smart contracts

Jun 25 2021

Altcoin Roundup: Stablecoin pools could be the next frontier for DeFi

In times like these, when the entire cryptocurrency market is down and there is nary a sector-wide runup to be found, traders have to dig into data to see how the market dynamics may have changed to pinpoint signs of new growth.

Stablecoins are the newest trend to emerge in the decentralized finance (DeFi) arena due to the resiliency they bring to the sector, especially since protocols that are more reliant on the dollar-pegged assets continue to offer token holders low-risk yield opportunities in turbulent market conditions.

Possible evidence of stablecoins rising influence can be found in the difference between the decline in Ether’s (ETH) price and the total value locked in smart contracts. The price of Ether declined by 20% more from its peak than the decline in the total TVL of the DeFi sector.

*TVL in smart contracts vs. Ether price decline. Source:* *Glassnode*

When one takes into account that most of the crypto market saw price declines on par with what Ether experienced, the fact that the DeFi TVL fell less percentage-wise than the price of Ether points to the stability offered by stablecoins.

Stablecoin marketcap increases tenfold

The total amount of stablecoins available in the market has skyrocketed from under $15 billion to more than $113 billion over the past year, led by Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), bringing an increased level of liquidity to DeFi protocols.

*Top seven stablecoins by market capitalization. Source:* *CoinGecko*

The top stablecoins are included in a large percentage of the liquidity pool (LP) pairs available on DeFi platforms, as well as being included as a standalone token that users can deposit on protocols, such as Aave, to earn a yield. This further makes them an integral part of the burgeoning DeFi ecosystem.

Stablecoins have, in fact, led to the creation of a specialized subset of DeFi protocols, which focus on yield farming stablecoins and provide a safer way for investors to earn a yield while minimizing risk.

Early on in the DeFi craze, protocols attracted new users and deposits by offering high yields that were typically paid out in the native token of the protocol.

With a majority of DeFi tokens now down at least 75% from their all-time highs, according to data from Messari, many of the gains that users thought they made through staking and providing liquidity have evaporated, leaving little to show for the risks taken on these experimental platforms.

The battle for stablecoin liquidity

The rise of successful stablecoin-focused protocols such as Curve Finance, which is a decentralized exchange for stablecoins that uses an automated market maker to manage liquidity, platforms such as Yearn.finance, Convex Finance and Stake DAO battle to offer the best incentives that will attract a larger share of the Curve ecosystem.

Supplying stablecoins to Curve, or as a stablecoin LP like as a USDC/USDT pair, amounts to the blockchain version of a savings account. Many of the top protocols, including the three listed above, offer between 10% and 30% yields on average for stablecoins deposits.

Thanks to smart contracts, users can make deposits to automated, compounding stablecoin liquidy protocols, reducing the stress of the daily market gyrations.

*Total market capitalization of the top 100 DeFi tokens. Source:* *CoinGecko*

The aftermath of the May 19 sell-off is still impacting investors, and in times like these, the yield opportunities provided by supplying stablecoins to DeFi protocols is an attractive way to diversify a crypto portfolio and hedge against market downturns.

Want more information about diversification into the above-mentioned projects?

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Altcoin Roundup: Stablecoin pools could be the next frontier for DeFi

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Jun 25 2021

Solidity for Beginners: A Guide to Getting Started

Solidity is a pristine programming language formulated explicitly for developing smart contracts for the Ethereum blockchain. The newly developed language has gained a significant role under Ethereum’s contracts framework that is of great importance in blockchain technology; in fact, you will be required to learn the language in order to code Ethereum Dapps (Decentralized Applications). The developers created this language with an aim to showcase the real potential of the system of smart contracts in the realm of digital exchanges.

This article will provide you with a detailed understanding of smart contract systems, solidity language, functionality, and solidity basics. These fundamentals will lend you basic knowledge about the subject to help you in getting started.

Table of Content

What are smart contacts?
What is Solidity?
Solidity basics for beginners.
How is compiling and testing of smart contact done?
An overview: Solidity flow of execution
Closing Thoughts.

What Are Smart Contracts?

The term smart contracts have gained a ton of publicity since its formulation; it’s been at the center of attention just like other popular terms like AI (artificial intelligence), Machine Learning, Blockchain, etc. Smart contracts, also known as crypto-contracts, are automatic computer programs that empower currency tradings, digital asset exchanges, and other kinds of businesses. These exchanges are secured by a predefined set of rules summoned as a smart contract system. Thus, smart contracts not just guarantee that both the parties are adhering to the principles and regulations of the smart contract but also automatically implement the contract obligations.

What is Solidity?

Solidity is the principal programming language for assembling smart contracts utilized in the Ethereum blockchain. It is a contract-based language, which implies that smart contracts are liable for putting away the entirety of the programming reasoning on which the Ethereum blockchain runs. It is statically formulated to uphold essential elements like libraries, legacy and that’s just the beginning!

Solidity is an easy language purposely made for an oversimplified way to provide genuine solutions for the issues of real-world use cases. The language has been implemented on the Ethereum platform, a Virtual Machine carrying out the blockchain network to foster decentralized public records to make smart contract frameworks. This programming language has similar functions as JavaScript and C++. Moreover, the language upholds state factors such as value types, data types and programming capacities.

However, the language still deals with constant updates and modifications across the platform. Subsequently, an aspiring SOLIDITY DEVELOPER should be aware of the updates through forums of the Ethereum platform, chat rooms, and websites. Currently, Ethereum and Solidity are both going through visionary growth.

Solidity Basics for beginners

Solidity language supports the following general value types:

Booleans: It returns a true or false value.
Integers: The int/unit for both unsigned and signed integers are supported by Solidity.
Address: An address can carry up to a 20-byte value.
String Literals: String literals are depicted using either double or single quotes. They imply trailing value zeroes.
Modifier: Modifiers ensure the fulfillment of the predefined conditions before code execution.
Mappings: Mappings return values related to a given storage site.

These generic value types can be further integrated to develop complex data types.

How is the compiling and testing of smart contract done?

Once you have created a smart contract using Solidity on a local system, install an easy-to-use test environment that accepts simple Truffle commands. The compiler transforms the source code into the Ethereum Virtual Machine code, allowing you to test your code without needing to pay Ether coins.

An overview: Solidity flow of execution

The syntactical consonance of Solidity with another programming language, JavaScript, has extensively improved the system’s usability. As a beginner, you must have a clear idea of the execution process under a solidity programming language command:

The Ethereum format documentation draws out an instruction text size of 32-byte containing a stack and memory model. The EVM generates a program stack that monitors the registries under information storage and program counter. To keep a successive stream to control the program, the program counter loops/jumps.

Additionally, the virtual memory lends short memory for information distribution that is expandable to some degree compared to a permanent storage allowance provided by the nodes of the blockchain.

The aim of creating solidity language for Ethereum is to maintain the determinism and accuracy of smart contracts. The node executes programming tools and smart contracts within the connected blocks in the Ethereum for creating a new block.

This implies the code being executed is enrolled based on the sequence of the block.

While entering the new stage of the execution process, the program phase gets shifted to new storage exchanges. At first, these exchanges are performed at the miner’s location. After execution, the new block is dissipated to different working nodes within the blockchain.

To confirm the credibility of the framework of smart contracts, every node autonomously checks the block by correlating the state changes by using any local copy of the block. In cases where the state changes are deterministic, nodes of the blockchain accept the exchanges. Similarly, in a circumstance where the nodes could not reach an agreement, the execution of the block stops, and the network may end.

Closing Thoughts

Solidity is the language that has the power to develop the frameworks of contracts with robust functionality. Smart contracts have generated ample opportunities for further blockchain developments and multiple sectors of online business. Hopefully, you learned the fundamentals of solidity programming language to use while creating your smart contract.

Learn more about blockchain technology under the guidance of a highly qualified Ethereum expert at the BLOCKCHAIN COUNCIL.

Solidity for Beginners: A Guide to Getting Started

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Jun 21 2021

Chris Giancarlo: U.S. risks becoming ‘backwater’ without central bank digital currency

One of the few high-profile public officials to have served under both the Obama and Trump administrations, Chris Giancarlo is a former Wall Street executive-turn-regulator who is widely-respected by nearly all parties on Capitol Hill. As the former Chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, however, his latest venture, the Digital Dollar Foundation, might well test his soft touch with politicians.

The former regulator is now leading the Foundation towards five pilot programs set to launch this year, part of a broader effort to help the United States regain the lead in a race against China towards a functioning CBDC.

According to Giancarlo, however, the US’s priorities when it comes to a CBDC shouldn’t merely be jingoistic:

“What’s very clear, [is] that China intends their digital yuan to be an instrument of state surveillance. […] And this is why it’s one of the reasons why the digital dollar project, we’re so animated, because we feel that our new mission is to make sure central banks wake up to this and the US Fed wakes up to this, that these social values that got us here, the rule of law, a free capital markets, free enterprise, zones of individual economic privacy, are ingrained in a new digital future of the US dollar, and that we don’t allow ourselves to be taken in by what China’s doing and match that state surveillance approach.”

However, the race to a CBDC isn’t merely about maintaining current US values, but also potnetially about unlocking new forms of smart contract-based value for the wider population.

“The notion of a digital currency, whether it be sovereign and non-sovereign, tied to smart contracts, allows money to solve the old problem of being able to move it in place, i.e. moving around the globe as easily as you could send a text message, but also move it in time. Heretofore, money was a temporal thing, but with a smart contract you can say, I want to program my money today to go to my one grandchild in the future once they graduate college and all of those contingencies can be programmed in. […] With a programmable digital currency, you can program it today to move around the globe in space, but move around the globe in time. And that is such, I think, such a powerful construct.”

Ultimately, this work is part of an effort to ensure that America maintains technological supremacy.

“You can’t stop the march of technology in time, and if you do, you become a backwater. We in the United States have always been open to innovation and we must be open to this innovation as well. In a prudent way, in a way that’s in correspondence with our society that expects investor protections and a role for government. […] And it’s one that I’m very excited to be involved in.”

Watch the full interview here:

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Chris Giancarlo: U.S. risks becoming \’backwater\’ without central bank digital currency

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Jun 21 2021

Should you consider EOS for your blockchain development?

The world has witnessed a massive technological advancement. People dealing in digital currencies demand a safe and secure environment. But the traditional forms of blockchain development have some loopholes. And the latest technologies are thus being introduced in the market. One such platform is EOS.

We will discuss everything you must know about EOS in this article so that you can ensure whether to consider EOS for your blockchain development or not.

What is EOS?

In short, EOS is a cryptocurrency. The smart contract platform of EOS blockchain development removes transaction fees and its potential to conduct millions of transactions every second. This particular fact is helping it to earn the blockchain investors’ trust.

Its primary objective was to offer a straightforward interface for facilitating blockchain development. Another attractive feature of EOS was that it eliminates the gas fees for transaction processing.

Should you consider EOS for your blockchain development?

Features of EOS:

The few features that make EOS preferred are given below:

Convenience:

EOS offers convenience in several aspects of developing blockchain, including EOS wallet development. The bare-bone interface is useful for developing DApps. It can also be used to deploy private, public, permissionless, and permissioned infrastructures of blockchain. The EOS smart contracts allow you to make custom business logic and programmable governance.

Performance:

It offers top-notch TPS rates. Thus, it is the best for developing mission-critical blockchain apps. EOS is also proved to show superior performance and eliminates the latency rate of sub-second block time. It also keeps the accuracy intact.

Upgradability:

EOS allows the developers to change and upgrade the code besides improvising it. This feature of EOS contributes to flexibility. The developer-friendly nature of EOS is another side that makes it a blockchain software that is preferred for expanding tools, products, and features.

Measurability:

It is proved that EOS can potentially process and measure millions of transactions every second. It is made possible by the incorporation of advanced DPOS technology that further enhanced the efficiency of the framework of EOS. Even with having a massive user base, there are no performance issues.

Consensus protocols:

The correct algorithms furnished with EOS give it an upper hand. DPOS mechanism in EOS enhances its functionality.

Parallel processing and Multiprocessing:

EOS successfully reduces the excessive load on a program, as there exist multiple processors. Horizontal measurability improves transaction speed. And vertical measurability boosts the processing power. Asynchronous communication fuels time management assets and smoothens communication.

The end-to-end encryption contributes to the security of EOS. All the verification standards and safety norms are used while developing EOS. Trouble-shooting is also added to the blockchain platform.

How does EOS work?

A validator’s coin or EOS token gets locked up as stakes. Then, the validation starts, and the betting system is activated.

The validators now think about the blocks that are possible to add to the chain and put a bet on them. If the block gets added, based on their bets, validators are rewarded.

Role of DPOS in EOS blockchain:

DPOS (delegated proof-of-stake) is a consensus system for seamlessly channelizing cryptocurrency transactions. Additionally, it is backed up with speed and security. In cases of malfunctions, it entertains the longest chain automatically.

DPOS protects blockchain as it depends on the voting process. Being a decentralized framework, it contributes to feasibility both for the business and the user. Besides being usable and reliable, it is faster, cheaper, and more efficient, making it ideal for a decentralized system.

The payment system in EOS:

EOS is a cryptocurrency of EOS.IO. Free transactions, a popular advantage of EOS for being a preferred software.

The holder’s EOS coin owns a network instead of any transaction fees or renting virtual machinery. For instance, if you possess EOS’ 3% of coin stakes, you own 3% of network strength for processing the transaction, thereby allowing free transactions. Just like any other crypto, one can possess, get, or give away funds among digital EOS wallet ledger.

Business application of EOS:

Blockchain can be beneficial to your business. And blockchain technology can be used in different ways in business. Some of the business applications of EOS are described below:

Cryptocurrency:

You can use EOS as a tool for investment in a cryptocurrency or crypto space. The proof-of-stake system provides mining power to the blockchain. Because of no transaction fee, it is popular among developers.

High-end transactional DApps:

EOS blockchain can be applied in DApps that require a massive capacity of transaction. EOS stabilizes user authentication at different levels. And thereby, it allows anyone to develop a DApp, run it, and authorize it while sharing data among users.

Conclusion:

EOS comes with countless features. And, this makes it one of the most assured blockchain platforms in the world of cryptocurrency. Opt for EOS development services for developing efficient apps.

Moreover, the business applications of EOS have already popularized it across the world. We can expect EOS to expand more in the foreseeable future and will overpower the traditional applications of blockchain.

Should you consider EOS for your blockchain development?

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Jun 19 2021

3 reasons why Ethereum may underperform Bitcoin in the short-term

Ether (ETH) price outperformed Bitcoin (BTC) by 173% from March 28 to May 15. The incredible bull caused the token to reach a $4,380 all-time high. However, as cryptocurrency markets initiated a sharp drop on May 12, the trend started to reverse, and since then, Ether has underperformed by 25%.

Some might say it is a technical adjustment after a strong rally. While this partially explains the move, it excludes some critical factors, including the fast advance of smart-contract network competitors and Bitcoin being adopted as an official currency for the first time.

*Ether / Bitcoin price at Binance. Source: TradingView*

Notice how the ETH/BTC ratio rallied again on June 8, reaching 0.77 despite Ether’s price remaining 36% below its all-time high and ranging near $2,800. To understand what could have been driving the ratio, analysts need to analyze Ether and Bitcoin price drivers separately.

Mike Novogratz may have been misinterpreted in his interview

Ether’s bull run potentially got an extra leg due to intense praise from institutional investors. Traders could have picked up a sense of urgency, known as FOMO, and promptly shifted their Bitcoin exposure towards the leading altcoin.

On May 13, New Yorker magazine published an interview with Mike Novogratz, the founder, and CEO of Galaxy Digital. In the conversation, Novogratz said:

“All of a sudden, you have decentralized finance and NFTs both on Ethereum at the same time roughly, with wild accelerating growth.”

Novogratz was then questioned on how much higher Ether could reach, to which he answered:

“You know, it’s dangerous to give predictions on the highs. But could it get to $5,000? Of course it could.”

While an Ethereum holder might have interpreted it as a prediction, others could have understood it as a wild guess, likely depending on general crypto market conditions.

However, roughly a week later, a report from Goldman Sachs revealed the global investment bank believed that Ether had a “high chance of overtaking Bitcoin as a dominant store of value.” Interestingly, one of the main quotes in the report was directly from Novogratz’s interview with the New Yorker.

At its peak, Binance Chain controlled 40% of DEX volume

While Ethereum has kept its 80% dominance on net value locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) has reached a 40% market share on DEX exchanges.

*PancakeSwap DEX daily volume vs. top 10. Source: DeBank*

The successful growth of the DeFi industry and non fungible token (NFT) markets caused intense congestion on the Ethereum network, raising median fees to $37 in mid-May. That bottleneck triggered an activity exodus to competing networks, and PancakeSwap was best positioned to capture that flow.

To make things worse, important DeFi projects expanded to Binance Smart Chain, including yield aggregator Harvest Finance and decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch. Investors quickly realized that the trend could continue as the competing smart-contract network provided an easy solution for dApps looking for cheaper alternatives.

No country is adopting the ‘Ethereum standard’

Bitcoin might have had a subpar performance over the past 30 days because it has failed to break the $42,000 resistance multiple times. However, a major milestone was achieved when El Salvador became the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender on June 12.

After the Central American country made the decision law, a handful of other Central and South American countries began discussing the advantages of taking a similar path.

Ethereum is undertaking a redesign that will change the issuing rate and how entities get paid to secure the network by moving away from the Proof of Work model. Meanwhile, Bitcoin is making sure that every upgrade is backward-compatible and maintaining its strict monetary policy.

That is the main reason why Ether will not outperform Bitcoin over the next 12 months, or at least until there’s a better understanding of how Ethereum network dominance of smart contracts will be.

Professional investors avoid uncertainties at all costs, and cryptocurrency markets already present plenty of that. There’s just no reason for institutional investors to ignore the risks while competing networks eat Ethereum’s lunch.

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.

3 reasons why Ethereum may underperform Bitcoin in the short-term

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