Author: News BTC

Before the spread of COVID-19 in 2019, movie sales around the world raked in over $45 billion. As cinemas shut down across the country due to the pandemic, in 2020, the US market decreased 65.7% from $11.4 billion to $3.9 billion.

Since the pandemic has eased and people have adapted to a new normal, the global movie market has slowly begun to bounce back. With the industry booming again, the pandemic has changed the way the entertainment industry operates. Entertainment streaming platforms, such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video have become increasingly popular. These platforms not only offer convenience and a multitude of options to users but also encourage independent filmmakers to submit their projects and ideas, giving them a chance at the once monopolized entertainment industry.

As blockchain continues to make its mark on the financial world, more companies are moving towards decentralized technology to increase their financial security and transparency. However, the decentralized solution to the ongoing problem had yet to be introduced to the filmmaking industry.

Decentralizing the Film Industry

Built on blockchain technology, MovieBiz Coin aims to decentralize the current film industry. The platform encourages producers, directors, and all players involved in the movie-making business with more opportunities to grow, raise capital and establish their projects, therefore giving them an open door to showcasing their talent while giving investors opportunities to enter the movie industry.

Specifically, using crowdfunding technology, producers can tokenize their films by leveraging the MovieBiz Coin platform. The platform is also disrupting other parts of the film space, with its independent movie booking service called BookingCandy.

BookingCandy allows users to book tickets at local cinemas through their smartphones using blockchain technology. With the smart contract capability, retailers are ensured that their tickets are encrypted and can only be sold at face value, preventing ticket scalping.

MovieBiz Coin was created to support independent filmmakers, allowing them to create and showcase content, raise funds, and reach a trusted global community of film enthusiasts. Through their native $MBZ token, MovieBiz Coin aims to use its technology to invest in films and artists worldwide.

The advantages of having a decentralized platform allow MovieBiz Coin to confidently move headfirst into large and diverse markets, attracting film-making advocates all around the globe. MovieBiz Coin is a revolutionary step forward for the film industry, inspiring unconventional movie talents to access a slew of projects that, thanks to blockchain technology, are sure to enrich people’s lives with content that captivates and entertains.

“Most people don’t have the opportunity to invest in the movie industry and the main investors [are] people from the movie world. We [want to] change the way the movie industry works while making it possible for anyone to invest and make profits by investing in movies,” the company has stated on its website.

 

According to reports, the gambling industry is worth billions of dollars. The gambling industry was estimated to have a market cap of 53.7 billion USD in 2019 and to grow at an 11 percent annual rate from 2020 to 2027. Although gambling has been a popular social activity since the 9th century in China, to the 17th-century card game, poker, the internet has significantly impacted the gambling sector based on the Persian game As- Nas. Online casinos and online gambling have become very popular in today’s world, and they have played a significant role in increasing the gambling sector’s market capitalization and driving user growth. With the introduction of blockchain technology, the online gambling industry appears to be poised for another surge. The gambling industry is currently highly centralized, which has resulted in a lot of friction between users and online casinos, betting companies, and so on. The use of blockchain technology eliminates the need for an intermediary to place bets. This article will look at Slotie, a fast-paced blockchain-based online casino, and how it intends to redefine the gambling industry.

The Current State Of Online Gambling

Currently, the gambling industry is highly centralized, with bookmakers deciding the fate of users in the gambling world. Over the years, numerous reports have been filed against online gambling companies for questionable and unfair practices. There have been reports of slow payouts, users being cheated out of their winnings, and bookmakers abusing their power over the system by manipulating gambling events. These issues have become a source of concern, and if not addressed promptly, they will stifle user growth in the online gambling industry. Incorporating decentralized finance in the gambling industry could be the solution that the gambling industry sorely requires.

Sloties, An Utility-Based NFT Project

With the plethora of issues currently plaguing the gambling industry and the crux of the majority of these issues being linked to centralization, it is a no-brainer that the gambling industry requires decentralization.  Additionally, many industries have been disrupted by decentralization and blockchain technology, which provides a trustless and permissionless system and eliminates the need for a third party.

Slotie seeks to disrupt the gambling industry by introducing blockchain technology and NFTs and providing unique betting features for players and the opportunity for the investors to co-own the casinos’ house edge.

Sloties are over ten thousand individually generated NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain with the primary goal of providing utility in the gambling industry. Sloties are built on the ERC-721 standard, which also powers digital collectibles and the majority of utility NFTs. The recent NFT craze has drawn users to NFT-based slot machines, where you can win NFTs rather than cash. Slotie’s slot machines allow slotie holders to become shareholders of the casino’s house edge and earn incredible rewards. As a slotie NFT holder, you can stake NFTs into slot games and earn rewards from casino players hoping to win the NFTs staked. By staking Slotie NFT’s, the NFT community has the opportunity to become the “house” in 150 casinos. In addition, the passive income made monthly from casino players is distributed to the NFT community every month. Being a Slotie NFT holder offers some benefits, including:

Staking Rewards: Slotie community members can provide Slotie NFTs as liquidity for slot games. When a slotie NFT is added to the slot games, the value is automatically calculated and suggested to the NFT holder. If the NFT is lost to a casino player, the holder receives the amount calculated by Slotie’s algorithm. Thus, NFTs can be staked in slot machines by all holders equally, and the value of the NFT itself determines the house share.

Passive Income: Aside from staking rewards, being an NFT holder allows you to enter lucrative partnership deals with other casinos and Elia software. NFT holders receive 80% of the monthly revenue generated by Slotie owners. Passive income is a critical component of Slotie’s ecosystem, providing Slotie NFTs with multi-utility use cases. Keep in mind that passive income rewards are permanent and come with no risk to NFT holders.

VIP MEMBERSHIP/RAKEBACK

Aside from passive income streams and staking rewards, another unique benefit of Slotie’s project is the opportunity for NFT owners to receive VIP membership at 150+ partner casinos. VIP members also receive a cashback guarantee, which can be as high as 20%. This is known as rakeback. Slotie owners will be reimbursed 20% of all lost bets with a Rakeback. Rakebacks are paid from affiliate commissions collected by all partner casinos.

This Slotie’s Development

Slotie has built a robust community in a short period, and it is constantly growing. In just five days after launching their Discord server, Slotie had over 10,000 members. Slotie is a very promising NFT project, and its utility NFT use cases play a significant role in this unprecedented growth. Slotie’s presale and public sale of its NFTs are scheduled for Q1 2022, and the project has been dubbed one of the fastest-growing NFT communities this year by some.

Final Thoughts

Slotie’s rapid growth and distinct vision for the online gambling industry exemplify the level of innovation and possibilities made possible by NFTs and blockchain technology. Slotie intends to use blockchain technology to alter the gambling industry’s narrative and usher in a new era of trustless, permissionless online gambling.

 

 

This year just keeps getting better and better for Solana. Since Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of FTX, famously tweeted an offer to buy SOL at a price well above its market value in January, SOL is up 12,000% for the year, and it recently broke into the crypto Top 5 as measured by market cap.

The price of $SOL began soaring to new all-time highs as the Solana community met in Lisbon for the network’s first-ever international conference, Breakpoint. After nearly two years of enduring a global pandemic that kept everyone at home, Breakpoint was the first time many people in the Solana community met in person to discuss the future of their projects.

Presentations from project leaders in DeFi, NFT metaverses, and social media helped build the buzz around Solana at the sold-out conference. As the meeting drew to a close, the optimism behind these projects was contagious, knowing that Solana’s high-speed and low-cost blockchain network was giving each of these sectors a leg up in technology.

This article takes a look at three outstanding projects presented at Solana Breakpoint. Each of these projects should help lay the foundations for onboarding a new generation of a billion blockchain users seeking the rewards of participating in DeFi, exploring NFT metaverses, and keeping in touch with social media.

Hubble Protocol Explores the Universe of DeFi 2.0 on Solana

DeFi has experienced exponential growth since it began heating up in 2020. The total value locked in DeFi now stands shy of $300 billion with around $15 billion of that TVL attributed to Solana, which sits in third place behind Binance Smart Chain ($21 billion) and Ethereum ($183 billion).

Hubble Protocol, developed and launched by a former programmer at Bloomberg, is on a mission to capture even more value for Solana DeFi. By creating sustainable DeFi 2.0 services focusing on democratizing user participation and sharing revenues with the community, Hubble has a stated goal of “exploring the DeFi universe on Solana.”

The first product to launch on Hubble is a borrowing platform that lets users deposit multiple assets like SOL, BTC, and ETH to mint USDH at a capital-efficient collateral ratio of 110%. Comparisons have been made calling Hubble “the Maker DAO of Solana,” and USDH should become an integral part of DeFi on the network as a Solana native crypto-backed stablecoin.

What’s impressive about Hubble is that nearly all of the protocol’s revenue is shared with the community. Users who stake HBB, Hubble’s DAO governance token, receive the majority of the 0.5% fee for minting and redeeming USDH, and these fees are distributed in USDH.

Liquidations are collected 100% by the protocol’s users, and the arbitrage opportunities that keep USDH on peg are also significant revenue streams for those who love to arb. In addition, users who deposit their crypto on Hubble can earn yields on these deposits while they mint and borrow USDH. Yielding on deposits creates a zero-cost borrowing proposition, as these gains can cover the minting fee, and no interest is charged on loans.

The project has listed an ambitious roadmap that should take DeFi 2.0 on Solana to the next level by introducing structured products (pre-packaged DeFi strategies) and under-collateralized lending. Both of these developments are tremendous additions to DeFi as a whole, and successfully pulling them off should bring new DeFi users to Solana in droves.

Star Atlas Launches an Unrivaled Blockchain Gaming Experience

Electronic gaming has been hailed as the entry point for crypto and blockchain technology’s mass adoption. The New York Times reports that the gaming metaverse could change the face of commerce in general.

The advent of play-to-earn (P2E) gaming and GameFi has led to people quitting their jobs in some countries to start making a living from playing blockchain games. P2E games are exploding in popularity, and Axie Infinity chalked up an excellent year for adoption with a token price that has blown through the roof again and again.

However, most of the offerings that have driven the crypto gaming boom up until now, like Axie Infinity, can be described as turn-based card games. Now, pair a “grand strategy game of space exploration, territorial conquest, political domination, and more” with the 3D power of Unreal Engine 5, and you get the revolution in blockchain gaming that is Star Atlas.

If Star Atlas’s gameplay graphics are even half as mesmerizing as its spine-tingling trailer, then wow. The technological leap into 3D that powered games built with Unreal Engine will finally bring the immersion and open-world gameplay of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) to blockchain gaming and P2E.

Star Atlas is set in the year 2620, a future where three warring factions battle for resources across the universe. Gameplay is driven by NFTs, which means real assets with monetary value will be won and lost as gamers participate in battle. Still, players can enter safer levels to train and learn how the game works before entering the “Wild Frontier,” where anything goes.

Players in the Star Atlas metaverse will find many possibilities for things to do and ways to play to earn. There’s a long list of roles players can choose from, and Star Atlas has planned out a massive in-game economy where users can mine for a profit and even secure DeFi loans and insurance policies on ships.

Star Atlas has begun releasing mini-games pre-launch, and their Discord server has already attracted 100,000 users. Once full gameplay is launched, it will be interesting to see how many people quit their jobs to P2E full time!

Breakpoint Announces a Revolution in Social Media

Social media took center stage at Breakpoint on several occasions. During Sam Bankman-Fried’s participation in a talk about Solana that was piped in on the big screen, he mentioned that Solana was the only blockchain capable of delivering any social media presence.

While no one project stood out during the conference’s three days of presentations, social media was on the tip of everyone’s tongue. One of Reddit’s Co-Founders, Alexis Ohanian, filled a slot on the last day of Breakpoint to talk about why he and his venture firm Seven Seven Six were pledging $100 million to develop social media on Solana.

This investment doubles the original $50 million pledged by Ohanian in partnership with the Solana Foundation. Ohanian echoed SBF’s claims that Solana would become the home for social media as he added that Web3, in general, would flourish on the network.

Ohanian is quoted as saying, “There is an unprecedented opportunity to fuse social and crypto in a way that feels like a Web2 social product but with the added incentive of empowering users with real ownership,” and that Solana would be the network that makes this possible.

It’s too early to tell which project will rise as a leader in providing social media services for the future of Web3 on Solana. However, with $100 million in funding set aside to develop the sector, watch out for social media platforms as they build on Solana soon.

Speedy Solana’s Growth Continues Its Parabolic Rise

Solana’s network advertises speeds of up to 65,000 transactions per second (TPS), with block times clocking in at 400 milliseconds per block, making Solana the fastest public blockchain available today.

Furthermore, with an average transaction price of $0.00025, Solana is also one of the cheapest blockchains for users and developers on the market.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that there are reports of many users switching over to use Solana from Ethereum. The network that invented smart contracts, Ethereum, advertises around 15-30 TPS with transactions costing approximately $50 each.

Raj Gokal, Co-Founder of Solana, took the stage with Alexis Ohanian and at one point stated at the Breakpoint conference that his network plans to onboard over a billion people in the next few years. If Breakpoint serves as an indicator of Solana’s success, the DeFi, NFT, and social media projects lining up to build Solana’s future might make that billion-user figure a reality.

In recent weeks as Facebook announced it was rebranding to the name “Meta” it has sparked a renewed interest in metaverse cryptocurrency projects. Meta will be creating a VR (Virtual Reality) metaverse where people can socialise together on a more interactive scale than they previously could.

There are other metaverse projects around and they are quite different from Meta. Here, the key difference is the use of blockchain. The Meta’s metaverse is expected to be controlled and maintained by themselves, which is unlike what is seen in the blockchain metaverse where the control of the project is distributed across thousands of users. This is a powerful thing to distribute control as it takes power away from the single entity by putting power in the hands of the many rather than the few.

Metaverses have become increasingly popular among millions around the world due to there being an endless amount of possibilities to who a person can be and what they can do in them. The lure of escapism is one of the main drivers that attracts so many to want to be a completely different person from what they are like in the real world. As we move into a new metaverse world, many big companies are recognizing this opportunity and with Facebook showing its intent to drive this sector forward, it will only add to the funding this sector receives as new dawn arrives on what online social interaction can become.

Compared to that of Meta, decentralized metaverse projects put the power into the users and have a much higher level of transparency between them and the developers themselves. We have selected 3 blockchain-based metaverse projects you should look at taking advantage of as the metaverse movement booms.

#1 The Sandbox (SAND)

The Sandbox (SAND) metaverse is a relatively new project. It is a virtual world that allows users around the world to socialize with one another in a decentralized ecosystem. There is also the opportunity to earn incomes from buying and selling land, in-game products and even real estate. They use their own in-game currency SAND that is traded within their ecosystem and can be used for many transactions within the metaverse.

Their impressive partner list includes that of notable companies and individuals that help increase their reach for investors. Notable partners include that of gaming company Atari, music artists Snoop Dogg and Deadmau5 as well as popular TV show The Walking Dead.

Currently, their market cap is under $2.5 billion which still means there is a large amount of potential growth that can be achieved in their future as the project develops.

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/the-sandbox/

#2 Decentraland (MANA)

Decentraland (MANA) is one of the more popular metaverse projects as it has been successful for a long period of time. This has brought a lot of continued interest in its developments due to the belief many investors have had in the development team. They also use a VR social aspect, much the same that Meta (Facebook) will be using, and is combined with blockchain technology to create a truly decentralized and transparent metaverse. Decentraland also uses its own in-game currency, MANA, which can be used for various purposes such as land, in-game items and even names for users. These can be bought and sold which can then be directly linked to fiat money where users can earn actual income from playing the game.

Within the metaverse, users can create their own avatar that allows for endless possibilities that a person can achieve. This is one of the aspects that attracts so many people to metaverse projects which is the ability for a person to be whoever they desire to be, free from their real world limitations.

The current market cap of Decentraland (MANA) sits around $5 billion which is just over double the market cap of The Sandbox so it may not have as much room for future growth, but it is, however, a lot more established in the metaverse sector which means it has a much steadier level of support.

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/decentraland/

#3 JEDSTAR DeFi (JED) and GameFi (KRED)

The third choice for metaverse projects you should consider adding to your portfolio is JEDSTAR. This project is a much newer cryptocurrency project (2021) that is a 3 token DECO for DeFi (JED), GameFi (KRED) and Governance (ZED).

They currently have their DeFi token JED released and their GameFi token KRED will be releasing soon. JEDSTAR will be using KRED for their upcoming Collectible Card Game (CCG), their metaverse Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) and it will be used for the trading of in-game content on their NFT marketplace AGORA that will support the ecosystem of both games.

Not only are JEDSTAR supporting crypto based aspects but they are also reaching non-crypto gaming platforms such as with their most recent partnership announcement with Skill Gaming for STARDOME. This will be a world’s first Currency As A Service (CAAS) where users will be able to directly convert their fiat into KRED and vice versa. This initiative will directly influence the mass adoption of crypto as it takes out the usual hoops that users need to jump through in order to convert one to another.

They have already announced their initial partnerships with Chainlink, Skill Gaming, FRAG Games and Remote Control Productions with more expected to be announced as the project evolves.

Having recognised that gaming is one of the most appropriate avenues to go down to help increase the percentage of crypto adoption, this will help increase the current 4% adoption as around 40% of the world plays video games. This is one of the most suitable choices to help increase mass adoption as a large majority of this 40% are already accustomed to using in-game currencies of some form. The difference that currently persists with a lot of the AAA gaming companies is that it’s only a one-way street in terms of converting fiat into the in-game currency. Fiat is used to buy in-game content but if a user had in-game currency on their account that they wished to convert back into fiat, they would be unable to do so as the current business model does not allow them to do so. JEDSTAR has realized that there is a gap in the market for gaming platforms and has therefore made the steps to simplify the process of in-game currencies that will help rewrite who should actually be in control of their in-game finances through their partnership with Skill Gaming which has around 30,000 users.

KRED will be having a public pre-sale on JEDSTAR’s website in Q4 which allows for users to purchase the token at a discounted price prior to public launch later in the year.

With JEDSTAR being a much younger project, investors have the chance to be involved in a much higher percentage of growth than The Sandbox and Dectraland metaverse projects with them already being established. Not only is JEDSTAR seeking to be a metaverse but a multi-faceted project that aims to increase mass adoption of cryptocurrencies through the implementation of various use cases for KRED within the play-to-earn gaming industry.

https://jedstar.app/

 

Image: Pixabay

The esports industry has become a popular culture due to increased activities from global investors, media outlets, and brands. It is estimated that by the end of 2021, there will be about 26.6 million monthly esports viewers, an 11.4% increase from figures recorded in 2020.

While these numbers seem lucrative, not all esports platforms hold up to their names.  Many have ended up as scams, while a few others are still finding their way. On the other hand, some platforms do not fully appreciate the diversity between players, while others are yet to establish sound gaming systems. This is why a team of developers, led by BC Simon and Pritesh Kuchera, created MetaPlay to host E-sport tournaments for all the amateur players as if they were professionals. The platform seeks to change the e-sport experience by slowly tackling issues within the industry.

Introducing MetaPlay

At the end of October PolyPlay was hacked and had money stolen. Unlike most teams that roll over and die, PolyPlay spent the first 24 hours salvaging any funding they could, managing to rescue 87% of the funds. Within 24 hours PolyPlay relaunched as MetaPlay hitting $21, listed within 12 hours on coin market cap, coingecko and centralized exchange MEXC.

In a crypto world where trust and honor are hard to find, BC Simon and Pritesh Kucheria stand by and live for their communities’ best interests. This resulted in the most successful and fastest relaunch in cryptocurrency history. A team you can trust, a community that trusts in a wild west called cryptocurrencies.

MetaPlay is a blockchain-based gaming platform created for the e-sport industry. The platform offers tournaments, staking, and a launchpad with a fully transparent and DOXXED team. MetaPlay seeks to become the next driving force by being Gaming’s Gold Standard.

Despite being relatively new in the market, MetaPlay has already begun leading the esports scene worldwide. The platform organized different tournaments in the last few weeks, including MetaPlay CSGO, LoL, and NBA2K tournaments, to keep its community engaged. During these events, MetaPlay saw numerous top-level teams join to compete with players from different gaming communities across the globe.

Notably, MetaPlay recently launched its launchpad and feeder projects. The project has also developed an NFT marketplace that will go to the Wax blockchain NFT. This marketplace will allow for the creation of artworks to recognize all MetaPlay partners, team members, or developers.

MetaPlay uses a business model inspired by J.D Rockefeller to run its operation. This model calls for internal promotion of launches, feeder projects’ management, and hiring team members. So far, this business model has proven successful as the platform continues to record significant growth. In the last forum months, MetaPlay has seen 16000 investors stake about $13,000,000. Notably, during launch, the MetaPlay native token was trading at $0.04; however, through the business model and launching on Oxbull Tech, MetaPlay’s rise rose significantly, and it is now trading at $18.

MetaPlay has already formed various strategic partnerships to help further its mission. The platform recently partnered up with the Harmony team to launch HarmonyPad. Notably, the Harmonypad, following its launch, has been on an upward trend following increased investor interest in the product.

MetaPlay also recently formed a partnership with HederaPad (HbarPad), working closely with the CEO and team of Hedera. Other strategic partnerships include ones with Oxbull, Travala, Tenset, and others. Reportedly, these partnerships are geared towards helping MetaPlay develop a better ecosystem that will eventually set the project at the top of the chain hierarchy.

Commenting on how MetaPlay will break through to the top 100 projects, BC Simon stated:

“We are the most desirable coin in crypto because we don’t falsely promote ourselves or hype products. We work 16 hours a day; we’re active in telegram from CEO to all 112 staff. We don’t sleep, we build. Many said that we couldn’t maintain this pace for longer than a week or two, and we’ve gone on four months of this. We are the fastest building coin in crypto, and our progress reflects that. It won’t be long until we’re rightfully in the top 100.”

In the coming days, plans to launch a YouTube highlight channel, hire Twitch streamers, being pro leagues,  launch a gaming DEX launchpad, and finally integrate profiles and App

Decentralized oracles are specially created to achieve deterministic results that rely on cause and effect in comparison to an individual relationship. A decentralized oracle solves security issues by providing a trusted and reliable system.

More so, it bridges the gap between blockchain smart contracts and external data sources by applying the traditional method of using API to fetch data. They obtain data from the most trusted sources and deliver it to the user through the blockchain and external data sources.

The Plugin is the agnostic decentralized oracle. It offers a cost-effective solution for any smart contract on the XinFin ecosystem. Additionally, it provides a high level of security and scalability for all kinds of blockchain technology that implements its data feeds.

Consequently, the main benefit of using a Plugin is the data feeds are being provided by the platform at a very low and affordable cost compared to any other oracle provider. Also, the data feeds are highly diversified as per the needs of the customers and the XinFin community.

Plugin ecosystem’s token PLI token is a powered token developed on XinFin’s XRC20 Standard. The main goal of the Plugin is to reduce the gas fees, increase transaction speed, and deliver hundreds of Dapps that can connect to Data Oracle and reach millions of individuals globally.

GoPlugin.co collects data from various external sources, consolidates, and ensures the correct value is provided to its user at any point. Thus, it is the most difficult part of any decentralized oracle provider that is highly trusted by all its users.

Plugin Listed on Bitrue and Globiance Exchange

Currently, Plugin is listed on some well-known crypto exchanges.  The plugin was listed on one of the top crypto exchanges Bitrue. Furthermore, Bitrue is a well-known cryptocurrency exchange with support for trading, loans, investments, and more.

The main aim of Bitrue is to utilize blockchain and new technologies to enable all users to access fair financial services, despite their location in the world and their economic position.

Finally, the Plugin is listed on Globiance, which is a financial services group consisting of cryptocurrency exchanges and financial institutions. The Globiance platform covers the exchange and trading of crypto and fiat currencies, stable coins in major currencies, payment solutions, and worldwide transfers.

Plugin is now available to trade on Globiance. So, the users of Globiance can easily trade Plugin on this crypto exchange platform.

 

Currently, DeFi is too separated and disjointed. This complicates DeFi trading to the point where it becomes confusing, time-consuming, arduous and expensive. The number of total DeFi users has surpassed 3.5 million people, and overall DEX trading volume is at $816 Billion for the last year. The average number of weekly DEX traders is more than 200,000, and approximately 40% of them are facing problems with multi-step transactions.

Swapping an ERC-20 token for a BEP-20 token requires the following steps:

• A token swap on an Ethereum DEX to a bridge-compatible token;
• Then a swap across the bridge;
• Then an additional swap on a BSC-based DEX, to get to your targeted BEP-20 token.

This process is clunky, can be very confusing, requires both source and target network’s native assets, and ultimately it ends up being very expensive.

There are numerous projects that aim to solve one or two issues. However, no one is trying to consolidate everything into one location… except for Rubic.

Among other projects, Rubic has come up with a helpful feature – Multi-Chain Routing, which massively simplifies the process of trading tokens across different networks. Rubic combines the first step (bridge) and the second steps (exchange) into one Swap, offering the best route; taking into account the liquidity and cost of gas, to give the user the best value possible.

Rubic is a Multi-Chain swap protocol with an opportunity to swap more than 9,500 tokens between 4 blockchains: Ethereum, BSC, Polygon and now Avalanche. Rubic has a year-long experience in DeFi and a trading volume of $53,970,125.

Rubic’s goal is to integrate one blockchain every month; the last one, Avalanche, took place in October.  It included the integration of three major DEXs on the Avalanche ecosystem: SushiSwap, Trader Joe and Pangolin. It will provide its users with significantly better rates and lower fees for Multi-Chain Swaps on Avalanche.

In regards to the Avalanche Multi-Chain Routing integration into Rubic.exchange, Rubic is offering users a Gas Refund for Multi-Chain Protocol transactions of $200 or more within the Avalanche ecosystem. Currently, Rubic has built partnerships with  $DUN, $TUN, $EXP, $CYCLE, $SING, $TSD, $AVE, $GB, $VSO, $YAK, $PNG, $MKC, $SWIFT, and $JOE. The Gas Refund campaign started on October 19th and lasts until November 2nd.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are gradually shaping the future of the metaverse, a futuristic iteration of the internet where participants exist in a digital world through 3D virtual shared spaces. This rising crypto niche has caught the attention of creatives, given the opportunity to integrate their art with decentralized ecosystems. At the core, NFTs are digital collectibles that can be stored, shared or traded through emerging NFT marketplaces.

While still a nascent niche, the NFT market has ballooned over the past few months to become one of the essential pillars of the crypto ecosystem. According to the latest NFT report by DappRadar, the NFT market generated $10.67 billion in trading volume over Q3. This marked a 700% increase compared to Q2. Next year looks even more promising, given the rate at which innovations are happening in the NFT ecosystem.

So, what’s in it for retailers and institutions? For starters, most NFT innovations follow the fundamental nature of crypto ecosystems, which is a decentralized architecture. This means that NFTs offer everyone an opportunity to become part of the metaverse in one way or the other. However, like financial markets, one has to pick the right horse to thrive as a future metaverse investor.

A few NFT ecosystems have stood out, offering the perfect starting point for interested newbies and veterans looking for better options. The next section of this article will feature some of these upcoming NFT marketplaces, narrowing down into the value proposition of each ecosystem.

1.  Drops

As it stands, NFT owners can barely generate more value from their idle collectibles. The Drops NFT ecosystem is designed to address this challenge by introducing a platform where collectible owners can borrow and lend against their NFTs. With Drops, anyone who owns an NFT can place it as collateral and access a loan of up to 80% of the floor value of their NFT.

NFT owners can do this through Drops permissionless lending pools, where NFT owners have the option to choose or create a lending pool that suits their needs. So far, the Drops NFT lending platform enjoys a total value locked (TVL) of $3 million, a figure that will likely rise as more NFT holders look for value addition options.

It is also noteworthy that Drops features a staking program where NFT owners can stake the native token, DOP, with the current APY at 74.99%.

Drops is one of the NFT innovations changing the game for new entrants and veteran NFT holders. Fundamentally, this platform is solving liquidity issues and reducing the selling pressure of NFTs by offering users alternative ways to preserve or add value through their digital collectibles.

2.  WiV NFT Marketplace

WiV combines the traditional wine industry with the NFT ecosystem; at the core, WiV Technology focuses on increasing the liquidity in the wine market by enabling stakeholders to represent their finest products as digital collectibles. The WiV NFT marketplace does this by tapping into the uniqueness of each wine product, enabling wine producers to create an indistinguishable collectible that represents their product on a blockchain.

Besides a customizable NFT marketplace, WiV’s decentralized architecture allows WiV NFT owners to buy and sell the minted wine collectibles to anyone worldwide. The platform also features a customizable digital wine cellar inventory where WiV NFT owners can display their fine wine collectibles. Notably, the WiV NFT ecosystem is compatible with other chains, including Ethereum and Polygon network.

As more people adopt NFTs, WiV is among the platforms setting the stage for adopting physically-backed digital collectibles. This trend will likely continue, given the keen attention from potential brick-and-mortar industries, including real estate.

3.  Unifty

The current state of the NFT ecosystem is still complex for both newbies and veterans looking to leverage the many opportunities. Unifty started as a solution to manage and organize digital collectibles but evolved to become a full-stack NFT platform that provides building tools for creators. This NFT ecosystem allows anyone to mint an NFT collectible without any coding knowledge.

Some of the NFT-focused innovations supported by Unifty’s infrastructure include NFT farms, marketplaces and bridging solutions. Creators who use the Unifty platform to mint NFTs are only required to pay a one-time deployment fee, after which they can create a decentralized application that suits their NFT needs. The creators are also entitled to a lifetime revenue share of the digital collectibles sold via Unifty’s custom NFT marketplace and other tools.

As for the platform’s governance, Unifty’s native token NIF is a core part of its decentralized ecosystem. This native token exposes Unifty NFT creators to network incentives, including discounts, balance offsets, and bridging to other blockchain networks. So far, over 350 NFT farms have been created via Unifty, while close to 600 NFT-oriented contracts have been deployed.

Wrap Up

NFTs will probably be the most significant drivers towards crypto adoption; the trend has gained popularity amongst celebrities, athletes and billionaires such as Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. According to Cuban, NFTs present a game-changing opportunity for creatives,

“If you’re a professional photographer, you should be putting your stuff [on] Rarible (an NFT marketplace), and same with music or music video, instead of it being on YouTube, put it where you can tokenize it and keep on getting paid.” noted the billionaire during a podcast with The Defiant.

Going by the recent developments, the future of a metaverse-based world seems inevitable. Nonetheless, digital collectibles still have a long way to go before most people in the world can make sense of this life-changing technology.

 

 

This year, the use and acceptance of cryptocurrencies have experienced brisk expansion, especially in developing and under-developed regions like Latin America and Africa. Clouded by hyperinflation, decades of political and economic problems, feeble national currencies, and scarcity of traditional financial services, young populations within these regions with access to smartphones and the internet are playing a critical role in driving the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies.

With the El Salvador government accepting bitcoin (BTC) as a legal tender, there has been an increased demand for decentralized financial (DeFi) opportunities for BTC users, especially layer-2 scaling solutions that help extend the capabilities of the Bitcoin network. Following El Salavador’s decision, BTC acceptance has surged across developing countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Panama, Peru, and others.

As a result of this unprecedented growth, cryptocurrency projects and protocols are increasingly introducing support for real-world use cases, emphasizing ease of use. From highly-regulated trading exchanges to underlying blockchain protocols, groundbreaking platforms are rapidly shrinking the accompanying adoption obstacles.

The outcome is greater mainstream financial services accessibility for global unbanked and under-banked populations, not to mention opportunities to generate income via a range of DeFi products and solutions.

Mainstreaming Crypto By Bridging The Real-World Gap

CoinZoom, a US-based cryptocurrency exchange, is one of the most prominent names spearheading the efforts to build an open and inclusive decentralized financial ecosystem. Besides being a highly regulated exchange operating in more than 140 countries, CoinZoom also offers several crypto-centric features that make lives easier for the global population.

As a crypto exchange, CoinZoom is suitable for both experienced and new traders, and its suite of connected products adds immense value for users. A range of CoinZoom Visa cards supports crypto payments across 53 million merchant stores worldwide. At the same time, the accompanying CoinZoom Earn feature allows users to earn up to 20% APY on their crypto savings accounts, far outstripping interest-bearing bank accounts. Moreover, the ZoomMe remittance service helps members to send and receive both fiat and cryptocurrencies across the globe for no fees.

Another project on a mission to bring a positive change in the African region is Jelurida, a Swiss blockchain company that enables enterprises to develop decentralized applications (dApps) using its Nxt, Ardor, and Ignis blockchains. Jelurida’s ecosystem offers public, private, and hybrid blockchain solutions designed to solve real-world problems.

Since its inception, the platform has facilitated experimentation of several promising real-world blockchain projects like HotCity, Cycle4Value, and TreeCycle. As the use of digital currencies develops across Africa, Jelurida Africa DLT, an offshoot of the Swiss firm Jelurida, has engaged in prelaunch project testing and other goals ahead of additional expansion to a larger number of African nations. Jelurida Africa aims to assist established companies, start-ups, and individuals to understand blockchain technology and provide consultancy, education, and top-notch solution deployments.

Last but not least, RSK (Rootstock) is a smart contracts solution built on the Bitcoin network. With El Salvador legalizing bitcoin, the demand for protocols that enable businesses to support real-world use cases on the network has reached an all-time high. RSK, with its suite of products and features, brings Ethereum’s smart contracts functionality on the Bitcoin network while ensuring industry-grade security, faster transactions per second (TPS), and lower gas costs.

Leveraging RKS, Kripton Market, an online marketplace focused on offering products and services to bitcoin users in El Salvador and other regions. With RSK, Krypton Market has launched a campaign across El Salvador to educate merchants and the general public about crypto’s real-world use cases and benefits. Other RSK-based solutions like Beexo, Money on Chain (MOC), Defiant, and Tropykus Finance will also participate in this campaign.

The Kripton Market is currently being used by 150 stores, with an additional 564 stores expected to join as part of a software update with Procom and Innovacion y Desarrollo. Also, every supporter will contribute to bitcoin’s utility in El Salvador, whether it is through sending payments, paying for goods and services, QR code transactions, or door-to-door shipments.

DeFi has become a popular alternative to traditional finance. Decentralized finance allows users to have maximum control over their assets, automates financial transactions, and eliminates intermediaries which are common in traditional finance. This explains why DeFi is widely adopted.

However, there are inherent risks of losing funds in the DeFi space, and conducting an IDO across multiple chains is rare. In addition, there is a shortage of launchpads that guarantee investors funds and privacy. Only a few platforms have a solid vetting model to filter out scams. Aegis promises to solve these issues and provide an all-inclusive platform where fundraising can be initiated without the fear of losing funds because the company vets the projects before listing them.

The new fundraising platform for DeFi projects is AEGIS Launchpad and they are currently preparing for its IDO in October. After Aegis finishes its successful private fundraising that raised $200k, the launchpad aims its public sale round on October 12, 2021. Potentially after the upcoming IDO, the platform plans to soon raise another $100k in private funding,

IDOs Will Benefit AEGIS Launchpad

Despite being newer, IDOs have become more preferred over ICOs and STOs and there is good reason for this. IDOs allow token distribution to the public conveniently, which is an emerging platform Aegis needs. IDOs are decentralized, meaning there’s no central form of control. Projects are expected to pay exchange fees when listing their projects and this is a common occurrence with ICOs and IEOs. However, project owners don’t have to pay high fees with IDOs and require no permission.

The IDO launch will present Aegis’s native token $AEGIS. Traders will be able to purchase $AEGIS, swap cryptos/stablecoins, stake their assets, and have a major influence on Aegis development. The more $AEGIS token you possess, the more influence you exert in the community.

IDOs also offer immediate liquidity at almost all price levels and allows projects to access funds as quickly as possible. It also waves pre-mines, which favors project owners. These are the apparent reasons for the launchpad’s IDO launch.

AEGIS Tends to Rectify The Errors Prevalent In The DeFi Space

AEGIS Launchpad claims to be the first decentralized multi-chain protocol with an insurance system. According to the company, the innovative cross-chain functionality with insurance enables fundraising from multiple blockchains while protecting clients funds. In addition, the platform allows multiple chain sales, where project owners can diversify their fundraising methods to attract more investors across several crypto communities. Most launchpads lack this, but we broaden the project owners’ reach to capture potential investors by possessing multi-chain capabilities.

AEGIS towers over other platforms with its multi-chain wallet connections. Investors can swap, stake, and claim their rewards conveniently at no cost when using their swap tool. Additionally, investors can manage their funds across several blockchains without trading limitations. Beneficially, users can choose to stake in any asset of their choice.

AEGIS aims to create an advanced experience for users by utilizing features proportional of DAO governance levels, tier-free allocation systems and sustainable liquidity by implementing RFI mechanics.

The Pad product is another exciting feature of AEGIS. It is a play-to-earn game that gives the user the opportunity to earn $AEGIS tokens each time they win. Although this product is available on the platform, it’s not open for public use until soon after the IDO launch.

Since the start of the year, AEGIS Launchpad has hit some significant milestones. The company’s conceptualization and team recruitment during Q1 was followed by beta testing, testnet releases, smart contract design, and the unveiling of its game development plan in Q2. By the next quarter, the launchpad had its public and private sale rounds and partnered with reputable venture funds like BlueMoon Ventures.

 

Messaging apps are ubiquitous – more than 3.6 billion people worldwide use them, with the average person sending up to 72 messages every 24 hours. Every day WhatsApp alone channels over 100 billion messages, while WeChat transmits 205 million video messages.

With this popularity has come a darker side: that of hacked personal data, cyber theft, and government violations of privacy. The way messaging apps are designed, work, and are managed exposes them by default to many risks:

• Most messaging apps require the user to input sensitive personal data, including name, phone number, and date of birth.
• WhatsApp, due to its database of user phone numbers, has been used to spread misinformation and fake news.
• Your messaging data is stored on the cloud, where it is not encrypted – leaving it vulnerable to being hacked.
• Many apps use your personal data for their own purposes. Facebook is known to share the data of Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp users with advertisers..
• Global surveillance operations of citizens with WhatsApp accounts have been undertaken by governments via the use of spyware.

A recent series of high-profile events have highlighted the size and frequency of the problem:

• In September 2021, the EU’s privacy watchdog fined WhatsApp €255 million for data processing and data sharing violations.
• Telegram, considered the safer option to WhatsApp, suffered a massive data leak in August 2020 that exposed the personal data of over 500 million users.
• The personal data, including email addresses and phone numbers, of over 530 million Facebook Messenger users was stolen by hackers in April 2021.

Furthermore, newer messaging platforms are not addressing the problem effectively. Signal, considered to be a superior alternative to both WhatsApp and Telegram, still uses cloud-based architecture and allows messages to non-users that are non-encrypted.

A real and viable solution may instead be found in the power of Blockchain technology. A team of Lithuanian communication technology experts has recently developed a solution that specifically eliminates all the problems of global messaging platforms. This solution is called Secretum.

Secretum is the world’s first and only decentralised, encrypted messaging app, built on the Solana Blockchain. It offers users a safe, hassle-free, and direct messaging platform, revolving around major technological advantages:

• No servers, no moderators, and complete end-to-end encryption for all messages between users.
• No message data or file storage in a centralised location or on the cloud – only on trusted and independently verified nodes in the Secretum network.
• Users can sign up exclusively with their crypto wallet addresses. No need to share names, birthdates, or any other sensitive data – in other words, total anonymity.

In addition to these advantages as a messaging app, Secretum allows users to trade P2P fungible and non-fungible crypto assets in a cost-effective way, bypassing existing exchanges. Solana, considered the fastest Blockchain in the world, allows Secretum to leverage low gas fees and high block speeds, joining a successful crypto ecosystem with 400+ projects worldwide.

The result is an app that drastically changes the way people communicate via instant messaging, making it safer, more reliable, and more user-friendly than ever before. Secretum has the potential to grow into a globally known, renowned, and used platform – achieving the ubiquity of WhatsApp or Telegram, only without any of their major weaknesses.

The IDO season is not over yet. The past few months we have witnessed busy days as the crypto community was burdened with filling whitelisting forms and participating in community initiatives of upcoming IDO projects. The current state remains the same. This new DeFi energy project, IOEN, is fully invested in making a big splash as it gears up for its upcoming IDO. IOEN is bringing an innovative approach to incentivise the creation of ‘virtual microgrids’ worldwide which will promote the efficient distribution of energy. IOEN will be launching on two platforms in October as part of its IDO launch.

Double Launch For IOEN In October

The first of these launches is a TrustSwap IDO slated to begin on the 8th of October. Trustswap is a decentralized protocol that aims to empower users in making ‘customizable transactions’ both in DeFi and in the cryptocurrency sphere as a whole.

Although it is primarily geared towards enabling smart contract adoption, it also has a native launchpad that has launched 27 projects so far according to its website. Despite the fact that most of the projects listed are by no means crypto household names, they still seem to have seen relatively decent growth on the launchpad with one project called ‘Chain Games’ having grown by 10,200% to an all-time high of $1.03 per coin. Although it has since dropped to a lower price of $0.1478, it is still almost fourteen times higher than its initial $0.01 price.

Along with the launch on TrustSwap, there will also be a separate launch on TrustPad, a distinct platform, and a dedicated launchpad for DeFi projects. TrustPad has completed 28 launches so far and has three on the way in the coming week, an admirable number for relatively new projects. The IOEN Initial DEX Offering will be the next day the listing is yet to be announced.

The project will be running its whitelisting processes and token holders must comply with the KYC anti-money laundering measures as a mandate to participate.

Bringing an Energy-Utility Idea in the Blockchain Space

IOEN stands for Internet of Energy Network and is a not-for-profit platform geared towards promoting the efficient distribution of renewable energy by using smart contract technology on Holochain. It is made by the creators of RedGrid, a clean energy technology company that aims at saving energy by automating household devices to use power when the power grid is best suited for it, rewarding users with IOEN tokens for helping stabilise the grid.

So far IOEN has seen investments from a number of significant VC’s including SL2 Capital, Skyman Ventures, AU21 Capital, Holochain, Maven Capital and notable others. IOEN has over 16,000 followers on Twitter alone and growing. The project is currently accelerating its community initiatives and released study materials including The Internet of Energy Network Currency Paper in the public domain for members to review and learn.

The project is driving a community-centric mission with a dire motive to revamp the current modern financial landscape to an energy-friendly one, reinforcing the aspects of sustainability, thus preserving it for the future.

 

2021 has been a period of great innovation in the blockchain space, with the development and launch of a huge range of novel platforms and protocols that have helped to reshape the industry in new and unexpected ways.

The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector of the industry has seen arguably the most progress in this time, with the launch of a dazzling array of new platforms that help users do more with their money and avoid the need to rely on centralized financial infrastructure.

Here, we take a look at the three new platforms leading the charge when it comes to unraveling the full potential of cryptocurrencies.

YeFi

Yield farming. It’s all the rage in 2021 and has become one of the most popular use cases for many cryptocurrencies today. Indeed, there are now billions of dollars worth of digital assets locked up in yield farm platforms — many of which generate a solid return for investors.

But while many yield farms are challenging to interact with, and only support relatively obscure digital assets or liquidity provider (LP) tokens, YeFi has recently come along to change the game.

YeFi is a platform that makes it easy for users to generate a passive income on their digital assets by staking them on its decentralized application (DApp). The platform currently supports a wide variety of assets, including ETH, BNB, BTC, and USDT. But users can boost their rewards by 1.5x by staking decentralized file storage coins like FIL, or up to 2x by staking YeFi’s native asset — YEFI.

❗️Announcement❗️Staking Mechanism Upgrade on https://t.co/xP3o61vD4T Dapphttps://t.co/oMn7ZfBAcI

— YeFi.one (@yefi_platform) August 8, 2021

By allowing users to stake native assets rather than LP tokens, YeFi ensures users avoid the risk of impermanent losses — hence providing a reliable source of yield.

The platform is unusual among yield farms in that it is cross-chain compatible with both YottaChain and Binance Smart Chain, with plans to support additional chains in the future. Beyond this, YeFi is set to roll out a variety of DeFi products in the coming months — including a decentralized lending/borrowing platform and a full decentralized exchange.

Once complete, YeFi could become one of the first blockchain-agostic DeFi ecosystems.

Popcorn

You’ve probably seen the headlines — major cryptocurrency networks like Ethereum and Bitcoin consume huge amounts of electricity. In total, the mining activity of these two networks alone is equivalent to the entire energy consumption of a small country.

But despite this, the potential for blockchain technology to disrupt dozens of industries and change the way we go about our daily lives is a compelling reason to continue experimenting with the technology.

If only there were a way to offset the negative consequences of digital assets, while still retaining all of their benefits?

Well… now there is. It’s called Popcorn, and it’s an automated yield generation protocol that allows users to put their idle funds to work through a series of automated yield-bearing systems. But more than this, it’s also a force for social good. The platform uses a chunk of its fees to fund organizations working to improve the world we live in — whether that be through renewable energy research, forest conservation efforts, or public awareness organizations.

This week on What’s POP’ing? #3

Popcorn Rebrand 🎨New Website 🌐New Hire: Director, Global Impact ❤️Popcorn in the Press 🗞️Farmer Bob’s #YieldFarm Guide 🧑‍🌾

-🍿https://t.co/5sZsowEWLC

— Popcorn (@Popcorn_DAO) August 19, 2021

While using the platform, Popcorn will automatically direct user funds to the most profitable investment and trading opportunities using a variety of carefully designed investment models. Meanwhile, the platform mitigates the carbon impact of its operations by partnering with carbon sequestration and offsetting organizations.

Earn money while helping to save the world? We’re in.

Premia

In the last year, decentralized trading platforms like Uniswap and PancakeSwap have skyrocketed in popularity, by providing CEX-like speeds and features and breaking down accessibility barriers.

But until only recently, such derivatives trading platforms didn’t quite reach the same degree of usability and popularity. That is, until Premia came along.

Premia is a decentralized options minting and trading protocol that arguably exceeds the capabilities of even the most popular centralized options exchanges. The platform’s primary feature is an intuitive decentralized trading platform that allows users to trade options for a variety of digital assets — including Chainlink (LINK), Wrapped ETH (WETH), and Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC).

Missed last week’s community call?

Get up to speed on the latest happenings with Premia as we move closer and closer to Premia v2 on main net 💎💪https://t.co/0IqYL8SRXK

— Premia – Options Platform (@PremiaFinance) August 20, 2021

But where Premia really stands out, is through its options underwriting feature, which allows users to underwrite a range of options to earn a yield on their investment. This is a completely permissionless process that allows anybody, from anywhere to generate a passive income without worrying about regional restrictions.

With Premia helping users speculate on various DeFi assets, hedge their risks, earn a yield on their assets and protect against market volatility, it stands out as an extraordinarily capable platform for budding and expert traders alike.

 

Cryptocurrency exchange Phemex has announced it is hosting an Olympics competition for traders. The competition will give traders a chance to earn rewards based on their trading volume and return on investments (ROI). The competition is scheduled to start at the end of July on the 30th. Kick-off time has been placed at 8 AM UTC. The Olympics will run for two weeks until August 13th at 8 AM UTC.

Check the Phemex Olympics website to register and monitor your progress.

Phemex has decided to take a page from the playbook of the Tokyo Olympics, which was recently kicked off. They’re giving their own “players” a chance to win prizes in their own sport of crypto trading.

Traders will be ranked according to their trading volume and speed of achieving a certain ROI. Participants in the competition only need to sign up for Phemex and meet the requirements for enrollment.

Phemex Olympics Trading Competition Rewards

The Phemex competition is divided into two categories. Based on which requirements they meet, users can participate in one or both categories of the Phemex Olympics. These categories include weightlifting, ranked by highest trading volume at the end of the event, and sprinting, based on who can reach 500% ROI the fastest.

Weightlifting competitors will be rewarded based on the following table:

Prize/Participants	<250	250-500	>500
Rank 1	10,000 USD	12,500 USD	20,000 USD
Rank 2	5,000 USD	7,500 USD	10,000 USD
Rank 3	3,000 USD	4,000 USD	5,000 USD
Rank 4-6	1,000 USD	2,000 USD	3,000 USD
Rank 7-10	500 USD	1,000 USD	1,000 USD
Total	23,000 USD	34,000 USD	48,000 USD

Sprinting competitors will be rewarded based on the following table:

Prize/Participants	<1000	1000	1500	2000	2500	>3000
Rank 1	2,000 USD	4,000 USD	6,000 USD	8,000 USD	10,000 USD	20,000 USD
Rank 2	1,500 USD	2,000 USD	3,000 USD	4,000 USD	5,000 USD	8,000 USD
Rank 3	1,000 USD	1,500 USD	2,000 USD	2,500 USD	3,000 USD	6,000 USD
Rank 4-10	500 USD	600 USD	700 USD	800 USD	900 USD	1,500 USD
Total	8,000 USD	11,700 USD	15,900 USD	20,100 USD	24,300 USD	44,500 USD

Competitors will be subject to different rules and requirements for each category. For a full list of rules, please review the official Phemex Olympics announcement.

Phemex Terms And Conditions

Calculations for ROI will be done on Individual PNL. This includes the initial balance on the trading account, the number of deposits to the account during the competition, commissions earned for the duration of the competition, and the bonuses received on the account during the competition.

Users can participate in both categories but are only allowed to use main accounts. Sub-accounts are not allowed in the competition. Also, batch account registrations, profits from market manipulation, and using APIs in the Weightlifting category will result in immediate disqualification. APIs are only allowed in the Sprinting category.

Rewards will be distributed 15 days after the competition ends. Amounts of bitcoin awarded to participants are subject to the OTC settlement exchange rate on the day they are paid out.

Phemex reserves the right to adjust the converted prices and the right to make final and binding amendments to the rules.

Phemex will display participants’ current trading volume ROI on the Phemex Olympics landing page. This page will be refreshed every 10 minutes to show the current progression of each participant.

 

 

NFTs have proven to be the darling of the blockchain. With notable artists, musicians and even sports stars releasing their own private pieces and collections. The most notable milestones were the Beeple piece, THE FIRST 5000 DAYS, which was auctioned off at Christie’s for $69 million. This proved to be a turning point for digital art and NFTs, which had gone from a place of digitized meme’s like Jack Dorsey’s first Tweet, gifs and songs, to an awakening of modern art,

More than just collectible, this was a way that the art world could display more pieces to more people. It took art away from the few, where a piece attached to someone’s wall could now be viewed by millions of people in a digital gallery.

However, NFTs hit a bump in the road. The news hit hard about how the minting of one single NFT could consume the same amount of energy as a household in the EU would use over the course of a full month. This marked a turning point for NFTs, with critics claiming that NFTs were bad news.

And yet, despite the critics, according to Reuters, the market for NFTs surged to new highs in 2Q21, with $2.5 billion in sales so far, compared to just $13.7 million in the first half of 2020. And still, sales volumes are skyrocketing as OpenSea, a leading  NFT marketplace, reports monthly sales volumes reaching a record high in June.

There is, however, so much more to NFTs than meets the eye. This is an age where literally any tangible asset can be tokenized. Where backing up a token with a real asset brings many benefits, from security, automatic authentication and verification of ownership and a logistical solution to the delivery and storage of goods.

Let’s look at some of the key themes where NFTs are leaving their footprint:

Fine Wine

The current market for vineyard owners is tough. They often borrow money each season for the development of their vineyard as well for the growing, cultivation, and manufacture of their product. And yet, they do not see any return on their borrowings for months or even years until their wine has gone out into the world. If they have a bad harvest one year due to weather or infestations, this puts them at risk of default. Tokenizing their product is like collateralizing against current or future produce, in a similar way to how futures on commodities works.

WiV is a project that is tokenizing collectible (and drinkable) fine wines. Collectible wines are popular as an alternative investment for investors looking to weather bear markets, by allocating alternative investment into their portfolios. WiV gives its investors a token to represent ownership of the wine they purchase. This means that investors don’t need to concern themselves with the logistics and authenticity of the wine. WiV, whose goal is to “become THE source for Wine collecting on the blockchain, and in all Metaverses’ , also serve an important role for winegrowers and vineyards.

Tokenizing Game Items

For real die-hard gamers, in-game collectibles are important. They are something to work towards, something to collect and something to be proud of after having spent hours working to collect them. For gamers, the thought of having real-life ownership of their collectibles, in a way in which they can keep them, sell them or use them in other games is a big deal. (you have to be a gamer to get it) and with the gaming industry heating up, this is big business.

The Hoard Marketplace allows users to trade, buy, sell, loan, or rent non-fungible tokens (NFTs), such as for in-game items, as well as for digital art, and also domain names. Hoard gives game developers the foundation to merge their game items with the Ethereum blockchain. Users of Hoard “meet” in a peer-to-peer environment to forge an interaction between gamers and developers.  The HRD token represents the tradable assets behind it, such as game items. On top of that, holders of the token can stake their tokens for passive yield, and transact with them and retain voting rights. Hoard is even promoting flash loans, which are instant loans to users, no credit checks are necessary.

“The Loan feature on the Hoard Market opens new possibilities for NFT holders. This is the first step of further development of novel NFTs functionalities/utilities which Hoard is going to introduce in the coming months”, said Radek Zagórowicz, CEO of Hoard.

Trading Card Collectibles

People love collecting things. The newest and hottest fad to hit the blockchain is tokenized trading cards. Many NFT marketplaces offer collectible trading cards, which can be collected, swapped and sold for profit, and this is a popular niche.

Tarasca has built a product around this niche for B2B, which gives businesses the chance to build their own private trading cards, which they can give out to their customers, or indeed they can build an entire business around trading card collections.  The more rare or customized a trading card or NFT is, the greater its value. With Tarasca users can create, and exchange collectibles using their DEX.

Monetizing NFTs

The key to the popularity of NFTs and other products in the blockchain is mass adoption. The more people that get on board, effectively the better the longevity and future potential of this unique arena. The trick here is creating products that appeal to the masses by being accessible.

One company that is working on this is Spores Network. They are creator-centric and offer users the chance to mint and transfer at a reasonable price, therefore increasing the users’ profit potential. They do this through a variety of ways, not least by royalty sharing with creators. Spores is working on creating the very first NFT marketplace to sit on the Cardano blockchain, which comes with many advantages. These include the energy efficiency and super low transaction fees related to mining and minting when compared to both Ethereum and Bitcoin.

NFTs for Marketing Campaigns

As everything is happening online now, NFTs prove to be an effective way for marketeers to gift and incentivize users, in an automated and trustless fashion. Enjin, a leading ecosystem for NFTs, recently launched their “MyFirstNFT” marketing campaign, which has set the stage for the way we conduct marketing online. A new method for brands to directly interact with their customers, with no digital agency in the middle. This campaign saw 50,000 one-of-a-kind digital art NFTs being dropped to a completely random set of users who had interacted with its ads and social media posts.

The Bottom Line

The bounds and potential of NFTs and the blockchain are infinite. If you can think it, then you can build it. One thing that we have learned over the last year, is that people’s habits and patterns can change fast, none less than digital interactions. NFTs are not dead, they have barely gotten started.

 

Image source: DepositPhotos.

BitYard, the world’s leading cryptocurrency derivative exchange based in Singapore, announced a refreshed corporate visual identity: a new logo highlighting ‘B’ & ‘Y’, a fresh slogan, and a vivid color palette. While ‘B’ conveys the strong belief on an inevitable trend of Bitcoin and other crypto evolving into currencies in global usage, the letter ‘Y’ derived from the word ‘Yard’ signifies BitYard’s ambition to become global traders’ backyard oasis, offering the most diverse digital investment services. Along with the brand refresh, BitYard introduces an optimal UI/IX on its mobile app and web page, aiming to ensure the services run smoothly. Not only does the upgrade inject new vitality into BitYard, but it also provides its users with a more accessible, personable, and pleasant experience in their digital trading journey.

The new slogan of BitYard ‘Grow your future in the yard’ is at the heart of the company’s vision of becoming the perfect beginner-friendly backyard for global investors. The slogan also evokes our collective memory: the carefree days playing in the yard with limitless creativity. While the yard is a place full of imagination for children, BitYard hopes the yard remains a source of inspiration for the grown-ups, motivating and assisting them in building a promising future and make their dreams come true.

BitYard resolves to permeate every facet of digital asset trading service, and most importantly, BitYard is intent on becoming traders’ backyard oasis, which is furnished with rich soil — a fast and secure trading platform — and multiple handy garden tools — a variety of digital financial services. So far, the flourishing backyard oasis built by BitYard encompasses all aspects of trading services. One of the most popular services on Bityard is spot trading, which allows users to buy and sell popular crypto like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and 70+ popular altcoins. Another service that draws users’ attention is Contract for difference (CFD), a trading service that enables users to speculate on the rising or falling prices of fast-moving global financial markets, such as crypto, forex, commodities, and indices. In addition, BitYard also supports rookie investors’ favored service: copy trading. By copying experienced traders’ activities, it is possible for crypto newcomers with limited knowledge to thrive in the market.

To embody the latest trends in digital finance, BitYard plans to release two new features for its users. The first feature is ‘Crypto Grid Trading’, a new trading service that enables users at all levels to conduct automatic investment plans on the crypto market, managing crypto holdings, and build strategies with just a few taps/mouse clicks. Another feature is ‘Perpetual Contract’, a type of futures contract that has no expiration date and can make profits by correctly predicting the movement of the asset’s price without actually holding the asset itself. The upcoming features are proofs of BitYard’s devotion to staying at the forefront of the digital financial service revolution and its commitment to promoting service innovation to provide its global users with up-to-date trading tools.

With comprehensive crypto and digital derivatives services, BitYard serves as the ideal choice for its users to cultivate their own yard — planting the seed of investment and reaping the reward in the prosperous future. Following the massive brand upgrade, BitYard will be constantly innovating to match the ever-changing needs of its existing customers and prospects around the world, providing them with reliable and holistic financial services.

ZKSwap has recently announced a major development in the form of the V2 launch. As the noise around the platform’s latest move continues to increase, we decided to reach out to its lead developer and ask him a few questions about it.

NewsBTC (NB): Can you tell us more about the ZKSwap V2?

Alex Lee (AL): ZKSwap is one of the first few ZKrollup based layer2 DEXes using the AMM model. This layer2 DEX has the full functionality like Uniswap, only it happens on Layer2, which means zero gas fee for layer2 transactions and instantaneous confirmation.

ZKSwap has been live on Ethereum since Feb 2021 and will soon be implemented on the Binance Smart Chain, HECO, and OKEX Chain when V2 comes live by the end of June.

NB: How is it different from other L2 solutions and what does it mean to the ETH ecosystem?

AL: Among the layer2 solutions, the two major ones are ZK-Rollup and Optimistic Rollup.

We choose ZK-Rollup because it provides the same security as the underlying layer1, and it uses validity proof whereas optimistic rollup relies on fraud-proof. That’s why the withdrawal time for optimistic-based dex from layer2 to layer1 is as long as 7 days and ZKSwap only takes 40 mins.

The finality feature is very critical for dexes. That’s why even Vitalik mentioned in his “An Incomplete Guide to Rollups“ https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/05/rollup.html as follows:

“In general, my own view is that in the short term, optimistic rollups are likely to win out for general-purpose EVM computation and ZK rollups are likely to win out for simple payments, exchange, and other application-specific use cases, but in the medium, to long term ZK rollups will win out in all use cases as ZK-SNARK technology improves.”

NB: What are the improvements featured by V2 over its predecessor?

AL: ZKSwap V1 has supported full swapping, adding/removing liquidity, and transfer functionalities on layer 2. V2 has optimized the circuits to make transactions faster and at even less cost. Another major update is that V2 will enable unlimited token listing.

NB: What are the fees associated with listing and trading the tokens on Zkswap V2?

AL: We charge no fees for the Unlimited Token Listing service, allowing users to list any ERC-20 tokens or token pairs on ZKSwap for free. In the future, we will also make this service open to all types of tokens besides the ERC-20 ones.

On ZKSwap, the first 50 transactions on layer2, eg swapping, transferring, adding/removing liquidity, are free, but we do charge a 0.3% transaction fee after the first 50 transactions.

NB: Can you tell us more about the adoption rate of Zkswap among the crypto community?

AL: I think we’ve got pretty good results so far. It has been four months after the ZKSwap mainnet launch. Our peak TVL reached over $ 1 billion, around 70% of the total TVL on Layer 2, and the average TVL is around $200 m this week.

Besides, our total trading volume on layer 2 has exceeded $11.5 billion, and the total swap volume more than $2.2 billion. More than 3,000 visitors in the past 7 days were active on our mobile APP.

At present, we have around 87k users and more than 42k community members across various media platforms all over the world. The figure is still growing fast, and the community has indeed contributed a lot to what ZKSwap is today. Many users joined our Product Test Program, giving valuable suggestions and feedback on the product experience. The same program with even bigger rewards comes along with the V2 launch, and we expect more participants this time.

NB: What kind of impact do you expect ZkSwap V2 to have on the current DeFi ecosystem?

AL: Gas fees and network congestion are two main problems hindering DeFi adoption and development, which is especially true with Ethereum. As we are deploying V2 across Ethereum, BSC, HECO, and OKChain, we’re creating a more expansive DeFi ecosystem that allows users to list and swap thousands of new tokens with ease and at a low cost. With ZKSwap V2, we aim to make the current DeFi ecosystem more accessible with improved scalability and usability.

NB: What are the future plans for ZkSwap?

AL: We have a very exciting roadmap lined up. Shortly after our V2 launch will be the “layer2 for all”, aka implementing ZKSwap on BSC, HECO, and OKEX Chain, and probably around the same time we will enable layer2 NFT swapping on ZKSwap, which means zero gas fee for NFT transaction and transfer.

Also, our 1998 NFT art on BSC is in production and will be introduced to the community soon. We will also be working on bridging layer2 and centralized exchanges. Another major milestone will be to enable the general-purpose EVM on ZKSwap by Q4 2021.

In general, our goal is to build a layer2 infrastructure with a robust ecosystem.

 Learn more about ZKSwap at – https://zks.org/