Ripple (XRP) has announced a $100 million investment in the carbon trading segment, CEO Brad Garlinghouse told Cointelegraph’s Joseph Hall in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting, which concluded on Thursday.
Garlinghouse noted the rising profile of cryptocurrency at the international summit, comparing his experiences over the last several years. “As leaders across the world learn how these technologies can actually benefit their constituents, benefit their economies, they’re going to use them. […] I think we’re seeing that happen every day,” Garlinghouse said.
He went on to say that nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are “underhyped, in spite of the fact that there’s obviously a lot of hype in parts of the NFT market.” Specifically:
“The tokenization of various assets is underhyped.”
Garlinghouse cited carbon credit trading, which is often “challenged” by fraudulent activity, as a use case for tokenization due to its transparency and traceability. “It could really revolutionize carbon credit marketplaces, the efficacy of carbon credit marketplaces,” Garlinghouse said. Ripple is investing $100 million in the segment, he added.
Cryptocurrency will have some real use cases in 2022, Garlinghouse continued. Cross-border transactions are one such example that Ripple is working on. Currently, cross-border transactions are “usually quite slow, quite expensive and frankly very error-prone,” while the XRP chain has been “a very efficient, low-cost bridge,” he said.
“I don’t think we’re living in a single-chain world,” Garlinghouse said. “It’s a multi-chain world, there’re going to be a lot of different utility use cases.” Ripple will continue to focus on enterprise, but other cryptocurrency foundations are looking at consumers use cases as well, he explained.
The full conversation is on our YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe!
The price of LUNA has tanked around 70% since the re-launch of the Terra ecosystem via Terra 2.0 on May 28.
Under the revival plan of Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon, new LUNA tokens (also referred to as LUNA 2) are being airdropped to investors that previously held Luna Classic (LUNC), TerraUSD Classic (USTC), and Anchor Protocol UST (aUST).
The only reason to buy $LUNA 2.0 is to qualify for the next airdrop of $LUNA 3.0 after it goes to zero like $LUNA 1.0
According to data from CoinGecko, LUNA has dropped roughly 69% since its opening of $18.87 on Saturday to sit at around $5.71 at the time of writing.
LUNA/USD chart: CoinGecko
At this stage, the sharp plummet seems to suggest a relative lack of faith in Do Kwon’s revamp moving forward, with many investors indicating on Twitter that they are instead looking to recover a small portion of their previously lost capital and wipe their hands clean of the project.
Sold my available LUNA 2.0 airdrop → ETH @ $1,790.
I don’t see any fundamental here & I see whatever I get as bonus since I already wrote everything off as a loss & $0.
If not that the others are vesting, I’ll sell ‘em all.
Binance is set to begin a multi-year distribution of LUNA to eligible users starting from May 31, along with listing the token for trading via its Innovation Zone, a dedicated trading zone for volatile and high-risk assets.
Some people in the community who have outlined plans to eventually purchase LUNA once the carnage is over such as “lurkaroundfind” have predicted further bloodshed once the Binance drop goes live.
They pointed out that Binance has “15.7MM liquid LUNA, which will be available to users on Tuesday” and suggested that investors who mainly used the Anchor Protocol will look to cash out as they have no real interest in the Terra ecosystem.
Crypto volatility is nerve-wracking, and it may not be over yet. The turmoil may make crypto investors and crypto-related businesses less enthusiastic than when prices seemed ever to be climbing. With the market falling off a cliff, there will be big losses to claim on your taxes, right? Not necessarily. As your United States dollars shake out in the digital world, it is worth asking whether there is any lemonade you can make by claiming losses on your taxes.
First, ask what happened from a tax viewpoint. If you’ve been trading and triggering big taxable gains, but then the floor drops out, first consider whether you can pay your taxes for the gains you have already triggered this year. Taxes are annual and generally based on a calendar year unless you have properly elected otherwise. Start with the proposition that each time you sell or exchange a cryptocurrency for cash, another cryptocurrency, or for goods or services, the transaction is considered a taxable event.
That is a result of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service’s shot heard ‘round the world in Notice 2014-21 when the IRS announced that crypto is property for tax purposes. Not currency, not securities, but property, so most any transaction means the IRS wants you to report gain or loss.
Before 2018, many crypto investors claimed that crypto-to-crypto exchanges were tax-free. But that argument was based on section 1031 of the tax code. It was a good argument, depending on the facts and the reporting. But that argument went away starting in 2018. Section 1031 of the tax code now says it applies to swaps of real estate only.
The IRS is auditing some pre-2018 crypto taxpayers and, so far, doesn’t appear to like the 1031 argument, even before 2018. The IRS even released one piece of guidance saying that tax-free crypto exchanges don’t work. We may need a court case to resolve it if the IRS pushes it that far. After all, it only applies to 2017 and prior years, so it’s of diminishing importance.
But regardless of whether you use crypto to pay someone, swap crypto, or outright sell it, do you have gains or losses? For most people, gains or losses would be subject to short-term or long-term capital gains/losses based on the basis (what you paid for the crypto), holding period, and the price at which the cryptocurrency was sold or exchanged. Yet some people may have ordinary gains or losses, and that topic is worth revisiting. Are you trading in crypto as a business?
Most investors want long-term capital gains rates on gains if they buy and hold for more than a year. However, ordinary income treatment could be helpful for some, at least for losses. Securities traders can make a section 475 mark-to-market election under the tax code, but does that work for crypto? It’s not clear. To qualify, one must argue that the crypto constitutes securities or commodities.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has argued that some cryptocurrencies are securities, and there may be arguments for commodity characterization, too. It’s at least worth considering in some cases. However, in addition to establishing a position that a digital currency is a security or commodity, you would need to qualify as a trader in order to make a mark-to-market election. Whether one’s activities constitute “trading” as opposed to “investing” is a key issue in determining whether one is eligible to make a mark-to-market election.
The IRS lists details about who is a trader, usually characterized by high volume and short-term holding, although sometimes investing and trading might look rather similar.
If crypto turns out to be eligible for mark-to-market and if you qualify and elect it, you could mark to market your securities or commodities on the last business day of the year. Any gain or loss would be ordinary income, and gains, too. A benefit would be that the cumbersome process of tracking the date and time that each crypto was acquired and identifying the crypto you sold would not be required.
For most people, this election, if available, likely won’t make any sense, but as with so much else in the crypto tax world, much is uncertain. In the past, some drops in crypto value have been called a “flash crash,” an event in electronic securities markets where the withdrawal of stock orders rapidly amplifies price declines, and then quickly recovers. In the case of stock, the SEC voted on June 10, 2010, to enact rules to automatically stop trading on any stock in the S&P 500 whose price changes by more than 10% in any five-minute period.
A stop-loss order directs a broker to sell at the best price available if the stock reaches a specified price. Some people use the same idea with crypto. Some even want to buy the crypto back after a sale, and with crypto, you can do that. In contrast, with stock, there are wash sale rules, which restrict selling (to trigger losses) and buying back stock within 30 days. There are no wash sale rules for crypto, so you can sell your crypto and buy it right back without a 30-day waiting period.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
Robert W. Wood is a tax lawyer representing clients worldwide from the office of Wood LLP in San Francisco, where he is a managing partner. He is the author of numerous tax books and frequently writes about taxes for Forbes, Tax Notes and other publications.
Behind the scenes, the whisper of regulation is getting louder. Did anyone notice that all the Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements have been laid on smaller centralized exchanges in exotic locations over the past two months? That was the canary in the coal mine. With the aforementioned designation and cooperation, DEXs will start to feel regulator heat soon.
Yes, regulations are coming, and the main reason why DEXs will hardly survive the coming storm is their proclaimed lack of ability to identify the users using and contributing to liquidity pools. In conventional financial circles, rendering services without proper KYC procedures is a big no-no. Not tracking identity allowed Russian oligarchs to use the Hawala payment service to anonymously move millions of dollars leading up to the war in Ukraine, so regulators are justifiably concerned about DEXs. For most DEX enthusiasts, KYC sounds like an insult, or at least, something that a DEX is fundamentally incapable of doing. Is that really the case, though?
Let’s start with the anatomy of a DEX, and we’ll find that they aren’t even as decentralized as one may think. Yes, DEXs run on smart contracts, but the team or person that uploads the code on-chain usually gets special admin-level privileges and permissions. Additionally, a known, centralized team usually takes care of the front end. For example, Uniswap Labs recently added the ability to scrub known hacker wallets, removing tokens from their menu. While DEXs claim to be pure code, in reality, there is still a more-or-less centralized developer team behind this ethereal entity. This team also takes in any profits to be made.
Furthermore, an in-depth look at the way users communicate with permissionless chains reveals more centralized choke points. For example, last month, MetaMask was unavailable in a few regions. Why? Because Infura, a centralized service provider that the on-chain wallet relies on for an Ethereum API, decided so. With a DEX, things can always play out in a similar way.
Some people say that DEXs are more decentralized by virtue of being open source, meaning any community is free to fork the code and build their own DEX. Sure, you can have as many DEXs as you want, but the question is about which ones manage to bring more liquidity to the table, and where users actually go to trade their tokens. That is, after all, what exchanges are for in the first place.
From a regulatory standpoint, an entity facilitating such trades can be seen as a “broker” or a “transfer agent” regardless of whether it is open source or not. That is where most regulations are heading. Once identified as such, DEXs will take major fire unless they can comply with a wide array of requirements. These would include getting a license, verifying user identities and reporting transactions, including suspicious ones. In the U.S., they would also have to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act and freeze accounts upon request from the authorities. Without all of that, DEXs are likely to go under.
The identity-and-KYC issue
Since DEXs claim they are decentralized, they also claim that they are technologically incapable of implementing any identity verification or KYC controls. But in truth, KYC and pseudonymity are not mutually exclusive from a technological standpoint. Such an attitude reveals, at best, laziness or an unhinged push for lower costs, and at worst, a desire to profit from dirty money being moved around.
Arguments that a DEX is unable to do KYC without creating a honeypot of personal information lack technical merit and imagination. Multiple teams are already building identity solutions based on zero-knowledge proofs, a cryptographic method that allows one party to prove it has certain data without revealing that information. For example, proof of identity can include a green checkmark that the person has passed the KYC, but does not reveal personally identifiable information. Users can share this ID with a DEX for verification purposes without the need for a centralized repository of information.
Since their users don’t have to pass a KYC, DEXs become part of the puzzle when it comes to ransomware: Hackers use them as a major hub for moving bounty. Due to the lack of ID verification, DEX teams are unable to explain the “source of funds,” meaning they can’t prove the money doesn’t come from a sanctioned territory or from money laundering. Without this proof, banks will never issue a bank account for DEXs. Banks require information on the origins of funds so they don’t get fined or have their own license revoked. When DeFi can easily be used for criminal activity, it makes a bad name for crypto and pushes it further away from mainstream adaptation.
DEXs also have a unique and single-purpose suite of software, Automated Market Making or AMM, which allows liquidity providers to match with buyers and sellers, and pull in or determine a price for a given asset. This is not general-purpose software that can be leveraged for multiple use cases, as is the case with BitTorrent’s P2P protocol, which moves bits quickly and efficiently for Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft and video pirates. An AMM has a single purpose and produces a profit for teams.
Verifying user identities and checking that money and tokens are not illegal helps ensure some level of protection from cybercrime. It makes DeFi safer for users and more feasible for regulators and policymakers. To survive, DEXs will have to eventually admit this and adopt a level of identity verification and prevention of money laundering.
By implementing some of these solutions, DEXs can still deliver on the promise of DeFi. They can remain open for users to contribute liquidity, earn fees, and avoid relying on banks or other centralized entities while remaining pseudonymous.
If DEXs choose to ignore the regulatory pressure, it can end in one of two ways. Either more legitimate platforms can continue to adapt to growing government scrutiny and rising demand in crypto from more mainstream investors, who require usability and security, thereby leaving stubborn DEXs to die, or alternatively, unadaptable DEXs will move into the gray market of far-flung jurisdictions, tax havens and unregulated cash-like economies.
We have every reason to believe the former is a much likelier scenario. It’s time for DEXs to grow up with the rest of us or risk being regulated to death along with the shadier ghosts of crypto’s past.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
Bob Reid is the current CEO and co-founder of Everest, a fintech company that leverages blockchain technologies for a more secure and inclusive multi-currency account, digital/biometric identity, payment platform and eMoney platform. As a licensed and registered financial institution, Everest supplies end-to-end financial solutions, facilitating eKYC/AML, digital identity and regulatory compliance associated with money movement. He was an advisor to Kai Labs, the general manager of licensing at BitTorrent, and vice president of strategy and business development at Neulion and DivX.
Further cementing India’s decision to introduce an in-house central bank digital currency (CBDC) in 2022-23, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) proposed a three-step graded approach for rolling out CBDC “with little or no disruption” to the traditional financial system.
In February, while discussing the budget for 2022, Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman spoke about the launch of a digital rupee to provide a “big boost” to the digital economy. In the annual report released Friday by India’s central bank, RBI revealed exploring the pros and cons of introducing a CBDC.
In the report, RBI stressed the need for India’s CBDC to conform to India’s objectives related to “monetary policy, financial stability and efficient operations of currency and payment systems.”
Based on this need, RBI is currently examining the various design elements of a CBDC that can co-exist within the existing fiat system without causing disruptions. The Indian Finance Bill 2022, which enforced the introduction of a 30% crypto tax on unrealized gains, also provides a legal framework for the launch of a digital rupee:
“The Reserve Bank proposes to adopt a graded approach to introduction of CBDC, going step by step through stages of Proof of Concept, pilots and the launch.”
Halfway through 2022, at the proof of concept stage, RBI is in the process of verifying the feasibility and functionality of launching a CBDC.
Earlier this month, on May 17, RBI officials reportedly warned against crypto adoption citing the risks of “dollarization” of the Indian economy.
As Cointelegraph reported based on the Economic Times’ findings, key RBI officials including governor Shaktikanta Das raised concerns regarding the U.S. dollar-dominated world of cryptocurrencies. An unnamed official stated:
“Almost all cryptocurrencies are dollar-denominated and issued by foreign private entities, it may eventually lead to dollarization of a part of our economy which will be against the country’s sovereign interest.”
“It [crypto] will seriously undermine the RBI’s capacity to determine monetary policy and regulate the monetary system of the country,” they added.
Equities markets in the United States rallied sharply on May 25 and May 26 but Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins have not followed a similar trajectory. This suggests that traders are not confident that the crypto markets have bottomed out yet.
On May 24, Miller Value Partners founder and chief investment officer Bill Miller backed Bitcoin investing and called it an “insurance policy against financial catastrophe.”
In a note to its clients on May 25, JPMorgan said that Bitcoin’s fall looks like capitulation and they anticipate Bitcoin and the crypto markets to rally. The bank’s analysts believe Bitcoin’s fair value is $38,000 which is about 30% higher than the current level.
Could Bitcoin follow the U.S. equities markets higher or will it decouple and continue to languish at lower levels? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.
BTC/USDT
Bitcoin plunged below the strong support of $28,630 on May 26 but the bulls could not sustain the lower levels. The long tail on the day’s candlestick shows that the bulls aggressively purchased the dip.
BTC/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
The bulls are again trying to defend the support at $28,630, which is an important level to keep an eye on. If the price rises from the current level and breaks above the 20-day exponential moving average ($30,868), it will suggest that the BTC/USDT pair may have bottomed out. The pair could then rally to the 50-day simple moving average ($35,721).
Conversely, if the price turns down from the current level or the overhead resistance, it will suggest a lack of demand at higher levels. That may increase the possibility of a break below $28,630. If that happens, the pair could retest the crucial level at $26,700. A break and close below this level could intensify selling and the pair may plummet toward $20,000.
ETH/USDT
Ether (ETH) dipped and closed below the uptrend line on May 25 suggesting that bears were attempting to re-establish their supremacy. The selling picked up momentum on May 26 and the price plunged below the May 12 intraday low at $1,800.
ETH/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
The bears are trying to defend the crucial support at $1,700 but the rebound lacks momentum. This suggests that bulls are not aggressively buying at the support. That could embolden the bears who may attempt to sink and sustain the price below $1,700. If they succeed, the ETH/USDT pair could plummet to $1,300.
Conversely, if bulls successfully defend the support at $1,700, the pair could start an up-move toward $2,159. That could keep the pair range-bound between $2,159 and $1,700 for some more days.
BNB/USDT
The long wick on Binance Coin’s (BNB) May 25 candlestick shows that bears are selling on rallies nearing the critical overhead resistance at $350. The selling continued on May 26 and the price broke below the 20-day EMA ($320).
BNB/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
There is a minor support at $286 where the bulls will attempt to arrest the decline. If they succeed, it will suggest that the sentiment has changed from selling on rallies to buying on dips. The bulls will then again strive to push the price to $350.
Alternatively, if the price breaks below $286, it will suggest that the aggressive bulls who may have been trapped after buying the break above $320 may be exiting their positions. That could sink the BNB/USDT pair to $260.
XRP/USDT
Ripple (XRP) broke below the immediate support at $0.38 on May 26 but the long tail on the day’s candlestick suggests strong buying at lower levels. The buyers will try to push the price toward the downtrend line.
XRP/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
If the price turns down from the downtrend line, the bears will again attempt to sink the XRP/USDT pair below $0.38. If that happens, the pair could drop to the May 12 intraday low at $0.33 where the bulls are likely to mount a strong defense. The bears will have to pull the price below this support to indicate the resumption of the downtrend.
On the other hand, if bulls push the price above the downtrend line, the pair could rally to the 20-day EMA ($0.44). This level may again act as a stiff resistance but if bulls overcome this barrier the recovery could reach the psychological level at $0.50.
ADA/USDT
Cardano’s (ADA) tight-range trading between $0.49 and $0.56 resolved to the downside on May 26. The bulls are attempting to defend the minor support at $0.46 but if they fail, the drop could extend to $0.40.
ADA/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
The downsloping moving averages and the RSI near the oversold territory suggest that bears are in command. If bears sink and sustain the price below $0.40, the selling could pick up momentum and the ADA/USDT pair may plummet to $0.33.
Conversely, if the price rebounds from the current level or the support, it will suggest strong buying at lower levels. The bulls will then try to drive the price above the 20-day EMA ($0.56). If they succeed, the pair could rally to $0.61 and later to $0.74.
SOL/USDT
Solana (SOL) broke below the immediate support at $47 on May 26 suggesting that traders who may have bought at lower levels are closing their positions. This opens the doors for a possible drop to the crucial support at $37.37.
SOL/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
If the price rebounds off $37.37, the buyers will attempt to push the price to the 20-day EMA ($55). This is an important level for the bears to defend because a break and close above it will suggest that the SOL/USDT pair may have bottomed out. The pair could then attempt a rally to the overhead resistance at $75.
Alternatively, if bears sink the price below $37.37, it will suggest the resumption of the downtrend. The pair could then extend its decline to the next support at $32.
DOGE/USDT
Dogecoin’s (DOGE) tight-range trading resolved to the downside on May 26 and bears pulled the price below $0.08. This suggests that supply exceeds demand.
DOGE/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
If bears sustain the price below $0.08, the DOGE/USDT pair could drop to the vital support at $0.06. As this level had acted as a strong support on May 12, the bulls may again try to defend it. If the level holds, the pair could climb toward the 20-day EMA ($0.09).
Another possibility is that if bulls push the price back above $0.08, it will suggest demand at lower levels. The buyers will then try to propel the price toward the 20-day EMA. A break and close above this resistance will suggest that the bears may be losing their grip. The pair could then rally to the psychological level at $0.10.
Polkadot’s (DOT) failure to climb and sustain above the breakdown level at $10.37 attracted selling by traders. The bears pulled the price below the immediate support of $9.22 on May 26 but are struggling to sustain the lower levels.
DOT/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
The price rebounded off the immediate support at $8.56 and the bulls are attempting to clear the overhead hurdle at the 20-day EMA ($10.88). If they manage to do that, it will suggest that the downtrend may be weakening.
Contrary to this assumption, if the price once again turns down from the overhead resistance, the bears will try to pull the DOT/USDT pair below $8.56. If they do that, the next stop could be $7.30.
The bulls are likely to defend this level aggressively but if they fail in their endeavor, the pair could start the next leg of the downtrend.
AVAX/USDT
Avalanche (AVAX) continued lower and plunged below the important support of $23.51 on May 26. This indicates the resumption of the downtrend.
AVAX/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
Although the downsloping moving averages favor the bears, the RSI in the oversold territory suggests a relief rally or consolidation in the near term. If the price turns up and rises above $23.51, it may trap several aggressive bears, resulting in a short squeeze. That could push the AVAX/USDT pair to the 20-day EMA ($34).
Alternatively, if bears sustain the price below $23.51, the selling could pick up momentum and the pair may decline to the psychological support at $20.
SHIB/USDT
Shiba Inu (SHIB) continues to be under pressure. Although bulls are defending the support at $0.000010, the rebound lacks strength. This suggests weak demand at current levels.
SHIB/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
The bears will attempt to pull the price below $0.000010 and if they succeed, the SHIB/USDT pair could decline to the critical support at $0.000009. This is an important level to keep an eye on because a break and close below it could indicate the resumption of the downtrend. The pair could then decline toward $0.000007.
Alternatively, if the $0.000010 level holds, the pair could rise to the 20-day EMA ($0.000013). This level may again act as a resistance but if crossed, the upward move could reach $0.000017.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.
In the next decade, we will see a shift from the internet to the metaverse – a virtual reality where people can create their own avatars and interact with each other, and Agoraverse has taken the next step to make that a reality.
The Agora is a shopping mall where businesses, NFT ventures, and influencers may promote and sell their items or services in true Web 3 style.
Agoraverse is a community-driven network for eCommerce where buyers and sellers can transact directly with each other free from fraud, misrepresentation or deception.
Agoraverse is built on top of blockchain technology which enables them to provide security, transparency, efficiency and speed when transacting between buyers.
The marketplace will be partially powered by the $AGORA token, which will also be used for staking rewards, creator rewards, cashback and more.
Tokenomics and its applications in their Metaverse
Agoraverse’s tokenomics model is designed to create value for all participants in the ecosystem: creators, curators, voters, sponsors and token holders.
The Agora marketplace will be a place where anyone can buy or sell NFTs from anywhere in the world. This means that you can sell your own digital assets like artwork, music, clothing designs and jewelry and much more.
Agora is not just another marketplace for buying and selling virtual assets; it is a fully-fledged shopping mall with rich features that allow users to interact with each other in new ways. You can connect with other users through our chatting features or create your own community within the Agora.
The AGORA Token will be able to be used to buy NFTs or material items within the Agora Metaverse.
The $AGORA token is the shopping currency of the Agora marketplace. It is a key component of the Agora ecosystem and will be used to purchase goods from partnered merchants who have listed their products on the Agoraverse platform.
$AGORA will also contribute to the development of this big endeavor. It will reward users, producers, and holders for many years to come.
Token Distribution
Total supply: 1 000 000 000
Initial supply : 460 000 000 (46%)
Release timeline: 4 years
In order to further fund their initiative, the Agoraverse team will also hold an Initial Coin Offering on the 3rd of June 2022. 16 percent of the tokens will be sold in order to provide long-term finance for the project. 40% of the total money raised will go into liquidity pools to maintain a stable and healthy token that can provide income to their holders.
By holding the Access Card NFT, project holders express their dedication to the initiative. The Agoraverse team wants to reward them for it. Therefore, customers will be able to stake them on their website to gain $AGORA.
Cutting-edge technology
We are living in the era of digital economies and virtual worlds. With the rise of blockchain technology, we are now able to create a richer and more immersive experience for users.
Agora’s mission is to bring fairness back to the retail industry by creating a marketplace where consumers have full control over their data, which can be used to build more personalized experiences with retailers.
They are building a revolutionary platform that will enable anyone to buy and sell real goods alongside digital ones. Their vision is to bring back the joy of shopping, but with a modern twist: it’s no longer about spending your energy at malls, but about living a completely new experience. And it’s not just about NFTs anymore – their platform is the bridge to the metaverse for traditional business ventures.
The Team Behind Agora
The Agora team has years of experience building real-life communities and businesses. They have been working together for several months on this project and are excited to share it with the world.
Their goal is to create an ecosystem that will allow everyone to participate in a new way of shopping — one that combines the best of both worlds — online and offline.
The Agora team is composed of professionals from diverse backgrounds with experience in the blockchain industry, retail industry, eCommerce industry, advertising industry, and more.
The world is moving towards a digital economy, and we are at the forefront of this change with our innovative technology and solutions. They have built a team of talented individuals who have an immense drive to create something truly special. Their team consists of designers, developers, marketers and product managers who are passionate about what they do.
Founders
Oscar Bellei
Co-Founder and Project Manager
Amaury Lentengre
Co-Founder and Strategy Manager
Claude Jehl
Co-Founder and Lead 3D Designer
Léo Biewer
Co-Founder and Creative Director
Transparent And Active Team, Focused On The Future
They are a team of experienced developers, designers and marketers who are focused on creating a unique experience for customers that can’t be found anywhere else. They will build the most advanced shopping platform based on blockchain technology, which will unite sellers and buyers from all over the world into one single ecosystem.
Their main strength lies in the fact that they are a transparent and active team which is able to respond quickly to the needs of its users. This approach will allow them to achieve their strategic goals in the shortest possible time frame and develop a strong brand that will be recognized by all people who are interested in cryptocurrency.
Spam and bots have been the bane of anyone that uses the internet for years, but recently this digital scourge has ramped up activity in the crypto sector in a big way.
Crypto intelligence provider LunarCrush has revealed spam in the cryptosphere has increased by an astonishing 3,894%. The firm has been collecting crypto-specific social data since 2019, and says not only is spam at an all-time high, it’s also “the fastest growing metric on social media.”
The findings were published in a May 25 report, stating that “more spam accounts than you would think are actually people.” For this reason, it is often a challenge for software to detect and flag spam.
Spam Volume collected by LunarCrush over the previous 2 years
Twitter is the social media platform of choice for the crypto industry, and it is awash with spam and bots. There has been an estimated 1,374% increase in Twitter spam volume over the past two years, according to LunarCrush.
LunarCrush CEO Joe Vezzani told Quantum Economics founder Matti Greenspan in his crypto newsletter:
“For a Web2 platform like Twitter, there is a direct incentive to turn a blind eye to fake accounts because it increases the value of their platform.”
Tokenized Web3 platforms (such as Aave’s Lens Protocol or Orbis) differ in that they want to have as many genuine users as possible holding the asset rather than trying to extract value from the community, he added.
Billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s sensational takeover of the platform was put on hold earlier this month pending further details supporting Twitter’s assertion that spam and fake accounts represent less than 5% of the platform’s traffic.
Musk plans to crack down on spam bots that have plagued the platform and suggests that the company’s claim of 95% genuine users is too high.
Twitter claims that >95% of daily active users are real, unique humans. Does anyone have that experience?
Purging the bot accounts would drop the number of followers most genuine accounts have. One estimate from SparkToro suggested that Musk could lose half of his 95 million followers. Earlier this month, the software firm conducted in-depth analysis reporting that almost 20% of all active Twitter accounts are fake or spammers.
Until Musk gets his way and shakes the spammers out of the Twitter tree, users of the platform and other social media sites will have to be extra vigilant regarding the rising tide of crypto scams and spam which none of them appear to have the power to control.
Ahead of the Merge tentatively penciled in for August, Ethereum’s Beacon Chain experienced a seven-block reorganization (reorg) yesterday.
According to data from Beacon Scan, on May 25 seven blocks from number 3,887,075 to 3,887,081 were knocked out of the Beacon Chain between 08:55:23 to 08:56:35 AM UTC.
The term reorg refers to an event in which a block that was part of the canonical chain, such as the Beacon Chain, gets knocked off the chain due to a competing block beating it out.
It can be the result of a malicious attack from a miner with high resources or a bug. Such incidents see the chain unintentionally fork or duplicate.
On this occasion, developers believe that the issue is due to circumstance rather than something serious such as a security issue or fundamental flaw, with a “proposer boost fork” being highlighted in particular. This term refers to a method in which specific proposers are given priority for selecting the next block in the blockchain.
Core Ethereum developer Preston Van Loon suggested the reorg was due to a “non-trivial segmentation” of new and old client node software, and was not necessarily anything malicious. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin labeling the theory a “good hypothesis.”
Block reorg: Beacon Scan
Martin Köppelmann, the co-founder of EVM compatible Gnosis chain was one of the first to highlight the occurrence via Twitter yesterday morning, noting that it “shows that the current attestation strategy of nodes should be reconsidered to hopefully result in a more stable chain! (proposals already exist).”
In response to Köppelmann, Van Loon tentatively attributed the reorg to the proposer boost fork which hadn’t fully been implemented yet:
“We suspect this is caused by the implementation of Proposer Boost fork choice has not fully rolled out to the network. This reorg is not an indicator of a flawed fork choice, but a non-trivial segmentation of updated vs out of date client software.”
“All of the details will be made public once we have a high degree of confidence regarding the root cause. Expect a post-mortem from the client development community!” he added.
We suspect this is caused by the implementation of Proposer Boost fork choice has not fully rolled out to the network. This reorg is not an indicator of a flawed fork choice, but a non-trivial segmentation of updated vs out of date client software.
— prestonvanloon.eth (@preston_vanloon) May 25, 2022
Earlier today, another developer Terence Tsao echoed this hypothesis to his 11,900 Twitter followers, noting that the reorg seemed to be caused by “boosted vs. non boosted nodes in the network and the timing of a really late arriving block.”
“Given that the proposer boost is a non-consensus-breaking change. With the asynchronicity of the client release schedule, the roll-out happened gradually. Not all nodes updated the proposer boost simultaneously.”
Van Loon spoke at the Permissionless conference last week and said that the Merge and switch to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) could come in August “if everything goes to plan.”
While the reorg is sure to raise questions of this potential timeline, Van Loon and the other developers have not yet outlined whether it will have any impact at all.
Kazakhstan, one of the global leaders in crypto mining with a recent history of hostile measures against the industry, is taking a step toward a comprehensive fiscal framework for mining operators.
On Thursday, May 25, the lower chamber of Kazakh parliament, Mejlis, passed in the first reading the amendments to the national tax code, regulating the fiscal burden on crypto mining. These amendments suggest graded tax rates tied to the electricity prices consumed by mining entities.
For example, the cheapest grade of electricity prices, 5 to 10 tenges ($0,012–0,024) for Kwh, would come with an additional burden of 10 tenges ($0,024). For 10–15 tenges ($0,024–0,036) per Kwh, the tax would be 7 tenges ($0,017) and for 20–25 tenges ($0,048–0,060) per Kwh — 3 tenges ($0,0072).
Proposed amendments overstride the earlier initiative to raise the price for electricity from $0.0023 per Kwh to $0.01 for crypto miners, voiced by Kazakhstan’s First Vice Minister of Finance Marat Sultangaziyev back in February.
The chamber indicated that the amendments are also aimed at creating a stimulus for using renewable sources of energy. In the case of green energy the tax would be only 1 tenge ($0,0024) without any regard to the electricity cost.
As Kazakh Economic Minister Alibek Kyantyrov stated, the measures are intended to “level the load and de-stimulate the consumption from private sources of energy”.
On April 29, the country’s Minister of Digital Development compelled digital mining businesses to provide information about electricity consumption and “technical specifications” for connection to the power grid 30 days before starting operations. Earlier, in March, 106 illicit crypto mining operations were shut down following raids by the Financial Monitoring Agency, which seized over 67,000 pieces of equipment at the time.
