Overhaul is expected to track more than $1 trillion in total moving cargo this year. The company has a 96% recovery rate for FTL cargo theft and an 80% loss ratio reduction as compared to the insurance industry benchmark. Overhaul operates globally and has more than 600 employees.

Overhaul Secures $73M in Growth Financing, Expands its Foothold ...

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Overhaul Austin Office: Careers, Perks + Culture

Overhaul Risk Advisory Services is not an insurance company but acts as an agent and or advisor for certain insurance companies and programs. Overhaul Risk and Advisory Services is paid commission and may receive other performance-based compensation for its services.

About us - Overhaul

Overhaul is the only device-agnostic supply chain visibility and risk monitoring solution for in-transit shipments. From powerful, user-friendly data analytics to predictive insights, every feature is designed to help you drive value. While most supply chain visibility companies focus solely ...

Supply Chain Risk Management & Logistics Visibility - Overhaul

Overhaul is a supply chain integrity solutions company that allows shippers to connect disparate sources of data all in a single unified view. This data is then transformed into critical insights that can instantly trigger corrective actions, impacting everything from ... Read more

Working at Overhaul (TX) | Glassdoor

Overhaul Media is an award-winning digital agency and design agency in Edmonton, Alberta. We offer branding, web design, graphic design, digital products, web developer and design studio solutions including Shopify, E-commerce, Restaurant Branding for a diverse set of clients across the globe.

Edmonton Digital Agency, Design Studio & Design Agency | Overhaul ...

CEO Barry Conlon founded Overhaul in 2016 to innovate the increasingly complex supply chain market. The company makes software used to monitor supply chains and cargo in real-time, assess risks and track insights. Conlon was previously CEO and president of FreightWatch International, an ...

Overhaul, Austin software maker raises $35 million to fuel growth

Overhaul, which is co-headquartered in Austin and Dundalk, Ireland, helps customers collect their supply chain-related data in one place and fix issues relating to everything from temperature control to package tracking. Founded in 2016, Overhaul is used by several Fortune 100 companies in various ...

Supply Chain Startup Overhaul Brings in $35M Series B to Hire 50+ ...

Overhaul will use the new investment to back its aggressive 2020 growth goals. The company tripled in size last year, and expects the same rate of growth this year. That growth will be driven by both its burgeoning team in Austin as well as its new European headquarters in Ireland.

Austin Startup Overhaul Raises $17.5 Million To Help Cure Your ...

Austin-based Overhaul, a company that provides supply chain technology, said Tuesday it has raised $17.5 million to continue its growth. The funding round was led by Edison Partners, a New Jersey-…

Austin supply chain tech firm Overhaul raises $17.5 million ...

OverHaul

overhaul

**LONDON, UK, October 16th, 2024/Chainwire/--**Polkadot drives forward ecosystem-wide transformation with 24/7 hacking and masterclasses from industry greats. WebZero, a global event and DevRel force is presenting sub0 reset, the leading developer conference for the Polkadot & Substrate ecosystem from November 9-11, 2024, in Bangkok, Thailand. sub0 reset is the first and only Substrate development conference, bringing together the best developers and builders of Web3 in a spectacular five-floor industrial venue, complete with a rooftop beach and catering and drinks from a private chef. Attendees will have the chance to learn from industry legends, including senior figures from the Web3 Foundation and founders of Polkadot, as well as meet like-minded partners to build next-generation apps and tools with Substrate in our 24/7 hackspace. Fabian Gompf, CEO of Web3 Foundation, said: “Great to see sub0 come back with a fresh concept showcasing the talent in the Polkadot ecosystem. It’s a perfect opportunity for developers, investors and industry leaders to come together and build solutions on Substrate that will have a real impact”. Attendees can expect to learn about the latest projects building with Substrate, how to build with Substrate’s modular SDK and other emerging components in the Polkadot tech stack, with industry leaders such as Polkadot co-founder Robert Habermeier, Mythical Games founder John Linden and Nova Wallet founder Anton Khvorov taking to the stage and sharing their wisdom with guests throughout the 3-day event. sub0 kicks off with a dedicated education day, ranging from no-holds-barred analysis of the state of Web3, to barcamp deep-dives on building on Substrate. Day two is Modularity Day, with discussions from leading innovators at Avail, R0gue, Midnight and Parity. Day three is JAM & Scalability day, building out Polkadot’s founder Gavin Wood’s vision to transform the ecosystem into the world’s first global computer. The venue’s 24/7 hackerspace will give new teams the chance to co-work and compete for 10k USD in bounties. Practical Details Sub0 reset is taking place at 127 Na Ranong Rd, Khlong Toei, Bangkok from 9-11 November, 2024. A limited supply of free tickets for sub0 reset are available here. The event runs from 10 AM until late each day, make sure to subscribe to the WebZero Luma for full scheduling opportunities. The hackerspace runs 24 hours a day, ensuring developers can build at all hours of the night with food and beverages provided free of charge. Media lounge and recording rooms are provided. For any further media enquiries, users can contact media@joinwebzero.com ABOUT WEebZero WebZero is a developer experience builder that is establishing a hybrid between event production and developer relations, based on its own unique vision and methodology. Contact Comms/PR manager Jonathan Duran Distractive jonathan@distractive.xyz This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here. **LONDON, UK, October 16th, 2024/Chainwire/--**Polkadot drives forward ecosystem-wide transformation with 24/7 hacking and masterclasses from industry greats. WebZero, a global event and DevRel force is presenting sub0 reset, the leading developer conference for the Polkadot & Substrate ecosystem from November 9-11, 2024, in Bangkok, Thailand. sub0 reset is the first and only Substrate development conference, bringing together the best developers and builders of Web3 in a spectacular five-floor industrial venue, complete with a rooftop beach and catering and drinks from a private chef. Polkadot Polkadot Substrate Substrate Attendees will have the chance to learn from industry legends, including senior figures from the Web3 Foundation and founders of Polkadot, as well as meet like-minded partners to build next-generation apps and tools with Substrate in our 24/7 hackspace. Fabian Gompf, CEO of Web3 Foundation, said: “Great to see sub0 come back with a fresh concept showcasing the talent in the Polkadot ecosystem. It’s a perfect opportunity for developers, investors and industry leaders to come together and build solutions on Substrate that will have a real impact”. Fabian Gompf, CEO of Web3 Foundation, said: “Great to see sub0 come back with a fresh concept showcasing the talent in the Polkadot ecosystem. It’s a perfect opportunity for developers, investors and industry leaders to come together and build solutions on Substrate that will have a real impact”. Attendees can expect to learn about the latest projects building with Substrate, how to build with Substrate’s modular SDK and other emerging components in the Polkadot tech stack, with industry leaders such as Polkadot co-founder Robert Habermeier, Mythical Games founder John Linden and Nova Wallet founder Anton Khvorov taking to the stage and sharing their wisdom with guests throughout the 3-day event. sub0 kicks off with a dedicated education day, ranging from no-holds-barred analysis of the state of Web3, to barcamp deep-dives on building on Substrate. Day two is Modularity Day, with discussions from leading innovators at Avail, R0gue, Midnight and Parity. Day three is JAM & Scalability day, building out Polkadot’s founder Gavin Wood’s vision to transform the ecosystem into the world’s first global computer. The venue’s 24/7 hackerspace will give new teams the chance to co-work and compete for 10k USD in bounties. Practical Details Sub0 reset is taking place at 127 Na Ranong Rd, Khlong Toei, Bangkok from 9-11 November, 2024. A limited supply of free tickets for sub0 reset are available here . here here The event runs from 10 AM until late each day, make sure to subscribe to the WebZero Luma for full scheduling opportunities. The hackerspace runs 24 hours a day, ensuring developers can build at all hours of the night with food and beverages provided free of charge. Media lounge and recording rooms are provided. For any further media enquiries, users can contact media@joinwebzero.com WebZero Luma WebZero Luma media@joinwebzero.com media@joinwebzero.com ABOUT WEebZero WebZero is a developer experience builder that is establishing a hybrid between event production and developer relations, based on its own unique vision and methodology. WebZero WebZero Contact Comms/PR manager Jonathan Duran Distractive jonathan@distractive.xyz 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 here

Polkadot’s Flagship Sub0 Conference Is Ground Zero For Ecosystem’s Landmark Overhaul

Polkadot se vlagskip Sub0-konferensie is grond-nul vir ekosisteem se landmerk-opknapping

Водещата Sub0 конференция на Polkadot е нулева точка за забележителното преустройство на екосистемата

La conferència Sub0 insígnia de Polkadot és la zona zero per a la revisió històrica de l'ecosistema

Polkadots Flaggschiff-Konferenz Sub0 ist Ausgangspunkt für die grundlegende Überholung des Ökosystems

La conferencia insignia Sub0 de Polkadot es el punto cero de la renovación histórica del ecosistema

ポルカドットのフラッグシップ Sub0 カンファレンスは、エコシステムの画期的な改革の原点となる

សន្និសីទ Sub0 Flagship របស់ Polkadot គឺសូន្យសម្រាប់ការផ្លាស់ប្តូរទីតាំងរបស់ប្រព័ន្ធអេកូ

„Polkadot“ pavyzdinė „Sub0“ konferencija yra nulinis ekosistemos kapitalinio remonto pagrindas

Khonferentshe ya Polkadot’s Flagship Sub0 Ke Ground Zero Bakeng sa Tokiso ya Letshwao la Tikologo

Polkadotpa Sub0 Insignia Conferencianmi Ground Zero Ecosistemapa Hito Revisión nisqapaq

Vlajková loď konferencie Polkadot Sub0 je nulovým bodom pre prepracovanie medzníka ekosystému

Polkadot's Flagship Sub0 Conference waa eber eber ee dib u habeynta astaanta deegaanka

Think of the last time you set up a new smart device. It probably came with a default password manufacturers intend for people to use once before setting their own login details. But did you take that step? Many consumers don’t, which is why the United Kingdom’s government has cracked down on those passwords as part of larger improvements in smart security. What do they involve? World-First Law Against Default Passwords The Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (PSTI) Act, enacted on April 29, 2024, makes the United Kingdom the first country to legally obligate manufacturers to protect device users against hacking attempts. Default passwords are a central focus. Those become problematic because default password lists often get distributed online, making it easy for cybercriminals to find entry points for wreaking havoc. The newly introduced legislation applies to all products with network or internet connectivity and forbids manufacturers from setting easily guessable passwords, such as “12345” or “admin.” If the device password contains them, users see prompts to change the credentials. Consumer information about the new law suggestsdevice users create passwords containing three random words. It also recommends two-factor authentication, if available. Such safeguards reduce the chances of adversaries successfully using artificial intelligence (AI) or other emerging tech to guess passwords faster or enter accounts with only those credentials. One security professionals study found 89% of respondents believe AI-enabled threats will cause challenges for the foreseeable future. Now is the time to take proactive prevention measures. One AI password cracker can discover 51% of credentials in less than a minute. That result highlights the importance of using strong passwords and other safeguards to secure smart home products. More User Transparency Another legislative aspect involves manufacturers publishing contact details so users can reach them to report bugs or other problems. Then, device makers and retailers must be upfront with users about the minimum time frames for providing security updates. There’s currently significant variation, with some vendors offering them for approximately two years while others release improvements for more than a decade. Many smart products state specifications such as battery life and compatibility with other products. You can expect to soon see similar information about security updates under the new laws. Think of them like the use-by dates on supermarket products. You’ve probably had a few foods spoil even though the label said they should have been still good to eat. Security updates are also not foolproof, but they make it harder for cybercriminals to break into smart devices. Many enterprising hackers specifically target older operating systems or devices no longer supported by their manufacturers. Effects Beyond the United Kingdom While this is a U.K. law, it applies to companies selling or importing products there. Compliance failures are criminal offenses carrying fines of up to £10 million or 4% of the qualifying global revenue. Since most internet-connected products in the United Kingdom get made elsewhere, it’ll be interesting to see if manufacturers update their product packaging and user manuals to show the newly required information in other markets. Long security update time frames could also become a competitive advantage. Some brands already use that approach. When Dutch smartphone maker Fairphone released its fifth-generation model, the manufacturer promised users operating system, security, and software updates until 2031. Consumers Must Act, Too The PSTI Act increases device manufacturers’ responsibilities, but no one should allow this law to make them overly comfortable. Most reputable resources explaining the law to consumers emphasize the importance of setting strong passwords and using two-factor authentication with their smart devices. The need for password protection extends to changing credentials after relationship breakups, housemate changes, or similar residential variables. Otherwise, someone could continue controlling connected smart home devices long after they move out, as long as they know the password. Additionally, device users should check for software updates regularly, and — ideally — tweak settings to make them happen automatically for convenience. If there is no such option, a simple workaround is for someone to create monthly calendar reminders to look for new releases. Striving for Security First An enduring culture among some smart device makers involves releasing new devices as quickly as possible, treating security as an afterthought. However, people will soon lose their fascination with pioneering products that have major security flaws. The new law mandates security improvements from device makers, which is an excellent start. However, consumers must also take a couple of simple but effective steps to stop their devices from becoming hackers’ entry points. Sources: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-laws-to-protect-consumers-from-cyber-criminals-come-into-force-in-the-uk https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/files/Security-law-smart-devices-NCSC.pdf https://darktrace.com/blog/the-state-of-ai-in-cybersecurity-how-ai-will-impact-the-cyber-threat-landscape-in-2024 https://9to5mac.com/2023/04/07/ai-cracks-passwords-this-fast-how-to-protect/ https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/new-security-laws-for-smart-devices-aGJO50M7C3jo https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/smart-devices-law Think of the last time you set up a new smart device. It probably came with a default password manufacturers intend for people to use once before setting their own login details. But did you take that step? Many consumers don’t, which is why the United Kingdom’s government has cracked down on those passwords as part of larger improvements in smart security. What do they involve? World-First Law Against Default Passwords World-First Law Against Default Passwords The Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (PSTI) Act, enacted on April 29, 2024, makes the United Kingdom the first country to legally obligate manufacturers to protect device users against hacking attempts. Default passwords are a central focus. Those become problematic because default password lists often get distributed online, making it easy for cybercriminals to find entry points for wreaking havoc. The newly introduced legislation applies to all products with network or internet connectivity and forbids manufacturers from setting easily guessable passwords, such as “12345” or “admin.” If the device password contains them, users see prompts to change the credentials. forbids manufacturers from setting forbids manufacturers from setting Consumer information about the new law suggests device users create passwords containing three random words. It also recommends two-factor authentication, if available. Such safeguards reduce the chances of adversaries successfully using artificial intelligence (AI) or other emerging tech to guess passwords faster or enter accounts with only those credentials. device users create passwords device users create passwords One security professionals study found 89% of respondents believe AI-enabled threats will cause challenges for the foreseeable future. Now is the time to take proactive prevention measures. One AI password cracker can discover 51% of credentials in less than a minute. That result highlights the importance of using strong passwords and other safeguards to secure smart home products. found 89% of respondents believe found 89% of respondents believe 51% of credentials in less 51% of credentials in less More User Transparency More User Transparency Another legislative aspect involves manufacturers publishing contact details so users can reach them to report bugs or other problems. Then, device makers and retailers must be upfront with users about the minimum time frames for providing security updates. There’s currently significant variation, with some vendors offering them for approximately two years while others release improvements for more than a decade. offering them for approximately two years offering them for approximately two years Many smart products state specifications such as battery life and compatibility with other products. You can expect to soon see similar information about security updates under the new laws. Think of them like the use-by dates on supermarket products. You’ve probably had a few foods spoil even though the label said they should have been still good to eat. Security updates are also not foolproof, but they make it harder for cybercriminals to break into smart devices. Many enterprising hackers specifically target older operating systems or devices no longer supported by their manufacturers. Effects Beyond the United Kingdom Effects Beyond the United Kingdom While this is a U.K. law, it applies to companies selling or importing products there. Compliance failures are criminal offenses carrying fines of up to £10 million or 4% of the qualifying global revenue. fines of up to £10 million fines of up to £10 million Since most internet-connected products in the United Kingdom get made elsewhere, it’ll be interesting to see if manufacturers update their product packaging and user manuals to show the newly required information in other markets. Long security update time frames could also become a competitive advantage. Some brands already use that approach. When Dutch smartphone maker Fairphone released its fifth-generation model, the manufacturer promised users operating system, security, and software updates until 2031. Consumers Must Act, Too Consumers Must Act, Too The PSTI Act increases device manufacturers’ responsibilities, but no one should allow this law to make them overly comfortable. Most reputable resources explaining the law to consumers emphasize the importance of setting strong passwords and using two-factor authentication with their smart devices. The need for password protection extends to changing credentials after relationship breakups, housemate changes, or similar residential variables. Otherwise, someone could continue controlling connected smart home devices long after they move out, as long as they know the password. Additionally, device users should check for software updates regularly, and — ideally — tweak settings to make them happen automatically for convenience. If there is no such option, a simple workaround is for someone to create monthly calendar reminders to look for new releases. Striving for Security First Striving for Security First An enduring culture among some smart device makers involves releasing new devices as quickly as possible, treating security as an afterthought. However, people will soon lose their fascination with pioneering products that have major security flaws. The new law mandates security improvements from device makers, which is an excellent start. However, consumers must also take a couple of simple but effective steps to stop their devices from becoming hackers’ entry points. Sources: Sources: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-laws-to-protect-consumers-from-cyber-criminals-come-into-force-in-the-uk https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-laws-to-protect-consumers-from-cyber-criminals-come-into-force-in-the-uk https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-laws-to-protect-consumers-from-cyber-criminals-come-into-force-in-the-uk https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/files/Security-law-smart-devices-NCSC.pdf https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/files/Security-law-smart-devices-NCSC.pdf https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/files/Security-law-smart-devices-NCSC.pdf https://darktrace.com/blog/the-state-of-ai-in-cybersecurity-how-ai-will-impact-the-cyber-threat-landscape-in-2024 https://darktrace.com/blog/the-state-of-ai-in-cybersecurity-how-ai-will-impact-the-cyber-threat-landscape-in-2024 https://darktrace.com/blog/the-state-of-ai-in-cybersecurity-how-ai-will-impact-the-cyber-threat-landscape-in-2024 https://9to5mac.com/2023/04/07/ai-cracks-passwords-this-fast-how-to-protect/ https://9to5mac.com/2023/04/07/ai-cracks-passwords-this-fast-how-to-protect/ https://9to5mac.com/2023/04/07/ai-cracks-passwords-this-fast-how-to-protect/ https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/new-security-laws-for-smart-devices-aGJO50M7C3jo https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/new-security-laws-for-smart-devices-aGJO50M7C3jo https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/new-security-laws-for-smart-devices-aGJO50M7C3jo https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/smart-devices-law https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/smart-devices-law https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/smart-devices-law

UK Prohibits '12345' Passwords in Smart Device Security Overhaul

You can jump to any section of the National Aeronautics Science & Technology Priorities here. II. Transforming the National Airspace System The U.S. Government will prioritize the efforts of the FAA’s NextGen Program to modernize the NAS. Emerging technologies, increasingly frequent commercial space launches, and high-altitude operations combined with increases in projected demand for traditional passenger travel and cargo shipments require a continued modernization of the air transportation system. The NAS of the near future will seamlessly manage complexity, become scalable, and dynamically adapt to a diverse set of users. Bolstered by the power of technology, this new paradigm will accommodate traditional aviation activities and the new entrants into the NAS. The safe integration of these aircraft at all levels of airspace challenges current monitoring systems; communications, navigation and surveillance infrastructure; and the regulatory environment. R&D will help mature these advanced technologies, supporting infrastructure, and the regulatory framework for the certification of new aircraft and technologies. As part of this transformation, the U.S. Government will prioritize the comprehensive integration of new aeronautics technologies, with the potential to transform aviation, in both urban and rural communities, creating new industries and jobs. These technologies include small drones and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) vehicles, such as electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, electric short takeoff and landing (eSTOL) aircraft, and other highly automated electric passenger or cargo carrying aircraft. The future NAS will incorporate strategies for the safe, efficient integration of civil and national security operations, ranging from slow, low altitude operations with observers to those conducted beyond the pilot’s Beyond Visual Line-Of-Sight (BVLOS) at a variety of altitudes and speeds. The U.S. Government will support updates to the regulatory framework for the certification of new aircraft and technologies, thereby fostering the safe, secure growth of the drone and AAM industries. The U.S. Government will continue to expand drone certification and integration to accommodate the multiple personal and business uses of drones in the NAS as well as support research and training at the many colleges and universities that offer drone programs. The U.S. Government will also promote the safety of pilots, passengers, and the general public by updating infrastructure, training, and certification processes to operationalize AAM services. The U.S. Government will support the development of scalable AAM solutions to permit the growth of applications such as cargo and package delivery and emergency services. It will maintain research facilities and upgrade as needed to keep pace with emerging technologies, including Vertical Lift Research Centers of Excellence, and test facilities such as flight simulation and wind tunnels. The future of flight is highly automated. Integrating autonomous processes and vehicles into the airspace of the future requires that autonomous vehicles have healthy self-monitoring systems and high-fidelity awareness of their surroundings, especially adjacent traffic. Certification of new vehicle architectures will need to ensure the reliability of the software and sensor suites to effect mature, safe, and stable flight. In October 2022, the Advanced Air Mobility Coordination and Leadership Act was signed into law (Pub. L 117-203)[6] to coordinate efforts to integrate new aviation technologies into the NAS. Consistent with the law, the Department of Transportation (DOT) will work with relevant Federal departments and agencies to create a national strategy to implement the law, while ensuring continued U.S. leadership in these technologies. [6] Congress, “Advanced Air Mobility Coordination and Leadership Act”. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117thcongress/senate-bill/516/text This was originally published in March 2023 on whitehouse.gov. This content has been broken-up into bite sized sections, each with unique headlines and AI-generated lead images, in line with the provisions of Creative Commons 3.0.

U.S. Initiates Overhaul of National Airspace for Automated Future

Web2 enabled internet users to contribute to the digital economy by becoming entrepreneurs in their own right. Using Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and the likes, content creators can now increasingly monetize their virtual fanbase. Consequently, market estimates suggest that the creator economy was worth , and is expected to reach over in the coming years. $13.8 billion in 2021 $104 billion However, while the above data indicates fabulous positive growth, the oligarchs in control of the current webspace deprive creators severely. The lion’s share of generated revenues goes into the company coffers while the creators get almost nothing. And the problem isn’t limited to revenue distribution. The tentacles of malice go deep, as we shall see in the following paragraphs, thereby exploring possible solutions. The Detrimental Effects of Centralization On Creators Both amateur and professional creators contribute enormous volumes of content to social media platforms daily. According to Statista, YouTube users uploaded as much as in 2020. On the other hand, Facebook produces a whopping per day from its active users. 500 hours of video every 60 seconds 4 petabytes (4 million gigabytes) of data 2.9 billion The reasons for the extraordinary success of these platforms are manifold. Originally, Web2 promised to keep out intermediaries and deliver content directly from creators to consumers. For example, users can freely share their opinions, images, or videos on social media for others to view and respond to, without worrying about editorial censorship. But it has become pretty clear in recent years that this sense of freedom is only apparent and not real. Web2 giants are very much the intermediaries acting as digital gatekeepers with convoluted and anti-user policies. Most of the existing social media platforms run on advertisement revenue, often subjugating the creator’s freedom and choice. The infrastructure suppresses individuality to favor algorithmic promotions and inserts ads almost coercively. Moreover, fans do not get direct access to creators while the latter cannot generate sufficient income for themselves. And another relevant question to ask here is, who owns this massive volume of online content? Creators often live under the impression that they ‘own’ the content they upload from their accounts But it’s unfortunately not so. Convoluted Terms & Conditions grant companies absolute ownership of the data uploaded on their platforms. Even when such clauses aren’t hidden in fine print, it’s practically impossible for any ordinary user to read these winding documents before ‘agree’-ing to them. Creators gain access to vast distribution networks, which binds them to these platforms while the facilitating corporation monetizes the content at will and scale. Furthermore, the problematic effect of centralization extends beyond specific ownership, into property rights in general. Simply put, Web2 doesn’t have efficient means to ascertain who owns what piece of content. The chances of fraud are of course high and copyright infringement becomes the norm. YouTube, for one, enables ‘ ’ against malicious actors, although the process is quite cumbersome and often misused. In general, however, the provisions for owning one’s content are extremely shabby and open to violations. copyright strikes For example, Emily Ratajkowski had to on Instagram. buy back her own image How an NFT-Enabled Creator Economy Can Help Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) became a sensation recently, with fresh data estimating market size of over in 2021. One main reason for such growth is the technology’s potential to address the challenges facing traditional creator economies and their user experience. $40 billion NFTs offer indisputable and irrefutable ownership rights by immutably storing transaction history on the distributed ledger. When a creator mints an NFT on-chain, it continues to exist forever and is practically indestructible. NFTs turn every fan or consumer into an active owner or stakeholder by eliminating the need for rent-seeking, centralized intermediaries. Better still, asset provenance becomes much easier which makes owner tracking faster and more efficient. Creator economies can replace the advertising-based business model with a multi-tiered pricing structure using NFTs. Ownership becomes more granular and democratic, enabling every fan to own whatever they can afford. Moreover, legacy social media platforms cannot differentiate between new and old subscribers and thus take a one-size-fits-all approach. On the contrary, some NFT-powered platforms reward early supporters with special airdrops and limited-edition releases. NFT platforms can build a strong community based on authentic stories from the creators Users become co-owners in this community-first approach, with equal rights in the economy. Community-oriented tokens offer a unique way to provide equity to token holders, ensuring their skin in the game. Leveraging unique token standards, it is moreover possible to generate revenue through in-built royalties architecture. Thus, creative professionals get remunerated for every secondary sale of their work, and not just the primary sale. Simultaneously, NFTs significantly reduce customer acquisition costs to almost zero, coupled with massive new user uptake. As a whole, NFTs provide a one-of-its-kind digital experience within new-age creator economies. Supporters and fans no longer remain passive consumers but contribute actively to the creative process by directly patronizing their work. In the near future, with the rise of the metaverse economy, NFTs will become an even more integral part of virtual reality. As more people come on board to create something in the metaverse, NFTs will empower them to do so in a free and fair manner. And in these ways, they will play a crucial role in transforming our digital existence overall for creators and consumers alike.

How NFTs Are Overhauling the Creator Economy

Rebirth of the EOS Network The (ENF), a new body tasked by the EOS community with developing the EOSIO core blockchain software, has completed the first step of its intended technical enhancement of the EOSIO core programme, which is separated into four primaries "Blue Papers" and development branches. EOS Network Foundation There are four primary "Blue Papers" and development branches in the EOS Network Foundation (ENF), the new body that EOS users have entrusted to develop the EOSIO core software, and the first step of their anticipated technological improvement has been accomplished. In the Blue Papers, Audit+, Core+, API+, and Wallet+ are all subcategories, focusing on various aspects of the EOSIO platform, including security analysis and contract audits. The Blue Papers are organised into four sections: Audit+, Core+, API+, and Wallet+. Execution follows the completion of the Blue Paper investigation. Due to OCI's earlier involvement in creating EOSIO as part of their engagement with Block.One, its technology section was a key component in the partnership between the ENF and OCI. They've also worked with blockchain startups like Emanate, AirTM, and StrongBlock and Fortune 500 companies like NASA, Bayer, and Motorola. The API+ papers describe an update of the Transaction Lifecycle that OCI is working on. Likewise, the API+ Blue Paper and the wider community highlighted the transaction lifecycle as a high-priority subject. Users of the node endpoint API had historically been unable to successfully pass and execute transactions due to a lack of relevant tools. It was previously impossible to estimate the cost of a transaction because of "subjective billing" elements. Users' experiences were made much worse by the difficulty of tracking and re-submitting transactions. Even though certain EOSIO developers came up with solutions, the rest of the community was forced to deal with unneeded obstacles. API+'s most pressing issues will be addressed in the rewrite. A new API endpoint will assess the number of resources used by incoming requests. To cut down on "lost" transactions, Subjective Billing is overhauling its routing system. Transaction tracking and relaying will also be improved, making it simpler to construct fast block explorers or to replicate their capabilities for dApp frontends. What is EOS Network Foundation? The EOS Network Foundation (ENF) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to coordinating financial and non-financial support for the EOS Network's growth and development. The EOS Network's hub, the ENF, harnesses the potential of decentralisation as a force for good global change to help the EOS Network design a coordinated future. Dont forget to like the stories! The content of this story DO NOT represent the views of HackerNoon and are meant as information only from the lens of the independent contributor. Please DYOR before investing.

EOS Network Foundation Funds Transaction Lifecycle Overhaul and Releases Blue Papers for Development

Everyone loves organic search traffic. The idea is an easy sale, of course – who wouldn’t want streams of traffic headed to their website without having to pay for each of those clicks? There is a place in most marketing campaigns for pay-per-click ads, but ongoing high levels of organic traffic are simply impossible to replace. Whether you desire more organic traffic simply because it is cheap, or because it offers you better leads than other methods of traffic acquisition, overhauling your website to improve SEO performance is something to carefully consider. This is a process we have recently gone through here at Service Direct, and we have been pleasantly surprised by the results. In fact, over the course of a single year, we saw a boost of 348% in our organic search traffic. Just think about what that kind of jump could mean for your business. With this post, we’d like to go into some detail on how we approached our website overhaul and how the changes we made were able to elevate many of our pages in the search results. Four Key Areas of Improvement As websites age and grow, they tend to get complicated. What might have been a clean and tidy site structure a few years ago could now be a tangled mess, with various employees and contractors over the years making changes that didn’t necessarily line up with one another. So, going into a site overhaul process can be a little overwhelming. To gain focus and clarity on our plan, we decided to key on four areas that could be improved – The technical setup of our site New keywords that we can target The body content on our various pages Meta information attached to those pages We invite you to copy this approach to your own website overhaul, as it really helps to break up the task into categories that you can approach one at a time. Improving the Technical Setup The to-do list for improving the technical side of your website is going to depend entirely on the condition of your site at this point. Some sites are a technical mess and will need to be rebuilt nearly from the ground up. In other cases, only modest changes will be required. You’ll have to perform an audit of your own site from a technical perspective before you can decide what should be changed and what should be left alone. In our case, one of the biggest changes was switching the site to WordPress. Previously, the site was run on an in-house setup, and that structure limited our ability to adapt to changes taking place on the web. With WordPress, we expect to stay up-to-date more readily, and we can also allow more members of our team to edit and update the site without worrying about doing anything harmful on the backend. Here are some other important technical pieces to think about improving – Make sure all of the pages on your site can be discovered through links from other pages. This will improve the user experience on the site and will also help search bots discover and index all of your content. Improving internal linking. This is a big one for an older site. Over the years, you may have used varying URL styles, and now you could have a mess on your hands. Settle on one approach for your URLs and update them accordingly. Clean up URL structure. If you change URLs, make sure every page on the site has a 301 redirect so visitors can always find what they need. Put 301 redirects in place. Finding – and Targeting – New Keywords You have probably performed some keyword research at some point in your SEO past. But how long has it been since you did that work? If it’s been a while, now is a good time to dig into some new opportunities and make sure you are targeting the right words and phrases for your business. After all, generating organic traffic isn’t particularly useful if you aren’t getting visits from web users who are interested in what you have to sell. If you run PPC ads currently, use the data from those reports to inform your organic keyword strategy. The terms that perform well in your ads will likely serve you well on the organic front, as well. Also, be sure to target terms that are viable given the size and standing of your website. If you have a relatively small site with modest traffic, don’t target huge keywords that give you no chance of reaching page one. Improving Body Content This point goes right along with the previous idea of finding new keywords. Once that work is done, utilize what you have discovered to improve the body content on your site. In other words, you are going to improve the written content that appears across your pages, both in blog posts and on static pages that outline your products or services. It’s easy to get lost in the woods when trying to make your content better, so focus on these five key factors to get started – This might be obvious, but those keywords you discovered need to be incorporated properly into the updated copy. Use your new keywords. It’s hard to rank short pages, simply because there isn’t enough copy to include the right keywords and provide the information that the searcher wants to find. So, work to add word count to your pages, but do so in a way that adds value and doesn’t just pad the total with fluff. Add volume. This isn’t as much of a technical point, but be sure to write your content in a friendly, conversational tone. That will help your readers engage with the writing and they’ll be more likely to stay on the page longer. Engage the audience. You can’t just assume that your visitors are going to take the actions you want them to take – make it clear what you want them to do and how they should do it. Include calls-to-action. Big blocks of text are an immediate turn-off for a site visitor – consider adding plenty of headings as a good way to break up the text and make it easier to read. Also, headings are an excellent place to add some of your target keywords to the page. Add headings. Optimizing Meta Information Finally, we needed to go through the site and make sure our meta information was all in place. If your site is like most others – including our own – it won’t have all the metadata that it should have, but fortunately, this is a pretty easy fix. Specifically, you are going to want to focus on page titles and meta descriptions in this process. When you find a page that doesn’t have a title, create a new title that is between 50 and 60 characters and ideally includes your main keyword for that page. Also, keep the formatting of these titles the same across all of your pages, for consistency and familiarity with your audience. The same approach can be taken for meta descriptions, which are meant to be an explanation of what can be found on each page. These tags can be extremely useful for your click-through rate on the search results page, so take the time needed to write helpful, informative copy that will encourage a searcher to click or tap to learn more. The Patient Approach If you have read through these ideas and are excited to get to work on improving your site, we have some bad news – it’s going to take some time. As soon as you dive into the process of overhauling your site, you’ll quickly be hit with the realization that this is a lot of work and you are going to struggle to find time in your day to work on it while keeping up with countless other tasks. That might be frustrating, but don’t let it be the end of the road. Instead, work out a detailed schedule that will allow you to go through the various elements, one at a time until your website is a finely-tuned SEO machine. Along the way, you’ll gradually be making improvements in each of the four areas, so you should see some SEO progress before you get to the finish line. Good luck with this process and here’s to many more organic search visitors in the months and years to come. Matt Buchanan is the Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at Service Direct , a technology company that offers local lead generation solutions for service businesses. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University. He has 15+ years of expertise in local lead generation, sales, search engine marketing, and building and executing growth strategies.

How to Overhaul Your Website to Improve SEO

1. Layer2 Scaling For those of you who may not be as familiar with the topic, layer2 is usually an application layer that sits on top of layer1 chains like Ethereum to enable limitless scalability. Layer2 brings much-needed scalability to the blockchain ecosystem by moving transactions off of the main chain to achieve greater efficiency, resulting in higher throughput, quicker transactions, and lower fees. While all layer2’s aim to help solve the scalability piece of the blockchain trilemma, the way in which layer2’s accomplish this can vary. For example, the two most widely used methods are zero-knowledge roll-ups and optimistic roll-ups, but I’ll expand in more detail later. The reason layer2’s have become a big trend in crypto is that blockchain scalability is a challenge that impacts everyone. It limits a developer’s ability to design and build applications and products capable of scaling with widespread adoption. For end-users, it creates a poor user experience that’s plagued with slow transactions and high fees. If blockchain is to bring mainstream audiences into the new Web3 economy, scalability is the biggest challenge that it needs to address, and layer2’s are at the forefront of this movement. 2. Layer2 Market In exploring layer2 projects and their value propositions, Ethereum is perhaps the best example of a layer1 ecosystem that’s seeing exponential growth in layer2 activity. As more and more users enter the Ethereum ecosystem following a surge in retail interest in DeFi, GameFi and NFTs, the Ethereum network has become increasingly congested. Coupled with the rise in ETH prices, gas fees have become incredibly costly, effectively pricing out many new users. Simple transactions like token swaps and NFT purchases can now cost up to hundreds of dollars in fees per transaction during peak times, so the layer1 network alone is no longer a sustainable or scalable option for high frequency and high volume applications like marketplaces and decentralized exchanges. High gas fees are a major problem for the network. This is where layer2s come in. Over the past year, we’ve seen massive growth in the Ethereum layer2 ecosystem with projects like Arbitrum and Optimism gaining more adoption as developers seek more efficient ways to scale transactions. Our layer2 DEX, which enables seamless cross-chain swaps with extremely low fees, is also gaining a lot of traction. Layers2’s like ours are solving a fundamental problem with layer1 ecosystems, which isn’t limited to Ethereum but equally applicable to all layer1 chains. Layer2s have become foundational to the broader blockchain and Web3 ecosystem, and demand for layer2s is on the rise. Perhaps one of the best indicators of layer2 adoption is the Total Value Locked or TVL. TVL reflects how much asset value is locked and deployed in the layer2 ecosystem. A growing layer2 TVL is a sign that more users are moving their assets to a layer2 application rather than transacting on layer1. Using Ethereum as an example again, Ethereum’s layer2 TVL is now nearly $7 billion, a more than 900% increase in the last 90 days. Ethereum’s largest layer2 chain Arbtitrum now has $2.6 billion in total value locked. Even our platform ZKSwap has over $200 million in TVL. And while the anticipated release of Ethereum 2.0 and its migration to PoS consensus over PoW aims to solve some of the network’s underlying scalability issues, layer2 adoption will continue on an upward trend. This is due to the fact that while the Ethereum 2.0 roadmap offers scalability, the base layer scalability for applications is part of the last phase, which is still years away. At the recent Shanghai International Blockchain Week, Ethereum founder Vitalik confirmed that layer2 is “the future of Ethereum scaling and the only safe way to scale Ethereum while preserving decentralization that is so core to the blockchain.” 3. ZKRollups While Layers 2's are on the rise, they’re not all designed the same. Most Layer2 protocols utilize one of two roll-ups as a scaling strategy: ZK roll-ups, which is what ZKSwap uses; and optimistic roll-ups. The two have similar goals of scaling transactions off-chain without compromising security but they take different approaches. But first, a quick primer on roll-ups. A roll-up is an off-chain aggregation of transactions inside a smart contract, which reduces fees and congestion by increasing the throughput of the blockchain. These roll-ups can take Ethereum from the current 15 transactions per second, or TPS, to thousands of TPS. Within the smart contract, users can transact with security guarantees their transactions will not be misused and they will settle to the main chain at some point in the future. It publishes just enough data on-chain so that any observer can reconstruct the account balance and detect invalidity. When comparing ZK to optimistic roll-ups, ZK is much more complex as a technology. From a high level, ZK roll-up is a layer2 scaling solution in which all funds are held by a smart contract on the main chain, while it performs computation and storage off-chain where the validity of the side chains is ensured by zero-knowledge proofs. This makes it ideal for token transfers and other specialized applications. Optimistic roll-ups on the other hand offer an easier way to migrate existing dapps and services with a reasonable degree of security and scalability tradeoff, which is fine for scaling general-purpose smart contracts. Without going into too much detail, we believe that ZK roll-ups offer the highest level of scalability and security, which is crucial for anything involving asset transfers like our decentralized exchange. This is a sentiment echoed by Vitalik. He recently stated that in the long-term, ZK roll-ups, which were more complex but had strong security, were likely to be the preferred. 4. Emerging Use Cases - Solving Scalability with ZKSwap After briefly touching on Layer2  and ZKRollup technology, let’s take a look at the emerging use case. ZKSwap is a layer2 DEX employing ZK roll-ups to enable seamless token swaps across multiple chains like Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, OKChain, and Huobi ECO Chain. By using a ZK roll-up architecture, our DEX bundles hundreds of token swaps into a single transaction for greater efficiency and lower gas fees. On ZKSwap, user transactions are verified and stored off-chain on layer2 until withdrawals are requested. Liquidity providers and users pay gas fees only when they deposit or withdraw tokens from the Ethereum layer1. This allows users to trade on ZKSwap with little-to-no gas fees, which greatly reduces user friction and empowers users to trade more freely. Because transactions happen in real-time on layer2, fees are only paid at layer1 withdrawal. This means users can make dozens of trades without incurring exorbitant gas fees and with the confidence of knowing their assets are safely secured by the layer1 contract. Transactions made on ZKSwap utilize the strong consensus security of the underlying layer1 blockchain whilst maintaining the privacy of zero-knowledge proof and requiring no gas fees. This solution is ideal for users or institutions looking to perform high-volume trades across a wide range of assets. We believe asset security is just as important as scalability so our platform has been fully audited by ABDK, Certik, and SlowMist. With the recent release of our V2, we further improved our user experience by shortening the withdrawal time from the ZKSwap layer2 to a supported layer1 like Ethereum. We also introduced an Unlimited Token Listings feature that enables users to list any ERC-20 token or create any token pair. Additionally, ERC-20 token and stablecoin transactions on ZKSwap are free and settled in real-time. In addition to support for all token standards, ZKSwap V2 optimizes branch circuits to improve efficiency and support editing two balances within one account. Layer2 to layer1 token withdrawal speeds have also increased to create a more seamless user experience. With V2, we wanted to ensure that users not only have a frictionless user experience but also participate in a more expansive DeFi ecosystem that allows anyone to list and swap thousands of new tokens with ease. By leveraging layer2 technology, we’re aiming to make DeFi more accessible to the masses by eliminating unnecessary gas fees and network congestion, which are two of the biggest barriers to DeFi adoption of layer1 chains like Ethereum. We’re helping solve for scalability and usability by offering a more efficient solution for the network and its users. 5. Layer2 NFTs & ZKSwap Roadmap Beyond the DEX features, ZKSwap looks to introduce NFT features, cross-chain interoperability, and more exciting layer2 products. Layer2’s can be used to scale any type of application from NFT marketplaces to decentralized gaming but they’re becoming more prevalent for DeFi protocols because of the sheer volume of transactions and the importance of asset security. This is especially true for decentralized exchanges (DEXs), which allow users to trade freely without the usual limitations imposed by centralized exchanges. While DEXs offer true P2P exchange of wealth in a fully decentralized environment, they can also struggle with poor user experience and be a major source of user frustration. Without layer2 scaling, single chain DEXs on layer1’s like Ethereum can become quite costly for active traders. Every trade is treated as a standalone transaction, so each trade must be settled on the layer1 chain. This means a user must pay gas fees on every single transaction, even if a series of transactions are needed to make the desired trade. During times of extreme volatility and trading volume, the layer1 network can become congested, not only driving gas fees up but also slowing down transaction times. This lack of scalability creates a poor user experience that can reduce a trader's profit and arbitrage opportunities. The scalability challenge for DEXs is even more prominent when attempting to support cross-chain swaps. For instance, swapping an ERC-20 token for an asset on Binance Smart Chain would require several layers of transactions to achieve the end result, which would result in unnecessarily high transaction costs without a layer2 solution. That’s why when we set out to build a cross-chain DEX, we made the decision to incorporate ZK roll-ups to improve the user experience with quicker, more efficient transactions. With many of the details still yet to be unveiled, the upgraded version of ZKSwap is set to be an innovative alternative to some of the existing DeFi platforms. Moving forward, the team has plans to meet the needs of users by further expanding NFT-related functionality and including batch mining, verification, mystery box auctions, bidding, and much more. The team is also looking to implement better cross-chain interoperability between different Layer 2’s on Ethereum, BSC, Solona, etc, providing users with even faster and cheaper cross-chain services. Last but not least, ZKSwap will be working on more features and solutions for improved capital utilization and release a version of ZK-Rollups that is fully compatible with EVM in order to allow Dapp developers to join the ecosystem and build the future of ZKSwap together. With many of the details still yet to be unveiled, the upgraded version of ZKSwap is set to be an innovative alternative to some of the existing DeFi platforms.

5 Reasons Why Layer 2 Solutions Will Overhaul FinTech As We Know It

So far in the story of blockchain, each year brought a new trend. In 2017, ETH smart contracts brought the concept of initial coin offering, 2018 saw a rise in gaming applications, 2019 brought focus on gambling apps and the trend in 2020 is unmistakable: the decentralized finance movement, by far the most impactful trend and continues to grow. With cryptocurrency adoption on the rise, the new digital money calls for crypto-based financial instruments and products. This need has led to the creation of a new layer of financial infrastructure for cryptocurrencies, called DeFi. It enables users to access the financial instruments with ease in a decentralized trustless manner, allowing: (1) Direct matching of borrowers and lenders: A means by which individuals could directly borrow money (or stable coin) using cryptocurrency (for example, ETH) as collateral with each other. (2) Direct peer-to-peer exchange and trading in risk-free mechanism: Today's trading landscape is primarily dominated by a few large players, predominantly Coinbase, Bitfinex, and Binance. While centralized trading has been widely popular, it’s not the financial economy most crypto enthusiasts and entrepreneurs are hoping to achieve. Given the centralized control, these exchanges have high-security loopholes and lack transparency. Recently Kucoin exchange got hacked, losing more than $150 Million in user's assets. There is a need for a trading system that is open (transparent) and removes the typical intermediaries or centralized points of control. Decentralized exchanges operate in an open, risk-free environment enabling direct peer-to-peer trading opportunities. Uniswap emerged this year as the go-to decentralized exchange (DEX) for trading cryptocurrencies. Some of the ecosystem or services which enables DeFi products to thrive: (1) Stable coins: Stablecoins are crypto-assets that maintain a stable value against a target price (e.g., the U.S dollar). In the crypto space, Stable coins provide risk protection against the volatile price of cryptocurrencies, used as a trading pair for crypto assets. When it comes to DeFi lending protocols, lenders give credit in stable coins to borrow against their collateral. There are several other use cases of stable coins, such as: Loyalty programs: Walmart is building its own USD coin and most likely uses its stable coin as an upgrade to loyalty points. JPM coin: JP Morgan and other banks are trying to increase banking operational efficiency. (2) Data markets: Prediction markets are another such instance where DeFi protocols are used. In such cases,  thousands of individuals leverage their knowledge collectively or independently to predict an outcome. For instance, data scientists (or analysts) predict stock price and stake (or bet) their prediction with capital. The data scientists are then rewarded based on the accuracy of their predictions. ChainLink is one such blockchain company that is building an entire ecosystem around data markets. It provides decentralized oracles that put data from the real-world in the blockchain. Using smart contracts, developers can build trustless, transparent apps to leverage these oracles. Now is the time for a change? The crypto world is moving to an economy where more and more individuals directly participate in these DeFi protocols to earn passive income. Over $500 million of assets were locked in DeFi protocols last year and has exploded in little time in 2020 to reach $15 billion. Uniswap, MakerDAO, Compound, dx/dy, and Curve, among others, are the most vivid examples of this ongoing DeFi momentum. The users of DeFi protocols hugely benefit from an open market that does not charge exorbitant transaction and service fees compared to its centralized counterparts. This new approach allows not only to successfully compete with existing traditional financial analogs but also to outperform them on a number of factors, such as: Transparency, Price efficiency as prices are subject to market demand, Ease and speed of access, and Censorship resistance and immutability Nonetheless, we should not forget the experimental nature of these financial primitives that come with elements of risk such as: (1) Smart contract risk: It takes a long time for common developers to learn and start coding smart contracts. Making simple mistakes while writing smart contracts in the Ethereum programming model “Solidity” can cause huge consequences like security breaches or losing all locked funds. It's like walking with a blindfold and hoping for the best to happen. Some of the well-known examples of poorly coded smart contracts: Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) hack resulting in . 3.6 Million Ether stolen used by Parity, which was exploited and resulted in the loss of 0.5 Million Ether (ETH), worth more than $280 million. Bug discovered in the smart contract Writing smart contracts has not been easy even for experienced coders. Recently a decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol bZx was hacked, losing over $8 million due to a faulty code in its smart contracts despite their contracts audited by two well-known security firms. (2) Low liquidity: One of the most important and subsequently hardest aspects to create a new financial system is generating the necessary liquidity required for efficient investing. Liquidity is the ability of an individual to buy or sell a financial instrument without affecting the asset’s price. In the case of DeFi lending protocols, low liquidity could affect the equilibrium of interest rates, thereby causing loan matching uncertainty. Most lending platforms use an over-collateral model, however, this strategy may still be risky given the volatile nature of crypto assets. One recent example is MakerDAO ‘Black Thursday’. Since the MakerDAO project leverages ETH for collateralization, the significant ETH price drop on 12 Mar 2020, led to 100% liquidation of collateral value. For DEX, low liquidity in the exchange would not interest traders and higher spreads could easily spike prices. Low liquidity in DEX also invites arbitrage exploits. Arbitrage is a trade that profits by exploiting the price differences of identical assets in different exchanges. Recently the DeFi protocol Harvest Finance lost $24 million due to an arbitrage attack. The attacker targeted the Harvest protocol's liquidity pools, performing an arbitrage attack using a large flash loan. One key reason for the low liquidity has been unpleasant users' experience in decentralized applications. Ease of navigation and better user interface in centralized exchange make it a 'go-to' option. (3) Rising gas fee: DeFi users pay gas fees to have their transactions (interactions with protocol’s smart contracts) approved and added to a block. Ethereum gas fees have been on the rise since the beginning of this year which has narrowed DeFi users APY. This has resulted in making DeFi protocols accessible to large investors. For retail investors (with an amount <$1000), yield farming could turn to losses. Minimizing DeFi risk - new rising protocols & solutions As outlined above about these risk factors, this new system could be complex to manage from the risk perspective. The past year brought these issues into the limelight and many companies and developers now seek to minimize these risk factors. Recently, Interpotability has been coined as the next step to revolutionize Defi momentum - a cross-communication protocol where two or more completely different blockchain systems can talk to each other and exchange value. , Fusion, Ren, , etc are some of the crypto start-ups making it a reality. A more comprehensive study about Interportability in the following . Polkadot Cosmos Hackernnon article These solutions of course unlock the free movement of the"Internet of Values’’, but they are only limited to the exchange of “value’’ over the internet. In my view, the internet of value, in its essence, can be achieved by not just focusing on the free exchange of value or focusing on scalability, but also ensuring usability and user experience. Focus on the customer, Customer will come to you: If we continue to build solutions ignoring the key aspect of adoption - customers, we may end-up again competing with each other to onboard the community from other crypto ecosystems. One such startup, NEAR protocol, is working to introduce new thinking in the blockchain architecture and programming model. Here is how NEAR solves the DeFi protocols risk. NEAR protocol is a sharded, developer-friendly, proof-of-stake scalable-public blockchain built from the ground up to make it easier for developers to build on and onboard users. Currently running in the main net, users experience fast transaction settlement (3-second finality) in NEAR based dApps, with gas fees 10,000x less compared to ETH-based dApps. Let’s look at how NEAR protocol solves these challenges: >> Minimize smart contract bugs by coding in the programming language you already know: Much of the development experience has been mostly suboptimal. Given most developers' extreme focus on building defi/ smart contracts, the final outcome isn’t as well integrated and user friendly compared to tools built via centralized engineering effort. To solve developers' struggles, developers can write defi smart contracts in NEAR using familiar languages – Typescript and Rust, for starters – that compile to WebAssembly. This makes it easier for developers as they don't have to learn a new niche domain language to write smart contracts, thereby reducing bugs/errors in smart contracts. >> Fast, easy development process to build user-friendly DeFi applications: One of the challenges in the mass adoption of blockchain apps has been difficulty in onboard mainstream users. In the majority of cases, users are required to download the Metamask, generate an address, sign up with an exchange, , send ETH to their wallet, and then they are ready to play. buy ETH To a crypto savvy person, this might not sound too complex, but for the average Bob, this is a complete turn-off. As a result, much of the focus game developers have made is to attract players (users) from the crypto community, limiting their user (or audience) base. NEAR protocol solves this challenge where developers pay transaction fees instead of users. Users can try out decentralized applications the same way they try all other apps – for free. Developers can prepay transactions for them so that their users don’t need to work out how to buy crypto tokens on an external exchange in order to start using the applications. To avoid the complexity for average Bob to first know 'what blockchain or native tokens', developers can use NEAR's progressive security feature which allows users to sign up (or register) for the application the same way they would sign up for other applications from Web2. This way users are progressively learning about decentralized applications, allowing easy onboarding for users. Once the users are ready to commit, they can link their account security once without a need for any browser extension like Metamask. >> Development environment: NEAR also provides an online integrated development environment for developers to provide comprehensive facilities for software development. Using Online IDE, developers can browse, navigate, or visualize components in the structure of programming code and also automate/debug their smart contracts. It makes the development process easy and fast. Developers can focus on building feature-rich and well-integrated DeFi protocols, thereby providing delighting user experience and a better chance of product stickiness. To sum-up: Many companies and developers are seeking to minimize DeFi risk factors. Of course, solutions and new business models will help at least reduce some of these problems, it may take some time unless radical changes are made in the base layer of the blockchain to completely mitigate these concerns. NEAR protocol, is working to introduce new thinking in the blockchain architecture and programming model to mitigate all the above said challenges.

Is It Time To Overhaul The DeFi Ecosystem Already?

Summary: This is the backstory of how we built pribot.org . There is a Wired article about the project already. This article provides our story of what went behind the scenes. Whenever someone asks me what I work on, I find nothing better than a single link to a YouTube series of 9 hours filming an actor reading Amazon Kindle’s terms and conditions. Yes, you read it correctly: 9 HOURS. Here is the trailer: And this is a link to the full series . Hopefully, you’re still with me at this early stage and you didn’t get lost in an endless spiral of similar videos recommended by YouTube, such as people streaming themselves reading privacy policies of , , and e, for hours. Google Facebook Appl Actually, the privacy policy, the equally annoying sibling of terms and conditions, is the subject of this article. Have you thought how long it would really take to read all the policies for services we use per year? That would be according to a research by in 2008. 201 hours McDonald and Cranor So given the choice between this unpaid, exhausting task and anything else, it’s no wonder that people prefer spending time fulfilling their yearly exercising goals, reading an amusing book, or just relaxing. This is even when they hear frightening stories of what’s inside privacy policies (like and ). this this Researchers have tried to make these policies simpler, primarily by manual methods, like websites offering of their policy, inspired by nutrition labels. Approaches relying on the wisdom of the crowd have received good traction too (like the “ ” project). Yet, these attempts didn’t scale due to the huge manual effort and human expertise involved. standardized versions Terms of Service; Didn’t Read Fixing Privacy Policies: the Backstory 🛠 Two years ago, my colleagues and I wrote a for a workshop on the future of privacy notices. paper In it, we proposed a vision for turning privacy policies into a conversation via a chatbot called . PriBot Let’s admit it: 2016 was the year of chatbots, and we were — shamelessly — motivated by the hype. After all, the best interface . Right? is no interface Our idea was that you could ask PriBot about any privacy policy like you ask Siri for the capital of Ivory Coast . PriBot would then respond in real time with an answer from the policy itself. (spoiler: Yamoussoukro) Fast forward ⏩ Twenty months later, we have taken our vision to fruition in a new , in which we first show how we realized the goal of automated Question Answering for privacy policies. This is a collaboration between (yours truly), , , , and . research paper Hamza Harkous Kassem Fawaz Rémi Lebret Florian Schaub Kang G. Shin Karl Aberer As our first research outcome, we’re introducing PriBot to the public, via a chatbot that you can converse with right now at : pribot.org/bot PriBot in action On the way to build PriBot, we had a surprising byproduct, which even has the potential to make a wider impact: we built a general system for automatically analyzing privacy policies using machine learning. We call it Polisis. gives you a glimpse about of privacy policy, like the data being collected, the information shared with third parties, the security measures implemented by the company, the choices you have, etc. All that without having to read a single line of the policy itself. Polisis We’re releasing Polisis too at . You can alternatively download its or to analyze websites in a click. pribot.org/polisis Chrome extension Firefox addon Polisis in action To our knowledge, Polisis is the first system to provide such in-depth automated analysis of privacy policies. Who is this for? 👩‍⚖️🕵️‍👨‍💻 We have three audiences envisioned: We designed PriBot and Polisis to be highly intuitive for the general user who is interested in the privacy aspects of the sites they use. General users: We envision that the technology powering Polisis could be used for large-scale analysis of privacy policies by regulation agencies. For example, in our , we used Polisis to show how privacy certification companies (such as — now TrustArc) have been highly permissive with businesses. Regulators: paper TRUSTe A lot of research has studied apps and websites in an automated way based on their code, their embedded scripts, or on what they share over the network. A missing piece of the puzzle is what these apps promise in their privacy policies. We hope our work can empower researchers with new insights from the policies’ angle. Researchers: To that goal, we would be glad to collaborate with regulators, researchers, and the general industry. Feel free to if you are interested. reach out No Magic Pill Now to the research part! You might say: “couldn’t you do the above by combining a few APIs or open source projects? Didn’t IBM Watson beat humans at answering “Jeopardy!” questions? And why couldn’t you use commercial services like ?” Microsoft QnA Maker The answer is that such systems are not magic pills. If they are trained on specific domains, like insurance questions, they can be rarely adequate for others. If they are trained on a general domain, they suffer when tested with specific problems. Imagine asking the question: “ ” around a privacy policy. Almost every QA system will favor the answer “ ” over the answer “we use your location for customizing our service.” Obviously, the second is the better answer. Yet, this is not easy to get. do you gather my address info? for your info, we work hard to address your issues What makes things harder is that there are no public datasets of questions and answers about privacy policies waiting to be trained. So traditional approaches to this problem were not the way forward. A Hierarchical Approach 💤 We took the other way around. We focused on solving the problem of automatically labeling segments in the privacy policy, producing . Then we leveraged that solution for the QA problem, producing . On a high-level, our approach for automatically labeling segments was as follows: Polisis PriBot We first trained a model on 130K privacy policies that we collected. Unsupervised Learning step: word embedding We then trained a hierarchy of 22 classifiers (each being a neural network) for labeling the different aspects of the policy. We relied on the valuable OPP-115 dataset from the for this part. Supervised Learning step: Usable Privacy Project : if you just read these steps, and you try to reproduce the results, that will lead to a horrible performance. Our discusses the devil in the details, which lead to a high accuracy, from data preprocessing to classifier selection, etc. Spoiler paper How can we move from classification to QA? Let’s say you had a question “Do you share my info?”. To get an answer, we first break the policy into . Each segment is a candidate answer. Then, we rank the answers by their similarity to the question. small standalone segments The similarity is measured by seeing which answers receive “close” labels to the question. To get these labels, we pass both the question and the answers through our classification hierarchy. How to define “close” is also important. For example, questions are frequently broad. You don’t want to frustrate the user by with close, but generic answers. Hence, we came up with a new similarity algorithm to account for this issue (details in the ). paper Examples We Love Hopefully, by now you are willing to give our tools a try. Head over to to see them both in action. pribot.org And to get inspired when you stress-test PriBot, you can check the following examples. Here, PriBot works although there are no common words between the question and the answer: …or when our hands get sloppy, and we misspell a few critical words (you can thank for this): subword embeddings PriBot also notifies users when there is a contradiction in the potential answers: …and it tries to not appear stupid when presented with irrelevant questions: Likewise, you can give a go, and you can a few examples below: Polisis With Fitbit’s policy, you can get an overview of what data the company collects. By clicking on “Analytics/Research”, you can see all the data being collected for that purpose, with the options you get. You can also see that Fitbit shares health information with third parties in the second tab. Hovering over the link will give you the exact evidence from the policy itself. If the policy gives you choices to mitigate data collection, you can see these choices in the dedicated tab, along with the links to opt-in or opt-out. Finally, if there is no information about a certain aspect in the policy, we give an explanation on why this is the case. We hope you enjoy playing with these services, and we welcome your feedback. We know well the limitations of this technology. Hence, we do not claim that the results are legally binding or are completely accurate. Yet, we believe that this a great step forward on the road to Make Privacy Policies Cool (I’m tempted to end the sentence with ‘Again’, but they were never cool before 😀 )! And thanks for reading! You might also be interested in checking my other articles on my Medium page: _Read writing from Hamza Harkous on Medium. Postdoc at EPFL, Switzerland; working at the intersection of Privacy, NLP…_medium.com Hamza Harkous — Medium … or my website: _Personal website of Hamza Harkous_hamzaharkous.com Hamza Harkous’ Site

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