* Strong Knowledge on React JS\n* Strong knowledge about system architecture\n* Willing to take risks and work in a satrtup

DUST Identity

Questioning the Obsession with Blockchains and On-Chain Governance with Nic Carter

Mark Twain's Speeches by Mark Twain, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . MISTAKEN IDENTITY here MISTAKEN IDENTITY ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL “LADIES’ DAY,” PAPYRUS CLUB, BOSTON LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—I am perfectly astonished—a-s-t-o-n-i-s-h-e-d—ladies and gentlemen—astonished at the way history repeats itself. I find myself situated at this moment exactly and precisely as I was once before, years ago, to a jot, to a tittle—to a very hair. There isn’t a shade of difference. It is the most astonishing coincidence that ever—but wait. I will tell you the former instance, and then you will see it for yourself. Years ago I arrived one day at Salamanca, New York, eastward bound; must change cars there and take the sleeper train. There were crowds of people there, and they were swarming into the long sleeper train and packing it full, and it was a perfect purgatory of dust and confusion and gritting of teeth and soft, sweet, and low profanity. I asked the young man in the ticket-office if I could have a sleeping-section, and he answered “No,” with a snarl that shrivelled me up like burned leather. I went off, smarting under this insult to my dignity, and asked another local official, supplicatingly, if I couldn’t have some poor little corner somewhere in a sleeping-car; but he cut me short with a venomous “No, you can’t; every corner is full. Now, don’t bother me any more”; and he turned his back and walked off. My dignity was in a state now which cannot be described. I was so ruffled that—“well,” I said to my companion, “If these people knew who I am they—” But my companion cut me short there—“Don’t talk such folly,” he said; “if they did know who you are, do you suppose it would help your high-mightiness to a vacancy in a train which has no vacancies in it?” This did not improve my condition any to speak of, but just then I observed that the colored porter of a sleeping-car had his eye on me. I saw his dark countenance light up. He whispered to the uniformed conductor, punctuating with nods and jerks toward me, and straightway this conductor came forward, oozing politeness from every pore. “Can I be of any service to you?” he asked. “Will you have a place in the sleeper?” “Yes,” I said, “and much oblige me, too. Give me anything—anything will answer.” “We have nothing left but the big family state-room,” he continued, “with two berths and a couple of arm-chairs in it, but it is entirely at your disposal. Here, Tom, take these satchels aboard!” Then he touched his hat and we and the colored Tom moved along. I was bursting to drop just one little remark to my companion, but I held in and waited. Tom made us comfortable in that sumptuous great apartment, and then said, with many bows and a perfect affluence of smiles: “Now, is dey anything you want, sah? Case you kin have jes’ anything you wants. It don’t make no difference what it is.” “Can I have some hot water and a tumbler at nine to-night-blazing hot?” I asked. “You know about the right temperature for a hot Scotch punch?” “Yes, sah, dat you kin; you kin pen on it; I’ll get it myself.” “Good! Now, that lamp is hung too high. Can I have a big coach candle fixed up just at the head of my bed, so that I can read comfortably?” “Yes, sah, you kin; I’ll fix her up myself, an’ I’ll fix her so she’ll burn all night. Yes, sah; an’ you can jes’ call for anything you want, and dish yer whole railroad’ll be turned wrong end up an’ inside out for to get it for you. Dat’s so.” And he disappeared. Well, I tilted my head back, hooked my thumbs in my armholes, smiled a smile on my companion, and said, gently: “Well, what do you say now?” My companion was not in the humor to respond, and didn’t. The next moment that smiling black face was thrust in at the crack of the door, and this speech followed: “Laws bless you, sah, I knowed you in a minute. I told de conductah so. Laws! I knowed you de minute I sot eyes on you.” “Is that so, my boy?” (Handing him a quadruple fee.) “Who am I?” “Jenuel McClellan,” and he disappeared again. My companion said, vinegarishly, “Well, well! what do you say now?” Right there comes in the marvellous coincidence I mentioned a while ago—viz., I was speechless, and that is my condition now. Perceive it? About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Mark Twain (2004). Mark Twain's Speeches. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3188/pg3188-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

Dust on Crust

ভূত্বকের উপর ধুলো

Staub auf der Kruste

Polvo en la corteza

Poussière sur la croûte

पपड़ी पर धूल

地殻のほこり

지각의 먼지

Poeira na crosta

Kabuktaki Toz

Bụi trên lớp vỏ

地壳上的灰尘

Background and Origin of Service Mesh Network - Istio In enterprise AI architectures, is a choice for and for Kubernetes preferred container-orchestration automating computer application deployment, scaling, and management. Kubernetes with Istio creates a smooth experience of separating traffic flow by compartmentalizing --- The flow of business-related traffic through data plane and The flow of messages and interactions between Istio components to control the mesh behavior. Istio is an first created by Google, IBM, and Lyft, as a collaborative effort. open-source mesh service A is a shared set of names and identities that allows for common policy enforcement and telemetry collection, where Service names and workload principals remain unique. It is an for interacting with each other to reduce the complexity of micro-service management. This is not only limited to only managing connectivity but also privacy, security, and observability of applications in a distributed environment. Service mesh abstraction inter-connected services the is intended to connect application components and thereby the capabilities of the Kubernetes cluster orchestrator, by managing popular micro-services. It is widely known for its ability to simplify enterprise deployment of micro-services by itself transparently onto existing distributed infrastructure. The Devops and developers are hugely benefitted by its flexibilty to add, change, and route them within cloud-native applications. Istio, “service mesh” boost layering In this blog, we describe the importance of Istio in the management of Enterprise-grade API Solutions . Istio’s traffic management and telemetry features help to deploy, serve, and monitor ML models in the cluster. The detailed working components of Istio are out of the scope of this blog, but the links mentioned in the section can be referred. References Motivation - Why Istio The reason behind the origin and development of Service Mesh Networks  can be attributed to the growth and application of different varieties of ML algorithms, (Traditional, Deep Learning - Both Supervised and UnSupervised) for a specific customer/business unit, particularly in production. Further, the growth of has led to the publication of new features, and increased feature collaboration among teams, which in turn facilitated the growth of new micro-services to serve internal purposes as well as for serving customers externally. Feature Stores More specifically Feature Store design by different ML Platform giants (e.g. Microsoft, Gooogle, etc) has revolutionized the phase of micro-service development in Enterprise AI solutions, leading to the growth of robust end-to-end ML pipelines. Source The real challenge with  ML models arises when they are in production with incoming live-traffic. The situation becomes more critical when a host of micro-services need to with and their . deployed managed, monitored, and updated new ML models getting published end-user API interfaces getting released Istio is known for providing a complete solution with insights and operational control over connected services within the “mesh”. Some of the core features of Istio includes: Load balancing on HTTP, gRPC, TCP connections control with Traffic management routing, retry, and failover capabilities. A that includes metrics, tracing, and observability components monitoring infrastructure - Securing communication by encrypting the data flows for communication between services as well as between services and end-users. End to end TLS security Managing in distributed micro-services, when the services can lead to cascading failures. timeouts and communication failures when microservices are triggered by multiple functions or by user actions. Updating simultaneous containers Service meshes help with , allowing organizations to upgrade their services inventory without rewriting applications, adopting microservices or new languages, or moving to the cloud. modernization : Without having Kubernetes applications up and running, service mesh - Istio can be used to measure API usage. API Gateway Architecture The different architectural components of Istio are illustrated in the figure below, where  3 different planes namely the Along with load-balancing, service discovery, and health-checking , Istio provides a policy-driven routing request along with configuration and management of distributed clusters . Data Plane, the Control Plane, and the Management Plane. (in the Data Plane) (Control Plane) (Management Plane) Source Enterprise AI Microservices Any predictive system in an Enterprise AI system is built of a host of micro-services, starting from data pre-processing, modeling, and data post-processing. Such an architecture necessitates individual micro-service deployment and traffic routing. And that's where Istio seats on top of Kubernetes to provide those functionalities. Source Istio Configuration and Deployment Custom resource definitions (CRDs) from downloaded Istio package directory: kubectl apply -f install/Kubernetes/helm/istio/templates/crds.yaml Deployment of Istio operator resources to the cluster from the packaged “all-in-one” manifest: kubectl apply -f install/Kubernetes/istio-demo.yaml Once deployed, we should see the following list of services in the Istio-system namespace: All pods should be in and the above services are available. The below command displays mechanism to enable side-car injection to the default namespace: Running state kubectl label namespace default istio-injection=enabled --overwrite Istio Architecture and Traffic Management Istio provides easy rules and to setup service-level properties like circuit-breakers, timeouts, and retries as well as deployment-level tasks such as A/B testing, canary rollouts, and staged rollouts. traffic routing configurations The most important components of Istio traffic management are and . Pilot Envoy that between all . It applies and them to necessary Envoy side-car proxies. Pilot is the central operator manages service discovery and intelligent traffic routing services conversion rules to high-level routing propagates The is composed of running in the as each service to control all between services, as well as , to provide between . Istio data plane Envoy sidecar proxies same network space network communication Mixer extensible policy evaluation services The is responsible for the used to the and as part of the . The key components of the control plane are Pilot, Citadel, Mixer, and Galley. Istio control plane APIs configure proxies Mixer data plane The below figures illustrates a typical Istio Architecture which depicts the Istio components used to implement the service mesh reference architecture Source Source Envoy is a responsible for controlling all for services in the , which is deployed as a with all within the . Some built-in features of Envoy include: high-performance proxy inbound and outbound traffic mesh side-car container Kubernetes pods mesh Service discovery Load balancing HTTP and gRPC proxies Staged rollouts with %-based traffic split Rich metricsTLS termination, circuit breakers, fault injection, and many more! Istio Egress and Ingress Istio from with to and the of between services. de-couples traffic management infrastructure easy rules configuration manage control flow traffic Source In order for traffic to flow in and out of our “mesh” the following Istio configuration resources, must be setup properly : Load-balancer operating at the edge of the “mesh” handling incoming or outgoing HTTP/TCP connections. Gateway : Configuration to manage traffic routing between Kubernetes services within “mesh”. VirtualService : Policy definitions intended for service after routing. DestinationRule : Additional entry to internal Service Configuration; can be specified for internal or external endpoints. ServiceEntry Configure Egress By default, Istio-enabled applications are not enabled to access URLs outside the cluster. As ML models (traditional, deep learning) are hosted in S3 bucket, what is needed is to setup a to allow for outbound traffic from our ML model Serving Deployment to S3 endpoint, which here in this case is TensorFlow ServiceEntry Create the ServiceEntry rule to allow outbound traffic to S3 endpoint on defined ports: kubectl apply -f algorithm-selector_egress.yaml serviceentry "featurestore-s3" created  (metadata as specified in yaml file) Configure Ingress To allow incoming traffic into our “mesh”, we need to . Our Gateway that will act as a load-balancing proxy by exposing port 31400 to receive traffic: setup an ingress Gateway Use Istio default controller by specifying the label selector istio=ingressgateway so that our ingress gateway Pod will be the one that receives this gateway configuration and ultimately expose the port. Create the Gateway resource we defined above: kubectl apply -f algorithm-selector_gateway.yamlgateway "algorithm-selector-gateway" created Canary Routing With the new model deployment, gradual rolling it out to a subset of the users is easy with Istio. This can be done by updating our VirtualService to route a to v2 subset. Istio allows updating  VirtualService to route 30% of incoming requests to v2 model deployment: small % of traffic kubectl replace -f algo-selector_v2_canary.yaml Replace virtual service and destination rule with "micro-service name" Istio further supports Dashboards to load test and observe the Istio Mesh dashboard for latency metrics across two versions of the algo-selector-serving workloads. Istio further supports Dashboards to load test and observe the Istio Mesh dashboard for latency metrics across two versions of the algo-selector-serving workloads. Source The requests by destination show a similar pattern with traffic split between "microservice-v1" and algo-selector "microservice-v2" deployments. Source V2 Routing Once the canary version satisfies the model behavior and performance thresholds, the deployment can be promoted to be GA to all users. The following VirtualService and DestinationRule is configured to route 100% of traffic to v2 of our model deployment. Source IoT Enterprise AI Solution The following architecture demonstrates Iot based distributed AI solution with a host of micro-services where Istio plays a foremost role due to the following reasons. Rolling out that of and . new micro-services facilitates installation or removal Iot devices applications micro-services due to servicing, rolling out new features or . Updating Iot device recalibration Ensuring and of Iot data Privacy Confidentiality Source Automating Canary Releases Istio traffic routing configuration allows : Perform canary releases by adjusting the relative weighting of traffic between downstream service versions. Such automatic canary deployments are possible using an open-source progressive canary deployment tool by Weaveworks: . programmatically Flagger In Auto Canary Deployment, ( ) automates iterative and along with controls routing features based on custom Flagger Kubernetes operator deployment promotion. Istio App Mesh traffic Prometheus metrics. Source Istio Addons Istio integrate service-level logs with the cloud backend monitoring systems that are usually done for cluster-level . Istio uses persistent storage and querying of Istio metrics.)– the same that are used across different cloud vendor platforms like Azure, AWS, and GCP. plugins logging (e.g., Fluentd, Elasticsearch, Kibana) Prometheus ( metrics collection and alarming utility The objective of Istio Dashboard with a is to provide a mesh service overview along with individual services and workloads overview. Grafana Add-on and Prometheus data source Addition of services to Mesh The below-mentioned code snippets demonstrate the creation of enabled with automatic sidecar injection by adding the istio-injection label to the namespace. These steps allow to identify the namespace that will be used to add services from the application into the mesh: algorithm-selector algorithm-selector Create the algorithm-selector namespace $ kubectl create namespace algorithm-selector Enable the algorithm-selector namespace for Istio automatic sidecar injection $ kubectl label namespace algorithm-selector istio-injection=enabled Validate the namespace is annotated with istio-injection Istio makes it even easier to add services to the mesh by enabling . The most differentiating characteristic feature of Istio is the ability to control which services are added to the mesh to enable . automatic sidecar injection per Kubernetes namespace incremental adoption of services New AI/ML algorithms based on SAAS services, feature-stores, or cloud bases services for caching or database can be rolled out new to sit between existing micro-services. The that Istio allows launching of these services in existing infrastructure gives it an important role in Enterprise AI. flexibility $ kubectl get namespace -L istio-injection Conclusion Service meshes help in the modernization of cloud service management, deployment, and monitoring. In addition, it can provide a to facilitate evolutionary architecture. facade References https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/istio-up-and/9781492043775/ch01.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6308717/ https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/XWN1WV9Q https://medium.com/better-programming/how-istio-works-behind-the-scenes-on-kubernetes-aeb8003f2cb5#:~:text=Identity%20and%20access%20management%20between,communication%20between%20pods%20is%20encrypted https://towardsdatascience.com/deploy-tensorflow-models-with-istio-on-kubernetes-dd0b2bd3e388 https://istio.io/latest/blog/2018/v1alpha3-routing/ https://www.altoros.com/blog/using-istio-to-unify-microservices-with-a-service-mesh-on-kubernetes/

Tips For Using Service Mesh Networks To Leave Your Competition In The Dust 

The social media platform under fire for allegedly allowing fake news and propaganda. Our goal is to give every person a voice. This is what Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a long post last week on Facebook and the election. The company — together with Google and other social media platforms — has been under fire and faced increasing criticism over its alleged role in the 2016 US presidential election. The issue revolves around how Facebook allowed fake news disguised as real news stories to spread unchecked on the social media site. Even president , during a pre-election Michigan rally for : Barack Obama addressed the controversy Hillary Clinton And people, if they just repeat attacks enough, and outright lies over and over again, as long as it’s on Facebook and people can see it, as long as it’s on social media, people start believing it. And it creates this dust cloud of nonsense. And again this week during his trip to Berlin, : Obama said If we are not serious about facts and what’s true and what’s not, and particularly in an age of social media when so many people are getting their information in sound bites and off their phones, if we can’t discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems. But Zuckerberg — despite even employees at Facebook are starting to voice their concerns and internally questioning what the platform’s responsibilities might be — has outwardly defended the company as a nonpartisan information source: “To think it influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea,” he said at the Techonomy conference in California. “It’s not a crazy idea,” a Facebook employee who works in the social network’s engineering division . “What’s crazy is for him to come out and dismiss it like that, when he knows, and those of us at the company know, that fake news ran wild on our platform during the entire campaign season.” told BuzzFeed On his post on the election, Zuckerberg stressed: “Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99% of what people see is authentic. Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes. The hoaxes that do exist are not limited to one partisan view, or even to politics. Overall, this makes it extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the outcome of this election in one direction or the other.” Via BuzzFeed A BuzzFeed analysis found that top fake election news stories generated more total engagement on Facebook than top election stories from 19 major news outlets combined. In the final three months of the US presidential campaign, 20 top-performing false election stories from hoax sites and hyperpartisan blogs generated 8,711,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook. Within the same time period, the 20 best-performing election stories from 19 major news websites generated a total of 7,367,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook. On election night, Bobby Goodlatte, a former product designer at Facebook, wrote on his wall: “Sadly, News Feed optimizes for engagement. As we’ve learned in this election, bullshit is highly engaging. These outlets, and Donald Trump, have no concern for the truth, and really only care for engagement.” But it also states: “A bias towards truth isn’t an impossible goal.” Beyond the issue of fake news and hoaxes, the influence that Facebook might have on elections — but not just elections — needs to be taken into consideration and the debate that it created internally is certainly a very introspective process on the very nature of the company. , former and current employees say “This image of Facebook as a partisan influencer and distributor of bad information is at odds with how the company views itself.” According to the New York Times It all goes back to the question of whether or not Facebook is a media organization. If it is, its influence is better defined and the company will need to better address content. If it’s not, well… Then the company might need to self-define its influence and admit it, rather than call itself as merely a neutral platform. On that very issue, , head of content at The Next Web, wrote: “Not sure you can keep up the denial here. You need to accept the power and influence Facebook has and use independent editors to deal with the issues here.” Matt Navarra In response, Zuckerberg stressed how “Facebook is mostly about helping people stay connected with friends and family” and how the company’s business is also about “building software for companies” and “building planes to beam internet access.” Yet, he said, we don’t call ourselves an enterprise software company or a aerospace company. “For years companies like Google and Facebook have hidden behind the argument of we just use math,” Antonio Garcia Martinez, a former Facebook employee, its first product manager for ad targeting, s. told MSNBC’s Chris Haye “We don’t have the position of the editorship function, right? We don’t decide what we show you. It’s just math. We optimize for engagement. We show you stuff that we know you’re going to comment and like on and that’s it. And I think when the stakes become American democracy, that excuse just isn’t good enough. As you just said, I think in the future they will have to assume those responsibilities of editorship. Because they are kind of a media company not just a tech company.” Addressing whether or not Facebook is a media company, Zuckerberg highlighted: News and media are not the primary things people do on Facebook, so I find it odd when people insist we call ourselves a news or media company in order to acknowledge its importance. I want to stress that what matters here — and this is my personal view — is first of all whether users see Facebook as a media company or not. It is important that we, as users, understand what the platform is, how it works, and what it means for other users around the world, whether in fact it’s a media company or not. _Join the debate… What is your take?_hackernoon.com Does it matter if Facebook is a tech company or a media company? The identity of Facebook is not for Facebook to determine. It is for those who use the platform to identify what the platform is: for some it might be a way to stay in touch with family and friends; for others it might be a way of sharing photos and videos, or look at new products or stay in touch with their favorite brands; for others it is a media company that provides news, just like other platforms are. But if it is a neutral technology company, then some of its inner-workings might need to be addressed, including the functioning of the news feed algorithm, which seems at best cloudy and certainly add to the idea that Facebook possibly creates that “dust cloud of nonsense” that Obama mentioned. In addition, as a technology and social media platform like many others, Facebook works closely with campaigns. “Facebook has hundreds of sales people with a huge office in Washington, D.C.,” says Antonio Garcia Martinez. “And they literally go and tell political advertisers, look Facebook is the most influential platform in the world, we will win you an election and then Zuck turns around and says, no, there’s no possibly way that Facebook can influence the election. It’s really disingenuous of him to sort of claim this and I think on the face of it, really false.” Wired magazine that, “according to President-elect Donald Trump’s digital director Brad Parscale, the social media giant was massively influential — not because it was tipping the scales with fake news, but because it helped generate the bulk of the campaign’s $250 million in online fundraising.” recently reported Parscale said: Our biggest incubator that allowed us to generate that money was Facebook. Facebook and Twitter were the reason we won this thing: Twitter for Mr. Trump, and Facebook for fundraising. However, I disagree with Wired when they write: “Whether fake news did or didn’t affect the election’s outcome, Facebook as a platform did.” Indeed, fake news might not be the real issue here — we as users need to be able to discern what is true from what is fake — but Facebook as a platform is not the influencer. The veritable influencer here is the user, whether it’s a campaign looking for votes, or a ‘civilian’ skipping through pieces of news and posts from friends. That said, both users and Facebook itself have still lots of growing up to do. But this is a process and it’ll take time. on Shift: “Some of our tech companies have user populations larger than the biggest countries. We need to hold ourselves and our tech and business leaders to a higher standard.” Justin Kan writes NewCo I agree.

polIs Facebook a “dust cloud of nonsense” or a look into the future?

The rise of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) sparked a revolution, merging the digital and art realms in ways we never thought possible. Suddenly, digital assets became these rare and exclusive treasures thanks to blockchain magic. NFTs turned digital art, collectibles, and memorable moments into unique pieces that could be bought, sold, and swapped like never before. With big-name sales and celeb endorsements, NFTs became the talk of the town, stirring up debates about the future of digital ownership and creativity. But now, after all the hype, the NFT market seems to be cooling off. What started as a wild frenzy with record-breaking sales now faces a reality check. , a bubble ready to pop. But despite the doubts, web3 companies aren't throwing in the towel yet. People are wondering if NFTs were just a flash in the pan They're still dreaming up new ways to make NFTs shine, convinced of their power to change the digital game for good. They're focusing on the bigger picture, on how NFTs can keep shaking things up and creating new value, connections, and experiences in our digital world. The Perceived Decline of NFTs Lately, there's been a noticeable slowdown in the NFT market, with a drop in transaction volumes and those eye-popping prices that used to make headlines. For example, , falling by 21.25% compared to the previous week. from January 20th to January 27th, 2024, the sales volume of NFTs experienced a significant drop Many factors are behind this change, highlighting the challenges of keeping up with the NFT frenzy. Market saturation is a big one – there are just way too many new NFT projects flooding the scene, making it hard to stand out. Buyers are being pickier as the novelty wears off, and with so many options out there, it's tough for standout projects to shine. Then there's the whole speculative bubble thing – , not real value, and that kind of growth isn't sustainable. prices shot up partly because of speculation Regarding the initial explosion and cooling off in the popularity of NFTs, Alexander Mitrovich, CEO of Unique Network, says, "NFTs got the world’s attention by being used for digital Collectables - be it gaming ones or digital Art but the boom surged on speculative sales, diverging from its creator-centric ethos." Mitrovich continued to break it down, saying, "Despite sporadic brand successes, technical hurdles such as high transaction fees and blockchain inefficiencies disillusioned everyone. Consequently, NFTs faced a perception of decline tied to hype and volatile pricing dynamics." "This underscored the imperative for NFT projects to recalibrate towards sustainable value propositions, emphasizing utility, and genuine creator support to foster longevity and resilience in the face of market fluctuations and shifting consumer sentiments." From where I'm standing, it looks like the NFT market is in a phase of readjustment. The initial excitement drew in all sorts – from genuine fans to folks just looking to make a quick buck. But as things settle down, the projects with real value and purpose will stick around. This period is crucial for weeding out the fluff and letting the truly innovative and sustainable NFT uses shine. So, while the cooling off might seem like a downer, it's a chance for the market to find its footing and for everyone involved to remember what blockchain and NFTs are about – creating new ways to own and create in the digital world. It might just be the step we need to build a stronger and longer-lasting NFT ecosystem. Why Web3 Companies Persist with NFTs Despite the volatile movements of the NFT market, web3 companies are standing firm in their commitment to Non-Fungible Tokens, driven by strategic reasons that speak to their belief in the long-term potential of this technology. They understand that market volatility is just a temporary hurdle and are focused on the bigger picture – the transformative possibilities that NFTs offer for the digital economy. For them, NFTs aren't just a passing trend but a foundational technology that can reshape digital ownership, create new economic models, and forge direct connections between creators and consumers. Their long-term vision involves integrating NFTs into every corner of the digital world, making them a natural part of online experiences. They see this integration as the next step in internet evolution, giving users more control over their digital assets and identities. From embedding NFTs into social media platforms to revolutionizing traditional business models, they're laying the groundwork for a future where NFTs are woven into the very fabric of the digital economy. Instead of just following market trends, these companies are leading the charge, betting on NFTs to be a vital part of their strategy for years. Dirk Lueth, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Upland, believes that focusing on additional use cases is helping to bring back interest in NFT. Lueth shared his thoughts, saying, "The focus on utility and gamification, along with advancements in technology and gameplay, clearer regulations, and deeper community engagement, is recognized as key to revitalizing demand." "This approach aligns with the core value proposition of Web3, which emphasizes genuine ownership, a shared economy, participation in governance, and an innovation potential that traditional Web2 business models cannot match." Lueth finished off by saying, "Web3 companies, particularly those in the gaming and "GameFi" sectors, view these elements as crucial drivers of the next cryptocurrency surge, referred to as 'Wave 3.' This upcoming phase is expected to offer substantially more value through enhanced utility for crypto-based products, distinguishing it from the initial hype-driven phases of Wave 1 (ICOs) and Wave 2 (PFP NFTs). Alex Casassovici, Founder of Azarus, Web3 layer for streams, also believes that a greater focus on utility is helping to keep the NFT market alive. Casassovici explained his views, saying, "In the diverse world of NFT ownership, we primarily observe two distinct groups. First are the traders, who buy and sell NFTs as a financial strategy. The broader crypto market's downturn has significantly impacted this group, grappling with widespread fear, uncertainty, and doubt." Casassovici continued, "Their activity largely drives the transaction volumes seen in NFT sales. On the other hand, we have holders, who purchase NFTs not as a financial asset but as a key to enter and belong to specific communities. These individuals tend to retain their NFTs, valuing membership and engagement over profit." "Recently, we've noticed an influx of new holders, seizing the opportunity presented by lower prices to join these communities. This trend underscores the enduring appeal and foundational values of NFTs beyond mere trading." ‌ Continuing to develop and build during the bear market and creating real value behind NFTs has helped to inspire confidence in holders, according to Casassovici who said, "Most NFT projects have astutely utilized the current bear market to regroup, recalibrate, and strategically plan for the future." "This period has not been about stagnation but about building and creating intrinsic value for their communities, which is the cornerstone of NFT ownership. Some projects such as Mocaverse launched during the through out the bear market," Casassovici continued, explaining his views more. "Yet, they are thriving by enhancing holder value through engaging initiatives and expanding their utility, notably evolving into proxies for the Apecoin DAO. Such developments, achieved amidst challenging market conditions, indicate a broader trend." Casassovici finished by saying, "More NFT projects will likely continue on this path, focusing on developing greater utility and crafting unique, community-centric experiences that strengthen and unify their holder base." More Than Just Digital Art: Innovative Use Cases for NFTs The versatility of NFTs has transcended digital art, showcasing their potential across diverse industries. In gaming, NFTs redefine in-game assets, empowering players to own, trade, and sell digital items, enriching gaming experiences and fostering autonomous in-game economies. In digital identity, NFTs secure immutable records, ensuring seamless verification in online interactions. Real estate sees a profound impact, with virtual land and properties traded as NFTs in digital realms, extending to physical world transactions for streamlined processes and increased transparency. Success stories like Decentraland and NBA Top Shot highlight NFTs' practicality. Decentraland's decentralized virtual space and NBA Top Shot's collectible game highlights showcase NFTs' transformative potential. On a personal note, the innovation in NFTs is captivating, particularly in challenging traditional ownership and value paradigms. Fractional ownership of physical assets via NFTs democratizes investment access and boosts liquidity in typically illiquid markets. Innovative concepts like "NFTfi," using NFTs as loan collateral, exemplify their dual role as value stores and transaction facilitators. These examples underscore NFTs' growing versatility and capacity to reshape various sectors of the economy and society. NFT Security and Encryption Navigating the NFT market presents exciting digital ownership and creativity prospects and significant security challenges for creators and collectors alike. Foremost among these concerns is the risk of fraud, from unauthorized asset duplication to the looming threat of hacking and theft targeting valuable NFTs. Addressing these challenges necessitates robust security measures to safeguard digital assets and uphold the integrity of the NFT ecosystem. For example, Fhenix employs a security-focused approach to NFTs by integrating encryption keys within its ERC721-based digital collectibles. This method involves embedding four encrypted 32-bit integers within each NFT, collectively forming a 128-bit encryption key. The purpose of this encryption key is to secure data linked to the NFT, such as images, videos, or other digital content accessible via an external URL. The encryption ensures that this data can only be accessed by the NFT holder, enhancing the privacy and security of the digital asset. The process of creating a Fhenix NFT includes not only specifying ownership and the asset's digital representation but also incorporating this encrypted information. The encryption of these details serves to protect the associated data, making it inaccessible to unauthorized parties. This is achieved by scrambling the information in a way that requires the correct key for decryption and access. When access to the encrypted content is necessary, Fhenix provides a mechanism for securely decrypting and revealing the data to the NFT holder. This ensures that sensitive information or content tied to the NFT remains secure, sharing or viewing it safely without risk of unauthorized exposure. Secret NFTs leverage the Secret Network to add privacy to NFTs. These NFTs utilize smart contracts that encrypt data at various stages, including input, output, and state, based on the SNIP-721 standard. This standard expands on the Ethereum ERC-721 NFT standard by incorporating privacy features, offering optional private ownership and metadata fields. Such capabilities allow for more privacy and control over digital assets than traditional NFTs. The privacy features provided by Secret NFTs have practical implications for both creators and collectors. For collectors, maintaining private ownership details helps protect identities and addresses potential security risks. Creators can benefit from the ability to include private metadata, which can be used to embed exclusive content or to craft digital assets with unique, hidden attributes, thereby adding value to their NFTs. Furthermore, Secret NFTs' encryption capabilities facilitate applications requiring confidentiality and enable the verification of user identities while making sure that sensitive information remains encrypted and private. Encryption, anchored in blockchain technology, emerges as a pivotal tool in fortifying NFT security, ensuring the authenticity and ownership of digital assets. Each NFT is imbued with a unique token on the blockchain, featuring distinctive metadata and identification codes, forging a digital fingerprint that distinguishes it from others. Closing thoughts As the dust continues to settle on the initial frenzy surrounding NFTs, the market is taking a moment to catch its breath and look around. Despite the cooling interest and a more critical eye being cast on their long-term value, there's a palpable sense of commitment from web3 companies. They're not just clinging to a fading trend; they genuinely believe in the revolutionary potential of NFTs to redefine digital ownership and creativity. For anyone trying to make sense of this evolving landscape, it's essential to keep an eye on the broader market trends and to discern between fleeting hype and projects with real substance and utility. It's a good decision to diversify, not putting all your eggs in one basket, but rather exploring the breadth of the NFT world from digital art to gaming and beyond. This strategy helps spread the risk, especially in a market known for its volatility. Community engagement is also key, offering insights and opportunities for those willing to dive in. With the pace of innovation in this space, staying informed about new uses and developments could open up exciting possibilities. The journey ahead is uncertain, but for those willing to learn and adapt, it could be an interesting ride.

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