Monday, October 25, 2021

Meme Coins

Dogecoin, the first meme-coin, launched in 2013, was once considered an ironic gimmick and has now gained quite a reputation, becoming the 10th largest cryptocurrency with a $32.54 billion market capital on October 19, according to CoinMarketCap.

However, the pioneering meme currency has faced stiff competition from Shiba Inu and other floki-themed coins. So what's the fuss about these new floki coins? But first, let's understand what meme coins are.

Meme coins are cryptocurrencies, inspired by popular social media jokes, sarcasms and puns.

Currently there are about 124 meme coins, according to the Coinmarketcap website. Dogecoin's success in 2021 burgeoned the birth of many more meme coins imitating Doge.

* Meme coins are created with no specific use or inherent value, to gain quick high profits. In comparison, mainstream cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are created with specific technology to boost trading and transactions in the crypto market.

* They are way more volatile than other cryptocurrencies as whales can lead to sudden rise and fall in their prices.

* For instance, Shiba Inu rose 230 per cent in 7 days following the sale of 6.3 trillion Shib tokens in the first 2 days of October.

* Their performance and fame are mostly linked with social media support and hype created by their influencers and they are highly community-driven.

* Many meme coins have unlimited stock that have a long-term impact on their prices.

* These coins are launched quickly, meaning they can be lost in the long term.

* According to the CoinMarketCap website, DogelonMars, MonaCoin and HogeFinance are among the top 10 cryptocurrencies in terms of market capital after Dogecoin and Shiba Inu on October 19.

Floki-themed cryptocurrencies

Floki- themed cryptocurrencies are dog-meme coins with the name Floki created after Elon Musk tweeted to name his Shiba Inu dog Flokifrunk on June 25. Some of the floki-themed coins include Shiba Floki, Floki Shiba, Flokinomics, Floki Inu and Baby Floki Inu.

Dogecoin-killer

Shiba Inu was launched in 2020 as a self-proclaimed killer of Dogecoin and aims to become an Ethereum-based substitute of Doge.

* Shiba Inu was created by a pseudonymous founder Ryoshi Inu.

* The meme coin was created to capitalize on the soaring popularity of the leading Dogecoin.

* The meme-coin has the second highest market capital of $11.12 billion after Dogecoin on October 19, according to CoinMarketCsp.

* It has three tokens namely Leash, Bone and Shib and it's retail demand has increased since the initial listing.

Shiba Inu was recently listed on India's oldest crypto exchange ZebPay on October 13 for trading and investing.

The triggering effect of the tweets

Though tweets are not meant to be taken as a price determinant for cryptos, Musk's tweets have been seen to trigger the prices of the meme coins since the Dogecoin days.

* The very famous tweet of sending SpaceX satellite Doge-1 to the moon on May 10, 2021 helped gain Dogecoin billions of dollars.

* Musk's tweet on May 19 2021– 'How much is that Dogecoin on the window'-- almost doubled the price of Dogecoin from $ 0.29 to $0.40 and Bitcoin fell below $40, 000 on the same day following the frantic sale of Doge.

* Musk's September 13 tweet 'Floki has arrived' with the pic of his Shiba Inu puppy, surged the price of Shiba Floki coins to nearly 958.9 and Floki Inu rose 60 per cent in 24 hours.

* The recent tweet on October 4, with a picture of Musk's puppy Floki on the hood of his Tesla car shot up the prices of Shib coins to 55 per cent and 22.13 per cent increase in Floki Inu's price.

Shiba Inu Coin (SHIB)

 Shiba inu (SHIB) is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token that has risen in popularity this year, largely because of its dog-themed ecosystem, speculation on its price by retail investors and strong community engagement. The official Shib Twitter account, for example, has over 1.2 million followers – more than leading crypto companies such as Cardano, Kraken and Solana.

The digital asset was inspired by the Japanese breed of dog of the same name, which sparked a viral meme trend in 2013 and subsequently led to the creation of the infamous dogecoin cryptocurrency. Shiba inu, along with dogecoin and the hundreds of other pet-inspired digital assets, have become collectively known in the industry as “meme coins.”

Ordinarily, a meme coin offers owners little to no utility compared with more established cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether. In the case of shiba inu, however, there seems to be a legitimate attempt by the development team to provide more value to SHIB holders, including launching a decentralized exchange in July.

Notably, the desire to provide more utility to users has seen the self-proclaimed “doge killer” become the second-most popular meme coin in the market. And although the market capitalization of dogecoin is three times that of shiba inu at press time, the underdog project has managed to create and build up a large community in less than two years.

Key features of shiba inu

So other than being another doggy-themed cryptocurrency, what is the shib coin all about?

The first notable thing about Shiba Inu is its total supply. A total of 1 quadrillion SHIB tokens were minted during its official launch in 2020. A quadrillion is a number followed by 15 zeros. Some 50% of the supply of shiba inu was locked in Uniswap SHIB/ETH liquidity pool – a decentralized exchange where users deposit pairs of assets into liquidity pools that other investors can trade against. That is known as an automated market maker system.

The other 50% of shib token’s supply was donated to Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, who burned a vast majority of them by sending the tokens to a dead crypto wallet address. The remaining tokens (worth $1.2 billion at the time) were donated to an Indian COVID-19 relief cause and other charities.

The Shiba Inu universe also consists of a decentralized exchange, called Shibaswap, and two other tokens, “LEASH” and “BONE,”

Finally, the community is also championing a rescue campaign for Shiba Inu dogs. All you need to do is make purchases on Amazon through smile.amazon.com and select Shiba Inu Rescue Association (a 501(c)3 as your preferred nongovernmental organization). This will allow a percentage of your purchase to be donated to a cause focusing on helping Shiba Inu dogs in need.

Thursday, October 21, 2021

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

What is NFT?

 

What is NFT?

NFT, or Non-Fungible Token, is a concept that is related to fungible tokens. If we compare it to the real world, fungible tokens are like currency: if you have $500 USD, you can divide it up, spend it in parts, get spare change, and continue to make more purchases with the change you receive. On the other hand, non-fungible tokens are unique and indivisible. Some examples could be: artworks, treasures in videogames, property deeds, or even certificates to prove wine provenance. When you trade a non-fungible token, you no longer own it, and since it is indivisible, there is no concept of spare change.

NFTs are issued on distributed ledgers on the blockchain. As such, as long as the ledger and the chain still exist, the record stating your NFT ownership will be intact. It will not be tampered with, removed, or disappear. When an NFT is issued, the contract will contain identifying information of the token including: the ID of the token, and a way to link to the assets it represents. These are the 2 main reasons why NFTs are optimal to prove a person’s ownership of an asset:

  1. The information is unalterable once it is on the blockchain
  2. NFT tokens are intrinsically unique, immutable, and indivisible

Similarly, NFT’s unique properties allow for it to be used in videogames to represent treasures or characters in the game. The most prominent example would be that of CryptoKitties. CryptoKitties is a blockchain game on Ethereum that allows players to buy, breed, collect and sell virtual cats. In the art world, NFTs can be applied to paintings, music copyrights, and various collectibles. A notable example would be encryption artist Beeple’s sale of their work: EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS, that was auctioned off for $69.34 million USD. NFTs are also commonly used in other industries in the form of digital certificates, identity authentication, and domain names.

So, how did the concept of NFTs come about? It started towards the end of 2017 when Dieter Shirley, CTO of CryptoKitties, released EIP-721 (Ethereum Implementation Proposal 721.) EIP-721 was different from ERC20 standard, which was very popular at the time and had highly sought-after ICO tokens. EIP-721 proposed, for the first time, tokens that were not interchangeable. Soon after, the concept of NFTs started to gain traction in different applications, including CryptoKitties. Nowadays, it is increasingly common to see NFT auctions hitting record numbers in the news.