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Umbrella Network

umbrella

As standalone systems, Blockchains do not have direct access to real-world data. It needs to be added. Smart contracts, because they're built on top of Blockchains, suffer from the same malaise. The Internet, most software, and even humans have the same architecture. Information needs to be accessed, processed, and added before the memory banks/brains can use that information later. Information/Data is added to the standalone systems via mediums which are also called oracles - a callback to ancient Greek mythology. With that brief introduction, let's dive right into the comparison of oracles provided by different providers - Chainlink, Kylin Network, DIA protocol, and our own, Umbrella Network. We'll go over: Need for comparison Difference in architecture Degree of decentralization Real-world usage Richness of data Cost We use these rubrics to ensure the elimination of our bias towards our product. Why Compare Decentralized Oracles? There are over 10 oracle services in the market today, some live, some on the way. Each of them adds a unique feature to the mix and as with all things in life - there is never a one-size-fits-all scenario that works out in the long run. The oracles we picked - Chainlink, Umbrella Network, Kylin Network, and DIA protocol, are sufficiently ready, backed by a decent development team, and most importantly - present different architectural features at a fundamental level that helps each of them act as a foil to the others. We would also go over token details briefly as they could also help depict the market confidence in the project. Chainlink Vs. Umbrella Network Vs. Kylin Network Vs. DIA protocol: Architectural Comparison Decentralized oracles take different routes (architecture) to achieve the same, or at least, similar goals. Here, we will show you how each of these decentralized oracles was built and how it tries to make data access faster, cheaper, more reliable, and decentralized. The Chainlink Architecture: An Analysis Chainlink is essentially a network of nodes to retrieve reliable real-world data via three types of smart contracts. To facilitate communication, Chainlink breaks the process of data aggregation into three parts. The first step involves the that specifies the required data. Chainlink uses the SLA to match with the oracles in its network that can retrieve the desired data, while the user locks in LINK tokens in the match making-contract. creation of a Service Level Agreement (SLA) This is , where Oracles connect with the real world to obtain the data required by the SLA. The data is then processed and sent to the smart contracts on the Blockchain. followed by data reporting The final step involves . The validity of each data set is assessed, and a weighted result is sent to the user. data aggregation and validation via the aggregation contract Apart from its network of Oracles, Chainlink also interacts with independent Oracles. This is done via the Chainlink Core and the Chainlink Adapter, where the Core routes the assignments to the Adapter, which in turn acts as a bridge between the node and external data. As the first entrant to the market (by popular perception), Chainlink captures the pros as well as the cons. It has the most number of partnerships - but also suffers from an aging architecture. Chainlink and Decentralization With about 300 odd data pairs and the fact that it has a separate smart contract for each datapoint, makes it fairly expensive for validators - and creates the need to continually mint LINK tokens which practically dilutes the stake of the entire community as a whole. Additionally, to create custom API requests, there is a requirement to whitelist the API first. Thus, there is a transaction (and the associated cost) to request custom data and another transaction to deliver the data. Finally, Chainlink data does not include any proof of consensus which could be problematic given the fact that companies need to set up their own chainlink nodes which are effectively siloed. This means that becoming a chainlink validator shall be out of the reach of most people - whether that's a good thing or bad, we'll leave it for you to decide. Data acquisition and access on Chainlink Due to the high costs involved in the addition of data, the costs are passed on to those looking to acquire data - significant costs to the tune of one transaction on Ethereum. Due to network congestions on the Ethereum Blockchain, sometimes, the GAS fees have breached the $300 per transaction mark in 2021 alone. Imagine paying $300+ to find out that the price of 1USDT is $1. Moreover, the prices are updated only once per day - which kind of works out when dealing in highly stable stablecoins but starts to show its age when you factor in volatile or not-so-liquid assets. The Kylin Network Architecture: An Analysis The Kylin Network is another decentralized oracle and is powered by Polkadot. It employs a novel Nominated Proof of Stake for consensus on a given dataset. This consensus involves by staking their tokens. validators, who run nodes for the creation and validation of blocks, and nominators, who nominate validators The Kylin Oracle is a decentralized data feeding entity, built on the , and is connected to Polkadot as a Parachain. Substrate framework Polkadot coupled with the Substrate framework ensure data integrity and network security via the arbitration mechanism. Kylin does this via five entities that contribute to its workflow: The data consumer The Oracle Node (miner) The Blockchain Node (validator) Data Warehouse, and The Arbitration node. Kylin's data marketplace enables flow of real-world validated data sets to users via the feeders with the cost of access to be paid in $KYL. The marketplace acts like a one stop solution for all dApp developers, with the hosted server acting like the caching layer. Kylin network inherits the benefits of the Polkadot-Substrate ecosystem that is similar to Eth2 - before the release of Eth2. For example, on Kylin Network, all data validation can be done on-chain. However, this validation is what you'd call a binary process - similar to how legislators vote on legislative items. This means that validators do not give real values and that prevents median calculation from becoming a part of the equation This makes the Kylin network swift and scalable, but also very dependent on the Polkadot development ecosystem and its future developments. The Kylin network architecture of rewarding the oracle programmer with a portion of every payment makes it extremely lucrative for the core team and less so for those who come in after the gates open DIA Protocol: Decentralized Information Asset (DIA) Protocol is an open-source Oracle platform that empowers the DeFi world with real-world data. It is powered by DIA, the governance token of the platform also used to validate DIA's crowdsourced data feeds. DIA functions via a four-layer architecture: The Data Collection Layer The Data Storage Layer Data Filter Layer, and The Data Connectivity Layer. Let’s talk about each of these in brief- : DIA's data collection layer comprises Exchange Scraper and Blockchain Scrapers that scrape data from various credible sources such as Binance and Kraken for exchanges, and BTC and ETH for blockchain. Data Collection Layer : The data storage layer is composed of a Time Series Database that optimizes the storage of time-stamped data, such as crypto-feeds. The includes the data verified by the validators on the network and stored on an immutable, open source database made available on DIA's platform. The primary function of this layer is to facilitate trades and circulate supply data. Data Storage Layer : This layer includes two filters, the , and the , with each exhibiting a unique role. While the Price filters perform a technical analysis of the price and volume of data, the Supply filters monitor and regulate the supply and circulation of the existing tokens and events. Data Filter Layer Price filter Supply filter : This layer is responsible for connecting dApps and other applications that require data and the data providers via Oracles or Rest API. While DIA protocol offers historical financial data for free, tracking the live price of any financial asset/cryptocurrency requires DIA tokens. Data Connectivity Layer On the DIA protocol, to update a value, each validator has to submit a new transaction for every data point and the contract owner updates the price without validation. On a technical level, the DIA protocol has only 40 lines of code with no dependencies and no libraries - could be a worrying feature or maybe it is intended to solely serve as a kernel. Even with that benefit of the doubt, it is hard to think of the DIA protocol as anything more than a centralized server that scrapes data and posts it on the Blockchain without validation. Think of DIA protocol as the Linux of decentralized oracles - secure, massive, and sometimes unwieldy. Potentially any data on any cryptocurrency across every blockchain is supported - but that can be said of other oracles too. Untimely audits and lack of developer support outside of mostly hobbyists throws a little dark cloud over this otherwise wonderful architecture Umbrella Network Architecture: An Overview Umbrella Network is the world's first truly decentralized, community-owned, and highly scalable Oracle solution.  It employs a DPoS consensus algorithm and offers a high-speed and comprehensive data feed of about 1200 crypto prices (with the stated goal of reaching 10,000+ prices by the end of the year). The data relayed by Umbrella Network is divided into Layer-1 and Layer-2 data, with the latter being the sidechain of the main chain. Layer-1 relays the First Class Data (FCD) and comprises cryptographic proofs for pricing data. While the FCD includes the most popular crypto pairs along with some crypto-fiat pairs, the cryptographic proofs can be leveraged by users to verify the pricing data. : This data set includes some of the most popular and in-demand crypto pairs, crypto-fiat pairs, and implied volatility for BTC, and ETH is always available on the chain. This data Umbrella Network makes available free of cost, and most Oracles in the market deal in the same. First Class Data : This is a rich dataset comprising of crypto pairs, indexes, volatility data, and much more, and includes over 1200 data points. The Layer-2 data is stored in Merkle Trees, an efficient and secure data structure that anchors it to the Layer-1 data. Layer-2 Data The Layer-2 data is stored and relayed by Umbrella Network using Merkle Trees. Also called a binary hash tree, Merkle Trees allow seamless transfer of data among nodes in a peer-to-peer network. Each leaf node represents a data point on a Merkle Tree and is rolled up to the root hash. The Proof of Stake also includes the root hash- representing the entire set of data points contained within the Merkle Tree. What sets the Umbrella Network architecture apart from the others is: the offchain processing of validator signatures Batching of datapoints - essentially validating the consensus and updating several datapoints with just one transaction. Off-chain custom requests Single oracle network encapsulates the ecosystem preventing bifurcation into siloed networks This leads to massive savings on GAS costs which are leveraged in three different ways: at which the APIs fetch data and commit them to the Blockchain Increase the frequency so that it is not just the price feed that you can access, but also complex calculated data such as implied volatility, greeks, and more - essentially saving computation costs of DeFi apps that plan to utilize rich data. Increase the richness of data in the market Offer data at the cheapest price Umbrella Network and Decentralization In a marked departure from the centralizing tendencies shown by other oracles that require a high upfront cost to run a node, Umbrella Network community validators can run a node with as little as $2k per month - even this cost is reimbursed. Moreover, Umbrella Network shall support multiple Blockchains and that foments greater decentralization. What sets us apart from the other oracle architectures mentioned earlier can be summed up in the following bullet points: - Umbrella Network's smart contract verifies the addresses of all validators and consensus over data is sought (and achieved) before commitment to the Blockchain. The proof of consensus is attached to every piece of data - ensuring data integrity even after retrieval from the Blockchain Iron-clad Data Validation - Some of the oracles mentioned earlier had different networks for different types of data. This creates siloes and runs the risk of needing separate transactions for inter-network data despite being on the same platform. Umbrella Network's batching of data and merkle-ization is the key differentiator in this regard - allowing us to bring our vast (largest amongst all compared) data points into the same network Single Architectural Framework - Simply put, an unlimited supply of tokens basically slashes the value of HODLers every time new tokens are minted. In the world of oracles, that essentially means that first, you pay for the data directly and then you pay via value decimation indirectly. On the Umbrella Network, the supply is fixed and the token is used not to decrease the value of tokens held by HODLers but is used for DPoS consensus. Cascading Benefits of Fixed-Supply Tokenomics Summary of Oracles' Comparison Conclusion That oracles shall be instrumental in enabling cross-chain support, data access, and data retrieval is undeniable. It was on this note that we decided to compare the architectural strengths, weaknesses, and potentials of the four kinds of technical architectures used by decentralized oracles of the day. is the obvious leader as things stand today, with several hundred confirmed partners but questions regarding high costs involved need to be addressed. Nobody wants an Internet Explorer in a day and age when Chrome exists, in terms of analogy. We wish the best to the first leader of the industry. Chainlink is a great response to the diversification of Blockchain architectures and presents an excellent solution for at least the Polkadot ecosystem. However, it is still in the testnet phase (as of writing) and shall need to be battle-tested in the days to come and prove its mettle. Kylin Network has a very modular approach to the entire Oracle ecosystem. Decentralized to the extent of a DAO on day 1 has its pros but that there is a long road to decentralization, as exhibited amply by Bitcoin, as well as, Ethereum should have tempered fiction towards reality. We wait on this front too, to see it in action, before judgment can be pronounced. DIA protocol Finally, , our answer to all of the above, already LIVE on Binance Smartchain, going live on Ethereum in September 2021, looks like the most promising to the Chainlink juggernaut. By actually offering prices at a fraction of what is normally acceptable and by onboarding its first cohort of validators, Umbrella Network decentralized oracles are diametrically opposite to several architectural features of Chainlink. Umbrella Network As DeFi grows and absorbs more talented developers, data-richness, affordability, and the highest level of freedom/decentralization shall determine who comes out on top. In our (objective but subjective arguably) opinion, we've ticked those boxes with our decentralized oracles. But, as goes the adage, it shall be seen.

Chainlink Vs. Umbrella Network Vs. Kylin Network Vs. DIA Protocol: A Comparative Analysis

How'd you explain the Umbrella Network and decentralized oracles to your mom? Mom, remember that time we were at the casino in Las Vegas, and we played blackjack for eight hours. Remember that dealer Jack who kept making mistakes by adding up the hand totals? Umbrella Network: I mean, is it that hard to add together two or three cards? None of the other dealers seemed to have the same problem as this person. But also, remember how all the other players noticed whenever the dealer made a mistake? Well, that’s sort of what decentralized oracles do. We have multiple parties watching the same data and transactions. And if there is a mistake made by the person submitting the data, or if there is malicious intent such as cheating, the community that watches, known as validators, will call this out. It’s easy for the dealer to make a mistake. Jack, the name I’m giving that dealer who kept messing up, is human. He might’ve been having a bad day. Or maybe he didn’t like us and wanted us to lose. Either way, our group of fellow players caught him. And they did it and called Jack out on it because this was the right thing to do, not because there was some economic benefit to doing so. Now imagine if the dealer had to pay our fellow players if he made a mistake. Jack would be far more careful not to make such mistakes. Fellow players would’ve been even more vigilant, watching Jack like a hawk. That’s what Umbrella Network does. It’s a network of validators that watch and report incorrect data. And if they spot bad data, the equivalent to Jack messing up, then they get paid for it.  The idea here, as you can see, is to enhance accuracy by incentivizing the ecentralizecollective vigilance of the system. What do you mean by 'the mainnet is launching'? How different is it from a testnet launch? Note: Public testnet is launching, not mainnet Umbrella Network: For the last couple of months, Umbrella Network has been building and testing internally on Ethereum testnets Kovan and Ropsten. This means only Umbrella Network’s team members and advisors had access to the system. We’re really proud of our achievement with a small group of highly dedicated people. And just five weeks after our initial DEX offering, or IDO, we will be revealing our product to the general public on March 15th. This short amount of time between the two further demonstrates how much momentum we have. Developers will, for the first time, have access to over 750 cryptocurrency and other data available for their decentralized applications, already more data offered than any other oracle on the market today. They’ll have access to data like implied volatility data supplied both by Umbrella Network and Genesis Volatility, time-weighted average prices, cryptocurrency prices and commodities like crude oil. So we are inviting developers to join us on testnet to build their product and to grow with us as we head to Mainnet together. Which Blockchain has the best chance of upstaging ethereum? If I knew the answer to that, I would leave this interview and put all my money in that blockchain’s token. Umbrella Network: It feels like blockchain is in a similar stage to when I got into the mobile industry in 2010. Back then, there were two big issues for developers. First, bandwidth was insufficient. And second, accessing data was expensive. LTE addressed the former issue. And Amazon Web Services, or AWS, solved the latter. Similarly, blockchains today have a bandwidth issue. We have a number of new blockchains coming online, including ETH2.0. At the moment we’re paying particular attention to Polkadot, Solana, Cardano, Elrond and Avalanche. And we’ve already committed to running on Binance Smart Chain. Ultimately, we’ll support any chain where there is a developer community in need of secure data. After all, Umbrella Network is blockchain agnostic, so we are open to far more than just one. As for the latter, we’ll be greatly reducing the cost of on-chain data. When you consider that one of the industry leaders in the oracle space has mentioned that it can cost $0.60 per piece of data, assuming 30 GWei and $200 ETH, it’s really remarkable how much their data is still in high demand despite those hefty costs. Keep in mind that GWei is closer to 200 and $1900 ETH. Our costs are much, much lower. Currently, in fact, we offer the lowest prices in the market. What is that one use case of decentralized oracles that you'd want the community to build? So glad you asked. We’re actually going to announce a Developer Challenge this week. I don’t mean to spoil the surprise, but there will be multiple rewards for developers who integrate into the Umbrella Network. They’ll be judged based on the utility of the application and how well it demonstrates Umbrella Network’s features and benefits. Umbrella Network: We’ll give some suggestions with the announcement. But I’ll drop one here. We’d like to see a decentralized price aggregator using IPFS and UMB oracle data. What are the pros and cons of using a native token, like your UMB, for internal transactions, in comparison to using bitcoin? $UMB is not a payment token. Native tokens like $UMB are too volatile to be suitable for payments, in our opinion. We believe stablecoins or even ETH is more appropriate for payments. $UMB is a governance token that also provides liquidity mining benefits for token holders. $UMB holders will elect representatives in governance of the DAO. And they will be able to delegate their tokens to validators who will then share user fees with the tokenholder on a pro rata basis. Should we expect 2021-2022 to be the year of oracle wars? Why? Let’s hope for good, healthy competition that’s based on product differentiation and features. I believe there needs to be a thriving market of oracles that address the wide variety of needs demanded blockchain developers. No one oracle is going to be able to meet the needs of all developers. The needs are simply too large and diverse. Umbrella Network: Instead, I see a future where many great oracles serve different parts of the market. For us, it’s the big data market. We’re addressing the market for those who need more complex or less frequently used data that is currently not well supported in a secure manner. That’s why we are focused on the mid- to long-tail cryptocurrency price market and emerging markets in decentralized options, insurance, indexes, synthetics and calculated values. Opponents of total decentralization cited speed, regulation, and ease of use to demonize DEXs. How would you answer those questions in the context of decentralized oracles? Give the DEXs some time to grow and mature. Despite having their hands tied behind their back by low bandwidth and high cost of data, DEXs have developed their platforms at just amazing speed. There’s a new feature or product available almost every time I visit Uniswap, Sushiswap, Balancer, 1INCH and Pancake. When their hands are untied, we’re going to see an absolute explosion of growth, including solving such issues as speed and ease of use.. Umbrella Network: What is that one development in the Blockchain space in 2021 that you’re most excited about? I’m really looking forward to seeing the decentralized options market growing. At first, the pricing of options was very rudimentary. You either had to be fully collateralized or the pricing was so expensive that they were uncompetitive in comparison to their centralized counterparts. For example, Hegic, who in my opinion was the first to innovate and grow in this space, used a very simple method to calculate the cost of options. And naturally without advanced models, they had to over-charge for a simple option. However, we’re now working with new projects like Oddz and others to provide them accurate-implied volatility that allows them to price options on par with the best Wall Street models. And that’s in part because Umbrella’s models are actually built by Wall Street quants. Umbrella Network: Furthermore, we’re going to see more dynamic hedging strategies powered by new projects and new data. The next wave of decentralized options players will price options using the best IV calculations and hedge using the best set of “Greeks” such as delta, gamma and theta. And they’ll have access to the financial instruments needed to implement these hedges, such as a thriving futures market. We’re in the early innings. But it’s really going to be exciting to see where we are at the end of 2021. How would you explain Decentralized Risk Coverage to your mom? It's the evolution of how humans do insurance. Instead of contracting with a large insurance company and depending on governments to regulate them and keep them honest; everyone becomes the insurance company, insures each other, and relies on game theory and transparency to ensure fair and accurate outcomes. BridgeMutal: Since risk changes with time, what processes/implementations do you have to quickly update the risk, given allegations that decentralization would make it slow? A broad set of generic risks are covered, and the price of coverage is dynamic and determined by the amount of coverage available. This negates the need to micromanage and assess risks. It will actually be much quicker than traditional insurance in terms of claim resolution time. BridgeMutal: Let’s say you use two oracles and both arrive at different results. How would you pick one over the other? We will have multiple oracles drawing from multiple sources. The oracles should be ignoring significant outliers, and we will, too. The system will take the average of what's left. BridgeMutul: What is that one development in the Blockchain space in 2021 that you’re most excited about? There's a lot of big developments this year, it's hard to keep track. I guess I'm most excited to see working and robust layer 2s on Ethereum. BridgeMutul: To a layman, DeFi and CeFi might pretty much appear the same. How would you correct them, knowing that they’re a layman? DeFi and CeFi are both words that float around in the crypto space quite often. Decentralised Finance (DeFi) is essentially CeFi but without the presence of a centralised body in between. Polkacover: There is a security protocol that is used by the transacting parties in order to ensure maximum security. This is as opposed to Centralised Finance (CeFi) which makes use of a centralised body in between transacting parties. The function of the centralised body is to ensure transparency as well as to encourage accountability as they require users to register using personal information. This is currently more popular amongst crypto users in general, but since the exchange is a third party that has to act as an intermediary, some users feel that it compromises the independence that crypto is valued for. We are building solutions for both kinds of crypto user's within our roadmap How is P2P Insurance different from Regular Insurance? Won’t both have the same/similar formulae at play? P2P insurance is very different from traditional insurance in that it is far more transparent, it is easier to make claims, and there are significantly fewer regulations. In a P2P insurance model, SMEs would benefit greatly, especially micro-enterprises. Polkacover: This is owing to their lower premiums (on average) as well as the ease of claiming with them. This is because their processes are digitised as opposed to the paperwork associated with traditional insurance companies and their claims process. In essence, traditional insurance discourages innovation, lacks quickness for claims and other processes, and is done offline. In contrast, P2P insurance is done by a pool of investors who band together, decide policies and premiums themselves, and use digitisation to expedite and streamline processes. They can insure new products as they have a higher risk threshold. A common weapon of the DeFi opponent is the concept of ‘Impermanent Loss’. Does Polkacover address those concerns? How? The concept of impermanent loss is embedded in DeFi and crypto communities. It is a topic of token value variation when a pool is created. Polkacover: We are targeting coverage against NFT's against impermanent loss as our initial products will be distributed across NFT marketplaces with Phantasma being one of the first partners. PolkaCover is also partnering with several other projects in order to mitigate this issue in the future for our stakeholders. What is that one development in the Blockchain space in 2021 that you’re most excited about? Insurance 😉 !!. We have always felt there was a lack of insurance products & options for Insurance protocols and crypto users in general and we have seen line insurance projects which are now in development. Polkacover: There is a massive untapped market and I wish all insurance projects succeed and make crypto a safer place to transact in. Our partnership with the Umbrella network brings us one step closer to our goal of creating a best-in-class insurance marketplace.

Oracles, P2P Insurance, And DeFi - An Interview with Umbrella Network, Polkacover & Bridge Mutual

Successful Managers Are Shit Umbrellas: Leadership 101

The recurring challenge of social acceptance for witty technological advancements There is such anger and negative sentiment towards cryptocurrency today. Every day I hear some form of witty argument to counter the use and effectiveness of the blockchain technology. . So the other day, I was thinking if crypto was the first invention that will undergo this harsh treatment. What I discovered was interesting. With the manner of words expressed today, you would think crypto will fall into obscurity Actually, I didn’t have to search before the answers found me. I was in a friend’s place and he was listening to a podcast. The podcast I believe is titled; . There is a series of episodes dedicated to brilliant inventions (or innovations) through history and the problems they had with adoption. They called it; . Problem Solvers Pessimist Archives The first one I heard was about Bicycles. Oh, it was a marvel. Who would think that there was such a terrible, negative sentiment towards bicycles when they were first invented? Doctors wrote against it. Hat sellers were very vocal against it. They blamed the bicycle for many problems in the society. Someone even wrote that people who rode bicycles have at least 20 disorders. The very idea of bicycles was laughed at. But today, even with the technological advancement of the modern world, bicycles still exist and continues to make a big sale year on year. They called people who rode bicycles, lunatics! You can listen to that episode on bicycles and be enlightened. here After listening to that episode about bicycles, I thought it would be the craziest and none will ever compare to it until I heard about umbrellas. Could you believe that umbrellas faced massive adoption problems particularly in Britain? . Particularly, if you are a grown man because umbrellas gradually became a thing for women and maids. There was a record of a man who carried an umbrella in Britain during this time where little kids came out to ridicule him saying, ‘Frenchman, Frenchman, why don’t you order a coach’. The society expects that if you can’t order a coach, then you should get wet in the rain. In the 1700s, if you are in Britain and you carried an umbrella, you will be laughed at on the street You can listen to the podcast about umbrellas . here This is not just exclusive to bicycles and umbrellas, this also concerns many other inventions that have shaken the traditional order of the society. You wouldn’t believe how crazy the fight against adoption was with some of these things. Consider coffee, you need to see the pessimists went on a rampage to stop it. The historical records are all there for us to learn from. The interesting thing about the bicycles and umbrellas is that despite the war that was launched against them, they still prevailed. We have them today. No true invention cowed in because of pessimists outrage. As it was true for bicycles and umbrellas in those days, so it is for cryptocurrency today. The first thing referred to as a bicycle that was made (about 200 years ago) had no pedals. You use your legs against the ground to give it the propelling force to move forward. That was how crude it was. But today, we even have the electric bicycle. When I hear people saying cryptocurrencies have no real use, it turns me off. Most (if not all) of these projects know that they are not doing it for today but for the world of tomorrow. It is like looking at the pedal-less bicycle and saying that it had no future. It is certain that some cryptocurrencies will go into obscurity (as some have already gone), however, to say it has no future is plainly a lack of wisdom. . If I lived outside time, I would place a higher bet on cryptocurrencies as it is today than the pedal-less bicycle when it was first created The biggest barrier to the success of a new technology is; adoption. There are ways to hack adoption but it is quite complicated. Most times the best thing is just to wait for time to pass. Let me tell you 5 reasons I am for cryptocurrencies: Majority of current users are below 40 years It is a significant technological improvement over the current financial system It makes decentralization possible It has the potential to grant access to financial services where it is extremely challenging Governments have no control over your money and least likely to be affected by political instability You can call me crazy, but I am quite focused on the world of tomorrow. I think crypto will succeed and I intend to succeed with it. I hope you find solid arguments to support your own position. Not owning crypto is a decision I rest my case

The Bicycle, Umbrella and now, Cryptocurrency

The buildpacks make some assumptions about your project based on earlier versions, but with a few tweaks can be used with version 1.4 of Elixir and 1.3 of . Heroku Phoenix This assumes you created your project with . Replace hello_phoenix and HelloPhoenix with your app name where appropriate. mix phx.new hello_phoenix --umbrella Most of the instructions at are still valid. Complete those and then make the following changes: http://www.phoenixframework.org/docs/heroku This may be obvious, but the mentioned is the one in the web app folder: . config/prod.exs hello_phoenix_umbrella/apps/hello_phoenix_web/config/prod.exs Change the reference in from to . prod.exs HelloPhoenix.Endpoint HelloPhoenix.Web.Endpoint You’ll also need to remove from . import_config "prod.secret.exs" hello_phoenix_umbrella/config/prod.exs Create a file named in the root of your project and add the following line . phoenix_static_buildpack.config phoenix_relative_path=apps/hello_phoenix_web Change the line in your Procfile to . web: MIX_ENV=prod mix phx.server If your app uses a database you can add this line to your Procfile to run migrations on release: . release: mix ecto.migrate Create a file named and set your Erlang and Elixir versions and runtime path (/app is the root of your project): elixir_buildpack.config erlang_version=19.1elixir_version=1.4.2runtime_path=/app If you’re using Elm: There is an open issue to in the Phoenix buildpack 🤗. For now, if you’re compiling your Elm app with elm-brunch, you can just add as a dependency to your . support Elm elm apps/hello_phoenix_web/assets/package.json is how hackers start their afternoons. We’re a part of the family. We are now and happy to opportunities. Hacker Noon @AMI accepting submissions discuss advertising & sponsorship To learn more, , , or simply, read our about page like/message us on Facebook tweet/DM @HackerNoon. If you enjoyed this story, we recommend reading our and . Until next time, don’t take the realities of the world for granted! latest tech stories trending tech stories

Deploying a Phoenix 1.3 Umbrella app to Heroku

Can’t we have both Scalability and Decentralization Under One Umbrella?

The Generative AI industry has exploded, thanks to no small part to the release of ChatGPT in the fall of 2022, which took the world by storm. There has been a lot of hand-wrangling on the importance of model safety and data security, with the possibility of further AI regulations. As per IBM, around 70% of their survey respondents say that innovation is more important than security, which contrasts with 82% of the respondents accepting that security in AI is essential to their business. Unsurprisingly, only 24% of the projects polled in the IBM survey have components meant to secure the initiative. Security is not an add-on to thoroughly flushed-out Generative AI infrastructure. It should be weaved in and through the entire infrastructure rather than slapped on top of it to pass regulations and compliance. The immense power of Generative AI brings with it vast responsibilities. This article aims to convince readers of the importance of security in AI and provide them with the knowledge and talking points to become security champions in their organizations. Objective The objective of GenAI security should be to secure the entire infrastructure from end to end. As security champions, we must secure data ingestion infrastructure, ensuring data legitimacy, data manipulation operations, model deployment, and user interactions. For the last year, people have been complaining about the degrading quality of answers provided by ChatGPT, whereas OpenAI has refuted such claims. While it is true that the quality of responses can deteriorate over time, it is entirely possible that an internally deployed model can be modified in an unauthorized manner by bad actors. Such responses can be indistinguishable from the typical quality degradation we expect. It goes without saying that customer data, which consists of their prompt history and responses, should be considered critical data, and we need to examine any risks that might seriously compromise users' trust. While the conversations are between a human and a machine, the personal nature of such discussions should be treated just like human-to-human conversations and secured as such. Risks There is no limit to the kind of risks one has to deal with when working on GenAI infrastructure. While we are looking into the typical security best practices from traditional security paradigms, there are AI-specific steps we need to take to ensure that we achieve a reasonable security posture. Data Poisoning: We have heard the old adage of garbage-in-garbage-out. If malicious actors manage to introduce malicious data into the corpus, the responses might not be what we expect. Imagine your company analyzes data and signals intelligence for your customers. If the data was poisoned by modification, deletion, or addition, then the results are going to be far from accurate. In fact, properly crafted training data can lead to wrong responses from the AI model. Model Manipulation: While this sounds far-fetched, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has outlined how different types of cyberattacks manipulate the behavior of AI systems, focusing on evasion and privacy attacks. Model manipulation is closely tied to data poisoning; in practice, it’s hard to differentiate one from the other. Prompt Injection Attacks: This attack vector is unique to Generation AI and is not in traditional cybersecurity practices. While a lot of research has gone into understanding the reasoning pathway of the models, for all practical purposes, they do remain a black box. Attackers can bypass safety controls by specially crafting input prompts, which lead to unauthorized responses. These responses can contain confidential information or reveal some inner workings in the worst case. These attacks work because they exploit the very nature of Generative AI models, which deal with understanding natural languages. Supply Chain Attacks: Generative AI is nascent and involves integrating various software components, sometimes with little regard to security, to beat the competitors in the field of innovation. Each third-party library or component introduces another point of attack. Even malicious or modified data can fit under the umbrella of supply chain attacks. Refer to Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) LLM05: Supply Chain Vulnerabilities for more information. Approaches There isn’t a single way to handle security in the Generative AI space. Any attempts at creating a formal process run afoul of the dreaded checklist-based security compliance processes. At its core, security is not about processes and technology but a mindset and the culture that promotes it. Fundamentally, to secure Generative AI infrastructure, one needs a secure-by-design architecture. This might include, but is not limited to, access control, the least privilege model, encryption at rest and transit, and threat/anomaly detection systems. The architecture keeps evolving based on new research and changing business needs. Changes to architecture can increase the attack surface. To avoid this, there should be some form of operational review and annual security overview. One needs to have a culture where people are proactive about reviewing the changes and bold enough to discuss the possible threats. Supply chain threats are more complex to prevent, but digitally signing all components and pieces and validation before deployment can be a good start. A little more involved process may be using Software Bill of Materials tracking, which is recommended by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Conclusion The job of a CISO is becoming increasingly complex and involved. Apart from the increased DDoS attacks as reported by Cloudflare, which is 20% year-over-year, the addition of Generative AI to the broader organization infrastructure adds more moving parts to an already complex setup. While moving ahead with innovation and sidelining security might look tempting at first, it is equivalent to playing with fire. One wrong move can result in disastrous results, whether lost customer trust, personal data leak, or government-imposed penalties. An individual must be someone other than a CISO to push for a culture shift. Often, executives rely on people reporting to them to give them advice, which in turn is asked down the reporting chain. If Engineers or program Managers can make themselves security champions, they have a high chance of shining and access to opportunities for bigger responsibilities and a career boost. The future of Generative AI hinges on our ability and willingness to secure it. Organizations that recognize this fact and act proactively will be best positioned to thrive and overcome dangers and regulatory hurdles. The Generative AI industry has exploded, thanks to no small part to the release of ChatGPT in the fall of 2022, which took the world by storm. There has been a lot of hand-wrangling on the importance of model safety and data security, with the possibility of further AI regulations . further AI regulations further AI regulations As per IBM, around 70% of their survey respondents say that innovation is more important than security, which contrasts with 82% of the respondents accepting that security in AI is essential to their business. Unsurprisingly, only 24% of the projects polled in the IBM survey have components meant to secure the initiative. Security is not an add-on to thoroughly flushed-out Generative AI infrastructure. It should be weaved in and through the entire infrastructure rather than slapped on top of it to pass regulations and compliance. The immense power of Generative AI brings with it vast responsibilities. This article aims to convince readers of the importance of security in AI and provide them with the knowledge and talking points to become security champions in their organizations. Objective The objective of GenAI security should be to secure the entire infrastructure from end to end. As security champions, we must secure data ingestion infrastructure, ensuring data legitimacy, data manipulation operations, model deployment, and user interactions. For the last year, people have been complaining about the degrading quality of answers provided by ChatGPT , whereas OpenAI has refuted such claims. While it is true that the quality of responses can deteriorate over time , it is entirely possible that an internally deployed model can be modified in an unauthorized manner by bad actors. Such responses can be indistinguishable from the typical quality degradation we expect. degrading quality of answers provided by ChatGPT degrading quality of answers provided by ChatGPT quality of responses can deteriorate over time quality of responses can deteriorate over time It goes without saying that customer data, which consists of their prompt history and responses, should be considered critical data, and we need to examine any risks that might seriously compromise users' trust. While the conversations are between a human and a machine, the personal nature of such discussions should be treated just like human-to-human conversations and secured as such. Risks There is no limit to the kind of risks one has to deal with when working on GenAI infrastructure. While we are looking into the typical security best practices from traditional security paradigms, there are AI-specific steps we need to take to ensure that we achieve a reasonable security posture. Data Poisoning : We have heard the old adage of garbage-in-garbage-out. If malicious actors manage to introduce malicious data into the corpus, the responses might not be what we expect. Imagine your company analyzes data and signals intelligence for your customers. If the data was poisoned by modification, deletion, or addition, then the results are going to be far from accurate. In fact, properly crafted training data can lead to wrong responses from the AI model. Data Poisoning Model Manipulation : While this sounds far-fetched, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has outlined how different types of cyberattacks manipulate the behavior of AI systems , focusing on evasion and privacy attacks. Model manipulation is closely tied to data poisoning; in practice, it’s hard to differentiate one from the other. Model Manipulation different types of cyberattacks manipulate the behavior of AI systems different types of cyberattacks manipulate the behavior of AI systems Prompt Injection Attacks : This attack vector is unique to Generation AI and is not in traditional cybersecurity practices. While a lot of research has gone into understanding the reasoning pathway of the models, for all practical purposes, they do remain a black box. Attackers can bypass safety controls by specially crafting input prompts , which lead to unauthorized responses. Prompt Injection Attacks specially crafting input prompts specially crafting input prompts These responses can contain confidential information or reveal some inner workings in the worst case. These attacks work because they exploit the very nature of Generative AI models, which deal with understanding natural languages. Supply Chain Attacks : Generative AI is nascent and involves integrating various software components, sometimes with little regard to security, to beat the competitors in the field of innovation. Each third-party library or component introduces another point of attack. Supply Chain Attacks Even malicious or modified data can fit under the umbrella of supply chain attacks. Refer to Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) LLM05: Supply Chain Vulnerabilities for more information. Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) LLM05: Supply Chain Vulnerabilities Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) LLM05: Supply Chain Vulnerabilities Approaches There isn’t a single way to handle security in the Generative AI space. Any attempts at creating a formal process run afoul of the dreaded checklist-based security compliance processes. At its core, security is not about processes and technology but a mindset and the culture that promotes it. Fundamentally, to secure Generative AI infrastructure, one needs a secure-by-design architecture. This might include, but is not limited to, access control, the least privilege model, encryption at rest and transit, and threat/anomaly detection systems. The architecture keeps evolving based on new research and changing business needs. Changes to architecture can increase the attack surface. To avoid this, there should be some form of operational review and annual security overview. One needs to have a culture where people are proactive about reviewing the changes and bold enough to discuss the possible threats. Supply chain threats are more complex to prevent, but digitally signing all components and pieces and validation before deployment can be a good start. A little more involved process may be using Software Bill of Materials tracking, which is recommended by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommended by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommended by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Conclusion The job of a CISO is becoming increasingly complex and involved. Apart from the increased DDoS attacks as reported by Cloudflare , which is 20% year-over-year, the addition of Generative AI to the broader organization infrastructure adds more moving parts to an already complex setup. While moving ahead with innovation and sidelining security might look tempting at first, it is equivalent to playing with fire. One wrong move can result in disastrous results, whether lost customer trust, personal data leak, or government-imposed penalties. reported by Cloudflare reported by Cloudflare An individual must be someone other than a CISO to push for a culture shift. Often, executives rely on people reporting to them to give them advice, which in turn is asked down the reporting chain. If Engineers or program Managers can make themselves security champions, they have a high chance of shining and access to opportunities for bigger responsibilities and a career boost. The future of Generative AI hinges on our ability and willingness to secure it. Organizations that recognize this fact and act proactively will be best positioned to thrive and overcome dangers and regulatory hurdles.

Security in Generative AI Infrastructure Is of Critical Importance

Hey Hackers! Acclivity Agency has been nominated in HackerNoon's Startups of The Year 2024  awards in Ottawa, Canada under the  Business  category. Please vote for us here: Ottawa, Canada Startups of the Year 2024 Startups of the Year 2024 - Creative Agency Startups of the Year 2024 - Marketing Startups of the Year 2024 - Media Production Read more about us below to understand why we deserve your vote. Website  -  Facebook  -  Instagram  -  X  -  LinkedIn What sets your startup apart from other marketing agencies? Our interactions with our clients are strategist-led, which offers a lot more value and immediate return on our clients' time and investment. We don’t use traditional account managers or project managers, which shifts the focus from marketing as a work product to marketing as a sync product. We also don't necessarily hire marketers. We tend to hire folks with industry expertise and then teach them the marketing component or put them into marketing roles. This adds extra value to our clients because it offers a different vantage point than where they’re coming from. Acclivity Agency is also female-owned and operated. This is significant in traditional B2B spaces and industries as we provide a different perspective than male-dominated organizations, which is valuable specifically for the industries we serve. Many clients are surprised by the breadth of our services and how we use other tools to achieve marketing results that would not normally fall under the marketing umbrella. We use many things, like SEO, PR, and events, that many folks don't automatically include in the marketing umbrella. We leverage these to get different results. We have all these skills in-house, so we do a lot more for our clients than many agencies that specialize in these spaces. What lessons have you learned? One of the biggest lessons we learned as a B2B marketing agency is that you can do your best work, but if a client can’t see on their bottom line how you’ve impacted them, eventually, they will look at marketing as an expense. Early on, there were times when we took on clients, we focused on creating content and making sure everything was pretty, and we still got fired. Even though every time we’d ship something, the client would say they loved it, we still got fired. Now, when we go into clients, we don’t do anything we can't put on the dashboard. It is unquestionable the impact we're having on your business. You can see exactly how much money we're making you or how much we're impacting your business. With that mindset, we provide high transparency for our clients, which makes our jobs easier. We know which numbers we need to move to keep the clients happy and to impact their business. Why did you decide to participate in HackerNoon’s Startups of the Year event? What would it mean for your startup if you won? Representation and leading by example are important, and those are some of the things that we showcase by being in the competition. We're also doing cool stuff, and we want to tell our story. Representation matters, and it’s important to see women in leadership, especially in tech positions. We think it’s important to showcase businesses that value flexible work and remote work. Occasionally, we get some crunchy deadlines, but for the most part, we have twenty percent training and professional development time that we allot to everybody. We focus on developing relationships internally through coffee chats and team cards, and we get a lot of positive feedback from the team that we support work from anywhere. By putting it out there and saying, “you can run an agency - it can be profitable, it doesn't have to be stressful, it doesn't have to upset people's work-life balance, it can be fulfilling, it can be enjoyable. It can be challenging in all the best ways. It can be successful, and it can be run by a woman even if it's in a male-dominated industry.” We lead by example and show people that it can be done. It doesn't have to be the way of old agencies, where interns get burnt out every two months because they're running like crazy, and the account managers swap out every six months due to stress. What future plans do you have for your business startup? Where do you see it in 3-4 years? We've never done our own marketing. All our business to date has been referral, word of mouth, and personal networking, just from people working with us, seeing our work, and knowing who our clients are. One of the things we wanted to do, which we've made progress on in 2024, is start our own marketing. We spend all our time and energy on our client marketing and kind of ignore our own. Based on the success, growth, and established brand benchmark we’ve seen, we would like to have our own robust marketing by the end of 2025. How has the business sector changed in recent years? How do you believe it will change in the future? There's a lot of experimentation with AI, but sometimes you have to wade through the weeds to get to the good stuff. You must make mistakes using it, figure out the prompts and the engineering, and go through this growing pain until you get that refined output and that tool that is really going to change how we do business. We think because we have a big focus on content, communications, and digital platforms, we must work with AI. We know some people are like, “Aren’t you worried it’s going to take your job?”. No, we’re not, because it’s only going to take people’s jobs that do generic tasks that have been done a million times. We work and serve an industry of innovators, where people invent new things and solve new problems. AI is still a long way away from being able to write content or figure out positioning and marketing copy for completely novel solutions. AI is a trend  we’re stoked about and not worried about. If we stick with our innovative market type of client, there’s always going to need to be a human that translates. We really like the shift towards relationships again. It’ll be interesting to see where social platforms land by the end of 2025. We’ve got a few big movement pieces in progress right now, such as the big exit from X and redistributing themselves on Threads and BlueSky and similar. Eventually, we think there will be subgroups that land in each one of those. We can get people to consume content, but the population's desire and demand is that they want connections; they want relationships again. If social platforms continue to feed empty content, we think people are going to start seeing that as 100% toxic. You’re going to see an entire generation just decide that something's not cool anymore. We’re already seeing this trend in platforms that offer that human connection, belonging, and align with people’s identity. There's an interesting battle going on between the technologies that are out there currently. Any closing words? Remain awesome. Vote for us today! Hey Hackers! Acclivity Agency has been nominated in HackerNoon's Startups of The Year 2024 awards in Ottawa, Canada under the Business category. HackerNoon's Startups of The Year 2024 HackerNoon's Startups of The Year 2024 Business Business Please vote for us here: Please vote for us here: Ottawa, Canada Startups of the Year 2024 Ottawa, Canada Startups of the Year 2024 Startups of the Year 2024 - Creative Agency Startups of the Year 2024 - Creative Agency Startups of the Year 2024 - Marketing Startups of the Year 2024 - Marketing Startups of the Year 2024 - Media Production Startups of the Year 2024 - Media Production Read more about us below to understand why we deserve your vote. Website - Facebook - Instagram - X - LinkedIn Website Facebook Instagram X LinkedIn What sets your startup apart from other marketing agencies? What sets your startup apart from other marketing agencies? Our interactions with our clients are strategist-led, which offers a lot more value and immediate return on our clients' time and investment. We don’t use traditional account managers or project managers, which shifts the focus from marketing as a work product to marketing as a sync product. We also don't necessarily hire marketers. We tend to hire folks with industry expertise and then teach them the marketing component or put them into marketing roles. This adds extra value to our clients because it offers a different vantage point than where they’re coming from. hire folks with industry expertise Acclivity Agency is also female-owned and operated . This is significant in traditional B2B spaces and industries as we provide a different perspective than male-dominated organizations, which is valuable specifically for the industries we serve. Acclivity Agency is also female-owned and operated Many clients are surprised by the breadth of our services and how we use other tools to achieve marketing results that would not normally fall under the marketing umbrella. We use many things, like SEO , PR , and events , that many folks don't automatically include in the marketing umbrella. We leverage these to get different results. SEO PR events We have all these skills in-house, so we do a lot more for our clients than many agencies that specialize in these spaces. What lessons have you learned? One of the biggest lessons we learned as a B2B marketing agency is that you can do your best work, but if a client can’t see on their bottom line how you’ve impacted them, eventually, they will look at marketing as an expense. B2B marketing agency Early on, there were times when we took on clients, we focused on creating content and making sure everything was pretty, and we still got fired. Even though every time we’d ship something, the client would say they loved it, we still got fired. Now, when we go into clients, we don’t do anything we can't put on the dashboard. It is unquestionable the impact we're having on your business. You can see exactly how much money we're making you or how much we're impacting your business. With that mindset, we provide high transparency for our clients, which makes our jobs easier. We know which numbers we need to move to keep the clients happy and to impact their business. Why did you decide to participate in HackerNoon’s Startups of the Year event? What would it mean for your startup if you won? Representation and leading by example are important, and those are some of the things that we showcase by being in the competition. We're also doing cool stuff, and we want to tell our story. Representation matters, and it’s important to see women in leadership , especially in tech positions. We think it’s important to showcase businesses that value flexible work and remote work. women in leadership Occasionally, we get some crunchy deadlines, but for the most part, we have twenty percent training and professional development time that we allot to everybody. We focus on developing relationships internally through coffee chats and team cards, and we get a lot of positive feedback from the team that we support work from anywhere. By putting it out there and saying, “you can run an agency - it can be profitable, it doesn't have to be stressful, it doesn't have to upset people's work-life balance, it can be fulfilling, it can be enjoyable. It can be challenging in all the best ways. It can be successful, and it can be run by a woman even if it's in a male-dominated industry.” We lead by example and show people that it can be done. It doesn't have to be the way of old agencies, where interns get burnt out every two months because they're running like crazy, and the account managers swap out every six months due to stress. What future plans do you have for your business startup? Where do you see it in 3-4 years? We've never done our own marketing. All our business to date has been referral, word of mouth, and personal networking, just from people working with us, seeing our work, and knowing who our clients are. One of the things we wanted to do, which we've made progress on in 2024, is start our own marketing. We spend all our time and energy on our client marketing and kind of ignore our own. Based on the success, growth, and established brand benchmark we’ve seen, we would like to have our own robust marketing by the end of 2025. How has the business sector changed in recent years? How do you believe it will change in the future? There's a lot of experimentation with AI, but sometimes you have to wade through the weeds to get to the good stuff. You must make mistakes using it, figure out the prompts and the engineering, and go through this growing pain until you get that refined output and that tool that is really going to change how we do business. We think because we have a big focus on content, communications, and digital platforms, we must work with AI. We know some people are like, “Aren’t you worried it’s going to take your job?”. No, we’re not, because it’s only going to take people’s jobs that do generic tasks that have been done a million times. We work and serve an industry of innovators , where people invent new things and solve new problems. AI is still a long way away from being able to write content or figure out positioning and marketing copy for completely novel solutions. We work and serve an industry of innovators AI is a trend  we’re stoked about and not worried about. If we stick with our innovative market type of client, there’s always going to need to be a human that translates. We really like the shift towards relationships again. It’ll be interesting to see where social platforms land by the end of 2025. We’ve got a few big movement pieces in progress right now, such as the big exit from X and redistributing themselves on Threads and BlueSky and similar. Eventually, we think there will be subgroups that land in each one of those. We can get people to consume content, but the population's desire and demand is that they want connections; they want relationships again. If social platforms continue to feed empty content, we think people are going to start seeing that as 100% toxic. You’re going to see an entire generation just decide that something's not cool anymore. We’re already seeing this trend in platforms that offer that human connection, belonging, and align with people’s identity. There's an interesting battle going on between the technologies that are out there currently. Any closing words? Remain awesome. Vote for us today! Vote for us today!

Meet Acclivity Agency: Startups of The Year 2024 Nominee

Startups of The Year: Meet the Media Industry

Startups des Jahres: Lernen Sie die Medienbranche kennen

Startups της χρονιάς: Γνωρίστε τη βιομηχανία των μέσων ενημέρωσης

Startups del año: conozca la industria de los medios

Urteko startup-ak: ezagutu komunikabideen industria

今年のスタートアップ: メディア業界を知る

Metų startuoliai: susipažinkite su žiniasklaidos pramone

Оны шилдэг гарааны бизнесүүд: Хэвлэл мэдээллийн салбарынхантай танилц

Startups van het jaar: maak kennis met de media-industrie

Startupy Roku: Poznaj Branżę Medialną

د کال پیل: د رسنیو صنعت سره لیدنه

වසරේ ආරම්භක: මාධ්‍ය කර්මාන්තය හමුවන්න

Startups of The Year: Hlangana na Vumaki bya Vuhangalasi bya Mahungu

“It was the 24th of October That day 21% of Upwork employees always remember, yes they will 'Cause that was the day that they lost their jobs” The news about one-out-of-five layoffs at Upwork shook the remote work community to the core. The exact scope of the layoff is unclear, but based on Upwork’s reported 800 employees at the end of 2023, the 21% cut will likely hit at least 160 workers. Was it necessary? Could it have been avoided? Upwork expects to save $60 million a year from the announced cost cuts. The stock markets reacted almost immediately, in a matter of hours. The gig-economy specialist's share price was up 22.6% as of 11 a.m. ET. When you put it like this, you don’t get the full picture: So, How Many People Work at Upwork? I asked this question on Reddit. My source was Backlinko: The trouble with getting the exact number is related to freelancers who work on Upwork for Upwork. I had to ask one more question. WTF is GSV?! Indeed, an interesting market reaction, and an even more interesting graph: I didn’t have to wait long for an answer: OK. I get it. Moving on. How Upwork Feels About All These Job Kills? I don’t know about you, but Upwork’s sense of humor on X, a day before the layoffs announcement was really something. I didn’t get it then, and I don’t get it now. So, I decided to fix it for them: As you might’ve expected, the official Upwork Community reacted, as well. I had to fact-check this Upwork Community member, my fellow freelancer. This is what I found: “The estimated Net Worth of Hayden Brown is at least  $24.1 Million dollars as of 18 August 2024. Ms. Brown owns over 58,046 units of Upwork Inc stock worth over $11,243,016 and over the last 6 years she sold UPWK stock worth over $1,348,852. In addition, she makes $11,530,900 as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director at Upwork Inc.” A “decent salary” and “a drop in the ocean.” Nuff said. Now, to our space-cowboy friend. Dear Elon Musk, Let’s Make Upwork Your Next Takeover Task! From a space explorer to our planet’s savior. People don’t lack imagination in their propositions to Elon Musk to save this or that by buying all kinds of things and companies. I saw one tweet from a guy asking Elon to buy the umbrella company, which owns all dating apps, and save the dating market. I mean, of all the suggestions this one perfectly aligns with Elon’s plans to tackle the declining population problem. But, let’s get back to Upwork. I thought to tweet my suggestion. Elon, buy Upwork, and make remote work great again. But, he already had other plans: So, X is now a job search platform, officially. This is one of the latest new features. The app that does everything. Hmm, where did I see that? Let’s ask Wikipedia: “WeChat has been described as China's "app for everything" and a super-app because of its wide range of functions.[10] WeChat provides text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video conferencing, video games, mobile payment, sharing of photographs and videos and location sharing.” Shortly before buying Twitter, Musk wrote: “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.” The everything app, indeed. And, Elon Musk is doing everything to elect the next President of the United States. So, it seems that Upwork will have to wait because it’s definitely not on Elon Musk’s plate. “It was the 24th of October That day 21% of Upwork employees always remember, yes they will 'Cause that was the day that they lost their jobs” The news about one-out-of-five layoffs at Upwork shook the remote work community to the core. news about one-out-of-five layoffs at Upwork The exact scope of the layoff is unclear, but based on Upwork’s reported 800 employees at the end of 2023, the 21% cut will likely hit at least 160 workers. The exact scope of the layoff is unclear, but based on Upwork’s reported 800 employees at the end of 2023, the 21% cut will likely hit at least 160 workers. reported at least 160 workers. Was it necessary? Could it have been avoided? Upwork expects to save $60 million a year from the announced cost cuts. Upwork expects to save $60 million a year from the announced cost cuts. save $60 million a year The stock markets reacted almost immediately, in a matter of hours. The gig-economy specialist's share price was up 22.6% as of 11 a.m. ET. The gig-economy specialist's share price was up 22.6% as of 11 a.m. ET. share price was up 22.6% When you put it like this, you don’t get the full picture: So, How Many People Work at Upwork? I asked this question on Reddit. My source was Backlinko: The trouble with getting the exact number is related to freelancers who work on Upwork for Upwork. I had to ask one more question. WTF is GSV?! Indeed, an interesting market reaction, and an even more interesting graph: I didn’t have to wait long for an answer: OK. I get it. Moving on. How Upwork Feels About All These Job Kills? I don’t know about you, but Upwork’s sense of humor on X, a day before the layoffs announcement was really something. I didn’t get it then, and I don’t get it now. So, I decided to fix it for them: As you might’ve expected, the official Upwork Community reacted, as well. I had to fact-check this Upwork Community member, my fellow freelancer. This is what I found: “The estimated Net Worth of Hayden Brown is at least  $24.1 Million dollars as of 18 August 2024. Ms. Brown owns over 58,046 units of Upwork Inc stock worth over $11,243,016 and over the last 6 years she sold UPWK stock worth over $1,348,852. In addition, she makes $11,530,900 as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director at Upwork Inc. ” Upwork Inc stock In addition, she makes $11,530,900 as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director at Upwork Inc. A “decent salary” and “a drop in the ocean.” Nuff said. Now, to our space-cowboy friend. Dear Elon Musk, Let’s Make Upwork Your Next Takeover Task! From a space explorer to our planet’s savior. People don’t lack imagination in their propositions to Elon Musk to save this or that by buying all kinds of things and companies. I saw one tweet from a guy asking Elon to buy the umbrella company, which owns all dating apps, and save the dating market. I mean, of all the suggestions this one perfectly aligns with Elon’s plans to tackle the declining population problem. But, let’s get back to Upwork. I thought to tweet my suggestion. Elon, buy Upwork, and make remote work great again. But, he already had other plans: So, X is now a job search platform, officially. This is one of the latest new features. The app that does everything. Hmm, where did I see that? Let’s ask Wikipedia: “WeChat has been described as China 's "app for everything" and a super-app because of its wide range of functions. [10] WeChat provides text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video conferencing, video games, mobile payment, sharing of photographs and videos and location sharing.” China super-app [10] Shortly before buying Twitter, Musk wrote: “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.” Shortly before buying Twitter, Musk wrote: “ Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app .” Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app The everything app, indeed. And, Elon Musk is doing everything to elect the next President of the United States. So, it seems that Upwork will have to wait because it’s definitely not on Elon Musk’s plate.

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