Dignity Gold, a blockchain development company that relies on a regulation-forward approach and security tokens to unlock new ways of investing in the United States precious metals, mining, and minerals sector, announced today that the DIGau gold reserve-backed security token of its wholly owned subsidiary, Dignity Corporation, is now listed on CoinMarketCap, the world’s most-referenced price-tracking website for crypto and tokenized assets.

With verifiable gold and the financial security of $234 billion in provable precious metal reserves, which are now being processed from United States mines in Nevada, per the current NI 43-101 evolution mining report for its owned and pledged Pinkham Lode Mine and Panguitch sites, Dignity Gold’s modern financial instruments have been able to demystify tokenized ownership, reduce the friction of ownership, and offer the controls that have the potential to boost investor confidence and open the United States precious metals, mining, and mineral sector to investors.

“Listing on CoinMarketCap is a confirmation of our tireless efforts to ensure that DIGau’s revolutionary tokenized security provides investors with unique and provable value,” said Kent M. Swig, Chairman of Dignity Gold. “While DIGau is a very simple way for a wide variety of investors to benefit from investing in the United States precious metals, mining, and minerals sector, what sets the token apart is how DIGau combines gold reserves backing with metals, all being registered and regulated in the United States.”

“We’re building the foundation for a modern precious metal and mineral-backed digital security that inspires confidence in institutional investors,” said Steve Braverman, President of Dignity Gold. “CoinMarketCap’s listing of DIGau could not have come at a better time, as the precious metals and minerals space is heating up and drawing strong investor interest.”

About Dignity Gold, LLC

Founded in 2019 by Stephen Braverman and Kent M. Swig, Dignity Gold is the parent company of Dignity Corp. which is engaged in issuing the Dignity token using the ticker DIGau backed by gold deposits located in the United States.

About CoinMarketCap

Founded by Brandon Chez in May 2013, CoinMarketCap is the world’s most-referenced price-tracking website for crypto assets in the rapidly growing cryptocurrency space. Its mission is to make crypto discoverable and efficient globally by empowering retail users with unbiased, high quality and accurate information for drawing their own informed conclusions.

Cautionary Statement

No securities regulatory authority, digital assets securities exchange, or stock exchange has approved or disapproved of the information contained in this news release or accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This material contains ‘forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. We undertake no obligation to revise these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that arise after the posting of this material and in no way guarantees the accuracy of this information at any time in the future.

The post CoinMarketCap Lists DIGau Token From Dignity Gold appeared first on Grit Daily News.

We recently asked him about trading in crypto, where retail investors fit in, and what the pros know that everyone else should hear about.

Grit Daily: Would you say that trading in the crypto market is any riskier than trading in traditional markets?

David Weisberger: Potentially, but not necessarily. Crypto offers more leverage than traditional markets,
particularly in perpetual swaps and futures, but traders do not have to take advantage of that
leverage. From a counterparty risk perspective, there is no central counterparty, so that implies
more risk. That being said, the real time risk engines of crypto exchanges mean that there is
lower systematic risk, while 24 hour trading means there is more time to reduce risk when
necessary.

Grit Daily: Do you know of any strategies traders may use to reduce this risk with crypto?

David Weisberger: There is no need to use leverage to trade in crypto and even if one does want to use it, they can use the appropriate amount adjusted for the volatility of the asset. To be clear, if trading an
asset that is 3 times more volatile than the traditional assets one normally trades, then use 1/3
the leverage. Other risks in crypto include custodial risk, but that can be mitigated by using
counterparties who insure deposits and the appropriate multi-signature software for transfering
assets.

Grit Daily: Have you noticed any hesitation from institutional traders when it comes to crypto trading? Are there any ways to reduce this hesitancy?

David Weisberger: It depends on how one defines “institution.” Traditional institutional buy and sell side firms
hesitation is quite real and emanates from their compliance departments due to a lack of
regulatory clarity in the U.S. This would be mitigated if a bill such as recently put forward by
Senators Lummis and Gillibrand became law. Hedge Funds, however, are moving to trade
crypto assets at an accelerating pace.

Grit Daily: How does the platform Coinroutes provides help traders looking to get into crypto?

David Weisberger: CoinRoutes helps in multiple ways, but primarily by allowing traders to be confident in how to minimize transaction costs. Our system achieves prices superior to optimal smart routing and
provide institutional quality Transaction Cost Analysis on all the trades executed.

Grit Daily: What benefits do professional or institutional investors get from using the Coinroutes
platform? Are there any benefits for traders already experimenting with crypto?

David Weisberger: In addition to trading at lower cost per trade, the CoinRoutes system is dramatically more cost effective for firms. Instead of hiring programmers and paying datacenter and infrastructure
costs, CoinRoutes typically will offer its trading software for less money in the aggregate.
Considering that our software is the result of 15 years of developer effort and routinely
outperforms smart routing, the result is substantial net savings.

Grit Daily: Do you think now is a good time to get into crypto trading? Why or why not?

David Weisberger: As Warren Buffet says, “buy when others are fearful and sell when they are greedy.” At this point, there is substantial fear in the crypto market, but there is also a certainty among
participants that the market is here to stay. As a result, while DeFi trading via distributed
exchanges is viewed as extremely risky, there are still good opportunities for traders to
profitably implement strategies on trustworthy centralized exchanges or with well capitalized
market makers that are rapidly maturing.

Grit Daily: Do you still see a lot of potential for growth in crypto, or has it already hit its peak?

David Weisberger: Crypto is probably comparable to Internet technology in the 1990s, with the investable assets more comparable to those which existed in 2001. I say this because the actual technology to create an internet of value is in its infancy, but investment in protocols and use cases ran ahead of the technology twice already (in 2017 and 2021-22). The potential, however, is enormous in
three distinct areas:
1) Bitcoin as the base layer to transfer value seamlessly on a global basis. While individual
transactions will likely use networks (such as Lightning) built on top of Bitcoin, the base
layer is likely to be THE store of value for the digital world. Despite prices sinking, the
adoption metrics have been improving.
2) DeFi as disruptive technology to introduce competition and efficiency to financing
businesses globally. Much of today’s DeFi is based on regulatory or tax arbitrage and
the protocols & businesses are immature, but there is substantial promise for the
technology.
3) Web3 including NFTs and individuals retaining control and value of their own data and
application usage. This is a very broad topic, but I will use one example to illustrate.
Consider the immense value created by open source software. Most of that was done
without compensation to developers, so imagine what could be created with financial
incentives built into the process. Similarly, consider the potential if all creators had the
means to earn value directly without paying intermediaries…

The post David Weisberger, CEO of CoinRoutes, Explains How Crypto Traders Reduce Their Risk appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Having capable female leaders in the world of crypto is another way of making the space more inclusive. One such leader is Lisa Loud, the CEO of FLUIDEFI,  a company whose mission is to build the world’s most accurate and resilient decentralized finance (DeFi) investment management and execution system, especially designed for institutional investors and professional traders. What sets FLUIDEFI apart is the significant effort placed into infrastructure – data schema, storage, scalability, and speed. The accuracy and completeness of FLUIDEFI’s data exceeds any other source we have seen in DeFi.

Loud has a long and storied history of working in fintech and with blockchain technologies, finding success at such companies as BitMEX, Apple, PayPal, and others. In 2020 she was named one of the Top 100 Women in Crypto and has been nominated for numerous other leadership awards. I sat down with her to get her perspective on the world of decentralized finance.

1. At least until quite recently, it’s seemed like the right time to be starting a company in the DeFi space. Can you talk a bit about how that process has been?
   

We started building at the same time as Uniswap V2 came out – around the summer of 2020. Over the past two years, it’s been exciting to see our product unfold as the industry grows. When we started, there wasn’t as much to build – we just had to provide enhancements to Uniswap V2. As the industry has grown, we now have many chains to support, many swaps to incorporate on those chains, and new yield products popping up all the time. Now we have a large number of ecosystems on our roadmap, and we receive support from them to set up the infrastructure for their AMMs and DEXes.

An example of how quickly priorities change in this industry is Terra. As recently as a few weeks ago, our customers wanted support for Anchor. We made the unpopular decision to pause on building for Terra until we saw greater stability in the system. Now, of course, our customers don’t want that anymore. It’s challenging to build to such a young industry and determine the best priorities to focus on.

2. How has the pioneering world of cryptocurrency and blockchain projects changed since your time at BitMEX five years ago, or more recently at ShapeShift? As awareness grows, does the rate of change in the industry rise with it?
   

I can draw a parallel between 2017/18 and today – at BitMEX we were creating a product that no one had imagined before, and we were in an environment of uncertainty about regulations, best practices, and the future of markets.

The same is true today – DeFi is still new, and most people do not yet understand how it is different or what it will bring for the future. We’re building in the same climate as crypto in 17/18, and we’re seeing the same volatile ups and downs, too. It’s a very familiar feeling to be sitting on something powerful that the world hasn’t quite realized is there yet.

On the plus side, we are able to plan for scaling from the beginning, which was a big problem at BitMEX, where we never anticipated the hyper growth. We’re also able to navigate the regulatory landscape a little more skillfully since we have a model for how these things apply retroactively. Five years ago, the attitude was build freely, figure out the rules later. Today, our guiding principles are much less free and easy – we get legal guidance for every step along the way.

ShapeShift is another example of how regulatory issues can matter more than anything else – when ShapeShift implemented KYC in 2019, we lost the majority of our customers and it was difficult to recover from that. Again, in today’s climate we see a lot more caution from pioneers regarding maintaining compliance over anything else. It is certainly the guiding principle at FLUIDEFI, more than any other factor.

3. You began in revolutionary tech companies like Apple, Oracle, and PayPal. It’s clear with the amount of experience you’ve recently had in DeFi related companies that you believe in cryptocurrency’s future. How do you see crypto and DeFi changing the world?
   

Decentralization has the potential to transform everything we do every day, just as we saw a shift between the pre-www world and today’s internet everywhere lifestyle. It starts with decentralized finance, because it’s such an obvious application of the technology. It doesn’t end there, though – imagine a world where there were no Walmarts building profit at the expense of manufacturers and quality, just as an example. Decentralization offers the potential to balance out power and opportunity. In a competitive marketplace where everyone has an equal chance to offer their product to the world, would the cheapest and most fragile products win? I don’t think so. Quality, provenance, and sustainability will become more practical aspects of a buying decision when the gigantic intermediaries are not controlling the markets.

4. How can a company like FLUIDEFI stand out in a world of so many crypto start ups? 

We see ourselves as the tortoise in some ways. We are building robust products and taking our time to make sure they are fully tested and accurate. It’s true that some of our competitors are going for broad support of many chains very quickly, and it’s also true that their accuracy and performance are not perfect. When you see your target market as institutional, it means that you are going to approach product development in a very different way – you have to provide top-notch security, compliance, and procedures in order to work with a bank. Most days I want to go faster, but I remind myself that we’re in this for the long term, not a short term splash.

5. Do you have any examples (besides yourself) of female leadership making a big impact in the world of DeFi? What would you like to see moving forward in terms of diverse representation both at your company and the field as a whole?
   

Kimberly Adams is building the Bridge Network, and she’s an impressive leader who stands out. Her drive and vision are inspiring. Kimberly’s beliefs about accountability and ownership translate to her company’s success and momentum.

Thessy Mahrain, the founder of Liquality, has been a pioneer in building a diverse team over the past several years. She’s a role model for women who work in her company as well as those outside who aspire to do great things.

Sheila Warren, the CEO of Crypto Council for Innovation, is advancing global innovation in the crypto arena and spreading ideas that matter. Her work has an impact on changing the world for the better.

6. Finance in general seems to be male dominated. What sort of new ideas do you have that might get more women informed and involved in DeFi investment, whether on an individual level or institutional?

One theory has been proposed as to why finance has more men than women. This theory says that men tend to be more comfortable with risk-taking, while women prefer to preserve and enhance what they already have. While I can think of many examples where this rule clearly doesn’t apply, if we take it as given, then I would say that while cryptocurrency trading is highly speculative and risk-oriented, DeFi trading is more about providing a service for steady and ongoing fees. DeFi is more like a fixed income product, while crypto trading or derivatives are more like stocks or options trading. If it is indeed the case that finance attracts a larger proportion of men than women because of its inherently risky nature, then DeFi can be said to appeal more to a diverse group, as it has both the element of risk and the element of steady returns.

What gets in the way of women (and everyone) trying DeFi is that it’s highly complex and difficult to figure out. If we can overcome the hurdle of comprehension, then I believe the DeFi space will have a more balanced community.

How do we overcome this learning curve? Well, the first thing is to make it simpler. Today, anyone can put together a website using visual tools and templates. We no longer have to understand HTML, Javascript, or TCP/IP to be able to create a beautiful online representation of an idea or business. The same should be true of DeFi – anyone should be able to participate, using their own creative ideas and strategies, without having to spend weeks getting up to speed.

This is the vision that keeps me going – a world where everyone can choose to share in the DeFi opportunities and use them to propel their ideas into reality. Today, we are building tools for institutions in order to make DeFi more mainstream. In the future, these tools will exist for everyone, and each person’s reach will depend only on their ambition, not on the luck of their circumstances.

The post Women To Watch in DeFi: Interview With Lisa Loud appeared first on Grit Daily News.

According to the Blockchain Game Alliance and DappRadar’s Q1 of 2022 report, $2.5 billion were raised by blockchain games during the first quarter. If this trend was to continue, investments would increase by 150% when compared to last year, with activity having grown already by 2,000%.

This growth is not fortuitous but the result of technologies like NFTs, Web3, and the metaverse gaining relevance in the blockchain and mainstream tech spaces. In fact, blockchain gaming’s impact on the blockchain space has been so strong that its activity accounts for 52% of all blockchain activity.

Games like Axie Infinity, Splinterlands, Alien Worlds, Crazy Defense Heroes, Sky Mavis, and The Sandbox are some of the games leading to the rise of blockchain gaming. Not only have these games allowed players all around the world to generate economic gains but they have also introduced innovative mechanics and partnerships.  An example of this is The Sandbox’s recent partnership with Time Magazine to develop “Time Square”, a metaverse version of NYC’s iconic intersection.

“The Sandbox is often viewed as a ‘virtual Manhattan’, a vibrant space alive with culture, entertainment, and brands, where anyone can discover, learn, work, meet new people, play, dance, and find amazing new opportunities,” said The Sandbox’s Co-Founder and COO Sebastien Borget in the announcement. “By partnering with TIME, we’re adding TIMEPieces as the beating heart and soul of this virtual Manhattan, where a design call for virtual architects will be held in TIME Square, a place in our creative metaverse for brands and creators.”

But what is the reason behind gamers’ captivation with blockchain gaming? The reason is simple: The play-to-earn model. Historically, gamers have been unable to profit from playing their favorite games as most developers don’t allow real money transactions. While the reasons for this decision vary, they are often related to an attempt to prevent botting, account hacking/sharing, and legal issues.

The result is that most players don’t truly own their in-game assets as they can’t sell them nor take them out of the game ecosystem. Blockchain changed this by introducing NFTs and crypto, facilitating the creation of open marketplaces for gamers to trade their assets. This, in addition to being able to move assets out of the game ecosystem, result in true ownership.

As part of Grit Daily House during Consensus 2022, attendees had the opportunity to hear directly from one of the pioneers shaping the future of blockchain gaming. PixelSmarter’s Founder & DashLeague Creator Joseph Lazukin sat with Entrepreneur Magazine’s Jeff Hunter to talk about the opportunities and challenges in the blockchain gaming industry.

If you missed the chance to attend Grit Daily House in person and to hear what Joseph had to say, worry not. You will be able to watch the fireside chat in the video below and find our other panels on Grit Daily’s official YouTube Channel.

The post The Future of Web3 Gaming and How It Is Driving Blockchain Activity appeared first on Grit Daily News.

John Karony, CEO of SafeMoon, conducted an interview with Shaun Fox, of Australia, an entrepreneur, author and expert in the global financial services market who heads the FOXI group of companies at the recent Fund Launch Live event in Las Vegas. The following discussion on the power of community and social impact in blockchain is Part 1:

Karony: A little more than a year ago in March 2021, before SafeMoon had a public-facing presence of anything… once we’d safely kicked off and realized that between Twitter and Discord we’d amassed such a massive following (more than two million that now refer to themselves as the #SAFEMOONARMY … I next realized what a powerful force they’d become and that our tribe needed to face together. I realized quickly they required education that doesn’t exist. Statistically, many or even most of them are unfamiliar with most cryptocurrencies, blockchain projects or companies. I’m just kidding, to some degree … but most don’t have a Bitcoin. Nobody knows who Satoshi is.

Fox: So you’ve been putting all of that education out? Because that’s actually…Wow.

Karony: Yeah. So you know, for most of the legions of the “crypto curious” there’s been no face behind most of these projects. You don’t know who’s behind it. You don’t know who’s really behind their projects 100% You don’t have these resources behind a phantom network. For most of these ventures, you may hear whispers of who they could be, you don’t actually ever meet them. So for us, what we wanted to do, and what I specifically wanted to do, is to put my money where my mouth is and essentially put my face out there – to dox myself, which comes with some benefits, such as taking the mystery out of the company and the technology for these massive legions of participants.

Fox: It’s something simple that I do, as well. For retail fundraising, and most of these fund managers, they want to hide behind the initiative, to stay in the shadows. So, what I did as a wholesale funding provider with RAIC Capital was that I put myself out there. I said, “Well, look if you’re trusting me with money, I will put myself out there, so you do the same, if you guys are going to get behind me. The power in this is amazing. I have question for you — have you been purposely building your tribe, your village, and how have you done that? And in that brutal subspace, when did that actually start? Did you start building the tribe before you launched the client?

Karony: No. The “army” formed organically around our visionary impact and branding. So, it was organically formed, but as we realized the power in this, we took that phenomenon and cultivated it, and enabled our tribe to be effective. During that early phase we started engaging with them, which at that time was more about engaging them primarily to continue following, to continue their participation. I’ll never tell anybody to buy, sell or do anything in the form of a financial advisor in any way, shape, or form.

But I will say, “I would like you to use our products. I’d like you to use our services. And I’d like you to follow our vision because you can be part of our community, and we don’t participate in whether they want to buy our token. And that’s our policy whether you’re a whale, or whether you’re someone who only has a fraction of a penny. If you’re participating in the vision and the return on Impact mission, then you are part of our tribe. And our tribe expands past our own products. So, I communicate to our ecosystem. The ecosystem includes additional people who listen to our platform, and they go through a vetting process with us before we fully engage. We go through a vetting process to see if participants we work with share the same values and the same vision as we have.

Fox: That’s fantastic. So, with that tribe that you have, with the number of people you have been two-plus million, how many of them are in the token?

Karony: Actually, give or take, between 600,000 and 2 million.

Fox: That’s wild. And you can add extra value to other partners who can then be and share in that community.

Karony: And our partners bring their communities with them as well. So, our tribe grows and grows and grows.

Fox: I absolutely love that. So, these are the things I wanted to talk to you about today and about the synergies. Because I’ve been to all the token events in Miami the other week, and I’m at the fund manager event now. And you’re probably the first person I’ve found who completely aligns the vision of how I see community. For me, it was around growing that community of the retired nurses in my own kind of retail fund and then becoming a regulating entity. Now I authorize other fund managers to be funded. As I’ve said from the stage, I don’t ever see competition. I see other industry partners, and we can create a market space together.

Karony: In the crypto space, people don’t realize — it’s early, and when institutional investments and money starts flowing in, not one cryptocurrency exchange can handle that volume. When the mainstream gets involved, no one company can handle that. Like the customer support needed for even, perhaps, 20 million devices. The footprint is astronomical. And so you’re not actually in competition with each other. There are ways to find synergy and work together to help to create a solid and positive impact.

Fox: Like any credit market and what you said here on stage, which was amazing, that within your community, you found out another exchange had been hacked before they’s found out and then just picked up the phone and said, “Oh, guys, you got an issue,” Right? Which is amazing. And that’s what the power of the community is. It’s creating what I’m trying to do it in the fundamentals but creating resources and solutions in the token space that is such a fast-growing industry is isn’t taught, but there a half million cryptocurrencies out there. There’s a huge amount of power in being able to start creating a safe environment space for other market industry people to go just talk to you guys and to talk about “How do we work?” I love that. That’s probably one of the things that really shone out for me about what you’re doing with SafeMoon.

Karony: Yeah. And you know, it’s also about creating positivity because the crypto market has been traditionally plagued with FUD (fear uncertainty, doubt) issues where we have coordinated FUD attacks happen. Defamation. Campaigns slung against another crypto token, to sway people to bring them over. It’s completely backwards. They need to realize we’re all one community. It’s not Dogecoin versus Bitcoin versus SafeMoon. It’s that we all provide value to each other in different ways. You know, Bitcoin is more widely adopted at this current point in time. So if you can get a trading pair with that and then provide additional value to your community that allows them if they’d like to exit they can exit into Bitcoin, yeah, versus just being limited to exiting into BNB or Etherium. It’s providing that additional value, but you’re also providing that additional value to the other organization.

Fox: Well, I think that’s one of the things I’ve identified. I’m looking at this concept because we’re in the process getting the licenses to go to authorized exchanges, and particularly in Australia, the most regulated country on the planet. So, I’ve been steeping myself in the community of blockchain and looking at the challenges – there are so many coins out there, but how do you get grandma retail to adapt to it? How do you find true utility, and a true use case for getting into there? So, from what I see, and from being a mentor for years, and seeing what you’re doing within the industry to go and create a safe space, let’s work together. Which means you can get away from people doing the sort of photo tagging stuff. We should be worried about it, because the real issue is how do we bridge those other gaps, and by doing what you’re doing, you’re saying “Guys, let’s now work together and we can actually start fixing the issues you have.” That’s the power of the tribe. 

The post For Success in Business: Community and Social Impact Reign Supreme appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Probably the greatest example of crypto users overestimating their own knowledge is their understanding of crypto wallets. While Crypto wallets are probably the most important tool when it comes to interacting with crypto and blockchain, most people misunderstand them. Starting with the idea that crypto wallets “store” cryptocurrency, these misunderstandings can prove disastrous in the long term.

There is also a group of crypto enthusiasts that understand that cryptocurrency wallets don’t store crypto but the keys to interact with it. Private and public keys serve different purposes, allowing a range of actions from receiving cryptocurrency to authorizing transactions. To truly understand how these keys allow for such operations, a user would need to have an understanding of cryptography and basic blockchain infrastructure

The understanding of how crypto wallets work gets even more difficult as concepts like custodial, non-custodial, asymmetric cryptography, digital signature, hot/cold wallets, and multisig get thrown around. While it is true that understanding such concepts is not necessary to make use of a cryptocurrency wallet, misunderstanding them must be avoided at all costs. As such, making crypto wallets easy to use without the need to understand the technology is essential.

Making such a wallet might not sound that difficult but in truth, it can be especially complex given the decentralized nature of crypto. Decentralization comes with more freedom of choice at the cost of safeguards, putting developers in a tough spot. With new movements like Web3, NFTs, and GameFi gaining momentum, the importance of these decisions continues to increase.

Dilemmas like these are what Robin Guyard, CTO of Laguna; Blake Commagere, Co-founder and COO of Vault12; and Doug Horn, Chief Architect of Telos, sat to discuss during Grit Daily House at Consensus 2022. Rachel Wolfson, Enterprise Blockchain Analyst at CoinTelegraph, moderated the panel titled “What’s In a Crypto Wallet?” by asking insightful questions on the role wallets are to play in the future of the crypto space.

If you missed the chance to attend Grit Daily House in person and to hear what these experts had to say about this topic, worry not. Not only will you be able to watch the panel in the video below but you can also find other panels on Grit Daily’s official YouTube Channel.

The post What’s In a Crypto Wallet?: Understanding the Role of Crypto’s Essential Tool appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Over the past years, cryptocurrency has become one of the most popular means of investment, reaching a market capitalization as high as $3 trillion back in 2021. Unfortunately, the technical nature of the technology means that most investors are in it for the money, which can make some supporters feel isolated. This results in 2 issues: Poor understanding of how crypto works and confirmation bias among those who do.

Both of these issues not only result in poor financial decisions when investing but also have the potential to result in disasters like that of Terra or the ICO boom of 2017. These 2 events have something else in common: they attract negative press for the entirety of the crypto space. Now, while communities can certainly have a negative impact on a project or the entire ecosystem, the opposite is almost always the case.

Most cryptocurrency and blockchain projects are built over the principle of equality, which means anyone can participate and benefit from them. Unlike centralized platforms and financial institutions, community members actively play a role in the development and governance of decentralized systems. Think of projects like Ethereum and Bitcoin: Not only have they survived the passing of time but they have grown exponentially since their launch. 

When asked about his view on Bitcoin, Jack Dorsey replied: “What inspires me the most is the community driving it. It reminds me of the early internet”. Communities effectively act as a force multiplier, allowing individuals to change the status quo. This effectively makes crypto what individuals want them to be by finding or creating a community of like-minded people.

One such example of a community is CryptoMondays, an organization with chapters in Shanghai, Los Angeles, Medellin, Tel Aviv, Paris, London, Miami, Singapore, Malta, Tokyo, Las Vegas, and Medellin. By organizing meetups all around the globe, CryptoMondays has gathered more than 22k members and 800 speakers with one single objective: Increasing engagement with blockchain technology.

Lou Kerner, CryptoMonday’s Founder and Co-Founder of CryptoOracle, sat down with eToro’s US CEO Lule Demmissie to discuss how “Crypto Is What You Make of It”. The conversation was part of Grit Daily x CryptoMondays, which took place in Austin during the Consensus 2022 festival. If you were unable to attend and want to hear what these pillars of the community have to say, we got you covered. You can also find other panels and talks on Grit Daily’s Official YouTube Channel.

The post It Takes a Village: How Communities Define the Crypto Space for Better and for Worse appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Cardano (ADA) is one solution that aims to solve the problems related to Ethereum’s scalability, interoperability, and sustainability. Rather than a proof of work model, it uses a newer consensus mechanism called proof of stake (PoS). Ethereum 2.0, designed to solve the original Ethereum’s issues, utilizes PoS, as do Tezos and other more recent cryptocurrencies, and while Ethereum 2.0 is on the way, progress is slow.

While many of the well-known cryptocurrencies and hundreds of “altcoins” recorded a sharp decrease in value recently (leading many to dub the current period in blockchain as a “crypto winter”), Cardano bucked the trend – more so towards the end of the month. The token recorded a price increase towards the end of May 2022.

WingRiders is an automated market maker (AMM) decentralized exchange (DEX) platform for Cardano, helping to make ADA accessible for investors. And after the first month following its launch on mainnet, it has achieved 62.5 million ADA in total liquidity. 

This milestone follows an oversubscribed seed and private-funding round and a partnership with the Milkomeda Foundation to bring the USDC/USDT stablecoins, plus both BTC and ETH, to the Cardano mainnet ecosystem. 

It’s not the first time WingRiders has made the news. It surpassed $60 million in total value locked (TVL) six days after going live on April 12, 2022. And in a first for the ADA ecosystem, WingRiders offer a double yield farming feature, where liquidity providers can gain rewards from the automated staking in the ADA containing pools and the commonly known yield farming of platform-native tokens. These gains come on top of the regular swapping fee collected in the pools. WingRiders’s DEX platform is the only one, so far, that integrates ledger hardware wallets, directly enabling safe interactions, even directly on Android devices.

WingRiders leverages Cardano’s benefits to correct the issues plaguing DEXs on Ethereum. It avoids the obstacles that slow down both Ethereum-based DEXs and recent entrants into the Cardano space, such as high gas fees and failed transactions. 

It only requires its users to connect a lightweight non-custodial NuFi wallet to buy and trade tokens, which means the entire exchange can run within a browser. Traders on WingRiders can also earn interest on crypto holdings through staking. 

“We are more than pleased with our progress and look to continue the momentum as we deliver on our roadmap,” Kaaran Kalantari, a spokesperson for WingRiders, said. “We have some big milestones ahead, including the integration of additional wallets and features as well as our public token sale, and we are expecting further successes as we solidify ourselves as an instrumental piece of the Cardano infrastructure.”

The post WingRiders Shows That Even In A Crypto Winter, It’s Possible To Succeed With Blockchain appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Yet one obstacle remains to the widespread adoption of Web3 values: accessibility. Whether it is the information available to understand their investment or the viability of crypto in conventional businesses, the masses are still often precluded from getting involved in what some consider the future of finance. Individuals such as Bob Kramich, the founder of BEASY, are getting to grips with what it could take for the widespread use of new technology. He has identified the specific obstacles to the universal adoption of blockchain and how those in the space can work to circumvent them.

The barrier to mainstream adoption

Firstly, one potential problem is that prospective purchasers of digital assets such as NFTs widely believe they must engage in cryptocurrency to invest. In the eyes of advocates, crypto still experiences broad misconceptions and negative associations in some public circles.

“Blockchain is complicated,” Kramich said. “There are more than 3,000 cryptocurrencies with a market cap of around $3T. Yet there are only 15 currencies with a collective market cap of more than $80T. Converting these users of fiat currencies into digital asset adopters, or converting fiat market liquidity into NFT market liquidity, is the problem that should be addressed to bring the next 1B users into the digital IP commerce era.”

Hope on the horizon

Despite efforts to fast-track new adopters into blockchain fluency, a slow and steady shift in wider society exists.

“Some recent compelling events have given us the impression that real change is taking place,” Kramich stated. “The pandemic showed the need for humans to conduct commerce and network trustingly without seeing each other face-to-face. Elsewhere, the NBA Top Shot game and Dapper Labs have achieved success, encouraging blockchain’s mainstream prospects.”

Finding a solution

What enthusiasts believe is required is the kind of technological solution students will be highlighting in history textbooks for years to come. The barrier to entry is thought to be accessibility, and making blockchain markets accessible is the objective of some individuals in the space.

“New ventures in the community can make it easy for individual entrepreneurs or businesses to create NFTs or digital assets and sell them from their website or on marketplaces such as OpenSea,” Kramich summarized. “On the supply side, creators could add official NFT benefactors and contributors and determine their share of royalties. A solution of this kind would add virality and contribute to network effects and more rapid adoption.”

Bridging the knowledge gap for those engaged in fiat money-based business but who recognize the opportunity posed by blockchain technology is the aim of new proposals. Those working towards a solution believe sellers should be able to diversify their portfolios and sell digital assets like any other product. Providers would no longer be required to understand a whole new world of technology before considering entry into the market.

Solutions to the inaccessibility problem could provide benefits to the demand side as well as to supply. The hurdles that online retailers face exist in equal measure for potential buyers, like the requirement for a crypto account. Future innovations could be significantly influential in the growth of the digital IP commerce community.

“For consumers, solutions could enable existing fans of all ages to procure digital assets without purchasing or using a cryptocurrency,” Kramich outlined. “Every enterprise’s existing customer or fan base could transform into an NFT serviceable obtainable market (SOM).”

If Web3 adopters can overcome inaccessibility, it could be era-defining for an entirely new wave of digital asset consumers. The average digital citizen’s understanding of cryptocurrency and NFTs may be on the verge of transformation.

The post The Inaccessibility Facing Blockchain Technology and How to Overcome It appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Pebble was founded by UC Berkeley alumni Aaron Bai and Sahil Phadnis, and this announcement will finally take them out of stealth.

The funding round counted participation from some of the biggest names in the space, with some of them having companies like Facebook, Coinbase, and Uber in their early stages. The list includes Y Combinator, Lightshed Ventures, Eniac Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Montage Ventures, and Soma Capital.

While the crypto space has seen an increase in the number of financial platforms available, most of them are focused on investing or saving. Pebble is designed to provide its users with a means to actively reap the benefits of blockchain for their day-to-day needs.

Hence, the core product offered by Pebble is a financial platform intended to be a better alternative to traditional banking services both from a user experience and feature perspective. While powered by blockchain technology in the background, users have access to a debit card, cashback, bill pay, high-APY rewards on their balance, and payroll connection capabilities. This launch provides a major paradigm shift in comparison to how “stuck” crypto feels in exchanges like Gemini and Coinbase.

The Pebble team chose to only use the most trustworthy cryptocurrencies (in this case USDC — a fully asset-backed stablecoin) to build a sustainable and scalable platform for its users. On the Pebble platform, USDC is not only used for the usual transactions such as transfers, deposits, withdrawals, and payments. It is also lent out to regulated institutions with a 150% over-collateral to generate rewards for its users. This approach also allows Pebble to offer its services in a fee-free manner with better rewards than banks.

As part of its effort to make the platform as convenient and beneficial as possible, Pebble has partnered with 56 big-name merchants, including Uber, Amazon, Chipotle, Airbnb, Adidas, and many more. Through these partnerships, these merchants benefit by cutting the middleman, and the costs that come from dealing with card issuers, payment processors, point of sales teams, and similar nuisances. In return, merchants reward users on the Pebble platform 5% cash back to continue this more efficient method of payments.

Pebble shows a clear intention of having the platform distinguish itself from traditional banks despite offering similar services, while also protecting its users from the volatility of crypto by using USDC. This product is likely to play a major role in the push to reach crypto mass adoption by exposing new users to them in a safe, versatile, and regular manner.

One of the features that Pebble seems to consider essential to avoid the pitfalls of traditional banking is its “Pebbles”. This point-based reward system allows users to earn points for every operation they do with the platform. While the company has yet to announce exactly how this system will work, it has made it clear that early adopters will be rewarded.

According to the announcement, this is “just the first pebble dropped in the pond” as Pebble is looking to create a new movement in the financial industry by creating new opportunities for people. With this in mind, Pebble will be prioritizing its expansion to new locations around the world as well as its offering of products.

The post Pebble Raises $6.2M to Begin the Money Revolution appeared first on Grit Daily News.