Ethereum Staking and Lending Rates

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June 2, 2022

Ethereum 2.0 can’t come soon enough, as blocks were always full in 2021. The next iteration of Ethereum will be a proof-of-stake (PoS) network where validators need to have at least 32 ETH to vote on transactions.

Parts of this network are already parallel to the main PoW blockchain, and investors can stake their Ether on the new network. This stake is locked until the migration is complete, and until now, it’s unclear whether this will happen next year or even later.

Staking Eth2 is a strong indicator of trust. So far, 7% of all ETH is staked on Eth2. Compared to Solana, which has 76% of its SOL staked, this might seem low, but some perspective is needed. If the transition never succeeds, which is a possibility, these funds are lost.

Users with less than 32 ETH need to delegate their coins to other validators to collect rewards. Centralized exchanges such as Kraken have made that very comfortable and offer 5%–7% APY on staked Ether. Decentralized protocol Rocket Pool allows users to stake and unstake Eth2 at will with 4.3% APY. Plus, there’s a token.

Figure 1: Amount of ETH staked

Lending platform YouHodler pays 5.5% APY, with CoinLoan and BlockFi offering more than 4.5% each. Juicier gains are realized when providing liquidity to decentralized exchanges (DEX) such as SushiSwap, where pairing ETH with stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) yields 46% APY this December.

Initial coin distribution of Ether

Buterin and his early team often get a lot of flak for Ethereum’s alleged centralization. The truth is that the core team did get around 10% of all ETH in circulation. Even then, the exact distribution was a contested issue and led to some bad blood. After this initial distribution, the team had a crowd sale — arguably the first ICO ever — where investors could purchase Ether for Bitcoin. Thousands of individuals bought 60 million ETH, about half of the supply in 2021. This share represents Ethereum’s early community, which got well rewarded for their faith in a project headed by a scrawny 20-year-old.

Figure 2: Breakdown of Ethereum’s Initial Coin Distribution

Compared to Solana and many other blockchains, Ethereum has little centralization. Conversely, the setup is not as squeaky clean as Bitcoin’s, where nothing was pre-mined.

This article is an extract from the 80+ page Scaling Report: Does the Future of Decentralized Finance Still Belong to Ethereum? co-published by the Crypto Research Report and Cointelegraph Consulting, written by ten authors and supported by Arcana, Brave, ANote Music, Radix, Fuse, Cryptix, Casper Labs, Coinfinity, Ambire, BitPanda and CakeDEFI.

TCG World Completes Largest Metaverse Commercial Real Estate Sale For $5,000,000

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Crypto Research

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May 27, 2022

TCG World recently announced an exciting new strategic partnership with Curzio Research Inc who have acquired 19 commercial real estate properties inside TCG World Metaverse for $5,000,000. The acquisition will mark one of the largest real estate purchases to date for virtual property inside the metaverse. Curzio Research plans on building its headquarters in the Asia region of TCG World, near WallStreetBets. This is where Curzio VIP members can meet with other investors, attend live events, educational seminars and conferences, listen to exclusive Wall Street Unplugged podcasts, and build an investment community.

Curzio Research, Inc. is a financial publishing company specializing in independent investment research and analysis. Curzio Research will initiate a capital raise of up to $4,000,000, which will be used to fund a portion of this TCG real estate acquisition and for general corporate purposes. This may include, but not be limited to, capital expenditures, acquisitions, infrastructure and personnel, development of products and services, and legal and accounting expenses.

“The metaverse is what the internet was supposed to be,” says Curzio Research founder, Frank Curzio. “A decentralized, permissionless place where individuals have the freedom to create and own their digital content.

“When researching the options, TCG World had all the elements — gamification, entertainment, social, and commerce — to create a true open metaverse. And its low fee structure incentivizes innovation for users and developers. We’re happy to be part of this pro-growth model in an industry that has incredible upside potential.” The Curzio Research headquarters is expected to be completed before the TCG World official launch, or before September 2022. For additional information on this deal, visit www.curzioresearch.com
TCG World, is one of the largest open-world metaverse projects currently in development on the blockchain and has recently started to roll out Alpha access to some of their users and investors. Everything inside TCG World is owned as an NFT – virtual land, cars, pets and even player avatars.

TCG World will be co-hosting The Metaverse Expo 2022, a 3-day event held at the Las Vegas Convention Center on 8th – 10th July 2022. The event will bring over 6000 visitors from around the world and will cover topics within the Metaverse, NFT, Gaming, and Blockchain space.
These include:
• Introduction to Blockchain • Introduction to Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets • Artificial Intelligence • Introduction to the Metaverse • Metaverse Architecture • Digital Fashion and Technology • Business and Web3 Economics • Metaverse Entrepreneurship • Decentralized Finance • eSports and Blockchain Gaming • Understanding the power of the Metaverse • Reinventing Education in the Metaverse • Metaverse applications powered by blockchain Tickets for The Metaverse Expo 22 are on sale now and can be purchased through their official website.

What is TCG World?
TCG World is an online open-world virtual gaming experience where players can earn TCG Coin 2.0, gather NFT collectibles, own virtual real estate, create, explore the game world, control their own online businesses, or just have fun. TCG World introduces a new approach to NFTs making it more than just a piece of art — now players can take their NFTs into the gaming world and play. Everything a player owns in the metaverse is an NFT — real estate, vehicles, pets, trophies, and even player avatars.

Real-World Use and Adoption for Ethereum

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Crypto Research

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May 26, 2022

Ether, or ETH, are the native tokens of Ethereum. It has no cap, and there are currently 118.9 million Ether in circulation. Ether is added when miners are paid for finding blocks (block rewards), and decreases as base transaction fees are burned. In 2021, Ethereum has a net annual inflation of 1.8%.

Ether’s price has been above $3,000 since August 2021, and its average market capitalization was $440 billion in October 2021. Starting in July 2020, its market cap rose in tandem with the TVL. In December 2021 the ratio of market cap to TVL was around 2.9x which places Ethereum between Fantom with just 0.76x and Solana with 4.4x. This is a good measure for how valuable a chain is in relation to the assets locked.

Figure 1: Ethereum’s price near all-time-highs in December 2021

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-2-1024x537.png — *Source: Messari*

Ethereum daily active addresses

The number of active addresses represents the number of accounts with at least one transaction on a given day, which is a good measure for the overall liveness of a blockchain. Ethereum surpassed 500,000 daily active addresses in the second half of 2021 and peaked at 800,000 in November 2021. Growth has been hampered by high transaction fees and longer wait times lately, as can be seen by the plateau on the graph above, which started in May 2020. The amount of active addresses is likely to stay at current levels until major technical upgrades become available.

Figure 2: Ethereum active addresses surpass 500,000 in the second half of 2021

Ethereum protocol revenue and price-to-sales ratio

The Ethereum network currently employs a PoW consensus mechanism. More on this later. Miners secure the blockchain in return for block rewards and transaction fees. Block rewards

were 5 ETH per block until October 2017, when the Byzantium upgrade reduced the rewards to 3 ETH per block. The Constantinople upgrade in February 2019 went a step further, and now miners receive only 2 ETH per block or around 13,000 ETH per day for their services.

Figure 3: The total mining reward per day in ETH is the block rewards plus the transaction fees

Transaction fees are now split into base and priority fees ever since Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559 was implemented, part of the famed August 2021 London upgrade. Apart from different naming geography, it introduced a mechanism to burn the base transaction fees and only award miners the priority fee. The priority fee is like a tip that users add to their transactions to be processed quicker. Sometimes, substantial amounts are tipped during high transaction demand, like NFT launches. Burning the base fee will make Ether net deflationary when the network merges to its next iteration, Eth2, scheduled in 2022.

With Ether prices around $4,000, block rewards are close to $19 billion per year. Priority fees per day can peak up to 32,000 ETH. In the second half of 2021, they have evened out at an average of 1,500 ETH per day or $2.19 billion per year.

The price-to-sales ratio divides the market capitalization by the protocol revenue to make blockchains more comparable in the same way a price-to-earnings ratio does for stocks.

Ethereum has a 22.2x price-to-sales ratio, and a 214.9x ratio of price to transaction-fees. Both reflect a solid fundamental value of Ethereum when other blockchains such as Solana have a P/S of more than 30,000x.

1 More information about Ethereum’s inflation here

This article is an extract from the 80+ page Scaling Report: Does the Future of Decentralized Finance Still Belong to Ethereum? co-published by the Crypto Research Report and Cointelegraph Consulting, written by ten authors and supported by Arcana, Brave, ANote Music, Radix, Fuse, Cryptix, Casper Labs, Coinfinity, Ambire, BitPanda and CakeDEFI.

Best App To Sell Bitcoin In Nigeria and Ghana — Prestmit

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Crypto Research

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May 20, 2022

Bitcoin has been the most popular and expensive cryptocurrency among over 10,000 coins in the crypto space. Its value has attracted a huge number of investors who want to leverage its market price to make fortunes for themselves.

Also, its potential in disrupting the stock market while retaining a decentralized nature across borders and territories has made many companies and few countries adopt Bitcoin use. Bitcoin trading is increasingly growing amongst cryptocurrency traders, with other financial institutions mulling on the bandwagon to have an encompassing stream of customers that trade in both Bitcoin and fiat currencies.

In Nigeria and Ghana, Bitcoin trading is a major way of becoming a millionaire within the twinkle of an eye as the exploits of cryptocurrency are already taking over the world. Its potential is massive as it does bullish prices that have in recent times reached an all-time high price.

However, because the markets are open every hour of the day and night, you must always be ready to buy when a good deal arises or to sell when a loss is too great.

So are you looking for how to sell Bitcoin? Do you need a trusted Bitcoin exchange that can boost your courage and finance in the crypto trading world? Prestmit is here for you!

Prestmit is a web and mobile-based Bitcoin exchange that is extolled for its simple user access and reliability in the world of Bitcoin trading. Launched in 2017, Prestmit has curated a niche for itself as one of the best apps to sell Bitcoin in Nigeria and Ghana.

Using the Prestmit app, new and existing users can easily sell gift cards for Bitcoin or convert BTC to either naira or cedi, which is enabled by a series of automated transaction processes.

Furthermore, the Prestmit App is available on Google Play Store and the Apple Play Store for the most convenient and secure crypto-transactions yet to come.

Great Features Of Selling Bitcoin On The Prestmit App

1. Easy To Use

To create a positive user experience with a Bitcoin app, it must be simple to use. The Prestmit app, like the web platform, is simple with a user-friendly interface.

2. Instant Payment

Getting payment after selling your Bitcoin on the Prestmit app is considerably fast. Prestmit boasts of having the fastest payment time, which is between 5-10 minutes.

3. Security

A centralized security system and two-factor authentication (2FA) are just two of the many security features built into the Prestmit app to keep your account safe at all times.

4. Prompt Customer Support

Across the time, 24/7, the support team is available to assist new and existing Prestmit customers to resolve any issues related to their account management.

Bitcoin Products Available On The Prestmit App

Bitcoin to Naira
Bitcoin to Cedis
Gift Cards to Bitcoin

How To Sell Bitcoin On Prestmit App

1. Create An Account

Registering to create an account on the Prestmit app takes nothing less than one minute.

2. Generate Address

This is having a Prestmit wallet address that would enable you to send and receive Bitcoin at will. This can be achieved by clicking on “Generate BTC wallet” on the Bitcoin wallet page.

3. Send Bitcoin

You can now send Bitcoin to your Prestmit wallet which will be converted to either naira or cedis. This process is in respect to the current exchange rate, which can be accessed using the rate calculator on your wallet page.

4. Get paid

After you have gotten three successive confirmations, cash will be transferred into your local bank account.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can I send Bitcoin from any country?

Yes! Sending BTC is possible from any country, from any wallet, and even from any Bitcoin ATM!

2. What is the limit?

There is neither a maximum nor minimum limit.

Conclusion

To keep up with the ever-changing nature of the Bitcoin market, Prestmit is constantly updating its mobile app to provide the best customer service possible to its users. Selling Bitcoin on the Prestmit apps assures a seamless transaction process.

Ethereum at full capacity since May 2021

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Crypto Research

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May 19, 2022

For many, Ethereum 2 can’t come soon enough, as Ethereum blocks have been consistently full for many months.

DeFi and Ethereum are almost synonymous. Ethereum smart contracts enable the trustless transactions that make up decentralized finance, and most projects developed on top of the “world computer.”

This research focuses on the fundamentals of real-world use and gives an overview of Ethereum’s scalability — or lack thereof. Finally, we will explore Ethereum’s astounding dominance in both NFT sales and value locked in DeFi.

Vitalik Buterin co-founded Ethereum in 2013. Due to legal challenges with Ethereum’s initial crowd sale, it took almost two years to launch the network on July 30, 2015. Buterin wanted to expand Bitcoin’s programmability radically. He saw blockchain-native programs as a powerful catalyst for usage and adoption.

His ideas were met with intense pushback by the Bitcoin developer community, so he started to pour his efforts into a project of his own, which he called Ethereum. After receiving a $100,000 grant from the Peter Thiel Foundation in 2014, he began assembling a core team of contributors.

Some of today’s most prominent figures in crypto were among early Ethereum developers, such as Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano; Gavin Wood, founder of Polkadot; Joseph Lubin, founder of ConsenSys; and Anthony Di Iorio from TMX. These heavy hitters embarked on a rocky journey, which saw them facing intense infighting among the team, massive delays caused by regulatory uncertainty and near bankruptcy.

Ethereum finally launched and proved that programmability was incredibly powerful and equally dangerous. The initial coin offering (ICO) hype of 2017, DeFi summer and the NFT boom in 2020 did more for crypto adoption than anything else, while the DAO heist(1) nearly ended Ethereum’s existence in 2017.

Figure: The Ethereum network has been at full capacity since May 2021

Ethereum hit the ceiling of its transaction capability this year. Most of the time, blocks are at capacity, but transaction fees have skyrocketed to peaks of $10,000 during coveted NFT launches.

The situation has become untenable and frequently priced out participants with lower net worth. Other blockchains picked up the slack, and Ethereum now faces innovative competition from Solana, Avalanche and Fantom.

Will Ethereum remain the predominant ecosystem and continue to be at the forefront of innovation and adoption? Or will it fall behind and get overtaken by blockchains with better performance and faster development?

1 See “The DAO: Chronology of a daring heist and its resolution”, Deloitte Blockchain Institute, September, 2016

This article is an extract from the 80+ page Scaling Report: Does the Future of Decentralized Finance Still Belong to Ethereum? co-published by the Crypto Research Report and Cointelegraph Consulting, written by ten authors and supported by Arcana, Brave, ANote Music, Radix, Fuse, Cryptix, Casper Labs, Coinfinity, Ambire, BitPanda and CakeDEFI.

Anticipated +60K Otherside land giveaway announced by Crypto Thots

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Crypto Research

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May 17, 2022

Crypto Thots, the NFT marketplace with Ethereum on Opensea that helps you become a P.I.M.P in the NFT Space, is thrilled to announce its highly anticipated minting date. Starting from the 8th of June 2022, it’ll offer its holders access to account creation and edition, NFTs, timed auctions, royalties, messenger, personalized activity feed, and much more.

By being a part of their 30,000 and growing Discord users community, Crypto Thots NFTs holders can flex the Bored Ape Yacht Club and enjoy any airdrops that BAYC is making. Holders get guaranteed access to constant giveaways – such as the 13ETH giveaway in Decentraland – and have access to exclusive content created by their OnlyFans models. Therefore, users won’t have to worry about their needs being neglected at any step of the roadmap.

“Crypto Thots set out to help its users achieve their passive income goals. To do so, until minting day, we’re giving away daily prizes for 5 random active users in the Crypto Thots community after they fulfill the invitation and level requirements. One week after minting day, on the 15th of June, we’ll be introducing the first +60K Otherside land-related massive giveaway happening.” – sajja.eth, Founder at Crypto Thots.

To cater to their holders’ financial needs, they are planning to:

Give 20% of revenue back to each holder;
Give 10% of revenue back to a charity cause chosen by their holders;
Reveal information about the P.I.M.P coin — and how holders can use it to advance on the P.I.M.P path;
Introduce the PPI (PASSIVE P.I.M.P) concept, to provide its holders with free money in no time;
Enable networking opportunities for pimps while partying with 3D thots at Crypto Thots’ club in Decentraland.

“Our purpose is for our community to always be winning. That’s why all Crypto Thots NFT owners will be eligible for random airdrops and giveaways as long as their NFT is not listed for sale. By the way, the second land giveaway will take place one week after the first land giveaway – if the public sale sells out.” – sajja.eth, Founder at Crypto Thots

About Crypto Thots

Crypto Thots is the ultimate NFT marketplace flow with Ethereum on Opensea that bridges the gap between NFTs and online content providers. As it’s aiming to help you become a P.I.M.P in the NFT Space and get rewarded for it, it gives you access to 3,333 thots that have found their way to the blockchain and a community of 30,000 and growing Discord users. Rewards include the latest developments, the best information, and the ultimate thottery.

Learn more about Crypto Thots here.

DeFi on Bitcoin

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Crypto Research

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May 12, 2022

Bitcoin’s design has unique characteristics that make it impossible to perform certain actions, and this has led developers and users to seek greener pastures in the Ethereum ecosystem. However, the same drawbacks conversely make Bitcoin more secure and stable.

In the article about Bitcoin’s Script protocol language, we discussed that many applications are not possible on Bitcoin due to its limited instruction set.

That’s why there will never be Bitcoin-native DeFi applications because the underlying smart contracts (a fancy name for tiny programs that self-execute and run natively on a blockchain) need a complete instruction set.

Script allows the creation of something called Atomic Swaps, however. You might have noticed that Bitcoin developers are almost as creative as Apple’s marketing department in finding awe-inspiring names for their products. Avoiding undue technicality here, Atomic Swaps allow Bitcoin to be exchanged with coins of other blockchains such as Litecoin or Ethereum in one transaction and without intermediaries. The exact mechanism involves Hash Time Locked Contracts and is beyond the scope of this research.

Only two projects offer decentralized financial services on top of Bitcoin — DeFiChain and Portal.finance.

DeFiChain

DeFiChain uses an intelligent way to secure transactions on its own chain by storing cryptographic representation to the Bitcoin blockchain every 30 minutes. DeFiChain’s own network is fast and tailored to decentralized finance by expanding Bitcoin’s Script language just enough to allow building, lending, staking and tokenizing functionality without becoming Turing complete and compromising on security.

DeFiChain went live in 2020 and introduced the ability to create digital tokens from stocks in November 2021. Users can currently get up to 400% APR when providing liquidity with Tesla, Google and other stocks in pairs with stablecoins.

The download of a proprietary wallet is necessary to participate. Thanks to rapid innovation and its clever security mechanics, DeFiChain has attracted more than $1.8 billion of assets to its applications.

Total value locked in DeFi on Bitcoin

Portal.finance has not been released to the public yet. Investors can start a whitelisting process to participate in the creation, and Portal announced $650 million of funds pledged to its development.

DeFiChain is the only running layer-two decentralized exchange on Bitcoin, and the total value locked (TVL) on Bitcoin is the same — $1.8 billion. Watching out for Portal’s start and traction is recommended for anyone interested in this unique space.

Summary

Seen in a more poetic way, Bitcoin seems like the wise grandfather of modern cryptocurrencies. And while it may be considered old-fashioned, its stringent adherence to core values makes it inherently trustworthy and commands great authority.

DeFi has arrived on top of Bitcoin. While Ethereum allows native financial decentralized applications (DApp), transaction fees for providing liquidity to exchange pools have frequently exceeded $100 and occasionally topped $1,000. Layer-two solutions on top of Ethereum are all the rave now, so there’s no reason to think of layer-two DeFi as “less real” than layer one.

Bitcoin is still a valid synonym for crypto as a whole, and Taproot, Lightning Network, and layer-two DeFi mean it is more than just the first cryptocurrency, it is still a formidable competitor for the blockchain foundation of the global decentralized finance market.

This article is an extract from the 80+ page Scaling Report: Does the Future of Decentralized Finance Still Belong to Ethereum? co-published by the Crypto Research Report and Cointelegraph Consulting, written by ten authors and supported by Arcana, Brave, ANote Music, Radix, Fuse, Cryptix, Casper Labs, Coinfinity, Ambire, BitPanda and CakeDEFI.

TCG World partners with Shark Tank backed Jigsaw Puzzle International Convention (JPiC) to co-host The Metaverse Expo 2022, Las Vegas

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Crypto Research

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May 11, 2022

The Metaverse Expo 2022 is a 3 day event held at the Las Vegas Convention Center on 8th – 10th July 2022 that will bring together entrepreneurs, industry experts and crypto enthusiasts in the Metaverse, Gaming and NFT Space.

Showcasing a wide range of exhibitors, The Metaverse Expo 2022 features a host of key speakers & panelists including motivational speaker Agon Hare, from Project Nightfall Organization and Academia Professor & TEDx speaker Justin Goldston, PHD. The Metaverse Expo will cover topics within Metaverse, NFTs and blockchain. These include:

• Introduction to Blockchain • Introduction to Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets • Artificial Intelligence • Introduction to the Metaverse • Metaverse Architecture • Digital Fashion and Technology • Business and Web3 Economics • Metaverse Entrepreneurship • Decentralized Finance • eSports and Blockchain Gaming • Understanding the power of the Metaverse • Reinventing Education in the Metaverse • Metaverse applications powered by blockchain

The event is taking place over three days in the renowned Las Vegas Convention Center and also includes on stage panel discussions, live performances, virtual land and NFT giveaways as well as the opportunity to network with a range of high value industry professionals.

Exhibitors can choose from three different sized booth packages, Diamond (30’x30’), Platinum (20’x20’) and Gold (10×10) which also includes 20 free tickets for the team and a speaking slot at the event. You can register for a booth at The Metaverse Expo 2022 through their website.

TCG World, is one of the largest open world metaverse projects currently in development on Binance Smart Chain and has recently started to roll out Alpha access to some of their users. Everything inside TCG World is owned as an NFT – virtual land, cars, pets and even player avatars.

Co-hosts JPiC is a company dedicated to the organization of the first ever Jigsaw Puzzle International Convention and will run alongside The Metaverse Expo 22 as well as offering free entry to individuals who purchase a Metaverse Expo 22 ticket. JPiC recently appeared on Shark Tank, Malta and secured a record breaking investment of €200,000 from Alexander Fenech, a Shark Tank investor, for a 15% stake in their Jigsaw Puzzle Convention business.

The 3 day event will bring over 6000 visitors from around the world.Tickets for The Metaverse Expo 22 and Jigsaw Puzzle International Convention can be found on their official website.

Cointelegraph Research Report: Why Crypto Funds Are Investing in Dash

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Crypto Research

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May 9, 2022

A new crypto fund report published by Cointelegraph Research investigates how the Dash protocol’s innovative design provides security benefits to its users, as well as a thorough examination of the tokenomics and value proposition. The report highlights how investors can participate in Dash, and what future possibilities for users and developers will emerge from Dash’s upcoming developments.

Cointelegraph Research presents facts and figures on all aspects of Dash in collaboration with multiple research partners including Allnodes, Staking Rewards, CryptoRefills, CoinRoutes, intotheblock, Bitwise, Santiment, and Rekt Capital. Dash’s unique features as a payment solution including its role as an asset for investments are examined. The report is intended for investors who want to learn more about the cryptocurrency.

Dash’s evolution will achieve a major milestone in 2022. With the launch of the Dash Platform on mainnet, developers and users will be able to take full advantage of a complete ecosystem for decentralized applications and data storage.

Link to Download the full report here, complete with charts and infographics

Cointelegraph’s Crypto Fund Survey Research

An original survey of over 2,000 crypto funds was conducted in 2021 to gain a better understanding of how investors feel about Dash. This 80+ page report, written by five authors from around the world, shows which funds currently hold Dash as well as the number of funds that plan to invest in Dash over the next year.

The 200 funds that participated in the survey manage an estimated total of $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency and blockchain investments. The survey revealed that:

20 funds already have Dash exposure in their investment portfolio.

An additional 40 funds indicated their intention to invest in Dash within the next 12 months.

70% of the survey respondents requested to receive the results of this crypto fund report.

The study revealed these 20 asset allocators reported that they already have exposure to Dash in their investment portfolio including Digital Capital Management, Liquibit Limited, BN Capital, Postera Capital, Blockwall Capital, Hilbert Capital, Smart Block Laboratory, Asymmetry Asset Management, Resilience AG, Pecun.io, All Blue Capital, INDX Capital, EZCAMG, Plutus21 Capital, How2Ventures, Block Ventures, Parallax Digital, Bohr Arbitrage Crypto Fund, and Valkyrie.

Dash has distinguished itself from Bitcoin and other blockchains by emerging as one of the most prominent digital currencies focused on payments, i.e., becoming digital cash. The report not only explains how Dash’s masternode solution has helped to improve network scalability, but also elaborates on the regulatory environment for Dash and other cryptocurrencies in the world’s largest jurisdictions.

“As far as I know, there’s no other project that comes close to what we’re trying to build which is the ability to efficiently query information directly from the system database to users. We’ve seen a lot of DApps that store information on other blockchains, but they all require the use of oracles for their system to work. Dash Platform is going to be much more decentralized. Users on their mobile devices will be querying DAPI directly. There’s no oracle between them, users can query the blockchain directly with decentralized cryptographic proofs that the information is valid. You don’t have to trust any server. In my opinion, it will be a new paradigm of how decentralized systems can work.”
Sam Westrich, CTO at Dash Core Group

Aside from Dash’s vision and general features, the report delves into tokenomics, price performance, future development roadmap, and regulation. This report also outlines how Dash remains an innovative cryptocurrency that has evolved from a scalable payment solution to a Web3 ecosystem.

“Dash is a well-known, respected name in the payments space in many areas of the world, and has an engaged, loyal following. One of our goals at Valkyrie is to enable those underserved by traditional financial firms to have access to financial services, and expanding investment into the Dash ecosystem is part of that mission.”
Leah Wald, CEO at Valkyrie Investments

According to Cointelegraph Research, any amount of Dash can improve a traditional equity and bond portfolio by strengthening not only the cumulative return but also the sharpe ratio. Dash’s low correlation to traditional asset classes like equities and gold can also help investors manage their risk.

Link to Download the full report here, complete with charts and infographics

Layer-two solutions to Bitcoin’s scalability

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Crypto Research

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May 5, 2022

Six confirmations for a bitcoin payment means about 60 minutes of waiting time and even just one confirmation of 10 minutes would still be a long wait for a coffee, luckily there are approaches to solve this problem!

Since Nakamoto wanted to design an electronic cash system, his successors had to think about possible solutions to Bitcoin’s scalability problem. If BTC intends to be used for payments, multi-dollar transaction fees and hours-long wait times could not be tolerated.

After Bitcoin miners rejected a proposal to increase Bitcoin’s block size to 2 megabytes in May 2017, Bitcoin Cash was created as a hard fork of Bitcoin Core. In a hard fork, every holder of coins on the parent chain also holds coins of the offspring, but the blockchains diverge after that. Sometimes, most miners decide to ditch the older chain, and it fades into oblivion. But that was not the case with Bitcoin Cash, whose acceptance remains far below Bitcoin to this day. Bitcoin Cash can achieve 350 TPS, which is a welcomed improvement but still a far cry from real-world demands. The Visa network processes up to 56,000 TPS on busy shopping days.

Thankfully, a few clever developers found a solution and introduced the Lightning Network(1) in 2016, officially launching it in 2018.

The Lightning Network

The Lightning Network white paper was released on Jan. 14, 2016, and written by Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja. Since then, Lightning Labs’ team has made steady progress under CEO Elizabeth Stark.

Lightning specifies a peer-to-peer payment system on top of Bitcoin using payment channels. The mechanism is simple and elegant:

Alice tops up her Lightning payment channel to Bob with BTC (first on-chain transaction).
Alice sends Bob a transaction.
Alice can send Bob as many other transactions as she wants until her funds are depleted.
Alice and Bob agree on the total paid and close the payment channel (second on-chain transaction).

The fee for sending a Lightning transaction is zero if a direct connection exists between the parties. Lightning can also route a payment through many hops. The transaction propagates like, well, Lightning in the sky until it reaches its desired recipient. Hops charge minuscule fees, often fractions of 1 Satoshi, for their services in providing the necessary liquidity.

The Lightning Network is like a social network for payments. Since each hop can only facilitate less than what they topped up, network capacity can become an issue for large transactions. Mercifully, 2021 saw exponential network capacity growth, exceeding 3,000 BTC (~$150 million) in October 2021.

Figure: Visualisation of the Lightning Network

In December 2021, there were more than 17,100 Lightning nodes worldwide, most of which in the United States and the European Union. These nodes have more than 77,000 open payment channels. Lightning wallets for iOS and Android have matured enough to be usable by regular users. And in Venezuela, savvy residents shop with BTC.

It has never been easier to buy a coffee with Bitcoin. This is something that has come just in time, especially for the inhabitants of the Latin American country of El Salvador!

1 See “What is the Lightning Network in Bitcoin and how does it work?”, Cointelegraph

This article is an extract from the 80+ page Scaling Report: Does the Future of Decentralized Finance Still Belong to Ethereum? co-published by the Crypto Research Report and Cointelegraph Consulting, written by ten authors and supported by Arcana, Brave, ANote Music, Radix, Fuse, Cryptix, Casper Labs, Coinfinity, Ambire, BitPanda and CakeDEFI.

Initial coin distribution of Ether

Ethereum daily active addresses

Ethereum protocol revenue and price-to-sales ratio

DeFiChain

Total value locked in DeFi on Bitcoin

Summary

Cointelegraph’s Crypto Fund Survey Research

The Lightning Network

Premium Partners of the Crypto Research Report