7 Blockchain Fun Facts You Ignored

After witnessing, with perhaps some of us actually experiencing, the bull market hire and the bear market fire of the industry, I guess we can all agree that gone are the days when we can nonchalantly say #WAGMI like it’s the simplest thing in the world to manifest.

In a space where self-sovereignty ranks supreme, it’s a humbling experience to see things fall well beyond our control - whether that’s getting laid off, being disabled from withdrawing our own money, or something else.

The current crypto crisis has shaken everyone, even the biggest names, to the core. While this may be a sign of a maturing market, let’s face it - this reality packs more punch than the usual volatility we’re used to.

Here’s the thing though - while we hang on, HODL, BTFD, or do whatever we do to cope through the crypto winter, we gotta keep learning because that doesn’t stop for anyone and there’s always a lesson to be learned.

So without further ado, here are some pretty random fun facts about blockchain and crypto that we usually don’t give much thought to when everything’s rosy during the crypto summer.

#1: Solana Was Named After Solana Beach Located North Of San Diego, California.

The name Solana is a nod to a small beach town north of San Diego, California called Solana Beach.

This is where founder Anatoly Yakovenko, prototype creator Greg Fitzgerald, and co-founder Stephen Akridge lived and surfed for three years when they worked for Qualcomm.

With the incredible rise in popularity of NFTs, it’s hard to not come across Solana at some point. However, in case you’re not familiar with Solana for some reason, it is one of the most popular blockchain networks to date that supports smart contracts tailored for creating cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens.

It is an alternative to Ethereum, which inevitably earns them the peg as one of the biggest “Ethereum Killers”. This is because Solana addresses three significant pain points that have plagued the Ethereum network ever since: transaction speed, scalability, and high gas fees.

#2: Dogecoin’s Iconic Shiba Inu Is A Rescue Dog In Japan Named “Kabosu”.

Did you know that the Shiba Inu on the iconic meme that launched a thousand DOGE was actually an adorable rescue in Japan named Kabosu?

That meme has now gone on to become an NFT that sold for US$4 million. It was bought by PleasrDAO, a collective of DeFi leaders, NFT collectors, and digital artists, and they decided to sell fractional ownership of it.

What this means is basically breaking down an NFT into smaller fractions, with each fraction representing partial ownership of the asset.

No US$4 million to spare? No worries.

Beneath the surface, fractionalization essentially involves locking up the NFT asset in a smart contract and issuing fungible ERC-20 tokens to represent its fractions.

The result? Partial ownership, which allows for the following amazing things to happen:

• More people can now invest in that NFT asset without breaking the bank as they can buy as few or as many fractions as their budget will allow.
• Every fraction is accessible and tradable 24/7 on crypto exchanges that support it because they are fungible ERC-20 tokens.
• Being ERC-20 tokens also means you can use these fractions to take part in DeFi applications like staking programs and liquidity pools to earn passive income.

For the NFT owner like PleasrDAO that kept majority ownership, this means they also get to enjoy earning passive income from their NFT asset without divesting ownership - instead of letting it sleep and gather dust.

From a rescue named Kabosu to NFTs to DAOs to fractionalized NFTs or F-NFTs that democratize access to investment opportunities, isn’t it crazy how blockchain can change the game in almost everything?

#3: Uniswap Was Named By Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin.

Did you know that it was Vitalik Buterin who came up with the name Uniswap? Prior to that, it was supposed to be called “Unipeg,” an interesting combination of “unicorn” and “Pegasus”.

We all know what a unicorn looks like in pop culture but it’s interesting to note that its origin goes as far back as early Mesopotamian (around 8000–2000 B.C.) artworks. It was also referred to in the ancient myths of India and China.

Meanwhile, Pegasus is a mythical winged horse in Greek mythology that is known to have been born from the blood of slain Medusa (the lady most famous for having snakes as her hair).

There’s no more tea that we could dig up as to why the project was initially named “Unipeg” but as for their unicorn logo, it came about in 2019 when Uniswap tweeted that they needed a new icon.

The only instruction was that it should “contain some degree of unicorn and Uniswap pink #DC6BE5.”

User “kaibbaker” suggested using the unicorn emoji, which Uniswap later adopted, with the following explanation:

“Uniswap should make the 🦄 emoji its official logo. Uniswap and Unicode emojis are both open and in the public domain. The unicorn emoji is part of Uniswap’s early success. It is also easy to share it on any platform: when you are building a website, sending a tweet or even typing a message on slack, it's easy to include the Uniswap logo!”

Before long, Uniswap has become the world’s largest DEX for digital assets and redefined the crypto trading landscape by successfully implementing an AMM protocol and introducing the concept of liquidity pools to facilitate market liquidity.

#4: The Terms “Bear” And “Bull” Is An Ode To Each Of The Animals' Fighting Stance.

One popular theory as to how the terms “bear market” and “bull market” came about is in reference to their fighting stance.

A bear attacks its prey by swiping its paws downwards, hence a “bear market” is characterized by falling prices. On the other hand, a bull thrusts its horns upwards to gore anything in its path, hence a “bull market” is characterized by prices going up.

While there’s not a lot of evidence to support this theory, the bear and the bull have come to symbolize the optimism and pessimism regarding a market’s outlook - whether in crypto or in stocks.

For newbies, this is also a helpful way to remember what each of the terms means so the next time someone asks you if you’re bullish on a project, you know what you’re getting into.

#5: The Word “Metaverse” First Appeared In A 1992 Sci-Fi Novel Called “Snow Crash”.

There’s no denying that the interest in the concept of the “metaverse” surged right after social media behemoth Facebook rebranded itself to Meta.

It got people asking what it is, which is why it’s very important to clarify that Meta is not the “metaverse” per se. The “metaverse” is a concept and is more than just one company developing a “metaverse” project. However, this topic calls for an article of its own, hence we’ll stick with how the word started.

The term “metaverse” was coined by American author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash. It is a combination of the word “meta”, which means “beyond”, and of course, “universe”.

In Stephenson’s book, short of spoiling it for those who have not read it yet, the metaverse is considered a successor to the Internet, one that resembles a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) and populated by user-controlled avatars, as well as system daemons.

With its dystopian vibes, Stephenson’s version of the metaverse is definitely something to think about.

Some of the most famous metaverse projects to date include Decentraland and The Sandbox, fueled by the popularity of NFTs, which essentially represent every asset within these worlds, and interest from celebrities like Snoop Dog.

#6: Cardano’s ADA Is Named After The World’s First Computer Programmer And Its Smallest Unit Is Called Lovelace.

ADA is the native token of Cardano, which currently sits as one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap.

It is named after Ada Lovelace who is a 19th-century mathematician recognized as the world’s first computer programmer. She is also the daughter of notable poet Lord Byron.

The smallest unit of ADA is called Lovelace, which means 1 ADA will get you 1,000,000 Lovelace (Lovelaces?). Interestingly, Byron, the surname of Ada’s father, is also the name of the first development phase of Cardano, which has been organized into five eras named after famous literature figures:

• Byron
• Shelley
• Goguen
• Basho
• Voltaire

As a proof-of-stake blockchain network, Cardano is considered as another “Ethereum Killer” although it is in fact developed by one of Ethereum’s co-founders, Charles Hoskinson.

#7: SHIB’s Whitepaper Is Called “WoofPaper”, Its Creator Is An Anonymous Figure Who Goes By The Name “Ryoshi”, Its Ecosystem Has Two Other Tokens - LEASH and BONE - And Has Generated NFTs Called Shiboshis.

They say save the best for last, and this one definitely takes that spot. It’s pretty seldom that we can find “cute” and “crypto” together in a single sentence but it’s possible - especially when we put Shiba Inu into the equation.

DOGE aside, its baby brother SHIB, arguably a favorite of Elon Musk, is a good example.

(Note: Unfortunately, no one really calls SHIB as DOGE’s baby brother. In fact, it is touted by its supporters collectively called #SHIBArmy as the “Dogecoin killer” 😬.)

SHIB, which is short for Shiba Inu, is an Ethereum-based altcoin created in August 2020 by an anonymous group or individual who goes by the name of Ryoshi. True to the spirit of a playful man’s best friend, SHIB’s whitepaper is perfectly called “WoofPaper”.

The incredibly fun things about this project don’t stop there because the Shiba Inu ecosystem also has two other tokens in its arsenal:

• LEASH - described as the second token incentivized on ShibaSwap and will offer lucrative rewards for the holders providing its liquidity
• BONE - described as a governance token that will allow the #SHIBArmy to vote on upcoming proposals on Doggy DAO

If that’s not enough trivia for you, the Shiba Inu project also has SHIBOSHIS, a collection of 10,000 exclusive Shiba Inu-generated non-fungible Tokens (NFTS).

Of course, the real reason why SHIB takes the icing on the cake for this article is that they are also helping real “Shibs in need”. That’s right - the project uses Amazon smile to collect and donate a percentage of your Amazon purchases to the Shiba Inu Rescue Association.

And there you have it - some random fun facts about blockchain that most of us probably just skipped most of the time.

With all that’s been going on in the industry right now, it helps to remember that beyond everything, the amazing technology we call #blockchain continues to redefine the future - whether it’s crypto winter, crypto summer, or any season in between.

#blockchain #decentralized-internet #defi #metaverse #crypto #NFT