I will start my article with who is a newbie in the crypto world? In my understanding, a beginner is a person who is already generally familiar with the basic rules, concepts and mechanisms of the crypto industry. So, our newbie heard about ZetaChain and I will try to explain to him in simple and clear words what it is. Founded by cool and famous crypto dudes who know a lot about their business: Early Coinbase and Binance employees including Dan Romero, Sam Rosenblum, and John Yi, as well major contributors to some of the industry's most widely adopted protocols and well known funds, including Polygon's JD Kanani and HwiSang Kim former CIO of Hashed; advisors on the project include Nathalie McGrath, who, as Coinbase's first Head of People, scaled the industry leading exchange from a team of just 10 to over 800 employees, and Juan Suarez, who served as in-house counsel for Coinbase from 2013 until 2022 . The first round of investments has been closed - that is, there is money for development and it will be enough to start launching the product.
Now about what Zetachain is. The Zetalabs guys themselves say the following:
“ZetaChain is the world’s first and only blockchain that connects everything. It facilitates cross-chain and cross-layer value transfer, message delivery, and smart contract calls — thus enabling for the first time omnichain dApps (odApps) which can leverage liquidity on multiple networks and read and update states on all connected networks.”
“ZetaChain will transition from Proof-of-Authority consensus to Proof-of-Stake model over time; the protocol is based on the Cosmos SDK and utilizes the Tendermint Consensus mechanism. ZetaChain is especially focused on providing the best possible developer experience and we aim to make building on the ZetaChain protocol a streamlined and familiar experience for developers already familiar with building on other platforms. The recently released full whitepaper is available here.”
And if it is simpler, then we are dealing with the first !!! and only!!! project that connects everything with everything! That is, everything!!! ZetaChain is the only decentralized blockchain and smart contract platform built to be compatible with omnichannel networks. ZetaChain is far more secure, smarter and cooler than all those cross-chain bridges with their wrapped tokens and occasional hacks. That is, for example, if you need to transfer your liquidity from one coin on its home network to another (also on your home network), then it is better to do this through an advanced omnichain, rather than old and unsafe bridges. So ZetaChain is the new advanced and super safe Volvo in the world of cryptocurrencies. And since we are talking about a beginner, then what kind of car would you put, for example, your young daughter (if you were a wise father) and even throwing a bag with a lot of money (perhaps all your money) into the trunk? A brand new super safe Volvo stuffed with all sorts of cool and modern things, or the coolest old school Dodge Charger of the 70s, which also forces you to spend a lot of money from the money in the bag in addition to the fare (on gas)? Unless you are some kind of crazy psycho of those that are shown on TV / tiktok / youtube, then your answer is obvious, only Volvo, that is, only omnichain. So ZetaChain is the solution to your problems with the transfer of liquidity for the near future! A few words about the current status of the project. Now the testnet is actively going on and there is a great chance to participate in it!
Here is a link to the testnet page
https://labs.zetachain.com/swap
Here is a link to the Galaxy company (yes, yes, you can get a few more OATs for this)
https://galxe.com/ZetaChain/campaign/GCatUUwYSY
And here in the medium I recommend getting full information about this great project
As I already said, the project is at the testnet stage, which means that it is not yet possible to use it to transfer real assets. But since I'm sure that you are interested in participating in the testnet, let's move on to the testnet itself.
In a three words - everything is simple. In a more than three words - everything is very simple :) We will need a non-custodial wallet (a metamask is perfect). Next, we go to chainlist.org to add new test networks to the wallet. We will need: Etherium Goerli, Polygon Mumbai, Binance Smart Chain Testnet, Bitcoin Testnet.
After adding all the necessary test networks, be sure to check them in the wallet itself. So, everything is in place, only test tokens are missing. To get them, smart and kind people specially invented the so-called faucets. Below are links to such faucets with necessary test tokens:
https://testnet.binance.org/faucet-smart/
https://bitcoinfaucet.uo1.net/
You can use other faucets, including the faucets listed in the discord of ZetaChain for which you need to go to the channel zeta-faucet. On this channel you need to request test zeta-tokens as well.
So, test networks are connected, test tokens have already been received and are in the wallet. What's next? And then we are fully prepared to participate in the testnet! go to the site https://labs.zetachain.com/swap and connect the wallet that we have prepared. And now I will repeat once again, everything is super simple. Our main task is to send test tokens back and forth, from one network to another. That's all! I'm serious!
To do this, in the swap section, select the network, then select the token we want to send, then select the network where we want to send and the token we want to receive, and just press the button and confirm the actions in the wallet. There is one condition for bitcoin, if you want to "play around" with bitcoin, you will need a new wallet called XDefi. You can get it from here https://go.xdefi.io/zetachain. In terms of installation and everything else, the wallet is similar to a metamask and will be easy to set up.
That's all, friends. We go once a week (at least) and make a swap from where you want to where you want. And we get as many as 7000 points, which will be credited to you in the future when distributing awards from the project team! Isn't that great?! Some five minutes a week and such prospects!!!
In general, I told everything that a beginner needs to know about this project. Then you can handle it yourself ;)
From myself, I will say that I continue to follow the project, participate in the testnet and study its capabilities and prospects!
Follow me on: wisestranger.lens phaver: @pralex