Bitcoin ICO Review

On the 21st of August 2021, we migrated the Lisk Mainnet to v3 which introduced numerous improvements to Lisk, such as multisignature accounts, a new address system, a new DPoS consensus algorithm, and a dynamic fee system. In order to meet internal deadlines, we had to focus our development resources on delivering these new improvements. This resulted in moving all frontend development resources to Lisk Desktop, hence compromising the availability of Lisk Mobile on launch day.

Today, we are proud to announce the release of Lisk Mobile v2.0.0 which reintroduces the core feature of Lisk on smartphones. Namely, the convenient sending and receiving of transactions. More advanced features like voting or multisignature accounts are solely available on Lisk Desktop to give our community the easiest and most user friendly experience on their mobile devices.

The next release will be Lisk Mobile v3.0.0, and will provide access to the Lisk interoperability solution which marks the launch of the Lisk blockchain application platform later this year.

New Features in Detail
Lisk Mobile v2.0.0 focuses on four topics, the access to Lisk v3 and its various new features, user experience and design improvements, Bitcoin support removal, and finally the overall security enhancements.

Access to Lisk v3
The recent major update of our Mainnet to Lisk v3 brought a wide range of new features and improvements to Lisk. From improved scalability to much lower fees, including a more decentralized DPoS blockchain and network, to a completely secure address system. In fact, as these are such major improvements it is highly recommended to view our announcement blog post of the Lisk Mainnet v3 migration, also please make sure to read the linked articles.

Internally, Lisk Mobile has a special focus. To be the most accessible wallet for the Lisk ecosystem. Taking that into consideration we have purposely limited the available feature-set solely for the sending and receiving of transactions.

User Experience and Design Improvements
Since releasing the previous Lisk Mobile we have been busy collecting community feedback to enhance and improve it even further. With Lisk Mobile v2.0.0 we focused on delivering many improvements to make its usage even easier and more convenient, as well as more consistent with our brand as can be seen in the images below.

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The further development of Stratis' InterFlux protocol has been quietly simmering, focusing on incorporating Token Swaps between Ethereum and the Cirrus Blockchain, enabling popular ERC20 Tokens to find their way to the Stratis Ecosystem. The added functionality within InterFlux is a critical development for Stratis, further bridging the gap between Stratis Blockchain Technologies and Ethereum.

Active projects, such as Opdex, the first wholly decentralized exchange on Stratis, benefit significantly from this further development. Providing the availability and access to popular and established tokens on Ethereum, such as USDT (Tether), Binance USD, SHIBA INU, Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), and many more. Testing has already begun internally, with deployment to Testnet expected to occur in the coming days. A two week testing period will be undertaken on Testnet, with the view to promote to Mainnet after successful test criteria is met.

The further development also lays the foundation for supporting the ERC721 standard. Enabling the transfer of NFTs on Ethereum to Stratis for listing on Stratisphere.com resulting in NFT sales incurring 0% Platform Fees and significantly reduced transactional costs. You should expect to see some high-profile transfers occur once the ERC721 becomes activated in the near future! Stratisphere.com is the worlds first zero-fee decentralized NFT Marketplace, offering ultra-low transactional costs and a great user experience. Hundreds of NFTs have already been sold by various content creators using the platform, some of which are established community members with hidden talents, and some are brand new to our ever-growing community!

As always, development progress and community participation requests can be seen within our Discord Server. Be sure to join to keep track of the progress and get involved with testing the new functionality on our Testnet.

Neo community developer Robert Oschler has won second place in the SocialFi category of the Metaverse Alliance hackathon. Oschler's project, Neo3D Live, is a 3D metaverse world that allows users to interact with one another's avatars and participate in events like real-time auctions.

Oschler developed Neo3D Live so that anyone in any part of the world can access the 3D world, regardless of their ability to purchase powerful equipment. Neo3D Live was designed for most of the world's internet users – those without VR headsets or high-end equipment. He said:

Let Metaverse residents form meaningful connections in a virtual world that will run on common hardware, including the millions of smartphones that may be the only link to the Metaverse a citizen in an economically disadvantaged region has. This is a link that has the true power to uplift the millions, if not billions of hard-working, intelligent, decent human beings who have the misfortune of being born in a region that is not economically gifted like other parts of the world.

The platform leverages the ThreeJS graphics library, a graphics engine that is widely accessible. Neo3D Live runs on almost any browser and device, so there is no need for high-powered computer setups.

The platform's beta version allows users to congregate in a digital 3D environment. Real-time video conferencing is embedded into the moveable characters, so participants can see those they're communicating with via live video feed. Oschler said, "By combining true video conferencing where participants can see each other's faces as they talk to one another and move about a fun virtual world, people can once again feel the natural human joy of forming groups based on both social and spatial relationships like they would at a party or a shopping mall."

Oschler also incorporated other elements to make the space feel more natural and interactive. In Neo3D Live, intelligent objects are embedded in the virtual world, responding to an avatar's presence. For example, walking up to a wall with an embedded YouTube video will trigger the video to begin playing. And to create a more real-life experience, a user can hear the sounds of their movements and that of others around them.

NFT Showcase
The first demo of Neo3D Live included the NFT Showcase, a custom room where an individual can purchase an NFT on auction. A demonstration of the live auction can be found below:

The NFT designer can determine who can participate in the Showcase by whitelisting public wallet addresses on Neo N3.

The Neo3D Live smart contract supports derivative commissions, so collectors can earn profits when they sell an artist's NFTs if the artist grants them that right. Further, Oschler intends the NFTs bought and sold through Neo3D Live to be viewable and transferable via third-party marketplaces (i.e., Sky Hut, GhostMarket).

Looking forward, he aims to develop and release a drag-and-drop toolkit (that doesn't require coding ability), so anyone can build a virtual world.

Tezos has secured a partnership with French esports giant Team Vitality. The three-year deal aims to bring Team Vitality closer to its fans than ever before by leveraging Tezos' energy-efficient blockchain.

Tezos Enters Esports Space
Tezos has entered into another game-changing partnership.

The Layer 1 blockchain, which prides itself on energy efficiency, announced a three-year partnership with French esports organization Team Vitality Thursday. Although details about what the partnership entails are still vague, Team Vitality stated that the deal would "revolutionize" its fan experience.

As part of the new deal, Team Vitality explained that the collaboration would help educate their fans on the benefits of blockchain as part of the gaming experience and showcase the advancements of these technologies. Additionally, the organization's CEO Nicolas Maurer explained what the partnership would mean for the esports team, stating:

"This is truly a game-changing partnership for Vitality, which feels appropriate given 2022 is set to be the biggest year in our history. The opportunities Tezos can bring to strengthen the relationship between us and our fans is incredibly exciting, and we're immensely proud to have Tezos join us on this journey."

For Tezos, the partnership appears to include brand visibility, possibly in the form of sponsorship logos on Team Vitality players' jerseys. "Tezos will be represented by top-performing Team Vitality rosters and star athletes and through unrivaled brand visibility across the esports ecosystem," Team Vitality said in a press release.

Last year, Tezos signed several major partnerships to boost its visibility. In June, Tezos made deals with Formula One racing teams McLaren and Red Bull Racing to launch collectible NFTs. Both teams stated that Tezos' low carbon footprint factored into partnering with the blockchain.

Last month, video game developer Ubisoft announced it would be launching NFTs on the Tezos-based Quartz platform, only to be hit with severe backlash from the gaming community. Despite this, Ubisoft put out a statement confirming that it will still pursue non-fungible tokens, explaining that the move is "a major change that will take time."

Despite attracting a lot of attention from brands, Tezos has otherwise struggled to gain significant momentum in the crypto space in recent months while other competing Layer 1 blockchains have seen huge growth. Musicians, artists, and art collectors appear to be some of the blockchain's biggest enthusiasts (besides Ethereum, Tezos is arguably the biggest hub for digital art NFTs, and it's also hosted NFT collections from the likes of Mike Shinoda and Doja Cat).  

Through its new partnership with Team Vitality, Tezos will be hoping to attract a new demographic of esports fans. However, after how poorly Ubisoft's foray into NFTs was received, whether Team Vitality's fans will be receptive remains to be seen. 

Neo users can beta test Saffron Finance V2 by staking and withdrawing SFI, NEO, and GAS on the N3 TestNet. Saffron is also giving away 30 Neoverse blindboxes to users who provide feedback.

To participate, beta testers must first acquire TestNet NEO and GAS from the Neo N3 TestNet faucet, which can distribute 50 NEO and 50 GAS per IP address every 24 hours. Then, testers need to request SFI TestNet tokens in the Neo Saffron Beta Testing Telegram channel. The NeoLine Chrome extension wallet is required to use Saffron.

The Saffron V2 beta platform currently offers a dashboard displaying the total value locked for each coin and APR rates for rewards (distributed in SFI). Additionally, users can deposit and withdraw NEO, GAS, and SFI from single-sided staking pools.

According to Psykeeper, Saffron founder, initial plans for the platform's launch on Neo include single-sided staking, followed by adding support for Flamingo. The Saffron development team plans to integrate with Flamingo on the N3 TestNet first, before MainNet.

At the time of press, there is a tentative late-Feb. 2022 timeframe for Saffron's launch on N3 MainNet.

Saffron is also giving away 30 Neoverse blindbox NFTs. To become eligible, participants need to email dingo@saffron.finance and share the N3 address they used for testing along with a minimum of one sentence of feedback about their experience.

About Saffron Finance
Saffron is a peer-to-peer risk management platform. It distribute yields according to liquidity deposits in particular tranches and offers an insurance fund that generates yields. Saffron offers its users a selection of risk profiles for its supported liquidity pools.

There are three tranches that depositors can utilize: senior, junior, and fee. If an event requires funds to be covered, such as a mass liquidation event, assets from the junior tranche and insurance fund will cover the senior tranche first, then the junior tranche. Junior tranche deposits receive a higher portion of the platform's earnings in exchange for their lower coverage priority.

Saffron joined the N3 Early Adoption Program in Oct. 2021, with the intention to launch a liquidity mining service on Flamingo Finance. The Saffron ecosystem utilizes a governance token, SFI, which liquidity providers must stake to gain access to higher-yield tranches. When Saffron V2 launches, SFI stakers will also receive fees from swapping and staking activities on the protocol.

NULS POCM (Proof of Credit Mining) platform was established in July 2019, the number of our SCO partners has increased 10 times within 2 years. Some of the SCO projects such as ALEPH, GGTK, SmaugsNFT have accomplished amazing progress with the community support provided by NULS in their early phase, our SCO investors also gained quite good profits participating in the SCO projects. We are very happy to witness this double win situation and we, the NULS team, will keep moving forward to provide more benefits for our SCO partners and NULS investors.
NULS POCM is probably one of the simplest ways to invest in the initial market without any financial risks. Investors stake NULS in our POCM platform to earn tokens from our SCO projects.

There are 2 ways to participate in our SCO projects now:
Stake in SCO projects on web wallet（https://pocm.nuls.io）
Stake in SCO projects on Nabox mobile Wallet. Download Nabox: (https://nabox.io)

We have been continuously receiving suggestions and feedback from our community members and SCO partners and investors ever since the POCM platform was established, to provide a better user experience, we have now updated our product in the following aspects:
Crossed-chain assets will be able to create POCM directly. New SCO projects investors no longer need to swap tokens on NeerveDEX (https://nervedex.com)
SCO projects creators give extra rewards to node owners according to their own wills.
SCO staking APR will be seen on the POCM page.

POCM page will show the current staking details such as the amount of NULS staked, the profits earned, etc
We reconstructed the staking logic.
Useless nodes will be deleted automatically to improve user experience.

NULS POCM staking platform now supports projects from ETH, BSC, NULS, Heco, OEC, Polygon, KCC, Tron, Harmony. We will be adding more diversities in the future to meet various needs from users.
About NULS POCM

POCM (Proof of Credit Mining) is an SCO Platform that allows projects to use smart-contracts to issue and distribute project tokens on blockchains. Got NULS? Stake into a project's nodes and earn their token as reward, while the project earns NULS as reward. Projects can use the NULS consensus rewards to bootstrap and help fund development. Unlike IEOs and ICOs, stakers never risk their principal, and NULS never leave their wallet. Earn project tokens while your device is off! As a universal SCO Platform, POCM can be used to issue and distribute tokens and assets from any public chain in any blockchain ecosystem.

Stratis is genuinely excited to launch its third hackathon, bringing in new talent and blockchain solutions, demonstrating the power of Stratis Blockchain Technologies. At Stratis, our mission is to simplify the adoption of blockchain technology within existing computing environments. We have built a platform written entirely in C# and based on the Microsoft .NET Core framework to deliver on this mission. The Build – Stratis Platform Hackathon is Stratis' third virtual hackathon.

$100,000 USD has been allocated to the Hackathon Prize Pool, with a $30,000 USD Grand Prize and several other prizes to entice developer engagement. Stratis has also brought in some of its partners to sponsor the hackathon, including CMS, Triad Group Plc and the APPG, with CMS and Triad awarding a $5,000 bonus for those who deliver a submission that meets some of their defined requirements.

The Stratis Build Hackathon will launch on the 29th November 2021 and run for just under nine weeks, ending on 30th January 2022. This will be followed by a judging period, with winners being announced on 23rd February 2021.

The entry criteria are limitless; the only requirement is that your submission utilizes Stratis Blockchain Technology. An example of some submission types can be found below:

Blockchain Gaming Submission
Gaming submissions should include an end-to-end game, incorporating Blockchain Technology in some respect. This can be through the employment of an earn to play model, the issuance of non-fungible tokens or utilizing Smart Contracts to offer a genuinely trustless experience for the gamer.

Stratis provides Software Development Kits for both the Unity Gaming Engine and the Unreal Gaming Engine to assist with the game integration process.

DeFi Submission
A DeFi submission can implement a lending protocol, trade management solutions and anything related to financial services on the blockchain.

NFT Tooling Submission
An NFT submission should focus on tooling around the management, creation and utilization of NFTs. For example, an NFT Platform, NFT Creation Tooling and anything related to the management of NFTs. An NFT Collection can also be submitted but must stand out and be highly unique to pass judging criteria.

Stratis Platform Tooling Submission
A tooling submission must focus on bringing additional tooling to the Stratis Platform, such as an SDK that caters for an alternative programming language, or as another example, a wallet implementation.
The judges will be asking: does the tool provide a useful function, is it accessible and engaging to use, is it doing something innovative, how well does the product function? Submissions can cover any software application, such as the web, cloud, personal computer, mobile device or console, but they must utilize Stratis Smart Contracts in C#.

Now is the time to gain some inspiration and think about solutions you can build on the Stratis Platform, utilizing Stratis Blockchain Technologies, in readiness for the Stratis Build Hackathon launch. The launch of the hackathon will detail full judging criteria and getting started packs to assist those new to Stratis Blockchain Technologies.