Tag: Update

In just a few days, billionaire Gautam Adani lost a large part of his fortune. What happened to the Adani Group? 

The collapse of the Adani Group was a major blow to the Indian economy. In just a few days, billionaire Gautam Adani’s empire lost significant shares, estimated at around $100 billion. 

Adani Group: the collapse and financial scandal

What triggered the collapse of the Adani Group were the serious allegations made by the US firm Hindenburg Research. On 24 January 2023, the Indian giant was accused of using tax havens, tax fraud, share value manipulation and unsustainable debt. Hindenburg placed the main emphasis on the high debt. 

Adani Group CFO Jugeshinder Singh called the Hindenburg report a ‘malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, unfounded and discredited allegations’. Singh stated that the company has always complied with all laws and suggested that the allegations had a devious purpose. 

Singh was referring to the upcoming IPO (Initial Public Offering) of Adani Enterprise, the flagship branch of the group, which was to be listed on 27 January with the aim of raising USD 2.5 billion. According to the CFO, Hindenburg would have exposed itself at a crucial moment, just in time to block the IPO. Which indeed happened, the Enterprise’s IPO was cancelled, marking the peak of Adani Group’s collapse. 

Hindenburg’s accusations had immediate effects. The group’s seven listed companies lost a total of $10.73 billion in market capitalisation in one day. Just as Gautam Adani’s net worth dropped from $126.4 billion to $120 billion. Moreover, a large number of investors abandoned Adani Group.

Finally, the Indian market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), started an investigation (still ongoing) to confirm or deny the validity of the allegations made. 

Adani Group vs Hindenburg Research

In the early stages of this affair, Adani Group hinted that it would take legal action against Hindenburg. The latter in turn commented on Twitter: 

Our response to Adani: pic.twitter.com/6NcFKR8gEL

— Hindenburg Research (@HindenburgRes) January 26, 2023

Who is behind Hindenburg?

Hindenburg Research is a forensic financial research firm that analyses equities, credit and derivatives, founded in 2017 by Nathan Anderson. On its website, Hindenburg says they look for “man-made disasters” such as accounting irregularities, mismanagement and suspicious transactions. And on Twitter they specify ‘we burst bubbles where we see them’. 

The firm was named after the Hindenburg airship disaster that caught fire in 1937 while flying towards New Jersey. 

After identifying potential wrongdoing, Hindenburg publishes a report explaining the case and bets against the targeted company, hoping to make a profit. According to its website, Hindenburg has reported at least 16 companies since 2017. 

Gautam Adani, who is the Indian billionaire?

Before the collapse of Adani Group, Gautam was the third richest person in the world. According to Forbes, he is now at the 32nd position in this ranking. 

The entrepreneur, originally from Gujarat in western India, built his empire from scratch after starting his career as a commodities trader. He was born on 24 June 1962 into a large family, consisting of his textile dealer father, mother and seven siblings.

After compulsory schooling, Adani enrolled in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Gujarat, but dropped out after two years. He then moved to Mumbai with just over a hundred dollars in his pocket, where he started working as a diamond selector for Mahendra Brothers. After three years in the diamond business, he opened his own company, but the real turning point came when his older brother asked for his help in handling a large shipment of plastic that he had purchased. From there, he began his career in the commodities business that led him to found the Adani Group in 1988. 

This is not the first time that Gautam has ended up at the centre of a scandal. He is in the spotlight mainly because of his friendly relationship with Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister. The latter, as a supporter of Adani, found himself in trouble in the face of Hindenburg’s accusations. This is why the issue also took a political turn.  

The most recent controversy that has engulfed Adani concerns the protest of some fishermen against the construction of a $900 million port in Kerala, southern India. 

Also in Australia, environmental activists have been protesting for years against the Carmichael coal mine project by Adani in Queensland, over carbon emissions and damage to the Great Barrier Reef.

Adani Group: what does it do? 

Adani Group is a conglomerate, i.e. a company that operates in several sectors through separate subsidiaries. The company was founded in 1988 and is based in Ahmedabad, in the Indian state of Gujarat. The company operates in various sectors, including energy, transport, agriculture, logistics and utilities. Some branches of the group are the aforementioned, Adani Enterprise, Green Energy, Power, Ports & SEZ.

The group is one of the largest private power producers in India, with a renewable energy generation capacity of over 18,000 MW. 

Its growth has been large and remarkable over time thanks to a strategy of diversification and acquisitions. It has a global presence and also operates in Australia. United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh and Myanmar. 

By November 2022 it was the second largest conglomerate in India. 

But the company does not only have industrial interests, the company also owns several sports teams such as the Gujarat Giants of the Pro Kabaddi League and the Gulf Giants of the Cricket League.  

Simple allegations, which have not yet been confirmed, led to the sudden collapse of the Adani Group. However, this is not a definitive exit or bankruptcy. Until the investigations are concluded for Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, the game is still open. 

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All eyes on the Arbitrum airdrop news: ARB token coming soon

It’s all over the news: the Arbitrum airdrop (ARB) is coming on 23 March! Arbitrum is one of Ethereum’s most popular and widely used Layer 2s, i.e. networks built on existing blockchains that allow transactions to be executed outside the main networks in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. In recent months, its popularity has increased significantly, and consequently, so has its use.

This is evident from the high number of transactions processed by the network. This Layer 2 was created in 2018 by Off Chain Labs, a New York-based startup founded with the aim of developing scalability solutions for Web3. ARB will be distributed to users who have interacted with the Layer 2 in the past months on 23 March. Here you will find everything you need to know about the Arbitrum airdrop news or, more specifically, the ARB token release.

How to get the arbitrum airdrop: eligibility requirements

23 March was the day chosen for the Arbitrum airdrop, i.e. the token launch: users who have interacted with the Layer 2 over the past months are eligible to claim the ARBs to which they are entitled. You can already check your arbitrum eligibility and how many ARB tokens you will receive by linking your crypto wallet to the Foundation’s website. The quantity is calculated based on the number of transactions executed on the network and the frequency with which they were made. 

The number of Arbitrum tokens a user receives will increase if they have executed transactions on the Layer 2 regularly during the past months. The ARB airdrop had been announced in January via Twitter by the project’s co-founder, Steven Goldfeder: “the appetiser always precedes the main course,” referring to the main competitor’s airdrop, Optimism, that had just taken place. 

The appetizer is always served before the main course.

— Steven Goldfeder (💙,🧡) (@sgoldfed) April 20, 2022

In these hours, most Crypto Twitter users are wondering about the Arbitrum airdrop price, and wondering whether its countervalue in dollars will be comparable to that obtained with Optimism’s airdrop. OP’s free distribution in April 2022 was worth between $3,000 and $30,000 to users who had interacted with the network, depending on the quantity and complexity of interactions. No one can, as of today, know whether the airdrop of the Arbitrum token (ARB) will be as generous.

Arbitrum airdrop: price and distribution

The initial supply of the Arbitrum token will initially be 1 billion ARB, distributed in this way:

• 12.75% to the community through airdrop; 
• 42% will be owned by the Arbitrum DAO, to finance governance decisions and the most widely used dapp;
• 29.94% to Offchain Labs, the startup developing Arbitrum;
• 17.54% to the investors who financed the project.

The circulating supply of the Arbitrum token has not yet been disclosed, and it is therefore impossible to predict the Arbitrum airdrop price. However, should the market capitalisation be similar to that of its main competitor Optimism, i.e. around 0.7 billion, the price of ARB could be close to the dollar.

What can I use the Arbitrum token (ARB) for?

The Arbitrum token distributed through the airdrop on Thursday, 23 March, will be used primarily with governance functions. The Arbitrum Foundation intends to entrust the most important decisions for the future of the blockchain to the people who use it, and this is where ARB comes in. At the launch in fact, the Arbitrum DAO will be set up, which will be composed of the holders of the Arbitrum token, who will be able to vote on all future decisions of the project. Users will also be able to create their own sub-networks, called ‘Layer 3’, should they receive approval from the Arbitrum DAO.

Arbitrum: excellent performance in recent months

Ethereum’s Layer 2s, in particular Arbitrum and Optimism, which together have surpassed the number of transactions processed on the ‘mother’ blockchain, have been the protagonists of the last period. On Arbitrum, the number of transactions executed daily, as of November 2022, hovers between 200,000 and 500,000. Despite the raging bear market, which has caused losses for all major crypto networks, the total locked-in value (TVL) on the network has continued to orbit around $1 billion. This allowed it to climb the ranking of the most widely used blockchains, compiled taking into account their TVL, to fourth position. We await the Arbitrum airdrop (of its token) to find out whether its blockchain’s TVL will rise further.

With L2’22 winding down, we wanted to give everyone a recap of some of the biggest happenings within the Arbitrum ecosystem and community! 🧵

Starting off with the enormous growth of activity and users, let’s dive into this recap of 2022. 🚀💙🧡

🔗https://t.co/kv5djqPreF pic.twitter.com/xahUPWmg8W

— Arbitrum (💙,🧡) (@arbitrum) December 30, 2022

The last few months have been positive not only because of increasing adoption, but also because a number of important updates have been implemented. These include Nitro, which has enabled the network to process faster and cheaper transactions, and the integration of Arbitrum Nova, a sub-network dedicated to gaming and decentralised social networks. In addition, the arrival of the Arbitrum token and the birth of the Arbitrum DAO opens up a number of interesting opportunities for Layer 2 on the technological side as well. For instance, the possibility for users to create their own sub-networks.

The best dapps on Arbitrum

A portion of Arbitrum tokens will also be distributed to the most successful decentralised applications (dapp) in the ecosystem. The best known of these are those originating in Ethereum that have landed on Arbitrum in recent months. From Uniswap to Aave, from Sushi to Opensea, practically all the most famous Web3 companies have decided to integrate the blockchain of the moment, facilitated by the great similarity between Ethereum’s blockchain architecture and that of its Layer 2. 

Among Arbitrum’s most successful projects is the decentralised exchange (DEX) GMX, which originated here and on Avalanche. GMX allows its users to engage in leveraged trading through financial instruments called perpetual futures. 

Arbitrum’s blockchain is not only populated by decentralised finance projects (DeFi) but also by dapps dedicated to gaming and NFTs. One of the most famous of these is Treasure, a gaming metaverse that claims to be ‘the Nintendo of the Web3’ on which various play-to-earn video games can be played. Its entire ecosystem functions thanks to the MAGIC token, which allows for the non-fungible tokens needed to play and is distributed to players as a reward. 

Treasure community, did you think we were done for the year? Think again. ✨

Introducing the newest game that will be coming to Treasure and @Arbitrum in 2023 – @kurorobeast! 🦌 pic.twitter.com/ip31dTIwmZ

— Treasure (@Treasure_DAO) December 23, 2022

In short, this Layer 2 is proving to be one of the most promising scalability solutions for Ethereum. The arrival of the Arbitrum airdrop news and the ARB token, could help make the definitive leap forward for a blockchain that will most likely continue to make waves in the cryptocurrency world.

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Have you ever wondered what ‘Google’ means or what the longest domain on the web is? Get ready for 90s revival-themed trivia

Digging deep into the history of internet domains and beyond, we have uncovered these 5 curiosities and trivia. Among mysterious characters only forums talk about, beyond the most ridiculous and useless websites, in the depths of vintage web archives, absurd and unexpected facts have emerged. Let’s get to it.

1. In 2015, someone bought Google.com for $12

The history of the Google domain is full of oversights, starting from its inception. Can you imagine typing Googol.com instead of Google.com? It would be ironic, since Googol was originally supposed to be the name of the famous search engine. 

The term means ‘10 to the power of 100’ (1 plus 100 zeros) and it was Larry Page‘s university friend Sean who suggested it to him in 1997. Larry approved the name and Sean registered it for him, but without knowing the correct spelling of the word, so he purchased the name we know today.

Google’s second slip-up happened in 2015, when in the middle of the night a former employee of the giant, Sanmay Ved, managed to buy Google.com.

Sanmay did not expect to be able to get the domain, and for only $12 moreover, yet he even received the invoice. Google, however, did not take too long to regain possession of his domain on the web: in just one minute, Sanmay saw the world’s most powerful URL slip out of his hands.

The trilogy ends in 2021 in Buenos Aires: it is evening and a young designer, while working, notices that Google is not working. So he checks the site responsible for internet domains in Argentina and sees that Google Argentina is for sale. Someone in his place would perhaps have thought it was an error or a bug and would have ignored the anomaly. Instead, Nicolas, our champ, decides to click and the purchase goes through for the equivalent of just €2.30. For a few hours, this time, the domain was in Nicolas’s possession, yet Google did not clarify why the domain was available, nor how it brought it back under its control. 

2. Cancelled web domains: a geopolitical ghost story

There are 5 ccTLDs that have been deleted due to geopolitical changes. Yes, Risk is also played out on the WWW and it can be fascinating to discover how these events are handled in different ways by ICANN and the entities involved, as well as being a dropcatching opportunity for the domainers of these countries.

The process of removing a ccTLD from a country that no longer exists or has a new name is not always immediate. In the case of the former Soviet countries and the USSR itself, there are many examples of transitions that dragged on for years. The .su (Soviet Union) domain itself is still usable, so much so that it still has about 100,000 registered domains and seems to be very popular with cyber criminals.

Some, on the other hand, actually disappeared:

• .an: the Netherlands Antilles dissolved in 2010, since then ICANN accepted the domains .bq (Caribbean Netherlands), .cw (Curaçao) and .sx (Sint Maarten) as replacements.
• .dd: the domain was originally intended for the GDR (German Democratic Republic), but was only used internally between two East German universities.
• .um: this TLD referring to the US Minor Islands was removed in 2007. It used to be managed by the University of Southern California, but the islands have been virtually uninhabited for decades and the institute asked to be relieved of this responsibility.
• .yu: the ccTLD of the former Republic of Yugoslavia, which was permanently dissolved in 2006, was only removed in 2010 after .yu website owners managed to move to the .rs (Serbia) and .me (Montenegro) top-level domains.
• .zr: shortly after the introduction of the ccTLD for the Republic of Zaire, the African state changed its name to Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997 and was given the extension .cd. The .zr domain was finally deleted by ICANN in 2001.

To the domainers out there, keep your eyes peeled for geographical shifts.

3. Get the longest possible domain? Challenge accepted!

The Internet really is a wonderful place, and just as self-referential. If you’ve already got lost among the photos and wiki pages of very long place names, you won’t help but LoL about this next geographical trivia.

The world’s first longest domain is actually the name of a village in Wales. In 2002, llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk was registered and entered the Guinness Book of Records with 58 characters excluding the TLD. However, consider that the maximum length allowed for any part of the domain is 63 characters.

In fact, someone in 2007, challenged this record by registering llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndwllllantysiliogogogochuchaf.eu, with 60 characters excluding the TLD. “uchaf” means the ‘old’ or ‘high’ part of the village. I challenge you to pronounce it in one breath, that would be a real record.

In those years, however, two other domains actually reached 63 characters. The first contains a blog dedicated to Pi, by a German mathematician so passionate that he memorised the whole domain name:

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592.eu.

If, however, the requirement for the world record is to create a domain consisting of letters, thisisthelongesteuropeandomainnameallovertheworldandnowitismine.eu wins it. 

4. Coca cola made a marketing campaign using 61 domains

Coca Cola’s strategy wasn’t too different, its marketing department took domains so seriously that they made a promotional campaign out of them. You know those commercials for Santa’s favourite drink? At some point you hear an opening ‘click’ or a thirst-quenching ‘ahh‘. This is like a slogan for the scarlet brand. 

Thus in 2013 as many as 61 domain names appeared, starting with “ahh.com” and the rest was with an increasing number of ‘h’s. Today, these sites are mostly for sale or inactive, but at the time the intention was to impress millennials who were indifferent to classic promotional means.

5. One man in 2012 bought 14,692 domains in one day

If you think Nicolas or Sanmay were heroes, you haven’t met Mike Mann yet. Mike is not one of those dropcatching vultures, he creates domains. If you ask him why, he replies that it is out of greed: Mike simply wants to own the world. But who is this mysterious character with such a common name?

This greedy domainer is now 56 years old and has been in the domain scene since the beginning. In the 1990s, he founded an Internet Service Provider company, but one day someone offered him $25,000 for a domain he owned, and the next day they offered him twice as much. Realising the opportunity, having paid only $70 for that domain, he immediately dove into the at-the-time wild domain market.

Mike thus began creating and selling hundreds of domains a day, but in 2012 he outdid himself by purchasing 14,692 in just 24 hours. 

Today, the entrepreneur still owns a few domains, on which he has founded companies and organisations. He owns none other than SEO.com and Phone.com, an SEO agency and a phone service company respectively. He then founded DomainMarket.com and AccurateAppraisals.com dedicated to the Internet domain market. But he also got involved in social work, creating the educational project FearlessLeaders.com and MakeChange.com, a charity organisation. Makemillions.com, on the other hand, is the site dedicated to his book, and of course he owns MikeMann.com.

Hopefully these 5 interesting facts about internet domains made you go “ah!” at least once, like in a Coca Cola commercial. And if you’re still thirsty, discover more facts in the history of internet domains.

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Who is ready to shell out millions for a name on the Internet? Here are the most expensive domains ever and their owners

How is it possible that Internet domains, virtual properties that can be bought for as little as a few dozen dollars, come to cost millions and millions? Some are more valuable than others, and despite the fact that more than twenty years have passed since they were first traded, this market is still very active today. The rarest, and therefore most desirable, domains are those defined by unique, meaningful words. Those words that can describe a precise field or sector such as “cars”, “internet” or “sex” (as in the case of Sex.com, the domain that took everyone to court). The ranking of the most expensive domains in history is all made up of the TDL .com, the one with the most international scope.

1.    Cars.com – 872 million

The most expensive internet domain in history? Cars.com, which had a valuation of $872,000,000 in 2017. It is currently owned by the Chicago-based car company of the same name. Its value was estimated on the basis of balance sheet documents of parent company Gannet Co., Inc. 

2.    LasVegas.com – 90 million

This domain was purchased by Vegas.com, a travel, tourism and entertainment site linked to the city in Nevada. The agreement, which came in 2005, provided for a payment of $12,000,000 at the time of signing and monthly payments scheduled until 2040, when the domain will be officially transferred to Vegas.com (assuming it does not want to terminate the contract).

3.    CarInsurance.com – 49.7 million

CarInsurance.com hosts a car insurance website and since 2010 it has been owned by QuinStreet, a marketing and advertising company that is very active in domain, website and media buying and selling.

4.    Insurance.com – 35.6 million

Prior to CarInsurance.com, QuinStreet had already purchased Insure.com (for $16 million) and Insurance.com in 2009 to strengthen its online presence and identity in the field of insurance. The former was owned by a broker, while Insurance.com was bought for $35.6 million by an insurance agency.

5.    VacationRentals.com – 35 million

In fifth place in the ranking of the most expensive internet domains ever is VacationRentals.com. In 2013 it was bought for $35 million by Brian Sharples, CEO of HomeAway (now Vrbo, Vacation Rentals by Owner), a company that offers holiday rental accommodation. The purchase had a ‘defensive’ purpose at the time, Sharples explained: ‘the only reason we bought it was because Expedia couldn’t have that url’. Fun fact: marking territory did not help, Expedia acquired Vrbo in 2015.

6.    PrivateJet.com – 30.2 million

PrivateJet.com since 2012 has been owned by Nations, a platform that offers private aviation services such as buying and selling jets around the world. Nations purchased the domain from Don’t Look Media for $30.2 million.

7.    Voice.com – 30 million

You may not know that Micheal Saylor‘s MicroStrategy is also involved in trading valuable internet domains. On 30 May 2019, it sold the Voice.com domain to Block.one for $30 million to launch its blockchain-based social media platform called Voice. The word ‘voice’ in English is clear and recognisable, it immediately links to a project and the associated domain is worth so much.

8.    Internet.com – 18 million

Internet.com was bought in 2009 for $18 million by QuinStreet. However, it may have secretly climbed the ranking of the most expensive internet domains ever… In fact, an auction was organised in 2021 with a minimum auction base of 35 million. Unfortunately, there is no information on the outcome and the eventual new owner.

9.    360.com – 17 million

The owner of 360.com is Qihoo 360, a Chinese company specialising in security software. The domain, which previously belonged to Vodafone, was acquired to improve brand perception. Compared to ‘qihoo’, ‘360’ is a more immediate and easy-to-remember name due to the technical term ‘360 degree’.

10. NFTs.com – 15 million

This crypto-themed domain closes the top 10, NFTs.com was bought for $15 million on 3 August 2022. Although the buyer has remained anonymous, it is known to have links to Web3 projects such as the Digital Artist platform. It is one of the most expensive crypto word domains (Eth.com was sold for ‘only’ 2 million).

Crypto.com, Stake.com and Bitcoin.com also seem to fall into the category of the most expensive internet domains in history. In these cases, however, negotiations remained confidential.

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Let’s analyse the memorable trends and events of 2022 and discover the most interesting crypto projects for 2023. Here are the ones you cannot miss!

After the excitement of the all-time high we started with this year, cryptocurrencies have been through a lot during 2022. And so have we. From the tightening of monetary policies, to the failure of some crypto projects considered to be giants in the industry. In this situation, some virtual currencies have fared better than others. We are here to review and analyse the trends and events of 2022 and to discover the most interesting crypto projects for 2023.

The crypto market in 2022: what happened?  

Before analysing the new projects and innovations that the most capitalised cryptos have in store for 2023, let’s do a quick recap of what happened in the industry during this difficult year. 2022 in Crypto can be summed up in these two concepts: failures and adoption. We started the year still enthusiastic about the price spikes that had just been reached, but we soon entered a negative economic situation. Emerging markets, such as the cryptocurrency market, were affected by increasingly strict monetary policies. Many times this year, the performance of Bitcoin and Ethereum has followed macroeconomic events. The US stock market has lost over 15% in value, the bond markets 20% and the crypto market has fallen over 50% from its peak in November 2021.

In the first months of the year, cryptocurrencies were actually not particularly affected, or at least not until the collapse of the blockchain Terra. A new blow then came a few weeks ago with the bankruptcy of FTX. The failure of these two crypto projects has brought attention to the need to regulate the sector to protect users. A topic we will probably hear a lot about in 2023. 

Although these failures affected the market, it is important to note that neither was caused by problems with blockchain technology per se. On the contrary, in 2022 the technical development continued on its path and for cryptocurrencies the progress made is remarkable. 

Trends: mobile breakthrough and the quest for scalability

The cryptocurrency world this year seems to have finally realised the importance of the ‘mobile’ medium. Concretely, this shift has been reflected by the development of new crypto projects including dapps, wallets and play-to-earn games for mobile devices, and by the launch of actual smartphones to facilitate the use of services. As in the case of Saga, Solana’s mobile phone. The goal of these projects is to improve the user experience, embracing mobile is necessary to reach the goal of one billion people transacting cryptocurrency on a regular basis (currently estimated at 300 million) as soon as possible. For many, mobile dapps and crypto smartphones in a few years’ time will be far more prevalent than AR and VR devices for the Metaverse. In the wake of this trend, 2022 was also the year when NFTs arrived on social networks. 

As we will see in the following paragraphs, the main goal that the most capitalised crypto projects have set themselves for 2023 is to enhance their scalability. That is, to make networks faster and cheaper to operate.

Bitcoin 

Nakamoto’s coin starts its 2023 with a record! The Layer 2 project of the world’s longest-lived and most famous cryptocurrency, the Lightning Network, reached the capacity, i.e. the maximum exchangeable value, of 5,000 BTC in the last days of 2022. This value grows proportionally to the use of the Lightning Network, which is now at an all-time high mainly due to adoption and integrations for small payments. At the same time, with a virtuous circle, capacity increases the speed and quantity of transactions. Another new development for Bitcoin is the development of Taro. The creators of the Lightning Network themselves announced this new crypto project that will allow stablecoins to be developed on the BTC blockchain. 

Ethereum

The most important blockchain event of 2022? The Merge! That is, the transition of Ethereum from the Proof-of-Work to the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. The complexity and scope of the consequences of this change make The Merge one of the biggest milestones in the history of blockchain. But what are the new projects and innovations of Vitalik Buterin’s crypto for 2023? The first item on the roadmap is the Shanghai update that will complete the transition to Proof-of-Stake by regulating staking activities for validators. The Ethereum Foundation has set itself two further goals: to be able to process up to 100,000 transactions per second and to reduce fees on its network. Both of these improvements can be achieved thanks to new features that will be implemented by a new update package, known as ‘Sharding’.

Polygon

The MATIC team in 2022 also focused on improving the scalability of the blockchain. The biggest innovation in this respect is the integration of zk rollups, a Layer-2 technology that allows transactions to be grouped off-chain and transferred all together on-chain. This decreases the time it takes to validate transactions and lightens the burden of data being transcribed on the blockchain. This year has been a busy one for Polygon, as well as achieving its goal of becoming carbon neutral (and offsetting all emissions since its founding), it has entered into numerous collaborations with iconic companies and brands outside the cryptocurrency market. New plans for MATIC, Polygon’s crypto, for 2023 will focus on further increasing the scalability of its network and progressive adoption.

Cardano 

For Cardano in September 2022 came the Vasil update, designed to enhance blockchain performance in terms of scalability and speed. The update changed the validation and transaction transmission system and also the programming language for Cardano’s smart contracts, Plutus. Vasil is one of the ADA team’s initiatives to attract dapp developers, especially DeFi developers. In short, thanks to this update, Charles Hoskinson’s blockchain is looking forward to a 2023 marked by the development of many new crypto projects on its network. 

Dogecoin 

The flirtation between Dogecoin and Elon Musk will presumably continue in 2023. Probably thanks to him, this cryptocurrency made it through 2022 without too much damage. The price of Dogecoin has kept pace with Musk’s statements and business decisions, and for every new development, we have found a pump. The growth of the meme coin was particularly pronounced in November, when Musk bought Twitter, making plans for the future of the social network. One of the crypto projects the tycoon might involve Dogecoin in? Twitter’s payment methods. 

Stablecoin 

If we take a look at the ranking of cryptocurrencies by market cap, between Bitcoin, Ethereum and the others we have just reported on, we find a few stablecoins lined up. How did 2022 go for Tether and USDC and what plans do these dollar-pegged cryptos have in store for 2023? After Terra’s stablecoin depegging, which caused the collapse of the entire ecosystem, the reputation of these digital coins was tarnished. Tether and USDC have therefore spent these months working on transparency and maintaining user trust. Tether, which has since also expanded to Polkadot, assures in a statement on 9 November that ‘the tokens are 100% backed by our reserves’ and that ‘Tether holds a strong, conservative and liquid portfolio, which includes cash, equivalents and US Treasury securities’.

Circle, the company that manages USDC, also confirms the soundness of its reserves and this summer also launched a new stablecoin pegged to the euro. The efforts of the centralised stablecoins seem to be paying off as their market capitalisation continues to grow. New ones are also expected to arrive in early 2023, notably Aave and Curve, which are a lending protocol and a decentralised exchange, respectively. Will the two DeFi giants be able to continue with their plans to create stable cryptos by the end of 2023?

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