CryptocurrencyScripts

Tag: blockchain technology

Cryptocurrency mass adoption: One big lie?

Three big cryptocurrency exchanges pumped literal millions into the super bowl to have their commercials aired during the prestigious event’s commercial breaks. Not so big when you consider the fact that two of these exchanges are buying up the naming rights for prestigious American sports centers. Tezos have partnered with the famous English premier league club — Manchester united; at least we are finally seeing that big ICO money come to life.

With arguably the greatest soccer player ever wearing those training kits with ‘Tezos’ written boldly on them and Lebron James getting buckets at the crypto.com arena, one thing comes to mind; “crypto is taking over the world”. From a small group of nerds working on ‘the future of money’ to millions of people holding cryptocurrencies…for mainly an odd reason, cryptocurrency and blockchain have walked a long path in just twelve (12) years.

Twelve years of struggle for relevance; like a stubborn attention seeker, cryptocurrency has snuck its head in every nuke and cranny. From social media to billboards and television commercials; cryptocurrency marketing strategies are almost as brilliant as the technology itself.

But there is one big lie along the line…

Cryptocurrencies’ are presented as a portable and more convenient means of exchanging value. The biggest perks over traditional alternatives are decentralization and privacy. Speed and transaction cost used to be on the list; not sure if they can be boldly enumerated anymore. It costs over $4 to move Ethereum and about three times more to move smart contract tokens, bitcoin transactions would require similar fees too…

Despite these issues, cryptocurrency’s popularity has been on the climb and isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Bitcoin particularly has seen huge political breakthroughs and has become one of the hottest economic and political topics in the past five years. This relevance isn’t really due to some technological advantages it possesses but mainly due to its tokenomics and mode of operation.

Bitcoin’s distinction over fiat as a store of value is its limited supply. Governments are however reluctant to acknowledge it as a legal tender due to presumed support for illegal financial activities, supply algorithms…and carbon footprint. These reasons are valid, the back and forth on legalization and ban continues. You could anger the Chinese president by simply screaming ‘bitcoin!’.

Bitcoin fits best as a store of value and a payment solution, even though it is currently not very efficient in the latter. Other cryptocurrencies and blockchain projects attempt to solve numerous other problems. Artificial intelligence, oracle solutions, decentralized internet, comedy (yes, comedy!); a number of altcoin projects fit into these categories and more as they attempt to solve more real-world problems and possibly replace existing options. Each of them has earned themselves tons of believers and investors…but again for an odd reason.

When news? “Huge or not”? Investors couldn’t care less about the relevance of any of these projects. Major updates, and (huge) partnerships; regardless of the relevance of these to the actual development of the project, investors fly in with different emotions. Buy the rumor, sell the news; you’ve surely heard that too many times in this space.

If you’re truly here “for the technology”, then you are actually one out of a very scarce few. For a space filled with thousands of very volatile assets and clever marketing strategies, speculators are sure to flock in and tap from the fast-flowing streams.

Getting rich quick is actually the most appealing ability of cryptocurrency.

These adoptions are rarely for the technological advantage cryptocurrencies have over fiat. Even El Salvador has competent plans to redeem their crypto profits in fiat and channel these profits to national development. It’s safe to say that the central American nation didn’t adopt bitcoin because it is a better option to fiat but because in contrast, it is in constant growth in value. This is the same with other institutions adopting blockchain products.

Mainstream celebrities jumping into the NFT trend rarely understand how the technology works and what NFTs really are. Simple process; mint the arts, sell to speculators, and take the loot…in stable coins or actual dollars, lol. How the blockchain actually works and why it is a better option? You can save those long lessons for anyone who cares!

Cryptocurrency adoption comes down to a need for inclusion and the need to be a part of an enriching ecosystem. Very different from the reason presented in our thoughts.

The big lie is, cryptocurrencies are not adopted for technological advantages, and neither is blockchain technology. NFTs are shiny and popular brands are seeing them as a major avenue to improve their financial conditions. Celebrities dishing out NFTs and chasing out in stablecoins and dollars is the most crypto thing you’d ever see.

Companies too are finding ways to include a two trillion dollar opportunity into their purchasing option. The inclusion of crypto payment options into commercial platforms comes as a result of this. Firms looking to expand their purchasing power include the crypto payment as a good marketing strategy. It will be interesting to see the percentage of these merchants that keep a majority of the cryptocurrency they realize in their reserves.

Cryptocurrency is reaching out to people, and speculators. Investors are more dedicated participants. A majority of people putting their money on cryptocurrencies are speculators who envision short-term gains and are keen to leverage the enrichment possibilities of the most volatile assets ever.

Shill me the next altcoin to go 10X! worry less about what they are actually building. It is the normal sequence. Institutional and individual adopters are mainly speculators who consider the technological superiority of cryptocurrency and blockchain. The big lie? It continues.

14/01/2023
The bitcoin revolution starts with you.

Got some bitcoin? Congratulations! You’re a bitcoiner; oh wait…

I got my first few satoshis sometime in early 2017; to be honest, I vaguely knew what it means to own even the tiniest amount of bitcoin. If you wonder how I got them — a faucet. Funny, but those were actually a thing then, and they were real. A whole lot of people got their first ‘tiny’ pieces of bitcoin this way. Unlike the rampant fake faucets littered around all corners of the internet currently, bitcoin faucets were real and did pay those who were curious enough to try them out.

My attempt to transfer my first set of earnings from the faucet to my wallet was the real trigger for my curiosity. A wallet, a key phrase, a private key…these were foreign to a total noob. What bitcoin meant; I hardly knew. The process wasn’t a plain one, but yeah, I’m a fast learner. After successfully paying out my first earnings to my wallet, my interest in blockchain technology grew.

The transfer process was swift, but that was the last good thing about bitcoin. Reading through resources on the internet, bitcoin was more than just a means to move vague numbers around…I learned. The mystery, technology, audacity, and future were all caked into one concept — Bitcoin. Well, blockchain technology and cryptocurrency as a whole.

Alright, feel free to call me ‘dumb,’ but I lost those satoshis I earned from the faucet. I might find the passphrase one day. Don’t worry, it’s just a small amount and won’t make the news. The sats were gone but the interest in the ‘future of money’ continued to grow stronger. I got involved in a number of other cryptocurrency and blockchain projects and bought more bitcoin after the 2018 crash. Again, I lost them in a bitcoin mining scam.

Dummy of the year! Or rather, bitcoiner of the year! That’s a more appropriate term.

Holding some bitcoin only makes you an investor. Waiting patiently for when the price gets to your target and selling off to enrich your pool of fiat. That’s a clever investor right there, not a bitcoiner at best.

Cryptocurrencies are unarguably the best-performing assets over the last decade. The financial advantage they give their holders is unspeakable. A successful cryptocurrency investment could be life-changing. Only a few stocks can boast of similar financial performance.

Behind these financial super stories is an attempt to influence society positively (and otherwise) through a number of interesting concepts and techniques. Financial technology, politics, the internet, distribution of communal power and authority; led by bitcoin and supported by other reputable projects, blockchain technology, and cryptocurrency are finding their way into these important topics.

Investing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies only wouldn’t make them relevant outside the investment sphere. The deep interest and extra involvement propel this concept beyond the idea of making money and getting ‘rich’. While owning bitcoin(s) is quite a good start, it is, in fact, a ‘start’.

In a space with many voluntary spaces to fill, what is/are your extra involvement(s)? Well, advising your uncles to dip in a few dollars is nice, but not when you lured them to buy the top though. Regardless, you’re more of a bitcoiner than the investor who locked up a few hundred bitcoins in his wallet.

14/01/2023
Sharding: Perfect answer to scalability?

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Blockchain is in fact a powerful data storage technology. Every block carries a set of specialized information about the network; more popularly a record of expenditures and wallet balances. In cases where the blockchain is not just used for cryptocurrency transactions; a block could consist of patient information, supply chain record, details of an inventory…any digital information you could think of.

The set of data on each block consists the block size. Just like your device memory and disks, each of these blocks occupies a space on the blockchain. The blockchain expands in size with every new block added. This works well but breaks down where the blockchain will need to store a huge amount of data accumulating over a very long period of time.

Continuing this way, the blockchain expands to a point where it becomes ‘heavy’. A heavy blockchain comes with certain efficiency issues. Blockchains like this scale poorly.

In computing and data storage, a truly scalable system is able to maintain a flexible size amidst ever-increasing data and is limitless in the amount of data it can carry. Blockchain start-ups face this problem commonly as the struggle to achieve a truly infinite scalable blockchain continues. While many blockchain projects boast of being scalable, they mostly fall short of their ‘claims’. Only a few can boast of reasonable scalability. These claims of Infinite scalability are mostly a marketing jibe used by many ‘Ethereum killers’

If device memories could be expanded without limits and our devices can work well with some high-capacity cryptocurrency nodes running on them, then seeking scalability solutions wouldn’t be a thing. But each transaction on the blockchain generates a lot of data. These generated data need to be stored; accessed and assessed on the blockchain. Memory expansion is also not limitless, ‘heavy’ blockchains are notably sluggish and inefficient. Scalability is desired for high data structures like the blockchain and its node.
Ethereum’s archival nodes currently sit at over five (5) terabytes (5Tb), the actual blockchain size well over a hundred (110) Gigabytes, and each block adds two (2) Megabytes to this already huge figure. Ethereum blockchain according to many ‘will never scale’ and in 2019, Bloomberg reported the Ethereum blockchain is ‘almost full’.

Scalability and memory friendliness are both very appealing features and are vital for mainstream adoption. In recent times, Ethereum gas price has risen very high and the cost of running transactions on the blockchain could get unbearable at some points.

Different projects have sought fixes for poor scalability through different tweaks, all centered on limiting the rate at which the blockchain expands. A very unique one is Sharding

Regardless of how fast a blockchain grows, splitting the blockchain into smaller interconnected units presents pieces of lighter ‘blockchains’ reduces the executable size considerably. This is the main idea behind sharding. As part of the upgrade to Ethereum 2.0, Ethereum developers are planning to adopt this technology to split the Ethereum blockchain into lighter pieces. Zilliqa, Polkadot and NEAR blockchain are already using the sharding technology to make their blockchain lighter and their network faster.

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The Sharding idea is to make a blockchain more efficient by partitioning it into lighter units. These ‘pieces’ of blockchains are known as ‘Shards’. Each shard store different types of data and are independent of other shards. Sharding on Ethereum will split the blockchain into 64 shards. Consider these shards as interconnected units that consist a blockchain.

Blockchain projects using the sharding technique are adopting different strategies to create competent communication between the shards. Zilliqa uses a sharding version known as Partitioned sharding, where shards don’t communicate with each other directly through a central relay. NEAR protocol and Polkadot use State sharding, where shards communicate with each other through a state, or central relay. Ethereum blockchain will use the State sharding technology.

Sharding comes at a cost — security. The fact is, most scalability protocols sacrifice security and decentralization for speed and efficiency. Sharding might be just another example. Splitting the blockchain into shards creates units of independent blockchains with relatively less security. These shards could be attacked individually in an attempt to compromise the blockchain. A successful attack on any of the shards affects the rest of the network.

Despite a lot being done already in developing this concept, blockchain sharding is pretty much an emerging technology pioneered by just a few blockchain projects. There’s a continued attempt to develop it to a more competent level. Few shortcomings currently, but in essence, it has shown a lot of promise as a solution for blockchain scalability. Whether it is a ‘perfect’ answer to scalability or not is a question of how successful these projects working to optimize it become.

09/01/2023
Here’s how you can get back your spent cryptocurrencies!

Alright, I’ll make two guesses; first, you’ve surely spent a whole lot of cryptocurrencies and smart contract tokens and you’d love to have some or all of them back again. Now I don’t just mean transaction fees. I’m personally bad at guessing, but even if I got the first guess wrong; I’m sure about the second. Who wouldn’t want to eat their cake and have it back? Depends on how tasty the cake is!

Well, thanks to some old blockchain tweaks, you could get your tokens back after spending them. And this is not some pro-hack article. Don’t get too excited anyways, this won’t come easy…if possible, at all.

This phenomenon is more properly known as Double spending.

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During blockchain’s earliest days, developers argued the possibility of a user interrupting the network to revert their expenses. This was a possibility. Satoshi’s initial presentation of bitcoin via the bitcoin whitepaper featured plans to prevent double-spending using digital signatures and a peer-to-peer network.

We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work.

Bitcoin whitepaper

Double spending is the possibility to interrupt the normal flow of information on the blockchain to enable a user to regain previously spent cryptocurrencies.

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The blockchain is literally a ‘chain of blocks’. Each new block is linked to the previous block and identified using a unique hash. The latest block represents the current state of the blockchain and carries every recent information including wallet balances. If certain conditions are met, the blockchain could be intercepted and the current block modified or changed completely. This modification can enable someone to reclaim already spent assets.

For someone to double spend, a secret block has to be mined that outpaces the creation of the real blockchain. They would then need to introduce that chain to the network before it caught up — if this happened, then the network would recognize it as the latest set of blocks and add it to the chain. The person that did this could then give themselves back any cryptocurrency they had spent and use it again.

Investopedia

The blockchain design ultimately limits the risk of a double spending attack happening. With the distributed control of the network to the miners, executing a double spend attack becomes hard and nearly impossible…depending on how guarded the network is. Blockchain networks like bitcoin and Ethereum with a large number of miners with varying computing powers will be relatively harder to breach. Each block is screened by miners before they are confirmed and added to the blockchain. Bad blocks are screened out in the process. Sneaking in a secret block will be a tough task on well-decentralized blockchains.

Double spending attacks are much likened to 51% attacks. The attacker will need to control at least 51% of the total computing power of the network to execute a double-spend attack on the network in a proof-of-work blockchain. Similarly, the attacker will need to control over 50% of the staked token supply to execute a double-spend attack on a proof-of-stake blockchain.

Lots of big words thrown around already. You’re probably just here to learn how to retrieve those sold coins and sell them again. Well, that’s simple enough…at least you have an idea of how to go about it now. No jokes though but while the distributed ledger technology makes double-spend attacks hard, there have been reports of attempts to launch this attack on certain blockchains.

09/01/2023
Is Metaverse the End game?

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You think the metaverse is like a ‘new world’? you might not be wrong anyways. You’d wonder why Elon Musk isn’t exploring the space as he does with Mars and these other planets…just like you, I wonder too. The rocket man spends a lot of resources surfing the next destination for humans but seems to ignore the closest planet to earth — the Metaverse.

Coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel, “Snow Crash,” and popularized by cryptocurrency and blockchain projects; the metaverse is an attempt to (re)create a world outside our world that exists in our world. That must have been tough to read. Well, it’s probably the most straightforward description of the metaverse.

Using a combination of virtual reality and decentralized digital art technologies, tech companies and startups are working to create a world where we exist in simulation and perform certain interactive activities. The only difference is, we are not doing this in ‘real’. Remember those games where you’ll have to select an avatar that represents you? this is something similar but once again it’s not just a game.

In the metaverse, you exist in form of your avatar; probably an NFT, operate in a virtual world, and interact with other avatars controlled by real humans. You’ll be able to attend (virtual) meetings, games, probably concerts, and as well make purchases on the metaverse. If you own land, you can as well build. It is a collaborative effort to create a world outside ours and hopefully reduce real human-to-human interaction…now I added that myself.

With pollution and corruption taking over our world, I guess it’s time to try and exist somewhere else. Somewhere not too far. If you haven’t bought land in decentraland, then you are missing out on the biggest real estate opportunity. Jeff Greene needs to do something real quick.

Anyways, who even cares? You’re probably more concerned about the next metaverse-themed project to do a 100x than you are concerned about what the metaverse really is. I wouldn’t blame you! To be fair, with so much abstraction surrounding the concept at this point, only the hype can be utilized. When it comes to utilizing hypes, the crypto space leads. Projects with ‘meta’ tags and little or no tangible products have been recording multiple gains since the concept took its first leap in the last quarter of 2021.

From the crypto point of view, it looks like just another bubble that will soon settle down; but outside this space, it is a more serious topic for big tech companies who are throwing weights around the concept as the struggle for who delivers best for this sector continues to toughen.

Facebook has re-branded to Meta in an attempt to reflect its latest and biggest diversification. Just like its social media platforms, Meta will leverage virtual reality and NFT technologies to bring people together; this time in a different and rather bizarre way. Sequel to this re-brand and even before it, they have invested so many resources in what they believe will be the next big thing in human existence. Well, they are not alone in this belief…

Microsoft recently acquired American video game company; Activision Blizzard for over 68 billion dollars, citing plans to dive into the metaverse concept. The new acquisition with form a vital part of the company’s efforts to diversify into the ravaging concept. Over the years, other tech giants including Sony, Apple, and search engine platform; Google have continued to work on technologies related to the new (virtual) world.

Outside your ‘pump and dump’ metaverse cryptocurrency world exists a real effort to use technology to transform the world. But is it really worth the effort?

Is Metaverse the end game?

In a time where the need to avoid group activities is being stressed, an avenue to interact in an alternative form as real as possible comes in handy. Working from home has never seemed more professional. The pandemic has steered our attention to an odd way of living — alone. Confined, separated, and existing in privacy; these odd ways of life are becoming the new norm. If we learned anything from the pandemic, it is that humans can survive without being in direct contact, probably.

At the peak of the pandemic, other forms of human communication saw a steep rise in use. Social media platforms and video call services dominated other means of human communication as people were forced to work and communicate from home. Social media platform — Clubhouse grew from obscurity to full-blown popularity and multi-million dollar investments from big tech companies. Metaverse technology would have come in handy in situations like this.

This probably intensified the effort to develop this technology as humans are actually adapting to this way of life. For probably the first time in human history, ‘staying away’ from public activities is medically justified, generally. Companies whose staff comfortably worked from home are exploring this option as an alternative to reporting to the office and working in a group.

Maybe there’s no need for offices? Well, funny, but some people and firms are really considering going completely virtual. If they are completely or even partly successful in doing this, then a Meta world might be looming…the end game.

When the lockdown rules in most countries were reduced and proper social life began to return to normal, there was a resulting sharp decline in the rate at which most social platforms were used. Despite generating millions of dollars for development, Clubhouse again went into relative obscurity. While clubhouse didn’t fail at its technology, the nosedive in the frequency of use was purely due to humans returning to normal life. This event hints at the superiority of the original way of life. People quickly dumped their pandemic-influenced lifestyle.

The metaverse could suffer a similar fate and even with impressive technology, it might only form a minor part of human communication instead of the level of influence we are currently expecting. This however is a speculative opinion.

What do you think about the Metaverse?

09/01/2023
Satoshi’s Vision: how far have we really gone?

When Satoshi Nakamoto presented the bitcoin whitepaper, (he) envisioned “A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash which would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.” With his complicated cryptographic breakthrough, he hoped to revolutionize the economy or at least, the financial system.

A simplified payment system controlled by the people and protected by its users; Satoshi’s new cash sounded like an idea from a world outside ours. He kept his identity clandestine, but at this time, only a few really bothered about who really is. He had a vision, but just like his identity; only a few really understood what exactly this goal was.

Like wildfire, bitcoin would grow in popularity and garner interest from developers and finance enthusiasts. Apart from a brilliant peer-to-peer exchange technology, bitcoin’s economy was also argued to score above the current global economy.

“There will ever be twenty-one million bitcoins”

Over a trillion dollars later, bitcoin’s finite supply would emerge as its most marketable quality. Overshadowing censorship resistance and technological efficiency, bitcoin’s original vision ranks below its other features. Basking in bitcoin’s success, the concept which was influenced by Satoshi’s piece of code would grow into an over two trillion dollars worth sector and a space better known with the ability to make investors rich in the shortest period of time.

No matter how much you try to flaunt fundamentals over ‘pumpamentals’; a majority of cryptocurrency enthusiasts are simply here to discover the next 100X and improve their financial status…in fiat. Well, only a few really care about bitcoin anymore. But how impactful has this foregoing been on Satoshis’s vision?

Satoshi’s vision? You might have to repeat those lines from the whitepaper a number of times before any cryptocurrency investor understands it. And when they do, expect them to quickly shove it under the bus. Thing is, it matters very little now.

Sovereignty from the government in almost every monetary activity…the original vision was a currency controlled by the people. The generation, distribution, value system, and expenditure were supposed to be championed by the people. Satoshi, however, couldn’t state the exact role he wanted the government to play here…he probably didn’t care about them; that was the goal, the vision.

How far have we gone? To be fair, Satoshi was slightly over-ambitious. The centralized government has not only grown too strong over the thousands of years the system has existed without tangible challenges. Money on the other hand is their biggest tool of domination and control. With an infinite amount of money at their disposal and an ability to control the value of fiat to an extent, they hold almost total control over the people. A factor Satoshi might have considered before hiding his identity.

The growth of bitcoin has been met with the major involvement of the government. You’d expect them to care a little since the original goal have been abandoned long ago. But yeah, bitcoin and similar technologies are still challenges they have to face and curb to retain their supremacy.

Adopters of this technology have also been overpowered by the tasty option of getting rich by holding volatile digital assets. A very tough temptation. With a lot of ‘new money’ flowing into this space, bitcoin trading over a million dollars is more realistic than Satoshi’s original vision. Investors would prefer this too, or Shiba Inu going to $1 rather.

Whichever comes first; we are already too far from the initial goal and are obviously more comfortable with the financial liberation this space promises; even if it means leaning on governmental approval. An idea this technology was invented to fight.

07/01/2023
Tragedy of the third coin: How far is the top?

A ‘new bitcoin’, ‘the ethereum killer’…wonder how many times these two phrases have been used in the crypto space? Countless.

Bitcoin’s introduction changed the narratives for cryptography and created relevance for blockchain technology. Its primary use? Peer-to-peer exchange transactions.

‘A decentralized electronic cash that enables Peer-to-peer exchange of value without double spending’ sounds like a brilliant idea, yet only few believed in this.

Bitcoin’s surprise success quickly triggered the proliferation of similar projects claiming to be an improvement to bitcoin’s technology. Faster? Cheaper? Even though these alternatives achieved most of these, they were unable to displace bitcoin in terms of acceptability. Bitcoin retained its position as the original and most reliable peer-to-peer electronic cash system.

For Vitalik Buterin; P2P exchange was a very narrow scope for blockchain technology, a good number of very interesting things could be achieved using the blockchain and distributed ledger system.

Ethereum introduced smart contract technology and a virtual code executing machine which powers real utility applications and running on a blockchain which can also be used for decentralized Peer-to-peer electronic cash exchange. Ethereum’s introduction ushered in a new dimension for blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.

Programmable money; being the ‘new cash’ was actually the least ethereum could be. In essence, it is bitcoin and many more.

Well deserved; Ethereum climbed the stairs, from obscurity to the second-biggest blockchain and cryptocurrency project. Displacing other older projects and trailing behind bitcoin, of course; it was tipped to displace bitcoin too…it still is.

Together at the top; bitcoin and Ethereum’s reign has lasted the longest, but this hasn’t been without stern challenges. These two coins aren’t perfect anyways. There are no perfect systems, but improvements are always a thing to smile at.

Bitcoin’s shortcomings include a negative impact on the environment thanks to proof of work’s mode of operation. Its technology is also argued to be outdated and ‘archaic’. Many blockchain projects focused on Peer-to-peer electronic cash payment have introduced better alternatives to bitcoin’s consensus algorithms and a few tweaks to create a faster and environmentally healthier blockchain. With these features, they hoped to become the ‘new bitcoin’.

Ethereum, on the other hand, is riddled with efficiency and economic issues, and of course; its proof of work consensus places it in the same environmental position as bitcoin.

A couple of coins have put together proposals to tackle these issues, and many of them have received the approval of the majority of the cryptocurrency community and have soared in price as a result. A few of them have climbed the stairs to the third position — the Third coin…

LiteCoin, XRP, Cardano, Binance coin…each of these have once occupied the third position on the ranking and a few times have been tipped to journey into the second position as they are billed as superior to either ethereum or bitcoin or both.

Unfortunately, this never happened. These projects despite once occupying the third position and earning praise from the general community are unable to stand the challenge. Most of them have since slipped from this position. These failures are tragic…the tragedy of the third coin.

But why do these third coins fail? Bitcoin and ethereum have the first movers’ privileges. A very important advantage. Being the first to the market and gaining many users who turned believers and maximalists, challenging these two toppers goes beyond developing superior technology. Getting the old investors to abandon the project that warmed their hearts isn’t a very simple task. Even genius-level marketing wouldn’t do this easily.

Bitcoin maximalists would hardly listen to any argument against bitcoin, let alone accept it. This is the same with Ethereum maximalists. Despite the outrageous fees and decreased efficiency experienced by ethereum users, ethereum continues to wax stronger.

Apart from the first mover privilege; these third coins are in fact unable to match the mastery of these two toppers. Despite boasting a better technology and economy, these alternatives are found lacking in many important aspects. New smart contract blockchains may be faster and more efficient but are hardly decentralized and less secure than the ethereum blockchain. This is hard to ignore. Sacrificing security for speed is a tough decision. Better safer than faster. A centralized blockchain defeats the whole goal.

Many of these ambitious projects in an attempt to develop a better alternative end up reinventing the wheel. Their solutions are no different from existing ones; just a different branding and marketing schedule. The two projects at the top continue to look irreplaceable. Their technology keeps growing and getting better. Bitcoin’s latest upgrade allows smart contracts, and ethereum hopes to fix most of its issues with the ethereum 2.0. While these coins continue to develop positively, will a third coin rise from the ruins or will the tragedy continue?

07/01/2023
Non-fungible token: The Turnoffs.

Your reluctance to join the non-fungible token (NFT) trend is a result of any of these two instances; either you’re a maximalist of a non-nft project (probably bitcoin) or you’re discouraged by certain ‘not so good’ aspects of digital signatures.

Previously I questioned the value system in the NFT space, but that’s just one out of the whole bunch. The current scope of NFTs is limited to just multimedia vending; a very narrow use of NFTs, in my opinion. Apart from buying and selling digital art; NFT’s utility extends miles beyond the exchange of multimedia ownership. Maybe when the wave settles, these other use cases will come to life.

Just like every new idea, critics have presented these shortcomings of NFT technology in their arguments. But while these criticisms are valid, they don’t totally dampen the brilliance of NFT technology.

Alright, here are some of the most popular arguments against NFTs.

“Right-click and save”

If you ever tried to read more about NFTs, then the higher probability is that you’ve come across this phrase. Right-click and save!…easily the biggest argument against NFTs. Your NFT art can be easily saved and used by anyone. Just like a royalty-free picture on art vending sites, this argument is by far the scariest turnoff of NFTs. A fact any NFT investor should consider and understand before throwing a dime on digital arts. But just like I said earlier, even though this is a fact NFT art collectors need to worry about, it doesn’t bite down on NFTs’ brilliance. Saving a picture doesn’t make you an owner…in essence.

But do you even ‘own’ the multimedia attached to your NFT? Well, let’s get to that later.

Transaction fees

The part where blockchains claim to be a ‘cheaper’ option to mainstream alternatives should be wiped and rewritten with vague letters. Certain blockchains are multiple times more expensive than using custodial financial institutions; I’ll leave you to name these blockchains.

NFT transactions are one of the most complicated smart contract operations currently. Minting, selling, and buying; each of these transactions involve a number of protocols working together. This generates so many charges that depending on the blockchain, it could easily scare off investors and creators. A number of blockchains charge cheaper fees for NFT transactions, but unfortunately, they are less popular than the costlier ones and might mean lesser exposure for the creator and smaller options for the buyer.

Valuation

You just saw an art you love on an NFT marketplace, but you had to let it go. You couldn’t afford it. If pixelated art with negligible attributes could cost a few numbers of Ether, you can only wonder what real art and photographs would cost. Well, most times they cost way lower than this pixelated art. I might be oblivious to the process of creating these arts but the valuation system in NFT is questionable.

Tron’s Justin Sun has a history of extravagant spending, but top on his list is the millions of dollars he spent buying an NFT art. I’m clearly not a big fan of his; this is another reason to understand this stance. Certain NFT arts are way overpriced. If you ever tried to justify these prices, you will end up understanding the poor value system. A hype or a boom? I think a combination of these two words best explains the current state of things in the NFT space.

Liquidity?

You just bought an NFT for a certain price; you might have to worry about selling it. Unlike cryptocurrencies where an active market exists, NFT owners will have to go through the process of finding a buyer for their art. Just like the Barter trading system, the liquidity system for the NFT system is a burden for both creators and buyers.

Ownership

An art creator sold his art for a few hundred thousand dollars and went ahead to make this same art free of copyright issues. It raises a huge question for art collectors: Do you really own the art attached to your NFT? I probably need some extra answers and arguments. Personal research couldn’t provide enough clarity on this. If everyone can use the same property you paid a lot for without any form of permission or royalty, are you really even the owner of this property? Something art collectors should really consider before buying any art. The sellers’ integrity should be considered first.

For art with several mints, the ownership rights are presumably distributed between all the buyers. In a case like this, every buyer reserves the rights to the ownership of this art, the question comes up again; Do you really own the art attached to your NFT?

Rarity

How rare is your art? Very rare right? Not sure if you can freely say the same if this particular art can be minted again and resold by the owners; or scammers. I’ve come across a number of instances where this has happened and the question gets even more important. Is it really ‘rare’ or is the statement just for aesthetics? Not sure what the perfect and factual answer to this could be. Another huge turn-off for non-fungible tokens.

Scams and hacks

If you still have your bored apes, then you are one of the lucky ones. A good number of people don’t have theirs anymore. Nope, they didn’t sell it; they lost it. If you’ve been following NFTs, you might come across this hazard a few times. Just like your cryptocurrencies, your NFTs aren’t safe. But here, securing your NFTs is way harder.

I admit it, NFTs are cool, but these turnoffs are huge points to consider before dipping your toes into the non-fungible waters. As a creator or collector, these issues span across every party involved in NFT.

07/01/2023
Taproot and Serenity: How the big players are getting better.

Have you ever wondered what it takes to get to the very top? A whole lot, right? A bit more than that. As if that’s not enough, it takes, even more, to remain at the top. This is the case for the two biggest cryptocurrencies — bitcoin and Ethereum.

Worth over a trillion dollars and more than half a trillion dollars respectively, bitcoin and Ethereum have been an example to every other cryptocurrency and blockchain project. Much of the developments around this space revolve around them. Ethereum’s ecosystem particularly houses countless cryptocurrency projects and its technology and management tactics have been copied by even more projects.

After the blockchain itself; Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is arguably the most brilliant invention in the crypto space, following it closely is smart contract technology…also developed by Ethereum. Bitcoin represents a whole lot; more than just a technology, it represents an economic and political revolution. For this reason, the very top spot is well deserved. Apart from this, I’d tip Ethereum to go to the very top.

At the top, these two projects continue to refine their technology and set the pace for other projects. Recent developments and improvement proposals have seen the bitcoin blockchain get even more potent and the Ethereum blockchain is set to undergo one of its biggest upgrades ever.

In a move that hopes to ‘solve’ cost and efficiency issues, the Ethereum blockchain will be moving from Proof of Work to Proof of stake. The upgrade to Ethereum 2.0 also known as SERENITY is expected to bring moment-defining changes to the Ethereum ecosystem. This upgrade changes Ethereum’s consensus algorithm to proof of stake.

Source

The move to proof of stake is expected to add more flexibility to the Ethereum blockchain, a feature it terribly lacks. Proof of work algorithm is a complex computing protocol. Running a node for a proof of work blockchain requires enough computing power and of course, a whole lot of electrical energy. Working on computer resources, proof of work operations pile pressure on the device resources, store an enormous amount of data, and consume the device memory in an outrageous manner. Poorly scaling blockchains like Ethereum and bitcoin would consume double to three-digit gigabytes on your device and heat up the device.

Proof stake algorithm is energy-conserving in all aspects. Due to its memory friendliness and relative simplicity, it makes judicial use of computing resources. Staking process also provides a more flexible token generation algorithm in contrast to the very complex proof of work. Getting rid of the mining process saves the electrical power required to mine tokens.

Moving to POS spares Ethereum blockchain from this turmoil, guess that’s why it was named SERENITY! Well, it’s serenity and peace at last for Ethereum believers and skeptics. An amazing move…arguably.

Elsewhere, bitcoin has just completed its first upgrade since 2017.

At block 709,632, bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade went live. Bringing into life what has been described as the biggest bitcoin upgrade since its inception the Taproot upgrade is bitcoin blockchain’s first upgrade in the last four years. Over five months of thorough testing and optimization, the Taproot finally grows out!

In addition to the current “Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm” (ECDSA), the Taproot upgrade introduces the “Schnorr signatures”. ECDSA creates a signature from the private key that controls a bitcoin wallet and ensures that bitcoin can only be spent by the rightful owner. When used to sign multiple-signature transactions, the Schnorr signature algorithm adds a privacy layer to multi-signature transactions.

‘Privacy layer’ might sound too complicated for what the Schnorr signature actually does. The Schnorr signature combines the signatories of a multiple-signature transaction into one signature. The individual signatories in this transaction are a little bit more ‘hidden’ as the transaction is represented with only one signature.

In addition to improved privacy for multisig transactions, the Schnorr signature can be used to significantly reduce the size of multisig payments and other multisig-related transactions, for example lightning channel transactions. It not only makes these transactions more private and secure; trimming the size of the transactions’ data makes for more efficiency in execution.

I’d say the Schnorr Signature is the real game-changer. Currently, smart contracts can be created on bitcoin’s core protocol layer and also on the Lightning Network. The lightning network is a payment platform built on bitcoin, it improves bitcoin transaction speed and enables almost instant transactions. Smart contracts on the Lightning Network are notably faster and less costly when compared to smart contracts on the bitcoin core blockchain.

By compressing multiple signatures into a single signature and greatly reducing the size of multiple signature transactions, the Taproot upgrade is set to add a whole new level of efficiency and speed to smart contracts on the bitcoin core blockchain and the lightning network as well.

Taproot makes bitcoin stronger; Serenity will restore orderliness on the Ethereum blockchain. Two game-changers, occupy the topmost position. Developments in these two projects means a lot to the overall growth of the crypto space. With the Schnorr signature, bitcoin will power relatively more efficient applications, gain even more utility and more adoption. If successful, the Serenity upgrade will solve the biggest issues limiting Ethereum blockchain’s adoption. Either way, these two projects won’t be matching the breaks any time soon.

07/01/2023
Death to 2022: A rekt man’s diary

We lit the fireworks and changed our calendars as we swerved into a year we thought will brew a better story. Well, on a general note for the crypto space, that didn’t really happen.

You could go on about how you made Bezos-level money from shorting the hell out of cryptocurrencies. Sincerely, I’d have bet a few dollars on bitcoin smashing the $100,000 mark in 2022. Such a bad gambler, I know. But the charts didn’t hint at anything this bad.

Fair enough, the charts could have never predicted multiple bankruptcies and a full-blown war.

Hell, of a year, literally, 2020 remains one of the worst years in the 21st century, but for the business sector, 2022 follows immediately.

The tales aren’t really so juicy and our sarcasm might taste like a poorly prepared coffee, but we’ll have to do it anyways. So, let’s go through 2022 again in just 670 words.

Michael Saylor stepping down from his throne at Microstrategy should have been enough sign for us. The bitcoin man probably got tired of saving the space with his firm’s annual profits. It’s just unfortunate, if he dipped in a few billion more, I’d have paid off the fee for a ‘single-issue’ Toyota Corolla. Sorry, that’s an excerpt from a friend’s diary.

Well, steady lads! A friend lost his tuition fee to that LUNAr eclipse, but it’s a good thing that we got a new fun phrase for euphemism. A couple of “Steady Lads” situations got us this far, if 2023 brings forth more, we might have to do better at word-building.

If anything good came from 2022, it is the fact that cryptocurrency projects have learned how easy it is to get away with impoverishing investors. The chronology is similar; reach enviable heights, then crash so badly that your biggest fans look like absolute degenerates. It’s unfair to bring in the word “generates” here, considering the fact that the same word is an important figure in some of the biggest mainstream pumps of 2021. Looking back at how everything turned out, I have no apologies.

A good measure of how bad we had it is that everyone already forgot about how Andre Cronje’s exit from Fantom foundation nearly rugged one of the best Layer-1 blockchains out there. Yeah, I think it’s time to give that project its flowers, even though it isn’t making those multiple profits anymore, for now.

You can’t close a rekt man’s diary without turning to the page where he discovered that the leftovers he ‘saved’ on his favorite exchange have been donated to a charity program and he didn’t even get a pat on the back for being so generous. Cryptocurrency hated the banks so much but still managed to lose out to a nominal Bankman. That hate should grow.

Since Alameda will spend more time in court, how likely is it that we still get that Solana blockchain phone in 2023? There’s a pre-order facility already, I hope a partial refund facility doesn’t follow. On a deeper thought, a $250 Million bailout should be enough to keep the project running. Unfortunately, someone already used that for himself. A silver lining, Solana Blockchain doesn’t stop twice in three days anymore.

I’ll leave you to guess what 2023 will come up with, I’d suggest you don’t expect a pump. Most of the architects of the 2021 pumps are either standing on court podiums, hiding in an exotic location in a third-world country, or buying up the rekt projects that still stand a revival chance. Either way, they are too engaged to pump your bags. The penny coins you are throwing your pocket money on are likely to remain pennies or something lesser…like half-pennies.

Being optimistic for 2022 didn’t stop two neighboring countries from clashing in a gruesome manner, nor did it stop Changpeng from putting out the tweet that almost put out the whole space; but it did help Mr. Trump to raise a couple of million dollars from selling some classic pictures. Hands-off to United States’ 45th chairman though, one of the biggest winners of 2022.

Who else took a big win in 2022? I don’t know your guess and it’s needless waiting for one. Hackers, a straight answer. Hackers had lots of fun over here and banks aren’t this porous. To be fair, they have a solid recovery system. If every alternative fails, getting a bailout from people who print some crispy notes is one way to go about it. In 2023, I suggest we stop throwing jabs at banks, they are badly beating the space currently if we are being fair.

I’d simply end by asking you to share your biggest losses of 2022. It might sound a bit too cruel until someone shares a story worse than yours and you go back to feeling better about your losses. Thank me then and thank you for taking the time to read.

Let’s hope 2023 is a better story; happy new year!

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04/01/2023