This is the step that is most open-ended. You can use an image, video, audio, or 3D model. That means you can draw your own or even use a photo of your dog as an NFT. The world is your oyster.

And just because something started out as a mere joke, that doesn’t mean it remains a mere joke.

Cryptocurrency did what fiat money and governments couldn’t — drive the economic upliftment of populations by making financial products accessible to all. In countries like Nigeria or Kenya, people prefer receiving remittances in cryptocurrency, rather than their native fiat currencies. Blockchain technology facilitates the real-time transfer of money — inexpensively and securely — helping people of these nations sidestep costly banking systems and remittance corridors. Accompanied with CICO Agent networks supporting cryptocurrency-facing solutions, even the unbanked can avail better financial services.

Last year, a blockchain-based, play-to-earn (P2E) game called Axie Infinity became the sole source of income for many households in the pandemic-hit Philippines. Even for people in Venezuela, the country with the highest annual inflation rate, Axie Infinity is considered a better career path than traditional jobs. With startups like Block Esports and Yield Guild Games loaning out expensive Axies, characters necessary to playing the game, to underprivileged players, many have started new careers in play-to-earn gaming.

While play-to-earn gaming has shed new light on the usage of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, the world has only seen the beginnings of its real-life applications. Below, we detail how the blockchain, with or without cryptocurrency at its helm, can improve and optimize operations in several domains.

The blockchain can help transform the retail experience by becoming the go-to for loyalty rewards: through non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that come attached with their intrinsic uniqueness. Imagine a retail store that awards loyalty tokens to its customers in the form of NFTs: customers will get to enjoy an immutable claim to ownership, and also have the ability to resell these NFTs on an NFT marketplace for a profit.

In a 2020 report by the World Economic Forum, more than 1 billion people around the globe do not have a national identity — a major roadblock to availing basic governmental and financial services. The traditional identification system is fragmented and inaccessible for many in emerging markets. Blockchain technology is proving to be a viable alternative for managing identities. Governments can promote the development of self-sovereign identification portals where users only need to enter personal details on their mobile devices and generate the private keys and the public keys to attest the information provided. The public key associated with the distributed identifications, including additional data, can be anchored on-chain, thus helping governments consolidate identities cost-effectively, securely, and within a tamper-proof infrastructure.

In November, a cryptocurrency and open-source distributed ledger called IOTA introduced a beta version of its Data Marketplace, explaining that blockchain could be used as a marketplace to share or sell unused data connected to billions of devices and networks. Most of this data remains available to the big players in internet services, but small companies lose out on getting access to these. A distributed marketplace supported by blockchain the IOTA is leveraging can act as a mediator to store, move and recycle data and enhance its applications.

Copyright and royalty laws on music and other content have grown claggy in a world of unregulated internet access. Blockchain technology can be applied to safeguard those copyrights for digital content downloads, ensuring that the content creator gets their fair share. The protection of royalty and copyright through the blockchain is already seeing its application through NFTs. Artists, both established and up-and coming, are tokenizing their artworks: giving them the opportunity to get a fixed percentage of royalties for every resale of their content. Artists from India have seen their digital artworks sell for 3.9 Ethereum, opening them up to a broader audience and a new way of valuing and protecting their pieces.

Blockchain can improve digital voting because whatever is recorded on the chain remains immutable. So, if a bad actor tries to alter something on the network, the complexity of blockchain technology makes it practically impossible to do so.

Through traditional routes, if an individual sells land or buys a house or a car, they need to transfer or receive a physical title, through their local government offices. This is a system that has not been changed for decades, resulting in aged, damaged, or possibly, lost titles. Instead of managing the details related to the transfer of ownership on paper, blockchain can help store titles on-chain, enabling a transparent view of this transfer and exhibiting a crystal-clear picture of legal ownership.

Blockchain technology makes real-estate and private company assets that are large or illiquid easily accessible to small investors. These assets can be tokenized on-chain so that potential investors can buy them in fractions, therefore reducing the entry barrier.

One of the primary goals of blockchain technology and DeFi is to drive financial inclusion for the people who don’t have access to a bank account. For a majority of the population in emerging markets, maintaining a bank account is too expensive, and hardly competitive in terms of savings account interest rates, or in a lot of municipalities, impossible, due to the physical absence of a financial institution. DeFi protocols, like AAVE and Compound, on the other hand, have created a decentralized financial system that people can access even without a traditional bank account. These DeFi protocols are referred to as money legos owing to the cascading earning opportunities they create through composability, unlike a bank. Therefore, it is not surprising to witness the growing interest in DeFi, especially in developing countries. But how much of this world is really accessible? Is there a direct connection between the DeFi and the real world?

Interests earned on a decentralized lending service still cannot be directly used to pay to real-world merchants, despite early promises of adoption from major merchants. However, individuals from emerging markets often use cryptocurrencies, usually earned from play-to-earn gaming, to pay for real world utilities. To do that, they follow a roundabout path of converting cryptocurrencies to cash before they can use them in real life, with conversions sometimes failing. In a bid to alleviate this sore spot, XLD Finance is creating the necessary bridge between DeFi and CeFi to drive home true financial inclusion. XLD Finance’s ultimate vision is to integrate DeFi with on-ground financial rails in developing nations. The process kick-started with xSpend: a platform where individuals can use in-game tokens, like SLP, and stablecoin to buy mobile prepaid credits or pay utility bills.

Blockchain technology continues to show a wide array of real-life applications: spanning retail, identification, government services, and real estate, among others. A major hindrance from true mass adoption are institutions that have become set in their ways — but many new players have come out of the woodwork, implementing solutions to bridge the gap between DeFi and the real world.

XLD Finance is leveraging blockchain technology to bring about financial inclusion in emerging markets through its ecosystem of products and services, enabling the free, convenient, and safe movement of assets between DeFi and CeFi, reinforcing its goal in building a strong and inclusive financial infrastructure for the DeFi space and its adopters, especially in emerging markets.

To learn more about the XLD Finance ecosystem and be alerted for future updates, please visit our website, xSpend, or follow us on Discord, Twitter, Medium, LinkedIn, and Telegram.

Before we look at recent events and try and figure out what happened, it’s important to note that ETH was gearing up around this time last year to hit its first all-time high of 2021. On January 19, 2021, Ethereum hit $1,050 and topped its previous high, which took place three years prior. The reason for its price blowing up as it did, was purely down to investor sentiment at the time, especially as cryptocurrency suddenly became a global beacon for a good store of value. Furthermore, Ethereum saw a massive surge in price last year with the successful launch of Ethereum 2.0, Phase 0, which effectively addressed some of the previous version’s ongoing concerns.

We know that the Beacon Chain (Phase 0) is live and running. This initial rollout transitioned Ethereum’s proof-of-work to the proof-of-stake concept that was envisioned for this blockchain. However, Ethereum’s Mainnet is still operating on proof-of-work, hence the much-awaited next phase, ‘The Merge’. This had been scheduled for 2022, and The Merge is when the two systems (Beacon Chain and the Mainnet) finally co-exist. When the update comes to life, it will mean that Mainnet can have the ability to run smart contracts into the proof-of-stake system. The aim is to ensure that the transition will be seamless for both ETH holders and developers.

Furthermore, it will mean that Ethereum is just that one step closer to the full update — Eth2. Eth2 is the priority, and it has been made clear that other innovative features, such as the ability to withdraw staked ETH, may have to be placed on the backburner for a while longer.

So we know that there has been a delay in the original timeframe, but why would this mean that prices have slumped? It could be that ETH is just getting cheaper, especially as dominance in the DeFi space could be short-lived. The high transaction fees paired with the slow transaction speeds may not be worth it anymore for stakers and developers — meaning that they could be turning elsewhere. Cue the top ETH killers for 2022, which are now attractive alternatives to Ethereum.

However, is it all doom and gloom for Ethereum? According to experts in the crypto industry, if everything goes well with the update, we may well be seeing a rally unfold. Suppose ETH quickly transitions to Ethereum 2.0, with its full functionality and features working successfully, then, in fact, this could “unlock endless opportunities for blockchain and all other chains in its ecosystem”.

Another reason investors are looking at is that Ethereum has dropped recently due to the US Federal Reserve’s recent decision on monetary policy. After the central bank released its minutes from December’s meeting, both Bitcoin and Ethereum fell. The Fed announced that it could start raising interest rates to tackle high inflation. Macroeconomic events will also affect crypto, just like any other asset.

As mentioned earlier, Ethereum’s upgrade is still a while away. Other blockchains have a much more scalable and efficient ecosystem that appeals more to stakers and developers. Therefore, the prices of these blockchains are set to rise. If Ethereum’s upgrade does occur this year, it could well reclaim its competitive edge. Currently, the issues that have persisted with the Ethereum blockchain consist of slow transactions, high gas fees, and a few concerns around efficiency. So, what are the other blockchains that investors are keeping an eye on in 2022?

Solana

With its main premise, ‘powerful for developers and fast for everyone,’ this decentralised blockchain was built to enable scalable, user-friendly apps. Founded in 2019, Solana is an open-source project boasting numerous features that make it more favourable and potentially give Ether a run for its money. First of all, it beats Ethereum in transactions per second (TPS), making it much more appealing. It takes 10–15 seconds to process one transaction on Ethers network if we compare. It’s not even a close call.

On the other hand, Solana needs only 400 milliseconds to mine one block. That’s not all. It can handle 50,000 TPS.

Furthermore, the gas fees are relatively low; with Solana, the average transaction amounts to $0.00025 per second. Ether’s upgrade will bring its transaction fees down until then; the blockchain doesn’t have a fixed fee and can come to $100 for regular transactions. There isn’t any upper limit for smart contracts, so we are looking at hundreds of dollars depending on how complicated and significant the transaction is.

Cardano

Founded in 2017, this particular blockchain is also trying to race ahead in the dApp space by appealing to developers and everyone. That’s right. With its functionality and accessibility, the aim would be that even the average Joe could create his decentralised application. Again, similarly to Solana, this blockchain also has low transaction speeds and gas fees, but the thing that also sets Cardano apart from the rest is its proof-of-stake consensus algorithm. This algorithm essentially decides how new transactions are added to the blockchain.

Another thing to note is that Cardano’s blockchain is split into two layers, whereas Ethereum’s blockchain consists of one layer. This two-layer blockchain provides Cardano with its uniqueness as one layer is purely devoted to ADA (Cardano’s native currency), and the other layer supports smart contract functionality. Therefore, splitting the two activities makes transaction speeds faster and overall efficiency better.

Avalanche

This particular blockchain hasn’t been shy of the spotlight over the past year. Investors have been paying attention after Avalanche Labs announced a partnership with one of the big five accountancy firms — Deloitte. The partnerships centre around leveraging the blockchain to create and enable a disaster relief platform. Frustrations around Ethereum’s congestive ecosystem paired with Avalanche’s partnership have led AVAZ (Avalanche’s native token) to surge. Avalanche was founded in 2020 and focused on smart contracts — its blockchain is developed to be a lot faster and cheaper than Ethereum. Suppose we compare the number of transactions per second. Avalanche can process over 4,000 transactions per second, whereas Ethereum can only process around 13 transactions per second.

If you’re interested in trading crypto, you can begin your journey in the financial markets with a leading CFD broker. Eightcap offers more than 250 crypto derivatives, including crypto crosses and crypto indices. Create an account to experience ultra-low spreads and excellent 24/5 customer support with a broker regulated by the FCA, ASIC, CySEC and SCB.

Trading on margin is high risk.

We’ve hit the ground running this year! Here is a snapshot of what our team is working on this week, as well as a recap of last week.

Coming up:

Most of the dev team’s work this week involves $BUY token, and functional upgrades and integrations to the e-commerce site.

Previous weeks recap:

YOUR WEEKLY STAKING REMINDER: Staking is available for the ASA $BUY token!

To access the Staking Program page, please click HERE.

To access our staking guide, please click HERE.

IF YOU MISSED IT: Read about Genesis, Buying.com’s decentralized retailer network

Website: https://www.buying.com

Telegram: https://t.me/buyingcom_announcements

Medium: https://medium.com/buying-com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/buying_com?lang=en —

At the end, Our aim is to integrate all smart traders, investors, and crypto assets into a unified blockchain ecosystem via smart contracts, which will make trading experience truly efficient, transparent, and reliable.

What is Tradocaps?

Tradocaps is an ecosystem of various tools and platforms coming together to bridge gap between Smart Traders and Investors. TradoCaps is a DeFi platform for the future of trading that makes crypto trading accessible for every segment of users.

It is a decentralized smart investment and trading platform that operates via autonomous smart contracts and includes tools for Synthetic token allocation and fully automated trading. It eliminates the risks of transferring digital/hardware wallet details such as private keys and API or any virtual currency data to a third party. Most importantly, Tradocaps Platform connects successful smart traders and investors in a transparent, verifiable way for the benefit of both parties.

TradoCaps ecosystem has two primary Products i.e. Smart Trader Synthetic Token Launchpad and Tradocaps Smart Investment Platform

Smart Trader Synthetic Token Launchpad : We will provide the ecosystem to launch the Synthetic Tokens over the Tradocaps Platform. Synthetic tokens are collateral-backed tokens whose value fluctuates depending on the token’s reference index. Every Smart Trader on-boarded on Tradocaps Platform has their own dedicated Synthetic Token assigned which is 100% Collateral backed.

TradoCaps Smart Investment Platform : Tradocaps will provide a easy to use, secured platform to Smart Investors, from where they can select the Smart Trader from the Pool of traders based on their rating and performance. In order to allow Smart Trader to trade their assets without providing access to their actual funds, Smart Investor will buy Smart Traders represented Synthetic Token which is 100% Collateral backed locked on Smart Contract. Now Smart Trader will get the equivalent amount of funds to trade in their respective trade only access wallet. All the profits earned by Smart Trader will be reflected on the Dashboard of their respective synthetic token whose value will appreciate as the Portfolio size increases. Every Smart Trader Wallet has a profit cap, once that is hit, all the profits will be distributed among 3 parties, Smart Trader, Smart Investor and Tradocaps Holders based on percentages set by Smart Trader while generating Synthetic Token.

Sit Back & Relax, Let the Passive Income Flow

Tradocaps will have plenty of Passive Income Revenue Streams for the TADOC Holders. Some of them are mentioned below:

Reflections : 1% of each transaction will be redistributed among all Tradocaps holders, which means you can earn money just by holding TADOC Token in your wallet.

Profit Cap Airdrops : Tradocaps Holders will receive regular airdrops whenever Profit Cap of every Smart Trader is reached and their profits are distributed.

Staking Rewards : Users can stake their Tradocaps tokens and earn 1% Staking Rewards every week with total weekly reward capped at 100K Tradocaps.

This is not limited, more the Social Traders are on-boarded on Platform, more quickly the holders will get rewards.

TRADOCAPS SEED SALE DETAILS:

TRADOCAPS, SEED ROUND OF $TADOC TOKEN WILL START FROM 10th Jan — 20th Jan.