Decentralized Autonomous Organization Ukraine DAO raised 2,258 ETH (about $6.75 million) in an auction that began on February 26 and ended on March 2 (after the market crash today, this amount is about $6.4 million).

Launched last month, the Ukraine DAO is the brainchild of Alona Shevchenko, a Ukrainian activist based in England. Shevchenko says Ukraine DAO came together after she contacted members of digital artist collective PleasrDAO and Nadia Tolokonnikova, founder of protest art concept group Pussy Riot.

This was announced by a member of the group Pussy Riot Nadya Tolokonnikova. Decrypt that the use of the Ukrainian flag means solidarity.

“I personally insisted on using the Ukrainian flag,” she said. Decrypt last week. “Because it’s not about any specific artists or aesthetics, it’s a pure gesture of solidarity.”

When she arrived home, she told me she was listening to a podcast about the Metaverse and we proceeded to chat about the idea.

I mentioned how NFTs and digital collectibles are going to play a big role and at some point, I made a joke along the lines of:

“NFTs are everywhere. In 10 years, our Christmas tree is going to be on a Kindle and our kids are going to be unwrapping NFTs instead of Legos.”

The conversation started with some harmless optimism and curiosity and as we talked more about human consciousness and the neural net, the conversation ended with a very uncomfortable existential angst.

As the existential angst dissipated, I actually started thinking about the Holidays and the potential disruption that may lie ahead.

NFTs, as ridiculous as some of them are, have a lot of utility to offer and I had an interesting idea that has to do with New Year and goal-setting.

It’s a story as old as time.

As I crack open that first beer on Thanksgiving afternoon, I familiarize myself with the recliner I will be parked in for all the football games.

“The Holidays are fucking great,” I proudly decree as my nephew runs by the living room telling everyone he’s Thor and will protect us from all enemies.

All is well.

Fade to black. End Scene.

I regain consciousness on January 1st with a splitting hangover.

My pants are a little tighter.

My dad bod is a little more… fatherly.

Thanksgiving to January 1st was a blur.

“Shit, I need to hit the gym. It’s gonna be my New Year’s Resolution.”

I arrive at the gym and see other plump boys in last summer’s gym attire that barely fits them. The collective look of shame combined with a lot of heavy breathing is motivating.

What usually happens over the next couple of months?

The numbers start to decrease and I don’t mean the weight that shows on the scale.

I mean the number of people showing up plummets and only a few dedicated individuals stay to fulfill their New Year’s resolutions.

And after eating the Burger King that I definitely earned that day, an idea hit me.

Why do so many people quit when they have these New Year’s resolutions?

I’m not an expert on behavioral psychology but I do know that some powerful forms of motivation include:

With New Year’s resolutions, I think some people might be lacking all but the achievement bit.

People make promises to themselves or to their close friends/family but it typically ends there.

No financial incentive, affiliation or group, or accountability to keep them moving toward their goals.

While there are plenty of other intrinsic/extrinsic motivational forces at play, these are a few that I think technology can help out with.

This is where NFTs come in.

What if you can create an NFT collection around particular New Year’s resolutions?

Goal-setting NFT collection

Whether it is weight loss, alcohol abstinence, fitness, etc. Communities and NFT collections can be created around different resolutions.

Assuming the experts/coaches are quality and the experience is enriching, the NFT will be a prized commodity as more will be looking to join.

So going back to the forms of motivation, an NFT-driven resolution community can be the key to keeping users engaged and motivated to meet their goals.

Of course, this idea applies to goal-setting in general. New Year’s resolutions just happen to be a fantastic opportunity to capitalize on an influx of motivated buyers.

At Liquiditeam, we are working on making NFTs more practical and utilitarian and we think it can meet these exact needs.

Thomas Euler wrote a piece about it titled uNFTs: More Utility and UX for NFTs where we talk about that product a little more. Check it out below:

medium.com

The synopsis is that we want to create social layers behind NFTs so collectors can put digital collectibles to use.

And naturally, this New Year’s resolution idea can be easily accomplished using LT Fan Platform as you can create NFT collections, reward engagement, and publish premium guides/content.

Head over to our site, start a free trial, and create your own blockchain community with your own fan token. And use this New Year’s resolution idea if you want.

And if goal-setting is not your forte, it makes for an excellent premium content hub for all of your fans.

Cheers.

With the MagicCraft era rising on the horizon, it is time for MagicCrafters to scout the realm and prepare for battle. The game allows players to engage in epic encounters face-to-face by deploying ferocious NFT Heroes with incredible levels of skills and traits and earning rewards using the game’s unrivalled Play-To-Earn Mechanics. Prepare to be plunged into a 3rd Generation NFT MMORPG gaming experience rich in antiquity, well-developed characters, progressive gameplay, and much more. The MagicCraft Metaverse allows you to choose your heroes for war, take over castles, and win battles in order to grow your clan and become a true hero in the game.

MagicCraft is over the moon to announce the release of its Genesis NFT Collection on March 31, 2022. With the goal of revolutionizing the Play-to-Earn gaming industry, the collection gives every player the opportunity to own an exclusive NFT Hero that can maximize their capacity to earn real-world money. These NFTs are loaded with distinctive abilities and benefits that provide their owners with a decisive edge in the game. Our Genesis NFTs will NOT be available again, so make sure to participate and mint them before your foes.

There are 9999 unique Genesis NFTs, each with its own class, rarity level, and attributes. Warriors, Wizards, and Mages will be included in the collection. The NFT sale will be conducted in three stages, beginning March 31st, 2022. Each round will include 3333 characters classified as rare, epic, or legendary. The character’s artwork and rarity will be revealed upon minting.

We adore art that arouses the senses and stimulates the imagination. We want our collectors to experience not only ownership of a magnificent work of art, but also profit from its incredible utility.

NFT Heroes from the Genesis collection provide holders with exceptional features and benefits. Genesis NFTs offer unique abilities, spells, and skills. They grant exclusive access to Realms, Events and Raids. Benefits also include access to an additional Summoning Portal, a critical feature that enhances the value of NFTs from this collection.

Additionally, Genesis NFTs grant holders access to the Hall of Ancients, where they can explore unique content, engage with Magicverse vendors, and access the Crystaline Marketplace.

Furthermore, each bearer can craft rare and valuable items from the Set of the Ancients. All Genesis NFT holders will have an exclusive role in our discord channel and will also be guaranteed a whitelist spot for any future NFT collections. All of these distinctive features and benefits combine to make these NFTs game changers, with the ability to swing the tide of the game in a split second and help in winning battles and quests.

Whitelist spots are now available for individuals across all of our social media platforms. Keep an eye out for updates and announcements regarding how to enter and register for the whitelist raffle. Whitelisted users will have the first opportunity to purchase Genesis avatar NFTs during the pre-sale, following which the remaining NFTs will be available for purchase by everyone.

NFT enthusiasts who want to transform the crypto landscape and be a part of something bigger should get involved with MagicCraft as early as possible, as our NFTs will be revolutionary and build a compelling case for establishing real-world value for NFTs.

We would like to express our gratitude to the members of our community who have supported us on our journey. It is our constant mission to reach out to a larger worldwide gaming audience and create a generational game for them to enjoy while also earning a passive income from their time spent playing our game. So, without further ado, sign up for whitelist slots, mint the best NFT Heroes, and triumph in the future battles! There will be no second chances in MagicCraft to own magnificent Heroes from the Genesis Collection. Good Luck!

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JumpTask aims to change the game entirely by launching a user-friendly and globally accessible remote work platform where users can earn crypto by completing simple tasks that do not require any special preparation (such as training) or prolonged-time commitments. It offers a perfect way to spend their free time productively — and profitably, too!

There are two ways for a user to make money on JumpTask: they can either earn crypto by completing various microtasks available on the platform or keep their earnings (HODL) as a long-term investment and benefit from its rising value in time.

Joining JumpTask as a user is simple — you need to register on the website using your cryptocurrency wallet where you will be collecting the JumpTokens (JMPT) you earn. Then, you are free to start completing small tasks (e.g., filling out surveys, watching ads, or manually testing apps) provided by our partners and earn crypto to your connected wallet. The number of available task modules will gradually increase; there are currently 15+ modules in plans. Another way to start investing in JMPT is, of course, buying some tokens on PancakeSwap.

The idea of using JMPT to fuel the JumpTask platform is rather straightforward: all the partners need to buy JMPT to be able to compensate the users for completing the tasks they supply, which creates a constant demand for the token — and it will keep growing with every new partner onboarded! Moreover, since many users ultimately decide to HODL their JMPT, the supply of the token will remain on the lower side — and low supply plus high demand means the token’s value is destined to grow.

JumpTask’s innovative approach solves two issues at once: not only does it enable its users to make money, but it also helps companies worldwide to get their workload minimized by the global workforce.

The growing popularity of freelancing platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork shows the demand for short-term projects keeps growing. Thousands of companies worldwide experience the need to have a lot of microtasks completed quickly and securely — however, hiring new staff (often on a temporary basis) or overloading existing teams is too expensive of a solution. Moreover, a global aspect is sometimes required (e.g., for testing localization in different regions).

Since these tasks are often unrelated to having any specific skill or experience, they can be easily crowdsourced to people worldwide looking to make money in their free time. By becoming JumpTask’s partner, any company (or even an individual, if they have such needs) can have vast amounts of microtasks completed by the global workforce in a fast and secure manner.

Need a practical example? Here’s one. Jane Doe is a businesswoman who plans to launch a new product — however, since manufacturing is expensive, she wants to make sure there is a strong demand for it and better identify the needs of the global market.

By partnering up with JumpTask, Jane can add a user survey to the platform as a task and get it filled out by millions of users around the world, thus collecting invaluable insights. This solution would be both a lot quicker and cheaper than hiring a market research company for the project.

As of now, onboarding businesses as partners is one of JumpTask’s most important tasks. As we’ve mentioned before, large-scale institutional demand has a strong positive impact on the demand for JMPT — plus, more partners means more tasks and more earning opportunities, which translates into stronger user acquisition potential.

Another reason we’re very happy about our partnership with Honeygain is their understanding and actual help when it comes to us achieving our goals. With close to three years of industry experience, its team hasn’t yet forgotten what it’s like to be a newbie! While JumpTask has a really strong development team of its own, Honeygain has helped us immensely by developing the new JumpTask mode on their platform and supporting us along the way.

The decision to launch the platform’s own token called JumpToken (JMPT) was made due to multiple compelling reasons:

JMPT was launched on January 13, 2022 — and by March 1, it already had almost 70K holders. It is a utility token that aims to both decentralize the global gig economy and make entry to the crypto market smoother and easier for newcomers.

Being able to earn it easily by completing microtasks, users can feel more confident about trading and exploring the crypto world without risking their fiat savings. Those who want to have a more significant amount of JMPT without waiting always have an option to buy some at the PancakeSwap decentralized exchange.

Why is it worth investing? We told you about the inbuilt demand principle a bit earlier — and now, we’ve got facts and numbers to prove the growth is already going strong. The JMPT-fueled JumpTask platform has attracted over 240K active users, and more than 100K transactions involving JMPT have already been made by 68K token holders. All this in less than two months after the launch — and with no massive marketing campaigns launched just yet!

As of now, there’s only one task module available on the new platform, but the second one has already been announced to be premiering in March. This time, JumpTask will be launching Offerwalls — and the 15+ task modules planned to introduce over the upcoming quarters include but are not limited to ad watching, app testing, image interpretation, and surveys.

Every new module means new partners, new tasks, and new earning opportunities — as well as heightened market demand for JMPT!

To simplify the onboarding of new partners and ensure a smoother user experience, all new modules will be introduced in three distinct stages, starting from the Direct Business stage. Then, it will move into the Marketplace stage, providing the platform’s partners with more control over their task supply.

Finally, using the know-how and the principles collected and clarified in the previous stages, JumpTask will dive into the Decentralized Protocol stage, using smart contract templates to facilitate mediation-free deals between partners and users. All finalized contracts will be stored securely on the blockchain.

Interested in joining JumpTask just in time for the revolution? Grab your seat now!

You may hear people talking about scalability and transactions per second (tx/s)? Ever wondered why this matters for a payment-system, especially for cryptocurrencies and why this parameter is often (lightly) used as a metric of a network-performance overall? Let me introduce you about some mechanics behind and why a high transaction throughput (among other parameter) is crucial for the adoption of a currency-coin (often called peer2peer-coin or p2p in crypto-world).

Elon Musk recently twittered and talked about in Friedman’s podcast, that digital money needs to have a high scalability and low latency to serve as a medium of exchange. But what exactly does it mean for scalability talking in numbers? E.g. Bitcoin’s network has a transaction throughput of max. 7 tx/s and is since inception the most prominent currency-coin. Followed by Ethereum’s ledger with a bit higher number of roughly 17 tx/s. Up to today both projects experienced partially severe clogging issues (network reached maximum tx/s capacity) resulting in people all over the world paying absurdly high fees to boost their transactions to get processed as fast as possible. Conclusion: A (globally) distributed ledger technology (DLT — cryptocurrencies are part of) needs higher numbers in transaction throughput as exmples above, to fulfill the purpose of being a medium of exchange. Looking at traditional finance e.g. VISA’s transaction network handles roughly 1500–2000 tx/s *1 and is outstanding in contrast to well known cryptocurrencies. The fact that VISA is able to perform like this is given by its highly centralized nature, whereas cryptocurrencies in general (theoretically!) strives for a high degree of decentralization (measured in Nakamoto coefficient).

In 2019 VISA and Mastercard combined processed nearly 97 billion transactions in Europe 2. By comparison in 2017 a total of 134 billion transactions were done cashless in Europe 3, not including VISA and Mastercard. (Europe’s population in 2017: 513,000,000 inhabitants, resulting in 0.72 tx per person per day while assuming an uniform distribution of all cashless spendings over the week) Makes a total of 231 billion cashless transactions alone with VISA, Mastercard, EC, transferals, debit entries and checks, when adding numbers from 2017 and 2019. Seeing recent trends the share of electronic payments is on the rise, replacing payments in cash even more.

But what does it means in terms of numbers for needed tx/s? This study will research a region and will show on the basis of actual data, given distributions and some (conservatives) assumptions, how the needed throughput for a payment provider roughly behaves dependent on market adoption rate. Note: a certain region is a start of understanding, globally seen things getting way more complex.

Euro-zone (EU + nearby countries) serves as perfect example for this study. Dense population, many nations, home of a lot of different industries and with this a lot of people with a high purchasing power. Further Europe is divided by four time zones (UTC 0 up to UTC +3) which adds some realistic behavior on fluctuating network load — while people in Ukraine (UTC +3) are mostly done with daily spendings at 19:00, people in UK (UTC 0) doing their after work groceries at 16:00. Resulting in different countries giving different load to the payments network at the same time while living in different time zones. Picture below *4 depicts the time zones and countries in it, used for this study.

This study includes 44 countries (UK, welcome back to EU!). Following table *5 lists the countries and their populations (given in thousands) while depicted in corresponding color to the time zone they are in:

Time zone UTC +1 is over represented in populations count, roughly by a factor of four in contrast to the other time zones. Resulting in most load is given by the countries within this time zone and determine the shape of the load distribution the most.

In total this study combines 678,877,000 people. People who all need to buy daily goods and other stuff. The derived distribution for the transactions is obtained by the distribution of payments in Germany in assumption, that other countries more or less share this behavior, depicted in following chart *6. (Please note: The sum is slightly >100%, maybe the statistic from Statista includes rounding errors at given time frame. This fact resulting in an error in calculations of roughly 1.1 % on the conservative side)

The main times transactions are done is between 8:00 and 20:00.

As above mentioned 134 billion transactions (not including VISA and Mastercard) are made within the EU in 2017 *3 by 513,000,000 people resulting in 0.72 transactions per person per day. Since recent data shows a rising trend to cashless payments and also the Covid-19 pandemic encouraging people using cashless systems, the parameter of transactions per person per day is assumed with 0.80 tx for 2022. Transferred to 678,877,000 people living in the Euro-zone this results in a total of 198.2 billion transactions per year given as network load (200.4 billion transactions are used in calculations due to a small error in distributions of payments by Statista). (Please note: 0.80 tx per person per day is a synthetic value, breaking down the numbers of all transaction done. Its of course not representing a distribution of actual payments, including babies, childs and very old people which presumably don’t make any transactions at all.)

Assumption: this 200.4 billion transactions are equally distributed (Mo-Sun) assuming that people will order food on Sat/Sun and do a lot of online shopping as well. Peak times like Christmas-shopping is also not considered — let‘s stay simple!

The parameter transaction-share is used as a metric for market adoption of a payment network. The resulting transactions per second (tx/s) are derived from numbers above and are a function of the transaction-share. The calculated steps within this study for the transaction-share starts at 0.2 % up to 1.0 % in steps of 0.2 % and from 1.0 % to 2.0 % in steps of 0.5 %.

Results:

Seven cases are calculated and depicted below. The parameter transaction-share varies from 0.2 % up to 2.0 % and describes the share of a payment-system in Europe’s total cashless transactions. The parameter of the number of transactions per person and per day is constant at 0.8 tx/d. In total 200.4 billion transactions per year by 678,877,000 people in Euro-zone, living in four time zones, were distributed according to given distribution of daily payments in Germany.

The time is plotted on the x-axis in 30 minutes intervals. The blue columns are the transactions-total and plotted on the left y-axis. The dashed red line is the corresponding number of transactions per second (tx/s) needed to achieve the throughput and are plotted on the right y-axis.

The following table depicts for each transaction-share (tx-share) the corresponding transactions per second (tx/s).

Average total describes the tx/s from 0:00 to 23:00. This period contradicts the distribution within a day and is hereby not suited to derive a realistic number of a load given to a payment network suitable for p2p-payments.Average x̅ 08:00–20:00 describes the main business times. While making the assumption of an uniform distribution within this period on given daily distribution, this number describes the average load a payment-network has to handle within this time period.Peak describes the maximum number occurring while deploying the given distribution for transactions within a day. This can be seen as a maximum tx/s a payment-network has to handle.

The following chart depicts all seven cases combined as well shows the average load a payment network has to handle, while assuming a uniform distribution within this time frame.

The time is plotted on the y-axis in hourly intervals. The corresponding transactions per second (tx/s) needed for the networks-throughput is plotted on the x-axis. For each case a vertical bar is plotted and indicates the average of tx/s needed for business hours from 08:00 to 20:00 as well as the occurring peaks.

A transaction-share of 0.2 % with a 0.8 transaction per day and per person needs an average x̅ throughput of 23 tx/s whereas a transaction-share of 2.0 % with a 0.8 transaction per day and per person needs an average x̅ throughput of 227 tx/s in average.

During peak times the network load will exceed the average x̅ of roughly 31 % and thus resulting in an even higher throughput needed, a network needs to handle for at least some hours.

Conclusions:

A) Load on a network, represented as transactions per second (tx/s)A transaction-share of 0.2 % resulting in an average of x̅ 23 tx/s and a peak of 33 tx/s. This is the smallest transaction-share case studied. Setting numbers into perspective: A transaction-share of 0.2 % means 2 people out of 1000 using this payment network for 100 % for all cashless transactions. A tiny number of people are already exceeding the capacities of Bitcoin’s network with a factor of roughly 3.3 times and Ethereum’s network with a factor of roughly 1.4 times when running outside of peak-times. Sadly this is true for most of the DLTs, especially for the ones building on a so-called „Blockchain“ (or better to say in a traditional sense like Satoshi Nakamoto did with Bitcoin). Nowhere near of gaining a minimal share in todays payments systems.

Looking at a transaction-share of 2.0 %, resulting by the linear nature of these calculations, in an average x̅ of 227 tx/s and a peak of 332 tx/s. These numbers are in perspective also quite low, but already mean 2 people out of 100 people using this payment network for 100 % for all cashless transactions. While assuming that no one uses one cashless payment method 100 % for all transactions and instead using cryptocurrencies for 25 % of all transactions, this would already result in 8 people out of 100 people using cryptocurrencies frequently for cashless payments (to be precise: for each person this would be 1.4 transactions per week).

B) Usage of cryptocurrencies within populationAssuming no one would use one single cashless payment-system 100 % for all transactions would result in following scenarios. The x-axis shows the transaction-share, the y-axis shows the people per country, using crypto as payment method for 25 % off all cashless transactions.

In this conservative plotted scenarios its remarkably, that already a transaction-share of 1.0 % would result, e.g. for Germany, in more than 3.3 million people using cryptocurrencies frequently as p2p-payment method.

Remaining in Germany, a transaction-share of 5.0 % results in an average x̅ of 69 tx/s and a peak of 110 tx/s, as depicted in the chart below.

C) Thoughts about merchant adoption (Note: For following conclusions, its assumed that merchants only utilize cryptocurrency-networks which are fee-less and transactions are near instant processed, matching a merchant‘s need.)

Bearing the derived numbers in mind, the question arises, if merchants are interested into offering payments with cryptocurrencies? This is not easy to answer and presumably highly dependent on the form of a company. Offering cryptocurrencies as payment method could potentially result in positive and negative consequences like: I) resulting in some up to huge savings in fees and settlement costs (compared to traditional finance) II) resulting in direct receiving of payments (no middleman involved who withhold payments to check if e.g. valid or not. Worst case scenario the middleman don’t cashs out the merchant because a customer raised issues — valid or not) III) resulting in a hassle integrating the payment-system in existing IT-systems or set-up/maintain an own node E.g. a bakery nearby wouldn’t see as much of an incentive as an online-merchant. The bakery maybe needs an additional device/terminal and needs to train their staff for only some people using it with potentially lower amounts to pay and would potentially needs a middleman, frequently exchanging the received cryptocurrencies back into fiat-currencies. Given the number of customers per day, the hurdles are maybe to big to overcome for potential benefits some people would bring paying with cryptocurrencies (at current very low transaction-share) who could easily pay with traditional currencies. Or in other words the incentives in fee-savings aren’t that big for low transaction-shares for local retailer like bakeries, kiosk, butcheries and so on, offering goods for a low number of casual customers per day. Whereas an online-merchant can easily automates payments via QR-codes for potentially higher amounts of money paid by their customers, possibly having more customers per day than a local retailer. Also offering goods online is anyhow a technical way and lowers the hurdle for integrating payments in cryptocurrencies in existing IT-systems. At the same time presumably people buying goods online are more used to utilize cashless payments anyhow and not using cash at all. As a big benefit the potentially saved fees over using a traditional payment-system like VISA, could be (partially) refunded to the customers, adding an incentive for the customer to use cryptocurrencies and especially online merchants offering this payment method. Further accepting cryptocurrencies means once received no chargeback can occurre. Thus, no hassle with unpaid goods already left the store and additional chargeback-fees.

In my opinion adoption will take place first within online-merchants. The incentives are already given at lower transactions-shares cryptocurrencies already reached today. Depending on the cryptocurrency (network/p2p-coin) the incentive is using the network itself — some (very unique) cryptocurrencies offers no fees at all (ever!) and very low settlement times of less than a second. No fees rapidly adds up to high savings over time offering new possibilites traditional finance don’t provide for merchants!

In an upcoming study I will investigate how these potential savings will impact merchants and I will set some numbers into perspective. A further interesting study would be a comparison of cryptocurrency-networks in regards of which network can handle the load up to which adoption share.

I hope you liked this study. Please feel free to write comments/questions in comment section and don’t hesitate to contact me at @FabsinIOTA (Twitter). Thank you for reading.

Special thanks to @mira_hurley for being an inspiration and providing some valuable inputs.

Sources: