Moon Mag #6

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gettingstartedincrypto.com

Editorial In a market downturn, it is essential to look at technologies that can be used in changing current standards. IDC http:// www.idc.com/ expects global enterprise network infrastructure spending to hit $45 billion by 2025, with about a third of that — $15 billion — NaaS-related. That’s why STRONG BLOCK is a must-have in your HODL bags. We explore the main chains and their differences, and the best crypto wallets, make sure you jump into the NEW Moon Mag chat, we’d love to hear your thoughts. And last but not least - Immutable X, is this the way forward for NFTs? All in all a feature-packed MOON MAG!

A note from Lisa…

Get ready to BLOCK out a few hours for this month’s essential reading, as we deep dive into LUCKY BLOCK, the cryptocurrency that will make a global lottery system. We look at why this is an important step forward.

More essential reading on STRONG BLOCK with state of the art ‘Nodes-as-aService’ (NaaS) technology. In my opinion, this is the next game-changing technology for crypto and has real-world application.

Nokia Bell Labs breaks down the 6 key characteristics.

A note from Josh…

Many people have been discouraged by the recent market, some have shyed away from being involved, others have found themselves puzzled and perplexed. But opportunity is everywhere. Sometimes it takes a bit more digging to unearth the gems and it’s lucky we’ve got a fantastic team of researchers and writers who can do that! In this issue, block is the keyword. You’ll find more interesting takes on how the traditional world is morphing into the crypto world and a good look at the blockchains in the cryptoverse. You may have also seen the new area of the GSIC website ‘Crypto Bytes’ - this is completely FREE for subscribers to the Moon Mag! It’s like a calendar for all the other ways you can make magic internet money in the forms of airdrops, ICO’s, IGO’s, staking, farming etc.. Open up the Menu and click Crypto Bytes to see our latest signals, freshly dug out for you!

LuckyBlock 06

StrongBlock 11

Next-generation blockchain platforms

The Best Wallets to Store Your Bitcoins

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28

Immutable X 42

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CONTRIBUTORS

Aldrich Shillian Aldrich (or Rhys to those in the Signals group!) has been HODL’ing since 2017 and is proud of surviving bear markets, rug pulls and still trading successfully enough to have paid off all debts.

Recently, he’s jumped head-on into NFT projects - particularly ones that combine his love of gaming.

Daniel Dudek I am a Quantitative Biology PhD student with a small addiction to crypto. One of my favorite things about crypto is its ability to revolutionize everything we do, from payments to culture. Real implementation and interoperability between projects are what I am passionate about in this space.

Kel Udeala I’m a quantitative analyst and a mechanical engineer. I took an interest in crypto because my line of work led me down the financial trading and investment rabbit hole, and it’s only a matter of time before you reach crypto. I enjoy researching different crypto projects, and attempting to forecast their roles in the future financial and technology systems. I also find the volatility of the charts and the resulting crypto-Twitter posts very thrilling.

Daniel Jimenez Daniel has been a blockchain technology evangelist since 2012 and is a faithful believer in the Crypto ecosystem. Daniel also writes for Coin Telegraph!

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LUCKY BLOCK written by Daniel Dudek

And the winning numbers are!

Luckyblock: A global crypto lottery system

Gambling has always been ingrained in our societies all over the globe to some extent, legally or illegally.

One of the most prevalent forms of gambling is the lottery system. The United States has the Powerball among various others, Italy has the SuperEnalotto, the Euromillions in the UK, and the OZ lotto in Australia.

What there isn’t, is a global and transparent lottery system. That is, until now. In this month’s deep-dive, I introduce Lucky Block. The Lucky block team believes in creating a secure, transparent, and fair lottery system in which any individual, regardless of geography, can put their luck to the test. By using blockchain infrastructure, this new system will allow for faster payout, prevent money laundering through the archaic lottery system we have today, reduce the likelihood of information loss, destruction, or tampering, and prevent internal fraud.

Token Data **Information collected on 1/18/2022 according to whitepaper and presale**

Presale lockup information (value in USD)

Total Supply: 100,000,000,000 Circulating supply (pre-sale tokens total): 32,500,000,000 Only presale during time of writing: https://buy.luckyblock.com/

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0-10,000: no lockup 10,000-25,000: 3 months 25,000-50,000: 6 months 50,000-100,000: 9 months 100,000-250,000: 12 months

Will be tradeable on Pancakeswap (BSC) Website https://luckyblock.com/

Token Allocation ● 10% Private Sale ● 10% Presale ● 12.5% Pinksale ● 2.5% Dev Team ● 20% Partners

White Paper https://luckyblock.com/whitepaper/

Max sale during presale ● 50,000,000 tokens per address Transactional Tax (12% fee on sale) ● 4% Lottery Pool ● 4% Liquidity Pools ● 3% NFT & Gaming Royalty Fund ● 1% Token Burn Jackpot Distribution ● 10% Charity ● 10% Lucky Block ● 10% Token Holders ● 70% Winners●

Twitter https://twitter.com/luckyblockcoin Telegram https://t.me/LuckyBlockChainTG Discord https://discord.gg/Ps5FNu5QAv Where To Purchase the Token Upon launch, interested individuals can purchase $LB on https://pancakeswap.finance/

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Core Team Scott Ryder CEO Little information could be found about him other than that he is associated with the projects DeFi Swap and Stakemoon. Both are small market cap projects that haven’t seemed to perform well.

James Bason CPO He is the chief product officer of Finixio, a digital marketing company with over 50 websites under management.

This includes 15 brands in various languages. They focus on promoting products created within various industries, such as cryptocurrency, sports betting, financial markets, personal finance, loans, health & nutrition, and several others.

What Does LB Do For Investors?

Investors have a great opportunity to become involved early on in this project’s lifespan. By this time, the presale has ended and the token is openly trading on the Binance Smart Chain through pancakeswap. This project does have favorable launch conditions as the max sale per transaction during the presale was 50 million tokens. Since the more an individual bought during the presale caused those tokens to be locked up for a longer period of time, whales dumping immediately at launch is unlikely. Along with this, partners and the developer team only account for 22.5% of the token supply. It’s quite rare to see a token distribution favorable for the purchaser. Obviously, these features don’t indicate for certain that there will be a dump at launch or shortly into the life cycle but they are much better conditions than a number of VC projects that seem to allocate 75% of the total supply to the team.

What token holders can be optimistic about is the transactional tax. This tax includes a few favorable incentive features that are unreliant on the team to execute. A 1% token burn of the transacted tokens will be implemented to reduce the number of tokens within circulation, therefore increasing the value of the remaining tokens. 4% will be allocated to liquidity pools. Hint. This means there will likely be syrup pools and LP farming on pancakeswap to take advantage of. If you haven’t explored pancakeswap and all it has to offer, I highly recommend you do so. It is one of the easiest to navigate DeFi platforms you can find.

Since it’s on Binance Smart Chain, you don’t have to worry about ridiculous gas fees as long as you’re fine with the lack of decentralization. The last tokenomic feature within the tax which will benefit holders is the 4% lottery pool allocation. This project is a lottery platform after all and, as you can expect, there will be a jackpot distribution where token holders are awarded 10% of the pool. Even if you don’t win, you are able to obtain a piece of the jackpot just by holding!

Market Opportunity This project does have a unique market opportunity and if executed correctly, could potentially take the crypto space by storm. They are addressing a sector that hasn’t been addressed yet. That is online gambling in the form of a lottery system. Now, there have been lottery projects and betting in various forms but often as a feature. This project is devoted to being the lottery system of crypto and addressing numerous issues in the lottery system today.

The team approaches this industry as solving the issues of the old and implementing blockchain to create a more fair and transparent system.

By moving away from a centralized lottery system, individuals from any geography can participate and share in the rewards, Random Number Generation (R.N.G.) resistant to internal manipulation to rig the odds towards an interested party’s favor, complete transparency of the transactions on-chain, and the acceleration of payout to winners. This project is positioning itself to be the replacement for the old lottery system and one of the few addressing this specific niche market. LINK does offer RNG as a service to most of the crypto industry, so hypothetically any blockchain could implement lotteries but this project does have the advantage of it’s own tokenomics to reinforce it’s vision.

The RoadMap Phase 1

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Develop website, Discord, and social media communities Deploy LB token and apply for Coin Gecko Design marketing strategy and identify influencers that align with our cause Develop white paper to educate on the concept and LB team Identify charity organizations and create partnerships

Phase 2

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Soft launch Contact exchanges who can accommodate our tokenomics and assist in getting listed Identify groups in need across different continents Launch TFL campaign for brand awareness London, Manchester via AMP Certify smart contract with an independent reputable audit service Presale Identify businesses, potential celebrity endorsements and partnerships Generate global press release about LB NFP organization and our community efforts This magazine is sole property of gettingstartedincrypto.com and is not to be redistributed in any form anywhere else.

The RoadMap Phase 3

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Launch lotto Make the first donation Introduce online scratch cards More paid advertising - look into commercial advertising of LB token Expand social media influencers for maximum outreach Continue to grow and promote LB token Create LB merchandise store to help support the causes

Phase 4

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Show dedication to donating by hosting fundraising events, social gatherings Make the LB token a worldwide phenomenon token Develop cryptocurrency education platforms, positioning LB as an expert Metaverse incorporations Online gaming incorporation Develop fund to fund developers gaming projects: LB will invest in development for a royalty fee that is redistributed to coin holders and charities: metaverse/online gaming Create lucky block NFTs using royalty fund, royalties redistributed to the community Create and register a foundation for global causes

Where are we currently?

From the knowledge gathered, Lucky Block is in the finishing stages of Phase 2. The Presale will be finished by the time you are reading this article.

Conclusion Lottery has been around since the Chinese Han Dynasty, 205 to 187 BC. This is quite possibly one of the earliest forms of gambling and isn’t going away any time soon. It only makes sense to evolve into the next stage of progression, and that is what Lucky Block aims to do. They improve on all of the inefficiencies present in the current lottery system by building a product more inclusive, and improving the odds of participants to win while providing an investment opportunity for others. According to their whitepaper, there will be a massive marketing campaign taking place, including 20 black cabs, 100 city buses, 5000 posters, 50+ influencers with a combined 38 million followers, and 40+ financial sector websites to spread the word about Lucky Block. As crypto is all about network effects and the value of the token is dependent on the growth of the network, this project will likely create a massive network during this campaign. Now, the real question is: will the network be able to sustain itself though the tokenomics implemented? I’m not sure. Can you rely on the team of this project? That remains to be seen. The products they are creating, such as scratch off tickets, are incredibly addictive and are prevalent in every society. You can find them in every gas station, town, state, country, wherever. If you put these powerful gambling items in the literal hands of the public through an app, which they plan on rolling out, you have created an extremely powerful gambling experience.

People think that because the odds of winning are so low when playing the lottery, there is no sense in playing. The historical prevalence of the lottery system begs to differ.

The next time you walk into your local shop and see a lottery ticket, think about how tempting it is to purchase and imagine what the feeling would be like if you could click a button on your phone to play.

The lottery system will eventually move to blockchain. It’s only a matter of time. Could Lucky Block be the project to do this? Buy a ticket and check if you have the winning numbers a few months from now.

StrongBlock Project & STRONG Token written by Kel

The two core elements of a blockchain are the miners and nodes. Nodes typically store a copy of the blockchain, thus guaranteeing the security and correctness of the data on the blockchain by validating the data. There are different types of nodes, but each of them shares one specific characteristic – they require specialised hardware to host or connect to one. Miners receive compensation, and nodes typically do not, but there is a high risk for the public blockchains they support with no monetary reward or incentive.

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StrongBlock is a blockchain-agnostic protocol that rewards nodes for supporting their respective blockchain infrastructure. It does this by offering a ‘Nodes-as-a-Service’ (NaaS) application, allowing one to launch a blockchain node in seconds and earn rewards. The project aims to enable users to contribute to the security and decentralisation of blockchains as efficiently as possible. StrongBlock ensures the financial incentive for running a node should come from the blockchain token holders who directly benefit from a high performing node network.

Essentially, the project is akin to a magic wand that directs available resources for running nodes to where they are needed the most – essentially launching and operating full blockchain nodes for non-technical users to increase blockchain strength, rewarding them with STRONG or native protocol tokens. StrongBlock will host and maintain the node, and the user is essentially “renting” the node; the node endpoints are publicly accessible and available to anyone needing access to a node.

With over 77,000 nodes already created through the StrongBlock platform by over 11,000 participants, the project seeks further growth and has launched full blockchain nodes for Fantom and Polygon.

Data All Data Is Current At Time Of Writing

Ethereum Circulating Supply: 186,933 Max Supply: 528,886 Total Supply: 528,886 Ethereum Contract Address: 0x990f341946a3fdb507ae7e52d17851b87168017c

Token Allocation Community Activities & Rewards: 62.46% Team and Shareholders: 37.54% Website https://strongblock.com/index.html White Paper https://strongblockio.medium.com/ strongblock-flash-paper-e1eb9cd55f61 Twitter https://twitter.com/Strongblock_io# Telegram https://t.co/WcwDTcBjzM Medium http://strongblockio.medium.com Discord http://discord.gg/strong

Core TEAM

LinkedIn

Where To Purchase STRONG Token

The STRONG token is available on the decentralised exchange Uniswap using its Ethereum contract address. On the other hand, centralised exchanges such as KuCoin and Gate. io have STRONG/USDT pairs, with Gate.io having the highest trade volume and KuCoin having the second highest volume for centralised exchanges.

David Moss Chief Executive Officer David is a seasoned veteran whose participation in the tech industry goes back to 1989 when he worked as a Principal Consultant for Oracle. David held various CTO roles before founding StrongBlock and serving as its CEO. He served as CTO at TeenSafe, Content.ad, ConsumerTrack, and RebuildUS. TeenSafe is an online child safety application, while Content.ad is a Native advertising AdTech platform serving over one billion ads per day. ConsumerTrack is a tool that creates financial web properties, products, tools and Content that connect brands with their most valuable audiences, and RebuildUS is a project restoring distressed residential properties into productive use. His wealth of experience does not end there. David has also co-founded various technology, media and consulting firms. One of these companies is TrueNorth Consulting, which advises firms such as Sony and Intel and manages multiple simultaneous projects, including Data Warehouses, ERP and high-volume Webto-database systems. Before StrongBlock, David was the Senior Vice President of Tech Infrastructure at Block.one - the publisher of the EOS blockchain protocol that enables horizontal scaling of decentralized applications. It is no exaggeration to state that David’s wealth of knowledge and experience spans over three decades and would require a standalone report.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Brian Abramson Chief Technical Officer

Corey Lederer Chief Product Officer

StrongBlock’s CTO, Brian Abramson, is a technology infrastructure veteran, and he has a previous working relationship with StrongBlock’s Founder and CEO, David Moss. Before joining StrongBlock, Brian held the role of Vice President of Infrastructure at Block.one, where he was responsible for architecting the EOS Testnets, deploying, securing and maintaining them through the EOS design changes and was accountable for provisioning ancillary servers used during the development of the EOS project.

Additionally, he has also held the role of Director of Infrastructure at Content.ad, where he was responsible for the planning, design, configuration, deployment, administration and maintenance of all infrastructure assets.

Brian is an experienced Node.js developer, he worked as a DevOps Engineer for almost four years, during which he worked on a range of projects for clients, developing backend/ server-side solutions.

Corey Lederer, StrongBlock’s Chief Product Officer, has a stellar work experience similar to the other founding members of the project. He has worked for Accenture as a Senior Consultant specialising in UNIX systems architectures, a Technical Architecture Consultant and Senior Manager (Global Brand Marketing Technology Operations) for Nike, and a Senior Project Manager in Custom Software Integration for Cognizant, an IT services firm. Corey has also worked with David Moss and Brian Abramson at TrueNorth Consulting, specialising in Project Management and HighTech consulting. Before joining StrongBlock, He was the Senior Director of Technology Products at Block.one, where he was responsible for all aspects of blockchain software development, including blockchain app strategy, infrastructure strategy, product capability planning, blockchain management, blockchain industry coordination and release strategy.

Konstantin Shkut Lead Developer

LinkedIn

Konstantin Shkut is StrongBlock’s Lead Developer. He has over 11 years of full-stack web development experience and has ample experience managing a development team. He has covered a range of industry verticals, including e-Commerce, Media & Entertainment and SaaS industries. He has significant interests in Blockchain technology, Business, Finance and Real Estate. Before joining StrongBlock, Konstantin held the role of CTO at ScaleLab, a digital talent agency that provides the tools, support, community and resources for creators to amplify their reach and increase their bottom line.

What Does STRONG Do For Investors?

The STRONG token rewards users through signalling rewards, mining rewards, node rewards and governance. Given that the project seeks to reward and incentivise nodes for supporting their respective blockchain infrastructure, participants will receive a daily reward measured in blocks for using the project’s ‘nodes-as-a-service’ feature. On the other hand, mining is the process of staking STRONG tokens into a pool to earn additional STRONG tokens.

To date, the most popular feature has been Signalling (a non-binding vote) for a node. Signalling indicates which nodes one wishes to support. The signaller and the node receive a small amount of STRONG for participating, and the signal (vote) stays in place until recalled.

STRONG tokens also entitle the holder to participate in governance referenda proposals, often in the form of Ethereum Smart Contract updates. This governance mechanism empowers participants to determine the direction and vision of the project.

The growth of Layer 1 and Layer 2 protocols, in terms of new blockchains and increasing transaction volume in current ones, signals potential network growth.

This network growth will come from users that want to run nodes but may find it more convenient using StrongBlock’s NaaS concept. Capturing this growth and increasing the project’s user-base will increase the demand for STRONG tokens. This network effect can correlate with significant price appreciation given the token’s limited supply.

He has also worked as a developer for various other companies across multiple industry verticals.

For instance, Konstantin has worked as a FullStack Developer for Nooka, a New York Fashion design Company founded by artist/designer Matthew Waldman, and HL Laboratories, an international skincare company.

Market Opportunity The crypto community witnessed the narrative rotate from DeFi in the summer of 2020 to a significant rally in layer one blockchains such as Kadena and Solana in 2021. Afterwards, we saw a big rally in metaverse projects such as Decentraland and The Sandbox. We are now witnessing significant growth in DAOs and NFT projects. The new and emerging narrative after DAOs is an overarching web 3.0 narrative.

Increasing awareness and growth of the ideals of web 3.0 have kickstarted a brain drain. We are witnessing top talent migrating from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0. The proliferation of Web 3.0 projects will mean increased usage of the relevant tooling and blockchain infrastructure the middleware - as blockchain scalability and modular architecture requirements proliferate.

An example of this ‘middleware’ is StrongBlock’s NaaS concept. The increasing need for scalable Web 3.0 infrastructure could be the catalyst that fuels the network effect mentioned in the previous section. Hence, the STRONG token could benefit immensely if this current narrative holds, just like the earlier predictions.

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The Roadmap StrongBlock has integrated functionality into its NFTs, making it integral to the protocol itself. The project introduced Ethereum ERC-1155 NFTs with a DeFi purpose, each providing power and access in the StrongBlock protocol as it expands across multiple blockchains. The StrongBlock team has completed ERC-1155 bridges to Fantom, BSC and HECO — with more bridges in the works — and a partnership with Chainswap. These integrations enable the portability of STRONG tokens and NFTs across as many EVM and non-EVM chains as possible.

Silver, Gold and Platinum metal NFTs were available starting June 3, 2021, but have sold out. Nonetheless, StrongBlock is working on other types of NFTs with similar attributes earned over time through staking pools.

Typically, the NFT features cover the following:

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Enhanced Rewards Early access to new nodes and pools Exclusive access to some features (based on NFT type and serial number) Airdrops and contests Many more features and exclusives — well beyond additional rewards

StrongBlock is currently working on adding gamification elements to their NFTs - a feature that will leverage the brewing narrative of GameFi, which is seeing success with such projects as Defi Kingdoms on the Harmony One blockchain. The project also seeks to expand its NaaS concept to Ethereum 2.0 and many more protocols and allow multiple nodes per wallet.

Conclusion With social media sentiment favouring the Web 3.0 and ‘middleware’ narrative, the future looks very bright for StrongBlock. The network effect of growing interest in Web 3.0 can potentially increase the demand for STRONG tokens, leading to potential price appreciation.

Leveraging the emerging but strong GameFi culture that has created overnight successes like Axie Infinity and Defi Kingdoms will be a boon too. Furthermore, growing mainstream interest in NFTs can attract users who want to run nodes to earn rewards without the technical know-how or specialised hardware.

Finally, StrongBlock was founded by a team of experienced veterans in the blockchain industry who wish to simplify participation in the blockchain revolution, hence it shows immense promise of further significant growth.

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Next-generation blockchain platforms: Avalanche, Solana and Terra Luna written by

Daniel Jimenez Although Blockchain technology has only been around for a little over a decade — a fraction of the time of the Internet — it has attained many historical technological landmarks. And while it is true that due to its still short history the Blockchain has many developments to come, experts have already begun to segment the history of this technology into at least three important stages.

In a first stage marked by the beginning of the appearance of Bitcoin and the underlying technology, Ethereum with its programming capacity through smart contracts introduced the concept of DApps, making possible the tokenization of assets and giving way to the second generation of blockchains.

But eventually, the advancement and massification of these blockchain platforms generated discussions around the present difficulties such as scalability, sustainability and the speed of transactions.

From this horizon, and with the aim of overcoming these problems, third generation blockchains have emerged. We highlight some next-generation blockchain platforms on the Web3 roadmap solving these problems, and setting the foundation for the next-next generation blockchains.

Avalanche, Solana and Terra Luna are projects that in a short time have gained market share and the attention of many cryptocurrency enthusiasts, lovers of blockchain technology and especially high-caliber investors who diligently oversee their ecosystems and their development.

Avalanche Network (AVAX): Transactions in less than a second

Avalanche is a Layer 1 open source platform that enables the launch of decentralized finance applications and enterprise blockchain deployments in a highly scalable and interoperable ecosystem.

Its mainnet went live in late 2020 with an Ethereum development toolkit that allows independent validators to participate as full block producers.

As one of the best performing Layer 1 solutions on the market, Avalanche delivers low latency block times in the execution of its smart contracts while offering full compatibility with EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine)..

Avalanche is built on its own consensus mechanism, based on the Byzantine fault tolerance protocol. The network can achieve throughput of up to 4,500 transactions per second (TPS), while preserving proper decentralization.

It currently has the largest number of validators in its network, with 1,139 validators; more than Solana (849), Cosmos (125), or Polygon (100).

Avalanche’s architecture is centered around three integrated blockchains validated by a common set of validators, unlike other networks that use a virtual machine and a blockchain for their applications.

Focused on scalability and ease of use, Avalanche provides the necessary tools to create custom blockchains called subnets or subnets. A subnetwork is an independent blockchain on the Avalanche network run by its own set of validators.

The latter is what has allowed Avalanche to reach transactions on its blockchain in less than a second on average, in contrast to Ethereum, for example, which takes an average of 14 seconds.

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Let’s see what advantages Avalanche offers to classify |it as a next generation network:

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●Security: With Avalanche all chains, including the primary network, are insured for the full value of the network. Also, Avalanche consensus is inclusive and is not limited to a small number of validators like other blockchains and can scale to millions of validators.

To exemplify the above, a single Binance-managed node controls more than ⅓ of the Polygon network, of which less than 90% is owned and the rest is delegated.

That node can stop the chain at any point and with a network partition take control of the chain. ●Transaction security: With Avalanche, the entire network reaches consensus and transactions are irreversible and final in less than a second, offering immediate security for the transactions of any DApp deployed on this network.

In this sense, Layer 2 solutions such as optimistic rollups provide their own security risks. All tokens are locked in a smart contract, so any mistake in this contract or hack could result in the loss of user funds.

While classic consensus protocols can support up to 1/3 + 1 of validators being malicious and Nakamoto consensus protocols are able to support up to 50% of a network being malicious, Avalanche is safe with up to 60% of a network being malicious.

Performance is important in any application, without sacrificing decentralization.

Most classic consensus protocols are based on all-to-all voting, and typically use a designated leader who initiates the decision process.

The more diversified the ecosystem, the more drastically the performance degrades.

Unlike other Ethereum alternatives, Avalanche is one of the few (if not the only) EVMcompatible chain that offers faster speeds without compromising decentralization.

Speed is not everything, however, what is equally important is latency. It makes no sense to say that it can process more transactions than VISA but takes 60 seconds for the transaction to be final.

Transaction time on major blockchain networks: Bitcoin (60 minutes), Ethereum 2.0 (6 minutes), Cardano (5 minutes), Polkadot (60 seconds), Solana (13 seconds), Avalanche (less than 1 second).

Decentralization is important, as we have mentioned before. In that sense, Avalanche offers advantages over Binance Smart Chain for example, where the network relies on 21 entities (validators).

In the case of Polygon, the sidechain has a single node controlled by Binance with a 36% stake; which is a danger when it comes to DeFi applications.

Avalanche Consensus is the biggest breakthrough since Nakamoto. It uses repeated random sub-sampling of the entire network to quickly achieve consensus with minimal overhead per node for incredible performance.

Furthermore, with Avalanche, any deployed DApp can expand its user base to Ethereum through cross-chain interoperability, without sacrificing decentralization and at low transaction costs. ●Portability in Avalanche is possible for any application deployed on the network, which allows you to benefit from the performance it offers, while also allowing the development team to expand across multiple blockchains without having to maintain two completely different repositories.

Avalanche is able to customize its platform to meet all the requirements of its users, from decentralized betting to DeFi properties, without sacrificing performance or decentralization.

Ecosystem and Avalanche Market

Avalanche was launched in September 2020 and since then it has attracted more than 270 projects to the platform, some of them are big names like Tether, SushiSwap, Chainlink, Circle and The Graph.

Its native token, AVAX, has currently become one of the best performing assets in the crypto market. AVAX is used to secure the network through staking, as well as as a peer-to-peer exchange currency.

With a market capitalization of more than $20 billion, AVAX is in the top 15 of the global cryptocurrency ranking, with listings on the main exchanges in the industry including Binance, Coinbase, KuCoin, Gate, Huobi, Kraken, Bitfinex, among others.

The AVAX token reached its historical high of $146.22 on November 21 and has generated a five-digit ROI since its market launch (+16,55256%).

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Solana Blockchain (SOL): The fastest blockchain in the ecosystem

Solana (SOL) is a blockchain designed exclusively for DApps that aims to be an alternative to Ethereum, by offering a highly scalable, secure and decentralized platform.

The idea for Solana was first published in 2017 by developer Anatoly Yakovenko, and SOL debuted in March 2020, making it a relatively new project.

Solana’s blockchain technology has been developed from the ground up to be especially scalable. The developers want to show that when different algorithms are combined to generate a blockchain, a system is created that reduces the bottlenecks that end up saturating the network. A high-performance network is achieved even when a large volume of transactions is generated.

Solana supports over 60,000 transactions per second, making it the world’s highest performing, most scalable, and permissionless blockchain. These transactions carry low commissions of $0.000001 per transaction, which facilitates their daily use.

It is currently one of the networks with the lowest transaction fees on the market, hence a large number of developers and companies have shown an interest in its adoption to deploy their use cases.

Technology Solana is a layer 1 blockchain system (Layer 1) whose main objective is to compete with the Ethereum network for the use of its system in the creation of new generation applications with greater scalability.

Solana is based on a third-generation Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus.

It integrates a unique mechanism to create a trusted and secure system to determine the time of a transaction called Proof-of-History (PoH).

PoH is a history that records events over time and increases the scalability of the network, maintaining its decentralization and security.

With this registry, nodes that validate transactions do not have to wait for each one of them to be validated before moving forward.

While other blockchains require all validators to communicate at the same time to determine the validation of a block, in Solana, each validator has an integrated clock system thanks to the SHA256 Sequential Verifiable Delay Function (VDF), which speeds up the process.

In other words, Solana does not require the confirmation of the entire network before continuing to validate blocks, so the PoH protocol presents an enviable advance in terms of network structure, both in terms of speed and scalability.

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Advantages of Solana

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Transactional speed: Solana is the fastest blockchain in the world, with block times of 400 milliseconds, and as the hardware gets faster, so does the network.

More transactions per second: As of today, Solana records a total of 65,000 transactions per second (TPS), avoiding transaction congestion and delays.

Low cost per transaction: Its scalability allows transaction costs to remain below $0.01 at all times, for both developers and users.

Decentralization: In addition to being lightning fast and affordable, it also advocates decentralization; that is, the network will be open so that applications are running at all times and transactions never stop.

Global scale: Once applications (dApps) are integrated into your network, Solana ensures compatibility between projects, thus maintaining a global and robust network as it grows.

Like any other blockchain, Solana has a native cryptocurrency named SOL that works as a utility token. The SOL token is necessary for the payment of transaction fees and to deploy and interact with smart contracts.

Many DApp and DeFi developers have chosen to build on Solana due to the great theoretical processing capacity it offers. Some of the most interesting solutions being built on top of Solana are:

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SolStarter: IDO launch pad for projects that are based on Solana.

Arweave: A decentralized data storage protocol offering permanent and redundant file storage.

Oxigen: DeFi’s main brokerage protocol that allows users to extract value from their idle assets.

Chainvote: A DeFi voting mechanism that facilitates corporate governance using SOL tokens for voting.

ApySwap: This bridge, which will evolve (according to APYSwap’s own documentation) into a DAO-style Multichain Hub, seamlessly connects the Ethereum Network, the Huobi Eco chain, Solana, Polygon and Binance Smart Chain.

On-chain oracle that ensures transparency.

Addition or removal of blockchains via molarity Easy user access with the app and a cool user-interface Incentivized farming on the marketplace ●

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Some of the features of this modular bridge include:

The SOL token is currently located in the number seven position of the general cryptocurrency ranking, with a market capitalization of just over $43 billion.

Its all-time high was reached last November, when the SOL token managed to trade at $260.06, and presents at the current average market price of $137.15, a staggering five-digit ROI of +62,000% in just over a year of operation.

If you want to buy SOL, you can do it in the main exchanges of the ecosystem including Binance, Huobi, Coinbase, Kraken, Gate, Bitfinex, FTX, among others.

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Terra Luna (LUNA): The stablecoin blockchain

The Terra blockchain was created by a South Korean firm called “Terra Labs” with the aim of creating a better digital financial system outside financial institutions and fintechs.

Technology The Terra blockchain is built on the Cosmos development toolkit.

The Terra blockchain uses the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Due to the volatility of the LUNA token price, validators and their delegates earn rewards for holding the tokens for the long term.

The project focuses on offering a wide choice of decentralized stablecoins, including Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), and Binance USD (BUSD).

Terra (LUNA) has a set of stablecoins that are directly pegged to fiat currencies. Price stabilization is maintained by an algorithm and the LUNA token.

Terra intends that in the future users will pay for purchases or services using the funds stored in their smartphone wallet. Merchants can accept these stablecoins with automatic exchange between different fiats. Also, users can earn a profit by storing their funds on Terra DeFi apps.

Terra developers believe they can reduce trading transaction fees to 0.5% or less. This should attract new traders. At the same time, more users will start using Terra’s solutions.

However, Terra is not as decentralized as other blockchains, as it has a maximum of 100 validators and a delegation mechanism. The delegation mechanism allows anyone who wants to support the network and earn participation rewards to delegate to their chosen validator.

Staking rewards are first distributed to validators, who collect a commission for performing their trades, and then to delegators, who withdraw them individually.

Developers can use the Terra blockchain to create decentralized applications (DApps), with a greater focus on those that offer decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions.

The LUNA token The Terra ecosystem, despite focusing mainly on the Asian market, today is one of the projects that delivers the most profits to investors who have bought the Luna token.

One of the reasons for its exponential growth, even when Bitcoin (BTC) — which directly influences the performance of altcoins — is in a bearish period, is due to its token system. This produces a decrease in the supply of LUNA in circulation, since people prefer to protect themselves by holding stablecoins. And for this reason, its price tends to grow.

Ecosystem The price of the LUNA token has grown, mainly due to the launch of two DeFi protocols launched on the Terra blockchain: Mirror Protocol, created at the end of 2020, and Anchor Protocol, launched in March of this year.

In the last year, we find that the LUNA cryptocurrency has grown by more than 17,500%, reaching its all-time price high of $87.52 on December 21.

Mirror Protocol (Mirror Protocol) allows users to create synthetic assets that reflect the price of an underlying asset. In other words, you can create assets that reflect the price of any real-world asset, such as gold, although it is specially designed to represent shares of the US stock market.

Anchor Protocol (Anchor Protocol) is a savings platform based on the Terra blockchain that provides its users with returns with low-volatility assets (stablecoins). Similar to AAVE, it is compatible with the Ethereum, Polygon (MATIC) and Avalanche networks.

In its beginnings, Anchor only operated with the Terra stablecoin, the UST, but currently uses stablecoins such as USDC, DAI or BUSD. The yield offered by the UST is between 19.5% and 20.5%, while that of the rest of the stablecoins is approximately 16%.

The meteoric rise of LUNA has also seen the Terra network overtake Binance Smart Chain (BSC) in terms of Total Value Locked (TVL) to become the second largest DeFi protocol behind Ethereum.

Currently, there is a total of $18.06 billion locked across a total of 13 Terra-based projects, compared to TVL’s $16.6 billion across no fewer than 225 BSC protocols, according to Defi Llama.

LUNA is currently listed on major industry exchanges such as Binance, KuCoin, Bitfinex, Bithumb, Huobi, and Kraken at an average price of $81.69, very close to its all-time high.

With a market capitalization of almost $30 billion, the LUNA token is currently ranked number nine in the general cryptocurrency ranking; with an ROI of +4,680% since its launch.

Towards the Next-Next Generation Blockchain All of the third generation blockchain platforms mentioned here are upgraded versions of the blockchain designed to enhance the technology’s capabilities and solve major existing issues. In the current phase we are in, new and improved blockchain solutions are being redesigned and built to bring cryptocurrency to the masses.

Therefore, from these third-generation blockchain platforms, the foundation is already being laid for the next generation, which is speculated to be a combination of artificial intelligence and distributed ledgers. A future that seems closer and closer every day.

Top Wallets: The Best Wallets to Store Your Bitcoins written by Daniel Jimenez

“A wallet is software (or hardware) that contains all your addresses. Use it to send bitcoins and manage your keys”.

This is how one of the greatest pro-bitcoin exponents, Andreas Antonopoulos, defines the concept of a wallet or purse, in his masterpiece called Mastering Bitcoin,. But why are Bitcoin wallets so important?

Ownership of Bitcoin is established through digital keys and digital signatures. Actually what we do as users is sign digital transactions on the blockchain network whereby we transfer value to our digital assets from one user to another. And all this happens via our wallets.

These keys are generated locally on the computers of Bitcoin end users using special software called a Bitcoin client.

They can be stored in a file, in a database, or simply printed on a piece of paper, but they are usually stored in a Bitcoin wallet or purse. The keys within each user’s wallet allow the user to sign transactions, thus providing cryptographic proof of ownership of the bitcoins coming from the transaction.

A wallet is simply a collection of addresses and keys that unlock funds. There is virtually no limit to the number of addresses a user can create, and just like email addresses, Bitcoin addresses can be shared with other users to send and receive funds.

Keep in mind that if you don’t know who generated your private keys, where they are stored, or if someone else has them (such as when you use an exchange), they are not really yours, as seen in the case of Mt. Gox, which suspended operations in February 2014, after the loss of almost half a million dollars in cryptocurrency from users.

“NOT YOUR KEYS NOT YOUR BITCOIN” Although, since the creation of Satoshi Nakamoto’s peer-to-peer electronic cash system in 2008, much progress has been made in the development of options for storing our bitcoins, it is important for us as owners to know exactly what type of wallet to select and what its advantages and disadvantages are.

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Criteria for wallet selection Whether to have your keys stored locally or remotely (i.e., on a third party server) is a question that depends on your Bitcoin wallet and your preferences. Please note that the safety of your funds also depends heavily on this choice; therefore, your decision should be made carefully.

Locally: If a hacker compromises your computer, if it crashes (and doesn’t have backups), or if you forget your passwords, your private keys (and bitcoins) will probably be lost forever. However, if you take reasonable steps to prevent intrusion or exposure, your keys will be reasonably secure and protected against third party failure or intent. In this case, you trade convenience for security.

Remotely: If the security of the third-party exchange is compromised, or they act maliciously, your bitcoins will probably be lost forever! Bitcoin exchanges are not banks. Most will provide you with a method to change your passwords if you forget them, and employ security experts and adequate infrastructure, so you won’t have to worry about taking extensive security measures.

However, third-party exchanges are more likely to be targets for hackers, and if compromised, they could potentially steal your bitcoins. In this case, you trade security for comfort.

Bitcoin Wallets and Clients Nowadays, there are many different wallet solutions, allowing users to choose the one that best suits them, for example:

As you may have noticed in the image above, there are basically four types of wallets: mobile, desktop, hardware and web. The difference lies fundamentally in the type of client that these Bitcoin network wallets host.

The terms Bitcoin “wallet” and “client” are sometimes used interchangeably. However, there are key differences between wallets and Bitcoin clients.

As you can see, the key to a good wallet is how and where your keys are stored, either locally or remotely, such as third party servers. The key to selecting one or another option is the level of security you choose for your stored funds.

• A purse or wallet is a collection of data (e.g., the user’s private/public key pair of Bitcoin and their address) that allows the user to receive and send bitcoins, in the form of spendable outputs.

Based on the above, the following is a summary of the pros and cons of the different types of wallets.

• A client is the software that connects a user to the Bitcoin network. It handles all communication, updates the wallet with incoming funds, and uses the wallet information to sign outgoing transactions.

Therefore, ‘HOW’ each wallet uses the Bitcoin client is essential for the security of the funds. So clients can be a: full client, web client, thin client or mobile client.

Let’s review the differences so you will be able to understand in-depth how your wallet works based on the client implemented to carry out the transactions.

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A full client or “full node” is a client that stores all Bitcoin transaction history, manages user wallets, and can initiate transactions directly on the Bitcoin network. This is similar to a stand-alone email server in that it handles all aspects of the protocol without relying on any other servers or third-party services. On full clients, private keys are never communicated and are stored locally.

A web client is accessed through a web browser and stores the user’s wallet on a server owned by a third party. This is similar to webmail in that it relies entirely on a third-party server. Some web clients are just an interface to the service’s servers (e.g., Coinbase) where private keys are stored, and others (e.g., Blockchain.info, greenaddress.io) also store users’ private keys encrypted, but only the user can decrypt them locally on their computer.

A thin client stores the user’s wallet but relies on third-party servers to access the Bitcoin network and transactions. The thin client does not store a complete copy of all transactions and therefore must rely on third party servers for transaction validation.

A mobile client, typically used on smartphones, can function as a full client, a thin client, or a web client. Some mobile clients are synced with a desktop or web client, providing a cross-platform wallet on multiple devices, with a common source of funds.

Mobile wallet Mobile wallets are portable so you can take them wherever you want. They are ideal for making transactions on the move, just like a physical wallet where you have a few bills for current expenses. Most, if not all, are designed to use QR codes, which facilitate routine transactions.

The main disadvantages are that many are fraudulently generated in the official stores of the main iOS and Android operating systems.

Also, as the case may be, some mobile wallet applications may be removed by contractual terms and thus hamper the ability to receive future updates.

A very common case is the damage or loss of the device without the corresponding support by the user or the company behind the product, leading to the loss of funds.

Desktop wallet The desktop wallet is perhaps the most common of all. Users have complete control over funds and some offer support for physical wallets, while also having the ability to function as full nodes or clients.

Of course, making mobile payments is a problem, since it is difficult to use QR codes for this purpose. The main point against these wallets is that they have historically been subject to cyber attacks with the consequent loss of funds in bitcoins, if the respective security measures are not taken on the computers that host them. Over time, this shortcoming has been solved with solutions that allow offline storage of bitcoins.

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Web wallet

Best Bitcoin Wallets

Web wallets are very popular due to the easy access they allow from different devices, through a web browser. Funds can potentially be recovered if a device is damaged or lost.

We have already seen how a Bitcoin transaction works, the types of clients that support it and more importantly, what options we have to store our funds and use them. In this section we want to tell you about the best options on the market to store, transfer and use your bitcoins in daily use, according to the type of wallet selected, based on your desired features and functionality.

However, being online on the Internet, the risks of theft are exponentially higher than with other wallets, since if a web wallet platform is hacked, the funds will undoubtedly be at risk.

In addition, service interruptions can make it difficult to access user funds, which is very common these days due to attacks, power failures, hosting service outages, etc.

Mobile Wallets

Hardware wallet It is without a doubt one of the best methods to store bitcoins and cryptos in general due to its security. The hardware wallet is especially favored by many influencers, insiders and users with large fortunes in bitcoins, due to its ‘extreme’ measures to secure funds.

Until now, the system of wallets of this type have proven to be quite difficult to penetrate and violate the security they provide to the protected chip where your private keys or seeds rest.

Attacking a secure element and stealing the seed is tricky, but it’s relatively easy to compromise a general-purpose microcontroller and thus trick a physical wallet into confirming foreign transactions.

Logically, its difficult to use for transactions in real timeor requiring scanning of QR codes, making it unsuitable for the use of mobile payments for now. Perhaps one of the main points of concern is the permanent loss of all funds in the event of loss or theft without a respective security backup.

The great wallet applications for mobile devices have been developed on Android systems, due to the original refusal of Apple to support cryptocurrency apps. Although this has changed overtime, Google continues to dominate with the most Wallet apps in its system.

The options are varied, but the most important features that a user should consider when choosing their mobile wallet is control of their keys, security, transparency and costs or fees for using it.

It is useless to have a mobile wallet with excellent fees, if the control of your keys (funds) is lousy.

Among the most popular we have:

Mycelium Mycelium was one of the first wallets introduced in 2008 and perhaps one of the most popular since then. This wallet gives full control over bitcoins to users, allowing the responsibility of the funds to be completely and exclusively with the user. It loads on mobiles where applications are usually isolated, providing good protection against malware.

The wallet’s ability to randomly generate Bitcoin addresses for each transaction allows for high privacy and the ability to be used with the Tor network guarantees anonymity and an extra layer of security to prevent attackers or Internet service providers from associating your payments with your IP address.

In addition, this wallet has very flexible fees and you can choose the appropriate rate to verify your transactions in a timely manner.

The company announced on its official website that it will soon support remittance payments, fiat accounts and debit cards supported by the blockchain as part of its mobile payments solutions.

Bread (BRD) Available for both Android and iOS, Bread is one of the popular options in the marketplaces on both operating systems. This wallet is especially recommended for those who are starting out in the world of cryptocurrencies as it is easy to use, while providing security and trust.

It is a fully encrypted wallet compatible with Apple’s Touch ID technology and key integration for Android, but it does not have a two-step authentication factor, something strongly criticized by security lovers. However, the wallet allows full control over bitcoins as well as fees, a main technical benefit, allowing fees to be changed even after funds are sent.

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Bitcoin Wallet

Trust Wallet Trust Wallet is a decentralized mobile software wallet that provides non-custodial crypto asset storage, meaning users have full control over their cryptocurrencies. The product is well known for its extensive coverage of cryptocurrencies and blockchain networks.

The Bitcoin Wallet is easy to use, reliable, secure and fast. It is completely decentralized with full control over funds and simplified validation via SPV, supporting largely third party-free payment verification. Being open source, any developer can audit its code , a plus for transparency.

This wallet makes it more difficult for a third party to spy on a wallet balance by rotating addresses; however, it is not compatible with Tor and prevents its association of payments with the IP address. Users have full control over user fees. It is only available for Android systems.

Trust Wallet is a prominent crypto wallet solution that has gained wide adoption among beginners and veterans alike by leading the way with its focus on innovation. The wallet is a complete blockchain suite, providing access to a wide range of services. It allows you to buy crypto through fiat on-ramps, trade existing assets, store NFTs, and even earn crypto through staking.

Trust Wallet supports 53+ blockchains and 250,000+ assets.

Desktop Wallets Based mostly on the compatibility between the most popular operating systems such as Linux, Windows and Mac, more than half a dozen desktop wallets have emerged after the famous MultiBit thin client wallet, developed under the MIT license.

According to the Bitcoin. org website, the best wallets to store the leading cryptocurrency are:

Electrum

Armory Operating since 2011, this wallet available for Linux, Windows, Mac and Android operating systems on mobile devices is one of the most popular and safest to store Bitcoin on your own computer.

It is a wallet with a light Bitcoin client, so the private keys are retained by the users and are stored in an encrypted form on your computer.

This wallet is perfectly compatible with physical hardware wallets like Trezor, Ledger Nano and KeepKey, allowing offline storage.

Electrum can be used on different devices, with security and privacy supported though 2FA authentication and use through anonymous browsers such as TOR to improve privacy.

One of the great benefits of Electrum is that it allows the signing of transactions and OP_ RETURN operations in the Bitcoin blockchain.

Armory is a wallet based on the python language and as such allows full validation, by requiring the installation of a full node that validates and retransmits transactions on the Bitcoin network.

The drawback is it requires bandwidth and disk space to properly synchronize the network.

However, although its use is recommended for slightly more advanced users, it is still an excellent option for those who want complete control over operations and an in-depth understanding of how blockchain technology works.

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Bitcoin Core

Undoubtedly the best option for a full client wallet, where the total control of the funds and the responsibility for the security of the transactions falls on the user. Bitcoin Core, is a replica of the Bitcoin blockchain, allows the user to control each stage of the money to be transferred, giving users more control over their funds as intended by the original Bitcoin network.

The browser ensures your anonymity when configuring with private browsers like Tor, control over fees, and full transparency of your repository, including the ability to audit any part of your source code.

The points against it include the need for a more advanced knowledge for the configuration of the wallet, disk space and good bandwidth for complete synchronization, and a risk of vulnerability in any part of the equipment where it is located, which raises the risks of a potential loss of funds. However, being original and remaining true to the essence of Satoshi Nakamoto’s approach to sending Bitcoins, it is still one of the safest for cryptocurrency storage.

Atomic Wallet Through a secure and simple interface, this wallet offers the possibility of saving, sending, receiving and exchanging more than 500 digital assets.

In addition, it has an advantage that other wallets such as Exodus do not offer: the possibility of buying some of the main cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, directly from the wallet using a credit card (although to carry out this service the user must provide their identity data).

Created in 2017, this wallet has been growing in popularity ever since. In 2020, the Atomic Wallet made several updates, integrating new features to its application. Its users can now stake a handful of coins including Cardano’s ADA, and this year the platform team plans to further expand the offering.

Among the main advantages, it stands out that it is open software (that is, it can be audited by external developers). While among its cons, some users have highlighted that the customer service is mediocre. It also has no support for hardware wallets.

Exodus Available for both desktop and mobile phones, Exodus is one of the most popular wallet apps on the market.

With a user-friendly interface, this wallet is ideal for crypto newbies.

It offers a fairly extensive list of more than 100 cryptocurrencies: Exodus offers a variety of functionalities, among them, the possibility of internal exchange between currencies. In addition, using its graphs, tables and other features, you can keep a dynamic record of the performance of your assets.

Blockchain.info

One of the advantages of this wallet is that it is constantly adding more features, including DeFi integrations. Among the new options, Exodus added support for Compound Finance, which allows wallet users to lend their DAI to earn interest.

It also added Cardano (ADA) staking support, through which users can generate rewards while supporting the network.

The main negative criticism that this wallet has received is that its software is closed source, so third-party developers cannot audit the application for security flaws.

Web wallet

Blockchain is undoubtedly one of the best online wallets and one of the most used within the crypto ecosystem. It is multifunctional, since it not only allows the payment and sending of bitcoins, but also supports other cryptocurrencies such as LTC, ETH and XRP.

Green Address

Its great benefits are its ease of use, as you can see in this video: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=zSLrPdqBf1U&feature=youtu.be GreenAddress is one of the safest wallets both in its web and mobile device version for iOS and Android operating systems. It is a wallet that makes storage its standard, supporting the inclusion of multiple signatures and 2FA as part of its security.

As a highlight of this wallet, the private keys are not in any platform database, nor in encrypted form. Everything remains under the control of the user. However, the funds are protected by the private keys of both the user and GreenAddress, which is necessary to approve any transaction on the network, preventing hackers by having a private key from stealing the funds, although this is synonymous with less decentralization whenever you share the security of your bitcoins with a third party.

Considered a solid wallet on the market, Bitcoin has more than 23 million downloads and provides a respectable level of security through a mnemonic phrase with a backup, as well as 2FA factor for operations.

MetaMask One of the most popular wallets of recent times and ideal for those interested in entering the growing space of decentralized finance (DeFi). MetaMask is an Ethereum wallet that works both as a browser extension (available for Chrome, Brave, Edge, and Firefox) and as a mobile app.

It is a great wallet for beginners as it has a simple user interface and is intuitive to use.

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This wallet also makes it exceptionally easy to connect with decentralized applications (DApps) – like Compound or Uniswap – directly from your browser. For this reason, MetaMask is the preferred choice for users looking to interact with various DeFi platforms.

In addition to having an interface that is friendly to novice users, one of the advantages of this wallet is the swaps (or exchanges) between tokens.

The main disadvantage of MetaMask is that it only supports Ethereum tokens. If you want to store Bitcoin in this wallet, you will need to buy WBTC (wrapped Bitcoin), a synthetic Bitcoin token on the Ethereum network.

Hardware Wallets “Cold storage in the context of Bitcoin refers to keeping a reserve of bitcoins offline” (from the Bitcoin Wiki).

Hardware wallets provide a type of cold storage, in addition to offline storage such as USB flash drive backup, physical Bitcoin such as Bakkt, paper wallets and offline encryption media.

Remember that Bitcoin is totally unrecoverable if you lose your private keys or worse, they are stolen. For this reason, the option of physical devices is a must for those who support the storage of large amounts of bitcoins. Although they are not free, their cost is insignificant for the user who has a few BTC in his possession.

TREZOR Of the two models of Trezor wallets available on the market, Model T offers the most functionality. In addition to a wide range of cryptocurrencies, it allows the client to access external exchanges, such as Changelly and Shapeshift, directly in the interface of their site.

The Model T uses a touchscreen, which may be easier for hobbyists to use than the screenshots your previous model used. This Trezor also offers a slot for MicroSD cards, allowing you to use MicroSD cards to encrypt the PIN and further protect the device from possible attacks.

One of the main advantages besides its high level of security is that it is open source. Among its main disadvantages, it stands out that, despite its simple interface, this wallet can be confusing for a new user; not to mention its high price.

KeepKey KeepKey is another option for hardware devices for cold storage. Its price varies between $49 and $219 USD depending on the selected model. Among the benefits we find high resistance to weathering, integration with Shapeshift and the largest LED screen on the market.

LEDGER While mobile and desktop wallets are often the easiest to use — plus they’re free — when it comes to security, hardware wallets are the best option. By allowing the storage of cryptocurrencies offline, hardware wallets are considered by many experts to be the best because they are exceptionally difficult to hack.

As a drawback, fee control, privacy and validation variables depend on the wallet provider.

There are different brands of cold wallets and the Ledger is just one of the existing ones on the market.

Resembling a foldable USB stick, the Ledger Nano S is a secure, affordable and easy-to-use model with support for hundreds of digital currencies.

Other models like the Nano X can connect via Bluetooth with a computer, as well as with Android or iOS devices.

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ColdCard

BitBox BitBox is a Swiss product, with the possibility of choosing between an exclusive wallet for Bitcoin or multiplatforms that support other altcoins. It allows instant backup to a microSD card and can be connected directly to your computer via USB port.

For now it supports only Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin, with future plans for more altcoins.

Account security is provided through universal 2-factor authentication. Its price is about $110 USD on average.

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●It is key to note HARDWARE WALLETS should only be bought from the supplier and not on the second hand market - there have been numerous reports of hacked wallets from unknown suppliers.

This BIP39-based wallet allows you to have many subaccounts and unlimited independent payment addresses. It is the first partially signed Bitcoin transaction format that can be used completely offline.

Thanks to ColdCard’s conventional design, you can avoid unnecessary battery consumption by integrating a fully manual keyboard. For security, the private key is stored in a physical cryptographic chip, not in the main flash of the device like other wallets. The wallet supports the use of a micro SD for data backup and storage.

It supports multisignature and encryption of text messages to secure the control over the private key. Its introductory price is about $110 USD and its software is open source.

Paper Wallet An encrypted paper wallet like the one above (generated here using the Mycelium Android wallet), is another example of cold storage of Bitcoin. You can share this wallet freely, since your private keys are encrypted.

Only the bitcoin owner (who knows the password) can crack the wallet and gain access to the private keys. This wallet can also be used to receive bitcoins by scanning the QR code displayed on the bottom left of the paper (i.e., the public address).

One copy of this presentation may also be used as a backup by its owner in the event all other copies have been destroyed.

Newer Mycelium users also have access to HD accounts, which provide additional features (BIP 32/44 and 39) and use Seed phrases instead of passwords.

Why do you need a paper wallet? A paper wallet can be used to:

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Protect against hacker attacks/lack of security when transactions take place online Protect against fatal software/operating system errors/crashes Secure long-term offline storage and full ownership of your private keys Give the paper wallet, with the bitcoins, as a gift

Obvious drawback:

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A paper wallet is a tangible asset, and therefore it is more vulnerable to theft. As with cash, to be able to use/spend your coins, you need to make sure you keep your paper wallet physically secure (and/ or encrypted).

Better practices:

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Make sure you are working offline when creating a paper wallet!

Use multiple paper wallets; that is, generate a different wallet for the expenses you pay with bitcoins, and use different ones for long-term storage of bitcoins.

Some tips to secure your Wallet • • • •

Avoid (if possible) the use of online services. When using web clients that generate private keys for you, it is best to save that page and generate the private keys offline. You can use a site like bitaddress to generate private keys (offline) and print a BIP38 encrypted paper wallet from it.

If you use multiple wallets, some can be used for everyday use (e.g., petty spending) and others for storing large amounts of bitcoins; the remaining wallets can be stored offline as hardware or paper wallets.

Back up your wallets regularly, following the 3-2-1 rule (3 copies, 2 media, 1 offsite).

Encrypt your wallet. Most services that provide paper wallet creation typically allow an encryption method. An additional measure would be to split the keys in an “m of n” manner such as the Shamir Secret Exchange Scheme (SSSS) as in PassGuardian. Copies “m” of “n” must be used together to synthesize the full private keys, while individual copies cannot be compromised, even if exposed.

Finally, always keep your Bitcoin software up to date!

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written by Rhys

2021 was the year of the NFT. Going from a relatively niche collection of projects into a full-blown bull market of its own, NFTs have exploded into the mainstream in a big way, capturing a growing market of the crypto-savvy and complete newbies alike.

With projects like NBA Top Shots breaking into the mainstream as a gateway for new retail investors, NFT adoption and exchange really accelerated this year with trading volumes resulting in Opensea (the biggest NFT marketplace) briefly overtaking Uniswap (decentralised exchange) in transaction volume. By the end of the year, it felt like you couldn’t move without bumping into a new player entering the space – celebrities buying Bored Apes, major brands releasing their own drops, artists tokenising their music… The possibilities have only just begun to be explored.

The undisputed king of the blockchains for NFTs is Ethereum. Ethereum has been home to some of the earliest NFT projects – Cryptokitties brought the chain grinding to a halt as far back as 2017 with the volume of transactions it created. Even back then, even with relatively low adoption and smaller Dapps, this highlighted a clear scalability problem for Ethereum. Although things have come a long way since then and continue to improve, Ethereum is what it is – it’s the metaphorical tanker that struggles to turn.

See, the problem is that Ethereum is built to keep transaction volume relatively consistent, and that consistent level isn’t high enough for the stuff being done on the network now. To maintain this consistency, Ethereum charges a gas fee – and when there is higher demand, the gas fee increases to basically say “if your transaction is so important it needs to be done immediately, you’re gonna pay more to do so”. Great when it’s a transaction that you could leave for a couple of hours when there’s no spiking demand on the network, but what about in a year where the demand goes bananas? What if the demand never cools off?

Other chains come with other risks or drawbacks, however. Moving to Binance Smart Chain means accepting a higher level of centralisation than Ethereum offers.

Solana has had it’s own welldocumented issues as of late. Other chains require different programming, or wallets, or other barriers to switching.

So what if you could marry the efficiency gains of other chains with the underlying power and ecosystems of Ethereum?

Enter: Gas wars. When memecoins took off (DOGE, FLOKI etc), that also put huge demand on the network and increased gas fees for NFT buyers. If you were looking at minting a new NFT in a certain price band, it wasn’t uncommon for the fees to be double or triple the minting cost itself. Huge numbers of projects launched and couldn’t sell out even when the demand was there because of the fees. Equally, buyers or traders of NFTs were being priced out of those smaller mints. For the NFT community, the fact that they were stymied by a completely different market taking off caused a frustrating few weeks. And for projects that relied on high volumes of transactions like games or gambling projects? Many started their move to other chains entirely as their projects became unusable or unviable.

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The solution Immutable X seeks to marry these two worlds together by building a Layer-2 solution for NFT projects on Ethereum. In doing so, Immutable X provides a solution that has zero gas fees, a much higher transactions-per-second (TPS), and lowfriction onboarding compared to using other chains.

It does all this while retaining access to the wider Ethereum network, allowing you to transact on Immutable X and then release your assets onto Ethereum when you need them – for example, to send to exchanges.

Through this, Immutable X presents a fantastic opportunity for new entrants to the NFT market with a point of entry that is cheaper and faster, while also giving developers a flexible, scalable protocol to build on specific to NFTs and somewhat insulated from some of Ethereum’s drawbacks.

That’s all well and good – but what is a layer-2, and how does it work? A layer-2 solution – put simply – is a protocol or network that works as an “add-on” to the Ethereum main network, allowing users to deposit ETH, NFTs and other tokens onto the Immutable X layer via an Ethereum smart contract. Essentially, you “send” your assets to the L2 by depositing them on the mainnet smart contract (paying gas here to do so) and then your assets will be made available on the IMX protocol. From here, you can transact on the IMX Marketplace, use Dapps built on IMX, mint NFTs and so on.

When you’re finished with the protocol – for example, you want to withdraw assets back to an exchange – you’re able to return your assets to Ethereum for use on the mainnet, including sending to exchanges or using other Ethereum Dapps. In essence, if you’re doing a lot of NFT trading, Immutable X will help keep that affordable for you as a trader or investor.

As is common with most protocols and blockchains, there is a native token at the heart of all this action – the IMX token. IMX is used to pay transaction fees on Dapps that choose to include them, as well as offering a voting share on governance proposals and enabling staking for holders.

Some items on the Immutable X marketplace are sold exclusively in IMX too, making it useful to have a bag if you’re using the protocol – however, it’s not essential as even transaction fees that need to be paid in IMX are handled for you as the necessary fee will be taken from the token you are using. So for example, if you are buying an NFT using ETH, the protocol will convert a portion of the charged transaction fee into IMX to pay the protocol.

This IMX is bought from the open market automatically, and part of it is returned to stakers in an elegant alternative to needing to hold extra tokens for gas.

Data and token information Website: https://www.immutable.com/ Whitepaper: https://support.immutable. com/hc/en-us/articles/4405227590799 Token information: https://www.immutable. com/token Block explorer: https://immutascan.io/ Medium: https://immutablex.medium.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Immutable Coinmarketcap: https://coinmarketcap. com/currencies/immutable-x/ Coingecko: https://www.coingecko.com/ en/coins/immutable-x Total supply: 2,000,000,000 Circulating supply: 188,160,000 at time of writing Market cap: $520,000,000 at time of writing Daily volume of IMX: $60-80m at time of writing Trading volume on the protocol: $500k-$1m per day (per https://immutascan.io/)

Token distribution:

Ecosystem development 51.74% Allocated portion for user rewards, developer grants, liquidity provision and marketing purposes.

Project Development 25% Allocated to the development of the Immutable X protocol.

Private sale 14.26% Allocated to private sale investors, both institutional and individual.

Public sale 5% Allocated to the IMX public sale.

Foundation reserve 4% Allocated to ecosystem-development related initiatives, mainly liquidity provision for exchanges (centralised and decentralised venues).

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Where does this fit into the Moon Mag? Immutable X isn’t just a token to buy and hold. It’s a whole ecosystem that will grow over time, delivering opportunities for those who just invest and stake the token, or to those actively participate in the NFT market. The protocol has a clear drive behind it to deliver high-transaction projects at scale and already has some large-transacting games operating on Immutable X. Since the full launch of the protocol in September, a huge deal of progress has been made already to deliver some cool stuff – with even more interesting additions to come soon.

Starting with the token, token staking is coming in the next few weeks which will immediately give the IMX token an additional use and result in a proportion of them being “locked” up in the protocol, which will drive scarcity and therefore price. Stakers are defined as those who hold IMX on either the L1 or L2, have participated in governance voting in the last 30 days, and hold NFTs on the protocol or having used the protocol to trade in the last 30 days. Through this, there is incentive for those holding to continue using the protocol as well. This, in turn, will drive the rewards received by stakers and will encourage people to stay engaged with the protocol over time – developing a sense of community, or at the very least ensuring that the protocol remains active over time. While this does mean it’s not a perfect passive income opportunity in the traditional staking sense, it does work to help keep the protocol active, and therefore growing.

Away from viewing the token in isolation, Immutable X promises to be a great place to start your NFT journey. It already has working Dapps in the form of Gods Unchained – a Hearthstone-like card battler – with cards that can be exchanged on the Immutable X Marketplace and exchanging at high volumes too – accounting for nearly $17m in exchanges in the last month alone. Prices for NFTs are reasonable – particularly at mint where there’s no gas fee to triple your actual purchase price – and as the ecosystem grows, more NFT projects are likely to launch there at have a stronger showing than they might otherwise be able to get on Ethereum as the offering becomes more affordable for the average retail investor. Some projects have already done pretty well even in their infancy – including Moody Krows and Highrise Creature Club.

It’s clear that Immutable X is starting to attract bigger interest, too. Gary Vaynerchuk has launched a NFT collection on the protocol called Book Games, while major exchanges including Binance and Coinbase offer IMX for trading. A lot of relatively new tokens don’t end up getting listed on tier-1 exchanges for a long, long time – which goes to show the belief in the strength of this project from the wider crypto community. With nearly 1000 testnet contracts in development (representing a 4x increase in 2 months) there’s a very clear upwards trajectory that Immutable X is starting out.

One of the biggest prospects for IMX coming through though is integration with Opensea.

Opensea is the biggest NFT marketplace on Ethereum, if not the biggest NFT marketplace full stop. At points in 2021, Opensea accounted for substantial amounts of gas fees spent on the Ethereum network, even topping the likes of Uniswap. Even now, in a relatively depressed crypto market, Opensea accounts for nearly 20% of the gas fees spent on the network. It’s a huge marketplace – and if Immutable X can capture even a small chunk of the transactions completed on Opensea, there’s a potential for a big spike in demand for IMX transaction fees – particularly if they offer a fee-efficient solution that means gas becomes a much more distant concern for the average trader. To be clear – the potential of IMX working on Opensea would be a huge shot in the arm for the protocol at this very early stage in its life.

Finally, that smooth onboarding process.

Getting into the Immutable X ecosystem is as simple as using your existing Ethereum wallet – meaning no managing multiple different apps/plugins in order to access your assets.

The transfer of assets to and from the protocol is still a bit sticky, but this is something that already has an easier solution being developed for the average user – something that will truly open the floodgates. All this for a protocol only a few months old. Keep an eye on this one, and projects launching on this, in the coming months.

Conclusion Immutable X offers developers a real alternative to Ethereum without having to divorce themselves from the obvious benefits of being connected to the largest Web3 ecosystem available today. It will allow NFT creators and game developers to start thinking less about how to manage gas fees and more about how to make the best experience possible. For NFT investors, it offers dramatic savings and opportunities to get involved in cool projects without the fear of paying over the odds just because launches coincide with market volatility or activity.

Right now, it’s also the opportunity to invest before full-scale adoption of the protocol takes place via solid onboarding – and before all those Dapps come online and drive IMX scarcity. With multiple ways to play this really cool Web3 project, it’s well worth looking at more closely and watching out for other awesome projects to arrive and invest in. Immutable X could be huge if it delivers on its promise.

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