• 📚 What I’ve learned teaching WEB3

  • How far is web3 from mass adoption? 

  • How to make money with web3? 

  • What is the Real Value?

  • How is this changing the tech landscape?

• 🏖️ IRAs, tax-sheltered accounts

• 📰 ICYMI

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📚 This is what I’ve learned teaching Web3.

The majority of my students (~70%) think that web3 is about 10 years from having real use cases adopted by the masses.

They may be right about the timeline, perhaps we are years away from web3 being fully adopted. As the graph below from A16z states, it took 15 years to reach 1 Billion Internet Users.

We are not even at 100 Million crypto transaction addresses and we live in an era where internet access is ubiquitous, devices are connected at all times and most users are able to consume and create content at will. Adoption will exponentially accelerate.

A16z State of the Crypto Report

Most of the students want to find a way to monetize web3 and help their kids understand it and make money from it

As of right now, video content seems to be the most profitable for creators.

Patreon Blog

Platforms such as youtube and Meta have the upper financial hand leaving creators earning meager amounts compared to what these companies make. It seems that we may be far from a solid blockchain, decentralized platform that can compete with these juggernauts, but we should be prepared to be able to adopt these upcoming web3 platforms when they become available.

Some current alternatives are:

• Youtube - > D.Tube - Bitchute - Theta

• Patreon (Protocol creation) → LBRY

• NFT Creation - Opensea - Rarible - Mintable - Superrare

• Medium → Mirror

• Discord → SocialStack

• Social Token Minting → Roll

• Your Own Digital Economy → Rally

We believe that those who become more familiar with crypto wallets, tokens, minting, bridges, centralized vs. decentralized exchanges, DeFi, stablecoins, and web3 terms and definitions will be more apt to take advantage of web3.

Where is the Real Value of Web3?

While Web2 was a front-end revolution, Web3 is a back-end revolution: it has the potential to revolutionize agreements and value exchange on the internet. In simple terms, the Internet of Value refers to an online space in which individuals can instantly transfer value between each other, eliminating all third-party costs, and delivering a faster and more personalized user experience. In theory, anything that holds monetary or social value can be transferred between parties, including currency, property shares, and even a vote in an election.

Since this revolution is cooking in the back-end, it is hard to see the true potential and how it is redefining value, and shifting power, while revolutionizing the way we interact with technology.

Some of the promises of web3 are:

• Consumers will regain control of their data.

• Moving money and assets will be faster and easier.

• Improve access to banking and financial instruments for anyone with a connected device.

• Services could be uninterrupted and anyone could run a business and/or services in the background using on-chain smart contracts.

• Data transparency has the potential to be normalized.

• Decentralization will have the power to break corrupt centralized institutions.

The list goes on and will expand and shrink according to our needs and technological advancements.

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They think that the way we are interacting with web3 today will not be the way we interact with it in the future.

This is a very interesting take as the way we interact with this technology today, is very different from the way we did in the past.

Bitcoin Market, the first official Bitcoin exchange was announced on Bitcointalk in 2010 and it launched the same year, offering a floating exchange rate for bitcoin. Buyers could purchase bitcoin by sending another user U.S. dollars via PayPal while Bitcoin Market would hold the seller’s bitcoin in escrow until the seller received their money.

Three years later in 2013, Mt. Gox was handling 70% of all global bitcoin transactions. Users predominantly deposited funds into Mt. Gox through two payment services — digital currency service Liberty Reserve and payment provider Dwolla.

Today, there are hundreds of exchanges worldwide where users can open an account, link their bank account, and trade thousands of coins at will. In the near future minting digital assets, participating in DeFi protocols, and other web3 use cases can become a very simple 1-click process.

Needless to say, there are many developers and entrepreneurs at work developing technologies that change the way we interact with the internet and the web. The way we use web3 applications today will not be the way we do it tomorrow.

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📰 ICYMI

• LUNA2 Going Downhill As SEC Investigates Potential Securities Violations By Terra

• Bitcoin miners in Texas have been powering down amid heatwave and record electricity demand

• Interview: Bitfinex/Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino Weighs Speaks to Tether Expansion Plans in Latin America

• Blockware Estimates 10% Global Bitcoin Adoption By 2030: Report

• History Suggests Bitcoin Bottom Still Not In, Says Top Crypto Analyst – Here’s His Target

• Vitalik’s Wallet Receives 1 Million OP Tokens From Optimism Exploiter

• 🏛️ Is web3 becoming centralized?

• 💀 Chain exploits keep coming

• 👀 Under the Radar

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🏛️ Is web3 becoming centralized?

During the past 24 months, we have seen a great amount of talent migrate from traditional finance to the coveted web3 world. We have also seen an enormous uptick in venture capital investment coming to the space and it does make us wonder, how can web3 deliver on its promise?

We are still early. We learned from the previous two technology waves, the arrival of the Internet followed by the ubiquity of mobile technology, that to start reaching the mass market and experience the world changes that certain technology can bring, we need to see 1 billion users. Today, there are less than 200 million Ethereum active addresses, not necessarily an exact measure of web3 users, but it gives us an idea. It will take 3-5 years to reach 1 billion at this rate.

Venture Capital has bet big on crypto start-ups in 2021, investing ~$30 billion globally as of late November across 1,278 deals (according to Pitchbook). The average day in 2021 saw blockchain-related startups raise $20 million, and the average seed raise has risen from $1.5M in 2020 to $3.3M.

The amount of money coming to web3 is exponentially increasing every day, but it is still small compared to the investments allocated to other industries. Total VC invested in 2021 was ~$650.

Thus far this year, investors have poured more than $3.8 billion into startups in the space in 196 deals—surpassing even last year’s record pace.

Supporters say Web3 would increase transparency and accessibility, and make the internet open to more innovative technologies. Others—such as Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey—say Web3 already has become centralized and owned, not by big tech, but venture capital.

Venture capitalists are voting with their wallets on a future where everyone (including IoT devices) is living in an interconnected metaverse, where every digital asset (basically every item in the metaverse) is traded as NFTs, and wallets hold everyone’s information, token and crypto balances, history, and a trail of all our activities.

Social media conglomerates became unthinkably wealthy in Web2 by monetizing all of our data and information, without giving creators and users a single penny. One of the promises of web3 is that decentralization will empower creators and users allowing them to own their data and creations and monetize them.

With all this venture capital coming into the space it does makes you wonder how decentralized is web3 becoming?

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“We’re at an inflection point that will lead into an even faster pace of innovation and growth in Web3,” said Ali Yahya, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a Venture capital firm also known as a16z, that announced recently that it plans a new $4.5 billion fundraising round to support startup projects related to blockchain and Web3 technology.

💀 Chain exploits keep coming

Besides the threat of investors attempting to monopolize the web3 making it more centralized. Another big concern is the security side of it.

This week we hear of yet another exploit. “The Ronin Bridge that connects Axie Infinity’s Ronin sidechain to Ethereum has been drained of 173,600 ETH ($590M) and 25.5M USDC in what may be DeFi’s biggest exploit yet.” (thedefiant.io)

Sidechains are independent blockchains that are compatible with and run in parallel to Ethereum. They have their consensus mechanisms and connect to Ethereum via two-way bridges through which supported crypto-assets can be transferred. Ronin utilizes a Proof-of-Authority consensus algorithm, in which validators stake their reputations instead of their tokens.

“Move fast and break things,” the quote reads, but when investors are losing millions due to the neck-breaking speed that this technology is growing, it can be worrisome and it may compromise its credibility.

Courtesy of Chainalysis

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👀 Under the Radar

• Orca (ORCA) - Orca is the most user-friendly DEX on Solana. One of the first general-purpose AMMs launched on Solana. Users can swap assets, provide liquidity, and earn yield through an easy-to-use interface. Projects can use Orca as a money-lego to easily integrate swapping, farming, or on-chain data into their dApp.

• Gene (GENE) - A Free-to-Play, Move-to-Earn NFT game on Solana makes it fun and profitable to live an active lifestyle. Genopets combines user'’ step data from their mobile device and wearables with blockchain Play-to-Earn economics so players can earn crypto for taking action in real life as they explore the Genoverse evolving and battling their Genopet.

• Zilliqa (ZIL) - Token developed in the year 2017. Zilliqa is mainly based on the concept of Sharding and primarily aims at improving the scalability of the cryptocurrency networks as in the case of Bitcoin or Ethereum. The white paper mentions that the transactions speed would be approximately a thousand times more than that of the Ethereum network. Ziliqa is fast, secured, and decentralized. Zilliqa’s high throughput means that you can focus on developing your ideas without worrying about network congestion, high transaction fees, or security which are the key issues with legacy blockchain platforms.

• Lido Staked Ether (STETH) - Token that represents your staked ether in Lido, combining the value of the initial deposit and staking rewards. stETH tokens are minted upon deposit and burned when redeemed. stETH token balances are pegged 1:1 to the ethers that are staked by Lido and the token’s balances are updated daily to reflect earnings and rewards. stETH tokens can be used as one would use ether, allowing you to earn ETH 2.0 staking rewards whilst benefiting from e.g. yields across decentralized finance products.

• Frax Share (FXS) - Frax is the world’s first fractional-algorithmic stablecoin. The Frax Protocol introduced the world to the concept of a cryptocurrency being partially backed by collateral and partially stabilized algorithmically.

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• Can Ethereum’s proof-of-stake transition save the planet?

• Crypto Billionaire Do Kwon Says Terra (LUNA) Plans on Being Biggest Bitcoin Holder in World, Other Than Satoshi

• Don’t Help Russia, Or Else… Treasury Official Says US Will ‘Come And Find You’

• Washington state passes bill aiming to expand local blockchain adoption

• LayerZero raises $135 million from Sequoia Capital, a16z, and FTX Ventures

• Crypto ownership among Norwegian women doubles, mirroring global trends

• Quantum computers are many years away from cracking crypto: MIT Tech Review

• Metapolis’ Zilliqa surges 80% over 24 hours, outpacing Solana’s OpenSea integration

• Lionel Messi Signs a $20M Deal to Become the Global Ambassador of Socios

• 😕 Can web3 be fully definable?

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😕 Can web3 be fully definable?

According to Web2, Web3 is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web based on blockchain technology, which incorporate concepts such as decentralization and token-based economics. The term "Web3" was coined in 2014 by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, and the idea gained interest in 2021 from cryptocurrency enthusiasts, large technology companies, and venture capital firms. (Source)

The term “web3” has been re-defined, re-interpreted, used and abused for the past few years adding to the confusion of what it really means. In December of last year, Elon Musk tweeted “I’m not suggesting web3 is real – seems more marketing buzzword than reality right now – just wondering what the future will be like in 10, 20 or 30 years. 2051 sounds crazy futuristic!”

Elon Musk @elonmusk

I’m not suggesting web3 is real – seems more marketing buzzword than reality right now – just wondering what the future will be like in 10, 20 or 30 years. 2051 sounds crazy futuristic!

December 20th 2021

2,688 Retweets43,332 Likes

It has indeed been used as a marketing tool and for profit-sake by companies who do not fully understand it. But in reality who truly does? What we can attempt to do, is dissect it, simplify it, and find its potential paths.

Like any technology or innovation, it is impossible to predict exactly where will it be in 5, 10, 20 years especially because there are many variables that may change its course.

In Web1 there were few content creators of static pages and many readers, web2 allowed the proliferation of content creators, and worldwide internet access led to the multiplication of readers who also shared content using centralized platforms. Web3 allows everyone to create, own, and monetize their content by empowering network-states.

SOURCE: GEEKSFORGEEKS

The way we interact and access our digital worlds is also changing quite rapidly. For web3 (for lack of a better term), a digital wallet stores not only our coins and tokens, but identifications, resumes (which is becoming and obsolete word), and network memberships and personal information among other things.

WΞ₿3 Capital @Web3Capital

🏆 #web3 🤭

January 4th 2022

1,092 Retweets4,172 Likes

Our digital wallets give us access to DeFi platforms, DAOs, platforms where we can supply our expertise or hire experts, in the near future we will be able to buy goods and services with our digital wallets like plane tickets and experiences. These wallets will store our medical and dental records, NFTs, titles, car keys, investment portfolios, access to video game platforms, and any other government and personal records. Basically our entire life can be stored there if desired.

Additionally, Web3 can process information like humans thanks to AI that provides continuos learning. In the decentralized Web 3.0 environment, content can be accessed by anyone and all devices are interconnected, which also means IoT devices can learn from content created by humans and viceversa.

Source - SSI Ambassador

Although we have only just begun to explore the potential of Web 3.0 applications, their ability to upset the status-quo is undeniable (source). Industries are quickly changing the way they operate and monetize their services and products. Middle-man are disappearing faster than ever if unable to pivot and adjust to web environments, careers and industrial-age like jobs are rapidly evolving. The explorations are just starting, but the changes seem to be never-ending, hence web3 may not be not completely definable.

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👀 Under the Radar

ApeCoin - Decentralized project inspired by Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club

project. ApeCoin was founded to be used within the burgeoning APE Ecosystem, which is supported by the APE Foundation. The ApeCoin DAO aims to build and maintain the APE Ecosystem in a fair and inclusive way, providing an infrastructure for ApeCoin holders to collaborate through open and permissionless governance processes.

Mina - A minimal “succinct blockchain” built to curtail computational requirements in order to run DApps more efficiently. Mina has been described as the world’s lightest blockchain since its size is designed to remain constant despite growth in usage. Furthermore, it remains balanced in terms of security and decentralization. The project was rebranded from Coda Protocol to Mina in October 2020.

The Sandbox - Back under the radar after they have partnered with behemoth HSBC To Conquer the Esports and Gaming Metaverse. HSBC to acquire a digital plot of land on SAND’s platform and will then develop digital real estate and use it to engage and connect with sports, esports and gaming enthusiasts in the decentralized metaverse.

Heaven Protocol - Similar to an offshore bank where users can create private tokens that represent stable and volatile assets, including commodities and fiat currencies (such as USD). Based on Monero, which focuses on secure, private and untraceable transactions. The features of Monero extend to the Haven protocol, including the bulletproofs and other privacy tech. The base currency of Haven is the XHV, which is burnt to provide users with private, untraceable, synthetic assets and commodities called xAssets.

Lido DAO Token - Lido is a liquid staking solution for Ethereum, Solana, Kusama, Terra, and Polygon. Lido lets users stake with no minimum deposits or maintaining of infrastructure whilst participating in on-chain activities, e.g. lending, to compound returns. LDO is the native utility token that is used for:

• Granting governance rights in the Lido DAO.

• Managing fee parameters and distribution.

• Governing the addition and removal of Lido node operators.

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• Coinbase Adds Solana Tokens to Self-Custody Wallet in Non-EVM

• Ethereum Whale Snaps Up $6 Million Worth Of SHIB As Accumulation Trend Continues

• Ethereum Spikes Above $2,700 After Fed Announcement, What Now?

• ​​3 factors that could be starting a long-awaited Bitcoin stabilization – CME Group insights

• How blockchain intelligence can prevent Russia from evading sanctions

• Ethereum scaling startup Optimism raises $150 million at $1.65 billion valuation

• Billionaire ‘Bond King’ Jeffery Gundlach Picks Bitcoin Over Gold Due To This Key Reason

• India Shoots Down Cryptocurrency; Will Launch CBDC Instead

• The Sandbox (SAND) Partners With Banking Behemoth HSBC To Conquer the Esports and Gaming Metaverse

• Bored Ape NFT volumes spike after ApeCoin launch

• 🕊️ Is the SWIFT payment system bound to end?

• ⛔ Russian invasion of Ukraine????? Not really…

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🕊️ Is the SWIFT payment system bound to end?

SWIFT, which stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is a platform for facilitating money transfers that is integrated into banking systems worldwide.

We have been hearing a lot about it lately as over the past few days, the United States, EU and its allies have frozen hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian assets that are held by their own financial institutions, removed Russian banks from SWIFT, and made many types of foreign investment in the country exceedingly difficult, if not impossible.

For Russia, one of the alternatives is the Yuan payment system. This system is known as CIPS, a payment system which is barely used by 672 indirect and 76 direct participants, including some Russian institutions. Meanwhile the 50-year-old Belgium-based SWIFT is used by more than 11,000 companies and organizations around the world.

As Russia is cut off from the Swift system, the reliance on China to circumvent sanctions is growing substantially. It will also be interesting to see if trading to China from the rest of the world increases as it becomes a bridge for Russian goods and services in and out of the country which will undermine the sanctions impose on Russia.

Crypto is playing a major financial role during this invasion. The Ukrainian government has collected more than $42 million in cryptocurrency donations as of March 3rd, including a limited edition NFT worth roughly $200,000, according to Crypto analytics company Elliptic. The challenge is how the country cashes in on these assets to fund its war needs. (WP)

The Ukrainian government has been able to convert some of the crypto donations to the local currency and use it to purchase drones, gasoline, and other much needed goods. Proponents argue that cryptocurrency has enabled Ukraine to raise money without the restrictions imposed by government bureaucracy or centralized Silicon Valley tech platforms, and that, the crypto economy is not large enough for Russia to completely sidestep the sanctions imposed.

Additionally, there is the UkraineDAO, a decentralized collective raising funds to address the humanitarian crisis unfolding in eastern Europe. It has collected more than $7M in five days. The DAO has released an NFT (image below) backed by Pussy Riot members, and the funds will be used to support non-profits and Ukrainians struggling to endure the Russian invasion, which is now entering its second week.

Ukraine NFT

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As this invasion develops we cant help but ask ourselves, what would the ideal global payment look like?

SWIFT revolutionized international payments, but it’s long overdue an upgrade. Thankfully, fintechs are stepping up and evolving the world of payments. 

Potential Innovative technological:

• Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system, currency exchange and remittance network created by Ripple Labs Inc., The company uses XRP as the ledgers native cryptocurrency which transactions are verified using a unique consensus protocol in which validators compare potential transactions to the most recent version of the XRP Ledger. On December 22, 2020, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs and two of its executives. The claim is that they traded $1.3 billion in their cryptocurrency XRP as a security without registering it with the SEC. Ripple and other parties have since countered with claims that the SEC is biased in its assessment. The ruling will determine the future of Ripple, but expect to see many similar chains in the near future.

• Six Clovers, is a fintech founded by the former PayPal team members with backing from Borderless Capital and BCW Group. The new system is designed to allow organizations to perform true real-time payments via stablecoins. Six Clovers will leverage the Algorand (ALGO) blockchain to allow for transparent and cheaper payments. The goal of the network is to meet the demand for SWIFT protocol for cross-border payments from institutions and businesses.

• CIPS or the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, seen as the Chinese equivalent of the globally-used SWIFT, has become a buzz word in the domestic capital market and related industries. Shares of Chinese CIPS-related firms, covering payment, finance and tech industries, surged 20 to 30 percent in trading over the past two days, following a Western move to ban certain Russian banks from SWIFT. This follows Putin's decision to attack Ukraine.

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⛔ Russian invasion of Ukraine????? Not really…

This is not the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine as many mainstream and traditional media outlets are leading us to think.

This is Putin invasion of Ukraine. There are hundreds of thousands of Russians living in and/or out of Russia who are completely appalled by this invasion and ferociously voicing their anger. (See video below).

For example, as we described above, Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist protest punk rock and performance art group based in Moscow. They just raised over $7M to aid Ukrainians and many other Russians are assisting the innocent citizens of Ukraine and those affected in Russia as well.

Leave a comment

👀 Under the Radar

• Waves is a multi-purpose blockchain platform which supports various use cases including decentralized applications (DApps) and smart contracts. Initially was set out to improve on the first blockchain platforms by increasing speed, utility and user-friendliness. Waves is synonymous with its founder, Ukrainian-born scientist Alexander Ivanov (also known as Sasha Ivanov).

• Blaize is a blockchain software development company based in Dnipro, Ukraine. The company, founded in 2016, has a team of more than 25 specialists who provide, among others, blockchain, custom software development, and mobile app development services to small and midmarket companies.

• 4ire Labs is a blockchain and app development company located in New York City, with an additional office in Kiev, Ukraine. Founded in 2010, 4ire Labs' team of around 35 employees specializes in mobile app development, UI/UX design, and custom blockchain development. 4ire Labs primarily works with small businesses in the consumer products, media, and retail industries. A genomics research facilitator hired 4ire Labs to help construct a demo that was to be built on NEAR Protocol. The goal was to demonstrate the fundamentals of genetic file sharing using blockchain tech.

• Inn4Science is a blockchain development company headquartered in Las Vegas, with an office in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Founded in 2016, the team of 49 specializes in blockchain, web development, and custom software development. They primarily work with midmarket clients, mainly in the business services, financial services, and marketing industries.

• Unicsoft is a blockchain and artificial intelligence development company headquartered in Kyiv. Founded in 2005, the team of 120 experts specializes in blockchain, AI, big data, predictive analytics, cryptocurrency solutions, custom software development, web, and mobile development. They provide fully-managed and dedicated team services primarily in the supply chain and fintech industries.

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• ‘Crack Down’ on Crypto? Maybe, but You Can’t Ban Math

• The SEC is considering crypto recommendations for its custody rule

• Playing Politics? EU Adds Crypto to Russia Sanctions, But How

• Polygon (MATIC) Creates Long-Term Bullish Pattern After Recent Low of $1.24

• ConsenSys lawsuit reveals JPMorgan owns critical Ethereum infrastructure

• Ethereum's MetaMask Wallet and Infura Cut Off Users in 'Certain' Sanctioned Countries

• DeVere Group CEO: The Russia-Ukraine War Can Push Bitcoin to $50K Soon

• Chicago Mercantile Exchange To Offer New Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) Options Trading

• 💣 What industry will NFTs disrupt the most?

• 🎹 Music Royalties via NFTs

• 🧩 Fractional Ownership

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This week Nas, one of the most prolific lyricist and successful artists in the music industry, sold his firs first digital music royalty drop in seconds on Royal. The demand was so overwhelming that their site crashed minutes after the drop.

Is music the industry that will be the most disrupted by NFTs? What about the movie industry? Publishing? Real Estate? the list goes on and there may be many industries that will be shaken thanks to this technology.

What is an NFT"?

Personally I define it as “A way to digitally register ownership of an Asset.” It used to be a form of registration for digital assets, but now physical assets can be register and traded as NFTs just as well.

🎹 Music Royalties via NFTs

royal @join_royal

This is too good. The royal fam is ready, prepping for the drop today in their own ways.  See if you can find @Nas before everyone else. Made by @tsuvenirs

January 20th 2022

32 Retweets182 Likes

Nas just sold royalty rights to two of his songs (‘Ultra Black’ and ‘Rare’) as NFTs.

Royal – a song ownership platform that Nas invested in last year, alongside other musicians, made 760 tokens available for ‘Ultra Black’, the lead single to Nas’ 2021 Grammy award winning-album ‘King’s Disease’.

Three tiers of tokens were made available, offering different levels of ownership.

• ‘Ultra Black’ song tiers: Gold: 0.0143% streaming royalty ownership for $50 Platinum: 0.0857% streaming royalty ownership for $250 Diamond: 2.14% streaming royalty ownership for $4999

• ‘Rare’ song tiers: Gold: 0.0113% streaming royalty ownership for $99 Platinum: 0.0658% streaming royalty ownership for $499 Diamond: 1.5789% streaming royalty ownership for $9999

“There is a huge opportunity to revolutionize the music industry,” said Royal. “We believe shifting power to artists and democratizing ownership is a powerful step.” (NME.com)

This is indeed a great opportunity for creators to get funding for their projects via NFTs and to create another stream of direct income. Additionally, this is an amazing grassroots strategy to communicate directly with their fan base and recruit an organic marketing team. “NFT owners under a revenue share model will make money the more your art sells.”

🧩 Fractional Ownership

Any industry that can benefit from fractional ownership can be quickly disrupted by NFTs. Real estate could be transformed with the proper use of tokens and smart contracts. Currently, you have to buy an entire apartment or house to reap the benefits of real estate ownership. NFTs can allow fractional ownership of any real estate asset by selling tokens programmed under a smart contract that dictates the owner’s responsibilities, revenue share, and how the token (NFT) can be sold in the future if the owner desires to cash out. I can own 5%, or any percentage, of a property and have that percentage written on my NFT smart contract dictating my revenue percentage and my duties as an owner of X%.

As we have seen, the world of Art has been rapidly changing due to NFTs. Not long ago, it was unthinkable to own a Picasso or any extremely expensive piece of art. Today, I can own a percentage of any art piece, hold it for it to appreciate, and re-sell it in the secondary market for a profit if / when I wish. I may also have voting rights written into my token’s smart contract which will allow me to be part of the decision making process of that particular piece of art.

2022 will be the year when we witness businesses of all sizes jump into the NFT action to bring extra revenue and get rid of the middle-man. NFTs will also allow enterprises to connect directly with their audience and audiences will be able reap the benefits of exclusive rights, access, and/or content.

NFTs unlock more value for creators by greatly increasing their opportunity to offer a product or service in a quick, transparent, and decentralized way. Here are more ways that NFTs can unlock value: (cyberscrilla)

1. Raise capital

2. Increase your exposure

3. Provide more value to your consumers

4. Grow your brand

5. Do it all remotely

6. Transact transparently

7. Enjoy peer-to-peer transactions

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👀 Under the Radar

• Yield Guild Games (YGG) - Decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that invests in virtual world non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The organization’s objective is to develop the world’s largest virtual economy, optimize its assets to maximize utility and share revenues with its stakeholders.

• ENVELOP (NIFTSY) - Cross-chain tool set able to give any NFT new functionality (economic set-up, on-chain royalties, rental mechanism, time/value/event-locks), protection of devaluation and anti-fraud system. Now easily implemented in GameFi, Marketplaces, Art, Metaverse and NFT-rentals. Their aim is cross-chain tokenization of payment channels (rollups) to intensify unused liquidity.

• Efinity (EFI) - Developed by Enjin which pioneered the NFT industry in 2017. Efinity is the world’s cross-chain NFT blockchain. Powered by the deflationary EFI Token, the network is environmentally friendly, scalable, and built for games, apps, enterprises and creators to deliver their own non-fungible tokens to mainstream audiences. Built on Polkadot.

• Gamefi (GAFI) - All-encompassing hub and one-stop shop for game finance, serving game studios, players, traders, and investors. Will bring the gaming community the promising blockchain game initiatives developed on the BSC and Polygon networks, which host most of the top-rated play-to-earn titles. Simultaneously, GameFi is the first marketplace to enable cross-games trading of in-game items and NFTs.

• 🗳️ Can crypto become ilegal like gold once was?

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🗳️ Can crypto be ilegal like gold once was?

On April 3rd, 1933. This bill was signed into order

Executive Order 6102 required all persons to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, all but a small amount of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve in exchange for $20.67 (equivalent to $413 in 2020) per troy ounce.

US President Franklin D. Roosevelt " made ilegal the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States." The executive order was made under the authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, as amended by the Emergency Banking Act in March 1933.

The limitation on gold ownership in the United States was repealed after President Gerald Ford signed a bill legalizing private ownership of gold coins, bars, and certificates by an Act of Congress, which went into effect December 31, 1974. (Wikipedia)

Today, many investors ask themselves if the Federal government can make cryptocurrencies illegal just like Gold was in 1933. Currently, this technology is very advanced and global to think that any government can fully prohibit the ownership of it. China has been grappling with their crypto ban losing their profitable mining industry to neighboring countries and the US in the process. Today, citizens of any nation can relocate and work from anywhere in the world as long as there is an internet connection. Additionally, we are witnessing more and more democracies not only adopt crypto, but add it to the balance sheet or accept it as a legal tender.

On Janueary 12th, Congressman Tom Emmer introduced a bill prohibiting the Fed from issuing a cbdc directly to individuals.

“Any CBDC implemented by the Fed must be open, permissionless, and private.” - “As other countries, like China, develop CBDCs that fundamentally omit the benefits and protections of cash, it is more important than ever to ensure the United States’ digital currency policy protects financial privacy, maintains the dollar’s dominance, and cultivates innovation. CBDCs that fail to adhere to these three basic principles could enable an entity like the Federal Reserve to mobilize itself into a retail bank, collect personally identifiable information on users, and track their transactions indefinitely,” Emmer said.

Tom Emmer @RepTomEmmer

Today, I introduced a bill prohibiting the Fed from issuing a central bank digital currency directly to individuals. Here’s why it matters:

January 12th 2022

4,890 Retweets18,607 Likes

This proves that many pro-crypto politicians are willing to voice their opinion and introduce bills to protect the citizens rights to use the crypto of their choice. There is much more to this, but at least we can rest assured that members of congress are understanding how vital permissionless and open financial tools are for countries and how this technological innovation needs to be cultivated and not killed.

👕 Mind The gap

The largest clothing retailer in the US and 3rd in the world is following the steps of companies like Adidas, Dolce & Gabbana, and Louis Vuitton, the retail giant has officially launched non-fungible tokens of its classic hoodie, marking its first venture into the NFT business. The move introduces Gap’s gamified digital experience in which customers are encouraged to purchase a range of limited-edition sweatshirts designed by Brandon Sines—the creator of Frank Ape. 

Gap’s NFTs, which were built on the Tezos blockchain, will be available in four different categories. The first and most accessible level is “Common,” followed by “Rare,” then “Epic,” and finally, “One of a Kind.”

It cant get more mainstream for NFTs than this, it all seems to indicate that every company will laungh an NFT of some sort before 2022 is over.

📉 Crypto Prices

Bitcoin hit the all-time high of $69k on November 10th, 2021. Since then, we have seen a major drop and the largest cryptocurrency by market cap has been in a bear market for about 20 days now. Finally we start to see some light. After dropping to sub $40k levels at the start of 2022, BTC is gaining ground increasing over 3% the past 7 days. Technical indicators show some strength pointing that the next resistance is at $48,500. If the right regulations are in place we will see a flush of cash come into the crypto space from institutional investors, central banks, and nation-states. Additionally, “Fidelity Digital Assets said in its annual report that the “massive “ Bitcoin accumulation by Bitcoin miners suggests that the Bitcoin cycle is far from over.” Last year was definitely the year of mainstream adoption for cryptocurrencies. Many new and not so new protocols are gaining recognition, providing great technological innovations and solutions and being funded at record amounts.

Top 20 crypt returns in 2021

The bears seem to be in control of Ethereum making the second largest cryptocurrency more volatile than we have previously seen. Ethereum, despite its high gas fees, limited transactions per second, and increase competition, continues to be bedrock of DeFi, NFTs and web3. There are more projects on Ehtereum than in Solana, Cardano, and Polkadot combined, and even though these competitors are gorwing quite rapidly, there is still a long road ahead of them to catch up with the king.

Growth of Ehtereum and Ethereum killers in 2021.

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👀 Under the Radar

• Hedera (HBAR) - The most used, sustainable, enterprise-grade public network for the decentralized economy that allows individuals and businesses to create powerful decentralized applications (DApps). The HBAR token powers Hedera services (smart contracts, file storage) and its staking services helps secure the network.

• Kusama (KSM) - Self-described as "Polkadot's wild cousin (same codebase)." Experimental blockchain platform that is designed to provide a massively interoperable and scalable framework for developers. Kusama benefits from a low barrier to entry for deploying parachains, low bond requirements for validators and used by startups who end up sticking with it.

• Tezos (XTZ) - A blockchain network that’s based on smart contracts. Tezos aims to offer infrastructure that is more advanced — meaning it can evolve and improve over time without there ever being a danger of a hard fork. This is something that both Bitcoin and Ethereum have suffered since they were created. People who hold XTZ can vote on proposals for protocol upgrades that have been put forward by Tezos developers.

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📰 ICYM

• Bitcoin prices bounce after resistance rejection

• Crypto exchanges contemplating foray into stocks

• NFT sales and blockchain games continue to grow despite the recent market slump

• Bitcoin loses momentum, why $40k is a key level

• US Lawmakers Schedule Hearing To Probe Energy Impact of Crypto

• FTX Launches $2B Venture Fund

• Dogecoin Jumps 27% To Break $0.20 Following Tesla Adoption

• 🙏 We are just Getting Started. Thank YOU!!!

• 🐂 Will the bulls come out in 2022?

• 👍 Our top 2021 Stories

• 👀 Under the Radar

• 📰 ICYM

• 👊 Sponsors

• 💸 Coupons

🙏 We are just Getting Started. Thank YOU!!!

This is our last newsletter of 2021 and we could not be more grateful for this great community of readers and our team. In a sea of information and content, our goal is to curate the most important and impactful stories in the crypto and web3 world, curate them, and make them easier to understand and digest.

We will continue to bring you the top protocols and coins of the week in our “👀 Under the Radar” section, share the top stories of the week under “📰 ICYM (In Case You Missed it)” and continue playing with different sections and categories to help you achieve the best decisions possible to improve your crypto portfolio while connecting the dots to make sure we help you understand this world without having to read hundreds of confusing stories.

If you or anyone you may know would like to collaborate with us by writing articles, sponsoring our newsletter, and or assisting in any other way shape or form. Please contact us via email. We are always looking forward to work with more talented individuals and learn as a group.

🐂 Will the bulls come out in 2022?

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of crypto for 2022 is regulation. Governments worldwide is very concerned about the rapid growth and use of stablecoins. There are more than 200 stablecoins, worth nearly $130 billion — a six-fold increase from a year ago. We will definitely see regulators attempting to control who issues these coins, the amount circulating, and who is using them for what purposes, among other monitoring...

The US government is also looking for ways to tax crypto transactions. The purchase and sale of crypto may be straight forward to tax, but protocols like DeFi are a bit more complicated and muddy, as users can jump from token to token and use different platforms prior to returning to a fiat currency to show a profit-or-loss. Even the government can not find a straight forward way to tax this transaction, do not be surprised if these apps or platforms are required to turn in all transactions for regulators to review. mmmhhh Subpoenas???

Comprehensive regulation may be positive as Institutional Investors will feel more comfortable to invest and launch crypto products for the masses to use. This can lead to the growth and appreciation of the industry, but draconian regulation may strangle innovation technology.

Next year may be the year when we see many countries opening up to crypto. Today, Europe leads the pack in terms of DeFi deposits, we saw president Mr. Bukele lead El Salvador to become the first economy to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender. China put the locks on crypto in 2021 by making it completely illegal to trade and mine crypto, benefiting neighboring nations and Texas where many miners relocated to.

India is number #1 when it comes to on-chain retail DeFi value received and their leaders are still undecided on how to police and regulate this technology. This country, with almost 1.4 billion inhabitants who are very tech oriented, can have a great impact in the industry if regulators understand how to regulate it.

Global Crypto Adoption (top 20) 2021 - by Chainalysis.

No one really knows what 2022 awaits, but we can be sure that growth and adoption will continue to rise. And yes, the Bulls will come out sooner or later during 2022…

👍 Our top 2021 Stories (no particular order):

• 🚀 The rise of the Decentralized Social Sites

• 👊 Every Company will be a Crypto-Company

• 🥺 Is “Moonvember” coming this year?

• 👨‍🚀 Will the Metaverse have more Bad Actors?

• 👎 What was the worst in 2021?

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👀 Under the Radar

• Leonidas Token - Their vision is to have a platform people use to send NFT greeting cards to their loved ones. The first shot at getting the dinosaurs onboard. Many others may follow into this undustry.

• SolChicks Token - SolChicks is the fastest growing and largest play-to-earn multiplayer role-playing game (MMORPG) game in the Solana ecosystem. Some think SolChicks is the Axie Infinity killer. Ranked as the #1 play-to-earn game on Solana and has amassed a social community across Twitter, Discord, and Telegram of over 600,000 people within just 3 months since initial launch on the 3rd of September 2021. The SolChicks playable demo has been played by over 70,000+ people and SolChicks held a world-record IDO on 35 launchpads simultaneously on the 26th of November 2021.

• Chiliz - The leading digital currency for sports and entertainment by the eponymous Malta-based FinTech provider. It operates the blockchain-based sports entertainment platform Socios, which enables users to participate in the governance of their favorite sports brands. Multiple fan tokens by Socios.com are an example of that. For sports clubs and associations, fan tokens offer a way of connecting with their fans and unlocking new revenue streams.

• Syscoin - A full Layer-1 and Layer-2 blockchain solution built to combine industry-proven technology to support cutting-edge applications all in one network. The project's goal is to build a protocol that transforms the blockchain experience and combines the best of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Through Bitcoin merge-mining, Syscoin transforms Bitcoin's Proof-of-Work security and decentralization into a functional and scalable solution.

• Torum - A SocialFi Metaverse ecosystem designed for cryptocurrency users and projects. The Web 3.0 ecosystem is built on a social media platform at its core, coupled with a yield farming hub for DeFi players, an NFT marketplace for crypto artists and Avatar NFT for Metaverse enthusiasts. Launched on the 1st of July 2020, Torum is now home to cryptocurrency enthusiasts from every corner of the world, including the US, Canada, Switzerland, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Singapore and Australia.

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📰 ICYM

• Visa Has More Than 60 Partnerships With Crypto Platforms

• DAO aims to raise $5M to resurrect Blockbuster Video

• Crypto in Asia: 5 top fintech regulatory stories of 2021

• DapperLabs’ NFL Moments will bring a new audience to NFTs

• Ethereum Flipping Bitcoin Will Happen ‘For Sure,’

• The Bitcoin price and looking to the Future

• BITCOIN IS STRUGGLING TO HOLD ITS 200-DAY MA

• 🍛 Can Blockchain make our Food better?

• 👀 Under the Radar

• 📰 ICYM

• 👊 Sponsors

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🍛 Can Blockchain make our Food better?

By Charles Wekselbaum. - charlitoscoina.com

Truth be told, I didn’t pay much attention to blockchain technology/the crypto world when I first heard about back around 2016. Not that I was skeptical or didn’t believe in it, or anything like that. I was simply too wrapped up in my own world, too micro focused on what I was doing, which was, and remains, running a specialty food manufacturing and distribution business. In retrospect, I should have paid more attention. But that’s neither here nor there.

The important part is I’ve realized that, even if it’s hard to pay attention to- perhaps because it’s overly complicated, changing too quickly, too hard to understand, too seemingly inaccessible, etc. etc -it is worth it. For many reasons. In my case though, I can speak specifically on how blockchain technology and cryptocurrency has the potential to make the food industry more transparent and more democratic.

Let’s start with transparency. Blockchain technology has enabled the possibility for every food product to be fully traceable through every step of the supply chain – from the seeds of the raw materials, to production, to distribution – on an immutable “chain” of “blocks,” which is to say, a stream of data that can’t be manipulated. It offers the potential for the most detailed access to information about the food we eat, in a way the mitigates the risk of producers lying to the public about claims pertaining to the food. It is, in essence, better and verifiable information coupled with checks balances.

From Dreamziot - Transforming food supply chain with Blockchain and IoT

This is a far cry from what exists today, which is, essentially, taking words expressed on a label or a social media page, at face value, with nothing actually supporting the value of those words except a seemingly baseless proclivity to trust those words, and a relatively anonymous force behind them (i.e. how often do people actually try to verify who writes claims on a label, and if they are true?). Consumers are more inclined to trust attractive packaging and well produced content to inform their purchases, likely because the access to verifiable information that educates a person as to what they are actually buying Blockchain technology can change this. With a simple scan of a QR code on a food product, the entire life cycle of that product becomes visible, accessible, verifiable, and unchangeable in an instant.

Speaking of a baseless proclivity to trust words on a piece of paper, cryptocurrencies such as BTC, ETH, etc. etc. have the potential to disrupt the currently deeply inequitable dissemination of money in the food world. Contrary to the main source of currency in the food industry (i.e. fiat currencies), which are based on little other than trust in a central government, cryptocurrencies are based on verifiable information that cannot be manipulated by any one party. This brittleness has helped fuel an industry that has one of the highest rates of economic disparity, insecurity, and volatility in the world.

The people who make, pick, sell, and transport the food that we all rely on every day are some of the most poorly compensated people in the entire work force. To add insult to injury, by limiting monetary compensation to fiat currencies, those who make It possible for food to appear on our plates are forced to participate in a system in which they have little to no say, inadvertently exposing a vulnerable workforce to a set of regulations that make it nearly impossible to earn a little.

This applies to business and worker alike. It is an industry that tries to convince its workers that a $15 minimum wage in a currency whose value either stays flat or decreases, is a thing to celebrate and accept as adequate, all the while offering little sustainable path to financial security. To help mitigate the difficulty in making a living being paid what most food workers earn, many small businesses and employees resort to transacting salary in cash, a practice that, while sometimes marginally more useful than “on the books,” increases the likelihood of marginalization by reducing access to benefits. Cryptocurrency offers an alternative to participating in a system in which the socioeconomic status of most food workers precludes thriving in, a system that being paid “market rate” usually means living close to the poverty line. Crypto offers a more viable road to economic security than fiat, as it removes the power of currency control out of the hands of a select few who are largely immune from effective oversight, and into the hands of a neutral ledger than is far less easily manipulated, has superior growth potential, and comes with far fewer burdens.

The objective of the perfect food supply Chain system

• Traceable

• Maintain safety and quality of food products

• Adequate communication between all involved parties

• Minimizing supply chain cost to make food affordable

• Track and control inventory in warehouses and stores

Ultimately, one of the most difficult parts of seeing the potential for cryptocurrency and blockchain to vastly improve the food system, one needs to suspend much of the financial and infrastructural framework that we have all been indoctrinated in, in order to make space for a vastly different perspective. As the saying goes, “old habits die hard.” But without making a concerted effort to step out of the deeply seeded familiarity of the current system, we would miss a major opportunity for improvement. And, if you don’t do it, someone else likely will.

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👀 Under the Radar

Osmosis (OSMO) - Osmosis is a decentralized peer-to-peer blockchain that people can use to create liquidity and trade IBC enabled tokens (Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC) allows independent blockchains to directly communicate and trade assets). The Osmosis blockchain is made up of free, public, and open-source software.

Alchemix (ALCX) - DeFi platform. Alchemix presents a new way of paying back debt. It uses the yield earned from the deposit to amortize the users’ debt. The longer you leave your deposit, the more yield you can earn and consequently have more of your loan paid back. 

ANYSwap (ANY) - Network that have entered the DeFi space to facilitate cross-token swaps and trading. An overwhelming majority of cryptocurrencies — 95% of them to be exact — have incorporated Anyswap, including the likes of XRP, Litecoin and Tether. Anyswap is able to better manage the flow of movement of tokens between blockchains. Powered by Fusion Network which uses a process known as private key sharding — where the private key is split up into several bits and managed by various network nodes — to guarantee assets are safe. The different parts of the private key are never combined during transfers or trading to boost security.

Smart contracts on Anyswap are open source, a factor which enhances security using individual audits.

The ANY token also enables holders the freedom to determine which coins are most appropriately suited to be listed on the Anyswap DEX, its decentralized exchange.

ApeNFT (NFT) - Core businesses of APENFT include: investing in top NFT platforms and artworks, incubating leading NFT artists to build a bridge between world-class artists and the NFT world.

It provides support to government agencies, universities, lawyers and industry elites in issuing policies that govern the healthy development of the industry.

Harmony (ONE) - Focusing on processing speed and validation, the Harmony mainnet aims to revolutionize block creation. By introducing the sharding process, the company reduced node validation times significantly. To ensure the protection of nodes and secure the validation process, nodes and validators are assigned and re-assigned in a randomized manner. It uses effective proof-of-stake (EPoS), this method allows simultaneous staking from hundreds of validators.

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📰 ICYM

• New York Mayor Makes Case for Buying Bitcoin Dip

• Bitcoin Crashes To $42k — 2 Factors to blame

• Opensea raises $300 Million, valued at $13 Billion

• Five coins that saw huge gains in 2021

• Crypto Crime Soared in 2021, But So Did Usage: Chainalysis

• What's Keeping $108.4 Billion Wealth Managers from Investing in Bitcoin

• Ethereum plunges 13%, down more than Bitcoin after Fed spooks crypto markets

• Congress is preparing an oversight hearing on Bitcoin mining's environmental impact

• ⛽ Is DeFi currently only for the 1%?

• 👀 Under the Radar

• 📰 ICYM

• 👊 Sponsors

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⛽ Is DeFi currently only for the 1%?

The purpose of DeFi (Decentralized Finance) is to provide a system by which financial products become available on a public decentralized blockchain network.

The goal is to allow anyone to participate and use these products to earn higher interest rates than in TradFi (traditional finance) while making financial services more democratic, “It's about empowering the customer.”

DeFi growth has exploded during the past year in dollar terms, the ecosystem appears to be driving the next generation of crypto innovations, having grown more than 20 times in 2021 alone.

The Total Value Locked (TLV) in DeFi platforms grew from around $47 Million in December 2020 to above $7.1 Billion in mid-November 2021. This growth has a lot to do with the appreciation of Ether, Ethereum’s token, which is the blockchain that houses close to 70% of all DeFi protocols.

These enormous growth did not come without a price tag. “Gas fees” the transaction fees that users pay to miners on a blockchain protocol to have their transaction included in the block have skyrocketed as the volume of transactions increased.

Gas can get expensive when the Ethereum network is experiencing a high volume of transactions. For each new block added to the Ethereum blockchain, there is limited space for how many transactions can be included. Due to supply and demand, miners are incentivized to accept transactions at higher gas fees, creating a bidding war that discriminates against small trade.

In the picture above, we can see that to swap tokens, users have to pay up to $161 dollars in gas fees. This does not make it very accessible to those who want to swap or stake small amounts. The graph below shows how gas prices have gone through the roof during the past months.

A few days ago, Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, released a document named the “End Game” in which he describes a plausible roadmap for the blockchain and outlines the things that would make a ‘big blockchain’ completely trustless and censorship-resistant. It basically encapsulates the promises of Etherum 2.0.

In a nutshell, the objetive of this second version of the Ethereum network, is to migrate from the present proof of work (POF) consensus to a proof of stake (POF) which will allow the protocol to increase the number of transactions per second, while lowering gas fees. Easier said than done, and we have been patiently waiting for this Ethereum-scaling solutions.

Are there any Options?

• Blockchains like Polygon (MATIC) seems to be thriving thanks to Ethereum's scalability issues and extremely high gas fees, but it has been inundated with security concerns, rising gas fees with increased traffic (not as high as ETH), and poor marketing amidst Ethereum's enormous popularity.

• Another major player in the space is Avalanche, which aims to conduct faster transactions with lower fees than Ethereum. Its token has more than double in price during the past three months with the idea that will take some of ETH market, but it’s not easy to compete with the reputation, prominence and capabilities of the largest blockchain available.

Thera many other chains in the space and many other potential protocols ready to take the crown away from Ethereum, while promising to solve the issues of scalability, gas fees, and security. But we are yet to see if they are able to do it prior to the Ethereum 2.0 launch.

In the mean time, it seems that DeFi it’s for the wealthy.

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👀 Under the Radar

• Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) - Tokenized version of Bitcoin (BTC) that runs on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. Compliant with ERC-20 — the basic compatibility standard of the Ethereum blockchain — allowing it to be fully integrated into the latter’s ecosystem of decentralized exchanges (DeFi).

• The Graph (GRT)- Indexing protocol for querying data for networks like Ethereum and IPFS (InterPlanetary File System is a protocol and peer-to-peer network for storing and sharing data in a distributed file system), powering many applications in both DeFi and the broader Web3 ecosystem. The Graph currently supports indexing data from Ethereum, IPFS and POA, with more networks coming soon.

• Compound (COMP) - lending protocol that allows users to earn interest on their cryptocurrencies by depositing them into one of several pools supported by the platform. When a user deposits tokens to a Compound pool, they receive cTokens in return. These cTokens represent the individual’s stake in the pool and can be used to redeem the underlying cryptocurrency initially deposited into the pool at any time.

• 1inch (1INCH) - Decentralized protocols whose synergy enables the most lucrative, fastest, and protected operations in the DeFi space. Is a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator solution that searches deals across multiple liquidity sources, offering users better rates than any individual exchange.

• Yearn Finance (YFI) - is an aggregator service for decentralized finance (DeFi) investors, using automation to allow them to maximize profits from yield farming. Its goal is to simplify the ever-expanding DeFi space for investors who are not technically minded or who wish to interact in a less committal manner than serious traders.

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📰 ICYM

• I'm a huge believer in crypto technology,’ says former US SEC chair

• Bitwise launches NFT-tracking index fund for accredited investors

• Billionaire Mogul Dalio On Why Bitcoin Is The Gold Of The Younger Generation

• Universities including Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, Oxford to form EduDAO to promote Web 3.0 innovations

• Bitcoin pushes for $50K! Is the downtrend finally over?

• a16z General Partner Kathryn Haun to Start Own Crypto Fund

• Bitcoin’s Lightning Network under surveillance by U.S. government agencies

• 🚀 Crypto Christmas

• 🗂️ Directory of the week

• 👀 Under the Radar

• 📰 News

• 🤯 NFT Madness

• 👊 Sponsors

• 💸 Coupons

🚀 Crypto Christmas

I clearly remember Christmas of 2017 when the value of Bitcoin soared from $4k to almost $20k in the last quarter of the year. I eagerly shared the news with family and friends, but really most of them could not grasp the potential of this new technology and did not understand the reason for the price appreciation of something without a center or product.

Today, four years later, after a massive market adoption and many innovations that have been revolutionizing the definition of “Money” and the way we interact with technology, many of my family members and friends are asking, what the h@#$ is happening in the industry?

"It is never too late to learn, and we will never know enough."

This Christmas can be very promising for the crypto industry, but as always, volatility can lead to a deflated period.

On October 18th, the SEC will have the decision to approve the “ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF,” a Bitcoin ETF that seeks to invest in future prices of the asset. If approved, it could unleash a very productive price hike for everyone involved in this world. And aside, there are 8 other Bitcoins ETFs waiting to be approved before the end of 2021.

• Historically, the last quarter of the year has been, with a few exceptions (2014, 2018, and 2019), the most lucrative:

  
  

• October- December 2020 Average: 39.2%

  
  

• October- December 2019 Average: -5.7%

  
  

• October- December 2018 Average: -10.8%

  
  

• October- December 2017 Average: 47.1%

  
  

• October- December 2016 Average: 16.97%

  
  

• October- December 2015 Average: 22.4%

  
  

• October- December 2014 Average: -1.1%

  
  

• October- December 2013 Average: 162.2%

Another data to consider for this last quarter of 2021, is the global adoption of this technology. For example, El Salvador has adopted Bitcoin as legal currency and the "lightning network" has made all kinds of immediate and secure transactions possible.

This, among many other things, can cause the value of cryptocurrencies to skyrocket and give us a lucrative Crypto Christmas.

🗂️ Directory of the week

• Rarity Tools - The True Value of NFTs

• In-depth explanation of Tokens - Deep explanation of What Tokens are

• Earn Crypto / Industry Jobs - Earn Crypto / Crypto Jobs

• CryptoPanic - Impact of the news and Social Media in crypto prices.

👀 Under the Radar

Kadena - Enables companies in all industries to transact and share data in an efficient and decentralized manner. Kadena technology aims to solve challenges such as speed, scalability and security.

Zilliqa - Public, permissionless blockchain that is designed to deliver high performance. Unlike the others this one uses fragmentation as a second layer scaling solution. It houses many decentralized applications, enables staking, and yield farming.

Dotmoovs - Remote digital peer-to-peer sports competition platform. They have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm that allows you to film tricks and sports movements from the application and share them. Players will monetize their skills by investing in $MOOV. They are creating the first and most exclusive NFT collection featuring everyone's favorite athletes.

KLEEKAI - Decentralized Community Transaction Network. It was launched by distributing 2% of the tokens among the holders. The coins will be burned to increase their value. KleeKai is owned by its fun and vibrant community, including its developers and team who bought $ KLEE on the open market.

NFTBooks (NFTBS) - is a token launched on June 7, 2021. NFTBS not only allows readers to read a book at the lowest cost, but also helps the authors profit from readership. NFTBS is created to bridge the gap between readers and authors while giving investors the opportunity to make a profit by buying and holding the token in their wallets; 2% of each purchase and sale is redistributed among the holders. NFTBS envisions transforming the world of book reading, making it more profitable and accessible to many people.

📰 News

• Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, does not to understand the Crypto market.

• Bitcoin rises in price after the news that its regulation will be delayed in the US.

• Cathie Wood and Ark Investment group sell 100k shares of Coinbase.

• Stripe returns to the industry by hiring a crypto team.

• The US takes over the Bitcoin mining business after regulations in China.

• Inflation in the United States is 5.4%, the highest in 13 years.

🤯 NFT Madness

• TikTok Launches NFTs

• Coinbase prepares a Market for NFTs

• FTX announces market for NFTs in Solana

• “World of Women” NFTs are a hit

• "Baby Ballers” Basketball player John Wall, has his own collection of NFTs

• 🚀 Every Company will be a Crypto-Company

• 🗂️ Directory of the week

• 👀 Under the Radar

• 📰 News

• 🤯 NFT Madness

• 👊 Sponsors

• 💸 Coupons

🚀 Every Company will be a Crypto-Company

We are witnessing a fascinating era where technology is disrupting every industry.

In less than a decade, we've seen everything from the launch of platforms like Uber and AirBnB that tore apart the taxi and hotel industry, to the launch of a Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF).

The speed and ubiquity of technology, as well as its artificial intelligence and independence, allows us to negotiate and communicate with any other person or business regardless of their physical location or language.

Cryptocurrencies have been playing a huge role in this global cyber merger by allowing instant payments around the clock and by giving way to the creation of new sub-economies and new capital.

As of today, Tesla has about 45k Bitcoins on its balance sheet, Microstrategy has more than 100k BTCs. Facebook is planning to launch a digital wallet called "Novi" against the opposition of several US senators. Twitter has plans to create a cryptocurrency mining hardware and already allows crypto donations on its platform. "Amazon Web Services" allows the creation of Ethereum-based blockchains. MasterCard has been investing in NFTs. Small businesses around the world are already accepting cryptocurrencies as a form of payment, investing in them, and using them as a hedge against inflation.

At this moment many businesses are wondering how they can use this technology to grow their business and improve their financial future. As technology continues to exponentially accelerate and reach all corners of the world, many more businesses will be able to participate; be it investing in coins and/or tokens, creating blockchains, or even launching NFTs to monetize their products and services.

We are not very far from an era in which, whether by some ingredient or another, All companies will be Crypto-Companies.

🗂️ Directory of the week

• CryptoSlate - Who's Who on Blockchain

• CryptoPlaces - Where to spend / use your cryptocurrencies (global directory)

• Blockchain Dir. - Directory of solutions and services.

👀 Under the Radar

• OKB - Cryptocurrency launched by “OK Blockchain Foundation” and its exchange platform, OKEx. This platform is the 3rd largest in the world and competes with Binance. OKEx has its own cloud mining service, and the company has a more focused scope on providing trading options for users. (Its value has tripled in the last month)

• Flow - Blockchain created by Dapper Labs, responsible for NBA top shot, Cryptokitties, and Dapper among other protocols. This chain focuses on facilitating and improving the way to build video games, applications and digital assets. They are becoming the standard for this type of "blockchains."

• Pancakeswap - Launched in September 2020 as decentralized exchange for exchanging BEP20 tokens on Binance Smart Chain. PancakeSwap uses liquidity pools to carry out transactions. Group members deposit funds and receive liquidity provider (LP) tokens in return and can earn commissions as well. A bridge to be able to access many cryptos that are not on certain platforms.

• BNB - Binance's coin its valued above $500 is a sign why Binance's platform is the world's largest in the industry. Changpeng Zhao founder and CEO of Binance, very strategically incentivized users to use BNB by giving lower fees for its use and interest when storing funds using BNB.

• Polygon - Polygon is a protocol and framework for building and connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks and adding scalable solutions that support a multi-chain ecosystem. Polygon effectively transforms Ethereum into a multi-chain system.

📰 News

• Shiba Inu is added to Public.com, an application that competes with Robinhood

• Ethereum approaches its all-time high of $ 4k

• Bitcoin surpasses historical price and reaches $ 67k

• Bitcoin ETF debuted on October 19 with over $1 trillion on its first day

• Russia seeks to mine cryptocurrencies with Gas

• Senators pressure Facebook to suspend its digital wallet "Novi"

• Volaris subsidiary will accept payments in BTC in El Salvador

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🤯 NFT Madness

• "The Economist" magazine will sell cover as an NFTs

• Nigerian artist becomes first to use Social Token at Christies

• One Million Users Added to Coinbase’s NFTs platform.

• Chainalysis will monitor the transactions of Dapper Labs NFTs

• Axie Infinity announces $ 152 million investment by A16z.

• 🌐 We are in the "META"verse

• 🗂️ Directory

• 👀 Under the Radar

• 📰 News

• 👊 Sponsors

• 💸 Coupons

Innovations in the Crypto industry are reaching stellar levels.

Some believe that the space will continue to grow while many others await for the total collapse of its infrastructure. Personally, I believe that we will continue to witness several price drops, many more scams, projects whose solely objective is financial gain, thus detracting from reliability and adding skepticism.

But I also believe that despite inconveniences and obstacles, in the long run the crypto-economic space will continue to grow benefiting the world.

A few days ago, Facebook announced a name change. Now it will be called “META,” a name which reveals the company's intention to focus on developing a meta-world or Metaverse. In this cyber world, with the help of gadgets such as headsets and sensors, we will be able to virtually enter it and interact rather than just using the web from the outside as we do today.

According to wikipedia: The metaverse (a portmanteau of "meta-" and "universe") is the hypothesized next iteration of the internet, supporting decentralized, persistent online 3-D virtual environments.

This virtual space will be accessible through virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses, smartphones, PCs, and game consoles. The metaverse has well-defined use cases within the video game, business, education, retail, and real-estate sectors. The largest limitation for wide-scale adoption of the metaverse comes from technological limitations with current devices and sensors needed to interact with real-time virtual environments. Numerous companies, such as Meta, Roblox, Epic Games and Microsoft, are investing in research in metaverse-related technologies to make it more cost effective and more widely available.

Metaverse can not only refer to virtual worlds, but to the multidimensional experiences of use and application of the Internet as a whole, especially the combining spectrum of web 2.0, augmented reality, third-dimensional technology and virtual reality.

These companies are not and will not be the only ones to launch virtual worlds where we can socialize, own assets, be our own chosen avatars, transact and be part of cyber economies.

Companies such as Nike, Disney, record companies and film producers, among others, are ready to monetize their products and services in the meta-universe. Crypto will be the currencies of this world and NFTs, the way to record transactions and ownership. Many other innovations will be born thanks to these technologies.

Careers and jobs will also revolutionize, the metaverse needs designers, developers, cryptocurrencies, cyber security, cloud development, as well as the creation of physical equipment and devices to allow this immersion.

A fascinating world awaits us, and it is the “META” World.

🗂️ Directory

• Alchemy - Quickly becoming the AWS for blockchains. It is the necessary layer to empower developers to build great applications and take advantage of the blockchain revolution.

👀 Under the Radar

• Cube (Somnium) - Somnium Space is a virtual reality world with a blockchain-based economy. It allows you to monetize NFTs within metaverses. It ranges from entertainment to education.

• Illuvium - 3d video game built on Ethereum that ensures players can tokenize and exchange their NFTs without paying fees and instantly. Players always maintain custody of their assets while using IMX, the platform's token.

• Sandbox - Virtual world that allows you to create, build, buy and sell digital assets in the form of games. By combining the powers of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) and non-fungible tokens (NFT), Sandbox creates a decentralized platform for a thriving gaming community.

• Ampleforth - Ethereum-based cryptocurrency with algorithmically adjusted circulating supply. Designed to be the base money of the new decentralized economy, providing an asset that cannot be diluted with supply inflation and remains decoupled from the price action of other cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin (BTC) in particular.

• LCX - Liechtenstein crypto-asset exchange platform, with headquarters in China, India, and the USA. LCX AG, the legal entity behind LCX.com, has a registered capital of CHF 1 million.

📰 News

• New York Mayor Eric Adams: I Will Take First Three Paychecks in Bitcoin

• Facebook promotes Squid Game copycat ‘Baby Squid’ despite $3.5M crypto scam

• Microsoft’s Rhodes: Crypto, DeFi and NFTs Have Moved Beyond Early Adoption

• ‘The Sandbox’ ($SAND) Just Had $93 Million Funding Round

• Crypto Analyst Says Bitcoin Will Move ‘Like a Runaway Train,’ Predicts Rallies for Binance Coin and Polygon

• Google invests $1B in CME Group along with 10-year Cloud deal

• 🌆 Every City will have its own coin

• 📈 All Time Highs (ATH)

• 🗂️ Directory

• 👀 Under the Radar

• 📰 ICYM

• 👊 Sponsors

• 💸 Coupons

The Big Apple became the second city in the United States to launch its own cryptocurrency.

The mining of “CityCoins” is done by sending STX tokens, to a smart contract managed by the city. People or investors who send coins become miners. These are rewarded with a percentage (around 70%) of new CityCoins tokens, and the other percentage (30%) goes to a city-managed portfolio to invest in municipal projects.

This financial strategy has the potential to replace taxes as we know them, by creating funds from mining and crypto DeFi protocols.

In the future, citizens will have the option to vote for the financing of different municipal projects, thus creating more democracy.

Miami was the first city in the United States to have its own cryptocurrency using this same model.

MiamiCoin (MIA) is a way for people to support Magic City and grow their cryptocurrency treasure while earning STX and BTC for themselves.

STX is the token that represents the Stacks protocol, where the “Citycoins” infrastructure is built on.

📈 All Time Highs (ATH)

On Wednesday November 10th, Bitcoin reached its all-time high by briefly touching $69k. That same day, Ethereum also broke a record by reaching $ 4,878.26 per Ether.

Most of the rest of the crypto market (alt-coins) has been on the downside ever since as many investors choose to exchange their alt-coins for bitcoins and ethers upon seeing an uptrend in these two cryptocurrencies that reign the market.

Adding to the fuel is the exponential adoption growth that we are witnessing.

At the beginning of 2015 there were about 60 million Bitcoin addresses, today we have close to 900 million bitcoin addresses available. (see below)

It is important to note that institutional money has just started to enter this industry in a massive way. A few days ago the first “Bitcoin Futures ETF” was approved, but many other ETFs are awaiting approval. The world of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) continues to explore new use case and keep attracting large corporations in their effort to jump on the bandwagon and monetize their digital assets. Additionally, it feels like every day a new DeFi protocol hits the market and with improvements and new investment strategies that allows the multiplication of crypto assets.

Another important measure of the speed of change in the market is the amount of bitcoins that is leaving exchanges. As we can see in the lower graph (yellow line) the balance in the exchanges has fallen precipitously in recent months.

Many of these coins are being sent to cold wallets and other to custodians. The cryptocurrency custody market has a great future and promises profits for those who can have an attractive, safe, and profitable custody model for investors and “hodlers.” Conventional banks are betting on custody to be able to enter the industry and recover some of the disadvantage they already have.

🗂️ Directory

• Glassnode - Graphics of almost all crypto variables.

• DeFi Rate - Percentages and rates of DeFi protocols.

• Bitinfocharts - Cryptocurrency statistics site.

• Price Charts - Deep Price Research.

👀 Under the Radar

• Kryll - Users can use default trading strategies and create their own Crypto trading strategies in the cloud without the need to know programming. Allowing for the personalization to automation for trading.

• Trac - This decentralized platform allows you to connect digital information with physical information and organize it and mine it to be used effectively. They use and create graphs to illustrate the results of all the information being entered.

• Livepeer - Decentralized video streaming network built on Ethereum. It allows to earn tokens when entering the network and offers computational power so that users can upload, play videos, and facilitate their dissemination.

• Stacks - Blockchain that allows building decentralized applications and smart contracts on the Bitcoin network. Citycoins, a project that has launched Cryptocurrencies for certain cities is based on Stacks.

• Loopring - Seeks to combine the best of centralization and decentralization in the world of crypto finance and transactions. Uses ethereum off-chain transaction execution and roll-ups for faster speeds and lower cost.

📰 ICYM

• Bitcoin price briefly hits $69K ATH before plummeting back to Earth

• Vectorspace AI (VXV) to new highs as big data becomes the ‘new’ oil

• Is “Shiba Inu” Dead? Whale ‘Gimli’ buys 31 Billion more SHIB Tokens

• China 2.0 – Nigeria Intensifies Major Crypto Crackdown After CBDC Launch

• Is Binance worth $300 Billion?

• Bitcoin Whale Awakens, Moving $148,000,000 in BTC After MIA Since 2013

I am a father, Art enthusiast, into Blockchain and Tech, and try to love "La Vida" as it comes. This letters shares views about the world of crypto, disruptive technology, and its effect on our daily lives.

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