Thank you, Lord, for this day. May it be used for your glory!
Good morning and welcome back to another edition of Crypto Thursdays!
Today I have 3 fun articles for you that are definitely getting me excited for the second half of 2022! Let’s jump in!
Innovative NFT Minting Strategies
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1551630301524381697.html
This was an interesting thread that covers a strategy to solve a pretty big problem in the NFT world.
Let me lay out the problem:
Whenever a popular NFT series is going to mint a new set of NFTs, they usually have a large following ready to snatch them up.
If you are already lost, think about it like when a new video game comes out and people line up at Gamestop. Or when the new iPhones would come out and people would camp out at the Apple store.
But this time it’s all digital.
The problem with it being digital is that hackers can take advantage of the system.
The issue is that since the blockchain is anonymous, it’s hard to block people from writing scripts to buy a ton of NFTs.
See, most of these projects will limit the number of NFTs a person can get. If it’s really popular, they want all their fans to have an equal chance of getting one. They don’t want someone with massive amounts of money to buy them all and sell them at a higher price.
People have tried so many strategies, but the hackers still find a way to break the system and buy more than they should be allowed.
I’ve definitely been burned by this before on a project I was very excited about.
Solving this problem would be huge for the NFT world.
Solana Set to Open IRL Retail Store and Web3 'Embassy' in New York
https://decrypt.co/106088/solana-spaces-irl-store-web3-embassy-new-york
I’m so excited about this for some reason! I really like the Solana blockchain and am even learning how to build on it.
The Solana foundation team has put out some extremely innovative things over the past year or so. They introduced us to Solana pay which is a way for you to use the Solana network to pay for things at the cash register.
Instead of using Apple pay to pay for things using Visa’s network, you can use Solana pay to pay for things using Solana’s network. And it’s just as fast but completely decentralized!
They also recently announced that next year they will be releasing the very first Solana smartphone! It will have a ton of cool features like built-in hardware to manage all your private keys.
The latest news is that they just opened a real-life brick and mortar store in New York! They are selling merchandise as well as allowing people to use Solana to pay for major discounts.
The store’s other purpose is to draw people in and teach them about Solana, blockchain, and web3. I think this is a very promising and fun endeavor!
Ethereum’s Final Testnet Merge Set for Early August
https://decrypt.co/106187/ethereum-final-testnet-merge-early-august
So, I’m skeptical of this one, but we’ll see what happens.
This “merge” thing has been in the works for over a year now. Maybe closer to 2 years.
Here is what this means.
Ethereum started as a proof of work blockchain, like bitcoin. This just means you need to run a hefty computer in order to “mine” Eth. Essentially converting electricity into cryptocurrency.
A lot of environmentalists hate this and say that cryptocurrencies are destroying the world because of mining.
I actually have a hot take and believe these proof of work systems will help the world environmentally.
I think that it will encourage increased innovation in creating renewable energy sources. I mean, because of bitcoin, we’ve started to see things like using volcanic energy to mine bitcoin! It also supplies a way to essentially store energy.
Anyways, a lot of people hate it, though.
One alternative is a system called proof of stake.
Without getting into the weeds, this is where you take your own Ethereum and “stake” it against the system. You then act as a validator for the network and earn rewards for staking your cryptocurrency.
It’s more complicated than that, but the big reason for proof of stake is that it doesn’t require hefty energy usage.
The Ethereum foundation has been wanting to do this merge for a long long time. Word on the street is they are going into their final round of testing now!
If all goes well, they plan to do the official and final merge on or around September 19th!
Thanks for reading and supporting me! Feel free to share this post, it really helps me out!