A vehicle that was burned during the protests triggered by fuel price increase is seen on a road in Almaty, Kazakhstan January 6, 2022. REUTERS/Pavel Mikheyev
Bitcoin endured a hit on Thursday after the web in Kazakhstan was closed down in the midst of increasing brutality. The Asian country as of late has been shaken by savage conflicts between dissenters, police, and the military.
The fights started in the west of the country throughout the end of the week, after a sharp ascent in fuel prices, and immediately spread through urban areas the country over.
The web was closed down across the country on Wednesday. The whole plan was to disrupt the protestor’s communication system. This will ensure that large riots cannot be organized and information to spread on social media. While the strategy seems fair, its effect backfired.
Over the last year, Kazakhstan has been important to the bitcoin community. When China decided to put a stop to most of the internal crypto activities last year, miners were searching for a new home.
Kazakhstan came up as a viable place due to the favorable energy prices. It worked out well for the miners initially and led the country to rank second for bitcoin mining, falling short behind the United States.
During the initial hours of the blackout, it sends a ripple effect through the bitcoin ecosystem as the computation power fell.
Bitcoin is mined by powerful PCs that seek to solve complex puzzles to verify transactions on the blockchain network. This process was once done on a single PC in 2009 but became energy-intensive and difficult as the years go by. Hence, miners were forced to set up large distributed systems of PCs to solve more problems at a faster rate so as to be rewarded with more money.
This outage led to reducing in the hash rate as well which is basically the speed of mining. The hash rate was down 15% between Tuesday and Thursday according to BTC.com.
Once upon a time, we would usually deposit money into a bank and let it “grow”. Even if it was measly 0.10% interest, at least it’s “free” money. Banks used to use our money, profit off of it, and then give us whatever they want.
Decentralized finance (DEFI) has changed all that and we will dive deeper into that within this article. For now, let’s focus on traditional banks, traditional banks never really cared about us.
Our accounts are attached to an ID with other metadata such as name, amount, and other metrics they used to track us.
It was basically a black box that we used to store our money. If you met a certain criterion in terms of wealth and status. You are opened to programs that wouldn’t normally be accessible to someone from a lower socio-economic background.
These programs are where the real money can be made. If you want to borrow a loan, the process can be long and drawn out. Depending on the loan and your socio-economic background, if you do get the loan at the end, you are basically now a debt slave due to the amount of interest you have to pay back.
Depending on the geographic location of where you are, they are always the slowest to innovate.
Introducing Decentralized Finance
Decentralized finance spun out of the cryptocurrency movement which has engulfed our modern society. Love it or hate it, it’s the future and if you fail to participate in it, you are missing out on opportunities that only come around every couple of decades or century.
When it comes to cryptocurrencies, most of the population only slightly know what Bitcoin is. They see it as digital money and a get-rich-quick scheme. I have to blame marketing for this, but bitcoin is just the tip of the iceberg.
Underneath is a whole new landmass yet to be discovered and for the very few that are brave enough to venture out within the wild, they are reaping the benefits. It’s only a matter of time before banks start adopting some of these technologies that I will talk about shortly.
Now let’s continue from where I left off, Defi changed the entire landscape of cryptocurrency and made Bitcoin itself, look like a mere artifact of the past.
Originally cryptocurrencies had just a handful of use cases: purchasing items, sending money to any address in the world without any middlemen and miners could mine for more bitcoin. Now we are open to a whole ecosystem of financial products and services.
Why invest in banks that are giving you 0.01% APY (Annual Percentage Yield) on your money when certain Defi protocols can give you up to 10%. I know it sounds too good to be true, but you can check out the rates of the different Defi protocols if you want.
Earning Money With Decentralized Finance
It’s quite possible to earn money with Defi, even if you are a low-risk individual there are different ways that you can make money within this space passively. You can try yield farming, lending, staking, and becoming a liquidity provider. You also have other exotic ways but those are not beginner-friendly and you need a certain amount of capital to make it work.
I will try my best to go into each and every one of the four ways you can earn passive income from Defi. You will have to do your own due diligence as always and learn more about these protocols and systems online as things can change so quickly.
Staking
Staking is a viable option for persons who want to earn passive income with Defi. Basically, with staking, you are locking your money up into a smart contract to earn more of the same native token.
For example, if you should lock your token up in an Ethereum or Solana smart contract such as a wallet, you will then be rewarded for such an activity in that native token such as Ethereum or the tokens related to that smart contract.
Similarly, to a bank, where you would deposit your money and get rewards in “interest” for your action, you will be rewarded here and it can prove to be profitable if you know where to look.
Staking came out of the philosophy of proof of stake algorithms and it’s very similar to how we view a bank. For example, typically we normally flock to large banks because they are “perceived” to be secure as they have a large customer base.
This gives us reassurance that, if others are doing it, probably it’s trustworthy enough for me to put money within that particular bank as well.
In the crypto world, the more money locked into a smart contract, the more valuable it seems for others to lock money in the platform because it seems like it’s safe for others.
The platform will then reward those users who have “staked” their tokens within the protocol. As you can see, otherwise from earning money, staking is fundamental to a defi project.
Furthermore, staking can give you governmental privileges on the platform, the more you stake on the platform is the more privileges you will receive as you are now a part of that ecosystem.
Users who typically have the most staked on a platform will be given the option to validate transactions on the network.
Lending
Lending is also one of the easiest ways you can get into defi and it’s pretty self-explanatory. You are basically going to lock your tokens within a platform and allow borrowers to come in and borrow money based on some rate.
Typically, borrowers would’ve skin in the game and have to offer some form of collateral just in case things turn south. Once the deal is paid back, you will earn interest based on the amount you locked into the smart contract. Keep in that other users will be lending digital assets as well so it will be some sort of asset pool.
As a beginner, lending is probably one of the first places to start when you want to grace the defi space. It’s pretty straightforward and you can take your assets out at any time.
The interest rates offered by lending platforms are even better than traditional banks, for example, Celsius which is specifically for defi lending will give you a 6.5% interest if you lend Bitcoin.
Become a Liquidity Provider
CEXes VS DEXes
A liquidity provider is a concept that I really liked as it shows the possibility of decentralization. In the defi world, you have two types of exchanges, Centralized exchanges (CEX) and Decentralized exchanges (DEX).
Centralized exchanges would be Coinbase, Binance, FTX, etc. These are prone to manipulation and despite the fact that they are participating on their platform, they come with the same centralized issues, we face in the real world: control, censorship, etc.
On the other hand, you also have decentralized exchanges such as Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, dYdx2, etc. These models are the inverse of centralized exchanges in most cases.
Centralized exchanges depend on algorithms ran on servers to make deals and match demand and supply. Dexes on the other hand connect sellers and buyers together.
If you want to trade new cryptocurrencies before they hit centralized exchanges, you would typically use a decentralized exchange. It would have to go through too many due diligence tests before it hits the wider market on a centralized exchange.
Lastly, with DEXes the data cannot be easily faked such as volume, you can view the data as it is all opened to the public.
Bottleneck and Opportunity
The only drawback for DEXes is the reason why your precious tokens are so important. Centralized exchanges typically have a better liquidity pool system than decentralized exchanges.
A liquidity pool is basically the oil that keeps the engine going, without that the system goes bust. In the real-world market makers such as banks and other large financial entities would control the liquidity pool. They would be the ones that would ensure that you can sell and buy securities.
On DEXes it is a much different story, because of the decentralized factor, they depend on users to become liquidity pool (LP) providers. These LP will now be rewarded for their “good” deed in LP tokens or LP provider tokens.
The earnings you will reap are normally from the revenue generated from the platform. The party stops here though and continues reading to see why.
Automated Market Maker and Risk Assessment
Even though DEXes provide a way to earn reward tokens and the APY can tend to be higher, risks are still involved. It starts from the central mechanism that powers decentralized exchanges, these are called automated market markets (AMM).
AMM basically is not an individual but an algorithm that maintains the liquidity on the platform.
They are there to facilitate the automated and decentralized aspect of the platform. AMMs ensure that users are trading tokens at market prices.
One of the main drawbacks of AMM is impermanent loss Impermanent loss is when your tokens are exposed to shocks outside of the platform. Hence, there can be situations where you withdraw less than what you deposit based on the cryptonomic climate.
For example, let’s say that for hypothesis, Solana is worth $100 a token, and you put up 10 Solana as a liquidity provider at $1000. You will also be depositing $1000 in USDT (United States Dollar Tokens). Overall, you will have $2000 in the platform.
2 weeks later, Solana is up 100%, if you withdraw you would receive $2800. You would earn a cool $800 extra, that’s a good return but you missed the opportunity cost of just “hodling” your tokens without having them locked up in the liquidity pool.
You would’ve earned an extra $1000, so the overall total would be $3000. This calculation is based on DEXes where you would’ve to deposit 50/50 pairs. if you deposit $100 Solana, you would’ve to deposit $100 of some other token. You also have other algorithmic AMMs that have a different ratio.
Even though the impermanent loss is an issue. It can be mitigated by fees. Decentralized exchanges use fees as a way to reward users and help them to navigate the uncertain waters of becoming a liquidity provider.
Yield Farming
Yield Farming is similar to staking. You would lock up your digital assets within a Defi protocol and reward in the end. Rewards can come in tokens, percentage of revenue generated, or even governance tokens.
These protocols are normally liquidity pools run on smart contracts. Returns are based on an Annual Percentage Yield (APY).
The number of investors on the platform also affects the APY. The more they are the less APY you would receive. Yield is also within the same realms of being a liquidity provider as you are providing liquidity within the Defi protocol and is being rewarded. You can look at it as a mixture between being a liquidity provider and staking.
Wild, Wild, West and Due Diligence
Now that you have found out about some of the different ways you can earn passive income from Defi. It’s now up to you to do your research on the different protocols available and your own due diligence.
The crypto field is always changing, hacks and scams are now commonplace but don’t let that deter you. In the real world, you would be amazed at how many scams are around if you look hard enough. Especially within banks and corporations.
It’s even worse than crypto, but that’s for another topic. The only difference is that cryptocurrencies are run on the blockchain. This can be visualized as an open database similar to an excel spreadsheet.
So, you can view the transactions. It’s still not enough to prevent these scams. Anyone can “copypasta” code off of GitHub and build their own tokens and protocol too.
If you want to look at the viability of a token, you can use a token sniffer, to help you. I use this a lot to analyze the risk of different tokens and their usability. You can also read whitepapers on the protocol to see if it’s useful. It can be found on their website or on a database such as whitepaperdatabase.
The information is out there guys, you just got to research. Go on YouTube, research online, ask persons within the space on social media who are reputable and if it smells like shit to you, it probably is, our risk tolerance is all different. Take care.
MoneyGram announces that they have invested in CoinMe for a minority stake of 4%. This move is seen as a strategic decision as CoinMe is currently the largest licensed cryptocurrency exchange for cash within the US.
Unlike other cryptocurrency exchanges, they have been in business for close to a decade. Alex Holmes, MoneyGram Chairman, and CEO praised the initiative and sees it as a necessity in this new age of finance.
“At MoneyGram, we continue to be bullish on the vast opportunities that exist in the ever-growing world of cryptocurrency and our ability to operate as a compliant bridge to connect digital assets to local fiat currency. Our investment in Coinme further strengthens our partnership and compliments our shared vision to expand access to digital assets and cryptocurrencies,” he said.
He also commented on what this means for MoneyGram’s future.
“Our unique cash-to-bitcoin offering with Coinme, announced in May of 2021, opened our business to an entirely new customer segment, and we couldn’t be more pleased with our progress. As we accelerate our innovation efforts, partnerships with startups like Coinme will further our position as the industry leader in the utilization of blockchain and similar technologies,” he said.
It’s all adaptation at this point for traditional financial companies such as MoneyGram. Attaching themselves to a brand such as CoinMe which is seen 78th fastest-growing technology company in America, will allow them to be in the midst of financial innovation.
OpenSea is currently on the market raising money which will raise its valuation to $13 billion. Over the last year, we have seen a staggering rise in NFT (Non-Fungible Token) projects.
Some of them have been able to sell NFTs for millions of dollars. This has brought in a new surge of users hoping to strike it rich. OpenSea has been at the center of that wave and has benefited greatly from it.
DappRadar, a company that provides a global app store for decentralized applications is estimating that OpenSeas daily trading volume is at $162.5 million. This is the largest in the market thus far. Coinbase is currently in the works of launching its own NFT marketplace and capitalizing on the trend.
It’s not been 7 months since OpenSea raised $100 million at a $1.5 billion dollar valuation. This goes to show that they are investing heavily in the platform as they see new opportunities pop up within the space.
Despite its rise, there have been concerns over centralized NFT marketplaces. Recently OpenSea had to force its head of product to resign over front-running controversy. Nate Chastain, head of product at the time, was trading based on knowledge of NFTs that was to appear on the front page.
Recently they were in hot water again over the fact they froze over $2 million worth of Bored Ape NFTs that was deemed to be stolen. Despite the move, persons within the community criticized their control over the platform. It was anti-decentralized based on the control they have on what happens to NFTs within certain circumstances.
Male hipster person having fun at the beach with longboard skateboard and mobile phone.
Twitter is putting an end to its Mobile advertising platform MoPub in a deal worth $1.5 billion. They are going to sell the platform to AppLovin who is a mobile game maker and marketing software provider.
At the moment Twitter is investing heavily in new products to grow the overall platform and make it easier for users. Offloading MoPub for that amount of cash will help Twitter to invest in sectors where they will see growth.
In the press release that announces the sale, Twitter’s GM of revenue products, Bruce Falck sees it as a net positive for Twitter.
“With the sale of MoPub completed, we continue to concentrate our efforts on enhancing ads across our platform. Our goal is to deliver faster growth in key areas and accelerate our product development,” he said.
Adam Foroughi, AppLovin’s co-founder and CEO, also sees this move as a positive move for AppLovin despite the changes the advertising industry has to adapt to over the last few years.
“Developers benefit from more features to help drive higher monetization opportunities and streamline workflows, leading to increased revenue for their businesses. We believe the power of this unified platform will be unparalleled in today’s market,” he said.
He also went on to state that he sees this as a strategic acquisition that will pay off for the future of AppLovin.
“We are excited to execute on this strategic acquisition with our sights set on operating the largest and most robust in-app advertising platform that enhances the growth of the broader mobile app ecosystem.”
If I should take the co-founder’s word for it, this might be a positive move for AppLovin. If they play their cards right, their acquisition might seem like a bargain given the potential the advertising industry has.
Smarter Health a Singaporean-based startup raises $5.15 million SGD in a series A round led by East ventures. This money will be used for product development and expansion across Southeast Asia. The total amount raised so far with the inclusion of the new round is $8 million SGD.
One of the main selling propositions for Smarter Health is that it helps to assist in the exchange of data across different supply chains in the healthcare system.
It automates a lot of the processes using artificial intelligence. This will help with improving patient care and reduce certain administrative costs. Additionally, they can easily work with traditional platforms on the market to help bolster up their service.
Instead of competing with them directly. The company currently operates in three countries: Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Covid-19 has helped to push the need for new products across most industries. Healthcare is no different and health startups have been popping up within the startup ecosystem more than ever before.
Smarter Heath is just one of many companies that are currently capitalizing on that trend. Technological progress is also another factor that is leading to the rapid change.
New tools being introduced to analyze, interpret and manipulate data is being introduced that have given us new ways on how to view the world. It’s clear that Smarter health has been taking advantage of the tools available.
Step away from the hustle and bustle of the resort town and you will find tucked away in its own tiny corner of Ocho Rios the most authentic, artistic, and expressive Jamaican Restaurant.
Known for its rustic countryside island décor, the high quality of customer service, and the most delicious country-style cooking we are pleased to present to you none other than Miss T’s Kitchen.
Curated by Anna-Kay Tomlinson (Miss T) a self-taught Chef from Jamaica, we are blessed to have come across this Culinary Experience.
The decor inside Miss T’s restaurant
Miss T’s Kitchen is known worldwide and has over the years maintained a stellar reputation in the Food Service business and Tourism. The hard work and determination of Miss T and her world-class team are what positioned it to be my favorite place to dine since I first discovered it in early 2017.
It has also been recognized internationally by The Food Network, Culture Trip, Vogue, and many other platforms. Miss T’s Kitchen has also been the recipient of many awards which include (Jamaica Observers: Best Oxtail Award, Jamaica Food Ambassador of the year 2012-2013 award, and the Tourism Service Excellence award 2018).
The ambiance here is laced with the best Reggae music selections which I always enjoy when dining on the Bob Marley Corner. The restaurant is famous for having the best Jerk Chicken, award-winning Oxtail, or Curried Goat with Rice and Peas that one can find locally to enjoy with cold coconut water or a frosty Red Stripe Beer.
The menu is presented with a lot of local and international favorites and will not cease to wow each customer. Overall, this was a great experience and will forever be a favorite of mine.
I truly recommend taking a trip to Miss T’s Kitchen, you won’t regret it.
The smart city of cyberspace and metaverse digital data of futuristic and technology, Internet and big data of cloud computing, 5g connection data analysis background concept. 3d rendering
Over the last couple of months, we have seen terms relating to cryptocurrency such as decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and lately, web 3.0 being swirled around within the mouths of analysts, enthusiasts, and innovators leading this trend.
I have covered DAOs and NFTs in quite some detail on this website. I never covered web 3.0 yet as the term is a bit ambiguous at the moment and can mean a lot of things.
Depending on where you look, web 3.0 can mean a new era for web developers to adapt to new technologies: smart contracts, blockchain development, protocol architecture, edge computing, algorithmic game theory, etc.
The list of innovations from a technical point of view within this space is truly staggering at the moment. If you are conscious about control, data and privacy, web 3.0 could mean a new paradigm where you are basically in control of your own and it is not owned by one monolith entity.
If you are deep within the crypto sector, Web 3.0 could mean a new generation of applications that will liberate you from the financial misery you were encapsulated in. You can see web 3.0 could mean a lot of things for different people.
In this article, I wish to give you an overarching view of technology and what it means for our society. Before we dive headfirst into web 3.0, let’s step back and peel back the layers to web 1.0 or the beginning of the internet.
The History of the Internet
The internet is probably one of the most innovative technologies over the last couple of decades. So many technologies have spun out of the labs of scientists, engineers, and software engineers because of it.
The strange thing is that we never asked for it, it just happened. If you look at movies such as Star Trek, Terminator, Star Wars, etc. The internet was never present at all, instead, we saw flying cars, space ships, phasers, universal translators, and many other cool kinds of stuff.
Surprisingly, the internet came out decades before even the first Star Trek episode and many other sci-fi movies at the time. Roughly, it started in the 1960s as a way to share information among researchers.
If you should look at the computers at that time, they were large machines that were pretty stationary.
IBM 7030 computer. The operator at the console of an IBM 7030 computer (STRETCH) at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at Livermore, California, USA. This computer was IBM’s response to the LARC (Livermore Advanced Research Computer) built by Remington Rand.
Sharing information was a difficult and logistical nightmare at that time. It was hard for information to be disseminated and shared across different computers with varying architecture. 2 decades later the real vision of the internet starts to take full effect.
On January 1, 1983, a new communication protocol was established which made it easier for computers to communicate with each other.
It was called transfer control protocol or internetwork protocol (TCP/IP). This protocol was officially declared by ARPANET and the Defense Data Network.
The Birth of the World Wide Web
The internet is more than just the world wide web which we all connect to on a daily basis whether we are social media, purchasing an item, or even researching. All the different types of connections that are available are called protocols.
You also have to sometimes use specific software to connect to these protocols. Below is a list of several different protocols which might be of importance to you.
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
Whenever you are downloading or uploading a file on the internet you are engaging with the FTP protocol. This protocol only serves in the transferring of data to and from a local and remote computer.
File Retrieval Protocol
This type of protocol was used early before File Transfer Protocols. Due to that fact, the features are going to be more primitive. With (FRP) in this case, you can only retrieve information from computers connected to the internet.
You could normally know the names of the files but there isn’t much to it after that. At the time, there weren’t any fancy graphics and often times no description of the file’s content.
Gopher Protocol
The Gopher protocol is a much more sophisticated protocol that offers searching, distributing, and retrieving documents within internet protocol networks.
Due to the searching factor, the user interface is menu-driven where we can search for files within the computers that are connected to the internet.
It is regarded as the predecessor of the HyperText Transfer Protocol which is now today known as the world wide web.
Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
Tim Berners Lee
HTTP was built on earlier versions of the internet protocol system. It is the foundation that the world wide web today is built upon. Abilities such as clicking a link and being able to go to another page through a series of connecting hyperlinks, shouldn’t be underestimated.
It was an amazing feat at the time and HTTP helped to make this process look like magic. The genius behind was Tim-Berners Lee who is now immortalized as the guy who really triggered this era.
At the time he was working at European Council For Nuclear Research (CERN) and in 1989, he started the initiative to design HTTP. It was a basic document showing the relationship between a client and a server.
Could it have happened without him? Definitely, the underlying architecture was there but life is so complex and fickle that the internet today might’ve looked different if it was someone else.
Tim-Berners Lee even invented the first version of HTML (HyperText Markup Language). It is a programming language that is used to format the text of the browser using tags which allows it to vary in looks.
Browser
In order to create mass appeal for the internet. Similar to graphical operating systems which made computers appealing for the average man at the time.
There needed to be a way to make the internet appealing and not just become another pet project for researchers and computer scientists. Browsers came along to help solve this issue.
Browsers are applications that allow us to view files on the internet. You have graphics-based browsers which come with amazing features that make it easier for us users to navigate the world wide web.
Examples are Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Firefox, etc. You also have terminal-based browsers such as Lynx that just allow you to view text only. One of the earliest browsers was Netscape, a company that was founded by Marc Andreesen and James H. Clark.
They basically made it easier for the common men to access the internet at times. Microsoft quickly captured the notice of this trend, followed suit, and went onto a ruthless battle with Netscape.
In the late 90s two MIT computer scientists Sergey Brin and Larry Page hit upon a great idea for a search engine that would make it easier to show relevant information which was difficult to achieve at the time.
After they developed the algorithm, tested it in the public, the rest was history. Netscape lost the browser battle to Microsoft, but Microsoft lost the war to Google owns 67.56 percent of the global desktop internet market share as of September 2021.
Over the years the web has gone through different versions. Each version brings about a different way of looking and interacting with the internet. As internet speed increased, so does the quality of content and the different media available.
Users can engage in live streams, play connected online video games, send instant messages, etc. Now we have web 3.0 that is touted to disrupt the space yet again. Before we head to Web 3.0, let’s take a brief look at the prior two versions.
Web 1.0
This is the first generation of the world wide web. It was pretty basic compared with today’s architecture and interface. The pages were static and built with the first versions of HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) which gave it a graphical look.
It was mostly content serving, meaning that I only could view the content and click on links to go to other pages. There isn’t much you could do as a user at the time.
Web 2.0
The rise of social media applications and new tools that gave software developers the ability to develop complex applications helped to create web 2.0. It really started to take off during the era of Facebook’s initial introduction and rise. Web 2.0 introduced new ways for users to interact with the internet.
Users are not just looking at information, but they are also creating information. It was the birth of the platform economy where we users can be creators and creators can be users building up their ecosystem.
Forums were also popular during this era, if there was to be a period that defined this era, it would’ve been the mid-2000s.
That was just one part of the entire subject at the time, another important innovation was APIs (Application Program Interface). APIs allow websites to talk to each other by sharing information, this information mainly comes in the form of user data.
For example, have you ever used an application that can be integrated with your Facebook data, such as an analytical tool? If that is the case, it is probably an API.
Facebook at the time, was less restrictive with the data it allowed developers to tinker with and developers could develop amazing applications using users’ data.
In the late 2000s, the internet was growing at a rapid rate and data was being collected at a massive rate as well. Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. all collected our data to create give targeted results.
Google basically had an idea of who we all are based on the data they collected. As a result, they were able to do targeted advertising which advertisers benefited from.
Facebook also knew a lot about us and on a much personal level, they were also able to do super-targeted advertising. Many of the Tech platforms collected our information, mined them, and used them for profit.
We are basically both the user and the product for these internet companies. Data was and still is their king.
An Era of Scandals and Pressure
During the 2010s up until today, tech companies are coming under immense pressure from countries and local government officials due to malpractices and monopolistic tendencies.
One of the main catalysts is data and the exploitation of data from these tech companies without the user’s consent. It’s a widely accepted fact that privacy is now dead due to the amount of data is being collected by these companies.
Edward Snowden
There were moments within the 2010s that defined this era, the earliest was Edward Snowden’s whistleblower moment, he was as an employee and subcontractor at National Security Agency (NSA).
In 2013, he leaked highly classified information which was the tipping point for the overall tech industry.
Julian Assange
The rise of Wikileaks, a non-profit organization focused on publishing news leaks and classified documents by anonymous sources.
The initiative is spearheaded by Julian Assange who is currently facing extradition to the USA from London.
As for Snowden, he is now living in Russia.
Facebook co-founder, Chairman, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on April 11, 2018, in Washington, DC.
The aftermath of Trump becoming the 45th president really pushed the needle for the discussion of privacy which led Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO to be grilled by congress.
In short, trump hired a political marketing company called Cambridge Analytica to do the marketing for his campaign. The company used complex algorithms and collected large amounts of data from Facebook to create a system that allowed them to create targeted advertising for Trump’s campaign at the time.
It was an interesting strategy and it worked pretty well for Trump given the fact that he won the campaign. It’s hard to assess how much of Trump’s success could be attributed to Cambridge Analytica.
Due to the pressure from the media at the time, Cambridge Analytica had to shut down in 2018 due to pressure from the government a mere 2 years after Trump’s success.
This led Facebook to change its laws as to how it handles user data. It also leads a chain of changes from other tech companies at the time.
Data is still being discussed today as a focal point as to why large tech companies need to be properly regulated in handling users’ information. It’s still a broken model, but will the new generation of the web help to solve it.
Web 3.0
Web 3.0 is celebrated to be the next generation of the web that will help to solve the current model of how the use the web. Web 2.0 wasn’t really that different from web 1.0.
The user interface was much cleaner, accessing the web across different devices was better through applications and the data harvesting and analysis became sophisticated and profitable for large tech companies. Users were often looked upon as just data points on a spreadsheet and they still are.
Each individual doesn’t control his or her own data and everything is centralized. Every tech company has its ecosystem and if you enter into their little walled garden, they want you to continue their and setup shop their too. It’s frustrating and stifles innovation.
The concept of web 3.0 has been brewing over the last couple of years and it came out of necessity. Technological innovations such as blockchains and the entire decentralization ecosystem are helping to solve the problem of privacy and ownership.
If we should look at the entire architecture of what a blockchain is, it’s basically a decentralized database. Everyone is connected within this system by nodes and each node can also be viewed on a public database. Each node will have meta-data such as an address, amount, time sent, etc.
Depending on the use case the information presented on the meta-data may be different but the main thing is that it’s public. The information is no longer centralized which helps to cut out the middle man. The process is now being run by deterministic rules in the form of smart contracts.
This is a much better system than being reliant on large tech companies to do decision-making. For example, Facebook can collect all your information and use them without your consent.
Yes, they can say it was in the user agreement but that’s a stupid excuse because, in our short attention span era, most of the population doesn’t have time for that.
Web 3.0 Platforms
Brave Platform architecture
Now we have platforms such as Brave, which is a web 3.0 browser tackling the browsing space. It is trying to weed out the inefficiencies Google had.
For example, with Brave, the data is stored on our local device and doesn’t leave. Additionally, both the user and publisher are both being rewarded for using the platform in BAT (Basic Attention Tokens) tokens.
If Brave is to achieve its ultimate vision, it will have a large impact on the web 3.0 space and spawn many other companies looking for inspiration. Web 3 will be more than just having a crypto wallet. Cryptocurrencies at the moment are basically proof of work for when the applications will start to roll out.
Another interesting company is Odysee, which is aiming to tackle YouTube’s power in the arena of video search. It is an ambitious project, but given that it is early in the web 3.0 space, it will be interesting to see how it plays out while the space evolves.
Odysee was created by the team that created the Lbry blockchain protocol. Lbry is pronounced “library”. The creators will own the data and have rights to that data which in this case are videos on the Odysee platform.
On the website, they stated that no entity can control a publisher from not publishing a video. “For the same reasons that nobody can prevent a Bitcoin transaction from taking place, nobody can prevent a transaction (like a publication or a tip) from appearing on the LBRY blockchain.”
Despite that, interestingly enough, to keep the platform somewhat clean, there will be rules to restrict content such as pornography, violence, and terrorism. It’s only fair in order to maintain platform consistency.
Another factor of web 3.0 platforms is data safety. If most of our data is being stored on Amazon web servers for example and Amazon faces a blackout, more than likely we are going to get a taste of that fate as well.
To prevent this from happening, in a web 3.0 ecosystem, due to the redundancy of data shared across each node. It will be easy to recover data because the data will be stored across distributed nodes.
The benefits for Web 3.0 are there but is the concept of decentralization just a dream?
New Mask Over Familiar Face
The promises of web 3.0 technology might seem revolutionary or a breath of fresh air for the internet. But is it really all it made up to be? Cryptocurrencies are controlled by whales, similarly, within the stock market, the majority of the stocks are owned by large institutions.
At the beginning of initial coin offerings (ICO), the community was the first to access the tokens of a cryptocurrency for example. Similar to stocks, venture capitalists are being the first to access tokens at pre-ICO prices for pennies on the dollar.
The infiltration of money and venture capitalists within the space is good for growth: Hiring programmers, getting proper office spaces, marketing, etc. The downside is control, developers within the crypto space are now faced with a dilemma.
Should they give up most of the ownership of the tokens for huge sums of money? Or should they remain small and steadily grow their audience within their community?
Even though the answer might seem straightforward on paper, it’s not so easy to answer at all. It’s contextual, it depends on the space and time of where the developers are within their journey and how far they want to go.
Peasant’s Dream
At the moment, the crypto-space seems like a money grab, newcomers are being flocked to help continue the gravy train and are promised exorbitant returns. It’s delusional, similar to the dot-com bubble of the late 90s, everyone is looking for a piece of the pie.
Developers are now taking advantage of newcomers who don’t even know what Bitcoin is but they just know that if they buy and “HODL”, they’ll be rich.
As the old adage goes, “A sucker is born every minute”. Schemes like these will never stop as they are triggering the greed mechanism which is innate in our psyche.
Who Owns Web 3?
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block and former CEO of Twitter tweeted about his distaste for web 3.0 and he sees it as a money grab by rich venture capitalists and not an idealistic dream being fulfilled by internet nerds.
Elon musk entered the debate by asking his followers who owned web 3.0. Jack Dorsey commented on the tweet singling out a specific venture capital firm. This seemed to have rubbed Marc Andreesen the wrong way and he later blocked Jack Dorsey on Twitter. Jack Dorsey confirmed it by sharing a screenshot with his Twitter followers.
I talked about Marc Andreesen being one of the founders of Netscape earlier, he currently runs a very successful venture capital fund with Ben Horowitz called “Andreesen Horowitz”.
At the moment, they are investing heavily into the crypto space and are targeting the web 3 space as well. It’s hard to assess what their true motives are, time will tell, but there has always been a spat between venture capitalists and purists.
From the looks of it, Web 3.0 will probably be owned by venture capitalists who will enjoy the perks of having early tokens and have control over the operations of businesses.
It’s a natural trait of VCs operate, “love em or hate em”. Despite that, there are innovations down the line that even though are within their early stages are showing lots of promise.
One that has been popular is Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). These are decentralized organizations that are run automatically through deterministic or rule-based algorithms.
They are aiming to provide equality in decision-making and remove the middlemen from the organizations. Most of the functionalities are not run by a single decision-maker who can make major changes within an instant.
It is run by algorithms that are deemed to be “safer” than having owners at the helm making irrational decisions. Ownership of a DAO is token-based, so if I was to own a piece of a DAO, I can have a vote on how the operation is run. If there were to change, we all will have a say, and based on the algorithm, the decisions can then be carried out.
At the moment, DAOs are niche-based and are being used to raise funds that can be invested in projects. These projects can be a myriad of things such as new protocols, cryptocurrencies, developers, etc. If the dream is to be fully actualized, it will change the way how businesses are run.
This will take away a lot of the concentrated control we see in large organizations or most organizations for that matter. It will instead be disperse among the token holders of the DAO.
Summary
At the moment a lot of money is being funneled into the web 3.0 space. Most of the top tech companies in the web 1.0 and 2.0 space, now have an alternative in the web 3.0 space.
This could all just be a marketing play, another scam to squeeze every little drop of cash from the layman’s pocket. It could even be revolutionary and can take us back to the original vision of the internet, where privacy, discovery, and ownership of data were important.
It remains to be seen what will truly become of this space, time will tell how history will remember this period.
What if you had a job that gave you the flexibility of taking an active role in your children’s lives?
Building a freelance business allows you to leverage your own skills in your career and be present for the moments of your child’s lives you want to: teaching them during the day, picking them up from school, or taking them to soccer practice.
In the US, the number of parents staying home with their children has risen 60 percent since 2019. As technology advances, there are different tools and software that empower professionals to work from home (whether as a freelancer or for a company).
Freelancing has several benefits for stay-at-home mothers. As a self-employed freelancer, you would be in charge of your hours, work flexibility, and rates.
With all of the options available online, you might not know where to start.
Here are steps you can take to build your freelance business as a stay-at-home mother:
Write down a list of your skills and interests – Consider your former work and volunteer experiences and how they can be leveraged online. For example:
If you’ve worked in project management, maybe you could market yourself as an online business manager.
If you have administrative experience, maybe you could be a virtual assistant.
Are you great at writing? Maybe you could write articles, grants, or eBooks for clients online.
Build onto your current skills – Start by paying attention to what is in demand now and what you are most interested in. Then, find free and paid courses to enhance your skills and increase your value as a freelancer.
Invest time or money into learning sales and marketing – One part of being a freelancer is being able to market yourself to clients. Read books, take courses, or work with a coach so you can enhance the way you market yourself.
Use your skills to work your way up – If you can, start with smaller projects to build your portfolio. Consider it on-the-job training! Reach out to friends, family, or former colleagues to see if your services can help them at a discounted rate. After the project is complete, ask them for a detailed testimonial!
Create an online presence – Whether you use a social media platform, a website, or both, you should have a place online where future clients can learn more about you. Let your online platform paint a picture of what it would be like to work with you.
Find a community of other freelancing stay-at-home-moms – Get support, ask for advice, or make networking connections with other moms who will understand your unique challenges.
Include taxes and benefits in your rates – As an employee of a company, the company offers you benefits such as health insurance, paid time-off, and sometimes 401k matching. They also pay for a portion of your taxes. As you estimate your freelance rates, consider taxes and benefits.
Decide how you will spend your time – Freelancing as a stay-at-home mother gives you the flexibility of time. When will you work on your business? Will it be while your children are at school or napping? Decide in advance, times you will definitely spend on your business.
Grow your portfolio of reviews or testimonials – Showcasing reviews or testimonials of your work will help build your trust and credibility with people who want to work with you. Ask former colleagues, bosses, and clients to write a descriptive review of your strengths, skills, and why they enjoyed working with you.
The transition into freelancing may sound daunting at first. But you can make the transition simple by taking everything one step at a time.
Building a business as a stay-at-home mother can give you the flexibility and freedom to be present in your children’s lives. Before you know it, your babies will become adults and parents themselves. Making the time to be a significant part of their lives is priceless.
Nigerian entrepreneur Osayi Izedonmwen has managed to raise $1.3 million in a pre-seed round for his education technology startup Teesas.
This company provides a variety of features to make education more convenient and accessible for the average Nigerian. It offers video classes and other digital educational tools for Nigerian learners.
At the moment the company is in its early stages and it is growing rapidly ever since it launched in November.
“We started beta testing around August this year and fully launched the android version in November. Already Teesas has over 150,000 downloads at the Google Play store, where we are now growing by at least 20% every week,” Izedonmwen said.
The interesting thing about Teesas is that it follows the same format as Nigeria’s educational system. This makes it easier for adaptation.
“Live classes deal with concepts where learners have challenges. The learners sit with teachers in small remote classes of 10 or 15 for a personalized engagement, and to get more rigor into the teaching process,” said Izedonmwen.
He further went on to explain his vision for Teesas in the near term.
“We foresee a future where kids don’t have to attend in-person classes because they can cover entire curriculums on an app, and be ready enough for their secondary school entrance exams,” he said.
Teesas has a lot going for them right now. If they can be able to execute their vision, they will bring a lot of value to Nigeria’s education system. At the moment, Nigeria’s technology ecosystem is growing rapidly and startups are popping up all over.
Due to Nigeria’s population of over 206 million, companies can be able to scale quickly and attract a large user base.
