How CertiK-audited Grimace Coin Bridges Humour, Charity and Metaverse
https://www.coinspeaker.com/certik-grimace-coin-charity-metaverse

Algorand Network Upgrade Expands Smart Contract Functionality with Contract-to-Contract Calls, Releases Post-Quantum Secure Keys for Trustless Cross-Chain Interoperability
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/algorand-network-upgrade-expands-smart-235100042.html

What is Hedera and how is it different from existing blockchain technologies?

Hedera is a new platform that could present an alternative to conventional blockchain technology. Currently, every blockchain uses a ‘consensus mechanism’ to validate its transactions. Older blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum use the Proof-of-Work (PoW) mechanism. Here, each node (or miner) dedicates computing power at their disposal to solve complex mathematical equations to access and authenticate transactional data.
Newer blockchains, however, use the more energy-efficient Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism. Ethereum is also in the process of upgrading to PoS now. In PoS, miners pledge the blockchain’s native cryptocurrency to the network to qualify as transaction approvers. The likelihood of becoming a miner grows as the amount of cryptocurrency devoted to the blockchain grows. For example, a person dedicating 10 Hedera to the blockchain is more likely to become a miner than a person dedicating only seven.
Hedera (HBAR) is the native cryptocurrency of the Hedera Hashgraph system – a uniquely structured technology that is expected to be faster, more efficient, and more secure than blockchain technology.
How is the Hedera Hashgraph different from other blockchain technologies?

The Gossip Protocol

Hedera uses its revolutionary ‘Gossip’ protocol. Here, each node on the network communicates with every other node on the network to record and authenticate transactions. This leads to an explosive rate of communication. The network of individual transaction data, each connected to all other data, creates a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), which is the backbone of the Hashgraph Consensus Mechanism.
The Hashgraph consensus mechanism creates a graph that maps the communication of each node with every other node.

The communication history keeps growing continuously, and this information is saved on every node in the network in the form of a graph. Each time a node receives some communication, the sender and the time of receipt are recorded. This massive graph of communication history is then stored on the computers spread across the network - the ‘gossip about the gossip’.
When this graph is accessed, it is enough to reveal the transaction history, the identities of the involved parties, and the exact moment of the transaction. The two hashes are records of when one node sent out the communication and when it received its last message – a record of the transaction authentication itself on all computers in the network.

A certain number of communications is captured in 1 ’round’. In each round, a ‘famous witness’ corroborates the transaction history recorded in that round. The famous witness is the node that receives the communication before the other nodes communicating in that round. The chosen nodes then communicate with each other or ‘gossip’ to verify the data collected.

Unlike the PoW consensus mechanism, wherein one miner is selected per block to initiate the creation of a block, the Hashgraph consensus mechanism is a network of nodes mutually agreeing to add collectively verified data to the block. Once this verification process is done, the data is added to the decentralized ledger with 100 percent ‘finality,’ which means that the data can neither be tampered with nor modified nor reversed.

Public Distributed Ledger:

Moreover, unlike blockchains that store data in the form of blocks and link the data sets together, the Hedera network stores data on all connected systems on its network – a distributed ledger. But why?
Blockchain rules maintain that if two blocks are created simultaneously, one of the two will be discarded from the ledger. The decision regarding which block to add will be made by the nodes on the system. This is done to prevent the ‘forking of the blockchain, i.e., one chain splitting into two chains, and every time forking happens, it will grow infinitely like a tree.
Blockchains can also become defunct if new blocks form faster than they can be discarded. This is because the branches of the tree are forming before they can be trimmed. This is also why some blockchains use the PoW consensus mechanism to artificially stunt growth.

Hedera Hashgraph, on the other hand, discards nothing and uses everything. All the transaction data is added to the ledger after consensus and the nodes can communicate with each other to retrieve it. It is, therefore, ‘un-forkable.’

Fully Decentralised Governance:

The Hedera Hashgraph has a governance system that is completely set apart in its ways. There is a Governing Council comprising 39 industry leaders spread across geographies and 11 different sectors. All decisions regarding crucial software upgrades, pricing on the network, wealth management, etc., are made by the Governing Council.
Members of the Governing Council do not receive any profits from the network’s revenue and have a fixed term of 3 years on the council. The maximum tenure allowed is 2 consecutive terms, with the exception of Swirlds, the creator of hashgraph, who has a permanent seat and equal vote on the Governing Council.

What do these capabilities mean for end-users?

Hedera Hashgraph addresses 5 critical issues associated with other technologies – performance, security, governance, stability, and regulatory compliance (KYC required and AML compliance is checked).
The Hedera network processes over 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) as opposed to 5 TPS and 13 TPS on the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains, respectively. This speed is the result of the ‘gossiping’ instead of actually mining on the network. This means the nodes are just purely comparing notes on the network instead of executing complex mathematical calculations.
The transaction fee on the Hedera network is just $0.00001 as it consumes only a fraction of the energy consumed by other blockchains. Currently, only 18.09 billion Hedera tokens are in circulation, with the limit hard-capped at 50 billion HBAR.

https://www.cnbctv18.com/technology/what-is-hedera-and-how-is-it-different-from-existing-blockchain-technologies-12393172.htm

Hedera (HBAR) Rises 4.04%, Outperforms the Crypto Market Tuesday


https://www.investorsobserver.com/news/crypto-update/hedera-hbar-rises-4-04-outperforms-the-crypto-market-tuesday

Algorand Has Serious Plans to Transform the DeFi Sector

What if investors interested in the cryptocurrency market knew about “possibly one of the most important, native tokens (coins) in the world of cryptocurrencies today?” This is not a clickbait marketing question, but it is what Algorand (CCC:ALGO-USD) is described as by its Singapore-based Algorand Foundation.

The foundation was started to advance the technology of the platform’s ecosystem and Algo, the native token of the Algorand blockchain. It claims to be super-fast, scalable and secure.

Algorand blockchain is designed to help developers create applications based on the Algo coin, which has a price of approximately 95 cents as of Jan 27.

ALGO is ranked number 25 on CoinMarketCap based on its market capitalization of $6 billion and fully diluted market cap of $9.2 billion. It has a maximum supply of 10 billion coins with about 65% currently circulating.

Year-to-date, the crypto is down a little more than 44%. At some point during September 2021, Algorand was trading near $2.38. It followed the general cryptocurrency market collapse during late 2021 and early 2022, which is unsurprising. There is a strong correlation between coins and sour investing moods or a loss of momentum for risky assets.

Here are some key facts about Algorand to help you decide if it has a compelling investment story.

Key Information About Algorand

For many tokens and coins, we know almost nothing about their founders and their history. But that’s not the case with Algorand’s founder, Silvio Micali, who happens to be a professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. CoinMarketCap elaborates on his experience:

“He is a recipient of the Turing Award (in 2012) for his fundamental contributions to the theory and practice of secure two-party computation, electronic cash, cryptocurrencies and blockchain protocols. This makes him one of the foremost creators of crypto in the world.”

The Algo has several interesting and important key features. First, it is very fast, as the average time to complete a transaction with Algo is about four seconds. Second, it is highly scalable with no restrictions on the number of transactions. The coin has no delays or compromises to affect its transaction speed.

Third, it is very secure. The Algorand blockchain is powered by a pure proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. What this means is that the consensus protocol randomly selects validators weighted by their staked ALGO coin.

Fourth, the cost of using Algo is very cheap, unlike other blockchains. It also has very high transparency; at any time, there are available real-time metrics that can help anyone easily monitor circulating and liquid supply.

Algorand Solves the Blockchain Trilemma

Have you ever heard of the blockchain trilemma? If not, it is a very important puzzle that Algorand is addressing. The blockchain trilemma is the difficulty of achieving all three core features of security, scalability and decentralization in a platform.

Algorand is providing a solution to this trilemma with randomness. It selects validators randomly from all token holders, a highly effective approach that supports both security and decentralization.

The platform has smart contract capabilities, but its technology is aimed mainly at financial services and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. For example, the Algorand Foundation “announced the 150M Algo Viridis Fund to support and incentivize the creation of the world’s most efficient, scalable, and micro-fee DeFi ecosystem.” This is very important news and a strong step toward ALGO becoming a key player in the DeFi sector.

Some interesting applications of Algorand include yield farming, DeFi lending, non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces and synthetic assets. Its foundation has created a $200 million liquidity fund for its DeFi ecosystem, which will be especially helpful in its early stages.

https://investorplace.com/2022/01/algorand-has-serious-plans-to-transform-the-defi-sector

Fake crypto Grimacecoin rockets 285,000% after McDonald’s Tesla joke



The value of fake cryptocurrency Grimacecoin has rocketed by as much as 285,000% in a matter of hours in response to a McDonald’s joke tweet about Tesla.

The joke crypto, referencing their purple mascot shaped like a tastebud, parodied an earlier request by Elon Musk during a light-hearted Twitter exchange.

The Tesla founder tweeted on Tuesday that he would “eat a happy meal on TV” if McDonald’s accepted Dogecoin as a payment.

And on Wednesday the fast-food company responded with a picture of their popular mascot with the caption: “Only if Tesla accepts grimacecoin.”

Just hours later, the tweet had spurred the creation of nearly 10 grimacecoins on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) network alone.

One such token started trading at $0.0007 as it reached $2 at its peak, according to CoinDesk.

However, it has since fallen to the $0.60 level.

The market had already been rocked by the Twitter exchange after Musk’s tweets had sparked an increase in Dogecoin yesterday — which had soared by 8% at its peak, according to CoinMarketCap.

His comment came after McDonald’s first tweeted on Monday: “How are you doing people who run crypto Twitter accounts?”

https://nypost.com/2022/01/27/fake-crypto-grimacecoin-rockets-285000-after-mcdonalds-tesla-joke

Hedera Base Camp to be Launched by HBAR Foundation, Outlier Ventures in 2022

The HBAR Foundation, an organization helping to foster the development of Hedera Hashgraph through the provision of grants and resources to founders and developers, and leading crypto VC Outlier Ventures today announced the upcoming launch of the Hedera Base Camp, an accelerator program for early-stage projects building on the blockchain network prior to the Hedera mainnet smart contracts launch Feb. 2.

Outlier Ventures, in collaboration with The HBAR Foundation and its network of enterprise partners including the likes of Boeing, LG, Tata, and Google, will run two Hedera Base Camp accelerator programs in 2022, each hosting up to 10 pre-seed to seed-stage startups building on the Hedera Network.

Use cases will span the Open Metaverse; including enabling highly performant (yet environmentally sustainable) NFT infrastructure, gaming, and immersive XR experiences. Hedera will also be looking at accelerating middleware and smart contract tooling on the network. In a statement, the platform said it is also looking for start-ups leveraging the network’s platform to build innovative DeFi and payment solutions and sustainability solutions for enterprises and consumers alike.

Applications for the first base camp cohort open today with recruitment and due diligence of applications running throughout February. It will launch in April.

Outlier has helped more than 100 startups raise a combined $450 million in seed funding, including the launch of several billion-dollar networks, and supports Web 3 startups from token design and issuance, new business and governance models, community building, and fundraising.

“We’re proud of our partnership with Outlier Ventures, which has been scaling the largest multi-chain ecosystem of founders, investors and experts in Web3 and is an industry thought-leader on the Open Metaverse,”  said Rob Allen of the HBAR Foundation. “The Hedera Base Camp will act as a prime funnel for emerging startups searching for a highly performant, sustainable, and scalable DLT network and we are excited to welcome the Outlier team to the Hedera ecosystem.”

“We believe Hedera Hashgraph provides a powerful option for Metaverse startups, developers and enterprise partners to deploy highly immersive, affordable and performant dApps and XR experiences both for consumer and industrial use cases today as a competitor to centralised platforms,” said Jamie Burke, CEO of Outlier Ventures.

https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2022/01/186132-hedera-base-camp-to-be-launched-by-hbar-foundation-outlier-ventures-in-2022

Grayscale Considering Fantom, Algorand for Its Investment Products

Layer 1 chains Fantom, Algorand, and Oasis Network, are among the new additions to Grayscale’s list.

Grayscale Investments has updated its list of digital assets under consideration for this year. 25 more tokens, including Layer 1 chains, Metaverse applications, and blockchain games, have been added to the list...

https://cryptobriefing.com/grayscale-considering-fantom-algorand-for-its-investment-products

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"Called upon by the overlords at McDonald’s, Grimace Coin was created to pave the way for fast-food crypto transactions. Grimace himself is involved alongside his trusted dev team"

Grimace Coin is a project affiliated with the popular character and icon "Grimace" from McDonald’s. This aims to create friendly interaction between multi-billion dollar companies with global influence, further expanding the cryptocurrency development and acceptance. The project offers a connection to a video characterised symbol that can be recognised across the world.








Website
https://grimacecoinofficial.com

Community
https://twitter.com/BSCGrimaceCoin

Chat
https://t.me/Grimace_coin_official





Source: https://grimacecoinofficial.com (Archive 27/01/2022)

I don't classify people by intelligence

The most important thing is that a person be good

If a person is smart, it does not mean that he is good.

BTCS Adds Kusama to its Blockchain Infrastructure Operations

Silver Spring, MD, Jan. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BTCS Inc. (NASDAQ: BTCS) (“BTCS” or the “Company”), a blockchain technology focused company, announced the ongoing expansion of its blockchain infrastructure operations with the addition of Kusama (“KSM”), a $1.5 billion scalable multichain network founded in 2016 by Polkadot (“DOT”) founder, co-founder, & former CTO of Ethereum (“ETH”), Dr. Gavin Wood.

KSM is built from the teams at Web3 Foundation and Parity Technologies. KSM’s primary use case is to facilitate testing of new code and features within an experimental development environment for teams that want to move fast exclusively on KSM or join KSM as temporary preparation grounds before deployment onto DOT. “This flexibility is what allows for rapid development and innovation.” mentioned Charles Allen, Chief Executive Officer of BTCS, Allen continued “with over $6.4 million of cash on hand the recent pullback in the overall crypto market has created an optimal opportunity to further expand our blockchain infrastructure operations.”

Kusama Transaction Speed and Use Cases

The KSM network can process up to 1,000 transactions per second (“TPS”), which is 200x greater than the average speed of Bitcoin’s 5 TPS. Additionally, KSM has modified governance parameters that enable quicker upgrades, which are 4x faster than Polkadot.

Some of the applications that have been launched on KSM as of today include, DeFi, smart contracts, gaming, robotics, NFTs, metaverse(s), Internet of Things (IoT), and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs).

Kusama’s Consensus Algorithm

KSM uses a variant of Proof of Stake (“PoS”) called Nominated Proof of Stake (“NPoS”). This means validators can be nominated by independent reviewers (who are KSM token holders) called nominators. In addition to generating revenue by being a KSM validator, BTCS set up the technical work to integrate KSM into the Company’s planned, upcoming staking-as-a-service feature once its launched.

“In the case of BTCS, we’ve set up our KSM validator node, have bonded 4,206 KSM tokens, valued at approximately $800,000 and are now generating revenue from that node. On top of that, the technical work has been completed to allow KSM to be integrated into our staking-as-a-service offering once launched,” added Mr. Allen.

Validating vs Staking

The process of blockchain validation, as in the above example with the Kusama node, includes special intellectual property (IP), technical know-how, and regular maintenance to ensure efficiency. Users who stake, as described below, leverage validator nodes and pay a fee to stake their crypto. BTCS’s Kusama validator node is now ready to be deployed as part of our Staking-as-a-Service offering once launched. Staking, on the other hand, implies a general, more passive activity that generates rewards net of validator fees. Staking doesn’t require the same extent of technicality, node operation, node maintenance, and IP that is expended for validation.

Simply put, staking allows users to generate an annual percentage yield (“APY”) on their staked assets whereas validator node operators charge a fee on users’ staked asset rewards in addition to earning an APY on bonded or staked crypto. As such, the highly-scalable nature of running validator nodes is the premise behind BTCS’ Staking-as-a-Service platform.

About BTCS:
BTCS is an early mover in the blockchain and digital currency ecosystem, and the first “Pure Play” U.S. publicly traded company focused on blockchain infrastructure and technology. Through its blockchain infrastructure operations, the Company secures Proof-of-Stake blockchains by actively processing and validating blockchain transactions and is rewarded with native digital tokens. The Company is developing a proprietary Staking-as-a-Service platform to allow users to stake and delegate supported cryptocurrencies through a non-custodial platform, which it plans to integrate with its Data Analytics Dashboard, now in beta release. BTCS’ proprietary digital asset data analytics platform currently supports six exchanges and over 800 digital assets, and the Company plans to further broaden its suite of performance-tracking tools, add additional centralized and decentralized exchanges, as well as wallets, and stake pool monitoring. The Company’s digital asset treasury strategy, with a primary focus on disruptive non-security protocol layer assets, is a core component of its business model and supports BTCS’ expanding operations. For more information visit: www.btcs.com.

Forward-Looking Statements:
Certain statements in this press release, constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the federal securities laws including statements regarding our belief regarding our opportunity to further expand our blockchain infrastructure operations. Words such as “may,” “might,” “will,” “should,” “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “continue,” “predict,” “forecast,” “project,” “plan,” “intend” or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward-looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation the rewards and costs associated with validating transactions on Kusama’s blockchain, continued drop in crypto prices, significant decrease in value of our digital assets and rewards while locked up, loss or theft of the private withdrawal keys resulting in the complete loss of digital assets and reward, as well as risks set forth in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/01/24/2371634/0/en/BTCS-Adds-Kusama-to-its-Blockchain-Infrastructure-Operations.html

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Website
https://kusama.network

Explorers
https://polkascan.io/pre/kusama-cc3
https://kusama.polkastats.io

Community
https://forum.kusama.network
https://medium.com/kusama-network/kusama-network-7446706b8f4c
https://twitter.com/kusamanetwork

Chat
https://app.subsocial.network/@KusamaCommunity



Self-described as "Polkadot's wild cousin," Kusama is an experimental blockchain platform that is designed to provide a massively interoperable and scalable framework for developers.

Kusama is built on Substrate — a blockchain building kit developed by Parity Technologies. Kusama has almost the same codebase as Polkadot — one of the most successful interoperable blockchains.

By deploying on Kusama, fast-paced projects gain access to a highly scalable, interoperable sharded network, with features that are not yet available on Polkadot. To that end, Kusama describes itself as a “canary network.”

The platform is designed to provide a testbed for developers looking to innovate and deploy their own blockchain and can be used as a preparatory network before launching on Polkadot — though many projects opt to stick with Kusama for their final product.

Kusama benefits from a low barrier to entry for deploying parachains, low bond requirements for validators, and is most commonly used by early-stage startups and for experimentation.

Kusama is unusual among blockchain platforms since it is predominantly built for developers that want to launch bold, ambitious projects, with a fast-evolving pace of development.

It is built on a multichain, heterogeneously-sharded design that uses a nominated proof-of-stake (NPoS) consensus system — an alternative consensus mechanism to the energy intensive proof-of-work (POW) scheme employed by several other blockchains.

This system enables it to perform rapid on-chain upgrades without a fork, and support cross-chain message passing (XCMP) to enable communication with other parachains on the Kusama network.

Like Polkadot, Kusama features on-chain governance capabilities. This on-chain governance is both decentralized and permission-less, allowing anybody with Kusama (KSM) tokens or parachain tokens to vote on their respective governance proposals, which might include putative upgrades, changes to the protocol, and feature requests. This on-chain governance procedure is roughly four times faster than that offered by Polkadot, with a combined voting and enactment period of just 15 days — leading to the rapid pace of development for projects built on Kusama.

The project serves projects that want to hit the ground running, launching updates and improvements without the need to implement a fork to do so — thereby ensuring maximum community cohesion.

Kusama is built using a nominated proof-of-stake (NPoS) consensus mechanism.

This uses a network of nominators (KSM stakers) who elect nodes to participate in the transaction validation process. These nominators receive a fraction of the inflation reward if their nominator is selected on the next rotation. Validators that act dishonestly or don't meet performance requirements can have their stake slashed.

Additionally, Kusama uses a simple queuing mechanism based on Merkle trees to resolve cross-chain transactions. Relay chain validators are responsible for moving transactions from the output queue of one parachain to the input queue of the target parachain — this is a secure, trustless process that uses the same validators on each chain to pass the messages.





Sources:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/kusama (Archive 27/01/2022)
https://polkadot.network/blog/kusama-network-the-canary-network (Archive 27/01/2022)

Hedera to purchase hashgraph algorithm and make the code open source

The Hedera Governing Council has voted to purchase the intellectual property rights to the hashgraph consensus algorithm from Swirlds, Inc., the original creator of the hashgraph consensus algorithm and founding member of the Hedera Governing Council.

The Governing Council members further made a commitment to make the code open source under Apache 2.0 license in 2022. The Governing Council members have voted to take this step to enable broader community participation. In addition, Hedera believes technical controls are in place to ensure that the Hedera network state cannot split, so the hashgraph patents are no longer needed to be able to be used defensively to protect Hedera ecosystem participants. The open sourcing of the consensus layer will serve to further accelerate its development and expand the number of contributors. The Council members also announced that the network code will be out of beta with the next mainnet upgrade.

The Governing Council members are a diverse group of leading enterprises and organizations that collectively promote the advancement of the Hedera network technology and determine allocation of the Hedera treasury, as evidenced by the recent announcement of the allocation of 10.7 billion hbars (approximately 20% of total supply) towards the expansion of the Hedera ecosystem and hbar economy. Governance has continued to grow from the original five members to the current 25, with these diverse, distributed Council members participating in running the network nodes, governing the network, and recruiting new Council members.

“The vision has always been for Hedera to be a council-member driven organization, enabling the most decentralized governance and therefore broadest-reaching public network on the market,” said Scott Thiel, Partner at DLA Piper, one of the original Governing Council members. “We believe now is the time to enable the fastest adoption possible of the Hedera network, to capitalize on growing demand for public DLT.”

As such, the Council members have also made decisions that enable broader market participation by both startups and enterprises. The development and management teams and related personnel currently employed by Hedera Hashgraph, LLC will move to Swirlds. Mance Harmon,CEO of Hedera Hashgraph, and Dr. Leemon Baird, Chief Scientist of Hedera Hashgraph, will leave those positions, which are being dissolved, and will continue to participate in the Hedera ecosystem as peer members of the Governing Council through Swirlds, where they are CEO and CTO, respectively. In addition, Dr. Leemon Baird will continue to serve as Co-Chair of the Hedera Council’s Technical Steering & Product Committee, which is responsible for technical and roadmap decisions affecting the Hedera network, and Natalie Furman, who is resigning from the position of General Counsel at Hedera Hashgraph to lead legal efforts at Swirlds, will continue to participate as one of the member representatives in the Council’s Legal & Regulatory Committee. Tom Sylvester is being promoted from Associate General Counsel to General Counsel at Hedera Hashgraph.

“From day one, I have had a vision to enable ‘Shared Worlds’, where anyone can gather, collaborate, conduct commerce, and control their own online footprint,” said Dr. Leemon Baird, CTO of Swirlds and Co-Chair of the Hedera Council’s Technical Steering & Product Committee. “With the completion of V1 of the network code, open sourcing of the hashgraph algorithm, and an engaged Council making key decisions about the future of the network, the foundation of that vision is complete. The next challenge is for the broader community to develop products and services beyond the Layer 1 protocol, to deliver products and services that enable others to leverage the power of the Layer 1 protocol to create value. Swirlds is the best place for us to work on that, while fostering an ecosystem where all can participate equally.”

“Under high uncertainty and growing complexity economies, knowledge- and technology-intensive industries can maintain sustainable growth only by promoting open models of highly interactive and collaborative, multidisciplinary and multidirectional innovation. Innovation ecosystems are generally difficult to build because they are characterized by open non-linear dynamics, high receptivity to feedback loops, and persistent structural transformations,” said Prof. Paolo Tasca, Executive Director University College London, Centre for Blockchain Technologies, the first academic partner to join the Hedera Governing Council members. “I believe in non-hierarchical governance models which enable self-adaptability to rapid change via multilateral cooperation between innovators, developers, industry and academia. Therefore, I praise the Hedera team for their majestic work towards the broadening of the Hedera innovation ecosystem through open sourcing the consensus layer and further governance decentralization.”

The Hedera Governing Council has also entered into an agreement to outsource several essential services to Swirlds for the foreseeable future as the Council focuses on core network governance, industry standards, public policy, and treasury management.

“Achieving V1 of the Hedera network code is an important milestone for the Council and community, providing a robust network for anyone, anywhere in the world to build and deploy decentralized applications,” said Saiprasad Raut, Chief Technology Advisor, Crypto & Emerging Business for Worldpay from FIS, and Co-Chair of the Hedera Council’s Technical Steering and Product Committee. “And purchasing and making open source the underlying hashgraph algorithm will ensure that network development continues to be collaboratively produced, shared freely, published transparently, and developed for the good of the community. The ongoing collaboration between members of the Council, including Swirlds, gives us the best structure to facilitate exponential growth of the world’s most advanced public ledger infrastructure.”

“The towering importance of trust & transparency has become more critical than ever as digital technologies prodigiously tether us all with each other & our items,” said Pradeep Iyer, Ph.D, Research Fellow, Materials Group for Avery Dennison. “Recent pivotal organizational changes within Hedera hold the promise to seamlessly scale & secure a public DLT platform, catalyzing ubiquitous adoption. I see exciting opportunities to provide trusted tethers between physical items & their digital identities, for example, to accurately measure & mitigate environmental impact and help achieve ESG goals.”

The Council is also pleased to announce that Brett McDowell was unanimously elected by the Board of Directors for a two-year term effective January 1, 2022, as the first Chair of Hedera Hashgraph after serving ex officio in that capacity since the founding of the Council in February of 2019.

“It is an honor to be entrusted with this responsibility,” said McDowell. “The Governing Council has made meaningful progress over the past three years, growing from the initial five members, to now, twenty-five members across different industries, and geographies. I am excited about the changes being made by the Council at the beginning of the year, positioning the Hedera network for unprecedented growth in 2022.”

https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/91066/hedera-to-purchase-hashgraph-algorithm-and-make-the-code-open-source

Sorry but I have no regrets in 2021.

Only thanks to Bitcoin

Algorand is a new-gen blockchain that is bridging the decentralized and centralized world of finance. Its native crypto is ALGO.

Algorand Standard Assets run on the blockchain's "Layer-1" and include fungible, non-fungible, restricted fungible, and restricted non-fungible assets.

Here's what I like the best about Algorand Standard Assets:

1. Role-based asset controls are supported for business, compliance, and regulatory requirements.

2. Asset accounts can be "quarantined" for investigations.

3. "Forced" asset transfers can be done for legal compliance.

4. Permissions can be configured so that only "whitelisted" addresses can transact.

5. Off-chain asset documentation can be included in the on-chain asset definition.

6. Users can "opt-in" to accept new assets.

Another feature I like in Algorand is "Rekeying in Layer-1", which enables a user to change their private key without changing the public address.

https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/21644/introduction-to-algorand

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Website
https://www.hedera.com

Explorers
https://hash-hash.info
https://app.dragonglass.me/hedera/home
https://kabuto.sh
https://ledger.hashlog.io

Community
https://hedera.com/news
https://hedera.com/blog
https://medium.com/hashgraph
https://twitter.com/hedera
https://www.reddit.com/r/Hedera

Chat
https://t.me/hederahashgraph
https://discord.com/invite/EC2GY8ueRk



Hedera is the most used, sustainable, enterprise-grade public network for the decentralized economy that allows individuals and businesses to create powerful decentralized applications (DApps).

It is designed to be a fairer, more efficient system that eliminates some of the limitations that older blockchain-based platforms face — such as slow performance and instability.

It was funded through an initial coin offering (ICO) in August 2018 and first launched open access to its mainnet just over a year later in September 2019. As part of the ICO, investors were able to purchase the platform’s native utility token (HBAR) at the lowest possible pricing.

The HBAR token has a dual role within the Hedera public network.

First and foremost, HBAR the fuel that powers Hedera services, such as smart contracts, file storage and regular transactions. Second, it's used to help secure the network, since HBAR users can stake their tokens to assist with maintaining the integrity of the platform.

Unlike most other cryptocurrency platforms, Hedera Hashgraph isn’t built on top of a conventional blockchain. Instead, it introduces a completely novel type of distributed ledger technology known as a Hashgraph.

This technology allows it to improve upon many blockchain-based alternatives in several key areas, including speed, cost, and scalability. Hedera transactions have an average transaction fee of just $0.0001 USD and typically reach finality in under five seconds. Overall, Hedera Hashgraph claims it can handle more than 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) — compared to the around 5-20 for most popular proof-of-work (PoW)-based blockchains.

The platform offers several major network services. These include:

- A token service that allows users to easily configure and mint both fungible and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Hedera with just a few lines of code.
- A consensus service that acts as a layer of trust for any application or network that needs a secure, verifiable log of events.
- Smart contract tools that let developers build powerful and efficient decentralized applications.
- Decentralized file storage services with features include proof-of-deletion, controlled mutability, and time-based file expiry.

Hedera Hashgraph uses a novel consensus system known as Hashgraph consensus to keep its network secure.

This uses a rotating governing council consisting of up to 39 highly diversified organizations that span across up to 11 different industries. These are involved with directing the Hedera codebase, voting on platform decisions and operating the initial nodes on the Hedera public network.

Hedera uses a novel form of proof-of-stake (PoS) which allows HBAR users to stake their resources to help protect the network. Right now, all Hedera nodes are managed by either Hedera itself or the governing council members, but there are plans to switch to a permissionless system in the future.

\ Overall, Hedera's security setup ensures it achieves "asynchronous” Byzantine fault tolerance (ABFT) — meaning it can guarantee both the timing and order of a set of transactions, even if some data is delayed or lost.





Sources:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/hedera (Archive 27/01/2022)
https://en.bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/File:Hedera.png (Archive 27/01/2022)

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Website
https://algorand.foundation
https://www.algorand.com

Explorers
https://algoexplorer.io
https://algoscan.app

Community
https://algorand.foundation/news/algorand-foundation-marks-new-chapter-in-global-economics-with-inaugural-auction
https://medium.com/algorand-foundation
https://forum.algorand.org
https://twitter.com/AlgoFoundation
https://www.reddit.com/r/AlgorandOfficial

Chat
https://t.me/AlgorandFoundation
https://discord.com/invite/QBYp7Y2



Algorand is a self-sustaining, decentralized, blockchain-based network that supports a wide range of applications. These systems are secure, scalable and efficient, all critical properties for effective applications in the real world. Algorand will support computations that require reliable performance guarantees to create new forms of trust.

Algorand was invented to speed up transactions and improve efficiency, in response to the slow transaction times of Bitcoin and other blockchains. Algorand is designed so that there are lower transaction fees, as well as no mining (like Bitcoin's energy-intensive process), as it is based on a permissionless pure proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain protocol.

The Algorand blockchain is a permissionless pure proof-of-stake blockchain protocol. Unlike proof-of-work (PoW) blockchains, where the root block must be validated by randomly-selected validators (using computing power), in the pure proof-of-stake approach all of the validators are known to one another and only have to agree on the next block in order to create a new block.





Sources:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/algorand (Archive 27/01/2022)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorand#/media/File:Algorand_mark.svg (Archive 27/01/2022)

This is not full ANN announcement. Ridiculous. If this is an ANN then CZ is Satoshi. Your Loyce script saving only initial posts.