Digital assets

Exploring Decentraland: A Review of the Virtual World Built on Ethereum

27/07/2020 by Idelto Editor

During the last two weeks, I’ve been roaming around the virtual world Decentraland in order to get some perspective on the platform supported by the Ethereum Blockchain. The following is a review of my experience in Decentraland and observing all that has been built since it was invoked over four years ago.

Four years ago, the platform Decentraland stemmed from a proof-of-concept that assigned ownership of digital real estate in an infinite 2D grid. When the creators did this, it was originally dubbed the “Stone Age of the Decentralized.” The team behind Decentraland then finished crafting a 3D virtual world divided into plots called the “Bronze Age” at the end of 2016. Fast forward to 2020, and Decentraland, the metaverse built on Ethereum is massive.

Essentially, the world is a blockchain fueled virtual reality platform and users can explore, create, play games, collect wearables, monetize creation, leverage land plots, and 3D building techniques. After the “Bronze Age,” Decentraland moved into the “Iron Age” which involves the ability to interact with the virtual world in various ways and leverage the native cryptocurrency MANA to process payments.

I’ve known about Decentraland for a while now, and just recently decided to explore the metaverse during the last two weeks. I decided to write a review on the platform in order to give news.Bitcoin.com readers some perspective on this fascinating land and the best way to experience the platform. In order to leverage Decentraland, you need a wallet that interacts with ETH-based decentralized applications (dapps). I leveraged the Metamask wallet with the Chrome browser and fired up a new ETH account.

Decentraland’s greetings robot in “Genesis Plaza.”

In addition to writing the review and exploring Decentraland, I also involved my two sons Joshua and Franklin. I wanted to get opinions from people who are much younger than me in order to see how they liked the platform. After creating a new Metamask-based ETH address, I simply went over to the website Decentraland.org.

The first thing my sons and I did was head over to the Avatar section and we created my Avatar or how I look when I am traveling the virtual world. Choosing the look is similar to a number of Avatar creators people are used to like Nintendo’s Miis and other programs.

Registering my name. A custom name costs 100 MANA plus the gas fee.

After customizing your look, the program asks you if you want to grab your “Passport” to manage your digital identity. Meaning, anyone can pay 100 MANA (Decentraland’s ERC20 token) in order to obtain a custom name. Now after you customize your Avatar, you do not need to pay 100 MANA or register right away or at all.

You can also simply explore Decentraland as a guest. My sons decided that I should choose a name and I chose “Jamiecrypto” for my Decentraland Passport name. You can grab MANA by simply swapping ETH for Decentraland’s native currency using the Metamask wallet’s swapping feature.

John Perry Barlow’s “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.”

The name “Jamiecrypto” was available, and I opened up a contract in order to obtain the name. However, because gas is so expensive right now I waited two solid days to finally get fed up, and pay $4.50 in gas to push the contract settlement. Ethereum’s fees are problematic right now and the issue will make Decentraland less fluid if the chain does not scale. Understanding this issue, I didn’t care too much and moved on, but this will definitely deter users from exploring Decentraland to its fullest extent.

After pressing “start exploring” at the Decentraland.org website it connected with my Metamask account and I entered the “Genesis Plaza” This area is like a introductory zone that has a number of cool buildings and a robot that gives you an explanation of Decentraland and what you can do.

After listening to the welcome robot, my sons told me to start roaming around and I did but I was leveraging a Macbook Pro with the built-in trackpad. Using a trackpad is slow and not the best accessory to use while you explore Decentraland.

My son Joshua who is used to playing virtual world games like Roblox, told me we should hook up a mouse in order to move around. After hooking up a mouse, it was much easier to move around Decentraland and users can also press “/help” in order to learn the control mechanisms.

We all decided that I should roam around the “Genesis Plaza” and my sons wanted to explore the big brown building that resembles a shoe. This building is like a history museum of Decentraland and artifacts explain how it was built, how the governance system (DAO) works, and some of the hosted activities that take place in the virtual world.

The three of us stopped for a minute to observe a poster of a John Perry Barlow’s “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” and my oldest son Joshua read the paragraph which says:

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

Decentraland visitors can interact with all kinds of virtual things in the virtual world like cash registers, rides, musical instruments, levers, and NFT items.

Decentraland has all kinds of artwork, buildings, and unique things, and the “Genesis Plaza” is one small aspect of this world. While exploring the plaza, we saw mountainous terrain that looked like a volcano and the “NFT Hallway,” which displays a number of non-fungible tokens (collectibles, artwork, wearables.)

Lots of the NFT shops are all over Decentraland and some NFTs are for show, while others can be purchased by using MANA. For instance, the shop from the crew at Digitible offers a number of NFTs and Ross Ulbricht collectibles as well. The funds spent on Digitable-crafted Ross wearables go directly to the Ulbricht family.

Of course, my kids wanted to buy everything in the virtual world of Decentraland. But during the entire exploration period, the only thing I spent MANA on was my custom name and the fee to settle the contract. Users can purchase wearables at the Decentraland Marketplace as well which sells hats, hoodies, shoes, shirts, and land parcels as well.

Wearables at the web portal market.decentraland.org.

I found that everything in the entire marketplace was extremely expensive and I just couldn’t fathom paying hundreds of dollars worth of MANA on a virtual hoodie. This is another criticism my kids and I had with Decentraland, and we all thought the game would be far more enjoyable if NFT goods were cheaper.

Decentraland is massive, and in order to warp to other places in the virtual world simply press “M” on the keyboard. This loads the map and my son’s and I visited places like the Scifi Plaza, the Asian Plaza, Metazone Tower, Battle Racers, Crypto Valley, and the Crypto Valley Art Museum, the Museum District, Pixelchain, Bartertown, Decentraland University, and many more areas.

Over the course of two weeks, my sons and I still have not explored every crevice and plot in Decentraland. Joshua and Franklin enjoyed all the things that you could ride like the Ferris Wheel, race tracks, and the many obstacles throughout the metaverse.

My favorite place was the Crypto Valley Art Museum and the donut shop with two police cruisers sitting in front of the shop. My oldest son Joshua explores Decentraland on his own now too, as he downloaded Metamask on his own laptop and fires up the virtual world to explore.

My son Joshua playing with me as a guest user.

Yesterday, he added me as a friend by simply searching my name “Jamiecrypto” and we both explored Decentraland together on separate computers. During the last few months, Decentraland explorers hold small community events and gatherings. A few days ago, comic book illustrator Jose Delbo answered questions about his digital artwork in Decentraland during an exhibition.

Joshua is ten so he enjoyed the program a lot more than his seven-year-old brother Franklin. Overall, we all thought the experience is enjoyable and it’s very cool to see a virtual world built on top of the Ethereum network. My two sons also enjoyed the fact that they used a Metamask wallet for interaction and how the ETH chain powers the entire world.

The only issue I had with the entire Decentraland experience was the high ETH gas fees, which are a problem for every defi application right now and the expensive gear. I think that people marketing virtual wearables should come down on their prices, but I can see that happening if Decentraland gathers more users.

What do you think about the Decentraland experience? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Exploring Decentraland: A Review of the Virtual World Built on Ethereum appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Crypto Race Heats Up: Bitcoin’s Dominance Ratio Drops to Lowest Level in 12 Months

23/07/2020 by Idelto Editor

The largest digital asset by market capitalization, bitcoin has lost a significant share of market dominance during the last few weeks. Bitcoin’s dominance ratio dropped to 61.5% on Thursday, after hovering around 66% for months on end. The last time the crypto asset’s dominance level was around the 61% range was over 12 months ago on June 30, 2019.

Bitcoin has the largest market valuation out of all the digital assets in existence. BTC’s market cap today is around $175 billion out of the grand total of $284 billion that represents the overall worth of all 5,700+ crypto assets.

When people refer to the “Bitcoin Dominance Index” (BDI), they are referring to BTC’s market cap compared to the aggregate market cap of all the other coins. Interestingly, BTC’s dominance level stayed consistently above the 77% ratio from 2009 up until March 2017. Most of the time during those six years, BTC’s dominance ratio was between 80-90% on average.

Things certainly changed in 2017, and even though BTC touched an all-time high of $19,600 per coin, dominance continued to drop like a rock. In June 2017, BTC’s market dominance was only 37%, but it regained some of the uptrend capitalization throughout the latter half of 2017 and into 2018.

Bitcoin’s dominance index fell to an all-time low of 32% on January 14, 2018. However, BTC has been able to once again regain some of the capitalization losses, in comparison to the rest of the crypto economy. During the last year, BTC has steadily kept the BDI above the 65% range, but on February 23, 2020, it dropped to 62% for a very short period of time.

Now BTC is below that range again and cryptocurrency proponents are discussing the subject with great fervor. One Redditor from r/cryptocurrency commented on a forum post about the situation and said “Altseason imminent.” The term ‘altseason’ or ‘altcoin season’ is a period of time when alternative digital assets besides bitcoin (BTC), see their market caps increase significantly by undermining BTC’s overall BDI metric.

Of course, altcoin season happened in the summer of 2017 when BTC’s dominance index crashed down to the 37% zone. Just as many speculators assume that BTC prices will grow bullish once again, many also expect an altcoin season to precede the ostensible pending bull run.

Today on July 23, 2020, BTC’s dominance index level at 61.5% indicates that a few high profile digital coins have been gathering bigger gains. The biggest crypto asset market valuation that’s chomping away at BTC’s dominance is Ethereum, as it captures close to 10% of the overall $285 billion crypto coin market cap.

In the past, XRP was a strong contender against BTC’s market dominance, but this isn’t the case so much anymore. XRP does have a touch over 3% of the entire crypto-coin valuation, but tether (USDT) is larger today. The stablecoin tether has managed to become the third-largest market valuation and its ecosystem has been nipping at bitcoin’s heels as of late.

Of course, BTC maximalists have not appreciated the fact that Ethereum’s defi boom is bringing fierce competition to the first cryptocurrency’s dominance levels. Blockstream representative Grubles (@notgrubles) criticized the Ethereum project after ETH saw significant gains on Wednesday.

“So the Ethereum people simultaneously marketed Ethereum as the world computer /and/ knew it wouldn’t scale while they marketed it as such. Am I taking crazy pills or is that just straight-up fraud?” Grubles tweeted.

In response, the popular Twitter account @degenspartan responded to Gruble’s take on Ethereum.

“We need higher ETH/BTC ratio for more takes like this,” Degen Spartan said poking fun at Gruble’s tweet. Blockchair founder Nikita Zhavoronkov also rubbed it in on July 23 and tweeted:

Sorry Bitcoin maxis, but the flippening is in full force now.

Meanwhile, as BTC is up 1.6% today, ETH has spiked over 8% during the last 24-hours. BTC is up a touch over 4% during the last week, while ETH has gained 13% in seven days. 90-day stats show that ETH is wiping the floor with bitcoin’s (BTC) three-month gains, as ETH is up over 41% compared to BTC’s 26% (90-day).

Against the U.S. dollar, BTC is still down 2% for the last 12 months of trading prices, but ETH has gained 22% in the last year. Moreover, there’s a number of other altcoins nipping away at BTC’s dominance levels as well, as coins like ADA, LINK, and CRO have seen significant gains between 119-238% during the last 12 months.

What do you think about Bitcoin’s dominance level dropping to 61.5% on Thursday? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

The post Crypto Race Heats Up: Bitcoin’s Dominance Ratio Drops to Lowest Level in 12 Months appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Meet Mistcoin – The First Mineable SLP Token Implementation Launched on Bitcoin Cash

22/06/2020 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin Cash proponents have been introduced to a new project built using the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) framework called mistcoin (MIST). The new token is essentially the first mineable implementation of colored coins on Bitcoin Cash. Mist allows participants to mine the SLP tokens “using proof-of-work to help decentralize allocation of newly minted tokens.”

It seems an unknown developer called “Kasumi” created a Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) token that can be mined like bitcoin (BTC) or bitcoin cash (BCH). The Mist project’s white paper can be viewed on the website mistcoin.org and it describes the SLP token framework and how the mining process works. “Mist presents the notion of using mineable SLP tokens to address this problem with a Bitcoin script, allowing tokens to be mined using proof-of-work,” explains the project’s white paper.

“Mist is an SLP token that can be generated by proof-of-work mining and is governed by a simple, but novel, Bitcoin script,” the white paper details.

“The script is a stateless covenant contract that provides validation for an acceptable mining solution and a scheduled mining reward amount. A constant proof-of-work difficulty requirement coupled with OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY keeps Mist synchronized with the underlying blockchain block height. As far as we are aware, Mist is the first fully autonomous, decentralized, mineable token built on Bitcoin,” the paper adds. The white paper further reads:

Prior to Mist, the process of minting new tokens was solely in the control of the token’s creator. The novel concept of mining SLP tokens enables a Bitcoin-based token to be decentralized with a permissionless mining reward process.

“Furthermore, the concept may be used for decentralized applications beyond the purpose of winning token rewards and may leverage a mining process to facilitate a number of interesting concepts,” the white paper stresses.

The Mist website also has a software program available for download under the name “mist_miner_0.0.2.zip.” The small but growing Mist community also created a Telegram chat room (t.me/mistmining), where people can discuss how to set up Mist mining.

The Telegram channel’s pinned message says that a person who wants to mine needs to click the launchpad icon in the dock and install homebrew. With a terminal command line, the user needs to install nodejs with homebrew, and extract the “mist_miner_0.0.2.zip” after verifying the file’s sha256sum.

From here the user needs to install the dependencies for the project, and “set up the Electron Cash SLP Edition Mining Wallet.” After locating the private key and adding it to the program, the user needs to fund the mining wallet. After sending some fractions of 0.0001 BCH, the user can simply start mining the SLP token Mist with a CPU. In the terminal after following all the step-by-step directions, simply open the terminal and type “npm start.”

The Bitcoin Cash community is pleased with this project, as a few people commented on the subject on the Reddit forum r/btc. “Kind of the coolest thing I’ve seen on SLP so far,” explained the Redditor who created a thread about Mistcoin. The SLP token mistcoin (MIST) was created on BCH block 639,442 and there are 559,200 coins in circulation at the time of publication.

So far, there have been 1,466 Mist transactions, according to Simpleledger.info stats. According to the site’s MIST “rich list,” this address here has the most mistcoin at press time. The coin has a very even distribution thus far, and the richest MIST address has only 15.2 thousand mistcoins more than the second-largest address.

What do you think about the mistcoin (MIST) mineable SLP token project? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

The post Meet Mistcoin – The First Mineable SLP Token Implementation Launched on Bitcoin Cash appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Bitcoin Mining Heats Up: High Difficulty Adjustment, Pool Consolidation, Less Concentration in China

18/06/2020 by Idelto Editor

It’s been approximately 37 days since the notorious Bitcoin reward halving that took place on Monday, May 11, 2020. On June 16, the Bitcoin network saw a large upwards difficulty adjustment making it much harder to mine bitcoins and slowing down the issuance rate because block generation has slowed down. Furthermore, a recent research report predicts the SHA256 ASIC mining industry will grow more consolidated in the future.

Bitcoin Network Difficulty Jumps to 15.7 Trillion

One of the most lucrative but also one of the most competitive operations in the crypto industry is bitcoin mining. Thousands of individuals and organizations worldwide leverage application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) or custom chips to mine bitcoins using the SHA256 consensus algorithm.

When more people join in on mining, the overall hashrate rises but every two weeks, the difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) makes it harder to mine. On the opposite side of the spectrum, if miners capitulate and leave the Bitcoin network, then the DAA will adjust downward making it easier to mine bitcoins. On June 16, 2020, the Bitcoin (BTC) network saw a large upward difficulty adjustment to a height of 15.784T at block height 635,040.

This makes the block generation slow down if even more miners leave the network before the next difficulty adjustment. At the time of writing, there are 15 mining pools hashing away at the BTC network and F2pool is still the most dominant pool with 21.3% of the network’s hash rate.

F2pool is followed by Poolin, Btc.com, Antpool, 58coin, Huobi, Binance, Slush, Lubian, Viabtc, Okex, Btc.top, Novablock, Spiderpool, and a few unknown pools. The number of pools since the halving has diminished by at least 40% since the May 11 Bitcoin halving. A report published on June 16, by Bitmex Research discusses the topic of “ASIC supremacy.”

ASIC Supremacy and Consolidation

The Bitmex researcher’s findings suggest the mining industry will consolidate even more so than today. “Further industry consolidation is likely in both the ASIC manufacturing sector and mining farm operating sector,” Bitmex Research wrote. The analysts also “ “think it is likely that only 2 to 3 players will survive into the longer term,” as far as mining operations are concerned. The researchers also discuss the top four China-based mining rig manufacturers — Bitmain, Microbt, Canaan, and Ebang.

“Today competition is increasing, with strong products from new players like Microbt gaining traction and eating into Bitmain’s lead,” the report highlights. “Microbt’s 2019 share is believed to have been around 35%. However, Bitmain remains the number one player and a force to be reckoned with.” Based on the Bitmex Research study, the findings note five predictions which include:

Competition has tightened within the ASIC manufacturing industry and Bitmain’s dominance has been significantly reduced in the last 18 months or so.
The ASIC manufacturing industry will continue to consolidate. We think it is likely that only 2 to 3 players will survive into the longer term.
The mining farm operating industry is also becoming increasingly consolidated post halving. With new investments coming from an increasingly small number of well-financed entities.
The lifespan of ASIC mining machines is likely to extend considerably and the current generation of products may remain in operation for several years.
While China is still dominant with respect to ASIC manufacturing, geographically China is losing share in the mining farm operator business to Europe and North America.

‘More and More Mining Operations Moving Out of China’

On June 17, Bitcoin (BTC) network hashrate has jumped to 120 exahash per second despite the upward difficultly adjustment. The regional reporter from China, Vincent He, explained on Wednesday that miners in the region are mining bitcoins as a side operation rather than a full-scale venture these days. The 8btc columnist interviewed a small mining farm operator Mr. Huang who said that mining side ventures are more of a hassle than a “relaxing choice.”

“For a small miner like me, just invest in to pay the electricity bill, and wait for the profits, even for large miners in the future,” Mr. Huang disclosed.

Essentially, the higher difficulty will hurt smaller operations which makes it so miners have a thin profit margin and need to sell bitcoins as soon as they acquire them. Moreover, mining operations are seemingly moving west and leaving concentrated areas like China. In the report published on Tuesday, Microbt marketing manager Elsa Zhao, said that shipments are moving out of the region at an exponential pace.

“[Our] customer base is moving more and more out of China,” Elsa Zhao stressed. “Since the halving, the return on investment period is growing, it is now much longer than six months, based on the current difficulty and price. At the same time, the average customer size is now growing considerably, customers are now larger funds, and no longer small businesses or individuals,” she added.

What do you think about the Bitcoin network’s higher difficulty adjustment and the predicted consolidation of mining operations? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Bitcoin Mining Heats Up: High Difficulty Adjustment, Pool Consolidation, Less Concentration in China appeared first on Bitcoin News.

China’s Government Fuels Stablecoin Economy: Hong Kong Protesters, Singapore and Mainland Residents Flee Capital Controls

13/06/2020 by Idelto Editor

A recent study published by Amun researcher, Eliézer Ndinga, shows that USD-pegged stablecoins are being leveraged in Hong Kong as “vehicles for capital control flight.” The report shows how individuals from mainland China, Singapore, and Hong Kong are moving their capital out of control by using these dollar-pegged blockchain tokens.

Last week on June 9, 2020, it marked the one year anniversary of the Hong Kong protests that were invoked by China’s extradition law. Almost immediately after the law was introduced, Hong Kong’s citizenry took to the streets in an attempt to claim the country’s true sovereignty. For over 12-months there has been civil unrest and demonstrations in the streets.

The blockchain ecosystem that emerged in China has helped Hong Kong residents flee the grasp of China’s totalitarian controls. Not only has blockchain helped individuals from Hong Kong, but also residents in Singapore and those who live within the borders of mainland China as well.

“Although as an inherently digital, censorship-resistant, and neutral asset, Bitcoin has not been the first cryptoasset of choice to flee renminbi-denominated assets due to market volatility,” explain’s Eliézer Ndinga’s report.

“USD-pegged stablecoins have ended up being just as attractive assets for those seeking to avoid losing large portions of their wealth due to price fluctuations over the short and medium terms. As a matter of fact, QCP Capital a Singapore-based crypto-asset trading firm has witnessed Hong-Kong-based investors fleeing to Singapore and trading stablecoins, predominantly Tether, in an attempt to preserve their wealth.” Amun’s report adds:

According to QCP, 80% of capital has poured into stablecoins while the remaining 20% has gone into Bitcoin.

Eliézer Ndinga stresses that data and information about the use of stablecoins is not “publicly available as much of crypto adoption in Asia.” This is because most transactions take place “underground especially following the crackdown on crypto exchanges by the Chinese government starting in 2017.”

“For example, in Hong Kong, QCP Capital reported that investors trade Tether physically. This method is mainstream so that they are able to move money away cheaply and quickly compared to setting up an offshore account which might take almost a month due to stringent know-your-customer and anti-money laundering procedures,” Eliézer Ndinga’s research highlights. The researcher further states:

To mitigate counterparty risk, due to ongoing issues with identity fraud, QCP Capital follows KYC procedures and asks for collateral denominated in stablecoins.

The Amun report further notes that the “demonstrations are here to stay in the foreseeable future.” A study from 21shares research also indicates that citizens in Hong Kong, Singapore, China, and other Asian regions are gravitating toward the crypto economy in an exponential fashion.

“It is safe to say that stablecoins are becoming a pain-killer product for many investors in such situations,” Eliézer Ndinga’s essay concludes. “This capital outflow from renminbi-denominated assets to USD-pegged stablecoins will strengthen the US Dollar hegemony as the world’s reserve currency. Nonetheless, with interest-bearing accounts like the one launched by Blockchain.com, there could eventually be capital flowing from stablecoins to Bitcoin by Chinese institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals, especially among tech-savvy cohorts,” the researcher conceded.

What do you think about Hong Kong, Singapore, and residents from China fleeing to stablecoins? Let us know in the comments below.

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