages, the developers perform a thorough test to ensure the system is both secure and stable. It will give users the needed time to adjust to the sacrifices of the new blockchain implementation. If these three stages go over without any hitch, the new Ethereum 2.0 should emerge in a great position to lead the cryptocurrency market. It will be a trusted system with little or no scalability issues with better features.
The Ethereum 2.0 upgrade promises to be the solution to most of the challenges we face in the Crypto space especially scalability, cost, among others. At the moment, it is safe to say that the upgrade is another interesting development in the rapidly evolving blockchain space. With time, we will see where it leads and the level of impact. The broader blockchain ecosystem.
Also, Read Compound DeFi Protocol Explained.
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Justin Sun founded TRON back in 2017. It is is a Blockchain platform that aims to become a worldwide free content entertainment ecosystem, with a decentralized infrastructure for the internet. Its main focus is to expand the market of decentralized digital entertainment applications with easier creation and deployment methods. TRON protocol has become one of the largest Blockchain-based ecosystem in the world with high scalability, high throughput computing and high availability for all the dApps built in the TRON ecosystem. With TRON, digital content and application developers will not need a middleman like Netflix or Google Play Store for them to get their products out in the market. It gives more autonomy to the user by letting him publish and store his data, and own it as well. The platform takes care of the distribution and subscription of the content and forms a decentralized content entertainment system by letting the users release and share cost-effective digital content. Other than just being a decentralized content sharing platform, TRON enables developers to create a broad range of dApps and customized wallets on the TRON Blockchain. To sum up, the opportunities and possibilities of building utility applications are unlimited in TRON!
When a digital content creator creates and deploys content on the Tron Blockchain, he receives all the payments for every view, like, share, upvote or clap directly, without the interference of a middleman or a company that deducts its profit share.
The users who want to access the content, pay for the content with the native cryptocurrency of TRON i.e Tronix (TRX), which go the producers' accounts without any interventions.
The native cryptocurrency of TRON is Tronix (TRX). Tronix is available on exchanges like Binance and Bittrex. Every time when a block is verified by the Super Regulator in TRON Blockchain, a Tronix is mined. Or you can simply purchase them by exchanging them with other cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH. Its isn't possible to purchase Tronix with fiat currency, debit or credit card. You must buy Bitcoin or Ethereum with cash/ on an exchange such as Coinbase and can easily exchange them with TRON. There are a number of Tronix wallets out there that you can use to store your Tronix. Ledger Nano X&S, Trust, Cobo, Wallet.io, Exodus and Tronscan just to name a few. These wallets are divided into categories of Hardware, Android & iOS, desktop and Web, you can choose any according to your needs. In addition, TRX will cost a minimum of $40 until the end of 2020, as expected by Wall Street experts. To get a better idea of Tronix, visit TRON official.
Much like Ethereum Virtual Machine, TRON has its own TRON Virtual Machine, made for the TRON ecosystem. It provides a convenient, scalable and stable custom-built blockchain system to developers worldwide. TVM supports DPoS and it can get connected to any current development ecosystem. TVM is also compatible with the EVM environment, which helps developers skip the learning a new language part and jump directly to development, debugging and compiling smart contracts using Solidity or other languages as well. All of the smart contracts made on Ethereum Virtual Machine are executable on TVM. Bandwidth is a concept in TVM, works like Gas in EVM. Bandwidth can be earned by staking TRX. It is used for normal TRX transaction and TRC10 transactions. Simply put, energy is used to interact with smart contracts. You can earn it by staking TRX. TVM comes with a lightweight architecture that reduces the consumption of resources, hence gives better system performance. Not just this, it also comes with all-in-one interfaces to help deploy and view/check smart contracts, making the process easier for the developers.
These are the interfaces available in TRON Wallet-CLI:
TRC-10 is a token standard that has TRON native Blockchain support. TRC-10 tokens are available on the mainnet of TRON since its transfer from Ethereum to its own Blockchain platform. You don't have to have programming knowledge or TVM to create TRC10. These simple steps below can guide you on how to create TRC -10 token:
The ease in the issuing of TRC10 tokens lessens the development cost in the end. However, TRC10 tokens are still used thoroughly in real-world projects like BitTorrent Token (BTT), a popular decentralized file-sharing application that has over 100 million users.
Unlike TRC10, TRC20 is a technical standard meant for smart contracts that help implement tokens with the TRON Virtual Machine. TRC20 tokens are compatible with Ethereum's ERC-20 token standard. This makes the TRC20 tokens usable in Ethereum based smart contracts. This allows developers to send their Ethereum- based smart contracts to TRON. As TRC20 has some complexities, TRC10 are widespread in terms of usage. However, TRC20 tends to give better functionality to TRON-based tokens.
It is important that you have experience with Solidity programming language to write smart contracts on the TRON Blockchain. The TRON Virtual Machine is compatible with EVM environments. Hence, as a developer, you can easily create, debug and run smart contracts in a mixed environment with the smart contract programming language, Solidity.
It is essential to have experience with Javascript for interfacing with Blockchain with this tool. As a developer, you can build decentralized applications using Tron Web, such as Chrome Extensions and websites.
In addition to all the above requirements, it is necessary to have the command-line experience to interact with and to run the apps.
TRON Web connects developers with the TRON Blockchain, in the simplest words. It makes sure to give you a seamless development experience, very similar to Ethereum's Web3 implementation. TRON offers a unique feature set with cool new development tools for integrating decentralised apps in the browser, Node.js and IoT devices. TRON Web also requires a Solidity Hub as well as a Full Hub that runs on the HTTP API. You can also utilize TRON Web to exchange, buy, freeze and unfreeze different tokens, most importantly, Tronix.
As a developer, you can write, deploy and debug Solidity smart contracts with TRON-Box, a development framework based on the TRON Virtual Machine. Much like Truffle in Ethereum, TRON Box is also a development and testing framework for the TRON Blockchain using TRON Virtual Machine.
TRON Grid enables the developers to access essential tools to build decentralized applications on the TRON Blockchain. It uses SpringBoot to issue query interface. TRON Grid takes up Java-TRON and writes the events into MongoDB and the user is able to poll smart contract's details. It enables developers to fabricate and deploy their dApps and smart contracts. TRON Grid provides a load-balanced and hosted API for developers, to run hub in the cloud and so you won't have to worry about running one yourself while working with Tron. It also offers a test network, namely 'Shasta'.
TRON Studio is an IDE with an integrated TVM. It allows developers to choose which environment they might want to use for deploying their smart contracts. TRON Studio comes with an inner Full Hub that can make a private local environment for the developer to test their previously deployed smart contracts. In addition, it provides the developers with a user-friendly environment that lets the developers connect with their smart contracts made with Solidity.
After this overview, we will further dive into how TRON functions, tutorials and technical articles that will be helpful to Blockchain developers.
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