Myria nodes are primarily used for gaming based layers, often referred to as Layer 2, which is essentially a scaling solution designed for games. The main function of these nodes is to promote the concept of zero gas fees.
Becoming a node owner enables you to directly generate Myria. Additionally, as a node holder, you will also receive daily Myria rewards, voting rights, and NFTs. The more nodes that are online, the more the rewards slightly drop.
Myria Node Tutorial
https://youtube.com/live/_jJFrtaUAbk
Acquire Myria tokens which can be converted to U.S. dollars or USDT. Tokens can be purchased and sold on both centralized and decentralized exchanges, such as Bybit or Uniswap.
Calculate the expected return and the break-even point. A rough calculation can be obtained by multiplying daily rewards by 28 (days of a month). The quantity may decrease as more nodes join. This data provides a general estimate, and the price of Myria could change over time.
Running a node is a technical task that will require some learning. Two strategies include running it on an old PC or with DigitalOcean.
Connect your wallet to the Myriad node. Once connected and signed in, transfer your Myria tokens, taking note of the specific value and associated transaction fee.
Myriad is a gaming-specific blockchain, often referred to as Layer 2. Myriad Node acts like a highway, allowing faster transactions and reduced costs by limiting the amount of information it reports back to Ethereum.
Proceed with the purchase of the Myriad Node using the Myriad tokens deposited.
Download the Myriad node client suitable for your operating system (Windows/Mac/Linux). Run the install process until it’s completed.
Enter your Myriad Node API Key into the installed Myriad Node client. You can locate your Node API Key within your Myriad account.
Key Updates for Myria
Metarush reached a new milestone with the first-ever closed demo in February 20231.
The Myria lore received new chapters in March 20231.
The Myria Whitepaper was released in March, providing detailed information about the ecosystem, tokenomics, and various features1.
The MYRIA token went live in early April, launching first on the OKX exchange and then on KuCoin, Gate, MEXC, Bitmart, and Uniswap1.
The founders, Andrew and Brendan, discussed the biggest crypto highlights of 2023
Phemex is a professional-grade Cryptocurrency exchange offering both Bitcoin spot and options trading. The exchange offers an innovative zero-fee trading model where fees are not charged per transaction. Phemex also offers Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Chainlink Perpetual futures. The exchange is built by ex-Morgan Stanley executives, aiming at providing institutional-grade trading tools and security. Derivatives trading allows traders to increase their exposure to certain assets and the ability to “short”.
Key Features of Phemex
Free trades on Spot Exchange (Premium account)
Institutional grade trading and security
Robust trading insurance
Free deposit fees
Ability to Leverage up to 100X margin
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Phemex Spot Exchange & Free trades
One of the key advantages of Phemex exchange is the ability to have free zero fee trades. This concept is groundbreaking for the cryptocurrency exchange industry because the previous model charged trading fees for both buying and selling crypto. These fees would add up over time, with many traders paying thousands of dollars to cryptocurrency exchanges. With Phemex, these traders can take advantage of the zero fee trading model and only pay a monthly premium of $9.99 USD per month. This is a huge game changer for cryptocurrency daytraders and technical analysts.
Phemex is also offering a US$6,050 sign up bonus, as well as 2 BTC and 10,000 USDT in trial funds! Sign up here.
I think that this is a trend and responsibility of exchange is to reduce fees for small capital users And, for the institutional clients, they willing to pay more fees, but to have a better service, like data-wise, analysis wise, right? So that’s two different groups. So we, and we announced our zero fee permission, they just to benefit our retail customers.
Jack Tao, CEO of Phemex
Bitcoin Perpetual Futures
The core trading product offered by Phemex is cryptocurrency derivatives trading such as Bitcoin Perpetual Futures. Derivatives are financial tools that derive value from the underlying product – in this case cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Phemexexchange trades contracts based on the underlying asset instead of the asset themselves – this allows higher leverage and more types of products. Phemexallows up to a 101X max leverage on derivative products. This means a 1% change in the price of Bitcoin could result in 100% change in the funding amount – potentially allowing traders to double or nothing on the exchange. This type of leverage is popularized by the BitMEX exchange which also allows 100X leverage.
Supported Countries
Phemex exchange does not offer its services to the following countries: US, UK, Canada, Cuba, Crimea, Sevastopol, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, Syria, North Korea, South Korea, Sudan, China, Hong Kong, Republic of Seychelles, and Bermuda.
Supported Cryptocurrencies
Phemex only 6 cryptocurrencies for the time being: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, ChainLink, Tezos, Litecoin. Though for contracts, Phemex also does offer a GOLD/USD trading pair.
Phemex Trading take profit orders and stop-losses
One of the key advantages of Phemex is use of stop-loss and take profit orders. These orders allow professional traders to fine-tune their trading strategies and set up opportunities to take profit or stop-loss. By default, Phemex has quick options to take profit at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% profit. These can be set when the initial position is established with a clear indication the mark price and estimated profit or loss. It’s important to remember that when take profit or stop losses are triggered, the position will be sold as a market order – meaning that the algorithm will automatically match a trade even if it’s not at the same price.
Phemex Fees
Trading Fees
The standard contract trading fees on Phemex is set at 0.01% for makers and 0.05% for takers. Whilst standard spot trading fees are 0.1% for makers and 0.1% for takers. Phemex offers trading fee discounts for VIP users i.e. those with high trading volume on their Exchange. Users can also enjoy trading fee discounts by staking Phemex’s native $PT token in return for $vePT, enough $vePT tokens.
There is no addition transaction fee for the exchange, so users can trade even small quantities without fear of having overwhelming fees. Taker fees are higher as the exchange promotes users to fill the order books and establish higher liquidity for the exchange.
Funding fee is feature that is extremely important to take into consideration on Phemex. Funding rate is paid directly to holders of either long or short positions depending if its “negative funding” or “positive funding” rate. On Phemex, the fee is charged every 8 hours and can be negative or positive – meaning it’s possible to gain or lose money every 8 hours. If funding rate is negative, shorts holders will pay longs a percentage of their position. In the example above, the funding rate is -0.0094%, so short holders will be charged 0.0094% of their entire position. This also means that long holders will gain interest on their position.
Click HERE to learn more about crypto funding rates and how to earn passive income from them.
Deposit/Wtihdrawal fees
Phemex does not charge a deposit fee, but there are minimum deposit requirements. As for withdrawals, there is also a minimum withdrawal limit and the fee charged depends on the cryptocurrency. For example, Phemex charges 0.0005 BTC for BTC withdrawals, and 1 USDT for USDT withdrawals.
Phemex has a utility token known as Phemex Token ($PT). $PT gives holders various benefits including staking yields, trading fee discounts, VIP privileges, cashback airdrops, DAO governance, as well as launchpad and launchpool access. Phemex Token cab be purchased on the Exchange, and it can be staked to obtain Vote Escrow PT ($vePT). $vePT grants exclusive voting rights in the PhemexDAO, staking yields and buy crypto airdrops privilege.
Payment methods
Phemex only accepts the following cryptocurrency deposits onto the Exchange: Bitcoin, Ethereum, ChainLink, Tether and Ripple. Due to the Exchange not having any KYC procedures in place, traditional payment methods such as credit or debit cards and PayPal are not accepted.
Sub-accounts feature
Phemex offers an easy method to create sub-accounts – each with their own individual account balances and permissions. This feature allows traders to isolate their different trading strategies from each other – as it is possible to set a limited balance to each sub-account. Balance can be transferred freely between the accounts via the sub-account system. Traders can create new accounts for each new strategy they want to test out. In addition, sub-accounts can be used for trading bots – so automated trading can be done within controlled limits.
Is Phemex Exchange Safe?
Phemex has never been the subject of a significant hack. They also have the following practices to keep user funds safe:
Cold wallets: Phemex assigns separate cold wallet deposit addresses to each user and keeps 100% of user funds in reserve. It also uses offline signature and Merkle-tree Proof-of-Reserves so users can see where their funds are in Phemex’s system.
Risk controls: Phemex uses a two-factor authentication mechanism, an anti-phishing code, and a double-entry bookkeeping system to protect user accounts from tampering and malicious actions.
Firewall and network management: Phemex deploys its system on the AWS Cloud and uses several firewalls to separate different zones and machines for different trading purposes. It also applies restrictions on system and instance accessibility.
Trading platform:Phemex uses C++ engines that are fast, reliable, and customized to provide high performance and seamless disaster recovery for 24×7 trading.
Phemex Team
The core of Phemex team is comprised of ex-Morgan Stanley executives and developers. CEO Jack Tao has worked at Morgan Stanley for 11 years with experience developing Equity trading algorithms in the US. This work is pivotal to Phemex’s long term growth strategy and mission to bring professional trading tools to the cryptocurrency space.
Conclusion: Phemex Exchange Pros and Cons
Pros
Developed by ex-Morgan Stanley Executives
Industry trend-setting Zero Fee Trading
Sub Accounts and easy to use APIs
Top tier exchange and wallet security
No KYC for small withdraws
Cons
Relatively new.
Regional restrictions without providing alternatives for users from those jurisdictions.
Phemex is currently looking for regulation via the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and SEBA for custody of customer assets. Similar to other derivatives exchanges such as BitMEX, PheMEX is currently not regulated.
Is Phemex allowed in the US?
Phemex does not offer services to the following countries: US, UK, Canada, Cuba, Crimea, Sevastopol, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, Syria, North Korea, South Korea, Sudan, China, Hong Kong, Republic of Seychelles, and Bermuda
Does Phemex have a token?
Phemex has a token known as Phemex Token or $PT. It is a utility token that provides benefits such as staking yields, fee discounts, and Phemex DAO governance.
What is the difference between PT and vePT
PT is Phemex Token, the native token of Phemex Exchange. Users stake PT in order to get vePT (vote escrow PT).
Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.
ZigZag Exchange will do a total of 7 airdrops totaling around 35 million $ZZ (35% of total supply). They recently finished their first airdrop round for market makers. This means that everyday users of the protocol are up next! The second airdrop criteria have been announced! So we compiled the latest guide to help you position for the $ZZ airdrop.
Here’s how users were eligible for the second round of ZigZag Exchange ($ZZ) token airdrops. There is speculation that the third round of airdrops may have similar eligibility:
ZigZag Exchange is a decentralized order book exchange powered by zkSync and Arbitrum. It provides users with a familiar trading experience similar to that of a centralized exchange (CEX), except they have full control of their funds. Users can trade directly from their wallets on ZigZag with low fees. This is possible because the platform’s market makers extract price feeds from centralized exchanges (CEXs) and relay them to the order books on ZigZag. As a result, the price quotas on ZigZag are the same as CEXs, allowing users to trade at competitive prices.
Who is the Team behind ZigZag Exchange?
An open community of coders, designers, mathematicians, cryptograph experts, high-frequency traders, researchers, market makers and other contributors, developed ZigZag Exchange. Their code is public on GitHub, and smart contracts are regularly audited by the community.
Does ZigZag Exchange have a Token?
ZigZag Exchange has its $ZZ token. $ZZ can be purchased on their own platform and Uniswap. The total supply of $ZZ tokens is 100 million, of which 60.7% will be allocated to the community. This community allocation is further divided into three categories: ecosystem (DAO, marketing, incentives, liquidity), community contributors, and airdrops.
The ZigZag token is a governance token and will also share the revenue from fees that are generated on the ZK-Rollups.
How to be Eligible for Round 2 $ZZ Airdrop?
Round 2 of the ZigZag $ZZ token airdrop has just been completed! It was a record breaking airdrop with over 100,000 users receiving an airdrop of 34% of the total $ZZ token supply. There were seven subcategories of users who were eligible for the $ZZ token airdrop:
Trader airdrop ✅ (open)
Market maker bots airdrop ❌ (closed)
IDO participant airdrop ❌ (closed)
Atlendis liquidity provider airdrop ✅ (open)
Discord member airdrop ✅ (open)
Gitcoin donator airdrop ✅ (open)
POAP holder ✅ (open)
The following categories were eligible for airdrops in season 2: Traders, Atlendis liquidity providers, Discord members, Gitcoin donors, and POAP holders. Follow these steps to be eligible for the upcoming $ZZ airdrop:
Trade on ZigZag Exchange for Trader Airdrops
Although ZigZag stated that trades between 5th November 2021 and 31st December 2022 are the base criteria, there is no list with eligible addresses yet. So it is worth a shot to make frequent trades now on the platform if you haven’t yet. Go to trade.zigzag.exchange and connect your MetaMask or Argent Wallet. If you don’t have funds, you can use their bridge to transfer assets.
A total of 92,000 addresses qualified for this airdrop. There are 3 categories of those who will receive trader airdrops based on a snapshot taken on 31st December 2022: Base Criteria, November 2021 traders, and December 2021 traders. Those who (1) had 1-month activity (first and last swap 30 or more days apart); and (2) 4 unique days with swaps qualify for Base Criteria and would receive 300 $ZZ. Those who reached Base Criteria and made their first swap before December 2021 qualify as a November 2021 trader and will get a 300 $ZZ early adoptor bonus. Users that reached Base Criteria and made their first swap before 1 January 2022 qualify as a December 2021 trader and will receive a 100 $ZZ bonus. In short, the eligibility criteria for ZigZag Exchange Trader Airdrop are:
300 $ZZ for only reaching Base Criteria.
400 $ZZ total for December 2021 trader.
600 $ZZ total for November 2021 trader.
Obtain Discord Roles for Discord member airdrop
ZigZag will airdrop $ZZ to three Discord roles: (1) Member, (2) Senior Member, and (3) OG. As they are still working out the details, there is still time to get to “Member” at least. You will need to actively engage with the community, help other users, give feedback to the team, find bugs on GitHub, create content or write Twitter/Medium posts.
253 addresses qualified for the Discord member airdrop. The amount of $ZZ airdrops depends on your Discord member role. 1,000 $ZZ to Og, 750 $ZZ to Senior, 500 $ZZ to Member.
Donate on Gitcoin for Gitcoin Donor Airdrop
Go to their Gitcoin and donate to their grant’s address 0x9B67d3067fA606BE28E56C1aB184725c07b7B221 on zkSync, Polygon, and Ethereum.
7,600 addresses qualified for ZigZag’s Gitcoin Donor airdrop. Gitcoin donors will receive 2 $ZZ for every USD donated (minimum US$3 donation).
Atlendis liquidity provider airdrop
2,100 addresses qualified for the Atlendis liquidity provider airdrop. Atlendis liquidity provider will receive 500 $ZZ per depositor (minimum US$5).
POAP holder airdrop
In February 2022 ZigZag launched a Lantern Festival Trivia event for its Chinese users. POAP holders will receive 300 $ZZ per POAP.
How do I claim my ZigZag Exchange ($ZZ) airdrop?
The airdrops have been distributed. $ZZ tokens will automatically be airdropped on zkSync Lite. You can check how many $ZZ tokens were airdropped to you by viewing your zkSync wallet at https://zkscan.io/. Check frequently as the tokens were airdropped by the team over multiple rounds. (Tramadol online)
ZigZag Exchange will definitely do a third round of airdrops. This is because they have confirmed in their Documentation they will do a total of 7 airdrops. Whilst ZigZag has not announced details of when they will do their third $ZZ airdrop yet, we it will be after the second round of airdrops in March 2023.
ZigZag has just announced their Zap bridge supports zkSync Era. Go onto ZigZag Bridge, bridge assets to and from zkSync Era to position yourself for a potential ZigZag (and zkSync) airdrop!
When reviewing an airdrop, there are several factors to consider. First, the likelihood the project will even do an airdrop in the first place. Then, to look at how many tokens the project intends to allocate towards airdrop campaigns, as well as the difficulty in participating in their airdrop. It is also important to look at the utility of the token so that there will be an actual use and purpose in participating in the airdrop in the first place. Finally, a factor to consider when reviewing an airdrop is whether the airdropped tokens are subject to any lockup period.
Likelihood of Airdrop: ZigZag Exchange confirmed they will do a total of 7 airdrops.
Airdropped Token Allocation: Around 35 million $ZZ will be distributed over 7 airdrops (35% of its total token supply)
Airdrop Difficulty: For the second round of airdrops, there were 7 eligibility criteria. For example, trading on their platform, donating on their Gitcoin or obtaining a Discord “Member” role. This makes the ZigZag airdrop relatively easy.
Token Utility: $ZZ is a governance token built on the ERC-20 standard that enables token holders to participate in the decision-making process for ZigZag Exchange’s multi-chain ecosystem. The ZigZag token will also share the revenue from fees that are generated on the ZK-Rollups.
Token Lockup: $ZZ tokens will be directly distributed in the airdrops without any vesting.
Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.
Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade is scheduled for April 12th and includes key economical changes to Ethereum and fee optimizations that will improve the network. This upgrade is part of Ethereum’s upgrade plan into Ethereum 2.0 – a faster, cheaper and more stable public blockchain. The main purpose of the Shanghai Upgrade is financial – it will allow stakers and validators to withdraw staked ETH from the Beacon Chain, which has been locked since December 2020. Some users have feared that this change will unlock $26 billion USD worth of Ethereum, potentially causing Ethereum’s prices to fall.
Staked Ethereum is Unlocking
The key feature of the Shanghai Upgrade is Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4895, which will enable validators to withdraw staked ETH. Validators have staked approximately 16 million ETH to secure the network. Validators can participate in validating blocks by staking 32 ETH in the chain, and each staked ETH increases the likelihood of a validator receiving block rewards.
Validators have been staking ETH and earning rewards for validating blocks since the launch of Ethereum’s Beacon Chain in December 2020. However, the rewards earned by validators have been locked since the transition to PoS consensus in September 2022. With the Shanghai Upgrade, validators will finally be able to withdraw their rewards.
The withdrawal of staked ETH has been successfully simulated on the Zhejiang testnet. The Zhejiang testnet is the first of three testnets that will run the simulation. The Sepolia and Goerli testnets will follow, running the simulation in the coming weeks.
Key Improvements (EIP) in the Shanghai Upgrade:
EIP-3651: Warm COINBASE – This EIP aims to lower the gas cost of accessing the COINBASE address, which is a software component that allows developers to receive new tokens.
EIP-3855: PUSH0 instruction – This EIP aims to lower the gas cost of deploying contracts by introducing a new PUSH0 instruction.
EIP-3860: Limit and meter initcode – This EIP introduces a gas cost limit and meter for contract initialization code, which should help to reduce gas costs for developers.
EIP-4895: Beacon Chain push withdrawals as operations – This EIP is one of the key features of the Shanghai upgrade, as it allows validators to withdraw staked ETH from the Beacon Chain.
EIP-6049: Deprecate SELFDESTRUCT – This EIP aims to reduce the risk of contract failure by deprecating the SELFDESTRUCT instruction, which can lead to the loss of funds if used improperly.
These EIPs will reduce gas costs related to Maximal Extractable Value payments when accessing the COINBASE address, lower gas costs for developers, cap developer gas costs in certain cases, and address a similar concern.
The Shanghai Upgrade does not include EIP-4844, which facilitates the “sharding” of the Ethereum blockchain into multiple chains to enhance scalability. Sharding is a scalability solution that divides the whole network of a blockchain into multiple smaller networks called shards.
Validators will have two options for withdrawing their staked ETH. The first option is to create a “withdrawal credential” to unstake their staking rewards accumulated over the past years. The second option is to exit the Beacon Chain completely by unstaking all of their 32 ETH, which is the maximum allowed per validator.
The Shanghai Upgrade is expected to have a significant impact on the market. Approximately 16 million staked ETH will be available for withdrawal, and traders are paying attention to how the market may move. Some traders believe that the upgrade will trigger a selling wave, with many taking profit once staked ETH is unlocked. Others believe that the upgrade will encourage more staking.
Conclusion
The Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade is a minor upgrade for the Ethereum network (albeit a large upgrade in terms of unlocked Ethereum). The Ethereum core developers use this upgrade to stabilize the network rather than to deploy aggressive changes. This is why most of the improvements are smaller quality of life improvements rather than fundamental architecture changes.
The biggest impact of Shanghai has to do with staking and locked tokens. It will enable validators to withdraw staked ETH from the Beacon Chain, which has been locked since December 2020. The upgrade includes several other EIPs that aim to reduce gas costs for Ethereum developers. While it is unclear how the upgrade will impact the market in the short term, it is certain that traders will be watching how much of the available ETH will be cashed out, which could push the price of ETH down.
What is Vechain? VeChain ($VET) is a next-generation smart contract blockchain platform focused on solving enterprise and supply chain management solutions. The blockchain supports the creation of smart contracts – self-executing contacts that have a guaranteed outcome without third-party trust. Vechain’s unique advantage is that it has close relations with the big four auditing firms, such as Pricewaterhouse Cooper, who will use blockchains to audit firms.
Vechain is designed to can solve enterprise problems such as:
Anti-counterfeit for Luxury Brands – through the use of smart chips, Vechain tracks each individual item and prevents duplication. Vechain Toolchain allows anyone to create anti-counterfeit tags.
Cold-chain Logistics – ensure that food doesn’t spoil during transportation and storage by using smart IoT sensors that automatically report crucial information to the blockchain.
Automobile – keep a tamper-proof record of vehicle data including repair history, insurance, registration, and driver habits.
Carbon Credits – Quantitatively track the carbon contributions of a particular company to reduce carbon emissions. For retail users, the app is already available on WeChat. Consumers engaging in low-carbon behaviors (e.g. purchasing low-carbon products) would be rewarded with credits that can be redeemed for environmentally friendly goods or donated to charity.
Clinical trial traceability platform – with a partnership with Bayer China, Vechain will use blockchain to solve problems of digitalized clinical trial traceability.
Using blockchain technology, VeChain makes it simple and secure for product manufacturers to collect, manage, and share important product data with vendors and consumers throughout the life-cycle of a product.
Key Features of Vechain
Public blockchain Anyone can read, write and deploy decentralized applications and smart contracts onto the VeChainThor blockchain.
In-house IOT and supply chain management technology Proven blockchain implementation experiences in industries such as luxury goods, liquor, and agriculture.
Native Fee Delegation The blockchain supports the implementation of native fee delegation, which means dApp users do not need to hold VET or VTHO to write transactions if associated gas costs are specified by the developers to be sponsored.
VeChain Ecosystem
To achieve its ambitious vision, VeChain has developed a powerful blockchain-enabled enterprise software platform. The Platform enables manufacturers to assign products with unique identities, which then allows manufacturers, supply chain partners, and even consumers to interact with the product through the platform. It uses blockchain technology to ensure the security of the data collected, allocating private keys to all participants within the supply chain.
Products are assigned a unique ID, which is stored simultaneously on the blockchain and attributed to the product with an NFC chip, RFID tag or QR code. At any point during the product’s life, the chip, tag or code can be interacted with, whether by a distribution or retail partner ascertaining batch membership, or a consumer wanting to learn more about a product. The Company envisages a broad range of applications, including brand protection, anti-counterfeit, and food safety.
VeChain has existed since 2015 and migrated its previous private and consortium blockchain to its public VeChainThor blockchain in 2018. This move opens up the advanced features found on the blockchain to any developer or third party to develop and write applications on the platform. There have been several companies that chose to build their business on top of VeChainThor, including Plair and 8Hours Foundation, as well as several independent community developers.
Vechain Roadmap in 2023
Vechain Token Economics
Vechain uses a dual-token economic model. The primary token, VeChain Token (VET) is used to represent value on the network, with various mechanisms designed to stabilize the price of VET over time.
VET holders will also automatically generate the utility token, VeChain Thor Token (VTHO). VTHO is a “gas” currency, and is required to send transactions or perform actions on the network. Regular network users do not have to worry about separately buying VTHO though, as it is automatically generated in proportion to the amount of VET held. When a transaction is executed, 70% of VTHO is permanently destroyed (“burned”) and 30% is given as a block reward to Authority Node holders.
This dual-token economic model was introduced to improve network economics. This system is designed to help developers on the network. Developers holding enough VET will be able to use the network for free, as the VTHO generated will be enough to pay for transactions. If a developer is developing a transaction-intensive app, they can also look to use the multi-party payment protocol.
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In short:
Vechain Token (VET) serves as a reserve for economic staking and value transfer on the platform. VET can be “staked” in various economic nodes and generate VTHO which powers transactions on the network.
VeThor Token (VTHO) is the “gas” required to perform transactions and interact with smart contracts. Each time a transaction is made, VTHO is consumed and destroyed.
Using and Storing Vechain
Vechain can be stored safely on the VeChainThor Wallet which is available on smartphones (iOS and Android). The mobile wallet securely encrypts and provides keys to provide maximum security for Vechain holders.
What are VeChain Nodes?
Nodes are traceable wallets (such as the VeChainThor wallet) that have a specified minimum amount of VeChain stored inside. There are 2 types of nodes: Authority Nodes and Economic Nodes, both of which have their own requirements, functions, and benefits.
Authority (Thrudheim) Nodes: Securing Vechain by Proof of Authority
At the heart of Vechain are the 101 Authority Nodes that process and validate all the blockchain transactions, as well as govern the network via a voting mechanism. These Authority Nodes are selected by the Vechain Foundation and go through a full application and KYC procedure. As a reward, Authority Node holders receive the highest VTHO production rate and voting rights. Authority Nodes are generally owned by large enterprises and trusted individuals to ensure decentralized trust. Little is known about the identity of these Authority Node holders for security reasons, but several large enterprises such as DNV GL and PwC have come forward saying they hold Authority Nodes.
Economic Nodes: Providing stability to the ecosystem through staking
Economic Nodes do not validate blockchain transactions, rather they keep the Vechain ecosystem stable by keeping a certain amount of VET tokens in their VeChain Thor mobile wallet. There are different tiers of economic nodes and the more VET tokens staked for a longer period of time, the higher the rewards.
To become a Normal Economic Node holder, a minimum of 1,000.000 VET for 10 days is required.
More dedicated node holders can join VeChain’s X Node program which offer even more rewards. For X Node holders, holding a minimum of 600.000 VET at all times is required.
There are 4 types of rewards depending on the type of Node held. These range from earning a sum of VTHO per day, rewards from the Company’s Foundation Reward Pool, to whitelist access to VeChain ICOs.
VeChain started in 2015 with the establishment of its company in Shanghai. Founded by CEO Sunny Lu (ex-CIO of Louis Vuitton China), the Company has been developing enterprise-focused solutions based on its private blockchain. As the trend towards better decentralization occurred in the blockchain industry, VeChain migrated to a consortium blockchain before finally establishing the VeChain Foundation and starting their final migration to a Proof of Authority (PoA)-based public blockchain platform.
The Foundation’s vision is to create greater market transparency and provide consumers with access to more detailed information about the products they buy, sell, and interact with. By having a full 360-degree view of the supply chain, with all components securely recorded and stored in a tamper-proof distributed ledger, retailers and manufacturers can be certain of the quality and authenticity of their products, guaranteeing consumers that what they are buying is really what they think it is.
VeChain boasts partnerships and lives use cases with many notable partners, including DNV GL, PwC, Deloitte, Walmart China, BMW, BYD Auto, Bayer China, H&M, LVMH, ENN, AWS, PICC, ASI Group, etc.
Key VeChain Partnerships
DNV GL
DNV GL was founded in 1864 and has 300 offices worldwide. They provide quality assurance services to companies in the maritime, oil and gas, and power and renewables industries.
DNV GL issues Management System Certificates at the end of their inspection and certification process. This evidences that the company’s processes and products meet international standards.
DNV GL is a partner and shareholder of VeChain. Both Companies share the belief that the future of assurance lies in blockchain technologyAt VeChain Summit 2019, DNVGL announced it has completely migrated its private blockchain to the VechainThor
Since the partnership announcement, DNV GL has jointly developed several products including the Low Carbon Ecosystem and MyStory, a traceability and marketing solution. DNV GL has also reaffirmed its commitment to the VeChain ecosystem by migrating its private blockchain onto the VeChainThor public blockchain for its clients. DNV GL also gave each client a digital Non-Fungible Token (NFT) wallet so that each customer has a digital identity and can access and interact with the DNV GL ecosystem. Through this, DNV GL has issued more than 900,000 wallets, compared to Ethereum which only has 400,000 wallets.
BMW
In March 2018, BMW confirmed VeChain’s participation in the BMW Startup Garage Programme, a partnership program whereby BMW will work with the participant to develop their technology and purchase it for BMW’s use.
During the 2019 VeChain Summit, it was confirmed that VeChain and BMW will jointly develop a DApp called VerifyCar for BMW cars. VerifyCar will record vehicle information onto the VeChainThor blockchain. Examples of information which will be recorded include a vehicle’s mileage, insurance and service records.
Cihan Albay, Leader at IT Tech Office Singapore, BMW Group gives a presentation on VerifyCar
PriceWaterHouseCoopers (PwC)
PwC is known as one of the “Big Four” auditors. They are a network of firms in over 150 countries and provide services to 420 of the Fortune 500 companies.
PwC has 3 major service lines:
Assurance providing financial audits;
Advisory on actuarial and insurance management solutions and human resource services; and
Tax planning and consultancy services.
VeChain has partnered with PwC since May 2017 to jointly develop and promote the adoption of blockchain technology. After much speculation, details of their partnership were announced during a joint press conference with PwC and Walmart in June 2019. It was announced that Vechain and PwC were also working with Walmart China, and had launched the Walmart China Blockchain Traceability Platform built on the VeChainThor Blockchain. The Platform takes on the challenge of food safety by using VeChain’s technology to allow Walmart China to implement a traceability strategy for its products. Consumers can scan the products and would be able to view detailed information on the product, such as its source, logistics process, product inspection reports etc.
At the time of the announcement, an initial 23 Walmart product lines were tested and launched on the Platform. By the end of 2020, it is expected that Walmart’s China’s traceability system will see traceable fresh meat account for 50% of its fresh meat sales, traceable vegetables will account for 40% of its total sales of vegetables, and traceable seafood will account for 12.5% of the total sales of seafood.
Bayer China
The partnership between VeChain and Bayer China, the Greater China arm of one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies was announced on 28th May 2020. VeChain has created CSecure, a clinical trial traceability platform to be used in Bayer’s research and development of medical interventions such as drugs and other treatments. Learn more about Vechain and Bayer’s partnership.
VeChain is a blockchain-enabled platform that provides a comprehensive governance structure, a robust economic model, and advanced IoT integration to help enterprises improve supply chain management, asset tracking, data management, and more.
What are the benefits of using VeChain?
VeChain offers a wide range of benefits, including improved transparency, enhanced security, improved traceability, increased efficiency, cost savings, and more.
How does VeChain work?
VeChain uses a combination of blockchain technology, smart contracts, and IoT devices to create an immutable, distributed ledger that can be used to track and manage assets, contracts, and data.
What industries can benefit from VeChain?
VeChain has applications in a variety of industries, including supply chain management, asset tracking, data management, healthcare, finance, and more.
What is VeChain Thor?
VeChain Thor is the native blockchain platform of VeChain, which enables users to develop decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts.
Where can I buy Vechain
Currently, the best exchange to trade both the $VET and $VTHO token is Binance – it has the most number of traders and highest liquidity. You can purchase VET on cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance, Huobi, and OKEx.
What is VeChain’s token?
VeChain’s token is called VET, and it is used to power the VeChain network and reward users for their contributions.
What is VeChain’s roadmap in 2023?
The VeChain Foundation says the project’s developers plan to spend the first half of the year at work on a carbon footprint explorer, a wallet browser extension and an Ethereum (ETH) token bridge, among other projects.
We’re taking into a deep dive into what’s happening with China’s Digital Currency, DCEP with Matthew Graham from Sino Global Capital. China has recently place DCEP as a key global objective this year, effectively digitizing China’s National Currency, the RMB. We’re going explore what has been announced so far with DCEP, including the new apps from Agriculture Bank of China, initial partners such as McDonalds and prototypes. We’ll also explore what DCEP means for the cryptocurrency community – after all DCEP borrows a lot from Bitcoin and Blockchain Technology.
Matthew is the CEO of Sino Global Capital. He has seven years of mainland China investment banking and four years of blockchain sector experience. As CEO of Sino Global Capital, Matthew focuses on the fintech sector including the Liquid Value “crypto hedge fund”. In his previous role he was a Managing Director at CBC, a Chinese private equity fund with limited partners that included TCL and the cities of Shenzhen and Chongqing.
Do you want to hear the good news…or the bad news first? This has been an age old question which the Bitcoin markets had to grapple with this week. As we will see below, there IS a correct answer to this…but has Bitcoin chosen wisely?
Table of Contents
All I want for Christmas is a Ledger!
Ledger is doing a crypto starter bundle! Get a USD$25 voucher to buy crypto with every Ledger Nano X purchase! Limited to 5,000 vouchers and only available until 29th December 2020!
Gift yourself or your family a bundle they truly want! Say NO to hand cream gift sets and socks!
This week’s market price action wasn’t very exciting, with Bitcoin and Ethereum mostly going sideways. On 12th December 2020, we saw a reaction that is still continuing today and has brought $BTC back to the $19000 area and $ETH closer to $600.
Both coins are still at weekly resistances trying to build momentum around the 21 EMA (Exponential Moving Average) on the daily chart. We could expect another attempt to pass ATH in the next few days!
Key news this week
Big investors keep accumulating
Big funds/companies are buying and accumulating Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual), has just bought $100M of $BTC through NYDIG, a fund management company in New York. This is reportedly their first Bitcoin purchase and is equivalent to less than 1% of their entire investment account worth around USD $235 billion.
Grayscale has also increased their holdings. Whilst they are not new to investing in crypto, they have just bought another 130000ETH, reaching a total of 3 million tokens in their accounts.
Microstrategy announced they had completed “a $650M offering of 0.75% Convertible Senior Notes Due 2025”, to invest in $BTC in accordance with their reserve policy. A few days earlier, the CEO Michael Saylor, tweeted that they hold approximately 40,824 Bitcoin.
MicroStrategy has purchased approximately 2,574 bitcoins for $50.0 million in cash in accordance with its Treasury Reserve Policy, at an average price of approximately $19,427 per bitcoin. We now hold approximately 40,824 bitcoins.https://t.co/nwZcM9zAXZ
The interest in crypto by financial giants points to increased demand from the wealthy as a form of diversification and are them betting on prices to increase in the future.
Mt. Gox’s reimbursement deadline approaching
15th December 2020 will mark the next deadline for Mt. Gox Exchanges’s creditors to hopefully get back what they lost on the platform. The Exchange, one of the most known at the time and launched in 2010, ceased to operate in February 2014 after filing for bankruptcy. A whopping 860,000 $BTC were “missing” of which 200,000 has been “recovered” (and this does not even include other cryptocurrencies which also went “missing”). In 2015 new evidence by Tokyo security company WizSec showed that “most or all of the missing bitcoins were stolen straight out of the Mt. Gox hot cryptocurrency wallet over time, beginning in late 2011.”
Users of the platform should expect to receive a total of 140,000 $BTC ($2.6 billion dollar worth) which are now in the hands of Nobuaki Kobayashi, the Japanese lawyer in charge of the process.
Nothing is certain however as the refund deadline had been already postponed several times in the past, the last of which was in October 2020. There is also a serious concern in the market as to the possible consequences of a large Bitcoin market sell-off by victims when they receive their funds after 6 years. Considering Bitcoin in 2014 was worth less than $1000, this would represent now a roughly 20x on their re-acquired funds!
Thoughts on the Mt. Gox refund
Singapore’s DBS to launch digital exchange with crypto
After rumors appeared a few months ago, it is now official: Singapore’s DBS will be the first bank to launch a digital currency exchange.
The platform will only be open to institutional and accredited retail investors. There will be 4 major tradable cryptocurrencies: $BTC, $ETH, $XRP and $BCH, paired with 4 FIAT currencies: USD, SGD, HKD AND JPY.
The Exchange will also offer Security Token Offerings (STO) and a platform for tokenized assets like bonds, private equity funds, real-estates and so on. DBS Chief Executive Piyush Gupta said:
“I believe that the time is right for this”, and added “We are on the cusp of a massive tokenization and therefore you’ll find tokenization of all kind of assets around the world and I think more and more exchanges will start dealing with the tokenized assets”.
U.S. Congressmen manifesting doubts on new self-hosted wallets regulations
A couple of weeks ago we mentioned that Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was concerned regarding rumors that the U.S Treasury was planning to impose regulations on self-hosted cryptocurrency wallets.
Self-hosted wallets, whether online (hot) like Metamask or offline (cold) wallets like Ledger and Trezor, let you retain personal and total access to your funds, without any intermediary entities or third parties. The owner possesses their own private keys and takes full responsibility of their funds. Most importantly, wallets don’t usually need KYC procedures to set up. Learn more about hot and cold wallets, and their pros and cons.
Armstrong stated his thoughts (shared by many other prominent names in crypto space), among which the possibility that regulations could result in being more harmful than anything else. This is because it could essentially exclude those who cannot obtain the documents and proofs for regular KYCs, and those are usually the most disadvantaged groups who may already be excluded from the financial system. Furthermore, this proposal could be a step back in innovation by the US, leading companies and users to bypass them for other countries.
A few days ago Warren Davidson, U.S. Congressman serving Ohio’s 8th District, together with a few colleagues, embraced these opinions by sending a letter to U.S Treasury. The letter also points out that “multiple reports have shown that digital assets are not widely used by illicit actors”.
Meanwhile in Europe, the development of the digital Euro continues. However sources have indicated that the French Finance Ministry is preparing “to not only harden know-your-customer (KYC) rules for crypto firms but also regulate crypto-to-crypto transactions, according to Simon Polrot, president of French crypto association ADAN.”
This apparently comes as a response to recent terrorist attacks when 29 people were arrested for illegal terrorism funding via cryptocurrencies.
Other key news
Canada has become the first country to have an Ethereum-based Fund listed on a major stock exchange. The Ether Fund (TSX:QETH.U) is offered by 3iQ Corp, a digital asset manager based in Toronto. The Ether Fund is trading at around $11 per share today.
Steve Wozniak, Apple Co-Founder has just launchedEfforce, a project bridging virtual currencies and green Tech. Efforce serves as a “digital marketplace” where energy efficient projects can raise funds via its own currency, $WOZX. The project famously received overwhelming support from investors as its market cap reached $950 million within 13 minutes of its launch.
The second giveaway of DCEP (China’s National Digital Currency) has kicked-off on in Suzhou, China, on 12th December 2020 for 10,000 winners. Last week, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) also confirmed it is working with the Digital Currency Institute of the People’s Bank of China on technical pilot testing of DCEP for cross-boarder payments between Mainland China and Hong Kong. You can read more in our article.
Messari, a leader crypto Research and Data company, has recently listed their take on the “top 10 people to watch in 2021”
After all the recent announced collaborations between the Yearn Finance team and many other big Defi projects, such as Cover Protocol ($COVER) or Sushiswap ($SUSHI), the Yearn Ecosystem Token Index, $YETI, has been created by Powerpool ($CVP).
The Index comprises of 8 tokens: $YFI, $SUSHI, $CREAM, $AKRO, $COVER, $K3PR, $CVP, $PICKLE with a proposed weighted distribution of 35% for $YFI, 17% for $SUSHI and 8% each for the rest. So investors now have the chance to invest in the entire Yearn ecosystem in one token, receiving “cash flows from Vault strategies applied to composite tokens, and vote on proposals in the Yearn ecosystem governance using PowerPool’s meta-governance approach.” It will also allow holders to save on gas fees which would be normally required to stake multiple tokens.
Speaking of $YFI, this week we have also witnessed the first gasless (for users) transaction vault deposit on Yearn.Finance.
DeTrade Fund, a supposed upcoming arbitraging and front-running Defi project has vanished with 1450ETH a few hours before listing.
The team appeared to be non-anonymous, with public Linkedin profiles, a publicly registered company, a Twitch profile and a video where the “CEO” Mark Jensen, spoke to the community. The video has quickly become famous on crypto Twitter with the community suspecting it was a deep-fake used by crypto hackers. Another theory circulating around the community is that the hackers hired an actor to impersonate the CEO.
Sadly.. Chinese would LOVE this. Handsome westerner with good looks and a strong affirmative voice. https://t.co/mdj3mRfglb
Through two rounds of presale investments, the DeTrade fund team managed to raise a remarkable amount of 1,450 $ETH in a few hours. Their contracts were audited by Solidity Finance which immediately raised a few concerns in their audit report, assessing that the team was in charge of too much power over users’ funds. It is likely that the team took advantage of this and stole the presale funds sometime between the second presale and the official listing which should have taken place a few hours after. (Tramadol)
As with any presale though, you’re giving your funds directly to the team.
This is why we always try to emphasize how important trust in the team is; especially in a presale phase. https://t.co/tUOrLZSMB8
— Solidity.finance – Audit Services (@SolidityFinance) December 11, 2020
Several hours later and probably because someone was able to trace the misappropriated funds, 70% of the stolen $ETH was sent back to investors via internal transactions.
This “partial return is becoming more and more common in DeFi attacks. For example, Eminence’s hacker sent back 50% while Harvest Finance users only received 10% of their amount back.
$12 million have been stolen by Compounder Finance
On 1st December 2020, Compounder.Finance ($CP3R), a clone of Harvest and Yearn Finance, has “pulled the rug”. It looks like the anonymous team behind the project is the one to blame.
Compounder had been audited by Solidity Finance. In chat logs between the two companies we can see that Solidity Finance pointed out that the project’s Treasury contract and updating of strategy pools is controlled by their team. Solidity Finance also pointed out that they felt this fact should be disclosed in their audit report. The exploit was exactly as pointed out by Solidity Finance. After the audit, the withdraw function was swapped with a malicious one which was later used to drain all the money in the contract to their deployer address. Nobody recognized the fraud in time so users were not able to withdraw their funds.
The attack is composed by 4 steps and is explained in details in this post-mortem by developer Vasaand Solidity Finance.
It is not the first time that an audited project suffered a hack and we all know quite well by now that Audits cannot guarantee 100% safety. This should always be reminded.
A known developer of the Defi space and owner of Defiyield.info was also a victim of the attack. He is also investigating the matter and working towards filing a case with the relevant enforcement authorities.
Malicious actors have recently created various fake Deriswap tokens to take advantage of the hype surrounding this latest experiment from Andre Cronje. The malicious actors would create tokens with similar names to Deriswap and approve it for trading on Uniswap to entice people to buy.
Let’s remember that Deriswap doesn’t have any official token at the moment!
Boxmining happenings
Libra is now Diem! Everything you need to know on Facebook’s cryptocurrency!
In case you missed it check out our podcast interview with Geralt of CyberFi where we discussed automated trading, Ethereum interactions such as unstaking and more.
Velo Protocol is building out the biggest payment network in South East Asia with its partnership with Lightnet and Visa. The end goal is to create payment solutions for the under-served micro, small and medium enterprise lending market in Asia.
The next XRP killer? Velo Protocol is making HUGE moves
Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.
XFai is a decentralized oracle service provider that aims to address liquidity and gas issues in decentralised exchanges (DEXs) through a so-called DEX Liquidity Oraclewhich will revolutionise cryptocurrency trading whilst reducing gas fees.
If you are a regular DEX trader, you might notice that there are times when you can’t complete trades. This happens often with small-cap tokens that do not have enough liquidity. In this case, traders have two options, either to wait it out until there’s enough liquidity or to increase price slippage tolerance. But either way, it can result in huge losses on the part of a small-cap token holder.
XFai wants to address this problem by empowering DEXs with liquidity that can be supplied to small-cap tokens. This equalizes the playing field for every single trader, allowing them to execute their strategy without having to shoulder massive costs just because a DEX might not have enough liquidity on any particular trading pair.
Check out our interview with XFai’s Chief Scientist, Taulant Ramabaja.
Background
The problem with many DEXs today is liquidity. While liquidity pools and profit-generating DeFi systems like yield farming have offered revolutionary solutions in the last year or so, DEXes still face this concern. This leaves many traders vulnerable to huge price slippages and losses. And if the issue persists, cryptocurrency traders might be discouraged and go back to trading mostly on centralized exchanges despite having less options.
This is what XFai worked is trying to solve.
XFai, which was co-founded by Geoffrey Khan, was developed in order to deal with the problems hounding DeFi markets today. It has gained a substantial amount of support, garnering investments from companies like AU21 Capital, LD Capital, and Roger Ver, one of the earliest adopters of blockchain technology and the CEO of Bitcoin.com. It is also worth mentioning that they were able to generate over $3.8 million within the first 12 hours of their private sale.
What is XFai?
XFai is a decentralized oracle service provider with the aim of addressing liquidity and gas issues in DEXs through a DEX Liquidity Oracle (DLO). This means that the protocol’s role is not only limited to supplying data to price feeds and engaging with smart contracts, but is also capable of actively providing and managing token liquidity in partner DEXs such as Uniswap.
The primary goal of the project is to support small cap tokens and token holders by establishing a system that helps them earn better rewards. In other words, the project seeks to help them gain as much in incentives as they can, just like how a holder of a large cap token does.
DEX Liquidity Oracle
XFai’s DLO is powered by the XFai smart contract, which allows users to stake small cap tokens that can later be supplied to Uniswap pools according to corresponding price ranges and existing orders. The biggest trades facilitated on Uniswap exchanges will be provided with the liquidity collected from the DLO.
This does not just benefit large volume trades for small cap tokens, but also those who supply liquidity on the same tokens. They receive rewards when they do so as well. The good thing about DLO is that it does not require liquidity providers to supply all the assets supported in a liquidity pool. They can choose to simply supply a single token in a pool, which also mitigates the risks of impermanent loss on their end.
What supports this function further is its real-time price feed from centralized exchanges. Furthermore, the liquidity from the DLO is easily accessible to DEXs, addressing the issue on price slippage. This is exactly the goal of the XFai team, to support the current DEXs in the market and not to present itself as a competitor.
How Does XFai Work?
First, the user has to add tokens on the DLO liquidity vault/pool. The DLO is governed by a smart contract that also sends the tokens to partner DEXes when liquidity is needed. Note that users do not need to supply multiple assets at a time anymore, thereby reducing their exposure.
Second, the DLO looks into the data from existing order books from other exchanges to determine existing prices and trading volume. Then, it comes up with a synthetic curve which they will use in order to pair DLO liquidity with partner DEXs.
Then, there is a smart contract that governs how and when liquidity is supplied to a DEX using the synthetic curve. The goal of the contract is to ensure that enough liquidity is met by AMMs in order to avoid price slippage while allowing small cap token holders to supply liquidity without incurring impermanent loss.
XFIT Token
XFIT token is XFai’s native, utility token, which can be used as a medium of exchange, store of value, and means of payment for transaction fees. But more than that, it also has governance and reward functions. Liquidity farming is accessible in XFIT and all other DLO pairs.
To start liquidity mining, holders can stake their tokens in select pools to earn proportional rewards. Each time the DLO profits from the trades conducted by its platform users, token holders earn additional XFIT. They can either redeem XFIT tokens to be later sold to the market, or they can decide to return their rewards back to liquidity pools in order to increase their stake position.
In addition, XFIT token holders are also entitled to discounts on transaction fees if they use XFIT. They can also make direct swaps from XFIT to any other token in the protocol as long as they are supported by the DLO.
XFai Liquidity Generation Event: How to stake XFIT
The XFai liquidity generation event is a way to allow users to become involved with XFai’s XFIT token early, and stake them in the liquidity pool in order to earn increased, sustained yield throughout the launch period.
To participate, users can go on the XFai website and click on “Farm”, then choose your preferred pool. Note that the APY is synced for all pools so they earn the same amount of APY as each other. Then click “Connect Wallet” to connect using MetaMask, once connected the dashboard will automatically calculate how much XFIT you can purchase with the amount in your wallet. Select the amount you want to stake and hit “Farm”.
Whilst farming, you have the option to either Add to Farm, which allows you to increase your stake or Harvest, which allows you to claim your XIFT rewards.
To claim your rewards, click “Harvest” and you would be presented with the option to Harvest XFIT or Harvest XFIT and unstake. Harvest XFIT allows you to claim the XFIT tokens gained into your wallet whilst keeping the staked amount in the liquidity pool to keep farming more XIFT rewards. On the other hand, Harvest XFIT and unstake means you can claim your XFIT rewards and unstake the staked amount (or any part of it) from the pool.
The XFai LGE will be from 16th April to 7 May 2021.
Perhaps one of the largest factors that stop people from completely shifting their cryptocurrency trading activities to DEXs is the liquidity problem, apart from the fees. It is difficult to execute trades with low liquidity and even if they often do, sometimes, it takes multiple slippage tolerance adjustments before a trade gets to be completed.
While this can look trivial for some people, this is something that can’t be neglected. If XFai takes off, the DeFi space might experience a better market situation. If traders do not have to be burdened by price slippages and if liquidity further improves through the same solutions the XFai team did, DEXs can be even more alluring to everyone, which would help speed up adoption.
Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.
Algorand is a high-performance next-generation blockchain whose goal is to create a transparent system in which everyone can achieve success through decentralized projects and applications. Many have called this project “Blockchain 3.0”, as it solves Bitcoin’s well-known scalability problems whilst maintaining security and decentralization. Algorand has the native token $ALGO, which will be used as a transfer of value on the network. In terms of technology backbone, Algorand uses a Pure Proof of Stake (PPOs) and pseudorandom functions to prevent malicious attackers from colluding on the network.
Algorand stands out from other high-performance blockchains by the credibility of its founder, MIT professor Silvio Micali. Professor Micali has is the recipient of the prestigious Turing Award for computer science and many of his inventions have directly impacted the cryptocurrency scene.
Founder of Algorand: Silvio Micali
Silvio Micali is the recipient of the Turning award (the highest award from computer scientists) with innovations built around his research in cryptography, zero-knowledge, pseudorandom generation, secure protocols and mechanism design. On top of this, Dr. Micali is the co-inventor of probabilistic encryption, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, Verifiable Random Functions and many of the protocols that are the foundations of modern cryptography
Algorand Foundation
The Algorand Foundation makes use of the Algorand protocol and software developed by Silvio Micali and his team. Their aim is to create an ecosystem that everyone can use to build a borderless digital economy on Algorand.
Specifically, the Algorand foundation holds one-quarter of the total supply of ALGO (i.e. 500 million ALGO), and manages the Algorand blockchain.
Algorand attempts to overcome the Blockchain Trilemma
Vitalik Buterin proposed that a Blockchain can only have a maximum of 2 of these properties
Currently, transactions on the blockchain are very slow because of the “Blockchain Trilemma”. This is a term coined by Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum.
According to this idea, a blockchain has three major features: decentralization, scalability and security.
However, the Blockchain Trilemma proposes that it is very hard for a project to have all three features to a satisfactory condition. A network that is decentralized and has a tough security would not be scalable. Similarly, a blockchain that is decentralized and scalable will have little security etc.
Buterin believes at a fundamental level, a blockchain network can only achieve two of the three features at any time. The Blockchain Trilemma could be the source of scalability issues on most cryptocurrency blockchains. Most cryptocurrency projects cannot handle high numbers of transactions while ensuring network decentralization and security.
What is Algorand- Is it really a Next Generation blockchain?
To attempt to overcome this, Algorand opted for a Pure Proof of Stake (Pure PoS) consensus mechanism. Interestingly, the mechanism employs a different approach compared to other alterations of the PoS mechanism.
For instance, instead of requiring 100% consensus from all the validating parties, Algorand is comfortable with a two-thirds majority consensus. This means that in order to attack Algorand, you will need to purchase more than one third of the total supply of Algorand. This will anyway be uneconomical and holding such a large volume of the supply means that you have a large stake and would not want to see it fail.
Algorand’s secret sauce: Cryptographic sortition
Since today’s blockchain platforms require speed as an integral component, Algorand has a fast transaction time by enabling fast transaction finality through cryptographic sortition.
“All transactions are final in Algorand. Once a block appears, users can rely on the transactions it contains immediately, as they can be confident that the block will forever be part of the chain. Even if the Internet is split into multiple pools of users, only one safe and consistent Algorand chain will exist. [Additionally], Neither a few delegated users nor a fixed committee is responsible for proposing blocks in Algorand. Instead, all users are randomly, secretly, and continuously selected to participate in the Algorand consensus protocol.”
The process of confirming blocks on the platform involves two stages; the proposal and voting stage. During the proposal stage, a token is randomly selected, and its owner suggests the next block to be confirmed. At the voting stage, 1000 random token owners are selected to form a committee that approves the proposed block.
How to Stake Algorand?
Anyone can participate in the Algorand platform as a block proposer by merely switching their address from offline to online on the Algoexplorer. Luckily, this option does not depend on the amount of Algo tokens staked. Mining is not required, all you need is to stake its ALGO token and have the nodes online.
The Algorand platform supports two types of nodes; relay and participation. An important point to note is that the relay nodes don’t participate in voting or decision making. Instead, they facilitate communication between participation nodes. Relay nodes are also hardware intensive compared to participant nodes.
Although Algorand is designed around being fully decentralized, the Algorand Foundation holds a lot of ALGO tokens and hence control. However, the platform is anticipated to be more decentralized in coming months as the foundation continues to liquidate its position.
You can also stake Algorand using your Ledger cryptocurrency hardware wallet. Check out our Ledger Nano X review.
Algorand 2.0 Protocol Upgrade
On 22nd of November 2019, the Algorand foundation announced the next huge leap for Algorand – dubbed Algorand 2.0. This release brings about 3 major features: Native token issuance (Algorand Standard Asset), Atomic swaps for interoperability and smart contract support via the TEAL scripting language.
Algorand Standard Asset (ASA) brings about easy token creation and issuance directly on the Algorand main chain. ASA supports a wide range of tokens, such as fungible tokens (similar to Ethereum’s ERC-20, and also non-fungible tokens (used for digital collectibles). Algorand’s implementation of tokenised assets is directly on the protocol layer (“Layer 1”), allowing for direct access to assets with maximum security. This is a significant advantage over Layer 2 Scaling which requires payment channels in order to operate.
“Algorand is delivering that innovation with this new set of features that brings an impressive amount of opportunity to decentralized finance.
Shay Finkelstein (CTO of Securitize)
Algorand listed on Coinbase, price surges over 30% in one day
In a complete surprise to cryptocurrency enthusiasts, Algorand was listed on Coinbase on 17th July 2020. People found out only when they saw the announcement on Coinbase’s blog, whereby the Exchange said that their customers can now buy, sell, convert, send, receive or store $ALGO in all Coinbase supported regions. Be sure to check out our Coinbase exchange review and some hacks and tips to avoid Coinbase fees.
People were completely caught off guard by this announcement since in the few weeks prior Coinbase had talked about 18 other cryptocurrencies they might consider listing. Yet Coinbase was not one of those 18 cryptocurrencies.
This listing created a whole flurry of activity for $ALGO, especially in terms of its prices. Since the listing, prices for $ALGO shot up 30% since the announcement and was even trading at $0.367 at its peak.
Algorand becomes the official blockchain platform of FIFA
FIFA, the world football governing body has announced its partnership with Algorand. This sponsorship and technical partnership will see Algorand becoming the official blockchain platform for FIFA, providing blockchain-supported wallet solutions as well as helping FIFA develop its digital assets strategy.
Algorand will also be a FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Regional supporter in North America and Europe, and a FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia and New Zealand 2023 official sponsor.
The future of ALGO token: Algorand’s 10-year plan
When the Algorand blockchain was first launched, 10 billion ALGO was minted, which represents the fixed and unchangeable maximum supply of AGLO.
Since then, only 16% of this total supply has been injected into circulation via an auction in June 2019 and subsequent community rewards. Auction proceeds have been used to finance various community, academic, and industry projects which ultimately support the development of economic infrastructure and business opportunities on the Algorand blockchain.
After consideration by the Algoradnd team and based on their analysis and feedback received, the Algorand team have decided that the remainder of the initial 10 billion ALGO tokens would be gradually distributed over a period of 10 years from 2020, i.e. by 2030, the entire supply of ALGO would be distributed. This is much longer than the initial 4 years from 2020 as originally planned by the Algorand team.
In order to implement Founder Silvio Micali’s vision of innovative community governance, the Algorand team are moving towards a new reward system that rewards existing and future participants who are committed to participating in the governance of the Algorand ecosystem and prove their loyalty by locking up their ALGO for the long term. Resources i.e. 3 billion ALGO will be correspondingly distributed to reward long-term holders, and economic and business activity on the Algorand blockchain. The aim of this is to achieve a rate of growth of chain loyalty and economic adoption which would be more than enough to compensate for the gradual release of tokens over 10 years.
Furthermore, the funds initially allocated for sales will now be diverted to other areas such as community incentives, governance participation and ecosystem support.
FAQ
How do you mine Algorand?
It is currently not possible to mine Algorand using computer hardware. Algorand uses a proof-of-stake consensus, so it is possible to earn ALGO rewards by simply staking Algorand in the wallet.
Where is Algorand located?
Algorand is a decentralized project founded by MIT professor Silvio Micali. The foundation responsible for maintaining Algorand, the Algorand Foundation is incorporated in Singapore and is located at 1 George Street, #10-01, One George Street, Singapore (049145).
How do I buy an Algorand?
You can Buy Algorand on popular exchanges such as Binance or Coinbase with the ticker $ALGO
How do you stake algorand
Algorand can be directly staked via the mobile wallet application which can be installed on both Android and iOS devices. To stake the coin, deposit ALGO directly into the wallet. The wallet will automatically accumulate ALGO over time.
What is Algorand’s community governance?
Algorand started its community governance program on 1st October 2020, it gives ALGO holders the power to make decisions regarding the direction and future of Algorand. People can participate in governance i.e. become Governors by committing their ALGO for the duration of the 90 day voting period and then voting on the proposals. After the 90-day voting period, participants can claim their governance rewards.
Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.
Value DeFi ($VALUE) vaults suffered $6 million flash loan exploit, similar to Harvest’s
If it wasn’t for the recent Bitcoin’s rally, this could have been known as the Hack Season. More and more projects, especially in decentralised finance (DeFi), are getting attacked and no smart contract seems to be safe anymore.
On Nov 14 at 10:45 AM EST, mere hours after the release of Vault Phase 2 which was celebrated on Twitter as the ”highest security, the best return and the greatest community“ in crypto, a complex “double” flash loan attack exploited the MultiStables vault of ValueDefi Protocol. In what was later defined as one of the most complex attacks seen in DeFi, the hacker used two flash loans, with Aave and Uniswap, to steal USD $6 million.
A Post-Mortem article by the Team explained what happened: the attack took 80k ETH through a flash loan on Aave, bought 116 million DAI and 31 million USDT, deposited 25 million DAI in the Vault, got back 24 million mvUSD and swapped 91 million DAI and 31 million USDT to USDC. The mvUSD were then withdrawn from DAI and the 80k ETH plus fees returned to Aave. Finally, 33 million DAI were bought back and 2 were sent back to the Deployer (as other times have happened lately). The culprit did this by taking advantage of vulnerabilities within Value DeFi vaults.
Origin Dollar ($OUSD) has lost millions in a flashloan attack
Three days later, it was Origin dollar ($OUSD)’s turn to be attacked.
The Yield-generating stablecoin project suffered a loss of funds of $7 million, $1 million of which were deposits by Origin’s founders, employees and the company itself. The team is still looking into exactly how the attack was carried out but they suspect it was a flash-loan transaction that seems to be the root of the attack.
Allegedly, following the attack, the hacker was able to sell some of the stolen OUSD, DAI and ETH on Uniswap and Sushiswap. the attacker is also washing the stolen funds using RenBTC.
You can read the detailed explanation of the exploit in this updated article by the Origin team.
This was the fifth flash loan attack for Defi in the last month, after Harvest Finance, Akropolis, CheeseBank and Value.
Overall, according to CipherTrace, Defi hacks are credited to around $100 million in 2020 so far.
Crypto Exchange Liquid Says User Data Possibly Exposed in Security Breach
As officially confirmed, crypto Exchange Liquid as been hacked on 13th November.
The attack consisted in one of the hosting providers incorrectly transferring the account control and domain to a malicious actor which gained access to some of the internal email accounts. This breach resulted in user data exposure. As they stated:
“We believe the malicious actor was able to obtain personal information from our user database. This may include data such as your email, name, address and encrypted password. We are continuing to investigate whether the malicious actor also obtained access to personal documents provided for KYC such as ID, selfie and proof of address, and will provide an update once the investigation has concluded.”
This could possibly lead to identity thefts, spam emails and phishing attempts. Even though the team doesn’t believe it would pose an immediate threat for its users, they suggest “that all Liquid customers change their password and 2FA credentials at the earliest convenience”.
UNI farming ends…what happens next?
As the $UNI farming was coming to its planned end on 17th November, speculations on the future price of $ETH and of the Uniswap token were emerging, and the first Uniswap Community Call didn’t succeed in establishing any definite decision on the platform’s future steps. More than USD $2 billion worth were locked in four pools that were giving $UNI rewards (ETH-DAI, ETH-USDC, ETH-USDT, ETH-WBTC); all money that were destined to flow back on the market. As $ETH price was in the mid $300 before the farming started in September, many were fearing for an imminent dump as people would swap it to stable coins or more investment-appealing altcoins. Price was not the only concern for Uniswap, as all that pooled money meant very slow slippage on the Dex as well.
To seize the moment, Sushiswap ($SUSHI)announced an increase in rewards for the same four pools on their platform. Exactly one hour later, Hayden Adams (inventor of Uniswap) advanced a new proposal to continue with the rewards for an additional 2 months at half the rate of the genesis distribution. The proposal is now awaiting the consensus check phase, before farming could restart on 4th December.
Sushiswap and Uniswap TVL (Image credit: DeFi Pulse)
In the meantime, as we can observe in the next image, the Uniswap TVL has significantly dropped at the expenses of Sushiswap’s, which increased reaching a similar net value to that of its main competitor.
Bitcoin continues its rally
In the aftermath of the US elections, even if the result is still controversial, $BTC continues its rally like it couldn’t care less. In the last days its Market Cap even reached an ATH of $350 billion, surpassing the Dec 16 2017’s previous high (due to $BTC inflation, even if the price is not at ATH there are more coins in circulation than 3 years ago, resulting in a higher market cap). The price is currently over $18k! Finally!
As $BTC was growing lately, one could bet that the media would start covering the news as well, and that is exactly what happened. We have seen BBC, CNBC’s Fast Money, CNN and many more interviewing “experts” and speculating about the next ATH, paired with a lot of old and new memes being shared everywhere. With wide coverage and more retailers getting onboard fearing of missing out (Paypal’s crypto service reached $25 million in trading volume in the first month since launch) could this mean that the (local) top is getting closer?
While all of this was happening, it looks like things for Chinese miners are not that good. Wu Blockchain reported that 75% of the surveyed miners are struggling to pay their electric bills. This is due to the restrictions the Chinese government is applying on crypto making it very difficult to buy and sell into $CNY. Many miners have seen their bank cards frozen or their machines shut down because they didn’t have cash to pay the electric bill.
Therefore, there is also speculation that this big rally has not only been driven by an increase in demand, but also because the dump activity by miners, that creates constant sell pressure, has slowed down.
What the fork Bitcoin cash?!
On 15th November Bitcoin Cash ($BCH) has undergone a protocol upgrade, as established by the roadmap.
This update contained a Hard Fork which has split the chain into two, BCHN and BCHA after block #661647. The reason why this is happening is because of a disagreement on the current state of the blockchain between the Bitcoin Cash Node and the Bitcoin Cash ABC communities after a proposed update by Amaury Sechet (ABC) had been rejected. It looks like $BCHN will be the dominant part as 80% of the miners showed support before the split and it is now 667 blocks ahead.
This is not the first fork for $BCH as it was, itself, the result of a Bitcoin fork in 2017.
How’s ETH2 staking race going?
Less than a week before the deadline, the ETH staked on the Ethereum 2 mainnet are less than half of what’s needed to trigger the start of the Beacon Phase 0. As anticipated by many sources, the community is expecting a decisive increase in deposits rate in the last days before the deadline. If the minimum requirements will be met by 24th November, ETH2 will launch on 1st December, otherwise it will automatically start 7 days after the threshold will be met.
In a recent AMA, Danny Ryan, Core Researcher at the Ethereum Foundation answered users’ concerns about the possibility of a failed launch. Ryan says the Foundation does have a solution, which is to adjust the threshold down to around 100k+ ETH which they consider to be sufficient. This will avoid leaving the staked ETH in limbo. Ryan also noted that for those who did stake, there will be high rewards for these early adopters. Their Github page also goes into more details on other alternatives.
Also, learn more about this staking race and its potential implications:
https://youtu.be/VqEP_c4jhvc
Will Ethereum 2.0 (ETH) launch successfully?
OKEx Exchange is finally resuming withdrawals!
More than one month after the Okex Exchange decided to suspend all cryptocurrency withdrawals, the team has just announced that operations will reopen on or before 27th November. They also reassure that 100% of users’ funds are safe.
The official announcement confirmed that one of Okex’s private key holders was cooperating with the authorities in a case that has nothing to do with the Exchange itself. They specified that although “OKEx has always used a backup mechanism for private key holders to ensure that each private key holder can trigger the activation of the backup private key in the event of long-term incapacitation, such as death or memory loss”, this particular scenario caught them off guard as no strategy had been prepared for.
Significant loyalty campaigns will be announced as a sign of gratitude to the community.
Why do we need privacy and scaling on the blockchain? Privacy is the next big leap for blockchain technology as can be used to allow anonymous data sharing, exchanges without front running, and the real fungibility of tokens. We spoke to Prof. Dawn Song about the need for privacy-preserving smart contracts and how this is implemented on Oasis Protocol ($ROSE): https://youtu.be/JQzKKOV_ycA
1st Dec: ETH 2.0 launch (provided minimum staking threshold is reached)
Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.
