Uniswap is a trading protocol that has become popular for being decentralized. It’s also known for participating as a facilitator of trading tokens of decentralized finance that is automated. The main goal for it is to maintain automated trading of tokens and keep it open for everyone with tokens. Uniswap solves the issues of liquidity by implementing automated solutions. This trading protocol also has its own token, called UNI, taking it a step further in September 2020.
The leading creator of the platform is Hayden Adams, also known for being the developer of Ethereum. He was known for working on some successful projects at the same time. Vitalik Buterin, a creator of Ethereum, announced Adam’s work, who claimed that inspiration came from one of Buterin’s posts. The thought of focusing on Ethereum came because of a friend trying to convince him to research the protocol in 2017.
Its main goal is to create liquidity, which also creates more trading and the prices that it provides for the DeFi field. The protocol works by implementing a formula for exchange that is automated. This is not just another decentralized exchange; it tries to present solutions for issues that many platforms experience regarding liquidity. By automating the process of market-making, the protocol motivates the activity by restricting the risk and lowering fees for everyone involved.
The total issuance of the token is 1 billion units. All of those will be available in a time frame of four years, once Uniswap launches a rate of perpetual inflation of 2% to keep the participation of the network. Currently, 60% of Uniswap belongs to users, 21.51% to team members, 17.8% to investors, and 0.60% to advisors.
This is a protocol that is decentralized for trading, and UNI is its governance token. Since it is an ERC-20 token, it means that to function, it needs Ethereum. In other words, it’s defined by a set of rules created for tokens, as well as many considerations of security, directly related to the network of Ethereum.
Released in July 2015, Stellar Lumens (XLM), in simple terms, is an open network that enables money to be moved and stored. The protocol’s main goal was to boost financial inclusion. Although the priorities changed, the goal became to help financial institutions connect by utilizing blockchain tech.
The network has its token called Lumens, and it functions as a bridge to make trading assets less expensive across borders. The point of all this is to challenge the current payment providers, who usually charge high fees for a service alike.
Does any of this ring a bell? If yes then it’s worth mentioning that the Ripple Labs protocol has initially been the base for Stellar Lumens (XLM). A hard fork is what created the blockchain. Eventually, the team in charge rewrote the core code to be compliant with the new target.
In 2013 after leaving Ripple because of a disagreement about the company’s future direction, Jed McCaleb decided to found Stellar with Joyce Kim. In 2020 McCaleb explained the rationale behind Stellar. He stated that the complete original design has different forms of value where fiat currencies run parallel with each other and crypto-assets. That was the critical point to making this project mainstream.
McCaleb had made it clear that he wanted to ensure that Stellar Lumens (XLM) could provide people with a new way of moving their fiat into cryptocurrencies. The goal is to remove the friction users experience when they send money to other parts of the world.
The current CTO of Stellar Lumens (XLM) is McCaleb. He also serves as co-founder of the Stellar Development Foundation. The foundation aims to improve the world’s economic potential by making markets more accessible, money more fluid, and empowering people.
First, fees are a sticking point for many users around the world. Although, a high cost while making a payment cross-border isn’t just a problem with fiat-based payment systems. Usually, Fees for transactions tend to go sky-high on blockchains such as Ethereum and Bitcoin because of congestion.
Stellar Lumens (XLM) has a unique transaction cost of only 0.00001 XLM. Considering that one unit of the token costs only a few cents, users can keep more money. Some projects have secured partnerships with fintech firms and big tech companies.
A few days ago, IBM and Stellar partnered up and launched World Wire. The project enabled big financial institutions to request transactions to the Stellar network and utilize bridge goods like stablecoins. While other blockchains possess community funds, Stellar allows its users to vote on the support’s direction.
In 2015, when the network launched, Stellar issued a total of 100 billion XLM, but things have changed since then. Currently, the total supply of XLM stands for over 50 billion, and 20.7 billion are in circulation.
The Stellar network uses the Stellar Consensus Protocol to secure the project. The protocol claims to have four main properties: low latency, decentralized control, flexible trust, and asymptotic security.
Through this protocol, everybody can join the process of achieving consensus, and more than one entity can end up with most of the deciding power. Transactions are confirmed cheap and fast; all it takes is just a few seconds. Also, safeguards are set in place if attackers try to join the network.
TRON (TRX) is an operating system based on blockchain technology and its primary goal is to ensure this tech is appropriate for daily use. The project claims to be able to handle 2,000 transactions per second, while with Ethereum it is only up to 25, and with Bitcoin only six.
The best way to describe TRON (TRX) is as a decentralized platform with a goal to share content and provide entertainment. Its major acquisition in 2018 was by BitTorrent, the file-sharing service.
In general, the project divided its main objectives into six different phases. The range goes from file sharing to the creation of content through rewards. At the same time, it enables creators of content to launch new tokens and encourages them to decentralize the gaming industry. Moreover, TRON is one of the most sought-after blockchain projects for DApps building.
Justin Sun is the founder of TRON, who is currently also the CEO. He finished his education at Peking University and the University of Pennsylvania. Forbes Asia recognized him as one of the main features in its 30 Under 30 series for entrepreneurs.
Sun has been associated in the past with the Ripple project; he worked as a chief representative in the Greater China zone.
It has positioned itself as a space for content creators to connect more instantly with their audience. By removing centralized platforms, creators expected to lose as much commission as they usually would to intermediaries. It won’t matter if they are app stores, streaming services, or music sites.
This could also mean an improvement for consumers since the content would be less expensive than usual. Considering that the sector for entertainment keeps growing on digitized grounds, TRON could have a head start. TRON (TRX) is already ahead of its time while applying blockchain tech to the entertainment industry.
The project also claims to have an experienced and talented team in charge of new developments. TRON has members all over the globe, some coming from major firms such as Ripple Labs.
The project offers a different point by providing a roadmap that shows its plans for the following years. In contrast, some other projects are pretty shady about their development intentions.
The project has a supply of more than 100 billion coins, most of which are already in circulation since the beginning of December. In 2017, 15.75 billion TRX went to private investors at a token sale. Additionally, 34 billion went to the Tron Foundation, and ten more billion went to one of Justin Sun’s companies.
In the end, 45% of the supply allocated to the project itself and the founder, while 55% went to investors. Experts argue that this ratio is much higher than that seen before with other projects.
TRON utilizes a mechanism of consensus called delegated proof-of-stake. The owners can freeze their crypto to get Tron Power. They can vote for “super representatives” who work as producers of blocks by doing so.
Those producers acquire TRX as rewards for verifying the transactions, which are distributed between the voters. As TRON sees it, blockchain can achieve better throughput levels.
Helium is a network for IoT (Internet of Things) devices powered by decentralized blockchain technology. It was officially launched back in July 2019. The network enables devices with low-powered wireless to send and receive data across its nodes and network in general. The nodes, also known as hotspots, are a mix of a blockchain mining device and a wireless gateway. The network is also known for rewarding the users that operate the nodes with HNT, Helium’s token.
The three founders who started the company back in 2013 are Shawn Fanning, Amir Haleem, and Sean Carey. Haleem’s active background is in eSports as well as the development of games. On the other hand, Fanning, is famous for the story of Napster, a music sharing service Napster was one of the first peer-to-peer primary internet services at the end of the ’90s. Meanwhile, Sean Carey had a variety of roles before Helium. Carey worked in the firm “Where”, which specialized in advertising optimization, that Paypal later acquired.
Now, the team in charge of Helium, formed by what the company calls experienced members, is very optimistic. They have specialized people in hardware and radio, manufacturing, distribution systems, and blockchain tech.
The main goal of Helium is to increase the capabilities in the communication of wireless IoT devices exponentially. Back in 2013, the whole infrastructure related to the Internet of Things was still at a very early stage. Developers, determined to expand their offerings by adding decentralization. That is the main reason why official literature refers to it as “The People’s Network”.
The target audience is the users interested in the IoT as well as owners of devices. Considering that there are financial incentives, the expected outcome of this expansion is on a big scale.
What the users of the network are purchasing or building are Hotspots, a mix of a miner and a wireless gateway. Each of those hotspots supplies coverage within a specific range. At the same time, the same hotspot mines HNT, Helium’s token.
The whole network works on proof-of-coverage, which is a new algorithm of consensus. The algorithm is based on a protocol that enables nodes to reach consensus when the quality of the connection is highly variable.
When Helium launched the token, the supply was zero. Back in October 2020, there were 48,712,218 Helium tokens in circulation. Helium explained that the owners of the nodes would receive tokens for helping build the network. Later on, data transfer will be more advantageous, although the token distribution will last for about 20 years.
Helium uses a mechanism of consensus called PoC (proof-of-coverage) for which users get rewards. Main goal of PoC is specifically node communication.
From October 2020, Helium token is available in big exchanges.
The ever-expanding world of crypto never ceases to amaze us, and it seems as though everyone wants to be a part of this new realm. Subsequently, blockchain technology piqued the interest of many major sectors, gaming included.
Yes, the gaming industry is one of the early birds that adopted this cutting-edge technology—an exciting clash of worlds, gaming, and blockchain. And believe it or not, people that have a genuine interest in blockchain are most likely game heads.
The rising demand for NFTs in the gaming industry only amplifies this riveting crossover. In this day and age, you can trade many rare and trending NFTs within games. So, we couldn’t help but wonder what this means for the crypto industry and what is the future of blockchain gaming? For more crypto news, read our Crypto Digest blog.
Blockchain is considered one of the key players of the financial technologies of the future, and it sees great potential as a trustworthy ledger concept.
Before we begin, we have to address the blockchain gaming concept. It is a system based on cryptography that links blocks of data together in sequential order. Because every change can set a “chain” reaction and affect the entire chain, the data units on the blockchain are immutable and unique.
The main distinction between regular games and blockchain games is the fact that each digital asset inside the game is unique. This is where non-fungible tokens, or NFTs for short, come into play. They are unique data units kept on the blockchain for these digital assets. This industry is called blockchain gaming.
Play to earn is one of the central aspects of these games because the gamer earns unique NFTs or any other kind of cryptocurrency by playing the game. Merit-based advancements give you digital tokens that the player can convert into actual money. Or you can keep playing. It’s up to you.
And now for the exciting part. Since every NFT is one-of-a-kind, blockchain has made the concept of digital asset ownership possible. If an asset is stored on the blockchain in the form of an NFT, the owner can claim his rights to sell or keep the asset. Let’s say artwork, even though this system works much better for the gaming industry.
Blockchain gives its users full control over the digital asset they earn by playing these games. For example, if the players spend real money on digital assets in traditional games, they might lose access to them if the server crashes. The developer has the rights.
In the case of blockchain games, both the assets and the money remain in your total ownership, whatever happens. These assets can be traded with other fellow players, sold for real money, and possibly used across different game universes. The possibilities are endless, really.
We’ve come to the part where we list the most important terms of these games. Each player needs to know this, so pay attention.
According to sources, the global market capitalization of NFTs revolves around $2.5 billion as of the beginning of 2021. This is quite a number when we compare it to the previous year and a market cap of $13.5 million. More and more gaming companies are taking part in the blockchain gaming trend now that NFTs are going strong. This only underlines future potential.
Finally, we can conclude that blockchain gaming might disrupt the traditional gaming industry after observing the ongoing trends. Generally, blockchain gaming sees a lot of future potential, as all numbers suggest. A current prediction states that there are around 1 billion online gamers out there, and still rising. This can only increase the significance of this trend if more new players opt for blockchain.
Suppose we know all of this information and that blockchain keeps track of in-game items like experience points, weapons, and skins, making them unhackable. In that case, we can deduct that the gaming industry, in collaboration with crypto, might be a fertile ground for future growth. Heck, it might even be the dynamic duo of the inevitable crypto future!
It’s been over two years since Facebook’s crypto was announced; this was made public back in 2019. Usually, the goal of new cryptocurrencies is to get into the stablecoin market, so why is Libra not here yet?
Two years ago, Nassim Eddequiouaq and Riyaz Faizullabhoy left the company Anchorage to start working on Facebook’s crypto wallet. Facebook’s crypto, also known as Libra, was announced for the first time back in June 2019. In the crypto space, that counts as ages. First, it was pitched as a global currency without borders. The plan for the token was to be backed by the Libra Reserve, which is a compilation of assets with low volatility. Such assets were supposed to be Government securities and bank deposits, to name a couple.
Only in the first few months, the Libra Association lost many of its founding members. During that first wave, important companies such as MasterCard, Stripe, Paypal, and eBay were among the deserters. Then, in an attempt to get a new fresh start, Facebook’s crypto changed its name to Diem, and the wallet app created to hold it was renamed Novi. However, the name wasn’t the only thing that changed; its goals and ambitions were also downgraded. The new concept set the coin as a simple stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. That is far from being the borderless currency promised at the beginning. The market is full of stablecoins accessible at more serious companies such as Paxos, Binance, and Circle.
Now, two years after it was first announced, it’s worth asking: is there anyone who wants to acquire crypto from Facebook? Facebook’s principal founder, Mark Zuckerberg has been involved in legal issues regarding users’ privacy and data protection on his social network in the past couple of years.
Zuckerberg has been called to court several times to lend testimony about the allegations against him and the platform for which he’s responsible. The irony here is that Facebook’s crypto is not only his thing; it’s a whole project backed up by a group of companies based in Switzerland. Part of the plan is to decentralize the coin progressively. The biggest problem they’re trying to solve right now is that the project was first made public by Facebook. Also, Zuckerberg, who is an executive of Facebook, has become the face of it. Therefore fortunately or unfortunately, if the project will succeed, it will be determined by Facebook’s future reputation status. .
Although it seems like Zuckerberg has already moved onto his next project, Metaverse, there’s hope for Facebook’s crypto. The most significant advantage that the project owns is the 2.9 billion users the network has. Whatever stablecoin the company decides to embrace, a substantial number of users will give it a try. There’s still hope for the cryptocurrency, but if it’ll be a long-term sustainable project, it remains to be seen.
In cryptocurrency culture, influencers have always been prominent, and they are more so these days. The first time Elon Musk mentioned the original meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin, it triggered a number of immediate reactions by influencers across all social media platforms. There is an opinion that investing in meme coins is imprudent, an alternative opinion is that it is a cheap bet with massive potential. Both opinions are valid, although interest in meme coins and tokens skyrocketed in recent months.
As a rule, a meme coin doesn’t have inherent value and utility. It is obvious from the name that these cryptocurrencies revolve around Internet memes. The first meme coin, Dogecoin, is themed around a popular Doge meme, an image of a Shibu Inu dog. This coin runs on its own blockchain, which sets it apart from other meme tokens that run on an existing blockchain. The most widespread meme tokens are Shibu Inu that is built on Ethereum, and SafeMoon, built atop Binance Smart Chain. However, there are many more.
It has been eight years since the launch of Dogecoin; it has become much more accessible to create a cryptocurrency. Meme coins and tokens can be launched easily and become popular due to their connection with influencers. For instance, in May this year, Mark Zuckerberg published an image of his pet goats with the comment “My goats: Max and Bitcoin.” After a short period of time, a meme token named Aqua Goat grew in value by 300%; it happened within a couple of hours since the post was published.
Three of the most widely spread and used meme coins and tokes are Dogecoin, Shibu Inu, and Safemoon. Here is a quick overview of each of them.
The inventors of Dogecoin are Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus. It started as a joke, but it has become a weighty proposition since Elon Musk began promulgating it in 2019. The coin saw its peak in January 2021, with a market cap of $9 billion. At the moment, Musk is working with the coin’s developers to enhance the platform; he facilitates it as a means of paying for services and goods and works to decrease its carbon footprint.
This coin made its appearance in April 2021. It started off as an experiment but soon increased in value. The total supply of Shibu Inu Coin is one quadrillion, and it yields its investors a possibility to hold billions of tokens. However, it needs to climb around 12 million percent to hit the target of $1.
The creators of this token sook to enhance Dogecoin’s tokenomic model. Unlike Bitcoin, with a limited supply of coins, there is a limitless supply of Dogecoin, making it an inflationary tokenomic model. To improve this, SAfeMoon uses a deflationary tokenomic model. It implies that 5% is burned for every transaction, and another 5% is allocated to the existing token holders. From that follows that the total supply of coins is meant to decrease constantly, which ensures safe gains. Its market cap is currently $2 billion.
The bottom line is that the final success of meme coins and tokens depends on the weight of their communities.
Litecoin, also known as LTC, is a crypto altcoin explicitly designed to make payments in a secure, fast, and low-cost way. The token was created by taking advantage of the qualities of blockchain technology. The project is based on the BTC protocol, although it is different regarding the algorithm and the times of block transactions, among other factors. LTC transaction fees are low, and its block time is only 2.5 min.
On October 13, 2011, the network went live, and an open-source client launched it. Since the day it went live, it exploded due to its high acceptance among different merchants. This token has been in the top ten positions capitalization-wise in the markets for most of the time since its creation.
A former employee of Google, Charlie Lee, is responsible for the Litecoin project. The initial idea was to create a “lite version of BTC,” therefore the mentioned similarities between the two coins. Charlie Lee, aka “Chocobo”, has been a BTC miner since the early beginnings of the cryptocurrency. Lee, the former director of engineering at Coinbase, was also an engineer for Google. He was working for other companies until 2017, when he decided to work on other projects. He’s an advocate and supporter of the crypto industry and the director of the Foundation of Litecoin. It’s an organization that helps keep developing LTC and other projects alike.
When it comes to cryptocurrencies, Litecoin is the second most wanted, only after Bitcoin. It’s not hard to understand that its success is due to its utility benefits and simplicity. As of this year, LTC has been one of the most popular cryptocurrencies. It is accepted broadly; over 2,000 stores and merchants around the world welcome LTC. Litecoin transactions are typically confirmed within minutes, plus the fees are meager. These are all solid reasons it’s an appealing option in developing countries, where the transaction fee is a factor to consider when choosing which crypto to support.
Like most PoW crypto, the circulation of LTC grows as they mine blocks. On January 21, the amount of LTC already mined was up to 66,245 million, out of a total of 84 million. It was recently estimated that it might be until 2142 when Litecoin gets total dilution.
LTC uses the PoW algorithm to make sure that transactions are confirmed without mistakes and with incredible speed. The LTC mining network avoids double-spends and other attacks while still ensuring the network has 100% uptime.
Terra is a protocol for blockchain that uses stablecoins to enhance the price-stable payments system around the world. It claims to mix the resistance of BTC with the adoption and the stability of prices of fiat currencies. Therefore, it’s allowed to offer settlements that are affordable as well as fast. The development of the protocol that would end up being called Terra began in early 2018, and it was launched in April of the following year. To the day of writing this article, the protocol offers different stablecoins pegged to various fiat currencies.
Some of the fiat currencies pegged to those stablecoins are the USD, the Mongolian tugrik, the South Korean won, and it plans to keep adding options. Naturally, it has a token called LUNA, which is used to stabilize the price of the stablecoins of the protocol. The holders of the token can also vote as well as submit governance proposals.
Terra was founded in January 2018, with Daniel Shin and Do Kwon in charge of developing the project. They conceived the protocol’s project as a way to ride the wave of the fast adoption of crypto and blockchain technology. They did that with a particular focus on the stability of price and usability. Do Kwon was the one to take the CEO position of the company behind Terra, called Terraform Labs. Before getting involved in the Terra project, Shin was involved in other tech projects, such as TMON and Fast Track Asia. As for Kwon, he had founded Anyfi and worked in Apple and Microsoft as a software engineer.
Terra’s primary goal is to be different by using stablecoins that are pegged to fiat currencies. They aim to do that by combining the benefits of crypto with the stability that fiat currencies have at their prices. Their algorithm keeps the 1:1 peg that adjusts the stablecoin supply automatically based on the demand. In mid-2019, they announced that they were partnering with Chai, a mobile app for payments based in South Korea. For every transaction, the trader is charged 2-3 percent fee on average.
As of the day of writing this article, Terra had 1 billion coins in circulation. Firstly, in case that amount is exceeded, the token is burned until it goes back to its supply level of equilibrium. All new LUNA coins get issued through the algorithm to keep the stability on the price of stablecoins in Terra.
The blockchain is secured by a PoS consensus algorithm that is based on Tendermint. The holders of the token can delegate other users to validate transactions by sharing the generated revenue. Not long after the mainnet of Terra went live, the firm CertiK performed a security audit of the network. What they do, in simple terms, is to examine the economic model and test it against manipulation of the market, the coding language, and its architecture. The results from the said audit were positive in general.
Binance USD is a stablecoin backed up by the US Dollar; it means that there is a US Dollar in reserve for every coin of BUSD. In simple terms, the amount of BUSD is directly proportional to the USD, and they’re pegged at a 1:1 proportion. It is issued by the partnership between Binance and Paxos. It is regulated and approved by the NYDFS (New York State Department of Financial Services). They have an audit report every month that can be checked on their official site. One of its main goals is to merge blockchain tech with the stability of the US dollar.
If you have ever acquired or exchanged crypto with Binance, it’s possible that you have come across or at least heard of BUSD. It is usually between the pairs most traded being offered on the Binance exchange. In short, it aims to represent the digital version of the US dollar, and it is linked to its value.
The state regulators of NY have implemented special measures on Binance, Paxos, and how stablecoins, in general operate. While ensuring that the coins are completely backed up, Paxos has to control the issuance and burning of Binance USD tokens. It also has the right, when considered necessary, to remove funds or freeze accounts due to illegal activity. These concepts all adhere to the banking laws of the Trust Charter and New York that apply to stablecoin.
It is possible to avoid fluctuations in price in the markets of crypto, with the potential to be very volatile. There exists a demand for stable assets also in crypto, mostly when the market turns too volatile. These periods can be easier for the investors when turning the assets into securities or fiat and BUSD offers that opportunity. BUSD has a lot of liquidity, so it is easy to secure profits when someone is looking to exit a position.
There are few significant reasons why BUSD is different from other stablecoins. It is part of a group of stablecoins that are backed directly by fiat. Another big difference is that Paxos releases an audit on a regular basis, once a month, to show that the reserves in USD match the supply of BUSD. Withum, an accounting company, completes those audits as part of the requirements as a regulated crypto. The last being something that not every project does, so there’s a risk of some stablecoins backed up by fiat not having all the reserves they say they have.
Regarding that, we can mention a case brought by the NYS Attorney General. The said case indicated that Tether did not have the reserves they claimed to have in contradiction to their previous statements.
Avalanche (AVAX) is the quickest platform for smart contracts in the industry of blockchain. It also has the most significant number of validators to secure any PoS protocol. Some of the main features of Avalanche are speed, meager costs, and it is also green. The platform enables any app of smart contracts to overtop its opponents. On September 21, 2020, it launched its own network with its own protocol and technology. The platform’s growth can be noticed in the more than 200 individual projects it has secured over 1000 individual validators that produce blocks. The community has 600,000 members all over the world. Whoever feels skeptical about Avalanche’s success just needs to give the app a try to understand what all the fuss is about.
Naturally, such a platform would have a token to monetize with; AVAX is the given name to Avalanche’s native token. AVAX is a scarce good that is hard-capped, commonly used to pay for fees. Mainly, it’s used to secure the platform and supply a basic unit for accounting among the variety of subnets on Avalanche. All of that while connecting the platform through the stake method.
It is possible to find Avalanche AVAX across the leading exchanges and expanded trading pairs.
Only four months after the mainnet launch of the platform and it’s already expanding faster than expected. The platform has been growing by leaps and bounds, private securities, Synthetics, DeFi, Stablecoins, Prediction Markets, etc. You name it, they have it, or they’re already working on it to make it happen. All of this is possible due to its high processing capacity, low fees of gas, which offers decentralization like no other. That by making it possible to scale the number of validators to millions with its protocol.
It is a platform of platforms consisting of thousands of subnets that create an interoperable network of numerous blockchains. Avalanche takes advantage of the revolutionary protocols to provide security, among other things, that offers decentralization while complying with regulatory requirements. Avalanche enables you to create your own app, tailor-made with specific blockchains that support several virtual machines and multiple languages. Those virtual machines can later be deployed in a particular blockchain network that is called a subnet. A subnet is a set of validators that work together to obtain an agreement on the state of a group of several blockchains.