DEV Community: Alex Hernandez

JS Exercise: Sum of a String

Alex Hernandez — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 03:15:46 +0000

Feeling confident in Javascript?

Well, given a string of lowercase letters, would you be able to sum them all up into 1 value?
In one line of code?

Solution and explanations are below.

The Solution

const lettersum = s =>
s
.split('')
.map(c => c.charCodeAt(0) - 96)
.reduce((a, b) => a + b, 0);

Pretty concise, isn't it?
Let's go over this step-by-step

JS Arrow functions

'const lettersum = s =>'

First, we use 'const' to declare a variable (named 'lettersum') whose value shouldn't change later.

Then we begin to declare a function using a compact definition called an 'arrow function expression'.

Splitting

s
.split('')

This is the same as s.split()
However, JS ignores newlines (line-terminators) when they separate bits of code (except in cases where it auto-inserts ';' like in return)

We do this so as we chain multiple functions, it stays easy to read

So what does 's.split('')' do?

Well, split() is a string method, that will divide the string into substrings, and returns them as an array.

In this case, '' means we want to divide the string at every character.

This gives us the string as an array of characters

Mapping

 .map(c => c.charCodeAt(0) - 96)

Map accepts a function and will return the array created from calling the function on every element in the array.

Here we are going through our array of characters, and turning each one into a digit, subtracting 96 so a=0.

Reduce

 .reduce((a, b) => a + b, 0);

Lastly, this reduces the list down to a single value.

It calls the function we pass on each item in the array, storing the result in 'a' and calling the function again with 'b' set as the next value in the array.

Here we are summing up every element in the list.

Closing

And that's it! So in summary, we

Split the string into characters
Go through each character, converting it into a number
Sum up all the numbers

Thanks for sticking around, and stay tuned for the next JS lesson.

DAOs: Revolutionizing Social Networks

Alex Hernandez — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 19:10:13 +0000

Have you heard how DAOs will create revolutionary social networks?

Social networks (and the internet) have made it easy for like-minded individuals to congregate and communicate.

The advent of crypto will likewise make it easy to coordinate around capital

Internet <-> Communication
DAOs <-> Capital

What is a DAO?

DAOs are software-enabled organizations.

The industrial revolution favored the LLC as the tool to organize.
DAOs will fulfill this role for Web3 at large.

DAOs are leaner than LLCs, attracting talent from all over the world.

What do DAOs do?

Present DAOs have a variety of missions, from:

Manage large protocols
Investment
Social Communities
Media
Philanthropic Pursuits

Let's take a look at each category now

Protocol DAOs

From Ethereum came a whole array of new crypto assets.
Protocols were made to let people trade these assets.

DAOs then emerged to let users have a collective say in the future of the protocol.

Voting is done with governance tokens given to users

Ex. Protocol DAO

Some examples of Protocol DAOs are

Uniswap
Compound
Aave

For example, Uniswap token holders voted on which Layer-2 networks the protocol should be deployed.

Investment / Collector DAOs

These let people pool capital with the aim of investing in specific assets, ranging from NFTs to sports franchises!

This is a fast and simple alternative to venture capital funds.

Examples are

PleasrDAO
MetaCartel Ventures
Komerabi

Social DAOs

By organizing around a token, like-minded members have the incentive to create a valuable community

Some like FWB require an application + a fee, others like the Bored Ape Yacht Club use NFT ownership to unlock access.

Service DAOs

These are like online talent agencies.
Clients issue bounties for tasks.
Once finished they pay the Treasury + contributors

Ex. are

DxDAO
Raid Guild

These DAOs have the potential to reinvent work to look like the gig economy.

Media DAOs

Rather than rely on ad-based revenue, these DAOs tokenized incentives to reward producers and consumers.

An example is Bankless DAO. Its audience was airdropped BANK, and they can earn more by

Producing Content
Research
Graphic Design
Many Options!

Grants/Philanthropy DAOs

Like Investment DAOs, these DAOs pool capital to allocate later however without the expectation of profit.

Gitcoin is a popular Grant DAO, supporting critical open-source infrastructure.

Hurdle for DAOs

DAOs are reinventing how we govern, invest, work, create, and donate.
However, there are 4 barriers:

Lack of legal/regulatory clarity
Lack of efficient coordination mechanisms
Lack of infrastructure
Smart contract & sustainability risks

Lack of Legal Clarity

DAOs don't have a jurisdiction whose laws can protect them.

In the US, DAOs have 2 choices:

Form an LLC in Wyoming
Be treated as a general partnership

This leaves DAOs either misrepresented or exposes members to liabilities.

Lack of efficient coordination mechanisms

Right now many DAOs have a crude governance structure, where voting power can be a function of buying power than expertise.

Some have suggested a Delegated model where token holders vote for delegates to make decisions.

Lack of developed infrastructure

Corporations benefit from being able to operate on an infrastructure that's been developed and tested for decades.

DAO tools for governance, payroll, reporting, treasury management, communication and other resources are still fresh.

Smart contract, fragmentation, & sustainability risk

The smart contract exploits of 'The DAO' are still relevant today.

Fragmentation within crypto networks, such as the ETH/ETC split, could prove problematic for organizations that want stability.

Closing

DAOs have the potential to be a paradigm shift in economic organizations.

We may even one day see institutions built not on legal contracts, but on top of an open crypto network!

This thread was my notes summarizing this article
https://twitter.com/coinbase/status/1473668601039048704?s=20&t=ccxlc5b_YuACNh6Mu9AZXA

What does DeFi Mean in 2022?

Alex Hernandez — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 00:57:25 +0000

Ever heard the term DeFi(Decentralized Finance)?

Let's go over what it means now!

What is DeFi?

DeFi refers to financial applications that use blockchains instead of banks.

The main idea is that anyone can lend, borrow, and bank without using middlemen.

More advanced applications cover

Derivatives trading
Asset swaps
Decentralized exchanges

Who invented DeFi?

There's no one single innovator, however DeFi tools first started appearing on Ethereum.

Now DeFi spans a variety of networks, such as

Solana
Binance Smart Chain
Avalanche

3 Big Features of DeFi

It's 'Open' - you can use the applications with only a digital-wallet
You can move funds near-instantaneously
Rates are currently much better than trad banks
"money legos" - composability allows for apps to be built on top of apps

3 basic uses for DeFi are:

Lending/Borrowing
Trading
Derivatives

We'll go through into those now

DeFi Lending/Borrowing

Certain protocols allow you to loan them crypto for rewards/interest, or borrow assets (useful for trading)

"yield farming" is the process of profiting off rewards earned through locking up funds(loaning) in a variety of assets

DeFi Trading

Decentralized exchanges(DEXes) allow for people to trade with one another, with using middlemen who take custody of your assets.

Some DEXes like Uniswap or PancakeSwap allow you to list new tokens for sale (a popular option to crowdfund projects)

DeFi Derivatives

The ability to take out leveraged positions also exists in the DeFi space!

You can also create 'synthetic' assets that mimic trad stocks and commodities

How to make DeFi Dapps?

If you can write smart contracts, you can start building in DeFi.
For testing/deploying you have truffle hardhat, and waffle.

Different standards
We have

ERC20 on Ethereum
SPL on Solana
BEP20 on Binance Smart chain

Defining a token allows your protocol to interact directly with a Layer-1 blockchain.
You can use these tokens to promote your ecosystem and push decentralization

You can use most DeFi apps by visiting their website and connecting with a crypto-wallet for the appropriate blockchain.

Also for most interactions, you have to pay some sort of transaction fee (gas in Ethereum) using the token of the network.

However, there are still security and regulatory challenges to overcome.

It's estimated that users lost ~$10.5billion over the last 2 years.

Headlines like the above are why many financial institutions want to pass regulations on crypto.

Closing

I hope I got your interest in DeFi piqued with this thread. Thanks for reading along.

This thread is my personal notes on the concepts discussed in this article https://decrypt.co/resources/defi-decentralized-finance-explained-guide-learn

Networks to watch in 2022: Polkadot

Alex Hernandez — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 00:52:43 +0000

Have you heard about the Polkadot Blockchain Network?

In short it is

A platform that fosters a multi-chain ecosystem
A meta protocol, which works at a lower level then Ethereum (smart contract level)

Polkadot is a cryptocurrency network that wants to help weave all the disparate blockchains together.

Currently, blockchains operate in silos, separately.

But Polkadot promises to fix this by creating an internet of interoperable blockchains.

What is Polkadot?

Polkadot is referred to as a 'multi-chain network', because it can join networks together.

Its aim is to be a framework that blockchains use, similar to how sites use HTML.

This enables devs to focus on creating apps and writing smart contracts, while leaving the specifics of security and validation to the protocol.

Why is it important?

Developer time, talent, and resources are diverted into building competing networks.

Polkadot aims to create a way for developers to build value on top of all blockchains, rather than just one.

How does Polkadot work?

Blockchains can connect to Polkadot and get access to its PoS validation and security through, 'para-chains'.

The central chain is called the 'Relay Chain' and it is where all transactions are standardized.

While using Polkadot, blockchains are still free to use their own PoS, update schedules, and what tokens and dapps to use.

Essentially integration with Polkadot is layered, allowing for progressive integration.

What problems does it solve?

Polkadot solves two significant issues for blockchains:

Scalability: num of transactions the network can handle
Governance: How the community manages protocol upgrades and changes

Does Polkadot have a cryptocurrency?

Enter DOT.

Holders of DOT are allowed to vote on potential code changes.
Once a consensus is reached, updates are propagated across the network.

Polkadots Mission

Polkadot wants to become the bedrock upon which all blockchains will build.

They believe by being a common platform, companies will be encouraged to innovate knowing the foundations are taken care of.

History

Polkadot launched in May 2020

In a year it accomplished:

4th largest token with an $18b market cap
Increasing supply from 10 million to 1 billion by splitting old DOT 100 ways into new DOT
Over 340 projects being developed

What is Polkastarter?

Polkastarter is a Polkadot-based dex that you can use to create cross-chain pools and auctions

Its powered by the POLS token, which covers:

Governance paying
Transaction fees
Access to platform token pools

Closing

The future for Polkadot looks promising, given it's successful launch which placed DOT among the top asset on most exchanges to this day

Thanks for following along, this thread is my personal notes summarizing this article

https://decrypt.co/resources/what-is-polkadot-how-to-buy-it

A Quick Crypto/Web3 Primer

Alex Hernandez — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 03:32:00 +0000

Want a quick start on Crypto and Web3?

Then keep reading!

Eras of the Web

Web1 - Google, Amazon
- Users consume content
Web2 - Facebook, Uber
- Users create content
Web3 - Ethereum, OpenAI
- User own content

Where Web3 and Crypto align is they both seek to:

Use technology to help the disadvantaged
Fix what’s wrong with the internet today

Blockchain Architecture

Current:

Client <-> Server
Owned by Some Company
Monopolistic, Single points of failure

Blockchain

P2P Networks
Validators that keep the network honest
Decentralized governance & permissions
Global state
Multiple points of failure

Blockchain trades technical scalability for social scalability

4 layers to understand blockchain:

Hardware & Networking (A Computer)
Consensus & Settlement (Bitcoin and Eth)
Smart Contracts (MAKER & UniSwap)
Wallets & UI (MetaMask & Compound)

Last 10 Years of Crypto

3 waves of activity

2010-2012: Bitcoin, Architecture(Miners + Exchanges)
2012-2016: New L1 Blockchains, Privacy + Alt Coins
2016-2020: DeFi, Layer2, Smart Wallet apps, NFT Marketplaces

Skepticism was rising after the 2018 crypto bubble crash.
But insiders realize each cycle brings the capital needed to invest in critical infrastructure

Decentralized Exchanges
Lending Protocols
L1 Blockchains
Stablecoins
Smart Wallets
Developer Tools
Storage Protocols

Rise of NFTs

Currently, when you upload a file

The file is copied to an organizations backend
Ownership is transferred to that org

Blockchains enable

Individual Ownership
Public access
Provenance
Composability

How can NFT's help Creators?

Content creators can use NFT's to

collect royalties from the trade of their asset
grant benefits to holders
create token-gated communities

Future of NFTs

Is it the McRib NFT? NO

Creator DAO's

Many ways of fundraising for projects
Community-led decision making
Transparent capital flows
Employees and customers share in the upside

Starting a global corporation will be as simple as creating a group chat

Curator Economy

Most people on the internet are curators, not creators

Traditional Curators (Magazines, Channels etc):

Opaque process
tiny % of the population

Future Curators:

More like angel investors
Invest in projects you care about

Currently, we have

Cryptocurrency
Cryptofinance

Soon we will have

Cryptosocial
Cryptocommerce
Cryptowork
Cryptofirms
Cryptostates

In Closing

Thanks for reading along.
I plan on writing more educational content on crypto. Thank you

This thread was my personal notes summarizing a presentation by Patrick Rivera
A summary of the presentation by Patrick Rivera
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sUpk0gbvRQelH0MUIOqjNeGe8nwRH4mhrhDHmI6qh4M/edit#slide=id.g442eb61d9d_0_710

What is a DAO in 2022?

Alex Hernandez — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 20:28:06 +0000

🔍Have you been hearing the word DAO tossed around and want to learn more?

Please, follow along with me then for a short primer.

What's a DAO?

A DAO is an online community with a shared crypto wallet.

It's an alternative to traditional companies and hierarchies, governed by crypto-holders.

In more detail, a DAO is an organization with control spread out amongst member, vs top-down.

They are organized with smart-contracts, and members use 'governance tokens' to vote on decisions made by the DAO.

The DAO then executes these decisions, like a machine.

How do DAOs work?

Governance mechanism is provided by the smart-contracts
Governance tokens are used by members to vote on actions taken by the DAO
more contributed = stronger vote
Outcome can also be based on participation

Advantages of DAOs?

📖 Transparency - all actions viewable by anyone.
🔥 Global power - anyone anywhere can contribute
💵 Cheaper - tools can be used like Legos, so little needs to be built from scratch.
👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 Collaborative - giving everyone a voice pools mass knowledge

Disadvantages of DAOs?

🏢 Flat structure - slower to operate as decisions take longer to make with no clear structure
😡 Feuds - strong disagreements could split the group into two.
👸🏽 No change - in some DAOs, those with the most tokens call the shots
⚖️ Legality

Different types of DAOs

🏗️ Crypto projects - managed by decentralized governance where token holders can vote on the direction of the project. e.g. MakerDAO.
💸 Grant funding - can be used to award development funds automatically based on set criteria. e.g. MolochDAO.
💰 Investment - MolochDAO has been forked many times to create for-profit DAOs which can distribute + transfer assets between members. e.g. MetaCartel Ventures.
🖼️ Collecting - the non-fungible token (NFT) boom has seen collector DAOs such as PleasrDAO flourish.

Btw, MetaCartel Ventures is registered as a Limited Liability Company (LLC) in crypto-friendly Delaware.

So look into Delaware if you want to bring some traditional legitimacy to your DAO.

Origins

The original DAO was 'The DAO'

Before it got to launch, a hacker managed to steal $3.6 million dollars worth.

Ethereum decided to do a hard fork, essentially rewriting the blockchain and undoing the hack.

In this case, the blockchain was proven to no longer be immutable.

However other projects continued working on refining DAOs behind the scenes:

Aragon
DAOstack
DAOHaus
Colony

These guys learned from the mistakes of 'The DAO' and now build and run DAOs for some of the largest DeFi protocols today.

The future of DAOs look bright

There's been a recent revival in interest, both from the public and developers who are working hard to bring new technical innovations.

Many in creative industries are starting to use DAOs, to make fashion brands and filmmaking groups.

"Investment DAOs" are an interesting take on decentralized organizations, where the users vote on which projects to invest in.

"Collector DAOs" focus on acquiring high-value items like NFT's, with PleasrDAO being the most famous group.

Closing

DAOs will undoubtedly get bigger as time goes on, refining current trends such as

anonymity
progressive decentralization
better incentives towards participation.

We may even see DAOs become members of other DAOs!

This thread was my notes summarizing the contents of this articlehttps://decrypt.co/resources/decentralized-autonomous-organization-dao

Aavegotchis: Ghosts combining NFTs with DeFi

Alex Hernandez — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 23:32:55 +0000

Want to learn about Aavegotchi, the unique combination of DeFi and NFTs?

What are Aavegotchis?

Aavegotchi is a DeFi-enabled crypto-collectibles game developed by Pixelcraft Studios.
The game allows players to

Stake NFT avatars with interest-generating tokens
Interact with the Aavegotchi metaverse.

The Aavegotchies are pixelated ghosts that live on the Ethereum blockchain, backed by the ERC-721 standard.
3 factors determine their value and rarity:

Traits
Staked collateral/aTokens
Wearables

Let's go into what each of these means.

Traits

Traits influence rarity, performance in mini-games, and what wearables they can equip.

Some traits are given randomly at birth.
Others depend on 'kinship' (a friendship stat).

And every 3 levels, they get a Spirit Point that can buff/de-buff a trait.

Staking

Each Aavegotchi NFT manages an escrow contract address that holds "aToken" (Aave-backed ERC20 collateral).

aTokens generate yield via Aave’s LendingPool, which means the number of aTokens held in the Aavegotchi’s wallet grows over time.

Wearables

Aavegotchis also extends the ERC998 standard, allowing for child NFTs.
This means they can wear items called 'wearables', which can change stats and rarity.

Some wearables require certain

Collateral Staked
Levels
Traits

Leveling Up

Players level up their Aavegotchis by participating in

Mini-games
Governance
Meetups

Leveling up can also increase an Aavegotchis rarity level; so can equipping wearables.

Benefits of Rare Aavegotchis

Rare Aavegotchis have

Greater value in the 'baazaar'
Better rewards in rarity farming (a minigame that rewards $GHST tokens

Aavegotchi is governed by AavegotchiDAO, which manages all funds generated through the $GHST token distribution.

Aavegotchis Value

What gives Aavegotchis value?

They have intrinsic and rarity value.

Intrinsic: from aTokens staked as collateral in the NFT.
Rarity: calculated from the rareness of each trait+wearable.

Having a variable rarity enables 'rarity farming'!
Now let's dive into Aavegotchi Portals.

Portals

Portals are the primary way to get Aavegotchis.
You can buy them from

Aauction (time-limited)
Drop Ticket Raffle (time-limited)
Baazaar

Each edition is called a 'Haunt' with the first having 10,000 portals.

After you've gotten a portal the next step is the "Portal Summoning Ritual"

Opening portals occur on the Polygon network, and using what's called Chainlink VRF, they can ensure each Aavegotchi's traits will be random.

Choosing your Aavegotchi

When you open the Portal, you will be shown 10 ghosts to choose from.
After you pick 1, the rest will be forever forgotten, so choose wisely!
Each one has random traits, in these rarities

Common
Uncommon
Rare
Mythical

Staking and 'Spirit Force'

To claim your chosen Aavegotchi, you have to stake a certain amount of 'Spirit Force' (Collateral/aTokens)

Expect to pay more Spirit Force the more rare your ghost is.

You can get some of this stake back by

reducing collateral
burning the ghost(all collateral)

Interaction

You can interact with your Aavegotchi in various ways

Pet
Equip
Feed
Rename

Petting every 12 hours raises Kinship, increasing the rarity and number of wearables they can equip.

You can also feed them consumables like Kinship and XP Potions.

The Gotchi Pocket

Your Aavegotchis also have a 'Gotchi Pocket' where they can hold items such as:

Equipped wearables
GHST Tokens from rarity farming
'Baadges' (ERC-1155 NFTs representing achievements)

You can't withdraw the Baadges, but GHST and wearables can

Transferring

Lastly, trading your Aavegotchi using a marketplace such as OpenSea will also transfer the collateral + any items and wearables in their pocket.

To keep your staked collateral, you would have to

Take it out (keeping above minimum stake)
Burn your Ghost

Thanks for following along!
I hope this short post gets you thinking about DeFi and NFTs.
What other ways do you envision combining the two?

You can read more about Aavegotchi here https://wiki.aavegotchi.com/en/introduction

Why Invest in Web3 In 2022?

Alex Hernandez — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 23:29:19 +0000

Ever ask yourself why you should invest in web3?

Why Invest?

Getting involved in crypto is more than just buying and holding Bitcoin.

There are currently more than 11,000 active cryptocurrencies! These currencies and tokens perform a huge number of unique functions for their respective networks.

Now let's recap the previous versions of the web, so we can understand what Web3.0 should look like.

Generations of the Web

Web1: just reading instead of writing content
Web2: interactivity, creating content on platforms owned by companies
Web3: interacting on platforms defined by protocols, not owned by a single entity

Decentralization

A big factor of Web3 is decentralization.
This, combined with the ability to transfer value between accounts, is key to understanding Web3.

Finally, networks that create and hold value are a big part of Web3 as well.
Let's look at some of those projects now

Some Projects In The Space

Filecoin: decentralized protocol which enables anyone to rent out spare storage space on their computer.
Golem: distributed computing platform, providing shared computing power that users can access for a fee.
BAT: utility token, designed by Brave initially as part of a whole new digital advertising platform, this protocol allows users to commodity their attention and earn directly.

So why invest in Web3?

Web3 is creating new ways for us to quantify the value of

our time
our attention
our computers
our hard drives

Responsible and considerate investing will help support these projects as they realize a new digital future.

Closing

Thanks for following along! Hopefully, this thread got you interested in learning more about Web3. If that's the case remember to follow me.

This thread is my personal notes summarizing this article: https://decrypt.co/resources/how-to-invest-in-cryptocurrencies-investing-in-web3

What is Pancake Swap? DeFi enhanced

Alex Hernandez — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 23:45:59 +0000

Ever heard of PancakeSwap?
It's the hottest DEX on Binance, and it has more features than your usual exchange.

What is PancakeSwap?

PancakeSwap is a Binance Smart Chain-based DEX whose creators are anonymous.

It shares a few features with SushiSwap on Ethereum

Community governance
Farm liquidity provider (LP) tokens

However, it also has other rewarding features:

Lottery
Prediction Market

Swap tokens with a DEX

PancakeSwap at its core is a DEX for swapping BEP-20 tokens (think ERC20 on Ethereum)

It uses an 'Automated Maker Model' (AMM).
Instead of trading with someone else through an order book, you trade against a 'liquidity pool', which is a pool of funds.

Liquidity Pool Tokens

The 'liquidity pools' (LP) are filled with funds from other users. In exchange for storing funds in the pool, they receive LP tokens.

You can use LP tokens to:

Reclaim your share of funds from the pool
Get a % of trading fees as a reward

LP Tokens come in different varieties depending on the pool you add liquidity to.

Liquidity is added in pairs, so

adding BUSD + BNB to the pool => BUSD-BNB LP Tokens in return
BETH + ETH to pool => BETH-ETH LP Tokens

Farming and Staking

Now to move on to a fun feature of PancakeSwap, Farming and Staking.

You can deposit your LP tokens onto the farm to lock them up and get CAKE tokens in return.

You can now stake your CAKE into different 'SYRUP' pools and earn a variety of tokens

Lottery

PancakeSwap also has a lottery run every day.

First, you have to buy a ticket for 5 USD in CAKE tokens.

The ticket will contain 6 digits that have to match the winning numbers in the same order.

Rewards are distributed among 6 different prize pools.

Prediction Market

The last feature I'll cover is PancakeSwaps simple Prediction Market.

Here, you can place bets on the price of BNB.
Rounds are every 5 minutes. BNB's price is recorded at the start and you bet whether it will go up or down by the end of the round.

Conclusion

And that covers most of the activities you can do on PancakeSwap!

If you have some ETH, why not start with swapping it for some BNB so you can start using the rest of the platform!

This post is my personal notes summarising this article: https://academy.binance.com/en/articles/a-guide-to-pancakeswa

4 Consensus Protocols in Blockchain

Alex Hernandez — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 15:29:47 +0000

In short, we'll go cover 4 types of Consensus Protocols:

Proof-of-Work
Proof-of-Stake
Delegated-Proof-of-Stake
Proof-of-Authority

One of the promises of the blockchain is that it's a 'trustless system'.
Anyone in the community can join and participate in the network of nodes that verify transactions on the blockchain.

Consensus protocols are the varied methods blockchains use to achieve a trustless system.

What's a blockchain?

A blockchain is a network spread across multiple nodes. Each node can verify transactions made on the network, and then commit those transactions to the final state of the blockchain.

Anyone can submit info to the network.
So it's important to have rules in place that everyone can use to decide what info to commit to the network.

How do they work?

The consensus protocol at the heart of a blockchain gives a specific method for verifying whether a transaction is true or not.

All nodes on the network must agree on the state of the network, following the protocol to do so.

Consensus also:

Prevent a single entity from taking control
Trust users without a controlling third-party
Prevents Double spending, where someone creates their own version of the network to take control and spend the same coins multiple times

Common types of consensus protocols:

PoW (Proof-of-Work)

'Miners' earn rewards for solving computational problems that validate blocks and add them to the network.
This method has been criticized for being heavily energy-intensive and slow to process transactions.

Ex: Bitcoin, Ethereum1

PoS (Proof-of-Stake)

'Forgers' stake(loan) money in the network, with the next verifier getting chosen in a lottery fashion. Having a bigger stake means having a higher chance of being chosen to validate.
They are rewarded for correct validations and punished for wrong ones by losing some of their Stake.

Ex: Ethereum2, Solana

DPoS (Delegated PoS)

Similar to PoS, except stakeholders can vote on who validates the next block

Ex: Cardano, EOS, Tron

PoA (Proof-of-Authority)

Predetermined block validators, who are public and held accountable for their actions.
Most Testnets use this method. Since testnets are for testing and developing code, they don't need a fully decentralized network, just the blockchain tech.

Ex: Rinkeby(Ethereum-Testnet)

Conclusion

Consensus protocols, like the rest of blockchain tech, are constantly evolving to address the challenges in bringing about a Web3 future.

There are other interesting ones, like Proof-of-burning, or Elapsed-Time (PoET)

What other protocols have you heard?
Tell me below!

This thread was a summary of the contents in this article: https://decrypt.co/resources/consensus-protocols-what-are-they-guide-how-to-explainer

Polygon WILL stay relevant after Eth2. Here's why.

Alex Hernandez — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 03:30:11 +0000

The upcoming upgrade to the Ethereum Network, dubbed 'Eth2', will brings changes to the network that improves scalability, transaction speed and network congestion.
But the Polygon network also brings these benefits.

So will Polygon become useless after Eth2?
🚫 NO!

Polygon plans to stay relevant and already have ambitious plans in the works.

What will Eth2 do?

The upcoming Eth2 upgrade will make the network:

🔒more secure
💨faster
🪙cheaper transactions
🌐better scale

Enter Polygon

To get around network congestion, users and devs have relied on the Polygon network.
Polygon is a 'Layer-2' solution that sits atop the Ethereum blockchain.

Layer-2 solutions are separate blockchain networks.
Because they have a smaller load of transactions to process (since they're not the main chain), they can usually process transactions faster and cheaper. Then they record these changes in the 'main chain' (in Polygons case, Ethereum)

Transactions on Polygon are

🪙cheaper
💨faster

But with Eth2 providing all these same benefits as well, will there be a place for Polygon in a post-Eth2 world?

To answer this, let's go over exactly what it is that Polygon does.

What does Polygon do?

Polygon is an interoperable scaling solution for Ethereum.
This means it can talk to multiple other blockchains, relieving network congestion.

It allows Dapps to process transactions much faster!
It does this by employing 2 scaling solutions

Rollups: Sits atop the blockchain, transactions are bundled together before being processed as one transaction in the main chain
Sidechains: Clones of the Ethereum main chain, assets can be moved into and out of the sidechain

Polygon's version of these solutions is called:

Plasma rollups; which rely on the security of the network
Matic Proof-of-Stake; implements its own security method

Will Polygon be relevant

Polygon has an ambitious roadmap to stay relevant after the Eth2 upgrade:

ZK-rollups (bundle transactions off-chain, use ZK-proofs for final record on ETH)
Validum chains (ZK-proofs, store final data off-chain)
Optimistic rollups ('fraud proofs', operators can dispute a claim within a challenging period)

Polygon has plans to stay well relevant and perhaps even necessary after the completion of Eth2

Making Ethereum more affordable

The fees for performing a trade on uniswap on different networks:

Polygon: $0.0001
Binance Smart Chain: $0.20
Ethereum:$7

💰Transactions are orders of magnitudes less, something that might not be seen even after Eth2 comes out.

What do you think?
Will Polygon stay relevant in the near future?
I'd like to hear your thoughts below.

You can follow me on twitter where I first post these articles, as well as share what I'm building.
Ask me questions! Or let me know if you'd like to collab.

This thread was a summary of the contents found in this article

Ethereum 2.0 in 3 Phases. The future of ETH in 3 minutes

Alex Hernandez — Sun, 20 Feb 2022 18:43:25 +0000

Excited about Ethereum 2.0 yet?🎉🥳
It's been long in the making, but the future of Eth2(Ethereum 2.0) comes closer to being a reality everyday.

In short, it will bring to the network

🌐Scalability upgrades
🔒Security upgrades
🗣️Proof of Work -> Proof of Stake

If you want to learn more about this long-planned upgrade, then follow along!

What is Ethereum 2.0?

Ethereum 2.0 (Eth2 or 'Serenity') is an upgrade to the blockchain network that Ethereum lives on.

It enhances

💨speed of transactions
⚖️efficiency of the nodes
💪scalability of the network

What are the phases involved?

Eth2 has several phases.

Phase 0

🚀The first phase(2020) included the launch of the 'Beacon Chain', which introduced native staking to the blockchain, paving the way for incorporating Proof-of-Stake to the Mainnet.

Phase 1

🫂The second phase 'The Merge' will merge the Beacon Chain with the Mainnet, and is expected in Q2 2022.

However, the community has the ability to and have in the past delayed this phase, so even as we rear closer to the second quarter this year, who know's could happen.

Phase 2 (Shard Chains)

💎The final phase is called 'Shard Chains' and involves separating the blockchain into 64 shard chains.

The purpose is to delegate the data storage and validation process to multiple blockchains that run in parallel.

☄️This change will spread out operations, which should increase scalability.

Proof-of-stake

Eth2 also signifies a switch to using Proof-of-Stake(PoS) to secure the network.

💦Right now, Ethereum uses energy-intensive Proof-of-Work to verify transactions and reward miners.

👥PoS has users stake(loan) assets to become validators.
The process of deciding which node validates transactions is decided in a kind of lottery.
A few other nodes in the network check that the chosen node correctly validated the transaction, then commit it to the blockchain and give the validator a reward

Validators who have a bigger stake get chosen more often then those with a smaller stake, and thus get a return on their investment faster.

Scalability

Eth2 will see the network processing transactions exponentially faster.

🥈Eth1: 30 tx/sec
🥇Eth2: 100,000 tx/sec

This upgrade comes from shard chains, which will see multiple blockchains running in parallel, instead of a single blockchain.

Security

🔒Eth2 will require 16,384 validator nodes, which is more than most other PoS networks, making it more decentralized, and thus secure

Eth2: First Stage Release

💡The Beacon Chain went live Dec 1, 2020

Afterward there needed to be 16,384 validators in the network by Nov 24 2021, each one staking 32 ETH.

That's a grand total of 524,288 ETH!!

Future of Ethereum

The future for Eth2.0 looks promising once layer-2 solutions incorporate the upgrade.

🥳Once that happens, the network will be estimated to process 100,000/sec!!

How do you think this will affect adoption?

Thanks for reading.
You can follow me on twitter where I first post these articles, as well as share what I'm building.
Ask me questions! Or let me know if you'd like to collab.

This thread was a summary of the contents found in this article:https://decrypt.co/resources/what-is-ethereum-2-0