Concepts

INTRODUCTION Ethereum-based NFTs experienced a frenzy in the 2021 bull market, with the floor price of the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club collection (BAYC) reaching an all-time high of $420k per NFT. Skeptics were left baffled at the apparent lack of utility and inherent value in these unique digital tokens, which went for prices that could buy houses despite the ability of others to “right-click save” the same image. It...

INTRODUCTION Blockchain networks initially were more like closed-loop systems, meaning the value created and traded on-chain was confined to crypto native assets. As technology has developed, blockchains and the real world are becoming more intertwined. Crypto protocols and TradFi institutions alike are looking to tokenize real-world assets and benefit from transaction efficiencies, cost savings, interoperability, composability, and transparency. Protocols have already begun bringing assets like dollars and treasuries on-chain while...

SCALABILITY PROBLEM Transaction fees on Ethereum have jumped to hundreds of dollars during times of high activity, rendering the mainnet unusable for anyone without deep pockets. Ethereum can only process 7-15 transactions per second, while centralized networks like Visa can scale up to over 65k tps. Since network fees function similarly to a road with a fluctuating toll, the more congested and in demand Ethereum’s rails become, the higher the...

WHAT ARE AIRDROPS? Crypto Airdrops are a unique growth and distribution mechanism that crypto protocols use to attract users and give them ownership of the protocol through the "airdropping" of tokens. Airdrops involve giving away tokens to selected users to generate interest, raise awareness, and attract potential users to the project. Most airdrops aim to distribute tokens to early users and backers of the project, ideally rewarding these early backers...

WHAT IS AN APPCHAIN? Appchains, short for application-specific blockchains, are built to run one specific application or use case. They differ from general-purpose L1/L2 infrastructure chains that run many decentralized applications (dApps) concurrently. While both dApps and appchains technically exist on a base layer blockchain, the key difference is that appchains also operate their own sovereign blockchains while dApps do not. In this piece we will cover factors driving the...

INTRODUCTION Ethereum’s shift from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake enabled ETH holders to stake their tokens and help secure the blockchain network. As compensation for securing the network, stakers are rewarded with additional ETH tokens. At first, stakers were required to post 32 ETH (the minimum amount to run a node), and the user’s ETH tokens were to be locked until the Shapella upgrade was completed (successfully completed in March). Due to...

WHAT IS MEV? MEV or Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) is a topic of crypto that has had a massive uptick in activity and debate in recent years. It occurs when the block producers in a blockchain (miners or validators) extract value by reordering, including, or excluding transactions within a block, often at the expense of users. In other words, block producers can determine the order in which transactions are processed...

THE ORACLE PROBLEM One of the major issues with blockchain technology and smart contracts is the inability to naturally connect to external data sources. As most world data remains off-chain, blockchain networks are facing an uphill battle in generating real-world applications. The second part of the problem is blockchains need to be able to trust the validity of off-chain data and know it hasn’t been tampered with. _Source: Chainlink_ Oracles...

WHAT ARE ORDINALS? Ordinals, commonly called “Bitcoin NFTs,” have been one of the most exciting developments in the Bitcoin ecosystem this year. Technically, Ordinals are a way of attaching or “inscribing” data to individual sats or satoshis (the smallest unit of a Bitcoin at 1/100,000,000) on the Bitcoin blockchain. The term “Ordinal” is derived from Ordinal Theory, a recently developed system for numbering sats in the order they are mined....

INTRODUCTION The top 50 most valuable protocols all have circulating market caps of at least one billion. Why do these tokens, many of which have unproven business models, trade at such high valuations? One of the core assumptions behind these valuations is that the protocol will someday mature to have product-market fit, justifying its current market value. For protocols that operate decentralized applications (dApps), assessing profitability is one of the...

INTRODUCTION Video games have captivated users since the dawn of digital technology. In 1972, Atari Inc. released Pong, a simple arcade ping-pong game that helped launch the evolution of gaming. Popular games such as Pacman, Asteroids, and Space Invaders paved the way for future gaming consoles like Nintendo, Gameboy, PlayStation, and Xbox. Gaming has transformed even more in recent years as users can access rich gaming experiences via portable devices,...