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Happy birthday to Tezos: 10 updates in 4 years!

Tezos (XTZ): NFTs and the new Jakarta update

Tezos celebrates its 4th birthday with a new update. Discover Jakarta and its scalability solutions!

On the 30th of June 2022, Tezos turned 4 years old! This date in fact coincides with the launch of the Genesis Block of the Breitman blockchain in 2018. In 4 years, Tezos has implemented no less than 10 updates in its network. The latest one is called Jakarta and went live on the 28th of June, following Ithaca in April 2022. Check out Jakarta and its scaling solutions to expand Tezos’ NFT ecosystem!

With the new Tezos update comes optimistic roll-ups

One of the reasons to be a fan of Tezos is that it is a blockchain that is constantly being updated. Tezos’ policy is to offer updates on a regular basis to provide the most functional and innovative technologies. The new Jakarta update continues Ithaca’s focus on optimising transaction finalisation. Jakarta was proposed on 16 April and went live on 28 June. The most notable feature of the new Tezos update is the inclusion of Transaction Optimistic Rollups (TORU) that will improve performance in terms of TPS (transactions per second). These rollups will be piloted for one year, and their final stay will depend on usage and feedback from the community.

How do optimistic roll-ups work?

Roll-ups are a Layer 2 scalability solution that allows a series of transactions to be merged off-chain into a single block that is recorded on Layer 1. Optimistic roll-ups are specific roll-ups in which transactions collected together are not verified once they are transferred to the main chain because they are assumed to be valid: “they are called optimistic because they work on the assumption that the validation is correct until explicitly proven otherwise.” The validity of transactions is verified as needed and security is guaranteed by a ‘Fraud Proof’ mechanism. Optimistic Rollups are used by Arbitrium and Optimism, two of Ethereum’s scalability solutions. 

Tezos’ scalability strategy? Everything for NFT!

Tezos‘s latest updates, such as Jakarta, are part of this blockchain’s scalability plan. With the new consensus mechanism (Tenderbake) Tezos has already improved the speed at which transactions are included and transcribed in the chain. But what is all this scalability for? To accommodate the adoption of projects and realities in the Tezos network, especially for those with a non-fungible and collectible token theme. For Tezos, NFTs have always been a focus, the scalability of the blockchain supports the ever-increasing number of transactions that are required to mine and sell NFTs. Scalability promotes mass adoption of Tezos as a network for NFTs!

Although they are not among the market leaders, the NFT marketplaces on Tezos have achieved significant results. Objkt for instance achieved a volume of over 100 million dollars. Not bad for a ‘secondary’ marketplace. Objkt is characterised by its green vocation, in fact it characterises its products with the hashtag #cleanNFT.

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Facebook crypto breakthrough – NFTs arrive on the social network platform

Facebook becomes an NFT platform - first photos released!

Zuckerberg does not quit the blockchain – Facebook will become a platform for NFTs  

Mark Zuckerberg’s company that controls the social networking sites Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp – Meta – has once again surprised the crypto world. After cancelling the Novi wallet project and the Diem crypto, it has announced that Facebook will soon integrate NFTs based on Ethereum and Polygon. The social network will therefore support both creators and users who want to buy NFTs. Continue reading to find out what NFTs on Facebook will look like!

Ethereum and Polygon’s NFTs on Facebook – first photos released

Meta (formerly Facebook), the company that controls some of the world’s most widely used social networks, showed interest in the crypto world when it changed its name and started to take an interest in the concept of the metaverse. In March 2022, Zuckerberg announced that NFTs would arrive on Instagram. At the moment the feature is being tested for influencers in a number of countries. The next step? Turning Facebook into a platform where you can show off your NFTs!

The breaking news was first shared by Navdeep Singh, a developer for Meta. “I’m excited to show the world what I’m working on,” he tweeted, posting a small spoiler for the curious. The picture shows some of the features that will be available when NFTs will be released on Facebook. For instance, it will be possible to add entire collections (such as Bored Ape Yacht Club or Pudgy Penguins) to your profile, as long as you have them on your wallet. Non-fungible tokens will also be shared like normal posts, with the possibility of adding reactions and comments.

 Initially, according to a Meta spokesperson, it will only be possible only to support Ethereum and Polygon-based NFTs, but there are plans to add tokens built on Solana and Flow later on. Cross-posting with Instagram will also be enabled, to create a unique ecosystem within Meta products. In the future, it will be possible to buy NFTs directly on Facebook. Facebook’s crypto turn could be instrumental in bringing NFT technology to a wider audience of users.

So long wallets – Facebook becomes an NFT platform

Zuckerberg’s interest in crypto began in 2019, when his company released the Novi wallet. Novi was a beta project that was supposed to allow Facebook users to pay more easily and quickly. Facebook’s crypto, however, never saw the light of day. Neither Libra (the original project) nor Diem (its evolution) will have any future, because Meta has decided to abandon the project and shut down Novi. In fact, Facebook’s crypto encountered many technical and legislative obstacles, which led Zuckerberg to completely shut down the project. Novi will be closed forever on 1 September 2022.

However, the interest in the blockchain did not die with the Novi wallet, quite the contrary. According to some experts, NFTs on Facebook will serve to make the social platform a new hub for crypto enthusiasts. Support for non-fungible tokens will be crucial to expose them to a more mainstream audience, and to give users the chance to show off their collections. For now, the most used social platform for crypto enthusiasts is Twitter, but that may change soon!

Facebook’s goal is to make NFTs and cryptos ‘social’ and let word of mouth do the rest. That’s why the new features will first be tested by influencers and creators of some prominence in the community. If the tests are successful, the NFT feature will then be made available to all Facebook users. 

If all goes according to plan, NFTs on Facebook will be released in the coming months to some users, and then reach everyone else. Meta, the company that owns Facebook, believes strongly in crypto and blockchain projects. Its 2.93 billion users could find themselves interacting with NFTs on Facebook without realising it – a huge boost for the global adoption of cryptocurrencies. Will Facebook soon become a platform for NFTs in its own right? Will the social network’s idea bring non-fungible tokens into the mainstream?

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Polkadot and its use cases: the second day of Polkadot Decoded

Polkadot Decoded: What are DOT and KSM for?

What are DOT and KSM used for? The second day of Polkadot Decoded focusses on Polkadot use cases in everyday life

The second and final day of the Dotsama ecosystem conference took place on 30 June. While the first day of Polkadot Decoded dealt with DeFi, gaming and Metaverse, the most talked about topics on the second day were the sustainability and usability of Web3. Let’s take a look at the most interesting speeches that attempted to answer the question: what is the network of DOT and KSM actually for?

Fighting climate change with Polkadot

One of the strands of the second day of Polkadot Decoded was sustainability. In particular, two speeches described the most interesting projects in the green efforts of the Dotsama ecosystem. Climate change is one of the hottest topics of these years and blockchain could be an important tool to combat it. Miroslav Polzer, speaker of the NFT Digital Art 4 Climate project, spoke about the potential of ‘digital innovation’ for a real and measurable impact on climate problems. This digital art project is an initiative to transform art into digital assets freely exchangeable on blockchain, directing the proceeds towards the sustainability goals identified by the United Nations. Digital Art 4 Climate chose to use NFT technology because blockchain has all the credentials to “improve inefficient supply chains, and give a new idea of communication to communities through decentralised technology”. 

Two other natives of this ecosystem expressed their mission to make Polkadot a leader in sustainable innovation. Bitgreen and Sequester together put forward the proposal to convert the micro-fees of parachains into carbon credits. Sequester’s Brendan Edelson explained that parachains are fee-optional. In a nutshell, the relay chain provides Polkadot parachains with its validators for at least 2 years, so theoretically to validate parachain transactions there is no need to pay fees. In reality, there are micro-fees that the parachains have implemented for security reasons. However, these small fees are not a cost to be covered, Sequester’s proposal is to use them to buy carbon credits through Bitgreen’s marketplace.

Adam Carver of Bitgreen cited Polygon as a virtuous example of combating emissions, even though Polkadot already has an advantage in this mission because its energy footprint is minimal, the intention is to make the ecosystem not only neutral but also positive, taking concrete action and becoming part of the solution to the environmental problem. In this project, Sequester will calculate micro fees, exchange them into carbon credits, and issue a certification in the form of NFTs.

The spread of the Web3 depends on its value in everyday life

What is the use of the DOT and KSM ecosystem? Another use case of the network concerns the facilitation of access to Web3, a decentralised reality, without the control of large technology industries. However, Web2 still has one major advantage over the decentralised web: usability. Although Web3 has many plus points, it is still difficult to use and it is reserved for a small niche of experts. However, according to Agyle, the anonymously-identified CEO of the Talisman Wallet Project, the Web3’s lack of usability is only a small part of its deployment problems. One of the main issues with Web3 is that many projects have no real use in real life. Indeed, a favourite argument of blockchain detractors is that ‘it is a technology that solves a problem that does not exist’.

At Polkadot Decoded, Agyle explained that the user experience certainly needs to improve but the real challenge is to give Web3 value and usefulness in everyday life. Because if a tool is really useful, people will also make that extra effort to learn how to use it. If a service is both useless and difficult to understand, it is doomed to fail. What is Talisman’s contribution in terms of usefulness? Talisman aims to be a ‘universal login’ for Dotsama’s multichain system (which is called Paraverse). On Talisman you can manage all the passwords, keys, logins of your apps on the DOT and KSM network.

Web3 Google? On Polkadot!

A simple definition of Web3 is ‘an internet of blockchains’. If we think of everything we do on the internet, searching for information is one of the major activities. The blockchain, however, does not particularly lend itself to being ‘queried’: it records all the data on the Web3, but users would have to go through it block by block to find a specific piece of information. To overcome this problem, the blockchain is integrated with knowledge graphs, which organise all data (on chain and off chain) and make them available for consultation, guaranteeing their reliability. For example, knowledge graphs can be asked about NFTs or smart contracts. OriginTrail, from August on Polkadot, deals precisely with this combination of collecting information on blockchain and organising it with knowledge graphs.

The Web3 content landscape now looks like an iceberg, there is little afloat but in the future there will be more and more data and information to record. In this respect, a project must prepare itself to answer users’ questions. How does OriginTrail work? It has a layer 1 token composed of multiple blockchains (Ethereum, Gnosis, Polygon and soon Polkadot), on which are built layer 2 tokens, composed of knowledge graphs. On this latter structure, it will then be possible to build dapps, which exploit the features of both layers. One of the current applications of OriginTrail is in the field of pharmaceutical supply chains that follow the production and distribution of drugs in order to combat theft.

The PolkaOscars, the final event of Polkadot Decoded

Icing on the cake? At the end of the second day of Polkadot Decoded, a very special event took place: the Polkaoscars! During the ceremony held in Berlin, awards were presented to the content creators who contributed to raising awareness of Polkadot and Kusama’s vision and mission. The prize, a cute figurine, was created in the Metaverse and printed with a 3D printer.

Content creators, ambassadors and community leaders: active members on all social networks to build a solid community that shares the same vision as Polkadot and Kusama. Among the ambassadors is Irina Karagyaur, one of the minds behind the Digital Art 4 Climate project, who encouraged everyone to follow in their footsteps. “We need all of you to grow the ecosystem,” she said on stage.

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Polkadot Decoded: a summary of the first day of the event on Web3

Polkadot Decoded: what happened at the Web3 event

From the first day of Polkadot Decoded, the annual conference dedicated to Gavin Wood’s network, the latest news from the parachains for Web3!

The third edition of Polkadot Decoded is taking place these days (29-30 June 2022) in 4 locations around the world: Berlin, Buenos Aires, Hangzhou and New York. The event is dedicated to the presentation and discovery of the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems with talks by all those who are building on this network. The talks and topics were voted on by the community, in the full spirit of decentralisation! During the first day, some of the Polkadot and Kusama parachains (the Dotsama ecosystem, to use the affectionate name invented by the community) took the stage to address a topic of common interest: the decentralisation of the Internet. This is what happened at Polkadot Decoded, the Web3 event!

How does Polkadot work?

Before we get into Polkadot Decoded and go over what happened during the Web3 event, let’s review how Polkadot works and how its network is structured. Polkadot, considered one of the most interoperable blockchains in the crypto landscape, is a network composed of a collection of different blockchains. Polkadot’s aim is to make blockchain technology scalable by providing a large set of chains, each of them specific to an application. Polkadot’s network is highly scalable precisely because its chains finalise transactions simultaneously and in parallel. There are two types of blockchain: relay chains and parachains. The former is the heart of Polkadot, providing security and coordinating the entire network structure. Parachains, on the other hand, are the chains with specific applications, connected to the relay chain and customisable. In this system, DOT, Polkadot’s native cryptocurrency, serves to pay fees, participate in governance and connect the parachains to the relay chain according to the bonding mechanism. To become a Polkadot parachain, the various projects participate in auctions. Polkadot’s expansion and development increasingly depends on the wealth and innovation of its parachains. Kusama, on the other hand, is Polkadot’s so-called canary network, i.e. a testing and experimentation chain.

Acala, Polkadot’s defi hub

Winner of the first Polkadot parachain auction, Acala has been online since 18 December 2021. Since its conception, Acala’s network has been conceived as a ‘dapp store of decentralised finance’, and after a few months of operation, its projects maintain this specialisation. Acala is a parachain designed for DeFi, a stablecoin, dapp and liquid staking services have been developed on it. Acala USD (aUSD) is Polkadot’s native stablecoin pegged to the dollar. It is decentralised and backed by cryptocurrencies such as DOT and KSM. aUSD is Acala’s flagship product and aims to become the stablecoin of choice for DeFi in the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystem. Dan Reecer, from the Acala team, explained during his speech at Polkadot Decoded how, in the future, Acala’s role will be the gateway to Web3 and DeFi for the masses and companies. To do this, dapp on Acala will have to respond to the needs and problems of the off-chain world. The network itself will offer decentralised and hybrid services for companies and institutions that want to evolve from Web2. Thus, services designed to meet KYC and AML needs as well. Among the interesting and developing projects mentioned by Reecer are Pike, Alluvial and Project Venkman.

Pike is a lending, yield farming and financial services platform for Polkadot-Kusama tokens. On the other hand, Alluvial provides liquid staking services for companies and institutions, while Project Venkman will enable loyalty programmes on blockchain, converting points into ERC-20 tokens. Project Venkman recently collaborated with actor Bill Murray to produce 1,000 collectible NFTs based on his career.

Astar: shaking up the Web3

On the main stage of Polkadot Decoded in Berlin, Hoon Kim, CTO of Astar, another of the parachains that won the first auction together with Acala, also spoke. Kim started his speech with the assumption that the entire Web3 today is stagnant and not growing for at least 6 reasons:

  1. tribalism whereby each team believes that its blockchain will be the definitive one, capable of rendering the others obsolete;
  2. People stay away from blockchain technologies because they are perceived as too difficult or incomprehensible;
  3. Everyone works on the same things, there are no original, fresh ideas;
  4. Web3 projects are based on often ineffective business models, such as token sales and ICOs, which, according to Kim, are only functional in the launch phase of a project but do not guarantee a constant incentive;
  5. Little interoperability and communication;
  6. Lack of safety standards.

Astar seeks to bring solutions to these Web3 difficulties, specifically in the aspects of interoperability and how to incentivise blockchain projects. In this regard, Astar offers dapp staking in which users can block their tokens on their favourite decentralised applications and earn tokens for developers. The mechanism is similar to the staking of validators in the Nominated Proof-of-Stake. In this way, it is the people who evaluate the best projects, encouraging the growth of useful dapps. According to Kim, usefulness is still not considered a parameter for measuring success. There are too many projects on the Web3 that are photocopies of something that already exists and do not fulfil a real need. With dapp staking, the most appreciated projects can be financially rewarded and continue their work supported by the community.

Web3 and gaming on Ajuna Network

Ajuna is a decentralised gaming platform developed on Polkadot and Kusama. As explained by Nicholas Douzinas, CBO and Co-Founder, Ajuna’s focus is on actively listening to players. If you want to build video games on the Web3, you cannot overlook the potential of the community, which is not made up of passive consumers (as is the case in most traditional video games) but of co-creators. Ajuna, by listening to the voice of users, realised that engagement is provided by a curated user experience and gameplay. The flagship game coming soon to Ajuna is Dotmog, set in the universe of the Mogwais, an ancient alien species.

Momentum: a practical Metaverse for workers

With its founder Chrisel Sieling, Polkadot Decoded was also presented with Momentum, a Metaverse on Dotsama active from the 24th of May 2022. For Sieling, the Metaverse must have a purpose and serve a purpose: ‘the metaverse is bullshit if you are not solving a problem’. The goal of Momentum is to create a digital space in which group work can be done in a simple and intuitive way.

What ‘gaming’ metaverses such as Decentraland or The Sandbox lack is the ability to work together remotely. Momentum offers office features such as video calling, chat and screen sharing. Sieling explained that metaverses exploded along with and after the Covid-19 pandemic, in response to the need to meet and collaborate in 3D from home, but not all of them actually met this second need. Momentum is perfect, however, for hosting hackathons and training programmes.

Polkadot Decoded continues tomorrow, stay tuned to the Young Platform blog for updates and news from Polkadot and Kusama’s Web3 event!

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Young Monday: Bill Murray, GTA, and the strange case of the +800% UST Classic pump

Bill Murray's NFT, GTA 6 crypto, USTC’s price pump

Bill Murray’s NFT extravagances, crypto gossip about GTA 6, USTC’s suspicious pump

The first week of July in the crypto world began with some rumours about the possible crypto capabilities of the new Grand Theft Auto (GTA) edition. There is still nothing certain about the video game that has been in development since the beginning of the year, but a rumour was enough to make fans curious. From a classic video game, we move on to a movie star! The actor Bill Murray has made collectable NFTs to tell some of the absurd stories and events of his life and career. In the past few days, you may also have noticed that the price of USTC, the defunct stablecoin of the Terra ecosystem (LUNA), has soared. What happened? Find out in this edition of Young Monday, with the week’s most interesting news from the crypto world! Spoiler: all that glitters is not gold!

Will GTA 6 be a play-to-earn?

The blockchain gaming industry is giving us truly extraordinary projects and gameplay, and by now all the major blockchains, from Avalanche to Solana, have their own crypto games. The play-to-earn model is also fascinating the off-chain gaming industry. In this regard, rumours have been leaked in recent days by alleged insiders from Rockstar Games about the upcoming release of the new Grand Theft Auto volume. According to the rumours, the sixth GTA video game will be available in 2024 (more than ten years after the last release) with the introduction of a cryptocurrency payment system. Earlier this year Rockstar Games announced that GTA 6 was in development, but the release date and the new crypto feature are still to be confirmed. However, open world fans are already itching to find out if the new GTA will be a play-to-earn and how involved it will be with the crypto world.

Bill Murray celebrates his crazy career with collectable NFTs

An unconventional autobiography of an equally unconventional artist will be available on the 15th of July. The life and career of Bill Murray (71) will be told through 100 stories in NFT format. You may know Bill Murray for his filmography, from playing Professor Venkman in Ghostbusters to being the favourite face of Wes Anderson. Moreover,his artistic life is full of incredible stories and anecdotes that go beyond his acting talents. The NFTs of ‘The Bill Murray 1,000′ collection are also designed to tell all those little stories and details that feed the personality of an artist of his calibre, such as his mania for stealing crisps from strangers’ packets or his passion for gatecrashing weddings. Murray made the non-fungible tokens together with his son and the startup Project Venkman (a platform on Acala, one of Polkadot’s parachains) named after the most famous character Murray played. Each NFT is based on a single original painting by artist David Grizzle, to which backgrounds, unique decorations and the actor’s life story have been added. The first NFTs in the collection will be for sale on the 15th of July with a price floor of 1.5 ETH. The remainder will be released later this year.

Why is the price of UST Classic pumping?

Over the past few days, you may have noticed that UST Classic, the failed algorithmic stablecoin of the Terra ecosystem, is showing signs of life after the loss of its dollar peg and the collapse of the entire blockchain structure. In fact, the price of USTC has risen 800% in a single week. Apparently the growth is unjustified, so what is happening to USTC? Some speak of the return of the living dead, others of zombie stablecoins, is USTC really hovering between life and death? Actually, it would seem not. Although at the same time LUNC, the original version of LUNA, is enjoying a sudden rise (from a market cap of $388 million to $922 million between 26 and 29 June), this is not a real revival of Do Kwon’s project. The price increase, according to some financial analysis groups, is only due to users looking to make money from a possible USTC and LUNC push. However, the underlying technology is dead, USTC has failed to achieve its goal of offering a stable, digital version of the dollar, which is why Terra’s comeback seems rather unlikely.

Solana and the crypto smartphone

Our tech news of the week comes from Solana! The Proof-of-Stake blockchain that promises super-fast and low-cost transactions has announced that in 2023 it will release Saga, an Android smartphone designed to facilitate access to and use of Web3 services. With Saga, you will be able to easily manage wallets, dapp, NFT, all from your mobile phone. Saga will also have competitive specifications in terms of screen, memory and camera. According to Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana, the way people approach the crypto world could be revolutionised by this new model of smartphone that aims to solve the usability problems of decentralised products. Solana wants to bring crypto into everyone’s pockets!

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Tether expands with a new stablecoin pegged to the pound sterling

Tether: GBPT arrives, the stablecoin pegged to the pound sterling

Tether, the company behind USDT, has decided to create a new stablecoin pegged to the pound sterling, in anticipation of a boom in the UK crypto market

Although USDT is the most widely used stablecoin in the crypto ecosystem, its market cap has declined since the shake-up caused by the collapse of Terra (LUNA). The market cap of USDT is 66 billion, but just behind it is USDC, with 55 billion and an upward parabolic trend. The solution of Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Tether? Expand into other markets! The new frontier for Tether is the UK, and GBPT is the new stablecoin pegged to the pound sterling and based on Ethereum. Will gbp on blockchain be an antidote against the bearish market?

A new stablecoin pegged to the pounds sterling for the UK market

GBPT is a stablecoin pegged to the pound sterling that will be released in early July by Tether. In addition to the primary stablecoin USDT, Tether already has other cryptocurrencies pegged to fiat currencies. What are they pegged to? The Euro, Chinese yuan and Mexican peso. However, these cryptos in total have a very low market capitalisation, under $1 billion. Although these ‘minor’ stablecoins do not reach USDT levels, Tether has nevertheless decided to release the new GBPT stablecoin.

The motivation? According to Paolo Ardoino, the CTO of Tether, the UK will be the next frontier of the crypto market. The pound is one of the most widely used fiat currencies in the world and the UK is a world economic power. What’s more, the UK parliament has announced that it is working on a series of laws and regulations that could foster the development of crypto technologies. “Tether is ready to work hand-in-hand with UK lawmakers towards this goal, and we are excited to continue the expansion of Tether-signed stablecoins,” Ardoino announced.

According to Tether, the launch of a stablecoin pegged to the pound will make the crypto market better, i.e. more dynamic, facilitating transactions not only in the UK but worldwide. The Bank of England is looking into the possibility of creating a CBDC of the pound, but some critics have blamed the bank’s slowness. Tether fits right into this market gap with its GBPT.

Will stablecoin pegged to the sterling help Tether?

The idea of a stablecoin pegged to sterling was born during a bearish market phase, with the intention of reviving the use of Tether’s signature stablecoin ecosystem. USDT reached a record market cap on the 11th of May, during the collapse of Terra (LUNA), surpassing $84 billion in capitalisation. On 28 June, after just under two months, USDT’s market cap stands at USD 66 billion. A drop of about 20%!

The causes of this decline are many. Besides the arrival of the bearish market, the very transparency of Tether has been called into question. According to some critics, in fact, the company’s reserves would not guarantee a 1:1 ratio with the USDTs currently circulating on the blockchain. Tether was quick to deny the allegations, releasing the numerous third-party audits confirming its reserves, but the rumours were enough to call into question the stablecoin’s primacy. “These unfounded rumours contribute to panic in the market, probably to take advantage of an already stressed market,” responded a Tether spokesperson, warning those holding USDT on their wallet.

Picking up the slack from USDT is first and foremost USDC, Circle’s stablecoin. Over the past month, USDC has increased its market cap by 4%. At the same time, a new algorithmic stablecoin, Tron’s USDD, has emerged, which has stolen percentage points from USDT by relying on those who still have faith in algorithmic stablecoins despite the Terra disaster.

Will the move to create a stablecoin pegged to sterling prove successful? According to Tether, the GBPT stablecoin will be released at the beginning of July on Ethereum, but it will take a few months to see if the stablecoin will prove equal to USDT or if GBPT will end up being used by a small niche.

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Solana launches a smartphone for crypto and blockchain

Solana’s new Smartphone: Saga, the Android crypto phone

Blockchain in the palm of your hand? Solana announces the development of a flagship Android smartphone integrated with crypto

Want to always have blockchain and crypto at your fingertips? Solana, in collaboration with OSOM, has announced a brand new Android smartphone with cutting-edge technical features, fully integrated with the crypto world. The mobile phone, called the Solana Saga, is designed to make access to Web3 simple and straightforward. The Solana Saga is a future-proof device, find out what the Solana smartphone, the Android mobile phone designed for crypto and Web3 enthusiasts, is all about!

An Android smartphone for crypto and Web3: this is what Solana Saga is and how it works

Did you buy a smartphone with 5G thinking it was state-of-the-art? Technology has just churned out something even more futuristic! In collaboration with Osom, Solana has announced Saga, a crypto- and Web3-proof Android smartphone integrated with blockchain and compatible with all decentralised applications. The manufacturing company, Osom, is a start-up created by some employees of the now defunct company Essential, which designed smartphones dedicated to privacy and security. Now they have decided to push the boundaries: here is Solana Saga!

The technical features of the Solana Saga are respectable and are no match for other top-of-the-range devices. The 6.67-inch OLED screen has a refresh rate of 120Hz, ensuring no blurring even in the most frantic videos. It also has 512 GB of memory, and 12 GB of RAM to run even the heaviest dApps. Highlights are the 50 MP main camera and the excellent Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen1 processor, which is the latest addition to the market and guarantees user privacy. In fact, thanks to the capabilities of this processor, Solana Saga is able to keep private keys and seed phrases safe, but at the same time make them interact with decentralised applications should the need arise. Solana works to ensure that your privacy is not compromised!

Solana also put another important building block on the theme of increasing the accessibility and usability of its network in March 2022, with the partnership between Dialect (Web3 messaging protocol) and Solana Mobile. The goal of the collaboration? To launch a Whatsapp-style, but decentralised, open source messaging application for the Solana Saga Android smartphone.

All this technological power will be used to make decentralised applications and the Web3 work stably and smoothly. Solana Saga  will be integrated with the Solana blockchain and all other realities of the new Internet, thanks also to the new open-source marketplace that will be installed on the device. Solana Mobile Stack replaces the Play Store (installed by default on Android smartphones), allowing developers to develop their own decentralised applications and publish them on the open-source marketplace. “The world needs hardware companies that focus on supporting Web3,” reported Jason Keats, CEO and founder of Osom. “Building the ecosystem of the future without being tied to the past is really exciting.”

Why buy a Web3 and crypto-proof smartphone? Solana’s founders answer

Is Solana’s smartphone, an Android phone integrated with crypto and Web3 really necessary? According to the founders of Solana, definitely yes! Indeed, they hope to be pioneers and lay the foundations for a revolution that is now imminent. “Almost 7 billion people use smartphones worldwide and more than 100 million of these people own digital assets, and these numbers will continue to grow,” said Anatoly Yakovenko, one of the founders of Solana, confidently. ‘Solana Saga wants to create a standard for all hardware devices that interface with Web3’. Yakovenko’s words are clear: the question to ask is not whether a smartphone integrated with blockchain is useful, but when we will all get to have one in our pockets!

“We chose the name Saga because we believe the crypto story is still in its infancy,” said Raj Gokal, co-founder of Solana. “This smartphone is a step forward in history, and we believe it is critical to improving the understanding and adoption of this new technology,” he continued. Thanks to Saga, understanding and using the blockchain will be as easy and intuitive as downloading an app from the Play Store or making a payment using your smartphone’s NFC.

Privacy and technological innovation: Solana Saga is an Android smartphone projected into the future and integrated with Web3 and crypto. It could be the first in a long line of next-generation mobile phones. Imagine transferring cryptocurrencies, paying for pizza and shopping online all from the same interface and in a completely decentralised manner. Does the future of blockchain pass through smartphones? We will find out in March 2023, when Solana Saga finally hits the market!

Solana Saga pre-sale 

It is already possible to pre-order the Solana smartphone. To do so, simply log on to this site, enter your details and pay a deposit of 10 percent of the final price of the smartphone, exactly $100. Solana has announced that pre-ordering the device will provide additional benefits, including limited edition NFTs, merchandising and other benefits that are as yet undisclosed. 

Users interested in obtaining one of the first examples of Solana’s Android smartphone were able to purchase an NFT called the ‘Saga Pass’, which grants them the right to be the first to receive the Saga, as well as the right to airdrop and participate in exclusive events. These NFTs went on sale on 31 October 2022. 

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Yuga Labs hires NFT expert to breathe new life into Cryptopunks

NFT: Yuga Labs Hires Expert for Cryptopunks

A breath of fresh air for CryptoPunks? Yuga Labs has hired an expert to breathe new life into the world’s most famous NFT collection!

Christie’s is the most active auction house when it comes to the NFT trade. Suffice it to say that it sold one of the non-fungible works by the artist Beeple for an impressive $69 million! Not only that: it was also the first auction house to accept payments in cryptocurrency. All thanks to Noah Davis, an NFT Specialist for Christie’s, who has always believed in the potential of blockchain and crypto. But here’s the news: Davis has officially been hired by Yuga Labs, the studio that created the Bored Ape Yacht Club, to breathe new life into one of the crypto world’s most famous NFT collections. Yuga Labs hires an NFT expert to expand the Cryptopunks universe!

Christie’s Noah Davis and Yuga Labs want to improve CryptoPunks

On 19 June, Noah Davis, NFT expert for Christie’s auction house, wrote on Twitter that he would be working with Yuga Labs to give Cryptopunks a new direction. The famous NFT collection, bought in March by the creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club, has 10,000 pixellated images that are all different. Created in 2017 by Larva Labs, those who originally owned an NFT from the collection did not have the intellectual rights to the image.

This line of thinking changed after the acquisition by Yuga Labs: the first change was precisely the announcement to give NFT owners full commercial and intellectual rights to the purchased works! But the creators of BAYC did not stop there: to make Cryptopunks even more ‘Web3-proof‘, they chose to hire an NFT expert. “I am honoured to announce that I will be running CryptoPunks as Brand Leader,” wrote Noah Davis on Twitter.

Why did Yuga Labs choose Davis to manage such a famous and important NFT project? The now ex-Christie’s employee is not only passionate about blockchain with a connoisseur’s eye for non-fungible works of art, but also has many successful projects under his belt! He is currently engaged in the development of an NFT collection called Howlerz. And he is also a proud owner of CryptoPunk No. 2099. Not bad at all!

What will happen to the CryptoPunks now?

Now that Davis has become Brand Leader of CryptoPunks, what will happen to the NFT collection? After acquiring the collection, Yuga Labs specified that it would not turn it into a new ‘Yacht Club’ and it would retain all of the Punkers’ favourite features. Noah Davis confirmed this course of action. “I WILL NOT F**K WITH THE PUNKS,” he stated on Twitter. “No Punks on mugs or stupid TV shows,” he continued. In short, those who bought a CryptoPunk back in 2017 will not find themselves betrayed by overly commercial operations.

Instead, among Davis’s first proposals is a series of face-to-face chats with real CryptoPunks fans. “Wherever the community goes, that’s where Punks will go,” he specified on the Twitter thread. This way the spirit of the early Punkers and CryptoPunks will not be lost behind publicity stunts!

One of the founders of the Bored Ape, Garga, wrote on the 19th of June that more news about the future of CryptoPunks will come in the coming weeks. “We have chosen a slow and considered approach for Punks, taking into consideration the expectations of the community. We are honoured to be the custodians of this historic collection, and we have the utmost respect for Noah and the Punkers community.” So buckle up and get ready for the news: this is just the beginning!

Just during this historic phase for CryptoPunks there was a lot of movement in the NFT market. The price floor for a piece of the collection rose from 48 ETH to an impressive 65 ETH. A jump of 35%! The new recruit at Yuga Labs seems to have already struck a chord with the community. Is it time for the revival of one of the most popular collections ever?

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Meta and The Fabricant, 2 ways of understanding digital fashion

NFTs and fashion: The Fabricant and Meta explain digital fashion

The future of fashion is digital. The dilemma: will blockchain be involved, yes or no? All the most famous brands are converting to the combination of NFTs and fashion!

For fashion brands, the Metaverse is proving to be an opportunity to experiment with expressive languages and to think up new products. More and more brands are developing digital collections, including Zara, Lacoste, Adidas and Gucci. However, not all of them choose to make digital fashion on blockchain: The Metaverse has different forms and can be centralised or decentralised. This duplicity also describes two different ways of understanding digital fashion. For some companies, such as Meta, virtual fashion is not in the form of NFT while for others, such as The Fabricant, digital fashion is to be built on a blockchain. Let’s take a look at these two different approaches to digital fashion!

Meta: a Metaverse dressed in Balenciaga, Prada and Thom Browne

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook), announced a few days ago during a live broadcast on Instagram that the digital clothing boutique ‘Avatar Store’ for the Metaverse ‘Horizon Worlds’ is about to open. The launch will be celebrated by partnering with some high fashion brands namely Balenciaga, Prada and Thom Browne. “I’m really grateful and proud that these brands are joining us to kick-start fashion in the Metaverse,” Zuckerberg said. The digital fashion marketplace for all Meta and Facebook users will be available next week, starting in the US, Canada, Thailand and Mexico. Initially, garments for sale on the Avatar Store will be priced between $2.99 and $8.99. Balenciaga, Prada and Thom Brown will therefore be the first brands to sell in Meta’s marketplace. However, Zuckerberg’s idea is to start a marketplace in which everyone, not just designers by training, can make and sell digital fashion. At the moment, it has not yet been revealed how the rewards will be distributed between the Meta marketplace and the virtual haute couture creators.

The Fabricant and the decentralised fashion model

What is The Fabricant? The answer is ‘a Digital Fashion House’, one of the pioneer projects of digital fashion on blockchain. The Fabricant is not a real fashion NFT marketplace, but a virtual fashion incubator. The platform is built on Flow, a blockchain chosen by the founders for its sustainability and speed. Compared to Meta, we are dealing here with NFT fashion, a case of decentralised digital fashion built on the blockchain. The creators of The Fabricant do not create simple garments as digital objects but real NFTs. For The Fabricant’s team, blockchain is ideal for building the fashion of the Metaverse. First of all because it is able to give value to the data and ownership of digital objects. According to co-founder Adriana Hoppenbrouwer-Pereira, The Fabricant is “creating a business for the time when our digital wardrobe will be our wardrobe“. Having a set of clothes in the Metaverse will not be such an absurd concept when there will be more and more digital experiences on offer. Changing one’s clothes and adapting them to each occasion will become as spontaneous as changing clothes in real life: one outfit for the gym and one for an elegant dinner. When this happens, there will be so many digital clothes to make that only blockchain will be the right tool to scale production.

Blockchain is also beneficial for the digital fashion industry because it keeps track of royalties and distributes them equally between creator and owner. In an interview, Hoppenbrouwer-Pereira said that blockchain and the Metaverse will bring fashion back to its dimension of play and fun. Dressing in the Metaverse will be a modular experience, highly creative and expressive of people’s personalities.

What makes an NFT fashion really useful?

NFT fashion must be fully adaptable to the avatars of the various metaverses and transferable between them to be of real use. The Fabricant’s challenge at the moment is to translate its fashion creations into the styles of the major virtual worlds. The Sandbox for instance is more pixelated than Decentraland, the same NFT outfit must be able to be worn anywhere. The other side of this challenge is to provide a cross-chain experience where NFTs built on a blockchain like Flow can be transported and used anywhere. Especially on Ethereum where the main metaverses are developed.

 

Are the metaverse and digital fashion worlds really just around the corner?

In order to conceive the usefulness of digital fashion, you may first ask yourself whether the Metaverse is really a technology capable of predominantly entering our lives. The success of the Metaverse will be dictated by its ability to attract attention and engage users. However, we are only at the beginning. one can consider that Decentraland hosted 40,000 people at its first Metaverse Fashion Week. The results in this respect look promising, the record of MANA‘s metaverse is very high for the blockchain to be able to accommodate so many users. Fashion companies that have chosen NFTs on The Fabricant include Adidas, Under Armour and Puma.

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Young Monday: Pride parades on The Sandbox, Polygon is now carbon neutral and Pharrell Williams’s NFT

Pride in the Metaverse, Carbon neutral Polygon, Pharrell Williams NFT

The events of Pride find a home in the Metaverse, Polygon announces it has made MATIC a crypto green and Pharrell Williams is hired by an NFT collection!

Our final edition Young Monday for the month of June? If that’s the case, then we absolutely need to report on the crypto initiatives of Pride month! In fact, the most interesting news of the week takes us to the main metaverses and their events to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. You will also discover the incredible sustainability milestone reached by the Polygon network, the blockchain expansion of eBay e-commerce and Pharrell Williams’ new career in the NFT industry!

NYC Pride marches in The Sandbox and Decentraland

On the 26th of June in New York, the streets were swept by a wave of Pride, which annually attracts up to 2 million people, and is the largest event for the LGBTQ+ community in North America. This year, NYC Pride went outside these continental borders to march all around the world, but how so? By making use of the Metaverse! Thanks to LGBTQ+ associations organising Web3 events, The Sandbox and Decentraland, the rainbows of Pride shine brightly in the metaverse. One of these associations is MetaPride Land. According to its founder Matt Stevenson, a former Time Magazine executive, the metaverse is ideal for building a community that is unaffected by geographical limitations: “there are still 68 countries in the world where it is illegal to be gay. In the US, there are over 200 bills targeting our community in one way or another. I felt it was really important that this June we provide an accessible space, no matter where you are, to come out and celebrate your life“. Concretely, a collection of inclusive avatars will be presented at The Sandbox, and People of Crypto, another of the Web3-related realities, unveiled ‘The Valley of Belonging’ on 24 June, a project to promote work in the minority metaverse.

In Decentraland, however, Pride-related events are organised by Cash Labs. The ultimate goal behind this expansion of Pride in the Metaverse is to be able to give visibility and space to the Queer community all year round, not just in June.

Polygon is officially a carbon-free network

On 21 June 2022 in its official blog, the Polygon project announced that it had reached its goal and had become a 100 percent carbon neutral network. Last April, Polygon had published its Green Manifesto pledging to make MATIC a fully-fledged green cryptocurrency. Carbon neutrality was achieved with the purchase of $400,000 in carbon credits representing 104,794 tonnes of greenhouse gases, or all the CO2 Polygon has emitted since its inception. Carbon credits are tokens of the on-chain carbon market whose purchase finances green initiatives. This was achieved thanks to the collaboration with KlimaDAO, which analysed the energy footprint of the network especially concerning staking and smart contract operations.

Polygon’s Green Manifesto also includes the allocation of $20 million for green projects on its network such as Bull Run Forest Conservation to protect forests in the state of Belize or the Ghani Solar Power Project, a renewable energy generation project in India. On 13 July Polygon will host the Green Blockchain Summit, dedicated to ‘Web3 leaders to develop solutions to the most pressing environmental problems facing the blockchain industry’.

eBay buys an NFT marketplace, its expansion on the blockchain continues

eBay has acquired KnownOrigin NFT marketplace, with the aim of expanding further into the world of blockchain technology and digital collectibles. The deal was finalised on the 22nd of June but negotiations remained confidential. KnownOrigin was founded in 2018 in Manchester and allows people to create, buy and sell NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. Jamie Iannone, CEO of eBay, said, “eBay is the first stop for those around the world looking for the perfect hard-to-find or unique item to add to their collection, with this acquisition, we will remain a leading site as our community adds more and more digital collectibles.”

Pharrell Williams is now a consultant for Web3

The artist and record producer Pharrell Williams has joined the Doodles NFT project as Chief Brand Officer and board member. Williams will take care of partnerships and projects between the Doodles collection and other brands related to events, music, artwork and entertainment. In this regard, a music album dedicated to Doodles entitled ‘Doodles Record: Volume 1’ is already in production, in collaboration with Columbia Records and other leading musicians. Williams explained that Doodles is preparing to become known by mainstream audiences and reach new levels of popularity. Doodles are 10,000 NFTs representing various cartoon-style and pastel-coloured characters. Launched in 2021, the project has quickly become one of the most exciting emerging NFT collections with a trading volume of over $400 million. Doodles recently announced its first funding round led by venture capital firm Seven Seven Six. These two pieces of news have given a boost to the price of these NFTs, within 24 hours their cost has risen by about 10%.