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  • Bitfinex Exchange Review (2023): Wide, Advanced, and Secured

    Bitfinex Exchange Review (2023): Wide, Advanced, and Secured

    Bitfinex is a veteran cryptocurrency trading platform with a long history, but its past is not without controversy, leaving many to question its legitimacy. But for those looking for a secure and feature-rich cryptocurrency exchange, Bitfinex is worth checking out, offering users a range of security and other features that rival those of Coinbase and Binance.

    Sign up here to get started

    What is Bitfinex?

    Bitfinex is a premier destination for experienced traders from around the world. It is one of the top exchanges in terms of recognition and trading volume, serving all but a few countries. It supports both fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-crypto trades, allowing users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies with ease. Finex is a secure platform with advanced features such as margin trading, lending, and order types. It also offers a mobile app for trading on the go. With its user-friendly interface and low fees, Bitinex is an ideal choice for traders of all levels.

    Bitfinex is a cryptocurrency exchange platform that offers a wide range of features, including margin trading, limit and stop orders, and over-the-counter (OTC) trades. It has an intuitive interface with easy-to-navigate dashboards and menus, and robust security measures. Despite this, Bitfinex has been hacked twice (in 2015 and 2016). Since then, it has improved its security and compensated lost funds to every user. Bitfinex is a reliable and secure platform for trading cryptocurrencies, offering a wide range of features and tools to help users make informed decisions.

    Key Features of Bitfinex

    Bitfinex is known for its core features such as:

    Exchange Trading: Central limit order books that let users to deposit, trade, and withdraw digital tokens.

    Margin Trading: By receiving funding from the margin funding platform, qualified customers can trade with up to 10x leverage.

    Margin Funding: The P2P financing market in which users can earn interest by lending funds to other users who trade with leverage.

    OTC Desk: Trades can be conducted directly between parties using Bitfinex instead of going through open order books.

    Ability to Purchase Cryptocurrency Using Debit or Credit Cards: OWNR and Mercuryo, third paty payment processors, are accepted by Bitfinex for cryptocurrency purchases.

    High Liquidity: As one of the leading exchanges in terms of daily BTC/USD trading volume, Bitfinex ensures price stability and trader confidence.

    Good Customer Support: For 24/7 support and a comprehensive knowledge base, users of Bitfinex can rely on email support with responses within 12 hours.

    Security: Bitfinex is a secure cryptocurrency exchange that takes extra precautions to protect user funds, such as cold storage, DDoS protection, encryption, and regular backups, as well as additional security measures like whitelisting, 2FA, U2F, and suspicious activity analysis.

    Variety of Trading Options: Trading participants have access to limit, market, stop, trailing stop, fill or kill, iceberg, OCO, hidden, and post-only limit orders in addition to funding and leverage trading.

    Market Pairs: About 100 market pairs are available on the platform, including those for well-known coins like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and EOS as well as well-liked alternative coins like TRON, Stellar, NEO, 0x, QTUM, and many others.

    Key Advantages of Bitfinex

    Bitfinex is a popular cryptocurrency exchange that has been providing users with a secure and reliable trading platform for over five years, earning positive reviews from users along the way.

    A Cryptocurrency Exchange Targeted Toward Professional Traders

    Bitfinex is a cryptocurrency exchange platform that is mostly aimed at crypto trading professionals. It offers advanced order types such as limit, stop-limit, stop, fill or kill, and scaled, as well as the ability to customize the interface. Advanced crypto traders can also view more-informative charts. This makes Bitfinex a great option for professional traders, as evidenced by the many user Bitfinex reviews.

    Plenty of Trading Pairs (400+)

    Crypto trading pairs are an important factor for professional cryptocurrency traders. Bitfinex offers over 400 different trading pairs, including both fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-crypto options. This wide selection of trading pairs allows traders to find the best option for their needs, and potentially make more profits. With Bitfinex, users can take advantage of low fees, taxes, and account limits to maximize their profits. With so many options available, traders can find the perfect crypto trading pair for their needs.

    High-Level Security Features

    Bitfinex is a popular cryptocurrency exchange platform that offers a wide range of features and services. It has suffered some security issues in the past, but the platform has taken steps to ensure that its users are protected. It has implemented two-factor authentication, cold storage, and other measures to ensure the safety of user funds. Additionally, it has a dedicated security team that monitors the platform 24/7 and responds quickly to any potential threats. With these measures in place, users can rest assured that their funds are safe and secure on the Bitfinex platform.

    Bitfinex is a secure cryptocurrency exchange that pays close attention to IP addresses and user information. It also offers additional security measures such as allowing withdrawals from a single, set IP address and cold cryptocurrency storage. Cold storage refers to keeping crypto coins in hardware devices that are not connected to the internet, making them virtually impossible to access. (caldwell.edu) With these security measures in place, users can rest assured that their funds are safe and secure on the Bitfinex platform.

    The exchange keeps 99.5% of its users’ crypto assets in cold storage devices, which is one of the best security features that it employs. Many users of the exchange agree that Bitfinex has learned from past controversies and that the current security measures in place are both reliable and adequate. This ensures that users’ funds are kept safe and secure, giving them peace of mind when trading on the platform.

    Derivative Trading Option

    Bitfinex is a popular cryptocurrency exchange that offers its users a variety of trading options, including derivatives. Derivatives are contracts that are tied to the asset being traded, such as Ethereum. This allows users to invest in an asset without actually purchasing it, allowing them to take advantage of market opportunities quickly and easily. Bitfinex reviews are positive, with users appreciating the convenience and flexibility of the platform.

    5 Different Fiat Currencies are Supported

    It is a cryptocurrency exchange that allows users to make deposits with five different fiat currencies – USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, and CNH – via wire transfer. This makes it easier for users to purchase cryptocurrencies without having to go through the tedious process of transferring other coins from their wallet. Bitfinex also offers a wide range of trading options, making it a great choice for both experienced and novice traders. With its user-friendly interface and secure platform, Bitfinex is a great choice for those looking to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.

    Key Disadvantages of Bitfinex

    Despite its many features and benefits, Bitfinex has had a controversial past which may raise questions about its legitimacy.

    Conflicting History

    Bitfinex, one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, experienced two major break-ins in 2015 and 2016, resulting in the loss of user funds. In response, the exchange reimbursed all affected users in full. The hacks had a major impact on the crypto community, and served as a warning to other exchanges to strengthen their security. Since then, Bitfinex has taken steps to ensure their platform is as secure as possible, and have received positive reviews from users.

    Perhaps Not Appropriate for New Traders

    It is an exchange built for professional traders. It offers a wide range of features, but these may be difficult to understand for beginners. If you are new to crypto trading and want an easy-to-use platform, Coinbase may be a better option. Bitfinex is known for its security, but users should be aware that it may not be suitable for those with little knowledge of financial markets and investments.

    Fees

    It has a “maker” and “taker” fee model, with taker fees ranging up to 0.2%. Deposits are free, and withdrawals cost a bit depending on the cryptocurrency. Bitfinex is a great choice for traders looking to save money on fees while trading cryptocurrencies.

    How to use Bitfinex?

    Bitfinex is a popular cryptocurrency exchange that offers users a secure and easy way to buy and sell digital assets. Let’s take a look at how the actual registration process on the site works.

    Step 1: Go to the official Bitfinex website.

    Step 2: On the upper-right part of the screen, press Sign Up.

    Step 3: In order to open up an account, you’ll have to do the usual – create a username and password, and provide Bitfinex with your email address.

    Step 4: Now, you’ll be asked to confirm your email address.

    Step 5: You will now need to re-log into your account. And, that’s it – you’re in!

    Registering with Bitfinex is fast and easy, with two-factor authentication and identity verification available for added security.

    Conclusion

    Bitfinex is a popular cryptocurrency exchange that offers a wide range of financial and analytical tools. It is secure and has low fees, making it a great option for experienced traders with a varied portfolio of crypto assets. However, if you’re just starting out, there are better options out there, such as Binance or Coinbase. Before trading on Bitfinex, make sure to read up on the platform and understand the risks involved.

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • HitBTC Exchange Review (2023): Low Trading Fees and Wide Variety of Digital Assets

    HitBTC Exchange Review (2023): Low Trading Fees and Wide Variety of Digital Assets

    HitBTC is a leading cryptocurrency exchange platform that allows users to buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, EOS, and more. This review of HitBTC will provide you with information regarding the platform’s security, advantages and disadvantages, supported cryptocurrencies, fees, and payment methods.

    Sign up here to get started

    What is HitBTC?

    HitBTC is a European bitcoin exchange platform founded in 2013 with a 6 million USD Venture Capital investment. Ullus Corporations is the company behind HitBTC, which offers traders the opportunity to trade the most popular cryptocurrencies and widespread fiat currencies, such as USD and EUR. The main goal of the company is to introduce crypto traders to the most advanced technologies.

    HitBTC provides a secure and reliable platform for trading digital assets, with a wide range of features and tools, including advanced order types, margin trading, and a variety of order books. The platform also offers a wide range of payment options, including bank transfers, credit cards, and cryptocurrencies. With its user-friendly interface and advanced security measures, HitBTC is a great choice for both experienced and novice traders.

    Key Features of HitBTC

    The following are the main features of the HitBTC exchange:

    • Over 380 cryptocurrencies are available for purchase and sale in over 800 coin pairs. HitBTC has one of the most diverse cryptocurrency trading platforms and was one of the first exchanges to accept new projects.
    • Exchange of cryptocurrencies. Purchase Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency and begin trading immediately without verification. However, you may be required to prove your identity afterward.
    • Safe exchange. HitBTC is one of the few exchanges that has never been hacked.
    • Low trading costs. Starter and General accounts are charged a 0.1% creator fee and a 0.2% taker cost, whereas upgraded accounts are free.
    • API that is both robust and robot-friendly. Users of HitBTC can utilize trading bots, which operate well with the platform’s strong API.
    • Demo account. HitBTC provides a demo account for new Bitcoin traders. Everyone can use its site without placing a deposit.

    Key Advantages of HitBTC

    Although HitBTC offers numerous features and functionalities, this review will solely concentrate on its essential cryptocurrency aspects, aiding you in determining if this exchange aligns with your requirements. With that established, let’s commence the review by examining the positive aspects and assessing the legitimacy of HitBTC.

    800+ Trading Pairs 

    HitBTC is a popular crypto exchange platform that supports a wide range of cryptocurrencies. With over 380 cryptocurrencies and 800 crypto pairs, users have access to a huge selection of coins. HitBTC reviews confirm that the platform is secure and reliable, making it a great choice for those looking to trade in cryptocurrencies. Fees are also competitive, making it an attractive option for those looking to maximize their profits. With its wide selection of coins and competitive fees, HitBTC is a great choice for those looking to trade in cryptocurrencies.

    HitBTC supports a range of cryptocurrencies, including but not limited to:

    • BTC
    • ETH
    • XRP
    • USDT
    • BCH
    • LTC
    • ADA
    • Approximately 380 others

    In addition, the exchange offers an extensive list of trading pairs, including but not limited to:

    • BCH/BTC
    • BCH/USDT
    • BTC/USDT
    • ETH/BTC
    • LTC/BTC
    • Approximately 800 others

    This vast selection of trading options makes HitBTC a comprehensive platform that allows for trading even lesser-known altcoins.

    Secure Platform

    HitBTC is one of the few crypto exchange platforms that has never been hacked due to its multiple security measures. These include the termination of all sessions, email notifications about new IP logins, automatic logouts, whitelisting withdrawal addresses, and two-factor authentication. To ensure maximum security, users should create a strong password and use dedicated email accounts for trading, as well as keep their coins in secure cryptocurrency wallets such as Ledger and Trezor. HitBTC provides robust security and is recommended for those who want to keep their funds safe.

    Low Transaction Fees

    This platform offers some of the lowest trading fees in the market. Regular users pay a fixed amount – 0.1% maker fee and 0.2% taker fee. However, the more you trade, the lower your fees will be. Starting from Tier 9, you will be paid 0.01% back of the trade that you make. The system will calculate your trading volume for the last 30 days and determine the fee rate for your account every day, encouraging you to trade even more. With its low fees and secure platform, HitBTC is a great choice for cryptocurrency traders.

    Demo Account

    This is a great platform for trading, especially for beginners. It offers a Demo account, which allows users to have a real-time experience in trading without risking any real investments. The Demo account is completely free and can be used for educational and training purposes. It is a perfect place to apply different strategies and figure out how the trading works. With the Demo account, users can credit themselves with a test fund and have a real trading experience without risking anything. Therefore, if you want to have a real trading experience without risking anything, HitBTC is the perfect platform for you.

    Mobile App

    HitBTC, a cryptocurrency exchange, is now making it easier for traders to access their accounts on the go. The exchange has recently announced the development of a mobile app for iOS and Android devices, available for download on both the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store. This app will provide traders with a secure and convenient way to access their accounts, allowing them to trade, deposit, and withdraw funds, as well as monitor their portfolio performance. With the app, traders can stay up to date with the latest market developments and take advantage of trading opportunities as they arise. HitBTC’s mobile app is sure to be a hit with traders, providing them with a secure and convenient way to access their accounts on the go.

    Key Disadvantages of HitBTC

    Having discussed the positive aspects of HitBTC, it’s time to take a look at its shortcomings – but if you’re looking for a better alternative, Coinbase or Binance may be worth considering.

    Customer Service Isn’t the Best

    HitBTC is a crypto exchange that claims to provide 24/7 customer support, however, multiple reviews have pointed out that the customer service is poor. This has been a source of disappointment for many users who have experienced issues with creating an account, verifying identity, and trading crypto. It is important to take this into consideration when deciding whether HitBTC is the right exchange for you.

    The Verification Process Takes Time

    HitBTC is a secure crypto exchange platform that requires users to go through a long verification process. This includes providing personal information, residential address, proof of identity, selfie, and phone number. While this process is quite regular for all crypto exchange platforms that take security seriously, it might take a while to provide all the needed information. This step-by-step guide will help users to register and create their accounts on HitBTC quickly and securely. All users should be aware that the verification process is necessary to ensure the safety of their funds and data.

    How to Register on HitBTC?

    Creating an account on HitBTC is a straightforward process. Follow these simple steps:

    • Step 1. Head to the HitBTC homepage and click on the “Sign Up” button located at the top right corner of the page.
    • Step 2. Input a valid email address and generate a secure password.
    • Step 3. Supply additional details, including your full name, phone number, and country of residence.
    • Step 4. Click on “Finish Registration.”
    • Step 5. Check your email address and click on the confirmation link.

    Upon completing these five simple steps, your HitBTC account will be created, and you will be ready to start trading.

    How to Deposit Funds into Your Account?

    Once you have created your HitBTC account, the next step is to deposit funds so that you can begin trading. Here’s a simple guide to help you with that:

    • Step 1. Navigate to your account page and click on the green “Deposit” button.
    • HitBTC Review: Depositing Funds.
    • Step 2. Use the search field located at the top of the page to find the cryptocurrency you wish to deposit and click on the “Deposit” column. This will generate a wallet address for you.
    • HitBTC Review: Depositing Funds.
    • Step 3. To initiate a transaction, copy and paste your wallet address into a third-party service.
    • Step 4. For certain cryptocurrencies, you may also need to copy and paste your payment ID, also known as a “Destination Tag.”

    If you have completed all of these steps, you have successfully deposited funds into your HitBTC account and are now ready to start trading.

    Conclusion

    HitBTC is a reliable and highly-recommended crypto exchange platform that offers robust security measures and supports more than 380 cryptocurrencies and over 800 crypto pairs. It also has low trading fees and a Demo version that allows users to try the platform out without investing anything. However, some users don’t like the long verification process and customer support is not the most helpful. If you’re looking for a better and more-established crypto exchange, Coinbase or Binance are great alternatives.

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • Linear Finance ($LINA): The future of synthetic exchange platforms?

    Linear Finance ($LINA): The future of synthetic exchange platforms?

    Linear Finance ($LINA) understands that decentralized finance (DeFi) has opened new possibilities for derivative offerings and that many exchanges have the apparent problems of front-running, expensive gas fees, and liquidity issues. Linear Finance seeks to go around those issues with its cheap, quick, and transparent synthetic asset exchange platform. With Linear, users can simply make a synthetic asset that contains a portfolio of different underlying tokens based on the exposure that they are willing to take. This presents new yield-making opportunities for anyone based on their customized financial goals.

    Check out our interview with Linear Finance!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcXsEwj5hpI

    Background

    Drey Ng and Kevin Tai, Co-founders of Linear Finance, built the project with a vision of an inclusive and more democratized access to investment opportunities. By their team’s expertise in different crypto initiatives and financial instruments, Linear made a cross-chain, Ethereum-based protocol that seeks to fulfill their vision.

    With Linear, users can make their own portfolio exposures and manage them on their own. This initiative enables investors to easily invest, save, and earn efficient profits from their assets.

    What is Linear Finance?

    Linear Finance is a decentralized delta-one asset protocol where users can make, manage, and trade synthetic assets. This gives users exposure to different kinds of assets without having to actually own their underlying assets.

    An additional feature that Linear Finance has introduced is a cross-chain compatible and decentralized protocol that can support a faster, more affordable, and secure exchange of synthetic assets.

    Linear Finance’s platform is powered by its native token, LINA. It can be used for many purposes such as payments, staking, liquidity mining, governance, and investing in “Liquids.” Liquids are Linear’s synthetic assets composed of different underlying tokens or investment options.

    LinearDAO

    LinearDAO is the governance community who controls important platform designs and system parameters including pledge ration, LINA inflation reward and frequency, transactions fees, proposal implementation, and many more. Furthermore, they also regulate the profit and loss regarding liquidation.

    Perks and Special Features

    The project promises infinite liquidity and no slippage. Here are some of the perks users can find with Linear Finance:

    • Convenience: The protocol promises quick transactions with low transaction fees. Any kind of user can enjoy the platform as well, whether they are a market maker, staker, or trader.
    • Transparency: To prevent front-running, every transaction made within the exchange is made transparent to all users. This also reduces systemic risks on the part of each network participant.
    • Ethereum-based: Because it is built on the Ethereum network with cross-chain compatibility, it can work alongside other DeFi projects too.
    • User-tailored options: There are different exposure options that users can freely choose from, such as other tokens, commodities, or market indices.

    The whole Linear platform is built on two different blockchains but they complement each other thanks to cross-chain compatibility. For users, they only need to open an Ethereum-based wallet and an EVM-compatible wallet.

     Linear automatically links these two together through smart contracts. Here are some of the advantages of an infrastructure modeled around that concept. They are:

    • Maximized DeFi support: While LinearDAO and LINA tokens are based on Ethereum, its use of EVM and smart contracts make it easy for the platform to interact with other DeFi protocols.
    • Affordability: Buildr and Exchange function through smart contracts on top of EVM-compatible blockchains. This enables Linear to support the building and trading of Liquids at very minimal gas fees.
    • Fewer risks of front-running: The block time confirmation for other EVM-compatible blockchains are much faster than Ethereum. This allows users to create their own Liquids at more updated prices through the help of oracles. This way, the risk of users front-running the exchange becomes much lower.

    LINA Token

    LINA can be used for payments, staking, and governance participation. But mainly, LINA functions as the base collateral needed to mint Liquids through Buildr, the decentralized application (dApp) designed to manage synthetic assets.

    To create Liquids, users have to “pledge” 100% of their digital assets, which also means collateralization. This is to ensure that Liquids are fully-backed by an underlying asset, saving the stability of the system from the volatility of synthetic assets. The pledge requirement can be reduced eventually if the LinearDAO deems it necessary.

    Collateralization

    Buildr takes a hybrid approach in terms of collateralization. For Liquids, users need to deposit a mixture of LINA and other cryptocurrency tokens to generate a synthetic asset. The ratio is 80:20, where at least 80% of the collateral must be in LINA and 20% can be in other cryptocurrencies.

    Staking

    Staking LINA offers users many incentives. These are the following rewards that users can receive by doing so:

    • Exchange Fee Reward: The transaction fees collected from users of the Linear.Exchange platform, currently set at 0.25%, is redistributed weekly to LINA stakers on a pro-rata basis. For non-LINA stakers, these rewards can also be provided too but it will depend on the decision of the community governance council.
    • Inflationary Reward: LINA has a starting inflation rate of 75% which decreases on a weekly basis. The inflation reward is given to LINA stakers on a pro-rata basis as well.
    • Yield Farming: Yield farmers help maintain Linear’s debt pool and the whole platform. For the first two years of the project, users who actively use the exchange can receive token bonuses. These token bonuses can then be deposited by yield farmers in other liquidity pools such as Balancer, Curve, and Uniswap.

    Where can I buy/sell/trade $LINA?

    $LINA is now tradable on other exchanges as well like Bitmax, MXC, Bilaxy, Bibox, Hotbit and Hoo.

    Linear.Exchange

    In facilitating faster trade activities with almost unlimited liquidity, Linear is building their own exchange. As of now, Liquid is collaborating with other public blockchains to reduce transaction settlement timeframes to as quick as one second every transaction coupled with instant finality.

    With a plan of partnering with oracles, Linear also believes that they can solve problems with front-running as they gain the capability of refreshing prices on a frequent and quick basis at much lower prices for the underlying assets.

    Linear Finance ($LINA) token public sale

    The token public sale took place on 14th September 2020. A total of 47,222,222 LINA tokens were sold in 2 rounds. The first round had 25mil tokens at $0.00400 per token. The second round, 22,222,222 tokens at $0.00450 per token.

    The sale was 40 times oversubscribed and closed earlier than expected (it was supposed to last for 24 hours). Each participant in the sale had to purchase 500 USDT/USDC worth of LINA. Hence only 400 participants were able to get the allocation on a FIRST COME FIRST SERVED basis. This was determined by the time/date stamp on their Google Form submission. The first 200 users were allocated LINA tokens from round 1, and the remaining 200 participants from round 2. This was however subject to the registrants completing the KYC process in a period of 24 hours.

    $LINA was first listed on Uniswap and reached more than 20x from public sale price (and around 60x from private sale round 1). It is now stabilized at around $0.005 (as at 3 November 2020).

    Linear pre-staking platform

    Immediately after listing, Linear Finance has launched its staking platform. Holders can participate in the 8 weeks pre-staking program and get rewarded. The APY has been around 600% for weeks and has now decreased around 370%. All the earnings will be claimable 6 months after mainnet launch but users can withdraw their staked funds at anytime.

    Partnership announcements

    In the weeks following the launch, Linear has announced partnerships with Nervos, Moonbeam and Hex Trust.

    Nervos is an open source blockchain that offers security and trustlessness without compromising on scalability and performance with its unique layered architecture. The collaboration is focused on improving Linear’s cross chain capabilities and penetration of the Chinese market.

    Moonbeam, an Ethereum ($ETH) compatible smart contract parachain, is a strategic partner to help set the feet into the Polkadot ($DOT) ecosystem and level up Linear’s interoperability. Finally, the partnership with Hex Trust as a custody partner, will give Linear the chance to offer secure, institutional grade custodial services for institutional investors.

    A next announcement has revealed a new partnership with 3Commas, a cryptocurrency trading platform that helps users build automated trading bots. The investment is meant “to include future integration of the platforms and tools, streamlining operations and allowing for a greater range of features and offerings”.

    Testnet is live

    On 16th October 2020, the first testnet for Buildr has been released. Buildr is one of the core dApps of the Linear suite, where users can stake their $LINA (and soon more collaterals) to build ℓUSD, the base currency of Linear Exchange. Stakers are entitled to rewards and to a part of the transaction fees generated by the exchange. ℓUSD tokens can be minted to purchase synthetic assets within the exchange itself and can be moved to other protocols.

    The last testnet update has just come out allowing users to purchase “Liquids” with ℓUSD on Linear.Exchange. Meanwhile, mainnet launch is allegedly happening in a couple of weeks.

    If you want to read more and discover how to contribute to the testnet, please have a look at the articles here and here.

    More than 222 million of $LINA tokens are staked, for a total value of more than USD$1 million.

    New Partnership with Band Protocol

    In this article dated November 16, Linear Finance has ufficially announced their partnership with Band Protocol, cross-chain decentralised oracle.

    The biggest problem this collaboration is trying to solve is front running. As Drey Ng, Co-Founder at Linear Finance said: “Front running is a fundamental problem not just for current synthetic asset trading but all trading in general”. Not solving this problem would jeopardize all “the benefits of cross-chain compatibility (such as speed and cost), and a superior creative selection of synthetic assets”.

    How Band Protocol Oracle works with Linear
    How Band Protocol Oracle works with Linear

    Other reasons why Band Protocol was chosen are the minimized network risk., end-to-end customizability for real-time data and truly decentralized oracle mechanism. The partnership will start securing the Linear Protocol on Binance smart Chain, the first project’s cross-integration, where the BEP token has just been created (the common $LINA we see on exchanges is an ERC-20 token).

    The team is now working on features to allow users to seamlessly swap chains.

    Linear Finance road to mainnet
    Linear Finance road to mainnet

    Mainnet Buildr Launch and new staking program

    The Linear Mainnet Buildr v1.0 went live on December the 21st, after months of extensive testing. The Buildr dApp is the heart of Linear’s decentralised application suite. Users can stake $LINA tokens to build ℓUSD and earn rewards. Here is a complete and detailed guide on how to use Buildr to the fullest.

    Linear's Buildr
    Linear’s Buildr

    All of the $LINA from the pre-staking program were migrated seamlessly to the mainnet and while previously earned rewards will be blocked until next June, new mainnet staking rewards will be locked for 1 year from launch. They will count towards the P-Ratio and can be used to build $LUSD. It is important to note that in order to be eligible for rewards, users are required build ℓUSD or any subsequent Liquids.

    Binance Smart Chain’s Buildr v2.0 launch

    As anticipated, Linear wants to bring Cross Chain compatibility and ease of use to Defi and Ethereum users. The team had, in fact, previously declared that “Linear was designed for all users (no matter how much LINA you hold) and transaction costs will not become a barrier to entry. Nobody will get left behind”.

    The promise has been kept and Linear.Builder Mainnet v2.0 with full Binance Smart Chain (BSC) integration and swap has gone live on January the 15th, 2021. Users can now enjoy almost gasless fees when interacting with the platform.

    The transaction was seamless and old stakers only have to connect to Buildr via MetaMask using the BSC Mainnet (they can also use Binance Chain Wallet) and they will see their Lina tokens and rewards already there. For new holders who would like to stake for the first time, there is an internal ERC-20 -> BEP20 swap whithin Buildr itself. More info and complete instructions can be found on the Medium article.

    Be careful!: There are now two versions of the $LINA token. If you send the Etherum version to a BSC wallet or vice-versa (whether it is a custodial or non-custodial address) you will lose your tokens! If in doubt on what to do, contact the support team via the official channels which you can find on their Website.

    Linear will be listed on Binance Innovation Zone

    Binance has announced it will list Linear Finance’s $LINA token on its Innovation Zone. Trading for $LINA/$BTC, $LINA/$BUSD and $LINA/$USDT trading pairs will start at 12:00pm (UTC) on 18th March 2021.

    Furthermore, Binance Launchpad is offering 21,084,000 LINA tokens for sale at at 0.00031044 BNB for 1 LINA. Subscription has already ended at 1:00p.m. (HKT) on 18th March 2021 and tokens will be sent to successful applicants at 6:00p.m. (HKT) on the same day.

    Conclusion

    With the rising gas prices in Ethereum, as well as the emerging trend of yield farming, the DeFi space is presented with new financial opportunities but is discouraged by its costs. Projects such as Linear is a promising addition to the space as it seeks to go around these problems.

    With Linear as a platform to easily build and manage investments, users can now enjoy quick and affordable profit-building opportunities. And in recognition of the real purpose of decentralization, Linear appears to be on the right track after putting in the pipelines a roadmap for a planned transition to community governance.

    Linear is certainly on the radar of a lot of renowned investors in this space. They have recently completed a USD$1.8m seed round with notable backers in the investment space such as NGC Ventures, Hashed, CMS Holdings, Genesis Block, Kenetic Capital, Alameda Research, Evernew Capital, Soul Capital, Moonrock Capital, Black Edge Capital and PANONY. According to Linear, this funding will go towards accelerating the development of their testnet and mainnet, as well as promoting their platform. It will certainly be exciting to see what the Linear Finance team will be releasing in the months to come.

    Decentralised Finance (DeFi) series: tutorials, guides and more

    With content for both beginners and more advanced users, check out our YouTube DeFi series containing tutorials on the ESSENTIAL TOOLS you need for trading in the DeFi space e.g. MetaMask and Uniswap. As well as a deep dive into popular DeFi topics such as decentralized exchanges, borrowing-lending platforms and NFT marketplaces

    The DeFi series on this website also covers topics not explored on YouTube. For an introduction on what is DeFi, check out Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Overview: A guide to the HOTTEST trend in cryptocurrency

    Tutorials and guides for the ESSENTIAL DEFI TOOLS:

    More videos and articles are coming soon as part of our DeFi series, so be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our Youtube channel so you can be notified as soon as they come out!

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • Stacks ($STX): Bringing Bitcoin’s security to decentralised apps

    Stacks ($STX): Bringing Bitcoin’s security to decentralised apps

    Stacks ($STX) (formerly Blockstack) is an open-source network that allows developers to easily build decentralised applications (such as decentralised finance DeFi applications) and smart contracts. It also relies on Bitcoin as a backbone by reusing its computing power and blockchain for settlement and security with a new mechanism known as proof of transfer (PoX). Below, we look into PoX and everything you need to know about Stacks.

    Background

    Stacks is handled by a globally-distributed team that includes scientists from leading universities such as MIT, Stanford, and Princeton. On top of that, The project is a public company with its headquarters in New York.

    Stacks’s place in the DeFi and broader crypto ecosystem is further cemented by being backed by notable names in the industry such as Y Combinator, Foundation Capital, Digital Currency Group, Winklevoss Capital, and LUX.

    What is Stacks?

    Stacks is a decentralized platform that leverages the Bitcoin platform’s security to power the creation of smart contracts and decentralized applications (Dapps). Interestingly, the network does not have to recreate the system’s PoW mechanism to connect to it. The project has four major layers; application, protocol, Stacks blockchain, and the Bitcoin system.

    Blockstack's 4 layers
    Stack’s 4 layers (Image credit: Blockstack.org)

    What is Proof of Transfer (PoX)?

    Proof of Transfer (PoX) and the earliest Proof of Work (PoW) are requirements to define what a miner needs to do in order to create blocks on the blockchain. The purpose of mining is to verify a transactions’ legitimacy and in return miners are rewarded with cryptocurrencies. Proof of Work is the mechanism used for Bitcoin whereby miners compete to solve a puzzle using their computer’s processing power in order to add each block to the chain.

    Learn more about what REAL cryptocurrency mining looks like.

    However, Bitcoin has its fair share of drawbacks. It has a very low transaction speed and is not smart contract-friendly. Therefore, second-layer solutions like the Lightning Network have tried to provide fast Bitcoin transactions but failed to power smart contracts.

    As such, it has lost in the competition to Ethereum who now powers most decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. Yet, with Ethereum witnessing increased congestion, new projects are shifting from Bitcoin and Ethereum’s proof of work (PoW) to platforms using proof of stake (PoS) and other energy-friendly consensus mechanisms such as proof of burn (PoB). Now Stacks wants to take this a step further with their proof of transfer (PoX).

    NameWhat miner needs to do to mint new cryptocurrencies
    Proof of work (PoW)Use electricity towards computations i.e. solving complex problems.
    Proof of stake (PoS)Dedicate an economic stake in a base cryptocurrency
    Proof of burn (PoB)Destroy a base cryptocurrency
    Proof of transfer (PoX)Transfer a base cryptocurrency
    Proof of work and other mechanisms

    Stacks Blockchain

    As mentioned earlier, Stacks has four major layers; application, protocol, Stacks blockchain, and the Bitcoin system.

    Stacks blockchain is the solid rock that holds the ecosystem together. It is a distributed layer by itself and allows users to create smart contracts and virtual assets. What’s interesting with this layer is that it’s not a layer two chain but connects to the BTC-powered network with a 1:1 block ratio.

    This implies that whatever happens on the Stacks platform is easily verifiable on the Bitcoin platform.

    How Do the Two Platforms Connect?

    To interface the two independent distributed networks, the Stacks blockchain uses PoX instead of PoW. Generally, the mechanism enables miners to mine a new digital currency by transferring a base currency. In the case of Stacks, transferring BTC results in a new coin being minted on the Stacks protocol.

    Apart from fronting a new consensus mechanism i.e. PoX, the decentralized platform allows its users to easily create virtual assets that are transferable, and ownership can be assigned. The assets can represent a wide range of use cases such as business models, funding, and governance.

    However, to effectively cater to each of these use cases, Stacks, through the Stacks blockchain, supports different asset types such as fungible and non-fungible tokens.

    Learn more about the differences between fungible and non-fungible tokens.

    To power smart contracts, the Stacks blockchain uses a smart contract-centric programming language called Clarity, which provides enhanced security. Notably, the programming language is employed by leading decentralized platforms such as Algorand.

    Protocol Layer

    The protocol layer has the storage, authentication, financial, and naming service. Stacks’ storage system is called Gaia. It stores app data without the need for a third-party service provider.

    It utilizes off-chain cloud systems such as a DigitalOcean or Azure to power super-fast data access by applications. Fortunately, the data is secured by its creator’s private key.

    On the other hand, Stacks uses a decentralized feature to provide authentication. Authentication powers access to the network’s apps using a username and details on Gaia.

    The financial aspect of the system supports DeFi platforms such as those providing decentralized exchanges and lending. The financial pillar is further strengthened by the protocol’s use of Clarity to drive smart contracts.

    For instance, the smart contract-programming language can interface directly with the Bitcoin blockchain. Additionally, it’s reinforced to prevent security breaches and anticipate possible vulnerabilities.

    Stacks has a unique naming feature called BNS (Blockstack Naming Service). Despite being decentralized, the service enables the platform’s users to give assets human-readable names. The names are secured with a combination of public and private keys.

    $STX Token: What is is and tokenomics?

    Activities on the Stacks blockchain are powered by a native currency known as Stacks token ($STX). It is used up as “fuel” when making transactions, interacting with smart contracts and using the BNS feature. It is also distributed as a reward to STX miners (see below).

    The genesis block minted 1.3 billion Stacks tokens. Minted coins were shared among the founders, treasury, equity investors, employees, two token sales, and app mining.

    Stacks token distribution
    Stacks token distribution (Image credit: Stacks Whitepaper)

    App mining is Stacks’ way to reward developers for building high-quality applications on the Stacks network.

    Stacks is available on Binance, HashKey, Crypto.com, and Kucoin. Unfortunately, its availability has been set for non-US persons only.

    Stack Network’s Use Cases

    From the start, the platform is built to enable privacy and allow users to control how their data is used in a world where user data is treated as a commodity for sale. And with Stacks’ use of PoX, Clarity, and other qualities, developers can ensure data privacy when creating apps, eliminate central authorities in financial products, and build fair games.

    Stacks 2.0 and use cases

    Stacks 2.0 blockchain is a layer-1 blockchain utilising the Bitcoin blockchain as a secure base-layer to bring apps and smart contracts to Bitcoin. Stacks 2.0 is currently in the testnet phase. The team have confirmed they are on track to reach code completion for the Stacks 2.0 blockchain by 15th December 2020 and have set a launch date for 14th January 2021.

    Stacks implements proof of transfer (PoX) as a consensus mechanism and natively connects to Bitcoin. Therefore developers can ensure data privacy when creating apps, eliminate central authorities in financial products, and build fair games without the need to modify Bitcoin.

    There will be 2 types of participants on Stacks

    STX miners

    They can spend BTC to elect leaders by sending transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain, where a Verifiable Random Function (VRF) will randomly select the leader of each round. The leader then writes the new block on the Stacks chain.

    As a reward, STX miners get STX tokens, transaction fees, and the Clarity contract execution fees of each block.

    STX holders

    Holders can participate in consensus by locking up their STX for a cycle, running a full node, and sending useful information on the Stacks network as transactions.

    As a reward, STX holders can earn Bitcoin rewards and unlike in the proof of stake mechanism, there is no risk of slashing for STX holders.

    Conclusion

    With an increasing number of security breaches on smart contracts and blockchain platforms, leveraging Bitcoin’s security when building smart contracts puts Stacks at the top of the game. Using Clarity at the base of every smart contract keeps hackers at bay, especially in the DeFi scene where malicious actors are always on the prowl for vulnerabilities in protocols.

    Additionally, Chainlink oracles provide a trusted source of off-chain data for developers, while PoX allows for a one-on-one connection to the BTC-powered blockchain.

    We are certainly curious to see what the team come up with in Stacks 2.0 and whether they can live up to their aims.

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • Poolz.finance ($POOLZ): boosting the potential of cryptocurrency projects?

    Poolz.finance ($POOLZ): boosting the potential of cryptocurrency projects?

    What is Poolz.finance ($POOLZ)?

    Poolz.finance ($POOLZ) aims to be the bridge between cryptocurrency projects and early investors.

    Poolz.finance has already integrated Ethereum, Polkadot and Tomochain. Projects can simply sign up with a simple Google form on the Poolz official site and they would help launch token sales on the Poolz platform.

    In addition to launching token sales, Poolz can also help projects fundraise flexibly by allowing them to specify lock-in periods whereby only after the specified period expires can investors receive tokens for their swapped amount. On the other hand, pools of tokens camn also be created for a project’s token so investors can get immediate access to the project’s tokens.

    To catch up with the yield-farming craze, Poolz also provides staking-as-a-service, allowing projects to set up staking for their token. And with that of course also brings concerns for security, which Poolz does recognise and therefore can allow projects to request token audits.

    Check out our interview with CEO and Co-founder Guy Oren.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efMxFtJLTY8&feature=youtu.be

    Poolz decentralized NFT auction house

    Poolz is also capitalizing on the popularity of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) by allowing cryptocurrency projects to auction their NFTs on the Poolz auction house. Poolz has integrated the ERC-721 standard, which allows developers to code the owners’ identity and address into the NFT- making each token unique and ensuring that each NFT only has one owner.

    During this initial phase, projects can sell their NFTs for ETH and DAI. However, it is expected that more payment methods will be accepted in the future, such as the project’s native cryptocurrency or other stablecoins.

    $POOLZ token holders get exclusive benefits on Poolz’ NFT auction house such as price benefits and special access to the “last call” feature. Poolz’ “LastCall” feature comes after the conclusion of the “open” auction phase. Once the “open” auction for the NFTs are closed to the public, the “LastCall” phase opens whereby the NFT pool is exclusively open for POOLZ token holders to make their bids- thus increasing their chances of getting a winning bid before the auction finishes.

    What is the $POOLZ token and its uses?

    $POOLZ is Poolz Finance’s native ERC-20 token. $POOLZ token is mainly used as user incentives, governance, staking, token burns and project development.

    Incentives. include exclusive benefits in the NFT auction house and better swap ratios for pools running on their platform.

    Governance. The Poolz platform will implement the Proof of Stake (PoS) mechanism. This allows POOLZ holders to have voting rights when they stake their tokens in specific wallets.

    Staking. According to the Team, POOLZ token holders can get passive income from staking them in particular ERC-20 wallets. In return, these token holders will get staking rewards.

    Token burn. Poolz will use 16.67% of its daily earnings to buy $POOLZ tokens from the market and burn the same, subject to an upper limit of 20% of the POOLZ supply. This keeps the supply of tokens low.

    Project development. Poolz has reserve tokens that are allocated for future development such as marketing, exchange fees for listings, and long-term liquidity.

    $POOLZ tokenomics

    1/3 of the total $POOLZ token supply is locked and will be released over a period of 10 years. The Poolz team believes this model will ensure a low supply and keep prices high, and to show that they intend to stay with this project for the long haul.

    The allocation of $POOLZ is as follows:

    • 2.2M POOLZ (44%): Public and private sale
    • 800,000 POOLZ (16%): Staking rewards. This will be circulated in the form of average annual yields to those who stake their tokens in a compatible wallet. 80,000 POOLZ will be released each year for 10 years (i.e. 1,539 tokens per week).
    • 800,000 POOLZ (16%): Swapping rewards. These will be rewarded to liquidity providers on the participating pools on the platform. 80,000 POOLZ will be released each year for 10 years (i.e. 1,539 tokens per week). This may be subject to change via governance decisions.
    • 600,000 POOLZ (12%): Reserve. This will be for future initiatives and to support the community.
    • 375,000 POOLZ (7.5%): Team. For incentivizing the Poolz team and will be distributed over 6 months of equal vesting after a lock-in period of 1 year.
    • 125,000 POOLZ (2.5%): Advisors. Given to advisors as incentives over 1 year of monthly vesting.
    • 100,000 POOLZ (2%): Liquidity fund. This is for providing liquidity on Uniswap and other exchanges.

    $POOLZ token sale

    • Total Supply: 5,000,000 POOLZ
    • Initial Market Cap: USD $423,500
    • Fully Diluted Valuation: USD $3.5M
    • Private and public sale: 2.2M POOLZ (44% of total supply) will be allocated for private and public sales.
    • Pre Seed: 100,000 POOLZ at USD $0.35: 3 months initial lockup, then 8.33% released monthly.
    • Strategic Round: 400,000 POOLZ, at USD $0.455: 10% released upon Token Generation Event (TGE), then 9% released monthly over a period of 10 months.
    • Private Sale 1: 700,000 POOLZ, at USD$0.47775: 20% released upon TGE 20%, then 20% released monthly.
    • Private Sale 2: 900,000 POOLZ at USD $0.50050: 25% released on TGE, then 25% released monthly.
    • Auction Pools: 100,000 POOLZ at USD $0.7: no lockup period.

    The USD$1m private sale of POOLZ has already been completed and was oversubscribed by 25x. More details on the private sale.

    POOLZ token release schedule
    POOLZ token release schedule (Image credit: Medium)

    $POOLZ public token sale

    On 15th January 2021, $POOLZ will do a public sale by way of an Initial DEX Offering (IDO) and Uniswap listing.

    The IDO will be held on the Poolz platform itself so that after it goes live, you can directly buy $POOLZ from their own platform. Afterwards, $POOLZ will be available on Uniswap. There is no minimum purchase amount for this IDO.

    Note the IDO has sold out in 18 seconds

    How to buy $POOLZ on Uniswap

    The $POOLZ token will be listed on Uniswap from 15th January 2021 onwards, meaning that users will be able to buy $POOLZ on Uniswap. Buying $POOLZ can be done in 4 easy steps:

    Step 1:On Uniswap, select which cryptocurrency you want to trade $POOLZ with in the “From” row. Note that Ethereum is set as the default.

    Step 2: Set to swap for $POOLZ tokens. In the “To” row, enter the correct Poolz address. Be very sure that the address is correct or else you could risk losing your funds.

    Step 3: Enter the amount of $POOLZ token you want to obtain. Once you’ve entered the amount of $POOLZ token you want to buy, double-check the swap details and click “Confirm swap”.

    Step 4: Confirm purchase on MetaMask. After confirming on Uniswap, you will be taken to MetaMask to confirm the payment. Click “confirm”. Once the payment is processed you will receive $POOLZ tokens in your MetaMask wallet.

    Is Poolz safe?

    Poolz Finance engaged Arcadia for an independent security audit of its smart contracts. Poolz reports that Arcadia did not find any issues with their smart contracts.

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • Vortex DeFi ($VTX): One-stop Gateway to DeFi

    Vortex DeFi ($VTX): One-stop Gateway to DeFi

    Vortex DeFi ($VTX) aims to provide users a one-stop access to all leading decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms and protocols from a single web-based user interface.

    Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has evolved from a niche subcategory to the biggest catalyst driving the cryptocurrency and blockchain field today. It’s primarily focused on the Ethereum network, which has the majority of the DeFi share. There are, however, a large number of core DeFi protocols, combinators, and countless forks. All of this can become confusing fast.

    Fortunately, users don’t have to delve into the complex workings and nuances of these protocols, which can be overwhelming even for long-term users. Vortex DeFi is introduced to simplify the access and exposure to the sector. It has integrations with different protocols, which abstracts away the complexity in a simple and yet intuitive interface, to level the playing field and ensure greater participation.

    Background

    Vortex DeFi launched in Aug 2020 through a private investment round. It accrued interest and funding from X21 Digital, DuckDao, Moonrock Capital, Magnus Capital, Pluto Digital Assets PLC, Faculty Capital, A195 Capital, etc. A public sale will be held soon.

    It has a multicultural team, led by CEO Rahul Singh and strategic advisor Lester Lim. The other prominent team members are technical lead Arun Sunil and product lead Shaz. All team members have previous experiences in market-leading companies and blockchain projects.

    What is Vortex DeFi?

    Vortex DeFi is a web-based DeFi management system or a comprehensive DeFi aggregative solution platform, serving as a bridge between Ethereum and Polkadot. It combines the functionality and power of core protocols in a sleek dashboard to allow users of all categories to engage in yield farming. The core services provided are NFT asset management, lending and borrowing, insurance, and exchange.

    Vortex DeFi will also utilize the yEarn finance protocol to access and extract value from various lending protocols to enable automated profitable yield farming. The added advantage of cross-chain compatibility ensures that users don’t have to choose between two promising blockchains. Vortex DEFI also has several components, taking the guesswork and experimentation out of the process.

    Vortex DEFI – Components

    Vortex Ecosystem (Source: Vortex DeFi wesbite)

    V-Swap

    Being the Uniswap or Bancor equivalent of Vortex, V-Swap will offer an automated digital assets exchange on the Ethereum and Polkadot blockchain. It’s likely to offer liquidity aggregation from multiple sources, so a peer to peer exchange of tokens can be performed without a direct counterparty or orderbook.

    V-Pay

    It will offer a fiat gateway for users, so they can acquire and sell crypto assets from FIAT, in their cards or bank accounts. This is required for onboarding new users, as well as ensuring that they have a way for realizing their returns.

    V-Yield

    A yield aggregator as the name goes, V-Yield will combine yield from different sources and optimize them according to the best return rate. It will spare users from the trouble of manually finding sources and having the need to rotate them.

    V-NFTs

    An asset management, V-NFTs will allow users to manage their asset collection and swap them for each other. Given that NFTs are an illiquid asset class and their infrastructure is scattered, it’s hugely important to develop a unified interface.

    V-Insure

    DeFi protocols are rife with exploits and smart contract risks. Therefore, to onboard new users and even to retain existing ones, it’s necessary to grant them peace of mind by ensuring the protection of their funds. V-Insure will seek to insure user funds by seeking out integrations with multiple DeFi insurance protocols.

    Vortex DEFI Native Token ($VTX)

    The native token of the platform is Vortex DeFi Token ($VTX), ERC-20 token, which will be used to incentivize users. It has four purposes:

    1. Liquidity pools (LP) rewards are distributed in VTX
    2. Usage for staking on the platform.
    3. Holding VTX tokens allows users to save on the platform fees
    4. The team has announced plans to regularly buy tokens and burn them every quarter to reduce supply and increase the value of existing tokens.

    All of these benefits and value accrual mechanisms will motivate users to hold tokens, in anticipation of rising demand and prices.

    $VTX Token Metrics

    The VTX token has a total supply of 100M $VTX and an initial circulating supply of $0.4M $VTX.

    $VTX Tokenomics (Source: Vortex DeFi Litepaper)

    Funding Rounds

    Private Sale (concluded): 32,500,000 VTX sold at 0.0276 USD per token.(25% TGE, 75% vesting over 120 days)

    Public Sale (on 28 February 2021): 2,500,000 VTX to be sold at 0.04 USD per token. No vesting period.*

    Advantages of Vortex DeFi

    The platform offers users the advantages of a unified DeFi management dashboard, the ability to fuse several protocols together offering a seamless experience with abstracted complexity, powerful lend and earn functionality, automated rotation of funds for optimized returns, non-custodial function, and insurance against loss of funds.

    Vortex DEFI Connected Protocols

    Vortex DeFi connected protocols (source: ‘Introducing Vortex DeFi Beta & Access to the Vortex of DeFi‘ medium article)

    Vortex DEFI will have integrations with several key DEFI protocols, including but not limited to Maker DAO, Compound, Kava, Idle, Aave, Yearn, Uniswap, Nexus Mutual, Curve. This will allow for a powerful user experience, which is likely to improve penetration of decentralized finance.

    Vortex Vision

    The team hopes that Vortex will become the top one-stop solution for a user’s DeFi needs and allow them to simplify their experience. Vortex hopes to make financial applications accessible and simple for all users, regardless of their technical expertise. It will also allow saving on transaction fees (gas) by batching and combining transactions.

    Vortex can also enhance the decentralization level of DeFi protocols by ensuring broad participation and an increase in user activity. Furthermore, it will feature the DAAS (DeFi-As-A-Service) business model. Currently, the product is in development and more changes are expected as the platform launch draws near.

    Conclusion

    DEFI was founded on the principle of openness, equal opportunity, transparency, trustlessness, lack of centralized control, fast processing, and lego-like composability. It is generally presented as a superior alternative to the traditional financial system, which differs heavily from the principles of the crypto community and disallows these services to a large number of people.

    On the other hand, DeFi is accessible to almost everyone with an internet connection and a personal computing device or smartphone. However, primitive user interfaces and experiences of the existing DeFi protocols were a problem. Thankfully, Vortex will overlap the strong functionality of these protocols with an amazing and simple interface.

    Currently, there is a lack of dashboard-style platforms connected to multiple DEFI protocols, aggregating their services and offering a one-stop solution. All of this is about to change with the Vortex launch, which is likely to onboard a large number of new users as well as provide a novel interesting solution to the existing ones.

    Decentralised Finance (DeFi) series: tutorials, guides and more

    With content for both beginners and more advanced users, check out our YouTube DeFi series containing tutorials on the ESSENTIAL TOOLS you need for trading in the DeFi space e.g. MetaMask and Uniswap. As well as a deep dive into popular DeFi topics such as decentralized exchanges, borrowing-lending platforms and NFT marketplaces

    The DeFi series on this website also covers topics not explored on YouTube. For an introduction on what is DeFi, check out Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Overview: A guide to the HOTTEST trend in cryptocurrency

    Tutorials and guides for the ESSENTIAL DEFI TOOLS:

    More videos and articles are coming soon as part of our DeFi series, so be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our Youtube channel so you can be notified as soon as they come out!

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • Polygon ($MATIC): can it solve Ethereum’s scaling challenges?

    Polygon ($MATIC): can it solve Ethereum’s scaling challenges?

    The Ethereum network has immensely pushed the boundaries of blockchain technology more than Bitcoin ever had, especially in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, where hundreds of different projects have been able to leverage the flexibility and effectiveness of the host blockchain.

    Unfortunately, the slow transaction speeds and high costs are significantly limiting the performance of Ethereum-based projects to the point that some of them are migrating to alternative chains like Solana and Binance Smart Chain. Yet the vast majority of applications still hold on to Ethereum, waiting for Ethereum 2.0 to fully scale the network.

    Ethereum is in dire need of a scaling solution that can speed up the blockchain’s throughput. Thankfully, Polygon is working on one of such solutions that would see the load on the Ethereum blockchain eased on parallel child chains.

    Background

    Polygon started out as Matic Network, a blockchain solution intended to speed up blockchain transactions and make them more accessible to the general public. Later on, the company refocused its objectives on the Ethereum network to furnish it with layer two scaling solutions. The name Polygon came along with the branding.

    The startup was founded by four Indian technologists, Jaynti Kanani, Anurag Arjun, and Sandeep Nailwal, who had a similar vision of a future where machines and humans interacted freely. The three entrepreneurs agreed that blockchain technology is a vital tool for achieving such a society.

    The trio was later joined by a Serbian tech maximalist and Ethereum enthusiast, Mihailo Bjelic. In a seed round announced on the 1st of August, 2019, Polygon received funding from MiH ventures through Crunchbase. Version 1 of Polygon’s SDK was scheduled to be released in March of 2021.

    What is Polygon ($MATIC)?

    Polygon is a framework that allows Ethereum-based applications to bypass the low throughput, high gas fees, and poor interface of Ethereum while still enjoying its support

    Polygon’s main component is its software development kit (SDK). The SDK is a flexible structure that allows projects to develop different sidechains that suit their needs. Necessary support is provided so that the alternate chains can interact effectively with Ethereum’s main chain.

    By arming developers with flexible and easy-to-use tools, Polygon accelerates the transformation of Ethereum into a multi-chain ecosystem. Its users would be able to create Optimistic rollup chains, ZK rollup chains, and other types of sidechains.

    But beyond being a mere framework, the Polygon platform is focused on connecting blockchains with one another, as well as the Ethereum blockchain itself.

    Advantages of Polygon

    The major benefit of Polygon is scalability, which the crypto space is in dire need of today considering that it takes forever for transactions to be verified on the Ethereum network, especially if you try to decrease the gas fees. Dapp developers have to pay so much in gas fees that it curtails their development and affects their offering to users.

    And this is the pain point that Polygon aims to ease, and they are on their way to scale the Ethereum network.

    Polygon Matic solution
    Polygon’s solution to the challenges facing Ethereum (Image credit: Polygon)

    Polygon for Developers

    Developers can build a network of scalable side chains to the Ethereum blockchain through Polygon; one with independent consensus algorithms on a more developer-friendly, Web Assembly (WASM) environment.

    Developers would be encouraged to build more and advance the general direction of the crypto industry, especially the DeFi sector. Polygon’s SDK does not require developers to have blockchain expertise. In fact, knowledge of these protocols is unnecessary in building from its SDK.

    Users would also benefit tremendously with more easy-to-use interfaces, near-instantaneous transactions, and low costs. If well-executed, this will likely propel the growth of Ethereum dapps to astronomical levels and will push the boundaries of crypto to include the masses outside the industry.

    Support, Flexibility, and Security

    Polygon permits incredible flexibility for the development of chains.

    Its modular nature allows developers to assemble products at unrivalled speeds. The easy assembly will also accelerate dapp development, effectively shortening the interval between the conception and deployment of blockchain products.

    Support would also be provided for easy interaction with users, as well as external systems. Token exchange, contract calls, and communication with oracles are also supported on Polygon. Furthermore, the products would be easily upgradeable.

    All these and more will be possible on Polygon without compromising on security. In fact, developers would be free to choose their approach to secure their platforms, using the modular “security as a service” feature on the Polygon framework.

    Above all, all products developed on Polygon would be compatible with Ethereum.

    Polygon Chains

    During the days of Polygon’s Matic network, an Ethereum sidechain that uses the Plasma framework was the landmark of its offering. The Plasma framework allowed sidechains to run independently, only interacting with the main blockchain when it was necessary.

    Polygon’s new platform sees it advance with the demands of the market by offering different chain networks that are attuned to Ethereum’s blockchain. And these are: stand-alone chains and secured chains.

    Stand-alone Chains

    Stand-alone chains have security autonomy, with each chain being responsible for its own security. Such chains have the freedom to choose their own validation methods. They can establish a personal pool of validators who ensure the authenticity of transactions directly on the blockchain.

    Polygon stand-alone chains
    Polygon stand-alone chains (Image credit: Polygon lightpaper)

    Secured Chains

    On the other hand, secured chains involve outsourcing the platform’s security to a third party. The third-party can be Ethereum itself, with its fraud-proof and validity proof pools. There are other independent, professional pools of validators that offer security as a service as well.

    Overall, secured chains often enjoy more reliable and tighter security even if they might have to sacrifice some independence.

    Polygon secured chains
    Polygon secured chains (Image credit: Polygon lightpaper)

    MATIC token

    MATIC is the only native token of Polygon, it is used to pay transaction fees and participate in Polygon’s proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.

    Conclusion

    Polygon’s vision is to launch whole blockchains that are scalable, secure, and have amazing interfaces, allowing decentralized applications to have an alternative platform to carry out transactions while enjoying the security and support of the Ethereum network.

    Meanwhile, the Ethereum dev community is also continuously working on the Ethereum 2.0 project (Serenity), which seeks to ultimately scale its blockchain to unimaginable capacities even beyond Visa and Mastercard.

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • O3 Swap: A Cross Chain Aggregration Procotol

    O3 Swap: A Cross Chain Aggregration Procotol

    Introduction

    O3 Swap, a cross-chain aggregation protocol, helps to assist multi-chain liquidity sources on ONE platform. It finds the best prices across multiple chains through its O3 Swap and O3 Hub. With no limits and hidden fees, O3 Swap is the next Trivago comparison site in crypto form. 

    What problem is O3 Swap trying to solve?

    Anyone remember the days we needed to barter, a system of exchange in which one party directly trades goods or services for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, like fiat money? This leads to tons of problems as both products or services might actually have different values even with the same quantities given. This theory applies to the cryptocurrency system too.

    As the traditional Blockchain network is standalone and does not interfere with other blockchain networks, it is tough and difficult for the investors to carry out transactions in between. 

    This is where a cross-chain protocol comes in and breaks the glass ceiling. 

    Background of O3 Swap

    O3 Swap Cross chain aggregation protocol

    O3 Labs has developed a cross-chain aggregation protocol, named O3 Swap. The aim of O3 Swap is to offer customers access to cryptocurrency-based financial services by allowing them to exchange, or “swap,” various digital assets within their O3 Wallet. The tight security and safety systems used in O3 Swap have excelled in the decentralized system of cryptocurrencies. 

    On their official website, you can find out a few of the liquidity sources O3 Swap supports; Uniswap, SushiSwap, Curve, Balancer, Bancor, 1inch, Paraswap, and 0x Protocol are on the Ethereum blockchain; PancakeSwap. DODO, MDEX, BakerySwap, ApeSwap, BSCswap, and JulSwap are on Binance Smart Chain; Flamingo, Nash, and Switcheo are on Neo; MDEX, LAVAswap, Depth, and Chocoswap are on Huobi system.

    Cryptocurrency enthusiasts use O3 Swap as the cross-chain aggregation protocol to access liquidity outlets from different networks, making it simpler than ever to find the best rates. This single platform eases the complexity and hassle of transacting different cryptocurrencies with the lowest rates, no limit, and no hidden fees.

    O3 Swap integration with other blockchains

    A framework layer and a settlement layer make up what O3 Swap is. The O3 Wallet, O3 Swap, and payment function are the first steps. The O3 aggregator and cross-chain protocol are the seconds. Furthermore, O3 Swap has an automatic market maker, order book, and money market features to offer liquidity. Lastly, there is an O3 Swaps platform layer for a service API that can be combined with a variety of other applications.

    Features of O3 Swap

    O3 Swap’s main technical components are the exchange aggregators (O3 Aggregator) and cross-chain pool (O3 Hub). O3 Aggregators are used to help users find the most cost-effective exchange prices and routes in the network of sought-after blockchains. Whereas, O3 Hub uses the PolyNetwork to provide cross-chain transaction facilities, allowing consumers to perform liquidity by using a single token from several chains to earn money from cross-chain transaction fees and O3 incentives.

    O3 Swap Features
    1. O3 Swap is created using DeFi standards. As a result, everybody will be able to use it. With its aggregation protocol, users will not only benefit from low cross-chain exchange rates, but they will also be able to engage in the governance model, which is built on the O3 Swap Token.
    2. O3 Swap is permissionless, anti-censorship and non-KYC. It means that anybody can access O3 Swap anywhere, anytime without the need for permission of any party.
    3. O3 Swap aggregates the liquidity of multiple chains on its own single network. At the cheapest possible rate, crypto investors can exchange assets through the most efficient trading route by linking their own decentralized wallets.
    4. O3 Swap creates a community-based growth community. It develops decentralized governance and intense community development among the cryptocurrency market players. 
    5. O3 Swap utilizes the cross-chain exchange system to the top-notch level. Using the aggregation protocol puts forward all tested and potential cross-chain solutions to let the crypto lovers freely trade their desired assets with a single tap without any hassle. 

    O3 Swap Token

    O3 Swap Token (O3) is a token used by the O3 Swap platform. It acts as a vital link in the development of the O3 Swap network. Via token community governance, both members and developers are invited to engage in the overall ecological network based on the O3 Swap economic model.

    O3 Swap workflow

    There are 3 methods to earn O3 Swap token in the O3 Swap economic model. Users will first get airdrops by participating in early product testing and community contributions. The second method is that they can use O3 Swap to acquire exchange mining earnings. The final method is through contributing liquidity to the Hub (cross-chain pool) in order to get O3 incentives. When O3 is gained in one of the three ways listed above, it is locked. To unlock the O3 in the account, users must offer liquidity with O3 trading pairings to the main DEXs. The unlocked O3 has 3 main advantages: 

    1. Member rights: Stake O3 token to obtain interest and transaction discounts allocated by the O3 Swap treasury.
    2. Community governance: Users can participate in community governance by staking O3 token to initiate proposals, participate in voting, etc.
    3. LP staking: Users can use O3 token to synthesize liquidity equity proof (LP), which can be used for unlocking and mining.

    All transaction fees from O3 Swap, on the other hand, will be utilised to purchase back O3 token in open markets on a regular basis. Then the fees will be paid proportionally to O3 stakeholders and development committees.

    How to use O3 Swap

    Consumers may use the protocol by going to the Swap page on O3 Swap official website. Select it from the exchange section. The user must then bind their wallet (MetaMask, O3 Wallet, NeoLine) in order to choose the token they want to exchange. By clicking the “RFQ” button after entering a number, the user may see the transaction data. Users will validate their transactions and change the network charge accordingly. Also, the time of transaction confirmation may take longer than usual, depending on different network speeds. 

    O3 Hub

    O3 Hub is technically a big pool of the collected assets across the multiple assets in the platform. It is a cross-chain asset pool, such as a stable coin pool, and a cross-chain protocol built on the Poly Network. To earn O3 incentives, liquidity providers can deposit one or more funds into the cross-chain pool and stake the LP shares. Only stable currency cross-chain exchanges and liquidity provision are required throughout the testing period.

    The usage method is identical to O3 Swap. Users just need to choose their tokens, add or delete liquidity. Users must choose the “Deposit” or “Withdraw” option to validate a transaction. 

    IDO Launch

    On May 12th, 2021, O3 Swap had its public sale.

    O3 Swap roadmap

    This shows the aggressive innovation and determination for O3 Swap to disrupt the traditional cryptocurrency market as soon as possible. According to the roadmap, they have achieved the launch of the official website, released the Neo swap module, and published O3 Swap Litepaper in Quarter 1 of 2021. They soon will succeed in supporting ETH and BSC swaps, and be ready for O3 Version 1 online that allows the crypto users to enjoy all the perks in a more wholesome and comprehensive way.

    A decentralized autonomous association (DAO) will be formed by the end of the year 2021. O3 Swap’s aggregation protocol will have been implemented on Layer 2 networks. The whole O3 Hub development across the network will be completed by then. 

    In 2022, Version 2 of O3 Swap will make its debut with the support of instant quotes and pending orders. It will also launch cross-chain 2.0 and release the O3 network. 

    Conclusion

    According to O3 Swap, it is created in reaction to an immediate issue on the Ethereum blockchain: network congestion and low scalability. While alternative networks for retail investors have emerged, DeFi is still unable to realize its full potential due to barriers between blockchains. This project aspires to have the winning approach that will put an end to network seclusion.

    O3 Swap is changing the game so that every cryptocurrency enthusiast can enjoy the interchange between different blockchains freely. At the same time, they can enjoy the best price quote from more than 10 DEXs to optimize their best rates for the “swap”. 

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. (https://unitedwepledge.org Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • Huobi Exchange Review (2023): Low Fees, User-Friendly and Top-Notch Security

    Huobi Exchange Review (2023): Low Fees, User-Friendly and Top-Notch Security

    Huobi, one of the oldest and most reliable cryptocurrency exchanges on the market, offers a wide range of features and benefits for crypto enthusiasts to explore and take advantage of. We’ll look at Huobi’s key attributes as well as the kinds of advantages you may anticipate if you decide to make it your primary cryptocurrency trading platform. We’ll talk about the exchange’s security, supported coins, and a lot more topics.

    Sign up here to get started

    What is Huobi?

    Huobi, a leading digital asset exchange, was founded in 2013 by Leon Li, a former Oracle engineer. Huobi quickly gained momentum in the emerging Bitcoin market in China, and harnessed investments from leading investors, including the Sequoia Capital group. In just three months after its live launch, Huobi made over $4 billion in turnover, and by 2014, the exchange had quadrupled its turnover. Huobi has since become a leader in the Asian crypto market, providing a secure and reliable platform for digital asset trading. With its innovative technology and experienced team, Huobi is committed to providing users with a safe and convenient trading experience.

    Huobi, reported a turnover of $247 billion in 2016, which is almost half of the world’s cryptocurrency exchange market share. After the Chinese authorities dropped the banhammer on the cryptocurrency exchanges operating in China, Huobi decided to relocate to Singapore and globalize its operations. It began exploring markets in Japan, Russia, Korea, and other countries. Huobi has since become a leading crypto exchange in the global market, offering a wide range of services and features to its users. With its innovative approach and commitment to providing a secure and reliable trading platform, Huobi has become a trusted name in the crypto industry.

    Key Features of Huobi

    Simple User Interface: Huobi’s professional interface and functionalities make navigating their website a breeze, providing users with access to price feeds, charting tools, and market depth data.

    Various Order Types: Offering a variety of order types including Limit, Market, and Stop Limit orders, as well as margin trading with 5x leverage and a 0.1% fee for 24 hours on Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC).

    Flash Trade: Huobi’s Flash Trade feature allows users to experience real-time trading with an order book, chart index, and market chart, making it an exciting way to trade during times of high volatility.

    Compatible with various platforms: The Huobi platform is compatible with multiple platforms like Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.

    Security: Huobi, incorporated in Singapore with advanced crypto regulations, provides robust security measures such as 2-factor authentication to protect users’ accounts.

    Swift Customer Service: Huobi offers fast and reliable customer service, with its customer support team providing prompt responses to any trading issues within the hour.

    Key Advantages of Huobi

    We will start off by talking about the actual advantages that users will experience when using the exchange. The finest features of this platform are mentioned in a number of user Huobi exchange reviews that have been published online; among them, the prominence of the supported cryptocurrency coins stands out.

    Supports 300+ Cryptocurrencies

    Huobi is a cryptocurrency exchange that offers its users the ability to trade and exchange over 300 different cryptocurrencies. This includes both the most popular coins such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, as well as some of the less-known crypto assets. Huobi’s wide selection of coins gives users the ability to purchase and invest in multiple different assets on the same platform, allowing them to diversify their portfolios and explore new opportunities. Huobi also offers a variety of features such as margin trading, spot trading, and futures trading, making it a great choice for both experienced and novice traders.

    Very Low Fees

    Huobi is a leading cryptocurrency exchange that offers its users some of the best fees on the market. Whether you’re starting out with crypto or looking to trade higher amounts, Huobi is a great choice for those looking for competitive fees. Multiple Huobi exchange reviews left online confirm that the platform offers great prices for its users. Huobi is a reliable and secure platform that is trusted by millions of users around the world. With its competitive fees and secure platform, Huobi is a great choice for those looking to trade cryptocurrencies.

    Crypto trading involves two terms – “maker” and “taker”. A ‘maker’ is someone who performs the payments, while a ‘taker’ is a person who receives it. Huobi exchange reviews show that the fees for both makers and takers are usually below 0.2%, which is significantly lower than most other exchanges. Additionally, Huobi Pro reviews show that users who hold Huobi tokens can get even lower fees. This makes Huobi a great option for those looking to trade crypto without having to pay high fees.

    Top-Notch Security Features

    Huobi is a reliable and secure cryptocurrency exchange, offering users a safe and secure trading experience. The exchange keeps up to 98% of its users’ crypto assets in cold wallet devices, which are offline hardware devices used to store cryptocurrencies and tokens. This ensures that a potential hacker won’t be able to access your funds, as it’s impossible to breach the security of a cold wallet without stealing the physical device. Additionally, Huobi’s User Protection Fund ensures that, if anything were to happen to your crypto assets, and their security was compromised, you’d be compensated for your losses. All in all, Huobi is a safe and secure crypto trading option.

    24/7 Customer Support

    Huobi is a cryptocurrency exchange that offers reliable and live customer support 24/7. This is a great feature that sets it apart from other exchanges, as many of them only offer email support. With Huobi, you can be sure that you’ll be able to get help with any issue you might be facing at any time of the day. The customer support team is knowledgeable and experienced, and can provide assistance with any issue you might have. This makes Huobi a great choice for anyone looking for a reliable and secure cryptocurrency exchange.

    Credit / Debit Cards – Accepted!

    Huobi accepts both credit and debit card payments, allowing users to quickly and conveniently fund their accounts. Huobi also offers promotions and discounts to help users save money on their trades. With its user-friendly interface and secure platform, Huobi is a great choice for both experienced and novice traders.

    Key Disadvantages of Huobi

    From the Huobi Pro reviews, it is clear that the majority of the more unfavorable comments Huobi receives are more about the functionality the platform lacks than the things it does offer.

    Trading Exclusively in Cryptocurrencies (No Other Assets)

    Huobi is a cryptocurrency exchange that allows users to trade a variety of digital assets. While this can be seen as a pro for hardcore crypto fans, some user Huobi exchange reviews point out that it only allows users to trade cryptocurrencies and not other assets. This could be a con for those who would like to use Huobi as their standalone exchange. Ultimately, it all depends on the user’s financial portfolio-building preferences.

    An Unregulated Exchange

    Huobi falls under the laws of the Republic of Seychelles. What this means is that the company behind the exchange is not regulated by any major financial institution. This could be seen as both a pro and a con, depending on your stance regarding crypto regulations. For those who want to honor the philosophy behind crypto, the unregulated nature of the exchange might not be too big of a deal. However, if you are looking for a regulated and secure exchange platform, Binance and KuCoin are some of the best alternatives.

    How to Use the Huobi Cryptocurrency Exchange?

    Users can exchange their preferred crypto coins in Huobi by following these steps:-

    • Visit the homepage of Huobi exchange and click on the “Trade” button.
    • Click on the “Exchange” tab and choose the digital currency and the preferred amount that they want to exchange.
    • Confirm the amount and the USDT worth of crypto coins that they wish to exchange with bitcoin or any other crypto coins.
    • Click on the “Confirm” tab to complete the transaction.

    How to Register on Huobi?

    The registration process involves the following steps:

    Step 1: Go to Huobi’s official website.

    Step 2: Press Sign Up. You’ll be redirected to a new window, where you’ll have to fill out some relevant information. 

    Step 3: Now, you’ll have to verify your account by entering the code that was sent to your email.

    Step 4: Once you’ve done that, you’ll be redirected to the main page of the exchange. That’s it!

    The signup process was quite simple, as you can probably see by now. It only takes a minute and is incredibly simple, according to the majority of user Huobi exchange reviews!

    How to Deposit Funds into Your Huobi Account?

    Let’s look at Huobi’s credit or debit card payment options as the last point in our evaluation of Huobi’s exchange.

    Step 1: Navigate to the Buy Crypto button on the top-left of your main exchange page.

    Step 2: Here, you’ll have to choose a credit card payment option, and enter the amount of money that you’d like to spend on Bitcoin. 

    Step 3:If you still haven’t finished your verification, you will now be prompted to do so. You must give Huobi your address and a photo of identification during the brief verification process.

    Step 4: The necessary amount of cryptocurrency will be funded into your Huobi wallet once your transaction has been completed and you have successfully passed verification. All done!

    Huobi Exchange makes crypto purchasing fast and simple, as evidenced by the countless positive user reviews.

    Conclusion

    Huobi is a top-tier cryptocurrency exchange platform that offers users a secure and easy-to-use platform. With over 300 different crypto assets available and the ability to purchase cryptocurrencies with a credit or debit card, Huobi is a great choice for those looking to get into the crypto market. The majority of funds are kept in cold storage devices, providing users with an extra layer of security. User reviews of Huobi are overwhelmingly positive, making it a great choice for those looking to get into the crypto market. If you’re looking for even better alternatives, take a look at our list of the top-rated crypto exchange platforms, such as Binance and KuCoin.

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. (Alprazolam) As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • ShapeShift Exchange Review (2023): Decent Crypto Exchange with Some Amazing Usability Features

    ShapeShift Exchange Review (2023): Decent Crypto Exchange with Some Amazing Usability Features

    ShapeShift is a free, open-source platform that allows users to buy, trade, track, and earn across multiple blockchains. Owned and operated by the community, private, non-custodial, and secure. We aim to share all about Shapeshift on this exchange review, from its features to how to create your account.

    Sign up here to get started.

    What is ShapeShift?

    ShapeShift is a unique crypto exchange that offers users a range of features. Although it hasn’t achieved the same level of recognition as other exchanges such as Binance or Kucoin, ShapeShift is a viable alternative and deserves consideration.

    ShapeShift, founded in 2013 by Blockchain enthusiast Erik Voorhees, is a Cryptocurrency exchange website that debuted in 2014. Erik designed ShapeShift to make purchasing cryptos like Bitcoin as easy as possible, transforming it into a “vending machine” that anyone can use. Initially, users could only trade a few cryptocurrencies.

    As the registered user list grew, the platform increased its trade count to 40 cryptocurrencies and 940 trading pairs by 2015. By July 2018, the list of cryptocurrencies had expanded to 103. Today, there are over 750 cryptocurrencies available for trading, including popular coins such as Bitcoin, ETC, BlackCoin, Augur, and Gnosis.

    Key Features and Advantages of ShapeShift

    Is ShapeShift safe and worth using? That’s the question most cryptocurrency enthusiasts ask when looking for ShapeShift exchange reviews online. To answer this question, we should first examine the safety and usability of ShapeShift before exploring its other features.

    A Unique Balance of Security VS Anonymity

    When it comes to cryptocurrency exchange platforms, security should always be the top priority. Users should be aware of the potential risks of a leak or hack, and make sure that the platform they are using has the necessary security measures in place to protect their assets. ShapeShift stands out from other crypto exchanges due to its anonymous purchasing feature. Reviews of the platform, however, suggest that the experience may be different.

    ShapeShift’s lack of a thorough account creation process was both a pro and a con. However, cryptocurrency enthusiasts often prefer this decentralized option, as evidenced by ShapeShift exchange reviews. People may be wondering if ShapeShift is legit before committing to a purchase. Rest assured, ShapeShift has maintained its security even after discontinuing the anonymity feature.

    You can be sure that each time you perform a transaction, a new public wallet key is generated for you, providing identity and account protection. Additionally, two-factor authentication is available on the site for added security. ShapeShift will never request your private key, which is an essential thing to remember. In the crypto world, the saying “not your keys, not your cryptos” is true to an extent – if you don’t own your private wallet key, you don’t truly own your assets, as they can be lost in an instant.

    The security of your crypto coins ultimately depends on you, as ShapeShift exchange was previously anonymous. Many user reviews emphasize this point.

    Superb Usability Features

    Usability is an important factor to consider when choosing a cryptocurrency exchange platform, such as ShapeShift. Reviews of the platform can help you determine if it is worth using, but usability should not be overlooked. ShapeShift has optimized their website, app, and platform to cater to crypto trading beginners. With the influx of new traders, ShapeShift has ensured their platform is user-friendly and secure.

    ShapeShift is an enjoyable and user-friendly crypto exchange, with a visually appealing interface that is free of difficult industry jargon and technicalities.

    50+ Supported Crypto Assets

    Cryptocurrency support is essential for a successful crypto platform. As the crypto markets have grown in popularity over the past few years, more and more people have come to the industry. To meet this increased demand, crypto enthusiasts are researching and purchasing a wider variety of altcoins in addition to Bitcoin.

    ShapeShift offers its clients the ability to trade over 50 different cryptocurrencies, meeting the market demand and providing a wide range of assets to purchase and trade.

    Innovative Features (Rainfall)

    ShapeShift’s latest update, Rainfall, provides users with USDT rewards every time someone makes a trade on the platform, making it a great crypto exchange alternative. Many online ShapeShift exchange reviews praise the attention they pay to providing users with different features.

    ShapeShift rewards its users with Fox tokens for completing specific tasks related to their accounts. If there is enough demand, the company may also start selling Fox tokens. With these tokens, users have the chance to win exciting giveaways from ShapeShift.

    Super-Low Fees

    When choosing the best crypto exchange for yourself, fees are an important factor to consider. To maximize your profits, you should look for an exchange that offers the lowest fees and is also secure. ShapeShift is a legitimate platform offering its users competitively low fees, making it a great choice when compared to other exchanges.

    ShapeShift offers competitive fees, with no deposit or withdrawal fees. The fees vary depending on the cryptocurrency being traded, but are typically lower than those of other exchanges.

    The KeepKey Wallet

    The KeepKey wallet, a hardware cryptocurrency wallet made and sold by ShapeShift, is widely regarded as one of the most popular crypto wallets available. With its advanced security features, it’s easy to see why it’s so popular.

    ShapeShift is renowned for providing some of the safest cryptocurrency wallets, so it’s no surprise that their exchange is secure too. Many user reviews agree that ShapeShift is a great alternative to storing crypto coins in hot wallets from a security perspective.

    Key Disadvantages of ShapeShift

    Users may come across some negative ShapeShift exchange reviews and feedback online. To help you make an informed decision, let’s take a look at these reviews. Afterwards, we’ll discuss the registration process to the site.

    Prior Security Breach

    ShapeShift is widely considered a secure crypto exchange, despite its past security breaches. Unlike other exchanges, ShapeShift’s breach was not typical. ShapeShift experienced a security breach caused by an internal employee, resulting in the theft of approximately $230,000 worth of crypto coins from the company’s hot wallets. Fortunately, no users were affected by the breach.

    ShapeShift’s transition from an anonymous exchange to an account creation-requiring one caused concern, but the company has since rebuilt its reputation and is now considered reliable. For the most reliable cryptocurrency storage, Coinbase and Binance are the top choices. For even greater security, hardware wallets such as Ledger and Trezor are recommended.

    Some Users Report Lost Funds During Transactions

    ShapeShift has acknowledged that some of its customers have lost funds sent from the exchange to their wallets. It is actively working to resolve the issue and refund the affected users. A small percentage of customers experienced issues with their transactions; however, the majority of people had no problems.

    Most people have not reported any similar issues recently. It is indicating that the complaints about this issue are now in the past.

    ShapeShift’s active presence on media channels is evident, as they have responded to many frustrated users who have posted on Reddit about the safety of the platform. The answers to the question “Is ShapeShift safe?” may be mixed, but it is clear that the company is attentive to customer concerns.

    How to Use ShapeShift?

    The registration process for ShapeShift is easy to use and straightforward. It only takes a few minutes to sign up and start trading.

    1. Access ShapeShift’s official website.
    2. Create an account by clicking “Get Started” Button, enter your email and create a password.
    3. Download the ShapeShift app to verify your account by scanning the QR code or following the link in your email.
    4. Verifying your identity is the final step in creating your account. Quick and simple to follow, the account creation process is complete once you have done this.

    How to Start Trading on ShapeShift?

    Once you have verified that ShapeShift is legitimate, you can begin trading.

    1. Navigate to the Platform from your Dashboard, then press GO TO PLATFORM button.
    2. Press the Trade button on the left side of the screen to access the platform.
    3. Verify your account to start trading cryptocurrency. Scan the QR code to complete the verification process and begin trading your selected amount of cryptocurrency.
    4. Exchange your currency for cryptocurrency with Banxa, integrated within the ShapeShift platform – no fiat money required.

    Your crypto coins will be credited to your wallet in a short time after you make the trade. It’s that easy!

    Conclusion

    It is difficult to give a definitive answer to the question of whether or not to use ShapeShift for cryptocurrency exchange. Online reviews are mixed, with many users unable to make a clear decision. ShapeShift is an ideal alternative for those who want low fees and an easy-to-use platform. It offers a variety of features and promotions, making it a great choice for users.

    If you’re looking for an exchange to transfer fiat-to-crypto, but don’t want to risk the negative user reviews that mention the transaction issue that ShapeShift has experienced, you could consider alternatives such as Binance and Coinbase, which are the leaders in this area.

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • Developing story: OKEx suspends withdrawals
but is there more to this?

    Developing story: OKEx suspends withdrawals…but is there more to this?

    What happened?

    On 16th October 2020 OKEx suddenly announced that one of their private key holders (later confirmed to be Star Xu, OK Group’s CEO and Co-founder) is cooperating with a “public security bureau” and is unable to contact them. Therefore the Exchange cannot complete authorisations for transactions and thus decided to suspend all withdrawals of digital assets/cryptocurrencies from 16th October 2020 at 11:00 (HKT).

    The Exchange did this under clause 8.1 of their Terms of Service which provides that, “8.1 Service Change and Interruption: We may change the Service and/or may also interrupt, suspend or terminate the service at anytime with or without prior notice.”

    In particular, their Terms of Service defines their “Services” as the services that OKEx offers through OKEx.com or its app. According to the Terms of Service, you must agree to be bound by it to use the Services, including of course their rights under clause 8. (Tramadol) 1 to suspend it at any time.

    This abrupt suspension has shocked the cryptocurrency community and caused prices of both Bitcoin and Ethereum to plunge. In particular prices for Bitcoin dipped from over USD$11,500 to USD$11,235 within a half-hour period. As of the time of writing, prices have still not yet fully recovered.

    Meanwhile, there are rumours circulating that there is more than what meets the eye and that this suspension was a cumulation of events that were already in motion a few days ago. Let’s take a look at some events today (16th October 2020) which may (or may not) be relevant to this:

    • 1:00a.m.: Twitter user @whale_alert tweets: 5,000 #BTC (57,033,847 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to #OKEx
    • 4:00a.m.: Twitter user @whale_alert tweets: 1,180 BTC (13,588,646 USD) transferred from OKEx to unknown wallet
    • 9:00a.m.: Twitter user @whale_alert tweets: 50,000,000 TRX (1,317,074 USD) transferred from OKEx to unknown wallet.
      11:55a.m.: Chinese crypto media platform éžć°è™Ÿ (Feixiaohao) and UAICOIN publishes notices from OKEx that withdrawals will be suspended from 3:00p.m. onwards. This was also reported in a tweet from Co-founder of Chinese crypto media outlet @redtheminer who also notes the rumours circulating in the Chinese crypto community that over 800 accounts from a “certain large crypto exchange” are involved in cross border money laundering.
    • 12:00p.m.: OKEx announcement that it would suspend withdrawals from 11:00a.m. onwards.
    • 1:00p.m.: OKEx finally tweets their announcement on the withdrawal suspension.
    • 2:00p.m.: OKEx CEO Jay Hao tweets, reassures that all other operations are unaffected and that, “The investigation concerns a certain private key holder’s personal issue only. Further announcements will be made.”
    • 2:51p.m.: Someone asks OKEx support “Why is Star Xu’s Weibo page emptied?” and they replied, “The person you are referring to has no relation to our platform”.
    • 3:51p.m.: Twitter user @whale_alert tweets: 998 BTC (11,333,911 USD) transferred from Huobi to OKEx.

    *All times are stated in HKT unless otherwise specified.

    What will happen to Star Xu?

    Based on the news so far, the speculation is that Xu was detained since around 9th October 2020.

    According to commentary from PRC lawyers, Xu who is in criminal detention would only be permitted to meet or communicate with his lawyers. This would mean that he cannot meet his family or other staff in OKEx to handle the situation at the Exchange.

    PRC lawyers have also commented that under Chinese Law, Xu can be held in detention for a maximum of 37 days (i.e. until 15th November 2020). After this, the People’s Procuratorate (i.e. the prosecuting authorities) will need to decide whether or not to approve an arrest. If an arrest is approved then Xu would continue to be detained pending trial. However, even if an arrest is not approved, if the authorities consider that further investigation is required then Xu may either be released on bail or subject to home detention. According to the PRC lawyers, if Xu’s family does not hear anything further on 15th November 2020 then it can be assumed that an arrest was approved.

    Updates from OKEx

    According to a further announcement on 6th November 2020, withdrawals are STILL suspended. They, however, do clarify that the “concerned party” is only “actively cooperating with a public security bureau in an investigation” and NOT arrested under criminal detention.

    In a new update, they do say that they have sought legal support and guidance and by doing this has “made contact with the concerned party”. OKEx has explicitly said they cannot disclose any further information. Notably the announcement does not say whether this will result in withdrawals being able to reopen.

    This does appear to be a step in the positive direction though, since according to the commentary from some Chinese lawyers a detained person is only permitted to meet with his own lawyers, rather than that of a company he is the CEO of.

    Nevertheless OKEx in its latest Twitter post continues to reassure affected users that there has been no withdrawals from the Exchange since 16th October 2020 and that 100% of funds can be withdrawn when withdrawals can be resumed.

    A few observations

    There are reports from Chinese media that Xu was in fact already taken in by Police for investigation a week ago, whilst 2 executives that were also detained have since been released on bail. His arrest is causing a stir because he holds the private keys to OKEx’s funds, and according to Glassnode’s data, OKEx holds around 200,000 BTC i.e. USD$2.3 billion worth of Bitcoin.

    There are reports that Xu was taken in for investigation in relation to matters unrelated to OKEx. In particular, it was in relation to funds he had borrowed from a Shanxi-based underground bank for the purposes of the backdoor listing of OKC Holdings on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2019.

    We’ve already mentioned this in our previous newsletter about the KuCoin hack. Please take your cryptocurrencies off exchanges and store them offline in a hardware wallet. If you don’t have one yet, please consider getting one. Check out our Ledger Nano X review or buy it here.

    Withdrawals will resume on or before 27th November 2020

    On 19th November 2020, OKEx announced they would reopen unrestricted withdrawals on or before 27th November 2020. They will also be launching significant loyalty reward campaigns for their users as a show of gratitude to their community and for the inconvenience caused to them.

    We also note the announcement confirms that one of OKEx’s private key holders (likely to be Star Xu) has completed assisting investigation with authorities and has returned to his “normal business functions”. It is also confirmed that OKEx was not involved in any alleged wrongdoing or illegal activities. So for now we can all breathe a sigh of relief for Xu and OKEx.

    JUST IN: Details of OKEx loyalty programs released!

    As mentioned in the previous section, OKEx said they would launch loyalty programs for their users as a show to gratitude.

    On 24th November 2020, OKEx announced the following reward and compensation programs after withdrawals open on 27th November 2020.

    Users that made deposits, held tokens or traded during the withdrawal suspension period will be issued a one-time payment to users based on their assets and transaction conditions. The funds for this payment will come from 20% of OKEx’s total income from futures and perpetual swap transaction fees over the past 7 weeks which will be put into an incentive fund. The asset weight calculation will also be doubled for $OKB.

    Users with assets exceeding 10,000 USDT before 4:00pm UTC on 23rd November 2020 will have part of their service fees waived and refunded once withdrawals resume in the form of a rebate card valued between 100 to 1,000 USDT.

    For all users, there will be a Happy Friday Reward Program. This will start on 4th December 2020 and continue every Friday thereafter. To be eligible, users need to have daily average assets on OKEx or daily average trading volume greater than or equal to 100 USDT, and have KYC verification level 2 or higher. Users will get a BTC reward equivalent to OKEx’s futures and perpetual swap transaction fee income for that week * 10%* of the users daily average total asset value or trading volume (as the case may be)/ daily average asset values or daily average trading value of all users (as the case may be).

    Note that for the purposes of calculating the rewards, if a user’s daily average asset value exceeds 10,000 USDT, it would be calculated as 10,000 USDT. Similarly, if the user’s daily average trading volume exceeds 30,000 USDT, it would be deemed as 30,000 USDT.

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.

  • The Graph ($GRT) – The Next Level of Decentralized Apps

    The Graph ($GRT) – The Next Level of Decentralized Apps

    What is The Graph?

    The Graph ($GRT) is a decentralized and open-sourced indexing protocol for blockchain data. Developers can build and publish different APIs, which are referred to as subgraphs, and perform queries through the GraphQL.

    The platform can easily be used to look for any Ethereum data conveniently through simple queries. This addresses the common problem faced by a lot of other blockchain indexing platforms.

    Blockchain applications face difficulties in keeping properties like finality, chain reorganization, and security in their process of fulfilling query tasks. These are also potential complications that applications usually address, but unfortunately make the process of querying time-consuming. The Graph has a workaround for this, and it is built exactly for that purpose.

    Through “subgraphs,” The Graph indexes blockchain data, which users can access via the GraphQL API. According to the team, they will make it fully decentralized in the future, where more nodes will be involved and made responsible for maintaining the index.

    The interest for the platform is steadily growing. In fact, they hit over a billion queries last June 2020. This was right at the time when decentralized finance was also gaining much institutional attention.

    The Graph’s Daily Query Volume (Source: ‘1 Billion Monthly Queries’ medium articles)

    Background

    Yaniv Tal, co-founder and CEO of The Graph, together with his team, has created an indexing protocol meant to ease the process of accessing blockchain data. Tal and his co-founders had personally witnessed themselves how difficult it was to actually create new applications on the Ethereum blockchain.

    Thanks to their experience on applications, they have found out that there is actually no decentralized indexing and querying softwares yet for blockchain. The problem back then was that developers had to come up with their own method to gather data and transform them from different sources.

    The mission of the platform, which Tal and his team developed, is to help create applications that require no servers and make Web3 accessible to everyone.

    How Does The Graph Index Data?

    To index Ethereum-based data, The Graph uses the “subgraph manifest.” This refers to the description of a subgraph containing data about smart contracts, blockchain events, and the procedure in mapping event data with one another, before they are all kept in the platform’s database.

    The flow of the data from transactions, subgraph manifests, and the database follows a particular structure. All of it begins with decentralized applications that are adding data to the Ethereum blockchain through the help of smart contracts.

    All of that data will contain a record of all events and transactions up until the point that they have achieved finality. Then comes the Graph Node, which scans the whole blockchain database, gathers new data, and filters out those that are relevant to the queries that users make. To make the indexing much easier, it identifies every information that answers the questions from subgraphs.

    GraphQL is the link between blockchain data and the application that a user wants to provide it with. But then again, it is through the Graph Node that users can deliver searches to the platform. After the whole process, users can finally look at the results of their query from their applications.

    Basically, this is how the cycle of data query and indexing works in the platform. Users can refer to the Graph Explorer to scan through the subgraphs that are already in the platform. Each of these subgraphs have a playground where users can perform queries through GraphQL.

    How the Graph Works? (source: https://thegraph.com/docs/introduction#how-the-graph-works)

    As of latest, The Graph can support the indexing of data coming from Ethereum, IPFS, and PoA networks. There are more networks that the platform will support in the future. But right now, they already have more than 2,300 subgraphs deployed, which developers for applications utilize. Some of these applications are AAVE, Aragon, Balancer, DAOstack, Uniswap, Synthetix, and many others.

    There is a lot of institutional support for The Graph network. Michael Anderson of Framework Ventures, said in a press release that they “couldn’t be happier to back Yaniv and the team, and we look forward to helping grow the decentralized network when it launches.”

    Hayden Adams of Uniswap also shared how useful the platform was for their analytics needs: “As a company we don’t manage or run our own databases. 
 Right now it’s pretty difficult to get historic data from the Ethereum blockchain in an efficient way.”

    Their plan, apart from expanding to other blockchains soon, is to make it community-owned and governed in the future. This is also in response to the shift of many blockchain applications to a decentralized model of governance.

    Key Roles

    The platform’s whole ecosystem is composed of the following:

    The Graph’s Protocol Roles (source: The Graph Network In Depth)
    • Consumers – These are the users who pay indexers for their searches. It could also be web services or any other software linked with The Graph.
    • Indexers – These are the nodes that maintain the indexing function of the platform.
    • Curators – Using GRTs, curators identify to the subgraphs the information that is valuable for the platform’s index.
    • Delegators – These are other stakers who delegate their GRT to existing indexers and earn a portion of the rewards run by nodes.
    • Fishermen – They check whether the network’s response to queries is accurate.
    • Arbitrators – They decide whether an Indexer is malicious or not.

    The Graph Council

    The Graph plans to decentralize its governance in the future. This will most likely be similar with MakerDAO and Compound. At the point of the protocol’s maturity, the team plans to launch a Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO) that would allow core interest groups to participate in important protocol decisions.

    Similar to other DAOs, the Graph Council, which will be the governing body for the technical parameters of the protocol, is also in charge of how The Graph Foundation allocates its native, utility tokens.

    Among their basic functions include decisions on allocating grants and ecosystem funding, protocol upgrades, protocol parameters, and other emergency decisions.

    GRT Token ($GRT)

    The Graph Token, or $GRT, is its native ERC-20 based token, which can serve as a medium of exchange and the reward distributed to community participants who function as Indexers, Curators, and Delegators.

    GRT token distribution
    GRT token distribution (Image source: The Graph)

    GRT also has a vesting and distribution schedule ranging between 6 months to 10 years depending on the bucket. Around 12.5% of the total token supply (i.e. 1,224,999,438 GRT) is expected to be in circulation at launch. However this figure is exclusive of stakeable but locked tokens.

    GRT token distribution at mainnet launch

    The Graph launched its mainnet at 9:00a.m. (PT) on 17th December 2020. Upon launch, GRT has been distributed to all of the participants of the public sale. Members of The Graph’s Curator Program also received an initial USD $1,000 worth in rewards, with the remainder to be distributed to them on a quarterly basis based on their contributions to the Program.

    The Graph Foundation also received around 20% of the supply for the future development of The Graph. In particular, contributors who want to help building on The Graph can apply to their Grants Program, around 1% of the total supply of GRT will be allocated to support these participants in 2021.

    Here’s a graph showing the GRT circulation over the course of 5 years from the date of launch (i.e. 17th December 2020 at 9:00a.m. PT)

    5-year GRT circulation schedule by Bucket
    5-year GRT circulation schedule by Bucket (Image source: The Graph)

    Indexers that assisted during the Testnet phase have also ben rewarded between USD$10,000 to USD$100,000 in GRT as a reward for their contributions.

    In addition, around 2% of the total GRT has been granted to several Education Programs and loans totalling around 2.5% had been made to independent ecosystem partners.

    Indexer Staking

    In order for users to stake in the nodes that operate the whole platform and sell their services in the query market, they have to lock their GRT. In return, they are given financial rewards. If the indexers work maliciously, like altering data intentionally, the GRT that they staked will be slashed.

    Mainnet now live!

    The Graph Network launched its main net on 17th December 2020 after 3 years of development! According to the team the mainnet launch includes the following components: Deployment of The Graph Network contracts on Ethereum mainnet, deployment of the GRT contract, distribution of GRT to takeovers, launch of the Bug County Program and new docs for network roles.

    With the mainnet launch, Indexers will first stress test and improve performance before supporting real query volume, which will be upwards of 5,000 queries per second. Of course, there will be rewards for Indexers who will now begin earning on-chain indexing rewards and query fees.

    Graph Roadmap: What’s next?

    Now that mainnet has launched, The Graph will continue building. The Team has stated that the Graph Foundation will work on building a production-ready Graph Explorer dApp and Gateway that will support all network contributors.

    The Graph is also open to any individuals or third-parties that want to build for the network and as mentioned previously, they an apply to the Grants Program or collaborate with other community contributors.

    Conclusion

    Looking at the current boom of the DeFi space, we can see how important it is for developers to be able to freely access blockchain data. Making the process faster and less difficult for everyone could potentially influence the growth of the space as well as its reliability, security, and capacity.

    Everyone saw the need to create a bridge of information between applications and blockchain data. The Graph sought out to answer that.

    And with the deployment of smart contracts that depend on user data, The Graph has proven itself to be easy to use, cost-efficient, and fast. The platform is seen as a promising tool to empower everyone in the community, especially those who are developing more use cases for the blockchain.

    Decentralised Finance (DeFi) series: tutorials, guides and more

    With content for both beginners and more advanced users, check out our YouTube DeFi series containing tutorials on the ESSENTIAL TOOLS you need for trading in the DeFi space e.g. MetaMask and Uniswap. As well as a deep dive into popular DeFi topics such as decentralized exchanges, borrowing-lending platforms and NFT marketplaces

    The DeFi series on this website also covers topics not explored on YouTube. For an introduction on what is DeFi, check out Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Overview: A guide to the HOTTEST trend in cryptocurrency

    Tutorials and guides for the ESSENTIAL DEFI TOOLS:

    More videos and articles are coming soon as part of our DeFi series, so be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our Youtube channel so you can be notified as soon as they come out!

    Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading involves significant risks and may result in the loss of your capital. You should carefully consider whether trading cryptocurrencies is right for you in light of your financial condition and ability to bear financial risks. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile and can fluctuate widely in a short period of time. As such, trading cryptocurrencies may not be suitable for everyone. Additionally, storing cryptocurrencies on a centralized exchange carries inherent risks, including the potential for loss due to hacking, exchange collapse, or other security breaches. We strongly advise that you seek independent professional advice before engaging in any cryptocurrency trading activities and carefully consider the security measures in place when choosing or storing your cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange.