This will be any NFT on the Abacus page with a countdown timer, these are the NFT’s that can currently be appraised.

Step 2 — Solid Foundations

With Abacus in its current state, instead of thinking of the appraisal as one value, think of it as a range a NFT could fall into, as Abacus will payout if you are within 10%±. This gives you a slight bit more breathing room in your appraisal. In an example, if you think the NFT will appraise for between 180–220Ξ you set your appraisal at 200Ξ.

Step 3 — Research

Large collections/10,000 PFP Mints

Research is the final step in any appraisal, to start appraising open up the Opensea page for the NFT, handily linked on its page on Abacus, to check its recent sales and if it has any offers. If it has got an offer that should be the lowest it should be appraised for, as someone is willing to pay that price. Recent sales should be considered if they are within a month. Then go to rarity.tools, find the collection and then search for the NFT’s ID. Then sorting by its rarest trait, and then looking at how many of those have recently sold and for how much. You still considering its general rarity stats too. This should give you a general idea of how much the NFT is worth.

Unique Pieces

These are the harder of the 2 to value, seeing as they have had the highest payouts in Abacus’s history. Research pays off with these NFT’s. What to look for when researching, what do the Artists/Creators other pieces sell for, do they have a 10k collection you could compare to, do they have other sets? Is the NFT in auction currently, or has been in the past? Are there offers from reputable wallets on the NFT? When was it last sold? Have some research and a small bit of luck, or a gigantic cranium and you will prosper.

Good Luck Appraisor

Written by Woji

Inspired by Gio Medici

This means that DEX users have their own private keys. Popular examples of DEX include Pancakeswap, Uniswap, Sushiswap, and 1inch exchange.

The debate between CEX and DEX has been going on for a long time now. While many crypto users firmly believe that real estate transactions are better than medium exchanges, others cling to the opposite view.

Centralized Exchanges:

Intermediate commerce has many positive aspects that are not in place. At the same time, it has its drawbacks. What are the pros and cons of CEX?

Benefits of Centralized Exchanges:

1.Fiat-Crypto On-ramp

It is very easy to convert fiat money into crypto and crypto for fiat on medium exchanges. Many cexs allow users to purchase crypto using a debit or credit card. This makes it easier for newcomers especially to own crypto assets. With just a few clicks and a short click, a cryptocurrency can be purchased on a medium-term exchange.

2. Trading volume

3. Intermediate trading does not use cash pools. Instead, they use book order to make buying and selling crypto seamless. Users wishing to purchase property purchase orders. These purchase orders are then matched to matching sales orders from users who want to sell their goods. When the exchange has more users, the cost increases and the spread decreases.

4. Therefore, crypto users are often drawn to trading at higher volumes. Currently, Binance exchange has a large trading volume with millions of traders worldwide using the exchange. Every day, the exchange records more than $ 30 billion in trading volume.

5. Many Features

6. Many CEXs have many useful features. Unlike DEX their use is often limited to rotation, integration and cultivation, CEX can be used for much more.

7. For example, the Kucoin exchange has a feature that allows traders to trade with a trading bot. The Bingbon exchange is famous for its copywriting business. Users are allowed to easily install and make a profit or loss by automatically copying the more experienced trader.

8. Margin trading and lending are also popular in medium-sized trading. Many new features such as NFT markets can be easily added to CEX.

9. Easy to use

10. Medium trading is easier to use compared to spatial trading. New crypto users will definitely get lost through shared transactions. However, in CEX, the user interface is generally easier to navigate. Words used in CEX such as “buy” and “sell” are also easy to understand. Additionally, some CEX forums have a lite version and guidelines to help noobs succeed.

11. Cons of Centralized Exchanges:

12. Intermediate trade has its disadvantages too. Some of these are highlighted below.

13. This popular term is used in the crypto world to remind users of intermediate transactions that anything can happen to their property at any time. CEX users do not have private keys. Thus, their goods are kept in one place. Owners of intermediate exchanges may decide to close at any time and pay users’ fees. This has happened with several trades in the past.

14. Lack of Confidentiality

15. Anyone using CEX should discard the privacy level. Real names, email addresses, and identity cards, even a document showing the user’s address are usually sent in exchange for verification. While this was done to curb fraudulent activities and financial crime, it also prevented many qualified people from benefiting from the crypto ecosystem.

16. Criminals

17. Since the advent of CEX, there have been numerous hacks from cybercriminals in various trades. Kucoin, Hotbit, Huobi, and even Binance have been attacked in the past. Although, these attacks have sometimes been quickly recognized and stopped. At times, the invaders have succeeded and lost millions of dollars.

18. Good intermediate trading offers the following features:

19. Security: Security should always come first. A good exchange will greatly emphasize the security of their users’ accounts, personal information and the system in general. Most of the goods should be stored offline in the cold storage system. Also be aware of additional security features such as two-factor authentication, withdrawal guarantees etc.

20. Liquidity: CEX consistently offers better money than DEX at this time.

21. Reputation: Well-established, long-term trading is the safest option.

22. Fiat Currency: Check if fiat currency is supported. If so, you will be able to trade your traditional currency with crypto.

23. Interface: The site should be easy to navigate, even for beginners crypto.

24. Uptime: Avoid alternating periods of rest.

25. Verification: Although some users find authentication and KYC processes difficult, you should look at it differently. They are made with the best intentions of preventing money laundering and all other forms of fraud.

26. Decentralized Exchanges:

27. Location exchanges are considered the most secure trade for crypto users. Like the CEX, they have their pros and cons. You start by choosing whether to try to buy or sell a token at the top of the screen. Next, select the token and the amount you want to trade. Then, press the Find Trades button.

28. DEX facilitates peer trading by relying on automated smart contracts to conduct trading without a mediator. However, not all DEX use the same infrastructure. While some maintain standard order book models, others use emerging liquidity protocols.

29. Decentralized exchange (DEX) is a peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace that connects cryptocurrency buyers and traders. In contrast to intermediate trading (CEX), default domains do not have retention, which means that the user always controls his or her private keys when performing work on the DEX platform.

30. In the absence of a central authority, DEX uses smart contracts that execute themselves under fixed conditions and record each blockchain transaction. This unreliable, secure transaction represents the fastest segment of the digital commodity market, and opens up opportunities for new financial products.

31. Benefits of Decentralized Exchanges:

32. Other factors that make international trade different are privacy and anonymity, as well as security.

33. 1.Privacy and anonymity

34. Limited transactions do not require users to submit personal information as do CEXs. All you have to do is connect your wallet to sign the blockchain transaction. Therefore, anyone from anywhere can have access to crypto currents using a decentralized exchange.

35. Security

36. Domain transactions do not have a website that stores users’ private keys. User has his or her private keys. Thus, hackers cannot attack DEXs to gain access to the central website. Unless the user relinquishes his or her secret keys, or engages in malicious agreements his or her money will remain secure and secure.

37. Cons Of Decentralized Exchanges:

38. Two major concerns regarding trading are divided into trading efficiency and efficiency of DEX.

39. Many DEXs do not have exciting features such as jeans or futures trading. Limited orders help sellers to buy or sell goods at a future price, but this feature is not in place of exchange. This makes users more attached to CEX.

40. Efficiency

41. Many blockchain protocols face strain issues. This makes it difficult for DEX to easily accept multiple users at once. The issue of robustness and efficiency does not exist in CEX. This is because CEXs operate both on-chain and off-chain, unlike DEXs that operate fully on the chain.

42. Closing Thoughts:

43. DEX gives users complete control over their assets and privacy. With CEX, the user does not fully control his assets and does not have a core component of blockchain technology which is the expansion of spaces.

44. Beginners can find CEXs easy to navigate through. On the other hand, experienced traders who know their way into the crypto world and who would like to take control of their assets will love the DEX.

45. Users can also combine both. CEXs can be used when one wants to trade or buy and sell. DEX may be used for long-term storage.

46. Transaction fees at DEX exchanges is insanely high (5–35%):

47. DEX in BSC is almost free to use, difference? Gas ETH gas fee. Currently the transaction costs on the Ethereum network are so high that buying something with a DEX like Uniswap can cost $ 100. However, it is not Uniswaps’ fault at all — it is due to Ethereum congestion.

48. There are alternatives to different chains, such as the Pancake swap, and CEXs that will continue to cost less. Unless you have a specific destination, you’re just moving the car and wasting gas.

49. With 3rd gen blockchains DOT and Cardano (among others) also options soon, this should bring us alternatives, but it could be months ahead.

50. 
    

For example, USDC (USD Coin — which is a fiat collateralised stablecoin), issued by the company Circle is backed 1:1 with a dollar deposited in their bank account (or received by Circle and managed by them)*. As shown in the chart below, stablecoins have seen an explosive amount of growth over the past year, currently sitting at $90 billion dollars in market capitalisation and a whopping $233 billion in transactions on a single day. Circle alone has issued almost $15 billion in USDC. This is much lesser than its biggest competitor, which is Tether and which has a nearly $53 billion issuance. For a more detailed history of stablecoins, including some key risks, you can have a look at this article by HackerNoon)

How does the process of issuance or creation of fiat-backed stablecoins work?

In simple terms, this means a user deposits $1 USD in a bank account managed by Circle, and Circle ‘mints’ or ‘creates’ a digital version of the same coin for issuing to the user. The coin will reside and be issued as a token on a particular blockchain. For Ethereum, the common standard for creating a token is the ERC-20 standard and hence Circle mints new ‘ERC-20’ USDC tokens. For buying, I can go and buy a USDC ERC-20 token from any of the exchanges that support it. Circle also mints USD equivalents on other public blockchains, such as Solana and Algorand.

Of course, this also means that multiple public blockchains can have multiple currency equivalents of stablecoins, for example the Korean Won (KRW) stablecoin has a substantial issuance by a number of entities as well. While the hackernoon article has covered some of the key risks and other important aspects, i’d like to stress on a very important benefit to a stablecoin, particularly for software development in the crypto space and as a key pillar for a modular architecture for decentralised and open finance, so read below.

How is it different to a dollar sitting in my bank account?

One might ask — if i’ve got $100 when i open up my bank account app and $100 in USDC when i open my wallet on my crypto exchange app, what is the key difference between both of them?

After all, they both look on the screen as the same thing, don’t they?

In addition to different risks associated with both of them, the key benefit on the back-end is that open source software developers building applications on public blockchains, for the first time in history, have access to one of the most important building blocks in developing decentralised financial applications i.e. a stable currency such as a digital dollar, which has been up till now been only used by banks or consortiums of banks for transacting among themselves in a very closed and quite manual system. They can build all sorts of applications that integrate a stablecoin and serve the percentage of population that doesn’t care much about cryptocurrencies but cares about earning a better return on money lying in their bank account (And that is a significant majority).

Stablecoins open up this system by providing a unique standard on a public blockchain. It means that a very efficient internet of value is here and it means that if i hold a USDC in my digital wallet (controlled by my private keys and secured on the blockchain) then i can send it to any other person on the planet via a transaction on the public blockchain, just with the help of an internet connection and their wallet address. I also will no longer will be giving control of my funds to a bank to earn interest on it and provide me with a service, instead i can provide myself with a return on the money in addition to securing it safely. Public key cryptography is an extremely important topic here and i’ll cover it in a separate post, but suffice it is to say, it is the foundation of me holding on to my own funds in a digitally secure manner.

For open source software developers, this opens up a world of possibilities, and they can come up with some very creative ways to utilise that money in efficient ways to help me earn yield on that money, in customisable ways based on my own preferences and risk appetite, and let me be a bank of my own. It lays the foundations for creating automated digital marketplaces for lending and borrowing those dollars as well using smart contracts (covered separately in subsequent posts) and in breaking monopolies of banks and fintechs.

All of these are important aspects, but one might ask — what if the issuer goes bankrupt or continues to ‘mint’ new digital dollars without backing them up 1:1 with dollars deposited in their bank accounts? This was, for a long time, one of the key risks related to USDT (Tether) and which has now been reasonably cleared as Tether has settled a lawsuit with the New York Attorney General and confirmed that it will be getting regular audits conducted to prove that USDT is completely collateralised. Subsequent to this, Coinbase, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges has listed USDT after this settlement, which indicates significantly renewed confidence in it.

But ths risk still remains, and this is a risk that i would refer to as one that is more specific to centralisation i.e. someone needs to trust that a central party minting new stablecoins has a 1:1 backing with fiat currency in their bank accounts and aren’t just generating these out of thin air.

Enter the world of decentralised stablecoins: Currently these are mainly two types i.e. crypto-collateralised (such as Dai/Maker) and non-collateralised/algorithmic stablecoins (such as Fei/Tribe). These have been briefly explained in the video above, but what’s important to understand is that both approaches have different value propositions and risks associated with them, however they are transparently minted and transactions visible and auditable on a public blockchain. Algorithmic stablecoins are a very interesting yet experimental area in crypto, but these are exceptionally new and none have stood the test of time. But nevertheless is a fascinating topic for another post.

Back to crypto-collateralised stablecoins: Maker DAO on it’s website, indicates the following features of the Maker protocol and its associated Dai stablecoin:

And here is a summarisation of how MakerDAO works:

While the area of stablecoins continues to evolve, this much is certain — the volume of issuances and transactions on public blockchains will only increase in the years ahead, and hence stablecoins are a fascinating area worth revisiting as new technology developments evolve in the space.

What are your thoughts on stablecoins? Were there any aspects that i may have missed? If you’ve got any specific feedback on this post, or something wasn’t clearly explained, leave a comment below! :)

Updated 15th Aug 2021: An earlier version of this article suggested Circle backs their USDC with 1:1 cash deposits in their bank account. This was incorrect and has now been corrected. As per their latest Independent Accountant Report, Circle does not hold all of this amount in cash and instead has chosen to park a portion of this amount in investments as well.

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