Let’s recap what happened a little over a month ago. On the 15th of September, 2022 – Ethereum – the largest smart contract-capable blockchain network underwent one of the biggest transitions to ever happen in any crypto in history. The Ethereum network underwent something called the Merge which transitioned this behemoth of a network, the second largest in the world by market cap – from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.

This is the first step in a long plan to transition Ethereum into the future, where gas fees are low, transaction speeds are high, at least at par with its competitors and eventually maintain its position as the biggest smart contract-capable blockchain platform out there.

Ethereum Upgrades Recap

Simply put – the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade, specifically the EIP-4895, will allow ETH stakers to remove their staked funds as validators. This is significant because back in December 2020, when the proof-of-stake Beacon chain was launched – participants on the Ethereum network who wanted to be a part of Ethereum 2.0 as validators had to stake a minimum of 32 ETH tokens which was practically going to be locked up for an indefinite period. Once you had staked the 32 ETH tokens, these validators weren’t allowed to pull their funds out whenever they wanted to.

Now, this begs the question – what effect will this move have on you? Well, that actually depends upon the situation you are in, or rather the kind of participant you are on the Ethereum network. If you are simply a validator on the Ethereum PoS chain, you will now be able to pull out your staked ETH tokens and sell them off if you wanted to. 

#ethereumshanghaiupgrade #eth2.0 #hongkongweb3festival2023

While we are yet to see the implementation of the Shanghai Capella Hard Fork on the Ethereum mainnet, the anticipation of the upgrade has been very fruitful for the ETH token since the beginning of 2023. ETH price is at one of the highest positions in 2023 and technical indications suggest that the uptrend can continue further. 

ETH price has the golden crossover of the 50 and 200-day moving averages on its side, which has helped to support prices on the upside. Additionally, it has also broken past the stiff resistance level of $1700 and is now resting in the accumulation zone between $1700 and $2100. As long as the ETH price manages to stay above $1700, any positive news will be bought into and we can see the upward trend continuing. 

Also, the Relative Strength Index on the daily chart for the ETH token is moderately bullish at 58 yet not overbought either, and thus this indicator also suggests further upward action might be brewing in the token’s future.

If you are a trader or an investor in the ETH token, the story changes a little bit. While it cannot be said for certain, the implementation of EIP-4895 could have certain ramifications on the price of the token. This is because according to data from Staking Rewards, 14.09% of all eligible ETH tokens have been staked. Thus when staking withdrawals are opened up, this could amount to significant liquidity flooding back into the open market, putting some downward pressure on ETH prices. However, that is assuming that the entirety of the ETH tokens are immediately pulled out and sold off – which in retrospect seems highly unlikely. Thus, for traders and investors, keeping a vigilant eye on the percentage of ETH coins staked would be sound advice. 

On the other hand, things could also move in the opposite direction as ETH could become more attractive to users due to its improved liquidity. Those who didn’t want to go via liquid staking protocols would now have a chance to directly stake ETH with Ethereum. 

However, one overarching positive thing that can be taken out of this is that while locking up coins is a means to make the process more secure, it could be also looked at as a means of artificial control and thus a removal of that cap could bring about more balance and equilibrium in the market. 

#ethereumshanghaiupgrade #eth2.0

Well, it is important due to several reasons and I will list them for you below. However, it must be noted that these are calculated assumptions made with the available data. We will keep this section updated as we get more information regarding the upgrade.

Gas fees: One of the biggest things that the Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade is expected to bring about is to reduce gas fees for layer-2 solutions running on top of Ethereum, for example, Polygon, Optimism, and the like. These Layer 2 solutions make using Ethereum faster and cheaper and this upgrade could potentially make it even cheaper to transact on the Ethereum blockchain.

Withdrawal of staked ETH tokens: So ahead of the Ethereum Merge, all those who were interested to become a validator in the new PoS Ethereum Beacon chain, had to stake a certain amount of ETH to a deposit smart contract which was locked in with the contract even after the Merge happened. But now with the Shanghai Upgrade, we may see the lock-in be released and those who had staked their ETH tokens may be able to unstake them.

Updates to smart contract facilities: This is another important update that can be expected out of the Shanghai Upgrade. Ethereum being the single largest smart contract-capable blockchain network has to stay ahead in terms of development.

#ethereumshanghaiupgrade #eth2.0 #hongkongweb3festival2023

Key takeaways:

Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade right around the corner: The date is set for April 12, 10:27 pm, at epoch 194048.

This is the biggest development to happen to the largest smart contract platform in the crypto industry since the Ethereum Merge that took place last year.

In the latest news, just a day after the Shanghai Upgrade went live on the third and final Goerli testnet, the final date for the Shanghai Capella Upgrade on the Ethereum mainnet was announced at the #157 Ethereum ACDE (All Core Developers Execution) Call that happened on March 16.

The date for the final execution of the Shanghai Upgrade on the Ethereum mainnet has been pushed back a month to April, thanks to delays during the Sepolia testnet execution but now has been finalized.

The Shapella Upgrade went live on the third and final Goerli testnet early on March 15, Indian Standard Time.

So, What is Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade?

In one of the biggest announcements by Ethereum since the Merge itself back in September 2022, Ethereum developers have finally announced the mainnet release of the Ethereum Shanghai Capella upgrade. The Shanghai-Capella upgrade, also called Shapella, is an upgrade to the network that is aimed mainly to enable ether (ETH) withdrawals from the deposit contract. Ever since the launch of the PoS-based Beacon Chain back in December 2020, those who wanted to become validators on the new Ethereum 2.0 network had to stake 32 ETH or more to the network which was locked for an indefinite period of time. Now finally the upcoming Shanghai upgrade is going to solve that, via an Ethereum Improvement Proposal or EIP-4895, which will allow for unstaking of locked ETH tokens on the proof-of-stake (PoS) Beacon Chain. 

On the Ethereum All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) Call on March 16, it was announced that the Shanghai hard fork on the Ethereum mainnet would take place on April 12, 10:27 pm at epoch 194048. This translates to April 13, at 3:57 am IST.

While EIP-4895 is one of the most highlighted features of this upgrade, there are a host of other smaller EIPs that are in line too. These other proposed improvements have been made with the objective to reduce gas fees during periods of high activity to aid Ethereum developers. These EIPs include EIP-3651, which proposes lowering gas costs related to the Maximal Extractable Value payments while accessing their COINBASE address (not the exchange, but the software that enables developers to receive new tokens), EIP-3855, which aims to bring down overall gas costs, and EIP-3860, which aims to cap developer gas costs in select cases among a few others.

#eth2.0 #ethereumshanghaiupgrade #shapella

A Florida guy once bought 2 Papa John's pizzas and paid 10,000 Bitcoins. This was the first-ever recorded real-world transaction using crypto. At that time, 10,000 Bitcoin was worth approximately $41, and since then, the cryptocurrency has surged by over 30,000%.

There are also other exciting items you would never have imagined you could purchase with cryptocurrency. It's not just legal; it's fun to purchase those items with cryptocurrency. Some of them are listed below.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Cryptos are also used as a medium of exchange to buy some interesting items.

It is not legal tender in most countries, but some luxury items like watches and cars can be purchased with cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrencies have created a whole new market, so buying items with cryptocurrencies is not only legal but enjoyable.

COOL THINGS YOU CAN BUY WITH CRYPTO ASSETS:

A Lamborghini: Some car showrooms and sellers accept crypto for cars. For example, you can buy a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ Roadster with Bitcoin. The term 'Wen Lambo' has become popular among the crypto community, indicating the interest in buying Lamborghini with cryptocurrency. 

Gift cards: Many platforms let you buy gift cards for hundreds of brands with crypto. Most of the popular crypto assets are accepted. Bitcoin payment service providers such as BitPay allow buying gift cards with crypto.

Branded Watches and Jewelry: Luxury items are another popular item of purchase for crypto owners. There are dealers that let you buy luxury with Bitcoin and other assets, including BitDials. The relationship between crypto and luxury watches is so strong that after the crypto crash of 2022, the demand for luxury watches surged in the secondary market. Particularly, Rolex and Patek Philippe experienced insane demand. It means people who had both crypto and watches as investments sold the latter in order to compensate for the loss in value of the former. You can also use crypto to buy jewelry and precious metals. REEDS is one such dealer, but there are several others as well.

Space travel tickets: You may purchase space travel tickets from Virgin Galactic using Bitcoin. Some websites such as Alternative Airlines provide access to buy air tickets with over 70 cryptocurrencies.

Insurance: Insurance options using crypto are also growing. Swiss insurer AXA announced in 2021 that it would accept Bitcoin for all lines of insurance except life insurance.Auto insurance quotes provider Insurance Panda reported last year that some small boutique agencies now accept bitcoin as payment for car insurance.

What would you buy?

#crypto2023 #BTC #nftcommunity #binancepaymarketplace

We all want our crypto holdings to have 100x returns. While desiring 100x is everyone’s wish, we should also be cautious of falling into #scams and #frauds.

Here’s a list of scams you are most likely to encounter.

Get Rich Quick or 100x Returns in Short Span Scam

This scam always comes promising you guaranteed high returns which look impossible as per the market conditions and seem too good to be true. Scammers usually create FOMO to trick you into investing.

Phishing Scam

In this scam, you are contacted by scammers pretending to be the spokesperson of your exchange or wallet. Their ultimate goal is to access your sensitive information like passwords, and private keys in order to gain access to your funds.

Rug Pulls

You are nudged to become an early adopter/investor in a project offering 100x returns for your investment. The founder disappears after receiving your funds.

Crypto romance scams

This scam starts on dating apps where the scammer steers the conversation towards #crypto Upon building trust, scammers ask the victim to invest in a particular project or transfer them to crypto with hopes of high returns.

#crypto2023 #Binance #dyor #nftcommunity

Despite the problems associated with ushering in a new era of true decentralization — namely that moving from centralized businesses and organizations requires a paradigm shift that will take time and require strong collaboration among blockchain developers — there is no denying that the green shoots of this exciting new industry have taken a firm hold.

Web3, the new incarnation of the internet, is well underway. And one of the most prolific entrants to this nascent digital space arrived just a few years ago in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Hailed as a new form of digital asset, NFTs grabbed the attention of everyone, from celebrities and gamers to large-scale investors and speculators. The initial perception was that NFTs were just a form of digital art. But as the sector has evolved, more people are realizing there’s much more to this niche element of blockchain technology than meets the eye.

In short, the use cases of NFTs are many and varied, from digital art, event tickets & VIP passes to gaming, fashion, luxury goods, and more. This article takes a closer look at what NFTs can do and covers the 6 key things to consider when creating a collection.

1. Building a community

One of the most important things that determine the success of any NFT project is the community behind it. Community is the driving force that can elevate an NFT collection to great heights or leave it wanting.

Building a community takes time and dedication. That’s why it’s crucial to start far in advance of the collection’s launch. Strong marketing is required to raise awareness and gain exposure. This element alone can make or break the uptake of an NFT collection, so making sure you’ve got the right marketing strategy in place should be your first priority.

Interacting with the community in a genuine way and being open and transparent about the project will allow you to naturally grow your audience and the number of potential buyers for your NFT collection. People like being a part of a group, and NFTs provide plenty of discussion points and opportunities to stimulate and engage people. In short, when it comes to the success of an NFT collection, your community is vital.

2. Providing utility

For a long time, people with an untrained eye considered NFTs to be little more than pictures on the internet. Certainly, NFTs can be a form of art, but they also have the potential to be so much more. Nowadays, NFTs often have some form of utility baked into their code, and it’s often one of the things that users and investors look for when researching projects and their collections.

Questions they’d want to find answers to before might include: What is your project about? How is the collection tied to it, and why would users want to own one of your NFTs? These are the same questions you should be asking yourself when you create your NFT collection.

NFT utility can come in many forms — from exclusive access to events, merchandise, and features to using digital assets in blockchain gaming and the Metaverse. The opportunities are endless, and it’s up to the development team to create the right narrative for its community.

One example where NFTs really excel is in marketing, as they allow brands to enter Web3 and reach a wider audience easily. Thanks to NFTs, companies can make advertising subtle and fun instead of running annoying ads that clutter the user experience. Gaming projects can incorporate NFTs as in-game characters, skins, or items that allow users to customize their journey and unlock rewards and in-game loot online. In short, because of their inherent immutability (they are forever stored on the blockchain), NFT-associated tasks can be timestamped and verified via smart contracts, which is where their real value lies.

3. Choosing the ideal number of NFTs

If you’ve been trading NFTs, you’d often notice that the floor price of each collection can be drastically different. While the reasons vary depending on the success of each project, there’s still one variable you can directly impact — supply and demand. The more NFTs you have in your collection, the higher the supply. This gives you more assets to work with in potential giveaways and events, but it also makes the whole collection less scarce.

Having a high number of NFTs in your collection will, in most cases, lead to a lower price range. On the plus side, the collection will be more accessible to your audience. Minting a collection with fewer NFTs in it can increase the price of each individual asset, but there’s a high chance that’ll impose a barrier to entry for many market participants.

At the end of the day, you’ll have to make a choice between making your collection widely accessible with a higher number of NFTs or giving it a more exclusive feel. For a long period of time, 10,000 was the norm, but many projects are now setting the limit much lower, at or around the 5,000 mark. In the end, it depends on what it is you want to achieve. Some projects, such as the artist, Beeple, produce one-off pieces of work that sell for huge sums. Others need greater volume to keep large online communities happy. This is why, when it comes to creating NFTs, it’s vital to start with the premise of marketing intent and what you want to achieve.

4. Pricing your NFTs

Speaking of price and accessibility, it’s essential to price your NFT collection carefully and correctly. Setting a high minting price can discourage many community members. Why? Much like the cryptocurrency market, prices in the world of NFTs can be prone to huge swings in the secondary market.

It’s about finding the right balance between meeting your own funding goals and setting the price in a range that’s attractive to the community and the wider NFT audience. While deciding on the right price, you should also consider the state of the crypto market. For example, if you’re minting on Ethereum, the price of ETH will be the determining factor when minting. Sudden drops in crypto prices are not uncommon, and this might drastically affect the revenue you receive through NFT minting.

It’s also worth noting that there’s a dedicated speculative market for NFT collections comprised of users that have little interest in the project itself. They’re only there to buy low, sell high and make a profit. The risk to consider is that certain individuals can acquire a large amount of NFTs. Fortunately, projects can get around this problem by limiting the number of NFTs that can be minted per wallet.

5. Creating an exciting roadmap

A clear and exciting roadmap with visuals is one of the best ways to capture the hearts and minds of your community. Things to include in your roadmap are:

Mint Date

Secondary Market release

Community Events

NFT utility examples

Other upcoming milestones

But remember, while setting up an exciting roadmap is one thing, it’s also crucial to deliver on your promises. Failing to do so can lead to a lack of confidence in the project. It’s better to have a short, clear, and structured roadmap that doesn’t just deliver but delivers on time. Bloated roadmaps with unrealistic timeframes are an immediate turn-off to the initiated. That said, even the best and biggest projects have to delay launches. So, if a milestone gets pushed back, the most important thing is to remain transparent with the community and build trust by explaining what’s happening and why.

6. Choosing the right marketplace

Last but not least, there’s the platform you choose to publish your collection. There are numerous reputable NFT marketplaces that you can select from, so you need to decide which one will best suit your needs and those of your community. Ethereum is, of course, still the biggest and most active blockchain network with the most NFT projects on it. While this is great, it can also turn out to be a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, any Ethereum-based marketplace will give you access to the widest possible audience. You may have to put up with slow transactions and high gas fees unless you use a Layer 2 scaling solution.

Choosing an NFT marketplace based on a different blockchain can have some benefits, such as less competition and better conditions. Things to consider when looking for the best marketplace include:

Transaction fees

Platform security

Wallet support

Auction support

User onboarding process

If your project is just making its entrance into the ever-expanding world of Web3, creating an NFT collection can be a great way to establish a community. One way to make NFTs even more attractive is to handle the gas fees and make minting free, but this also means the collection will generate less revenue in the marketplace. Alternatively, you can just choose a platform with no minting fees.

#nftcommunity #NFT #Binance