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SAN FRANCISCO, USA, October 31st, 2024/Chainwire/--Tony Vejseli, Figure Markets Holdings Inc., and GXD Labs, LLC (collectively “the Group”) today issued a statement to address recent developments following a meeting held on October 28 at White & Case’s Midtown Manhattan offices, where the Group met with the board of directors (the “Board”) and management team of Ionic Digital, Inc. (the “Company” or “Ionic”). The Group thanked White & Case for hosting the discussion but noted a need for clarification following the Company’s summary of the meeting in a press release, which they believe misrepresented several key points. In response to Ionic’s statement regarding its affirmation of “strong momentum” and its “laser-focus” on implementing its strategic initiatives, the Group raised concerns over the Board’s apparent lack of knowledge of core operating metrics. They highlighted that the Board appeared unprepared to discuss any aspects of its financial or operational performance, including by answering any of Mr. Vejseli’s questions as described in his post on X, leading to questions about the Company’s competitive position and valuation. The Group also expressed skepticism about Ionic’s ability to complete its audit, initially expected in early 2024 and now anticipated by Q1 2025 according to the Company, within the announced timeframe due to the apparent lack of available financial information, including the Company’s EBITDA and expenses. The Group indicated that alternative liquidity options for shareholders were discussed, yet they felt these options had not been fully explored or evaluated by the Board. The Group also raised concerns over Ionic’s contract with Hut 8, noting that, although it had presented a proposed solution, no alternative path forward was discussed by the Board or management. During the meeting, the Group outlined a proposed plan for refreshment of the Board, specifically suggesting the resignation of three current board members—Scott Duffy, Tom DiFiore, and Emmanuel Aidoo – to be replaced by three new, independent directors with the requisite experience and skill sets. The proposal, supported by a detailed presentation, emphasized the need for strategic and experienced leadership to better align the company’s actions with shareholder interests. Shareholders are encouraged to review the proposal and consider supporting a special meeting to vote on board changes. About Figure Markets Figure Markets is democratizing finance through blockchain. We’re building the exchange for everything - a decentralized custody marketplace for crypto, stocks, bonds, credit and more. We’re bringing best-in-class leverage, margining, and liquidity to our exchange, while offering our members extensive borrowing options and unique investment opportunities. Figure Markets puts our members in control of their assets and data, disintermediating legacy brokers, exchanges and lenders. Figure Markets is backed by leading venture capital firms and strategic partners, including Jump Crypto, Pantera, Distributed Global, Faction Lightspeed, NewForm Capital and CMT Digital. Figure Markets was founded by a seasoned team of entrepreneurs and operators from TradFi, fintech, and DeFi, including Mike Cagney and June Ou. Users can learn more at www.figuremarkets.com. Contact Director, Marketing Paula Machado Jackler Figure Markets press@figuremarkets.com This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here SAN FRANCISCO, USA, October 31st, 2024/Chainwire/--Tony Vejseli, Figure Markets Holdings Inc., and GXD Labs, LLC (collectively “the Group”) today issued a statement to address recent developments following a meeting held on October 28 at White & Case’s Midtown Manhattan offices, where the Group met with the board of directors (the “Board”) and management team of Ionic Digital, Inc. (the “Company” or “Ionic”). The Group thanked White & Case for hosting the discussion but noted a need for clarification following the Company’s summary of the meeting in a press release , which they believe misrepresented several key points. press release press release In response to Ionic’s statement regarding its affirmation of “strong momentum” and its “laser-focus” on implementing its strategic initiatives, the Group raised concerns over the Board’s apparent lack of knowledge of core operating metrics. They highlighted that the Board appeared unprepared to discuss any aspects of its financial or operational performance, including by answering any of Mr. Vejseli’s questions as described in his post on X, leading to questions about the Company’s competitive position and valuation. post post The Group also expressed skepticism about Ionic’s ability to complete its audit, initially expected in early 2024 and now anticipated by Q1 2025 according to the Company, within the announced timeframe due to the apparent lack of available financial information, including the Company’s EBITDA and expenses. The Group indicated that alternative liquidity options for shareholders were discussed, yet they felt these options had not been fully explored or evaluated by the Board. The Group also raised concerns over Ionic’s contract with Hut 8, noting that, although it had presented a proposed solution, no alternative path forward was discussed by the Board or management. During the meeting, the Group outlined a proposed plan for refreshment of the Board, specifically suggesting the resignation of three current board members—Scott Duffy, Tom DiFiore, and Emmanuel Aidoo – to be replaced by three new, independent directors with the requisite experience and skill sets. The proposal, supported by a detailed presentation, emphasized the need for strategic and experienced leadership to better align the company’s actions with shareholder interests. Shareholders are encouraged to review the proposal and consider supporting a special meeting to vote on board changes. review the proposal review the proposal About Figure Markets Figure Markets is democratizing finance through blockchain. We’re building the exchange for everything - a decentralized custody marketplace for crypto, stocks, bonds, credit and more. Figure Markets Figure Markets We’re bringing best-in-class leverage, margining, and liquidity to our exchange, while offering our members extensive borrowing options and unique investment opportunities. Figure Markets puts our members in control of their assets and data, disintermediating legacy brokers, exchanges and lenders. Figure Markets is backed by leading venture capital firms and strategic partners, including Jump Crypto, Pantera, Distributed Global, Faction Lightspeed, NewForm Capital and CMT Digital. Figure Markets was founded by a seasoned team of entrepreneurs and operators from TradFi, fintech, and DeFi, including Mike Cagney and June Ou. Users can learn more at www.figuremarkets.com . www.figuremarkets.com www.figuremarkets.com Contact Director, Marketing Paula Machado Jackler Figure Markets press@figuremarkets.com This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here here

Tony Vejseli, Figure Markets And GXD Labs Provide Clarification, Met With Ionic Digital’s Board

Tony Vejseli, Figure Markets y GXD Labs brindan aclaraciones y se reúnen con la junta directiva de Ionic Digital

Tony Vejseli, Figuurimarkkinat ja GXD Labs tarjoavat selvennystä, tapasivat Ionic Digitalin hallituksen

टोनी वेजसेली, फिगर मार्केट्स और जीएक्सडी लैब्स ने स्पष्टीकरण दिया, आयनिक डिजिटल के बोर्ड से मुलाकात की

Tony Vejseli, Figure Markets ak GXD Labs bay klarifikasyon, te rankontre ak Konsèy Ionic Digital la

טוני Vejseli, Figure Markets ו-GXD Labs מספקים הבהרה, נפגשו עם מועצת המנהלים של Ionic Digital

トニー・ヴェイセリ、フィギュア・マーケッツ、GXDラボが説明を行い、アイオニック・デジタルの取締役会と会談

Tony Vejseli, Figure Markets en GXD Labs geven verduidelijking, ontmoeten de raad van bestuur van Ionic Digital

Tony Vejseli, Figure Markets și GXD Labs oferă clarificări, s-au întâlnit cu Consiliul Ionic Digital

Tony Vejseli, Figure Markets Uye GXD Labs Inopa Kujekeswa, Yakasangana neIonic Digital's Board.

Тони Вејсели, Маркет Маркетс и ГКСД Лабс пружају појашњење, састао се са одбором Иониц Дигитал-а

Tony Vejseli, Masoko ya Kielelezo na Maabara ya GXD Hutoa Ufafanuzi, Alikutana na Bodi ya Ionic Digital.

Тони Вейсели, бозорҳои фигурӣ ва лабораторияҳои GXD тавзеҳот медиҳанд, ки бо Шӯрои Ionic Digital мулоқот карданд

Authors:
(1) Tinghui Ouyang, National Institute of Informatics, Japan (thouyang@nii.ac.jp);
(2) Isao Echizen, National Institute of Informatics, Japan (iechizen@nii.ac.jp);
(3) Yoshiki Seo, Digital Architecture Research Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan (y.seo@aist.go.jp). Table of Links Abstract and Introduction Description and Related Work of OOD Detection Methodology Experiments and Results Conclusions, Acknowledgement and References III. METHODOLOGY From the above description in Section II, the core idea of OOD detection is to use statistical measure, e.g., distribution probability or structural characteristics (distance and density), to distinguish normal and outlier data. However, in terms of complex and high-dimensional data, data’s distribution and structural characteristics are not as apparent as that of low-dimensional data. In this case, data transformation is required to simplify data. Therefore, this paper proposes a general framework of the OOD detection method via statistical measures in Fig. 2. Fig. 2 shows the framework of the proposed OOD detection method, which makes use of statistical measures as the score function in (1), then determines outlier or normal data. Considering the structural characteristics of high-dimensional data are not readily computed, so a deep AE architecture is used for feature learning and dimensionality reduction first, as shown in Fig. 2. Then, some conventional statistical measures are used to calculate the OOD score based on this framework. In this paper, a new statistical measure for better OOD description and detection performance is also come up with, namely the LCP measure in Fig. 2. Details for its implementation are described as follows. A. activation traces As mentioned, the proposed framework utilizes deep AE for feature learning and dimensionality reduction. Considering normal and outlier data may have different neuron behaviours in deep learning, this paper proposes to use latent features’ neuron activation status for better OOD study instead of original data. This idea is inspired by [20], which proposed that using neurons’ status with respect to a testing data point is a good way to describe data’s behavior. For example, the neuron’s activation value is one of the most straightforward descriptions of data behaviors with respect to the given DL model, as well as the sign of neuron outputs. Then, based on these activation statuses, some neuron coverage metrics [21] were defined to describe the data’s behaviors. In this paper, we can simply define the activation values as the trace of neuron behavior. By assuming a given deep learning architecture consisting of a set of neurons N = {n1, n2, · · · }, then, for a given testing data x ∈ {X|x1, x2, · · · }, its activation trace with respect to Ncan be defined as A(x) = σN (x). Generally, considering a DL model contains a huge number of neurons, it is more effective to calculate the activation trace of an ordered (sub)set of neurons Ns ⊆ N, instead of all neurons. Inspired by the paper [22], which demonstrates abnormal and normal data have different neuron activation statuses on the information channel and the activation network, this paper considers choosing the most active neurons in testing in order to reduce feature dimensionality and computation cost. Moreover, according to the description of the proposed framework, an AE architecture is used for feature representation from high-dimensional and complex data space to low-dimensional space. AEs have the advantage of learning the most representative features with low rank so that they can preserve important information of original data in the dimensionality reduction process. Therefore, the activation traces of active neurons in the latent space of AE are calculated as the features for OOD detection in accordance with the proposed framework in Fig. 2. B. local conditional probability (LCP) Then, based on the data’s features of activation trace, different statistical measures are applied to calculate the OOD data score, like KD, MD, kNN, and LOF in Fig. 2. However, summarizing these measures, it is found that the main ideas of these methods are to leverage the average distance as the representation of probability or density in OOD scoring. For example, KD uses the average kernel distances from the global dataset, MD to calculate the Mahanalobis distance. Unlike KD and MD, kNN calculates the average Euclidean distance in a local neighborhood domain. Even though LOF is totally different from the other methods, it also makes use of local neighbors’ information, namely the average reachability in the OOD score definition. With consideration of effectiveness of these methods in OOD detection, this paper propose to combine both neighborhood information and distance to develop a statistical measurement for OOD scoring. Firstly, instead of calculating the average distance, this paper proposes to reconstruct the testing data via a linear combination of the given training data and then calculate the reconstruction distance as the final OOD score, as defined below where wi is the weight for each individual data point xi . It is known that this reconstruction idea is also a useful strategy in OOD detection and shares some similar concepts with that of the distance-based method. For example, KD and kNN can also be regarded to calculate the distance between the testing data xt and the center of the whole data and neighbors, respectively. The wi can be thought of as equal weights in KD/kNN even though they are not for reconstruction. However, with consideration of data reconstruction, the weights wi should be specified to well reproduce the testing data P xt and satisfy wi = 1. Therefore, a kind of similarity based on local conditional probability (LCP) is defined as the weights in this paper, as below Moreover, considering the distances between two points vary a lot and have different effects on the Gaussian kernel, so the value of σ in this paper is considered to be selected based on the binary search method in [25]. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Tinghui Ouyang, National Institute of Informatics, Japan (thouyang@nii.ac.jp); (2) Isao Echizen, National Institute of Informatics, Japan (iechizen@nii.ac.jp); (3) Yoshiki Seo, Digital Architecture Research Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan (y.seo@aist.go.jp). Authors: Authors: (1) Tinghui Ouyang, National Institute of Informatics, Japan (thouyang@nii.ac.jp); (2) Isao Echizen, National Institute of Informatics, Japan (iechizen@nii.ac.jp); (3) Yoshiki Seo, Digital Architecture Research Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan (y.seo@aist.go.jp). Table of Links Abstract and Introduction Abstract and Introduction Description and Related Work of OOD Detection Description and Related Work of OOD Detection Methodology Methodology Experiments and Results Experiments and Results Conclusions, Acknowledgement and References Conclusions, Acknowledgement and References III. METHODOLOGY From the above description in Section II, the core idea of OOD detection is to use statistical measure, e.g., distribution probability or structural characteristics (distance and density), to distinguish normal and outlier data. However, in terms of complex and high-dimensional data, data’s distribution and structural characteristics are not as apparent as that of low-dimensional data. In this case, data transformation is required to simplify data. Therefore, this paper proposes a general framework of the OOD detection method via statistical measures in Fig. 2. Fig. 2 shows the framework of the proposed OOD detection method, which makes use of statistical measures as the score function in (1), then determines outlier or normal data. Considering the structural characteristics of high-dimensional data are not readily computed, so a deep AE architecture is used for feature learning and dimensionality reduction first, as shown in Fig. 2. Then, some conventional statistical measures are used to calculate the OOD score based on this framework. In this paper, a new statistical measure for better OOD description and detection performance is also come up with, namely the LCP measure in Fig. 2. Details for its implementation are described as follows. A. activation traces A. activation traces As mentioned, the proposed framework utilizes deep AE for feature learning and dimensionality reduction. Considering normal and outlier data may have different neuron behaviours in deep learning, this paper proposes to use latent features’ neuron activation status for better OOD study instead of original data. This idea is inspired by [20], which proposed that using neurons’ status with respect to a testing data point is a good way to describe data’s behavior. For example, the neuron’s activation value is one of the most straightforward descriptions of data behaviors with respect to the given DL model, as well as the sign of neuron outputs. Then, based on these activation statuses, some neuron coverage metrics [21] were defined to describe the data’s behaviors. In this paper, we can simply define the activation values as the trace of neuron behavior. By assuming a given deep learning architecture consisting of a set of neurons N = {n1, n2, · · · }, then, for a given testing data x ∈ {X|x1, x2, · · · }, its activation trace with respect to Ncan be defined as A(x) = σN (x). Generally, considering a DL model contains a huge number of neurons, it is more effective to calculate the activation trace of an ordered (sub)set of neurons Ns ⊆ N, instead of all neurons. Inspired by the paper [22], which demonstrates abnormal and normal data have different neuron activation statuses on the information channel and the activation network, this paper considers choosing the most active neurons in testing in order to reduce feature dimensionality and computation cost. Moreover, according to the description of the proposed framework, an AE architecture is used for feature representation from high-dimensional and complex data space to low-dimensional space. AEs have the advantage of learning the most representative features with low rank so that they can preserve important information of original data in the dimensionality reduction process. Therefore, the activation traces of active neurons in the latent space of AE are calculated as the features for OOD detection in accordance with the proposed framework in Fig. 2. B. local conditional probability (LCP) B. local conditional probability (LCP) Then, based on the data’s features of activation trace, different statistical measures are applied to calculate the OOD data score, like KD, MD, k NN, and LOF in Fig. 2. However, summarizing these measures, it is found that the main ideas of these methods are to leverage the average distance as the representation of probability or density in OOD scoring. For example, KD uses the average kernel distances from the global dataset, MD to calculate the Mahanalobis distance. Unlike KD and MD, k NN calculates the average Euclidean distance in a local neighborhood domain. Even though LOF is totally different from the other methods, it also makes use of local neighbors’ information, namely the average reachability in the OOD score definition. With consideration of effectiveness of these methods in OOD detection, this paper propose to combine both neighborhood information and distance to develop a statistical measurement for OOD scoring. k k Firstly, instead of calculating the average distance, this paper proposes to reconstruct the testing data via a linear combination of the given training data and then calculate the reconstruction distance as the final OOD score, as defined below where wi is the weight for each individual data point xi . It is known that this reconstruction idea is also a useful strategy in OOD detection and shares some similar concepts with that of the distance-based method. For example, KD and kNN can also be regarded to calculate the distance between the testing data xt and the center of the whole data and neighbors, respectively. The wi can be thought of as equal weights in KD/kNN even though they are not for reconstruction. However, with consideration of data reconstruction, the weights wi should be specified to well reproduce the testing data P xt and satisfy wi = 1. Therefore, a kind of similarity based on local conditional probability (LCP) is defined as the weights in this paper, as below Moreover, considering the distances between two points vary a lot and have different effects on the Gaussian kernel, so the value of σ in this paper is considered to be selected based on the binary search method in [25]. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv

Rethinking OOD Detection: Combining Autoencoders with Cutting-Edge Techniques

Towards the Automation of Book Typesetting: Acknowledgments and References

Verifiable Privacy-Preserving Computing: Conclusion & References

Today, I am speaking with Miguel Machado, and we will look into the ever-evolving landscape of technology integration within Fortune 500 companies. In this interview, Miguel shares his insights on the role of in contemporary business growth, offers advice on assessing AI readiness, and discusses examples of companies that have harnessed AI for success. AI We'll also look at the potential risks and challenges of AI integration, strategies for aligning technology with business objectives, and the importance of fostering innovation and adaptability within large-scale tech projects. Please introduce yourself and tell us what you do: I am Miguel Machado, a Tech & AI Serial Entrepreneur and the CEO and co-founder of 3 ventures: Keenfolks, Scoretize, and OG. As a global AI partner, Keenfolks connects the dots across the corporate, marketing, and prop tech sectors to help Fortune 500 businesses increase productivity and expand. Scoretize is an AI-powered tool designed for marketing agencies to provide comprehensive digital audits, reporting, and pitching services for their clients. OG offers a go-to-market solution to deploy AI to Fortune 500 Marketing. How do you envision AI's role in the growth of businesses founded today? When it comes to the growth of today's fresh businesses, the use of AI is a real game-changer. Picture this: AI isn't just some tech tool, but it can wear multiple hats, from CEO to Managing Director, Marketing Director, and even your go-to Executive Assistant. For example, a project from Portuguese founder João F. Santos raised €4 million valuation all executed by AI. AI's potential to expedite processes, foster seamless coordination, and facilitate rapid knowledge acquisition is a beacon of transformative power. As businesses navigate the competitive terrain, this capacity positions them to achieve unprecedented levels of competitiveness. We are on the cusp of an AI-first business realm, where innovation is supercharged by AI's capabilities, heralding an era of unparalleled growth and efficiency. What are some specific areas within a business where AI implementation can lead to significant growth opportunities? When I think about the world of AI capabilities, I believe it is not about scratching the surface – it is about how you can shake up an entire sector. AI's functional skills can tackle various tasks such as customer support, analyzing customer data, product design, AI-powered analytics, talent acquisition by screening resumes, and many more. But I believe we should be digging deeper. We're at a turning point where anyone can drive big changes in several industries. I've got my eyes on fields like law, HR, finance – you name it. Anticipate developments over the next six months that'll make the achievements of the last 50 years seem modest. It's like breathing new life into industries. We're in for an incredible journey that's set to reshape industries and stretch the limits of what we thought was doable. As a founder, what steps should be taken to assess if AI is the right fit for one’s business and growth strategy? When you're stepping into the AI arena, it's all about getting down to the basics. You've got to start by checking if you've got the key ingredients in your toolkit to make things happen. Take a good look at what data you're working with, how your current processes are chugging along, and the tech stack you've got going on. Then, it's time to incorporate language models, the creative power of , and top-notch marketing technology. generative AI Once you've got that mix in place, you'll start to get a sense of the bigger picture. You'll size up the maturity level of your industry or company and wrap your head around how much of a climb you're looking at. Armed with this comprehensive view, you can decide if you're up for the challenge of rolling out automation, cranking up your efficiency, and firing up competitiveness at scale. This isn't just about using AI tools – it's about a whole new level of innovation and growth that's going to stand out in the crowd. Can you provide examples of successful businesses that have utilized AI to fuel their growth, and what key lessons can other founders learn from their experiences? One standout example that comes to mind is OpenAI, which is making waves with its diverse solutions rooted in the capability to generate massive datasets, granting them expertise across various domains. Microsoft is actively harnessing this by using that capacity to infuse acceleration into all its consumer products, strategically anchoring their growth. What's remarkable is that these opportunities are accessible to all of us today, and we're witnessing multiple companies adopting a similar blueprint: Notion AI, Canva, Grammarly, and many others. The invaluable takeaway from these pioneering ventures is twofold: first, no sector is undisputed to transformation when the right AI strategy is deployed – you can vie for success across any landscape. Second, the velocity of execution demands an entirely new timeframe; what once took a year to accomplish must now be tackled within a week. What are some of the potential risks and challenges associated with integrating AI into a business, and how can founders mitigate these risks? We must admit that Integrating AI into a business comes with its own risks and challenges. First, something is unsettling about how language models can create very realistic illusions. They can make up completely different situations that we can't easily control. For example, there's a puzzling move called Move 27 in the game of Go. In this move, an algorithm won against a human champion using a strategy that still confuses us. This shows that we're entering into a technological area that could take us to unexpected places. This might have legal and business consequences. The second big problem is that there is not enough quality data that can work well with language models and Generative AI models. Making sure the data is accurate and the algorithms can make sense when they talk to each other is hard. This shows the importance of having good data and managing it well to . use AI properly Finally, the third risk involves the potential for unethical deployment of AI and inadequate data protection measures, both of which can pose substantial threats to society at large. As AI's capabilities expand, these technologies' responsible and ethical application becomes an ever more pressing concern. As we navigate the complexities of AI integration, it's paramount that we address these risks head-on, charting a path that maximizes the benefits while minimizing potential pitfalls. In the context of large-scale technology integration, what are the main challenges that F500 companies typically face, and how can they effectively overcome them? One of the most prevalent challenges we've encountered in assisting Fortune 500 companies with AI integration revolves around a fundamental shift in perspective. It's crucial to recognize that AI demands strategic groundwork rather than immediate tactical implementation. This journey transcends the mere utilization of tools like ChatGPT for drafting emails; it's about cultivating an encompassing Integrative AI vision. This entails seamlessly fusing available language models into the fabric of a company's vision, operations, and processes. It's a holistic endeavor that requires foresight and alignment across the organization. Another challenge is that F500 companies forget to keep the ultimate goal in sight – the development of proprietary products that adhere to compliance standards, mitigate data protection risks, and safeguard intellectual property rights. This foresight-driven approach empowers companies to navigate the AI landscape with a clear direction and a commitment to innovation that's underpinned by ethical considerations. Finally, the third challenge pertains to preparedness and training rather than just the allocation of resources. It's not solely about acquiring the tools but also about building an informed workforce capable of understanding and effectively interacting with the technology. At Keenfolks, we specialize in facilitating workshops that provide a roadmap for successful AI adoption and offer the expertise needed to navigate these challenges successfully. How do you assess the current state of technology integration within F500 companies, and what are some of the key factors that determine its success or failure? Within the realm of Fortune 500 companies, a significant proportion finds themselves in the initial phases of AI integration. While many currently leverage data in descriptive capacities, there's an impending shift toward predictive and prescriptive capabilities, a transition that the advent of Generative AI will notably catalyze. The degree of a company's maturity in terms of strategic vision and foundational data infrastructure plays an important and very pivotal role in determining the ease of assimilating Generative AI and hastening operational processes. Sectors like finance, technology, and travel exhibit advanced levels of integration, whereas domains such as Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Pharmaceuticals, and Retail lag behind, characterized by mid to lower maturity levels in their convergence of data strategy, systems and the deployment of Generative AI. This landscape underscores the dynamic trajectory of AI adoption and the diverse challenges various industries face in aligning their strategies with this transformative wave. What strategies do you recommend for F500 companies to align their technology integration efforts with their overall business objectives and long-term growth plans? When it comes to aligning technology integration efforts with the broader business objectives and long-term growth plans of Fortune 500 companies, some smart strategies come into play. To start, dive into real-world business scenarios that can rev up efficiency, enhance customer satisfaction, and drive sales growth. The initial step entails fostering synergy between business teams and technological counterparts. Marketing teams are great at understanding what consumers want, but they might find technical stuff a bit confusing. On the other hand, IT teams are technology experts, but understanding the market dynamics might be tricky. This is where Integrative AI comes in. Think of it as a detailed guide that smoothly connects bold visions and practical strategies and integrates the latest tech innovations. This roadmap shows the way to a future where AI works together with business leaders in perfect harmony. It's like blending business goals and tech know-how, all powered by Integrative AI – when different AI technologies join forces to create advanced systems. How can F500 companies strike a balance between leveraging existing legacy systems and adopting new technologies during the integration process? In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, decisions made merely two years ago could now render inadequate systems and technology. The present moment warrants deep introspection into the technology stack and its intricate connections with existing legacy systems. It's a prime opportunity to contemplate the Consumer Data Platform, cloud infrastructure, data storage solutions, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and Content Management Systems (CMS) – aligning all these components with the demands of a new era, where data, integration, and consumer interactions stand as paramount considerations. The imperative is to harmonize these elements to effectively cater to the demands of a swiftly transforming digital landscape, ensuring that your technological foundation is not only resilient but also agile enough to accommodate future advancements. In today's fast-changing technology world, choices made just two years ago might not work well with new systems and technology now. Right now, it's important to think about the technology we're using and how it connects to our old systems. It's a good time to think about things like the Consumer Data Platform, Cloud infrastructure, Customer Relationship Management, and Content Management Systems– aligning all these components with the demands of a new era where data, integration, and consumer interactions stand as paramount considerations. The goal is to make all these parts work together to meet the needs of the fast-changing digital world. Can you share some best practices for managing the complexities of integrating multiple technology systems and platforms within F500 companies? Navigating the intricacies of integrating various technology systems and platforms within Fortune 500 companies demands a well-structured approach. At Keenfolks, we developed a 7-step methodology to help F500 companies improve consumer engagement and tech efficiency and accelerate sales. It focuses on connecting a company's processes, data, and tech stack with generative and language models, culminating in proprietary technology solutions tailored to the company's unique needs. AI tools Comprising seven sequential steps, the methodology commences with an understanding of the business model and objectives, followed by an audit to identify integration gaps and bottlenecks. Clear objectives, data strategy, and technological alignment are emphasized before creating a roadmap for integration. Subsequent deployment, optimization, and scaling efforts enable seamless transitions, leveraging real-time data and user feedback. By strategically integrating generative AI and aligning it with business objectives, the methodology provides a structured path for F500 companies to effectively navigate technology integration complexities while harnessing the potential of AI-driven innovation. How important is it for F500 companies to foster a strong culture of innovation and adaptability when undertaking large-scale tech integration projects? In today's dynamic business landscape, fostering a culture of innovation and adaptability is not just important but essential for Fortune 500 companies embarking on large-scale tech integration projects. The convergence of technology, consumer expectations, and market shifts demands a proactive approach that constantly embraces change and harnesses innovation. An agile and innovative mindset is the driving force behind successful tech integration. It facilitates the seamless alignment of cutting-edge technologies with an organization's strategic goals, ensuring optimal results, increased operational efficiency, and sustained growth. By nurturing a culture that encourages creativity, experimentation, and flexibility, F500 companies can confidently navigate the complexities of tech integration, capitalize on emerging opportunities, and remain at the forefront of their industries. Looking into the future, what exciting AI trends do you see that could revolutionize how founders grow their businesses? Looking ahead, the holds immense promise in revolutionizing how C-level leaders propel their businesses to new heights. The emergence of no-code solutions is set to democratize AI adoption, allowing brands to integrate advanced technologies into their operations without requiring extensive technical expertise. landscape of AI trends The ease of experimenting through rapid pilots will foster innovation, enabling Fortune 500 companies to swiftly iterate and refine their AI-driven strategies. Communities will play a pivotal role, harnessing the knowledge of language models to create platforms that facilitate collaborative learning and skill enhancement. The synergy between AI and blockchain will reshape industries by ensuring transparency, security, and trust in data transactions. The pervasive connection between AI and various domains, from healthcare to manufacturing, will amplify productivity and redefine possibilities. Moreover, productization will gain momentum, transforming AI models into scalable solutions catering to diverse business needs. At Keenfolks, as we continue to navigate these transformative trends, we remain dedicated to empowering C-level executives to leverage AI's potential for sustainable growth and innovation.

The State of Technology Integration in F500 Companies: Insights from an AI Advocate

Has society told you that girls can do this, but girls can’t do that? Math is not for girls, chess is not for girls, and the top level of academia is mostly males. It is embedded in some of our citizens’ subconscious that we have set gender roles. The level of gender roles varies throughout the world. In some areas women have more rights than others. In some areas, they have no rights. Low self-esteem and gender segregation is something that is deeply embedded in some cultures. Thanks to social media, and streaming media in the form of podcasts and , people have bigger platforms to communicate their messages. Women were able to connect with each other on common causes more so than ever before. Subjects that were normally not discussed were getting the spotlight and some taboos were getting dispelled. It started to feel as if we were making some progress. YouTube Then another paradigm shift started to happen, the transition from Web2 to Web3. During the Web2 boom, people were able to connect, but there was always a middle person, someone taking a cut from advertising, aggregating information on their users and the connection between people started to feel not as authentic. In comes Web3 and we are starting to experience a peer-to-peer economy. Artists of all styles and backgrounds can now sell their art direct to consumers. The NFT space in particular became quite the hot commodity. Did it seem like during the transition from Web2 to Web3 that women got lost in the mix? There has been a barrier for a long time in the world of tech between men and women, as in some other industries. But the Crypto Bro Culture is strong. Is it because they got here first and is this a barrier that can be broken? By the numbers It is not just the digital art world. A data analysis of major US art museums found that their collections were . This is an age-old art form too. 87% male There's an apparent gender gap between the number of men compared to the number of women in crypto. Male creators represent of NFT art sales, while only 5% go to women creators. 77% “The study, conducted by a research agency called and reported by , claims at least 77% of the money generated by NFT art sales over the past 21 months went to male artists, with just 5% going to female artists. “ Art Tactic Bloomberg Despite the metaverse being touted as an inclusive and diverse space, the NFT market has been dominated by the likes of the US artist (aka Mike Winkelman), and Canadian-born (the trio take the top three spots). Beeple Pak Mad Dog Jones While Pak’s nationality, gender and age remain undisclosed, the only known woman to make it into the top ten NFT artists is the musician , whose sales total $8.9m to date, compared with Winkelman’s $50.8m. Overall, male artists account for 77% of all primary and secondary sales, at $258.3m. Grimes The highest selling woman artist in NFTs is currently aka Itzel Yard. Whose work “Dreaming at Dusk” sold for 500 ETH or ~ $2 million. The most well-known female NFT artist must be of . Her work, Woman #5672, went for £567,000 at London Evening Sale IX Shells Yam Karkai World of Women Christie’s earlier this year. Women account for just , according to a report published by the research firm , which based its findings on primary and secondary market sales on over the past couple of years. 16% of the NFT art market ArtTactic Nifty Gateway In 32 countries across the world, including India, Egypt and Nigeria, to the internet. In those countries, a third of women were connected to the internet compared with almost half of men. The digital gender gap has barely improved since 2011, dropping just half a percentage point from 30.9% to 30.4%. Globally, men are 21% more likely to be online than women, rising to 52% in the least developed countries, according to a conducted by the in 2021. men are 50% more likely to have access report World Wide Web Foundation Women in certain parts of the world have a hard time getting internet access, which is a problem if you have dreams of making a career online, where there are plenty of opportunities. New opportunities are popping up left and right in the digital world and gasoline has been poured on that fire since the introduction of crypto and especially lately, NFTs. A space filled with mostly men, but is that tide shifting? Ever heard of Seneca? Many may not know by name, but they do know some of her work. A project that took the NFT world by storm was named . The Bored Ape Yacht Club has almost become a household name, especially for those who are NFT savvy. Seneca Bored Ape Yacht Club Seneca does not get a lot of press. In a from January of this year Rolling Stone To be clear, Seneca was not the project’s sole illustrator. “I am the lead artist behind the original collection,” she says. The ape body itself, she adds, is “exactly line-for-line” her drawing. Other production artists — “ , Migwashere, and a couple who chose to remain anonymous,” according to Gargamel — handled the traits and environment. However, she points out, she did develop some of the major traits, like the grinning mouth, the popping eyes, and the beanie. Thomas Dagley “ Not of ton of people know that I did these drawings, which is terrible for an artist,” she says. Word of mouth has been growing, though, and she hopes that will help her find more collaborations. While she’s not able to discuss financial specifics, her compensation, she says, “was definitely not ideal.” However, she insists, she’s grateful for the experience and the entryway to a realm she can no longer imagine living without. In the meantime, she’s focusing on her solo work. In December, Seneca dropped her debut series of NFTs under her own name as part of a collection called Iconoclast at Miami’s Art Basel. She is currently working on follow up series. Women NFT Projects making a mark The world of NFTs took off last year and it did not take too long for women to make their mark in the space. Some of these projects have a big following among female celebrities, most of them are about more than just art, they are about female empowerment, encouraging diversity, education, taking on charitable causes and making a difference in society. It is refreshing to see a movement in the NFT space that aspires to inspire. Here are some of the top projects and collections: World of Women ’s 2022 collection earned Yam Karkai USD 40 million within two weeks of its release. Back in mid-October, became the first from Hollywood to change her Twitter to a blonde-haired, blue-skinned WoW avatar, but the stampede arrived in January. WoW Reese Witherspoon profile picture In the first few days of the new year, both and purchased and paraded their shiny new NFTs; so did beauty influencer and entrepreneur , who has 50 million followers just , where her profile picture is a WoW avatar. Shonda Rhimes Eva Longoria Huda Kattan on Instagram WoW has also been doing monthly “ArtDrops” - airdropping pieces by lesser-known, emerging crypto artists from around the world, many of whom are women, into members’ virtual wallets. The goal, presumably, is to get closer and closer to flooding the playing field with fresh faces, one drop at a time. World of Women is not only making good use of utility NFTs and minting high end NFTs, they are getting behind some good causes as well. These include: She’s the first: an organization that supports local solutions to educate and empower girls across 26 countries. Code to inspire: a coding school for women in Afghanistan. : supports women victims of domestic abuse. La maison des femmes Women Rise The NFT collection was created by the 26-year-old artist, author, and activist who has been focusing on social justice, women's rights, gender equality, and girls' education. @Maliha_z_art Known as the ‘NFT Queen’ in the crypto space, is a global artist, activist, author and NFT creator. She believes the NFT industry will give artists a new space to showcase their collections. She is determined to bring over 100,000 girls and women to the NFT world by the end of 2022. Mahila Abidi Boss Beauties Lisa Mayer, the founder and CEO of said she is using her business selling NFTs as a vehicle to empower young women. The motto and inspiration behind this trending NFT project is, "A woman can be anything she wants." Boss Beauties Associated with , a charitable foundation that has been funding internships and scholarships for women and building a community of Gen Z change-makers for the past decade, Boss Beauties is the epitome of female empowerment in the NFT space. Sold out in just an hour, Boss Beauties also became the inaugural NFT collection to be featured in the New York Stock Exchange. My Social Canvas Remarkable Women NFT collection by is a celebration and ode to all women inspired by the perspectives of fashion, feminism, and cultural diversity. The collection showcases powerful messages of hope, inspiration, and affirmation in 15 languages. The Remarkable Women Rachel Winter Guided by a deep sense of purpose and meaning, Remarkable Women’s mission is to uplift and empower women by focusing on inclusion and representation. 10% of their first drop proceeds (about $50,000) were dedicated to their strategic partner the Fund for Women’s Equality. 10% of all secondary sales will be put into the Remarkable Women’s Impact Fund with proceeds decided and voted upon by their community members towards causes dedicated to women, justice, equality, and inclusion globally. Crypto Chicks Through her human-inspired NFT art, Ms Polly looks forward to encouraging gender and beauty diversity in the real and virtual worlds. Through ’s Women Artist Fund, they dedicate a minimum 5 ETH each quarter to buy unique pieces from up and coming talent. They showcase their art and stories within the community and through their public, media channels, along with raffling the pieces to community members. They also have a launchpad for women designers, creatives, and small retail businesses to develop the skill sets necessary to thrive in the web3 ecosystem and up level their businesses. Crypto Chick Women and Weapons NFT collection that features in the list includes 10,000 diverse, beautiful, and badass women NFTs by artist . The powerful art collection was first released in 2021. The was to speak to the dialectic nature between a weapon's power versus a woman's power and the femininity of a woman versus the “masculinity” of a weapon and create a conversation. If this image makes you uncomfortable, why does it make you uncomfortable? But James Bond holding the weapon doesn't? The weapons symbolize the in their day-to-day. Sara Baumann main purpose weapons that women carry Sara aims to make a difference in society and raise money for charity. She commits to donating 5 percent of the profits to Malala Fund Charity.** Sad Girls Bar “I think it takes courage to show that you’re vulnerable. It is really about the willingness to truly be ourselves. And especially in web3 people shouldn’t be afraid to express how they really feel.” - Glam Beckett Tweet 4/21/22 Proceed of sales supports “Women Side by Side” — a program of peer support for women delivered by Mind and Agenda, the alliance for women and girls at risk. We take emotions seriously and sometimes being sad or upset is OK, but conditions after emotional burnouts, self-harm episodes, or suicide thoughts often need a helping hand, support, and all attention. Flower Girls The Flower Girls counts Reese Witherspoon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Eva Longoria, Brie Larson, America Ferrera, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jimmy Connors, Brooklyn Beckham and President as collectors and community members. TIME Keith Grossman The Flower Girls has passed $15 million in sales. The project donated 20% of primary and secondary sales to children’s charities and 5% of primary and secondary sales to collect children’s NFT art. The project donated over $400,000 to children’s charities in February. Long Neck Ladies The founder, leader, and artist of this NFT project is an inspirational 13-year-old girl named , who started drawing at age four and created her first NFT at the age of nine. Nyla Hayes Last year Nyla created in the style of Long Neckie Ladies and is based on franchise. 1000 unique pieces TIME’s Women of the Year The 100 women featured in this drop include: Coco Chanel, Amelia Earhart, Anna May Wong, Eva Perón, Frida Kahlo, Billie Holiday, China Machado, Dolores Huerta, Gloria Steinem, Indira Gandhi, Tu Youyou, Diana, Princess of Wales, Madonna, Toni Morrison, Michelle Obama, Malala Yousafzai, Pussy Riot, and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. You can find the full list of women featured . here A couple of female-led projects making moves recently: My BFF It is a new community entirely for women and non-binary people who want to get the NFT or cryptocurrency basics right. MyBFF is a learning-based initiative that also offers the latest industry news and reward systems for participation. There are many celebrities and artists who are a part of the founding team, such as Mila Kunis, Tyra Banks and Gwyneth Paltrow. __ __is co-founded by Brit Morin and Jaime Schmidt. Even key VC investors such as Katie Stanton, founder and general partner at , and Sarah Guo, venture capitalist and company-builder at , are a part of the collaboration. MyBFF Moxxie Ventures Greylock GroupHug Founded by , Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, is ‘a creator accelerator that offers funding and mentorship’ from her and other technology and art industry leaders. Randi Zuckerberg GroupHug GroupHug also promotes brand partnerships and gives PR exposure and institutional fundraising training among other things. HUG's mission of supporting diverse creators. Artist-in-residence program, each of our 1/1 artists are funded with a 4-5 digit grant to support their efforts in taking their artistic pursuit to the next level. They have a no-code database of over 300 projects and artists, with an emphasis on women and diverse creators/founders. GroupHug allows users to search and filter projects by founder attributes (Asian-founded, LBGTQIA-founded, etc) as well as mission/cause. They are looking to help women-led projects or startups with at least one female artist or co-founder. Their Hug Hub allows for creators to find other creators to collaborate with and get discovered by collectors looking for projects or art like yours. Six Degrees of Gary Vanyerchuck Anybody who is in the NFT Space knows who Gary Vee is, Chances are that you may have found out about NFTs from Gary Vayerchuck’s new life mission. He is all-in with NFTs and loves to give back to the community as well as other creators. A number of popular female artists got their break due to Gary Vee. Gary is very supportive of a lot of women getting into Web 3, educating them, making sure that they have the opportunity to have high visibility roles. One needs not to look too far from Gary to see this impact he has had not only in his buying power, but hiring practices. has a woman President in , who has had a successful track record already in the space and Gary could not have chosen a better person for a leadership position. Vayner NFT Avery Akkineni Speaking of buying power and the influence it can have on the buying habits of others in the space. World of Women's first collection sold out in a day after Gary Vaynerchuk promoted the NFTs. Gary Vee liked the concept of Women Rise so much, that he minted 10 NFTs at once, the max allowed per wallet. Women Rise Sara Baumann got her first big break with her Women and Weapons collection. Can you guess who was there to buy the first 3 pieces? Yep, Gary Vee. The rest of her , 10 paintings of women carrying weapons ranging from grenades to flamethrowers, then sold out in 45 seconds. genesis NFT collection Rebels with a Cause While there are some charitable causes in the crypto and NFT Space, women-led NFT projects set a great example with reaching out to help others. Some of the causes were mentioned along with the above projects, it is important to highlight some of the other change-makers. has proceeds earmarked for global causes such as women’s justice, equality, and inclusion, with this “remarkable” difference: It isn’t a board of supervisors that decide where the money goes and who it will impact. Its decides and votes. Remarkable Women’s Impact Fund community When you purchase an , is you gain all-inclusive access to a mental health app curated by the Alpha Girl Club Team. Some features of the mental health app will include their daily check-in system, access to mental health experts, exclusive content that will help you get through your day, and much more. Alpha Girls Club NFT partnered with to present a Artists Who Code exhibition which features NFT art by female and non-binary artists, thus popularizing female and non-binary role models in the space. Another important initiative to follow up on this exposure is to focus on the recruitment of women and other underrepresented groups in the NFT and tech industry, something most female-led collections like, for example, CryptoChicks have openly stated doing in their hiring philosophy.** ** Vellum LA Artsy Not a Conclusion, rather a  beginning... Web3 is allowing for a peer-to-peer economy and marketplace. The NFT art world took off like a rocket last year and for some it is about more than collecting and flipping NFTs, status symbol profile pics or just having too much crypto to spend. It is refreshing to see a movement with a cause, as opposed to ego-gloating personal finance and status. The utility NFT movement is gaining steam. Access to real life events, various resources, future collections, collaborate with like minded artists and also get behind common causes. The winds of change are here, the more that get in early and get involved in this young space of unlimited possibilities have a chance to build not only their own future of dreams, but to help others achieve the same. Women are making their mark in the NFT Space and allowing opportunities for other women to aspire to inspire. It is truly remarkable to see the creative power of women working together to build a better future together. Cover Image: Women and Weapons #0010 by Sara Baumann

Getting Past the Bro Barrier in the NFT Industry

The market of frontend developers is booming, and you surely know the main spots and platforms where to learn how to code, where to learn new frameworks and languages; how to fix simple bugs and errors, how to maintain and keep sites up-to-date, and so on and so forth. But nobody will take your hand and lead you through the whole process of web development. This process should be much slower and more painful, without a good foundation and study platform with solid structures, consistently shown and regularly updated material. The whole path may become significantly easier if you divide it up, and don’t try to take it hurriedly, in one go. Here you will see thoroughly curated platforms with up-to-date React tutorials from the web world. We’ve gathered a list of popular resources, how-to guidelines, articles, YouTube channels with really useful info presented by top-notch experts from the world of web development, as the best way to learn React. As a rule, they entail covering HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript basic concepts which are bootstrap conquering React fundamentals, and other instruments for building interactive web interfaces. Probably, you have come across questions like is react hard to learn, or what is the best way to learn React. But there is no best way to learn React once and for all because everything takes time and effort. And you need to be flexible and update your knowledge from time to time to stay competitive in the business world. The Best React Courses and Popular Platforms to Learn React 1. Codecademy Website: https://www.codecademy.com/ Learn React with Codeacademy! The course gives a strong understanding of the most important React concepts: JSX, class and function components, lifecycle methods, props, and hooks, etc. ● 20 Hours ● For those who already know the basics of Javascript and HTML 2. Udemy Website: www.udemy.com Udemy needs no introduction. This is an American online platform, a huge marketplace with over 155000 courses and an organic traffic of more than 10 million monthly. React – The Complete is a top-rated course that became a bestseller among students of Udemy. Guide ● 20 Hours ● All levels ● Price: $89.99 3. Coursera Website: https://www.coursera.org/ I would bet $100 you’ve already surfed this platform. Coursera offers tons of courses for all-level developers including absolute zeros in web development. Right off bat, check this from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. At Coursera, you can start your 7-day free trial, and keep on learning for per month after your trial period. full-stack web-development course with React specialization $49 4. Code with Mosh Website: http://codewithmosh.com Moshfegh Hamedani is an inspired software developer with an audience of almost 2 million on and 20 courses on . He has 20 years of experience and is still teaching React and other popular libraries, frameworks and programming languages on his own platfrom for mastering coding. YouTube Udemi ● 13 Hours ● All levels ● Price: all-access membership $29 5. Scrimba Website: Bob Ziroll offers you the chance to learn React absolutely for free. This course contains 59 interactive screencasts and other really engaging material to learn React. Scrimba is all about avid learning, creating cool stuff, and helping others achieve their career goals. Scrimba will motivate you to become a developer in the shortest time possible, and it has all necessary resources inside. The platform has also an advanced course called . https://scrimba.com/ React Bootcamp for experienced developers ● Level: Advanced ● Price: $124/Year 6. Edx Website: World-leading universities like MIT or Harvard offer their t programs and courses. For instance, Developing Cloud Applications with Node.js and React will tell yout how to create a server-side app and deploy it on Cloud. https://www.edx.org/ ● ±5 weeks ● All levels ● Price: free 7. Freecodecamp Website: https://www.freecodecamp.org This is a really big community with its own tech-focused and a dozen of tutorials to learn . Just randomly dive into this list of free 7-hour React course by Beau Carnes. No worries about how to find the info, all the data is well organized by subsections. forum React js ● All levels ● Price: free 8. W3schools Website: W3school is a comprehensive platform with piles of useful info. It offers a range of open-source tutorials, references, and exercises for developers. https://www.w3schools.com ● All levels ● Price: free 9. Careerkarma Website: https://careerkarma.com/ Software engineering is not just a random collocation, here is a comprehensive guide from a self-taught programmer with really deep knowledge of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, and Python. Click learn more to know how to learn React, how to start coding, and how to develop your skills. ● All levels ● Price: free 10. Developer.Mozilla: Getting started with React Website: Explore more about Mozilla references and guides. There is a good background and use cases, a basic React toolchain setting up process, and everything about how to create a simple starter app. Highly recommended site! https://developer.mozilla.org/ ● All levels ● Price: free 11. Javatpoint Website: https://www.javatpoint.com/ One more site that explains all the well-known principles of ReactJS. Currently, it has a strong foundation and a large community as well on its site and on . YouTube 12. Ibaslogic Website: If you don’t know where to start your journey as a front-end developer, read this open-source React tutorial for beginners made by Ibas Majid, a self-taught . https://ibaslogic.com/ web developer ● 22 minutes ● Beginners 13. Reactforbeginners – React JS Crash Course Website: https://reactforbeginners.com/ This platform aims to position itself as a premium step-by-step training course to plunge you into the real world of React + Firebase apps and website components. The course is taught by Wes Bos, a Full Stack Developer, and experienced tutor from Canada. ● 5 hours ● Beginners ● $82 14. Traversy Media Website: https://www.traversymedia.com/ One more online platform for developers to and its frameworks is Traversy Media. There are well-known programming tutorials for all of the latest web technologies starting from the building blocks of HTML. Check their updated in 2021 to understand the core things . learn JavaScript Reactjs Crash course about React library – Free Online React Courses 15. Class Central Website: / https://www.classcentral.com Full learning courses from the leading universities, like The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Filter out the courses by language, by duration, by level, with/or without a certificate. Read out reviews to decide which React course is the right fit for you. 16. Web Dev Simplified Website: https://courses.webdevsimplified.com/ An awesome source of tutorials for self-studying developers. simplified has a very informative . offers to get the gist of React in and build your first project quicker. Web dev YouTube channel Learn React today course less than a day ● 23 lectures ● $60 17. Solo Learn Website: https://www.sololearn.com/ The main concepts from the world coder community. Build powerful interactive user interfaces with React library trusted by devs from Facebook and Uber. The platform has various courses, code playground, blog, and a general audience of more than 200k visitors a month. 🍅 18. Ihatetomatoes Petr Tichy, an Australian Front End Developer, tells about React Hooks API, how to use Fetch API to load data, how to render a dynamic dropdown in your React app, and many other essential questions. Here you’ll also find the Ihatetomatoes YouTube channel. 19. Visualstudio code Website: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/nodejs/reactjs-tutorial has a step-by-step guide on how to create a React app with create-react-app . It is the ultimate place to see all the peculiarities of React, and improve your coding skills. Visualstudio code generator 20. Tutorialspoint Website: tutorialspoint.com/ Online education is the best way to gain new skills faster. Tutorialspoint offers multi languages tutorials, ebooks, prime packs and more. Check out the features, advantages, and limitations of the course. Create React App step by step with Tutorialspoint quick guide 21. Harry Wolf Website: https://www.youtube.com/c/hswolff/videos Harry Wolf shares his in-depth experience and personal opinion for JavaScript, its tricks, and many more useful things related to programming. He is a brilliant tutor who explains everything in detail and gives his personal view on many different aspects of programming. Learn more 22. PedroTech Website: Pedro Machado offers a wide range of videos about Web Development! ReactJS, , MySQL, Express, MongoDB, and much more! Reactjs beginner course is also available. https://www.youtube.com/c/PedroTechnologies NodeJS 23. The Net Ninja Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW5YeuERMmlnqo4oq8vwUpg Just a golden channel with more than 1000 programming tutorials about JavaScript, React, , Laravel, Firebase, etc. It’s a must to check it out and find your best video to learn Reactjs together with other 778K of subcribers. Vue 24. React Casts Website: https://www.youtube.com/c/reactcasts Here is a channel with short React screencasts containing tips, tricks, and tutorials. Yes, it’s relatively new, but still informative and a good option to learn to code in React with the help of short-format content. 25. Anthony Sistilli Website: https://www.youtube.com/c/anthonysistilli Here you will find 20-minute React tutorials on different aspects of React: React props, React Router basics, conditional rendering, and other essential things important for a front-end developer. 26. Chris Hawkes Website: Chris Hawks offers an opportunity of React advanced crash course as the best way to learn React. The author has an online platform with and a tutorial for . More videos can be found on his . https://www.codehawke.com/ React course for beginners advanced React coders YouTube channel 27. Codevolution Website: https://learn.codevolution.dev/ Codevolution is a popular source of tutorials on the latest tech in web development! Here you can follow the trends in programming and find out . what’s new in React 18 28. Academind Website: https://academind.com/ Max and Manuel offer you the chance to start .js and how to build amazing websites just for free! These guys share their wide expertise in the form of tutorials , and in the form of video courses on YouTube. The channel has more than 708k subscribers! We also recommend taking a premium course on . learning React here NextJS & React – The Complete Guide ● for a single course license 24 hours ● All levels ● Price: $39 30.  Dev Ed Website: Really creative channel to be guided through React and other development tools. Here you will find tutorials on web development, UI instruments, and other tools for web and . And 706k subscribers only prove that this chap from Romania makes superb educational content. https://www.youtube.com/c/DevEd mobile app development Also published on FlatLogic . Read 1,463 free React stories on HackerNoon!

Top 30 Free and Paid Courses and Tutorials to Learn React in 2021 

The first version of by in . ARTH was launched MahaDAO January 2021 What is MahaDAO? MahaDAO is a community-focused decentralized organization launching the world's first value coin, ARTH, dedicated to solving inflation problems and bringing stability to the economy. The Protocol employs a two-token system. The first being, ARTH a new type of currency designed to not be pegged to government-owned currencies (like US Dollar, Euro, or Chinese Yuan), but still remain relatively stable (unlike Gold and Bitcoin). Without being influenced by government-owned currencies, ARTH is backed by GMU(Global measurement Unit) and the Second token is governance token MAHA. Overview Since the team launched the first version of ARTH in January 2021 the team tried and tested different types of models to build a stable value coin until June 2021, whether it is a fully collateral-backed model, elastic supply model, Seigniorage Share model, or partial collateral model. The team tested all and finally got stability. It was founded after which we can scale it through different products. here I remember a line by Paul Graham "In order to scale, you have to first do things that don't scale at all". In this article, I will explain my experiences and journey of building a platform to scale the ARTH. "In order to scale, you have to first do things that don't scale at all" What's next? After getting stability, the core strategy was to build a platform that can scale the ARTH ecosystem for larger adoption. That's where the ARTH Loan came into the picture. A product like this had always been a part of MahaDAO's long-term plan. A product where users can take the most advantage through value coin without worrying about volatility so building ARTH Loan from which users can take a loan with zero interest and generate ARTH with leveraged position would be the right and perfect opportunity to grow market cap and users. Product Vision I was the sole designer to work on an end-to-end process to design a cross-platform experience, a design system that allows us not only to design and build things more efficiently but also helps evolve the product faster multiple times a year. My Role and Responsibilities - 0% interest loan platform that will use ARTH value coin as its primary asset to transact loans. Borrowers can take leverage and extract loans by collateralizing 110% of their crypto assets. - Users can redeem ARTH using different collaterals. - Users can put different LP tokens to earn reward MAHA & ARTH - It's a one-stop place to analyze protocol. apart from token stats, there are graphs to analyze ARTH loan stats, Revenue, and ARTH utilization. Use-cases that we were focusing on after getting ARTH stability: 1. ARTH Loan 2. Redeem 3. Farming 4. Analytics What is the end goal? This project aimed to ship the entire product experience on the web and mobile. While testing ARTH for stability and different launches earlier, we found out that a decent number of users were coming from mobile devices also. So, the product should be fully responsive and consistent across all the devices. As the ecosystem was growing, it was clear that major product design changes needed to happen to give simplicity. ARTH's design needs to scale. The tricky constraint here was to move fast to build since we decided to launch ARTH Loans within 5 weeks after coming up with the idea. Designing complex product can be difficult but by dividing it into important user experiences, you can make it approachable and double. Background In January, I worked on the Vault app which was the first version for ARTH adoption. we aimed to scale the adoption of ARTH through Vaults. In Vaults, people can put collateral and generate ARTH. Their locked collateral will also generate some interest in the vault. but we stopped working on this product without launch and focused on testing value coins to stabilize ARTH with different models. Approach and behind the process Product vision was set, now it was time for action. From early launches of testing ARTH for stability and testing with the public community and tester groups, our intention for the next product was to have a consistent experience across web and mobile devices. The process began by sketching out the user flows, considering all the design use cases, and progressed to iterating on Figma prototypes. I explored a lot of different flows and design use cases, after few rounds of iteration and feedback from a team I had a solid base of user flows to work from. Below, I have put images of a few user flows, early research, and visual iterations to show the process. Apart from these, there were lots of papers which I haven't put here. Early iterations and flows A glimpse of the early version of ARTH before getting stability Early Exploration As I was the first designer of MahaDAO, from the start I considered working on building a scalable design system from the ground up which can be useful to build products as it scales and keep the entire product ecosystem consistent on a multitude of platforms and devices even with multiple introductions of new features. It truly helped to reduce the time to build and design multiple products by using existing design patterns. For the building design system, I approached the Atomic Design methodology. as the different products grew at a scale I added more patterns to make evolving system. I added these patterns to create a component library which I referred to throughout the design process. Making a whole design system from scratch was challenging considering time constraints but while iterating on designs it helped to increase productivity and I was able to focus more on solving design problems to experiment with more ideas faster. "A Design System isn't a Project. It's a Product, Serving Products. " - Nathan Curtis Rethinking primary navigation As a part of product design scaling, navigation was a major redesign. In a previous version of ARTH, I went with the top navigation and it worked well when there were not too many navigation items. but as our product became more sophisticated I have to rethink navigation and after a few iteration and testing, I decided to go with side navigation to simplify the experience. By using side navigation I was able to show at least double the number of navigation links. This also means it is much easier to add more items as your product grows and keep the navigation view consistent across all the screen sizes. Overview and new loan The overview page is where users can see their loan and protocol loans and major data at glance, there are 3 sections to see what's happening with loan protocol at glance. There are two major data points that need to be displayed on the overview page: Total locked value in protocol and total ARTH debt of protocol. Users should be able to see their loan information at glance instead of opening individual tabs to see information and the third section is the all loan section where users can see all loans of users from protocol. In the third section, if there is any user whose loan's collateral ratio comes down to below 110% then any user can liquidate that loan. I starting there are four collateral available like ETH, MATIC, DAI, WBTC from which users can open loans per collateral. while opening the loan they can also select leverage to open a loan with the leveraged position. Modify Loan Modify loans was quite complicated where there are different functions like add or remove collateral from loans or pay part of the debt and generate more ARTH for loans. so I created two tabs for updating collateral or tabs for categorizing selection. Close Loan With enough ARTH, users can close their loan and if users don't have a collaterals ratio above 110% then the user's loan will be liquidated and collateral will be distributed to Stability Pool as a reward to Stability Providers. Stability Pool As a secondary measure to avoid the protocol going into extreme stress, the stability pool acts as a source of liquidity to repay debt from liquidated loans. It ensures that the total ARTH supply always remains backed by collateral. When a loan position is liquidated, an equivalent amount of ARTH corresponding to the remaining debt has to be burned from the Stability Pool's balance to repay its debt. In exchange, the entire collateral (committed by the borrower) is transferred to the Stability Pool as a reward to Stability Providers. The Stability Pool is funded by users transferring their ARTH into the pool. These are also known as pooled users or stability providers. Redeem From redeem, screen users can redeem ARTH by using different collaterals. Protocol Analytics The analytics page is a one-stop place to analyze all data of protocol. apart from token stats, there are graphs to analyze ARTH loan stats, Revenue, and ARTH utilization. Farming Farming is where users come to put their LP tokens from different third-party platforms and earn rewards. My goal was to make it simple so that users can see their locked amount and reward on the same screen and do all action also, instead of showing it on a different screen for a particular farming pool. Fees generated through the protocol in various ways are shared with stakers participating in these farming pools. Here I have only discussed ARTH Loan, Redeem, Analytics and Farming. Apart from these, there were other design use cases also like transaction feedback, transaction notifications, Connect wallet, user wallet which I haven't discuss here since they are easily understandable. Cross-platform experience As I discussed before, the Platform needs to have a consistent experience across different platforms and we can't compromise with user experience. so I keep that in mind and made it possible. below I have put a few of the screens to show responsive design. The Path Forward ARTH Loan is just beginning for ARTH adoption. MahaDAO will launch a Lending and borrowing platform soon which I already started to work on. Secondly, to grow the ARTH ecosystem even further MahaDAO incubated Scallop which is the world's first DeFi enabled neo-bank that uses blockchain to create a secure and safe bridge between traditional and decentralized finance. It provides a wide range of traditional banking services powered by DeFi and blockchain technology. The scallop is expected to launch its full suite of products in September 2021 in the EU and UK for 747m potential users and expand to Asia next year. Learning from building ARTH Experience of building products in the crypto space was something new and challenging to me as it's still evolving space and we are seeing new innovations every day. While doing these I faced a steep learning curve, I continuously tried and dive deep into different crypto products to learn about DeFi space more every day. From the product side, there were times where I have to change a whole product from scratch because the protocol that we tried was not working as we intended. but through this experience, the biggest learning was to building, test, and scaling ideas in the blockchain space. Sometimes, users do not have the time and patience for you to come through, which is why it's crucial to never stop learning, building, and shipping. Always make sure you deliver what you promised first and then move forward to make it the best. On an ending note, I would say building products in the crypto space can be crazy because crypto space moves too fast so you have to keep up with the pace. It's a perfect time to be working on decentralized finance and blockchain, and I'm humbled to work on design efforts as we enter the next era of Web 3.0. Learning to find your own process and thinking is challenging but if you got somebody with great experience and mindset it really helps you. Thanks to who helped whenever needed throughout the journey to make this process existing while building all the products to make important product decisions and also ingrain a habit in me to observe ask as many as "whys" for every decision whether it's from a design, product, or business perspective. I really appreciate his support to bring the best out of me. I tried to cover all the important details here. there is more to talk about but that's for another article. Thank you for reading this far. ♥️ Dalpat Prajapati Are you working on blockchain or Defi Project? Let's connect. I'm available on , , Twitter Linkedin Instagram This article was . first published here

How ARTH Stablecoin Was Built and Designed to Protect The User's Purchasing Power

There is one universal truth in the crypto space - whoever gets in early, wins! Crypto aggregators list projects when they get significant amounts of traction. Discovering and identifying projects when they are at an early stage is very difficult. Missing out on those projects means you're leaving out massive returns on the table. Is there a platform or an aggregator to discover early-stage crypto projects before they get to the mainstream? Absolutely, and we call them Crypto Launchpads. Think of these platforms as AngelList crypto. Crypto launchpads have been gaining tremendous amounts of attention. They allow you to identify early-stage crypto projects and participate in their presale rounds. They also have a vetting process in place to avoid scams and rug-pulls, so you can invest with peace of mind without worrying about losing your hard-earned money. In this guide, we will be discussing some of the most popular crypto launchpads that are available today. Let's dig in! Check out this video on Cryptocurrency below. Binance Launchpad Binance is the leading cryptocurrency exchange and fastest-growing trading platform based on trading volumes. Launched in 2017, Binance, as a platform, has not limited itself to just being a cryptocurrency exchange. Instead, it has expanded into a complete ecosystem for all kinds of crypto services as it establishes a strong foothold in the fastest-growing sector. The platform is lauded for its contributions to the DeFi industry and crypto ecosystem through its native token launch platform, . Binance Launchpad functions as a token launch platform that facilitates early-stage crypto projects to raise funds using IEOs. Binance Launchpad Binance Launchpad is known as the first successful example of a crypto launchpad. With numerous successful projects under its belt, Binance has raised millions of dollars for upcoming and promising projects such as BitTorrent, Injective Protocol, and PancakeSwap. Projects powered by the Binance Launchpads have seen significant growth in their numbers, reach, and success because the platform offers their IEO tokens to the 13 million active users on Binance exchange. Binance Launchpad isn’t just a platform for putting up tokens for sales; instead, it also serves as an advisory service for upcoming projects. Binance helps streamline, motivate, and mentor upcoming crypto projects with their experience and insights. Binance ensures the projects can access the best mentorship and marketing services so they can focus on the most critical developmental and technological aspects of the project. Note that projects listed on Binance Launchpad aren’t just your usual projects. These projects are survivors of Binance’s rigorous review and verification processes, where Binance determines if the project is up to its standards. Some of the factors that Binance factors in for the upcoming projects include: Promising project development roadmap Potential for large-scale adoption A dedicated and experienced team Ability to benefit the expansion of a broader crypto ecosystem Once projects go through a selection process, they get featured on the Binance Launchpad to over 13 million active users on Binance who may be interested in participating and investing in the project’s token offerings. Moreover, before investing in any project, users can do their own research via the platform’s research portal, , where they can find all the key details of the project like: Binance Research Project metrics The team behind it Tokenomics Overview and use-cases Roadmap, updates, and business development Updated development progress Activity and a community overview Community and social channels All users have to do is complete their Binance verification processes. Binance ensures that tokens are sold in compliance with regulatory requirements. Red Kite A promising new entrant to the launchpad space, Red Kite is a platform where they launch hand-picked projects and allow investors to participate in a transparent and assured token sale process. There are two main reasons why promising crypto projects can't raise enough capital, i.e., poor marketing and investor's fear of scams. Americans have lost a little over $80 million in crypto scams since October 2020, a 1,000% increase from 2019. If we look at the other side of the picture, promising crypto projects can't be discovered by retail investors, which is a big reason why they end up investing in rug-pulls or exit scams because they had better marketing and discovery. Unlike other crypto launchpads, the Red Kite launchpad aims to solve these problems with its unique approach for investors and those crypto projects that are struggling to raise capital. RedKite is backed by the community, influencers, and marketing partners to help your project get in front of the investors. For crypto projects - All the crypto projects on the Red Kite launchpad are hand-picked, and they go through a very rigorous vetting process to enhance investors' confidence and protect their interests. For investors - Red Kite aims to become a safer platform where investors can select the hand-picked and vetted projects without worrying about a rug pull or an exit scam. This doesn't end here; Red Kite launchpad offers distinctive features that differentiate it from the rest of the ecosystem players. Red Kite supports both Ethereum and BSC pools out of the box. It will soon support Polkadot and become the first launchpad on the Polkadot network with flexible pool types and whitelist conditions. Multi-chain support - One of the biggest problems in any pre-sale round of a token is price manipulation. Red Kite launchpad has a tier-based reputation system that monitors each participant's behavior and assigns reputation points. Any malicious activity will affect the participant's reputation and his ability to participate in the subsequent launches. Tier and Reputation - If you have participated in an ERC-20 token pre-sale, you might have heard the term 'gas war,' where participants bid higher gas prices to discourage small investors from participating in the pre-sale. Red Kite launchpad has implemented a that allows each participant to get an opportunity to join based on their tier. Fairness - lane-based swap system Unlike other launchpads, Red Kite launchpad has a distribution portal that will allow projects to vest their tokens in pre-sale or post-sale secondary offerings. Integrated vesting schedule - Red Kite launchpad will fully support crowdloan campaigns to secure parachain slots on Kusama and Polkadot. Projects will be able to collect DOT or KSM tokens to win the parachain auction. Parachain Crowdloan - Red Kite is part of the PolkaFoundry ecosystem and supports the platform's native PKF token as a utility token. Investors have to hold PKF tokens to participate in the token sale rounds on the Red Kite launchpad. Red Kite launchpad now fully supports Coinbase Wallet and BSC Wallet and has integrated Blockpass to secure the KYC process. This is just the beginning for Red Kite, and it aims to evolve from just being a launchpad to offer a full suite of DeFi services in the future. TrustSwap TrustSwap is often lauded to bring the evolution of Defi transactions as it solves major issues with subscriptions, split payments, and cross-chain token swaps. TrustSwap initially emerged as a trustless P2P escrow service that expanded its vision to incorporate some of the most revolutionary services in the blockchain into the DeFi ecosystem through smart contracts. TrustSwap aims to promote the mass adoption of DeFi products by introducing Decentralized Subscription and payment models, cross-chain and multi-currency support, and trustless escrow and split payments through smart contracts. Moreover, TrustSwap continues to expand and contribute to the TrustSwap ecosystem by introducing its native project launchpad, called . The TrustSwap launchpad is a full-service launchpad for emerging crypto projects that want to utilize the security, trustless-ness, and sustainability. TrustSwap Launchpad TrustSwap has engineered a committed community around its ecosystem. It allows users to stake a minimum of 4,000 SWAP tokens, the platform’s native token, to gain early access to promising crypto projects. Trust Swap aims to mitigate immediate sell-offs and rug-pulls after token launches through its token lock-up mechanism called the . The SmartLaunch toolkit is a customizable, full-audited service that locks up tokens for the team, developers, and early adopters until a certain development milestone or waiting period is achieved. SmartLaunch toolkit The SmartLaunch system gives all parties, including investors and the team behind the project, a sense of security and confidence that nobody will put each other under the bus. Moreover, it holds the development team accountable to their community through its decentralized split payment and escrow service with respect to concrete achievements. Projects selected by Trust Swap gain access to an avenue of benefits such as large-scale publicity, trust from the community, marketing support, and visibility. Since its launch in September 2020, Trust Swap has raised over $20 million in funding for various emerging crypto projects. These projects include the likes of Chain Games, Glitch Finance, SOTA, and BitCashpay. Polkastarter Established in late 2020, Polkastarter is undoubtedly one of the more recent additions to the list. The Polkastarter platform has a lot of promise considering it attracted over 200,000 enthusiastic investors. Polkastarter is an upcoming decentralized exchange built on the Polkadot network for token pools and auctions. Polkastarter serves as a decentralized crowdfunding launchpad for early-stage crypto projects to raise capital, increase outreach, build a dedicated community, and gain access to the platform’s benefits. Polkastarter is established on highly interoperable Polkadot network. It is benefits from all the features of Polkadot, including the liquidity of Ethereum and other leading crypto projects. A lot of this platform’s potential attributes to its cross-chain development. The Polkastarter platform is designed to enable projects to launch their own interoperable token pools. Given that leading platforms such as Ethereum and Bitcoin still struggle with network congestion, the Polkadot ecosystem and the Polkastarter platform can be very rewarding and beneficial for upcoming projects. Polkastarter is developed with familiar auction systems such as sealed-bid auctions, dutch auctions, and dynamic and fixed ratio swap. Other features include password-protected private pools, whitelisting, smart contract token swaps, and price alerts, which helps Polkastarter stand out as a unique platform for upcoming projects. Moreover, the Polkastarter protocol is entirely decentralized. The platform is open-source and has a permission-less environment. This means that any developer can integrate Polkastarter’s core framework into their own project to create and hold fixed token auctions. Polkastarter also has a native utility token called the POLS token. Users can use the POLS tokens to pay for transaction fees and participate in the governance through . To promote a user-friendly and rewarding ecosystem, Polkastarter allows users to earn rewards by staking POLS tokens and gain early access to upcoming token pools through staking. Polkastarter Council for Governance However, note that users must provide liquidity before they can stake their POLS tokens and earn rewards. Polkastarter aspires to be the largest decentralized token launch pool and auction platform in the market; therefore, it aims to develop a tokenomics structure catered to handle a level of global volume by offering exclusive incentives and rewards to its users for providing liquidity to upcoming token pools. Polkastarter plans to reward liquidity providers in POLS tokens every week, relative to the percentage of the pool they have provided liquidity to. Note that the rewards will appear for 24 hours so users can claim their rewards. However, if users fail to collect their rewards within 24 hours, their rewards will be redistributed later. SpiderDAO, MahaDAO, Kambria, Fire Protocol, and Exceedme are some of the top-performing launchpad pools on Polkastarter. Interestingly, these token sales sold out in minutes. Unicrypt Unicrypt is another budding blockchain platform that aims to create the best possible environment for liquidity providers by emphasizing users’ trust. Similar to Polkastarter, Unicrypt was introduced to the crypto space in late 2020. Unicrypt envisioned launching an autonomous platform that would help emerging projects benefit from the exclusive features and a broader community. Through experiencing, observing, analyzing, and inclusively studying the hardships early-stage crypto projects face, Unicrypt found that most projects lack proper support, funding, and promotions. Therefore, Unicrypt plans to solve these issues by serving as a platform that enables any project to host a presale. Most centralized and decentralized exchanges hold rigorous verification processes that can be very hard to pass. Projects have to match several factors on various exchanges. These are not limited to but include project history, existence, potential in the crypto market, feasibility, possibility for adoption, post-launch analysis, and more. While these processes and thresholds may be necessary; however, they can be intimidating for younger projects. Launching on Unicrypt is relatively straightforward. For a project to list its token on Unicrypt, it has to launch its token and set a soft and hard cap. Furthermore, the project can later specify the rounds for its presale; note that the launchpad has a maximum of two rounds. After the project has launched its token and specified the rounds for its presale, it will specify the currency it prefers to raise with USDC, USDT, DAI, ETC, among several others. Note that the first round of the presale is exclusively available for Unicrypt’s native token holders: UNCX or UNCL. Typically these token pre-sales often end within minutes.  However, users must hold $500 of native tokens to participate. The second round is inclusive for anyone, although project teams can specify a whitelisted address list. Moreover, another important point to note is that projects launching their tokens must lock a minimum of 30% of the liquidity on Uniswap. However, it is advised that platforms lock more than the minimum requirement. Unlike other centralized or decentralized launchpads, Unicrypt offers an entirely autonomous option that emphasizes inclusivity, simplicity, and fairness and gives investors a platform to access exclusive and upcoming crypto projects. by DuckDAO DuckStarter DuckDAO is a one-of-a-kind incubator for digital assets backed by an enthusiastic community. The decentralized incubator allows upcoming projects to benefit from the community’s investment power and buzz-making potential to reach its maxim potential. DuckDAO plans to source and secure potentially lucrative investment opportunities for its community by democratizing the early-stage investment space in the crypto ecosystem. DuckDAO’s model is unique when it comes to launchpads. It serves as a decentralized venture capital investment platform, where users have to hold the platform’s , also known as DDIM, to gain access to upcoming and emerging projects. DuckDAODime By holding the platform’s native tokens, users can gain access to many exclusive communities, where they can benefit from the deals. Since DuckDAO is powered by its community, it allows anyone to invest in budding early-stage crypto projects and share a hand in its development by helping it with user acquisition and marketing processes. Moreover, DuckDAO aims to cultivate long-term partnerships with the projects it hosts on the platform. DuckDAO aims to work with its partnered projects from the beginning until they’re listed on an exchange. Projects can benefit from marketing, veteran advice, and various listing services that will surely help the project catalyze its growth and success. Additionally, DuckDAO also plans to assist hosted projects with various social media strategies, OTC sales, and community sales to ensure projects can establish a healthy and natural growth. However, note that for projects to be listed and hosted by DuckDAO, they have to go through the platform’s due diligence checks to ensure they meet their standards and stand an excellent chance of success with the community’s help. Besides DuckDAO, the platform is also home to a public token launchpad called the . DuckSTARTER seeks to act as the final step between upcoming crypto projects and the community before the project is publicly listed. Users can contribute to the project in either USDC or ETH, according to the project’s requirements. Moreover, DUCK token holders can also participate in the project’s token sales before it’s publicly listed. DuckSTARTER DuckSTARTER ensures all participants get an equal chance of success in acquiring an investment allocation. Announced this year, DuckSTARTER saw a lot of success. Interestingly, projects launched through the platform have seen impressive numbers, with projects such as Shadows generating a maximum return of 42.9x for participants. Currently, DuckStarter is based on the Ethereum blockchain; however, it plans to expand to the Polkadot ecosystem and benefit from faster and cheaper transactions in an interoperable environment. Wrapping Up Discovering and identifying promising early-stage projects in the crypto space is a big deal! The fact that investors lose hundreds of millions of dollars every year to scams is a clear indication that money is always there in the market, but it just flows in the wrong direction. Crypto launchpads are unique ecosystem players that bridge the gap between investors and promising early-stage crypto projects, bringing immense value to the overall crypto ecosystem. Happy investing! Over and out! Haroon

Top 6 Crypto Launchpads in 2021

Las 6 mejores plataformas de lanzamiento de criptomonedas en 2021

Initial DEX Offerings (IDOs) are the newest way for crypto projects to get their tokens out to the public. Participants who bought into IDO tokens have made an average of , and some are even far more. Crypto startups are stacking up to launch their IDOs on DEX platforms like , , , BSCPad and a few other leading platforms. In other words, the Cambrian explosion we see today in DeFi has birthed yet another newer way of crowdsourcing funds if your business model has a token as part of its offering. 2,036% gains Polkastarter DuckSTARTER SpacePort However, before the recent rising popularity of IDOs as a crypto crowdfunding model, there was ICO and later IEOs. Crypto projects rode these earlier fundraising vehicles to raise $13 billion and $1.7 billion for ICOs and IEOs, respectively. Before we look at the opportunities and promises the IDO model offers crypto startups bootstrapping their projects using that means or even how better a model the IDO is over ICOs and IEOs, let’s hobnob a bit down memory lane. Most ICOs were outright scams. A hefty sum of them was nothing but . As Satis Group LLC, a New York-based ICO advisory firm , 80 percent of ICOs were scams. Only around 8 percent of ICO projects went on to trade on the designated cryptocurrency exchanges most flagrantly displayed on their websites. Of these 8 percent that traded, 4.4 percent were classified as Dwindling, while 1.8 percent were labelled as Promising, and the rest 1.9 percent turned out to be Successful. Less than a 2 percent success rate? Another research by Ernst & Young found that 86% of leading ICOs launched in 2017 were below their listing price by October 2018. fugazis reported Agreed, the ICO story wasn’t particularly one with a happy ending. A lot of people were burnt. And following crypto’s fast pace style, stakeholders in the space quickly introduced newer models. As it became clear that there was no headway through ICOs, even Vitalik Buterin observing the spate at which scams unravelled proposed a much better approach. Buterin advocated a rather decentralised ICO approach but with funds not released all at once. Notwithstanding, ICOs were not coming back. Big centralised exchanges like Binance quickly capitalised on the constant search for a better funding approach and their vast user base to popularise the IEO model. Binance organised a series of IEOs on its launchpad, with many trader investors of not getting their opportunity to buy in. Project tokens were sold out in literally seconds on Binance Launchpad, sparking off the rage of IEOs by 2019. OKEx introduced Jumpstart, Kucoin released Spotlight, Huobi released Prime. All these fancy name platforms were all in a bid to cash in on the IEO mania. complaining From large pre-mine to centralised exchange racketeering requiring huge listing fees, lengthy due diligence process, and whatnot, ICOs and IEOs were fraught with many irregularities that eventually led to their becoming less popular. How about an ICO but this time launched on a DEX? That seemed like a better approach. As the DEX revolution gained ground, IDOs are now the best route for crypto projects. Raven Protocol initiated the first-ever IDO in 2019, shortly followed by projects such as Compound, UMA, and Curve. These have gone on to become household names as projects in their hundreds now launch IDOs on other platforms like Polkastater, SpacePort, DuckSTARTER etc., regularly. IDOs are preferred because they provide projects with the opportunity of frictionless liquidity, immediate trading, significantly lower listing costs etc. No intermediaries mean a more open, transparent, and fair way to launch a new crypto project than the pre-mined ICO models of the past that rewarded founders to the detriment of token buyers. But still, and as expected, no system is perfect. Even though it is miles apart better than its predecessor crowdfunding models, the IDO system still has its flaws. Some of the existing IDO platforms are not entirely as decentralised as they preach. Some ask that you accept a mandatory lock-in period or even force you to accept specific token pairs. Many of them are not particularly easy to use, especially in terms of interface and UX. And of course, since IDOs are conducted on DEXs, some IDO participants have had to endure rug pull experience: a situation where project owners suddenly pull off liquidity for the token resulting in the sharp crash of such token prices. How about post-IDOs? Well, even after crowdfunding through an IDO, some of these projects still require a hands-on propping up if they even stand a chance of becoming an established project. How many projects listing and conducting their IDOs on giant DEXs as Uniswap gets noticed? Not exactly many. Let’s even say some of these projects are exploring popular DEXs like Uniswap to conduct their ICO To remedy these flaws, these IDO platforms are leading the charge. Polkastarter is probably the hottest IDO launchpads at this time. With some of its success stories, including ExeedMe, Fire Protocol, and MahaDao, a by BDC Consulting shows that IDO tokens from Polkastarter can realise as much as 2,700 percent ROI just by holding for a few days after the IDO event. In addition, the Polkadot-based DEX accounts for of the IDOs listed on Coinmarketcap’s page. Although the DEX launched in December 2020, Polkastarter now has up to amassed , funded well over 40 crypto projects and its POLS token realising over $120 million fully diluted market capitalisation. Polkastarter IDOs are generally open to anybody, but you’ll need to hold at least 3,000 POLS to participate in the exclusive POLS-holders pools. Polkastarter report at least 26 percent 200,000 users There's a limit on how many tokens IDO participants can buy (usually around $300 to $500 worth). Users have to be whitelisted to gain with each IDO allowed a maximum allocation; let's say $500,000 hardcap. As a highly sought after launchpad, the number of whitelisted addresses usually exceeds the number of IDO allocations necessitating a first-come, first-served (FCFS) basis. SpacePort is a democratised open IDO launchpad built by . Launched in June, it is already gaining traction with one IDO conducted already, and many more queued up to take place in the coming weeks. In just , blockchain projects can easily set up and launch their own initial DEX offering (IDO) on this truly decentralized IDO launchpad. SpacePort Plasma.Finance four steps PlasmaFinance made sure to enshrine radical transparency into the design of SpacePort. Unlike most IDO platforms, you can see every single detail about the IDO displayed with real-time accuracy from on-chain data sources. Recall earlier I mentioned the rigidity of most IDO launchpads, well, with SpacePort, the case is different. Crypto projects enjoy the wide leverage of customising their IDO and tuning it to their taste. IDO projects can use SpacePort’s Factory tool (a plug and play feature accessed directly from a dashboard) to create on-chain contracts that specify things like IDO stages and durations, vesting periods, and locked amounts. Projects can even maximise their IDO setup turnaround time even further by copying existing IDO templates on SpacePort. They enjoy the latitude of forking existing repositories on Github to retain their settings and tweaking a bit to suit their needs. has shown that large presale investors who obtain tokens at a discount often flip part of their allocation shortly after ICO events to the detriment of smaller investors. Crypto startups offering IDOs on SpacePort and smaller investors wouldn’t have to worry about this kind of dumping scheme. Vesting and lockup periods are pre-built into SpacePort’s launchpad smart contracts preventing private sale investors from going rogue and selling against agreed terms (usually in stipulated time frames). This adds a layer of assurance and safety demonstrating to potential participants their willingness to commit funds and liquidity for the long term. Research SpacePort also allows projects to open DEX pools for multiple funding rounds and setting the unique parameters for each of the rounds with ease. And as long as the soft cap is raised, project owners can close any of their IDO stages and immediately open a pool on PlasmaSwap and claim the raised funds. In any case that the soft cap is not met, the smart contract will automatically refund users to prevent any losses. With the hands-on support I spoke about earlier, SpacePort interestingly offers an Incubator program where selected projects will enter the pre-IDO incubator and enjoy added services such as Advisory, Marketing/PR, Tokenomics and Tech Audit reviews. DuckSTARTER DuckSTARTER is DuckDAO’s crypto launchpad for projects interested in crowdsourcing funds using the IDO model. After successful incubation, crypto projects can launch a token sale on DuckSTARTER and list their tokens on DEXs like Uniswap.  The DuckSTARTER launchpad incorporates a deflationary mechanism for the DDIM token. Projects wishing to use DuckSTARTER will pay a small fee in USDC (the amount varies between projects). The USDC is then used to buy back the DuckDAO’s DDIM and DUCK tokens. Since its launch in February this year, it has gained considerable traction. Bondly and Base Protocol are examples of crypto projects that launched through DuckSTARTER and became instant hits. Another project that launched through DuckSTARTER is Shadows ($DOWS), going ahead to generate a maximum return of 42.9x for participants. The future of IDOs The trajectory of the IDO model is proving to be a better approach for decentralised fundraising. Although it is still relatively new, it’s been 2 years since , and it’s looking like the IDO space is just heating up. Raven Protocol conducted the world’s first-ever IDO More projects are looking to raise their next funding round through this model especially with the vast leverage and transparency it offers the stakeholders. One clear path for the further popularity of IDOs is the continuous growth of DEXs, which are the gateway to decentralised finance. As DeFi keeps growing and DEXs volume continues taking root to rival their CEXs counterparts, IDOs will gain more steam. It already offers a better and superior method of fundraising than ICOs and IEOs and now looking to outlive them.

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