Author: dfmines

New research from Bank of America Reveals Solana might become the “Visa of the digital asset ecosystem.” Because of its focus on scalability, ease of use, and low transaction costs, the bank stated the Solana blockchain may very well become the equivalent of Visa for the world of cryptocurrencies and NFTs in a research report to its clients after hosting the Solana Foundation’s member Lily Liu. Solana High Throughput Is It Merit In a Tuesday research note, Bank of America digital asset strategist Alkesh Shah said that Ethereum competitor Solana may become the “Visa of the digital asset ecosystem.” The Solana network went live in 2020, and its native token, SOL, has since grown to become the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, with a market worth of $47 billion. It has been used to settle over 50 billion transactions and create over 5.7 million nonfungible tokens, and it is an order of magnitude faster than Ethereum (NFT). Critics claim that the speed comes at the expense of decentralization and reliability. Shah believes the advantages outweigh the disadvantages: “Its ability to provide high throughput, low cost and ease of use creates a blockchain optimized for consumer use cases like micropayments, DeFi, NFTs, decentralized networks (Web3) and gaming.” Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, is up 3.3% this week. The price of ethereum, its closest rival in terms of market capitalization, increased by 5.3%. Other big cryptocurrencies are also experiencing strong gains. BNB is up 9.5%, cardano is up 16.2%, and Solana is up 10.6%. Furthermore, Solana has some of the fastest transaction times in the industry. In the note, Shah explained: “These innovations allow for the processing of an industry-leading ~65,000 transactions per second with average transaction fees of $0.00025 while remaining relatively decentralized and secure.” Visa now processes 1,700 transactions per second (TPS), however the network has a theoretical capacity of at least 24,000 TPS. On its mainnet, Ethereum currently processes about 12 TPS (more on tier twos), whereas Solana has a theoretical capacity of 65,000 TPS. Related article | Solana: A Quick Review And Look Ahead Decentralization trade-offs In March 2020, Solana was launched as a decentralized blockchain capable of hosting extremely scalable apps. According to Alkesh Shah, it is now the fifth-largest cryptocurrency, having settled more than $50 billion in transactions and generated more than 5.7 million NFTs. Because both cryptocurrencies allow smart contracts, which are the basic building block of decentralized systems like blockchain-based banks and NFTs, Solana is frequently compared to Ethereum (non-fungible tokens). Shah conceded, saying, “Solana prioritizes scalability, but a relatively less decentralized and secure blockchain has tradeoffs, illustrated by several network performance issues since inception.” The cryptocurrency has gotten a lot of attention from investors in the last year, and its price has risen by a whopping 4,000%. Nonetheless, it is dwarfed by its nearest competitor, ethereum. Solana has a market valuation of $47 billion, or little over one-tenth of the size of ethereum. SOL/USD trades at $146. Source: Tradingview Solana has had its fair share of network performance issues in recent months, including withdrawal issues confirmed by Binance on Wednesday, reports of delayed performance across social media on Friday, and what appeared to be a distributed denial-of-service attack on Jan. 5, despite Solana’s denial. Since its start, Solana has settled more than 50 billion transactions, totaling more than $11 billion USD in value locked. It’s also been used to produce over 5.7 million NFTs, demonstrating its focus on consumer applications like money transactions and even gaming. Related article | Solana Trades Up 15.7%, But Network Issues Raise Concerns Featured image from Investment U, charts from TradingView.com

On Thursday, the Near Foundation announced the project has raised $150 million from strategic investors such as Three-Arrows Capital, a16z, Mechanism Capital, Dragonfly Capital, and Circle Ventures. Following the announcement, the Near protocol’s native crypto asset jumped more than 7% against the U.S. dollar. Near Foundation Gets a $150 Million Capital Injection The team behind […]

The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector is easily one the most potent and promising parts of the world’s growing finance industry. As the name implies, decentralized finance removes central authorities and intermediaries from the sector, granting the public direct access to financial products at the best possible rates. Essentially, banks and other financial institutions can no longer exert their control over the market, putting the power into the hands of everyday individuals. There are several advantages to using DeFi. One of the most noticeable is the autonomy it provides the public. Through DeFi, people transacting in the finance sector using various products have total control of their funds and can channel them as preferred. Also, DeFi does not enforce heavy restrictions on access to these financial products, unlike the traditional system that reserves many products to high net worth individuals. Another advantage of DeFi is reduced fees; since there are no intermediary banks or financial institutions, customers do not have to worry about the substantial fees these entities charge. Today, several entities have seen the ease DeFi brings to the industry, and are looking to use this technology to disrupt the global finance sector. Some are launching new products, while others have goals for the general improvement of the market – one of these entities is the DeFi 3.0 Alliance. What is the DeFi 3.0 Alliance? The DeFi 3.0 Alliance is a global non-profit association formed to improve the DeFi sector and boost its all-around growth. The association focuses on the development, education, and global adoption of DeFi products, creating more affordable and transparent access for all. The alliance also promotes easy and secure use of DeFi 3.0 and Farming-as-a-Service (FaaS) solutions. Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology generally form the bedrock of decentralized finance. Currently, many people use these offerings to build complex products for more advanced functions, or relatively simple transactions, such as cross-border payments. The vast potential available in this market ensures the continuous evolution of the DeFi, which is gradually morphing into the new DeFi 3.0. This potential drives the DeFi 3.0 Alliance to ensure that DeFi 3.0 and FaaS become recognized in the crypto and blockchain sector. The DeFi 3.0 Alliance currently has eight entities serving as founding members. Each member is a leader in the DeFi space, with ample expertise and experience with related products. Each one also contributes to the entire group’s collective $150 million market cap and a community of nearly 100,000 users. The members include: Aggregated Finance ($AGFI) Cross Chain Farming ($CCF) Reimagined Finance ($REFI) Alpha Brain Capital DAO ($ABC) The Chads Club #Chads Inu Capital ($INC) All Coins Yield Capital ($ACYC) D3 Protocol ($DEFI) In addition to the above, the DeFi 3.0 Alliance will also welcome Foodfarmer.eth as an advisor. Nonetheless, the alliance welcomes all DeFi 3.0 or FaaS projects with credibility, demonstrable security, and the necessary drive required in the industry. DeFi 3.0 Alliance Methods There are several focus areas the DeFi 3.0 Alliance will use to achieve its aim to improve the DeFi 3.0 and FaaS sectors. Firstly, the association will invest in research and development (R&D) to create security standards that serve as minimum requirements for deploying secure FaaS and DeFi solutions. In addition to these standards, the alliance’s R&D efforts will focus on a technical framework that optimizes innovations and products for access across multiple chains. The DeFi 3.0 Alliance will also promote information exchange on essential market issues and trends, which provides better DeFi 3.0 and FaaS performance. Furthermore, there will be efforts to promote and publicize DeFi 3.0 and FaaS to an expanded audience of potential market players and alliance members. Other Activities As part of plans to improve the sector, the DeFi 3.0 Alliance features an accelerator program that provides seed funding for new projects. Through direct investment from members and association funds, the alliance will afford innovative projects the liquidity they require to contribute to DeFi 3.0 and FaaS progress.    

Since the majority of people use metamask as their wallet I was thinking that would be a point of decentralization. I was wondering if I could theoretically write a piece of code in solidity and directly access the blockchain myself using my seed phrase to guarantee security? submitted by /u/FarStep8 [link] [comments]

Following the charged-up debut of the Proshares bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), Valkyrie’s bitcoin futures ETF and the Vaneck bitcoin strategy ETF, interest in these types of funds seems to have faded a great deal. After the Proshares bitcoin ETF BITO reached an all-time high on November 10, the ETF is down 39% over the last […]

NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token – Non-Fungible meaning unique, and token meaning record of ownership stored on a blockchain. Put together, an NFT is a record of ownership of a unique item that’s stored on a blockchain. While NFTs had their start in generative art, their use cases have expanded to include other digital items like metaverse land, blockchain game characters, and music. Further, a process called tokenization allows the ownership of physical items to be encoded into blockchains, expanding NFT use cases even further to include things like merchandise, real estate, and physical art. Data stored on blockchains is immutable and transparent – immutable meaning tamper-resistant, and transparent meaning visible and verifiable by all. Because NFTs exist on the blockchain, they cannot be deleted, and their existence is publicly verifiable. This makes NFTs ideal for ownership rights management and securely storing important records. Their applications are limited only by the human imagination. The logic behind NFTs – their creation, how they are transferred between people, and their utility – is managed by smart contracts, bits of software that enforce digital agreements and run on decentralized networks like Ethereum. Combined with immutability and transparency, smart contracts make NFTs trustless, making it possible for people to transact directly without risk of fraud. Thanks to trustlessness, networks of anonymous individuals can use and transfer NFTs without centralized authorities or middlemen. This makes NFTs fair for all people, and makes self-management of ownership possible, bolstering the freedoms of those without equal access to opportunities and resources. For example, women in certain regions of the Middle East and Africa are not allowed to hold their own birth certificates and passports, making citizenship verification and travel difficult. NFTs stored on a secure and decentralized blockchain could be used as digital passports, empowering these women to control their own citizenship and travel rights. NFTs can be used for other important documents as well, such as IDs and proof of residency. Without documentation, individuals do not have access to financial services. NFTs fill this need by giving people control over their own documentation. Combined with DeFi platforms, networks through which individuals provide financial services to each other, NFTs could allow anyone with a smart device and internet to control their own finances. One DeFi platform that’s trying to make financial services more accessible is Konstellation Network, an ecosystem of several products that aim to offer all the benefits of traditional fintech and more. Konstellation Network is a blockchain protocol that’s creating a global infrastructure for the future of decentralized capital markets. Here’s a look at their products: DarcMatter is an investment platform that gives investors access to tokenized (NFT) versions of alternative investments, which can include items like art, antiques, commodities, and derivatives. VegaX is a digital asset management firm that gives investors access to crypto index strategies, allowing them to diversify by investing in groups of several cryptocurrencies at once. Taebit is a DeFi platform focused on bringing cryptocurrencies to the Korean market through ease of access and usability, including a DEX for liquidity within the Korean market as well Photon Gateways are cross-chain bridges created to make the transfer of assets between several blockchains seamless to open more investment opportunities. A recent NFT-based addition to the Konstellation ecosystem is Squid Squad OG, a game in which NFT holders compete in high-risk, high-reward Rock Paper Scissors. To be eligible to play, players must purchase lottery tickets — the proceeds of which go to a communal prize pool. Squid Squad OGs then face off, the losers being eliminated. Every time 32 players are eliminated, the games will be put to a vote on whether to continue the games or to discontinue. The form to join the Squid Squad OG whitelist is here. Conclusion Since beginning with generative art, NFT technology has come a long way. Today, NFTs have the potential to bolster freedoms worldwide and make financial services accessible to all. Through NFTs and DeFi protocols, the Konstellation Network enables users to create and stake stablecoins for easy payments and passive income; invest in both traditional and alternative markets, and transfer assets between blockchains.

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PRESS RELEASE. United Kingdom — January 13th, 2022 – Kepithor Studios has announced a set of innovative new GameFi mechanics coming to its turn-based NFT battle game, Kingdom Karnage. The game will introduce new play-to-earn opportunities for its players, powered by its upcoming KKT token, which has received investment from Animoca Brands, Kriptomat, ExNetwork, MyMetaverse, […]

Tether has not issued a statement giving a specific reason for blacklisting three addresses, but it has done so before to comply with law enforcement and aid exchanges after cyber attacks.

“One of the most powerful things that tokenization does is release the energy of fans into tangible forms of value and meaning, we see this effect in NFTs and also social tokens,” said Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu.