Block Green

blockgreen

1. Introduction 2. Basic knowledge 3. Seeing through the backdoor 3.1 HTML elements 3.2 CSS defaults 3.3 Display Property 3.4 Display attributes 4. Conclusions 1. Introduction: HTML and CSS is the common door for people who want to become a web developer. Many of them start from zero and have no programming knowledge at all. Others have some coding experience. I had a programmer background when I started learning HTML but had no idea about this new world. Going through tutorials helped me memorize some properties and styling the elements. Learning While I was learning people were struggling to display or position HTML elements. We were all trying to, but we didn't knew which property will do the job and we'd try them one by one until we found the one. HTML and CSS can be very confusing if you don't get the real core of it, what do I mean by "Get the real core of it"? Actually what I mean is to undress the structure itself, to see what happens behind the curtains. This will change the rest of your journey with HTML and CSS. It'll make you faster at coding and you'll easily find out how to position elements on a web page. You'll even find out how did elements were positioned in other web pages just by looking at it. 2. Basic Knowledge: There are 3 main things I'd like to address here so you can see what I'm talking about. These 3 main qualities will get you to understand how things run in the background of HTML and . Before getting into it, please make sure you already know how to create HTML documents and to apply styling to its elements. If you don't know how to create HTML documents and to add styling to its elements, please go to freecodecamp.org and complete the basic tutorials. CSS 3. Seeing Through The Backdoor Of HTML And CSS: As I said before there are 3 main things you should be aware of while learning HTML and CSS. The main thing you should understand is the way an HTML document is filled. What do I mean by this? What I mean is that the document will be filled out with the elements you add to it. But they certainly won't be positioned as you expected. 3.1 Filling The Body Of The HTML Document Once you understand that the document will be filled from left to right, from top to bottom. You'll know that the HTML body works like a container on which elements will be added one next to the other, from left to right (depending on their display property). Once the line has been filled, the next element will go to the first space of the next line, this will be repeated as a new line is required. An HTML document can be filled 100% in width but not in height, otherwise, you wouldn't be able to scroll up or down and the page would be limited in vertical space. Imagine 5 division elements, all of them were set with width and height of 50px, how would they look on the page? Try it yourself! Were you expecting them to be under one line instead of one column? It seems like is not filling the page as I told you before, right? This is because divisions have a display default value to block. Even if the width was bnh to 50px it'll occupy the whole line, limiting its content to 50px. This is because you have set a 50px width and the previous division is a block and it needs to fill his line completely. Note: The body needs to be set first, set the width to 100% and the height to 1000px. This way you can work inside this container. 3.2 CSS Defaults You need to know that CSS defaults are applied to the elements by the browser, What does this mean? It means that if the browser doesn't apply the defaults to the HTML elements they would all be the same. Divisions, anchors, forms, paragraphs, all of them would be the same. This means that basic elements like divisions, anchors, and all of them would load as an element with no value within its properties and they would look all the same. Being aware of this will let you understand that you don't need to overthink which elements to use. 3.3 Display Property Displaying and positioning are 2 things must of us struggle with. Knowing the 2 main things I mentioned before will make it easier for you to position elements any way you want. But the real deal is in the display property. The display property will change the behavior of the element positioning and display. Remember the defaults I mentioned before? Yeah! The display property is already set to a value on all HTML elements, so they will be displayed as the default value dictates. The default value for division elements is "block", this means it will occupy the whole width of a line. Remember the divisions we added before? You can make them show in a row just by changing the display property on each! Give it a try with the inline-block value. Do you see it now? Divisions are shown in a row instead of a column. Now try this: Box 1 - block, Box 2 - inline, Box 3 - inline, Box 4 - block, Box 5 - Inline-block. The display property can be set to other values like flex, inline-flex, inline-table, etc. Your code should look like this: HTML: html lang="en"> Box 1 Box 2 Box 3 Box 4 Box 5 < > head < = = = /> link href "style.css" rel "stylesheet" type "text/css" </ > head < > body < = > div class "box1 size" </ > div < = > div class "box2 size" </ > div < = > div class "box3 size" </ > div < = > div class "box4 size " </ > div < = > div class "box5 size display" </ > div </ > body </ > html CSS: { : ; : gray; : ;
} { : block; : blue;
} { : inline; : yellow;
} { : inline; : red;
} { : block; : green;
} { : orange;
} { : ; : ;
} { : ;
} body width 100% background-color height 1000px .box1 display background-color .box2 display background-color .box3 display background-color .box4 display background-color .box5 background-color .size width 50px height 50px .display display 3.4 Display attributes Last but not least, I wanted to add that there are properties that are specific for a type of display value. This means that when you set a display value to an element, you can address it with some specific properties like the flex display value for example. The Flex display value can only be "handled" by properties like: align-content, justify-content, align-items, flex-direction. Setting a different display value will make you change the way you are "addressing" to it. Conclusions: Putting these 3 main things together expands your notion of positioning and displaying of HTML elements and now you can easily accommodate elements by: Knowing how the page is going to be filled, depending on the display property of the element itself. Determinate what display value works the best for the element you are adding to your layout. Knowing some CSS defaults were loaded to the element you just added, you can try to override the default value to position better your element. Using the correct properties for each display value. Now you can go ahead and try exploring a website, pick an element on that web page, and ask yourself...How could I position that element the same way they did? If you are having some ideas go ahead and try them! Even if they don't look the same, you could use only the container with some borders!

How To Understand HTML and CSS For Beginners

N ew technologies are evolving rapidly. Some of the newest solutions are gaining popularity every day. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is nothing new, but perfecting it with machine learning may shed a new light on OCR. It’s obviously a broad subject. Nevertheless, I’ll try to briefly introduce you to the machine learning within OCR implementation on Android. I’ll also present some of its functions, basing on an easily available software called Google Firebase ML Kit. What is OCR? Nowadays, almost everything is digital. Books, newspapers, articles — name it. So what can be done to make a written or printed text digitized or even translated? Optical Character Recognition (OCR) comes with the solution. It’s capable of finding the text on the images and making it digital. Whenever you need to split the expenses between you and your friends — it’s always a problem. Who and how much should pay for pizza or drinks? Now, you can take a photo of a receipt and an application on your smartphone can split the expenses for you. It can even send the reminders about the payment to your friends. Also, searching for the information about a bus line may be easier. By taking a photo of a bus number or a name of a bus stop, you can get the information about a bus line you need. How does it work? Computers are dumb themselves and can’t recognize anything from an image. For them, every picture is just a bunch of pixels, basic information about colours. To help the computer find what you need, we can teach it how to recognize the letters. It’s known as a pattern recognition. It can be used for a text that has the same font, size and spacing from the top to the bottom. But what if we have different fonts and sizes throughout the text? To help the computer, detection feature needs to be introduced. Detection feature or intelligent character recognition (ICR) is used to identify characters’ traits. It searches for the letters that meet the specified requirements. For example: if you see two angled lines that meet in a point at the top and there’s a horizontal line between them about halfway down, that’s the letter A. Majority of OCR software uses a detection feature, rather than a pattern recognition, to find the letters on images. Some of them use machine learning to teach the software how to recognize the characteristics of the letters. OCR implementation on Android Google Firebase ML Kit is a set of the tools which helps to implement machine learning on Android and iOS — OCR is one of them. It’s relatively easy to start using machine learning. ML Kit has some built-in modules that enable text recognition, face detection, barcode scanning and more. If you’re experienced in neural networks and want to use more sophisticated or specialized ML, you can use custom Tensorflow models. ML Kit has two versions: on-device and cloud. You’ll find the differences and all the features of both versions . We’ll focus on the Android on-device version below. here Before we start, we need to create the Firebase project in the Firebase Console. Tutorial can be found . It requires the knowledge of Kotlin programming language and RxJava2. here Now, let’s add the Firebase ML Kit module in and gradle dependency. AndroidManifest.xml With this setup we can start implementing our text detector. We need to create . FirebaseVisionTextDetector Now, we have the instance of Vision detector which is used to detect the text on the images. To do that, we use: This method takes instance of as a parameter and produces . When task is ready, we can grab . It contains the data about the detected text and the bounding boxes of the detected areas. FirebaseVisionImage Task<FirebaseVisionText> FirebaseVisionText You can create from a bitmap, using a method below: FirebaseVisionImage There are other factory methods to create FirebaseVisionImage. We can check them in Firebase documentation. For now, we’ll use a bitmap version. Below I’ve implemented the full detector class. I’ve used RxJava2 to process input and output of the text detector. I also wrapped Firebase class in to detect the text on RxJava stream. Task<T> Flowable Full class: TextDetector Important points in the class above are and functions. First one is an input point and the other is an output for our detections which you can listen to. processImage observeDetections Now, we need to draw detections on the scanned image. All the bounding boxes come from the object. FirebaseVisionText contains blocks, lines and elements. Blocks are the largest areas of the text, each block has lines and all the lines have elements. FirebaseVisionText Knowing this, we can draw all these elements on our input bitmap. To do that, we need to gather all the bounding boxes for each unit and then draw rectangles on a bitmap. Below, there’s a complete snippet: Output code will look like this: Blue border represents the block, green represents the line and white represents the element. Pretty much all the text was found. Testing the text recognition on receipts example I decided to test three receipts and check how Google’s text recognition will handle them. Each receipt was in different language: Polish, Spanish and German. I’m unable to test languages different than Latin-based, because on-device version doesn’t support them. To test languages like Greek or Russian, the cloud version is required. The first receipt was in Polish. Below, we can see two images. Text highlighted on the left image shows what have been detected by ML Kit. On the right image there’s a data returned by API, drawn on white background. It seems pretty much the same as on the original image. Of course, there were some issues with formatting. Also some letters weren’t detected or were confused. Besides that, we can see that the results were rather good. I aligned all the lines vertically and adjusted the text size to the boxes, what you can see below. Without these corrections there was much more mess. The second test was performed on the Spanish receipt. This one was in low resolution (225 x 335px). As we can see, detector found only two blocks on the entire image. And the last attempt was on the Swiss receipt in German. Detection was almost faultless. Whole text was found, except “e-mail” at the bottom of the receipt. Detector only found last letter of “email” word and assumed it’s 1 (number one). Summary I’ve presented you the overview of OCR basics. I also showed the OCR implementation on Android using Google’s ML Kit. Implementation of ML Kit is rather simple and doesn’t need that much coding. When using an on-device version, detection is limited to the Latin-based languages. Scanned images must have a decent resolution to get good results. Detector doesn’t recognize some of the letters or confuses them. Also, there are some problems with the text written vertically. To get better results, cloud version, other specialized OCR software or custom Tensorflow model are required. On-device text recognition can be used to detect keywords or some simple information from larger text rather than extended articles. As I’ve mentioned earlier, OCR is nothing new at all. But introduction of machine learning within this technology may significantly improve it. In the nearest future we may witness extended, smart OCR implementation, version 2.0. Who knows? The article was written by Łukasz Gawron and was first published on The Software House Blog . Visit the blog for more articles on best development practices and software outsourcing tips.

Simple OCR implementation on Android with Google’s ML Kit

The Sociable's 40 Under 40 Influencers in Blockchain for 2023

Los 40 influencers menores de 40 de The Sociable en Blockchain para 2023

Les 40 influenceurs de moins de 40 ans de The Sociable dans la blockchain pour 2023

2023 के लिए ब्लॉकचेन में सोशिएबल के 40 अंडर 40 प्रभावशाली व्यक्ति

The Sociable の 2023 年のブロックチェーンにおける 40 歳未満のインフルエンサー 40 人

Os 40 influenciadores com menos de 40 anos do Sociable no Blockchain para 2023

Danh sách 40 người có ảnh hưởng dưới 40 tuổi của The Sociable trong Blockchain cho năm 2023

The Sociable 评选 2023 年区块链领域 40 位 40 岁以下影响者

Hey Hackers, Cypherock has been nominated in HackerNoon's annual awards in New Dehli, India. Startup of the Year Please vote for us here: https://hackernoon.com/startups/asia/asia-new-delhi-dl-india Read more about us below to understand why we deserve your vote. Meet Cypherock The current issues with key management pose massive barriers to the adoption of decentralized technologies. We believe digital assets will have exponentially more value in the future and that will just not be limited to Cryptocurrency. Our mission is to empower people to be self-sovereign and to have the same peace of mind and control with their crypto and personal data that they have with their savings in the bank vaults. Cypherock X1 decentralizes the private keys into 5 cryptographic parts, each stored on tamper resistant hardware units - 1 Cypherock X1 vault and 4 X1 cards. You need only the vault and any 1 of the X1 Cards to make a transaction. Even if you lose any 3 out of these 5 units, your funds are still safe. Also you can set a pin during the setup process which is an additional layer of security. Cypherock X1 is scrutinized by WalletScrutiny and audited by KeyLabs, the security firm that has found vulnerabilities in Trezor, Ledger, etc. Rohan Agarwal and Vipul Saini - Co-founders of Cypherock Rohan has been developing software since 2014 and has been in the Crypto space since 2017. He has worked with organizations such as Blockgeeks, Fossasia (Google Summer of Code), Apollo Munich, Siftr Labs (acq.), and Samsung amongst others. He is a generalist by nature having worked across both technical and non-technical roles in the past. Vipul has been in the Crypto space since 2017 and specializes in Hardware Security & Embedded engineering since 2012. He has worked in partnership with Lockheed Martin on an Autonomous drone project and was the 1st employee in Nymble Labs, a VC-backed food robotics startup based out of SF, USA. He likes to dabble in frontier technologies and prefers spending time solving deep technical problems that have the most impact. How We're Disrupting/Improving the Web3 Industry We are building the world’s safest hardware wallet for crypto and NFT storage - Cypherock X1, funded and backed by Consensys Labs, Sandeep Nailwal (co-founder of POLYGON), and others. Cypherock X1 stands out among hardware wallets as an innovative and secure solution for storing cryptocurrencies. X1 is audited by Keylabs and scrutinized by Wallet Scrutiny. It introduces a seedless security model, utilizing Shamir’s Secret Sharing scheme to divide the private key into multiple shares. This approach enhances security by eliminating the risks associated with seed phrases, which can be lost, stolen, or compromised. Cypherock X1 offers a seamless user experience. The device and the software ‘CySync’ that comes along with Cypherock X1 boast a user-friendly interface, making it easy for both beginners and experienced users to navigate and manage their crypto assets in a single app. Its compact and portable design allows users to carry their wealth securely wherever they go, without compromising on convenience. Standing Out from The Crowd Firstly, serves not only as a hardware wallet but also as a secure seed phrase backup solution for multiple wallets. It allows users to store the recovery seeds of various wallets, thereby providing a consolidated and reliable backup for all their cryptocurrency holdings. This feature ensures that even if you have multiple wallets, you can securely manage their seed phrases in one centralized device, reducing the risk of losing access to any of your wallets. Secondly, Portfolio Management of Multiple Wallets: Cypherock X1 goes beyond being just a cold wallet by offering robust portfolio management capabilities. With the device, users can import multiple wallets and conveniently manage their entire cryptocurrency portfolio from a single interface. This unified view allows for easy monitoring of overall portfolio performance across different wallets and blockchain networks. By consolidating portfolio management, Cypherock X1 streamlines the user experience and provides a holistic approach to cryptocurrency asset management. Cypherock X1 also provides comprehensive multichain support, allowing users to securely store and manage a wide range of cryptocurrencies and blockchain assets in a single device. Whether you hold Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other popular cryptocurrencies, Cypherock X1 has you covered. The next feature that sets us apart is the beneficiary service. You have to safeguard your Crypto while you are alive and only transfer them after you are dead which is impossible if you are the only one knowing your keys. Cypherock eliminates fear around loss of Crypto in case you die. With our beneficiary service, the assets can be transferred without Cypherock or any other party ever knowing the amount you HODL in the X1 wallet (Go Privacy!). Cypherock X1 Our Predictions/Thoughts on the Web3 Industry in 2023 : Recognizing the importance of seamless key management, innovative solutions will emerge to simplify the user experience. User-centric key management tools will provide enhanced security while being more accessible and intuitive. These solutions will offer convenient ways to securely store, manage, and interact with various types of digital assets beyond cryptocurrencies, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance (DeFi) assets, and more. User-Centric Key Management Solutions : Interoperability will play a crucial role in the maturation of the Web3 ecosystem. We can expect increased efforts towards establishing common standards and protocols that enable seamless interaction and interoperability among different decentralized applications (dApps) and platforms. This will facilitate the exchange and utilization of digital assets across various Web3 networks, fostering a more interconnected and efficient decentralized ecosystem. Interoperability and Standardization : In 2023, we can anticipate a significant surge in the adoption of decentralized applications by mainstream users. As user interfaces and experiences improve, more individuals will begin to explore and embrace decentralized alternatives to traditional centralized platforms. Decentralized social media platforms, decentralized finance applications, and decentralized marketplaces will witness increased usage, driven by user demand for privacy, security, and ownership of their data. Mainstream Adoption of Decentralized Applications : The potential of Web3 extends far beyond the financial sector. In 2023, we will witness the emergence of innovative and disruptive use cases across various industries such as healthcare, supply chain management, gaming, and digital identity. Decentralized technologies will revolutionize these sectors by enhancing transparency, security, and efficiency, ultimately transforming how we interact and transact in the digital realm. Expanding Use Cases : With the growing prominence of Web3 and the increasing value associated with digital assets, regulatory frameworks will continue to evolve. Governments and regulatory bodies will seek to strike a balance between fostering innovation and ensuring consumer protection. We can expect to see clearer guidelines and regulations addressing areas such as digital asset ownership, taxation, identity management, and consumer rights within the Web3 landscape. Regulatory Evolution What word defines the state of Web3 in 2023? : Web3's impact will be transformative across various aspects of society, economy, and technology. In 2023, we will witness the tangible effects of decentralization, as it reshapes industries and redefines traditional systems. The decentralized finance (DeFi) space will continue to expand, offering a wide array of financial services that are accessible, transparent, and resistant to censorship. The concept of digital ownership will become more prominent, with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) revolutionizing the art, gaming, and collectibles markets. Moreover, Web3 will drive innovation in areas such as supply chain management, healthcare, digital identity, and governance, transforming the way these industries operate. As more individuals and organizations embrace the principles of Web3, the collective shift towards a decentralized, open, and user-centric internet will have far-reaching implications for how we interact, transact, and collaborate in the digital realm. Transformative Why we decided to participate in HackerNoon's Startup of the Year awards We have decided to participate for three main reasons. : HackerNoon is a reputable platform known for its coverage of technology, startups, and innovation. Participating in their Startup of the Year awards offers Cypherock an opportunity to gain industry recognition and exposure. Being associated with a respected platform like HackerNoon can help elevate Cypherock's visibility and credibility within the startup ecosystem, attracting potential investors, partners, and customers. Industry Recognition : Participating in the awards allows Cypherock to expand its network and connect with other startups, industry experts, and influencers. Engaging with the startup community through such events opens doors for valuable collaborations, knowledge sharing, and partnerships. The networking opportunities provided by HackerNoon's Startup of the Year awards can lead to meaningful relationships that contribute to Cypherock's growth and development. Network Expansion : The Startup of the Year awards provide a platform for Cypherock to showcase its innovative solutions and receive feedback from industry experts and judges. The evaluation process can validate Cypherock's accomplishments, product offerings, and market potential. Constructive feedback and insights from experienced professionals can help refine Cypherock's strategies, identify areas for improvement, and strengthen its value proposition. Validation and Feedback Final Thoughts is a next-generation hardware wallet and key management solution that prioritizes the secure storage and management of digital assets in the decentralized era. With its advanced features and robust security measures, Cypherock offers users a reliable and user-friendly solution for safeguarding cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Cypherock Beyond its role as a cold wallet, Cypherock empowers users with portfolio management capabilities, enabling them to import and manage multiple wallets from a single interface. This consolidated approach simplifies the management of digital assets and enhances the user experience. Even if users have multiple other wallets, they can store up to 4 seed phrases using Cypherock X1. X1 is compatible with Metamask, Ledger, Trezor, etc, and can act as a seed phrase backup as well as a multi-wallet portfolio manager! Cypherock has been nominated as Startup of the Year in New Delhi, India. Vote for us today!

Empowering Self-Sovereignty - Interview with Startups of the Year Nominee, Cypherock 

Empowering Self-Sovereignty - Entrevista con el nominado a Startups del año, Cypherock

Renforcer l'auto-souveraineté - Entretien avec le nominé des startups de l'année, Cypherock

स्व-संप्रभुता को सशक्त बनाना - वर्ष के नामांकित व्यक्ति, साइफरॉक के स्टार्टअप के साथ साक्षात्कार

自己主権の強化 - スタートアップ オブ ザ イヤーにノミネートされた Cypherock へのインタビュー

Fortalecendo a autossoberania - Entrevista com o candidato a startups do ano, Cypherock

Trao quyền cho chủ quyền tự chủ - Phỏng vấn Ứng cử viên khởi nghiệp của năm, Cypherock

赋予自我主权 - 采访年度初创公司提名者 Cypherock

Lately, impact DAOs have been sprouting like mushrooms after the rain. They are a way to organize distributed teams around various objectives. Goals of an impact DAO can vary from local causes to topics that have a global impact - such as climate change. The Internet and web3 are a significant part of the infrastructure of impact DAOs. However, its backbone consists of ideas and people who invest their time, effort, knowledge, and money to build the desired change. DAOs are , built on web3 technologies, that enable the decision-making and synchronized collaboration of diverse groups. In the general case, a DAO will be run by . Decisions that drive the DAO towards its goals are usually reached by token holders voting for proposals to act or take no action. As new DAOs emerge, so do the tools that DAOs use - platforms and dApps that allow connecting to crypto wallets, submitting proposals, and casting votes. decentralized autonomous organizations smart contracts Prompt reactions to crises and events leave no time for the preparation and implementation of robust tooling and elaborate operational frameworks, so impact DAOs have begun to implement non-tokenized forms of governance. Non-tokenized impact DAOs tend to organize, synchronize and reach decisions within different chat apps - , Telegram, Signal; they collaborate using tools they have at hand - such as Google Docs. Typically, the DAO treasury remains on the blockchain as a multi-sig wallet, that prevents an individual from issuing transactions without the consent of other keyholders in the form of a cryptographical signature. Discord There are many types of impact DAOs that operate with different means, tools, and objectives. There are no specific rules when it comes to impact DAOs - they can be anything we want them to be. This, however, doesn’t mean that we can’t make mistakes - be it when we decide to pursue an objective by forming an impact DAO, be it when the operation of the organization is inadequate. The brief history of impact DAOs has already given us examples to learn from. Lesson #1: Objective - what is the target of the DAO, and can the DAO achieve it with the means it has? FreeRoss DAO was formed in December 2021 by a group of crypto and NFT enthusiasts, as well as friends of , the founder of , the infamous online black market. The initial objectives of the FreeRoss DAO were formulated as the FreeRossDAO Manifesto  (which is now available only as a ): Ross Ulbricht Silk Road snapshot on the Wayback Machine This DAO picked up significant media attention after collecting in a fundraiser. The governance tokens were airdropped to donors, thus turning them into the decentralized governing entity of the DAO. Proposals and decisions of the DAO were . During its operation, the FreeRoss DAO created and adopted a constitution, allocated and paid funds to contributors, artists and . However, in May 2023, the DAO voted on a proposal to stop operation completely, dissolve and transfer the remaining funds from the treasury to different organizations. The reason to halt the operation of DAO, as stated in Proposal #17: 12.5 million USD diligently documented operational staff Per the Ulbricht family’s wishes, the Free DAO will cease its operations entirely. Amidst concerns that the DAO’s existence is not helpful to Ross’s clemency efforts and can even harm his clemency, the family has asked that the DAO ends its operations. Because Ross’s life is at stake, the Free DAO’s mission has always been to support Ross’s family and respect their wishes. Proposal #17 was rejected by the DAO, but FreeRoss DAO ultimately voted to dissolve the DAO and cease all operations in Proposal #18. One might wonder how come an organization that had a lot of success in funding and organizing its work, has to cease operation because it “can even harm” the clemency of Ross Ulbricht - the most significant objective of the DAO. At the time of the formation of the DAO, Ross Ulbricht has nearly exhausted all legal options that may change his situation, but today we know - the for Ross to be a free man again is a Presidential pardon. only way Setting up an unregistered organization, that fundraises from anonymous donors, without implementing KYC and AML procedures, and handling millions outside any legal framework… simply does not help him. Some government agencies are even inclined to frown upon such operations, and this is why FreeRoss DAO had to dissolve  - . because Ross Ulbricht is better off without FreeRoss DAO than with it Lesson #2: Repurposing donations post-factum and misleading information are not the way to go was another impromptu impact DAO that was formed several days before Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The initial objective of UkraineDAO was to help and support Ukrainians suffering from the war. The core group of co-founders of the DAO had previous experience from impact DAOs - , and in less than a week, they’ve set up the multi-sig wallet, created an , organized an NFT auction and spread the word to relevant audiences and the media. Everyone was invited to place a bid for the NFT, and all participants of the auction were to receive fractional ownership of it, proportional to the amount donated. The funds collected through the NFT auction, as well as direct donations to the wallet, were intended to be transferred to charities and NGOs that help the war effort and deliver humanitarian aid. UkraineDAO PussyRiot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova among them NFT of the Ukrainian flag https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1497632851445043200?embedable=true The NFT auction was completed on March 3, 2022. The group collected a total of 7 mil USD. Most of as planned in the next few days. the funds were transferred https://twitter.com/DefiHope/status/1500565716201660417?embedable=true Nadya on March 6. Afterward, the remaining core members of UkraineDAO voted to use the funds that remained as a salary for , the operational lead of the  DAO. left UkraineDAO Alona Shevchenko Later, in June 2022, published Nadya’s statement that: Decrypt is involved in , i'd be very careful about donating to someone who has a history of mismanaging .@cryptodrftng @TheChoiceDAO i left mid-march after distributing the majority of funds. there was never an understanding that whats remained will be salary @Ukraine_DAO @cryptodrftng's UkraineDAO still holds around 200,000 USD worth of crypto in their wallet, which hasn’t been distributed as promised, and has been paying a monthly salary of 5000 USD to the operational lead for 14 months. Subsequent claims made by Shevchenko that UkraineDAO is endorsed by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, as well as the way the remaining funds were used, raised the interest of the media in the work of the DAO. https://twitter.com/cryptodrftng/status/1552711043973095428?s=20&embedable=true&thread=true https://twitter.com/cryptodrftng/status/1552711043973095428?s=20&embedable=true that . by journalists raised additional suspicions about some of the outgoing transactions from the DAO wallet, that are not listed as donations - with Global Crypto Press reaching the conclusion that around . Deputy Minister Bornyakov denied in an interview for Kyiv Post the Ministry has ever endorsed the DAO Further investigations 200,000 USD that were donated to the DAO are gone from the wallet and unaccounted for As more media outlets are picking up the story of UkraineDAO , which went from fundraising for a good and noble cause to becoming a personal piggy bank, the DAO itself remains silent - refusing to acknowledge the situation and refusing to communicate with the media and the public, that seeks explanations and accountability. (the most recent being Polish TVP World) Dima Buterin, the father of the famous Vitalik, who replaced Nadya as a keyholder for the multi-sig wallet of UkraineDAO, in a Twitter thread discussing the : UkraineDAO situation added that https://twitter.com/BlockGeekDima/status/1663885962353467392?s=20&embedable=true Obviously, the DAO vote on how the funds will be allocated - but in this case, can it is not sure that this was a good and ethical decision. Clearly, if we are asking the public to support and contribute financially to our work, or  in this case - if we seek donations with a promise that “100% proceeds will go to support Ukrainians suffering from the war” - it is just fair that we answer to the public. Legal means to pressure UkraineDAO to fulfill its original promise are limited, as the DAO was never incorporated. However, it is highly unlikely that the trust Dima Buterin has in the DAO will be there in the future. The takeaways from this piece should be that there are goals that can’t be achieved via impact DAOs, and at times the DAO will do more harm than good. As the story of UkraineDAO is still ongoing, for the time being, we can conclude that going back on a promise given in public and communicating false information definitely doesn’t help - nor the cause, nor the reputation of the people behind the DAO. Impact DAOs are in their nascent phase - technically still a toddler, mistakes are likely and expected. The future will certainly bring opportunities to improve the way we work and collaborate and to use the benefits of collective decision-making.

2 Lessons From The Early Years Of Impact DAOs

By Alyze Sam and Tech & Authors First, Fiat To understand where crypto came from, one must start at the history of fiat, you can find that blog post . After you’re versed in fiat, enjoy this unbiased and poetic overview of cryptocurrency, starting with the birth of blockchain technology. here Blockchain History Blockchain is a complex technology where digital information is saved within the “blocks” and stored on a public database termed the “chain.” Within each block, there is a unique code termed “hash,” which is its identification. Hashes are cryptographic codes created by specific algorithms. The purpose of blockchain is to allow digital data to be recorded and distributed. Blockchain technology was fundamentally sketched in 1991 by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta, two researchers who aspired to execute a system where document timestamps could not be tampered with. Approximately two decades following in January 2009, the launch of Bitcoin birthed blockchain technology’s initial real-world application. The Bitcoin protocol is constructed on blockchain technology. In the research paper, or ‘white paper’ introducing the digital money, Bitcoin’s pseudonymous originator Satoshi Nakamoto introduced it as “a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.” Bitcoin, a proper blockchain application, saw success within financial technology when other digital assets failed to solve the double-spending problem. The double-spending dilemma arises when digital transactions are mimicked, allowing assets to be spent twice. Bitcoin has thrived as it solves this problem. The original decentralized cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, was produced in 2009 by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto. It used SHA-256, a cryptographic hash function, as its proof-of-work system. In April 2011, Namecoin was a resolution to establish a decentralized DNS, making internet censorship difficult. Litecoin was released six months later. It was the earliest successful cryptocurrency to employ a script as its hash function alternative to SHA-256. Another notable cryptocurrency, Peercoin, was the initial project to use a proof-of-work and proof-of-stake hybrid. Blockchain Protocol When one spends or trades Bitcoin, ASIC Miners, or computer elements on the Bitcoin network, compete to validate transactions. To do so, users run a program on their processors to solve complex mathematical puzzles called a “hash.” When a processor resolves the problem by “hashing” a block, its algorithmic work will verify the transactions. As mentioned, the accomplished transaction is openly documented and saved as a block of data on the blockchain, becoming immutable unless 51% of miners agree to change it. Bitcoin and many blockchain protocols utilize machines that successfully verify blocks to obtain rewards for their labor paid in cryptocurrency. This method is termed “mining.” Although events are publicly documented on the blockchain, user information is not — or, at least, not in maturity. To conduct transactions on the Bitcoin network, participants must run a program called a “wallet.” Each wallet consists of two unique and distinct cryptographic keys: a public key and a private key. The public key is the location where transactions are deposited to and withdrawn from. This is also the key that appears on the blockchain ledger as the user’s digital signature. Even if a user receives a payment to their public key, they will not be able to withdraw without its private counterpart. A user’s public key is a shortened version of their private key, created through a complicated mathematical algorithm. However, due to the complexity of this equation, it is almost impossible to reverse the process and generate a private key from a public key. For this reason, blockchain is considered confidential. Public and Private Key Basics We can think of a public key as a school locker and a private key as the locker sequence. Anyone can slip notes into the hole in a locker. However, the only character who can reclaim the contents is the entity with the individual key or combination. Nevertheless, it should be recorded that while school locker combinations are kept in the principal’s office, there is not a central server that retains a record of a blockchain network’s private keys. In the event someone misplaces their private keys, access to their Bitcoin wallet is also lost. Single Public Chain The Bitcoin blockchain is shared and maintained by a public network of users and is a community consensus model. When users join the network, their processor obtains a duplicate of the blockchain that is renewed whenever a new block of events is computed. Nevertheless, what if, through human error or a hacker’s efforts, one user’s copy of the blockchain was altered? The blockchain protocol discourages the existence of multiple blockchains through a process called “consensus.” In the presence of multiple, differing blockchain copies, the consensus protocol will adopt the longest chain available. More users on a blockchain mean that blocks can be added to the end of the chain faster. By that logic, the blockchain record will always be the one agreed upon by the majority of the participants. The consensus protocol is one of blockchain technology’s most significant strengths but also a potential weakness. Hacker-Proof Ecosystem In theory, a hacker could gain the position of the consensus protocol by a 51% attack. Here is how it would happen. Assume there are twenty million processors on the Bitcoin interface. To attain a preponderance on the network, a hacker would need to control at least 10.5 million and one of those ASIC Mining processors. An attacker or accumulation of antagonists could hinder the method of recording new events. They could send a transaction and then reverse it, making it appear like they still had the coin they just spent. This vulnerability, known as double-spending, is the digital equivalent of a perfect counterfeit and would enable users to spend their crypto twice. Such an initiative is complicated to execute on a blockchain of Bitcoin’s size, as it would require an attacker to gain control of millions of computers. It would have been much more manageable when Bitcoin was founded in 2009 and its users numbered in the dozens. This defining characteristic of blockchain has been flagged as a weakness for fledgling cryptocurrencies. The fear of 51% attacks can limit monopolies from forming on the blockchain. In “Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money,” New York Times journalist Nathaniel Popper writes of how a group of users, called “Bitfury,” pooled thousands of high-powered computers together to gain a competitive edge on the blockchain. Their goal was to mine as many blocks as possible to earn Bitcoin, which were then approximately $700 each. Harnessing Bitfury By March 2014, however, Bitfury was poised to surpass 50% of the blockchain network’s computational capability. Instead of strengthening its hold over the network, the assemblage elected to self-regulate and declared never to go beyond 40%. Bitfury recognized that if they elected to continue expanding their authority across the network, Bitcoin’s value would decrease as users auctioned off their digital assets in anticipation of a 51% attack. In other words, if users lose faith in the blockchain network, the information on that network runs the risk of becoming worthless. Blockchain users can then only increase their computational power to a point before they begin to lose money. Blockchain’s Practical Application Blocks on the blockchain store data about monetary transactions, as previously discussed, but it turns out that blockchain is a reliable way of storing data about other types of transactions. Blockchain technology can be utilized to store data about property exchanges, medical records, school grades, lineage records, stops in a supply chain, votes for a candidate, and more. Deloitte, a professional services network, recently surveyed 1,000 companies across seven countries about integrating blockchain into their business operations. Their survey found that 34% already had a blockchain system in production today, while another 41% expected to deploy a blockchain application within 12 months. In addition, nearly 40% of the surveyed companies reported they would invest $5 million or more on blockchain in the coming year. Here are some of the most popular applications of blockchain use cases now. Bank Use Perhaps no industry stands to benefit from integrating blockchain into its business operations more than banking. Financial institutions only operate during business hours, five days a week. That means if someone tries to deposit a check on Friday at 6 p.m., they will likely have to wait until Monday morning to see the money in their account. Even if one makes deposits during business hours, the transaction can still take one to three days to verify due to the sheer volume of transactions banks need to settle. Blockchain, on the other hand, never sleeps. By integrating blockchain into banks, consumers can see their transactions processed instantly in the time it takes to add a block to the blockchain. Blockchain allows banks to exchange funds between institutions more rapidly and securely. In stock trading, the settlement and clearing process can take up to three days (or longer if banks are trading internationally), meaning the money and shares remain frozen for that time. Given the size of the sums involved, even the few days that the money is in transit can carry high costs and risks for banks. Santander, a European bank, estimated a potential savings of $20 billion a year. Capgemini, a French consultancy, estimates that consumers could save up to $16 billion in banking and insurance fees each year through blockchain-based applications. Blockchain Use in Cryptocurrency and Open Finance Blockchain is the bedrock of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. As we explored earlier, currencies like the U.S. Dollar are regulated and verified by a central authority, usually a bank or government. Under the central authority system, a user’s data and currency are at the whim of their bank or government. If a user’s bank collapses or is located in a country with an unstable government, the value of their currency may be at risk, which are the solicitudes out of which Bitcoin was produced. By spreading its operations across a network of computers, blockchain allows Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to operate without the need for a central authority. Decentralization abates risks and omits many of the processing and transaction fees central authority is heir to. It also provides nations with volatile currencies a more durable option, more applications, and a more extensive network of individuals and institutions they can do business with, domestically and internationally, when correctly implemented. DeFi, or ‘Open Finance’ Satoshi Nakamoto constructed a dream to make impervious money and modern-day transactions feasible to all, wherever they may reside. Today’s cryptocurrency community placed that dream into action when they saw the potential in an advanced, modern-day economy. The “DeFi” Decentralized Finance, also described as ‘Open Finance,’ evolution takes our dream into a tangible reality. Envision a world of independent people logging into an open alternative to every financial service utilized today: not just payment transactions, but savings, trading, insurance, loans, data storage, and much more. Blockchain projects, such as Ethereum, allow the “future of money” fantasy to breathe life into modern society with “Smart Contract” integration. states, “A smart contract is a computer protocol intended to digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. Smart contracts allow the performance of credible transactions without third parties.” Blockgeeks.com A smart contract program operating on a blockchain can execute transactions automatically when coded conditions are fulfilled. This system enables developers to construct far more sophisticated functionalities than simply receiving and sending digital assets. These programs are termed “DApps” or decentralized applications. DApps are applications built on decentralized technology rather than being constructed and regulated by a single, centralized entity or company. Technologists and economists envision a future filled with decentralized applications operating effortlessly while utilizing these protocols; however, these ecosystems have been thriving since approximately 2018. One can witness automated loans negotiated directly between two foreign entities globally, without the necessity for a central banking system. Some DeFi DApps exist to allow the creation of stablecoins. What distinguishes these DeFi DApps from their conventional banking institution or Wall Street equivalents? 2020 U.S. presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg issued a financial reform plan that, among other things, advocates for more robust and secure financial practices. Part of the recommended reform also advocates the formulation of a regulatory sandbox for startups and “providing a clear regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies.” Wall Street still regards the cryptocurrency industry with a measure of skepticism. However, stablecoins frequently provide a more direct route to mass-market adoption. Stablecoins have become a significant source of liquidity in the cryptocurrency market. They provide an on-ramp to enter the crypto markets and an off-ramp to exit. The rising popularity of stablecoins is a function of their inherent constancy relative to other cryptocurrencies. This piece addresses stablecoins being free from the traditional volatility of cryptocurrencies and how they are emerging to offer diverse varieties of on-and off-ramp possibilities that will make cryptocurrencies more attractive to Wall Street. Wall Street Testing Wall Street may not be entirely on board, but numerous equities, ETFs, and classical instruments implement some level of publicity to the industry. For example, Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD) produced vital exposure to the crypto syndicate related to the effectiveness of their graphics processors in crypto mining procedures. Both Nvidia and Advanced Micro Systems have delivered 23% in the year-to-date period. Other stocks such as Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC) provide a more direct level of exposure to the crypto industry as a publicly-traded Bitcoin fund. Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSTK) is one of the first established corporations to embrace crypto installments. It currently keeps about 50% of these subsidies, which ties its destiny to the fortunes and vicissitudes of the crypto market. Consequently, both Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and Overstock have produced 56% and 25% increases in the year-to-date period. When compared to the rest of the U.S. market in the year-to-date period, Wall Street assets with exposure to the cryptocurrency market have delivered double-digit gains. In contrast, the S&P 500, NASDAQ Composite, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average have only managed to deliver single-digit gains in the same period. There is the rising popularity of stablecoins across different market segments. Tether USDT is the most sizable stablecoin on the market; it has experienced a first-mover benefit since its launch in 2015. Tether exceeds 80% of the market interest for stablecoins. It has managed to maintain parity with the U.S. dollar, despite the recurrent panic episodes that accompany significant drops in the price of Bitcoin. In 2019, the supply of USDT expanded from 2 billion tokens to 4.108 billion tokens to account for increasing adoption. Moreover, the token was relocated from the Omni-layer to the Ethereum network to expedite a quicker and more affordable transfer of value. Most strikingly, a Chainalysis summary shows that “for Chinese exchange users, Tether has replaced the yuan as the go-to fiat currency.” Data from exchanges showed that almost all fiat-crypto trades in Mainland China were amid Yuan and USDT. Dollar Neutrino USDN is an algorithmically stable USD-pegged digital asset. USDN is collateralized amidst the WAVES blockchain platform. WAVES is swiftly stimulating the adoption of DeFi commodities, and they are steadily maturing as a pilot in the business. In addition to contributing stability, USDN grants token holders additional revenue streams through staking, similar to traditional dividend stocks providing profits. Originating on January 28, 2020, within one month the token had more than $3.2 million staked, as it accouches a staking reward of roughly 8.9% per annum. Facebook intended to launch its cryptocurrency Libra, now known as Diem in 2020 but it was shelved until 2022. This occurrence resulted when firms in the European Union and the United States queried if this would be worthwhile to society. Facebook, the largest social media platform in the world, has 2.4 billion users during this time. While administration bodies globally struggle to comprehend blockchain, regulations, and laws on stablecoins are not being implemented expeditiously enough, according to the Financial Stability Board (FSB), a watchdog in global banking. In a February 2020 letter to finance ministers and central bank governors from the G-20 meeting in Riyadh, FSB Chair Randal Quarles voiced his concerns regarding how quickly digital currencies affect the global economy while regulatory action struggles to keep up. “FSB members recognise the speed of innovation in the area of digital payments, including so-called ‘stablecoins.’ We are resolved to quicken the pace of developing the necessary regulatory and supervisory responses to these new instruments.” As Wall Street and regulatory organizations continue to work on bridging the knowledge gap, sentiments like this accentuate the growing acknowledgment that these financial innovations are here to stay and will continue to expand as a bulwark for the future of the global economy. Want to read more on the history of fiat, crypto, Stablecoins and the future of money? You can check out , #1 on Amazon Financial Education & Computer and Science. Stablecoin Evolution Author Alyze Sam is a refreshing blockchain strategist, a novel educator, multi-award-winning author, serial co-founder, and a vehemently driven advocate. Sam wrote the first crypto dictionary and published the first books on stablecoins. Don Tapscott published her book ‘ ’ at The Blockchain Research Institute in January 2021. Sam’s newest book, ‘ ’ is currently the number one new release on Amazon in Computers & Technology. The Bad Crypto Podcast developed a Blockchain Hero NFT inspired by her work: After nearly losing her life a few times, Sam is a nurse and owns T with her best friends and soulmates, where they spend their days being grateful as they joyfully produce unbiased poetic technical education. Stablecoin Economy Stablecoin Evolution Mz. Stability. retired ech & Authors

The Complete History of Cryptocurrency in 2800 Words

Pictured above is a full-screen pop-up advertisement for Hashnode on , a custom domain powered by Hashnode. https://blog.greenroots.info/ One CTA, 2 backlinks, and 3 mentions on a popup later, you might be left wondering - Dude, is it MY domain or Hashnode’s? Users Create Accounts for Hashnode, Not For The Site The User is On If you click signup on a custom domain powered by Hashnode you DO NOT signup for your custom domain - as one would expect Instead, they’re made to sign up for Hashnode. So essentially when blogging on “your“ Hashnode custom domain,  “your“ readers who want to comment on or react to your content, or even just signup on “your” site for anything, MUST become a Hashnode user instead of what they set out to become -  “your” user. If you’re a sadomasochist and are asking for more, Hashnode got your back! The same popup ad for Hashnode appears if your readers click on the primary call to action of the site, “+ Follow”. The Primary Site Navigation Includes More Clickable Hashnode Ads Than It Does Links to Anywhere on the Site Itself If you click on the primary navigation dropdown, you get three more clickable advertisements: Start Publishing on Hashnode, Sign in to Hashnode,  and a What’s Hashnode? In this primary top navigation, there is NO way to click through to learn more about the custom domain itself. There is a picture of the domain owner and their name, but this more serves as an unpaid testimonial to click on the clickable things here, i.e., the Hashnode ads, than it does let the user learn more about the person writing the content on their own domain. The Terms and Conditions are governed by Hashnode and not the Site Creator or Domain Owner The footers on all custom domains powered by Hashnode are not only dominated by Hashnode advertisements but are also governed by Hashnode’s terms and conditions. Without your own terms and conditions, there is little point in calling it “your site.” When you use a Hashnode custom domain, you are not making your site, you are making a Hashnode site. In terms of links in the footer, there is none to the custom domain’s homepage or about page, but four links (terms, privacy, brand name, and icon +" “publish with Hashnode” advertisement) to you guessed it, Hashnode. Because the site is governed by Hashnode’s terms and conditions and not the creators or site owners, at any time Hashnode has the right to take down or modify your own content on your own domain. This fact is clearly spelled out in : their terms “We reserve the right to withdraw or amend the Websites or the Service in our sole discretion without notice. We will not be liable if for any reason all or any part of the Websites or Service is unavailable at any time or for any period. From time to time, we may restrict access to some parts of the Websites, or an entire Website(s), to Users.” If they do take down your content on your domain, they don’t even have to notify you. Listen, I’m sure they have probably good intentions, but because of their terms and conditions and advertisements designed to turn your users into their users,  Hashnode is NOT a viable solution for any tech professional “who values their own personal site.”

"Free" Hashnode Custom Domains Are Designed to Do One Thing: Advertise Hashnode

What is your current position? I’m sitting with my legs crossed. Oh, in tech? 😏Simply, I’m a co-founder. I’m a serial technology solution strategist, best-selling author & Stablecoin and NFT educator, blockchain architect, social impact nerd, and mommy. How long have you been working in tech? Full time for 7 years, but I grew up on IRC and worked at CompUSA in college 🤣 (shows my age. Lol) What is your educational background? (It’s perfectly okay if you don’t have a formal one) I’m a retired & disabled hospice and mental health nurse. Yup. You read that right. Have you ever had a mentor? If yes, we’d like to know more about it. I’ve had many that have given me advice and education when I’ve asked for it. I was very blessed to have emailed BlockGeeks.com owner, He’s an angel, so after studying his in-depth guides, I felt equipped to move full time in blockchain- Sometimes, I have to cry for help but I’ve been picked up by some wonderful people in blockchain that have done so much for me. Team McAfee is another group you’d be shocked to hear had a lot to do with my work and speaking career in privacy. Dmitry Buterin. What was the best piece of advice you got over the course of your career? “Love, then act.” also “Don’t get kidnapped” was pretty solid advice, too. How relevant was self-learning to where you are today? Imperative. I learned everything bedbound or hospital ridden after a spinal injury and fighting for my life with an autoimmune disease. If you expect someone else to teach you -you’re not going to learn anything and you could be  wasting your talents and/or life. Knowing what you do now, where do you think one should start learning if they want to work in your position one day? Everything you can. That’s what I’ve always done. I’m on a mission to learn and educate what makes me excited as I go about my adventures. Helpful areas for female tech co-founders to study: Computer science, business administration, finance, coding, creative writing/speaking, advertising, and it’s wise to gain knowledge in global events. One does not need to be an expert in many areas, just pick one, and then become well versed in several areas. What is the work-related achievement you’re the proudest of? I get to do whatever I want, whenever I want, with my children 24-7. I didn’t get to do that as a nurse. :) What do you think is the biggest myth about starting a career in tech? “I can’t do it” On a less serious note: What do you listen to while working? Chakra music or ‘gangster’ classical music. Thanks so much for taking the time to tell us more about your career path. Any words of wisdom for aspiring techies? Yo, you got this, kid. Come see me at or follow me on social media @AlyzeSam everywhere. Send me an email and I’ll give you a free copy of my number one new release on Amazon (Computers and Technology, as well as in Financial Education) for an honest review online. Tech & Authors You can pick up Stablecoin Evolution on my website or on today. Thank you so much! You can do it!!!! :D Amazon

How to Get a Job in Tech: Alyze Sam's Experience as a Female Tech Co-Founder

This story is a part of Hacker Noon's The series is intended for tech professionals contributing the most insightful Hacker Noon stories to share more about their writing habits, ideas, and professional background (and maybe a hobby or two). . Meet the Writer series of interviews If you too would like to start contributing to Hacker Noon, you can do so here. So let’s start! Tell us a bit about yourself. For example, name, profession, and personal interests. Yo! I’m Alyze Sam from Kansas, USA. I started my life as a hospice and home health nurse. I dedicated 13 years of my life to serving the dying, mentally ill**,** and the addicted….that was until I was PLOWED by a semi-truck. *** Seriously. See? My back still hurts.*** I was an early investor in BTC, so after spinal injuries and a new metal clavicle, I took out my nursing retirement and went all-in on crypto, in early 2015. I wasn’t able to work much after my accident and feared being termed ‘fully disabled’ and having no income- so I reached out to blockchain industry leaders and went ALL IN. Dmytri Buterin sent me guides on everything blockchain and smart contracts. You can find most of that learning over at now. BlockGeeks.com I was learning to write, code, trade, then I tampered with mining rigs/farms, solar mining… etc. ANYTHING I COULD LEARN in blockchain because I knew it was the future and I wanted to have a “life”. I didn’t want to be broke or feel as if I was physically unable to live my dreams or most importantly, I wanted to support my family with new physical challenges and depression that came with no longer caring for my patients. All of the studying and volunteering for opportunities in tech paid off- as I began to hustle a career in blockchain four years ago when I once again cheated death, I was quoted by the as one of the worst surviving cases of Hyperemesis Gravidarum they’ve seen, as I lost 46% of my body weight while pregnant. HER Foundation HG is a rare pregnancy complication, you can find out more in the documentary that I’m starring in, made by experts . here The Crypto community were some of my only friends, and saved me from of my most horrible moments - I even battled homelessness enduring this disease. So, people don’t understand what blockchain is to me… If I had to do it all over again to be where I am now, I’d do it and complain a lot less. :) Bitcoin saved my life and allows me the freedom I’ve never had. #Blessed #ThankYouCryptoNerds (The crypto community did a fundraiser for me when I felt as if couldn’t battle on my own.) Interesting! What was your latest Hackernoon Top story about? It was a fun little (no, it was a long) ditty. I was chatting with one of the internet’s heroes and discovered that a once amazing website, we all have known, loved, and even TOTALLY relied on at times, is absolute trash in its current state. Wikipedia/Wikimedia has fallen far from what Co-Founder Larry Sanger once envisioned and what it aimed to be. Dr. Sanger first stated this was thanks to  Wiki now being controlled by a small centralized circle of obviously biased entities. (-See more on Larry Sanger via Twitter or his personal website.) Feeling pissed off after discovering this absolute BS, I  joined Dr. Sanger and used my trusty “typewriter” ( winky face) to whistleblow many of Wiki’s issues, offered education to protect readers, and then summarized with a solution Dr. Sanger is announcing to the world. : a solid and supporting expansion on a Press Release given to me by our well-known and loved father of digital knowledge, Dr. Larry Sanger. My last article was, what I hoped to be Dr. Sanger, thank you for being so good to the world and to me, personally. I cherish you and your work. We all do. :) Do you usually write on similar topics? If not, what do you usually write about? I write about the tech I’m co-founding, or solutions I’m working on.  I’m an accidental writer- actually. I’m not a trained writer. Adam Alonzi has edited and worked closely with me and I’ve become an awarded writer and best-selling author thanks to his love and direction. I write to learn. I desire to be an expert in the tech I produce and give unbiased education along the way so people can decide if my tech is right for them, or not. I want to bring technological solutions to the ‘least of these’ and empower people to change the world for the better. That’s my only goal. I became homeless because of my health, this technology has saved my life, I also know it can save countless others, so I feel a massive obligation to share- if my time writing has helped even one person, I feel it’s worth the time and effort, I put into my findings. I’ve worked on and written about: fintech, blockchain, smart contracts, NFTs, IPFs, LIDAR, hypergraph, AI, privacy tech, whistleblowing, medical texts, and social impact initiatives- I was also a two time awarded International Poet of the Year. Great! What is your usual writing routine like (if you have one?) I write about whatever I want when I want. I’m basically a nearly 40-year-old moody teenager in blockchain…. I write a lot, but I’m a co-founder, so most of my time writing is spent in white papers, light papers, and technical guides. Many in fintech have called me to make very complicated things very simple to understand. Being a writer in tech can be a challenge. It’s not often our main role, but an addition to another one. What is the biggest challenge you have when it comes to writing? I like to run my mouth. I really aim to be an unbiased writer- but when I see something that OBVIOUSLY wrong - I work in ethical tech - I have a hard time shutting my ‘Karen’ down when I’m upset about something I feel is wrong. (ie. I called wiki a shitty platform- #SorryNotSorry ) What is the next thing you hope to achieve in your career? With some of my favorite people in the world, I will help Light up Haiti using our hand-powered generator that we are turning into a jobs program, which will build a middle class in economically depleted areas You can visit our website and find out more here: LightUpHaiti Wow, that’s admirable. Now, something more casual: What is your guilty pleasure of choice? #NFTs, baby. I’m launching on Bitcoin’s birthday this year in New York when I’m speaking at the conference with my partners, 7-time awarded Webby Winners, the viral video game makers, HitCents and Hollywood Talent agent and CMO of General Motors, Mr. Ed Mills. We also have an AI, Privacy, Tokenomics, and BioTechnologist that sit as founders on our team to advance in the NFT industry. NftyToken NFT.NYC Email me if you’d like an invite to our private rooftop event and launch, I’ll put you on the waiting list and give you a little gift you cant join us! :) Do you have a non-tech-related hobby? If yes, what is it? YES! I made babies! My children are the reason that I do all of this. They get to spend every second on my arm as I work on this technology and share the amazing news with the world. They get to travel all over the world and learn what’s important, love, kindness, and doing things to make the world a better place. I absolutely love two things in life: My babies and blockchain. What can the Hacker Noon community expect to read from you next? Even though the Bad Crypto Podcast turned me into , from … in writing I’m not terribly stable or predictable. I write to learn- I’m currently releasing a new Stablecoin book, as I wrote the first three published books on stablecoins, this is our final, I hope. Mz. Stability The Blockchain Heroes I also have a book launching with of and my writers at our tech incubator, on NFT’s and a Fintech Dictionary. You can find my team and I doing a book signing at Art Basel in Miami this December. Reach out to me for an invite to any of my exclusive events, as we are always in the market to make super rad friends that want to build together, in efforts to ‘ Joyce Chow iHollywood Mass Crypto code empathy in our technology.’ Thanks for taking the time to join our “Meet the writer” series. It was a pleasure. Do you have any closing words? Yes. Yes, I do. -If you don’t know where that quote is from, I don’t know if we can be friends. “I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.” If we’re friends: KEEP IT KIND AND WEIRD! Reach out online and tell this Kansas girl to keep tucking along, together, we can make the world a better place and have a really great time in the process. Thank you all so very much. Happy to discuss possible collaboration with any of my projects. Alyze Sam Alyze Sam is a refreshing blockchain strategist, a novel educator, award-winning author, serial co-founder, and a vehemently driven advocate. Sam’s book ‘Stablecoin Economy,’ was published by Don Tapscott at The Blockchain Research Institute in January 2021. The Bad Crypto Podcast developed a Blockchain Hero NFT inspired by her work: Mz. 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Mz Stability's Near-Death Experience Started her Blockchain Journey

Over the past few years, there have been a handful of high-profile that deeply shook the cryptocurrency world. The intention of this article is not to scare anyone away from cryptocurrencies but instead to educate readers on why these happened. Understanding past vulnerabilities enable the blockchain and crypto community to grow stronger and more resilient to cryptocurrency hacks attacks cyber-attack attempts. MT.GOX & Bitcoin The first example is one of the most well-known attacks in history. was , handling of the world’s Bitcoin exchanges. Problems existed prior to the attack such as a minor hack in In 2013, Japan-based MT.Gox the biggest bitcoin exchange in the world 70% 2011. There were some red flags prior to the attack (Source: Blockgeeks) : There was no use of , which would keep track of all changes made in the code base and allow rolling back to any previous versions if needed. Version Control Software (VCS) There was no testing policy, meaning that untested code was deployed to transfer crypto assets worth millions. This brings us to the . On , the company to check why there were transaction delays. They realized they had been subjected to a , which means that someone was able to tamper with the transaction data before it was dedicated to the blockchain and even if the changes were noticed after the fact, nothing could be done after it has been detected, as the blockchain is immutable. $473 million US dollar hack February 7, 2014 stopped all Bitcoin withdrawals Transaction Malleability Attack (MTA) The attacker was able to overwrite transactions to make them appear as unconfirmed when in reality they were. In doing so, they were able to overwrite . US$473 million worth of Bitcoin without the system noticing The timing of the attack was unfortunate as Bitcoin was just starting to gain mainstream exposure and people feared that the attack could set back faith in the system by , and so the price fell drastically but quickly recovered. MT.Gox declared bankruptcy shortly after. at least 4–5 years DAO & Ethereum The second case relates to and DAO was a complex smart contract that was going to revolutionize Ethereum forever. It was going to be a decentralized , that would fund the creation of made on Ethereum. If one wanted to have a say in how Dapps would get funded, then they had to buy DAO tokens for a certain amount of Ether. After Dapps got a stamp of approval from its curators, they were voted on by the token holders; if the proposal got approval, then they received the funds to start developing. DAO the subsequent Ethereum blockchain fork. Venture Capital Fund Dapps 20% Within of its formation, DAO accumulated over r, and at that point, it held If someone wanted to leave the DAO, they would have to exchange their DAO tokens for Ether, and Ether would then be locked for 28 days before they could withdraw it to their personal wallets. 28 days $150 million dollars worth of Ethe 14% of all Ethereum issued. someone this DAO exit loophole and siphoned away On June 17th, 2016, exploited ⅓ of the DAO’s funds US$50mln. When someone requested to exit the DAO, the contract went through two steps: The contract would exchange the user’s DAO tokens for Ether, and, They would register the transaction on the ledger updating the token balances. The made a recursive function request so the contract would take the DAO tokens from the attacker, and give them the Ether requested. Instead of moving on to step 2, the recursive function reset the code, meaning that even more Ether would be paid out to the attacker for the same tokens that had already been paid for. hacker It was eventually decided that a hard fork was the best solution reverting the chain to before the hack meaning that people had their funds returned and the code was fixed. However, many people disagreed with using this method to solve the problem so they stayed on the original Ethereum chain. This is what spun the creation of Ethereum (the chain that forked away from the attack) and Ethereum Classic (the chain on which the DAO hack happened). Learn more about blockchain forks. BITFINEX The third case refers to the second biggest attack on the Bitcoin network. It was suffered by Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange platform Bitfinex in 2016 (lost 120,000BTC, worth $72Million USD at the time). wanted to provide better security, and so partnered with to provide users with multi-signature wallets. Multisignature wallets require a certain number of the keys linked to the wallet to sign off on any transactions, so instead of one single transaction sign off there would be at least 2 checks. Unfortunately, this is what opened the door to the hackers. Bitfinex BitGo When the hackers attacked the Bitfinex servers, they had both the Bitfinex controlled and the BitGo controlled keys signed off on all legal bitcoin withdrawals. So the theory is that these multi-sig wallets were not multi-signature at all. There was one point of failure and that was with Bitfinex’s servers. So just like with the previous hacks, Bitcoin’s price was negatively impacted (fell nearly to its lowest ), before it managed to recover reaching new all-time highs a year later (2017). In response to the attack, issued a as an to its users. As of , they bought back all of the tokens and hence settled the debt to their users. 20% $480 at the time Bitfinex BFX token IOU April 2017 Closing Thoughts These were not only large in scale but also had a great impact on the community, such as with the creation of However, none of these attacks had anything to do with the underlying blockchain technology, as the blockchain of both Bitcoin and Ethereum have remained . Instead, these attacks reveal that the cryptocurrency community can bounce back from any such obstacles and grow stronger. infamous cryptocurrency attacks Ethereum & Ethereum Classic. unhackable If you enjoyed this article make sure to follow Our mailing address: info@gxblocks.net GX Blocks Energy — Official Website: www.gxblocks.com Copyright © 2020 GX BLOCKS ENERGY S.A. Also published on Medium’s subdomain: https://gxblocks.medium.com/3-most-infamous-cryptocurrency-hacks-a888d6c8f735

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