Dr. Dritan Abazovi, who serves as the Prime Minister of Montenegro since 28th April, 2022, recently talked about a meeting he had with two high ranking Ripple executives.

Small countries like Montenegro generally lack the most basic necessities, including things like physical and human capital, a problem that is becoming more acute as technology advances. Their governments usually struggle to support innovation so policymakers must consider everything which affects the accumulation of all types of capital in order to design, implement, and coordinate viable policies.

On January 18th, 2023, reports started surfacing about the aforementioned meeting which involved Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Ripple VP for Central Bank Engagements and CBDCs, James Wallis. The discussion focused on the creation of a payment infrastructure which could boost financial accessibility and inclusion.

The local government is therefore open to new value and investment categories, a mindset which culminated in the launch of a pilot project with Ripple and the Central Bank to create the very first digital currency or stablecoin for the country.

Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers has introduced numerous crypto-related bills in the past, with the most recent one being to make Bitcoin (BTC) legal tender in the state. This marks a new trend in the United States wherein many government officials have realized that, despite their best efforts to curb the booming industry, crypto and its associated components (NFTs, blockchain, the metaverse, and so on) are not going anywhere.

What happened?

The right-wing senator tweeted that she has already launched her crypto bills and that her state senate Republican colleagues Jeff Weninger and J.D. Mesnard have also co-sponsored the bills, one which seeks to make the flagship crypto legal tender.

According to the bill, Bitcoin is defined as a fully decentralized, P2P virtual currency in which a record of transactions has to be maintained at all times through the blockchain and that new units of this digital currency are generated via the computational solution of mathematical problems. The bill also clarified that Bitcoin operates independently of any central bank, intermediary, or third party.

Another bill would permit state agencies to enter into a deal with a crypto issuer to offer a viable procedure of accepting cryptocurrencies as payment for various purposes such as civil penalties, fines, charges, rates, rent, taxes, revenue, special assessments, and any other financial obligation.

In 2022, Rogers had introduced a similar bill in Arizona to make BTC legal tender, however she was denied. She would later tweet that centralized digital money controlled by central bankers is equivalent to financial slavery, and that a truly decentralized currency, like Bitcoin, is synonymous with liberty, the very basis upon which the country was built.

Bitcoin becoming mainstream?

Despite a tumultuous year for crypto in 2022, which saw many incidents like the collapse of Terra and FTX, interest in crypto and crypto-related products has only continued to increase. Many major names in several industries like Emirates, Samsung, JPMorgan, Microsoft, Starbucks, and more have expressed interest in either crypto or the underlying technology behind it and its related components.

El Salvador became the inaugural nation to accept Bitcoin as legal tender alongside the United States Dollar in September 2021. Since then, the country has bought thousands of BTC for its treasury, led by pro-crypto president Nayib Bukele who also announced in November that El Salvador is buying Bitcoin on a daily basis and that the country will be using geothermal energy to power Bitcoin City.

It has been a difficult time for Porsche as its initial NFT drop of model 911 vehicle-inspired tokens failed to sell out. The digital assets did not achieve the aforementioned goal mainly because the initial mint price of 0.911 ETH combined with the lack of a clear roadmap turned off many investors.

Most recently, Porsche established a precedent in the NFT sector by including a 14-day return period in the terms of its debut collection.

Notwithstanding the fact that consumer laws have been in effect for EU and UK customers since before NFTs were invented, the idea that users can return an NFT for the full amount they paid, even if the floor price has dropped to zero, has understandably sparked outrage on social media.

The distance selling regulations, as they are being called, cover digital goods and downloads such as books as well as in-game purchases. Consumer rights for NFT buyers and sellers, like much of crypto, are murky. If it is upheld, this legal aspect could prevent projects from pulling the rug out from under unexpecting buyers.

Goldman Sachs has reportedly ranked Bitcoin as the best-performing asset year to date, ahead of gold, the US Treasury, and the S&P 500.

There is some truth to this assessment, as Bitcoin has managed to outperformed several major financial institutions in the traditional market, while maintaining a risk-adjusted return of 3.1. Typically, the higher this ratio, the better the currrency, stock, or investment in terms of risk-adjusted returns.

On shorter timescales, Bitcoin continues its pursuit to reclaim lost ground. The flagship cryptp is slowly but surely attempting to break above the $23,800 resistance level. In search of bullish momentum, Bitcoin appears to be making a healthy pullback below the resistance line.

Notwithstanding recent crises in the crypto sector including the collapse of Terra and FTX, the market has nevertheless noticed a gradual return of investors and traders on various crypto exchanges as of late.

Meanwhile, interest in not just crypto but other technologies such as NFTs, the metaverse, and particularly AI continues to skyrocket especially with the recent introduction of ChatGPT.
 

The Shanghai upgrade has successfully been shadow forked by developers for the purposes of testing it on an iteration of the main Ethereum network. The upgrade test occurred at approximately 5:30 AM Eastern Time.

Essentially, a shadow fork refers to a test version of the mainnet that allows developers to determine whether a piece of code from the proposed upgrade would even work properly on the actual blockchain.

According to Marius Van Der Wijden, a Geth developer, there were a few minor technical issues with the nodes on Ethereum which utilize Geth clients after the fork. Developers have since been able to resolve the issues, and all nodes are now in agreement. Van Der Wijden added that they will conduct additional testing to guarantee that everything works properly.

Moreover, through Shanghai, withdrawals will reportedly be enabled on the mainnet in March, allowing users to access their staked coins which were rendered temporarily inaccessible during the the Merge transition last year. Also, whereas withdrawals shall be the main feature, developers have completed various other improvements directed at optimizing gas costs for specific activities.

Binance Charity, the charitable branch of the biggest crypto exchange in the world, plans to provide over 30,000 scholarships to students interested in pursuing a career in Web3 this year. Binance Charity will also benefit from the popular non-profit blockchain education portal, Binance Academy.

The BCSP (Binance Charity Scholar Program) will therefore offer free Web3 education and training courses in 2023, allowing tech-savvy students to upskill without incurring any unnecessary financial costs. More than 82,000 applicants have expressed an interest in wanting to be a part of the next BCSP cohort, which roughly equates to a 37% acceptance rate.

Many institutions are also already interested, with University of Western Australia, University of Nicosia in Cyprus, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management in Germany, and Nigerian-based technology hub Utiva among those involved in the program.

Additionally, Binance Charity stated that they collaborated with Ukraine-based departments to retrain Ukrainians who might have lost their jobs as a result of the war with Russia. Meanwhile, a collaboration with Women In Tech will aim to train approximately 3,000 women in rural South Africa and Brazil in order to support future female entrepreneurs and boost the local economies.

Stargate Finance, a completely composable liquidity transport protocol, recently announced their deployment on Metis Andromeda, an organization dedicated to constructing a resilient and fully decentralized Layer 2 infrastructure to empower the Web3 economy.

What should we expect?

The integration marks the first instance of Stargate becoming involved with blockchain expansion outside of the LayerZero ecosystem, thereby enabling an omni-chain bridge using LayerZero technology. The expansion shall therefore allow projects to use Stargate for the purposes of realizing their cross-chain as well as omni-chain goals.

In a nutshell, the expansion to Metis will utilize LayerZero technology to give projects more flexibility in managing their treasury, funds, and yield techniques. Moreover, the collaboration aims to make crypto increasingly accessible to end users while simultaneously accelerating mainstream adoption.

The Metis team is pleased to welcome Stargate into the Metis Ecosystem, said CEO and Co-Founder Elena Sinelnikova, who further indicated that Web3 represents both community and decentralization, two crucial aspects which must start with infrastructure before anything else. Metis is confident that the collaboration with Stargate will serve as a significant step toward removing barriers between blockchains and ushering in a more decentralized and multi-chain economy.

Why does this matter?

The fragmented nature of blockchains prevents users from properly leveraging the potential of decentralization. Theoretically, network composability solves this problem by allowing blockchains to seamlessly communicate with one another. To date, however, cross-chain bridging has posed as much risk as reward, with over $2.5 billion stolen from cross-chain bridges in the last two years alone.

To make matters worse, it was recently discovered that about 50% of DeFi exploits take place on cross-chain bridges. LayerZero improves cross-chain composability by enabling developers to construct richer and more user-friendly applications by providing easy and safe messaging capabilities across various blockchains.

Where does the new partnership fit in?

LayerZero will act as the inaugural trustless omnichain interoperability protocol designed for lightweight cross-chain messaging, enabling developers to launch inter-chain applications such as cross-chain decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, and yield aggregators without the use of middle-chain bridges.

Furthermore, by being a fully composable native asset bridge, native cross-chain transfers in a single transaction are also made possible. The collaboration thus provides Metis users with a more efficient market alongside the ability to vastly benefit from DeFi across multiple ChainZero-supported chains.

Lastly, Metis and Stargate intend to continue working together in the future, as Stargate will initially support USDT for Metis across Avalanche, BNB Chain, and Ethereum, although there are plans of further expansion down the line.

Genesis Global Holdco LLC has reportedly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. This is also the parent company of notable crypto lender Genesis Global Capital. Additionally, the company recently announced that it would be laying off 30% of its workforce, reducing it to 145 employees.

Genesis Global Holdco LLC, Genesis Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd, and Genesis Global Capital LLC filed three voluntary petitions with the bankruptcy court. All three are owned by Digital Currency Group. As of this moment, Genesis has requested that the cases be handled jointly to simplify the entire process.

Genesis Global Capital was estimated to have over 100,000 creditors and between $1 billion and $10 billion in assets and liabilities in its filing. It is also anticipated that sufficient funds would be left over after the restructuring process to pay unsecured creditors, a group which may very well be wiped out in bankruptcy cases should the situation prove to be catastrophic.

In the past, Genesis Global Capital had no choice but to suspend customer withdrawals shortly after FTX filed for bankruptcy last November, adversely affecting customers of a yield product that was offered by the Gemini crypto exchange.

Image Source: Pexels

Starting up a blockchain project can be daunting if youre a newcomer, but that doesnt mean it has to be completely out of reach. The key is to pick an approach thats intriguing and not too taxing to take up.

To give you a bit of inspiration, here are a few examples of projects that might mesh well with anyone taking their first steps into blockchain development.

Make A Voting Tool Powered By The Blockchain

Voting is an important part of democracy, but it can be vulnerable to tampering and fraud. Thats why using blockchain technology to power voting systems could offer much-needed security and transparency.

You could create an online voting system that would use the decentralized ledger technology to store votes securely without any third-party interference or manipulation, and use it within your business or organization. Simply try to:

• Use cryptographic hashing functions such as SHA256 or RIPEMD160 for authentication purposes
• Create smart contracts with Solidity or other programming languages
• Build consensus mechanisms like Proof of Stake (PoS) and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) algorithms
• Research various techniques used in digital ballot boxes such as zero knowledge proofs and homomorphic encryption

Build An App To Process Charitable Donations

Charitable donations play an important role both nationally and internationally however there are still issues surrounding trustworthiness when it comes to organizations handling these funds responsibly. This is where the power of distributed ledger technologies comes into play.

 With a background in programming languages like JavaScript, Python or Ruby on Rails, you could build an app powered by the Ethereum network that processes donations directly from donors wallets with complete transparency over how those funds are being used by charities through detailed reports generated from smart contracts written on top of its platform.

Working on ideas like this is a great way to become a skilled blockchain developer, especially if youve already got a grounding in other software development skills. Just remember to:

• Design user friendly interfaces so non tech savvy users can easily interact with your app
• Utilize secure payment gateways such as Stripe API or PayPal SDK
• Implement ERC20 tokens which represent monetary value within its ecosystem

Try Out Blockchain-Based Web Hosting

Web hosting is one industry which has been ripe for disruption thanks to the decentralized nature of blockchain technology. With a little bit of knowledge in web development, and training in crypto, you could create an efficient web hosting platform that would offer users more control over their websites and data.

This way, businesses could save on hosting costs while still having reliable access to their website content without relying on third-party services. Why not:

• Design a secure storage system for files using technologies like InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) or Swarm
• Implement consensus protocols such as Ethereums Proof-of-Work algorithm
• Develop smart contracts which can automate various processes related to domain registration, renewal fees etc
• Enable payment processing through cryptocurrency gateways

Final Thoughts

It should go without saying, but beginners in blockchain development will be better off if they aren't total newcomers to tinkering with coding in other contexts. This will make the aforementioned projects much simpler to embrace.

The Central Bank of Iran is reportedly collaborating with the Russian government to launch a new cryptocurrency backed by gold. The goal of the partnership is to develop a token of the Persian Gulf region which can be used as a reliable payment method for the purposes of international trade.

As per Alexander Brazhnikov, Executive Director of the Russian Association of Crypto Industry and Blockchain, the token will be issued in the form of a stablecoin that is backed by gold that also seeks to replace fiat currencies such as the US dollar, Russian Ruble, and Iranian Rial in cross-border transactions.

According to various reports, the new crypto would operate in an Astrakhan special economic zone, where Russia has already begun to accept Iranian cargo shipments.

Furthermore, Russian lawmaker Anton Tkachev emphasized that a joint stablecoin project would be feasible only after the digital asset market in Russia becomes fully regulated. After much back and forth, Russia has apparently promised to begin regulating cryptocurrency transactions this year.

Russia and Iran are two of several nations which have prohibited their citizens from using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and stablecoins like Tether to make payments. Simultaneously though, these two have also been working to adopt crypto as a tool for foreign trade.

Educational adoption of Bitcoin and crypto-related courses has been steadily increasing alongside a gradually recovering market, with Texas A&M becoming the latest institution in the U.S to offer a Bitcoin course to its student body of over 74,000.

The announcement was made on January 13th by Associate Professor Korok Ray of the Mays Business School, who will teach the Bitcoin Protocol course to students in the College of Engineering and Mays Business School when the Spring Semester begins on January 17th.

According to crypto researcher Josh Cowell, a lack of high-quality crypto education is a key barrier in taking adoption to the next level. Having the right educational resources can hence certainly improve overall financial literacy, he said.

As such, the legal and regulatory implications of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies are now being taught at several universities and colleges in the United States.

Professor Thomas Hook from Boston University recently announced that the law school now offers a course about crypto regulation course for students who have an interest in understanding how crypto-oriented lawyers and companies may best navigate regulatory uncertainties as they look to bring their products and services to market.

In a collaboration between crypto-satellite developer Cryptosat and global hackathon organizer DoraHacks, the first successful experiment to launch a ZK (Zero-Knowledge) proof system in space recently occurred onboard the International Space Station (ISS).

According to DoraHacks and Cryptosat, the experiment performed onboard the ISS showcased the capability of a satellite-based computation environment to successfully perform part of the trusted setup process required to use a ZK proof protocol.

According to Cryptosat, which is attempting to launch a constellation of cubesats into orbit and build out its satellite fleet, the success of the ZK proof experiment is a crucial component in demonstrating the efficacy of space-bound computational environments.

The procedure entailed sending pre-uploaded open source programs to the ISS through a secure link in order to generate a string file for the ZK proof-based voting program. Cryptosat has also already launched two mug-sized satellites, Crypto1 and Crypto2, the latter of which is currently being tested.