Tag: Smart Contracts

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Terra (LUNA) Token Launched On Voyager Digital

Voyager Digital

Voyager Digital Ltd., a publicly-traded, licensed crypto-asset broker that provides investors with a turnkey solution to trade crypto assets, today announced the listing of the Terra (LUNA) Token on the Voyager platform, expanding Voyager’s industry-leading offering to 57 digital assets.

“By adding the LUNA Token to the Voyager platform, our U.S. customers will now have one of the first direct fiat-to-crypto on-ramps available on mobile devices,” said Steve Ehrlich, Co-founder and CEO of Voyager. “Our commission-free agency broker platform is quickly becoming the most trusted and transparent vehicle for investors to buy, trade and hold digital assets. We will continue to enhance our customer-centric platform with additional offerings including debit and credit cards, margin and the listing of other digital assets.”

Terra LUNA is a next-generation smart contract platform and programmable money for the internet. Terra’s platform supports stablecoins that offer instant settlements, low fees and seamless cross-border exchange, and are loved by millions of users and merchants.

“Both Terra and Voyager are making crypto and blockchain more accessible for mainstream adoption,” added Terra Co-Founder and CEO, Do Kwon. “Terra’s focus on merchant and payment adoption will be pushing the future forward on blockchain-powered digital payments. We’re excited to be partnered with Voyager, availing the power of LUNA to the masses.”

About Terra
Terra‘s stablecoin ecosystem aims to make money easier to spend and more attractive to hold for users. Terra is the first (and today the largest by market cap) algorithmic stablecoin protocol in existence, supported by the Terra blockchain’s native asset, LUNA. Terra creates stablecoins pegged to the world’s major fiat currencies (USD, EUR, CNY, JPY, GBP, KRW, and the IMF SDR) that deploy decentralized monetary supply controls to retain value, generate stable interest, and keep transaction costs low. Terra now has the third highest number of transactions of all blockchains (after BTC and Ethereum) and is generating 13M USD in fees annually. TerraKRW today powers Chai, one of the largest e-commerce wallets in Korea, which hosts over 2 million users and generates $1.2 billion in annualized transaction volume. Investors in Terraform Labs (TFL), the group behind Terra, include Arrington XRP Capital, PolyChain Capital, Binance Labs, Huobi Capital, FBG Capital, and TransLink Capital.

About Voyager Digital Ltd.
Voyager Digital Ltd. is a crypto-asset broker that provides retail and institutional investors with a turnkey solution to trade crypto assets. Voyager offers customers best execution and safe custody on a wide choice of popular crypto-assets. Voyager was founded by established Wall Street and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who teamed to bring a better, more transparent, and cost-efficient alternative for trading crypto-assets to the marketplace.

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Blockchain News Cryptocurrency News

DeFi Crypto Assets Start 2021 By Thundering Higher

DeFi Cryptos Soar In 2021

Although we’re just beyond 2 weeks in, 2021 has started off with a burst for the cryptocurrency world.

Amid political chaos in the United States, the value of cryptocurrencies have risen significantly and so far this year. Bitcoin started 2021 around $29,000; and in two weeks time is has already soared above $40,000. More than a few analysts are predicting a 6-digit Bitcoin price this year.

Nevertheless, it’s not only about Bitcoin; beyond BTC, there has been an explosion in coin prices across the board, as cryptocurrency funds see record inflows. This is especially true with DeFi coins and tokens. At press time, we took a look at five major DeFi assets listed on coinmarketcap. In no particular order:

  1. Chainlink (LINK) Chainlink started the year around $12 and has gained as much as 83%, reaching a high above $22.00. LINK is a decentralized oracle network which aims to connect smart contracts with data from the real world. Chainlink was developed by Sergey Nazarov, with Steve Ellis as the other co-founder. It held an ICO in September 2017, raising $32 million, with a total supply of 1 billion LINK tokens. LINK, the cryptocurrency native to the Chainlink decentralized oracle network, is used to pay node operators.
  2. Ren (REN) Ren started the year around 34 cents and has gained as much as 85%, reaching a high above 63 cents. Ren (REN) is an open protocol built to provide interoperability and liquidity between different blockchain platforms. Formerly known as Republic Protocol, Ren launched RenVM, its virtual machine mainnet, in May 2020, having completed a $34 million initial coin offering (ICO) in 2018. The protocol’s native token, REN, functions as a bond for those running nodes which power RenVM, known as Darknodes. Ren aims to expand the interoperability, and hence accessibility, of decentralized finance (DeFi) by removing hurdles involved in liquidity between blockchains.
  3. Sushiswap (SUSHI) Sushiswap started the year around $3 and has gained as much as 153%, reaching a high above $7.60. SushiSwap (SUSHI) is an example of an automated market maker (AMM). An increasingly popular tool among cryptocurrency users, AMMs are decentralized exchanges which use smart contracts to create markets for any given pair of tokens. SushiSwap launched in September 2020 as a fork of Uniswap, the AMM which has become synonymous with the decentralized finance (DeFi) movement and associated trading boom in DeFi tokens. SushiSwap aims to diversify the AMM market and also add additional features not previously present on Uniswap, such as increased rewards for network participants via its in-house token, SUSHI.
  4. Aave (AAVE) Aave started the year around $90 and has gained as much as 114%, reaching a high above $203.00. Aave is a decentralized finance protocol that allows people to lend and borrow crypto. Lenders earn interest by depositing digital assets into specially created liquidity pools. Borrowers can then use their crypto as collateral to take out a flash loan using this liquidity. Aave (which means “ghost” in Finnish) was originally known as ETHLend when it launched in November 2017, but the rebranding to Aave happened in September 2018. AAVE provides holders with discounted fees on the platform, and it also serves as a governance token — giving owners a say in the future development of the protocol.
  5. Uniswap (UNI) Uniswap started the year at just about $5 and has gained as much as 80%, reaching a high of $9.00. Uniswap is a popular decentralized trading protocol, known for its role in facilitating automated trading of decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens. An example of an automated market maker (AMM), Uniswap launched in November 2018, but has gained considerable popularity this year thanks to the DeFi phenomenon and associated surge in token trading. Uniswap aims to keep token trading automated and completely open to anyone who holds tokens, while improving the efficiency of trading versus that on traditional exchanges. Uniswap creates more efficiency by solving liquidity issues with automated solutions, avoiding the problems which plagued the first decentralized exchanges. In September 2020, Uniswap went a step further by creating and awarding its own governance token, UNI, to past users of the protocol. This added both profitability potential and the ability for users to shape its future — an attractive aspect of decentralized entities.
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Blockchain News Cryptocurrency News

FinCen Extends Comment Period For Proposed New Crypto Wallet Rules

Cryptocurrency Wallets

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said Thursday it will reopen its proposed rulemaking period for an extra fifteen days for its crypto wallet reporting requirements, and another forty five days for a necessity on recordkeeping and counterparty reporting requirements.

First submitted Dec. 18, 2020, the proposals will require crypto exchanges to store name and address info for customers transferring more than $3,000 in cryptocurrency each day to private crypto wallets, and file currency transaction reports (CTRs) for customers transacting in more than $10,000 each day.

Critics of the rule said it will be technically out of the question for a few projects to comply because smart contracts and author decentralized tools don’t have name or perhaps address info to provide.

Maybe most important, the extension means Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who’s believed to be spearheading this effort, is going to be out of office by the time the comments period closes, perhaps allowing for FinCEN to better incorporate crypto industry feedback.

In the public notice, FinCEN wrote that the proposed CTR requirements “are essentially equivalent to the existing CTR reporting requirements that apply to transactions in currency,” and called the proposal “vital” to closing loopholes that terrorists or perhaps other malicious actors might use. This’s the part which is going to see a 15 day extension for comments.

FinCEN was less effusive about the recordkeeping and counterparty details, only writing, “FinCEN is actually providing a longer period in light of the relatively greater complexity of those elements of the proposed different issues and rule identified in comments received during the first comment period.”

This was the part that raised the most controversy from the blockchain industry , receiving more than 7,000 comments, with the vast majority of responders criticizing the pace or the rule by which it was being pushed through.

In a statement, the Chamber of Digital Commerce said if the proposed rule was implemented as is, “a series of unintended consequences that raise serious privacy concerns will have resulted from this rushed rulemaking process.”

The extension does not mean the rule won’t be implemented; it is still entirely possible that FinCEN is going to choose to run with the rule after the last version is actually published.

The clock for the comment period restarted when the document was posted in the Federal Register, the nation’s logbook, which was done yesterday, Friday, January 15.

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Blockchain News Cryptocurrency News Ethereum News

Creator Of First ICO Developing Blockchain DeFi Platform For UBI

Karma Finance

Universal Basic Income (UBI) Planned In 30 U.S. Cities

UBI is increasingly being recommended as a possible strategy to help mitigate the economic consequences of an extended coronavirus pandemic.

Almost all the UBI programs currently being piloted propose direct, unconditional cash payments to citizens, a lot like how many welfare payments are actually distributed today.

Based on data from Welfare and Health Studies at the Cato Institute only 30% of funds allocated to government welfare programs end up in the hands of the people who benefit from it. For private charities, an average of 82% of funds reach those that want it, while fund-raising and administrative expenses account for the remaining 18%. If numbers that are very much the same are actually assumed for UBI programs, 70% of funds will go towards a UBI program’s administrative expenses rather compared to its intended recipients.

The use of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is able to transform how UBI is actually implemented, making it cost effective, most importantly, and, secure, transparent. The primary benefit to using blockchain technology will be the elimination of bureaucracy, resulting in 100% of funds reaching UBI recipients.

Karma Finance, founded by Antoine Sorel Neron, the designer of the first Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in cryptocurrency, is actually developing a new Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform that is going to allow users to choose either to get a weekly UBI payment or perhaps to participate in the community reward pool. Owners participating in the reward pool is going to be strongly incentivized to provide the funding required for the UBI program itself.

“Decentralized finance and UBI are actually a natural fit, particularly as we are working to build economic resilience in cities across the country,” said Neron, who grew up on Chicago’s South Side. “Decentralized finance is actually meant to produce a far more inclusive and open financial system for everyone. We might not have the ability to make it happen for the world’s billion plus poor just yet, but at least we are able to build a practical solution to help regular folks who’ve been affected by COVID, even as government budgets start to be more strained. This’s exactly where the public is able to step in to help.”

Karma Finance is going to be the first DeFi application built for UBI.

About Karma Finance

Karma Finance launched on August thirty one, 2020, with the goal of providing a privately funded Universal Basic Income solution via blockchain and smart contracts. A community based project aimed at empowering users impacted by COVID and other economically devastating events, it uses a unique decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol which allows Karma’ angels’ to stake Ethereum cryptocurrency for the benefit of other users that receive direct UBI payments from the product.

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Cryptocurrency News Ethereum News Litecoin News Ripple News

Flare Networks Announces Smart Contracts For Litecoin

Litecoin and Flare Network

Ripple’s late 2020 rise was due partly to a massive airdrop of Flare (FLR) tokens. Now, the smart contract solution is actually adding support for Litecoin (LTC). An FLR airdrop to Litecoin users is actually in the works.

XRP wallets included in the December snapshot will receive a Flare tokens (worth a great amount of money, potentially).

In a Jan. 8, 2020 tweet, Flare says that they will “reduce” the number of Flare tokens for the project’s founders by five billion. This extra will be distributed to “Litecoin participants.” The Tweet promises clarification in the coming week.

A Flare for airdrops Tokens on the Flare network, known as Spark, will be used for governance and as collateral following the expected token drop in Q2, 2021. The business plans to bring smart contracts to Ripple’s XRP. Previously, Ripple was seen as a vehicle for funds transfer, and Flare claims that Spark tokens will add value.

With this tweet, the company is actually announcing what was somewhat unexpected: that the network will support other cryptocurrencies besides XRP, namely Litecoin.

Flare received a large amount of hype and press before the December snapshot for the airdrop to XRP holders.

For what it is worth, the company is naming their FLR tokens XFLR tokens (for XRP) on their site. There can probably be LFLR tokens for Litecoin. But it may not stop there. Flare could add support for other cryptos.

The rationale for choosing to integrate with Litecoin, over some other similarly sized digital assets, may have come right down to the fact that after XRP, LTC was the next biggest asset currently with no smart contract capabilities.

The Litecoin Foundation has stated it is “very excited to see the capability of smart contracts and interoperability coming for Litecoin through Flare.”

This also opens up the possibility of more such integrations that would bring the DeFi ecosystem to all non-ETH coins in the near future.

Flare has said it may support other networks in the future, but this was given little attention. Support for, say, the Bitcoin network could have implications that are huge and give ETH a run for its money.

Smart contracts and Ethereum competition? The short version of the purpose of Flare is actually to facilitate smart contracts on protocols that don’t have them built in. Flare is backed by XRP, and the airdrop to most XRP-hodling wallets cast Flare into the spotlight.

The very last several weeks have seen insane interest in Ethereum, and as the time tested and secure smart-contract chain, that is no surprise. The #2 crypto may have new investors interested in case they feel like they “missed the boat” with Bitcoin.

But the tech backing Ethereum’s value is the smart contracts. Though there are actually lots of other similar protocols that are potential rivals (DOT, EOS), ADA, Ethereum still reigns supreme.

Nevertheless, if other networks (like XRP or LTC) could support smart contracts, that would widen their appeal. In case these protocols could be interoperable via the Flare network, that would be a coup for Spark tokens (Flare hasn’t suggested they’ve plans for this).

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Blockchain News Cryptocurrency News

South Korean Dvision Network Integrates With Chainlink

Dvision Network

South Korean-based VR Content Ecosystem Dvision Network has announced an integration of its technology with market-leading blockchain oracle solution Chainlink. Chainlink’s Decentralized Price Feeds, will enable Dvision Network users to accurately estimate the cost of NFT item creation in its VR marketplace. Additionally, Chainlink’s Verifiable Random Function (VRF) will enable the secure, provably-fair random generation and distribution of on-chain rewards to its users.

What is Dvision Network?

Dvision Network is a pioneering new VR metaverse on the blockchain, which aspires to set the new standard of what is possible for the VR user experience. By utilizing the exponential potential of Blockchain and VR technologies, Dvision network will create an unprecedented and inclusive virtual ecosystem for businesses, designers, and regular users.

The South-Korean powerhouse aims to establish an efficient VR ecosystem with a new concept, addressing the arising issues in the VR industry. Dvision offers high-quality pieces of content in the VR-City, and a customization of the virtual space in the VR-Space and essentially expands the VR ecosystem via its VR-Market, introducing its unprecedented NFT ecosystem.

Blockchain Oracles and Smart Contracts: A Perfect Match?

Blockchain oracles are devices or programs that enable (on-chain) smart contacts to interact with off-chain data and systems outside their native blockchain. This relationship allows the smart contracts to execute on-chain functions based on real-world data and events such as web APIs, IoT networks, and blockchain data-centric networks.

This new ability to use external data in smart contract applications has been a massive breakthrough, greatly expanding the amount of use cases possible on blockchains. The only caveat with this optimal relationship is that the oracle is responsible for executing the smart contract and must have a level of security and reliability equal to the underlying blockchain.

Chainlink Decentralized Oracle

Chainlink’s decentralized blockchain oracle uses a unique flexible framework preventing any one point of failure whilst allowing users to receive data from external sources. The initial intergration with Division Network will leverage Chainlink’s hugely successful decentralized price feeds as the primary oracle solution in the NFT marketplace.

Chainlink Price Feeds will be used to calculate the exact gas fees incurred when creating NFTs, ensuring users have access to accurate, up-to-date data on the true costs of using the network. Chainlinks Price Feeds were selected exclusively for their best-in-class features, including:

  • High-Quality Data: Price data is sourced from premium off-chain data aggregators, leading to a volume-adjusted market-wide price aggregated from hundreds of exchanges as opposed to any one exchange.
  • Decentralized: Price Feeds are decentralized at both the data source and oracle level, providing highly available and manipulation resistant oracle services.
  • Secure Nodes: All oracle nodes are run by known and experienced blockchain DevOps, bringing users reliable services to users.

Dvision Networks Provably Fair Random Gaming Rewards

Dvision Network will integrate Chainlink VRF to power the distribution of chance-based rewards to users who accomplish certain tasks. Chainlink VRF is an on-chain random number generation (RNG) solution that the oracle nodes, external entities, or even Dvision developers can tamper with.

This shift represents a huge advancement in the space, enabling a provably fair and on-chain verifiable source of secure randomness that any user can independently audit. In-game items or NFT attributes can now be proven as both randomly determined and distributed, ensuring each user has a fair chance of receiving cryptocurrency rewards.

Dvision Network CEO Jung Hyun Eom stated:

“By using Chainlink to access reliable price feeds and determine the distribution of random NFT rewards, Dvision users have assurances that the digital goods created by their gameplay will be based on provably fair systems, as well as be exchangeable on the open market for fair-market values and governed by economic models that are permanent and stable.”

Dvision and Chainlink: A Decentralized Vision

The core values supporting the Chainlink blockchain oracle perfectly align with the vision of Dvision Network, which aims to build a truly decentralized blockchain platform. Dvisions new integration with Chainlinks Verifiable Random Function and Decentralized Price Feeds are a game-changer for the VR industry, with a new found level of trust and security for not only the ecosystem, but the entire VR industry

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Cryptocurrency News

DeFi Platform OIN Finance Partners With Frontier

OIN Finance, a decentralized finance gateway, has partnered with Frontier to bring the FRONT token to OINDAO, being the second token to do so. The integration will allow FRONT to be staked into the OINDAO and used to mint stablecoins alongside OIN and STPT for DeFi applications.

Bringing Frontier’s native token to OIN Finance means it can be used as collateral on the OINDAO platform. Users who stake FRONT tokens can use their collateralized assets to issue USDF stablecoins, unlocking and leveraging the value in their original tokens while retaining ownership of them. With the minted USDF1, users will eventually be able to redeem for a variety of other liquid assets like DAI, USDC, USDT, and even NFTs, with the OINDAO dashboard enabling positions to be monitored and adjusted in real-time.

OIN Finance Co-Founder Richie Li said: “Frontier is on a mission to make DeFi easier to interact with, by aggregating popular protocols. We at OIN are on a mission to bring DeFi functionality to the crypto community as a whole. As the number of projects on OINDAO expands, so too will the list of connected defi features. We are excited to see the synergies here develop, and look forward to the growth of both our platforms.”

Frontier also mentioned in their announcement that “OINDAO is the first decentralized stablecoin issuance platform that also caters to the small cap assets. Different from Maker DAO, OINDAO empowers projects like Frontier to issue their own stable assets. Instead of just copying and forking the current model, the OIN Finance team is aiming to bring value and what’s missing in the current DeFi space to make DeFi more mature.”

Future development of the OIN Finance ecosystem will see support for leveraged trading and cross-chain staking. OIN Finance aims to become a universal portal for token swapping, leveraged trading, and minting stablecoins through its product lines such as OINSWAP, and the OIN Bond.

Decentralized finance refers to a technology that attempts to create a more fluid and flexible model of global exchange through the use of cryptocurrencies. It is a type of peer-to-peer lending that renders traditional financial functions such as settlements, equity certificates, debentures, stock market trading, and commercial loans more accessible, convenient, and fast through the implementation of smart contract technology. Unlike conventional finance, decentralized finance makes the exchange of currencies transparent, profitable, and manageable by removing the need for traditional intermediaries. This results in a more democratic control over the supply and demand of money, which can benefit both borrower and lender.