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MATH Wallet explained, what is MATH crypto

What is Math?

MATH is a crypto platform and ecosystem that combines several applications including, MathChain, MathPay, MathWallet, Math VPOS pool, Math Staking and Math Dapp store.

Math was founded in 2018 by Eric Yu who was previously the CTO of Zhongtopia, the largest mutual aid platform in China with in excess of ten million users. 

Eric Yu was also the CTO and co-founder of XunFang Tech. MATH is backed by Fenbushi Capital, Alameda Research, Binance Labs, Multicoin Capital and NGC

MATH Wallet supports more than 165 public blockchains including, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, Binance Smart Chain, Solana, Kusama, Filecoin, Arbitrum, Huobi ECO Chain, Polygon, OKExChain, Moonriver, Fantom, Avalanche, Optimistic Ethereum, Celo, Flow, TRON, Near, Statemine, Karura, Bifrost, ChainX, CRUST, Moonbeam, Clover, Darwinia, EOS, Binance Chain, Cronos, Terra, Cosmos, IRISnet, Secret Network, KAVA, THORChain, Band Protocol, Conflux, PlatON, RSK, Klaytn, Nervos, Ontology, VeChain, HooSmartChain, Harmony, Shiden, Substrate, GateChain, KCC, Calamari, Basilisk, KILT Spiritnet, EVM, Eth2, Aurora, Edgeware, Equilibrium, Kulupu, Stafi, Subsocial, Sora, Darwinia Crab, CoinEx Smart Chain, ZILLIQA, EOS FORCE, Palm, Boba, YAS, FIBOS, BOS, Telos and BSC Testnet. This list is constantly growing.

MATH allows its users to invest and grow their crypto portfolios using automated quant trading via MathSwap and also earn interest of up to 30% on their digital crypto assets using MATH VPoS Pool. MATH users can also deposit crypto, use crypto for payments at zero fees via MathPay and also get instant loans. Lastly, MathNews provides up-to-date news about the public chains supported by the MATH ecosystem

With the MATH Dapp store, users can get access to Dapps such as MATH Cloud Wallet, Polkadot VPoS Pool, Binance Staking Tool, Uniswap, SushiSwap, Near Staking Tools and others.

The MATH token was introduced on 22nd October 2019 and is an ERC-20 token that allows staking and provides a validator infrastructure to networks and offers rewards to its users. 

MATH Dapp Factory provides users with tools that can help simplify the development of exchanges, games and other types of decentralised apps.

MathWallet is a multi-platform (mobile/desktop/hardware) universal crypto wallet that enables the storage of over 50 blockchains and over 3000 tokens and has in excess of one million users. 

Currently, MathWallet is the only extension wallet that supports multi-chain Dapps. 

MathWallet generates wallets completely on the client side, allows users to unlock a variety of key types including private keys and mnemonics and allows users to easily send tokens. 

MathWallet is focused mainly on smart wallets but also on exclusive blockchain applications. 

MathWallet is a decentralised parachain-powered L2 that allows for the easy exchange of Ethereum, BSC, Polkadot, Filecoin, Rollups and EVM side chains. 

The two primary objectives of Mathchain are to support multi-chains and offer the possibility to connect to all Layer2 networks and also to help reduce transaction fees in order for them to be more affordable for regular users.

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DeFi Explained

DeFi Explained

While crypto may still be seen by some as “underground”, a place for enthusiasts and tech nerds, DeFi is something that everyone should be paying closer attention to.

It could be that in a relatively short time the way we bank, borrow, lend, carry out financial speculation and even buy insurance could radically change.

 

Welcome to the world of DeFi!

DeFi stands for decentralised finance. It offers a decentralised financial system that eliminates the need for traditional middlemen: banks, payment providers, exchanges, insurance etc

DeFi today is still very much in its infancy but has a very promising future, potentially providing a more financially accessible and egalitarian possibility for millions, maybe one day even billions, of people around the world. 

That sounds like a good thing indeed!

 

TradFi vs DeFi

Traditional Finance is, as the name suggests, traditional financial players like commercial and investment banks and brokerage houses that can often be hundreds of years old and are involved in every aspect of finance from banking to trading and everything in between. 

On the opposite of that spectrum are the young new upstarts starting a revolution by throwing hand grenades into the traditional and gentile world of TradFi. 

These DeFi upstarts envision a world where there are no organisations controlling access to the world of finance and where the rule book is literally set alight and unceremoniously thrown out the window. 

In this article we are looking at the highly innovative world of DeFi and how it contrasts and potentially threatens the cosy and highly entrenched world of traditional finance (TradFi ).

 

DeFi vs TradFi, a historically monumental shift

Today’s financial systems might feel antiquated when compared to the wonders of the technology-driven world we live in. 

The world of TradFi tries to keep up with consumer needs by building on top of an existing closed system and open finance has helped somewhat to drag TradFi into the modern age. 

We must however keep in mind that even open finance whilst fresh and innovative is still constrained by the rules and limitations of traditional finance and their way of doing things.

DeFi on the other hand is starting from scratch in many ways and building something totally new and free from the constraints of TradFi.

The inescapable fact is that times and consumer habits, needs and expectations have changed and now technology exists that can facilitate the kind of monumental shift we are seeing in the crypto world. 

It is no different to automobiles challenging the horse and cart or online travel agencies such as Expedia or Booking.com challenging traditional travel agencies during the early internet boom.

 

So, what does DeFi potentially have in store for us? 

First, do note that this is a revolution and not an evolution. 

The automobile wasn’t a horse that could go faster, the automobile eliminated the horse completely from the picture. 

In much the same way DeFi is not an evolution in TradFi but rather a true revolution, a re-start from scratch, in a sense. 

Of course, people’s core financial needs are still pretty much the same: earn, hold, pay, save, borrow, lend, invest, convert, trade, insure, donate. 

But the infrastructure to do those “basic” things is about to be re-written completely!

Just as in the early days of automobiles when there were plenty of accidents along the way, no speed limits, no speed cameras or speeding tickets, DeFi is currently a bit of an unregulated, free and “wild-west” of finance. 

It’s basically doing everything that traditional finance does, and more, without re-using a single piece of it.

 

DeFi explained

Decentralised Finance is the “money” arm of the crypto world. 

Think of it as Wall Street 2.0, where decentralised companies go public and services like lending, borrowing and derivative trading can all be accessed by anyone.

 

How Defi Started

In many ways, Bitcoin could be seen as the very first example of DeFi even though the term DeFi hadn’t been coined yet, if you pardon the pun! 

Bitcoin was and still is a decentralised monetary system independent of any government or central organisation, the very essence of DeFi. 

But the only use cases were “hold” and “pay”. There was no lending, borrowing, trading or anything else natively built on the Bitcoin blockchain.

The first example of what we would today consider to be Decentralised Finance started in 2015 with Maker. 

Maker had a vision to create a decentralised financial system that would be governed by its user community and, in doing so, give borrowers more control of their assets. 

Maker allows users to borrow Dai, the platform’s native token which is pegged to the US dollar. 

This is one via a set of smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, which govern the loan, repayment, and liquidation processes

So Maker lends money against collateral, like a pawn shop or a real estate mortgage dealer. 

That was DeFi use case #1. 

In 2018 Uniswap was released and allowed the exchange of any token for another token without the need for a central exchange and in 2020 AAVE made lending and borrowing decentralised. 

From then on things went crazy and today you can earn, hold, pay, save, borrow, lend, invest, convert, trade, insure, and donate with Decentralised Protocols. 

Whereas in open finance fintech apps are interfacing with established financial institutions to provide consumers with a greater ease of use, developers in the DeFi world are rewriting the rule book completely. 

They are not looking for ways to integrate with traditional intermediaries but rather eliminate them from the picture completely! 

Why connect to a bank’s back end if everyone can hold their own keys and be their own banks?

How can this be possible you might be asking, don´t we need these very solid financial establishments like banks to provide us with lending, borrowing, derivative trading facilities and so forth? 

Well, it turns out that we maybe don’t. 

As mentioned above, the majority of DeFi applications are built on top of very sophisticated blockchain technology called Ethereum which had a market value of $225 billion as of 2nd August 2023. 

To put this into perspective, Barclays Bank had a market cap of $31 billion on the same day. 

So the market cap of Ethereum was nearly 7x that of Barclays Bank! 

Considering that Ethereum came into being in 2015 and Barclays Bank was founded way back in 1896, Ethereum is certainly no financial lightweight when compared to the big boys in TradFi. 

 

There are four main tenets that all DeFi apps share

DeFi apps use a blockchain as their core ledger

All DeFi apps use blockchains for their underlying technology, a few of the most prominent blockchains used to build DeFi apps include Ethereum, Solana, Terra, and Binance Chain. The blockchain performs the central task of recording a ledger of all transactions in the form of blocks.

DeFi apps are open source and transparent by design

Being open source and transparent by nature allows a level of auditability making it possible to delve into smart contracts to see exactly what a smart contract is doing in terms of functions, user data and permissions. Lastly, the entire flow of funds is auditable, this is pretty major when compared to TradFi where everything is hidden away behind proprietary systems accessible only by people on the inside.

DeFi apps are interoperable and programmable

We often hear about “money legos” when looking at DeFi. This is a reference to their composability. Each individual DeFi app can be seen as a “Lego brick” for a specific financial service or product that can be freely combined with others. These “Lego bricks” are in a sense clicked together for each individual transaction in real-time enabling a level of speed, flexibility and innovation that would be unthinkable or even impossible in the way more closed-off and proprietary world of TradFi.

This is why innovation happens so fast: if you want to build a service that requires “swapping” tokens and “lending tokens” as fundamental building blocks and then adds some value on top, you don’t need to rebuild those two building blocks, you can just “plug into” Uniswap” and “AAVE”, and you only need to build the small thing that is unique to your app. 

In traditional finance that could take months of negotiations; in DeFi it takes the minutes required to connect to an API.

DeFi apps are open and accessible to all

One of the most underappreciated aspects of DeFi products is the inherent equality of accessibility. No institution or intermediary can deny service which is also known as being permissionless. 

If you have sufficient funds within your wallet for the transaction that you wish to carry out, you can do it irrespective of where you are from or who you are, it’s as simple as that. 

Compare that to TradFi where an individual can still decide whether a person gets approved for a loan or can even open up a bank account! 

The DeFi world does not care about these sorts of things. 

As long as you have enough coins or tokens in place to carry out the desired transaction there is nobody there to stop you. 

In a world where discrimination sadly still exists and where so many people around the world still do not have access to basic banking facilities let alone sophisticated financial services it´s clearly about time!

 

The DeFi ecosystem now

Some examples of DeFi apps include: 

  • Decentralised Exchanges – also known as DEXs – such as Uniswap where trades can be executed without the DEX having to hold on to your funds to execute trades. 
  • Decentralised Derivatives Trading – On Synthetix for example, you can trade in commodities, something akin to derivative trading without the need to have and hold the commodities in question, instead you trade something called Synths that are synthetic assets. 
  • Lending – Compound is a decentralised peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform where users can earn interest or borrow assets against collateral. AAVE too.
  • Insurance – Nexus Mutual is a decentralised autonomous organisation that provides smart contract insurance.

 

Risks and opportunities with DeFi

By now the opportunities of using DeFi are probably apparent: Autonomy, speed and opportunities previously unavailable.

But there are also quite a few risks still associated with Decentralised Finance that you should consider before rushing into anything.  Here is an overview of the types of risks you are looking at:

1. The risk linked to the “smart contract”

The risk linked to a “smart contract” (the computer code on the blockchain) you are using (AAVE, Uniswap,…). For example, we have seen the following happen in the past:

  • Oracle Attacks &/or Clever Arbitrage Execution: Manipulate the price through oracles, volumes or both, get lots of stuff for cheaper than it is, and then sell it at its real value.

Example: bZx, Cheese Bank, Harvest

  • Contract Design: if you let them print tokens, they will. 

Example: PickleFinance

  • Reentrancy Attack – happens if a contract makes an external call to another untrusted contract before resolving. For example, if it transfers funds before setting its balance to zero, an attacker can beat the withdraw function to death and essentially drain the entire contract. 

Example: Akropolis, dForce, and Origin

  • Front-end issues: bugs in hosting or domain leads to attacks – not specifically DeFi, but still a problem faced by NiceHash. If you go to app.uniswap.org trusting that it’s Uniswap when it’s in fact an attacker, it doesn’t matter how safe the Uniswap smart contract actually is, because that’s not who you are interacting with.

2. The financial risk

As in the risk of not being repaid when needed, or at all, even if everything keeps mostly working

  • While most lending platforms use over-collateralisation to reduce credit risk, over-collateralisation does not completely remove credit risk – The collateral assets that back loans on DeFi platforms have a high level of variation, in liquidity & stability of price.  
  • Liquidity: if all the money in a lending pool is lent out, you can’t withdraw, and you need to wait until some loans are repaid.
  • The yield is still mostly variable today. If you deposit at 11% today, it might be 2% tomorrow. 1 year low is 0.68%
  • If you rely on EUROS for spending but lend out USD, there is a bit of an exchange risk too. 

3. Blockchain or stablecoin risks

  • If the Ethereum Virtual Machine or Parachains or, your blockchain of choice breaks or gets hacked. But at that point, we potentially have a bigger problem.
  • Ethereum transaction fees and congestion leads to the inability to move in/out.
  • Your stablecoin of choice proves to be worthless, gets hacked…and your unit of value = 0

4. You make a mistake

You are your own bank, so your mistakes are your mistakes: Hacked keys, hacked notepads, metamask hacks, paper wallets lost in the wash or giving your money to a fraudulent project could all see you lose your money.

 

As wikipedia says, “Inexperienced investors are at particular risk of losing money using DeFi platforms due to the sophistication required to interact with such platforms and the lack of an intermediary with a customer-support department.”

 

Conclusion

Throughout human existence there have been events that have significantly shaped our societies, discovering fire, the wheel, horses for farming & transportation, the industrial revolution, the internet and most recently web3/crypto and DeFi. 

While DeFi may still be the new kid on the block, this kid isn’t messing around!

Whichever way we look at it, a shift in the status quo in finance and financial equality is urgently needed at a global level and now seems like the perfect time to throw that proverbial hand grenade!

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Off-Chain Transactions Explained

Off-Chain Transactions Explained

Off-chain transactions occur outside of a blockchain network and as a result, are generally cheaper and faster than on-chain transactions but do not fully benefit from the inbuilt security offered by a crypto blockchain.

The crypto space is getting busier and ever-popular by the day, transaction volumes are growing at a rapid pace and this inevitably means traffic. 

Not the kind of traffic people want like increased visits to their website, but rather being horribly stuck in slow-moving traffic on a highway. 

The highway in crypto terms of course being a blockchain network like Bitcoin or Ethereum for example.

Continuing with the highway analogy, a blockchain such as Bitcoin has its limitations, just as a highway has a fixed amount of lanes. 

As the number of cars (transaction blocks) using the highway increases this results in a slowdown and this increased demand can lead to a rise in toll fees, or transaction fees in crypto.

In order to try and reduce or even eliminate fees, speed up transaction times and perhaps even maintain greater anonymity some people go off-chain for their transactions. 

 

The benefits of on-chain or simply regular transactions

Before we can look at what off-chain transactions are we should first acquaint ourselves with on-chain or simply regular transactions taking place on the blockchain. 

A blockchain is literally a chain made up of blocks of data. 

These blocks are validated by independent nodes on what is known as a decentralised peer-to-peer network, as opposed to a centralised network. 

This peer-to-peer setup with no central organisation and an extremely robust system of validation makes a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin rock solid. 

In fact, in Bitcoin’s entire existence, it has never been hacked nor has Bitcoin ever been counterfeited or double spent on the blockchain. 

Furthermore, the Bitcoin network is highly resilient with a highly impressive uptime of 99.986% since its inception and 100% uptime since 2013. 

This level of uptime and resilience is hard to match even by the largest tech companies in the world. 

Being so rock solid and secure makes a blockchain and by extension a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin so attractive as a means of holding and transferring value between total strangers. 

Despite these advantages, there are limitations and this has led to the use of off-chain transactions.

 

On-chain transactions also have their downsides

Naturally, on-chain or regular blockchain transactions offer a huge amount of benefits but there are downsides too which have resulted in the growth in demand for off-chain transactions. 

Bitcoin transaction fees are expected to rise as demand for Bitcoin and other cryptos rises. 

For many users, especially those making small transactions the fees can represent a significant or unfeasible cost. 

In addition, getting transactions confirmed on the Bitcoin network could take anything from 10 minutes to several hours. 

Compared to legacy banking this is already a big improvement but for many, it’s simply not fast enough!

 

What are off-chain transactions?

To combat the downsides of on-chain transactions several protocols and services exist enabling off-chain transactions with lower fees and quicker settlements. 

Off-chain transactions deal with values externally from the blockchain and usually come about via several methods. 

These can include two parties having a private transfer agreement, maybe something like the private sale of a vehicle between two parties or a third party may exist that validates and guarantees a transaction.

Think of a 3rd party like Amazon sitting in the middle to ensure that the correct product ordered from party A in the marketplace makes it to party B as promised and on time and the seller gets the appropriate payment minus fees of course. 

Without the Amazon marketplace or a similar 3rd party, the user would be sending money to the seller in the hope that everything will go well. 

A huge company like Amazon with its market strength and dominance provides the required level of confidence just as a blockchain does. 

Amazon however doesn’t do this for free, there are costs involved just as there are transaction fees involved with blockchain transactions.

 

Another off-chain method uses a code-based payment mechanism. 

In this case, one party purchases a redeemable code to exchange against a crypto asset. 

They give this code to a third party who then redeems the code either in the same crypto asset or a different one depending on the service provider.

All of these individual transactions are happening externally and are therefore not restricted by the speed limitations or transaction fee requirements of the blockchain but also do not benefit from the full amount of security benefits afforded by the blockchain. 

There is naturally a trade-off, speed and lower fees in exchange for perhaps a small loss in security.

 

A couple of off-chain transaction providers includes Lightning Network and Liquid Network

One example of an off-chain network is the Lightning Network, a decentralised peer-to-peer network that allows users to transfer Bitcoin off-chain instantly and less transaction fees, so, faster and cheaper than on-chain. 

The Lightning Network is built on top of the Bitcoin network and is known as a layer-2 solution.

Another example is the Liquid Network which also offers speed and cost advantages but uses what is known as a sidechain protocol. 

The primary difference between layer-2 and sidechain solutions is the difference in their security mechanisms. 

Layer-2 relies on the security of the main chain, e.g. the Bitcoin blockchain whereas sidechains have their own security mechanisms. 

However, both have pretty much the same goal, to reduce transaction times and fees.

 

Conclusion

As crypto has exploded in popularity it has inevitably meant an increase in cost and a slowdown in transaction times. 

As a crypto blockchain like Bitcoin is pretty hard-wired, alternative ways to scale are continually being explored. 

Off-chain transactions are one way to reduce the transaction load and offer users a cheaper and faster alternative even if there are a few tradeoffs involved.

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CoinPoker Explained

CoinPoker Explained

CoinPoker is a blockchain technology-based poker platform that uses USD pegged stablecoin USDT as the in-game currency and the CHP token is the currency of the CoinPoker economy.

Everyone knows that gambling is of course, well… a gamble and that the odds are rarely in the player’s favour. 

This doesn’t ever stop people from gambling of course. 

Real-life gambling in a casino, not a roulette table or slot machine but a card game like poker presents less of a risk when it comes to the cards that are dealt. 

The player can see the cards being shuffled and dealt in front of their eyes and it is purely down to chance what cards the player and dealer get and then a mixture of chance and skill when the poker hand is played.

When it comes to online poker this is not the case, it’s software that handles the dealing of cards and software is of course programmed and programmers can make the software perform however they want it to perform. 

This makes things way less certain for players, add to this the fact that online poker is big business and operated by large organisations whose aim is to make money it may understandably create some doubts amongst the player community.

In online poker players watch a shuffling animation on screen and have to believe in the poker room’s integrity.

In an industry where cheating on both sides is accepted as part of the cost of doing business any form of transparency surely has to be welcome, for players at least. 

 

Could crypto and blockchain technology bring more integrity to the online poker game?

Crypto and blockchain technology is able to provide the kind of secure underpinning required for such an endeavour. 

With this in mind, CoinPoker is out to level the playing field so to speak using crypto blockchain technology. 

CoinPoker recently released their decentralised random number generating (RNG) software to combat one of the most prevalent issues in gambling, a lack of transparency in in-game mechanics.

Over 60,000 users have played on CoinPoker since their launch in November 2017 and over 56 million hands have been played. 

While ultimately growth is a key driver for CoinPoker as with most businesses, the community is at the heart of CoinPoker’s key strategic decisions, very much in line with many of today’s top crypto projects where the community at large is actively involved. 

This is a far cry from the centralised online gaming platforms where there is the provider (the business) and the customers (the players). 

By investing in innovative blockchain and cryptographic technology CoinPoker can offer a potentially more transparent and perhaps fairer platform on which players from all over the world can participate and the platform can be held accountable at least to a certain degree.

 

Coinpoker uses the same cryptographic hash function as used on the Ethereum network, KECCAK-256

The technology behind CoinPokers’ decentralised random number generator (RNG) uses the same cryptographic hash function used on the Ethereum network, KECCAK-256 to securely transmit card shuffling information to players which can thereafter be verified via a validation tool.

Applying the KECCAK-256 cryptographic hash function to their random number-generating algorithm makes CoinPoker’s new RNG module virtually impossible to reverse engineer.

In addition, it includes the involvement of all the players at the table in the shuffling process as opposed to solely the poker room behind the scenes. 

In essence, the players can choose whether to participate or not at the start of each hand, as soon as they choose to participate, a secret seed value is generated and sent to all the players and also CoinPoker behind the scenes. 

CoinPoker then uses the values to generate a final seed value which acts as the input for the random number generator (RNG) and this results in the final order of the card deck. 

After a hand is played, the players can verify the randomness of the deck and also see the undealt cards that would have been in play.

 

Currently, CoinPokers CHP tokens are listed and available on KuCoin, HitBTC, ForkDelta and Yobit net. 

CoinPoker users can deposit their tokens on the CoinPoker platform or in their private wallets. As CHP is an ERC-20 token it makes it compatible with most Ethereum wallets

Coinpoker uses USD pegged stablecoin USDT as the in-game currency. Transactions can be made using USDT, ETH, BTC or CHP tokens.

 

Conclusion

Crypto and blockchain technology is disrupting many industries and online gaming is no exception! The underlying technology and genuine community-driven approach so common in the crypto world looks to be a refreshing change in the world of online gaming.

 

Disclaimer: This article is in no way an endorsement of Coinpoker or online gaming. It’s simply information about what Coinpoker is and the technology and business model behind it.

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Holochain Explained

Holochain Explained

Holo is a new type of peer-to-peer distributed platform for hosting decentralised applications (DApps) built using Holochain. 

Holochain is a framework that allows for the development of decentralised apps without the need for blockchain technology.

The driving force of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology is decentralisation. 

Our current systems are in almost all cases centralised, our financial institutions, services we use, governments and so forth are all for the most part centralised. 

Businesses have historically used central servers to hold company data, a central source that is under the absolute control of the business. 

Cloud computing has shifted this in recent years and now more businesses use cloud computing. 

Instead of data being on a single server and therefore creating a single point of failure the data is spread across multiple servers thus reducing the risk of data loss and even an increase in performance. 

This works fine for centralised organisations in terms of data storage and the offering of their online services to consumers.

 

The birth of crypto and the march towards decentralisation

When Bitcoin and blockchain technology arrived on the scene back in 2009, the overriding goal was to create decentralised entities, so instead of a government-issued currency, there was a decentralised currency that was not actually owned or controlled by any single entity. 

This idea or vision presented some major challenges, especially when it came to applications such as currencies, where security and integrity are paramount. 

Blockchain technology answered these two key issues, security and integrity by way of a single ledger (the blockchain) and a secure and robust consensus system, Proof of Work (PoW).

In very simple terms, the Proof of Work consensus method requires a decentralised peer-to-peer network in which highly complex computational puzzles (hashes) need to be solved before a miner wins the right to mine the next block in the blockchain. 

Once the block is written and verified across the network with a unique transaction ID TXID it is as good as set in concrete. 

The blockchain provides a solid means by which to record events or transactions but without the need for a central entity like a bank, corporation or government to back it up. 

This technology also has downsides, the big one being the speed at which transactions can be added to the blockchain. Every single transaction has to go through a computationally intense process described above in order to be added to the ledger. 

This causes a slowdown in the network and an increase in transaction fees due to the massive demand and limited capacity.

 

This is where Holo comes in

Holo has created an alternative model, not centralised but also not using a blockchain and therefore without the need for the consensus model. 

Holochain is still peer-to-peer and is decentralised but instead uses a novel method of using agents across the network. 

The data is still encrypted from point to point and there is no central point of failure, but each operator is working as an agent and gets paid in HOT, the token for HOLO for hosting decentralised apps on their system. 

We won’t go into how it all works here but needless to say, Holochain has created a form of hybrid model that is not centralised servers, not cloud computing and not blockchain-based. 

Their approach can in theory allow for high transaction speeds, high performance and a high level of data security and integrity. 

For decentralised apps that require a high level of security and integrity built-in, high transaction speeds and relatively low costs Holo could certainly provide a very viable solution.

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Buy the Rumour Sell the News

Buy the Rumour Sell the News

In cryptocurrency trading and trading in general, investors often buy the rumour and sell the news. This is usually because prices tend to rise as a rumour spreads and then drop when the actual rumoured event takes place.

In the simplest possible terms, a buy the rumour, sell the news occurs when traders buy into an asset, be that a stock, commodity or crypto on the breaking of a rumour and ride a gradual rise in price up to the point where the news actually breaks.

A buy the rumour, sell the news or also known as a buy the hype, sell the news strategy sounds rather counterintuitive but tends to be the case in most instances, especially in financial markets. 

Buy the rumour, sell the news works as follows

Traders hear a rumour about a positive future event and this rumour gets them buying in order to cash in as the price rises prior to the announcement. 

The event happens as expected and then the price starts to drop and by then most smart traders are already out and have taken much of the profit out too. 

Buy the rumour, sell the news makes very little logical sense but turns out to be the case a lot of the time.

 

A fictitious example of how buy the rumour, sell the news could look

Let’s imagine a fictitious scenario and use a company like Apple and Apple stock as an example to illustrate how buy the rumour, sell the news works.

Imagine that rumours start circulating about a brand new foldable iPhone that people say will be announced in a few month’s time by Apple. 

It will be a game-changer for the iPhone lineup and give Apple a foldable phone to compete with Samsung and its foldable smartphone. 

As the rumours grow, screen renders appear around the internet and on social media, the price of Apple stock rises in anticipation of the official announcement. 

A few months later Apple announces its brand-new foldable iPhone to much fanfare and applause. 

At this point, the price of Apple stock will likely begin to drop. 

Now, this makes no logical sense as the rumour turned out to be true and therefore the price should continue to rise and not fall as there will most likely be a huge amount of sales of the new foldable iPhone. 

This is however how markets tend to react and that is what counts in the end if you are a speculator/trader. 

It is worth noting that typically, this drop in price tends to be temporary.

 

Timing is everything when it comes to successful trading

Due to this buy the rumour, sell the news phenomenon, clever traders get in when the rumour surfaces or perhaps even before the rumour leaks if they have a hunch or an early indication and then they sell shortly before the news is released, hence buy the rumour, sell the news. 

If this is predicted and executed precisely the trader can ride the rise, take a profit and get out before the price drops. 

The primary reason why the price rise occurs just after the rumour is that traders are already buying into the future event that has actually not yet taken place and when the event does occur traders have already taken the profit during the rumour period.

Think of it as the profit being delivered before the event and not after. 

If the news happens to be even better than expected traders may often continue to hold for a little longer and squeeze out a little more profit as new buyers can often drive the price even higher.

 

The reverse can also be true

Rumours of a negative event can sometimes drive prices down and then when the negative event does not come to pass the negative sentiment reverses and the price can begin to rise again. 

A kind of sense of relief price rise when the expected bad event didn’t actually end up happening. 

This reverse negative rumour situation can also allow smart traders to profit.

 

Some general pointers on how traders can use a buy the rumour, sell the news strategy

These are of course not exact or a complete list but can provide some examples of buy the rumour, sell the news strategies

  • Buy positive events that occur without a rumour – when a positive event occurs unexpectedly it could be good to jump in and ride the price increase
  • Buy on positive rumours – when a positive rumour breaks jump in and ride the price rise up to or just before the point where the news actually breaks
  • Sell on negative rumours – do the exact opposite of the above, sell on negative rumours and buy when the news breaks
  • Buy before any possible negative event is about to occur – and ride the possible price rise
  • Use a stop – for a situation in which an event does not occur in time as it’s possible the price will drop and you can limit any losses
  • Do your homework and be fully prepared for things to go wrong – nobody really knows what will happen with any level of certainty so it’s best to exercise some level of caution when it comes to trading and speculation

 

A possible example of buy the rumour, sell the news in crypto trading

When Coinbase listed in April 2021 on Nasdaq, Bitcoin prices had been rising significantly before the listing took place and reached a high of almost $65,000.

Following the Coinbase listing, Bitcoin lost almost half of its value in a matter of a few months. This could certainly be explained by a buy the rumour, sell the news situation although it’s impossible to say for sure.

 

Conclusion

Buy the rumour, sell the news is a very well-worn expression in financial markets and with just cause. 

Very often price rises and drops can be expected to some degree and this is where smart traders are able to jump in and out of assets, be they stocks, commodities or crypto. 

These traders through their timing and knowledge have a feeling about what to buy, when to buy and when to sell based on situations like buy the rumour, sell the market.

Smart traders will often take much of the profit out of the event prior to the event taking place, i.e. they have already been there and taken the bulk of the profit before later comers show up to enjoy what’s left of any profits still sitting on the table!

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who are clover finance

Who are Clover Finance?

Clover Finance (CLV) is a “one-stop” cross-chain DeFi bridge that provides a more accessible gateway to DeFi for everyone, including those that may be new to Decentralised Finance (DeFi).

Clover Finance was founded in May 2020 and the live mainnet was launched in July 2021

The rapid and exponential growth of the crypto ecosystem hasn’t come about without its fair share of problems. 

The two core problems that need to be solved are high gas prices (transaction fees) and network congestion due to bottlenecks causing the network to slow down and raising gas prices. 

In addition, as the wider crypto eco-system grows, there are more blockchains being introduced and while this helps reduce network congestion there is definitely a need for some form of cross-chain compatibility and easier access.

 

Network congestion is a growing problem in the crypto world

Currently, the bulk of the Decentralised Finance (DeFi) action is happening on the Ethereum blockchain, the second-largest crypto blockchain network after Bitcoin. 

Ethereum and Bitcoin both use what is known as a Proof of Work (PoW) consensus system for validating transactions. 

On the plus side, the Proof of Work consensus model is pretty robust and in crypto terms a relatively tried and tested technology. 

The key problem with Proof of Work-based blockchains like Ethereum and Bitcoin is slow transaction times resulting in higher transaction fees, in some cases fees exceeding the value of the transaction itself. 

As a result, many organisations are scrambling to tackle this growing problem, one of these projects is Clover Finance.

 

What does Clover Finance Do?

Clover Finance is building what is known as a foundational layer to enable Gasless user interactions to make the user experience easier and simpler, especially for those that are not hardcore crypto users. 

As crypto slowly edges towards something a little less techy and slightly more mainstream, the user experience needs to be simpler and the cost of transactions and network congestion problems need to be addressed. Otherwise, the situation will only get worse as web3 technology scales and touches more of our daily lives.

 

Cross-chain compatibility is needed

The other issue is cross-chain compatibility, when there was only one blockchain and one coin, Bitcoin, it was relatively easy. Everything happened on one blockchain and there was a single cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. 

This is clearly not the case anymore and things are only accelerating. 

Clover Finance is developed based on substrate, the foundation of the Polkadot network. 

Polkadot is what is known as a sharded multi-chain network and is able to process many transactions on multiple chains in parallel.

This radically reduces the bottlenecks that are prevalent on blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum where transactions are processed one at a time and not very efficient. 

One Clover Finance product, Clover Wallet allows users to view multiple assets without having to switch networks and supports Ethereum, Polkadot, Kusama and Binance Smart Chain to name a few.

 

Who are the brains behind Clover Finance?

The founders of Clover Finance are Viven Kirby, Burak Keceli and Norelle Ng. 

Viven Kirby is an experienced enterprise resource planner and serves the role of project lead at Clover. 

Burak Keceli is the tech lead at Clover Finance and has been an avid programmer since the age of 10, he was the creator of MBO Games as well as an instant cross-border payment platform, Stagg. 

Norelle Ng is the operations lead at Clover Finance and a seasoned blockchain expert with a background in human-computer interaction.

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HODL Explained , hold on for dear life on the roller coaster

HODL Explained

HODL is a term very commonly used by cryptocurrency investors and refers to a person holding on for dear life in a bear market

The world of crypto uses a huge amount of slang when compared to other technologies from the past such as personal computers or the internet. 

Both have had their fair share of course, like WYSIWYG, which stands for What You See is What You Get on a screen as an example. 

Yet, crypto is full of strange words and acronyms and it’s only just over 12 years old. 

It’s likely that in the future there will be dictionaries dedicated to the strange and wonderful language of crypto. 

Today we’re looking at the word HODL which originated from a misspelling of the word HOLD.

 

The origins of the now-famous HODL

The word HODL came into being by accident when a BitcoinTalk user by the name of GameKyuubi wrote on the thread “I AM HODLING” on December 18 2013

GameKyuubi wrote:

I AM HODLING

“I type d that tyitle twice because I knew it was wrong the first time. Still wrong, BTC crashing WHY AM I HOLDING? I’LL TELL YOU WHY. It’s because I’m a bad trader and I KNOW I’M A BAD TRADER.”

And so it was that the word HODL suddenly came into being during a drunken, self-deprecating rant and is now a well-used term in the crypto investment world. 

HODL has taken on so much significance in the crypto community that December 18 is known as HODL day in homage to the day that the “hodl” post was now famously written and yet another crypto legend and acronym was born.

Since those early days when the word HODL just meant holding, the term has evolved so to speak and the crypto community converted HODL from a simple spelling mistake to the acronym 

‘Hold On for Dear Life’ very much describes the roller coaster emotion behind hodling.

 

So what is hodling exactly?

In the simplest terms, it’s when a person holding crypto holds on for dear life during a downturn in price and refuses to sell even as the price continues to plummet. 

It is an investment strategy that is also known as buy and hold in traditional investment circles.

When we talk about hodling we are looking at a buy and hold strategy and are effectively talking about holding onto crypto although it could also be a stock for the long-term regardless of the prevailing market volatility. 

The idea being that over the long term investment assets tend to trend upwards and so just by hodling and riding out the bumps we should in theory still come out ahead and often tends to be the case.

Those that are highly experienced traders be that in crypto, stocks or other commodities can strategically and cleverly ride the bumps and profit with the goal to get in and out at the exact right time as often as possible. 

There are no guarantees of course but it is at least possible with enough knowledge and risk tolerance. 

On the other side of this coin are the completely inexperienced investors who have bought into a crypto or other asset and are tracking the price daily. 

The moment the crypto or asset starts dropping in price they panic and may sell off all or part of their holdings in order to stem the losses. 

Inevitably though, many times, prices level off and after some time may start to climb again and even end up higher than when the storm hit leaving those that sold rather frustrated. 

For this category of investor, a hodl strategy could make more sense as long as they stick to holding on for dear life no matter what happens. 

Of course, it’s easier said than done but is probably a wiser overall strategy when compared to panic buying and selling which rarely ends well for anyone!

 

There is another hodl which is actually a crypto token

It’s worth noting that there is an actual cryptocurrency token called HODL.  That HODL operates on the Binance smart chain and shouldn’t be confused with the general crypto term HODL that we are speaking about here.

 

Knowing when it’s time to HODL

When we look at long-term investing or hodling in general we have to make a clear distinction between traditional investing, blue-chip stocks like Apple, commodities or even FIAT currencies and crypto trading. 

While nothing is of course certain and anything could indeed happen, the likelihood of a company like Apple suddenly going kaput is pretty unlikely. 

It could be a safe, if not very exciting investment for the long term as Apple is well established, is very liquid and operates in a highly regulated market. 

One could therefore buy Apple stock and hold onto it for 10 years without too much worry. 

The same cannot be said with as much conviction about crypto. 

Crypto is highly volatile and still very much in its infancy. A crypto could rise exponentially in ten years or disappear from the face of the earth with equal probability. 

This, therefore, makes crypto hodling quite different to a traditional buy and hold strategy with stocks. 

Naturally, it’s important to do as much research and due diligence as possible before making an investment decision and not having all the eggs in one basket would certainly minimise the risk. 

It’s probably fair to say that the most natural hodlers are those that believe in the long-term future of crypto and perhaps have a decent understanding of the crypto universe and how all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fit together. 

This can help the investor make slightly more informed decisions and keep their nerves steady as they are holding on for dear life during a freefall!

 

Conclusion

HODL is not just a bit of fun crypto folklore, it stands for an investment strategy of sorts where it could make sense to hodl and just hold on for dear life when things begin to look grim, think 2022 & 2023!

Quite possibly the storm will come to an end and things will eventually bounce back with vigour. 

Of course, nobody knows for sure and in the world of crypto with its wild volatility, it can take nerves of steel to hodl, especially when the amounts involved are significant! 

Whatever the case, it may make more sense to stay calm and hodl rather than panic sell and come to regret it later.

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TXID - Transaction ID Explained

TXID Explained

A TXID also known as a transaction ID or transaction hash is a unique string of characters given to every single transaction that is verified and added to a crypto blockchain such as Bitcoin or Ethereum.

 

A TXID or transaction ID is a vital piece of information on a blockchain. 

Every single transaction that is verified and added to a blockchain like Bitcoin or Ethereum is allocated a transaction ID or TXID. 

Think of it as something similar to a booking reference number when you book a flight or a hotel room. 

Every booking reference number is unique and allows the airline or hotel to identify your booking and proves that you have paid for the flight or hotel room.

In much the same way a TXID confirms that the desired transaction was correctly processed and recorded on the blockchain network.

There are some very important distinctions to be aware of when comparing the booking of a flight, hotel room, or say a purchase on Amazon to a blockchain transaction. 

In all of the other cases, there are usually customer service departments with people on the other side to talk to in the event that a transaction isn’t processed correctly. 

Usually, with crypto, there is no person on the other side, the blockchain software and logic take care of everything and if something goes wrong it can get tricky or maybe even impossible to set right. 

Secondly, a blockchain transaction could potentially represent a significant sum, maybe thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions. 

With those values at stake, it’s essential that the mechanism behind the TXID is rock solid and reliable and that transactions are permanently and securely stored.

With this in mind, it’s reassuring to know that blockchains use something known as a double 256-SHA hash. This is a very long string of numbers and letters and are very difficult to hack.

 

What is a TXID exactly?

A TXID or Transaction ID is a string of letters and numbers that is able to identify a particular transaction on a blockchain network. The string is a double of the SHE-256 hash of a transaction.

Whenever a transaction is signed the TXID of that transaction is actually signed. 

This ensures that if any part of that transaction is changed, the transaction ID will change rendering the signature invalid. 

This provides an additional safeguard to ensure that nothing gets tampered with.

This ultra-high level of security combined with transparency makes crypto pretty unique in the world of finance at least.

 

Below are a couple of famous examples of transaction IDs (TXIDs) to see what they look like

The first-ever Bitcoin transaction

One of the most famous TXIDs is the very first Bitcoin transaction between the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto and Hal Finney, an early Bitcoin contributor, cryptographer, cypherpunk and developer. 

Hal Finney received 10 Bitcoin on 12 January 2009 at 3.30 am GMT, at that time literally worthless and today would be worth in excess of €2.6 million!

TXID: f4184fc596403b9d638783cf57adfe4c75c605f6356fbc91338530e9831e9e16

You can view this historic transaction on blockchain.com by visiting: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/f4184fc596403b9d638783cf57adfe4c75c605f6356fbc91338530e9831e9e16

 

The world’s most expensive pizzas!

On 22nd May 2010, computer programmer Laslio Hanyecz posted Bitcoin forum, Bitcointalk

“I´ll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas…Like maybe 2 large ones so I have some leftover for the next day”

Yes, 10,000 bitcoins!

In those early days, 10,000 bitcoins were worth around 41 USD. A bitcointalk user on the forum accepted the challenge and provided a very hungry Laslio with the 2 pizzas netting himself a tidy little profit. 

Today, in 2023, those 10,000 bitcoins would be worth in excess of 260 million EUR! 

Yes, you didn’t read that wrong! Those are two very expensive pizzas! Due to the historic magnitude of this transaction, 22nd May is now known in crypto circles as Bitcoin pizza day.

TXID: cca7507897abc89628f450e8b1e0c6fca4ec3f7b34cccf55f3f531c659ff4d79

You can view the pizza order transaction id here to see what it looks like:  https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/cca7507897abc89628f450e8b1e0c6fca4ec3f7b34cccf55f3f531c659ff4d79

 

Conclusion

A transaction ID or TXID is a highly secure identification of a transaction that has been verified on a blockchain network like Bitcoin or Ethereum. 

It is practically impossible to successfully fake transactions on a blockchain and this ultra-high level of security combined with complete transparency makes blockchains very interesting as a highly secure, global, transactional technology. 

For now, though, all you need to know is that a transaction ID or TXID is the confirmation that your transaction was recorded correctly on the blockchain and that everything went to plan. 

In addition to learning about what a TXID is, it’s also worth remembering the pizza story the next time someone offers you virtually worthless crypto for some pizza, who knows, maybe that same crypto could be worth millions in a few year’s time!

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Crypto Faucets Explained

Crypto Faucets Explained

A crypto faucet is a website that pays out tiny amounts of crypto in exchange for performing small tasks, such as clicking on links or watching ads.

If you’re not from the United States you may be doubly confused by the term crypto faucet as the word faucet doesn’t actually exist in British English. 

In the UK we would refer to a faucet as a tap, as in a tap where water flows out. 

Okay, so, that clears up what a faucet is for non-Americans, the next question is, what does a faucet or tap have to do with crypto? 

Let’s find out.

In order to understand the term crypto faucet, we can think of a tap or faucet, where generally water, beer or soda flows but in this case crypto drips out. 

Now, imagining the crypto slowly dripping out of the faucet as opposed to flowing out at speed is very important in order to understand the levels of money or rather crypto you are likely to earn on a crypto faucet website. 

 

A crypto faucet is no get-rich-quick scheme! It is however free crypto, although you are still investing your time, and time is money for most people. 

If you have the time and inclination you could earn yourself tiny amounts of crypto without actually paying for it and the beauty is in the fact that the value of that same crypto could rise considerably. 

This wouldn’t necessarily be the same if you were earning the equivalent in a fiat currency like GBP, EUR or USD. 

Let’s imagine you earn a reward of £0.05 each time you click on an advert. 

The value of that 5 pence will not really go up, the value of the 5 pence today will be roughly the same next year or the year after if we ignore inflation.

Now, imagine that that same 5-pence was worth £0.50 or £1 next year. 

This changes things. 

With crypto as it is at this moment, the price can rise and of course, fall quite dramatically in the course of even a few weeks or months. 

This volatility and growth potential makes the earning of rewards in crypto as opposed to a fiat currency potentially more interesting.

 

Early crypto faucets users could possibly have become millionaires

Crypto faucets started out during the early days of Bitcoin as a way to spread awareness of this new thing known as a cryptocurrency. 

As difficult and painful as it may be to imagine today, those early crypto faucet users could be earning one or two bitcoin for clicking on links, it may have been a relatively worthless drip back then, however, today a single bitcoin is worth upwards of €43,000. 

So, in theory, if you had earned as little as 25 bitcoin back then when they were virtually worthless, they would be worth over €1 million! Yes, you would be a millionaire. 

Unfortunately, the Bitcoin opportunity is long gone, today you would earn Bitcoin in what are known as Sats or Satoshis, one Satoshi is one hundred millionth of a Bitcoin or 0.000000001 BTC

 

How does a crypto faucet work?

In the simplest sense, a crypto faucet website pays a reward in exchange for performing a task such as clicking on a link, watching an advertisement, completing a captcha or maybe promotion on social media. 

Crypto faucet websites get paid by their clients for each task and they pass on some of the rewards to the users of the website.

Crypto faucet websites usually have some form of minimum payout threshold, so the little drips of crypto you earn accumulate in a micro wallet on their website until such time that a certain minimum balance is reached, at which point the earned crypto can be paid out to your own personal crypto wallet.

 

What are the downsides of crypto faucets?

There are no major downsides except that you need to invest time earning the crypto, however, there are some potential risks to be aware of. 

It is not impossible that you could be clicking links that could be malicious and end up putting malware on your computer, which in turn could turn out to be disastrous. 

It is therefore essential that you have your wits about you, use some common sense and are careful about what you click. 

Doing research on what are reputable crypto faucet sites will certainly help reduce the risks.

 

Does one need knowledge of crypto to use a crypto faucet?

The great thing is that pretty much anybody can use a crypto faucet, there is no knowledge of crypto required although it is useful to know a little bit in order to know what crypto you would like to earn

 

Can one earn other types of crypto aside from Satoshis (tiny fractions of Bitcoin)?

Yes, although the original crypto faucets were offering Bitcoin it is also possible to earn Ethereum, Litecoin and Monero to name a few. A quick Google search will find you plenty of crypto faucet lists to choose from.

 

Anything else to watch out for?

Sadly, as with many aspects of crypto, even crypto faucets can attract scammers. 

Scams can include simply not paying out once the threshold has been reached or just logging users out. 

This type of scam is akin to making you work and then not paying you, not nice. 

Again, to be safe, do some research and see what the word on the street is before using a crypto faucet.

 

Conclusion

As the well-known saying goes, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” and it’s true, even with crypto faucets it’s not a free lunch as you still need to do some work but it can allow you to accumulate small amounts of crypto without actually paying out hard cash. 

If you have more time than money or would like to find a financially risk-free way to delve into the world of crypto, crypto faucets could be a place to start. 

You never know, maybe there’s another Bitcoin-size opportunity on the horizon and you could earn a tiny amount now that could be worth a lot more in the future!

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