How are ‘lite’ versions of crypto apps helping adoption?

November 16, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Crypto exchanges use technology and basic design principles to attract a new wave of users into the crypto ecosystem.

Companies become industry giants when they provide the best user experience in the simplest form possible. Google, for example, has the most advanced search engine on the whole planet. And how does it provide that sci-fi-level technology to the user? By a simple, one-line search bar.

Apple’s motto is removing the hardware from the user experience (UX) as a layer. It means that when users forget that they are holding a smartphone and browsing an app while scrolling down memory lane, Apple succeeds.

Technology needs to hit the perfect balance between utility and usability — comprehensive features and ease of use — to achieve broader adoption. Bitcoin (BTC), the original cryptocurrency, became available to a much bigger user base as it became easier and more reliable to buy BTC from user-friendly mobile apps.

The number of Bitcoin block explorer Blockchain.com wallet users over the years. Source: Statista

For better or for worse, crypto exchanges played a pivotal role in bringing new users to the market. Millions of users saw crypto exchanges as the go-to trading platforms as the crypto apps made the overall experience more feature-packed and simplistic. Hiring Hollywood A-listers to promote them also helped crypto companies to make a case.

However, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep the interface as simplistic as, say, Google’s homepage, with more and more features introduced into crypto trading platforms. So, a number of crypto exchanges made a choice at some point. They divided their target audience — for design purposes — into newbies and pro traders and offered two different user experiences to each.

Some, like Binance and OKX, provide both UXs within the same application. First-time users are greeted with the “lite” version of the app, with fewer features and an emphasis on the learning curve of cryptocurrencies. If a user feels ready, or they were just reinstalling the app, they can tap a button to transform the app to its pro version with detailed order books, advanced commands, etc. Others went with two different versions with different layers of usability, like Bitpanda and Bitpanda Pro.

Cointelegraph reached out to crypto exchanges and UX developers to get a better understanding of how lite versions of crypto apps work and contribute to adoption.

Tech evolves by solving problems

Binance angles the lite mode of its mobile app as a simplified version of the exchange designed for users who are new to Web3, Binance head of product Mayur Kamat told Cointelegraph. “We looked at the core features that would be most beneficial for those users, and then we designed and built it with the best user experience in mind,” Kamat explained.

Binance Pro, on the other hand, is aimed at Web3 natives and traders. Kamat said that both versions are designed to provide different experiences for users in different stages of their Web3 journey. “As such, we do not compare them against each other,” he added.

When it comes to deciding on a specific platform for crypto, users look for a platform based on their needs at that point in time, according to Kamat:

“[Users’ initial pick] could be driven by education, rewards, referral, fees, liquidity, etc. But we strongly believe that over time users stay with a platform that is trustworthy.”

Technology needs to solve problems at scale for mainstream adoption, Kamat summarized. For people who care about the freedom of money, crypto means more than trading, he added, highlighting the massive crypto adoption in Turkey, Indonesia, Venezuela and Ukraine.

Simpler interface led to four million users in eight years

Bitpanda, a Europe-based fintech unicorn that offers traditional commodities trading alongside crypto, provides two apps that cater to different forms of trading. The liquidity in the beginner-friendly Bitpanda app is provided by the company itself, whereas on Bitpanda Pro, other traders provide liquidity at a price they themselves set.

Since its inception eight years ago, the base Bitpanda app onboarded almost four million investors, Magdalena Hoerhager, vice president responsible for growth at Bitpanda, told Cointelegraph.

Experienced traders, professionals, institutions and European Union-based companies, ranging from private banks to family offices, prefer Bitpanda Pro to trade assets at more competitive costs, Hoerhager claimed. The exchange offers professional trading solutions, price-matching capabilities and fully automated clearing, settlement and netting processes.

“Crypto isn’t the wild west anymore, or at least it isn’t as wild as it was five years ago,” she said, adding that the ecosystem is now seeing better regulation, better consumer protection, a better understanding of the pros and cons of cryptocurrencies as an asset class.

Lite features attract even pro users

OKX is another crypto trading platform that recently introduced a lite version — conveniently named OKX Lite. Speaking to Cointelegraph, OKX global chief marketing officer Haider Raﬁque said that professional traders also see value in the lite version, switching between modes when they are not actively trading.

Traders are using the Earn feature on OKX Lite to stake their assets and earn yields passively, according to Rafique. He explained that the demo trading feature, which allows new users to try out trading tools before actually investing any real money, is an element of attraction.

Experienced traders, on the other hand, look for a broad range of investment options and advanced trading tools. Block Trading feature for example, enables institutional and high-net-worth investors to make volumed trades without adversely moving the market.

“To support the mainstream adoption of crypto, we must build trust,” Rafique said, adding that OKX is investing heavily in security and user protection. However, trust alone is not enough, he noted, “We must also oﬀer guidance to help newcomers navigate this new ecosystem, and OKX Lite is a big part of this.”

Apps should not assume users understand everything

Opera made headlines earlier this year when the internet browser developer launched a Web3-focused Crypto Browser. Given that its main browser — which also has crypto-friendly features — has almost 350 million users worldwide, Opera is well-positioned to introduce crypto to a mainstream audience.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Opera Crypto Browser’s senior product manager, Danny Yao, stressed that new users want something that makes onboarding simple:

“They [new users] don’t want to be hit in the face with 1,000 options, nor do they want the app to assume they already understand everything. [...] Pro users want more complex functionality, usually. That doesn’t mean they need the interface to be complicated, just that the utility needs to be present.”

Opera designed the Crypto Browser to enable interaction with decentralized apps and multiple blockchains more accessible, according to Yao. Simplifying the transition of users from Web2 to Web3 became the main goal. An integration with FIO Protocol allows Android-based Opera users to set up their own crypto handles to use as their wallet addresses, he exemplified.

One for hodlers, one for traders

BtcTurk, a Turkish crypto exchange that turns 10 next year, designed its base “lite” and “pro” apps with two different interactions in mind. The base app, BtcTurk, is intended for hodlers who believe Bitcoin is a long-term investment and want to keep it in the custody of a trusted exchange, a spokesperson told Cointelegraph. BtcTurk Pro, on the other hand, aims to meet the needs of traders who look for detailed charts, reports, indicators and more trading pairs.

BtcTurk conducted a survey with Ipsos in the summer of 2022 to look into the needs and behavior of crypto users. This research showed that trust is the first and foremost important element for the crypto ecosystem — users are looking for recognition, recommendations and ease of use when they pick a new crypto platform.

The Turkish crypto exchange believes that user-friendly apps that enable investment, transfer and payments for cryptocurrencies, as well as apps that help with new use cases per each project’s strengths, would help more people to become aware of cryptocurrencies and drive adoption.

No end product in crypto apps

Cointelegraph reached out to Altuğ Gürkaynak, a user experience designer and a crypto user. He described the process of launching a new app as a neverending one. “There’s no such thing as a ‘finished’ or ‘end product’ in the world of UX,” he explained: “You keep up with the trends that are ever-changing with iterations.”

If the technology is new, however, it needs a slightly different approach. New tech with a completely new interface will result in disappointment unless there’s something truly extraordinary, Gürkaynak warned. New users need time to adapt to the technology itself, so applications need some familiar screens as a basis.

Making a simple app that users are likely to recommend to others is the most important, he noted:

“Prioritizing the word-of-mouth impact instead of a groundbreaking design would help crypto apps (or any apps for that matter) to drive more adoption.”

Can the Metaverse exist without blockchain?

September 20, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Applications

Read this article to understand why a metaverse can thrive and scale better on blockchain rails.

So, is blockchain ready to take on the Metaverse journey?

In essence, the ideal metaverse must be on blockchain rails, which mandates inclusive incentives centered around creators and users while still offering immersive and seamless virtual experiences.

The Metaverse is not just about the experiential elements; it is also about the economic aspects. The financial incentives must be centered around the real value creators. Those who create content, and regularly interact and transact on the platform are the ones who are creating value.

While the economic model possibilities are exciting, and several hopeful glimpses of these possibilities have emerged, there are significant technical challenges to overcome. The deficiencies in user experiences need to be addressed too.

In the short term, a few scalable Web2 versions of the Metaverse would embrace the Web2 ethos of incentivizing participants. As blockchain matures, more hybrid models would emerge, where Web2 elements bring scalability and user experience, and blockchain takes care of incentivization. A fully scalable on-chain Metaverse may seem utopian now, but it would be the ideal way to build the future internet.

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Blockchain challenges in delivering the Metaverse

The Metaverse of the future sounds great, but is it all just hype? Serious technological, experiential and economic model headwinds need to be addressed for the Metaverse narrative to come true.

Blockchain suffers from scalability, interoperability and security challenges. Even the best chains with meaningful user bases can handle only about 50,000 transactions per second. The internet has millions of data interactions per second in emails, tweets, posts, Google searches, messages and more.

This comparison assumes that data interactions in a metaverse must be on-chain. As cryptographic techniques (like zero-knowledge Rollups) get better at addressing scalability challenges, the economic features will rightly take the limelight to create new Metaverse-based models for the future.

Apart from the scalability challenges, there are major interoperability issues across blockchains. This is particularly related to bridges used to transfer value from one blockchain to another.

Many cyber attacks on Web3 platforms have occurred through these bridges. The Ronin bridge attack and Solana wormhole bridge attack are examples. Interoperability is an ample opportunity within Web3 but it is equally a vulnerability that needs to be addressed.

These blockchain infrastructure layer challenges keep returning to haunt the ecosystem. One of the more recent issues is creating a sustainable economic model of the Metaverse. While GameFi has been leveraged as a growth hack to attract users, a scalable token model is yet to be identified.

To date, there have been many failed economic models that have informed and inspired new models and economic approaches. Yet, innovators in this space are at least a cycle away from identifying a sustainable model.

The last headwind is that of user experience. VR hardware and the Web3 onboarding user experience need to be more seamless to attract hardcore gamers, creators and users into the Metaverse.

Why would blockchain fix the internet?

The internet handles several million data transactions per second. The blockchain infrastructure is in its technological infancy compared to the current iteration of the internet. Yet, blockchain is not just an infrastructure layer; it is an economic layer too. These economic features of the blockchain can potentially address the challenges of the internet.

In a blockchain-based world, the tokenomics of a metaverse (the new internet) platform allows more inclusive incentives. These metaverse applications can be inclusive from a shareholding (governance token) and user incentivization (utility token) perspective.

Active participants in the metaverse ecosystems often hold utility tokens. For instance, participants in a gaming metaverse earn their utility tokens by playing and creating games. Participants in an art metaverse earn tokens by creating art and being ambassadors of art by writing useful reviews.

The Metaverse allows participants to earn as users and creators of the platforms. As long as participants in these ecosystems keep creating value, they are incentivized. As these participants generate more value in an ecosystem, they accrue credentials and become influencers.

Yet, if an influencer in one Web3 metaverse wants to create a profile on another ecosystem, they should be able to carry their friends and network along with them. Ecosystem credentials such as “XP” (experience points) in a gaming platform should not get carried along as they are ecosystem specific.

The fundamental ethos is that users own their credibility and network, not the platforms.

The other fundamental design construct of the Metaverse is nonfungible tokens (NFTs). NFTs offer value permanence. When a gamer buys an in-game asset in a Web2 game, they offer a revenue opportunity to the game studio. They don’t own the asset. That changes in the blockchain world.

NFTs not only offer users the ability to create, buy and sell Metaverse assets but also allows them to accumulate ecosystem credentials in the form of “soul-bound tokens.” Soul-bound tokens behave like credit scores in financial services and as Metaverse users accumulate more, they tend to accrue more value faster.

Why do we need a new internet?

Our current internet is inadequate. Incentives are skewed toward a limited set of stakeholders, creators get exploited and users have very little control over their data. Can the new version of the internet change that?

The internet has been built and evangelized through applications like Google, Meta (previously Facebook), Instagram and Amazon. These applications deploy several techniques to grab users’ attention, and monetize that when they have it. Despite creating monetizable value through these apps, users get a very tiny slice of the value accruing to them.

Even when users who have created value receive very little money, the applications that grabbed the users’ attention have generated wealth for themselves and their shareholders — several trillion dollars. The internet must be more inclusive for this to change.

This is not because of the applications, themselves, but because they were bred in a capitalist ecosystem. Here, the winners take all the value and the wealth. It is okay for this to happen with the new internet, as long as “winners” has a more inclusive definition.

The other key challenge with the current internet is the exploitation of content creators. The internet has left us overfed with content. Yet even high-quality content creators seldom get paid their due. The platforms and intermediaries that offer web-shelf space to these content creators make most of the money. This needs to change; the internet must be more creator-friendly.

Apart from skewed incentive mechanisms, the current internet also takes user data for granted. Internet users have very little control over their data and their network. Why would a user need to start from scratch to build their network when they move from Facebook to Twitter? This needs to change and the Metaverse is the change.

Does the Metaverse need to be on a blockchain?

Blockchain-based solutions have seen financial, legal, gaming and social applications, albeit at a relatively small scale over the last few years. However, whether the blockchain infrastructure layer will be a must-have for the growth of the Metaverse narrative remains unanswered.

The answer to that question depends on how we define the Metaverse. Some definitions of the Metaverse focus only on its experiential elements. The word Metaverse often makes us imagine wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset and going through an immersive experience in a virtual world.

This is not all wrong, but it is an incomplete definition of a Metaverse. The Metaverse is expected to be a futuristic version of the internet. That is a great vision, but why do we need a new internet? The answer to that lies in the answer to another question — do we need blockchain for the Metaverse?

European Central Bank chooses Amazon and 4 other firms to prototype digital euro app

September 16, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Amazon

The five fintech, payments and e-commerce firms will create front-end prototypes for the digital euro, which will not be used in later phases of the CBDC project.

The European Central Bank, or ECB, has announced it will be collaborating with five companies for the development of potential digital euro user interfaces.

In a Friday announcement, the ECB said it had chosen "Big Four" tech company Amazon, fintech firm Nexi, Spanish digital bank CaixaBank, French payments platform Worldline and the European Payments Initiative, or EPI, to each focus on developing a prototype based on specific use cases of the digital euro. According to the central bank, the firms will create front-end prototypes, which will not be used in later phases of the digital currency project.

The ECB chose the five companies based on their fulfilling “specific capabilities” when compared to 50 other front-end developers that responded to the central bank’s call in April. Officials planned the project to be completed in the first quarter of 2023 as part of a two-year investigation phase into the digital euro, expected to end in October 2023.

As interest in central bank digital currencies seems to be growing globally, ECB officials have been exploring the potential impact of a digital euro on Europe while being vague about if or when the bank could release a CBDC. The central bank commissioned a series of focus groups on digital payment methods in September 2021, which suggested that using digital currency at online and physical stores could be a key feature of a digital euro. An earlier public consultation also suggested that privacy was considered “the most important feature of a digital euro by both citizens and professionals.”

Why DeFi, GameFi and SocialFi are horizontals in the Metaverse

August 29, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Applications

Read this article to know why DeFi, GameFi and SocialFi are not just verticals but also horizontals in a metaverse.

All for one and one for all

We need GameFi, DeFi and SocialFi to create a holistic Metaverse experience. Even with metaverses focusing on one purpose, these elements are essential to ensuring viability and scale.

In essence, a metaverse can scale only if DeFi, GameFi and SocialFi can work together seamlessly. DeFi, in essence, would take care of the financial elements, GameFi the experiential elements and SocialFi the credibility elements for the economic actors.

Without the DeFi elements, a metaverse would lack commercial scalability. Without the GameFi elements, the community would lack the experience motive for continually returning to it. Finally, without the SocialFi angle, the ecosystem’s credibility would not be established. The SocialFi elements ensure users and creators get credentials for their value addition.

This is not to say we won’t see a metaverse that focuses on football, Hollywood or art. But, even in these metaverses, there will need to be mini-games, microtransactions and ecosystem rankings. We are already seeing several SAAS platforms providing these bells and whistles so that teams can focus on the core purpose of their metaverses. All these must come together to create a sustainable economy, sticky platform and an immersive experience for the users and creators of the Metaverse.

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Ecosystem-specific experiences

The future of value creation and exchange will know no national boundaries and jurisdictions. They will all be ecosystem specific. Therefore, all use cases need to be ecosystem-specific.

The future for DeFi, GameFi and SocialFi may be embedded. But, this embedding can only be implemented in a well-oiled ecosystem. The Metaverse that brings these user functions together will not only have experiential elements but also utilitarian and gamification elements.

For instance, a metaverse in which DeFi can be applicable will need to have opportunities for microtransactions. A metaverse in which SocialFi can be embedded will need to have an ecosystem that has creators and consumers contributing, being compensated and acknowledged for these contributions.

Let us now look at what we could see as embedded DeFi. Many of these have already been implemented in several metaverses.

Embedded DeFi

As this space evolves, we see microtransactions, nonfungible token (NFT)-based lending, rental mechanisms, NFT marketplaces, micro token economies, token exchanges and many more bells and whistles that will support the Metaverse economy. Each of these features have their purpose in establishing a scalable economic model within the Metaverse.

For instance, Ecommerce within the Metaverse is already being tried in several ecosystems. Imagine a user with a good bag of NFTs, going into an art gallery. The art is expensive, and the user is short of liquidity. If NFT-lending has been integrated, the user could use their Ape or Punk to borrow some USDC to buy the art.

In the scenario described above, the user interface is extremely important in making the transaction frictionless. In the above example, instead of an Ape, if the ecosystem has a native NFT, that could be used more seamlessly. These NFTs will be more valuable as the user spends more time in the ecosystem — particularly if there are mechanisms by which they can be leveled up.

As users invest more time and effort in upgrading the value of their ecosystem assets like NFTs, land or in-game assets, these assets will play an important role in DeFi elements, which the user can leverage.

Embedded GameFi

The term GameFi is often used in the context of large play-to-earn platforms like Axie Infinity. Yet, in many instances, gamifying an experience is as important as GameFi. Often, these features do not need to be intense Fortnite style gaming experiences. They can use casual games, leaderboards, loot boxes, battle passes and raffles to provide gamified experiences.

Much like DeFi components that add value to the economic model, GameFi elements are not only helpful in increasing user retention, but also critical to keeping users engaged and invested in the platform.

Components of GameFi rely on both DeFi and SocialFi to succeed. For instance, those who want to be part of a leaderboard can borrow or rent an NFT to participate. On a similar note, the leaderboards are only effective if the SocialFi elements are built with gamers and creators in mind.

Embedded SocialFi

Last but not least, SocialFi keeps the soul of the creator’s economy intact in a metaverse implementation. A metaverse often involves various stakeholders: asset creators, asset holders, gamers and/or users. A sustainable model is achieved when all these stakeholders or economic actors are incentivized proportional to the value they add.

This is often where gamifying the experience interacts with SocialFi principles. For instance, gamers who play and win consistently go up the ladder within the ecosystem. As a result, they will accumulate experience points. Similarly, creators whose assets perform well in the ecosystem will be rated highly.

This form of “social swag” is also critical in DeFi transactions. Creators and gamers with social scores or experience points can get better deals when they tap into the DeFi components of the Metaverse. More social swag allows economic participants to accrue value within the ecosystem faster.

Most of these activities within the Metaverse are on-chain, and concepts like soul-bound tokens can also be used to build credibility within a Metaverse economy.

Conscious vs. unconscious experiences

Understanding the differences between conscious and unconscious experiences is essential for seeing how these applications interact in the Metaverse. Should they blend in or should they stand out?

Let us consider examples of a conscious and an unconscious experience. If a passenger went to the ticket counter, picked up £10 from their wallet and bought a ticket for a train journey into London, it is a conscious user experience. If a passenger walks into the station and uses near field communication (NFC) on their phone to tap and walk through the barrier to take the train, it’s an unconscious experience.

One of the key goals In traditional fintech applications is to make performing financial transactions seamless, frictionless and as unconscious as possible. Similarly, you do not have to compete with your friend or colleague in a “Call of Duty” experience. The competitive spirit can be gamified through likes and views on Instagram.

Coming back to the Metaverse, all three paradigms — DeFi, GameFi and SocialFi — would be embedded experiences. This is not to say we won’t have metaverses like the Otherside where people come to play. But many of these paradigms will be unconscious experiences, making the paradigms more horizontal (embedded) than verticals (standing out from unconscious actions).

The Metaverse, the convergence

The Metaverse is expected to be the next avatar of the internet. As the internet is now, the Metaverse will have various virtual economic models powered by Web3. These models can have their roots in financial services, gaming or social media. Yet, there will be constant cross-overs and interactions across these models as they coexist in the Metaverse.

In the world of Web3, we often perceive decentralized finance (DeFi), GameFi and SocialFi as separate verticals or sectors. The inception of these three subclusters of Web3 happened at different times over the last few years. But as the space evolves and the Metaverse concept of matures, we are more likely to see them integrate into a Metaverse experience as horizontals.

All of these concepts are still in their nascent stages and use crypto to support their economic models. Most of the current implementations within DeFi, GameFi and SocialFi are standalone decentralized applications (DApps). However, that is set to change with the Metaverse becoming a part of the household.

Let us understand why it is critical to differentiate the capabilities of verticals versus horizontals. When we look at a GameFi application within a metaverse, we see that it is a dedicated gaming experience that draws users into the Metaverse. They play the game and leave the platform fulfilled.

The same can be the case for DeFi and SocialFi apps as verticals. For users who come to the platform to perform DeFi transactions or want to interact with their friends in Twitter or Instagram-like experiences, the apps are there as verticals. They stand out as an experience.

But the Metaverse is not just a collection of applications. It is more a bundle of conscious and unconscious user experiences within a scalable economic model. The conscious experiences can be categorized as verticals and the unconscious experiences as horizontals.

New social apps want to help Bitcoiners connect in real life

July 29, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Applications

Bitcoin meetups have been around for years, but now there are companies helping Bitcoiners to meet and even find love “IRL.”

Finding real love starts with Bitcoin (BTC). That’s according to the founders of Bitcoiner dating service The Orange Pill App and LoveisBitcoin. The services join a growing list of ways in which Bitcoin enthusiasts can meet, chat and now fall in love “IRL” (in real life).

But first, why do people who love Bitcoin need to connect with others who are “orange-pilled?” For George Saoulidis, cofounder of LoveisBitcoin, Bitcoiners need a dating service because money shapes our lives more than we realize:

“Issues can and do arise if time preferences diverge a lot. Part of the orange-pilling process makes you see through the marketing and the propaganda to distinguish what is truly valuable: Experiences, family, friendships.”

Part of the Bitcoin ethos is having a lower time preference, and not succumbing to instant gratification. Saoulidis explains that personally, he couldn’t be with a spouse that clings to “fiat spending habits,” as it clashes with core values of Bitcoin culture — thinking long-term and prioritizing saving over spending.

#Bitcoin is the universal love language. pic.twitter.com/E4RV6ca8zZ
— Love Is Bitcoin (@LoveIsBitcoin21) July 27, 2022

For Matteo Pellegrini, the founder of the Orange Pill App, when he moved to a new neighborhood in Santa Monica, he wanted to hang out with Bitcoiners. However, he struggled to meet people who shared his passion for Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention.

He drove around California, and in some cases, he even knocked on people’s doors to ask if they liked Bitcoin. A lightbulb went off as he thought, why am I doing this — there should be an app for this. The Orange Pill app was born. Using geolocation, the app allows Bitcoiners to connect with others nearby. Similar to Tinder, it can be used for connection, but also friendship, post-conference catchups or even for finding work.

Tinder? No, we met over a peer-to-peer #bitcoin trade. pic.twitter.com/QOHZzbIoAs
— Love Is Bitcoin (@LoveIsBitcoin21) July 20, 2022

Pellegrini explained that it’s only a matter of time before most the entire world converts to crypto, so why not start meeting those people on the precipice of change now:

“Instinctively most people know that the money is broken. I’ve never met anyone who says, I love the system; I love fiat. Where can I get a fiat pill?”

When it comes to dating, he joked with Cointelegraph that the biggest dating turn-off is “saying that Bitcoin is a scam.” Plus, Pellegrini explains that Bitcoin has an interesting and understated cultural upside. If you're both into Bitcoin, your values are aligned; you can skip the formalities and get to know each other quickly. Knut Svanholm, a Bitcoin author commented on the phenomenon in his latest book, Bitcoin: Everything divided by 21 million:

“Connecting with other Bitcoiners is a great experience. [...] You can skip the social charade of talking about the weather. This journey through hyperbitcoinization that we're all on is genuinely extraordinary.”

However, there can be a risk of “doxing,” the potentially damaging process of publicly revealing someone’s private and personal information through meeting in real life. Many Bitcoiners never reveal their faces and use anonymous accounts on Twitter and social media. Bad actors could use Bitcoin networking services to work out who the whales are, and perform a $5 wrench attack to try to access their Bitcoin.

Based on a true story.#bitcoin pic.twitter.com/uJQhA8nhfy
— ⚡️ Orange Pill App (@orangepillapp) July 18, 2022

For the Orange Pill app, they’ve introduced a paywall to “filter out the noise,” and as a way of ensuring that the app isn’t abused. At LoveisBitcoin, security is paramount. Given that the public disclosure of owning Bitcoin could be risky, Saoulidis has entirely avoided the sharing of location data. The focus is on building a community of Bitcoiners for the future:

“Instead I'm trying to build a community that shares great examples from bitcoin people, builders, farmers, inventors, family men, women, teachers, educators, you name it.”

Along the way, the plan is to share memes and “fine examples of humanity,” as the world slowly warms up to Bitcoin. For the Orange Pill app, the long development roadmap covers love, events, and eventually employment.

True love.#bitcoin pic.twitter.com/FIxF9cOxh0
— ⚡️ Orange Pill App (@orangepillapp) July 25, 2022

When asked whether a networking service could pop up for another cryptocurrency, Pellegrini replied, deadpan: "I doubt it. I doubt there will be one for Dogecoin. Rehab, maybe?" Nonetheless, the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection has hosted private networking events and meetups across the United States.

Draft bill to ban China’s digital yuan from US app stores

May 27, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Applications

Three Republican senators introduced a bill to protect Americans from the "Authoritarian Digital Currencies Act."

Lawmakers in the United States are moving to protect the country from the potential undesirable impacts of the global adoption of China’s national digital currency.

Three Republican senators, Tom Cotton, Mike Braun and Marco Rubio, introduced a bill on May 25, aiming to limit the use of China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the United States.

The bill is referred to as “Defending Americans from Authoritarian Digital Currencies Act” and proposes to prohibit the use of China’s digital currency payment system, e-CNY, for U.S. app stores and other purposes.

The term “app store” covers all publicly accessible websites, software apps or other electronic services distributing apps from third-party developers to users of computers, mobile devices or any other “general-purpose computing device,” the senators noted.

According to the bill, app and software distributors in the U.S. shall not support or enable transactions in e-CNY or support any app that features such transactions in the country.

The senators reasoned that banning China’s digital yuan in the U.S. would help the nation avoid “direct control” and surveillance of users’ financial activity.

Cotton, a known proponent of the U.S. digital dollar project, specifically argued that a CBDC could be used to spy on the financial activity of people, stating:

“The Chinese Communist Party will use its digital currency to control and spy on anyone who uses it. We can’t give China that chance — the United States should reject China’s attempt to undermine our economy at its most basic level.”

“We cannot allow this authoritarian regime to use their state-controlled digital currency as an instrument to infiltrate our economy and the private information of American citizens,” senator Braun said. “This is a major financial and surveillance risk that the United States cannot afford to make,” Rubio stated.

China is one of the world’s first countries to pilot its own digital currency, launching its first digital yuan trials in April 2019. Following multiple internal tests, the Chinese government has been actively promoting cross-border implementations of the digital yuan, working with central banks of Hong Kong, Singapore and others.

U.S. authorities have been historically looking at the Chinese CBDC as a national security threat. In March, another bill also proposed to limit the use of China’s digital yuan as it may be used to circumvent sanctions and compromise users' personal information.

How Web 3.0 apps must adapt to become next-gen of tech, explained

April 22, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Applications

As the world looks for convenience, decentralized applications must quickly adapt their offerings to meet user expectations set by Web 2.0.

How are blockchain development platforms addressing these concerns?

New blockchain development offerings are making it simple for Web 3.0 applications to implement push notifications.

A practical solution to these UX issues would need to be simple to implement and enable applications to monitor any address for incoming and outgoing token transactions (cryptocurrency, NFT or otherwise). Developers need to be able to set up push notifications in their own applications quickly and easily across multiple blockchains without learning code for each.

Tatum has emerged as a leading blockchain development platform, offering an answer to address these user experience concerns. With their new Notification Station feature, users can take advantage of a simple and effective way to implement push notifications into Web 3.0 apps for over 10 blockchains, including Celo (CELO), Solana (SOL), Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Terra (LUNA).

The feature can be implemented seamlessly into any app with one API call to monitor any address on any supported blockchain. This way, applications can easily send instant alerts to end-users about any transaction.

With offerings like Notification Station, developers now have tools to build user-friendly and intuitive blockchain applications and bring users a Web 3.0 experience expected in 2022. The feature is planned to be expanded to over 50 blockchains, bringing a simple, effective and unified notification system to a multitude of decentralized networks.

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What is holding back blockchain applications from meeting these UX standards?

Implementing features considered standard today is no easy task for the blockchain.

At present, there is no unified system that enables the notification of users in real-time on most blockchains. This lack of well-developed user experience on Web 3.0 has delayed end-user adoption, giving little incentive for Web 2.0 users to make the transition.

To address this gap, solutions have been developed for Ethereum (ETH) that work as third-party notification applications. Unfortunately, these separate services are not available as built-in features or as a standard developer tool.

Some blockchain development platforms allow creators to set up webhooks for Ethereum as an alternative. But many of these are still complicated to implement and require the creator to set up a series of alerts for each event and filter them manually.

While webhooks present a step in the right direction, these solutions still don’t account for the other blockchains where push notifications are largely non-existent and difficult to implement without a significantly knowledgeable developer. Deploying custom real-time alert systems is extremely complicated and can take weeks of development time on any blockchain. As a result, Web 3.0 applications, which were once positioned as the next generation of technology, exist without push notifications making them look like a step back on the internet rather than one forward.

What features are essential to modern applications?

When it comes to a user's experience (UX), people now seek convenience first.

Amazon, for instance, set a new standard for online shopping by making purchasing convenient and eliminating the time and effort needed to make a purchase.

With users coming to expect simplicity in their online interactions, the sleek user experience common in modern websites and apps must continue into Web 3.0 developments. Among these features are push notifications and real-time alerts, which keep a user informed without opening an application itself. This way, users can get a basic overview of what information should remain top of mind without repeatedly refreshing an app to see an incoming message.

Push notifications are now becoming so commonplace that the world has started to take these features for granted. Currently, applications that don't offer these features are viewed as too primitive to even consider using.

Why are Web 3.0 applications positioned as the next generation of technology?

Unlike Web 2.0 applications, offerings built on Web 3.0 are enabling users with true data ownership.

Web 2.0 brought about a major change to how the world views the internet, introducing online platforms like TikTok, Twitter, Meta (former Facebook) and Instagram, among others.

Although valuable in the number of opportunities made available, Web 2.0 has brought concerns about data ownership. With users spending more time online, their data, including what they like, the content they create and other details about themselves, are being shared with big tech companies, many of which have been caught in data scandals in the past and paid their way out of it.

Web 3.0 addresses these concerns by presenting a new reality for application usage. Leveraging verifiable, trustless, self-governing, permissionless, distributed and robust technology, application users can gain true ownership over their data.

Unfortunately, before this becomes a reality, developers must consider how to create apps that can be deployed to run on multiple servers as a decentralized application (DApp) while still maintaining the same user experience expected in 2022.

The evolution of blockchain: Transactions, contracts and applications

April 4, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Applications

Blockchain technology is more than just Bitcoin. Let’s examine the evolution of Nakamoto’s brainchild.

The various types of blockchain permissions

Blockchain networks run on permission-based consensus methods, enabling various levels of use depending on a user’s needs and permission level.

Aside from the blockchain generations, there are also different types of blockchain when viewed from a permission-based angle. Some of those permission types are public, permissioned or private blockchains. Each of these types offers a different use case for a company or user’s needs. When asked to list the three types of blockchain, you’ll now know the answer.

Public blockchain

A public blockchain is the most basic form of a blockchain ecosystem. A public blockchain is available to anyone who wishes to utilize the database. Bitcoin and Ethereum are considered public blockchains, for instance.

On top of being open to all, these networks exist without a central authority. Instead, upgrades and other changes are implemented by developers from all over the world, and anyone can utilize a public blockchain’s infrastructure to build DApps.

Permissioned blockchain

A permissioned blockchain, also known as a consortium blockchain, restricts some or all parts of the database to nodes with special permission. For example, suppose a centralized team is working to develop a public blockchain network for the rest of the world. In that case, that team might have exclusive permissions to view network-centric information.

Private blockchain

While blockchain technology is essentially a decentralized distributed ledger, sometimes that ledger isn’t required to be public. A corporation’s employee database, for instance, doesn’t need to be shared but can still benefit from the efficiencies offered by blockchain technology.

In this case, a corporation would employ a private blockchain. This organization can then use its private blockchain just like a traditional database. It might have some information available to the entire workforce, while more private information is only open to C-suite executives.

Hybrid Blockchains

Hybrid blockchains can be considered a future of blockchain development as they employ characteristics from both public and private networks. Corporations might utilize hybrid blockchains with public-facing services.

Take a blockchain-powered video game, for example. If a team is working to develop a massively multiplayer online video game but doesn’t want to make development public, they might harness a hybrid blockchain.

This way, players can still interact with the public side of things by signing up, playing and possibly even enacting governance when proposing and voting on game mechanics. The private side of the hybrid blockchain enables the game’s developers to keep its code and inner workings from the public.

When choosing between a permissioned or private blockchain, it’s worth noting that enterprises can consider hybrid blockchains due to their multifaceted nature.

Blockchain 1.0 vs. blockchain 2.0 vs. blockchain 3.0

Blockchain 3.0 evolves the concepts introduced by blockchain 1.0 and blockchain 2.0 even more, introducing interoperability solutions and new consensus methods.

A third-generation blockchain ecosystem solves many of the issues that plagued blockchain 1.0 and blockchain 2.0 networks, such as scalability and interoperability. Blockchain 3.0 networks typically solve the scalability issue with a new consensus algorithm: proof-of-stake (PoS).

Instead of mining, PoS asks users to stake or lock-in their tokens to become validators. Validators ensure that incoming transactions are valid before committing them to the blockchain network, earning transaction fees for their efforts.

The idea is that users who have a stake in a network would want what’s best for it and would put their best foot forward when it comes to transaction validation. Also, transaction validation is faster than mining, ensuring a network can scale as more validators join.

Then there are blockchain 3.0 interoperability solutions. Despite the vast number of blockchain ecosystems out there, many of them are siloed away from one another. Converting funds from one blockchain ecosystem to another via a cryptocurrency exchange is time-consuming and expensive, locking users out of true financial freedom.

One common blockchain 3.0 interoperability solution is that of bridges. Bridges connect two or more blockchain networks, enabling users to convert assets from one network to another. In doing so, bridges unify all types of blockchain ecosystems, genuinely capitalizing on offering financial freedom.

Applications

Decentralized applications are entirely trustless, ensuring users can harness their abilities without involving an intermediary.

While a barebones version of smart contract technology exists in Bitcoin, Ethereum took it to the next level by offering developers a platform on which to build DApps while utilizing the power of smart contracts.

Now, one can consider Ethereum a second-generation blockchain or blockchain 2.0, thanks to its capabilities, which extend beyond Bitcoin, a first-generation blockchain. After all, Ethereum allows users to create their cryptocurrencies on top of its platform, harnessing the Ethereum blockchain for security and speed purposes.

For example, developers might build an application for lending and borrowing managed entirely through smart contracts. In this case, smart contracts would act as escrow and hold the funds securely before facilitating the lending of the loan and serving as a space for borrowers to pay back the loan.

However, despite the innovations provided by smart contracts and decentralized applications, Ethereum suffers from severe scalability issues, meaning it struggles to validate transactions when its network becomes too busy. This struggle is due to the consensus method harnessed by both Bitcoin and Ethereum: proof-of-work (PoW).

PoW asks miners to validate blocks by harnessing their computer power to solve complex equations. However, there can only be so many miners validating so many transactions. If too many people are trying to transact, miners will be overwhelmed, and the validation process will take much longer. To solve such issues, Ethereum is moving to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus method in its network upgrade called Ethereum 2.0.

Now, let’s enter the third-generation blockchain, or blockchain 3.0.

Contracts in blockchain

Blockchain technology has evolved past simple peer-to-peer transactions. Innovations have led to decentralized applications (DApps) being built on top of the blockchain, and solutions for speeds and security have increased. Much of this innovation is due to smart contracts.

Since the introduction of Bitcoin’s first-generation blockchain, or blockchain 1.0, the blockchain ecosystem has come into play. Ethereum (ETH), for example, is what many enthusiasts consider to be the future of blockchain.

This moniker comes from the fact that Ethereum focuses more on blockchain applications and harnessing blockchain smart contracts than simply existing as a decentralized currency.

Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, envisioned his platform as a replacement for the online experience, which will decentralize all digital processes. Why stop at revolutionizing peer-to-peer payments when one can revolutionize financial lending and borrowing, gaming and social media, right?

Buterin harnessed smart contracts to help realize his vision. Smart contracts are digital agreements made between two or more parties, not unlike contracts in real life. However, a real-life contract requires a lawyer or similar intermediary to function, complicating the process.

A smart contract is enforced by an immutable set of rules agreed upon before its inception. These rules are hard-coded into Ethereum’s blockchain, ensuring no one can alter them once the contract begins and removing the need for an intermediary. The contract will execute when both parties fulfill their side of the agreement.

Transactions in blockchain

Nakamoto evolved transactions into trustless entities, removing the need for an intermediary.

Nakamoto’s white paper presented their problems with traditional finance, stating that e-commerce had come to rely almost entirely on third-party intermediaries to process digital transactions. These intermediaries must spend time and money on mediating transactions, increasing costs for the transacting parties and limiting the potential for smaller, everyday transactions, among other problems.

This solution entailed immutably timestamping transactions via computational proofs and hashing those transactions into an “ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work.”

Such a chain would exist in a decentralized manner — as a timestamp server distributed among willingly participating nodes. If nodes were to leave and come back, they would take on a copy of the longest existing chain and continue from there.

Decentralizing the transaction process allowed for trustless peer-to-peer interactivity, removing the need for third-party involvement and, ideally, providing cheaper and faster transactions to all. However, once the technology was in place, users needed a way to transact on top of it, which is where Bitcoin came into play.

So when asking whether Bitcoin or blockchain came first, we now know the answer is blockchain.

What is the blockchain?

Blockchain technology is a cryptographic chain of peer-to-peer transactions. Blockchain transactions are stored in a trustless manner, thanks to decentralized nodes that validate and commit them.

Bitcoin, the first-ever cryptocurrency, introduced blockchain technology and the concept of a blockchain ecosystem to the world. When examining the history of blockchain, we’ve got to look back to 2009. Revealed in 2009 by the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, the Bitcoin white paper detailed a solution to the double-spend problem surrounding digital peer-to-peer payments.

Stargate Finance attracts $1.9B in six days

March 24, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Stargate Finance attracts .9B in six days

Applications

Cross-chain protocol Stargate Finance has generated over $1.9 billion TVL in just six days following an Alameda Research buying spree.

Stargate Finance, a cross-chain protocol designed to assist users in transferring assets between different blockchains, has accrued over $1.9 billion in total value locked (TVL) in less than a week after launching.

Stargate markets itself as a liquidity transport protocol that allows users to transact native assets cross-chain, offering decentralized finance (DeFi) users the option of staking stablecoins in pools where they are paid out in the native Stargate token (STG).

The rapidly growing TVL is probably down to the "up to 26% APY" being offered farming stablecoin deposits.

By attracting nearly $2 billion in TVL at the time of writing, Stargate has cemented itself as one of the top 10 DeFi projects, according to comparative data from DeFi Pulse.

Stargate has a high-profile supporter in quantitative crypto trading firm Alameda Research CEO Sam Trabucco.

In a Twitter thread to his 150,000 followers, Trabucco announced that Alameda Research had purchased all available Stargate tokens (STG) that were auctioned off during Stargate’s launch on March 17.

There's been some chatter about the recent @StargateFinance auction, and I wanted to clarify a few things about Alameda's involvement.
— Sam Trabucco (@AlamedaTrabucco) March 22, 2022

According to LayerZero, the protocol that Stargate runs on, 10% of the total supply of STG or 100 million tokens, were auctioned off to generate liquidity across the seven blockchains that Stargate is launching on.

LayerZero protocol markets itself as an “Interoperability protocol that actually works”.

According to a blog post from LayerZero Labs Co-founder and CTO, Ryan Zarick, the Stargate protocol solves something known as the “Bridging Trilemma” by using unified liquidity pools between chains, instant guaranteed finality of transactions and the use of native assets for cross-chain swaps.

Stargate plans to make it possible for any user to transfer assets from one blockchain to another one in a single transaction, skipping over the need for using complicated and convoluted methods such as locking, minting and burning and redeeming assets.

The LayerZero team also announced that they had hired Maki, the co-founder of SushiSwap, to lead business development at Stargate.

Stargate is currently live on seven primary chains including Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, BSC, Fantom, Optimism and Arbitrum. The LayerZero team plans to add support for other chains like Solana, Terra and Cosmos.

Ethereum Devs Implement Merge Testnet Kiln, Testing Ground Expected to Be the Last Before PoS Transition

March 17, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Applications

Tech evolves by solving problems

Simpler interface led to four million users in eight years

Lite features attract even pro users

Apps should not assume users understand everything

One for hodlers, one for traders

No end product in crypto apps

So, is blockchain ready to take on the Metaverse journey?

Blockchain challenges in delivering the Metaverse

Why would blockchain fix the internet?

Why do we need a new internet?

Does the Metaverse need to be on a blockchain?

All for one and one for all

Ecosystem-specific experiences

Embedded DeFi

Embedded GameFi

Embedded SocialFi

Conscious vs. unconscious experiences

The Metaverse, the convergence

How are blockchain development platforms addressing these concerns?

What is holding back blockchain applications from meeting these UX standards?

What features are essential to modern applications?

Why are Web 3.0 applications positioned as the next generation of technology?

The various types of blockchain permissions

Public blockchain

Permissioned blockchain

Private blockchain

Hybrid Blockchains

Blockchain 1.0 vs. blockchain 2.0 vs. blockchain 3.0

Applications

Contracts in blockchain

Transactions in blockchain

What is the blockchain?

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