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Crypto Gems 01

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I grew up on various strange books. Some of them included authors like Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises apart from lots of books on science. I read Mises and Hayek way before I heard of Bitcoin and only put the two together much later, when it all made a lot more sense.

One day in 2010, I randomly made a joke while at the checkout counter around the Zürich main station in a store, upon which a guy with a french accent responded quite cynically and funny. I immediately switched to speaking French until he insisted to stick to English around ten min into our conversation. Soon after we got into a conversation, we both boarded the same train and also exited the same station as destination, only to find out we lived a few blocks from each other. We became good friends and along the way. He mentioned bitcoin to me a few times in 2011. I only read about it in a Forbes magazine later and then saw a few mentions of it in the Max Keiser Report. The Frenchman worked in the field of cybersecurity for a bank and did a lot of interesting things at the time, like cryptography workshops and participating in lock picking contests. In 2013 I used my laptop to mine BTC. I also had an account with MtGox.

Ironically I have been very unfortunate since then, and learned some valuable lessons along the way. I think if I had been prudent with keys, passwords etc. at the time, I still wouldn't have deemed myself responsible enough at the time, to handle such assets with such value. Lets say i'd surely use such funds more wisely today. At the time and later, my low income didn't allow me to put aside enough funds to invest into cryptocurrencies in order to hop on the train of some compelling projects. This is why I had to keep on learning about new ones. A very exiting journey. The more numerous projects emerged, the more daunting. This, according to me requires to constantly challenge oneself to research as much as possible. To our amusement, this space moves so fast and constantly changes. I still think that we are still just at the very beginning. Accumulating a lot of these experiences, I'd like to share some valuable information in the following series of Blog Posts.

Maybe you are familiar with mistakes like sending a cryptocurrency using the wrong network? Maybe you forgot the memo key? Have you had experiences, loosing your funds from custodial services like exchanges, trading bots or arbitrage trading platforms?

Here, I'd like to share some principles I learned to follow along the way, that proved to reveal a reliable structure. For you to reap the maximum out of these posts, I shall explain the steps in an orderly fashion for you to follow a sequence of which this is lesson 01.

I shall reveal an awesome crypto gem or project that deserves attention one post at a time. Welcome to my post series Crypto Gems 01.

Another fact is, that since I use a very idealistic approach that puts me more on the side of a crypto libertarian, I don't tend to invest in Projects like XLM, XRP etc. I shall get into the why's in coming posts as well. These posts can benefit anyone with extensive experience in crypto as well as any beginner.

Before I start, my disclaimer is at the bottom. Although I might reveal a couple of awesome projects in these series of posts, I definitely consider hive as one of my homes and it has become much more to me than just another blockchain project. This community is very dear to me. I love it, support it, and see Hive's unique potential and it's specialty.

Custodial A Wallet like Coinbase, Binance, Swissborg, Celsius are custodial. Custodial means that the company behind these wallets takes custody of your cryptocurrency. Not your keys, not your cheese. Or Nachocheese ? These are often companies, who are registered in certain countries with jurisdictions that might favour such a company's liability in case of an event of offence or misconduct.

Non-Custodial In this version you hold custody and full control of your crypto. This is also the recommended way to store your crypto. Often with a 12-24 word seed phrase. With this, you hold access to your assets at any time. These wallets can be restored using a seed phrase, in case you loose your device. It's like you have a code and access to your vault and aren't giving access to a third party to manage, hold or operate your funds. A famous example of such a wallet is metamask.

Continued As we progress, I shall reveal how we live in a time where we are not required to use regular financial institutions or their systems and a centralised exchange as intermediary. Therefore it is crucial to avoid custodial cryptocurrency wallets. I use this principle to acquire stake in projects that skip gatekeepers to a decentralised future.

Maybe some of us heard about the Cosmos SDK? A few years ago you might have heard of atomic swaps ? Today this is termed interoperability. To built interoperable blockchains has been the mission ever since Ethereum. Since then, many projects were built using the Cosmos SDK Framework, such as the Binance Smart Chain, Terra ecosystem and projects like crypto.com or CRO and many more.

“Trying to do smart contracts without oracles is like trying to have sex with your pants on.” — Charles Hoskinson

The Cosmos Blockchain is a open source PoS Framework, where each dapp runs a multi asset Blockchain on top of the Tendermint engine.This is how Cosmos ditches a traditional virtual machine like Ethereum. Cosmos uses a scalable solution updating the oracle of token balances and transactions on a separate layer called the application layer, effectively changing the state.

Cosmos Tendermint was co-founded by ivy league computer scientist Jae Kwon, who is one of the brains behind Cosmos. Cosmos was initially built by all in Bits. A Company founded by Jae Kwon. Teaming up with researcher Zarko Milosevic, Jae Kwon together with Ethan Buchman established the Swiss-based Interchain Foundation. It is said that Jae Kwon stumbled across some forgotten papers written on byzantine-fault tolerance (BFT) that dated back to 1988, discussing alternative consensus mechanisms. This lead him and his team to a revolutionary idea.

Envisioning a world in where there isn't one world computer, Cosmos is a world where every Dapp runs it's own blockchain and is then made interoperable through a hub. This hub is a protocol called the IBC or Inter Blockchain Communication protocol. Essentially creating an Internet of Blockchains. "a decentralized network of independent parallel blockchains." This makes every blockchain sovereign with their own vision, dream, governance, mission and one big hub to connect them all.

The Cosmos Team, until recently consisted of many very interesting people who truly believed in the ideologies of decentralisation and community governance. One such a person is Sunny Aggarwal, who also worked on the Osmosis Dex.

According to me, this is currently one of the most exciting projects out there and has staggering potential.

<a href=https://medium.com/dokia/why-ibc-is-a-big-deal-and-why-you-should-know-about-it-8fe3f914b154>Source

There are various Blockchains that run on the IBC, as well as various Dex's. Here is a <a hred=https://cosmos.network/ecosystem/tokens >List of these tokens by Market Capitalization.

Some exciting projects include Secret, Akash, Kava...

Another project that consistently audits all sorts of Blockchains, effectively creating an instant leaderboard, constantly testing on security is <a href=https://leaderboard.certik.io/ >Certik. Very intriguing DEX's built on Cosmos are<a href=https://dex.sifchain.finance/?#/pool > Sifchain, the gravity Dex ...

The <a href=https://interlay.io/ >Interlay Bridge, build on Polkadot, makes it possible to connect BTC to Cosmos and Polkadot as well as Ethereum, essentially making wrapped BTC to be minted and moved at the fraction of the current ETH gas fees between chains. the best part is that you can even have custody of them.

<a href=https://www.keplr.app/ >Keplr is a Non-Custodial Wallet, similar to Metamask with which you can stake Cosmos and other Tokens that run on Tendermint and the IBC for interest. I remember seeing interest rates on Sifchain of up to 400% APR or more in the beginning of the year. I encourage anyone to see which assets are available on the Keplr Wallet and add some using the Cosmos Dex's.

Just download the Keplr Wallet and get started on your journey as a cosmonaut. All transactions can be viewed on <a href=https://www.mintscan.io/cosmos >Mintscan, it's equivalent to ethscan.

Cosmos is really keen on privacy, decentralisation and doesn't see a reason to list their projects on centralised exchanges. Bent on the core values of cryptocurrency, this project will surely make it's mark and become one we might hear a lot about. The Project's commitment to sticking to decentralisation, not matter what, is inspiring and fuels excitement.

I could have written much more about it, but I am sure you will love it as soon as you get started.

Best Wishes Rane

Disclaimer: This Content is for informational of entertainment purposes only. You should not construe any such information as legal, investment, financial advice. Nothing contained in this blog constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or as an offer by @yangyanje or any third party service provider to buy or sell any cryptocurrencies, securities or other financial instruments. This goes for this or in in any other jurisdiction in which such solicitation or offers would be unlawful under the securities laws of such jurisdiction or where cryptocurrencies are deemed as securities. All Content on this blog is information of a general nature and does not address the circumstances of any particular individual or entity. Nothing in the blog constitutes professional and/or financial advice, nor does any information on the blog constitute a comprehensive or complete statement of the matters discussed or the law relating thereto. @yanyanje is not a fiduciary by virtue of any person’s use of or access to the blog or Content. You alone assume the sole responsibility of evaluating the merits and risks associated with the use of any information or other content on the blog, before making any decisions based on such information or other Content. @yangyanje or any third party service provider cannot be held liable for any possible claim for damages arising from any decision you make based on information or other Content made available to you through this blog. There are risks associated with investing in cryptocurrencies, as they are highly volatile. Investing in stocks, bonds, exchange traded funds, mutual funds, and money market funds or cryptocurrencies involve risk of loss. Loss of principal is possible. Some high risk investments may use leverage, which will accentuate gains & losses. Cryptocurrency involves special risks, including a greater volatility and global, economic and digital asset risks due to it's scarcity and nature of it's value as direct and indirect exchange as well as differences in accounting methods. A cryptocurrency or anyone's past investment performance is not a guarantee or predictor of future investment performance.

Graffiti of vanishing Dong Chang 东厂 aka Rane

'What is it that you don't know, that would determine what you choose to do next? How far reaching is that limit of that choice? What if you already knew what action needed to be taken? Our actions are so predictable when we do as other humans' - @yangyanje

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