Biz Builder Mike

You can't sail Today's boat on Yesterdays wind - Michael Noel

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Focus on DeFi ‘fairness’ benefits Holochain, Orion Protocol and Dodo

Bitcoin’s (BTC) strong bull run and the immense popularity of the decentralized finance space have attracted several new investors to cryptocurrencies. A report from Crypto.com shows a massive increase in crypto users as the figure rose from 66 million in May 2020 to 106 million by January this year. 

Crypto market data daily view. Source: Coin360

Contrary to the popular notion that new crypto users are mostly speculating on the price, data from Unchained Capital shows that investors who bought in the past three to five years are still holding and are not yet tempted to book profits.

Unlike the 2017 bull market where many low-cap altcoins rallied, the current bull trend has rewarded projects with strong fundamentals. Let’s have a look at three such tokens and also analyze their charts.

HOT/USD

Holochain (HOT) aims to provide the solution for the scalability problems which may be a limiting factor in the crypto sector. Holochain wants to give control of data and privacy back to the people, eliminating large corporations and middlemen.

To achieve that, Holo, a distributed peer-to-peer hosting platform, acts as the link between the web and the Holochain apps. Holochain wants to make this technology available to users who can access the apps in a web browser. If this needs to be done, the technology must have vast scalability, fast speeds, and it should also be financially viable. The team at Holochain believes they are on the path to achieving this goal.

As part of the process, Holochain launched an app called Elemental Chat that runs on HoloPorts. The team is also planning to enable web users to log into Elemental Chat through the HoloPort. This will put the protocol’s scalability claims to the test and help to further fine-tune the project.

The team has also outlined the progress on the upcoming milestones of the Holo suite of products that will be progressively released in the future. If the team delivers on its promises, the protocol may attract investor attention.

HOT surged from $0.0007817 on Feb. 8 to an intraday high at $0.00424 on Feb. 21, a 442% rally within two weeks. This up-move had pushed the relative strength index (RSI) above 92 on Feb. 21, indicating the market was extremely overbought in the short term.

HOT/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

That resulted in profit-booking on Feb. 22 and 23, which pulled the price down to the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level at $0.0021028. But the positive sign is that the long tail on the candlesticks on both days showed strong buying at lower levels.

However, traders who are stuck at higher levels are dumping their positions on rallies, as seen from the long wick on the Feb. 24 candlestick.

After the large intraday range of the past few days, the HOT/USD pair has formed an inside day candlestick pattern today, indicating a balance between supply and demand. The pair may now consolidate for a few days.

If the bulls can push the price above $0.00363, a retest of $0.00424 is possible. A breakout of this level could start the next leg of the up-move that may reach $0.0055629.

Conversely, if the bears sink the price below $0.0028, the pair may drop to the 20-day exponential moving average ($0.0020).

ORN/USD

As the decentralized finance space grows, many new projects are being announced on a regular basis. It becomes difficult for investors to keep track of all of them. Hence, a liquidity aggregator that connects to several decentralized and centralized exchanges in order to swap pools and provide access from a single platform may be sought after and this is what the Orion protocol (ORN) aims to do.

The protocol plans to offer its investor’s a variety of revenue streams. The Orion Liquidity Boost Plugin offers increased liquidity to its partners and has already onboarded Polkastarter and many other blockchain projects.

Orion’s Launchpad Liquidity has partnered with DAO Marker and DuckDAO, which will enable projects launch incubated projects on the launchpad’s own platform

Orion recently launched the staking calculator, allowing ORN token holders to calculate the staking rewards and attain APY’s of up to 38%.

After launching the first phase of the Orion Terminal’s mainnet on Dec. 15, the team plans to add several features like derivatives, leveraged ETFs, contract trading, NFTs, lending, margin trading and staking of any digital asset by 2021.

As more products are launched, the revenue is likely to increase and that may benefit ORN token holders.

ORN has been in a strong bull run this year. It rallied from $4.3014 on Feb. 8 to an intraday high at $15.20 today, a 253% rally in just over two weeks. As a result, the RSI has surged to above 91 levels, indicating the possibility of a short-term fall or a range-bound trading action.

ORN/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

The bears tried to stall the rally on Feb. 22 and Feb. 23, but the long tail and the positive closes of each day show that the bulls purchased the dips and resumed the rally.

However, today it looks as if traders booked profits and a retest of the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level at $11.4379 is possible. 

If the ORN/USD pair rises from this support level, it will indicate strong demand at lower levels. That could result in a retest of $15.20 and a breakout of this resistance may propel the pair to $20.

On the other hand, a break below $10.2759 could pull the price down to the 20-day EMA ($8.21). Such a deep fall could delay the next leg of the up-move.

DODO/USD

The DeFi space has been attracting investor attention in the past few months. However, the growing popularity has clogged the Ethereum network gas fees have soared to unsustainable levels. Therefore, traders are searching for options that are on competing networks and charge fewer fees. Binance Smart Chain has been one of the major beneficiaries of this trend.

DODO is a decentralized exchange that uses the Proactive Market Maker (PMM) algorithm, which the team claims is better than automated market makers. DODO offers several features such as trading, aggregation, initial DEX offerings, and mining.

DODO introduced Crowdpooling in January, and this feature aims to provide equal opportunity to investors by addressing the biggest issues being faced by new projects. If successful, Crowdpooling will help prevent frontrunning, insufficient liquidity, and the high costs associated with attracting liquidity. The first phase of the DODO V2 Beta crowdfunding pool called ‘ShuttleOne’ was a huge success as it was oversubscribed by 173 times.

DODO token was listed on Binance on Feb. 19 following the DODO V2 Public Beta launch on the Ethereum Mainnet and Binance Smart Chain on Feb. 22. There are also several incentive programs available on BSC.

DODO price rallied from an intraday low at $2.788 to an intraday high at $10 on Feb. 19. The token had strong listing gains but since then, the price has been in a corrective phase.

DODO/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The bulls attempted to start a rebound off $3.50 on Feb. 23, but the bears continue to sell on minor rallies, indicating a negative sentiment. However, a minor positive is that the bulls have been defending the $4.50 level for some time.

If the price turns up from the current level and breaks above $5.660, the DODO/USD pair may rise to $7.50. This level is likely to act as a stiff resistance but if crossed, the pair could rally to $8.75 and then retest $10. The next leg of the uptrend may resume above this level.

Conversely, if the bears sink the price below $4.50, a drop to $3.50 is possible. The selling could intensify if the $3.50 to $2.788 support cracks.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Focus on DeFi ‘fairness’ benefits Holochain, Orion Protocol and Dodo

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High-tech Babel fish: How the Timekettle WT2 Edge Translator breaks language barriers

Normal conversations are energetic and messy. You and your friends might talk over each other, interrupting each other with new ideas and clarifying questions. Which means that if you and your friend don’t speak the same language, a traditional translator would slow down your conversation to the speed of a walkie-talkie. Helpful, but not exactly a replacement for a fluid chat.

The Timekettle WT2 Edge is the first in-ear translator that preserves the nuances and flow of a natural conversation. The WT2 Edge are bi-directional simultaneous translation earbuds that translate in real-time as you speak and listen, delivering what you said to your listener’s ear in as little as 0.5 seconds with up to 95% accuracy in 40 languages and 93 accents. 

We sat down with the Timekettle team to learn more about how they made a working Babel fish and how they hope to foster more connections worldwide by breaking down language barriers.

Who are the team members of your project? What’s their story?

Timekettle was founded in 2016 by Leal Tian, who was named to the Forbes China 2018 30 Under 30 list. Over the past four years, the Timekettle team has acquired a number of rising stars: Doctor Liang Tian, who works in neural machine translation; Wei Shiei, one of the leading experts in the vector voice algorithm field; Yuman Wang, a software and hardware architect with over a decade of experience; and Alex Qin, a serial entrepreneur who has generated millions of dollars with his business successes. Timekettle has become an open and international start-up, and our staff includes specialists from Japan, the United States, France, and more.

How did it all begin?

We knew we could make a handheld translator faster than an in-ear style, but we believe the cross-language conversation is more than the translation itself. A face-to-face conversation involves exploring and enhancing a relationship from start to finish, and we knew that our design would determine whether our translator would push the conversation forward or hold it back. The in-ear translator seemed to be the best way to achieve our goals, but we lacked a technical solution to make the concept a reality. We re-rooted codes and architected the software and hardware. We spent more than one million dollars and worked on it for a year and a half, but we still failed. We thought about abandoning the in-ear concept and reverting to a handheld translator instead, but we believed in designing a product that made the conversation so natural, it was like the translator wasn’t there at all.

We were lucky: We broke through our technical bottleneck and created a wearable, in-ear translator in 2018. Timekettle WT2 series Translator earbuds are still the best experience translator in the world. We appreciate the backers who supported Timekettle’s product idea, and media outlets like Techcrunch who introduced our idea to the world. They inspire us to feel what we’re doing is worthy. We’re excited to help people break the language barrier in a new way.

How did backer feedback help you make this latest version of your earbuds?

Over the past year, more than 100,000 backers and users from 89 countries and regions have used the WT2 Plus Translator. We received thousands of emails with feedback on the product that helped us design new features. We’ve created a more intelligent voice pick-up capacity, and we also released a feature that allows people to chime in while the other person is still speaking. With other translators, speakers have to wait their turn to talk, but that isn’t how a real conversation happens. Simultaneous Mode lets people speak more naturally. It also enables people to use the Translator in places where there might be a lot of background noise, like streets, restaurants, shopping malls, and more. We’re excited to showcase these features with our new model, WT2 Edge.

Can you briefly explain what your product is? 

Timekettle WT2 Edge Translator Earbuds are the world’s first two-way translation earbuds, meaning you can speak and hear other people’s translations at the same time. The vector noise reduction and bi-directional simultaneous translation make our earbuds different from other existing translators. The WT2 Edge effectively prevents interruption from the external environment and improves translation accuracy significantly to give you a natural and fluent conversation with your friends around the world.

What are you raising funds for? What is the purpose of your campaign? 

It takes years to transform our ideas into a final product. Indiegogo is a global platform for innovative products from all over the world where we can receive feedback from backers around the world. Crowdfunding for the product allows us to continuously update the hardware and improve the software to bring our customers a refined user experience.

What inspired you to make your product? 

Our team was inspired by the Babel fish in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The Babel fish is small, yellow, and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the universe. When the main character, Arthur Dent, puts it into his ear, it translates the universe’s languages for him and allows him to finish his exploration of the galaxy. 

We wanted to make a real-life Babel fish — something that made communication between people who speak different languages as easy as it was for Arthur Dent. We believe that communication is connection. Translation is about more than words: It’s expression, eye contact, and body language. The WT2 Edge expands on its predecessors to make connections even easier. 

Why did you choose to do crowdfunding? 

Language barriers have divided human beings for thousands of years. For most people, language translation is very expensive. Plus, it’s difficult to find a good interpreter. And learning a new language yourself is time-consuming and hard to do well.

In 2016, artificial intelligence technology was growing fast and neural machine translations were already being used in travel, social networks, business communications, and more. However, very few people were paying attention to the industry back then, and they didn’t realize that this new technology could be turned into a wearable device and bring consumers a cost-effective translation experience. We knew we wanted to launch our Translators through crowdfunding to find our early adopters.

Crowdfunding backers are engaged and supportive. They’re passionate about sharing their ideas for how to optimize products, and passionate about telling their friends and family about a product they backed. Through crowdfunding, we build the Timekttle brand together with our backers.

What have been your biggest challenges so far? 

2020 was an unstable year, and the pandemic has restricted most of our international travel. Timekettle is also a startup, and as a new company, our staff’s time is limited. While some companies were spending 2020 changing directions and putting their efforts into new businesses, our team was working hard to improve our translating system to create an accurate and stable technology that encompasses multi-lingual support. We believe in our mission because of the encouragement, love, and anticipation that we see in our backers all over the world. We made our Translators because we believe that language barriers should be overcome. 

Want to support Timekettle? Check out their campaign page to back their campaign today!

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Ether fees are at it again

Fees on the Ethereum network have reached an average of $10.20 per transaction as of Sunday, according to data from YCharts. The network’s fees went higher on only two occasions in 2020, briefly averaging $12.54 in early September. They again rose to $11.69 near the middle of the same month.

Ethereum network transactors faced high fees on and off last year as a partial result of the decentralized finance, or DeFi, boom, which utilized the blockchain for various lending and yield farming activities. At times, the high fees made it difficult for contributors to participate in DeFi activities.

“#Ethereum gas fees soaring again, basically making #defi unusable,” Crypto YouTuber Lark Davis tweeted on Monday.

The network’s traffic tolerance has been an issue for years. Transactors suffered major delays and fees near the height of the last major crypto bull run when a cat-centric blockchain game called CryptoKitties took off in popularity.

Ethereum recently commenced its long-awaited network upgrade journey, called Ethereum 2.0, moving the network over to a proof-of-stake mining algorithm. The upgrade is expected to bring massive scaling to Ethereum, although the process will likely take years to fully play out.

Over the past 24 hours, Ether (ETH) surged up to $1,161 from a level near $830.

Ether fees are at it again

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In a Sign of the Importance of Fintech, Switzerland Finance Minister Ueli Maurer to Address Singapore Fintech Festival

Switzerland has emerged as a Fintech friendly jurisdiction and home to many blockchain-focused financial services firms. The country  has long been an important banking center and the Swiss government is keen to maintain its status in a world that is going through a digital transformation.

In a sign of the importance of Fintech, Switzerland Finance Minister (Federal Department of Finance) Ueli Maurer will lead the Swiss participation in the forthcoming Singapore Fintech Festival, sponsored by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, that is scheduled to take place next month.

Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE) and the Swiss Business Hub ASEAN say that Asia remains an important market for the organization’s clients, internationally oriented Swiss SMEs. S-GE is the official Swiss organization for export and investment promotion supporting Swiss SMEs in their international business and helps innovative foreign companies to settle in Switzerland.

A Swiss delegation will again be present at this year’s Singapore Fintech Festival 2020 with a digital Swiss Pavilion. The goal of S-GE is to enable Swiss and Lichtenstein SMEs to realize their international business potential in new and existing markets. Singapore is, of course, a top Asian Fintech hub.

Maurer will lead the Swiss participation with a keynote speech titled “Fintech, Sustainable Finance and Innovation” followed by a panel discussion on the strengths of the Swiss financial center that includes the participation of: Thomas Gottstein, CEO Credit Suisse Group AG; M Ralph Hamers, CEO UBS AG, and Herbert J. Scheidt, President of the Swiss Bankers Association presenting their views. This session will be telecast “live” from the SIX Convention Point in Zurich on 7 December (5 pm SGT).

Registration for the Swiss satellite event can be completed here and is free to the public.

According to S-GE, seven Swiss Fintech companies will highlight their strengths in financial services technologies including regulation technology (Regtech), blockchain solutions, big data and analytics, algorithm trading and cybersecurity. The event presents an opportunity for Swiss Fintechs and their interested stakeholders in Asia to connect and build business linkages in a seamless manner.

The Swiss Fintech industry is said to be highly interested in Singapore, which is seen as a gateway into Asia. Interest in garnering a greater presence in Singapore arises from the Switzerland’s Fintech cooperation framework and agreements with ASEAN, China, India, Japan, and South Korea.

H.E. Fabrice Filliez, Ambassador of Switzerland to Singapore, says:

“The participation of the Swiss Pavilion at the annual Singapore Fintech Festival is an anchor initiative. In 2020, the participating companies will reflect the robustness of the Swiss finance ecosystem, paving the way for collaborations and partnerships in co-innovation and fresh ventures. With Singapore being Switzerland’s most important trading partner in Asia, Swiss fintech companies view the republic as an important gateway to the wider Asian economic region.”

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Things just got MESSy for potential Ethereum Classic 51% attackers

Over the past weekend, on block 11380000, a solution for the prevention of 51% attacks was introduced to the Ethereum Classic (ETC) community. Several such attacks have recently placed ETC at a crossroads, leaving the very survival of the chain uncertain. In the weeks that followed these attacks, the community worked to evaluate numerous potential solutions. 

The first one that has been implemented is called MESS, which stands for Modified Exponential Subjective Scoring. Its predecessor was first suggested by Vitalik Buterin back in 2014. It builds on the assumption that while small chain reorganizations that go back a few blocks are perfectly normal, the ones proposing reorganizations going back hundreds and even thousands of blocks are highly suspicious.

With most proof-of-work blockchains, the longest chain with the most work wins. This means that malicious attackers must mine a longer chain in isolation and then, propose it to the world. This was the case during recent attacks, which cost honest participants millions of dollars.

MESS polynomial curve. Source: Ethereum Classic Improvement Proposal 1100.

MESS disincentivizes shadow mining by weighing chains differently depending on the time of publication. Isaac Ardis, one of ETC Core’s developers, explained this mechanism to Cointelegraph:

“The intention with that is to weight chains which occur and are available first over chains that come later. And so in that way, there is an incentive to publish work on the chain and it disincentivizes chains that are defined in private and that would come later.”

The algorithm employs a multiplier that determines the required difficulty from a proposed chain in order to be considered canonical. The multiplier ranges from 1 to 31 and depends on the aforementioned time of publication. The more suspicious the proposed reorganization, the higher the multiplier. Thus a shadow chain would have to provide manifold more proof-of-work to be deemed canonical.

MESS does not make 51% attacks impossible as it is rather a probabilistic and not deterministic solution, but it makes them prohibitively expensive. This is one of the reasons why the community has discussed implementing it in conjunction with a checkpointing solution. Ardis said that although it is a possibility, there does not seem to be much benefit to this duplication:

“Though you can use them together, you may not have to use them together and may not even want to use them together.”

MESS has several advantages. The code base is compact and it will not require a hard fork to implement. The nodes that choose to run MESS will be compatible with the ones that do not. Any discordance will only come into play when and if another 51% attack happens, said Ardis:

“If there is a large attack, then the miners, the operators and the nodes who have activated MESS, we certainly hope, will successfully dissuade the attacker while those nodes that haven’t upgraded would move to the attacker’s chain.”

The assumption is that most of these attacks tend to be short-termed and opportunistic. Once the attacker leaves, the remaining honest miners will rejoin the canonical fork.

MESS appears to be a short to mid-term solution. Although Ardis believes than no chain is immune from a 51% attack, he agreed that the only viable protection is the network’s growth. One of the bets is on Ethereum (ETH) miners joining Ethereum Classic after the former migrates to the proof-of-stake consensus. Another is taking advantage of the compatibility between the two networks, which allows for a painless migration from a congested Ethereum to Ethereum Classic. Ardis said that now that they are done with this mess, the team can focus on developing new tools for ETC.

Things just got MESSy for potential Ethereum Classic 51% attackers

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