Economic Crash: Distrust and Bank Runs
The United States government has just approved and is now implementing a 1.9 trillion USD stimulus package. The package includes 350 billion dollar aid to state and local governments as well as $1,400 USD checks to most Americans.
This bill is incredibly polarizing in its makeup. On one hand I am incredibly happy that millions of Americans will be getting money to help with their rent/living expenses who were previously struggling. On the other hand, we just pumped almost 2 trillion dollars into our economy mostly out of thin air.
In my mind, a huge problem is on the horizon. The US government currently requires most banks to hold only 10% of their deposits in liquid form. The other 90% is used to manufacture loans and interest-hungry programs that bring in millions of dollars in profit to the banks annually. If we pump trillions of dollars into the economy, it is my assumption that we are not creating trillions of physical US Dollars to back that up.
We are putting our banks at risk for what is called a "bank run". A bank run is essentially a rapid spread of fear where bank customers go to banks in large volume demanding liquid withdrawals and are mostly turned away empty handed as the banks simply don't have the liquidity on hand. As more money enters the economy, prices of everyday goods will increase and people will need access to more money (supply and demand).
If people begin taking note of this, they will want increased access to their money and though people can still technically use their debit cards to make purchases, cash is still king in America; people will want their money in their hands.
When trust is put into a financial institution, that trust is incredibly fragile. As we saw in Cyprus in 2013, when the government places financial pressures on their nations bank's we can find devastating results; money taken from accounts, accounts frozen, withdrawals made impossible, money becoming inaccessible. If banks in the United States experience a bank run in the coming months or years, citizens may find themselves stuck in terms of their own financial liquidity.
**What is the solution?**
Currently, this type of thinking is viewed as very radical and extreme. The United States is still the world's financial powerhouse and who is really going to step up and call us out for this stimulus? For now, the word of America's financial system carries enough weight to keep our banks in positive view. But one day, it won't. One day people are going to realize that there is nothing backing the value of the US Dollar except the word of the government. Money is a very abstract concept and it's all about utility. The solution is cryptocurrency. No bias in this statement.
Taking the government out of money requires that the currency has some tangible utility to survive. Bitcoin does not require the US government to assign it value, its value is based on its utility, scarcity and universal applicability. Bitcoin is always accessible and does not take banking holidays. If you own your coin and your keys, you are your own banker and there is no rush to the ATM to stay alive for the next week.
In my opinion, we need universally accepted cryptocurrency to guarantee the physical and financial safety of human beings. Ironically and contrary to many claims about cryptocurrency, I believe it is safer than fiat. Fiat is a gamble, cryptocurrency is inevitable.
*This is not financial advice, but every fiat currency ever created has failed. Don't bet your financial future on the survival of a nation, none of us can predict the future.*
Sources:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-cyprus-bank-disaster/274096/https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/03/10/what-is-in-the-stimulus/https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fdic-insured-account.asp
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I Hope We All Fail
Today I am feeling a bit worn down. There is a lot going on and it is easy to get things mixed up, forget to do something, or lose motivation in what you are currently doing. Losing motivation can happen through a lack of interest, or from failing at something and giving up hope. I am sure I am not the only person to ever feel this way or understand this. I view the world as consistent trial and error until something finally sticks and creates an individual passion. Even the most passionate people have failure in their lives or lose motivation in the project they are working on.
That being said, I thought that a good topic for a post would be to look at some stories of people who failed (sometimes failed huge) and could have lost motivation but did not. The topic of today’s post is perseverance. Using some lists that I’ve found from Small Business Trends and Business.com I am presenting evidence of why we should not give up on the things that inspire us, even after we have failed. https://smallbiztrends.com/2016/01/entrepreneurs-who-failed.htmlhttps://www.business.com/articles/never-giving-up-9-entrepreneurs-and-millionaires-who-failed-at-least-once/
**Successful Entrepreneurs Who Failed:**
**Walt Disney** – Walt’s character he created named “Mickey Mouse” was rejected by MGM studios because they figured an audience could never love something that they sought to exterminate in their own homes. He had his first character named “Oswald the rabbit” stolen because he did not copyright it. His first cartoon studio went bankrupt and he moved to Las Angeles with only $40 in his possession. Now the Disney corporation has well over 200 billion USD of assets with an average annual revenue of 66 billion USD; I guess people do like mice after all.
**Bill Gates –** The first company that Bill Gates launched was called Traf-O-Data. This business sought to measure traffic data by counting the number of times a tire ran over a black wire… The business failed horribly (some could say the business literally got ran over) but then he used his technological skills to create Microsoft that would eventually lead to him becoming worth around 130 billion USD.
**Peter Thiel –**The first hedge fund that Thiel oversaw had investments of around 7 billion USD. This fund was called Clarium Capital and they would eventually lose over 90% of the assets value. Rather than giving up on the financial sector, Thiel helped to invent Paypal and then become a very early investor in Facebook resulting in a net worth of almost 7 billion USD.
**Arianna Huffington** – The eventual founder of the Huffington Post had her personal book rejected by 36 publishers. She also ran for governor of California and won under 1% of the vote. I suppose the best way to get something done is to do it yourself, nobody can reject your work if you own the publication!
**Jeff Bezos –** Jeff made a lot of mistakes in the early days of Amazon including the purchase of 50 million too many toys for their warehouses during a Christmas season and the development of buggy websites that allowed book purchasers to order a negative number of books and rack up site credit. Overcoming these failures saw Bezos become the richest man in the world with a net worth nearing 177 billion USD.
It is rare that we succeed at something the first time we try to do it. I think that we as human beings are becoming averse to failure because we live in a society built on wins and losses. Motivation and passion go hand in hand, and I have never found myself motivated to put extra effort into something that I am already good at. To find your passion I truly believe you have to fail at something.
We need to recognize that failure IS an option and that the failures we experience could help us discover what will eventually be our success. Maybe you have to make 100 mistakes to finally find your niche. Here’s to hoping that we all fail greatly in 2021 so that we can be motivated for future success. If your Mickey Mouse is rejected by one person, believe in yourself and you never know what could happen!
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Where Should You Be Buying Your Crypto? Fee Structure Analysis
When entering the world of cryptocurrency a common question that someone will ask themselves is “which exchange should I use?” This question can provoke many different answers based on the type of operability or aesthetic value someone wants from their exchange. However, at the end of the day that new investor wants to get their crypto for the cheapest price possible and probably doesn’t care much about the exchange it they are trading on if the process it involves is simple.
I figured that I would take a look at fees across different exchanges and see what my personal recommendation would be. I took a look at the top 10 exchanges according to CoinMarketCap and decided that though I personally use a few exchanges that are not in that range, it would be a sufficient set of exchanges to dive into in this post. In order from #1 - #10 here are the top exchanges and their fees for purchasers.
Though some are not available in specific countries, for the purposes of this research I will allow the assumption that everyone has access to each exchange. Each data set is sourced from the website of the corresponding exchange. Fees also range depending on how much your account is worth on many sites, so we will assume someone is trying to buy 0.5 BTC using their linked bank account to illustrate this (we will assume a $50,000 USD Bitcoin, so a $25,000 USD deposit)
**Binance:** Maker/Taker fee 0.1000%/0.1000% ~~ $50 USD
**Coinbase:** “variable percentage fee” of 1.49% ~~ $372.5 USD
**Huobi Global:** Maker/Taker fee 0.2000%/0.2000% ~~$100 USD
**Kraken:** 1.5% fee ~~ $375 USD
**Bitfinex:** Maker/Taker 0.1000%/0.2000% ~~~ $75 USD
**Kucoin:** Maker/Taker 0.1000%/0.1000% ~~ $50 USD
**Bitstamp:** Flat fee of 0.25% (actually 0.50% under $10,000 traded) ~~ $62.50 USD
**Binance.us:** 0.5% fee ~~ $125 USD
**Bittrex:** Maker/Taker 0.25%/0.25% ~~ $125 USD
**Poloniex:** Maker/Taker 0.125% / 0.125% ~~ $62.50 USD
**My recommendation:** Though I don’t know how many friends we all have that have $25,000 burning a hole in their pockets, I think that this example gives a good idea of what fees are like around the crypto ecosystem. I personally use Binance and Kucoin, so I am happy to know that those exchanges have been giving me a fair shake in my purchases. Between the two of them, Binance has the name recognition that could help ease the mind of a new investor, but Kucoin is blossoming and is becoming more diversified in the altcoin market. So right now, I would say to use Binance if possible, but keep an eye on Kucoin and invest in an exchange that will give you peace of mind as a buyer.
Remember to ALWAYS stay away from Coinbase (unless you are playing their IPO on the stock exchange) and make sure you are aware of what you are getting into before you buy. Fees are incredibly important to factor in as purchases get lower in amount and each dollar has more meaning. Hope this was helpful for you!
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**Who I am:**
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Schools of the Future: Cryptocurrency Education
If we look at stereotypes, cryptocurrency enthusiasts are typically either involved in the world of finance or in the world of coding or developing technology. Of course, other people from all professions gain an interest in cryptocurrency, but I feel as if my academic interests are very opposite to what you would expect in the crypto-world. I am an Anthropology major, but my focus lies in the world of education law and equity around the world and in the United States.
That being said, I believe that I am well positioned in my knowledge of kindergarten through high school education (namely in the United States) to theorize what kinds of classes would be helpful to include in curricula. I am a firm believer that the United States education system lacks sufficient financial and basically just ‘real world’ skills classes. In this article I want to theorize about what a financial education class focused on introducing students to cryptocurrency and the evolving economy of our new world would look like. These classes would last for a semester (1/4 of the academic year).
3rd Grade: Introduction to Bitcoin. In this class students would learn what money is in our world. With basic math skills they have developed up until this point, we will introduce students to the legend of Satoshi Nakamoto and the mystery around it. We will use Satoshi’s picture book to introduce students to basic Bitcoin concepts. We want to establish an interest in the idea of a digital currency and normalize that finances don’t have to be physically held in your hands to carry value.
6th Grade: Introduction to Inflation, Comparative Economics. Don’t let the name scare you here. The main goal of this course is to make students aware of the differences between the dollars they see their parents using and Bitcoin. What makes Bitcoin special? Well there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin where US dollars can print until we run out of paper in the world or people stop respecting the currency. We will also teach students the basics of a blockchain including the idea of a public ledger and complete transparency in transactions. Case studies will include tokens such as Ethereum and Cardano in order to begin understanding what a blockchain really does.
9th Grade: Introduction to Cryptocurrency Markets, Bitcoin Whitepaper Analysis. In this course we will use practice money trading platforms to run a semester long portfolio building project. Students will ‘compete’ with one another to create diversified portfolios and watch the markets move. Students will begin to understand how to trade cryptocurrency and learn the basics of where to buy and hold cryptocurrency. In addition, students will be assigned to read the Bitcoin whitepaper and through small groups attempt to explain what they are reading to their peers. The goal of this is to get a firm mathematical understanding of Bitcoin that includes the math behind the innovation. Additionally, this will be the class where students learn about what passive income is in cryptocurrency via lessons on staking and delegating cryptocurrency on a few different networks.
12th Grade: Cryptocurrency Mining, Building on Blockchain. In this course, students would learn the concept of mining cryptocurrency for profit. They would learn what is necessary to build in order to do so, learn how the process works and see examples of the software needed to do so for different coins. The final project will be for students to build a functioning test-net application with a group that addresses a real world problem that they believe can be fixed by blockchain and cryptocurrency.
Though I am not sure how schools would feel about implementing this type of curriculum before even creating firm requirements for traditional financial literacy, I believe that the education of our students is very important in sustaining cryptocurrency ecosystems in the future. I also may have missed some key concepts, and ironically if I did it further proves my point that we should be educating our youth so that they will know more than I do. In my personal opinion the goal of education is to create a generation that is more intelligent than you were and are better fit for the innovations that will arise as we progress as a society.
*Let me know what you think about cryptocurrency-based classes. Would you want this style of class included in our children’s education? What are the positives? What are the negatives? What is missing?*
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***Who I am:***
My name is Rob and I am a college student doing my best to get involved in the crypto world. I have enjoyed blogging thus far and thank you for reading my article! Give me a follow and let’s build the community together through consistent engagement.
I have a weird feeling that Bitcoin Cash may end up being a top 5 crypto when all is said and done. Good team, good ecosystem, good community involvement and it shares the name of Bitcoin. Seems like a lot going right.
Cardano Eats Eth: Charles Hoskinson Interview Highlights
*“People aren’t evil for the sake of being evil they are evil because systems are unjust, and it allows for manipulation.”*
Charles Hoskinson is the founder of Cardano, co-founder of Ethereum and in his own words: “a guy who went from broke to billionaire in 8 years”. This morning I attended Hoskinson’s fireside chat at the Inevitable World Summit, and found myself hearing about how Charles got his start in the field of cryptocurrency. Co-host Chris J Snook did an awesome job at leading Charles to discuss what aspects of society he is seeking to fix through his projects.
Hoskinson first decided that his mathematical skills could be helpful in solving some world problems when he witnessed an exchange where a family of illegal immigrants lost a day’s worth of wages when police pulled them over. The police asserted that the cash payment must have been drug money (knowing that it was not) and confiscated it. Being that the family were illegal immigrants to the United States, the police knew that they would get away with this robbery without consequence; this pissed Charles off greatly and he sought to create a niche in the financial markets to combat future inequities like this.
Hoskinson sought not to change human nature, but to limit the effect of human nature on our financial systems. In 2013 he passed on getting his PhD and began to teach a free class on Bitcoin and the programming behind it. Through this class he would teach well over 70k students and eventually have one of those students provide him with the funding for his first project: Invictus Innovation. Following this, he would be recruited to work on and eventually co-found a little-known project at the time titled Ethereum.
He later left the group due to differences in opinion regarding the trajectory of the project and found himself being funded through Japanese VC’s to found his latest project: the Cardano foundation and IOHK; about a 30 billion dollar ecosystem.
Cardano’s strength stems from the points of disagreement between Hoskinson and the other founders of Ethereum, Cardano is a multi-asset ledger where the tokens that are created carry the same power as Cardano’s native ADA token in governance decisions for the project the token funds. On the Ethereum network, an ERC-20 ‘token’ is created using Ethereum via gas fees, meaning that everything that happens on the network is reliant on Ethereum miners. This results in the astronomically high fees we have seen as small-cap traders are screwed out of the ability to regularly stake their tokens into liquidity pools. Cardano on the other hand allows the tokens of whatever the project is to be used in the fees for that project. The ADA token is not the sole stress-point for the ecosystem and this allows for minimal gas fees on the network.
As an additional dig at his former co-developers, Hoskinson and Cardano have included an ERC-20 token converter into the code of their ecosystem in order to allow tokens to migrate from that blockchain over to the Cardano network. Cardano also allows for their smart contracts to include “contingent settlement” clauses that allow for the creation of finite tokens.
Hoskinson noted in the interview that the possibilities are almost endless once you allow for all of the tokens on your network to be “treated like first class tokens”. With finite tokens, governments could produce stimulus checks that must be spent back into the economy before a specified date similar to the way a coupon works at a store.
Hoskinson also gave the example of a concert festival such as Burning Man including tokens in the purchase of the ticket that would be able to be spent on site and only until a certain date before being burned back into the ecosystem supply. Another thing this would be helpful for is VOTING as elections could be drastically simplified.
Hoskinson ended his great interview with some words of advice for listeners:
-Don’t chase wealth, chase passions
-Create a solution to a real problem you have experienced
-Knowledge is available for free, read as much as you can on topics that interest you
-It is ok to fail, keep pushing
-Be fanatically passionate about something you care about
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**Who I am:**
My name is Rob and I am a college student doing my best to get involved in the crypto world. I have enjoyed blogging thus far and thank you for reading my article! Give me a follow and let’s build the community together through consistent engagement.
How Early Are We To The Revolution?
One of my best friends from high school sent me a text asking me to give him some picks for cryptocurrencies to buy. This in itself is nothing out of the ordinary, most of my friends don’t yet know about much other than what pops up on their Twitter feed regarding Bitcoin or Elon Musk. What struck me as incredibly shocking about the message was that he ended it with: “I don’t have much I’m willing to invest, so I’ll need something much cheaper than Bitcoin”.
I responded by telling him that he should probably buy Bitcoin as his first investment into crypto, and he laughed and said “yeah sure, like I have $48,000 burning a hole in my pocket”.
A massive realization struck me. People who are not well versed in crypto or investing in the field are seeing cryptocurrency tokens as shares of a stock. He did not know that you can buy any dollar amount of Bitcoin you desire, he thought you needed to buy at least one whole Bitcoin in order to enter the market.
Of course I explained to him what the actual reality of the situation was and he actually went out and bought some Bitcoin, but this psychological barrier must be happening all around the world. A sheer lack of understanding for what cryptocurrency is and how it works is in my opinion the biggest barrier to mass adoption.
My friend is quite intelligent, he had just never been educated on this specific topic. Seeing that I am seeing news on crypto and reading articles on a daily basis, it did not occur to me that I was getting so much more information on the field than others around me. According to this article by Statista (https://www.statista.com/chart/18345/crypto-currency-adoption/), only about 6% of Americans had used cryptocurrency. Other nations are mentioned, but none of them get close to even 50% of the nation adopting the use of crypto.
*The question that needs to be posed:* **Just how early are we?**
It becomes incredibly easy to forget that 94% of your country has any idea what you are talking about when you are interacting on a regular basis with the 6% that does. Coinbase has about 43 million users which sounds impressive until you figure there are 7.674 billion people in the world. Binance has over 100 million users, or somewhere between 1%-1.5% of the world population. There is estimated to be somewhere around 37 trillion dollars circulating in the world (I find this low and it could be even more) and the market cap of Bitcoin is around 1 trillion.
**Moral of the story?**
It is easy to feel like we are small fish in a giant pond when on sites like hive. I have what will be just about 150 Leo Power in my account and my Bitcoin holdings are not yet even 1/100th of a Bitcoin. BUT if you zoom your lens out and keep zooming until you can see our entire planet, it becomes clear that we are actually incredibly early to the party. Don’t get too caught up in feelings of fomo or that you’ve somehow made a mistake. The only way to make a mistake is to not start right now, imagine what the numbers will look like after 15% of the world has used crypto, or 25%. We are very lucky to have a chance to get in in the first quarter of the world’s newest financial boom, be sure to take advantage of it and keep your head held up high through the impending ups and downs!
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**Who I am**:
My name is Rob and I am a college student doing my best to get involved in the crypto world. I have enjoyed blogging thus far and thank you for reading my article! Give me a follow and let’s build the community together through consistent engagement.
Chuck E. Cheese VS Bitcoiners
Yes the article headline was just as shocking to me as it must be to you as a reader. Chuck E. Cheese used to be the go-to spot in my town for greasy pizza and possible ringworm in the ball pit, but was also the entertainment mecca for any kid looking to play arcade games.
Today while I was scrolling Twitter I saw only two things:
HODLers tweeting about the weak hands that dropped BTC and alts following today's market downturn
Beef between Chuck E. Cheese and Bitcoiners
Here are some of the tweets that I came across:
https://twitter.com/documentingbtc/status/1364354092701786113?s=21https://twitter.com/chuckecheese/status/1146109529580609538?s=21
So the basics of what happened were that a few years ago Chuck E. Cheese tweeted that Bitcoin was fake and now finds themselves fighting the battle of bankruptcy and are looking at folding entirely. This seems to be becoming more of a common occurrence now as the Bitcoiners who have been doubted for years are finally saying "I told you so" to the haters.
It's funny how so many memes in the Bitcoin world have come from pizza. First it was the bitcoin pizza and now we have a Twitter battle between an animatronic mouse and people shilling an intangible asset.
I thought I would share as this Twitter dialogue brought a smile to my face on a day filled with school work!
If you would have told me when I was seven years old that I would be sitting in my house blogging about this mess of a Twitter beef I probably would have just ignored you and ordered another large cheese pizza from my former friend Chuck E.
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**Who I am:**
My name is Rob and I am a college student doing my best to get involved in the crypto world. I have enjoyed blogging thus far and thank you for reading my article! Give me a follow and let’s build the community together through consistent engagement.
Uber Eats Millionaire?
If you have not read any of my articles, I want to reiterate that I am a low budget crypto trader. I love doing research and checking out news regarding the ecosystem, but I am a 4th year college student and am not exactly rolling in funds to invest.
That being said, I have just started working for Uber Eats as a side-gig for the sole purpose of buying cryptocurrency. When I finish a few hours of deliveries (maybe 4-5 deliveries per day working) I plan on withdrawing my earnings and putting them directly into a crypto exchange to buy $BTC .
Now it is absolutely a pipe dream to think that the earnings from working a few hours a day will one day be worth millions of dollars, but I plan on holding all of my earnings and trying to build a savings for myself while paying off rent with my school job.
I was able to make $45 today!
Currently $45 USD of $BTC is worth 0.00092258 $BTC... But if that was done 2x per week is .00184516 $BTC... If this was done every week of the year, it would produce approximately .0959 $BTC... An amount that I wouldn't mind having right now as it would be worth approximately $4780 USD
It is of course a long shot, but I believe in Bitcoin and think that this could be a legitimate start to stacking enough sats to eventually retire. Of course it will be hard to be consistent and the payouts will not always be this good, but a man can dream. Time to get on the track to success and begin building some wealth for years to come!
Let me know what your personal accumulation plans are, I may be interested in adding variety to my plan as my legs are burnt out from all that biking!
Crypto Addiction: Be Safe Everyone
**Introduction**: I laid down in my bed around 1230 last night and thought that I’d do a bit of research on some crypto’s before I went to sleep. I scrolled through the internet for what I thought was about 20 minutes and then took a look at the clock. It was now 4am. This happens from time to time to everyone. We zone out and get lost in whatever we are doing and lose track of time. The thing is that this seems to happen to me quite often. Admittedly, there are worse things to be using my time on, but I have spent much of the day thinking about whether or not I may be addicted to cryptocurrency and doing research on it. I thought that I’d take a dive into mental health and how it relates to our daily lives through cryptocurrency.
**What causes addiction?:** According to Healthline, addiction is defined as a “chronic dysfunction of the brain system that involves reward, motivation, and memory. It’s about the way your body craves a substance or behavior, especially if it causes a compulsive or obsessive pursuit of “reward” and lack of concern over consequences.”
If one great motivator of addiction is the pursuit of a reward, it makes sense that the reward could be financial just as often as it could be pleasure. Chasing after a moon bag may be a great dream that could easily become a reality in this market, but if it becomes a constant thought it could become dangerous for your mental health. The instant gratification of making life changing profits are something that the frontal lobe of the brain can abuse quite easily; this ‘malfunction’ of the brain can cause the feelings resulting from a monetary gain to result in a chemical imbalance of dopamine.
In the same way that swiping through a social media feed can cause feelings of instant gratification, the research of cryptocurrency with the dream of striking it rich can produce a similar thirst for gratification through knowledge acquisition.
**Takeaway:** I am not at all saying that we should stop pursuing gains in our financial lives through cryptocurrency. Crypto has become an important aspect of my life and is honestly in my opinion a key to financial and personal freedom. That being said, I am advocating for a healthy balance between the pursuit of riches and the appreciation of what we have in front of us at the moment. I am finding myself more and more focused on getting rich quick and finding myself constantly thinking about ways to make this a reality. I am forgetting to appreciate my friends and family who are supporting my personal growth as I wrap up my last year of undergrad. I may not have a cryptocurrency addiction, but I want to be careful not to gain one. Remember to appreciate the present while dreaming of the future!
**Conclusion**: Let me know whether you think there is any validity to this take. I just wanted to remind us all that there is more to life than just money and we need to be sure we are all taking care of ourselves during a time when it is easy to get sucked down a profit-seeking rabbit hole. Cryptocurrency can be addictive, be mindful, be balanced and be safe out there everyone!
**Sources:**
-https://www.healthline.com/health/addiction
Cardano Endgame
**Introduction:** I have been fascinated with Cardano from the minute that I heard about it almost a year ago.
If you are not familiar with Cardano, here is a brief introduction directly from the foundations website:
*Cardano is a groundbreaking proof-of-stake blockchain network, being developed into a decentralized application (DApp) development platform with a multi-asset ledger and verifiable smart contracts. Built with the rigor of high-assurance formal development methods, Cardano aims to achieve the scalability, interoperability, and sustainability needed for real-world applications. Cardano is designed to be the platform of choice for the large-scale, mission-critical DApps that will underpin the economy of the future.*
*Here is also a link to an explanation done by founder Charles Hoskinson:*
https://youtu.be/Ja9D0kpksxw
**Why Cardano?:** I am writing about Cardano today because they have a few platforms currently in use that I find to be a possible bridge between the crypto space and the business world at large. The most notable platform they are offering for this in my personal opinion is the “Marlowe Playground”. The Marlowe playground is essentially a space where “developers” can create smart contracts on Cardano.
The reason that I put “” around developers is because the goal of Marlowe is to offer a programming language that is not necessarily code-based, but rather written “in the language of finance”. The playground allows for languages such as Haskell or JavaScript to be used but simplifies the process so that experts in a field that may not be familiar with coding, but know about finance are able to create and test contracts for their companies.
**Why does this matter?:** This innovative idea is part of what gives Hoskinson the ability to claim that Cardano is like the ocean of cryptocurrency where Ethereum is like a lake. Cryptocurrency has fewer barriers to entry than ever before, but many people who are getting involved know relatively little about what they are joining than the USD value that pops up on their wallet screen.
Cardano is finding a way to streamline business into the crypto world that does not require a complex understanding of programming nor cryptocurrency in general. This brilliant idea is essentially a bridge between the existing financial world and the one of the future. Without having to go and learn everything there is to know about the computer world, this platform is giving businesses a way to grow and adapt based on the knowledge they already possess.
**The Future:** The scalability involved in Cardano is absolutely astounding. They are attempting to become the first cryptocurrency that is fully run via staking pools operated by community members and are already over 80% of the way there.
I don’t know where the price is heading and neither does Hoskinson who is often cited getting flustered at people caring too much about the price. For Cardano it is not about the price, it is about changing the way the world operates financially. In my personal opinion, this is what cryptocurrency is all about.
Cardano is the bridge between the old and the new, will it be crossed? Only time will tell. Check out Cardano for yourself and let me know what you think about it!
Sources:
-https://roadmap.cardano.org/en/
-https://alpha.marlowe.iohkdev.io/#/
Is It Too Late? FOMO And Ignorance
I watched BTC go from 8k to 45k
I watched ADA go from 7 cents to 95 cents
I watched ETH go from 400 to almost 2k
Due to personal foolishness, I missed a few chances of a financial lifetime. I have been relentlessly checking charts and monitoring crypto news, but I did not put myself in the proper position to invest much.
As prices continue to climb, I find myself feeling regret and anger because I believed in the ecosystem, but failed to back my belief up with action.
**Is it too late for me?**
I have started reading a book titled Bitcoin Billionaires by Ben Mezrich and find myself enthralled by the story. If you are unfamiliar, it is a story of the Winklevoss twins following their suits with Facebook and how they began to invest in the crypto-ecosystem in 2013/2014. The reason that I mention this book is because it reminded me that Bitcoin was at one time under $10...
It just feels like I am frustratingly late. I understand that we are nowhere near the top of this market, but it is feeling like the exponential gains are running on short fumes (a devastating thought for a small investor). Give me some opinions on whether or not this is also what you believe!
Despite all of this, I have some hope and excitement for the future. Even if I have missed out on the beginning, the end goal is what it is really about. Financial freedom, free of government and without any borders. Whether or not I have missed the gains I will continue to research and shill crypto to my friends.
"It's not about the money, it's about sending a message"...
*Let's send it*
**If you or anyone you know deserves to be highlighted through an article of mine please email me at humansofcryptocurrency@gmail.com I would love to chat! If you just want to talk about crypto, my inbox is open for that as well!**
I will begin posting on a more regular basis, it is time to get back into gear. Feel free to email me with any suggestions or recommendations as well!
DeFiChain: An Emerging Gem, U-Zyn Chua Interview
Hi everyone, this will be my first post to the site! Over the last few weeks I have begun interviewing members of the crypto community and have enjoyed getting to hear some great stories.
I have some key talking points from a discussion that I had with U-Zyn Chua, a co-founder and lead developer of DeFiChain and Pool by Cake DeFi. I hope that you enjoy!
**Who is U-Zyn Chua?:** Chua is based in Singapore and has been fascinated with computers since he started programming at age seven. While he was in college, he started a software development company named Zynesis that focused on systems development through open source technology. Following the rapid growth of cryptocurrency beginning around 2015, Zynesis moved to blockchain-based projects. Some of the notable works that they’ve done include [Sparrow Exchange] and [Project Sand Dollar] of the Bahamas – the world's first live retail Central Bank Digital Currency.
Chua first heard about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency through a cybersecurity forum some time in 2009 (a time we all wish we were all in on Bitcoin I am sure). He read the whitepaper and though that the project was a “brilliant application of cryptography”. He acquired his first $BTC through a faucet that paid out 0.1 BTC (currently valued at over $3,200), “you did not even need to perform any tasks”, said Chua. He then got into crypto mining and ran one of the first Bitcoin exchanges in Southeast Asia for a few years starting in 2011 before the regulatory powers of the world had it shut down. Chua noted that the use of cryptography to establish a free monetary system is what motivated his move into the world of crypto, making this regulation highly telling of why we need people like him to push mass adoption forward.
Since those early days, U-Zyn Chua has made massive strides in the crypto world, now culminating in his project known as DeFiChain. His hopes for the trajectory of the platform embody a sense of community and financial freedom like many of us dream that crypto will create. Chua said that “I aspire that DeFiChain will gain a solid recognition as the blockchain to go to for anything finance related to its safe non-Turing-complete implementations. Another aspiration would be for DeFiChain to have a great developer community so we can see more community innovations making use of DeFiChain to develop some interesting ideas.” A community with the freedom and tools to innovate would do wonders for the aspiration of financial freedom. “Crypto becoming the new world currency. Blockchain will certainly play a major role in the financial space in time to come.”
**Chua also had some tips for beginners:** “Look beyond the price and spend some time to understand crypto. A good place to start would usually be to run a wallet with full node, such as bitcoin-qt or DeFiChain app and transact BTC and DFI through it. This often gives one the truest experience and understanding of what crypto is all about – that you truly trust no one – no centralized nodes, no hosted solutions and your wallet validates every single blocks and transactions that it receives.” “If you want money to be truly free, free as in freedom not beer, get involved in crypto.”
Chua found inspiration through online blogs and forums in the nascent days of cryptocurrency.
“The early days of crypto the small tight-knit community, amongst which Satoshi Nakamoto was still actively involved in, really helped me in understanding more about the technicals and potentials of Bitcoin. I Interacted with many of them through IRC (#bitcoin) and Bitcoin Forum, it was then bitcoin.org before moving to bitcointalk.org. Open Source Software (OSS) community in general. I got involved in Ethereum and Dash as well, mainly on the technical side. I Interacted and collaborated with many developers in Ethereum and Dash, usually on GitHub.”
**A Dive Into DeFiChain and Pool by Cake DeFi:**
“DeFiChain's goal is to establish a stable and fast blockchain that focuses on enabling decentralized financial securely. Therefore it is non-Turing by choice to not only greatly limit the attack surface, but also making sure that all financial transactions are processed as part of a blockchain consensus.”
“Cake DeFi's goal is to make decentralized finance accessible to everyday users. A typical Cake DeFi user should not have to have very in-depth understanding of blockchain or DeFi in general, and yet able to get access to sufficient tools and information to make informed decision on managing and growing their cryptocurrency holdings.”
“DeFiChain liquidity pool is incentivized by DeFiChain masternode owners, a.k.a. miners. They voted to cut their own mining rewards to incentivize and attract liquidities to the DeFiChain (See DFIP #2). Unlike other liquidity farming solutions out there, DeFiChain liquidity farming yields are not only actual native coin of DeFiChain and not new "governance" token, they are also not new inflation as they are taken out from existing mining rewards.”
To get a better understanding of the trajectory of DeFiChain, simply refer to their 2021 roadmap.
I personally recommend checking it out as the returns have been AWESOME thus far for me personally with liquidity mining pools carrying between 100-200% APY on any given day! https://pool.cakedefi.com/#?ref=187314
**Conclusion:** U-Zyn Chua is an example of someone who got into the field and dedicated themselves to the pursuit of the true goal of the movement: decentralized and personal financial freedom. He has done fantastic work in many facets of the crypto-world and is now involved in a growing project (DeFiChain already has over $100 million in liquidity). I thank him for his time, and thank you for your time in reading! I hope that people like U-Zyn will help cryptocurrency reach it’s maximum potential and push mass adoption to the forefront of the movement.
*Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, and I am personally bullish on $DFI*
**If you or anyone you know deserves to be highlighted through an article please email me at humansofcryptocurrency@gmail.com I would love to chat! If you just want to talk about crypto, my inbox is open for that as well!**
@R23
