Tag: Cryptocurrency Technology

The People’s Bank Of China’s Report On Blockchain Tech And Their Upcoming CBDC

by NEWSBTC

Apparently, the People’s Bank Of China is considering using blockchain technology to power the Digital Yuan CBDC. The coin, also known as Digital renminbi or digital RMB, has been in beta-testing for a while now. However, Di Gang, deputy director of the Digital Currency Institute of the People’s Bank of China, recently presented an extensive report on blockchain technology. It was at “the 18th annual global meeting of the International Finance Forum (IFF) on Dec. 5,” and Chinese journalist Colin Wu translated the main points for us to analyze. 

Related Reading | How Samsung Will Help The Bank Of Korea With CBDC Development

Before we do that, let’s consider this. Their CBDC is a completely centralized affair. Why would the People’s Bank Of China use a blockchain? In other words, why would China need a blockchain for its CBDC if its aim is not decentralization or censorship resistance? A centralized database is orders of magnitude more efficient than a blockchain. And it doesn’t need mining to validate transactions, nor PoW or PoS to reach consensus. Let’s dive into the report and see if we can find answers to these questions.

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What Does The People’s Bank Of China Think About Blockchain Tech?

The report begins with stats and a survey’s results:

“According to Di Gang, 2021, the results of blockchain research conducted by relevant consulting organizations for ten countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Germany, China and Japan, show that 81% of the institutions surveyed believe that blockchain technology is widely scalable and is being adopted by the mainstream, with the percentage of financial institutions agreeing with it being as high as 84%, and all the global financial institutions surveyed have made blockchain an an imperative strategic priority.” 

Notice that they talk about belief and about making blockchain a priority, but not about actual usage among traditional financial institutions. The report does go on to say that “A research institute in September 2021, research on the use of blockchain by the global TOP 100 listed institutions shows that 81 institutions are using blockchain technology,” but no source is given. Where are those projects? Are they still in development?

Then, Di Gang claims: 

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“Blockchain landing achievements are increasing and playing more and more value advantages; on the other hand, blockchain technology has realized landing in cross-border payment, supply chain finance, agricultural finance, trade finance, inclusive finance, social city, “three rural areas”, people’s livelihood, etc.”

Are these crypto-projects, government-related, or traditional finance projects? The report doesn’t specify, so we can’t know their characteristics. Then, Di Gang says “Some large international financial institutions are also actively expanding blockchain application scenarios, including trade finance, information sharing, foreign exchange trading, equity trading, etc.” Why do those institutions need a blockchain to do all that?

Does The Digital RMB Or Digital Yuan Need a Blockchain?

Apparently, it does. Apparently, the Numerical Research Institute is already working on an implementation:

“First, a unified distributed ledger was built in the digital RMB system based on blockchain technology. The central bank acts as a trusted institution to upload the transaction data onto the chain to guarantee the authenticity and reliability of the data, and the operating institutions can conduct cross-institutional reconciliation, collective maintenance of the ledger, multi-point backup, etc.”

The Institute wants to build a “blockchain platform for trade finance, with the goal of penetratable information, transferable trust and shareable credit, and to complete the construction of a blockchain-based trade finance ecosystem.”

USDCNH price chart - TradingView

Relationship betwwen the US Dollar and the Chinese Yuan FXCM | Source: USD/CNH on TradingView.com

Technical Challenges In Blockchain Technology

The People’s Bank Of China identified the following problems with blockchain technology:

  • Problems with performance and scalability.

  • Not Enough privacy protection. “Innovation from the theoretical level is still needed, as well as from engineering technology,” Di Gang said.

  • It needs to further strengthen security technology innovation.

  • “In terms of regulatory auditing, Di Gang believes that there are still many nodes inside the blockchain that are anonymized and dense, which are difficult to supervise by decentralization,”

  • There’s technical friction between blockchain technology and traditional technologies.

  • Someone needs to build an interoperability standard system.

So, essentially the same problems every crypto company already identified plus one, “regulatory auditing.” Is it fair to say that this is what this report is really about? 

Related Reading | Central Bank of France Tests Blockchain-Backed CBDC Targeting Debt Market

The People’s Bank Of China Will Release Their CBDC For The Winter Olympic Games

Apparently, the PBOC’s plan to further test the Digital RMB during the Winter Olympic Games is still a go. Di Gang said:

“The digital RMB has been piloted since the end of 2019 and is now being piloted in 10 regions and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games scenario, and in July this year, the PBoC released the White Paper on the Progress of R&D of China’s Digital RMB, and as an important part of the digital RMB R&D pilot and the Winter Olympic Games preparation, the pilot of the digital RMB Beijing Winter Olympic Games scenario is also is advancing in a steady and orderly manner.”

And that’s where China currently stands regarding blockchain technology and their CBDC.

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Solana, FTX, Lightspeed Ventures To Launch $100M Web3 Gaming Fund

by NEWSBTC

More paths open up for Web3 gaming as a $100 million investment fund is launched by the large blockchain venture firms Solana Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and FTX. A lot of enthusiasm surrounds the future of the GameFi industry as it grows exponentially.

The fund aims to invest in “the intersection of blockchain and gaming”: technology companies, gaming studios that incorporate the Solana blockchain. Gaming could be a great gateway for Web3 to bring in “next billion users”, said one of the partners.

The CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried said in Tweeter that this partnership might build “the biggest growth area in the sector: web3 + gaming + NFTs.”

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Related Reading | FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried Reveals Reason Behind Billions Of Dollars Tether Purchase

Recently, Lightspeed and FTX announced their first investment for the gaming studio Faraway by leading a $21 million Series A funding round alongside other important partners such as a16z, Pantera Capital, and Sequoia Capital. Faraway will now integrate Solana blockchain into “Mini Royale”, the studio’s top game.

Faraway CEO Alex Paley commented on their goals for the project:

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 Blockchain technology will unlock the potential for truly player-driven, open economies and will usher in the next wave of gaming and virtual worlds, (…) Our goal for both current and future games is to create extremely fun and social games with open economies, giving players true ownership over their in-game assets and a true voice in how the game evolves over time.

Web3 Gaming  And Solana See Growth

Web3 gaming has seen great growth in popularity, parallel to Solana’s token impressive gains in 2021. The new digital era is allowing further monetization and experiences in the gaming ecosystem by integrating DeFi and NFTs.

Related Reading | Why Billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya Invested In The Solana Ecosystem

The merge of the blockchain and gaming comes with great potential for revenue alongside the possibility of creating strong communities and new features for them.

“High-performance blockchains like Solana are now capable of delivering the kind of web2 experiences gamers expect while providing the advantages of decentralized Web 3 systems.” Said Amy Wu, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners in a public statement.

She further commented to Cointelegraph about her views on the metaverse:

the metaverse is a potential digital world where people build identity, reputation, make friends, play, and transact in. (…) If it becomes even a fraction as meaningful as our offline lives, it’s incredibly valuable. Hence why Web 2 companies like Meta and native Web 3companies alike are trying to build this. People spend hours a day in games like Fornite and Roblox, so I believe the metaverse will be born out of a social game.

Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO of Solana Labs, also commented in the fund’s public statement:

In the last few months we’ve seen talented game builders leave their jobs at Riot, EA, Scopely, and other established gaming firms to build Web 3 games on Solana. We are excited to collaborate with Lightspeed and FTX to support and accelerate this new wave of builders.

Newzoo projected that the gaming market will generate around $218,7 billion by 2024. They also reported a growth in player rates from 20210 to 2021 of +5.4%.

Solana
Solana’s price at $246 in the daily chart | Source: SOLUSD TradingView

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Crypto Pioneer Backed By a16z, Alchemy Raises Value to $3.5B

by NEWSBTC

Alchemy, the pioneer of crypto infrastructure, raised its value to $3.5 billion with a $250 million Series C round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Alchemy is the leading platform for blockchain and Web3 developers. Currently, they intend to reinvest in the ecosystem’s expansion.

Alchemy has seen exponential growth in the past six months with revenues rising over 15 times. They pin their success to their main goal: “make building on the blockchain and Web3 so easy, anyone can do it.”; which turned out to have bigger demand than they expected, boosting their rapid growth.

They stated that their achievements surpassed their initial vision, and that being already a big picture consisting of creating a platform for the developers’ community managing to do for them “what AWS has done for the web or what Windows and Mac did for computing.”

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What we didn’t realize was just how big of a need this was! Today, we power the majority of DeFi and almost every single NFT marketplace that has made that whole industry

The company further explained that their “reliability and scalability” is what the ecosystem’s leading companies “are building their success” on. Meaning that this new round of funding will not only help their growth as a company, but it will turn into new benefits for more than one industry.

Related Reading | Yieldly’s CEO Says Interoperability In DeFi Is More Important Than A Market-Leading Blockchain

Crypto AWS To Reach Full Potential

Alchemy’s potential is so large that one cannot possibly narrow it down to one industry. It is at the core of NFTs, DeFi, exchanges, financial institutions, multinational organizations, and more.

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They publicly launched around a year ago and now lead as “the solution of choice” for many of the largest crypto companies we can think of: OpenSea, CryptoPunks, Axie Infinity, as well and the ones that are showing new interest in the blockchain, such as Adobe, and others.

Alchemy’s platform has shown the truth about the blockchain: it goes beyond currencies and trading. The possibilities it has given to programmers around the world are just the beginning of the emerging capabilities of DeFi and NFTs. From investors to gamers and creators, the blockchain’s technology prepares the soil for many generations to come.

Related Reading | 17% Of Ethereum Addresses Hold Majority Of NFTs

Ali Yahya, General Partner at a16z, showed their enthusiasm in their public announcement stating that Alchemy is “one of the fastest-growing companies we’ve ever seen in any category,”. He also deepened an explanation of their work:

In the same way that Apple and Amazon built platforms that help developers build on PCs, smartphones, and the cloud, Alchemy is building a platform that helps developers build on modern blockchains. (…)

The biggest misconception about blockchains is that they are just about money, cryptocurrencies, or finance, the truth is that they’re actually much more powerful and allow for a much broader set of applications.

During the past year, Alchemy’s co-founders have shown a long-term vision and a fierce way to build up their performance and achieve worldwide innovation. Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder and CEO of the company, commented that “Empowering developers is the key to bringing the magic of blockchain to the world.”

With tens of millions of users worldwide, Alchemy powers over $45 billion of annual web3 transactions. Other than a16z, they are also backed by Stanford University, Coinbase, Pantera Capital, the Google Chairman, and others.

Brilliant minds, strong believers. This decade has just begun, but Alchemy has already led the blockchain into a level of development only a few had even dreamt of. 10 years from now the advantages of investments like this one will most likely be part of everyone’s life.

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Bitcoin Hash Rate Goes On Death Spiral Post China’s Crackdown On Miners

by NEWSBTC

The great Bitcoin miners migration is well underway. And the network’s total hash rate is showing it in a big way. Currently, the number of terahashes per second is at its lowest level in the last twelve months. That means that mining Bitcoin has not been easier in a whole year. Also, there’s less competition. So, it’s good news for all the other miners that are spread around the world. However, don’t expect it to last long.

Related Reading | How China Bitcoin FUD Is Lowering The Cost To Produce BTC

Tons and tons of mining equipment are currently traveling to their new homes. There are reports of a huge operation in Kazhakstan, a neighboring nation of China. There are also rumors of equipment and personnel already settling down in Texas. The US state is making a push to become a Bitcoin mining capital, and apparently, the efforts already bore fruit. 

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Back in China, the crackdown is no longer a rumor. It’s a reality. CNBC reports:

China’s crackdown intensified over the weekend, with authorities in the hydropower-rich Chinese province of Sichuan ordering crypto miners to shut down operations.

According to reports, more than 90% of China’s bitcoin mining capacity is estimated to be closed. 

Some experts see this as a good thing. It’s estimated that China controlled between 60 and 70% of Bitcoin mining, and the future looks clearer with them out of the picture. The hash rate will suffer for a while, but there’ll be more decentralization. Also, the carbon-powered-energy consumption FUD will decrease. Even though China’s miners were mostly located in areas rich in renewable energy, Bitcoin critics had a hard time believing reports from that side of the world. 


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Total Hash Rate (TH/s) of the Bitcoin network | Source: Blockchain.com

Another China Ban, A Reflection Of 2017

This is not the first time that the Chinese government’s cryptocurrency policy caused havoc on the market. In September 2017, they banned crypto exchanges altogether. Just before that, Bitcoinist reported:

While Chinese exchanges used to represent over 90% of Bitcoin’s trading volume, this changed completely with the intervention of the PBoC which led to the end of margin trading and zero-fee policies and to the temporary halt on withdrawals.

All of these changes contributed to China’s trading volume reduction, which saw its market share fall to 3-5% of the global trading volume.

So, historically, the Chinese government has shown no mercy in closing billion-dollar businesses by decree. It’s also worth noting that most of the banned cryptocurrency exchanges just closed their China offices and moved their operation to other countries. They continue working to this day and, for users not in China, the traumatic move didn’t affect their experience in the slightest. Bitcoinist reports again:

The clampdown led to a staggering drop in CNY trading — which comprised over 90 percent at its peak — as traders made an exodus to over-the-counter, peer-to-peer, and foreign exchanges. As a result, jurisdictions with friendlier laws experienced a boom in trading volume as the market flipped on its head

The current situation with the miners is a reflection of that. The mining business is in the process of flipping on its head. The hash rate will recover.

BTCUSD price chart for 06/25/2021 - TradingView

BTCUSD price chart for 06/25/2021 - TradingView


BTC price chart on Bitstamp | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com

The Hash Rate Will Rise Again

In retrospect, we should’ve seen it coming. Only two months ago, following a suspicious blackout, NewsBTC reported:

According to the Beijing Economic and Information Bureau, there were concerns about the energy consumption related to these activities. PengPai quotes Yu Jianing, rotating Chairman of the Blockchain Special Committee of China, to claim that the country’s environmental requirements could lead to crypto mining being more “strictly regulated”. Jianing said this will be “inevitable”.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Mining In China To Usher Historic Moment, Will BTC Be Affected?

As for the possible reasons, Bitcoin Magazine’s Lucas Nuzzi cites the upcoming Digital Yuan CBDC. He also defuses the FUD by informing us, “Daily Hash Rate is, by its very design, a volatile metric that is not suitable to track lasting changes in the mining landscape.”

We should also take into consideration Nic Carter’s assertion that all of these things are happening while, “Bitcoin continues to maintain 100% uptime, is nothing short of a modern marvel.”

In Bitcoin, everything’s changing while everything stays the same. The hash rate will rise again.

Featured Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay - Charts by TradingView and Blockchain.com

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John McAfee’s Wildest Quotes About Bitcoin And Cryptocurrencies

by NEWSBTC

The highly controversial and highly entertaining John McAfee is dead. As our sister site Bitcoinist informed, “According to a spokeswoman for the Superior Court of Catalonia, former crypto promoter John McAfee was discovered dead in his prison cell near Barcelona, Spain at the age of 75.” A cybersecurity pioneer and an eccentric millionaire, McAfee became obsessed with cryptocurrencies in the latter part of his life.

He went from giving Bitcoin the highest praise to bashing it every time he could. Launched a failed hardware wallet. Pioneered DEXes and briefly operated a trading platform. McAfee ended up promoting every altcoin that had a cheque for him, and virtually none of those succeeded. Quite a colorful crypto career. 

Related Reading | After Trashing Bitcoin, McAfee Is Promoting These Three Altcoins

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Of course, you all know what his wildest quote about the subject was. But, what did he think about the big subjects in the crypto space? Let’s pass the mic to the fallen king, and let him rip everything apart using his own words.

John McAfee On Bitcoin

As we already told you, he started with the highest praise possible. To our very own newsdesk, he said:

Bitcoin will become the gold standard. Bitcoin will always be that standard, that you can keep in a wallet offline somewhere and think, this is my retirement income. It is the grandfather; it will always be the best. When people were taught about cryptocurrencies, they were made to say Bitcoin instead of currencies. That’s how prominent it is.

And a few years later ended up bashing it, while showing a fundamental misunderstanding of the technology and its value to the world:

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 I am not a Bitcoin maximalist. I don’t know what the maximalists are thinking. I mean, there’s zero privacy in Bitcoin. Bitcoin doesn’t have smart contracts, and Jesus, there’s nothing. It’s an ancient, arcane technology and yet it’s still going to be worth a fortune.”

“As a store of value and cryptocurrency, it’s the standard. However, it does not do much that the world needs from blockchain today. It’s simply a cryptocurrency.

So yeah, even though he saw the store of value aspect, he missed the point entirely about what Bitcoin means for humanity. However, he always maintained the $1M price target for BTC’s price: 

“It can’t be otherwise. Look at the Bitcoin supply and its usage. It is so artificially compressed in value right now. It will simply get out of the artificial constraints to where it should be. I mean, there will only be 21 million coins ever, and seven million of them are lost.”

About Blockchain Technology

He was on point with this one:

Well, in 2014 I decided that the blockchain was probably the most revolutionary software technology that I had seen in my 50 years of doing computer science.

No argument there. And to think, it’s only a little part of what makes Bitcoin special.

He Was All-In On Altcoins

The man, the myth, the legend was convinced that Altcoins were the next step.

The altcoins are obviously where the real action is, and there are some super brilliant people there. Things like DAI, the only real stablecoin. It never varies more than 1% up or down from the US dollar. And I dabbled in it, I’ve been watching it, and it’s astonishingly based on smart contracts.

And he was especially interested in stablecoins and privacy coins:

I think there are two things that will survive no matter what is coming in the cryptoworld. Those are privacy coins, true privacy coins where no one can know anything about a transaction. And stable coins, like DAI, that do not vary in value. From a stable item, or an unstable item like the US dollar. DAI has never varied more than one penny from the US dollar. 

XMRUSD price chart for 06/24/2021 - TradingView

XMRUSD price chart for 06/24/2021 - TradingView


Monero price chart on Bitfinex | Source: XMR/USD on TradingView.com

John McAfee On DEXes

One of McAfee’s last projects was a Decentralized Exchange. He was convinced that the world needed it:

We have to have distributed exchanges as users of cryptocurrencies created by the people like Bitcoin and Monero-based or otherwise that’s going to die. Because as China proved two years ago, in 24 hours, they shut down every exchange in China. Overnight. It’s a piece of cake. We have an address where the office is, we go in and we turn off the electricity, or arrest everybody, or you know, just whatever. Easy. So without distributed exchanges we’re lost, because without an exchange what are all these disparate currencies if we have no way to trade between.

Related Reading | Why The Dark Net’s Most Active Market Ditched Bitcoin For Monero

And about governance and decentralization in general, he thought:

I think developers make whatever decision they want with open source code. So problem is open-source. I mean if you wanna change it and put your name on it, and change the wallet addresses to some wallet belonging to you, please god, do so! That’s your fundamental right, all right?!

If you make it open source, you can’t complain about what people do with than after.

So, do we need governance? No!

And, to close this off, McAfee had this beautiful insight:

No, we don’t need that to, we trying to get away from it, we trying to develop a system of mathematics that eliminates the need for trust and the need for control.

Rest in peace, John McAfee.

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Real Estate Mogul Has $100 Million Plan For Blockchain Based Social Media Protocol

by NEWSBTC

Billionaire and real estate mogul, Frank McCourt has recently been working on a new blockchain venture titled Project Liberty. It’s ambitious goal, to bring together the power of the blockchain and merge it into a social media protocol.

With a social media database like this, he believes no social media platform would be able to control everyone’s data. All users would have access to the blockchain and could aptly move records of their social connections between the apps that they want to use, when they want to use them.

Users having complete control over their information would promote competition in the social media market where platforms would have to offer users a better experience and unique features. There would be different pro’s and con’s to each platform. None would dominate completely as social media users could spread out in a wider marketplace operating on the blockchain to accept their previous data, and social connections helping them get set up faster.

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Related Reading | The First DeFi & NFT Social Media Project, Torum Announces NFT Launchpad

McCourt is investing $100 Million into the project, proving just how much confidence investors have in blockchain technology and that the applications of the blockchain in general are endless in our tech driven world.

In an article from Bloomberg on Sunday McCourt states,

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I never thought I would be questioning the security of our underlying systems, namely democracy and capitalism

We live under constant surveillance, and what’s happening with this massive accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of a few, that’s incredibly destabilizing. It threatens capitalism because capitalism needs to have some form of fairness in it in order to survive

The fairness that McCourt is looking for lies in the inherent freedom of a decentralized protocol and the foundations of blockchain technology. No one entity is in charge of the network and the data. Users on this social media protocol would have access to their data putting the power of making money off people’s data back in the people’s hands.

How Project Liberty Works With Blockchain Technology

The main aim of the project is to build a Decentralized Social Networking Protocol. Much like how Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are stored in a users wallet with a unique key, on this protocol, users social media data would be stored here on the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol. Then, users can choose to transfer that data to the different apps and platforms that they want to use as their forms of social media.

Much like the original goal of Bitcoin and crypto in general, it is important that date like social media information become ingrained in the blockchain as well. That way, it is engrained forever and the people can control their own data how they want. Knowing that it is there, secured in their wallet, and transferable forever to be used how they see fit.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Lightning Network Sees Storm Of Activity And Adoption

This is a huge addition to the blockchain tech world with implications on the market that are far reaching. With a Decentralized Social Networking Protocol, new social media apps and platforms would have a way of aquiring users without having to go through the already major players in the social media industry. Plus the best part, users would always control their data giving and taking away permission from companies as they need.

Additional Blockchain Social Media Protocol

Project Liberty closely mirrors the aims of Bluesky. A project started by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey that also aims to use blockchain technology to give users the power of their own data back. He details much of the goals for the project in this Twitter thread.

It is clear that with big players in the game like Twitter and billionaire Frank McCourt, the marriage between social media and blockchain tech is here to stay. Moreover, it will almost certainly grow bigger over time as more platforms adopt the changes within the marketplace.

Feature Photo by Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash

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Polygon (MATIC) Releasing Development Kit For Ethereum-Connected Chains

by NEWSBTC

Safe to say, Polygon has been on a tear lately. On the heels of a DappRadar report noting more than 75,000 active users and nearly $1B in value flows through their layer 2 protocol, the Polygon team has announced a new developer SDK for streamlined app creation. In the past month, our team at NewsBTC anticipated continued success for MATIC, and now the protocol is unleashing more developer-friendly materials.

Polygon’s SDK

Polygon-tracked apps continue to grow with regards to DeFi and Exchange-related categories. Today’s announcement will allow developers to continue that growth. Polygon announced that they will be launching a new software development kit (or SDK) for developers to unleash their own Ethereum-connected blockchains. The SDK will include a number of different plug-and-play modules and the team has stated it was designed to reflect a “Polkadot on Ethereum” approach.

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The SDK is set to include modules like consensus, synchronization, TxPool, JSON RPC and gRPC. An initial version of the SDK will allow developers to create standalone chains with complete interoperability with Ethereum; a following version of the kit will enable dev teams to create layer 2 protocols directly connected to Ethereum mainnet.

Related Reading | How Polygon Became The Indian Tiger Of Blockchain Platforms

The Perspective

Compatibility with Ethereum as the protocol optimizes is clearly top of mind for the Polygon team. While scalability for Ethereum is a major talking point, Polygon is at the forefront of the conversation in terms of protocols addressing scalability concerns, while still looking to implement interoperability. In a statement surrounding the SDK’s release, co-founder Sandeep Nailwal noted that “with advanced ‘layer 2’ solutions, Ethereum 2.0 all coming online now or soon, the need for a comprehensive interoperability framework is stronger than ever. With the Polygon SDK, we are solving pressing needs for Ethereum’s multi-chain future, including ease of deployment and inter-L2 communication”.

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$MATIC has seen a strong recovery after the recent market-wide slide | Source: MATIC-USD on TradingView.com

Looking Forward

As DeFi continues a high-flying emergence, Polygon looks to continue to be on the forefront. The protocol emphasizes lower gas fees relative to Ethereum, and fast transaction speeds. The aforementioned user growth, along with the protocol’s transaction speeds, have led to increased market attention. The protocol also took a vocal approach in a re-brand from Matic in recent months. Accordingly, billionaire Mark Cuban has is a recent investor, and is quickly implementing it into his NFT portfolio company Lazy.com. Other recent partnerships include computing network Aleph.im, with a focus on security and permanence in the NFT market.

Following the news, $MATIC has continued to show strong growth with prices nearing record-highs, and is looking to crack the top 10 in crypto in terms of market cap.

Related Reading | How Aave’s Integration With Polygon Will Maximize Users’ Profits

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Samsung Adds Support For Hardware Wallets On Galaxy Devices

by NEWSBTC

Samsung Electronics has added new support assets for blockchain users with hardware wallets this week. The move will impact mobile Galaxy owners, allowing them to use third-party hardware wallets with the Samsung Blockchain Wallet app. In their press release, Samsung has sought out to explicitly provide hardware support for Ledger Nano S and Nano X. The company stated, however, that they plan to support more cold-storage wallets moving forward.

Samsung Blockchain

The journey to initiate hardware support, of course, started with straightforward blockchain integration. In 2019, Samsung released Samsung Blockchain and dedicated crypto wallet support, without extensive fanfare. The company rolled out the blockchain software in tandem with the Galaxy S10 release. A major focal point for the blockchain offering is the included software development kit. The kit opened the door for Samsung to support developers in creating decentralized apps. Dapp support is driven through the Blockchain Keystore SDK.

Of course, the other major emphasis of the Samsung Blockchain is security. This comes by way of the company’s self-described ‘Samsung Knox’ and ‘Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)’. Knox is a secure holding space for crypto users that is separate from the main operating system, accessible only via PIN or biometric authentication. Knox is essentially a “secure processor dedicated to protecting your PIN, password, pattern, and Blockchain Private Key”, as the company describes it.

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Related Reading | Cardano Turning Down Dapps Due To Sheer Volume Of Applications

Galaxy Support

The update to begin supporting cold-storage wallets will be applicable for Galaxy users running Android 9.0 and above. The company also cautioned that in the initial roll-out, Nano X bluetooth features may be limited.

The Korean-based firm continues to keep promotional activity around new blockchain-related features somewhat under the radar, despite continuous and evolving support.


BTC's consistency has given more companies good reason to integrate | Source: BTC-USD on TradingView.com

Continued Crypto Support

Samsung has continued to release crypto-related support with a relatively quiet approach. In 2020, the firm partnered with crypto exchange Gemini to streamline Galaxy users consumer experience. The company continues to offer consumer and developer assets, such as a dedicated crypto newsfeed available in the Blockchain Wallet app. For developers in particular, offerings include extensive resources, such as APIs that allow dapps to securely sign for transfers of virtual assets.

After initially support ethereum in 2019, and adding bitcoin shortly thereafter, the company now offers over thirty coins, including stablecoins. Samsung continues to stay relatively quiet despite what seems to be continued investment. In a public statement, head of blockchain and company VP Woong Ah Yoon stated that monthly active users of the blockchain app have doubled over the past seven months. Without sharing hard figures, Yoon added the smartphone wallet is currently used to hold hundreds of millions of USD in AUM (assets under management).

Related Reading | Go Phish: How This Bitcoin Investor Lost 17 BTC To An iPhone App

Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com

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Treasury Management Firm Says CFOs Avoid Risk, Bitcoin Won’t Become Corporate Vehicle

by NEWSBTC

If you need reassurance on just how early you’re to Bitcoin, head to Fortune.com. They interviewed the managing director of Treasury Partners, Jerry Klein, to find out if corporations are thinking about Bitcoin as a store of value. Short answer, “Not one of our clients has expressed interest in Bitcoin.” Good to know. But let’s explore further.

Related Reading | Stone Ridge’s 10k Bitcoin Bet Shows Changing Sentiment of Corporate America

The article begins with alliteration and dishonesty:

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“The lead cryptocurrency so far offers practically no practical uses.”

Is the implication here that, for example, instantaneous wealth transfer is not practical enough? We consulted the linked article to find out exactly what the author meant. It starts with:

“In reality, Bitcoin has flopped as a vehicle for buying things, and it failed in its first big test as a safe harbor during the past year’s stock market crash.”

Oh yeah? Let’s ask the people with strong hands that held on to their Bitcoin until today. Are they not satisfied with Bitcoin’s performance? There’s turbulence, but the harbor is safe. And about the other point. nobody wants to be the next person who pays 10.000 Bitcoins for two pizzas. Bitcoin is and will be in price discovery phase for the foreseeable future. Buying things with it is not a priority.

BTC Price chart, the last year - TradingView

BTC Price chart, the last year - TradingView


BTC price chart for the last year on KuCoin | Source: BTC/USDT on TradingView.com

But let’s get back to the corporate cash

According to Klein, his client’s portfolios usually consist of three kinds of investments: government bonds, money-market funds, and corporate stocks. Klein claims that their priorities are safety and liquidity, and that risk is out of the question. Furthermore, the article continues, “companies want to avoid owning assets that risk even the slightest decline in value.” 

Oh yeah? Isn’t Fiat currency in the United States devaluing at a 15% annual rate? Doesn’t that pose a risk of its own? To drive the point home, let’s quote the pioneer of displaying Bitcoin in the company’s balance sheet. MicroStrategy’s CEO Michael Saylor recently told Time magazine: 

“If you’re going to make a rational investment decision today, whether you’re a real estate investor, a stock investor, a bond investor, or just a wage earner or you’re a treasurer, you have to estimate the rate of monetary expansion for the next eight years. We know there’s a commitment to run deficits, and we know this commitment to stimulus.”

That means the government is printing money like there’s no tomorrow. And will be for the foreseeable future. 

Related Reading | This is why all companies should buy Bitcoin, says Square’s CFO

You’re early to Bitcoin

Among the crypto community, there is a fear that the arrival of MicroStrategy, Square, and Tesla means that it’s corporations time. That the head-start that Bitcoin gave the little people was over. Fortune.com’s attitude while handling the subject suggests that the community might be wrong. Big institutions have no idea what’s going on. You probably have more time to stack those Sats. 

And this is a good thing.

Featured Image by Josh Hild on Unsplash - Charts by: TradingView

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Why Virtual Reality is The Future of Entertainment

by NEWSBTC

Let the numbers speak as a start, when it comes to estimating the future growth of the gaming market. According to a PwC report, the AR and VR industry was valued at $46 billion in 2019, and will grow by over 30 times by 2030. Let the year 2030 stand hereon as a new planning horizon in the VR world. And though the market is only just being palpated by investors and game developers, the projects emerging on a limited or experimental basis with the inclusion of VR technologies are nothing short of breathtaking.

A video game is interactive entertainment that allows players to obtain a specific experience and have some array of emotions evoked. For example, a chase or an enthralling journey through uncharted lands are experiences that enrich the mind and allow it to keep functioning creatively – the quintessence of human development.

But while game designers are trying hard to convey experiences, they are facing numerous limitations when it comes to making such games actually run. There is a huge gap between the player and the game, which prevents full immersion. Even if the game has great graphics, an immersive interface, advanced gaming AI and so on, there is still an intermediary in the form of a controller, keyboard, mouse, monitor, and gaming platform, which, strange as it may seem – can be biased.

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Despite the fact that virtual reality does not solve the problem of individual perception, it allows players to immerse in the gameplay at paces that are reaching new benchmarks year-on-year. Even some imperfections in graphics or physics can be forgiven because the brain quickly adapts to almost any conditions.

But the game itself cannot adapt unless it is adapted and this is where the need for a new platform comes in. The best solution offering transparency of all actions and extremely high processing speeds is the blockchain, which is being integrated into the systems of global IT and financial giants at impressive adoption rates.

Age of ILCOIN: Retribution is a child of blockchain ideology combined with the desire to make a game capable of contending with first-class titles. The setting itself was appropriately chosen to fit the trends so liked by modern gamers – a futuristic sci-fi world wreaked by havoc, where teams of players battle for coveted ILCOINs (ILCs).

In this dystopian world of the Age of ILCOIN universe, economies have collapsed and cryptocurrencies have become the dominant resource, forcing the player as a “Miner” to defend their base ship. The attacking droves of aliens sent by the nefarious D’Boss will act as cannon fodder for the players in frantic, non-stop shooting featuring a mix of side-splitting comedy and soul-shattering action. The advanced AI of the variety of enemies is augmented by shifting attack patterns and ambushes that seamlessly mix with the game’s internal economy.

The use of VR on a blockchain basis in the semi-open world of Age of ILCOIN: Retribution opens the curtain to what gaming could be like by the aforementioned date of 2030. The combination of VR and blockchain is viable as Age of ILCOIN: Retribution proves via its gaming experience.

The game is already available on the Steam Gaming Platform and in the Oculus Store. In the meantime, the development team is already working on its next titles and is in the process of establishing cooperation with console developers for making porting options available.

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