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The 10 Most Crypto-Friendly Cities in the World

Singapore Skyline - A Crypto-Friendly City

Prefer to listen instead? Here’s the podcast version of this article.

Cryptocurrency is transforming the finance industry to the point where everyday people are now keeping up with the emerging technology. Investing in crypto is so common that some investors put more money into cryptocurrencies than stocks. Along with conventional investment instruments, crypto is now receiving legitimate consideration for serious investment portfolios.

 

That said, some parts of the world are more open to cryptocurrency transactions than others. This article will point out ten of the most crypto-friendly cities worldwide.

 

#10 London

London is a global hub for business, technology, arts, culture, and more. Therefore, it makes sense the city has embraced cryptocurrency. There are 50 bitcoin ATMs in London and about the same number of vendors (big and small) who accept Bitcoin as payment. The city is home to CoinCorner, which claims to be the oldest bitcoin exchange in the United Kingdom. The city is also known for numerous bitcoin and crypto meetup groups, demonstrating Londoners’ interest and openness to cryptocurrencies.

 

#9 Amsterdam

Alongside its culture, food, and nightlife, Amsterdam is quickly garnering attention for its positive cryptocurrency views. The city is home to The Bitcoin Embassy, the organization where the global crypto community initiates various efforts to promote and popularize Bitcoin. Amsterdam is also the home of Bitcoin Boulevard, a street in which most shops, vendors, and merchants accept Bitcoin as payment.

The city has more than 40 vendors that accept Bitcoin and numerous crypto ATMs. This positive attitude towards crypto has made the booming tech city a desirable location for crypto startups and ICOs.

 

#8 Madrid

Since 2021, Madrid has passed legislation to regulate cryptocurrency usage in businesses. While these coins aren’t recognized as “legal tender” yet, the country is making strides. One effort is that Spanish citizens can buy gift cards from various brands using crypto coins. For example, these gift cards can pay for Netflix and Amazon (ES) subscriptions.

 

#7 Prague

In the capital of the Czech Republic, individuals can use cryptocurrencies to pay rent, buy movie tickets, shop, and more. The city is also home to Paralelní Polis, one of the world’s first Bitcoin-only cafes.

 

#6 Miami

The state capital of Florida has around four dozen vendors willing to accept Bitcoin and about 652 Bitcoin ATMs and tellers. The city also hosts the Miami Bitcoin Conference, which is among the world’s oldest conventions in the crypto industry. The city’s government has been making numerous efforts to attract crypto-centric businesses to Miami. Mayor Francis Suarez even proposed investing city funds in Bitcoin and launching a municipal cryptocurrency.

#5 Singapore

After China banned cryptocurrency, many businesses relocated to Singapore due to its crypto-friendly regulations and industry growth opportunities. Singapore regulations surrounding crypto are transparent, ensuring higher certainty and more informed decision-making from companies. About 400 blockchain startups are currently registered in the country.

 

In particular, the Monetary Authority of Singapore has released a “Guide to Digital Token Offering,” which explains how the country’s security laws influence and cover token offerings. Singapore’s Technology Infrastructure Office stated that their regulations do not affect utility tokens, only payment tokens.

 

It is common to find restaurants, cafes, and businesses in Singapore accepting crypto payments. There is no capital gains tax in the country, so companies and individuals holding crypto as long-term investments are not taxed.

 

#4 Toronto

The capital of Canada is showing signs of becoming one of the world’s most crypto-friendly destinations. In this city, residents can pay for various goods and services, such as dinner, drinks, rent, clothes, dentist appointments, and even mortgage payments in crypto (to accepting merchants). Canada is home to NOWPayments, which allows Toronto-based companies to set up crypto-payment gateways. The platform is compatible with eCommerce ventures based on platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify, which reveal positive attitudes towards these currencies. Even many charities accept crypto payments through NOWPayments.

 

Bear in mind that crypto is still not designated as legal tender in Toronto, but regulatory steps to change this are underway. All this makes the city highly desirable for individuals looking to live a crypto-friendly life.

 

#3 New York City

The home to Wall Street is one of the most pro-crypto cities globally. There are multiple places—restaurants, shops, cafes, nightclubs— that accept crypto payments. The city boasts over three dozen vendors accepting crypto payments, some of which include the Bitcoin Store in lower Manhattan and CryptoART in Morningside Heights. Numerous crypto startups and media firms such as CoinDesk, CoinTelegraph, and Decrypt are also based out of the city. New York City also hosts Consensus, one of the largest annual crypto industry events.

 

#2 San Francisco

As one of the most vibrant technology hubs in the world, San Francisco is a major cryptocurrency center. There are more than 100 vendors in San Francisco that accept crypto and over 400 ATMs in the Bay Area. Crypto trading platforms like Coinbase and Kraken blossomed out of San Francisco.

 

#1 Ljubljana

Despite being the smallest city on the list, the capital of Slovenia leads the world in crypto adoption and innovation. Even with a population of less than 300 thousand, the city has 11 Bitcoin ATMs and more than 200 vendors accepting Bitcoin. It has 72 shops and 33 sporting venues also accepting crypto payments. In particular, Tus, one of Slovenia’s largest grocery store chains, also accepts crypto payments.

 

Ljubljana is also known for “Bitcoin City,” a 1.56 million square foot mall in which all shops accept Bitcoin and leverage blockchain technology for business operations. The mall uses the Elly payment system, a digital payment platform that allows merchants to accept alternate payment options such as cryptocurrencies.

 

Ljubljana is also the headquarters of Bitstamp, one of the most popular crypto exchanges. In fact, the number of blockchain enterprises in Slovenia is so high that the government is now passing legislation to regulate crypto holdings and transactions.

 

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And there you go, the ten most crypto-friendly cities. These cities stand out by their efforts to embrace and support cryptocurrency. By being forward-thinking and accepting crypto, these cities will become known as hubs for the emerging technology while bringing in new businesses, cash flows, talent, and innovators.

 

Interested in discovering how crypto can help your business? Contact us at info@quantilus.com for a consultation to learn how we can help.

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]]> What Are Blockchain Bridges? http://quantilus.com/article/what-are-blockchain-bridges/ Mon, 11 Apr 2022 13:57:34 +0000 https://quantilus.com/?p=10271

What Are Blockchain Bridges?

Blockchain Bridges

Prefer to listen instead? Here’s the podcast version of this article.

The finance industry has seen significant shifts over the past few years with the growing popularity of cryptocurrency. The success of cryptocurrencies has prompted evangelists to propose that the next version of the internet, Web3, should also be driven by blockchain. Development platforms like Ethereum are already working towards making this a reality, creating tokenized applications like DeFi. But as Web3 development creates a complex ecosystem of blockchain scaling solutions, the number of blockchain protocols is also increasing.

To create seamless integrations between these protocols so that assets can move between different chains without trouble, we need blockchain bridges. This article will look at crypto bridging, how blockchain bridges connect blockchain worlds, and why they are pivotal in building Web3.

 

What Is a Blockchain Bridge?

Blockchain bridges are connections between two blockchain ecosystems. Just as a physical bridge connects two physical locations, a blockchain bridge integrates two different blockchain worlds running on similar or varying protocols. This connection allows the transfer of data and tokens between the ecosystems. Bridges help blockchains propagate the ‘distributed ledgers’ beyond the local limits of a mesh network, creating seamless interconnections.

All blockchains are developed in isolated environments, with different rules and consensus mechanisms inside each network. Therefore, two blockchains cannot communicate natively, meaning tokens and assets cannot move freely from one blockchain to another. This is where blockchain bridges come into the equation, as they are the middleware between two ecosystems.

For example, someone wants to exchange Bitcoin for Ethereum ETH. For this to happen, you will need an exchange that transforms Bitcoin into Ethereum. A Bitcoin to Ethereum bridge, such as tBTC, makes this action occur seamlessly.

How Does a Blockchain Bridge Work?

Bridging in blockchain has a few steps that work in tandem to transmit information (assets, contract calls, proofs, state) from the source blockchain to the destination blockchain.

  • Monitoring: An agent known as an oracle, validator, or relayer monitors the state on the source blockchain.
 
  • Message Relaying: When an actor discovers an event happening on the blockchain, it initiates an information transfer from the source blockchain to the destination blockchain.
 
  • Consensus: In some cases, monitoring actors need to be in consensus to be able to transmit information to the destination blockchain.
 
  • Signing: Actors or agents cryptographically sign information being sent to another blockchain.
 

Blockchain bridges are based on the Burn-and-Mint protocol. Tokens are not transferred but are burned (destroyed) on the source blockchain and minted (created) on the destination blockchain.

 

Trusted vs. Trustless Bridges

Blockchain bridges can be either trusted or trustless. A trusted or federated bridge runs similar to a private or permissioned blockchain. A central entity manages and oversees bridge transactions, and a set of criteria is established that an individual must meet to become part of the central federation. Like most centralized operations, there are trust assumptions on the custody of the funds and the bridge’s security. Users make decisions based on the reputations of the bridge and do not control their assets. PolyNetwork and PoS Bridge are examples of Trusted Bridges.

 

Unlike the federated model, a trustless bridge is entirely decentralized and operates via a network of agents that are not centrally governed. Just like public blockchains, anyone can join the network as an agent. Agents are incentivized to ensure bridge transactions are correctly validated. Syscoin bridge is an example of a trustless bridge.

 

Benefits of Blockchain Bridges

The best blockchain bridges enable a multitude of benefits, including:

  • Fixing development issues and lowering transmission costs

Developers building apps for a particular blockchain platform often face the issues of slower transactions between two blockchain ecosystems and higher incurred costs during high-traffic periods and congestion. Using blockchain bridges, developers can easily send the tokens to a blockchain that processes them faster at a lower cost. Blockchain bridges enable developers to continue building apps on their preferred platforms without bearing interoperability headaches or routing costs.

 
  • Greater scalability across different blockchain networks

Both blockchain ecosystems benefit from using a blockchain bridge. First, a blockchain bridge reduces network traffic by distributing token processing across other, less congested blockchain networks. Additionally, a bridge makes the blockchains infinitely scalable by removing the consensus and different ecosystem-specific rules.

 
  • Faster, near-instantaneous payments and settlements

Blockchain bridges resolve scalability issues that popular blockchain networks like Ethereum often face, thus enabling instantaneous peer-to-peer transactions. Payments and settlements are not impacted by network congestion or traffic. Instead, workloads are transferred to lower congestion blockchains for instant processing.  DApps the biggest beneficiaries of blockchain bridges, accomplishing complex transactions in lesser hops and at a faster rate.

 

Examples of Blockchain Bridges

As of March 2022, there is $21.8 billion worth of cryptocurrencies locked in bitcoin bridges. Some of the most popular crypto bridges include:

  • WBTC or Wrapped Bitcoin: The world’s largest blockchain bridge, with $11.28 billion worth of crypto in TVL (Total Value Locked).
 
  • Multichain or MULTI: The largest cross-chain bridge in existence, with a TVL of $6.26 billion.
 
  • Avalanche, Polygon, and Fantom Anyswap: Some of the largest bridges in the Ethereum platform, with a combined TVL of $15 billion.
 

Blockchain bridges have greatly improved blockchain performance and lessoned network congestion. Bridges are crucial for developers and users, enabling interoperability between different blockchain worlds. Future development for blockchain bridges will reduce the token verification overheads, move to the more secure ‘bonded’ and ‘insured’ models, and introduce bridge aggregators for a better user experience across the board. Blockchain bridges are one of the many emerging advancements that are helping improve the blockchain experience that will help increase the technology’s adoption rate.

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]]> What Is Blockchain Technology? http://quantilus.com/article/what-is-blockchain-technology/ Thu, 17 Mar 2022 18:05:39 +0000 https://quantilus.com/?p=9528

What Is Blockchain Technology?

Blockchain

Prefer to listen instead? Here’s the podcast version of this article.

Cryptocurrency has taken the financial world by storm in recent years. Cryptocurrency’s rapid growth has pushed tech evangelists to consider the digital currency’s underlying technology, blockchain. Some experts argue blockchain technology will eventually power the internet via and digital worlds like the metaverse. But what is blockchain, how does it work, and can it truly be the framework of the future? Let’s find out.

 

What Is Blockchain?

A blockchain is a growing list of records or ledgers stored across a peer-to-peer network, joined by strong cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block (this is how two blocks are connected), a time-stamp of the transaction that the block represents, and additional transaction data. Instead of the traditional way of storing transaction data in a single, central computer, blockchains store replicas of a particular database across various computers in a network. These computers and devices in a network are called nodes.

 

How Does Blockchain Work?

Blockchain is a portmanteau involving block (the data/transaction chunk) and chain (the cryptographic link connecting the blocks). A new block is created whenever new data is added to a network. Then, all nodes in the network update their version of the blockchain ledger to include this new block.

 

Blockchains are immutable, which means a single entity cannot change the data in the blocks. New blocks are only added to a chain when a consensus is reached by most nodes in a network, which is done by verifying and confirming whether the new data is valid. Strong cryptography adds additional security at the node level when processing a transaction. Lastly, since each block contains the cryptographic hash of the previous block, blockchains can be traced from the most recent transaction to the first transaction.

There are two types of blockchains; private and public. Public blockchains allow anyone in a network to read, write and inspect data. On the other hand, private blockchains are regulated by an organization or a group.

 

Benefits of Blockchain Technology

There are multiple tangible benefits of using Blockchain technology, including: 

 

  • Security: Blockchains are essentially distributed ledgers, which means that a single entity does not own them. This decentralization means that blockchain products are more secure and harder to manipulate or exploit.
 
  • Transparency: Blockchains record the immutable transactions and their date/time stamps in multiple locations. Entities with proper access can view this data, providing complete transparency across the mesh network. This is noticeably different from traditional methods where transaction visibility is limited to regulatory authorities.
 
  • Traceability: Blockchain’s distributed ledgers create a trail of records that can be easily audited to track a transaction’s origin. Blockchain’s open traceability is critical in industries prone to fraud and counterfeiting and can also be used to track problems in a supply chain.
 
  • Speed: Blockchain removes third-party mediation, along with the need for paper-heavy, human-error-prone processes. Therefore, traditional methods that switch to a decentralized platform like Ethereum or Binance will experience greater efficiency and speed.
 
  • Automation: Smart contracts in blockchain technology can automatically trigger the next steps in a transaction when specific prerequisites are met. Increased automation using blockchain reduces human interventions in processes, further increasing efficiency while reducing errors.
 

Use Cases for Blockchain

The public Blockchain platform has helped develop many products over the years. Some of which include:

 

  • Cryptocurrencies (Crypto)

Cryptocurrencies are perhaps the best showcase for public blockchain technology. An all-digital currency, crypto uses a public mesh of tokens connected through encrypted trails of data, similar to a ledger. Like blockchain, cryptocurrency is not centrally stored but is spread into tokens that hold monetary value. Bitcoin and Ethereum are the world’s most popular cryptocurrencies, with Ethereum recently driving innovation in the public blockchain domain.

 
  • Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)

Another product of blockchain technology are NFTs. NFTs represent decentralized, tokenized forms of digital content. They can be original artworks, videos, songs, documents, and more. Each NFT and its ownership is represented as a token that can be bought, sold, or traded. The proliferation of NFTs and NFT marketplaces has helped digital creators sell their art directly to consumers without third-party regulatory platforms acting as middlemen. Blockchain NFTs have become so popular that organizations that typically sell physical products are now selling NFTs to reach more customers.

 
  • Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Apps

Public, peer-to-peer (directly between two users without routing via a centralized system) blockchain technology has created a platform that many developers use to create decentralized applications (DApps). A large portion of DApps is targeted towards creating alternatives to traditional banking, lending, and financial apps. DeFi apps utilize blockchain mesh networks to provide more accessible, secure, and efficient solutions that do not require paperwork or third-party verification. These DeFi apps are also free from traditional governing authorities like banks, brokerages, or exchanges. DeFi is also pseudonymous and open to all.

 
  • Metaverse

One of the most ambitious projects utilizing blockchain technology is the metaverse—a digital replica of our ever-expanding social universe, replete with marketplaces, interactive experiences, and more. The metaverse strives to be a virtual living space for everyone, built on public blockchains to provide less regulation and instant accessibility globally. Digital avatar represents users in the metaverse. Interactions with other avatars, entities, platforms, and stores can be 100% digital or a hybrid of the virtual and real-world.

 
  • Web3

The current version of the internet is dubbed Web2. It is an ecosystem of consumers and creators built on a mixture of static and dynamic content. Web2 is heavily regulated through internet providers like Comcast and Jio, service providers like Meta, Google, and Amazon, and authorities like governments. Web3 builds on blockchain technology’s public and accessible nature (largely the Ethereum platform) to provide a public internet void of regulation. In Web3, data is user-owned and controlled, transactions are based on cryptocurrency and peer-to-peer networks, and transmissions are strong-encrypted. Web3 will be faster, decentralized, and not owned by a single entity.

 

The buzz around decentralized products like cryptocurrency, NFTs, and DeFi has brought blockchain to the forefront of emerging technologies. Furthermore, other projects like the metaverse and Web3 place an even greater emphasis on blockchain technology. For blockchain to transition to mainstream relevance, the ambitious undertakings need to deliver on their promises and iron out bugs, performance, and security issues. With big corporations like Google, Meta, and Microsoft interested in developing solutions using blockchain, a future of public, accessible-to-all technologies may be here sooner than we expect.

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]]> The Ultimate Guide to Smart Contracts http://quantilus.com/article/the-ultimate-guide-to-smart-contracts/ Thu, 17 Mar 2022 18:05:31 +0000 https://quantilus.com/?p=9527

The Ultimate Guide to Smart Contracts

Smart Contracts

Prefer to listen instead? Here’s the podcast version of this article.

As the world shifts towards digital and automated processes, traditionally manual tasks are being overhauled to incorporate modern technologies. This includes contracts, which may eventually be replaced by smart contracts that utilize blockchain technology.

In general, a contract is a written and signed agreement between two parties on a set of conditions. A smart contract is a digital contract written as a computer program to be executed once preconditions are met. They are helpful in various transactions, such as dispensing a bottle in a vending machine, to more complex cases like real estate or supply chain.

 

What Is a Smart Contract?

Smart contracts are digital contracts that are defined and programmed in computer code. Additionally, they self-execute when the conditions of a contract are met, removing the need for manual involvement. Recently, smart contracts have gained popularity because of blockchain technology, which provides unprecedented levels of security and immutability. Smart contracts utilize the blockchain’s distributed and decentralized network to store and execute the code written in smart contracts.

 

Types of Smart Contracts

Fully-programmed smart contracts are called in-code contracts. Conversely, ancillary contracts complement text-based agreements and automate parts of its transaction.

 

How Do Smart Contracts Work?

Programmers code smart contracts with necessary data inputs and security measures on a smart contract platform. Afterward, they are deployed and encrypted on a smart contract blockchain like Ethereum. The contract is then ready and waiting for specific conditions to be met. Once conditions are met, the smart contract will take action (execute) according to the contract’s directions.

 

Contracts can also invoke other contracts if stipulated, and all transactions are recorded on the blockchain. These contract transactions are immutable and cannot be modified once recorded on a network, which provides a high level of security.

Examples of smart contract use-cases include, helping identify payments, fulfilling orders, settling insurance claims, and defining financial market actions.

 

Ethereum-Based Smart Contracts

Ethereum is a public, permissionless blockchain network that launched in 2015. It became notable with its cryptocurrency token, Ether. The Ethereum network is now the go-to blockchain network for smart contract deployment, partly due to its huge community of developers. Additionally, Ethereum’s network is fast, with speeds beating BItcoin’s network. Ethereum-based smart contracts are written in the programming language, solidity.

 

Benefits of Smart Contracts

 
  • Automated: The contract’s execution is digitally automated, with no manual actions involved.
 
  • Efficient: The absence of a third-party or central agency makes performance much more efficient compared to traditional contracts. Furthermore, contracts are immediately executed once conditions are satisfied.
 
  • Programmable: Contracts become programmable to modify or replicate at scale.
 
  • Trust and Transparency: Blockchains like Ethereum publish transaction data publicly, building trust among contract stakeholders.
 
  • Traceable: All contract executions and transactions are permanently recorded in the blockchain’s network, allowing traceability of events.
 
  • Secure: Neither the smart contract nor transactions on a network can be modified or deleted, as the records are immutable on encrypted, smart contract blockchain networks.
 
  • Cost-effective: Smart contracts eliminate the presence of intermediaries who charge fees.
 
  • Independent: Smart contracts do not require a central authority, legal system, or external enforcement mechanism. However, they can help map legal requirements into an automated process.

 

Use Cases for Smart Contracts

Smart contracts can be leveraged for numerous transaction-based scenarios in any industry. Cryptocurrencies use a preliminary form of smart contracts for transactions. Some notable use-cases for smart contracts are:

 
  • Supply Chain: Supply chain and logistics involve the movement of goods and the responsibilities of various participants. Smart contracts can be used to help automate this complex process.
 
  • Vendor Relations: Vendor relations, like buyer-supplier, involve contractual agreements that can be deployed as smart contracts.
 
  • Financial: A wide variety of DeFi applications are built with smart contracts. Scenarios like releasing payments or funds based on conditions or financial penalties levied for specific events, actions, or results can be smartly contracted. This allows for fast and secure processing.
 
  • Real Estate: The costs, delays, and ownership criteria in real estate transactions can be written as smart contracts to reduce expenses and increase efficiency.
 
  • DAO: Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are a collective of users representing a virtual organization without any central authority. A DAO’s community rules and protocols are coded into a smart contract blockchain platform, allowing the organization to operate without human oversight.       

 

 

Smart contracts are playing an increasingly significant role in business. Though we are still in the early days of blockchain-based smart contract adoption, companies recognize the multitude of use-cases for the technology and the benefits they provide. The greater efficiency, security, reduced costs, decentralization, and more make smart contracts highly desirable to businesses willing to adopt the emerging technology. As the blockchain continues to gain traction, smart contracts will likely become more prevalent in everyday business operations, and new use-cases will emerge.

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]]> What Is Decentralized Finance (DeFi)? http://quantilus.com/article/what-is-decentralized-finance-defi/ Sun, 27 Feb 2022 03:45:15 +0000 https://quantilus.com/?p=9444

What Is Decentralized Finance (DeFi)?

Prefer to listen instead? Here’s the podcast version of this article.

The advent of cryptocurrencies has turned the traditional financial market upside down. Blockchains paired with cryptocurrency have opened a new, radical vision of the future that big tech and everyday consumers are investing in. One umbrella term that has emerged in this context is decentralized finance or DeFi — a futuristic vision of the financial world consisting of public, secure, peer-to-peer, and near-instantaneous transactions.

 

What Is DeFi?

DeFi is a broad term covering emerging financial products, instruments, and services not tied to traditional governing authorities like banks, exchanges, and brokerages. DeFi runs on secure, distributed public ledgers leveraging blockchain technology and smart contracts.

No regulatory oversight in DeFi allows users and organizations to make financial transactions in real-time. Since DeFi is peer-to-peer (directly between two users without any routing via a centralized system), decentralized finance companies are commonly global while offering typical financial services like lending, insurance, trading, earning interest, and investing. Cryptocurrency is one of the most recent examples of decentralized financial systems.

 

How Does DeFi Differ from Centralized (Traditional) Finance?

While the services offered by DeFi systems are similar to those of traditional, centralized financial systems, there are areas where they are fundamentally different.

 
  • Banks and other regulatory authorities store money for their customers in centralized finance. In DeFi, money is stored in digital wallets that the customer owns and controls.
 
  • Centralized finance works via mutual trust. Customers place their faith in banks and other financial institutions that store money, hoping they will not invest in risky borrowers or plans. The Great Recession revealed that these institutions could easily break this trust. DeFi removes these middlemen, allowing consumers to own their money and control its flow.
 
  • Transactions in centralized finance are routed via several regulatory authorities before they are approved, which often takes multiple days. Payments via centralized methods are also prone to bottlenecks, bias, and country-based regulations. Meanwhile, financial transactions in DeFi happen almost instantaneously.
 
  • Centralized finance ties user identity to each transaction, while in DeFi, payments are anonymous.
 
  • Centralized financial instruments must approve consumers’ submitted applications before making transactions. Additionally, centralized financial institutions gatekeep a great deal of information from customers for regulatory reasons. This process has perpetuated several socioeconomic biases. On the other hand, DeFi is available to everyone and has public ledgers, meaning anyone can look at the data and understand how the system works.
 
  • Centralized financial markets are human-operated and have standardized daily start and stop times accordingly. Conversely, DeFi markets are globally operated and are always open.

 

How Does DeFi Work?

DeFi is based on the same technology that drives cryptocurrencies, the public blockchain. A blockchain is a list of distributed and secure ledgers containing transactional data.

Blockchain is comprised of data blocks that have transactions recorded in them. These blocks are chained together to form a complete ledger. The peer-to-peer, public nature of blockchain means anyone can access the blocks, but only verified users can validate the transactions. Once the transactions in a block are verified, it is closed and encrypted. A block’s information cannot be altered without changing the entire chain of corresponding connected blocks that house the same data. This makes modifying blockchains impossible, further enhancing security,

Applications that handle transactions and run the blockchain are called decentralized applications or DApps . DApps leverage peer-to-peer financial transactions, which means two users can directly exchange currencies for goods or services without third-party systems or authorities. Most DApps in DeFi utilize the Ethereum network.

 

Ethereum’s Role in DeFi

Ethereum is the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency in market share after Bitcoin, with a market cap of 27 Trillion dollars (19.19% of the total crypto market) at the time of writing. Ethereum blockchains drive around 70% of DeFi’s entire infrastructure, as ether tokens are the preferred dApp currency. There are a few reasons for this.

  • Ethereum has expanded into a software platform that developers can utilize to build DApps that natively take advantage of secure and public blockchains, ether tokens, and peer-to-peer technologies.
 
  • DApps built on Ethereum work seamlessly with each other, enabling users to access several markets and applications easily.
 
  • Decentralized cryptocurrency, smart contracts, and tokens in DeFi are built on Ethereum, ensuring greater freedom, security, anonymity, and speed.

 

What Can You Do with DeFi?

DeFi allows consumers to leverage all centralized financial activities, including:

  • Sending money Instantaneously: Consumers can use DeFi to send and receive money across the globe instantaneously. With no intermediary bottlenecks, two users from anywhere in the world can engage in direct, immediate transactions.
 
  • Streaming Money: DeFi and its apps allow users to stream money over the globe. In this context, streaming money means continuous payments over time. An example of this is sending salaried paycheck to employees.
 
  • Lending and Borrowing: DeFi offers a worldwide lending network, enabling peer-to-peer lending and borrowing. Decentralized lending is an anonymous exchange of funds between two parties where the borrower provides collateral. The collateral is automatically transferred to the lender if the loan is not repaid. DeFi also introduces pool-based borrowing, where multiple lenders provide funds (pool) for borrowers.
 
  • Exchanging Currency: Customers can exchange one currency for another via decentralized exchanges. For example, users can exchange ether tokens for U.S. dollars.
 
  • Trading and Derivatives: DApps like dYdX, Augur, and Polymarket help traders and users delve into advanced trading. In DeFi, the market is open 24/7, granting users complete control of their assets. Derivatives in DeFi are gaining significant market interest due to the absence of intermediaries and quick transaction speed.

 

 

DeFi trends are shifting how the world thinks about money and financial institutions. As blockchain-based concepts like the metaverse and Web3 come to fruition, DeFi and DApps will continue to evolve from proof of concept to proof of stake. Ultimately, the success of DeFi will depend on the long-term reliability and adoption of blockchains. Overall, the battle between centralized finance and DeFi should benefit consumers, as it will create more avenues for investing, trading, and saving for users.

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]]> Emerging Tech Trends from CES 2022 http://quantilus.com/article/emerging-tech-trends-from-ces-2022/ Thu, 03 Feb 2022 21:27:23 +0000 https://quantilus.com/?p=9372

Emerging Tech Trends from CES 2022

CES 2022

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Since its inception in the 1960s, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has been a portal into the future, highlighting the latest cutting-edge technology. Like CES 2021, most of CES 2022 was virtual, but that did not deter companies from showcasing their latest products and findings. Product innovations shifted from 2021’s health and safety-oriented needs to 2022’s focus on eco-friendliness, hybrid working, wellness, and privacy. Below are the most significant trends that emerged from this year’s conference.

 

Electric Cars and Autonomy

Multiple electric cars were unveiled as part of the ‘ongoing electric car race,’ with most major car manufacturers showing off their latest and greatest.

 

The most talked-about vehicle was BMW’s iX Flow. The German car manufacturer collaborated with E-ink, a company known for producing technology used in popular e-readers, such as the Kindle and Nook. The collaboration sees BMW using E-ink’s Prism technology, which is a swath of electrophoretic microcapsules laminated atop a plastic film roll. This technology allows the car’s exterior to change color at the touch of a button. This concept vehicle can toggle between black and white, showing a radical vision for the future of cars.

 

The other electric car that created a significant buzz came from the unlikely contender, Sony. Dubbed Vision-S 02, this all-electric SUV is the next iteration of Vision-S 01 that the electronic giant unveiled at last year’s CES (Vision-S 01 is currently being tested on European roads). Sony stated that their line of electric vehicles would eventually be configured to achieve level 4 of autonomous driving. Level 4 is nearly fully automated driving, with optional human overriding. Both Vision-S cars currently sit at level 2 ‘partial’ autonomy, which requires human monitoring at all times.

 

Autonomous driving (ADAS/AD) was on full display this year, with multiple manufacturers revealing their in-progress projects. General Motors showed off the evolution of their hands-free Ultra Cruise ADAS system that can now handle 97% of all driving scenarios. Additionally, Chinese eclectic vehicle manufacturer, JiDU, announced their first vehicle to have level 4 autonomy.

 

Excitement around ADAS/AD culminated in an autonomous car race. Autonomous racing teams from around the world converged on the Las Vegas Motor Speedway to compete against each other for the fastest time.

 

Blockchain and the Metaverse

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies were widely featured throughout the show. Companies like Samsung and Hyundai presented their versions of integrating several blockchain-built products.

Samsung announced the world’s first TV with built-in NFT support. Its 2022 lineup of smart TVs will now come with features that allow digital creators to showcase their art in the form of NFTs. Prospective buyers can preview an NFT before buying it and see the history of the NFTs and their related metadata. Samsung also explained that the TVs would intelligently tune the display settings to match the art creator’s preferred preset for their art. Thus, the artworks are represented in their most original, true-to-life quality.

 

Hyundai went all-in on the metaverse with their concept of ‘metamobility.’ According to Hyundai, metamobility expands human reach through robotics and metaverse. This looks like a future where robots are used as bridges between real and virtual worlds, and automotive vehicles become keys to access the metaverse. Hyundai’s Mobility of Things (MoT) concept will also use robots to expand mobility to traditionally inanimate objects.

 

The Increasing Focus Towards Mobile Devices and Platforms

The competition for mobile platforms took center stage again. Major players went all-in on shifting towards on-the-move platforms. AMD showcased their Ryzen 6000-series of processors that should arrive in laptops next month. Compared to existing Ryzen 5000 processors, the new chips offer 11% better single-core and 28% better multi-core performance, 2x better graphics, and improved thermals and battery life. Ryzen’s rival, Intel, was claimed similar benefits with their 12th generation Alder Lake processors.

 

For laptops, the focus was on dual and foldable screens. ASUS went the foldable display route with its beautiful Zenbook 17 Fold OLED. Lenovo took the dual-screen approach with its ThinkBook Plus Gen 3, which delivers an 8-inch, secondary display on the right-hand side of the laptop.

 

As for mobile phone manufacturers, OnePlus, Samsung, HMD Global, and TCL all teased or revealed new 5G capable smartphones.

 

Accessible Healthcare and Wellness

Similar to last year, companies highlighted their range of healthcare and wellness-focused products. This year, accessibility was the name of the game, as we saw a shift towards making healthcare and wellness tech widely accessible.

 

Omron Healthcare announced their new range of connected remote patient monitoring devices, including a blood pressure tool, part of their VitalSight moniker. These tools use cloud-based central data repositories to easily share user data between patients, doctors, and medical institutions.

 

Other interesting products include:

  • Avokad’s nutritional-needs tool collects data by using nano-sensors and AI to analyze ketones from a user’s breath
  • Circular Ring’s smart ring tracks sleep patterns and activity trends
  • BBalance’s mat-based scale aims to improve posture
  • Caregiver Smart Solution’s non-intrusive array of home sensors that monitors seniors and alerts caregivers if adverse changes are detected

 

With major players opting out of a physical presence due to pandemic woes, CES 2022 felt like the previous year. However, positive outcomes emerged, with key innovations centered around sustainability, accessibility, and autonomy. Furthermore, metaverse, electric vehicles, mobile devices, smart home, and wellness tech were highlights.

CES 2022 saw emerging technologies from the 2021 show evolve into production-ready versions. Looking ahead, blockchain, Web3, self-driving cars, smart homes, and other budding technologies already have us excited about next year’s show.

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What Is Cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency

Prefer to listen instead? Here’s the podcast version of this article.

Satoshi Nakamoto’s 2008 whitepaper about a peer-to-peer, electronic cash system brought cryptocurrency into conversations. This system is known as Bitcoin. A few years later, interest in Bitcoin boomed, as did its value. A decade later, cryptocurrency news continues to dominate the financial market, with more than 7,500 cryptocurrencies in existence worldwide. Moreover, Bitcoin and other digital currencies like Ethereum and Litecoin have become alternatives to government-issued physical money.

If you are in the dark about the most significant financial revolution of the decade, this article serves as a primer. This crypto breakdown can help you understand the nitty-gritty of cryptos, how they work, and if you should invest in cryptocurrency in 2022.

What Is Cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency, also known as crypto, is a form of digital currency that is primarily decentralized. The word itself is a portmanteau, combining cryptography – the technology behind it, and currency. Over the years, cryptocurrency stocks have seen record-breaking highs and lows, but public interest in cryptocurrency has seen sharp growth during the past five years. A worldwide cryptocurrency mining boom has since ensued, causing a global shortage of graphic cards.

Cryptocurrencies are decentralized, which means they do not have a governing or regulatory body like banks or governments to control access to them. On the other hand, traditional fiat currencies like the Dollar, Euro, and Yen are typically backed and regulated by governments.

The digital-only nature of cryptocurrencies means that they are generated and exchanged exclusively online. This process happens via a distributed peer-to-peer network. Values for most cryptos are also not pegged to fiat currencies as a result, and they are also immune to precious metal price fluctuations.

 

How Does it Work?

Although there were predecessors like ecash and Digicash, cryptocurrency’s journey started with Bitcoin. However, the near-instantaneous success of Bitcoin gave rise to many other alternative digital currencies that were grouped as Altcoins. While newer Altcoins like Ripple and Litecoin have expanded the feature sets of standard crypto, many, like Ethereum, have gone further to provide functions like applications and smart contract creation. However, all cryptocurrencies follow the same principle of blockchain.

A blockchain is an ever-growing, append-only, digital list of records or transactions, called blocks. These blocks are chained together by strong cryptography and can be viewed and verified by anyone in the network. Each block has a cryptographic hash of the preceding block, a timestamp, and transactional data in it – like a publicly-distributed ledger. For example, a Bitcoin blockchain is a list of every time a user sends or receives Bitcoin. The information contained in these blocks makes it possible for two people to send and receive cryptos without even knowing each other. Blockchains also remove the need to have cryptocurrency transactions verified via a third-party authority like a bank.

Blockchains run on decentralized, peer-to-peer networks of computers (nodes), resulting in faster and more secure transactions. A blockchain ledger is split across all the nodes in the network, and each node continuously verifies the Blockchain’s accuracy. There is no central vault or database that stores the entire Blockchain, which means there’s no single point of weakness that hackers and other exploiters can manipulate.

The popularity of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has made Blockchain almost synonymous with them – however, Blockchain technology is now being used for far more. From advanced medical research to streamlining supply chains to increase data sharing privacy. Recently, traditional financial institutions have expressed interest in leveraging Blockchain to implement distributed ledgers for banking.

Non-fungible Tokens or NFTs are possibly the biggest current trend that relies exclusively on blockchain technology. At its most basic, NFTs are non-interchangeable units of data stored on a blockchain that can be sold and traded. A growing number of businesses now use NFTs as proof of ownership for their digital products or services, including original artworks, 3D models, audio and video files. Buying and selling NFTs have seen major endorsement by famous artists worldwide and have given rise to marketplaces like OpenSea and Rarible.

How to Purchase Cryptocurrency 

Individuals can purchase and trade cryptocurrency in an online exchange. Online exchanges often offer crypto wallets that store currency. Individuals can create an account with an exchange, transfer fiat money to buy crypto, and store their crypto in their wallets. Some of the most popular exchanges include Coinbase, Gemini, Binance.US, FTX.US and Kraken.

Online brokers like eToro, Sofi Active Investing, and Tradestation offer an alternative to traditional cryptocurrency exchanges. In 2015, Robinhood, a financial services company, pioneered commission-free crypto trading via their mobile app and remains extremely popular even today.

Individuals can purchase Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash directly via Paypal as well. In addition, Bitcoin ATMs and Peer-to-peer exchanges are among the newer methods being tested for trading cryptocurrencies.

 

Examples of Popular Cryptocurrency

There are more than 7,500 cryptocurrencies in circulation worldwide at the time of writing, and the number continues to climb. Most of these cryptos are niche, but some now rival government-regulated fiat money.

  • Bitcoin has the distinction of being the first and most popular cryptocurrency. Introduced back in 2009, Bitcoin has seen some major ups and downs in the past decade. It now sits at a staggering market capitalization of $1.1 trillion. While the total number of bitcoin ever to be available is capped at 21 million. Individuals are not required to buy an entire bitcoin and instead can buy a fraction of one.
 
  • Ethereum is the second most popular cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, with a market cap of $536 million. Launched in 2015, Ethereum was built to be a decentralized computing platform that extended the security and openness of blockchains to other applications and domains. After programmer Vitalik Buterin conceived the initial idea, much of its development was crowdfunded. As a result, the Ethereum blockchain makes developing and running a wide variety of applications possible. It has also given birth to Decentralized Finance (DeFi), a cluster of blockchain-driven, digital finance apps.
 
  • Litecoin, released in 2011, was one of the earliest altcoins. It is near-identical to Bitcoin, which means it is also a blockchain-based, decentralized digital currency that can be traded using crypto-wallets. The supply limit for Litecoin is capped at 84 million. In 2020, global financial giants PayPal started allowing transactions in Litecoin. Litecoin had a market cap of $11.9 billion in August 2021.
 
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A single bitcoin (BTC) has since hit a peak of $69,000, a feat that was deemed impossible by almost all experts when it launched back in 2009. The explosion of cryptocurrencies into a $2.5 trillion market sector from a niche is making consumers rethink the future of finance. Investors are lured by the bullish growth in crypto values and the more comprehensive digital platform they promote. The decentralized finance (Defi) movement shows an alternative to the government-backed, tightly regulated, and often crash-prone world of physical currencies.

 

Non-fungible tokens, smart contracts, peer-to-peer insurances, and other innovations in the realm of blockchain technology are making cryptos more promising. While cryptocurrencies remain largely unregulated worldwide, their introduction has opened doors to many new technologies and opportunities. And the future of cryptocurrency is just getting started.

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