The crypto-sphere is entering a terrain that has nothing to do with finance or the transmission of P2P value. And it is entering by joining a geostrategic battle already raised a few years ago between the USA and China, that is, between Amazon and Alibaba. Tech corporations are indispensable to winning the global geopolitical battle.
The technological megacorporations are outside the economies of their own countries, forming in themselves a "country" by size and number of inhabitants. Artificial intelligence and 5G are key in the global geopolitical dispute.
And what do we do with cryptocurrencies?
Despite their conflicts and differences, both China and the United States share a concern: does the cryptocurrency monster have to be tamed before it spirals out of control?
There are countless proposals from Central Banks, from the BIS itself, from retail banks that until a few days ago insulted and reviled cryptocurrencies and now want to "stealthily" join the cryptocurrency.
But they do nothing but cause laughter by posing ridiculous things as "banking services" for cryptocurrencies.
Last year the United States Congress launched an investigation into monopolistic practices against Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook. In the hearings, the CEOs of the corporations gave diffuse responses, in which they put all the emphasis on showing everything they had done "in favor of their users." In his closing statement, Mark Zuckerberg diverted attention with a subtlety that spoke of superior international strategy: “I believe that Facebook and the US tech industry are forces for innovation and the empowerment of people. […] If you look at where the leading tech companies were from a decade ago, the vast majority were Americans. Today almost half are Chinese. "
With which the dilemma continues to arise around whether it is good that the development of megacorporations continues to affect the political-economic-social system of Western countries, given that, if we do not do it, the Chinese will still do it, given that they face the same problem.
The problem of this type of approach makes it lose focus on what is the true transformation that is taking place in societies around the planet, which is precisely a system that eliminates the power and the very existence of corporations. Governments are beginning to fear the power of corporations, and corporations lie to their governments as they move toward total planetary control.
That's why the crypto-sphere appeared. That is why Satoshi Nakamoto put a seed that flourished in just 10 years. Because the base of the pyramid no longer wants governments, banks, or corporations. I don't know how this new trilemma (government-banks-corporations) is going to be solved, what I do know is that it will be solved, despite the infinite resistance that the players in question and their prehistoric supporters will present.
The problem is not Google or Facebook, but the current fabric that corporations have woven to control the predatory operation of the planet's resources. When I talk about corporations I am not only talking about technology corporations, but about all corporations, that is, food, energy, telecommunications, entertainment, textiles, education, science, and others that you can see in this article that I wrote recently.
If on top of that, this becomes a geopolitical problem, we are on the verge of difficult times. I mean, wars, sanctions, regulations, persecutions, congressional hearings, that is, everything that losing armies do when they feel cornered.
Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay
We are experiencing a total system change in planetary culture and in the way we interact with each other. Decentralization is not a patch to fix a corrupt and uneven traditional system, but a totally different system that cannot work with the old one. The former must be completely destroyed.
Retail banks and central banks have worked with our money for the last two hundred years, they have made fortunes and not only have they not shared a single penny with us, but also every day they invent a new fee or a new commission to charge you, even the times you sneeze when you walk into a branch.
How are we to believe that these evil entities now put on the sweater of goodness and are not going to steal from us again?
Who can be so stupid as to trust these thieves with our crypto assets?
I do not care whether or not it is a geopolitical problem between China and the United States, the truth is that the banking industry has to disappear completely for individuals to begin to relate in a P2P way and begin to negotiate with each other, leading to adoption massive cryptocurrency.
Consequently, the monopolistic corporations that govern all aspects of our lives, our food, our way of obtaining energy, our way of dressing, our way of entertaining ourselves, our way of traveling, and having leisure, also have to disappear. What is coming is the rebirth of the individual. It is not a minor modification so that the banks stop raping us. It is a total revolution that ends the centralizing culture called euphemistically by the term "democracy." There are no more centralized systems in the new cultural revolution. There are only P2P relationships between individuals. If this is not so, the seed that Satoshi Nakamoto planted was useless.
With that said, let's move on to today's two tokens.
SRM
https://projectserum.com/
rank CoinGecko #180
The Ethereum blockchain hosts almost all the DeFi projects that exist on the market. The FTX cryptocurrency derivatives exchange team built a decentralized exchange (DEX) but not on Ethereum, given the congestion on the network. After analyzing different blockchains, the team finally chose Solana, which promises a high TPS and lower transaction fees. Thus was born the Project Serum.
I wrote a post about Solana a while ago, which can be seen here.
Serum is the brainchild of Sam Bankman-Fried, who founded the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange FTX in 2019. The Serum whitepaper was published in July 2020 and the project was launched on August 30, 2020. The Serum is one of the first major projects built in Solana.
Source Despite being native to Solana, Serum DEX is designed to be fully interoperable with Ethereum and Bitcoin. It currently has around 30 different cryptocurrency markets, all of which are traded with USDT or USDC.
Serum brings unprecedented speed and low transaction costs for decentralized finance (DeFi). According to its website, Serum offers a negotiation and settlement speed of less than a second, and $ 0.00001 per transaction.
Serum DEX features decentralized automated limit chain order books that allow users to submit orders with addresses, prices, and sizes, giving them control over their trades. The standalone feature of Serum DEX is that it also has ETH and BTC order books, which are made possible by cross-chain support. These order books are not centrally controlled. They are completely programmatic and automatically match requests between third-party users. They serve as the main source of Serum prices. A fee is also charged for each trade that goes into a buy/burn of SRM, Serum's native currency. Keeping SRM gives you up to a 50% discount on all Serum fees.
Cross-chain support allows users to trustless exchange assets between chains, unlike more current protocols that rely on trusted parties to manage the exchange. Users can trade BTC, ETH, ERC20s, SPL token, and more on Serum DEX.
This means that Serum is fully interoperable with Ethereum and Bitcoin, giving it a huge advantage when pitted against other DeFi DEXs like Balancer and Uniswap. As Serum is based on Solana, all assets used on the platform are SPL-based tokens, including its native SRM token. SPL is a token standard on Solana like ERC20 on Ethereum.
All non-SPL tokens are wrapped for use, in the same way, that Bitcoin is wrapped for use in Ethereum-based protocols. This allows cross-chain exchanges without the need for trusted parties to manage the exchanges. Users can trade BTC and ETH in seconds. The FTX exchange offers SPL-wrapped versions of Bitcoin and Ethereum. ERC20 tokens can be converted to an equivalent wrapped SPL token using the METAMASK wallet.
SRM is a native SPL-based utility token from the Serum ecosystem. SRM also exists as an ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. 1 million SRM tokens can also be converted into a MegaSerum (MSRM). Having 1 MSRM gives 60% of all commercial rates. But only 100 can exist at any one time.
According to Whitepaper, 10,000,000,000 SRM tokens have been minted and there will never be more. The total circulating supply at launch was approximately 10% and will grow 15% annually.
The SRM token drives a limited governance model at Serum. SRM is also required to run a validator node for the SRM stake. SRM tokens can also be staked on a node. Each node must include at least one MSRM. The person who creates a node becomes a leader and others delegate the necessary SRM to their node to become a validator. There will be an SRM pool that will be distributed as rewards to each node. The validation nodes perform two functions in the Serum network: they help in the exchanges between chains and receive a part of the fees for any transaction in which they do this, and they activate the orders since the orders in the Serum DEX are not fulfilled automatically due to the nature of the Solana blockchain. Therefore, the orders are activated manually by a third party. In the case of Serum, they are validation nodes. To validate each transaction, the node leader receives 15% of the node's total reward, and the other 85% is divided proportionally. They also receive the Annual Percentage Yield (APY) set at 2% per year, with up to an additional 13% based on node performance.
SRM can be stored in multiple wallets, the most important of which is Sollet.io. They are not many, since Solana's blockchain is still very young.
Conclusion. Serum seems to be a really very ambitious project. My great attraction is the character behind the project. Sam Bankman-Fried is something of a DeFi nutty scientist whose accomplishments at such a young age are fascinating. Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX made headlines when they acquired the naming rights to Miami's basketball stadium.
In this report, you can get to know him a little better.
China's Hurun Research Institute has named Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX as the second-largest "blockchain billionaire," just below COINBASE CEO Brian Armstrong and, somewhat surprisingly, above BINANCE CEO Changpeng Zhao.
According to Hurun's report, Bankman-Fried is a newcomer this year, which is an impressive feat, as he immediately rose to second place. According to the researchers, his wealth amounts to about $ 10 billion following the rapid growth of FTX in 2020.
Source Project Serum still has a long way to go, but the dizzying growth of its growth speaks of an unprecedented project, built on a blockchain like Solana that may represent the most serious competitor of Ethereum. Even being in its infancy, Serum DEX is already on CoinMarketCap.
The academy project is also very disruptive and can make a big difference from other DEXs by teaching the use of the platform in detail.
It's not a bad idea to have a few SRMs in your wallet and bet on Solana as its grassroots meta-project.
THETA
https://www.thetatoken.org/
rank CoinGecko #11
We may be entering a new stage in video generation and transmission.
Theta Network is a protocol that allows users to view digital content, such as e-Sports (electronic sports), using blockchain. The protocol's native token THETA increased 180% from $ 0.867 to $ 1.92 in two weeks between December 20, 2020, and January 2, 2021, to even outperform Bitcoin (BTC), which continues to soar to new highs.
Theta Token is a cryptocurrency parallel to a decentralized video distribution network, supported by its members, and an innovative blockchain. Theta is open source and specially designed to power your decentralized broadcast network which will allow the creation of decentralized applications (DApps) on top of the platform to enable e-sports, music, TV/movies, education, business conferences, user conferences, broadcasts, and much more. The SLIVER.tv DApp will be the first application developed on the Theta network leveraging its existing user base of millions of e-sports viewers.
Theta works as a decentralized video network provider. The main objective of the platform is to solve the obvious problems related to the growing video streaming ecosystem. For this, it uses blockchain technology that also allows users to receive a passive income by collaborating by sharing their bandwidth.
When we watch a video on one of our devices, it is being streamed from a server. The network that distributes data from a server is called a content distribution network (CDN). To view the video, it is downloaded to our device, and our device stores the data as a cache. Later on, this cache is totally useless.
Theta with its network allows cache memory to be shared so that transmission data only needs to be transmitted once. You can share this data with anyone close to you. And for collaborating by allowing others to use this data, the network rewards you with tokens.
Today's concrete problem:
Live video streaming of today
1- Poor Quality. Today's content delivery networks (CDN) lack reach, causing video re-buffering, and high load times in many parts of the world.
2- Skyrocketing data needs. Users demand 4k, 8k, and higher quality streams create an infrastructure bottleneck.
3- Centralized and inefficient system. The centralized nature means less revenue flows back to content creators and platforms.
4- Viewers get low-quality streams and few rewards today. Centralized CDNs reap most of the rewards.
Source The solution proposed by Theta:
Decentralized peer-to-peer video delivery. A new native blockchain. Powered by users.
1- Viewers earn rewards as Theta Fuel. For sharing excess bandwidth and resources, viewers are now rewarded to participate in the network.
2- Higher quality, smoother video streaming. A decentralized peer-to-peer network delivers streams efficiently globally.
3- Reduced cost of delivering video streams. Video platforms no longer need to build expensive infrastructure, which means more innovation and unique business models.
4- In the end, users benefit by sharing their bandwidth and building a community. Content creators and platforms all earn more with lower streaming costs.
Source Theta token is essential to incentivize users to join the network. Thanks to the ability to share the data already delivered, the CDNs will be downloaded. Their caches can be reused if they are shared with neighboring nodes. Theta promises great transaction speed. For this, it has chosen 10 to 20 validation nodes that generate blocks. In addition, it has a large number of "guardian" nodes. For a block to be validated, it is necessary to have reached 2/3 of the consensus of the block control points.
In the last 30 days, Theta's price has almost tripled. By the end of February, the coin was trading at roughly $ 3. When March began, Theta surpassed $ 4 before doubling to $ 8 on March 11.
It stayed there for about a week, but since then it has been steadily increasing. It is now trading around $ 12.
Theta uses an ingenious “aggregated signature gossip scheme,” in which some nodes are in charge of validating the transactions and then gossiping them for the rest of the network, and those who receive this gossip participate by gossiping what they already know.
The platform also serves as an advertising medium. You can advertise by paying Theta tokens to viewers in exchange for their time and reward those who are influential. The proof-of-engagement is useful for advertisers and the network, in general, can know the viewing time of users.
Another goal of Theta is to create an off-chain payment system. This network will allow users to create their own group of micropayments. In this way, it will be possible to divert work from the main network and it is less loaded.
Theta will use a dual token system, Theta and Theta Fuel (TFUEL). In this way, each token will have its own incentive and will allow the network parameters to be properly managed.
Theta will be the token used to govern, stake, and secure the network. TFUEL will have a more operational use. It will be used for transactions, as well as for the implementation of smart contracts and video segment transactions.
For Theta a total supply of one billion has been established. For TFUEL, the initial supply established is 5 billion. TFUEL also has an annual inflation rate of 5%, however, to balance the total number of tokens, a burning mechanism has been established for TFUEL.
TFUEL powers on-chain operations like payments to relayers for sharing a video stream, or for deploying or interacting with smart contracts. Relayers earn TFUEL for every video stream they relay to other users on the network. At Mainnet launch on March 15th, TFUEL will be created as a native token on the Theta blockchain. During the launch of the Theta mainnet, users who had Theta received 5 TFUEL tokens for each Theta.
A significant difference between Theta and other dual token models is that holder who locks Theta at the validation and protection nodes helps secure the network and get TFUEL as a reward.
In the Whitepaper, you can learn more about this project that promises to break the rules of the video transmission industry.
As for the team behind Theta, we have as the main managers' Mitch Liu, CEO, Jieyi Long, CTO, and Ryan Nichols, Chief Product Officer, all with extensive experience in the video streaming industry and with a great academic background in computer science. computing.
The team has a very important number of developer engineers. The project has a first-rate list of investors, advisors, and partners, who show a vibrant and very active project.
Conclusion. TFUEL is not just another gas token - it increased 775% in 5 weeks. Theta Fuel's price has posted a triple-digit rally since early February, a sign that the gas token will play an important role in the Theta ecosystem. Its importance to the network becomes apparent to the most experienced cryptocurrency investors.
In May 2020, Theta announced a partnership with Google. As part of the deal, Google powers Theta's cloud infrastructure, and Google users can deploy and run nodes on the network. This may be a gamechanger, as it is Google's first time getting involved in the cryptocurrency industry and is an encouraging sign for Theta's position in the cryptocurrency world. In May 2020, Theta and Samsung announced a partnership. The deal involves Samsung pre-installing Theta.Tv, the decentralized video streaming platform, on all new TVs.
The centralized nature of traditional CDNs means that initial content creators earn very little revenue. By creating a decentralized network on the blockchain, Theta Network enables users to facilitate the needs of the network. Users can share their bandwidth and resources for which they are compensated with the Theta token. Additionally, video streaming becomes smoother through a decentralized global network. Content creators can also be directly rewarded for their work with Theta tokens.
All these questions show a very winning project, although practice will indicate the degree of success of Theta. I believe that we can be in the presence of a gamechanger, of the same level that caused the appearance of the iPod at the time for the music industry.
As usual, none of the things written in this post are financial advice and are not intended to replace personal research.
Thank you for reading!
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