are two terms that frequently come up when we talk about the security of personal information and how to properly protect it. ‘Privacy’ and ‘Confidentiality’ They are often used interchangeably but they are not the same. QA Testing and Healthcare (An Example) Let’s look at it from a real-life perspective -- where the privacy of a person is crucial. We will use an example of the average patient in a healthcare organization. This person is an individual who has to give the health organization their consent to process their personal information. Any information that the patient voluntarily gives to this medical company is considered “private information.” protects the patient’s rights to declare how much information they are willing to share, as well as the extent to which it is shared. Privacy Alternatively, as a professional institution, the health organization has to guarantee and protect personal information from unsanctioned access by others. This guarantee falls under the criteria of “confidentiality.” confidentiality The next link in this chain is the doctor, who is the link between the individual and the health organization. The doctor is also a part of this health organization and must agree to adhere to patient confidentiality agreements and privacy policies. This agreement binds medical offices, doctors, nurses, as well as all persons employed under the umbrella of the medical institution. Healthcare staff are also obliged to refrain from discussing a patient’s information in their personal lives.    Otherwise, they will break confidentiality and a person’s privacy can be compromised. This can lead to the healthcare professional becoming subject to legal repercussions. This situation with privacy and confidentiality in the medical sphere has parallels with the QA testing process. Whenever an individual user (patient) signs up for a service or software, the software company (health organization) requires that the user divulges personal information and access to this. After this information is processed in their system, the QA tester (The doctor) is given access to this personal information and must follow privacy and confidentiality agreements. To sum things up, we can highlight a few main differences between Privacy and Confidentiality. Applies to an individual and the protection of their personal rights with respect to deciding whether or not to share a particular piece of information. Privacy – that can be attributed to an individual: Examples of Personal (Private) information Name and details such as Date and Place of Birth. Physical characteristics, Medical or health condition records. Any contact information such as phone numbers, emails, addresses. Your Identification Number (Passport or Driver License). – Applied to the professional agreements by which others are bound to make sure that the information they encounter remains private.  This means that they have an obligation not to share details of individuals with any third party without their consent. Confidentiality Here are a few : examples of confidential information Transaction details and Banking information. Technical or Legal documents. Logins, Passwords, etc. There are several laws and privacy and confidentiality standards in Europe and the US: Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Federal Information Security Management Act, EU General Data Protection Regulation, etc. Their primary goal is to create and implement security programs, to prevent Privacy and Confidentiality risks and protect individuals and businesses from fraud. How to Implement QA Security Testing Now that we understand the difference between privacy and confidentiality and how it can affect a person, we can discuss how to keep private things private, and confidential things confidential. The increasing number of malware bots means business owners are concerned about keeping data confidential. It also makes implementing security testing vital for any software development -- especially for web applications. Knowing how to test software to prevent personal data from being compromised from their site is essential. For this, let’s go through the steps QA testers can take to implement security testing: Double-Check Your Business Requirements Before any basic testing, the first step we must take is to determine the business’s particular security goals. Additionally, understanding business processes will help you find vulnerabilities of the product and define the actual and hidden security needs. System Requirements The system setup is the key to conducting accurate testing, and this step is usually pretty straightforward. Gather all system specifications, including the network operating system, information about hardware, and what technology they used to build their system. Threats Profile and Traceability Matrix The main goal of security testing is to prevent applications from malware penetrations. To do this, we need to collect information about potential risks and possible privacy vulnerabilities, create a list of these threats, and then a threat profile based on this list. This list is also suitable for creating a Traceability Matrix which helps to track how each entity affects the other. Having a can help us evaluate the critical nature of the tests we will run and what risks need to be assessed. threats profile Here is an Aqua ALM requirements coverage & traceability matrix: Preparing Tools and Documentation The combination of automatic and manual tests can be a good idea for security testing. But before starting or executing tests, one should finalize the software security document to address all privacy and confidentiality vulnerabilities. You can systematize all requirements in a Details tab of aqua ALM Security and Regression Test Case Execution By the time we get to this step, we will have to run all planned tests to identify vulnerabilities. After these tests are carried out, we will need to fix these tests and, if required, rerun the tests. We should also remember the regression test to ensure that the new changes didn’t produce new bugs. With a test scenarios function of aqua ALM, it becomes possible for QA testers to plan and also execute different test cases at once Collecting Tests Details into Report Based on the results of the test, one must make a detailed report. Highlight weaknesses and problems of the software you managed to fix, and don’t forget to describe potential vulnerabilities that can still persist. There are many privacy and confidentiality risks that business owners can’t predict, including surveillance breaches, lack of control from authorities, etc. The QA team is the one that must take action and work in sync with developers to avoid these risks. However, It might be challenging to implement security testing if your QA team doesn’t have any application security background. That being said, it is easy to grasp security testing methods and processes from QA solutions that can be integrated with your software. First published here.

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Science is ever-evolving, and 2021 was rich in discoveries. From health to space, there were developments in diverse scientific areas bringing us knowledge and further understanding. In this slogging thread, our community shared their favorite scientific discoveries of the year. This Slogging thread by Mónica Freitas, Daniel Guzman, Sara Pinto, Amy Shah and Jack Boreham occurred in slogging's official #random channel, and has been edited for readability. Mónica Freitas Dec 6, 2021, 2:26 PM What's the 2021 scientific discovery that most excited you? Mónica Freitas Dec 6, 2021, 2:30 PM For me, it was a team from Northern Arizona University and Johns Hopkins University discovering that water was once present in a region of Mars called Arabia Terra. It can tell a lot of past environments and their evolution. 😮 2 Mónica Freitas Dec 6, 2021, 2:31 PM Limarc Ambalina, Sara Pinto, Jack Boreham, Khamisi Hamisi, Daniel Guzman, Teri Eyenike, Favour Amadi, Allyson Blinkhorn, Amy Shah: What was yours? Daniel Guzman Dec 6, 2021, 4:43 PM Hey Mónica Freitas! I heard a while ago that a group of astronomers identified a planet outside the Milky Way, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory! We're one step closer to Aliens 👽, do you believe in Aliens? Mónica Freitas Dec 7, 2021, 12:40 PM Daniel Guzman, did we? Did we name it yet? I want to google it! I'm not narcissistic to the point of believing that we're so special that there are no other forms of life outside of earth. So, I do believe in Aliens. I'm not sure about the grey big-headed image we're often fed, but I'm sure there are other forms of life. There are so many hints of patterns that repeat themselves in the universe, so it's only logical to me that other living creatures also exist somewhere else. What about you? 👽 Sara Pinto Dec 8, 2021, 12:49 PM Mónica Freitas, I'm not sure if it's considered a discovery, but yesterday I saw in the news that we managed to get a  quite detailed photo of the sun. Since I enjoy the visual side of the space discoveries, this, for me, was pretty amazing! https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/this-could-be-the-clearest-ever-photo-of-our-sun-have-you-seen-it-yet-4528412.html 🔥 1 Sara Pinto Dec 8, 2021, 12:56 PM Mónica Freitas, on the other hand, an actual discovery was finding the two black holes near Earth. These two might merge at some point, creating a massive black hole. I wonder what this means for us since black holes have a big gravitational and magnetic force. https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2117/ Mónica Freitas Dec 8, 2021, 2:48 PM Sara Pinto, WOW, that picture is amazing! We've never been able to see beyond the gases around the sun. This is so clear! 💚 1 Mónica Freitas Dec 8, 2021, 2:51 PM Sara Pinto, I can see how that can be a massive deal for us. If their gravitational force is big enough, it can affect our solar system. It's a bit frightening. Sara Pinto Dec 8, 2021, 3:55 PM Mónica Freitas, it probably doesn't excite us, but it certainly leaves us alert! 🔥 1 Mónica Freitas Dec 16, 2021, 10:29 PM Sara Pinto, true that! On another news, a spacecraft has 'touched' the sun for the first time. I only found that out now, but it happened back in April. "NASA's Parker Solar Probe reached the sun's extended solar atmosphere, known as the corona, and spent five hours there. The spacecraft is the first to enter the outer boundaries of our sun." https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211214134947.htm 🔥 1 Mónica Freitas Dec 16, 2021, 10:33 PM Also, there seem to be new developments around HIV. "An experimental HIV vaccine based on mRNA - the same platform technology used in two highly effective COVID-19 vaccines - shows promise in mice and non-human primates, according to scientists. Their results show that the novel vaccine was safe and prompted desired antibody and cellular immune responses against an HIV-like virus." This is very inspiring. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211209124236.htm Amy Shah Dec 17, 2021, 5:53 PM Not sure if this was in 2021, but I was pretty excited about the COVID vaccine as well as other treatments that have been developed to get us out of this pandemic. Amy Shah Dec 17, 2021, 5:54 PM Anything to get me out of the house and social again. Mónica Freitas Dec 20, 2021, 5:54 PM Amy Shah ABSOLUTELY!I will be even more excited when we get a cure for this disease and can resume our lives as before. Jack Boreham Dec 21, 2021, 10:51 AM https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211214134947.htm Jack Boreham Dec 21, 2021, 10:51 AM This is pretty cool!! Mónica Freitas Dec 21, 2021, 5:05 PM Jack Boreham COPYCAT! I saw that article. It's awesome! I don't know how they were able of building something that could endure those high temperatures. Jack Boreham Dec 22, 2021, 12:26 PM Mónica Freitas, hahaha, great minds think alike. 🔥 1 Jack Boreham Dec 22, 2021, 12:26 PM Mónica Freitas, would you live in space if you got the chance? 😄 Mónica Freitas Dec 22, 2021, 2:18 PM Jack Boreham, ahahah let's blame it on our geniality. Mónica Freitas Dec 22, 2021, 2:18 PM Jack Boreham, actually, I've thought of that a lot growing up. So, here's my line of reasoning: I'd love to see the space for myself. However, I have a weak stomach that cannot handle the trip to the stratosphere - I'd be sick and nauseous throughout. The journey would take long, meaning I'd a chunk of my life on that trip. So, I'd a single trip to see one thing would be costly time-wise - imagine going young and fresh and returning with wrinkles already ahaha; Unless we're just talking about a short trip to the moon - then it's more doable. The food is terrible. In conclusion, yes, I'd love to go, as long as it was for free, I was knocked out during the flights, a month-long tops and I can take my snacks. Mónica Freitas Dec 22, 2021, 2:19 PM Jack Boreham, how about you? Sara Pinto do let us know your thoughts on this. Jack Boreham Dec 23, 2021, 12:36 AM 😂 Mónica Freitas, I completely agree with the knocked-out part. There's no way I would want to wait around, hoping nothing bad would happen. Hopefully, they will speed up the process. By that point, I hope the suits aren't as claustrophobic; otherwise, I'm going to die in space. I hate things that feel like they are going to suffocate me. Mónica Freitas Dec 23, 2021, 2:59 PM Jack Boreham, ahahah you must hate amusement parks. But I get it. I've tried those scuba diving things and panicked. Being stuck on a spaceship would be equally nerve-wracking 😂 Sara Pinto Dec 23, 2021, 4:18 PM Mónica Freitas, I'm a little late, but the news on "touching" the sun, that's (almost) literally fire 🔥😂 Sara Pinto Dec 23, 2021, 4:29 PM Mónica Freitas, I would like to go on vacation, for like 3 days. Actually, living there? I don't think so. The view would be amazing every time, but after a while, it's just you and space. Unless you are an enthusiast about it, I don't think it's that exciting. Sara Pinto Dec 23, 2021, 4:29 PM Mónica Freitas, when it comes to the journey there, in my naive head, I think I would actually like to be awake, haha. Mónica Freitas Dec 27, 2021, 3:32 PM Sara Pinto, oh yeah, I'm with you. I wouldn't be able to live in space, maybe if I were more of an introvert. Mónica Freitas Dec 27, 2021, 3:33 PM Sara Pinto, oof, you're braver than me

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Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset Performance can often be attributed to mindset. Those driven by a ‘Growth Mindset’ believe there is nothing they can’t learn and no situation they can’t figure out. They believe they can develop and grow – no matter the subject matter. They embrace challenges, welcome feedback, and aren’t afraid to fail. This kind of mindset creates high performers. By contrast, those driven by a ‘Fixed Mindset’ perceive change and challenge as threats. They believe they’re only good at certain things and are reluctant to take on new endeavours. These people are less willing to take risks, fail, and collaborate – and as a result, tend to be low performers. The good news is: Mindsets can be changed—and so can performance—by shifting to a Growth Mindset. How a Growth Mindset Powers Performance The future of work (FOW) will be shaped by automation and artificial intelligence. This means businesses that fail to adapt will become obsolete. Businesses must prepare and upgrade the skills of their employees, especially if they don’t want to be crushed by more advanced companies. Sadly, a large portion of the workforce isn’t ready for the changes that face them. They aren’t ready because they’re driven by a Fixed Mindset. The important thing to note is that you can help your employees achieve success by helping them develop a different way of thinking about things. Fixed Mindsets are Threatened by Change People often perceive changes and challenges as threats. When a threat is present, a person’s ability to think, learn, adapt, and recover is limited. Growth Mindsets Remove the Threat Perceived threats occur through triggers. People can learn to understand their fixed mindset triggers and practise shifting away from them. Teams With a Growth Mindset Drive High Performance Teams that practice shifting to a Growth Mindset examine issues more effectively, respond swiftly to change, receive feedback confidently, show resilience, and pursue innovation. Professor Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset Professor Carol Dweck is an American psychologist who specialises in research on mindset – specifically related to motivation, personality, and development. Her theory on growth mindset states that talent and ability can be developed and that intelligence and natural gifts are just the starting point. Growth Mindset programs have been used to impact organizational change in companies across the world. They have been implemented by many companies including Airbnb and Microsoft. Here are a few red flags of false Growth Mindset consulting: Merely introducing concepts without tying them to individual behaviour, practises—and most important—to results. While Growth Mindset stretches performance beyond previous levels, it is fundamentally a practice that opens up new paths and increases resilience after setbacks. It is a never-ending journey, not a one-and-done silver bullet. Using ‘Fixed Mindset’ as a negative term that is used to blame or shame others. Fixed Mindsets are part of everyone and never simply ‘go away.’ Identifying them and working with them is a lifelong journey. Fixed Mindsets actually become pathways of development when people learn to consciously shift them to a Growth Mindsets. Often taught by people who have not undertaken the Growth Mindset journey themselves. They have not studied the underlying psychology and neuroscience and cannot speak to their own triggers and behaviour. Lacking expertise, their ‘Growth Mindset’ approach is superficial and incapable of organizing a culture change within an organization. This article was previously published . here

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Photo by Saffu on Unsplash Tech Stack, Team, and Constructive Criticisms . Check whether it will be scalable and whether it will be easy to find an expert to support it in the future. When you start to grow and the specialists change, there may be problems. It is important to choose the right tech stack in advance . That’s the most important thing. First, you invest in the team, then it produces results. You have to focus on the team You must not be afraid to say no to those you doubt and wait for the right experts. Hire only those who are really passionate about their work. The end consumer will feel that love. You have to nurture and defend it. It’s a crucial investment. If the reputation is bad, it will be difficult to clear it. We don't have such experience, but I know projects that have dealt with it. Cherish your reputation from the very beginning. It happens if you forget about users and think only about money. First of all, you have to focus on the users who bring you that money. It’s like with a baby. At first, you don't sleep at all. Then the team starts to get involved more, you delegate more tasks and get some free time. But even at the start, you have to take care of yourself to avoid burnout. The first 2-3 years of the project are the most intense. Learn to think critically about your ideas. This can be as much about creating a new product or feature as it is about an ad campaign or building a new department. Ideas turn our heads, and we can lose sight of a lot of things. For example, it may turn out that the market does not really need your idea. You have to test ideas, ask for feedback, and not take things personally. Do not neglect networking, and this concerns every member of the team. It helps to broaden your horizons and find new partners and customers. Make friends among similar startups. Analytics, Priorities, and a Q&A Engineer... ASAP . This will allow you to instantly see where you are losing users and how the new features meet your expectations (the number of users and money attracted). It is essential to implement analytics ASAP . You have to think about how to increase the value of the product for users. If there is a drop in sales, don't rush to cut prices The first one is that you can wait for an expert who knows. The second one is to dig deep into the issue, but don't bury yourself. The third one is to ask an outsourcer. It’s scary and complicated in terms of legal elements, but it can pay off well in the end. If you don't know something, there are three ways to solve it. It’s not a fact that it doesn't take much time. Some of our four-legged colleagues. Here's another recommendation: In any unclear situation, pet your doggies. On the one hand, users will complain about bugs. On the other hand, you have to quickly release the features. Immediately, we take only critical bugs into work. If the user can solve the problem another way, we tell them how to do it. It may seem like a 5-minute activity, but it throws off your entire focus. You have to prioritize. : That everything works flawlessly or that users' needs are met? After all, when you make a product you need to catch up with the competitors, differentiate yourself from them, and provide users with basic features. Define what’s the most important right now . It is better to hire an experienced tester, who would be able to point out where there might be difficulties during the development of a feature, rather than post facto. Hire a QA Professional ASAP At the development stage, there can be arguments about whether to expand or limit a feature. And during the retrospective, it may turn out that the costs were enormous, but you didn’t get the result you wanted. You could have done less functionality, spent less time and money, and gotten the same result. Plus, the cost of the feature also affects your priorities. Estimate the cost of the features from the start. Code Review, Technical Documentation, and Interchangeability — best with two approvals. This will help create a "code style" that the entire team will adopt and allow a common pool of solutions to be developed — it will be easier for new people to join projects. It is essential to grow a code review culture from the beginning Therefore, there will be more interchangeability. A fresh look will allow you to find flaws and avoid suboptimal decisions made with the excuse that "no one will see it anyway." Even if the code is clear, things are much easier with documentation. This makes it more convenient to track down controversial issues. Some decisions may seem irrational, but they can be explained by business logic. This, too, becomes clear from the technical documentation. It is better to keep technical documentation right from the start. This is our Design Director Abbi, he would have shared a lot of insights too, but he got ill while preparing the post. We were worried about him, but he's fine now, yay! during onboarding of future employees. Otherwise, you'll have to spend your own time explaining things. But the text can be reread. It’s worth implementing this routine right away. Later it becomes more difficult, because there are so many projects, and everyone in the team always has the most urgent tasks. You can’t delegate to a new person either, because he's not informed. Technical documentation will reduce unnecessary communication That's not what we had at first. We divided tasks into two types: "platform"-related and data collection and processing. Everyone on the team must be interchangeable. At first it was great, the folks stayed focused — everyone was doing their own thing. But then it split us into two camps. The problems that some dealt with were not clear to others. As a result, all teams burned out: both from the same tasks and from internal conflicts. So we did a refresh and merged everyone. Now the newcomers have a new flow integration, they are gradually delving into new tasks. So, they understand how the entire thing works and they are able to switch between different tasks. To begin with, it is necessary to analyze whether there are enough qualified experts on the market. Try to create an easily scalable system from the start. Hiring those who know the most common coding languages is not always the best option. Specialists will cost less, but then the money will go to the hardware. The code efficiency will also be affected. You will have to compensate for performance with money. In fact, small teams are more efficient in development. They have more solidarity, personal responsibility and commitment to the product. This reduces the red tape of the whole process. It is vital to choose the right colleagues, who are not indifferent, who have a high level of self-discipline. Just employees who go to work to do their 40 hours a week won’t do. In a startup, trust within a team is especially valuable. Scalability and a Newcomer's Perspective . At first, we made the platform for ASO specialists, because we knew from our own experience what they needed. Then it turned out to be too narrow an audience selection. There are a lot of people in our field who are not professionals but need intuitive functionality. You need to be ready for the product vision to change over time . You know the subject and you think it's quite obvious. But that may not be so at all. You need to keep this in mind and think about how to make people's lives easier. When developing functionality, you need to look at everything through the eyes of an ordinary user This will help save resources. Unfortunately, startups often don't have time for this, because they have to quickly catch up with competitors who have been in the market for a long time. Test and trust the data more if it’s possible. Just in case it becomes necessary to elaborate things or add new functionality. Otherwise, you have to sacrifice new ideas or do double work redesigning a section. It's one of the trickiest things — to think a few steps ahead and to leave room for the future. From the start, make "open" features so they can be easily expanded. , so that the discussion is not too long. A lot of time is spent on communication. Learn to make prototypes that are as clear as possible because you will be associated with the product. Develop a personal brand, while making life easier for users. For us, such a tool was the universal system of indexes. It helps you quickly evaluate the different aspects of the app's promotion. It all started with ASOindex, an index that evaluates the quality of app home page optimization by many metrics. When we developed it, no one had a tool like that. And this functionality is perfectly clear to everyone. Discover the features that will make you stand out from your competitors Written by: Kseniya Burn, CPO & COO at Checkaso Evgeniya Baekenova, Product Owner at Checkaso Vasily Mikhailov, Tech Lead at Checkaso David Margaryan, Head of ASO at Checkaso About Checkaso In 2020 Checkaso experienced a major breakthrough in the mobile market. We launched more than 10 ASO tools to improve the search experience and visual optimization, analyze competitors in detail, and track performance. This year we increased our user base from 7,000  to 20,000 users and expanded geography to 195 countries. Also, we launched the consulting service and helped over 560 companies all over the world. P.S. We hope you enjoyed the tips based on our personal experience. Please feel free to share your insights in the comments. Checkaso celebrated its 2nd birthday in December. Along with the development of our ASO platform, we have learned a lot about startups and we are ready to share our experience. Let us tell you what pitfalls we encountered and what insights we ended up with. The main one, of course, is simple — never start a startup. Just kidding. But now seriously. Checkaso is an analytical platform that rates your ASO performance and gives you custom tips on how to improve it. It’s made by ASO specialists and fits users of any experience from beginners to enthusiasts with a lot of optimized apps behind. The platform's algorithms provide highly accurate data on keywords impressions and search volume, live search results, ranking history, competitor analysis for App Store & Google Play, and more.

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Agora RTC has been the de-facto way to add video conferencing to React apps for quite some time now. However, it is anything but easy to use. It is not easy to get started with, and it is hard to get the setup just right. Hell, it does not even have a React SDK. If you are not familiar with , let me give you a rough idea of what it is like. Here is what the code for a simple video call room looks like: Agora <script src= > "https://gist.github.com/Dhaiwat10/ffda13b29edc250dcfdaaf94e3ff985e.js" </ > script React is by far the most popular frontend library in the world. There has to be a way to make it easy to add video conferencing to your React app. It should be trivial to do so. This is what does. 100ms The 100ms React SDK does all the heavy lifting for you. You can literally get up and running in minutes. Don't believe me? Well, let me prove it! The best way to prove is by building! We will be building a simple video call room using the 100ms React SDK. You will be able to see the app in action in no time. And by no time, I mean literally minutes. Just follow along. Initial setup The first step is to of course, sign yourself up for an . You will get 10,000 _free_ minutes every month. C'mon, just go ahead and get it done. 100ms account You will be greeted with this landing screen. Just choose a subdomain of your choice (you get one for free!), choose the template and click Video Conferencing Setup App. You will notice that creating your own app means that you now have your own Zoom-like video conferencing app that you can use to host your own video conferencing. Feel free to test it out, but that's not what we'll be focusing on. We will be of course using the 100ms SDK to add video conferencing to your app. To do that, let's go to the dashboard by clicking at the bottom right of your screen. Go to Dashboard That's it, now you are ready to create your first 100ms app. All of that took less than a minute. Unlike services like AgoraRTC, no credit card needed! Next, we will be looking at some of the actual code from one of the examples and try to understand how it works. How is developing with the 100ms SDK different? (and better!) If you are developing with the 100ms SDK in React, the hmsStore and hmsActions are your two best friends. Let me explain why. The hmsStore, just like its name suggests, is a _reactive_ store that holds all the data that the 100ms SDK needs to know about. It is a singleton object that is available to all components in your app via the useHmsStore() hook. While hmsStore lets you _read_ any data that the 100ms SDK needs to know about, hmsActions lets you _write_ data to the hmsStore. It is essentially the go-to way for mutating the hmsStore. The hmsActions object is also available to all components in your app via the useHmsActions() hook. Before we dive into the code, I want you to grab hold of an auth token for your app. We will need this token in order to try out the demo we will be looking at next. You can get this token by following this guide: Auth Token Quickstart Guide. Let's cut right to the chase now. I want you to open this CodeSandbox: . 100ms React example <iframe src= style= title= allow= sandbox= > "https://codesandbox.io/embed/happy-meddling-syndrome-q4ukf?fontsize=14&hidenavigation=1&theme=dark" "width:100%; height:500px; border:0; border-radius: 4px; overflow:hidden;" "happy-meddling-syndrome" "accelerometer; ambient-light-sensor; camera; encrypted-media; geolocation; gyroscope; hid; microphone; midi; payment; usb; vr; xr-spatial-tracking" "allow-forms allow-modals allow-popups allow-presentation allow-same-origin allow-scripts" </ > iframe We will be going through most of the business logic of the app. Let's start from the entry point of the app, index.js. You will notice that we are wrapping our <App /> with <HMSRoomProviderProvider />. This is the glue that connects the React app to the 100ms SDK. This also crucially provides some sweet React hooks that you'll love to use. Next, let's have a look at the JoinRoom.js file and see what's going on in there. This is the component that is responsible for letting you join a room and the one you are seeing on the preview. hmsActions = useHMSActions(); handleSubmit = {
  hmsActions.join({ : inputValues.name, : inputValues.token,
  });
}; const const => () userName authToken That's all the 'business logic' code you need to connect a user to a room via the 100ms SDK. You can see that we are using the useHMSActions() hook to get access to the join() method. This is why I said hooks are so crucial! If we now look at the AgoraRTC equivalent: join = () => { .client.join( .appId, .channelId, .token, .userId); .localAudioTrack = AgoraRTC.createMicrophoneAudioTrack(); .localVideoTrack = AgoraRTC.createCameraVideoTrack(); .client.publish([ .localAudioTrack, .localVideoTrack]); localPlayerContainer = .createElement( );
  localPlayerContainer.id = .userId.toString();
  localPlayerContainer.style.width = ;
  localPlayerContainer.style.height = ;
  localPlayerContainer.addEventListener( , () => { .changeActiveStream(localPlayerContainer.id);
  }); .getElementsByClassName( )[ ]
    .append(localPlayerContainer); .localVideoTrack.play(localPlayerContainer);
}; async await this this this this this this await this await await this this this // Yes, you actually have to *manually* create the HTML elements for the video track. const document 'div' this '20vw' '11.25vw' 'click' this document 'agora-streams' 0 this Choose your fighter. Anyways, let's next have a look at the code for the actual room! Join the room from the UI (use that auth token I told you to grab hold of earlier!) and open up Conference.js and Peer.js. { selectPeers, useHMSStore } ; Peer ; { peers = useHMSStore(selectPeers); ( <h2>Conference</h2> <div className='peers-container'>
        {peers.map((peer) => (
          <Peer key={peer.id} peer={peer} />
        ))}
      </div>
    </div> // Conference.js import from '@100mslive/hms-video-react' import from './Peer' ( ) function Conference const return < = > div className 'conference-section' );
} That's all. It just works! Hooks to the rescue again. None of that creating a local microphone track, camera track, publishing etc. Just the business logic. This is the Agora equivalent: onUserPublished = (
    user: IAgoraRTCRemoteUser, : | ) => { .client.subscribe(user, mediaType); (mediaType === ) { remoteVideoTrack = user.videoTrack; remotePlayerContainer = .createElement( );
      remotePlayerContainer.id = user.uid.toString();
      remotePlayerContainer.addEventListener( , () => { .changeActiveStream(remotePlayerContainer.id);
      });
      remotePlayerContainer.style.width = ;
      remotePlayerContainer.style.height = ; .getElementsByClassName( )[ ]
        .append(remotePlayerContainer);
      remoteVideoTrack!.play(remotePlayerContainer);
    } (mediaType === ) { remoteAudioTrack = user.audioTrack;
      remoteAudioTrack!.play();
    }
  };

  onUserUnpublished = { remotePlayerContainer = .getElementById(user.uid.toString());
    remotePlayerContainer && remotePlayerContainer.remove();
  }; async mediaType 'video' 'audio' await this if 'video' const const document 'div' 'click' this '20vw' '11.25vw' document 'agora-streams' 0 if 'audio' const ( ) => user: IAgoraRTCRemoteUser const document It is just...painful. Why do we have to create new HTML elements for each remote user and add it to the DOM? manually The 100ms SDK does all of that dirty work for you so that you can focus on actually building your app. The SDK is there to aid you, not to make your matters worse. Most SDKs in the video conferencing space surprisingly just cannot help themselves and get this right. Now, let's look at the last but certainly not the least important part of the code — the mute-unmute & disable-enable camera logic. Open up Footer.js. videoEnabled = useHMSStore(selectIsLocalVideoEnabled); audioEnabled = useHMSStore(selectIsLocalAudioEnabled); toggleAudio = {
  hmsActions.setLocalAudioEnabled(!audioEnabled);
}; toggleVideo = {
  hmsActions.setLocalVideoEnabled(!videoEnabled);
}; const const const => () const => () As easy as that. We are using the useHMSStore() hook to get access to the information about the local user's audio and video state. We are then using the hmsActions hook to dispatch actions to the store. Everything just works out of the box. It was crafted to be as simple as possible. reactive Final comparison and parting thoughts The biggest differentiating factor that makes the 100ms SDK state-of-the-art is the attention towards modern practices like hooks and reactivity. Traditional services like Agora haven't tailored their SDKs to adopt these practices. With , you don't have to 'query' any data. You just have to establish a one-time connection to the reactive store and all the data you'll ever need is seamlessly streamed to you. If you want to make mutations to the store, you're in luck because there is a hook for that. There's a hook for everything! I think that is enough to convince any React dev to embrace the 100ms SDK with open arms. 100ms

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Many people might have qualms over AI and VR in terms of adult entertainment. It raises a number of ethical questions in relation to the objectification of an element so central to the human experience. But what is typically overlooked is how these technologies could the human experience in a big way and have a beneficial effect. AI could actually bring a level of transparency to an industry that has been cloaked in opacity. In fact, it’s already happening. enhance Positive Use Cases of AI/VR in Adult Entertainment The potential to replace real-life humans and the physical senses with computer-generated graphics and hardware technology is, in one way powerful, and in another quite scary. It might prompt people to question their definition of what’s real and what’s fantasy. But these deeper questions might be secondary in comparison to what the technology is actually used for. Consider a victim of sexual abuse who has a fear of the opposite gender. The classical method of talking it through with a psychologist provides a measure of temporary relief but often fails as an ultimate method of closure and healing. In contrast, AI and VR could provide a number of simulations that the individual could go through in order to experience a full healing, risk-free. Inmates convicted of sexual abuse crimes could also go through rehabilitation via this method, instead of serving a sentence (and often soon after release). repeating There are also considerable numbers of people who have social anxiety around the opposite gender, especially adolescents. It’s taboo to bring these subjects to light as there is potential for ridicule and social shaming. As long as the simulation is understood as a supplement to reality, and not the other way around, VR and AI offer tremendous benefits. If it is used so that the person can avoid reality (a very real and threatening problem) then it could serve to destroy character, integrity, and morality. There’s an unacknowledged difference between sheer escapism and the necessary support systems for the stresses of 21st-century living. AI can also be used to delete revenge porn, as . This includes both videos and photos. With the rate of video and picture uploading on media sites, it took a while before we started the process of deleting irrelevant content at scale. Another realistic use case would be long-distance relationships, which can definitely be made stronger with VR devices and technology supporting more sophisticated communication between couples. implemented on Facebook What’s Wrong With Adult Entertainment? Intrinsically, there is nothing really ‘wrong’ with adult entertainment. It’s just a market. Markets are there so that can reach agreements for mutual benefit. Again, the only issue is where the markets are set up to exploit one party systematically. When this happens, it’s time for a change. ** ** freely consenting adult parties The main issue with adult entertainment is that the actual content creators are exploited. Again, it might actually be considered ‘taboo’ by some parties to view these content creators as an exploited group needing safeguards. But that’s precisely what they are. ** ** They have no say over how content is distributed, by who, where, or how many times it is viewed. And, despite there being no official statistics in an ‘unofficial’ industry, it’s safe to say that most don’t get a fair share of the profits. Usually, where there is a lack of transparency, there is an inevitable lack of equality too. DLT to the Rescue Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) can serve to clean up the adult entertainment industry in a slightly different way compared to AI and VR technology. DLT is all about the democratization of parties via a decentralized model of token sharing. It’s happening to most industries, and adult entertainment is no exception. ** ** Take , for example. The Splash blockchain allows adult content creators to retain ownership of their content with a transparent rewards model. The content will be on the blockchain as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), which are unique tokens of ownership that can be programmed with distinct attributes. Content creators get a share every time the content is sold and resold. Collectors and content creators can sell at their own price, or they can also host an auction for the content. ** ** Splash 3% of each transaction is distributed to the token holders while another 3% goes to the Splash liquidity pool. The Splash network offers both traceability for the content and transparency for the funds. With smart contract functionality, the content can be programmed for specific purposes to restrict access to unwanted viewers, allow access to certain groups, or expire at a certain date. These are just typical examples - there is no end to how you can program NFTs using smart contracts. Risk Factors There are potential risk factors with AI, VR, and adult entertainment. As previously mentioned, the biggest risk is that people use these exclusively and forget about reality. They might be unable to function optimally as normal human beings if completely immersed in a pseudo environment all the time. But we can’t mandate whether individuals choose to do this or not. Ultimately, it is up to each individual to spend his or her time accordingly. The main area of contention here would be those under the age of 18 who need protection. The can have an emotionally and mentally damaging effect on young individuals. And that’s just a 2D video. The effects of a 3D pornographic metaverse on young adults are undocumented, but it’s not an area for experimentation - we don’t know what psychological damage it could do. ** ** effects of pornographic material It’s worth noting that VR is following adult entertainment as much as adult entertainment is following VR. Aside from video games, one of the main applications of VR is to fit into adult entertainment. Typically, innovations are made due to corporations who are interested in methods that would increase revenue streams. And you don’t invest in this research unless you already have lots of cash - and want to make more of it. ** ** Which potentially leads back to the risk factor of centralization, but on a different layer. While DLT can eradicate illegitimate domination of NFT content ownership, the same might not be said with regard to VR hardware and the components within them. And who knows what adverts will pop up in your adult entertainment Metaverse, or what the AI bots will recommend? A Bright Future for Adult Entertainment There are pitfalls associated with the digitalization and sophistication of adult entertainment. In the same way, there were pitfalls associated with the rise of the internet and the rise of cryptocurrencies. From a broader perspective, the innovations are sorely needed to fine-tune the sector in the best possible way. ** ** While AI and VR helps to enhance the experience, DLT ensures fair distribution for all parties and makes the content more affordable, viewable, and secure. Together, they can clean up the adult entertainment industry. When deployed correctly, technology is a friend, not an enemy. Vested Interest Disclaimer: The author holds tokens in Splash. The opinions in this article belong to the author alone and should not be considered investment advice. Feature image - courtesy of freepik.com

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After spending almost three months working on a multistep form for one of my clients, I found that the existing react hooks are insufficient for creating a personalized form. Just to give you a little bit of insight, my client wanted a seven-step form that included bullets on the left side for each form. The bullets had to be decoupled from the forms and needed a different color based on the state of the form. The client also wanted that actions like coloring the bullets to be triggered the user leaves each form. When being unmounted, the form would send its state to another component. only after Knowing that we were in need to create some custom solutions, we ended up implementing the following two hooks that saved us a lot of time. The first one is: useOnUnmount() The useOnUnmount() hook is a functional React alternative to the lifecycle method that allows us to mutate values between renders so that it can be used outside the component. This hook saved us a lot of effort than just trying to change the business logic or installing other packages that might have helped us. ComponentWillUnmount But why not just use the return callback functionality? useEffect() If we go back to basics, the return function inside the useEffect() is a cleanup function, therefore we can't check a condition or set a new value for the state. The hook looks like this: https://codesandbox.io/s/useonunmount-sbttm?file=/src/App.js Pay close attention to what value the console outputs inside the useEffect cleanup function and the useOnUnmount() hook. How does it work? useOnUnmount() uses a useRef() that allows the state to mutate between renders. The useEffect() will clean up the previous state before applying the next one. useOnUpdate() This is another useful hook for when we want to trigger an action when the component state changes, and not when the component mounts. You can consider it the alternative for functional React. ComponentWIllUpdate This one - calls the callback each time the state changes, triggering an action. Why is this useful? Well, imagine needing to trigger a modal, change the text on a button, etc., or any action you need - instead of keeping the logic inside the component, you can reuse it by having a custom hook. The hook can be found here: https://codesandbox.io/s/useonupdate-p90vb Hope this article will help you while developing forms in React and will ease your path. Let me know in the comments what do you think.
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In this article, we are going to learn in JavaScript, as well as see the ways you can use them. higher-order functions The key feature of higher-order functions is that they can accept other functions as arguments and/or specify a function as a return value. Extraordinary functional methods like these are strong constructs available to you in JavaScript and other high-level languages like Python, Lisp, etc. The JavaScript function is a first-class object. There is the concept of in programming languages. This refers to the values that can be passed to a function, returned from a function, and assigned to variables or constants. These values include data of all types, such as numbers, strings, arrays, booleans, etc. first-kind (or class) objects One should take into account that the variable or constant itself does not fall under this concept, since only the data contained in the variable or constant is considered a first-class object. Against this background, the following statements will be correct: We can pass the first-class object to a function as an argument We can pass other functions to a higher-order function as an argument Let’s have a look at the example below: const function1 = () => {
    console.log("I'm the function1 result");
};

const function2 = (callback) => {
    console.log("I'm the function2 result");

    callback();
};

function2(function1);
// I'm the function2 result
// I'm the function1 result The function passed as an argument to a higher-order function is called callback. Here, we are passing as an argument to . acts as a callback and it is worth diving deeper into this. But prior to that, let's look at an example that doesn't use a callback: function1 function2 function1 const calculate = (x, y, operation) => {
    if (operation === 'subtract') {
        return x - y;
    } else if (operation === 'divide') {
        return x / y;
    }
};

console.log(calculate(10, 3, 'subtract'));
// 7 Suppose the above calculate function makes a part of a library like jQuery. In the current implementation, the function supports 2 types of calculations: division and subtraction. But what if we also need, for example, addition or multiplication operations? In this case, you will have to search for another library, since we cannot add the required calculation methods to the library. But there is another option, which lies in making the function more abstract. For this, we need to expose the functionality through a callback. calculate Let's add a callback to the example mentioned above. This will not only improve our code but also allow us to visually evaluate the callback features: // Library function
const calculate = (x, y, callback) => {
    if (typeof callback === 'function') {
        return callback(x, y);
    };
};

// Functions that we will pass as callback
const add = (x, y) => {
    return x + y;
};

const substract = (x, y) => {
    return x - y;
};

const multiplay = (x, y) => {
    return x * y;
};

const divide = (x, y) => {
    return x / y;
};

// We call the function from the library and pass the callback
console.log(calculate(12, 8, add));
// 20 Under this approach, we transfer not just a specific operation to the library but a function that implements this operation. And now it only takes to run it to get the result. Take a look at a real-life example: let’s sort the array by keys in ascending order using the method: sort() const someArray = [
    {
        key: 12,
        value: 'Hello',
    },
    {
        key: 14,
        value: 'Something',
    },
    {
        key: 13,
        value: 'World',
    },
];

someArray.sort((valueA, valueB) => {
    if (valueA.key < valueB.key) {
        return -1;
    } else {
        return 1;
    }
});

someArray.forEach((value) => {
    console.log(`${value.key} ${value.value}`)
});
// 12 Hello
// 13 World
// 14 Something If we need to sort the array in descending order by values, the code would look like this: someArray.sort((valueA, valueB) => {
    if (valueA.value > valueB.value) {
        return -1;
    } else {
        return 1;
    }
});

simpleArray.forEach((value) =>
    console.log(`${value.key} ${value.value}`)
);

// 13 World
// 14 Something
// 12 Hello In the above examples, we used simple functions. However, when they are passed as arguments to other functions, they can take part in more complex functions in an unexpected way. I hope this article was helpful and you will use callbacks more frequently in your projects.

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Platforms like UberEats and Deliveroo have highly impacted the food industry. It has brought restaurants and cafes closer to customers, and it helped create more job posts and businesses. It has also pushed restaurants and small food businesses to better adapt to today's demand. In this thread, the slogging community discusses their thoughts on food delivery services, their impact on the food industry, and the main perks and drawbacks of this trade. This Slogging thread by Mónica Freitas, Jack Boreham, Rohan Dominic, Favour Amadi, Sara Pinto, Limarc Ambalina, and Amy Shah occurred in slogging's official #technology channel, and has been edited for readability. Mónica Freitas Nov 10, 2021, 6:00 PM Platforms like UberEats, Deliveroo and others, have highly impacted the food industry. It has brought restaurants and cafes closer to customers. It has also pushed restaurants and small food businesses to better adapt to today's demand. Do you think these platforms represent a way to level the plane between big food chains and small restaurants? Jack Boreham Nov 13, 2021, 2:56 PM I definitely think so. A lot of small businesses in the UK have managed to survive during covid due to these delivery services. Here, if you fail to go digital, you go bust. Along our high streets, the ones that survive have an online presence. What we do have to watch out for, though, is worker protection in these industries. Workers are often underpaid, mistreated and lack essential protection from delivery companies. Mónica Freitas Nov 15, 2021, 3:56 PM Jack Boreham, just took a look at the significant risks happening with food delivery. It appears that there is a considerable amount of crime on delivery drivers: Data shows that being a food deliverer is one of the most dangerous jobs and is likely to produce victims of violence or theft. There are also some concerns with customer privacy and data, food safety and quality, tampering, and wage & labor issues (as you said). We never even think about the possibility of tampering with food. http://www.qsrweb.com/blogs/delivery-driver-crime-the-restaurant-industry-problem-nobody-talks-about/ http://www.wasserstrom.com/blog/2018/10/12/food-delivery-risks/ There are even news on organised crime gangs using food delivery services to deal drugs across Australia: http://www.news.com.au/national/crime/organised-crime-gangs-used-food-delivery-services-to-deal-drugs-across-australia/news-story/3963b1255c03855f719f22fd745a8538 Mónica Freitas Nov 15, 2021, 3:59 PM Jack Boreham, Limarc Ambalina, Rohan Dominic, petar.btc, Linh Smooke, Amy Shah: Have you ever experienced or heard about an unusual story with food delivery services involving tampering or crime? Something that caught your attention or made you lose trust in such services. Rohan Dominic Nov 15, 2021, 4:44 PM Mónica Freitas, Yes! I have heard about the Zomato (India's largest food delivery company) delivery guy eating food meant for delivery. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spa7wUHoJeA Mónica Freitas Nov 16, 2021, 2:43 PM Rohan Dominic, WOW, caught in the act 😂 Does that make you lose trust in delivery services? And how do you think these services have impacted the food industry in your hometown and country? Rohan Dominic Nov 16, 2021, 5:18 PM Not really. I still use their service. I don't think it had any effect on the food industry as such because such things are relatively rare. Mónica Freitas Nov 22, 2021, 6:39 PM Rohan Dominic, is there something that would throw you off using food delivery services? Favour Amadi Nov 23, 2021, 2:21 PM I've heard stories of delivery drivers eating from the food. I think what will throw me off, Mónica Freitas, will be ineffective packaging and if my food is pilfered. Mónica Freitas Nov 23, 2021, 2:45 PM Favour Amadi, I get it! You'd always be distrusting of that service in the future. However, it does happen. There's a lot of crime against food deliverers. Sara Pinto Nov 23, 2021, 8:11 PM Mónica Freitas, these platforms increased the luxury that's receiving good food at your home without any struggle, this absolutely elevated the small restaurants. Regarding the general welfare of these workers, I don't think they have enough protection, as Jack Boreham said. They are expected to work through all kinds of weather and even deal with unpolite people. I understand that these workers may also do some uncivil actions, but don't you think that it might be an outcome of the poor conditions? Mónica Freitas Nov 24, 2021, 12:32 PM Sara Pinto, I agree that it has made it simpler to have food delivered, and it helped small businesses that didn't have the means to have this service to expand. As for the misconduct, I'm not sure we should justify some breaches with the lack of work conditions/protection. Of course, it can affect morale, and some workers may see such actions as harmless. Nevertheless, it violates the agreements between the customer and the delivery company, and even the restaurant. It can cause a loss of trust, especially when the issue is food tampering and food safety. This is to say, I agree that work conditions should be improved, and there should be more robust protection and insurances for delivery professionals, but "food ethics" shouldn't be at stake. Sara Pinto Nov 25, 2021, 5:47 PM Mónica Freitas, yes, the behavior can't be justified (in the sense of absolving the situation), but I think it can be explained by those factors. On the other hand, I agree with the loss of trust. In the end, the ones who are paying for the service, even though sometimes the customers can be obnoxious,  become the victims. As you said, we can't forget that it may be our health that is at risk. Mónica Freitas Nov 26, 2021, 3:30 PM Sara Pinto, it's a tricky subject, no doubt. Let hope we see improvements in work conditions for these professionals while keeping the quality and safety of the services. Limarc Ambalina Nov 30, 2021, 12:16 PM "Do you think these platforms represent a way to level the plane between big food chains and small restaurants?" - Yes most definitely. In my hometown of Winnipeg, Canada, when I was a kid, you could only get deliveries from pizza places, some Chinese restaurants. But now almost every place in the entire city delivers via Uber Eats. 🔥 1 Limarc Ambalina Nov 30, 2021, 12:18 PM Also, it makes it easier for me to support local. I'd rather get a burger from a local mom-and-pop shop, but if I don't want to leave the house that day and the only burger place that does delivery is McDonald's or Wendy's then those would be my only choices. But now I can support local restaurants from the comfort of my home. Mónica Freitas Nov 30, 2021, 3:30 PM Limarc Ambalina, I agree with you. Because of these services, small businesses have a fair fight. One downside that I see in my hometown is the range of delivery. They won't go further than around 10km from the city center. This distance limit makes it lose its appeal for a city like my own, where most people live in the outskirts. Is there something that would make you lose trust in food delivery services? Amy Shah Nov 30, 2021, 7:14 PM Unfortunately, I don't know if the platforms level the playing field so much as respond to increasing customer demand. This push from customers to have this service is driving some innovation that could be beneficial or harmful - I think it goes either way. Mónica Freitas Dec 6, 2021, 2:34 PM Amy Shah hum...interesting. In which ways do you see this being harmful? Sara Pinto Dec 23, 2021, 7:18 PM Mónica Freitas, not sure if it's what Amy Shah was trying to say, but it may be harmful in a way that promotes a sedentary lifestyle. Plus, if the food is not exactly healthy, it will only aggravate. Mónica Freitas Dec 27, 2021, 2:42 PM Sara Pinto, oh, that's a great point. I guess that's just the way we're heading. We want comfort, and delivery services give us just that: we no longer have to face crowds and long queues and lose time coming and going from restaurants and stores. With Covid, this became even more important, so, despite the sedentary lifestyle it can make us fall into, it is also an incredible perk and, I believe, the new reality. Sara Pinto Dec 27, 2021, 3:27 PM Mónica Freitas, I have to agree. It gave us a lot of advantages, but like everything, it has to be well managed, so we can make the most of it, and it doesn't prejudice us. Mónica Freitas Dec 27, 2021, 3:33 PM Sara Pinto, well said.

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With recreational marijuana now legal in 18 states across the country, many people are finding jobs in the cannabis industry.  Marijuana cultivation and production of cannabis products has created a number of jobs that have never existed before. With the pandemic displacing many employees, the cannabis market has been providing work for thousands. In 2021 alone, legal cannabis supported across the U.S. Cannabis employment exceeded that of many mainstream industries such as nurses, engineers, and web developers. It is expected that in the next five years the legal marijuana industry will employ up to 600,000 full-time workers in the U.S. 321,000 full-time or full-time equivalent jobs The reason for so many jobs opening is that more states are beginning to legalize cannabis and cannabis related products. now live in states with legalized cannabis and the support for legalization across the country continues to grow. In 2020 alone there were 5 more states that legalized recreational marijuana and more states are planning to legalize in the next few years. The push for recreational marijuana being nationally legalized is something that should contribute to the growing cannabis industry as well. 1 in 3 Americans The rapidly growing cannabis market doesn’t just mean more entry level positions. With the growing market more and more jobs are being created and for higher salaries. This means that employees that enter the cannabis industry have many opportunities for advancement to a higher position. The is not just for enthusiasts either. There are many professionals in the market who are very well versed in the history, social impacts, and medical benefits of marijuana. The amount of knowledge and history behind marijuana products allows for a more professional atmosphere and aids in workers resumes if they chose to follow a different career path later in their lives. cannabis industry With the rapidly expanding cannabis market, new jobs are being created every year. This new industry has the potential to employ thousands of Americans who are struggling to find work after the pandemic. With the economic consequences the country felt in the wake of COVID-19 finding new jobs should be one of our highest priorities.  Learn more about jobs in the cannabis industry in the infographic below.

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How the Cannabis Industry is Changing the Job Market

This article is part of my ↗️ where I share insights on building things in tech. Join me :)‍ Note: resource newsletters 👋 I’m , a product builder. I’ve built multiple apps using the method: , , , , , , +more Zoe Chew rapid MVP sneaker app personal FAQ meal kit app virtual event app SaaS tracker food delivery content app In this post, I will share my reflection notes, processes, and frameworks — how I rapidly test new ideas, generate paying customers, and optimize daily performance. Let’s find out: 1. Global paying customers 🌍 “If your customers are international you are an international company.” — Andreas Klinger My biggest milestone in 2021 is building an international business with global paying customers. Today, my customers are mainly from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, India, and Germany. I’m in the digital business and I offer products for tech entrepreneurship, such as: Building a no-code content app in 1 hour Building an online legal marketplace MVP 12 Notion templates+10-part Notion training Case study: How to launch on Product Hunt #1 Food delivery app template Online store mobile app template How did I get here? I transitioned out of my marketing work and got into MVP creations in 2019. I launched apps, , and ended up working with remote teams from North America/Japan where I helped build and advise in products and GTM (while being in SEA). featured globally I experimented with digital business models and built a portfolio of side projects. I turned them into profitable businesses through building in public, content marketing, SEO inbound traffic, and personal branding. How to go global as an entrepreneur? Pick any industry which access to your offering and distribution . For example: SaaS, digital products, content, online education, paid online community. has no geographical limitation Create products for the Think about how you can provide values for people who operate remote-first, or those who rely on digital tools/resources. global target audiences. Match your . My marketing channels include: , , , and . Find your winning channel — you don’t need to do be on *every* social media platform. product with the right distribution Twitter Medium Substack LinkedIn Scale your . Create once, distribute forever, compound repetitively. Create evergreen content that has long-term value. The websites I built two years ago and the blog posts I wrote three years ago are still generating sales for my business. personal brand I use Gumroad and Stripe (payment), Carrd and Webflow (website), Namecheap (domain), Notion (project management & documentation), Airtable (database), Calendly (meeting & consultation). Tools to run a remote business. 2. On Deck Founder Fellowship (ODF) 🤝 After launching multiple profitable projects, I decided to discontinue consulting work to explore something new. As a builder, I always wanted to build something that has future valuation. I was at the intersection of media and tech entrepreneurship. But I couldn’t solidify my vision. One day, On Deck’s candidate team reached out for an interview. I’ve heard strong testimonials from my friends who joined ODF. , was my first impressions about On Deck. Needless to say, I said yes. “Standford for the Internet” “Builders build together” and “Silicon Valley in the cloud” I went through the interview call and got accepted in Founder Fellowship 10 in June. At that time, it was a 10-week remote program for $2950 USD (now they are part of ). ODX My experience in ODF A few months after the program, I’m confident to say ODF was time+money well spent. It was a forcing function for building my next thing. My first week at ODF was all about the introduction and getting to know other founders: The rest of my experience as an alum during my cohort: I met ex-founders who’ve sold their startups, talented product minds who’ve worked at top tech companies, speakers from Coinbase and Facebook, etc. You’re in the right place when you’re not the smartest people in the room. Vetted professional network: You’re one Slack DM away from your next intros, connections, opportunities, perspectives, knowledge, expertise, etc. ODF community felt special because people tend to seek to provide values first, before being the receiver. Spirits of service: I met people who’re going through fundraising, pitch meeting, incorporating as a remote company, looking for co-founders, hiring potential talents, and exploring new startup ideas. Diversity in the journey: I’d schedule multiple 1:1 calls till 3 AM, offer my product expertise, and make new connections. We’d attend rapid-fire pitches, venture meals, masterminds, accountability, virtual co-working, hackathons, weekly social, etc. Founders’ activities: Lifetime access, fundraising program, partner offers, freelance gigs, office hours, recorded workshops, directory, talent hubs, etc. Resources: Notes for ODF newcomers: to starting something new as an explorer of new ideas — or a founder who is already working on MVP and want to move to the next stage (i.e. funding, pitching, hiring, customers). ODF is for you if you’re committed you want to pursue. Have a plan on what/who you’re looking for: expertise, industry, sector, business goals, personal interests, support, etc. Use or to keep track of your connections, follow up, or stay in touch. Align your goals with the community activities Notion CRM Airtable There are fellows who commit 5hr/week and those who do 20hr/week. Participate at your own pace and adjust when necessary. Allocate a time that works for you. You can catch up on recorded Zoom sessions. Since I prefer live interactions, I adapted to the Pacific Time from my SEA timezone (Sleep: 4 am; Wake: 12:30 pm). Joining outside of U.S. timezone. is shaped by how much value you put into the community. Your ODF experience 3. Profitable new startup 🚀 ODF has helped me tremendously. Specifically, the 1:1 founder conversations, perspectives from others, and the mastermind sessions. After building multiple projects, I came to a point where I needed to find something that helps me to stay intellectually curious around innovation and media. Therefore, I founded , an online publication that covers consumer tech and Internet platforms. The goal is to help entrepreneurs understand how to build the future. Venturescale Here’s my founder’s thesis: Business Insider acquired Morning Brew, a newsletter company . HubSpot Trends by The Hustle. As long as people are searching for information, new kinds of media companies will continue to form. Media companies are valuable. for $75M acquired Most tech analyses are written by management consultants, journalists, and researchers. Venturescale is done through the lens of a product builder, thinker, and practitioner. Why you? How I built & validated a media startup The best way to indicate a validation — get people to pay for it. I wrote and published my of the venture report and shared it with my email subscribers. Minimum viable prototype. first paid version Over the next 7 days, I received hundreds in revenue. As of today, Venturescale has become profitable. That’s when I decided to pursue this idea. Proof of concept. was the third step. I used to create a one-pager landing page and included a free preview of the publication. As the website content expands, I switched to to leverage the CMS. Website Carrd Webflow Sell first, before you build anything. You can create the distribution (i.e. the audience, email list, followers) before you create the product or startup. You can create a prototype (and sell it), before worrying about the company logo, incorporation, web design, and social media. Lessons. Framework for finding your next thing Finding what to build next is always hard. Therefore, I figured out a structured framework for myself. Your “next thing” could be something that intersects at: (where do you want to be) Innovation, startups, and tech entrepreneurship Domain : (why it’s hard for people to replicate you) being the builder, seller, and storyteller at the same time. Personal moat : (what’s in your toolbox) offer my consulting, strategic, and product thinking skills Skillet : (how do you want to run your day-to-day): bootstrap the revenue as a media startup then expand the platform to be tech-enabled Operation (what do you want to create): tech analysis, market deep-dive, and strategy in consumer tech Creation (who do you want to connect as a result of this project): intellectually curious minds Connection 4. International feature 🥳 I have no idea how much impact I’ve created through my work until I found out I was mentioned all over the places on the Internet. I’m grateful for people who go the extra mile and appreciate my work in public. Thanks for the generosity! Around-the-world-mention 2021: of The Year Product Hunt Community Member in Venture Capital, Startups & Entrepreneurship Medium Top Writer 2021 Nomination in 6 categories Hacker Noon’s Noonies for early-professionals Top 10 Career Influencers by We Love No Code Inspiring No-Code Leaders 2021 How I built an international personal brand? I prefer heads-down building time instead of constantly posting on social media. Therefore, I approached branding through documentation. I started by solving my own problems with tech, building MVPs/side projects, sharing my processes, amplifying through content, and using distribution channels to get discovered. Document your process. Share what you know: insights, mistakes, dos and don'ts, lessons, tools, mindsets. Don’t be that person who is afraid of sharing because someone “will steal my idea”. If you don’t get it out there, you will never know if it’s going to work. Provide massive values. (not in the blockchain context). People trust people who “build” things, not “talk about” things. Create a body of work that verifies your expertise and skillset. It can be creating a personal website, portfolio page, video series, podcasts, blog posts, newsletters, etc. Proof of work 5. Personal growth 💪 This year, I spent a great deal of time on “biohacking” experiments. The goal was to achieve holistic health, increase my “brain RAM”, and long-lasting physical energy. Some notes on 2021: Great 5.0 Business revenue and profit growth 📈 Biohacking (micronutrients, circadian rhythm, holistic mindfulness) 🥦 Practice deep work + deep rest cycle ⏰ (I use for 4–7–8 breathing; for consistent breaks) Interval Timer Pomodoro extension Quality sleep, eyes open ~5 am without an alarm (I use , sleep mask, and took a ) 😴 Bose Sleepbuds II Sleep Masterclass Fair 3.5 Read 16 books | target 25/year 📚 (mostly on tech & entrepreneurship) Meditate 209 hours in total | target 60 min/day (I use , mostly silent meditation) 🧘🏻 Meditation Timer & Log Medium followers hit | target 4,500 🎉 3,000 Poor 2.0 Lack of expressing my thoughts on social 💭 Phone screen time/day~2 hr (target 1 hr/day) 📲 Daily movement 135 min/week (target 300 min/week) 🏃‍♂️ [1] Find me on Personal Site / Twitter / LinkedIn 🔥 [2] Insight on building things in tech — Join my newsletter 💌

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Centralization runs deep in society in the form of corporations, businesses and governments. Not that they’re bad, but blockchain technology can offer a viable structural alternative by creating a more transparent and accountable system. The idea of open-source decentralization is to redistribute power and to create a fair and trustless system across all industries. This technological breakthrough, therefore, brings lots of promise and hope for the future. The inception of Bitcoin in 2009 has resulted in a revolution in the trading and payments industries. People have started to accept cryptocurrencies as a form of payment and it’s being exchanged in large volumes. These can be used for global transactions, buying new assets, and at your nearby retail stores. Even though many stores accept Bitcoin and other tokens as a method of payment, it’s rare to see token holders use it in their daily transactions. Another argument might be that there aren’t enough shops that accept it. An often cited reason behind this is that it’s not practical to use it as a unit of account. Stablecoins are tokens developed for this particular reason.  They are termed “stable” because they are pegged to the value of something else, such as precious metals or fiat currency. To better understand stablecoins, it is important to first learn about price volatility in cryptocurrency. Volatility is a measure of how much the price of an asset has moved up or down over time. There are many factors attributing to the volatile nature of Cryptocurrency. Firstly, Cryptocurrency is still at a very nascent stage compared to other investment tools, traditional currencies and even gold. Secondly, the cryptocurrency market thrives on speculation, traders bet that the prices would go up or go down to make profits. These speculative bets can cause a sudden influx or a sudden efflux, leading to high volatility. Their highly speculative nature might be an attractive feature for investors, but it also makes them hard to use in payments and trade. Compared to other cryptocurrencies, stablecoins are stable in value while maintaining similar decentralized features as cryptocurrencies. This makes them an ideal medium for value storage or transaction. What are Stablecoins? A is a token built on a blockchain network that is designed to minimize volatility by pegging to a more stable asset. Most commonly, they are backed by US dollars, but they can also be backed by other fiat currencies, like euros or yuan, and even assets like gold, or other cryptocurrencies. Benefits of this include being able to take advantage of blockchain technology and peer-to-peer value transfer while not being exposed to the high price volatility of Bitcoin, Ether, or other cryptocurrencies. Stablecoins are a relatively new kind of technology and each of them comes with different implementations, liquidity, risks, and acceptance. stablecoin Importance of Stablecoins Without both short-term and long-term stability, it is considered extremely risky for the mainstream public to adopt cryptocurrencies as a direct replacement for fiat or traditional assets. Larger mass adoption will always require some form of stability. From a consumer perspective, it’s risky and impractical to use cryptocurrencies and tokens for daily use. A volatile medium of exchange can compromise users' purchasing power. That’s where stablecoins are the go-to. Stablecoins are the only form of tokens where you don’t have to worry about the instability and volatility of cryptocurrency prices. Stablecoins have an important role due to the following factors: Stablecoins have the potential to help people living in countries suffering from high inflation rates, which ultimately reduces their purchasing power. This is usually a result of economic and political uncertainty. There are many examples throughout history where fiat money has significantly suffered from devaluation. In these countries, it is extremely hard to move their capital elsewhere since capital control laws are imposed by the government to prevent money from leaving the country. Converting their money in stablecoins will ensure that the value of their money is preserved, instead of keeping their money in their national fiat currency which will further reduce their purchasing power. Stablecoins have the ability to globally assist the masses from the fallout of economic and political uncertainty. Protection from (hyper)inflationary fiat economies To hedge is to reduce the risk of adverse price movements in an investment or asset. Hedging is a strategy often used in the investment world to protect users' positions by reducing risks. Stablecoins are commonly used in the cryptocurrency market as a hedge against Bitcoin and other digital assets. Converting their holdings into stablecoins protects their value. Hedging Mechanism For Traders Types Of Stablecoins There are several ways that the stability feature of stablecoins are designed. The two most common types are convertible and synthetic stablecoins. The key difference between these two is how they are collateralised. Convertible stablecoins These are backed by assets that are held in a reserve, where the asset acts like an IOU that is held by a centralized entity. The most commonly used are fiat-backed stablecoins pegged to the US dollar like USDT or USDC. Synthetic stablecoins They aim to target a return to a reference sovereign currency like the USD, but they are not directly convertible for fiat currencies. One way to achieve the target stability is by using crypto-collateralization (for example, DOC or RDOC), or using derivatives (eg XUSD). Another way is through a peg that is actively managed using an algorithmic monetary policy or smart contract (eg Terra or Ampleforth). This is often used in conjunction with oracles that provide on-chain access to price feeds for fiat and blockchain asset pairs. Stablecoins on RSK Stablecoins play an important role in the RSK ecosystem: They allow users to send, receive, or save the value in a stable form Offer a stable trading pair for swaps Stablecoins function as less volatile collateral for borrowing reducing the risk of a margin call Create more stable yield generation and they're part of the foundation for RSK’s DeFi on Bitcoin ecosystem. Bitcoin-backed Stablecoins DOC is short for Dollar on Chain. DOC is 100% collateralized with Bitcoin, with a 1:1 USD peg guaranteed by the smart contract. Dollar on Chain is the ideal stablecoin for daily transactions and users seeking to hold current value without leaving the benefits of bitcoin. DOC The DOC Token Smart Contract Address: 0xE700691Da7B9851F2F35f8b8182C69C53ccad9DB Features Self Contained in the Blockchain What makes DoC unique is that the collateral is in a Smart Contract inside the blockchain, this means you don't need to trust a third party controlling the collateral. Perfect for Daily Transactions With third party non-custodial wallets you can instantly send and receive DoC with no protocol fees. Personalized Wallet Storage Forget about giving up your private keys to a third party, DoC tokens are securely stored in your own wallet. Benefits Users of the DOC tokens gain; Best Collateral Dollar On Chain doesn’t rely on fiat. All the collateral is bitcoin.  The DoC's outstanding stability is guaranteed by the Smart Contract. Buy or Mint You can buy DoCs on a secondary market, but the Smart Contract allows you to mint your own DoCs avoiding unnecessary extra costs such as the spread. Use for Daily Transactions DoC is fast, secure and it doesn't have any protocol fees. That's why there is a growing ecosystem around it. Where to Get DOC Tokens? You can get the DOC on or read the . Money On Chain Stablecoin Protocol Getting Started Guide RDOC The RIF Dollar on Chain stablecoin, or RDOC for short, is one of the main assets on the RIF On Chain DeFi platform. RIF on Chain is powered by Money on chain, a stablecoin and leveraged token protocol, which runs on RSK smart contracts. RDOC is a stablecoin in the RSK ecosystem that's pegged 1:1 to the US Dollar and guaranteed by a smart contract. RDOC is a crypto-collateralized stablecoin that uses the RIF token as collateral. Unlike the majority of other DeFi protocol stablecoins where users are required to provide collateral or a collateralized debt position to borrow funds, like the competing Ether-backed decentralized stablecoin DAI, RDOC can be acquired by platform users directly by spending RIF, which is a unique feature that some users may prefer. The RSK Infrastructure Framework is creating the building blocks to construct a fully decentralized internet that enables decentralized sharing economies. An important distinction to keep in mind is that RBTC is the transactional token that facilitates operations on the RSK network, whereas the RIF Token allows any token holder to consume the services that are compatible with the RIF architecture. Avoid crypto volatility using RDOC for payments, daily transactions, holding your savings, and acquiring RIF Services like identity, storage or communications. RDOC smart contract token address: https://explorer.rsk.co/address/0x2d919f19d4892381d58edebeca66d5642cef1a1f How to Get RDOC? You can buy RDOC tokens on a DEX, such as or , and . Buy RDOC using a Decentralized Exchange RSKSwap TEX Liquality Swap You can mint the tokens yourself using RIF as collateral. To mint RDOC, you need to connect to the RIF On Chain Platform. You can access the RIF On Chain Platform at . Minting RDOC https://rif.moneyonchain.com Note, before you can interact with the ROC platform, you need to: Set up an RSK network-compatible wallet like Nifty Wallet, Wallet Connect, Metamask, or Liquality Fund your wallet with RIF for minting, and RBTC to pay for gas fees. Mint RDOC through the MINT/REDEEM button on the Exchange section of the RIF On Chain Platform, and you'll need to set the ALLOWANCE regarding the amount of funds in the wallet that you authorize to spend on minting. Note, the platform charges a fee of 0.1% of the value in RIF. After you confirm the mint, your RDOC balance will be reflected within a few seconds and you have access to a USD pegged stablecoin on the RSK network XUSD is the cross-chain protocol that aggregates stablecoin liquidity from multiple issuers and chains into one single token: XUSD. BabelFish XUSD is a USD-pegged stablecoin that acts as a decentralized aggregator and distributor of different stablecoins. XUSD can be exchanged and redeemed 1:1 with any of the underlying stablecoin tokens backing it using smart contracts. BabelFish acts as a decentralized bank that has branches on different chains, accepting and distributing USD-pegged stablecoins. In this way, it acts as a "trustless stablecoin translation device" for supported stablecoins on different networks. Why Use XUSD? XUSD is a unique stablecoin: by acting as a decentralized aggregator and distributor of different stablecoins, it offers three advantages: Reduces risk: Pooling liquidity from multiple networks reduces potential systemic risk across platforms and marketplaces if one stablecoin is compromised. Users of XUSD are also subject to less systemic risk because the Babelfish insurance fund is intended to provide a level of security beyond the assurances offered by its underlying stablecoins. Provides deeper liquidity: The advantage of this type of architecture is that it allows the fragmented liquidity pools formed by various stablecoins to join together as one larger and thus more liquid stablecoin pool. Deeper liquidity leads to lower slippage or failures in closing margin and lending positions. Deploying XUSD on top of the RSK network also attracts liquidity to the RSK ecosystem. Provides flexibility: XUSD facilitates a 1:1 exchange between different stablecoins and networks. It allows users to easily bridge multiple stablecoins from RSK, Ethereum, & Binance Smart Chain networks to XUSD, and in reverse. XUSD currently serves the following use cases: International remittances and payments Stable collateral in RSKs DeFi on Bitcoin ecosystem Open margin trades using XUSD or swap between XUSD and other tokens Lending to earn interest on XUSD, including the option to earn interest in RBTC and FISH tokens Use it to save as a non-volatile store of value Need help storing Stablecoins? Read How to Store Stablecoins on RSK How to Get XUSD? A Decentralized exchange like , , or ○ Use a swap app to exchange your crypto for XUSD, like . ○ Peer to peer through Defiant or another user like you. On an Exchange ○ RSKSwap TEX Sovryn Swap Liquality Swap Lastly, you can use a cross-chain bridge. The BabelFish Bridge allows easy and permissionless transfers of tokens from one chain to another through audited smart contracts. There are 3 networks included in the Cross-Chain Bridge: RSK, Ethereum, and Binance Smart Chain. You can use the BabelFish Bridge to cross funds in and out of RSK with the Ethereum and Binance Smart chains. The bridge allows users to transfer multiple stablecoins from Ethereum and BSC to RSK XUSD. The $XUSD tokens on RSK can be bridged into any of the supported stablecoins at a 1:1 ratio. Use a Bridge XUSD smart contract token address: https://explorer.rsk.co/address/0xb5999795be0ebb5bab23144aa5fd6a02d080299f?__ctab=general RBRZ Tokens is the first Brazilian stablecoin in circulation. 1:1 pegged to the Brazilian Real. It will allow Brazilians to directly ramp up investments in foreign exchanges and to trade a Brazilian Real (BRL) pegged stablecoin on a global scale. It will permit sending and receiving BRL backed tokens safely and instantly, for a fraction of the cost of any other alternative. RBRZ Features Stability Price stability will be pursued by market agents based on the reserves held by the Reserve Managers. Reserve The Reserve Managers keep full reserves. BRZ Tokens are always fully backed. Multichains The BRZ is built-up on top of Ethereum, Solana and Algorand blockchains. Security The BRZ Smart Contract is the public instrument used for issuing and burning tokens according to convertibility demands. Our crypto transactions are verified by Parsiq. Transparency The issuance of new tokens and the underlying reserves will be audited by a reputable third-party firm. Global Acceptance The BRZ Token can be traded on multiple platforms. Why Use BRZ? Access to International Platforms Brazilian users now can enter international crypto markets without immediate exposure to Bitcoin or any other volatile cryptocurrency. Enter the Brazillian Market International exchanges and platforms will be able to enter the Brazilian market seamlessly. Acquire Brazilian customers with a frictionless solution. Trading Opportunity Users will be able to trade 24h / 7 days. Hedge International investors with business in Brazil will have an easy alternative to hedge their holdings in Brazilian Reais. How to Get RBRZ? To get BRZ, use the RSKSwap RBRZ Smart Contract Address: https://explorer.rsk.co/address/0xe355c280131dfaf18bf1c3648aee3c396db6b5fd Ethereum-based Stablecoins The RSK ecosystem allows users an alternative way to transact with Ethereum-based stablecoins like USDT or DAI with much lower fees by converting them to stablecoins that move on the RSK network, including rUSDT, rDAI, and others. rUSDT rUSDT is the RSK token bridge "crossed token" counterpart to USDT, which is natively from ethereum. Tether USDT converts cash into digital currency, to anchor or tether the value to the price of national currencies like the US dollar, and the Euro. Tether token is also 1-to-1 pegged to the dollar, so 1 USDT Token is always valued by Tether at 1 USD. Read the Tether Whitepaper: https://tether.to/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TetherWhitePaper.pdf Ethereum/RSK Bridge that allows to move ERC20 tokens between one chain and the other. The bridge contracts are upgradeable, this enables a smoother move to a more decentralized bridge in the future. rUSDT smart contract token address: https://explorer.rsk.co/address/0xef213441a85df4d7acbdae0cf78004e1e486bb96 How to Get rUSDT? Using a Swap app; To get rUSDT, use the RSKSwap Using the TokenBridge; You can use the ‘ ’ together with or to move tokens between networks. Token Bridge DApp Nifty Wallet Metamask Follow the for more details on how to use the token bridge. Dapp guide Find out How to Get Stablecoins on RSK rDAI is an alternative to convert Dai and pay much cheaper transaction costs, around 0.15c per transaction which is approximately 80 times cheaper than transacting DAI compared to doing it over the Ethereum network. rDAI Why use rDAI? Boycott High Fees on Ethereum Ethereum is experiencing extraordinarily high fees which make it impractical & expensive for most use cases. How to Get rDAI? Want to convert your DAI to rDAI? Cross DAI to rDAI using the Defiant or Token Bridge Cross DAI to rDAI using or follow the Kripton Market Swaps on Defiant Step by Step Guide rDAI smart contract token address: https://explorer.rsk.co/address/0x6b1a73d547f4009a26b8485b63d7015d248ad406 > For a more detailed explanation about Stablecoins, the differences between stablecoins and other types of digital assets, stablecoins on Bitcoin, where to store them, how to cross stablecoins using the RSK Token Bridge, and how blockchains achieve interoperability via cross-chain bridges, check out The Complete Guide to Stablecoins on the RSK Developers Portal! Thanks for reading!

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Ishan Pandey: Hi Cheng, welcome to our series “Behind the Startup”. Please tell us about yourself and the story behind Alephium? Hi Ishan, first of all, thank you for having me! I have been involved in blockchain research and application for many years. I came to Switzerland in 2013 for my PhD studies. Cheng Wang: My research topic was consensus algorithms, long before consensus algorithms became of interest. During my research, I proposed the first linear-time asynchronous Byzantine consensus algorithm. It’s what drove me to work in blockchain. Since the release of the Bitcoin white paper, blockchain has gone through its first important decade. As you know, some of the most popular blockchains are currently facing important scalability and security challenges. Blockchain technology is still at an early stage and the natural question to ask is: What is the blockchain infrastructure we need for the next 10 years for DeFi (but more generally Dapps)? We obviously need a blockchain that is scalable with high throughput and low transaction fees. In addition, you want a high level of programmability like on Ethereum. Last but not least, you want a blockchain that is as reliable and secure as Bitcoin. The Lindy Effect says that the future life expectancy of technologies or ideas is proportional to their current ages. If we apply this theory to cryptocurrency, it means Bitcoin will still be the most robust and promising approach for blockchain. While all the current layer-1 scaling solutions are in favor of PoS consensus, we believe that sharding + PoW is still the most robust and decentralized way to build a scalable blockchain. As a result, the Company was developed on the idea to build a scalable Bitcoin with a reliable DeFi solution. Our company is the first operational sharded blockchain scaling and improving on Bitcoin core technologies, Proof of Work & UTXO, to deliver a highly performant, secure DeFi and Dapps platform with enhanced energy efficiency. It is built on a novel and complete sharding algorithm called BlockFlow. It improves on the UTXO model of BTC to make it scalable and uses DAG data structure to reach consensus between different shards. Our company’s stateful UTXO model offers both layer-1 scalability and the same level of programmability as the account model. It introduces the concepts of shared state as seen in the Etherum account model. The stateful UTXO model is leveraged by a custom virtual machine and resolves many of the critical issues of the current dApps platforms with groundbreaking improvements on security, development experience and new paradigms such as trustless P2P smart contracts transactions. We propose an improved algorithm called that uses a clever combination of physical work and token economics to dynamically adjust the work required to mine new blocks, ensuring a reduced energy footprint compared to classic Nakamoto PoW mining. proof-of-less-work Putting all these innovations together, our platform delivers a highly demanded solution in the industry: A scalable blockchain improving on mature ideas from Bitcoin to deliver reliable, powerful and secure DeFi and dApps capabilities. Ishan Pandey: What is sharding? Further, please explain what is BlockFlow sharding architecture? (Detailed technical explanation) Sharding is a technique that enables the splitting of a blockchain into multiple smaller chains called “shards". Cheng Wang: Each shard consists of its own data, making it distinctive and independent when compared to other shards. A sharded chain benefits from better scalability, and provides a higher transaction throughput. The company is built on the BlockFlow algorithm which delivers efficient and practical UTXO sharding. Inspired by distributed computing models, it combines DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) and sharding. Much more lightweight than other sharding methods, BlockFlow also natively supports single-step cross-shard transactions making the company user experience just as convenient as any single chain platform. The addresses are randomly divided into G groups and transactions are divided into G x G shards based on the input and output addresses. As a result, we have G x G chains in total. The transactions from an address belonging to group B to an address belonging to group A are committed to shard (B, A). For the address in group B, one only needs to download the transaction data of 2G - 1 shards related to itself: namely (X,B) and (B,Y), where X, Y are part of the G groups. As a result, the amount of data that a single node needs to save is reduced from G^2 to 2G-1. For consensus, we chose the heaviest fork based on the underlying data structure. Each block selects several block hashes as dependencies. Transitively, each new block determines a unique fork for each shard. Miners find the best dependencies and pack valid transactions while nodes validate both dependencies and transactions. BlockFlow is agnostic to finality algorithms but the company is currently using Proof of Less Work. Ishan Pandey: What is “Proof of Less Work”, further how does it bring energy efficiency to the bitcoin technology stack? Proof of Less Work is a variant of PoW. Cheng Wang: It reduces the energy consumption of the classic proof-of-work by shifting part of the external energy cost to the internal network cost via coin burning when the hashrate and energy consumption are significantly high. It does not sacrifice security as the same level of cost is required for 51% attack. The exact way in which the PoLW algorithm works depends on the parameters set. Currently, the parameter is set so that ⅞ of block rewards will be required to mine a new block when the energy consumption is significantly high. The equilibrium between the miners and the protocol changes dynamically. Although this equilibrium cannot be determined in advance, given the same amount of block rewards and hashrate conditions the company will only use ⅛ of the energy compared to Bitcoin. Ishan Pandey: Recently, BadgerDAO got hacked where $120 million was stolen. Celsius network lost more than $50 million of investors assets. What are your views on cybersecurity and smart contract vulnerability? Every now and then, we hear huge hacks happening on Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) projects. Cheng Wang: Many of the issues allowing for these hacks could have been avoided with a different, safer virtual machine design. For example, we designed a brand new virtual machine and language for smart contracts with security in mind. We resolve many of the issues like unlimited authorization, reentrancy, etc. As Flashloan is an essential tool of DeFi attacks, the company chose to disable it by design. Ishan Pandey: What are your views on the rising Ethereum transactions fees? The high transaction fees are mainly due to two factors: limited on-chain transaction throughput and almost risk-free arbitrage. Cheng Wang: The low throughput can be improved by sharding (ETH2) on layer1, but it has a long road to go before it’s fully implemented. The high number of arbitrage transactions on Ethereum are due to EVM’s design. We improved both parts with our sharding algorithm BlockFlow and our custom virtual machine. Ishan Pandey: What are your views on Metaverse? Do you think it will break societal constructs like social media? Metaverses are an interesting phenomenon. Cheng Wang: They’ve existed for a long time with platforms such as SecondLife. What blockchain could bring to them is decentralization. It could also enable ownership of virtual real estate. And perhaps other things we cannot yet imagine. This might have an impact on society, but it’s hard to say if it will break societal constructs. To own something in a cryptographically backed virtual space, you still need to own a device, a connection and some currency to buy it. Meaning so far, they will remain very dependent on how things work in society already. But they might help people to connect in new and unexpected ways, which in turn would definitely have effects away from the devices. The future will tell us if these effects will break things. Hopefully, they will bring new turns in societal development which will raise new questions and a different look upon what it is to live and coexist in an interconnected world. Ishan Pandey: What are your views on Web 3.0? How will it disrupt our society? Web 3.0 may disrupt society, but the hope with our platform is that web3.0 will improve society. To disrupt means to break apart and throw into disorder. Rupturing things is a very different process than building. Cheng Wang: While it is true that building sometimes leads to abandoning old paradigms, building poses different types of challenges than disruption. Our company likes to focus on the constructive effects of emerging technologies and how they can provide the foundations for a permissionless, peer-to-peer enabled future. Ishan Pandey: According to you, what new trends are we going to see in the blockchain industry? The first trend I expect we’ll see would be for some of the alternative layer 1 protocols to stand out, especially after the success of Solana. New projects could provide better and cleaner solutions to scalability, security and user experience. Cheng Wang: The second trend would be that interoperability projects will become more production-ready. Many projects have been working on bridging different layer1 and layer2 protocols for a long time, and the best practices will be tested out by the industry in the coming 1-2 years. The last trend I would predict is that fungible tokens and non-fungible tokens will continue to grow and will be integrated into games, social networks, and more. The potential of tokens is still undervalued. Disclaimer: The purpose of this article is to remove informational asymmetry existing today in our digital markets by performing due diligence, asking the right questions, and equipping readers with better opinions to make informed decisions.

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It's very likely that every website owner wants to achieve higher search engine rankings and witness greater online visibility to attract more visitors. Using unauthentic techniques and spammy practices creates havoc for your website. Thus, Google reserves the right to apply penalties to websites when the bots detect any violation of webmaster guidelines. These penalties range from reducing the search engine ranking of the corresponding website to removing it from the search engine results pages based on the manual spam actions detected. This is why receiving Google penalties can be a website owner's worst nightmare. Google has been communicating with webmasters via the 2012. Through this tool, Google informs webmasters of website issues that are likely to impact its search visibility negatively. Google Search Console  since Google calls these notifications “warnings” and prompts webmasters to interpret and respond to them at the earliest. So, what do you have to do about it as a website owner? The answer is simple. You need to get a more detailed picture of Google penalties. Yes, only when you know where and how the problem occurs, will you be able to avoid it. Or, in the worst-case scenario, understand what you can do to fix Google penalties when your website ends up getting one. Types of Google Penalties Google penalties fall into two broad categories, including algorithmic penalties and manual penalties. Now, let us decode them one by one. Algorithmic Penalties Google algorithms are a complex system that strives to fetch relevant information from its search index and provide the user with the best results in order to address the given query. Google updates its algorithms from time to time to boost search results quality and thereby enhance user experience. What adds to the complexity for website owners and digital marketers is that Google’s algorithm updates are unpredictable. When there is an , the websites or individual landing pages that fall short of the parameters specified in the newest algorithmic tweak often fall prey to algorithmic penalties. algorithm update An algorithmic penalty is not really a penalty, but a change made in Google’s algorithms that affects the rankings of websites that Google thinks are not up to its standards. So, is an algorithmic penalty permanent? Certainly not. If your website has had negative impacts after an algorithm update, it doesn’t mean you can’t recover from it. If you can, take relative measures on your part: Identify and fix the issues that caused the negative impact and revamp your website with high-quality, user-engaging content (while avoiding black hat practices). You can level up your website’s search engine rankings once again. Manual Actions Since the advent of search engines, people have been trying different ways to hoodwink them and level up their search engine rankings. This affects the search because relevant search queries get buried under a host of irrelevant results. This is why Google has been trying since its early days to fight spammers in order to offer a to users. better search experience Google webspam team checks if websites are adhering to Google webmaster quality guidelines from time to time. In case of violations, the webspam team can manually ban specific websites, and this manual action is communicated to the website owner via the Google search console. Simply put, a is when a Google employee looks into your website and flags it to be delisted from Google because the specific guidelines are not met. manual penalty So, how do you know if your website gets hit by a manual penalty? Team Google sends you an email notification about the issue and you will also see it when you log into Google Console. At the top of the report, you will see a message with a green tick mark informing you about it. Once you fix the problem on your part, you can file a reconsideration request. The Google webspam team will carefully review your reconsideration request. Once they ensure you have taken the right steps to comply with Google webmaster quality guidelines, the ban on your website will be lifted. It can take a week or two for your reconsideration request to be reviewed. You will be informed via email when Google receives your request and also when the review is done. There are many types of manual actions taken by Google, and this post will try to explain each of them in detail. We will also share the ways to recover from these penalties here. The Complete List of Google Penalties and How to Recover Cloaking and/or Sneaky Redirects Cloaking is the process of showing different pages to the search engine and the user on a given query. This is a violation of the webmaster guidelines, which, in turn, leads to a manual penalty. This penalty has two forms. One, partial matches that can affect selected parts of your website, for instance, individual landing pages. Two, site-wide matches that can take a toll on the entire website. The Fix: Go to Google Search Console > Crawl > Fetch as Google. This way, you can identify your website landing pages with affected portions. Compare this content fetched by Google with the unaffected parts of content on your website. Identify the difference and rework the affected areas until it is in line with the unaffected content. Neither Google nor the user likes getting redirected to a page that is irrelevant to the query.  So, check for existing redirects and remove those that send users to a different page. Once you think all the necessary changes are made, you can file a reconsideration request. Cloaking: First Click Free Violation A website compelling users to register, log in, or subscribe to access its content is violating . Google’s First Click Free policy This is also a type of cloaking that can land your website on Google penalties. Like the previous penalty, this one also has two different forms: partial matches affecting certain areas of the website and site-wide matches affecting the whole website. The Fix: To lift this penalty off your website, you need to make sure that the content displayed to Google and the users coming from Google services are the same. You can submit a reconsideration request to Google once you fix the issues concerned. Cloaked Images Do you think cloaking applies only to your website’s content? If yes, you are wrong. Cloaking applies to images as well. Google considers an image cloaked when another image overshadows it or when the users are redirected to other irrelevant pages away from the corresponding image. The Fix: To avoid this penalty, you have to make sure that you display the same image to Google and the visitors. Once you remove all the possibly cloaked images from your website or replace them with the right ones, you can raise a reconsideration request. Hacked Site Hacking is no wonder in the digital space. Hackers may hijack your website and inject malicious content or links into your content management system without your knowledge. It is difficult to spot these fraudulent links because they often come cloaked. When Google identifies such websites, it puts up a “the site is hacked” sign on relevant pages that show up on a Google search. This can drive visitors away from your website and lead to a decrease in its search engine ranking. The Fix: Once you know your website is hacked, the first best step you can take is to make plans to prevent any more damage to it.  To execute this, get in touch with your web host to isolate your website and claim support. Identify the extent of damage done by the malware using Google Search Console. Now, to solve the problem and prevent it from happening again, you need to get to its roots. Yes, run a complete analysis of your website to identify its vulnerable spots through which the hackers broke into your webspace. Modify your website based on your findings to strengthen it and prevent similar attacks in the future. Make it a point to have a backup of your website’s data and bolster it with advanced security features at this phase. Time and again, request a review from Google to take the “hacked” label off your site. Hidden Text / Keyword Stuffing Content quality is one of the chief Google ranking factors. Stuffing keywords in your website’s content to improve visibility and achieve higher search engine rankings only ends up in backfiring. Yes, Google reserves the right to penalize your website if hidden text or stuffed keywords are found in the content. This penalty can be of partial matches impacting parts of the website or site-wide matches influencing the entire website in a negative way. The Fix: Go to Google Search Console > Crawl > Fetch as Google to identify your website landing pages with affected portions. Find out similar text and Identify hidden content using CSS positioning. Once you find out the hidden content, either remove it or restyle it so that it is easily visible for your visitors. Similarly, identify stuffed keywords and remove unwanted or irrelevant occurrences of them anywhere in the content. Next, remove repetitive content in title tags and alt texts. Once all these are done, request for reconsideration from Google. Pure Spam The pure spam penalty falls upon a website that indulges in spammy techniques and activities in order to boost its search engine rankings. Pure spam includes black hat practices like cloaking, content scraping, and others that are done without adherence to Google Webmaster Guidelines. This penalty can either be of partial matches or site-wide matches based on the intensity of the spam in place. The Fix: To get away from the pure spam penalty, you need to get rid of all the spammy activities related to your website, maintain authenticity and then submit a reconsideration request. Spammy Free Hosts Did you come across free hosting? It should be spam.  Practically, nothing of high quality comes free of cost. The free spammy hosts only end up bombarding the visitors to your website with irrelevant ads. This means the Google webspam team will take manual actions against these free spammy hosting services once they deduct them. The Fix: The quickest and easiest way to fix this problem is to switch to a trusted and authentic web hosting service. You can request Google to re-evaluate your website to lift the penalty once you opt for a reliable hosting service. Spammy Structured Markup Structured markup or schema markup is a set of codes you use to organize your website’s content, thereby making it easier for Google to crawl it and index it quickly. On the contrary, the presence of spammy structured markup can redirect to irrelevant or misleading content. Such manipulative actions often backfire and the negative impact will dawn upon your website. Yes, since this isn’t a fair practice, Google will penalize your website if it finds out a spammy schema markup in it. The Fix: You can fix this problem by updating your schema markup and removing the spammy ones. Once you implement the changes required, you can submit a reconsideration request to Google. Thin Content This penalty falls upon your website when it contains content that adds little or no value to the user. Thin content includes content taken from other sites, spun content, low-quality guest posts, auto-generated content, and much more. While Google advocates fetching the best possible result for every query, it is no wonder that the search engine penalizes web pages that cannot cater to it. This penalty occurs in both partial matches or site-wide content depending on the quantity of thin content published on your website. How to Fix? Weed out spun or auto-generated content from your website. Similarly, have a keen eye for duplicate content and revamp it to make it more engaging. Identify affiliate pages and remove them from your website. If you still want these affiliate pages on your website, make sure they have enough weight to add more value to your visitors. Doorway pages in your website can increase the probability of duplicate content on your website. So, make it a point to eliminate them. Send a reconsideration request to Google once you fix these issues. Unnatural Backlinks Building backlinks to your website is one of the best ways to improve its Google ranking. But, the consequences are going to be serious if you do link building in the wrong way. When you create links that aren’t natural from or to your website, your website will end up on a Google penalty. It is because these links manipulate search engine rankings and Google doesn’t like this behavior. The Fix: You can download all the backlinks to your website from Google Console. Now, cross-check on them to see if any of them do not adhere to the guidelines from Google. If yes, you can either remove them or convert them into no-follow attributes. This is not just for unnatural links to your site. You can apply this procedure for unnatural links from your website to others as well. Finding it difficult to switch them to no-follow? Don’t panic. It happens in some cases. You can still disclaim those links to lift the ban over your website. Once you set right these issues, you can send a reconsideration request to Google. Expired Jobs If you are putting up posts or ads regarding job vacancies on your website, make sure you remove them as and when they expire. This is because displaying expired jobs lead to poor user experience, which Google doesn’t approve of. On the contrary, the search engine wants to direct users to places where they get what they want. So, expired job postings can land your website upon a manual penalty from Google. The Fix: The first step is to remove the job posting schema markup from your site. This way, the user gets redirected to the 404 code, denoting the non-existence of the job posting. Second, add a no-index meta tag to the page signaling the search engine not to index the particular page when it crawls your website. Now, Submit a reconsideration request to Google. Wrapping Up Google always wants to provide users with the best experience by directing them to the most relevant pages, thereby getting every query answered. Despite the frequency of updates in Google’s algorithms and manual actions, the common point in every version is enhanced user experience. Given the scenario, you can dodge penalties and low search engine rankings by crafting everything about your website on a user-centric approach. If users like your website, then Google does too! If you can remember this every step of the way while knowing how to fix unintentional penalties, your website will be trouble-free! First published here.

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Having now reached the end of the year, just as for the various companies and projects, we sum up how the last year has passed between ups and downs, so also in the blockchain and crypto sector, we can see how they have evolved and transformed, reaching or failing goals. This time we will focus on the EOS blockchain, and we will go to fix the most salient moments that have occurred throughout 2021, both moments of celebration and pugnacious moments inside and outside the community, so grab your cup full of kombucha, and let's browse the album memories. : January 07, the website is updated Bullish.com 10, Daniel Larimer resigns as CTO from Block.one, news that shocked everyone in the community; 21, Block.one transfers over 20 million EOS from one of its accounts to the bullish account 25, ImmuneBytes launches the audit service for smart contracts on EOS 30, Daniel Larimer, in an interview with Amelia Tomasicchio (I prepared the questions), accuses Block.one of hindering development on EOS : February 2, the next EOSIO Hackathon “Beyond Blockchain” is announced, also sponsored by Google Cloud 4, the Greymass team, behind the famous Anchor Wallet, launches the possibility of creating EOS accounts and more 9, Brendan Blumer announces that Block.one has launched the EOS VC fund for India 24, the PowerUp Model arrives on the EOS blockchain, and from this moment on, all transactions have a cost to be processed (minimum about 0.0003 EOS) 25, Block.one and Lacchain join forces to expand the use of the blockchain in Latin American territories : March 1, the social media Voice announced the creation of NFTs for their articles 2, the "Beyond Blockchain" Hackathon opens 3, Daniel Larimer announces his new project, Clarion OS, intended as Layer 0 of the EOS blockchain 12, EOSFinex announces its next closure but opens its code to everyone 17, EOS Market Place explodes in Venezuela, demonstrating how EOS is a valid alternative to fiat and works in the real economy 18, Block.one's EOS VC fund rewards EOS Nation and EOS Asia with over $ 630,000 for creating a decentralized platform to encourage and reward the development of dApps on EOS (spoiler, it will be called Pomelo) 20, Brendan Blumer talks about ProFi (Programmable Finance) or a DeFi (Decentralized Finance) with KYC (Know Your Customer) 27, Daniel Larimer proposes a roadmap for EdenOS to be integrated into the EOS blockchain : April 1, Google Cloud strengthens its interest in this blockchain and mone it one of the best DLTs to carry out projects on 2, it is not an April Fool, but from today, MetaMask can be used as a wallet for EOS, all thanks to EOS Argentina; here is my guide 7, information emerges regarding Bullish and its hypothetical IPO (Initial Public Offering) 21, Block.one announces a proposal to reward those who vote by exploiting the inflation of the blockchain itself 25, the new CCID report arrives, which once again places EOS at the top of all other blockchains, surpassing Ethereum, which is in second place, and IOST, which is in third place 28, the "Beyond Blockchain" Hackathon, with over 1300 participants, ends, and the winners are, in order, DAO Bull, gGoods, Recoverable Online Wallets (ROW), Finfluencers : May 4, Voice CEO Salah Zalatimo announces the closure of Voice and its next reopening in 3 months, overturning the initial idea of ​​a decentralized social network to move to an NFT platform, then transforming Voice into an NFT marketplace 11, The price of EOS goes beyond $14 14, The " " smart contract hack takes place where over 1 million EOS and almost half a million USDT are stolen (spoiler, the hacker refuses 100 thousand dollars, and I decide to block the account and recover all funds thanks to the consensus with the BPs) flash.sx 25, the first election for Eden ends 30, Newdex announces its development of a new, more functional, and better DEX (Decentralized Exchange) with the integration of other blockchains and also the NDX token will be renamed to DEX and the supply resized with a 100: 1 ratio : June 1, third birthday for the EOS blockchain since its launch 2, more information arrives about the new Voice 3, EOS Nation announces the Pomelo platform, the first crowdfunding platform on EOS for EOS projects 11, Block.one closes a class action dispute by paying $ 27.5 million 15, EOSTarter, the first incubator on EOS for projects on EOS, led by Hernan Arber, also starts 23, The first confirmations of a merge between Bullish and Far Peak arrive : July 1, the first DAO in the world to be legally recognized in America, CryptoFed DAO, is based on the EOS blockchain 2, the first physical book connected to an NFT on the EOS blockchain arrives 7, Block.one invests over $ 7 million in Chintai to expand its business and project 9, Bullish's SPAC Merger is confirmed for over $ 9 billion 17, the second vote for Eden starts 26, Voice announces further details and the launch for mid-August 27, the closed Bullish pilot starts with more than half a million dollars at stake to incentivize the test : August 3, EOS Costa Rica launches the dashboard to check the statistics of the EOS blockchain and other EOSIO-based blockchains 5, Voice will use USDC stablecoin 6, the EOS Foundation is born, promoted by the former CEO of EOS Nation, Yves La Rose 8, Brendan Blumer celebrates his 35th birthday 11, I celebrate my birthday 19, The EOS mainnet arrives on MetaMask, here is all the info 25, EOS inflation goes from 1% to 3% as predicted by the EOS Foundation to use the funds to develop massively on EOS, thanks to the transfer of over 3 million EOS 26, Voice will use a private EOSIO blockchain initially with the possibility in the future to migrate NFTs to and from other blockchains such as EOS and Ethereum : September 6, Daniel Larimer announces the next official and on-chain election for Eden on October 9th 17, Google Cloud begins accepting votes for his BP on EOS October: 8, The EOS Network Foundation awards 6 projects with 100 thousand dollars each; the projects are EOS Go, ByWire News, AtomicAssets, Finney.World, Koreos, EOS Microloan 9, Eden's first on-chain election concludes, and the elect are Aaron Cox, Chris Barnes, Jesse Jaffe, John Williamson, Brandon Lovejoy, Randall Roland 16, THE EOS Network Foundation rewards 11 projects with a grant with 100 thousand dollars each, and these are: DefiBox, EOSDT, , Vigor Protocol, DeFis Network, Newdex, Organic Protocol, Pizza ProFi, DAPP Network, pNetwork, DAPP DAO Account SOVDEX.io 26, Pomelo will launch the first match with the EOS Network Foundation worth 500 thousand dollars 30, The opening of Pomelo is announced on 7 November : November 1, The combination of Bullish and Far Peak LLC is registered with the SEC, bringing in Bullish's CEO, Tom Farley, and as director Brendan Blumer 5, Guy Fawkes Night, recommended movie: V for Vendetta 7, Pomelo opens the platform to everyone, giving away 500 thousand dollars to be distributed with quadratic funding 8, Block.one announces to transfer a total of 45 million EOS to Helios (first tranche of 8 million EOS), VC led by Brock Pierce (spoiler, the community does not look favorably on the operation) 19, The working groups sponsored by the EOS Network Foundation arrive, the branches are: Core +, Audit +, Wallet +, API + 24, the anniversary of Hoken Tech : December 1, Pomelo's first season ends with over $ 130,000 raised, 76 projects, 1022 donors 6, Block.one tries to cater to the EOS community by offering 32 million EOS (spoiler, the community raises the middle finger) 8, the EOS community denies payment to Block.one of 67 million EOS (spoiler, the DAO era begins in the DAO) 10, eCurve, DeFi platform, is hacked by spider man (itsspiderman), and the PIZZA platform loses over $ 5 million in tokens (spoiler, spiderman requests a sum, BPs freeze accounts, PIZZA is slowly catching up funds) 14, Daniel Larimer has seen the movie “Inception” too many times, EOS will soon be a DAO of DAO 19, DefiBox launches the Gamebox platform to support projects that intend to develop games on the EOS blockchain 20, Daniel Larimer proposed a new update (hard forks) for EOS, called Mandel, that will be ready on May 19th, 2022 21, Bullish open to the public in over 40 Countries 25, the team of ZEOS, project to create a token dedicated to privacy using ZK-SNARK, launches the ZEOS token to all holders of the PEOS token An intense year full of progress never seen in a single year regarding this blockchain, and an incredible year awaits us both for the various progress of the various projects that have had funds from Pomelo, and for the next update of EOS, EOS 3.0. So we just have to say goodbye to the new year and fill our wallets with this asset as it could prove to be the best investment for 2022. For Italian readers, I also made a video with all the progress for this blockchain in 2021: https://youtu.be/cDgi1qnw_D8

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What is a Gaming Guild? Crypto gaming is a hot topic now in a world where . We have seen some great crypto projects and others that failed terribly. As a result, some users have enjoyed the benefits of blockchain technology, while others have fallen into the hands of scammers. blockchain technology is revolutionizing many industries ‘A gaming guild is a collection or group of gamers that organize to play video games together and share data.’ Even though ‘guild’ is the most common term in the gaming world, such groups can also be known with other names such as factions, clans, or communities. Gaming guilds have been with us for decades. However, esports (competitive gaming) is why gaming guilds have increased in popularity recently. Competitive gaming guilds such as FaZe Clan, Cloud9, and Team Liquid are representations of traditional gaming. Crypto gaming guilds come with different visions. While some want to amass millions of dollars through P2E gaming, others want to build strong communities that produce the best alpha and ultimately the best projects. How it Started​​ The Philippines has been branded as the origin of the current play-to-earn concept today. The popularity all started as Covid-19 was ravaging the world, but gamers in this country were earning from game. #ThankYouAxie was a trending hashtag during this era as people cashed out their winnings, took photos of their shopping, and accompanied their captions with this hashtag. the Axie Infinity More and more people gained interest in this game, and its demand rose. As a result, demand for Axies, the in-game tokens needed to play this game, rose. Dizon, the founder of Yield Guild Games (YGG), saw an opportunity and started leasing his Axies in what is known as ‘scholarships’. The proceeds would be shared between scholars (70%) and the guild (10%), while the community managers got 20%. Others soon embraced the model, and new guilds were created. Top Crypto Gaming Guilds Yield Guild Games is one of the most prominent crypto gaming guilds with a market capitalization of $420 billion. YGG has a Decentralized Autonomous Organization that invests in virtual world NFTs. The guild was founded in 2020 by Gabby Dixon, a gaming veteran and Axie player. Yield Guild Games With over 74,000 members on Discord, YGG is among the biggest crypto gaming guilds. It is also important to note that it is the pioneer of P2E gaming guilds. YGG has adopted the name “Guild of Guilds” as it comprises almost every other popular guild in the space. Merit Circle Merit Circle guild is governed by a DAO, the prominent holding company of all the subDAOs. The most prominent partnership is with Axie Infinity, even though there are plans to work with Illuvium, Hash Rush, and Star Atlas. SubDAOs are present in both YGG and Merit Circle. It simply means that Axie Infinity has a subDAO within Merit Circle that allows it to hold only Axie assets. If one of the subDAOs is hacked, other games will not be affected. $MC is the native token of this guild. There are two staking options in this guild. Single stake for the MC token and Liquidity Pool as an MC/ETH pair. UniX Gaming UniX Gaming operates a DAO that has more than 1,200 scholars. Some of the games that UniX works with include Axie Infinity, Star Atlas, and Splinterlands. All these games have their subDAOs that hold individual assets. $UNIX is the native of this guild. The DAO earns revenue through various approaches such as Axie breeding, launchpads, scholarship revenue, and revenue from the NFT marketplace. Astra Guild Ventures Astra is governed by a DAO, which earns 20% of all the revenue generated from the guild. The guild has over 2,000 scholars on Axie Infinity. Transparency is one of the things that differentiates Astra from other guilds. The earnings dashboard is right there on the website so that users can see what the DAO is earning and you can also check the number of assets held by every subDAO. $AVG is the native token of this guild, and its total supply is 2 billion tokens. Good Games Guild Good Games Guild is another popular guild with over 300 scholars in its program. The guild has exciting features such as Good Game Labs, its game incubator and its investment arm. Good Games Guild has a DAO that earns 20% of all the revenue generated from the guild. GGG has partnered with brands such as Titan Hunter, DopeWars, Gamestation, and The Monopolist. Some of the notable names that have invested in Good Games Guild include AU21 Capital, Animoca Brands, Basics Capital, and OKEx Blockdream Ventures. The guild has $GGG as its native token, and the supply is capped at 100 million tokens. GuildFi GuildFi is a guild that seeks to create an interconnected ecosystem of games, communities, and NFTs that enables interoperability within the metaverse and also maximizes players’ benefits. The guild focuses on solving access and discovery problems while at the same time enhancing players’ performance and maximizing their rewards. Wrapping Up GameFi and play-to-earn opportunities are changing the gaming landscape and the above guilds have been at the forefront to offer such opportunities. This is a perfect approach to making money in the virtual world while avoiding some of the problems associated with the real world. The GameFi space is still young, and we can only wait and see what the future holds for the entire blockchain space. Also Published Here

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2020’s Covid-19 disruption proved to be a boon for edtech. As countless pupils, students, and adult learners alike turned to education technology platforms during global lockdowns and the implementation of social distancing measures; we saw many edtech platforms grow so rapidly that they opted to use their newfound success as a launchpad for an IPO. As a result, 2021 saw many edtech platforms such as Coursera, Udemy, and all take the step to go public as a means of capitalizing on a hot IPO market and the unprecedented levels of interest shown in their respective platforms. Duolingo However, despite edtech seeing record-breaking flowing into its platforms, investors haven’t been quite as forthcoming with adding educational stocks to their respective portfolios. levels of capital (Image: ) Tech.eu As the chart above shows, it took just the first half of 2021 to see edtech venture capital investments surpass $1 billion for the first time ever - a figure that represents some 15-times growth in investment levels since 2014. Despite this, edtech stocks across Wall Street have been heavily underperforming - especially those that opted to go public in 2021. So, whilst VCs appear eager to pump more capital into edtech, the stock market is indicating that skies may not be as clear as they seem for the industry. So, does this mean that the conditions caused by the pandemic that led to huge volumes of custom for edtech firms were only short-lived? Could the emergence of edtech be nothing more than a flash-in-the-pan? Let’s take a deeper look into what the future may hold for edtech: Navigating the Seas of Change 2021 saw a number of unicorn edtech companies go public, including Duolingo, Coursera, Udemy and Powerschool. Following an impressive 2020 across the board regarding remote learning platforms, launching an IPO represented a great opportunity for companies to capitalize on their growth and build on their product. After a launch in April 2021, was the first stock to raise the alarm that Wall Street wasn’t quite seeing eye-to-eye with the masses of venture capital entering the . At the time of writing, Coursera stock has fallen, amidst a handful of attempted breakouts, by nearly 41% from its debut price. Coursera edtech space Much like , Duolingo has followed a similar pattern of a brief price rally followed by a consistent rate of decline. At the time of writing, DUOL sits some 23% below its IPO price on the Nasdaq. Coursera Udemy has been a more recent addition to the , floating in late October. Due to the recency of its floatation, it’s unfair to read too far into the stock’s performance, but right now its price fall of 22.3% appears to loosely trace that of its market counterparts. edtech stock landscape However, it’s worth noting that not all 2021 edtech launches are underwater following their debuts. Thanks to an excellent price run, Powerschool Holdings Inc remains up some 13.56% on its initial launch price in July. Here, it’s extremely important to caveat these price observations with the fact that a widespread stock sell-off has been occurring across a range of industries owing to rising inflation rates and the cost of living for consumers. However, Patricia Miller, writing for Value the Markets, highlights the importance of questioning whether edtech actually solves a problem that exists in a post-pandemic world. “One of the biggest factors and areas of concern for investors is whether the products and services actually solve a problem or are they just nice to have? While undoubtedly, EdTech solved a very big problem and provided a continuation of education during the global pandemic, many question whether it is still required to the level it was or if there will ever be that requirement again,” . Miller explains It’s also essential to add that the boom in edtech services during the peak of the pandemic paved the way for many companies to emerge and contend with one another whilst offering similar products and services. This meant that the space has become extremely competitive whilst the market grows at a slower rate than its 2020 levels. The Case to Remain Bullish about Edtech Despite the dwindling value of a number of edtech stocks Freedom24's head of investment research, Maxim Manturov, has remained bullish about the future potential of education technology companies. “It’s worth noting that there were attempts to integrate technology into education before, but the pandemic has accelerated and strengthened this trend,” Manturov notes. “This may increase the number of people willing to switch to online learning as it allows attending classes anywhere.” “With trends and industry forecasts changing (researchandmarkets.com forecast the market to grow to $350bn in 2019 and Global Market Insights forecast $250bn in 2020, rising to $1 trillion by 2027), more companies are going public,” Manturov added. Although the short-term prospects of edtech stocks may not seem appealing to investors, it’s worth adopting a more long-term approach when calculating the potential of the industry. Following an unprecedented level of growth in 2020, it’s to be expected that edtech stocks will struggle to build on their previous successes in an industry still looking to find its feet after a period of exponential growth. However, the pandemic accelerated a pre-existing trend in the growing adoption of online education platforms. This indicates that, although a market correction may be underway, we’re likely to see plenty more growth across the in the longer term. edtech landscape

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