Tag: Update

Star Atlas on Epic Games, the play-to-earn on Solana’s blockchain, will soon be available for preview testing!

Big news for fans of the world of Web3 video games! The wait is over: Star Atlas, the next-generation play-to-earn video game based on Solana‘s blockchain, has finally opened the doors of its universe. The game is currently in the Pre-Alpha phase and therefore not yet in its final version. It will soon be available on the Epic Games platform.

The Star Atlas roadmap is going as planned: just recently in July, the developers of the play-to-earn video game announced the launch of the official Star Atlas DAO, laying the foundation for the creation of shared governance. Its DAO was recently implemented with a staking function called Star Atlas Locket: by staking Star Atlas, you can receive POLIS tokens in return.

Try the demo version of Star Atlas on Epic Games

The news of the arrival of Star Atlas on Epic Games was made public during the second edition of the 426Live conference: the event organised by the developers of Star Atlas on the Twitch platform, held on the 29th of September 2022.

Users can finally get their hands on the first demo version of the video game, called Pre-Alpha Showroom. The prototype can be downloaded exclusively on the Epic Store Games marketplace, a company specialising in the development of software and video games (including, for example, Fortnite). 

To access it, you will need to download the demo and connect your wallet to the platform. As it is not yet a final version, users will be able to download it for free.

In the downloadable demo version, players will experience the world of Star Atlas in the guise of Asha, commander of the ‘Council of Peace Forces’ and flight instructor of the Academy: the institution responsible for training the galaxy’s most promising youngsters.

In order to create the most realistic and immersive game environment possible, the Pre-Alpha demo version will combine various technologies offered by its development engine: Unreal Engine 5. Specifically, the prototype will make use of Nanite systems for the realisation of hyper-realistic, cinematic-style graphics, and Lumen systems to provide the game environment with real-time lighting (thus representing light effects in a natural way). For the physical support of the game, on the other hand, Chaos and Niagara were used.

The Star Atlas roadmap, however, has not yet come to an end: until December 2022, Showroom will add new features to the gaming experience, such as the possibility of playing other characters besides Asha.

Star Atlas CORE: the graphic novel about the video game universe

Star Atlas is not just a play-to-earn video game. During the 426Live conference, the Star Atlas CORE project was presented. It is a graphic novel that introduces the community to the history of Star Atlas, its main characters and their customs and traditions.

At the moment, all that is known is that Star Atlas CORE will be divided into 18 episodes and will follow the adventures of Gyun, the protagonist of the series, and his crew.

The realisation of the initiative was entrusted to Tim McBurnie, graphic designer and artist of ATMTA, the main developer of the Star Atlas project.

The releases will follow the developments and storyline of the main game and will be published on both the official Star Atlas CORE website and the Showroom.

The graphic novel episodes will also be available as NFTs, Non-fungible Tokens, and available for purchase on the Magic Eden and Star Atlas Galactic Marketplace, introduced in the latest platform update.

The integration of blockchain technology with the world of storytelling is certainly not new.

Jenkins the Valet is a project involving the creation of a collective storyline based on the adventures of Jenkins, an avatar from NFT’s famous Bored Ape Yacht Club collection. 

Another initiative that sees the active participation of the community in the storytelling is RENGA NFT, a collection launched by artist DirtyRobot that topped the sales charts in various marketplaces in September.

The release date for Star Atlas has not yet been disclosed, we will just have to wait for further updates!

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On the 26th of September, Polkadot released its roadmap for the last quarter of 2022. Check out Gavin Wood’s 5 new features for the blockchain!

On Monday the 26th of September Polkadot, and its development company, Parity Technology, released a document outlining all the most important features the network is working on for the last quarter of 2022. The updates planned by Polkadot are mainly related to scalability, parachain development, governance and staking. Let’s take a look at 5 new features for Polkadot coming in 2022 and all the improvements planned for the network!

1.   Polkadot is becoming increasingly scalable

The first of five features coming to Polkadot in 2022 is called Asynchronous Backing and will be implemented to increase the scalability of the Polkadot network. Scalability is the ability of a network to process transactions quickly; the more scalable a blockchain is, the more transactions it can process in a given period of time. Thanks to the Asynchronous Backing functionality, the time per block on each parachain is expected to be reduced from 12 seconds to around 6 seconds. This will ensure that networks process transactions faster and with less latency: the time between when a transaction is sent and when it is actually processed.

Asynchronous Backing will make it possible to double the space available on each block, and to ‘reuse’ blocks when they are not validated on the first attempt. This upgrade is intended to increase the amount of work each parachain can do and to optimise the performance of the Relay Chain: the infrastructure on which all parachains are built. It will therefore be possible to register more parachains. Moreover, the TPS (transactions per second) capacity of the Polkadot network, i.e. that of all its parachains and parathreads, should increase significantly, to between 100,000 and 1 million.

2.   Parathreads: launch and enhancements

The second novelty for the Polkadot ecosystem concerns parathreads. Parathreads are parachains which are not permanently integrated on Polkadot due to winning one of the auctions, but who pay for the use of Polkadot’s infrastructure ‘on a consumption basis’. As opposed to parachains, parathreads can also be built by non-professional programmers since, in terms of code complexity, they can be compared to simple smart contracts. Both Polkadot parachains and parathreads do not have their own consensus algorithm, but make use of the Proof-of-Stake Relay Chain algorithm. The launch of parathreads was planned for this summer, but it has been postponed to early 2023. Regarding parathreads, Parity Technology is exploring a solution called Next-Generation Scheduling. This technology allows Polkadot parachains that have won auctions (and have thus been awarded the opportunity to participate in the network and in parathreads) to increase the amount of space on their blocks in order to save on the costs resulting from the consensus mechanism.

3.   Restructured governance

The third point in Polkadot’s roadmap for the last quarter of 2022 concerns governance. By governance within Web3, we mean the way in which community members can participate in decisions about the future moves of the project. The new system, called Overhaul, will eliminate the board and technical committees and introduce the Polkadot Fellowship. The Polkadot Fellowship has the Polkadot Fellowship Manifesto as its ‘constitution’.

The term fellowship, which is usually used to refer to a company of friends, was not attributed to Polkadot’s new governance system by chance. The system in fact aims to change the decision-making process by making it as similar as possible to what normally takes place in a group of friends. Polkadot’s new governance aims to decentralise the old system consisting of three chambers and a 13-member board elected by DOT holders. With the changes, all members of the community will have a say through periodic referendums and a proxy system that will speed up the decision-making process. Governance V2 is expected to be implemented on Kusama, the blockchain parallel to Polkadot that is being used to test the new features, at the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2022.

4.   The New Staking Dashboard

The fourth new feature for the Polkadot ecosystem concerns staking. Since Polkadot is a blockchain that works thanks to the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, staking is available and indispensable in order to guarantee the security of transactions. The challenge for the end of 2022 for Gavin Wood‘s blockchain is to make staking more accessible and easier for users who want to participate in the network’s consensus mechanism or obtain rewards. To this end, Parity Technologies has developed a Staking Dashboard, a platform for staking Polkadot’s crypto, DOT. The main focus of Parity Technologies’ development is to make the dashboard user-friendly and to lighten the infrastructure. In fact, staking on Polkadot works without a centralised external provider thanks to light-client technology. The latter allows validators to interact with a blockchain without having to store the entire network history, all the while maintaining the same level of security. The beta version of Polkadot’s dashboard for staking is already usable and the final version should be released soon!

5.   Parachain enhancement

Polkadot’s future in the coming months will obviously also involve parachains. Parachains are Polkadot’s core functionality and the reason why blockchain has gained so much popularity. They are the secondary blockchains that exploit Polkadot’s infrastructure. Their performance will be improved through a new mechanism called Weights V2. Weights V2 will make it easier to validate parachain blocks and consequently make it easier to ‘write’ and develop them. The update is the first in chronological order that will be implemented and is expected to arrive by mid-October 2022.

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Algorand and FIFA successfully completed the Genesis Drop of the first FIFA + Collect collection and the Chiliz Chain 2.0  is coming by 2023

More and more interesting news is coming from the world of crypto-football. The first NFTs of Algorand and FIFA are now out. Chiliz, the crypto of the Socios platform, has important news in store for the release of their Mainnet.

Exactly two months before the start of the World Cup 2022, FIFA and Algorand have released the first NFTs on the FIFA + Collect platform. The first NFT drop of the collaboration is called Genesis Drop and has been available for purchase since the 22nd of September 2022.  The price of Chiliz has seen an increase of more than 40 per cent since early September and the Chiliz Chain 2.0 is expected to arrive by the end of 2022. Check out Algorand and FIFA’s NFTs and what’s new in the Chiliz ecosystem!

It’s all about the FIFA+ Collect Genesis Drop, in collaboration with Algorand

Algorand and FIFA have been collaborating since May 2022 when the green blockchain became an official sponsor of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association. The first creation born from this collaboration is the NFT Genesis Drop collection that was launched on the 22nd of September 2022 on the FIFA+ Collect platform. Collect is the section of the FIFA+ web application dedicated to Web3 initiatives. The collection consists of 532,980 ‘packages’ each containing three NFT videos of iconic highlights from the history of the men’s and women’s World Cup. The highlights comprise the best actions from matches_, such as acrobatic saves, defence piercing through-balls and incredible goals. The idea is reminiscent of NBA Top Shot, an initiative by Dapper Labs dedicated to the world of American basketball. On the FIFA+ Collect platform, it is already possible to preview the NFTs that can be found within each package. The FIFA+ Collect NFTs are divided by rarity, just like most other NFT collections . The platform’s first drop contains 18 common highlights, 13 rare, 5 epic and 2 iconic.

The iconic NFTs in the first collection are Ronaldo the Phenomeno’s goal in the 2002 World Cup finals in South Korea and Japan and US footballer Carli LLoyd‘s goal from midfield in the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup final in Canada. The NFT packs, similar to classic sticker packs, cost $4.99 each. They can be purchased either in dollars, through credit or debit cards, or with the USDC stablecoin in the version found on Algorand’s blockchain. To make the crypto payment, you need a wallet compatible with the Algorand network and at least 0.001 ALGO to pay the fees. What effect did Algorand and FIFA’s NFTs have on the price of ALGO?

Are Algorand and Chiliz two bear market-proof cryptos?

Algorand and its crypto ALGO seem to be only partially affected by the current bear market. In fact, the crypto has increased by more than 30 per cent against both the dollar and Bitcoin since the beginning of September 2022. The amount of wallets that hold more than one per cent of the global supply of crypto ALGO are also growing strongly. According to an on-chain analysis by The Block, the total held by so-called ‘whales’ has increased by more than $280 million since August 2022. Who knows if this bullish movement came about thanks to the announcement of Algorand and FIFA’s NFT collection?

The blockchain Chiliz and its crypto CHZ are also rising above others. Chiliz and the popular platform built on its blockchain, Socios.com, have long dominated the market for fan tokens. They allow fans to participate closely in decisions involving their favourite teams. Fan tokens also grant their owners access to exclusive experiences such as VIP tickets to matches and guided tours of the teams’ museums or stadiums. Chiliz’s crypto has been growing very similarly to Algorand’s in the last period.

The price of Chiliz has in fact increased by more than 40% since the beginning of September 2022. The increase in the price of Chiliz could be related to several factors, some concerning the world of crypto-football, others related to the technological innovation of the blockchain itself. The first important piece of news concerns Chiliz’s acquisition of 24.5% of Barça Studios, the communication and entertainment arm of Barcelona FC, on Monday 1st of August 2022. The acquisition, which cost the blockchain company around $100 million, aims to create Web3 content that will reach more and more fans around the world by guaranteeing interaction with their favourite teams through new ways. In addition, Chiliz recently renewed its partnership with the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The partnership, which started in 2021, will continue during the 2022/23 football season and will allow us to see the Socios logo in association with all UEFA events, for example during UEFA Champions League matches.

Regarding technological innovation of the Chiliz blockchain, the launch of Scoville, the public testnet for Chiliz 2.0, was announced on the 31st of March 2021. Today, the Chiliz main blockchain is still in the first phase of development. The mainnet should be activated by the beginning of 2023. Itwill be named, as is traditional for the blockchain company, after a species of chilli: Habanero. The Chiliz Chain 2.0 (CC2) will be a Layer-1 blockchain created specifically for the sports and entertainment industries. It will enable the construction of decentralised applications that can make 100 per cent use of fan tokens. Following this update, the CHZ token will also expand its use cases. It will not only be used to buy in Fan Tokens on the Socios platform, but will become the native asset of the CC2 blockchain and will be unavailable to process all transactions taking place on the network.

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The US government has published the ‘first comprehensive framework for the responsible development of digital assets’. What new laws should we expect?

The United States has taken another step for the regulation of cryptocurrencies. On the 16th of September 2022, a document entitled ‘White House Releases First Ever Comprehensive Framework for Responsible Development of Digital Assets‘ was published on the White House website. It is a report summarising the investigations into the crypto sector carried out by nine federal agencies over the past six months, which will be used to implement a legislative plan. The work is the result of President Joe Biden’s executive order issued on the 9th of March of this year. It asked federal agencies to outline guidelines for regulating the industry based on six areas of focus such as consumer protection, promoting financial stability, and financial inclusion.

Over the past six months, agencies across the US government have worked together to develop guidelines and policy recommendations on these issues: from the Treasury Department to the Justice Department,. Let’s take a look at the highlights of the document!

What is the White House document about?

The document drawn up by the federal agencies is divided into seven sections. From their titles, you can already guess the content presented by the White House. A series of actions that will soon take the form of laws and guidelines:

1. Protecting consumers, investors and businesses;
2. Promoting access to safe and affordable financial services;
3. Fostering financial stability;
4. Advancing responsible innovation;
5. Reinforcing our global financial leadership and competitiveness;
6. Fighting illicit finance;
7. Exploring a US Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

Which crypto laws are essential?

The paper starts with a significant figure: 16 percent of American adults have already purchased digital assets. This figure is accompanied by a stance: digital assets are defined by the US government as ‘potential opportunities to strengthen US leadership in the global financial system’, as well as in the field of technological innovation. Federal agency reports explicitly promote research and development in the area of next-generation cryptography, transaction programmability, cybersecurity, and privacy protection. The document expresses great confidence in cryptocurrencies as a resource, but at the same time calls for measures to counter the risks associated with digital assets.

The main risks identified by the federal agencies are volatility and the danger of scams: “outright fraud, scams and theft in the digital asset markets are on the rise: according to FBI statistics, reported monetary losses from digital asset scams were nearly 600% higher in 2021 compared to the year before.” In this context, reference is also made to the lack of crypto regulation that has led to huge losses for consumers following the collapse of the Terra (LUNA) ecosystem. In addition to volatility and the danger of scams, there are also the risks of possible money laundering and the use of funds for illicit activities. According to the White House document, all this must be monitored to ensure the safe use of digital assets. In short, we need laws that promote innovation and at the same time contain the risks.

Proposals such as instructing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to ‘aggressively pursue investigations and enforcement actions against illegal practices in the digital asset sector’ have been made in this regard. Also, a call for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to redouble its efforts to monitor consumer complaints and to enforce against unfair, deceptive or abusive practices has been made. Finally, proposals were also made for a series of initiatives for financial education and literacy, to raise awareness of the use of cryptocurrencies and to learn how to spot fraudulent practices.

The US is preparing a plan to be ready for any eventuality, and the document published on the 16th September presents all the issues that the legislation will then target.

The digital economy is an asset for all

One interesting aspect that emerged from the White House document is the realisation that the digital economy is a real opportunity for Americans: ‘Today, traditional finance leaves too many people behind. Roughly 7 million Americans have no bank account. Another 24 million rely on expensive nonbank services, such as cheque cashing and money orders, for everyday needs. And for those who do use banks, paying with traditional financial infrastructures can be costly and slow, particularly for cross-border payments’. To encourage the spread of digital services, the US plans to develop instant payment systems and networks for digital assets that are usable, inclusive, fair, and accessible to all.

The CBDC of the United States, a work in progress!

The report also features a section entitled ‘Exploring a US Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)’. The US is therefore considering a digital form of the US dollar that ‘has the potential to offer significant benefits’. In what sense? A Central Bank Digital Currency “could enable a payment system that is more efficient, provide a foundation for further technological innovation, facilitate faster cross-border transactions, and be environmentally sustainable. It could promote financial inclusion and equity by providing access to a wide range of consumers.” The project for the CBDC appears to be on track, although the federal agencies believe that further research and considerations should be carried out, especially on the technological level.

Criticism of the Biden administration report

The White House’s publication has prompted criticism and objections from some crypto industry members and opposition politicians. They called the document drafted by federal agencies ‘outdated and unbalanced’ and unsuitable for building a legislative framework. The Blockchain Association, which works to raise awareness and improve policy in the crypto world, believes the report lacks “substantive recommendations”. Blockchain Association Executive Director Kristin Smith explained that the federal agencies’ reports are “a missed opportunity to consolidate US leadership in cryptocurrency,” and criticised them for focusing too much on the risks of cryptocurrency. Sheila Warren of the Crypto Council for Innovation, another crypto promotion organisation, said the report does not provide clear policy guidelines. Patrick McHenry, a Republican member of the House Financial Services Committee, offered a criticism in the same vein. He claims that the document is too vague: ‘with clear rules, this innovative technology [cryptocurrencies] can revolutionise our financial markets, modernise our payments system infrastructure, and provide new opportunities for consumers’. Regarding the US CBDC project McHenry explained that ‘Republicans have always said that the benefits of a potential US CBDC must outweigh the risks: these reports fail to demonstrate this’.

A benchmark for international crypto regulation?

The White House document and the framework that will follow could be the inspiration and guide for many other countries. This is certainly Biden’s aim. In the text, you can read that the US explicitly intends to be an example for the regulation of digital assets: ‘US agencies will leverage US positions in international organisations to communicate US values related to digital assets. U.S. agencies will continue and expand their leadership role in digital asset work at international organisations and standard-setting bodies, such as the G7, G20, OECD, FSB, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and the International Organisation for Standardisation.” All while trying to convey the US values of privacy, free markets, financial stability, consumer protection, and environmental sustainability.

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Discover the Web3 platform dedicated to music and developed by Gala Games. With music NFTs, create your own playlists and get GALA crypto!

Gala Games is a game development platform created in 2019 by Eric Schiermeyer and Michael McCarthy. It aims to offer a dedicated crypto gaming ecosystem where developers can work with ease and where users can have full control (including economic control) of game resources. On the Gala Games web app, you can download Web3 games and exchange NFT game items. In just a few years, Gala’s crypto has climbed to fourth place in the ranking of the most capitalised tokens in the crypto gaming industry (compiled by the research platform Messari.io). In this ranking, the top three places are occupied by The Sandbox, Axie Infinity and Enjin, respectively.

Gala Games has recently broadened its horizons: after crypto video games, Gala is ready to make its mark in the field of music and film as well. Its expansion is aimed at the entire entertainment sector. In this regard, Gala Music and Gala Film were born. Read on to find out about these innovative dapps!

Gala Games, the crypto gaming paradise

Gala Games is a platform where creating and playing video games earns rewards in Gala crypto. The way Gala Games works is similar to the well-known web platform for digital content distribution: Steam. However, it is also possible to buy and sell items, skins and objects in the form of NFTs on Gala. These items can then be used within the crypto games available on Gala. The games available on Gala are not (and will not be) entirely developed by the platform, but can and may also be developed by third parties.

The two most anticipated titles still in development are Mirandus and Grit . Mirandus is a fantasy RPG in which players have absolute freedom of choice: they can explore the wilderness on their own, try their luck against forest monsters, or join one of the five monarchs who control the kingdom of Mirandus. Grit, on the other hand, is a battle royale game set in the Wild West and developed in collaboration with gaming giant Epic Games. This video game has been presented as a sort of fusion between Fortnite and Red Dead Redemption. Survivors of gunfights on horseback or chases after speeding trains are the only winners in this game. The partnership with Epic Games has drawn attention to Gala Games, who is meanwhile making waves for their cutting-edge proposals for music and film on blockchain.

How Gala Music works: decentralised streaming

“Web3 is the next evolution of the internet”, is the introduction of a blog post edited by the crypto platform Gala. When talking about the evolution of the internet, one cannot leave out one of the sectors for which the internet is most used: the entertainment sector. And Gala is not backing down! With this in mind, the Gala Games team is working on two more platforms: Gala Music and Gala Film. How do they work? Gala Music is a Web3 platform where music can be rented, shared and listened to. Gala Music is based on what is called a Music Node, which is a real node for creating a network of shared music. A ‘Node’ is a term widely used in the crypto world. It refers to devices that connect to the interface of a blockchain and contain all transactions that have been recorded on that network. More generally, a ‘node’ can mean a participant in a network. In this example, we are talking about devices connected to the Gala Music network, which do not contain transactions but do contain music NFTs. In a nutshell, Gala Music’s Music Nodes contain music recorded on the blockchain. You can think of them as a kind of jukebox that everyone can access.

When you decide to use Gala Music, you open your own Music Node, which you customise by purchasing music NFTs from the store. Users will get Gala crypto in proportion to the plays their node generates. If you do not want to buy your own node, you can purchase NFTs and rent them to Music Node operators in exchange for a portion of the rewards generated.

Rewards in GALA are not only distributed to music NFT owners and node owners, but also to the artist who created the song.

There are two types of music nodes: Player Nodes, the mechanism of which we have just described and Fan Nodes, dedicated to specific artists through which you can obtain a range of benefits such as exclusive NFTs. Among the artists on the platform are some big names, such as the rock group Kings of Leon and the Mount Westmore rap crew consisting of Snoop Dog, Ice Cube,Too Short and E-40. The first drop of 25,000 Player Nodes took place in February 2022, and the cost per node was around $1,200.

Gala Film functions in a similar way to Gala Music, but instead of Music Nodes, you will find Film Nodes. The first Gala Film nodes are still available for purchase, at a price of 106,000 Gala, so approximately 5,000 €.

Gala and Web3: power to the artists and content creators!

The system designed by Gala for both platforms, Gala Music and Gala Film, goes beyond rewarding NFT owners and Node operators. It also distributes most of the rewards directly to the artists. Keyword: creator economy!

The two systems, respectively renamed watch-to-earn and listen-to-earn, aim to overcome the current economic model for content creators and artists. The streaming platforms of Web2 no longer seem suited to rewarding content creators. Web3 is here for that: you can monetise everything you create and produce online! The Internet will be in the hands of those who actually create its value, all thanks to the decentralisation enabled by blockchain.

With Gala Music and Gala Film, new talent will also be involved. Thanks to these platforms, emerging artists will be facilitated to get in touch with new fans in an easier way.

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The Cardano Foundation developers have announced the date for the hard fork: the Vasil update arrives on the 22nd of September 2022!

For major crypto projects, this September 2022 is the month to look to the future and get up to speed. The event on everyone’s mind is definitely Ethereum’s The Merge. However, Cardano and its crypto ADA (developed by one of Ethereum’s own founders, Charles Hoskinson) are ready to begin the Vasil update. The main goal of the update, or hard fork, is to increase the speed and scalability of Cardano‘s blockchain and make it generally more powerful and cheaper. These improvements are aimed at facilitating the development of decentralised applications (DApps), especially in the area of Decentralised Finance (DeFi), and increasing the possibilities of use cases for ADA. Let’s discover what is new with the Vasil update, coming at the end of September!

Cardano’s Vasil update arrives on the 22nd of September 2022

After some problems on the testnet that were solved efficiently and quickly by the Cardano team, the date for the hard fork of the ADA crypto blockchain has finally been announced. The Vasil update will take place on the 22nd of September 2022. Cardano is a blockchain created in 2015 and based on the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. This allows it to be highly scalable, meaning it can handle a large number of transactions per second. On the other hand, a hard fork is an update of a protocol in which very radical changes are implemented to the point of making it incompatible with previous versions.

But where does the Vasil update coming on the 22nd of September 2022 fit on Cardano’s roadmap? The Cardano roadmap is divided into five macro-phases, each of which has a main objective. At the moment, we are in the phase called Basho which wants to improve the scalability of the network as its primary objective. In other words, increasing the number of users who use it every day without worsening performance or making it more expensive. The Vasil hard fork will happen automatically: users with ADA crypto or using DeFi DApps on Cardano’s blockchain should not even notice it. Vasil will in fact be implemented using Cardano’s hard-fork combinator (HFC), an innovative technology that enables protocol transitions and updates without interrupting the smooth operation of the network.

Why is the update named as such? The name Vasil was chosen to pay homage to Vasil St. Dabov a Bulgarian developer who was the Chief Blockchain Advisor of a software research and development company named Quanterall before his passing in December 2021. Vasil St. Dabov was a very active member of the crypto community and an ambassador for Cardano. The date of the update is also symbolic, as the 22nd September coincides with the day on which Bulgaria, St. Dabov’s birthplace, celebrates its independence from the Ottoman Empire.

What changes will be implemented for Cardano users and developers?

Vasil will provide some key functionalities to enable the launch of further projects on Cardano. At the same time, it will offer an upgrade path (with increased speed, transactional capability and more powerful scripts) to existing DApps. Specifically, Vasil will modify the transaction validation and transmission system with a mechanism called Diffusion Pipelineing. With this mechanism, blocks will be added to the network when they are created and not only when they are complete. This optimises the timing of block validation and enables Cardano’s blockchain to not only guarantee faster transactions, but also to increase its security by making possible attacks much more complex.

However, the update was also designed with the developers in mind, i.e. those involved in creating decentralised applications on the network.

With Vasil, the programming language with which smart contracts are written on Cardano’s blockchain called Plutus will also be updated. The hard fork will give rise to Plutus V2, which will enable developers to develop more efficient and cost-effective DApps (from a transaction perspective).

To date, Cardano ranks 29th among all the blockchains in terms of volumes traded on its platforms, of which there are currently only twelve. The current total blockchain value (TVL) is around $80 million. We will see if the Vasil update, due on 22 September 2022 will help Cardano’s network make its way into the big world of DeFi and increase the use cases of crypto ADA.

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We present stablecoins arriving in 2022 as well as those in crisis. What happened to FEI and aUSD? What are the plans for Curve and Aave?

The desire of DeFi platforms to create stablecoins is certainly one of the trends of the moment. Stablecoins are cryptos that remain pegged to the price of fiat currencies, usually to the value of the dollar. They fall into two categories: algorithmic ones and those that base their value on reserves of funds that serve as the underlying collateral. The former maintain their peg to the dollar price through algorithmic trading systems, such as seigniorage. The latter, on the other hand, manages to maintain a stable price by holding reserves of currency in a 1:1 ratio with the tokens issued. 

Collateral-backed stablecoins are in turn divided into two subcategories, centralised and decentralised collateralised stablecoins. The main difference between the two types relates to the type of currency that acts as collateral. For centralised stablecoins, the collateral is made up of fiat currency, usually US dollars or equivalent financial instruments. By contrast, for decentralised stablecoins, the collateral is composed entirely of other cryptos. The most famous centralised stablecoins are USDT and USDC. However, it is the decentralised stablecoins that are stealing the show within the DeFi sector nowadays. Let’s look at the new stablecoins coming in 2022 as well as those going through a period of crisis.

New decentralised stablecoins on the way: Curve, Aave and Shiba

A few weeks ago, Aave, a DeFi ecosystem specialising in decentralised loans, published a proposal to create its own stablecoin. This provoked a quick response from one of their most famous competitors Curve finance, who announced their own stablecoin. Curve is one of the most famous and widely used DEXes in the industry. The announcement was made quietly, unlike Aave’s, and was not posted on the platform’s social networks. It was made by the CEO and founder of the world’s most widely used DeFi protocol, Michael Egorov, during a crypto-themed summit. In addition to announcing the launch, Michael Egorov stated that Curve’s stablecoin will operate according to the over-collateralisation mechanism and will be fully decentralised.

The information so far is not very detailed, but it is rumoured that the overcollateralisation mechanism will be similar to the one used by Maker DAO with its DAI stablecoin and which Aave plans to implement with GHO. Another ecosystem, completely different from Curve, has announced that it too is working on a stablecoin: Shiba Inu is planning to create a Defi ecosystem complete with everything a user could ever want. After Shiba‘s decentralised exchange, Shibaswap, there should soon be a metaverse and the SHI stablecoin that will also be over-collateralised.

Stablecoins in crisis: aUSD and FEI

The basic idea behind stablecoins is simple but its implementation is complex. When depending on large collaterals, failure is just around the corner. Especially during bear market phases like the one we are in now. The Terra (LUNA) Ecosystem is a great example of this. Two other stablecoins have since also recently fallen under the attack of malicious actors. The protocol named FEI for example is closing its doors. In early 2021, Fei Labs had raised $1.3 billion equivalent in Ethereum to build a decentralised stablecoin. The collected Ethereum was used as collateral for the FEI stablecoin. In December, the DeFi protocol decided to start collaborating with another project called Rari Capital, together creating a lending platform called Fuse. The lending platform allowed users to borrow FEI stablecoin by depositing collateral in crypto. This collateral was then used to keep the price of FEI stable. Unfortunately,  in April 2022, the Fuse lending protocol was hacked. Hackers stole $80 million, causing the stablecoin’s dollar-anchoring mechanism to fail. This resulted in the failure of the Fuse platform and thus the end of the Fei Labs project.

Similarly, the stablecoin of the Polkadot Acala parachain called aUSD also suffered a crash recently. On Sunday, the 14th of August 2022, a bug caused by a misconfiguration of the iBTC/aUSD liquidity pool made a hack possible. The hackers in question managed to break into the liquidity pool and stole approximately 1.27 billion aUSD. After being made aware of the exploit, the Acala team disabled the transfer functionality of the erroneously issued aUSDs remaining on Acala’s parachain. This greatly limited the damage, in fact 99% of the stolen aUSDs remained on Acala’s blockchain. The damage is valued at around $1.6 million. The team is still working hard to recover the lost funds by tracking and monitoring transactions and wallets.In the meantime, the stablecoin seems to be slowly recovering its dollar price. 

The change of course of USDD, Tron’s stablecoin

Speaking instead of algorithmic stablecoins, the star of the moment is definitely Tron‘s decentralised USDD stablecoin, which is often compared to UST, the stablecoin of the Terra ecosystem. 

The two stablecoins function very similarly, or at least they did until recently. USDD was launched a few days before the collapse of the Terra (LUNA) ecosystem with the aim of offering even better returns, up to 30% compared to the 20% once offered by Anchor Protocol. The Tron DAO Reserve’s goal was to make inroads into the market by intercepting users attracted by high APY rates on stablecoins. Remember that the UST stablecoin had a market cap of about $19 billion. However, following the collapse of UST and LUNA, USDD and other algorithmic stablecoins such as USN (developed by Near) also had to change their dollar peg mechanism. USN was totally transformed and became an over-collateralised stablecoin. Meanwhile, USDD decided to remain in limbo, adopting a hybrid system that shares features with both types of mechanism. 

The initiative of the Tron DAO Reserve was to maintain the algorithmic aspects of the project, hence the creation of a system based on the coexistence of two tokens TRX and USDD. They make use of processes such as arbitrage and seigniorage to keep USDD pegged to the dollar price. In addition to this system, a decentralised reserve greater than the total value of all USDD in circulation has been implemented in order to keep the protocol secure. This counts especially in times of crisis and for avoiding bank runs like the one that happened to UST. Currently, USDD’s market cap is just over $700 million, and it holds more than $2.3 billion USD in collateral reserves. According to the Tron DAO Reserve website, the stablecoin currently holds 990 million USDC, 140 million USDT, 10.9 billion TRX and 14,000 Bitcoins. 

The development of decentralised stablecoins by protocols that were not initially created for that purpose is a path taken by many crypto projects. The goals that projects aim to achieve through these initiatives are varied. First and foremost, the ecosystems aim to give their users the opportunity to shelter themselves from volatility without leaving the ecosystem, and thus to hold stable value in a decentralised manner. Another goal is to reach new customers through advantageous rewards applied to a capital that should remain stable. We will see if more new stablecoins will appear in 2022, perhaps on a  completely algorithmic basis. Or perhaps the market will remain dominated by collateralised stablecoins, which are certainly more popular to date!

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What is the world’s most famous meme coin up to? Find out Dogecoin’s next steps!

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created by computer engineers Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus. Dogecoin’s blockchain works via the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism. To date, it is the third placed crypto in terms of market cap to work with this mechanism. Following Ethereum’s Merge to Proof-of-Stake, it will likely move to second place. In addition to its market cap, DOGE also stands out due to its longevity. It is in fact a first generation project: it saw the light of day in December 2013. Elon Musk’s favourite crypto was initially fashioned as a joke, but over time it gained illustrious supporters such as the South African tycoon and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin. This growing popularity convinced the team to develop a real roadmap, called in this case “trailmap”, to define the protocol’s future moves. The main objective? To turn Dogecoin into a universally accepted payment method and achieve mass adoption!

Buying with Dogecoin, will it soon be possible?

The history of Elon Musk’s favourite crypto has been quite troubled. After working on the early phase of the coin’s life, the core development team abandoned the project for some time. However, they resumed it during the strongly bullish phase at the beginning of 2021. This phase saw a real explosion of Dogecoin, which went from a market cap of about 1 billion to more than 75 billion dollars. Dogecoin’s explosion came as a result of the decision by some big brands to accept crypto. Among these brands are AMC, Twitch and of course Tesla and SpaceX owned by crypto’s number one fan: Elon Musk. It is precisely the expansion of Dogecoin as a payment method that seems to be the key point of the project’s roadmap. The slogan repeated several times on the official site is in fact: utility -> adoption! But how is the Doge team working to ensure that adoption actually happens?

Adoption through GigaWallet and Libdogecoin

One of the ways the Doge team is working to achieve mass adoption is through the Gigawallet service. The Gigawallet project is an open-source initiative that aims to make the process of accepting crypto as a payment method as simple as possible. Thanks to this service, which can be set up in seconds by a developer, sellers will be able to receive Doge transactions as easily as they receive payments in other currencies. If you are thinking of buying a new pair of headphones, or a case for your smartphone in Dogecoin, perhaps you will be able to do so soon! The other project the Doge team is working on is Libdogecoin. Libdogecoin will be a library of best practices for the complete implementation of Dogecoin protocols. The library will be written in the C programming language and will allow anyone to build Dogecoin-compliant products without having to worry about deeper specifications or cryptographic functions.

The roadmap of Elon Musk’s favourite crypto is largely focused on expanding the infrastructure to help DOGE become a more robust payment solution. The team does not seem to have any plans to work on other features as some rumours suggested. In the meantime, a new blockchain named Dogechain was founded in the last few days. This network was built on Polygon Edit, a framework that can be used to build blockchains quickly. The Doge development team has already stated that it has nothing to do with the project.

The number of transactions, users and active wallets grew incredibly in the network’s first days. Users have been attracted by the large number of tokens launched on the network, almost all of them Doge-themed. Beware however, in projects like this, which enjoy instant and seemingly unfounded hype, risk is always just around the corner!

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DeFi Kingdoms and Crabada are already using their respective subnets. See how crypto gaming on Avalanche attempts to solve the scalability problem

Avalanche, Polygon and Solana are fighting for hegemony in the crypto gaming industry. Let’s see where Emin Gün Sirer‘s blockchain stands.

Avalanche is an open source Proof-of-Stake blockchain that enables the development of decentralised applications. The goal that Avalanche has set itself since its inception is to solve the blockchain trilemma. Lately, much of the work of the Ava Labs team, the Web3 company that started the network, has been aimed at improving one of the three sides of the trilemma: scalability. This increase will be crucial for developing the infrastructure needed for one of the sectors that Avalanche is focusing on the most, crypto gaming! DeFi Kingdoms and Crabada have already moved onto their respective DFK Chain and Swimmer Network subnets, and other big names such as Ascenders and Ragnarock are in the process of doing so. Find out how the subnets intend to revolutionise crypto gaming!

What are subnets and how do they contribute to network scalability?

So, what exactly are Avalanche subnets? Are they Layer 2 blockchains like Polygon or Rollups like Arbitrum or Optimism? Actually, subnets are a way to use different sets of validators in order to create new subversions of the main blockchain. Each subnet is located within the main Avalanche network, but in addition to its own set of validators it has its own currency and security system.

Subnets allow video games and other decentralised applications to take advantage of Avalanche’s existing infrastructure by easily creating their own blockchain environment, tailored to the needs of their users. But why is this important for the crypto gaming industry? To achieve lasting success, Web3 games must achieve a fluid user experience that we see in traditional games today. This fluidity can be achieved through two elements that are non-negotiable:

• High scalability
• Low gas fees

Scalability is the ability of a blockchain to handle high network use without compromising the user experience. It is a fundamental requirement for a game that wants to establish itself on a large scale. Gas fees, on the other hand, are the ‘fees’ a user has to pay for transactions to be processed. Low gas fees make it possible to carry out the frequent interactions that a Web3 video game requires almost free of charge. For example, an average transaction on DeFi Kingdom costs about 0.005 JEWEL, and one JEWEL is worth about $0.2. So it usually costs a thousandth of a dollar to interact with the DFK Chain.

Which crypto games are migrating to subnets?

There are currently two games already active on Avalanche’s subnet: DeFi Kingdoms on the DFK chain and Crabada on the Swimmer Network. Together, DFK and Swimmer process about half of the transactions that take place on the Avalanche network. DeFi Kingdoms is a play-to-earn RPG video game originally released on Harmony. Crabada on the other hand is one of the first games to be created on Avalanche and was the first to move onto its Swimmer Network subnet. Crabada features two main game modes: active battle mode and inactive mode (mining battle and looting). As the name suggests, active battle allows players to pit their Crabs – cute hermit crabs – against each other or against AI-controlled enemies to earn in-game rewards. Two other games, however, are set to use their respective subnets. Both are part of the list of the best play-to-earn games on Avalanche and are Ascenders and Ragnarock.

Ascenders is a sci-fi RPG that will be launched directly on its own subnet, a trial version of which is already available. Ragnarok, on the other hand, is a browser-based role-playing game in which players interact with an open-world environment. Although initially launched on Ethereum, the game aims to expand to Avalanche’s subnets in the future. In this mad scramble to conquer the crypto gaming sector, each protocol is thinking of different solutions, but all have the same goal: to increase the scalability of networks to be competitive with off-chain games. Will the subnets manage to prevail or will they be defeated by Layer 2s or even the mighty Solana?

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