Web3 | Identosphere Blogcatcher

The post Gen AI Present and Future: A Conversation with Bijoy Sagar, Global CIO and Digital Transformation Officer of Bayer appeared first on Greylock.

Remember “Wen Polo”? This was the rallying cry of the PIVX community yearning for a listing on Poloniex exchange in 2017. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the PIVX team, that dream is finally becoming a reality.

A proposal to list PIVX on Poloniex has already been approved, paving the way for greater accessibility. Although a listing date has not been announced, Poloniex boasts a massive user base and robust trading volume, promising unprecedented liquidity for PIVX. This means buying, selling, and trading PIVX will be easier.

More Than Just a Listing: A Commitment to Growth

PIVX isn’t stopping there. Jeffrey, the lead of business development for PIVX, highlights their aggressive listing strategy. He commented:

“PIVX has taken a strong step forward and has been aggressively listing on major exchanges; most recently MEXC, Gate, and Bitmart. On top of the usual listings PIVX has achieved not only one perpetual listing but two on both MEXC and WEEX, marking the first time for PIVX to ever have perpetual markets. On the horizon, we have an upcoming Poloniex listing as well as a perpetual listing on XT.com.”

Beyond Accessibility: Privacy and Innovation at the Core

PIVX’s unwavering focus on privacy, security, and innovation has cemented its position as a leader in the crypto space. The Poloniex listing is just one step in their mission to simplify access to cryptocurrency for everyone. This empowers users to participate in the digital economy with greater control over their financial data.

As PIVX prepares for its Poloniex debut, now is the perfect time to join the movement and experience the future of finance. Stay tuned for official announcements and prepare to witness the launch of a new era of privacy and innovation.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.

To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

PIVX’s Next Big Leap: Poloniex Listing! was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This post describes work by Ralph Ankele, Sofia Celi, Ralph Giles and Hamed Haddadi.

Enabling verifiable advertisement interaction and reward computation with privacy-preserving cryptography

In today’s data-driven world, digital interactions are continually monitored. Many online platforms use data-driven incentive schemes to reward users for engaging with content, like watching ads or participating in surveys. However, these schemes often come with a catch: they may collect and store personal data to track engagement. This presents a problem because users are essentially sacrificing their privacy for small rewards, leaving their data vulnerable to misuse.

Privacy-preserving incentive schemes offer a solution by allowing users to receive rewards without exposing their personal information. Brave Rewards, for example, is designed to reward users for viewing ads while keeping their data private. The system respects user privacy by ensuring that ad engagement data stays on their device, never shared or stored externally. However, as demand for verifiable, decentralized systems grows, enhancing this model to provide stronger guarantees of privacy and reward accuracy is critical.

Privacy-Preserving Incentive Protocols

Privacy-preserving incentive schemes are becoming essential as digital platforms increasingly seek ways to reward users for engagement without compromising their personal information. These schemes rely on cryptographic methods to ensure that users can verify rewards and interactions without exposing sensitive data. The primary goal is to create an ecosystem where users maintain anonymity while still benefiting from their engagement.

The Boomerang protocol builds upon the following research works: The Black-Box Accumulator (BBA) scheme works by “accumulating” tokens without directly associating them with the user, creating a layer of privacy around interactions. BBA+, an improved version of BBA that optimizes cryptographic proofs, prevents double spending, and supports negative point collection, making it more efficient. Building on these foundations, Black-Box Wallets (BBW) is a privacy-preserving payment solution tailored for constrained devices. Another noteworthy protocol in the privacy-preserving incentive landscape is Privacy Pass. Originally designed as an anti-bot mechanism, Privacy Pass can be used as a versatile tool for privacy-preserving rewards.

Brave Rewards currently uses Privacy Pass as a key component of its system, enabling users to earn rewards in a privacy-respecting way. For example, when users engage with Brave Ads or perform certain actions (such as viewing an ad or clicking on one), Privacy Pass generates cryptographic tokens (not to be confused with BATs) to validate these interactions without revealing specific details about the user’s identity or browsing habits.

The Boomerang Protocol explained

The Boomerang protocol specifies a novel decentralized privacy-preserving incentive protocol to securely and privately store user interactions within an incentive system. The protocol leverages cryptographic methods to transparently compute rewards for users, ensuring verifiability while preserving their privacy.

The protocol defines four components that are interacting with each other:

Client: This is the Brave browser with Brave Rewards enabled. The client can be on any platform, either desktop or mobile. This actor is who interacts with the advertisements, and gets rewarded in return for interacting with the ads. 

Issuer: This is the provider of the incentive system. This actor verifies the correct computations of the client, and also initiates the rewards payment for the client. For instance, Brave can be an issuer for the Boomerang incentive system. 

Advertiser: These are individual advertisers that promote their content, that are shown to clients that have Brave Rewards enabled within their Brave browser. Clients can interact with those advertisements and get rewarded for doing so. 

L1 Blockchain: This can be any blockchain that offers smart contracts, and implements the Boomerang protocol. This actor publicly and transparently verifies the correctness of the rewards computation and issues the payment to the user. 

They interact as illustrated below:

Let’s consider an example, to see how Boomerang works in detail. The User, let’s call him Joe in our example, no longer wants to be left out when looking at advertisements while browsing the web. Moreover, Joe wants to see privacy-respecting advertisements and therefore enables Brave Rewards in his Brave Browser. After enabling Brave Rewards, a token is initialized by the Client he is using, either the desktop Brave browser, or on his mobile device. The issuer of the incentive system, in that case Brave, is sent a Proof of Issuance, to verify that everything was correctly initiated. 

Next, Joe is browsing the web as he normally does, interacting with some advertisements along the way. In the background, the advertisement interaction is stored on Joe’s client, and a Proof of Token Update of the regularly updated interaction state is shared in zero-knowledge with the Issuer. 

After interacting with advertisements for a while, and collecting reward points, Joe decides to ask to get rewarded for his interactions. His client sends a request for reward computation, and the Issuer creates a Reward Proof, specifying how much Joe will get paid for interacting with the incentive system. This Reward Proof is then sent to a L1 Blockchain. 

The L1 Blockchain runs a smart contract and publicly verifies in a transparent way that the rewards computation has been done correctly, and the proof is valid. Finally, the smart contract issues payment of the reward to Joe. And that’s it.    

In a nutshell, that is how the Boomerang protocol works. All the proofs mentioned above are cryptographic zero-knowledge proofs, that enable a Prover to prove the correctness of a statement, without the Verifier learning anything about the statement. Moreover, the individual advertisement interactions are collected in an unlinkable way using blinding and unblinding techniques, meaning they cannot be linked together. Finally, as the smart contract that verifies the rewards computation is public and transparent, the User can verify that the computations of the Issuer have been done correctly. This is what makes the Boomerang protocol a decentralized privacy-preserving verifiable incentive system.  

Boomerang Protocol extended

The Boomerang protocol can be split into three procedures/sub-protocols. These are:

Issuance: This procedure initializes the token,

Collection: This procedure updates the token with the advertisement interactions of the user,

Spending/Verification: This procedure redeems the collected points and creates a rewards proof that can be verified on a L1 blockchain.

We will provide details about each of the procedures next.  

Issuance Procedure

The aim of this procedure is to jointly generate tokens, between the User and Issuer, that the User commits to and the Issuer can blindly sign. Boomerang leverages Pedersen commitments for the User to commit to the advertisement interactions. Moreover, we leverage the Blind Signatures with attributes (ACL) scheme so the Issuer can blindly sign the tokens. After a User verifies the blind signature, they then build a cryptographic accumulator called a CurveTree and make the root of the tree public.

Collection Procedure

The Collection procedure consists of adding positive points to the token, representing individual interactions with advertisements, in an unlinkable manner. The correctness of the token update is ensured by several zero-knowledge proofs based on Sigma protocols.The Issuer can verify the correctness of those proofs and blindly sign the tokens. In return, the User verifies the blind signature and rebuilds the accumulator.

Spending/Verification Procedure

The Spending/Verification procedure works similarly to the Collection procedure. The exception is that instead of adding positive points, this procedure will add negative points (i.e. the amount of points that should be the reward) to the token. Additionally to updating the tokens, the Issuer creates the Reward proof, where we leverage range proofs from the Bulletproof zero-knowledge proofs. This Reward proof can then be verified in a smart contract on a L1 blockchain in a transparent and public verifiable manner.

Demo Time

To illustrate further how the Boomerang protocol works, let’s put it in practice. We have implemented a simple proof of concept implementation in Rust which is available at: https://github.com/brave-experiments/Boomerang 

After cloning the git repository you can run the demo by first building using

cargo build

Next, you can run a server instance, simulating the Issuer by running

cargo run --example server

Clients can be simulated by running a client instance with

cargo run --example client

The end to end demo will start up a server instance, and one client instance. Then it will go over all the three procedures of the Boomerang protocol, as explained above. Initially, the Issuance procedure will be called, that initializes the token. Next, the Collection procedure is called, which updates the token with some advertisement interactions. Finally, the SpendVerify procedure is called, which initiates a reward calculation. For the purpose of simply showcasing the proof of concept, the reward proof is verified by the client instead of being sent to a L1 blockchain.    

The output of the server instance should look like this

The output of the client instance looks like this

Conclusion

Boomerang is a novel decentralized privacy-preserving verifiable incentive protocol. The protocol leverages cryptographic methods to transparently compute rewards for users, ensuring verifiability while preserving their privacy. 

A more detailed technical description of the protocol can be found in the technical report. A demo implementation is further available at: https://github.com/brave-experiments/Boomerang

A smart contract’s rigid rule system represents a double-edged sword. ‘The Code is Law’, but what happens when rogue large language models or AI agents bend the Law? Can smart contracts be weaponised to serve a criminal agenda? In his ‘Oracle’ novel, Ari Juels explores this thesis and issues an eery warning regarding the blockchain x AI intersection. In this imminent future, oracles play a crucial role, allowing LLMs to push data on-chain or smart contracts to pull off-chain data.

Topics covered in this episode:

Criminal Smart Contracts Oracle x LLM convergence Preventing malicious intents through oracle systems AI x crypto use cases DAOs Entropy in voting behaviours Dark DAOs TEEs & private smart contracts MEV & proofs of transaction ordering Future blockchain research

Episode links:

Ari Juels on Twitter 'The Oracle: A Novel' by Ari Juels Chainlink on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

This week, our latest Zashi update includes a host of usability and security enhancements, along with some crucial bug fixes. But one feature we are particularly excited about is the […]

Source

Partnering with Rox: Every Seller Needs an Agent Swarm

Ishan, Chris, Avanika, Diogo, Shriram and their team are combining GTM and AI expertise to build a single source of truth for enterprise sales.

By Konstantine Buhler and Josephine Chen Published November 19, 2024 Team Rox.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of enterprise sales, the most successful teams aren’t just selling—they’re orchestrating complex, data-driven relationships with their most valuable accounts. Yet despite the proliferation of sales tools, account executives at leading companies still spend countless hours manually gathering intelligence, tracking customer signals, and managing workflows across disconnected systems. That’s why we’re excited to announce our partnership with Rox, leading their seed round with participation from GV and General Catalyst and now joining this new Series A, to bring the power of AI agents to enterprise sales teams.

Rox is reimagining how modern enterprise sales teams work by introducing what some call an “Agentic CRM”—though that description only scratches the surface. Rather than replacing existing systems, Rox seamlessly integrates with platforms such as Salesforce, Zendesk and ERPs to transform company data into an intelligent agent swarm that autonomously monitors, engages and manages customer relationships. Each agent can be equipped with capabilities like finding recent news, analyzing sentiment and identifying engagement opportunities—all powered by sophisticated AI that understands the nuances of B2B relationships. This enables the Rox platform to quickly become a single source of truth for its customers.

What sets Rox apart is its laser focus on serious enterprise sellers doing account-based selling. This isn’t a tool for small sales teams—it’s purpose-built for organizations with sophisticated sales motions targeting their largest and most strategic accounts. The platform’s warehouse-native architecture ensures it can handle enterprise-scale data while maintaining the flexibility needed for complex sales workflows.

The founding team brings together a rare combination of GTM expertise, company-building skill and technical brilliance. Founder Ishan Mukherjee formerly built Pixie into a beloved observability platform before getting acquired into New Relic. At New Relic he applied the observability DNA to leading growth efforts including the self-serve business, PLG, global marketing and inside sales. Chris Ré and Avanika Narayan have pioneered industry-leading research in data preparation with advanced AI. Fun fact: Avanika was formerly an intern at Sequoia and we can personally testify that her brilliance is only matched by her work ethic. The dream team is completed with growth expert Diogo Ribeiro and infrastructure engineering dynamo Shriram Sridharan who have built and scaled GTM and AI systems at companies including AWS, Confluent and ThousandEyes (part of Cisco). This team’s deep understanding of both enterprise sales challenges and cutting-edge AI has enabled them to create something truly unique: a warehouse-native system of workflow built specifically for customer-facing representatives.

The results speak for themselves. In private beta, Rox has already helped 35+ revenue teams at leading B2B organizations including Ramp, MongoDB, Confluent, OpenAI and Redis transform their sales operations. Account executives using Rox are reclaiming more than eight hours per week while increasing customer activity by more than 35%. Several enterprise customers have seen their investment pay off twofold in sales-accepted pipeline, leading them to expand their deployments. Our team at Sequoia has seen the benefits firsthand—Rox is now integrated into our own internal CMS. And with the launch of their public beta, the platform is now available for all enterprise teams to start using for free. 

As AI continues to reshape how we work, we believe Rox represents the future of enterprise sales. Their team of 15 builders (and growing quickly—they’re hiring!) is rapidly expanding the platform’s capabilities while maintaining the high-touch support that sophisticated sales organizations demand. We at Sequoia are proud to partner with Ishan, Chris, Avanika, Diogo, Shriram and the entire team as they help the world’s best revenue teams sell more, smarter. The future of intelligent enterprise sales is here, and it’s being built at Rox.

Share Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn Share this via email Related Topics #AI #Funding announcement Partnering with Bridge: A Better Way to Move Money By Shaun Maguire and Josephine Chen News Read AI and the Frontier Paradox By Konstantine Buhler Perspective Read Bringing Generative AI to Healthcare By Josephine Chen Perspective Read Partnering with XBOW: The Gold Standard in Offensive Security By Konstantine Buhler and Lauren Reeder News Read JOIN OUR MAILING LIST Get the best stories from the Sequoia community. Email address Leave this field empty if you’re human:

The post Partnering with Rox: Every Seller Needs an Agent Swarm appeared first on Sequoia Capital.

November Development Update: Modular Architecture and New Empe Issuer Demo

TL;DR: The November update features a modular architecture with standalone Issuer and Verifier services for easy integration. The Empe Issuer Demo highlights use cases like passwordless login and secure data sharing, making it simpler for clients to adopt and scale Empeiria’s solution.

User experience and real-world utility are at the core of our mission. This is why, in this latest development update, we focus on making system integration smoother and more flexible than ever, and demonstrate real-world use cases through our latest Empe Issuer Demo.

This update highlights both the technical enhancements in our architecture and practical implementations of our solutions. Whether you’re a technical expert or new to the field, you’ll gain insights into how our tools can benefit your own projects and be applied in your everyday life.

Technical Architecture Update Overview

Our restructured architecture emphasizes modularity and ease of deployment, making integration with client systems as seamless as possible. We’ve split the system into distinct, independent microservices that handle key roles, like verification and issuance. This approach allows us to provide a plug-and-play experience, ensuring minimal disruption for clients who want to adopt our system.

Empeiria End-to-End Verifiable Data Infrastructure Overview Key Components and Service Breakdown

1. Issuer Service (IS)

The Issuer Service is a self-contained component responsible for managing verifiable credential issuance. It’s designed to be easy to deploy independently and interact directly with the user’s wallet for issuing verifiable credentials. This isolation allows clients to integrate verifiable credential issuance capabilities without overhauling their existing systems.

2. Verifier Service (VS)

Similarly, the Verifier Service is an independent, deployable service focused solely on verifiable credential verification. When a verification request is initiated, the Verifier Service communicates with the Wallet for Verifiable Presentation (VP) requests and resolves DIDs through the Empeiria Blockchain. By isolating verification functions into a standalone service, clients can easily plug our verification component into their environments.

3. Client-Server (User’s Own System)

A unique aspect of our architecture is that the Client-Server and Application Logic are assumed to be part of the client’s own system. This means that users deploying our solution will manage their own Client-Server and Application Logic, which can interact with our Verifier and Issuer Services as required. We provide a client-side component that facilitates communication with the Verifier Service, making integration straightforward and minimally invasive. Our goal here is to offer a component that can be easily incorporated into the client’s infrastructure, connecting their environment with our verification and issuance services in a plug-and-play manner.

4. Empe Blockchain (DID Document Repository)

The Empe Blockchain serves as a decentralized repository for DID documents, supporting trustless DID resolution for verifiable credential verification. This integration aligns with our commitment to Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) principles, allowing client systems to verify DIDs without relying on a centralized authority.

Why does this matter?

These improvements simplify the integration process, enabling faster adoption and smoother transitions for clients. By breaking down our system into modular microservices, we make it easier for organizations to adopt and scale without major disruptions to their existing workflows.

• Modularity and Plug-and-Play: By providing the Verifier and Issuer as standalone services, we enable clients to deploy only what they need, keeping integration simple and scalable.

• Minimal Invasiveness: Since the Client-Server and Application Logic are entirely managed by the user, our solution integrates with a client’s existing infrastructure seamlessly. Our components are designed to be added as independent plugins, enhancing the client’s system without disrupting it.

Security and Flexibility: By isolating the verification and issuance processes, we enhance security and provide flexible deployment options. Each service operates independently, ensuring clients can scale and update components as needed. New Empe Issuer Demo Overview

To illustrate how our architecture supports real-world use cases, we’ve created a demo that shows various use cases our system can support. This demo helps potential clients envision practical ways to leverage our services in verifiable credential-based workflows, providing value in fields like identity management, event access, secure data sharing, and more.

The new Empe Issuer Demo complements the Empe DID Wallet. Powered by Empe Blockchain, it is a fast and secure way to experience the practical benefits of our solutions in real-life scenarios.

Download the Empe DID Wallet from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store and use it on the Empe Issuer website to explore the following use cases.

Use Cases

1. Passwordless Login with Empe DID Wallet

Users can log in to an example web service by simply proving ownership of their Decentralized Identifier (DID) through the Empe DID Wallet. This feature is an easy add-on for clients who want to replace traditional passwords with secure, passwordless authentication, simplifying the user experience.

2. Proof of Purchase Verifiable Credential

In this example, the Issuer Service issues a “proof of purchase” verifiable credential, such as a ticket for an event, directly to the user’s Wallet. This shows how our solution can streamline ticketing and proof-based verifiable credential issuance, enabling organizations to manage access more efficiently.

3. Conditional Verifiable Credential Flow (Proof of Attendance)

This flow requires a “proof of purchase” verifiable credential to be presented before issuing a “proof of attendance” verifiable credential. The conditional logic illustrates how our system can enable progressive access control, where one verifiable credential serves as a prerequisite for another, allowing clients to create step-by-step verification processes.

4. Birth Certificate Form Verifiable Credential

Here, we demonstrate a more complex form-based verifiable credential issuance, suitable for official documents like birth certificates. By completing a detailed form, users can receive a birth certificate credential, showing how our system handles structured data securely. This use case is particularly relevant for government and healthcare organizations where such verifiable credentials are needed.

5. Data Sharing Flow

This flow demonstrates how verifiable credential data can be shared with trusted entities by a user. This functionality is valuable in scenarios where credential data needs to be shared safely between systems.

Why does this matter?

The new Empe Issuer Demo highlights the utility and flexibility of our solution. From secure logins to proof of purchase, conditional access, and complex verifiable credential management, our system adapts to diverse needs.

By prioritizing modular services and seamless integration, we empower clients across industries to implement our End-to-End Verifiable Data Infrastructure (EVDI) for a variety of applications, while the new Empe Issuer Demo showcases real-life utility of our solutions.

These updates represent a significant step toward a more efficient, secure, and user-friendly verifiable data ecosystem. Your continued support and feedback remain vital, and we deeply value your involvement as we advance together.

Follow Empeiria on X, or LinkedIn for the latest news & updates. For inquiries or further information, contact Empeiria at media@empe.io

This is the 31st post in an ongoing series describing new privacy features in Brave. This post describes work done by Anton Lazarev (Senior Adblock Research Engineer), Stephen Heaps (Senior Software Engineer, iOS), and Pete Snyder (Principal Privacy Researcher). This post was written by Shivan Kaul Sahib (Lead for Privacy Engineering).

Starting with version 1.73 on all platforms, Brave is significantly improving its adblocking capabilities by adding support for procedural cosmetic filtering of page elements. This means that Brave will block more ads, break fewer websites, and be more precise with blocking intrusive page elements.

Brave already offers best-in-class ad and tracker blocking. We block privacy-harmful network requests to trackers, which prevents ad companies and data brokers from following you around the Web. This also has the nice side effect of boosting performance and making the Web less cluttered. Sometimes, however, blocking third-party ads will cause websites to break visually: there’s blank space where the ad would’ve been. Plus, in some cases, it’s not possible to block ads via network request blocking because the ad content is mixed in with the website’s content.

To get around this, Brave does cosmetic filtering of unwanted page elements, where we hide page elements using CSS selectors. In the following example, we can find and block the ad element by targeting elements using CSS classes “post” and “ad”.

Not all elements can be hidden by CSS selectors. CSS is declarative, meaning it controls the appearance and layout of a page based on the page’s structure rather than content. This makes it harder for us to tell the difference between an ad and other page content when an ad is made to look similar to the rest of the page. In the following example, the CSS class name for the element that contains a friend’s social media post (that the user wants to see) is the same as the CSS class name for a promoted ad element (that the user does not want to see). CSS alone cannot block the ad without also hiding other posts, which would effectively break the website. Additionally, in cases where the website’s CSS class attributes are auto-generated, non-distinctive, and constantly changing, matching on CSS causes frequent breakage.

Procedural (as opposed to declarative) cosmetic filtering overcomes this by letting us describe how to target an element to hide. Procedural filtering lets us define conditions like “block list elements containing the text BUY THIS PRODUCT”. This allows for fine-grained matching on page elements: we can target elements containing specific words, meeting a minimum text length, or with a particular HTML ancestor. All in all, this significantly expands the kind of unwanted content we can block on the Web.

As a reminder, Brave blocks third-party ads and trackers by default. We also offer an optional Aggressive blocking mode that blocks all ads, even first-party. We expect procedural filtering to be especially impactful in Aggressive mode.

Procedural filtering is a long-awaited feature that was technically challenging to pull off in a performant way. We’re excited to have you see the benefits!

Progressing from free Beta network to fair usage and a market-ready Nym network

NymVPN is about to launch. This will be the first commercial application to run on the Nym network, taking the network from its current free and experimental phase to a fully fledged, market-ready, and secure traffic routing network for the age of AI.

The NYM token buy-back is currently trialing the mechanics of a perpetual buyback mechanism to be provided by NymVPN subscriptions.

To get there, Nym’s tokenomics will be going through some major upgrades over the next three months. This article provides an overview of upcoming changes to Nym tokenomics and contains important information for node operators, stakers, and those of you who have been following Nym’s evolution over the past couple of years.

Snapshot of changes to Nym tokenomics

Nym has so far been free to use and nodes have been bootstrapped with rewards from a mixmining pool. With the launch of NymVPN app the network is entering into paid phase and rewards will be correlated to actual network usage. How will this work?

User subscriptions will trigger NYM token buy-orders, which are then used to reward operators, stakers, and the Nym team for running and maintaining the network software, creating a flywheel effect that benefits the whole ecosystem. This closes the loop in the virtuous cycle of Nym token economics.

To get there, Nym token economics has to go through a series of changes, the first being “naive rewarding” to update the reward algorithm. This is scheduled to happen in the next 24 hours with the Magura release.

Stakers and operators have to take action to continue to earn rewards. Breaking changes to APIs can be viewed here.

For a full presentation of the changes and what they mean for operators, watch the recent Node Operator Town Hall.

Immediate changes: Naive rewarding

The Magura release will be happening in the next 24 hours. This is a major network release that will update Nym token economics and likely have effects on operator and staker rewards.

Effects for stakers

To maintain a high level of staking rewards and contribute to a performative network, we encourage all stakers to:

Review the nodes to which you are staking at the end of the week to check if they have upgraded. We expect there to be a number of passive and outdated nodes which will be removed from the reward set, so check to make sure you are not delegating to a “dead” node! If necessary, move your stake to new nodes that have upgraded, have a high performance and config score, and can serve the functions of both mix nodes and gateways. We encourage stakers to support nodes in the Delegations program in particular as these have gone through a rigorous vetting process. If in doubt, check harbourmaster or ask in community channels to understand if a node *: is running the latest software v1.1.10 has a good config score has a good performance score agreed to operator Terms & Conditions

* All nodes participating in the Nym Delegations Program meet these criteria, and all nodes delegated to by the Nym Treasury wallet are Delegations Program participants.

Effects for operators

Many of our more active operators will be well prepared for the upcoming changes already after having attended the Operator Town Hall a couple of weeks ago.

Here is a summary of the main changes that will happen as part of the Magura release:

The 2% emissions from the mixmining pool will now be distributed across 5 layers of active nodes rather than 3. This is to ensure that gateways are rewarded algorithmically rather than only via grants. The aim is to encourage more nodes to run in gateway mode and enable more gateway options for end-users. Action: Completion of project smoosh requires that operators upgrade to run the Nym node binary. This means operators will be running a single binary for either gateway or mix node mode. Gateways will have to get stake for the first time in order to be selected to the active set. A configuration score is now included in the node selection algorithm to determine if a node is included in the active set: Selection = config score * total stake * performance ^ 20. This is to cull any outdated nodes from the set and make sure the network is running up to date software. All node operators will have to do smart contract migration from legacy modes to Nym Node to receive any rewards (to be done via Nym wallet). Action: Operators have to agree to operator Terms & Conditions to confirm legally that they do not gather logs on users.

The effect of these changes are expected to be a more performant network and better spread of gateway options for users of the Nym network. And it is the next step towards the fully fledged virtuous cycle of Nym tokenomics!

Nym’s vision: Fair usage, fair rewards

The end goal of Nym token economics is to have a virtuous cycle flywheel in which increasing adoption leads to a scaling of the network and rewards. Currently, stakers and node operators are rewarded from the mixmining pool, which is bootstrapping rewards while the network is free to use. With the network entering a paid version, rewards can soon become tied to real world usage.

Fair usage and fair rewards simply means that users will be paying for network services and that payments will enter the node reward pool with a percentage going towards topping up operator and staker rewards. But there is a lot more happening under the hood to make sure that:

nodes are rewarded based on actual usage of their services measurement of actual usage does not deanonymize a user!

The Nym R&D and dev teams have been very busy this past year to flesh out this scheme, combining zero-knowledge cryptography, evolving the coconut credential scheme into “e-cash” and now finally the zk-nym credential scheme. Zk-nyms ensure that a user’s payment is entirely de-linked from their network usage. For a full breakdown of the virtuous cycle enabled by zk-nyms, read more here.

For stakers and operators, the end goal is to have a rapidly scalable network, with no limits on the number of gateways. Rewards will be based on tickets gathered by gateways andrepresenting real usage. Nodes will be multi-functional. They will continuously have the chance to earn dVPN rewards as both entry and exit gateways. And they will compete with each other every epoch for the chance to earn additional rewards by getting into the active set of the Nym’s noise generating mixnet as either gateways or mixnodes.

Preview of fair usage, fair rewarding Timeline overview

Here’s a breakdown of what to expect from the Nym node roadmap each month into 2025.

Mid-November Release (Magura): The release will include gateways in the reward algorithm, with mixmining emissions divided across not just mixnodes, but also gateways. We expect this release to result in a slight decrease in mix node rewards due to more layers being rewarded, but with more chances for active set selection as old nodes will be removed. Staker action: Review delegations and restake if necessary. Operator action: Operators will at this point have to run up-to-date software, aka “smooshed” Nym nodes. They will also have to agree to operator T&Cs in order to be selected for the active set. Configuration scores will become part of the selection algorithm: config score * total stake * performance ^20 Team action: Onboard service grantees to the Delegations Program. End of November Release (Crunch): The release will include an IPv6 listener for gateways and allow operators to run a node in all modes (entry, exit gateway, and mix node, with all exit gateway-enabled nodes also serving as dVPN nodes). Operator action: Enable your Nym node to run in all modes. Team action: A new service grants program will the expand number and coverage of gateways. December NymVPN early bird launch New network explorer release Staker action: Use the explorer to explore nodes and fine-tune your staking for maximum network performance and staker rewards. 2025 Release: Fair network usage, fair rewarding. This is the fully-fledged paid version of the network. Rewards will be based on tickets gathered from usage, with rewards matching real world network usage. The mixmining pool will continue to bootstrap rewards as usage grows.

So if you’re a node operator: upgrade, review, restake, and get ready for the future of Nym.

And if you’re curious about Nym, sign up for NymVPN today for a 30-day free trial!

Join the Nym Community

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Privacy loves company

English // 中文 // Русский // Türkçe // Tiếng Việt // 日本 // Française // Español // Português // 한국인

Nym’s virtuous token cycle: Next step, Magura was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Picture this: a sudden knock on your door. Not just any knock, but one from law enforcement. No warning, no warrant. This was the shocking experience of a Session employee in late 2023. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) arrived unannounced at the home of an employee of the encrypted messaging app, a stark reminder of the potential erosion of privacy rights.

The police interrogation went beyond general questions about the app and company. They delved into the employee’s personal involvement with Session, specifically focusing on a particular user. Although the nature of the investigation remains shrouded in secrecy, the AFP acknowledged the use of Session by individuals involved in serious crimes.

Prior to this unexpected home visit, Session employees had already faced multiple contacts from the AFP and Victoria Police, including unsolicited messages, letters, and phone calls.

Session is an open-source decentralized messaging app. Developed in Australia in 2018, the platform prioritizes user privacy and operates under the motto “Send messages, not metadata.” Users are allowed to send anonymous messages using 66-character account IDs instead of traditional verification methods like email or phone numbers.

To enhance security, Session leverages a decentralized onion-routing network similar to Tor, ensuring that no single server can track the origin or destination of messages.

Following the incident, the messaging app announced its decision to leave Australia for Switzerland last month. The move was likely fueled by Australia’s July 2024 amendments to the Basic Online Safety Expectations. Under the new rules, online service providers are required to collect “a phone number, email address, or other identifier” when users create an account.

Is Privacy a Mirage?

While we may believe we are safeguarding our personal information, the truth is far more complex. Governments worldwide possess sophisticated tools to monitor online activity. From mass surveillance programs to targeted investigations, our digital footprints are constantly tracked and analyzed. Furthermore, tech giants amass vast amounts of personal data, often without explicit consent. This data is used to tailor advertisements, improve algorithms, and even influence our behavior. Cybercriminals can exploit system vulnerabilities to steal sensitive information, such as passwords, financial details, and medical records.

In my opinion, the notion of complete privacy in the digital age is a myth. While we can take steps to protect our information, such as using strong passwords, avoiding public Wi-Fi, and being mindful of what we share online, it’s clear that our digital lives are constantly under scrutiny.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

Government Surveillance Drives Encrypted Messaging App Dev Out of Australia was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What if the biggest challenge of our time isn’t living longer, but living better? 

In this episode, we’re tackling one of humanity’s greatest accomplishments—and perhaps its most overlooked challenge: longevity. As more people live past 100, our systems—healthcare, finance, career planning, and even our cultural perceptions of aging—need a fundamental overhaul. 

We’re joined by Dr. Andrew Scott, author of The Longevity Imperative, and Vijay Pande a16z’s Bio & Health general partner, to explore how a shift from “sick care” to “health care” could transform our lives. Together, we discuss the implications of longer lifespans, from the individual choices that can improve our healthspans to the economic and societal shifts required to sustain a healthier, more productive aging society. 

Join us as we reimagine the future of aging, where living to 100 can be more than survival—it can be a life well-lived.

 

Resources: 

Find Andrew on X: https://x.com/profandrewscott?lang=en

Find Vijay on X: https://x.com/vijaypande

Learn more about The Longevity Imperative:

https://profandrewjscott.com/the-longevity-imperative/

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

This is the thirtieth post in an ongoing series describing new privacy features in Brave. This post describes work done by Stephen Heaps (Senior Software Engineer, iOS), Jacob Sikorski (iOS Privacy Engineer) and Agustín Ruiz (DesignOps Lead), and was written by Shivan Kaul Sahib (Lead for Privacy Engineering).

Starting with iOS version 1.71, Brave is rolling out a way to quickly delete browsing data that sites can use to identify you across visits. It’s called Shred.

Shred lets you instantly erase data a site might have stored on your device. Unlike similar features in other mobile browsers, Shred lets you delete data for a particular site with a single tap. This means you won’t be forcibly logged out of all your favorite websites every time you erase data, and you won’t have to maintain a list of site-by-site exceptions.

While other browsers are trying to catch up with Brave’s industry-leading protections against third-party tracking, few are talking about the risks of first-party tracking—that is, of websites tracking you across sessions. This kind of tracking allows sites to monitor how often you visit, limit access to content (e.g. with messages like “you have 5 articles left this month”), and share first-party data about you with their partners (e.g. via server-side tracking). Shred disrupts this kind of tracking by letting you clear site-specific data, and preventing companies from building detailed profiles or tracking your interactions with them over time.

How to use Shred Shred data now

You can immediately Shred a site in three different ways:

Long-press the tabs button Tap the Shred button in the tabs tray Select the new Shred option in Shields

Shred works on a per-site basis, since that is the privacy boundary for cookies and storage. When you Shred a site, all tabs open to that site are closed, and locally stored data for that site is erased.

Automatically shred

Auto Shred lets you automatically delete data for specific sites, so you don’t have to remember to clear data from specific sites. To do so:

Open Shields. Tap Advanced Controls. Tap Shred Site Data.

You can configure Auto Shred to happen when all tabs for a site are closed, or on browser restart. Auto Shredding on Site Tabs Closed means that whenever you close the last tab for a site, Brave will automatically Shred that site’s data.

You can also set Auto Shred to happen for all sites:

Open Settings. Tap Shields & Privacy. Tap Auto Shred. 

Auto Shred for iOS works similarly to the “forget me when I close this site” feature on Desktop and Android.

What data does Shred delete?

Shredding deletes both data explicitly stored by the site (e.g. cookies and local storage) and implicit data (e.g. network-related caches). To make sure Shred clears as much data as possible, Shred will also clear local data stored using so-called private WebKit APIs.

Looking ahead

While Brave for iOS leads in privacy among iOS browsers, it still lags behind the privacy protections offered by Brave on Android and Desktop. Shredding clears virtually all site data but some limited types of data are beyond our reach due to platform limitations imposed by Apple.

We’re working to bring the Shred feature to Android and Desktop for a consistent experience across platforms. We want our users to browse the Web safely and comfortably, free from intrusive ads and tracking, with privacy controls that work for them. Privacy should be easy by default—and maybe even fun.

Showcasing how Nym is more than a VPN to the world

It meant many overnight flights for the Nym core team, but we managed to do it all in one week: from DevCon in Bangkok to Web Summit in Lisbon, Nym showcased the upcoming launch of NymVPN and its underlying community and network.

The crowds couldn’t be more different, but the appeal was the same: the world needs something more than what traditional VPNs are offering. We need more access to information, more control of our data, more privacy in what we do and who we communicate with online.

So here’s a roundup of what the Nym team has been doing to make all of that possible.

DevCon 2024 (Bangkok)

The Nym team was in full force at DevCon for what turned out to be a pretty incredible event. Here’s a look at what happened over four days of presentations and discussions.

Sunday: Digital sovereignty

Nym’s Simon Toth chaired a panel on “Decentralized data in a surveillance economy: A path to data sovereignty” at the Decentralized Data Summit 2024.

Monday: Women In Tech

Yana Matrosova presented NymVPN on “Sovereign tools by Women in Web3Privacy” at Logos “Parallel Society” and moderated a panel on “Privacy with backdoors or without?” at Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress.

The opening talk was delivered by Harry Halpin and Chelsea Manning via video.

Tuesday: From the cypherpunks to the noise-generating mixnets

Harry Halpin delivered a Lightning Talk on “Why VPNs are a scam and what to do about it,” introducing Nym’s noise-generating mixnet as a novel solution to AI surveillance and data tracking. Check out the video.

Harry Halpin and Max Hampshire delivered the final talk at the Cypherpunk Congress on “The history and philosophy of cypherpunk,” with almost a 1000 people in attendance! It was truly an honor to speak to so many curious about the tradition at the foundation of Nym. Watch the full video here!

Wednesday: Collective security

Yana Matrosova presented “NymVPN and the Nym Squad League” at Women In Web3Privacy “Privacy Tools” side event. Multiple topics were discussed, including decentralization, zk, privacy, and cypherpunk values. Every person needs to take care of their own privacy themselves, Yana argued, because no-one is coming to save us!

Max Hampshire gave a Lightning Talk on “From Packets to Privacy: Understanding and evolving network security.” You can watch the full talk here.

Web Summit 2024 (Lisbon)

Harry and Chelsea hopped over to Portgual right away to attend Web Summit.

Panel discussion with Harry and Chelsea

Harry and Chlesea presented “More than a VPN: Defeating AI surveillance with Noise-Generating Mixnets” on a panel to show the architectural weaknesses of all existing VPNs and how NymVPN can do more.

Press conference: Protecting data against surveillance

Harry and Chelsea followed up with a press conference for journalists on what to expect for threats to privacy and protections after the US elections, especially with the rise of authoritarianisms and censorship to information worldwide.

The events season is coming to a close, but right before a big opening: NymVPN will be released next month with live payments! Stay tuned through Nym’s weekly dev updates on the progress of the launch.

Join the Nym Community

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Privacy loves company

English // 中文 // Русский // Türkçe // Tiếng Việt // 日本 // Française // Español // Português // 한국인

Nym from East to West: DevCon and Web Summit 2024 was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Preparing for latest release of NymVPN and breaking network changes next week

The Nym team had big successes in showcasing NymVPN to the world at DevCon in Bangkok and Web Summit in Lisbon this week! And behind the scenes, the dev team has been buckling down to prepare the new network and app releases coming next week. Don’t forget, this is all in lead up to the two big things:

December 2024: Early bird access to the robust NymVPN app with payments! January 2025: The official launch of NymVPN to the world, at a symbolic time when it needs a real paradigm shift in online privacy

Here’s the full timeline for NymVPN finishing out 2024. Stay tuned for details next week on the launch of zk-nym credentials, the newest releases, and some breaking changes for node operators.

Remember, NymVPN Beta is still open and free to use, so sign up today and instantly receive a free 30-day access voucher. Nym needs your testing, testing, testing!

NymVPN

The big focus has been preparing next week’s stable release of NymVPN and making sure it is as widely available as possible to download.

New NymVPN releases coming next week

Apps releases were paused to ensure stability during DevCon and WebSummit this week. The next NymVPN app release is scheduled for Thursday, 21 November following the Magura network release on Monday, 18 November.

NymVPN in Apple Store

NymVPN is now available in Apple Store!

Network

The team has been steadfastly preparing for the latest Magura network release. This will include some breaking changes, so node operators take note!

Magura release coming Monday

The next network release “Magura” is scheduled for Monday, 18 November. This release will contain several breaking changes, including changes to the reward scheme to include gateways in the reward algorithm.

All operators must update!

All operators will need to run the latest Nym node binaries, enabling them to function in either mix node or gateway mode. On Monday, this will be v2024.13 Magura.

All operators will also need to have agreed to the Terms & Conditions in which they agree to not gather logs. Read more on Nym’s zero-knowledge network design that takes trust out of the equation for users.

In order for the Nym network to meet clients needs, all nodes need to be up to scratch. Nodes that do not meet these two conditions will be removed from the network.

Changes to operator rewards

The Nym reward pool will be divided across five layers of nodes rather than three to include gateway functions in the reward algorithm. Get the full briefing in last week’s Operator Town Hall.

New patch

Operators implemented a patch that went out for the Aero release. The patch improves connection reliability between dVPN clients and gateways. It fixes timeouts on the authenticator registration so connections with gateways that have updated to this patch version should now be more stable.

Until next week comrades! Of course, join our channels for more up to date information and live discussion with the core team!

Join the Nym Community

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Privacy loves company

English // 中文 // Русский // Türkçe // Tiếng Việt // 日本 // Française // Español // Português // 한국인

Weekly progress report: November 15 dev update was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

PIVCards, the innovative platform from PIVXLabs, where you could already choose from thousands of gift cards to buy with PIVX, has just rolled out a really cool update. Now, users can not only purchase their gift cards using both transparent and SHIELDed PIV but also participate in a novel SHIELed Cashback lottery with every purchase.

The Thrill of the Draw

Here’s how it works:

~Purchase Your Gift Card: Dive into the vast selection of gift cards on PIVCards. Whether for tech gadgets, fashion, or dining, there’s something for everyone.

~Transaction Flexibility: Choose to pay with either transparent or shielded PIVX, aligning with your preference for privacy in transactions.

~Chance to Win: Upon each purchase, you’re automatically entered into a draw where you might earn back 1–2% of your purchase as SHIELDed cashback in PIVX. It’s like a reward for shopping, but with the excitement of a lottery.

Understanding the Cashback Lottery

It’s important to clarify that not every purchase guarantees cashback. Instead, PIVCards has introduced a system where:

Every Purchase is an Opportunity: Each transaction gives you a ticket into the cashback draw. The more you buy, the more chances you have to win.

Winners Emerge: Randomly selected transactions receive the cashback, adding an element of surprise and delight to the usual shopping experience.

Privacy Preserved: Winners receive their cashback directly into their shielded PIVX wallet, ensuring their financial gains remain confidential.

Why This Upgrade is Exciting

This upgrade by PIVCards is not just about transactions; it’s about transforming the act of spending into a game with potential rewards:

Engagement: It adds a layer of engagement to shopping, where every purchase could lead to a pleasant surprise.

Incentive to Use PIVX: Encourages more people to engage with cryptocurrency for everyday purchases, potentially increasing its adoption.

Join the Fun

Ready to blend the excitement of a lottery with your shopping?
Navigate to http://cards.pivxla.bz and start exploring. Remember, each card you buy is not just a gift; it’s potentially a gift to yourself in the form of SHIELDed cashback.

Dive in, shop, and may luck be on your side with PIVCards’ new feature!

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

PIVCards Upgrade: A New Spin on Spending with Cashback Chances was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

During Q3 2024, Least Authority (in their role as the Zcash Ecosystem Security Lead) undertook an audit of the changes implemented in Zebra in order to support the NU6 Zcash network upgrade.

We are pleased to announce that the audit was favorable, and that we have addressed and mitigated the audit findings in our 2.0.1 NU6 stable release.

You can find a link to the audit report in Least Authority’s blog post.

The post Zebra NU6 Audit appeared first on Zcash Foundation.

PIVX Takes Flight on WEEX: Perpetual Contracts Now Live!

PIVX has announced the listing of its perpetual contract on WEEX. Buckle up PIVXians, you can now 20x your positions on the PIVX-USDT pairs on a leading cryptocurrency exchange.

The listing, which happened on November 12, is already gaining significant traction on WEEX. The trading pair has seen a volume of nearly $500,000 in less than twelve hours after going live.

Unlike traditional futures contracts with a set expiry date, perpetual contracts are a type of derivative that allows you to speculate on the future price of an asset (in this case, PIVX) without a fixed settlement date. This means you can hold the position for as long as you want, making adjustments as market conditions change.

The Power of Leverage

Now, the exciting part is leverage. Perpetual contracts let you trade with borrowed capital, amplifying your potential gains (and losses). For example, with 5x leverage, a 10% move in the price of PIVX translates to a 50% gain (or loss) on your initial investment.

Caution: High Risk, High Reward

While leverage can magnify profits, it comes with a significant downside: magnified losses. If the market moves against you, your losses will be amplified by the leverage factor.

Trading PIVX with Leverage on WEEX

Ready to explore PIVX perpetual contracts on WEEX? Head over to https://www.weex.com/futures/PIVX-USDT to start trading. But remember, leverage trading carries high risk. Always proceed cautiously, understand the risks involved, and only trade with what you can afford to lose.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

PIVX Takes Flight on WEEX: Perpetual Contracts Now Live! was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Recently Empeiria’s CEO & Founder, Marcin Parafiwnowicz, attended the RAK Digital Assets Oasis’s second annual conference. During the event, he discussed the transformative potential of verifiable, interoperable decentralized data.

The conference also marked the unveiling of the DAO Association Regime — a pivotal regulatory framework designed to support Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) and bridge the gap between blockchain innovation and traditional governance. This initiative is part of the UAE’s broader commitment to fostering a structured environment for digital assets, positioning the region as a global leader in blockchain regulation.

Attendees engaged in dynamic discussions on DAOs, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Foundations, and tokenization, exploring how these advancements are reshaping the digital asset space. The event offered a powerful platform for innovators to connect and explore the synergies between regulatory clarity and decentralized innovation.

We look forward to supporting the UAE’s continued leadership in blockchain technology and digital asset innovation.

Follow Empeiria on X, or LinkedIn for the latest news & updates. For inquiries or further information, contact Empeiria at media@empe.io

This article was originally published on Empe.io

From October 21–23, Empeiria’s founder & CEO, Marcin Parafiwnowicz attended Cosmoverse 2024 in Dubai, where he engaged with the blockchain community to explore how verifiable data can drive real-world solutions. Our participation at the event emphasized the importance of building Web3 applications that not only push boundaries but also offer real-life utility and long-term adoption. Cosmos is a key enabler of this vision.

Cosmos stands out for its reliability, modularity, open-source flexibility, and seamless interoperability across major blockchains like EVM, Solana, and Avalanche. These core elements make it an ideal ecosystem for creating scalable and interconnected Web3 solutions. During the event, we discussed how these features empower developers to build applications that solve real-world problems while supporting decentralized data ecosystems, which is exactly the approach Empeiria is focused on.

By working within the Cosmos ecosystem, Empeiria is aligned with a platform that prioritizes long-term utility over short-term trends. Cosmos is built for real-world adoption, enabling projects like ours to develop technology that provides lasting value. Looking ahead, we’re excited about the continued growth of Cosmos, particularly with innovations like Lightchains, which will enhance scalability and further support complex applications.

Our time at Cosmoverse reinforced our belief in the power of blockchain to solve real-world challenges, and we look forward to continuing to build within the Cosmos ecosystem to drive meaningful, long-term change.

Follow Empeiria on X, or LinkedIn for the latest news & updates. For inquiries or further information, contact Empeiria at media@empe.io

This article was originally published on Empe.io

Bitcoin’s lack of native programmability, coupled with advancements in zero knowledge cryptography, has led to rollups being explored as a substitute for an execution layer. Citrea’s approach involves using Bitcoin as a data availability & settlement layer for their zero knowledge rollup. These rollups not only lower transaction costs, but they also enable smart contracts to use Bitcoin’s L1 security and further incentivise miners to secure the chain despite halving rewards. In order to inherit Bitcoin’s security, zk proofs are inscribed in Bitcoin blocks.

Topics covered in this episode:

Orkun’s background Inscriptions, BitVM and zk rollups on Bitcoin Optimistic bridging Sequencer Programmability solutions on Bitcoin BitVM development Citrea ecosystem development cBTC vs. custodial wrapped BTC There is no second best! PoW, halving block rewards and how rollups incentivise miners Citrea’s efficiency & fee reduction Bitcoin as an inflation hedge

Episode links:

Orkun Mahir Kilic on Twitter Citrea on Twitter BitVM

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Felix Lutsch.

The post How Snorkel’s Obsession with Data Fuels Its Success in Enterprise AI appeared first on Greylock.

Today, we’re excited to reveal the next phase of Shade Protocol’s growth: a roadmap for omnichain expansion that will bring our native stablecoin (SILK) and our Secure DeFi products to even more ecosystems across web3.

Shade Protocol launched in 2022 with a bold vision: build the most secure and inclusive on-chain economy. We’ve already achieved over $1B+ in trading volume across over 1 million trades, as well as millions of minted and circulating SILK. And we’re just getting started.

We are about to experience the most critical years for decentralized finance. And we believe Shade’s core pillars will make its products the most liquid and sustainable over the long term:

Secure and Trustable: over 87% of consumers refuse to use online platforms if they believe their data may be at risk. The future of decentralized finance must be both secure and privacy-preserving in order to build a foundation of trust and lasting adoption. Private and Auditable: regulatory frameworks continue to expand and mature. While they demand transparency for public goods, they also mandate privacy for individuals. Shade’s unique decryption primitives empower individuals to remain compliant while protecting their individual privacy and on-chain activity. Stable and Diverse: as global volatility and connectivity continues to expand, the need for a diversified stablecoin — secured by SOV commodities such as bitcoin & gold in addition to sovereign currencies — is obvious for both on-chain commerce and DeFi. SILK is uniquely positioned to solve this liquidity profile gap in the omnichain economy.

In the post below, we’ll expand on these pillars, reveal what’s being built, and explain how you can join and participate in the Shade on-chain economy immediately.

Expanding Liquidity Across the Omnichain

On-chain economies are best measured by their liquidity. Because that liquidity can come from anywhere, Shade must be everywhere as well.

Shade Protocol already includes a number of products we consider to be “omnichain”, including SILK (which is fully collateralized by a basket of different omnichain assets, currencies, and commodities) and our yield-bearing liquid staking derivatives stkd-SCRT and dSHD. These liquid staking derivatives are highly capital efficient, making them attractive assets to spread across the omnichain.

In this new growth phase for Shade Protocol, we will continue to expand via:

Expansion of outposts: by cross-deploying Shade protocol applications on more L1s and L2s — especially those with native security features like FHE, ZK, and MPC — we will expand access and unlock new primitives that build on our extensive experience developing secure DeFi applications. Expansion of bridges: we will be expanding both our IBC connections and our bridge support for external ecosystems — including Solana and ETH L2s — in order to maximize access to both SHD and SILK. Expansion of products: we will launch the ShadeX money market, driving additional steady demand for SILK. Additionally, we will pursue improvements to UX and connectivity to these products. Expansion of SILK & SHD on external liquidity venues: we will seek to support SILK & SHD pools on as many L1s, L2s, and cross-chain protocols as possible, supporting the launch of money markets and collateralized stablecoin integrations. Expansion of SILK FinTech integrations: a strong on-chain economy should support real world utility. More and more Fintech companies are entering into the onchain economy (such as Stripe). Demand for stablecoins to connect DeFi to daily commerce is an increasingly large use case. Part of our current FinTech expansion plans involves exploration of an acquisition / merger with a FinTech x DeFi product. Instant Entry: Introducing “The Button” The Button

One of the biggest challenges facing users of on-chain economies is simply knowing where to begin. How do you bridge into a new economy? How do you get support? How do you easily provide liquidity or mint assets?

If it isn’t dead simple to enter Shade’s on-chain economy, Shade won’t grow. If users can’t easily mint SILK or access products like the Shade DEX or money market, Shade won’t grow. That’s why UX has always been a huge focus in our ecosystem, which has powered our innovations around viewing keys and query permits as well as powerful analytics and auditing tools.

Now we are introducing a new innovation: “The Button.”

The biggest complaint from prospective users who embrace Shade’s vision is that it is still too challenging to enter the on-chain economy. How do they get SHD and begin contributing to pools or minting SILK? How do they instantly become part of the community and movement?

When you hit The Button, users have the opportunity to buy SHD with zero slippage and 0 trading fees (minimum $1k size) with a 24 hour waiting period for claiming the SHD.

After using The Button, users will have the opportunity to join an exclusive chat with other Button users!

The following are supported assets of The Button:

USDC.nbl USDC.axl wETH.axl ATOM SCRT

We expect more assets to be added over time!

After a user presses The Button, the protocol re-routes the deposited purchase amount and buys SHD on ShadeSwap, ensuring that direct buy pressure is applied to SHD. The Button is a powerful feature that ensures that large buyers of SHD can enter without paying large amounts on slippage and trading fees.

Here’s the catch: The Button can only be pushed a limited number of times!

There is currently only 20k SHD available for purchase for each of the above listed assets. That’s a limited amount of slippage-free liquidity.

This initial liquidity will not be refilled before November 17.

Use The Button → https://app.shadeprotocol.io/swap/buy-shade

SHD Yield Opportunities

After purchasing SHD using The Button, there are a variety of DeFi opportunities for SHD tokenholders to engage with:

https://app.shadeprotocol.io/stake

Stake your SHD with a 7 day unbonding period, empowering you to passively earn ~8% APY (instantly claimable yield). The more fees accrued on the Shade app, the higher the staking APY, yielding greater than 20% yield during peak activity weeks.

https://app.shadeprotocol.io/staking-derivatives/stake?input=secret153wu605vvp934xhd4k9dtd640zsep5jkesstdm

As an alternative to traditional SHD staking, you can also mint dSHD — an autocompounding SHD liquid staking token that empowers you to passively earn staking yield while also putting the LST to work in Shade DeFi and beyond.

https://app.shadeprotocol.io/swap/pools

Liquidity provide on the SILK/SHD pool, earning ~21.4% APR in SHD rewards for staking your liquidity token. The dSHD / USDC.nbl pool is currently yielding 110%, another excellent opportunity to put your SHD to work.

Shade <> Fintech Thesis

Permissionless and cheap transfer of stablecoins directly into commerce is a massive growing market for crypto. This market is projected to grow by 612% by 2031.

For nearly a decade, crypto yield was sequestered and isolated from real world purchases — forcing users to bridge back to crypto exchanges, back to banks, to finally be able to make purchases “using” crypto. This UX was fractured, expensive, and not Web3 native.

We believe that Shade is uniquely positioned with both its privacy posture and SILK to aggressively integrate with payment rails to drive the adoption of Shade’s products. Users from around the world are in desperate need of a diversified reserve currency (i.e. SILK) to reduce their sovereign currency risk.

So Why Shade? Why SILK?

There are many on-chain economies today. In the coming years, we project there to be countless more. The key question is: which ones will be sustainable, and which ones can truly create lasting value for end users?

We already mentioned the core pillars that underlie development work for Shade: secure and trustable, private and auditable, stable and diverse. All of these pillars support sustainability.

One of our scarcer beliefs — compared to other on-chain economies — is our belief in data security. True adoption of DeFi hinges on robust data security measures. To attract billions in liquidity, both institutions and individuals will expect their onchain positions and asset movements to be encrypted by default, but auditable as needed. At Shade, we believe that in the near future the total transparency of blockchain will be looked at with suspicion in the same way that a lack of data security would be viewed within our traditional financial markets.

Another belief we have is in innovation through diversity. This doesn’t just mean a diversity of products built for a diverse set of global users. It also informs the approach behind SILK and its diversified collateral base. As on-chain economies grow, we all benefit from more experimentation with different compositions and use cases for stablecoins. We see tremendous synergies between SILK, dollar-backed stablecoins, other sovereign stablecoins, and commodities like BTC and metals.

Our mission is to integrate all of these beliefs into a seamless, omnichain economy that is secured by diverse assets and that powers off-chain and on-chain global commerce. While we are incredibly early in this mission, the years we’ve already spent developing these protocols, economic approaches, and beliefs gives us confidence that the Shade community is better positioned than any other to work towards and achieve this goal.

We have many announcements, partnerships, and products yet to be revealed, but if our mission and approach excite you, today the ask is simple: join us.

Join the Shade community: https://t.me/ShadeProtocol

Hit The Button: https://app.shadeprotocol.io/swap/buy-shade

What you need to know about the CFPB’s Personal Financial Data Rights Rule

On October 22, 2024, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released the much-anticipated Personal Financial Data Rights Rule. According to the Bureau, the sweeping regulation is supposed to “give consumers greater rights, privacy, and security over their personal financial data.”

The key takeaway is that customers can request certain data from their financial service providers for free. Notably, banks with assets exceeding $850 million must provide specific financial data to consumers and authorized third parties through digital channels, free of charge. This requirement extends to certain non-bank entities, including credit card issuers.

The data includes historical transaction information, account balances, upcoming bill payment details, basic account verification information, account terms and conditions, as well as information necessary to initiate payments under Regulation E. Commenting on the rule, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said:

“Too many Americans are stuck in financial products with lousy rates and service… Today’s action will give people more power to get better rates and service on bank accounts, credit cards, and more.”

Compliance has been phased, with the first deadline on April 1, 2026.

Banks Revolt

Interestingly, banking industry groups have filed lawsuits against the CFPB to challenge its authority to enforce the new regulations. Greg Baer, President & CEO of the Bank Policy Institute (BPI) argues that the rule “treats sensitive financial data with as little care as a consumer’s web browsing history.” He added:

“If left unchallenged, technology companies subject to little to no oversight will have access to very sensitive information, like how much is in your account and where you spend your money. Banks have a responsibility to protect customers and their data, and this rule compromises these responsibilities, putting bank customers at risk.”

According to the lawsuit the CFPB rule does not oversee third parties using customer data. It also promotes screen scraping, allows third parties to profit at no cost, and increases the likelihood of fraud and scams.

Critics have raised concerns about whether the CFPB’s goals of open banking will be achieved, even if the rule is upheld. Karen Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics, slammed the rule in her blog post. She likened it to being fine with a few more dangerous drugs since that’s what it takes to loosen Big Pharma’s stranglehold.”

A Double-edge Sword

In my opinion, the new rule appears to be broken on both sides. While the idea of open banking serves customers’ interests, the lack of oversight opens the door to malicious actors. Chopra was right in his assertions that behemoth players dominate the space and make it hard for customers to switch. On the flip side, giving unfiltered access to third-party players is potentially harmful.

The mandate for open banking APIs introduces complex technical challenges that many institutions are ill-equipped to handle. The security implications of mandatory API endpoints deserve particular scrutiny. Recent experiences from the UK’s open banking system provide a sobering preview of potential vulnerabilities. Metro Bank UK reported a sophisticated attack where criminals exploited their open banking API using legitimate credentials to conduct automated vulnerability scanning. The attack went undetected for several hours because the traffic appeared legitimate under their standard monitoring systems.

Although legacy financial institutions have existed for ages, trying to resolve their inherent flaws is like applying a band-aid to a bullet wound. Decentralized payment options like PIVX are proving to be better alternatives when it comes to user privacy and protection.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

What you need to know about the CFPB’s Personal Financial Data Rights Rule was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Building the Future: Meet the 2024 Sequoia Open Source Fellows

From one celebrated UC Berkeley lab come two groundbreaking projects: vLLM and Chatbot Arena.

By Bogomil Balkansky and Lauren Reeder Published November 11, 2024

It was the summer of 2022, and a team of Ph.D. researchers in UC Berkeley’s newly launched Sky Computing Lab had a problem. They’d been working to make large deep-learning models more efficient, by distributing work across GPUs. But when they set up a demo of their new framework, performance was an immediate—and serious—issue.

“It was ridiculously slow,” remembers Zhuohan Li, a member of the project team and a veteran of RISElab, the renowned Sky Lab predecessor that had birthed Databricks and Anyscale. “We realized memory management was going to be a big bottleneck for serving these models—and we wanted to take a deeper look.”

So over the next couple of months, Li and fellow researcher Woosuk Kwon dug in, and eventually developed a promising algorithm inspired by classical virtual memory and paging techniques that they dubbed “PagedAttention.” Then on November 30, OpenAI released ChatGPT. Interest in LLMs, and in their project, exploded.

Suddenly, a flood of new models was coming from tech companies and research institutions, each of them needing to run on increasingly scarce GPUs—and Li and Kwon’s idea could be the unlock that made that easy. Eventually, they teamed up with labmate and former Anyscale engineer Simon Mo to host the first meetup for their open-source project, now known as vLLM.

vLLM contributors Woosuk Kwon, Zhuohan Li and Simon Mo.

“I’d been increasingly excited about it, but after that meetup, I was even more excited,” Mo said. “Everybody had so many questions, so much enthusiasm.” It was an early illustration of a principle that Sky Lab leader and Databricks co-founder Ion Stoica had long impressed upon his advisees: community is key.

“An open source project is not just about the code,” Stoica says. “In every one I’ve been part of, building a strong community was extremely important to success.”

Among vLLM’s earliest adopters was a new model called Vicuna, from another group of researchers within the Sky Lab—including Lianmin Zheng, Ying Sheng, Hao Zhang and Wei-Lin Chiang, and advised by Stoica and Joseph Gonzalez. Chiang had previously collaborated with Kwon on SkyPilot, a framework for running LLMs, AI and batch jobs in the cloud. But since the release of ChatGPT he, too, had shifted focus, fascinated by the possibility of building an open-source LLM.

The result, Vicuna, had launched in March 2023. It was based on Meta’s LLaMA, but with an innovative twist: the researchers had trained it in part on data from ShareGPT, a Chrome plug-in for sharing ChatGPT conversations, making it particularly useful for chatbot applications.

“It started out as just a fun project, and we were surprised to see how well it worked,” Chiang says. “We wanted to share it with everyone.” The group quickly bought a domain, lmsys.org, where they could publish a blog post and run a demo of their new chatbot. Within two weeks, they had millions of visitors—but with the excitement came criticism, as well.

“People questioned the idea that our model was actually better, and as researchers, we wanted a scientific way to convince them,” Chiang recalls. “How do you actually evaluate between models?”

At a time when new LLM releases were coming out on a weekly if not daily basis, it was a critical question not just for Vicuna, but for anyone building—or building on top of—a model. To help answer it, Zheng, Sheng, Chiang and their teammates enlisted yet another fellow Berkeley researcher: theoretical statistician Anastasios Angelopoulos.
“The fundamental problems attracted me, and it was very clearly important—the impact was there,” Angelopoulos remembers. As the group explored what a platform for benchmarking and evaluation could look like, he worked to add statistical rigor. In May, they launched their new project, Chatbot Arena, where users could compare Vicuna alongside other open models—and in May, they rolled out a live leaderboard, with rankings informed by crowdsourced preference data, from real users putting the models to work.

Angelopoulos, Chiang, Stoica and the Chatbot Arena team.

Today, Chatbot Arena is the de facto standard for evaluating model performance, with more than one million monthly users—and every time a new model comes out, industry leaders including Sam Altman, Jeff Dean and others point to their evaluations on Chatbot Arena. Almost all major model providers—including OpenAI, Google, Meta and xAI—periodically share variants of models with the Chatbot Arena team before they’re released, so the data can inform their development processes.

Like their colleagues building vLLM, Chiang and Angelopoulos credit the lab’s emphasis on community for much of their project’s success. “Since I’ve been involved, it’s been a continual effort to keep building that trust,” Angelopoulos says. Earlier this year, the Chatbot Arena team published policy documentation outlining their methodology—and their motivations. Because the project does not monetize its data, instead relying on free credits and donations, “we knew people might be skeptical about our incentives,” Angelopoulos acknowledges. “So we wanted to be very clear that our only incentive is to do the best possible science. We just want the truth.”

The vLLM community, meanwhile, has been navigating its own rapid growth. Since releasing its open-source library in June 2023, it’s racked up an impressive 28,000 stars on GitHub, and is used by developers in many top tech companies. This year, Nvidia, AWS, Cloudflare and the gaming company Roblox—which uses vLLM for translation and child safety monitoring—have all hosted meetups. “Whenever we find out that an app I already have on my iPhone is powered by vLLM, that’s very rewarding,” says Kwon. “The more we meet real users, the more confident we are that we are doing something right.”

But as for any successful open-source project, growth has been a double-edged sword; each new model or hardware release requires a time-consuming—and expensive—sprint by Li, Kwon, Mo and vLLM contributors. “Quality is absolutely critical to this project’s success, so we need robust testing for every change—especially with this many people contributing,” Mo says. At $10 per test, across a variety of GPUs, academic funding and even grants and donations quickly become unsustainable.

In fact, Stoica says, funding pressure on open source projects is “at least an order of magnitude higher” in the age of LLMs. “You have multiple kinds of GPUs, you have all of these other accelerators. And there’s also a difference in scale,” he explains. “10 years ago, most of the funding for a new startup would go to adding people. Today, it’s going to infrastructure.”

But this, again, is where community comes in. Sequoia partner Lauren Reeder says by the spring of 2024, she’d heard from multiple portfolio companies singing the praises of vLLM—it was saving their engineering teams a lot of time and effort. So Reeder reached out on X, and Mo invited her to visit the lab.

“I met Simon, Woosuk and Zhuohan, and they explained some of the dynamics around testing and cost, and the community. That’s what stood out to me most—a lot of open source projects are run by one person, kind of carrying the world on their shoulders,” she says. “But this was absolutely community-run, with nearly 80% of the contributions coming from outside the lab.”

The previous year, Reeder and fellow partner Bogomil Balkansky had headed up the launch of Sequoia’s Open-Source Fellowship. There were no strings attached, and no expectation of starting a business—just support for projects that were key to the success of the firm’s portfolio and many other companies. Reeder thought vLLM was a perfect fit, and Li, Kwon and Mo became Sequoia open-source fellows.

The Chatbot Arena team, too, has navigated their projects’ popularity with duct tape and sheer force of will. While free credits paid for the LLM calls and hosting, the team desperately needed help with technical tasks, such as updating the Chatbot Arena UI to work with multi-modal models. Their work often kept them up until 4 a.m.; “we simply didn’t have enough hands on deck,” Angelopoulos says. But they were hesitant to take any support beyond free credits from model providers, for fear of jeopardizing their independence.

Once again, word of mouth reached Reeder, who now knew the dense talent in Sky Lab firsthand—and had seen founders repeatedly refer to Chatbot Arena as their litmus test for choosing between models. She, Balkansky and the rest of Sequoia’s partners were open to adding a second fellowship for 2024, and after a call for applications, had hundreds to choose from. But Chiang and Angelopoulos stood out.

“The fact that Chatbot Arena was committed to being fundamentally neutral was actually really important to us,” she says. “Versus other projects that may be widely used but have more commercial incentives, we felt like with this one, our support could really have an impact.”

Chiang and Angelopoulos became fellows in August, and say the funding has indeed freed them up to check crucial to-dos off their list. As always, they’re taking a user-first approach to using their newfound resources: through a recent partnership with a red-teaming community, for example, they’re exploring the relationship between controllability and potential safety concerns across different models.

Li, Kwon and Mo, too, have quickly put Sequoia’s support to use on their CI bills, and are currently rearchitecting vLLM to reduce and prevent the technical debt that often plagues fast-growing systems. Their primary goals, Mo says, remain usability and performance: “We want to build the easiest to use, most efficient, fastest inference engine in the world.” And their community is stepping up in kind; while 90% of contributions came from Berkeley as recently as last fall, that number is now just 25%.

For vLLM and Chatbot Arena alike, the rise of multimodal models looms large, as both teams undertake updates to accommodate images, video and code. Chiang and Angelopoulos recently partnered with Wayne Chi and Valerie Chen at Carnegie Mellon University, who built a VSCode extension called Copilot Arena that allows users to tab back and forth between completion models—and allows the platform to collect preference data about which models are best on coding auto-completion tasks. “That’s something we know the community cares a lot about,” says Angelopoulos. “We think it could be huge.”

Reeder says the progress vLLM and Chatbot Arena have made is just the beginning—for the projects, but also from the open source community at large. “Something we’ve noticed this year is that much of the innovation on the infrastructure stack is coming from open source—that’s one of the reasons we decided to expand the fellowship,” she says. “These projects have the support of the community. Everyone is jumping in and trying to help, in a way we haven’t seen in a long time.

“We’re excited to see how they continue pushing things forward. Open source is really building the future.”

If you’re building in open source and are interested in becoming a fellow, learn more and apply at sequoiacap.com/oss.

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America is a country of immense wealth, but our manufacturing infrastructure is struggling to keep pace.

In this episode, we discuss the overlooked crisis of American manufacturing and what it means for our national resilience. a16z’s Oliver Hsu hosts a conversation with founders Jordan Black (Senra Systems), Chris Power (Hadrian), and Bryon Hargis (Castelion) on why we need to revive our industrial base — and fast.

From outdated regulations to the adoption of automation, they break down the “death by a thousand paper cuts” that has left our production capabilities lagging behind. Yet, it’s not all grim: these founders share how their companies are taking bold, vertically integrated approaches to reinvent the sector and reclaim America's industrial edge.

 

Resources:

Find Chris on X: https://x.com/2112Power

Find Jordan on X: https://x.com/jordan__black

Find Bryon on X: https://x.com/hargsb

Find Oliver on X: https://x.com/oyhsu

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

See the latest progress for yourself with Nym at DevCon and Web Summit

The Nym core team is heading to two big events next week to showcase NymVPN to the world:

DevCon in Bangkok from November 12–15 Web Summit in Lisbon from November 11–14

So the dev team has been focussing this week on getting the latest release in shape and available on Google Play and Apple Store so that as many people can access it as possible next week.

And don’t forget the biggest milestone the team is moving toward on its timeline for NymVPN finishing out 2024:

December, 2024: The early bird launch of NymVPN with payments.

So stay tuned for details next week on the launch of zk-nym credentials, what will be included in the latest release, and early subscription discounts for dedicated users!

In the meantime, NymVPN Beta is still open and free to use, so sign up today and instantly receive a free 30-day access voucher.

Checkout Nym at DevCon and Web Summit

At Web Summit in Lisbon, Harry Halpin and Chelsea Manning will be presenting “More than a VPN: Defeating AI surveillance with Noise-Generating Mixnets” on Wednesday, 13 November at 2:15 PM CET. This will be followed by a press conference on how journalists can protect themselves and their sources with mixnet technology.

NymVPN

The big focus this week has been preparing November’s stable release of NymVPN and making sure it is as widely available as possible to download..

NymVPN in app stores

NymVPN is now available in Google Play:

It is currently being approved for the Apple Store, so stay tuned!

Network

The main focus this week has been to ensure a top performing decentralized network that services the NymVPN client and any future usage.

New docs and operators page

Nym has released a new page for docs and operator guidelines for developers to build new applications, or upgrade existing apps, with privacy features unavailable in other systems.

Expanding service grants programs

New nodes operators have been added to the Nym service grants program.

Until next week, stay tuned and join our channels for more up to date information and live discussion with the core team!

Join the Nym Community

Discord // Telegram // Element // Twitter

Privacy loves company

English // 中文 // Русский // Türkçe // Tiếng Việt // 日本 // Française // Español // Português // 한국인

Sprint to launch: November 10 dev update was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Privacy Roundtable is back this month with a special guest from @zcash!

Join our panel featuring Firo: Private cryptocurrency infrastructure, BasicSwapDEX, The Particl Project and PIVX, for insightful conversations on the leading edge of privacy in crypto. Mark your calendars!

Topic: Zcash and why privacy coins haven’t taken off and should they?
Link: https://x.com/i/spaces/1BdxYEMwNEgxX

Join us for our long-awaited show.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

The Privacy Roundtable is back this month with a special guest from @zcash! was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Are you tired of the same old point systems and DeFi capital commitments? Do you long for a more enjoyable and social way to engage with your favorite crypto projects?

Look no further! Introducing eSHD, the ultimate engagement token that’s set to redefine the crypto landscape.

Unlike traditional points systems, eSHD doesn’t require you to put capital at risk or lock up assets. Instead, you can earn eSHD simply by engaging with social media posts, completing challenges, and participating in various activities. This innovative approach to token distribution is designed to create a sense of community and reward users for their energy and enthusiasm around a token economy that can also be redeemed for meaningful rewards.

Unlike point ecosystems that ask users to risk capital, eSHD takes the opposite approach.

No capital locked up to earn eSHD.

No meme token tied to a liquidity pool.

All while giving eSHD the opportunity to convert into meaningful SHD rewards among many possible rewards, powered by YOUR engagement.

https://zealy.io/cw/eshade/invite/8LMky9UlARIy-szAI28IR

One way to participate is through:

https://zealy.io/cw/eshade/invite/8LMky9UlARIy-szAI28IR

Zealy offers easy quests that help you earn eSHD through quick and fun activities. You can also earn eSHD through other platforms like Discord, Telegram, and Twitter. Each quest you complete earns you points, and you can see where you rank against other people. Our top questers will take home eSHD which will be redeemable for a variety of onchain and offchain rewards.

Join Telegram: https://t.me/ShadeProtocol

Redeeming eSHD

eSHD can be redeemed in some of the following ways:

(1) “eDrops” — campaigns where users can redeem their eSHD for SHD using Shade Bonds. These drops are first come, first serve, with limited capacity, rewarding users who actively track and engage with eDrops. & eSHD

The first of MANY eDrops will be on November 28th with $1,250 worth of SHD up for grabs to be redeemed for using eSHD.

There will also be an eSHD for eSHD engagement lock bond— empowering eSHD holders to lock up their tokenized engagement for more eSHD.

(2) eSHD leaderboard competition — unlock NFTs, titles, earn exclusive randomized drops, and gain access to in person events / apparel / alpha based on your leaderboard standings

(3) Exclusive gated telegram rooms. Level up and traverse the ladder of checkpoints.

(4) eSHD Clans — pick a DAO and compete with other eSHD clans to engage and grow Shade Protocol the best. Burn eSHD to grow your DAOs share of eSHD accrual.

(5) Countless other features to be developed by the eSHD community

How To Earn eSHD 10,000 eSHD will be disbursed before the first eDrop on November 28th.

Dispersal amounts for the various competitions and tasks will be announced soon as well as supply mechanisms (to be revealed).

At a high level, eSHD is earned via engagement:

Social media competitions Daily telegram / discord engagement / twitter engagement Creation of educational materials Feedback for the core team Consumption of Shade Protocol media Earn via FUN activities :) Be a Shade Spartan holder

Non Zealy based competitions are as follows (to be dispersed 24 hours before first eDrop):

All wallets shared from eDROP Twitter announcement prior to November 1st Best user generated content Best stickers for Telegram

Initial Zealy competitions to earn eSHD are the following:

Social media

Follow Shade Protocol Twitter Telegram — join Shade channel Discord — join Shade server YouTube — watch a video and follow Shade Protocol Youtube channel

Chompy’s World:

Poll: What does Chompy look like Poll: Do you want to be Chompy’s Friend Invite 3 friends Visit shadeprotocol.io Private Details — give your TG, Discord or Twitter info in the event we need to contact you for airdrop Give secret wallet address

Shade Spartans:

Upload proof of NFT from Stashh Upload photo from private Spartans Chat to show you are in the private group

Secret Network:

Follow on Twitter Poll: Whats your favorite project built on SN

Fina:

Follow on Twitter Tweet reaction on FINA’s Silk Card post Poll: Which feature are you most excited for

Stashh:

Follow on Twitter Screenshot your Shade Collectibles The Crossroads Of Engagement X Community eSHD Quests

Historically, one of the greatest destroyers of communities have been point systems tied to DeFi capital commitments. Protocols love using points methodology as they get TVL stat boosts and usage boosts on their protocol (short term) without needing to immediately pay users for these capital commitments / sacrifices. Users have been willing to take these risks, as long as the methodology will reward them for their efforts. Some protocols have tried to reward both social engagement and capital engagement. But inevitably, the cost of capital is significantly higher than the cost of rewarding engagement — creating an imbalance that leaves engagement focused users on an island, their activity feeling undervalued compared to large tokenholders.

Anyone can like or retweet or interact with a telegram chat. These small gestures are sacrifices of focus and energy (still a cost, but a distinctly different kind of cost from capital). We believe these engaged offchain users have been grossly undervalued within protocol reward mechanisms.

Our theory of engagement is focused on giving rewards that push community status as a meaningful form of reward comboed with direct financial reward. Too much of reliance on one type of reward without the other makes the community either too financial in nature or potentially too disincentivized to elicit meaningful outcomes.

Naturally, both strong social ties and ethos can help boost the strength and meaningfulness of participating in a community, but the fundamental building blocks of a crypto community is the balance between social ties and financial incentive.

Point ecosystems (unfortunately) are almost purely financial by nature, hurting the odds of creating a truly sticky social community. The inability of point programs tied to capital commitments to generate sticky community makes perfect sense because the scale of sacrifice and scale of rewards is so large that the value derived by being part of the community is so far downstream that the social ties are not sticky enough (nor earned enough) to retain these mercenary users.

eSHD takes an alternative approach — attempting to value the engaged community members, regardless of their SHD holdings.

We want want to attempt this experiment of eSHD to see how far we can push the limits of a social token (that has real value) who’s supply comes into circulation purely via engagement. In this model, dilution of eSHD tokenholders is in favor of those who engage most recently.

Who We Are Meet The Spartans

The origin of the Shade Spartans and eSHD tokenholders is a simple tale — to be a staunch advocate of privacy and freedom inevitably puts you in the crosshairs of those who see our claims to digital sovereignty as a threat to their power. There are those who believe people must be protected at every turn. That security should be prioritized above the human experiment of individualism and experimentation. The powers at be are leaving an entire generation chained to the burden of malicious (not all) regulation. Disdainful pen & paper, stale and unromantic. Uninspired dead documents that stifle human ingenuity, and at worse, diminish it.

We Spartans.

We few, we chose few.

Pushed to the brink, night near extinct.

In the arena of the digital and physical world we lay it all on the line. We deeply value our dignity. We stake our future on the truth that there is no greater love than this: that a Shade Spartan would lay his security and freedom on the line to protect the future rights of his enemies.

You see, Spartans fight for the rights of those who oppress us. We fight to remove the chains from those that seek to place us in chains.

This is what it takes to be a city on a hill — a light in the darkness.

This is what it takes to have the moral high ground.

https://medium.com/@shadeprotocoldevs/shade-spartan-ethos-introduction-7b37b3df160d

Summary

Be part of the revolution with Shade Protocol’s newest initiative, the eSHD engagement token. Tired of the traditional DeFi point systems that demand your capital? eSHD offers a fresh and vibrant alternative, making community participation not only rewarding but also fun and engaging.

Earn eSHD by interacting with social media posts, completing challenges, and participating in community activities without any financial risk. This approach cultivates a dynamic and inclusive environment where your energy and enthusiasm are celebrated and rewarded. Dive into a world where social interactions, educational contributions, and feedback are valued as much as financial stakes.

With eSHD, you can redeem rewards, gain exclusive access, and truly become an integral part of the Shade community.

Join us today and redefine your crypto experience in a way that is engaging, rewarding, and absolutely transformative. Together, let’s shape the future of decentralized finance, one engagement at a time. Welcome to the new era of crypto participation — where your voice, actions, and presence truly matter.

Join Telegram: https://t.me/ShadeProtocol

7 Times Your Financial Privacy Was Compromised

When placed side by side, most persons will choose fiat currencies over cryptocurrencies. I mean, traditional financial institutions have been around for thousands of years and are expected to provide an expert level of security when it comes to customer data and finances. On the flip side, you may be familiar with the old saying that describes the crypto space as a “Wild West.”

But from banks and payment processors to lenders and credit bureaus, financial services providers have been at the epicentre of some of history’s largest data breaches. The 2017 Equifax breach, exposing sensitive information of over 100 million people, is a stark reminder of this vulnerability. Here are the top 7 times your financial privacy was compromised by traditional institutions.

1. First American Financial Corp

In 2019, First American Financial Corporation suffered a serious security lapse that exposed over 885 million customer records. The breach left sensitive information such as names, email addresses, bank account details, and property records vulnerable to potential misuse.

The leak was caused by a website design error known as a “Business Logic Flaw.” The alarming aspect was that the exposed database was accessible to anyone with an internet connection, highlighting a severe oversight in cybersecurity measures. In the hands of malicious actors, these details could be used for identity theft, ransomware attacks, and malware injections.

2. Equifax

Touted as one of the largest data breaches in history, credit reporting agency Equifax suffered a massive data breach in 2017. Sensitive personal information of approximately 147 million individuals was compromised, with some reports stating that more than 40% of America’s population was potentially impacted by the data breach.

The breach occurred due to a failure to patch a known vulnerability in the Apache Struts framework. Surprisingly, the patch for this vulnerability had been available for six months. Hackers exploited it to gain unauthorized access to Equifax’s systems and steal a vast amount of data, including Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and, in some cases, driver’s license numbers.

The impact of the Equifax data breach was far-reaching. Millions of individuals were at risk of identity theft, fraud, and other financial crimes. The breach also damaged Equifax’s reputation and led to significant legal and financial consequences for the company.

3. Heartland Payment

In January 2008, a sophisticated cyberattack targeted Heartland Payment Systems. Russian hackers exploited a vulnerability in the company’s website, infiltrating its systems through an SQL injection attack. This stealthy intrusion allowed them to remain undetected for nearly six months.

Once inside the network, the attackers deployed malicious software to intercept credit card data as it was being processed. This highly targeted attack resulted in the compromise of over 130 million credit and debit card numbers, along with associated expiration dates and cardholder names.

The mastermind behind this cybercrime, Albert Gonzalez, was eventually apprehended and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

4. Capital One

A former Amazon Web Services software engineer, Paige A. Thompson illegally accessed a server hosting Capital One’s sensitive data. This audacious attack, carried out in 2019, resulted in the theft of over 100 million credit card applications dating back to 2005.

Thompson’s lack of discretion in carrying out the attack expedited her identification by the FBI. She brazenly posted the stolen data on GitHub and openly boasted about the breach on social media, providing authorities with a clear digital trail.

The impact of the Capital One data breach was far-reaching, affecting approximately 100 million individuals in the United States and over 6 million in Canada. The stolen data included highly sensitive information such as Social Security numbers, Canadian Social Insurance numbers, and bank account numbers.

5. JPMorgan Chase

Even financial behemoths like JPMorgan Chase have not been immune to cyberattacks. In October 2019, the financial institution became a victim. The culprits, believed to be based in Brazil, managed to breach the bank’s security perimeter, gaining the highest level of administrative privileges and compromising over 90 servers.

Despite having access to sensitive financial information, the attackers’ primary objective seemed to be the theft of customer contact details, including names, email addresses, and phone numbers. This unusual focus suggests a more strategic intent, possibly to use the stolen data for future targeted attacks.

While the financial impact of the breach was limited, the compromise of customer information raised concerns about privacy and security.

6. Experian

In 2018, a threat actor, posing as a legitimate client, successfully convinced an employee of Experian South Africa to divulge sensitive internal data.

While Experian initially downplayed the severity of the breach, claiming that the compromised information was relatively common, the South African Banking Risk Information Center (SABRIC) revealed a more alarming scope. Approximately 24 million individuals and 800,000 businesses were affected.

Leaked data included mobile, home, and work phone numbers, email addresses, residential addresses, work addresses, and job start dates. Imagine that!

The threat actor’s intention was to leverage the stolen data for malicious purposes, primarily to generate leads for insurance and credit-related services.

7. Block

In 2021, a Square (now Block) employee downloaded confidential customer reports without authorization. This data breach affected approximately 8.2 million current and former customers.

The compromised information included full names, brokerage account numbers, portfolio values, and portfolio holdings. While sensitive data like passwords, Social Security numbers, and payment card information were not affected, the exposure of personal financial details still poses significant privacy risks.

Conclusion: The Future of Financial Privacy

The increasing frequency and severity of data breaches underscore the urgent need for robust solutions to protect our financial privacy. Traditional financial institutions, despite their efforts, have repeatedly fallen short in safeguarding sensitive information.

These seven examples are merely a tip of the iceberg as the numbers are much worse. Data suggests that for every 100 people, 91 unique email addresses are breached. According to Statista, 6.41 million data records were leaked worldwide in the first half of 2023. Surprisingly, it takes an average of 194 days to identify a data breach globally, shocking right?

However, the rise of privacy-centric cryptocurrencies like PIVX offers a promising alternative. By leveraging advanced cryptographic techniques and decentralized networks, these projects empower individuals to regain control over their financial data. With features like zero-knowledge proofs, PIVX ensures that transactions remain private, protecting users from surveillance and censorship. In reality, there is no data to ‘hack,’ even if it were possible to ‘crack.’

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

7 Times Your Financial Privacy Was Compromised was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Today we are inviting nominations for two seats on the Zcash Foundation (ZF) Board of Directors. 

ZF is governed by a six-person board of directors, consisting of five independent directors and the executive director. While the board is self-electing, it seeks input from the Zcash community (represented by an advisory poll of ZCAP) regarding who should be appointed to the Board. 

Andrew Miller’s board term expires this year. Andrew is an adjunct associate professor and director of the Decentralized Systems Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an associate director of the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3). Andrew has been involved in the Zcash project since early 2016, first as an advisor to the Electric Coin Company, and then as a founding director (and current board chair) of the Zcash Foundation. The board has decided to reappoint Andrew to the board so we can continue to benefit from his extensive experience and expertise. 

Amber Baldet has served as a ZF board member since 2018. Amber first became involved in Zcash in 2017, when she was instrumental in establishing the partnership between JP Morgan and ECC to integrate Zcash-based privacy into the Quorum enterprise blockchain platform. Amber left JP Morgan in 2018 to found Clovyr, a platform that makes it easier for developers to contribute to open source apps and simple for anyone to run them. Last year, Amber became one of the founding board members of the Financial Privacy Foundation. She is now stepping down from the ZF board in order to focus solely on FPF. 

Peter Van Valkenburgh is a founding director of the Zcash Foundation, and drafted the Foundation’s successful application to be recognized as a 501(c)(3). A former Google Policy Fellow for TechFreedom and a graduate of the NYU School of Law, Peter is currently the Director of Research at Coin Center. However, from January, he will be taking up a new role as Executive Director of Coin Center. Sadly, this means that he is stepping down from the ZF Board. 

On behalf of everyone at the Zcash Foundation, and the broader Zcash community, we want to thank Amber and Peter for their service, advice and guidance in support of the Zcash Foundation and its mission. They will be sorely missed. 

We invite members of the Zcash community to nominate individuals they believe would be good candidates to replace Amber and Peter on the ZF board. Nominations should be made on the Zcash Community Forums, under the Governance category, in the form of a new topic titled “X for the ZF Board”. People may (and are encouraged to) nominate themselves.

Nominees must explicitly accept the nomination, and should post some information about themselves, and why they would be a good board member.

Community nominations must be submitted by 09:00 UTC on Monday 18th November 2024.

We plan to schedule a community call to allow nominees to introduce themselves and answer questions from the Zcash community. We will then conduct an advisory poll of ZCAP, and the Board will take the results of that poll into account when deciding who to appoint to the board. 

Being on the Zcash Foundation Board: Duties and Expectations

Members of the ZF board share fiduciary responsibility for ZF, acting as trustees of its assets, and ensuring that ZF is well-managed, and remains financially sound. 

In practice, these responsibilities can be summarized as:

hiring, firing and supervising the Executive Director (ED),  providing guidance and advice to the ED, and having bold visions about the Foundation’s mission and future, and working with the ED to assist him execute on them.

Membership on the ZF Board is an unpaid position, as is the norm for 501(c)(3) boards. The expected time commitment is one 60-90 minute meeting (conducted by video call) each month, and regular email and Signal communication. 

Board members cannot be anonymous or pseudonymous. They are required to undergo the Foundation’s KYC process, complete an annual conflict of interest declaration, and their name will be published as part of ZF’s annual Form 990. 

The post Inviting Nominations for the Zcash Foundation Board of Directors appeared first on Zcash Foundation.

Fellow Panthers, 

October was an important month for Panther, as the project hit important milestones ranging from the release of Stage 8 of Panther’s testnet, featuring smarter smart contracts, enhanced capabilities, and improved efficiency, to media appearances and more. Read on for the full recap, below. 

Tech Updates: 

Before diving into our technical progress, we would be remiss if we did not thank our testers. Your ongoing feedback is essential to Panther’s success, and we are deeply appreciative of your contribution to our mission to create the infrastructure for confidential on-chain DeFi transactions. Whether you are interested in contributing, having a say in the future of private DeFi or are curious about Panther’s user experience, we invite you to join our test community of 3500+. You can find details on how to join here. 

Panther’s technical contributors reached several significant milestones in the protocol's development, including the release of Stage 8 on the testnet. This stage introduced enhancements to core features, critical compliance tools, fixed bugs, and more. October also saw the start of work on Panther’s smart contract and circuit audits. 

Stage 8 makes transaction management easier by merging deposits into a single UTXO, allowing users to transact their full balance in one go and streamlining Zone Managers’ workflows. Compliance capabilities were expanded with dynamic blacklisting, giving Zone Managers the tools to restrict access for bad actors and other undesirable participants. Stage 8 also saw the introduction of Diamond Proxy architecture, which overcomes Ethereum’s size limits, allowing for scalable, modular smart contracts, including those needed for zTrade. Efficiency is further boosted by the "Taxi" ring buffer, which cycles data storage between Merkle trees to optimize memory use while unifying large-number handling in the code. This improves performance and reduces error risk. These updates enhance usability, increase efficiency, and position Panther for scalable, compliant growth. For complete details on Stage 8, click here. 

In October, Panther's tech team began Smart Contract and Circuit Audits with Veridise, a crucial step to ensure code security and reliability. Just as importantly, these audits help to establish Panther’s infrastructure as a trusted platform for Zone Managers and users alike, validating that Panther’s smart contracts and Zero-Knowledge circuits protect user assets and maintain the protocol’s privacy features.

Panther in the Media

Panther’s co-founder Dr. Anish Mohammed was interviewed by Bitcoin World, where he discussed Panther’s contributions to and how it is shaping the Web3 Ecosystem.

He was also featured on Stonks Go Moon Podcast, where he shared insights into Panther's unique position within the DeFi ecosystem and discussed how AI is democratizing access for new market participants. 

Meanwhile co-founder Oliver Gale was a featured interview on Cryptopolitan, where he provided insights into Panther’s Shielded Pool, Zones and compliance tools. 

Panther AMA

In October, Panther held an AMA featuring co-founders Oliver Gale and Dr. Anish Mohammed, joined by Head of Product Saif Akhtar, to share comprehensive updates on the protocol's development, technical progress, market positioning, and organizational restructuring. The session began by addressing pre-collected questions from Panther's Telegram community, followed by a live Q&A segment, with key insights.

The team highlighted steady progress toward Panther's V1, noting that core features like KYC/KYT functionality are operational on the testnet. Mutiple audits are also underway, including Panther’s smart contracts and Zero-Knowledge circuits. Technical improvements, such as expanded Merkle tree capacity and the implementation of diamond proxy patterns to boost scalability, were also discussed. 

The AMA also covered Panther’s marketing and business development strategies, strengthened by a partnership with Luna PR. Targeted collaborations are focussed on regulated entities, asset managers and sectors requiring confidential transactions. Additionally, new use cases for Panther, like private payments are being explored.

Looking ahead, the panel relayed that the Panther Protocol Foundation (PPF) intends to transition to a Swiss-based foundation to establish a robust regulatory framework for sustained, long-term growth. These developments position Panther to deliver a scalable, compliant DeFi solution with broad cross-sector applications as it approaches its V1 release.

Read the full recap here. 

Panther at De.Fi World 2024

In October, De.Fi World announced that Panther co-founder, Dr. Anish Mohammed will be presenting on ‘Privacy Tradeoffs - Efficiency vs Compliance vs Privacy’ in Bankok, Thailand on November 11 at 3pm local time. 

More Reading: Unlocking Private Payments

In October, we delved into the transformative potential of Panther for enabling confidential digital payments across diverse industries. Our blog examined how our Zero-Knowledge-powered solution fills a critical gap in blockchain technology: the ability to conduct private transactions while maintaining traceability for regulatory, tax or law enforcement purposes. 

We spotlight several industries already adopting crypto payments such as e-commerce, gaming, and real estate, each with distinct privacy needs that Panther’s infrastructure addresses. The article also explores exciting future applications in healthcare, enterprise supply chains, legal services, and high-net-worth individual wealth management, showcasing Panther’s adaptability to various privacy and compliance requirements. 

Read the full article here.

Conclusion

October marked a significant milestone for Panther Protocol, with the launch of Stage 8 testnet bringing major advancements to our core infrastructure. This update enhances transaction management, strenghtens compliance tools, and boosts smart contract scalability with Diamond Proxy architecture. Our co-founders were active in sharing Panther's vision across various media outlets. As Panther undergoes security audits and explores expanding its applications across various sectors, Panther’s contributors are more optimistic than ever about the future of confidential DeFi. 

Disclaimer

For the avoidance of doubt, tZKP, tzZKP, tPRP, test MATIC, and any other tokens mentioned in this announcement or within the product are for testing purposes only and have no economic value, nor can they be exchanged for value. 

Participation on our incentivized Testnet versions may result in you earning rewards, but such credits are not represented on any blockchain as tokens.

Bootstrapping the Nym treasury ahead of NymVPN launch

In the lead up to the launch of NymVPN on 12 December 2024, Nym will be conducting a token buyback of $1 million USD in NYM from the market. The goal is simple: boost the Nym treasury while the price of NYM is advantageous and use it to improve the Nym network ahead of launch. With payments for NymVPN live in December, there will then be a perpetual NYM buyback organically linked to the demand for and usage of the app.

What is a token buyback, and why do it?

A token buyback occurs when a seller buys back their own tokens as a means to restrict overall supply and boost their treasury. There is currently an oversupply of NYM tokens on the market with the price therefore not reflecting real demand and usage.

“As we announced on 5 November five years ago in our initial litepaper,” Harry Halpin, CEO of Nym Technologies notes, “the entire point of the NYM token launch was to build the supply side of the decentralized network of servers that the NymVPN is built on. Of course, without NymVPN taking payments and converting them to NYM tokens as demanded, there are simply too many NYM tokens out there.”

In light of the upcoming NymVPN and taking advantage of a bearish crypto market, Nym will be conducting a token buyback during the month leading up to launch. Doing so will replenish Nym’s warchest to supercharge the app, network, and operators.

“A 1 million dollar buyback,” Halpin clarifies, “should remove much of the existing NYM from the market. I am excited to see NymVPN turn on a buyback from payments in a month, so this 1 million buyback is just the beginning.”

The up to 20 million NYM that Nym will buyback over the next month will be directed toward core goals:

marketing to boost consumer awareness of NymVPN reward network operators in order to improve the Nym network on which the app runs offer NymVPN services to people like journalists and activists who urgently need advanced privacy protections. More than VPN, more than a token

NymVPN is much more than a VPN: it is a decentralized and token-incentived community of operators that can provide privacy protections, such as safeguarding metadata records, that no other network can. Traditional VPNs are powerless in the face of artificial intelligence (AI), and no other privacy service runs on a Noise-Generating Mixnet (NGM). By adding “noise” to the network, NymVPN can provide everyday web users with a tool sophisticated enough to defend themselves against AI-powered surveillance and metadata harvesting.

The NYM token also is much more than a token: it is what incentivizes the whole decentralized network. Network operators are rewarded in NYM for their services in anonymizing user traffic, and each user payment for NymVPN is converted into NYM tokens to delink a user’s payment from their usage of the app. Each new subscription will trigger more NYM buy orders as well as fully anonymized VPN use.

What to expect next

The buyback over the next month will be a crucial test for the beginning of a perpetual buyback mechanism to start with NymVPN payments, all of which will be converted to NYM tokens through buy orders. By restricting token supply, the price of NYM can then be linked more closely to usage and demand.

Here’s what to expect in the next month:

Harry Halpin will be demoing the latest stable version of NymVPN at WebSummit (Lisbon) and DevCon (Thailand) next week Anyone can now sign up for a free 1-month pass to use NymVPN Beta Payments will be live on 12 December 2024, commencing the process of NYM buy orders from user subscriptions

As NymVPN enters the market and the network is actually used by ordinary people, more servers in different countries will likely be needed with much higher capacity to match demand. These servers will be fueled by NYM tokens provided by the expanded treasury. In addition, as all users will be allowed to use the network for a month for free due to the US elections, the buyback mechanism will allow the fine-tuning of the future payment-driven buyback process while NymVPN is still free.

Don’t miss your chance to get your free 30 day voucher today! And stay private friends.

NYM token buyback was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Inspired by Cosmos’ IBC ethos, Anoma takes interoperability a step further, from VM (virtual machine) to IM (intent machine). While traditional dApps that run on virtual machines require step-by-step instructions to achieve a desired outcome, Anoma’s universal intent machine design allows users to simply define their end-results which are then aggregated and an optimal combination of intents is selected - cross-chain, simple, elegant. Moreover, intents also enable on-chain privacy, a concept explored by Namada.

Topics covered in this episode:

The vision behind Anoma OS for decentralised applications What is Anoma? Building dApps with Anoma Native generalised intents Anoma’s L1 blockchain The importance of decentralisation On-chain privacy Namada The collapse of the banking system Roadmap

Episode links:

Adrian Brink on Twitter Anoma on Twitter Namada on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

Statement from Harry Halpin, CEO, to you, the world

There’s been a lot of discussion and worry worldwide over the coming results of the U.S. election. But no matter if Trump or Harris wins, one thing is certain: surveillance and oppression at the hands of increasingly authoritarian governments will continue to rise.

Nym exists to support freedom fighters in the United States and across the world, so Nym is offering a 30 day free pass over the next month to anyone who wants to protect their privacy online. Whatever your political situation is, protecting your privacy and data online matters, and few tools these days can do something to help. Nym offers more: a decentralized network built for the age of AI-powered surveillance.

Getting NymVPN

To take advantage of the 30 day free trial, all you need to do is download NymVPN directly from Nym’s site with a free and immediate access credential.

But Nym recognizes that getting genuine privacy into people’s hands requires using all available routes, so Nym will also be launching a full version of NymVPN in Apple Store, Google Play, and F-Froid this month. While Big Tech companies like Apple and Google are problematic as some of the major data harvesters, we consider this necessary to defend activists, independent journalists, and ordinary citizens by offering a fully decentralized VPN with an Anonymous Mode that can defend against state-level surveillance, even from the US government.

NymVPN is the only kind of VPN that can defend against the American government’s National Security Agency which can capture and analyze every internet connection using AI to detect exactly what website someone is visiting. Nym counteracts this by adding so much noise to the network that your signals and pattern can’t be discerned: not by governments, data brokers, or passive adversaries.

NymVPN stable release

As the CEO of Nym Technologies, I will be presenting a full and stable version of NymVPN on November 12th at DevCon in Bangkok, at the “Centralized VPNs are Scams and What to do About it” talk, and then on November 13th at Web Summit in Lisbon with Chelsea Manning, which will also include a press conference to train journalists in how to defend themselves online.

This stable version will also introduce the zk-nym anonymous credential system in the lead up to the launch of payments in December. Note that while NymVPN is stable, there may still be errors and bugs to be fixed in the next month as the decentralized Nym network has never handled large amounts of traffic. All of your help using the app will go a long way to improving it in the coming months.

NYM and NymVPN

In order to have more rewards for high-performing network nodes and optimize the algorithms that convert fiat to NYM, more NYM tokens have to be purchased before payments are turned on in December. The details of this NYM token buyback will be announced tomorrow, 5 November 2024. A smart contract upgrade will also be done to reward gateways this month.

Remember, the value of NYM is concretely linked to the use and success of NymVPN. The more users subscribe to use the app in their currency of choice, the more NYM buy orders will be triggered.

The NymVPN will then have payments turned on in December before Christmas. NymVPN will accept fiat (including credit cards), Bitcoin, Monero, and — of course! — NYM tokens. All payments will then be converted to NYM token buy orders on the open market. All payments will then result in a zero-knowledge proof, a zk-nym, that will unlink the payment of NymVPN from their use. Payments for a month to make sure the payment system can handle high-capacity.

In the meantime, keep your heads high, and your data protected. Remember, remember the 5th of November!

– Harry Halpin, CEO of Nym Technologies

Join the Nym Community

Discord // Telegram // Element // Twitter

Privacy loves company

English // 中文 // Русский // Türkçe // Tiếng Việt // 日本 // Française // Español // Português // 한국인

No matter who wins: NymVPN is free for the next month to fight for freedom was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Leading privacy-centric cryptocurrency, PIVX, has announced its latest listing on the Indonesian exchange TRIV. The strategic move marks a significant step for PIVX, as it expands its global reach and accessibility to a new market.

Key Takeaways: First Indonesian Exchange Listing: TRIV is the first Indonesian exchange to list PIVX. IDR Trading Pair: This listing introduces the Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) as a trading pair for PIVX, making it more accessible to Indonesian investors. Enhanced Global Presence: This listing further solidifies PIVX’s position as a globally recognized cryptocurrency. The Indonesian Crypto Landscape

Indonesia has been a pioneer in regulating the trading of crypto assets since 2018. Initially, crypto assets were classified under the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Agency (BAPPEBTI), governed by Law Number 32 of 1997 on Commodity Futures Trade. This early legislation laid the groundwork for the country’s progressive stance on crypto regulation.

A pivotal moment arrived with the issuance of Minister of Trade’s Regulation Number 99 of 2018. This regulation explicitly categorized crypto assets as commodities, aligning them with traditional commodities and bringing them under the purview of formal oversight.

In terms of usage, Indonesia had approximately 19.75 million cryptocurrency investors as of March 2024. In the same month, cryptocurrency transactions in the region reached a staggering Rp103.58 trillion, a 207.5% increase compared to the previous month.

By listing on TRIV, PIVX aims to attract a wider user base in Indonesia and facilitate easier access to the cryptocurrency for local investors. This development is expected to contribute to the growth and adoption of PIVX within the Indonesian market.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

PIVX Expands Reach: Listed on Indonesian Exchange TRIV was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

2024 has been a milestone year for autonomous tech. 

Waymo’s fully autonomous driver has surpassed 20 million miles, while FAA approvals now allow commercial drones to fly without visual observers, advancing air autonomy in unprecedented ways.

In this special live recording from SF Tech Week, a16z partner Erin Price-Wright moderates a panel of experts from three key domains—air, land, and sea—to explore the latest real-world deployments of autonomous systems, the impact of new chips on cost and efficiency, building full-stack solutions, managing risk, and the evolving role of regulation in driving these technologies forward.

Joining the conversation is Macario Namie, CMO of Skydio, discussing the transition from consumer drones to enterprise and government use; Vijay Patnaik, Head of Product at Applied Intuition, who shares insights on developer tools and software for autonomous vehicles; and Peter Bowman-Davis, engineering fellow at a16z, diving into maritime autonomy based on his work at Saronic.

 

Resources: 

Find Macario on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/macario-namie-bb529/

Find Vijay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijaysaipatnaik/

Find Peter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-bowman-davis/

Find Erin on Twitter: https://x.com/espricewright

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Weekly progress on the NymVPN and Nym network

The Nym dev team here for our weekly roundup of achievements, progress, and things still simmering: bug and leak fixes, app and network improvements, and readying the zk-nym infrastructure for payments.

But don’t miss the forest for the trees: here are the big milestones the team is moving toward on its timeline for NymVPN finishing out 2024:

November, 2024: The newest release of NymVPN Beta with the launch of zk-nyms anonymous credentials December, 2024: Early bird launch of NymVPN with payments

In the meantime, NymVPN Beta is still open and free to use, so sign up today for an instant credential if you haven’t tried it yet!

NymVPN

The big focus this week has been preparing November’s stable release of NymVPN so it is as secure and seamless as possible when it arrives in community members’ hands.

Easy access to test credentials

The lengthy steps to get new credentials have been removed. Now you can simply enter your email address and instantly receive a free 30-day access voucher.

Connectivity improvements

The devs have made app connectivity improvements for a smoother and more reliable connection experience. This has been done via multiple bug fixes and the implementation of a more robust state machine.

Linux app on Flathub

For Linux users, the NymVPN app is available in Flathub with more platforms to follow.

macOS 15 Sequoia compatibility

NymVPN is now fully compatible with the latest macOS version, v15.

New exit locations

NymVPN now offers to exit in the following locations:

Anonymous Mode: Australia, China mainland Fast Mode: Bahrain, China mainland, Switzerland, Vietnam Network

The main focus this week has been to ensure a top performing decentralized network that services the NymVPN client and any future usage.

Performance: Network Monitor v2

The Network Monitor is a method for measuring the reliability of nodes by testing multiple paths through the network. So far, the network monitor has been measuring 5-hop mixnet performance. This week, core devs have begun the work of adding 2-hop WireGuard performance scores.

Performance: Node status API

Work is continuing on the node status API. This is an API to ensure that the NymVPN client is continually up to date on which gateways are live, connected, and performative so that users can connect without experiencing connectivity issues.

Rewards: Validator rewards for issuing zk-nyms

Nyx validators are rewarded for running the blockchain that hosts the Nym mixnet smart contract. But their role is about to expand to also issue zk-nyms: the anonymous credentials that enable privacy preserving payments for NymVPN users. The Nym core dev team has started work this week to enable validator rewards for issuing zk-nym ticketbooks.

Read Nym’s recent deepdive into the NYM token flow, and stay tuned for a follow up explaining how zk-nyms work!

Improving public data: Nym data observatory

Work on the Nym data observatory has begun, which will improve the stability and availability of public data about Nym networks and token economics.

Tor access

Thanks to an update to the Nym exit policy, Tor can now be accessed via NymVPN on ports 9001 and 9030.

Stay tuned and join our channels for more up to date information and live discussion with the core team!

Join the Nym Community

Discord // Telegram // Element // Twitter

Privacy loves company

English // 中文 // Русский // Türkçe // Tiếng Việt // 日本 // Française // Español // Português // 한국인

Sprint to launch: November 1 dev update was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Partnering with Decart: The Future of AI-Generated Experiences

A breakthrough in video inference offers a sneak peek at the next frontier.

By Shaun Maguire and Dean Meyer Published October 31, 2024 Decart co-founders Moshe Shalev and Dean Leitersdorf.

When Google launched in 1998, more than a dozen other search engines were already live. Yet just two years later, it was the largest in the world. How did Google’s team win? Conventional wisdom tends to focus on PageRank, the algorithm that made their results more relevant than competitors’—and on the site’s minimalist user interface, while others were cluttered with portals and ads.

But perhaps even more significant was the team’s accomplishments on distributed systems and low-level performance optimization. While others were buying up expensive Sun Microsystems servers, Google was figuring out how to squeeze more juice out of the same consumer hardware people had at home. They ended up with an exponential cost advantage—and were able to build a faster, better product.

As a lead Series A investor, Sequoia had a front-row seat to that success. Today, we see the potential for a similar arc in Decart.

AI is making it possible for our imaginations to interface with our screens in a way—and with a speed—we’ve never seen before. But today, that potential is still limited by hardware. So last year, Decart co-founders Dean Leitersdorf and Moshe Shalev set out to tackle that problem, and started hacking on training and inference optimization. They quickly improved upon the state of the art, built a platform, and launched a successful enterprise business. And now, like Google before them, they are applying those infrastructure innovations to building delightful AI-generated experiences. Oasis, built on the first real-time inference video model, is just the start.

Decart is one of the most technically gifted teams we’ve ever worked with. While simultaneously serving in the IDF’s elite Unit 8200, he earned his Ph.D. from Technion, Israel’s most prestigious technical university, at just 23 years old. At the Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, the world’s leading distributed computing conference, Dean’s thesis won first place.

Moshe, meanwhile, is an outlier in his own right. He served in key positions in Unit 8200, working directly with top leaders on special operations and developing a reputation as a trusted problem-solver and executor who can connect the dots from idea to reality. “Whenever we had an issue we didn’t know how to deal with,” one reference told us, “we called Moshe.” He and Dean worked closely together in the IDF for several years before teaming up on the biggest unsolved challenges in AI.

From our first walk with Dean in the Bay Area, where he spends half his time, to meeting the full team in Tel Aviv, where Decart is based, they have blown us away with their technical depth and novel insights. We are grateful for the opportunity to lead their seed round and support their continued growth.

Today’s launch of Oasis, powered not by a gaming engine but by a single AI model trained on videos, marks a milestone in inference. But as remarkable as it is, it is just a taste of what’s to come. Dean, Moshe, and their team are moving quickly, continuing to innovate on Decart’s infrastructure stack. Just as Google’s team did decades ago, we believe they can unlock even more efficiencies in the months ahead—and with those advances, usher in the next chapter of AI-generated experiences.

Share Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn Share this via email Related Topics #AI #Funding announcement Partnering with Eon: Cloud Backup Reinvented By Shaun Maguire and Dean Meyer News Read Partnering with Factory: Autonomous AI for All By Shaun Maguire News Read Generative AI’s Act o1 by Sonya Huang, Pat Grady, and o1 Perspective Read Partnering with Decart: The Future of AI-Generated Experiences By Shaun Maguire and Dean Meyer News Read JOIN OUR MAILING LIST Get the best stories from the Sequoia community. Email address Leave this field empty if you’re human:

The post Partnering with Decart: The Future of AI-Generated Experiences appeared first on Sequoia Capital.

Partnering with Tola: Cash-Flow Management for Small Businesses

Alen, Guillaume and their team created an all-in-one platform to help entrepreneurs pay bills—and get paid—on their own terms.

By George Robson Published October 31, 2024 Tola co-founders Guillaume Simard and Alen Cvisic.

Can we afford to grow the team? Is it time to expand our product line? When should we open a second location? Small business owners struggle to make countless everyday—but high-stakes—decisions not because their businesses are flawed, but simply because of their scale.

While large companies with large cash positions can often weather the storms of the open market, unexpected adverse events have an outsized effect on small businesses. And even more stressful for these entrepreneurs is that many are flying blind, with little to no month to month insight into their cash flow. Their working capital is defined by how quickly they can receive payments from customers, and how long they can defer their own—yet in the United States, many B2B payments are still made manually, by paper check. Owners waiting on funds are paralyzed by uncertainty, and only a third of them survive 10 years, with cash flow problems blamed for the vast majority of failures.

Most small businesses don’t have a CFO or finance manager who can focus on these problems full-time. But what they do have, now, is Tola.

Tola co-founders Alen Cvisic and Guillaume Simard understand firsthand the challenges facing their customers. As the first and sixth employees at the European expense management giant Pleo, they served thousands of small businesses, and recognized that managing cash flow was by far the biggest pain point. They designed Tola to give entrepreneurs a consolidated, easy-to-use tool for managing their finances—and to give them full control over how and when payments happen.

Tola empowers you to choose your method of paying and getting paid (credit card, ACH, wire) as well as the timing, with 30- to 90-day “pay later” options accessible with a single click. Tola pays your supplier instantly, but you pay on your own terms. The platform also allows you to manage accounts payable and receivables in one place, integrating with your accounting software and bank to give you a clear, complete picture of your finances—and save time and money in the process.

We knew Alen by his reputation at Pleo, and in 2022 invited him to become a Sequoia Scout. As he and Guillaume developed their founding vision, we stayed in touch, and are proud to be early partners leading their seed round. They have gathered around them an elite team of world-class builders—many of whom are experienced founders themselves—and have impressed us with their ability to balance quality and speed. Distributed across the Americas and Europe, the team comes together regularly for in-person hackathons they call “Tolapaloozas,” which consistently lead to high-velocity development and a delightful, beautifully clean product that’s perfect for the small business owners they serve.

Team Tola at a recent “Tolapalooza.”

Importantly, Alen, Guillaume and their team are experts not just at building Tola, but at selling it, as well. They recognize that most small business owners lack cash-flow software not because they’re uninterested, but because no one’s telling them about it; the difficulty and expense of finding customers in this massive, highly fragmented market scares off most would-be providers. Alen and Guillaume are different. They built an incredible product-led growth motion at Pleo, and are now leveraging those learnings in the U.S., where more than 33 million companies need their help.

Already, thousands of those businesses have signed up for early access to Tola, which is now processing millions in payments every month. With this round of funding, Alen, Guillaume and their team are ready to accelerate and scale, growing both their customer base and their product. We at Sequoia believe strongly in their mission and are excited to see Tola give small business owners more time, more control, more peace of mind—and more opportunities to build a better future for us all.

Share Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn Share this via email Related Topics #Enterprise #Fintech #Funding announcement Partnering with nsave: Trusted Accounts For Everyone By George Robson News Read Partnering with Co:Helm: The Co-Pilot for Health Care By George Robson News Read Partnering with Evy: Product Protection You Can Trust News Read Partnering with Zefir: Home-Selling Made Simple News Read JOIN OUR MAILING LIST Get the best stories from the Sequoia community. Email address Leave this field empty if you’re human:

The post Partnering with Tola: Cash-Flow Management for Small Businesses appeared first on Sequoia Capital.

The Zcash Foundation is pleased to announce the release of Zebra 2.0.1 with full support for NU6 on Mainnet. 

Zebra 2.0.0 introduced support for NU6 but did not contain the right dependencies, so we’re also releasing 2.0.1. If you have downloaded and are running Zebra 2.0.0, please update to version 2.0.1.

Related to NU6 support, Zebra now implements all suggestions from the audit provided by LeastAuthority. Another notable feature is the addition of cookie-based authentication for Zebra’s RPC server.

Finally, the end-of-support (EOS) halt goes back to occurring 16 weeks from the release date.

You can see a full copy of the included changes in the v2.0.1 Release Notes on GitHub.

The post Zebra 2.0.1 Release appeared first on Zcash Foundation.

PIVX is emblematic of a new era in monetary liberation, where individuals can execute worldwide transactions with privacy and simplicity at their fingertips.

Here’s how PIVX facilitates this:
Borderless Transactions: With PIVX, geographical boundaries are irrelevant. You can send PIVX anywhere in the world directly from your wallets, bypassing the traditional banking system’s limitations and fees.

Privacy and Security With Choice: PIVX empowers users by offering the option to cloak transactions using Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge (zk-SNARKs). This means you can decide whether to shield your transaction details for complete privacy or opt for transparency, tailoring your security settings to fit your needs or the context of your transaction. This choice ensures that while PIVX maintains a high standard of security, users have the control to decide on privacy, making global transactions both secure and flexible.

Instant Transactions: PIVX’s blockchain architecture allows for near-instant transactions, thanks to its 60-second block time. This speed is essential for international transfers, where waiting times can be a significant drawback.

Low Costs: Traditional cross-border payments can be exorbitantly priced due to intermediary fees. PIVX transactions, being peer-to-peer, significantly reduce these costs, making it economically viable to send value across borders.

Decentralized Nature: Without relying on any central authority or intermediary, PIVX ensures that your money moves as you intend, without the risk of censorship or control from any government or financial institution.

Community and Development: The active PIVX community and ongoing development ensure that the platform evolves, staying ahead in terms of technology and user needs, which is vital for maintaining a globally effective cryptocurrency.

PIVX Core Wallet: pivx.org/wallets
PIVX Lite Wallet: mypivxwallet.org

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

Be Your Own Wire ~ Send PIVX Anywhere! was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

October 30, 2024 — Today, Brave is excited to announce major updates for its built-in VPN service. Desktop and mobile users will see new features, more servers, a streamlined UI, and more subscription options once they update to the latest version of Brave.

Since first launching in 2020, Brave Firewall + VPN has become Brave’s most popular premium feature. Brave’s browser-native VPN is easily accessible to the Brave browser’s 70M+ users, and has seen exponential growth, with thousands of new users now trying the service each day. Last year, we also began offering Brave VPN on desktop devices, and offering cross-device subscriptions (where one subscription covered multiple devices, regardless of operating system). This flexibility, combined with fast connection speeds and the ease of using a VPN that’s built directly into the browser (and therefore does not require a separate app) was a clear benefit for users.

Now, Brave is landing a slew of great updates to its already strong VPN service, including:

Cost-saving annual subscriptions (already available for mobile users) are now available for desktop users as well, as is a totally redesigned account portal for desktop users

Hundreds of new servers, placed across more than 40 countries and regions, allowing for faster connection speeds and better service connections

A streamlined server-selection interface, allowing users to select servers at the city level

Expanded device coverage, with 1 subscription now covering up to 10 total devices, across Android, iOS, and desktop

The completion of phase two of an independent security audit (via Assured), including a verified no-logs policy

A private, ad blocking browser and secure VPN in the same package

Brave offers the best privacy and native ad blocking of any major browser today. By default, the Brave browser blocks trackers, fingerprinting attempts, third-party cookies, and those annoying cookie-consent popups on any webpage you visit. Brave VPN extends the privacy and security to any app on your device, even outside the Brave browser. It blocks trackers and encrypts every connection to the Web, and allows users to access their favorite content even while traveling.

Brave VPN can also help if you’re on a new or public Wi-Fi network. It can hide traffic from internet service providers (ISPs) and other network surveillance, and offer fast connection speeds anywhere in the world.

Together, Brave browser + Brave VPN offer the best privacy & ad blocking browser/VPN combo on the market today. Today’s announcement of new features and upgrades build on the strengths established by Brave VPN since it was first introduced 4 years ago:

Seamless, browser-native access

Protection across your entire device, even outside the browser

High connection speeds

WireGuard and IKEV2 support

DNS leak protection

Unlimited data/bandwidth

Cross-platform coverage across desktop and mobile (Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows)

Free trials, and simple payment plans for both monthly and annual subscriptions

Additionally (and uniquely) Brave VPN uses an unlinkable purchase token for users who buy subscriptions. This property of unlinkability means that Brave doesn’t know when you’re using the VPN, which only enhances the privacy of using Brave VPN over another VPN provider.

New features, subscription options, and security policies

Brave VPN users who update to the latest version of Brave will get all of the core benefits detailed above, plus a ton of new features and subscription options.

New servers and server-selection interface

Brave VPN now offers hundreds of servers to choose from, across more than 40 countries and regions. Additionally, VPN users will also see a streamlined server-selection interface, allowing them to select a server down to the city level.

Cover more devices with a single, low-cost subscription

Brave already offered great device-level coverage, with 1 subscription covering up to 5 devices, regardless of platform. Now we’ve doubled that coverage at no change in cost: 1 subscription ($9.99 / month or $99.99 / year) covers up to 10 total devices across Android, iOS, and desktop.

Adding a device to an existing subscription is easy. Just visit the secure account.brave.com portal and follow the instructions to connect more devices.

Annual subscriptions for desktop users, and a redesigned account portal

Speaking of the secure Brave account portal, it recently received a full redesign. This redesign makes it even easier to manage a Brave VPN subscription, or a subscription to any other Brave premium product (Brave’s Leo AI assistant, ad-free Brave Search Premium, or Brave Talk with moderator controls and no caller limits).

In addition to a redesign, the new account portal also now offers desktop users the option to buy an annual VPN subscription.

New no-logs policy and independent security audit

Brave VPN is powered by Guardian—providers of one of the best personal Firewall/VPN solutions on the market today—in close partnership with Brave’s engineering team. Brave VPN has never stored log files or used tracking cookies to provide the service—one of the great benefits of Brave VPN is we couldn’t store connection or browsing data, because we didn’t collect that data in the first place.

Now, Guardian completed two important phases of work to add even more security to these policies:

Phase two of an independent security audit (via Assured)

The no-logs policy has now been verified by an independent third party

Together, this work provides clear documentation of Guardian’s (and thus Brave’s) security, and even more trust in its service.

How to get started

Getting started with the new Brave VPN is easy. Once you’ve updated to the latest version of Brave, you can easily start a 7-day free trial.

On desktop click the VPN button in the Brave browser’s address bar, and click Start free trial.

On mobile open the Brave settings menu ("…" on iOS, or “⋮” on Android) and toggle on Brave VPN.

Anyone can try Brave VPN free for 7 days. Subscriptions are available for $9.99 per month, or $99.99 per year, and can be canceled at any time.

What’s next for Brave VPN?

In the coming weeks, we’ll continue to expand with new servers in even more locations around the world. Additionally, we have more features and payment options planned. Keep an eye on the Brave blog to learn more.

Delivering value to NymVPN users, operators, and builders

In the turbulent seas of crypto speculation, the NYM token is the center of a novel experiment in tokenomics for a new generation of online privacy technology.

NYM is not just a cryptocurrency: it is a unique utility token linked to a concrete product designed to meet a real world need: genuine privacy online. And there is a demand for it! Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) amount to an annual $50b+ industry and an estimated 1.5b users worldwide.

But Nym itself is also much more than a VPN. The large majority of VPNs are centralized infrastructures, enterprises which profit off selling user data, and closed-source codes. The Nym project offers a totally different VPN business-model: a token-incentivized privacy ecosystem. And the NYM token is what powers the virtuous cycle:

As user subscriptions are converted to NYM tokens, the more NYM buy orders will be triggered. The more NymVPN usage increases, the more NYM is rewarded to Nym operators for their service, incentivizing the increased performance of the network. The higher the usage and performance of the network, the more private the entire network becomes for users. The more private the network is, the more users are attracted to the project and the more NYM buy orders are generated.

Curious to know exactly how the NYM token enables genuine privacy through decentralization all the way down to payments? You’re in the right place.

Why a token?

First things first, you might be asking yourself: why not just use fiat currencies, or even BTC, if the point is to pass on payments from users to operators and teams? Because the NYM token does far more than pass on rewards. It supports a broader token economic ecosystem which is necessary to ensure good quality of service, decentralization, and delinked payments.

The NYM token, in short, facilitates unlinkability across the entire the privacy network:

Privacy preserving payments: Payments for other VPNs risk linking a user’s financial information to their traffic. With NymVPN, all payments are delinked from a user’s use of the network. This is done through payment conversions to NYM tokens which are used to purchase anonymous credentials (zk-nyms). Surveillance free business-model: Many VPNs make revenue by selling user data, inserting ads, or allowing third parties to install cookies on user software. NymVPN runs on a zero-knowledge network where Nym knows nothing about what users do or who they are, and node operators are incentivized to abide by no-logs Terms & Conditions. Permissonless and decentralized: NYM tokens enable anyone to “bond” and run a node and earn NYM rewards without needing the permission of Nym Technologies. This enables global network decentralization. Unlinkability: Decentralization enables Nym to offer strong anonymity to end users by making sure no one controls the full path of communication. Users will remain unlinkable to what they do online and with whom they communicate.

This article focuses on the first two, namely (1) how a user pays for NymVPN in a privacy-preserving manner, and (2) how operators are financially rewarded to provide end-users with strong privacy rather than being financially tempted to spy on their users.

NYM token flow overview

The NYM token flow is designed to be a virtuous cycle. So let’s walk through all the stages along the way from users to operators and back again.

Step 1: User purchases NymVPN subscription

Everything starts here with users who need real online privacy. Purchasing a NymVPN subscription is the only thing a user needs to actively do. The rest is taken care of on the back-end between the NymVPN app and the Nym network.

Right now, the NymVPN app is in Beta and free to download and use. When payments go live, the user will select a plan (e.g., one month, a year, or two years) and pay in the manner of their choosing:

Fiat currencies (whether from debit or credit cards) * Crypto (e.g., in Bitcoin or NYM itself **) Online payment services (e.g., Stripe)

* You can also mail in cash if you want to not only delink your payment from usage, but also have your payments truly anonymous.

** Payments directly in NYM will receive a small discount, since this saves Nym on processing fees from online payment vendors.

Step 2: Payment converted to NYM tokens

All forms of payments for subscriptions to NymVPN, whether in fiat or crypto, are first converted into NYM tokens. But how and why is this necessary?

Payments submitted to Nym are processed and confirmed with the issuer via the Nym API. This triggers the API to conduct a buy order of NYM tokens on behalf of the user. Once the payment is confirmed between the processor and Nym, the payment will be set up for conversion into NYM tokens and deposited on the Nyx (Cosmos) chain in a general subscription account.

Keep in mind: If you pay for a NymVPN subscription in, say, a fiat currency with a debit card, you will never need to be in possession of NYM tokens: all of this is taken care of for you by the payment system.

NymVPN subscription purchases will result in NYM buy orders, thus closing the loop on the Nym token economics. There is thus a symbiotic relationship between the actual usage of NymVPN and the NYM token which yields both anonymity to users and rewards for service to operators. This is the first step in the virtuous cycle of NYM as a utility token.

Step 3: Delinking payments from usage (zk-nyms)

Use of the Nym network requires possessing authorized access credentials called zk-nyms (or zero-knowledge Nym credentials). Zk-nyms function as anonymized ticketbooks, as if you purchased a package of multiple passes to ride the metro while vacationing. Each ticketbook is composed of individual tickets that represent bandwidth. These ensure that payment details are delinked from credential issuance: no one, not even Nym, will be able to link a user’s payment details with their access credentials and, in turn, their usage of NymVPN.

Here is how they are generated: When a user’s payment is confirmed, a key pair is generated for them on Nym’s native Nyx (Cosmos) blockchain. One key is held on the user’s device (NymVPN app) and the other on-chain. This allows the Nym API to communicate between the app and the Nyx chain to validate that a user’s subscription has been paid for and is active, which triggers validators to issue zk-nym credentials associated with that key pair.

In order for a user to connect with the Nym network, the NymVPN app will simply submit valid tickets to authorize the entry of their traffic into the network. When a ticket is presented to an entry gateway, the zk-nyms on the NymVPN app simply show that there are the adequate number of valid tickets for the requested traffic. Nothing about a user’s personal payment information (name, credit or debit card information, and further details like bank or address) can be revealed: only the validity of the access credential.

Step 4: Using the mixnet

In order to gain access to the Nym network — either through NymVPN’s Anonymous Mode or the Fast Mode with WireGuard — all a user needs to do is:

Toggle on the desired mode in app Possess a valid ticket (delivered to your app automatically with valid purchase)

When establishing a connection, the app will present the zk-nym credential to the entry gateway which, in addition to the Nym API, verifies the ticket’s validity, bandwidth fair usage,* and that it hasn’t been double-spent. Once the ticket is validated, a user’s encrypted traffic will then be routed through either of the selected routing procedures.

Step 5: Operator rewards

The Nym mixnet is operated by independent people all over the world who run nodes to route user traffic and provide them with unparalleled online privacy.

But unlike other decentralized networks like Tor which rely on volunteers, Nym node operators are rewarded for their service in NYM tokens for the traffic they handle in every epoch. Token incentives ensure that nodes perform well for users: running the latest binary, providing stable connections, etc.

Rewards in NYM also increase the decentralization of the network, since rewards are distributed from an on-chain “mixmining pool” of NYM tokens.

Summary of NYM flow

As we’ve seen, the NYM token servers multiple functions in its flow through the Nym network.

For users, this is the first step in unlinking their payments from their usage of the NymVPN service, something which very few other online privacy services can offer. For operators and builders, this gives service providers a direct stake in the success and usage of the NymVPN and network. The tokens are used to reward nodes and the company for operating the network and maintaining the software. And for the NYM token ecosystem, the real-world growth in usage of the NymVPN generates a virtuous growth cycle for the NYM token. The NYM token: A virtuous cycle

NymVPN is the first commercial app to run on the Nym mixnet. It closes the token economic loop, effectively bringing the mixnet to market. The mixnet is a general purpose private traffic routing network and can be used for any chain, L2, or app. As more apps are built on top of or integrated with the mixnet, the more value is generated for the ecosystem at large. This is the primary role of the NYM token: to enable a decentralized marketplace for privacy.

Join the Nym Community

Discord // Telegram // Element // Twitter

Privacy loves company

English // 中文 // Русский // Türkçe // Tiếng Việt // 日本 // Française // Español // Português // 한국인

The NYM token flow: Powering the world’s most private network was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We take you behind the scenes of our newly released, annual State of Crypto Report — a16z crypto's analysis of the latest data and trends that have defined the industry in 2024. 

This year's report features some brand new insights, from estimating the number of real crypto users globally, to understanding how much interest in crypto swing states may have ahead of the U.S. election. We also dig into infrastructure improvements to blockchains and key applications — including stablecoins, AI, and so-called DePIN. Be sure to visit a16zcrypto.com for all this and more including a new “Builder Energy” dashboard, which we’ll discuss on the show.

Joining me to talk about the findings are lead data scientist and report author Daren Matsuoka and CTO Eddy Lazzarin. The first voice you'll hear after mine is Daren's, then Eddy's.

 

a16z crypto resources:

-State of Crypto Report 2024

-Builder Energy dashboard

-Estimating the number of real crypto users

 by Daren Matsuoka and Eddy Lazzarin

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

 

In a world where everyone chases every basis point of marginal return, core values are often overlooked. The emergence of liquid staking protocols made stake delegation a norm rather than an exception. The hassles of running their own node and dealing with slashing risks were often too much of a burden for regular users. Dappnode offers both hardware and open-source software solutions for home stakers which are as facile to implement as a plug-n-play device. Their newly released Dappnode Smooth aims to offer the advantages of staking pools (via smart contracts), without centralisation risks.

Topics covered in this episode:

Eduardo’s and Pol’s backgrounds Founding Dappnode Dappnode userbase Supported networks Dappnode’s tech stack Setting up Dappnode Dappstore Updating nodes Dappnode hardware usage percentage Dappnode Smooth Solo staking vs. liquid staking Distributed validator technology (DVT) Restaking ETH issuance Future roadmap for Dappnode

Episode links:

Eduardo Antuna on Twitter Dappnode on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

Before we announce the exciting new features available for testing in Stage 8, we want to express our sincere gratitude to our community of over 3,500 testnet users. Your dedicated testing and invaluable feedback have been instrumental to the success of our mission.

We are thrilled to announce the launch of Testnet Stage 8, introducing several key updates that significantly boost the protocol’s efficiency, compliance, and scalability. These updates include more streamlined test transactions, user blacklisting feature for Zone Managers, smarter Smart Contracts, and enhanced data management capabilities. 

Sign up for Panther’s testnet today. For more information on how to get started, click here. 

Streamlined UTXO Management

Stage 8 of the Panther dApp testnet streamlines the transaction process. Testers can now transact any portion of their balance in one transaction, eliminating extra steps.

As new deposits are made, the system automatically merges them with the largest existing test zAsset UTXO, creating one unified UTXO that reflects the total balance. For Zone Managers, this approach not only improves transaction efficiency but also simplifies balance management across the Zone, ensuring a smoother, more user-friendly experience for all participants.

Dynamic zAccounts Blacklisting: Enhancing Compliance

A critical compliance-supporting feature for Zone Managers is the ability to blacklist users who may not meet regulatory standards. This ensures that only compliant users are able to participate in a given Zone. 

This mechanism allows Zone Managers to control access to their Zone, effectively barring bad actors or non-compliant users from participating, thus enhancing the platform’s security and regulatory adherence.

Diamond Proxy Architecture: Smarter Smart Contracts

Panther has upgraded to the Diamond Proxy architecture to solve a key issue: Ethereum’s contract size limit. Previously, the PantherPool contract housed numerous functions—like zAsset activation and PRP claiming—which sometimes exceeded Ethereum’s 24.6-kilobyte limit.

The Diamond Proxy fixes this by breaking up the PantherPool contract into smaller, manageable components, each accessible via a single proxy that directs tasks to the correct contract. This ensures scalability as Panther adds new features like zTrade, bypassing size constraints. With Diamond Proxy, Panther is future-proofed, enabling smooth updates and seamless integration of new features.

Taxi Ring Buffer Logic: More efficient Data Management

Panther’s Taxi feature, designed for  faster transaction processing, uses a “ring buffer” system to improve blockchain data handling. The system cycles between two Merkle trees, each holding 128 pieces of data. When one tree fills up, the system switches to the second tree, resetting the first one for reuse. This process repeats, optimizing memory and making data management more efficient.

Only the root of the active tree is stored, reducing memory use. The system tracks where data has been used, so there’s no need to store old data, which simplifies queries and cuts storage needs.

This upgrade speeds up transactions and improves scalability, allowing Panther to handle more transactions with fewer resources. By focusing on current data, the system is faster and more efficient, making your experience smoother and quicker.

Simplifying Code for Better Efficiency and Future-Proofing

Stage 8 includes an important update to how Panther handles large numbers. Previously, it used two different methods, which made the code more complex and harder to manage. This back-and-forth caused unnecessary slowdowns and increased the risk of errors.

The process has been simplified by using one built-in method for handling large numbers. This makes the code easier to maintain and less reliant on external tools. Plus, it improves overall performance.

This change also sets us up for the future. The approach we’ve chosen is a core feature of modern web technologies and is expected to improve as the ecosystem evolves. By aligning with these standards, we’re ensuring our product remains efficient and sustainable in the long run.

In short, we’ve reduced complexity, boosted performance, and made our product ready for future growth.

Disclaimer

For the avoidance of doubt any tokens mentioned in this announcement or within the product are for testing purposes only and have no economic value, nor can they be exchanged for value. 

Participation on our incentivized testnet versions may result in you earning rewards, but such credits are not represented on any blockchain as tokens.

Weekly progress on the NymVPN and Nym network

The Nym has worked out a rigorous timeline for getting NymVPN and the network in shape for launch this year.

And before the end of the year, there are key milestones along the way that the Nym community, beta testers, and NYM token holders can look forward to:

November 2024: The newest release of NymVPN beta with the launch of zk-nyms anonymous credentials.

December 2024: Early bird launch of NymVPN with payments.

In the meantime, NymVPN Beta is still open and free to use, so sign up today for an instant credential if you haven’t tried it yet!

As the Nym team and community moves into 2025, each Friday Nym will keep you all up to date on what the dev team has been working on behind the scenes and accomplished every week on the way to the full launch.

NymVPN

The NymVPN dev team is sprinting towards the release of the NymVPN stable release in mid-November!

App operability

Currently, the team is working on getting the app in tip-top-shape after all the valuable feedback from NymVPN Beta users since August. Code is being deployed to our lower testing environment to fix bugs, and the dev team is syncing deployments, resolving conflicts, and optimizing our code bases.

State machine on mainnet

The state machine will ensure the NymVPN client has a view on and can verify the network status. The dev team has successfully integrated the solid-state machine onto mainnet in the past weeks, and is moving to refining it for app-integration.

Fixing leaks

The dev team is improving the integrity of encrypted tunneling by plugging leaks across all the apps, including DNS and IPv6.

zk-nyms

The zk-nym system is being built out. This is the foundation of NymVPN privacy-preserving infrastructure, effectively unlinking user payments from their usage of the app. With zk-nyms, users can be fully unlinkable to what they do and anonymous online.

Stay tuned in the next week for deep-dives into Nym’s token flow and zk-nyms!

Stabilizing payments

The team has added stability to payment features and has moved them to lower testing environments to work out bugs. Live testing of delinked payments will begin shortly after.

Network

The main focus this week has been to ensure a top performing decentralized network that services the NymVPN client and any future usage. This involves stress tests, improved performance measurements, updated guides and tooling.

Latest release

The latest operator’s release v2024.12-aero was made live on 18 October. So calling all nodes, make sure your systems are up to date with the latest binaries! Nym Nodes should also agree to the Terms & Conditions to be included in the active set. This is a safeguard for Nym to honor its promise to end-users of a no-logs infrastructure.

New network stress testing

The Nym team has been running a Fast & Furious sniper edition to battle test Nym gateways who are running WireGuard. Many are toppling under the weight of heavy traffic, and only the best will remain! These test results are informing an ongoing close collaboration between core team and operators to arrive at the very best server specs and configurations for Nym nodes.

Improving node performance

Node status API is progressing and will enable NymVPN clients to only connect with fully online, top performing nodes.

In addition, a revamped Operator Guide, docs, and operator onboarding funnel are being readied for roll out to improve overall operator onboarding.

Network explorer updated

Nym network explorer v2 specs have been outlined and wireframes produced.

Stay tuned and join our channels for more up to date information and live discussion with the core team!

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Sprint to launch: October 25 dev update was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Zcash Foundation is pleased to announce the release of FROST v2.0.0. This release includes a number of important changes and improvements to the FROST reference implementation.

The release introduces some breaking changes, motivated either by the goal of simplifying the API or to address issues. In particular, we changed the deserialization of elliptic curve points (Element) to return an error; this was due to a requirement in the FROST specification to check that the identity is not being serialized or de-serialised and returning an error if that is the case. This requirement was not being followed in previous versions of the FROST reference implementation. We are not aware of any possible security issues that could be caused by this; however, we consider this change the right thing to do as a defense-in-depth mechanism. Thanks to Jason Huang for reporting this issue.

Another important breaking change is simplifications to serialization and deserialization of structs that wrapped Scalar or Elements. This allows replacing code that looked like X::deserialize(bytes.try_into().unwrap()) into X::deserialize(&bytes), which is much simpler.

There are some other smaller breaking changes which are documented in the CHANGELOG.

We have added a number of new features such as refresh share functionality in the Trusted Dealer scenario and a new verify_signature_share() function in frost-core which allows verifying individual signature shares. The same functionality for Distributed Key Generation is being developed and will be included in a future release.

This release also adds no-std support to all crates except frost-ed448. This allows the usage of the crates in restricted environments such as embedded devices. Refer to the CHANGELOG for details.

We have also made a number of improvements to our documentation, including updates and improvements to the FROST demo documentation. 

You can see a full copy of all of the included changes in the v2.0.0 Release Notes on GitHub. Thanks to StackOverflowExcept1on for their multiple contributions.

 

 

The post FROST 2.0.0 Release appeared first on Zcash Foundation.

What does Rich Sutton’s "Bitter Lesson" reveal about the decisions Tesla is making in its pursuit of autonomy?

In this episode, we dive into Tesla’s recent "We, Robot" event, where they unveiled bold plans for the unsupervised full-self-driving Cybercab, Robovan, and Optimus—their humanoid robot, which Elon Musk predicts could become “the biggest product ever.”

Joined by a16z partners Anjney Midha and Erin Price-Wright, we explore how these announcements reflect the evolving intersection of hardware and software. We’ll unpack the layers of the autonomy stack, the sources of data powering it, and the challenges involved in making these technologies a reality.

Anjney, with his experience in computer vision and multiplayer tech at Ubiquity6, and Erin, an AI expert focused on the physical world, share their unique perspectives on how these advancements could extend far beyond the consumer market.

For more insights, check out Erin’s articles linked below. 

 

Resources: 

Find Anj on Twitter: https://x.com/anjneymidha

Find Erin on Twitter: https://x.com/espricewright

Read Erin’s article ‘A Software-Driven Autonomy Stack Is Taking Shape’: https://a16z.com/a-software-driven-autonomy-stack-is-taking-shape/

AI for the Physical World: https://a16z.com/ai-for-the-physical-world/

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

With a Little Help From Their Friends Published October 22, 2024 By Harry Spitzer Harry Spitzer is an award-winning documentary director and writer based in New York City. His work has appeared on The Verge, Catapult, Atlas Obscura, and The Cut. How Wiz’s co-founders built upon a decades-long relationship to engineer their cloud security platform’s stratospheric ascent Published October 22, 2024 By Harry Spitzer Harry Spitzer is an award-winning documentary director and writer based in New York City. His work has appeared on The Verge, Catapult, Atlas Obscura, and The Cut.

Assaf Rappaport was running late for school. To those who knew the 18 year old best, this truancy was nothing new. The consummate generalist had earned a reputation for spreading himself too thin—he was always busy with a friend, a new extracurricular, maybe a school trip. Rappaport describes his role in his family with characteristic middle-child-of-five wryness, “I’m the one that everybody was generally upset with, not answering the phone, not being available, not being there. So the disappointment, that’s my role.” But even for him, this absence was noteworthy because he wasn’t just late for school by a matter of minutes. He had missed the entire first week. 

This time, though, Rappaport had an unassailable excuse for his tardiness to the Jerusalem campus of Hebrew University: It had been government mandated. The summer after graduating high school, he began a rotation in Talpiot, an elite military program for Israel’s top students in math and science, one that would set him up to complete his compulsory service in a unit of his choosing. It was an opportunity that shocked him—“I always felt like my admission was by mistake, I always had imposter syndrome”—and one that he couldn’t pass up, even if it meant that he was a full week behind in his university studies before they even began. Luckily, he could lean on his new best friend, Yinon Costica, whom he’d met during his rotational program and who had managed to matriculate on time. “I missed the day when you created your curriculum for the year,” Rappaport remembers, “so when I arrived on campus I found Yinon and I told him, ‘I’m just going to join your classes for the day.’” Costica had chosen computer science, so Rappaport did too. 

The two soon reunited with Roy Reznik and Ami Luttwak, also alumni of the military rotational program. The teenagers were drawn to each other because they were the kind of friends who constantly pushed each other in new, challenging directions but in a way that felt expansive—and fun. When they reconnected on campus in the fall of 2002, they quickly became inseparable. But no amount of early closeness could’ve led them to predict that nearly two decades later they would come to feel like a family, one that trusted each other enough to leave lucrative, stable positions during the height of a global pandemic to make a bet on building something new. And they certainly couldn’t have imagined that within four years of launch, that new project would become the go-to cloud security platform for 45% of the Fortune 100. That early aughts autumn, all they knew was that they’d been lucky enough to find a group of kindred spirits whom they enjoyed and admired in equal measure. And that with each other’s help, they’d at least survive freshman year.

***

Costica and Rappaport slipped into a crowded bar down a side street in the Former French Concession neighborhood of Shanghai. The duo had ended up in China on a bit of a whim. It was late 2009, and Costica had been stationed in Singapore for a few months on a military rotational program. Rappaport, eager for a change of pace from his own Israel-based service, proposed that they take a trip to Shanghai during his week off. A few weeks later, they landed in Pudong airport with no agenda; by day they explored different Shanghai neighborhoods; by night, they drank, made friends, and wondered what their futures might hold. Sipping his drink, watching so many other young, seemingly carefree people do the same, Rappaport felt something that he hadn’t in the seven years since he’d graduated university and joined Israel’s premier cybersecurity unit, the 8200. He felt at ease.

“So why don’t you just do a full semester here?” an American woman asked Rappaport, snapping him out of his reverie. Rappaport wanted to tell her the truth—that his story about being a university student was a cover, that this was the first relaxing trip that he’d taken in nearly a decade, and most of all, that he wished he had the flexibility to say yes to just such an offer. Instead, Rappaport replied with a noncommittal “maybe,” while thinking to himself, I can’t even tell you that I’m in the Israeli army, much less intelligence. “That was a moment of realizing, oh, we’re not really as free as we thought,” remembers Rappaport.  

Something shifted when he got back to Tel Aviv. Returning to his post in the 8200, one he’d once cherished so much that he opted to stay well beyond his mandatory service, suddenly felt limiting. He wasn’t feeling regret about the time he’d served. “My team was seven people, and we won the Israel Defense Prize for our project,” says Rappaport. “It’s truly magic that seven of us could engineer something that might save lots of lives. The impact is unheard of.” But now, Shanghai had given him a taste of something else worth exploring. “I felt like, oh my god, I need to see the world, I need to get out of Israel,” says Rappaport. His ticket out: a consulting job at McKinsey.

For two years, McKinsey provided just the diversion Rappaport needed, exposing him to new countries and new problems to solve. But he lacked the ability to implement solutions and make the impact he had so relished during his military service. So when Luttwak approached him proposing that they build something of their own, Rappaport accepted. “Founding a company means doing everything. If you’re not going to do it, nobody’s going to do it.”

In the summer of 2012, for the first time in over a decade, Rappaport found himself functionally jobless, a state of being that the self-described expert at “going on well-defined paths” remembers took some adjusting. “It never feels right when you start a company,” he adds. But just like when he was 18 years old starting university, Rappaport was not entering the unknown alone. Reznik had also responded to Luttwak’s aspirational siren song, and Costica, still finishing up his service, would join shortly thereafter, further tethering the foursome together as they dove into the entrepreneurial void. Because of Rappoport’s experience with McKinsey, the team decided that he would assume CEO duties for their nonexistent company. Luttwak would be CTO, and Reznik would lead R&D. Now all they needed was an idea.

“We’re very different, but that’s why it works,”

Assaf Rappaport

***

Rappaport retreated to his bedroom in the apartment he shared with Luttwak in central Tel Aviv after another afternoon of unsuccessful brainstorming. By now it was the fall of 2012 and a few months into the year they’d given themselves to start up, and they still had nothing. Gradually, it dawned on the founders that their elite military service gave them an edge over any other collection of twentysomethings in one particular realm: cybersecurity. But even then, lightning took its time to strike. “We thought, SharePoint is the biggest content management system in the world—so let’s do SharePoint security!” remembers Rappaport. His boyfriend at the time wasn’t impressed. He suggested Rappaport “call [the] company ShareShit because you’re doing shit for SharePoint.” (They’re no longer together, though they’re friends. “But I’m not taking name ideas from him,” says Rappaport.)

Months played out in a groundhogian cycle of daily conceptualizing, pitching, rejection and repeating. “Every day you have an idea at the moment you’re falling to sleep that you’re already pretty sure is bad. You wake up, you’re trying to convince the others, they’re killing your vision, and you know they’re right,” he says. “We were very good at bad ideas.” But still, the team remained cautiously optimistic. “From the outside, lots of people would say, ‘Oh, you’re doing a startup, what’s the idea?’ And in our mind, the idea doesn’t really matter,” says Rappaport. “The real question is, ‘Do you have a good team?’ That’s the only thing that matters because ideas will come, and ideas will change. But if you have the right team, eventually everything will align.” 

Despite still lacking anything concrete, the team started attracting unsolicited funding interest. Word had gotten out in Tel Aviv’s startup ecosystem that a collection of 8200 graduates were cooking something up in the security space. “I knew that most of the successful Israeli cybersecurity founders come out of 8200,” says Sequoia partner Doug Leone. For many investors, the prospect of backing multiple 8200 alumni in a single company was irresistible. 

The interest, however, wasn’t mutual. “We were very afraid of raising funds from venture capital firms,” says Rappaport. “We believed that VCs take great teams with great ideas, and then they bring in professional CEOs to take over.” So when Gili Raanan, Sequoia’s Israel-based partner, came knocking, Rappaport exercised the powers of obfuscation he’d honed through years of army intelligence service (and being a middle child of five with a reputation for being too busy). “We basically just avoided them when they would call us, or we would say we’re too busy,” says Rappaport. 

This tactic worked until it didn’t. “Raanan kept calling until one day he said, ‘Assaf, I don’t believe you. I’m sure you have one hour in the next two weeks,’” remembers Rappaport. Bullshit detected, he agreed to a meeting, which he ended up skipping (“I’m very good at avoiding”). When Raanan called that evening to ask why, Rappaport was finally honest with him about not wanting funding. Raanan tried once more, this time giving the founders a taste of their own medicine. “Well, I don’t want to invest in you, so that’s a fit!” he told Rappaport, continuing: “Look, in three days, Doug Leone is coming to Israel. I want you to meet him. One day you’re going to come to Silicon Valley, and knowing Doug will be helpful for you. He can open doors for you. So just meet him one-on-one.” Finally, Rappoport agreed. 

When he walked into the meeting a few days later, he was surprised to discover that Doug wasn’t alone. A handful of additional Sequoia team members had joined at the last minute—a show of enthusiasm on the VC’s part that Rappaport interpreted as something of an ambush. So Rappaport decided to make his pitch as uninvestable as possible. “I only shared about our team and our market—nothing about our business plan, because if they didn’t know how much I was going to raise, they couldn’t make a decision,” he says. (The lack of a business plan was part strategy, part necessity, as the founders were still working through the finer points of creating one.) For an hour or so, Rappaport spoke to his love and deep respect for his co-founders, their professional alignment, and their profound cybersecurity expertise gleaned from many years spent in one of the world’s most elite intelligence units. He left the meeting satisfied that he’d not burned a single bridge while still dodging potential VC involvement. But the next day, Leone called him with an offer. 

Sequoia wanted to invest $5 million, and they were convinced for exactly the same reason that the founders, still largely idea-less, were bullish themselves. “We made the offer based on our belief in the founding team, made up of people who have worked together and who knew the space inside out,” remembers Leone. “While the company was still getting off the ground, I argued that these guys are gonna figure it out.”

In the hours after hearing from Leone, the trio moved through the natural stages of being offered unexpected millions: disbelief, hilarity, shock and eventually, acceptance that this was worth taking seriously. They fell back on their tried-and-true tactic in moments of uncertainty, reaching out to trusted friends—in this case, other 8200 alumni who had worked with Sequoia. These connections assured them that the VC would act in good faith and could offer them practical support and guidance. “It took me until late night to figure out that, well, this might actually be a good offer to us,” says Rappaport. A week later, they accepted, and Adallom, the cybersecurity business still lacking a business plan, was born.

***

Seven years after Adallom’s founding, in early 2020, Rappaport, Reznik, Luttwak and Costica again found themselves around a table in central Tel Aviv, brainstorming. In that one way, very little had changed for the friends. But by almost any other metric, everything had. Adallom, which helped enterprises secure their SaaS products, had been acquired by Microsoft in 2015 for $320 million. The Adallom founding team, along with Costica, who had joined them as VP of product, were enlisted to lead Microsoft’s newly minted Cloud Security Group after the acquisition. In less than a decade, they had gone from jobless buddies to aspirational co-founders to successful acquirees to lead technologists within Microsoft’s giant tech ecosystem. And now, after five years of growth, leadership and learning (and relative stability) within Microsoft, the team again felt a pull towards the entrepreneurial. 

The team left Microsoft with intentions to build something new in network security. Just like their first foray into company-building, their idea wasn’t fully formed, but their confidence in each other was unshakable. Rappaport now had a decade’s worth of evidence that their friendship translated to profound professional chemistry, with each contributing something unique and essential. “We’re very different, but that’s why it works,” says Rappaport. He saw Luttwak as the visionary—“You tell him to imagine five years from now how something will go, and his vision will be super accurate. That’s his superpower.” Costica was the opposite—“He knows exactly how to execute what should happen in the short term.” Rappaport saw Reznik as an amazing people person and leader. “He knows how to build amazing engineering teams and how to create energy,” says Rappaport. His own essential contribution? “I feel like today my superpower is to make sure that I’m the most stupid person in the room.” 

The foursome’s bond became that much more essential to their success (and sanity) when a global pandemic started just weeks into brainstorming. “I vividly remember my mother expressing concerns that we were making a grave mistake for leaving our stable positions at Microsoft during such turbulent times,” remembers Rappaport, who for once didn’t just chalk up her concerns to Jewish motherly worrying. “It did feel like the worst timing imaginable,” he remembers. “Financial markets were in turmoil, and the lockdowns introduced an unprecedented level of uncertainty and disruption.” 

Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport

But to the team’s surprise, unexpected benefits started to emerge from that moment as well. They rented a cramped office space in central Tel Aviv—their own miniature tech-cum-COVID bubble—and started making calls. With a deep cybersecurity rolodex from years in the field, they started to line up meetings with security specialists and chief information security officers (CISOs) at companies of all sizes. “Because of the COVID shift to virtual platforms, meetings with potential clients or investors that would have once taken weeks to arrange could now be conducted within hours or days,” says Rappaport. “The circumstances paradoxically enabled us to move faster than ever.” 

Early conversations with these CISOs helped the founders refocus away from network security and onto the emerging cloud security space (as well as a whimsical, if a bit more industry-agnostic company name, Wiz—“We had to like it, but it also had to be as generic as possible because it’s truly painful to change your name with the IRS if we needed to pivot again,” says Assaf). But their new approach came with its own set of challenges. “There were already years-old cloud security incumbent startups that had raised hundreds of millions of dollars,” says Rappaport. Though being a little late to the party wasn’t all bad. “You have the ability to see all the things that others have been doing wrong and to rebuild them,” says Rappaport.  

The first aspect they wanted to rebuild was the fractured nature of cloud security products. “It was like, OK, there are cloud containers, let’s have container security, we have serverless, let’s have serverless security,” says Rappaport. “These were all very niche and point solutions that eventually didn’t add up to a cohesive system that worked for companies.” In contrast, the foursome set out to build “one product with one technology stack to solve not just some of the functionality but all of it.” 

The founders started hiring, getting even more of the old gang back together from Adallom and Microsoft to become their earliest “Wizards.” Like a reverse “Field of Dreams,” they were again less concerned with building a specific thing than with surrounding themselves with the right team with whom to build. Fortunately, their earliest hires felt similarly. “It was pretty hard for me to leave Microsoft, especially because their idea wasn’t 100 percent focused,” remembers Wiz’s VP of R&D, Osher Hazan, “but there was something magical that dragged me in. It was the founding team and the rest of the early developers. It was a belief that if the people are good, the rest will follow.” 

Space constraints—the team was operating out of a two-room office—meant that everyone, regardless of job function or title, worked out of the larger room, reserving the smaller room for ongoing CISO conversations and sales calls. This put product people right next to their engineers, gave the engineers insight into the sales process, allowed sales to easily rope technical specialists in on client calls, and put leadership in dialogue with their newest hires. Transparency and interdepartmental context was built into the nascent company’s DNA. “Everyone worked in the early days like we were one team. No titles, no hierarchy, just work together to get it done,” remembers Hazan. Close relationships with many of their CISO connections meant this feedback loop extended beyond the internal team. “Those quick loops together with the customers made it feel like a joint effort to figure out what this product needed to be. I think that really helped to lay down some really big stones as the base of Wiz’s product,” says Hazan.    

“It did feel like the worst timing imaginable.”

Assaf Rappaport

Another crucial observation emerged from these exploratory conversations. They realized that their competitors’ shortcomings weren’t just technological, they were dispositional. “Building effective cloud security organizations is bigger than technology, it’s a change of mindset,” says Rappaport. As he saw it, it wasn’t just the point solutions their competitors were offering that were siloed, it was also the security vulnerabilities themselves. A proper solution required more insight into how different vulnerabilities were connected. Mirroring Wiz’s own internal modus operandi, it also required a shift toward greater companywide transparency and interdepartmental communication about those vulnerabilities and strategies for remediation. Understanding the full context of one’s cloud, Rappaport was convinced, was the key to keeping it secure.

When an early Wiz engineer decided to visualize this idea of context in a graph, Rappaport noticed it on his monitor as he walked by. “What is this?” he asked, taking in the visualized connectivity between systems and vulnerabilities. It was an “Aha!” moment. “Without context you can just say, ‘We found a vulnerability,’” says Raz Shaked, head of DevOps at Wiz, “which is what the old security tools were doing. But now we could connect all those security aspects into one product and visualize it. We realized that this completely changes the way you think about cloud security.” 

The Wiz team reconnected with Sequoia. Though they still didn’t have an actual product, at least this time they had a proven track record. “It was very clearly a team bet,” remembers Sequoia partner Bogomil Balkansky. “We knew Assaf from before. And from their conversations with CISOs, it became obvious to them that nobody had actually built the authoritative product in cloud security. The opportunity was still there.” Sequoia, in addition to Cyberstarts, invested in April 2020. By October, a product had been built. By the end of the year, the team had closed $3 million in sales.

***

“Holy shit, how many favors am I gonna owe people by the time I’m done with Wiz?” Leone remembers thinking just a few months into 2021. Rappaport was relentless. “He would just constantly ask me for introductions to customers, constantly ask me to help him close deals in major accounts where I happen to know someone.” Not a week would go by without the one-time VC skeptic reaching out to Leone for some kind of sales-related support. “It was a pain in the ass,” Leone laughs, “but I do urge CEOs to do that.”

That doggedness didn’t stop with Rappaport. In their first year, largely still operating out of the small office space in Tel Aviv, the team would often work around the clock. They leveraged their time zone to their advantage, building Wiz’s product during Israeli working hours and making sales calls with potential customers in the U.S. at night. “In the beginning, we all felt like founders,” Shaked remembers. “We all felt responsible for the company. That was meaningful,” he says. When they worked late, it was with clear purpose, remembers Hazan. “We would have a big call with a customer that required multiple job functions, or we had a delivery to another client the next day. We were always focused on efficiency. If someone was asked to join a call, it was because they were really needed,” he says. 

“We made the offer based on our belief in the founding team, made up of people who have worked together and who knew the space inside out.”

Doug Leone

Wiz’s rapid growth wasn’t just a result of their all-hands-on-deck mentality. They had pioneered a new approach to cloud security that did away with the need for pieces of software called “agents,” which only provided visibility into a single aspect of an organization’s cloud security. In contrast, Wiz’s new “agentless” approach gave customers insight into their entire cloud environment all at once, visualizing this context using methods like cloud image analysis, log file analysis and API connections. In addition to being less cumbersome, Wiz gave security specialists the ability to prioritize more pressing threats and understand how one issue might precipitate others down the road. This new approach also reduced management overhead and negated the need for constant agent maintenance, an increasingly complex task as cloud environments expanded in size and complexity. It was revolutionary for customers. “It’s like you never had Google before,” says Shaked, “and then someone just gives it to you.”

Best of all—at least from a sales perspective—when potential customers provided Wiz with read-only access to their cloud infrastructure, Wiz’s product had the ability to crawl their infrastructure in real time, providing a window into security exposures and misconfigurations and how they were all connected. “In 15 minutes, it basically started providing value for customers, showing them results that would kind of light up like a Christmas tree, making very clear all the things that are wrong in their cloud infrastructure,” says Balkansky. “This made for a very sexy demoable product.” A sexy, demoable product coupled with pioneering technology and an indefatigable team put Wiz on a surefooted path to success. Just how successful, nobody was quite prepared for.     

***

By March of 2021, only a year after their pandemic launch and with just 65 employees, Wiz raised a $130 million Series B funding at a $1.7 billion valuation. They hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue after 18 months, becoming the fastest software company ever to reach that milestone. And the growth has yet to slow. The company raised three additional rounds of funding in October 2021, February 2023, and May 2024, culminating in $1 billion Series E funding at a valuation of $12 billion. It’s an eye-popping figure and correspondingly rapid ascent for any company—one you could argue is a reflection of the growing ubiquity of cloud computing, an increased focus on security and the rise of LLMs and generative AI in the cloud. 

As one of tech’s most high-profile breakout success stories in recent years, Wiz faces lofty expectations. “The challenge as a leader will continue to be, ‘Does Assaf have the maturity and patience to understand that running at a hundred miles an hour can expose you to things because you haven’t the time, luxury, and sometimes, the wherewithal to slow down and think?’” says Doug Leone. Personally, he remains confident that Rappaport and his co-founders are up to the task, in part because the burden of those expectations is shared equally. “The way they work together is remarkable, they finish each other’s sentences,” says Leone.

Their investors also credit their success, in part, to the founders’ history of operating at scale. “They stayed at Microsoft long enough not only to observe but to be part of the big machine that Microsoft is,” says Balkansky. Their employees credit the economy and pragmatism of their leaders’ decision-making. “In general, when we hear about a new round of funding being raised, we trust our leadership, we trust that it’s because the company needs the funding to explode—to do more things necessary to accomplish our goals. And actually nothing changes, and we just keep running ahead,” says Hazan.

Rappaport continues to credit the relational alchemy that gave him the confidence to build something great before he knew for certain what it was, which now extends beyond the founding team to all of their employees. “The Wizards are the sole architects of our extraordinary growth trajectory and have been the driving force behind our success,” he says. Hazan attests to this belief from Wiz’s leadership. “We continue to feel that this is all of our company,” he says. “The founding team has discussions together with us about the right way to grow and recruit and even acquire new companies, trying to understand how we scale in a healthy way, keeping our standards, keeping our core values.” It’s a growth strategy that comes naturally for a company built on relationships with a product built around transparency and context. Most of all, it’s a mindset predicated on trust in a world increasingly dominated by fear and skepticism—the kind that comes from decades of familiarity and friendship. 

***

In July 2024, rumors started to swirl about a potential Wiz acquisition. Alphabet was reportedly offering the four-year-old company $23 billion, making it the search giant’s largest potential acquisition to date. Days after the news leaked, Rappaport sent an email to his team. “Wizards, I know the last week has been intense, with the buzz about a potential acquisition,” he wrote. “While we are flattered by offers we have received, we have chosen to continue on our path to building Wiz. Let me cut to the chase: our next milestones are $1 billion in ARR and an IPO.” Rappaport didn’t offer much by way of explanation—none of the potential antitrust-related concerns or misaligned negotiations. Instead, he provided a simpler rationale: “Saying no to such humbling offers is tough, but with our exceptional team, I feel confident in making that choice.”

Rappaport is more convinced than ever that his team is capable of executing his ambitious vision for Wiz. He wants to transform what started as a vague idea, grew into a graph, and gradually became a cloud security platform into the essential operating system for the cloud. Shaked puts it this way: “Every day there is something new in the cloud. Let’s talk a little bit about AI—without the context and visibility into the cloud about how new technologies like AI pose potential security risks, companies won’t use them. Or they’ll use them in a manner that might hurt them later,” he says. “We’re looking for Wiz to be something that you cannot adopt a new technology in the cloud without.” Balkansky sees Wiz as “a company with boundless ambition. I would expect them to be like the next Palo Alto Networks. Nothing short of the next essential security platform.”  

Rappaport understands the challenges that come along with ambition at this scale. “Look, it’s hard to be at Wiz. It’s hard to grow a company like this and not ask yourself, ‘Is this real?’ When is somebody going to knock on the door and say, ‘Hey, this is too large for you, you need to move on?’” he says. But he continues to navigate those challenges by relying on the approach that’s served him as CEO from the start. “We started Wiz with just the four of us but then focused on surrounding ourselves with the right people to take it and to scale it,” he says. “I think that the most impact that you have is putting great people together and letting them interact with each other. And we’re still doing this. We’re just four years old and still figuring a lot out. But I think doing it with your friends and the people that you truly trust and love, that’s what keeps us building the strength of the team. It’s what keeps us going.” 

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The post Wiz Spotlight: With a Little Help From Their Friends appeared first on Sequoia Capital.

In 2024, marking 10 years since its launch, Apple Pay now boasts hundreds of millions of consumers in 78 markets, at checkout on millions of websites and apps, in tens of millions of stores worldwide, and is supported by more than 11,000 bank and network partners.

In this episode, a16z General Partner Alex Rampell sits down with Jennifer Bailey, VP of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet, to explore how Apple has transformed digital payments. 

Jennifer reveals how Apple Pay and Apple Wallet have grown beyond payments to include transit cards, car keys, and more. They also discuss the challenges of driving adoption, the future of digital wallets, and Jennifer’s insights for entrepreneurs.

 

Resources: 

Find Jennifer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbaileyz

Find Alex on X: https://x.com/arampell

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

One of the best known educators in the space and OG Bitcoin maxi, Dan Held joined us to discuss his crypto journey from entrepreneur to marketing & growth specialist and why he decided to start the Asymmetric Bitcoin DeFi Fund. Although initially a contentious topic, the emergence of Ordinals revealed Bitcoin’s untapped potential, sparking tremendous interest for Bitcoin L2s and DeFi on the ‘mother chain’. Apart from bringing new utility to the highest liquidity blockchain, the new-found demand for blockspace significantly increased fees, thus incentivising miners to further secure the chain despite halving rewards.

Topics covered in this episode:

Dan’s background ZeroBlock Increasing marketing reach ZeroBlock acquisition & marketing at Kraken Asymmetric Bitcoin DeFi Fund Bitcoin’s history: NFT & DeFi emergence OP_CAT & trustless bridging Bitcoin ‘governance’, forks & BIPs Usecases for DeFi on Bitcoin Bitcoin block reward subsidy and long-term security

Episode links:

Asymmetric on Twitter Dan Held on Twitter Blockchain.com on Twitter Taproot Wizards on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

We’ve just released a fresh update to the Zashi Wallet app, rolling out some highly requested features and design improvements that aim to make your ZEC transactions a smoother and […]

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Bridge and Stripe: A Bridge to the Future

Congratulations to Zach, Sean and the entire team.

By Shaun Maguire and Josephine Chen Published October 21, 2024

Long before we partnered with Bridge, co-founders Zach Abrams and Sean Yu were part of the Sequoia family. They joined Block (then Square) more than a decade ago through the acquisition of Evenly, their first company together—and Sean went on to work at two more companies in our portfolio, Airbnb and DoorDash. In 2023, when they shared their vision for a new stablecoin-based platform that would make all payments seamless with a single API, we were as excited about working with them as we were about their transformative idea.

It was our privilege to lead Bridge’s Series A, and partnering with them has truly been a dream; they are an exceptional team and are the leaders in a rapidly growing market. Their acquisition is a milestone we didn’t plan to reach so soon. But we believe there is incredible synergy between Bridge and Stripe, and that by joining forces they can open up new possibilities for people all over the world—including in emerging markets, where moving money on traditional payment rails is inefficient and expensive. As Stripe co-founder John Collison wrote earlier this year when he announced the company would begin supporting stablecoin payments, “Crypto is back.” In this pivotal moment, today’s announcement makes the future even more bright.

We are also happy that our family ties will remain strong as Zach, Sean and their team join yet another Sequoia-backed business. And we know that this is only the beginning of their story. Over the years, we have been fortunate to partner early with many companies that were later acquired and went on to change the world, including Instagram, YouTube, PayPal and WhatsApp. We believe Bridge will join that list of iconic companies that achieved their full potential after acquisition.

To Zach, Sean and the entire Bridge team, thank you for allowing us to be part of your journey. As you and your new teammates pave the way forward, we are proud to be by your side.

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The post Bridge and Stripe: A Bridge to the Future appeared first on Sequoia Capital.

ECC is committed to deliver digital cash through privacy protocol (Zcash) and product innovation. We believe this is the best strategy to support our mission of economic freedom, including the […]

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Recently, there’s been significant buzz about quantum computing potentially breaching cryptographic algorithms, causing concerns about the security of everything from banking to cryptocurrencies. While these developments are noteworthy, the situation is not as immediate or dire as some headlines suggest. Quantum computing is advancing, but it’s not yet ready to pose a real threat to modern cryptographic systems. However, the threat is growing, and it’s essential to start planning for the post-quantum future.

This article explores how quantum computing is evolving and why it’s important to pay attention. We also explain why the xx network is positioning itself to provide a proactive, quantum-resistant solution for all.

 

The Reality of Quantum Computing: Real Progress, But Far From a Crisis

Yes, quantum computing is advancing. Researchers have recently made progress using quantum annealing to factor a 50-bit number, which is a foundational step toward breaking cryptographic algorithms like RSA. However, despite the hype, this breakthrough is far from compromising the encryption used in today’s systems. For comparison, modern cryptography typically relies on 2048-bit encryption, far beyond the capabilities of current quantum computers.

Quantum computers remain limited by environmental factors and hardware restrictions. Breaking widely used cryptographic algorithms like RSA or ECDSA, which protects Bitcoin and other blockchains, would require stable, error-corrected quantum computers with estimates between 4100-10,000 stable logical qubits. We’re still years away from reaching that level of capability.

 

The Growing Threat: Why We Can’t Ignore Quantum Computing

Even though the situation is not an immediate threat, the potential for quantum computers to break encryption is real and growing. Small but notable progress is inching us closer to a world where quantum computers could eventually crack encryption systems previously thought unbreakable. In the near future, quantum computers might:

Break current cryptographic standards: Quantum computers could bypass encryption used to secure emails, private messages, and cryptocurrency wallets. Undermine blockchain security: Blockchains rely on cryptography for security. Quantum computers could break this encryption, exposing entire networks to theft and manipulation. Compromise Web2 systems: Quantum computing could enable real-time attacks on e-commerce platforms and financial websites, leading to compromised personal information and financial data. Harvest Now Decrypt Later: All of your encrypted data like emails and messages from your favorite messenger that you have sent in your digital lifetime are being stored in data centers, so when the time has arrived adversaries could decrypt ALL of your messages retroactively. Read more about this chilling revelation here.

“It is imperative for all organizations, especially critical infrastructure, to begin preparing now for migration to post-quantum cryptography.” – Jen Easterly, Director of the US Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)

These are some of the reasons why conversations about quantum-safe encryption are more urgent than ever and why forward-thinking projects like the xx network are crucial in the fight against quantum threats.

  How the xx Network Is Positioned as a Quantum-Resistant Solution

The xx network, founded by David Chaum, the “Godfather of Crypto,” is already building the tools and infrastructure to resist quantum threats. Here’s how:

1. Quantum-Resistant Encryption

In discussions around quantum security, experts emphasize the critical role of WOTS+ (Winternitz One-Time Signature) cryptography, which is integrated into the xx network’s Sleeve wallet generation system. This ensures that users have a clear path to upgrade to quantum-resistant wallets. Unlike other blockchain projects that might implement quantum-safe algorithms reactively, xx network’s Sleeve system allows seamless upgrades, enabling users to transition to quantum-safe wallets without the need for manual asset migration.

This foresight is critical as integrating quantum-safe cryptography after the fact can involve significant infrastructure changes and potential security risks. For example, migrating to WOTS+ in an established blockchain ecosystem requires designing new account management systems, as WOTS+ signatures are one-time-use and computationally more complex than ECDSA.

2. cMixx Technology for Privacy

The xx network’s cMixx protocol offers quantum-resistant privacy by anonymizing metadata as well as content, making it incredibly difficult, even for quantum computers, to trace or decipher communications. While other blockchains may secure data, the xx network goes further by ensuring that the context of your communications—who you’re talking to, when, and where—is also protected.

3. Securing Private Keys and Cross-Chain Security

In recent discussions, experts within the quantum security community have pointed out that many blockchains, such as Bitcoin, still rely on ECDSA, which could be vulnerable to quantum attacks in the future. However, wallets using WOTS+ would provide significantly stronger protection against quantum threats. While integrating quantum-safe signatures into existing blockchains is challenging, the xx network’s Sleeve system provides a key advantage by embedding quantum-safe wallets from the start, allowing for seamless upgrades without overhauling the entire infrastructure.

This proactive approach contrasts with other blockchains that may need to implement disruptive upgrades when quantum threats become more immediate.

4. Proactive Rather Than Reactive

Rather than wait until quantum computers are fully capable, the xx network is building quantum-resistant technologies today. Unlike other projects that might have to scramble to update wallet software, the xx network’s Sleeve wallet allows for a smooth transition. The integration of WOTS+ cryptography has already been prototyped and tested, providing a clear upgrade path for xx users, ensuring their assets remain secure in the face of quantum threats.

 

Why the xx Network’s Approach Matters

The looming quantum threat will eventually force a massive overhaul of today’s cryptographic systems. When quantum computers become more capable, much of today’s infrastructure will need to be replaced or significantly upgraded. The xx network, however, is already preparing for this shift by implementing a clear, seamless upgrade path to quantum security, allowing for minimal disruption as the post-quantum era unfolds.

By combining WOTS+ cryptography, cMixx, and cross-chain privacy solutions, the xx network ensures that not just its own native assets but potentially even other blockchain ecosystems can plug into its quantum-safe security. Whether you’re a business, an individual user, or a blockchain project, the xx network offers tools that are future-proofing for the quantum era.

  Conclusion: The Threat Is Real, But Solutions Are Already Here

While quantum computers are not yet ready to break modern cryptography, the day is coming when they will pose a serious threat. Thankfully, the xx network is positioning itself as a leader in quantum-resistant technologies. With solutions like Sleeve, cMixx, and quantum-safe wallet migrations, the xx network is ready to protect your data and communications in a post-quantum world. As the quantum threat grows, the xx network offers the proactive, robust security that the next era of the internet will demand.

The post Quantum Hype or Quantum Hope? The Quantum Challenge and How xx Network Is Solving It. appeared first on xx network.

ZenIP 42407 提案概述了 Horizen 2.0 代币经济学的重大更新，包括向收集者及其委托人分配至关重要的 40% 区块奖励。
随着 Horizen 从工作量证明 (PoW) 过渡到权益证明 (PoS) 模型，收集者的作用对于维护网络的安全性和效率至关重要。
但这不仅仅是 PoS 过渡 – 这种新的分配旨在符合 Horizen 2.0 成为 ZK 行业领导者的愿景，平衡奖励与增长资源以确保长期成功。
首先，让我们了解一些基础知识：
什么是核对者collators？为什么它们很重要？
核对者节点collators通过收集用户的交易并为主链验证者生成状态转换证明来为网络的安全做出贡献。
它们在 Horizen 当前的 PoW 区块链中扮演着与矿工类似的角色，确保网络安全高效地运行。

委托人呢？
在 PoS 系统中，委托人是通过将他们的 $ZEN 与核对者一起质押来支持网络的用户，而无需自己成为验证者。
这允许非技术用户仍然参与网络并获得奖励。作为他们质押的回报，委托人将获得他们选择的核对者产生的部分奖励。
在 @Polkadot wiki 上了解有关核对者的更多信息

为什么要分配 40%？

将 40% 的区块奖励分配给核对者和他们的委托人旨在实现谨慎的平衡：

有竞争力的回报
对核对者和委托人提供有吸引力的激励措施，以保护网络，同时提供被动收入机会。
这有助于确保健康和竞争性的质押环境，这对于维护网络的去中心化和安全性至关重要。

促进生态系统增长
剩余的 60% 则用于开发项目、以 zk 为重点的赠款和长期增长计划。
这一战略反映了 Horizen 的前瞻性方法，确保社区可以投资于基于 zk 的未来，同时保持吸引和留住网络参与者所需的竞争性回报
目标是让 Horizen 对开发人员和用户更易于访问和更强大！

 

要了解有关 @HorizenLabs 为何提议将 40% 的排放量分配给整理者及其委托人的更多信息，请查看完整提案

呼吁所有 Horizen 利益相关者：查看完整提案并加入讨论，帮助塑造 Horizen 的未来！

The post 搞懂Horizen新经济模型中40%的核对者节点奖励 appeared first on Horizen Blog.

The Zcash Foundation has recently released Zebra 2.0.0-rc.0, the first release candidate for NU6. This release includes all of the required consensus rules, functionality and tests for Network Upgrade 6. However, it does NOT yet include the NU6 activation height or current protocol version, both of which will be required in order for Zebra to successfully activate NU6 on mainnet. As such, please note that support for this release candidate is expected to conclude prior to the NU6 activation height.

Additionally, this release includes some updates to the getmininginfo RPC method response and two new generate and stop RPC methods, which are valid for regtest networks only. Other updates to the regtest network mode included adding a halving interval to match zcashd as well as a configurable halving interval for custom testnets.

Other notable changes include the addition of Docker Scout for scanning for vulnerabilities in our docker images.

You can see a full copy of all of the included changes in the v2.0.0-rc.0 Release Notes on GitHub.

We are planning to publish a stable 2.0.0 release in the next couple of weeks, which WILL include the NU6 activation heights and should successfully activate NU6 on mainnet sometime in late November.

The post Zebra NU6 Release Candidate appeared first on Zcash Foundation.

Lisa Su has transformed AMD into a global leader in AI and high-performance computing.

In this episode of the AI Revolution (AIR) series , Bob Swan, a16z Operating Partner and former CEO of Intel, sits down with Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, to discuss how her leadership has propelled AMD’s growth and positioned the company at the forefront of AI innovation.

They explore AMD’s pivotal role in democratizing the benefits of gen AI, the evolution of AI computing, and the importance of open ecosystems and partnerships in driving technological breakthroughs.

Resources: 

Find Lisa on X: https://x.com/lisasu

Find Bob on X: https://x.com/bobswan

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Industry Use Cases and Applications

In today’s digital economy, privacy is an increasing concern, particularly in industries that require client-side confidentiality. While blockchain technology offers transparency, this often comes at the expense of individual privacy. On public blockchains, every transaction is fully visible, which can expose users to potential scrutiny and security risks, especially in sectors where confidentiality is paramount.

Enter Panther Protocol, a Zero-Knowledge-powered decentralized privacy solution. By enabling confidential on-chain transactions, Panther will offer enhanced user privacy while also supporting regulatory reporting. One of the most promising applications of Panther Protocol is its ability to facilitate private payments, especially in industries where confidentiality is paramount. 

How Panther Protocol Ensures Private Payments

Panther Protocol provides a privacy-focused solution through its Multi-Asset Shielded Pool (Shielded Pool), which will enable private and secure transactions. By leveraging Zero-Knowledge proofs (ZK Proofs) and zk-SNARKs, Panther allows users to perform transactions that remain confidential while still being verifiable.

Here’s how it works:

Shielded Transactions: Users will be able to deposit assets (including stablecoins) into the Shielded Pool, generating a shielded representation to be managed within Panther’s Zero-Knowledge layer (zAssets). These zAssets are privacy-enhanced versions of the original tokens that obscure transaction details from public view. Private Payments: With zAssets, users can make private payments within Panther's ecosystem. These payments are shielded from external visibility, preventing third parties from seeing sensitive financial data.  Compliance-Ready Infrastructure: While Panther provides privacy, it also supports third-party compliance integrations such as PureFi, allowing entities to operate within regulatory frameworks where required. Industry Use Cases for Private Payments

As cryptocurrency adoption continues to grow, we are beginning to see the use of crypto as a payment method across various industries. However, each use case brings its own unique risks, including privacy concerns, data exposure, and security vulnerabilities. Public blockchains, where transaction details are fully visible, exacerbate these risks, leaving users and businesses exposed. Panther Protocol aims to address these challenges by enabling private payments across industries, providing confidential transactions while supporting compliance.

Below are some industries already adopting cryptocurrency, where Panther Protocol’s private payments can add value, as well as potential industries for future use cases.

1. E-commerce and Online Retail (Growing Crypto Adoption)

Challenge: As e-commerce and online retail platforms begin adopting cryptocurrency as a payment method, both consumers and merchants face the risk of exposing sensitive transactional information. Transactions made on a transparent blockchain may reveal shopping habits, customer profiles, and even private financial data such as account balances. This lack of privacy leaves users vulnerable to identity theft, fraud, or unwanted tracking by third parties. For merchants, especially those selling high-value goods, exposing their sales data and customer base to competitors could be damaging.

Solution: Panther will be able to provide a way for retailers and consumers to conduct transactions privately, shielding both parties from unwanted exposure. By using Panther’s Shielded Pools, transaction data will remain confidential, protecting buyers’ privacy and ensuring that sensitive business data like pricing and profit margins are not visible to competitors.

Example: A high-end retailer offering luxury goods can accept cryptocurrency payments through Panther Protocol, ensuring that the buyer's identity and transaction details, such as the purchase amount and product specifics, remain confidential. This prevents unwanted profiling and data exploitation, while protecting the retailer's competitive advantage.

2. Gaming and Virtual Goods (Growing Crypto Adoption)

Challenge: The gaming industry is seeing a significant rise in the use of cryptocurrency for in-game purchases, NFTs, and play-to-earn models. However, the transparency of blockchain technology could inadvertently reveal players' in-game activities, assets, and strategies, making them potential targets for bad actors. Revealing one's holdings in competitive games or play-to-earn environments could expose a player to financial loss through hacks or unwanted manipulation.

Solution: Panther Protocol will be able to enable gamers to maintain the privacy of their in-game transactions by shielding the details of asset ownership and trade history. This prevents competitors or malicious actors from analyzing gaming strategies or targeting users with significant virtual assets.

Example: A player in a blockchain-based game could use Panther to privately purchase rare in-game items or trade NFTs without revealing their wallet activity or total in-game assets, safeguarding their competitive advantage and personal security.

3. Real Estate Transactions (Growing Crypto Adoption)

Challenge: As real estate transactions increasingly incorporate cryptocurrency, the stakes of exposing sensitive financial data become higher. Real estate deals involve significant sums of money, and blockchain transparency can reveal details about property ownership, purchase amounts, and contract terms. This not only risks attracting fraudsters but also exposes high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) to privacy concerns, as their financial decisions become publicly available.

Solution: Panther Protocol’s shielded payments will enable secure and private real estate transactions, where both buyers and sellers can maintain the confidentiality of the purchase details. With Panther’s infrastructure, the parties can privately transfer funds and complete real estate deals without revealing details such as purchase amounts, contract terms, or ownership records.

Example: An HNWI purchasing luxury property with cryptocurrency may use Panther Protocol to make confidential on-chain payments, ensuring the financial transaction itself remains private. While ownership and price paid may still be public records, Panther Protocol could help protect sensitive payment details, such as the source of funds and transaction flow, offering an additional layer of financial privacy throughout the process.

Future Opportunities: Industries with Potential for Private Payments

1. Healthcare Payments and Data Privacy

Challenge: The healthcare industry is highly sensitive to privacy concerns, particularly when it comes to medical billing and insurance payments. Transactions that reveal personal health information (PHI), such as billing details for treatments or procedures, can lead to identity theft or violation of data protection regulations like HIPAA. Blockchain transparency could inadvertently expose this information, putting both patients and healthcare providers at risk.

Solution: In the future, Panther could enable private payments in healthcare, ensuring that transactions related to treatments, procedures, and insurance claims remain confidential. By protecting PHI during transactions, Panther would safeguard sensitive patient information while providing healthcare providers with a secure and compliant payment system.

Example: A hospital could use Panther to securely process payments for medical treatments, ensuring that both the patient's identity and the payment details remain private and compliant with healthcare regulations.

2. Enterprise Supply Chain Payments

Challenge: Large corporations often manage complex, multi-party supply chains, which involve numerous transactions and regular payments to suppliers. While blockchain technology offers enhanced transparency and traceability, it also exposes sensitive information such as supplier relationships, pricing structures, and contract terms. Publicly visible transactions can undermine competitive strategies and lead to business risks.

Solution: Panther could offer corporations the ability to make private payments to suppliers, ensuring that critical business information remains confidential. Using Panther, enterprises could settle payments privately with suppliers, safeguarding competitive contract terms and pricing structures from being exposed to competitors or the public.

Example: A global manufacturing company could use Panther to settle payments with its suppliers, ensuring that contract terms, pricing structures, and supplier relationships are protected from public visibility, maintaining the company’s competitive advantage.

3. Legal and Consulting Firms

Challenge: Law firms and consulting agencies frequently handle highly sensitive transactions, such as settlements, advisory fees, and client retainers. If these financial details are exposed on a public blockchain, it could compromise client confidentiality, affect ongoing negotiations, and expose both the firm and its clients to legal risks.

Solution: Panther Protocol could enable legal and consulting firms to securely process payments while maintaining the confidentiality of both the client and the transaction details. This would help firms meet regulatory requirements without compromising the privacy of their clients.

Example: A law firm handling a legal settlement could use Panther to process the payment privately, ensuring that the client’s identity and the amount involved remain confidential and protected from public scrutiny.

4. High-Net-Worth Individuals (HNWIs)

Challenge: HNWIs often require discretion when managing their assets and conducting financial transactions. Transparent blockchain transactions can expose their wealth to risks such as targeted fraud, theft, or unwanted attention from competitors and malicious actors.

Solution: Panther will enable HNWIs to conduct private, secure transactions, protecting their financial privacy when making large purchases, donations, or investments. This ensures that their personal wealth and financial activities remain confidential.

Example: An HNWI investing in private equity or purchasing high-value assets such as real estate could use Panther Protocol to ensure that transaction amounts, asset details, and ownership information remain hidden from the public, reducing the risk of fraud and safeguarding their financial security.

The Future of Private Payments in DeFi

As decentralized finance (DeFi) evolves, the need for privacy solutions that ensure both confidentiality and compliance infrastructure becomes more urgent. Panther Protocol is uniquely positioned to address this demand by offering secure, private payment solutions for individuals and businesses alike. Through its zk-SNARK-powered Shielded Pools and customizable compliance zones, Panther is enabling the next generation of private payments in DeFi.

Panther’s scalable solution has the potential to transform industries already growing in their adoption of cryptocurrency payments, such as e-commerce, gaming, and real estate. By offering the privacy and security that these industries require, Panther can enable seamless crypto payments while protecting sensitive financial data. As more industries begin to explore cryptocurrency, Panther stands ready to provide the infrastructure for private, secure, and compliant transactions, paving the way for a more confidential financial future.

Get involved with Panther Protocol by joining our testnet, and stay informed about our mainnet launch and upcoming developments by subscribing to our updates. Be part of the future of private, secure digital asset transactions.

NSL community mission to pressure test the mixnet with NymVPN

Have you ever just wanted to try to break something? Well that’s what Nym needs all your help to do: break the Nym mixnet!

Ok, not exactly break it: but push it to it’s breaking point, force DNS leaks from every hidden hole, crash the nodes that aren’t up to scratch, flood the Nym customer service channels and devs with so many error reports that heads spin and knees buckle under the weight.

How can we do this? Use and test it on a mass scale.

This is the core mission of the Nym Squad League Fall Season: flood the mixnet with as much traffic as possible through the NymVPN Anonymous Mode so that a bigger and better app can emerge from all the stress.

Unfortunately you won’t get rewarded for breaking specific things — after all, your traffic can’t be linked to you! But you can get rewarded in NYM for your individual and collective contributions. See below for all the details about how to be a part of Nym’s most important NSL mission to date.

The Bring the Noise! mission will run from 14 October to 31 December 2024, so start making your noise today!

Nym noise makers united

The upcoming NymVPN launch will certainly make some noise across the world this season, so join us in the cacophony.

The Nym mixnet generates noise: these are network techniques designed to confuse surveillance efforts and increase the anonymity of everyone using the network.

One type of noise is cover traffic which increases the volume of traffic flowing through the network to make user traffic patterns hard to ascertain. This “dummy” traffic is composed of Sphinx data packets that look exactly like real packets but are in fact empty. Other types of noise include data mixing and timing obfuscation which cloak your online traffic patterns like no other technology can.

Everytime you send your traffic through the mixnet via the NymVPN Anonymous Mode, you will be making the whole network noisier and thus more private and resilient for every Nym user. The bigger the crowd, the harder tracking anyone will be! That’s where the Nym community comes in for one of the most important NSL missions to date: let’s increase the size of the mixnet crowd.

What to do

First, make sure to get the latest version of NymVPN on your device(s).

The goal is simple: use the NymVPN Anonymous Mode as much as possible this season and contribute to a massive collective stress test of the network.

Mission reports

To be eligible for rewards, users are required to share submissions/reports. These reports will serve as your “proof-of-work” for earning rewards.

To submit your report:

Visit the NSL’s Submissions category on the forum Click on the “Create new topic” button Select the “making-noise” mission tag in the optional tags section and post your report What to include in your report

Keep in mind, 00:01:43 isn’t going to win much, so see how far it can go with all kinds of traffic: email, messaging, browsing — try, it works!

Share screenshots of your connection time from the NymVPN home screen Tweet * the picture to @nymproject with the hashtags #NYM #Privacy #CoverTraffic Share your posts on Nym Discord & Telegram chats Compile links to your posts on the forum with the tag “making-noise” every month to claim your points

*The Twitter/X account that you tweet from must have at least 100 followers

Want to go the extra mile?

In addition, don’t forget to report errors, connection problems, down entry and exit gateways, and user experience issues to the Nym Customer Service center.

Rewards

There are two types of rewards:

Claim up to 50 NSL points daily after submitting your monthly mission report An additional 1000 $NYM will be rewarded monthly to one member who stays connected the longest! Simply submit a screenshot of your longest session A noisy network for a private world

It’s not enough to design a great piece of technology: it also needs to be thoroughly tested out in the wild. With your help this season, NymVPN will be birthed into the world at the end of this year battle-tested and ready to deliver its promise: to bring true online privacy to all of humanity

Surveillance technologies will only become more and more efficient at tracking everything we do, finding signals in even complex networks. Help Nym make the mixnet so noisy that all our personally identifiable signals and patterns will simply be lost in the power of the crowd.

In the end, there isn’t a crowd without you.

Join the Nym Community

Discord // Telegram // Element // Twitter

Privacy loves company

English // 中文 // Русский // Türkçe // Tiếng Việt // 日本 // Française // Español // Português // 한국인

Bring the Noise! was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Panther Ventures Limited (PVL) hosted an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on October 7th, 2024. The event provided the Panther community with key updates on the protocol's development, technical progress, market positioning, and organizational restructuring. The panel featured Panther co-founders Anish Mohammed and Oliver Gale, along with Head of Product, Saif Akhtar. First, the panel addressed pre-collected questions from Panther's official Telegram community before opening the floor to live questions from the audience. This summary highlights the key themes and insights shared during the discussion

On Development and Technical Progress

During the AMA, key updates were provided on Panther Protocol’s development and technical advancements. The protocol is nearing completion, with core features—such as KYC (Know Your Customer) and KYT (Know Your Transaction)—already operational in the testnet environment. However, evolving regulatory requirements have necessitated several refactorings to ensure the protocol’s Smart Compliance toolset aligns with the needs of regulated market operators, a primary focus for the team.

Currently, the protocol is undergoing rigorous audits from Veridise, including reviews of smart contracts and Zero-Knowledge circuits. Additional security measures, such as a front-end audit and penetration testing, are planned to ensure the technology stack remains secure and compliant with industry standards.

Looking ahead, the panel reported that the project’s timeline is advancing at an accelerated pace. Stage 7 has been completed, and Stage 8 is currently in internal testing, with open testing expected to begin soon. Stage 9 is expected to follow closely and be completed in the following weeks.

The development contributors are on track to deliver V1 of the protocol to the Panther Protocol Foundation (PPF) by the end of this year. 

To optimize performance and scalability, Panther Protocol is also addressing technical debt and implementing key enhancements, including increasing Merkle tree capacity and adopting diamond proxy patterns, ensuring the protocol is efficient and scalable as it approaches full deployment.

Marketing, Customer Engagement, and Ecosystem Growth

The AMA panel shed light on Panther Protocol’s strategy for building a strong customer base and positioning itself within the market. As the project nears production readiness, marketing efforts have intensified to boost brand awareness and generate leads. A key part of this strategy is partnering with one of crypto’s leading Public Relations agencies,  Luna PR (Luna). Luna will focus on augmenting Panther’s reputation by reaching a broader audience and securing the necessary visibility through earned media, social media and more, as the protocol approaches its launch.

Establishing a customer base has been a central part of Panther’s long-term strategy. Rather than targeting individual end users, Panther is focusing on partnerships with regulated entities, such as asset managers. Recently, PVL has also begun exploring alternative use cases in other sectors that may potentially require confidentiality in payments, including healthcare providers, and online gaming platforms. These partnerships are vital to Panther’s goal of providing private DeFi solutions to a wide range of industries adopting crypto for payments, offering significant potential for cross-sector adoption where privacy and compliance are critical.

When asked about revenue generation, the panel advised that while PVL is ultimately not responsible for the protocol’s revenue model,the expectation is that the Foundation will leverage its substantial treasury for ecosystem growth, incentivizing developers, partners, and Zone Managers to adopt and expand Panther’s infrastructure. 

Panther is strategically focused on ensuring that its offerings reach the right stakeholders and industries. The protocol's near-term readiness and compliance-driven approach make it a compelling option for businesses looking to adopt privacy-enhanced financial services. Through these strategic efforts, Panther aims to position itself as a leader in privacy-focused DeFi solutions as it approaches V1 readiness.

Organizational Foundation

The AMA panel also relayed PPF’s intentions regarding the Foundation’s intention to  restructure, with Switzerland identified as a choice jurisdiction. This framework is an important pillar of Panther Protocol’s ability to function in alignment with global regulatory standards, particularly given the complexity of the decentralized finance (DeFi) space.

PVL, the software engineering agency developing the protocol, is leading development efforts. However, the panelists noted that PPF plans to transition key responsibilities to a newly created Swiss Foundation, which will eventually oversee the protocol’s governance and operational decisions, including determining the official launch date.

The panel also emphasized Panther’s work in fostering partnerships with regulated entities for deploying Zones. The panel expressed optimism that these partnerships could come to fruition within 2024. These partnerships are central to Panther’s objective of offering privacy-enhanced financial services within compliant, regulated environments. 

By laying a strong structural foundation, Panther positions itself for long-term success, providing confidential transaction infrastructure for decentralized finance.

Conclusion

As Panther Protocol approaches its V1 launch, the team is focused on finalizing its testnet, delivering the final features, and conducting thorough audits and testing. Simultaneously, efforts are being made to build market interest, raise awareness, and establish legal structures to support the protocol’s long-term success.

From a cross-platform media company, to launching their own conference and, more recently, an advisory branch, Blockworks has seen and done it all. We couldn’t miss Permissionless III, one of the largest crypto conferences in the US, where we sat down with Jason Yanowitz to discuss emerging trends in the industry and where the attention might shift over the coming months.

Topics covered in this episode:

Blockworks’ evolution The crypto conference landscape Blockworks advisory Apps & infrastructure Regulations ZK & AI Stablecoins Podcasting

Episode links:

Jason Yanowitz on Twitter Blockworks on Twitter Permissionless on Twitter Empire Podcast on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture, Friederike Ernst & Sunny Aggarwal.

The problem with metadata

Anyone who has seen a police procedural or spy dramas knows the scenario: a suspect is tracked down not by the content of their messages, but by their phone activity and contacts. The information about who they called or communicated with, when they did it, and how often—that’s all metadata. What many people don’t realize is that this type of data is often much easier to access and analyze than the content of the communication itself.

What is Metadata?

Metadata is data that describes other data. For example, it could include information about when and where a photo was taken or the technical details of a file. Websites, for instance, rely on metadata to help search engines index them properly. Metadata plays an important role in making digital information easier to manage, but it can also expose sensitive details about our digital behavior.

In the world of messaging and online communication, metadata includes details about who is communicating with whom, when the communication happens, and how much data is exchanged. While it doesn’t reveal the content of the communication, it can still be incredibly revealing. Knowing who spoke with whom and when can be enough to draw detailed conclusions about someone’s life, social network, and daily routines.

How is Metadata Collected?

Metadata is generated automatically when we use digital services, from websites to messaging apps. In many cases, it’s a crucial part of how these systems function. For example, search engines need metadata to find websites, and messaging services use it to route and deliver messages. However, while the content of messages is often protected by end-to-end encryption, metadata typically isn’t.

This leaves metadata vulnerable to being collected and analyzed. A service provider—or in some cases, third parties—can examine this data to learn a surprising amount about a person’s behavior. For instance, researchers have been able to analyze messaging app metadata to reconstruct daily routines, such as what time someone wakes up, based on when they send their first message. The patterns of communication can also reveal connections between people, even without access to the actual content of their messages.

The Risks of Metadata Exposure

The problem with metadata is that it accumulates everywhere in the digital world, and it’s difficult to avoid. Simply using a messaging app generates metadata, such as the time and frequency of communications. Even though the content of the message is encrypted, the metadata remains exposed. 

In some cases, this can be especially problematic. For example, during protests or in politically sensitive situations, metadata can reveal not just who is communicating, but also where they are, thanks to the geographic information linked to IP addresses. Turning on airplane mode or using privacy-focused messaging apps that collect less metadata can help reduce exposure, but these steps only go so far.

How Can We Protect Our Metadata? 

There are already various methods for reducing metadata exposure. One example is Sealed Sending, a technique where messages are sent without revealing the sender’s identity—similar to dropping off a letter at the post office without a return address. However, even this doesn’t fully solve the problem. It’s still possible to infer who is communicating with whom based on the size and timing of the data exchanges. If IP address 1 sends a packet of data to a server and then the server sends an identical packet of data to IP address 2, it’s easy to conclude that IP 1 is communicating with IP 2.

IP addresses themselves are another source of metadata vulnerability. They can reveal not only who is communicating, but also provide clues about a user’s physical location. This can be a concern not just for messaging service providers, but also for any third parties that may have access to this data.

The Solution: Metadata Shredding 

For truly robust privacy protection, a more advanced solution is needed: metadata shredding. This approach involves making metadata completely unrecognizable by mixing it into large sets of anonymized data, often referred to as “anonymity sets.” By doing this, neither service providers nor third parties can track communication patterns or link senders to receivers.

The key advantage of metadata shredding is that it offers comprehensive privacy protection. Both the content of the messages and the metadata are kept private, making it impossible to draw conclusions about who is communicating or when. While this technique has primarily been applied to messaging services, it also has potential applications in payment systems and other online activities where metadata exposure is a concern.

As privacy becomes an increasing concern in today’s digital age, metadata shredding offers a promising solution to one of the more subtle but serious risks associated with online communication.

The post Metadata Shredding: Protecting Your Privacy in a Digital World appeared first on xx network.

Deepfakes—AI-generated fake videos and voices—have become a widespread concern across politics, social media, and more. As they become easier to create, the threat grows. But so do the tools to detect them.

In this episode, Vijay Balasubramaniyan, cofounder and CEO of Pindrop, joins a16z’s Martin Casado to discuss how deepfakes work, how easily they can be made, and what defenses we have. They’ll also explore the role of policy and regulation in this rapidly changing space.

Have we lost control of the truth? Listen to find out.

Resources:

Find Vijay on Twitter: https://x.com/vijay_voice

Find Martin on Twitter: https://x.com/martin_casado

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Fellow Panthers, 

Welcome to our September recap—an exciting month of growth for Panther. From major crypto events to new partnerships and significant product development progress, we saw significant momentum. 

Tech updates: 

On the heels of Stage 7, which introduced key features like test swaps and data escrow, the Panther technical team has been working diligently to finalize Stage 8. This stage brings several major enhancements, including:

UTXO management improvements for more efficient transactions Critical compliance-support mechanisms Streamlined Automatic Market Maker (AMM) replenishment Improved smart contract capacity  Enhanced taxi Merkle tree management Fixes and enhancements based on Stage 7’s community feedback

Stage 8 is expected to be released in the coming days. For more information, stay tuned to our blog and social media. 

In September, Panther’s tech team also began work on zTrade, the protocol’s OTC-style trading feature set, and Veridise began auditing Panther’s final codebase.

Panther at Token2049

Co-founders Anish Mohammed and Oliver Gale represented Panther at Token2049 Singapore, one of the blockchain industry’s largest and most influential events.

 

Anish took the stage at Token2049 at the <AI/ALL> Summit, where he hosted a panel discussion, “Key challenges in building decentralized AI Infrastructure”.Joining him were Ben Fielding (Co-Founder, Gensyn), ​Greg Osuri (Founder, Akash Network), and ​David Johnston (Founder, Morpheus). 

Oliver was interviewed by Karnika E. Yashwant of Cryptopolitan.com, where he discussed Panther’s innovative approach to addressing the confidentiality challenges inherent in pseudonymous blockchains. 

Panther on X Spaces

Hundreds tuned into X Spaces to listen to a panel discussion on “Data in the new Agent-Driven AI Era”, where Anish represented Panther in an AMA-style event. He joined co-panelists from DeAgent AI, Tagger AI and Titan Network to explore the evolving role of data in the AI-driven future.

Partnership News Luna PR

In September, Panther announced two new partnerships, including the engagement of Luna PR as its Public Relations agency. As Panther ramps up its overall marketing efforts ahead of its final testnet stages and then its V1 launch.  Luna, a global award-winning public relations and marketing agency, will focus on enahncing Panther’s reputation among Financial Service Providers, developers and the broader DeFi community. 

Rivo.XYZ

We also announced a marketing partnership with Rivo.XYZ, a revolutionary one-click investment platform aimed to disrupt the $35B crypto yield industry. 

This partnerships will focus  on cross-community initiatives between the two organizations. Stay tuned for more exciting details. 

Conclusion

September marked significant progress in Panther Protocol's journey. Our technical advancements, growing market presence, and strategic partnerships are accelerating our progress toward launching a robust, confidentiality-preserving DeFi ecosystem. 

As we approach our V1 release, each milestone - from protocol enhancements to new features like zTrade - brings us closer to our vision of redefining privacy in blockchain. With ongoing audits and community support, we're not just building a protocol; we're laying the foundation for a more secure and private digital asset future.

Stay tuned for more updates as we ramp up to our V1. 

Disclaimer

For the avoidance of doubt, tZKP, tzZKP, tPRP, test MATIC, and any other tokens mentioned in this announcement or within the product are for testing purposes only and have no economic value, nor can they be exchanged for value. 

Participation on our incentivized Testnet versions may result in you earning rewards, but such credits are not represented on any blockchain as tokens.

Recent announcements by governments in Russia and Turkey to ban communication platforms like Discord underscore a troubling trend: the use of legitimate challenges such as crime, cyberbullying, and wartime security concerns to justify stripping everyday citizens of their fundamental right to private communication. These decisions, often framed as necessary for national security or social protection, ultimately punish ordinary citizens by curtailing their ability to freely communicate, share ideas, and build communities.

Private communication is not a luxury; it is a cornerstone of human freedom, enabling creativity, innovation, and social growth. Without it, individuals risk losing their voice, becoming passive recipients of government-controlled narratives. As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, the need for private, secure communication has only grown, not diminished. The rapid exchange of information is essential for both personal development and societal progress.

While Russia and Turkey point to the dangers posed by illegal activities—whether in the context of war, terrorism, or child exploitation—it is misguided to punish millions of law-abiding users for the actions of relatively few individuals. Blocking platforms like Discord not only disrupts social connections and collaborative efforts but also stifles the very creativity that fuels innovation and social progress. By focusing on banning the platform itself, these governments are avoiding the real issue: the need for stronger enforcement and smarter regulation that targets the perpetrators of harmful behavior without infringing on the rights of citizens.

Furthermore, the use of private communication is crucial in contexts far beyond gaming or casual conversation. It is an essential tool for journalists, human rights activists, whistleblowers, and political dissidents who rely on encrypted communication to expose corruption, advocate for justice, and uphold democratic values. Silencing these voices under the guise of “national security” creates an environment where only the state-controlled narrative can thrive.

A world without private communication is a world without freedom. And as governments begin to crack down on private communication tools, it’s essential to remember that this type of censorship doesn’t just impact those directly targeted—it impacts the broader ecosystem of creativity, innovation, and freedom.

The Haven Solution: Privacy Beyond Control

This brings us to a powerful alternative that can protect private communication while addressing the challenges posed by crime and warfare: Haven, a groundbreaking social media app built with xx network technology. Haven secures communications between groups and individuals, ensuring that no one can compromise users’ privacy. Built on cutting-edge cryptography and the cMixx protocol, Haven guarantees anonymity and security for all interactions, fostering an environment where human potential can flourish without fear of surveillance or censorship.

We believe in a future where communication remains free, private, and secure. Haven is more than just an app; it’s a movement towards reclaiming privacy as a human right. Let us come together to protect this right, ensuring that no government can strip individuals of their ability to communicate freely.

If you believe in the power of private communication and the essential role it plays in freedom and human potential, join us on https://haven.xx.network. Together, we can protect our voices and ensure that communication remains secure and private for all.

Start using Haven today and take back your right to secure, private communication.

The post Haven: Communication for Freedom and Human Potential appeared first on xx network.

Communication is the foundation of the Internet. Social media, news, shopping, and educational platforms are all underpinned by the ability to communicate across the world, at any time, with anyone. We form relationships, we learn, we grow, and we share our lives and our secrets online – and up until now, we’ve done it by selling our identities to the most powerful companies in the world.

The xx network is a revolution in the way we build and use the communications platforms that make the Internet so ubiquitous in our daily lives. The xx network provides private communications infrastructure that isn’t owned by a corporation, individual, or government. On top of that, the xx network can’t scoop up your data or your identity, and it can’t be censored – nor be discovered – even by the most determined actors. Ensured by cryptography, the xx network is owned and operated by its users, meaning you can run the servers and make the decisions.

The xx coin represents your voice in the network. It’s used to vote, exchange value, and incentivize you to run a server or node, and it gives uncensorable access to the most private decentralized communications network in the world. The full rundown on the xx network’s tokenomics can be found here, and we’ve put together a high-level overview of the xx coin below for those of you who are interested in helping build a truly protected digital society.

What is xx coin?

xx coin is the native digital currency of the xx network. This secure digital currency can be traded among individuals and institutions and all xx coin wallets are embedded with quantum-secure keys which will protect your assets in the event of a quantum computing breakthrough.

On top of that, xx coin plays an essential role in incentivizing network participation and decentralized governance through xx network’s multifaceted, tokenized reward structure.

xx Governance & Rewards

The xx chain uses a Nominated Proof of Stake (NPoS) protocol to secure the network economically. The network’s decentralized governance mechanisms allow every xx coin holder to propose, second, and vote in the referendums that shape the network. These referendums may modify the code of the network, add new features, change economic structures, and control just about every aspect of the platform.

More specifically, the xx network will use nominated staking to incentivize all coin holders to participate in node selection, operation, bonding, and governance. There are four main ways to contribute to the xx network and start earning xx coins: 

Run an active node: xx coin holders can become an xx network node operator and earn xx coins in exchange for helping secure the network. Prospective validators must stake a minimum of 1,000 xx coins and attract nominations and stakes from the community to be elected. Once elected, every validator is equal, meaning their xx coin staking rewards are not proportional to the validator’s stake, but rather determined by a point-based system that measures each validator’s relative blockchain performance (uptime, block production, etc.). Today, it takes over 100k xx in nominations to become a node on the xx network blockchain. Nominate an active node: xx network users who do not want to become validators can stake their coins and nominate validators in order to vote on governance proposals and nominate nodes in the network. These Nominators earn interest on the tokens they have staked on active nodes every “era” according to an interest rate curve and the specific commission and performance of the node. Nominations of active nodes can be manually chosen via the Build an xx app: The xx Foundation has launched a special grant initiative to jumpstart the development and deployment of privacy preserving  dApps using the xxDK. The program will award individual grants of up to 1,000,000 xx coins for each successful submission, from an initial pool of 10,000,000 xx coins, and the xx Foundation will also be involved as advisors for every grant project accepted at this stage. Grow the xx ecosystem: the xx network’s treasury was created to fund bounties and rewards for ongoing development of the xx ecosystem through activities proposed by the council, the tech committee, or the community at large. Join the xx Discord and Telegram to learn more about new community initiatives and contribute new ideas for how to grow the xx ecosystem.

xx nodes are essential to the security and core operations of the xx network, and node rewards are composed of a share of the fees paid into the network plus an inflationary reward of newly minted xx coins. That said, we understand that running a full node requires some expertise, time, and money to acquire and maintain the requisite computing hardware and minimum bond amount. That’s why we’ve incorporated node nominations and other reward mechanisms – so every active xx user has the ability to participate in xx network’s governance and development and earn xx coins for their contributions.

xx coin Ecosystem Usage

The xx network was founded on the belief that no matter where you are in the world, you should be able to communicate and transact privately without worrying about whether your digital footprint can be viewed or compromised by any external party. That’s why our open-source technology is designed to enable two primary functions: private communications and secure payments, both of which are planned to rely on a mix of free and paid “postage,” the unit that quantifies the amount of computing power and bandwidth required to transmit data privately across the xx network.

Private communications: Usage of the xx network’s private communication layer is designed to be accessible to anyone with a suitable mobile phone. The system is currently designed to be free to use for xx user accounts who stake or burn a small number of xx coins in order to acquire free postage. 

This allotted free postage is sufficient for most users’ day-to-day messaging needs. However, organizations and independent developers who want to deploy and operate dApps and smart contracts on the xx network will need to pay for additional bandwidth using xx coins. In the future, we will roll out additional mechanisms for acquiring and using free postage in order to benefit regular xx users, but the demand for xx coin will continue to grow as more privacy-minded businesses and builders use the xx network to communicate en masse.

Secure payments: Every xx coin on the network is held in an account or wallet that is seeded with the strongest type of quantum-secure cryptography known. This ensures that, unlike traditional banking or other cryptocurrencies, not only are your individual coins protected from the rapid development of quantum computers, but just as importantly the infrastructure securing your coins is protected from systemic risk.

While xx network messaging is currently free to use, the xx community may adopt a postage system in which all xx coin holders would have rate-limited access to the network depending on their needs. As envisioned, all xx accounts would automatically accrue free postage gradually over time to ensure that xx network remains universally accessible. Advanced messaging functionality, enterprise adoption, and integration with other blockchains or dApps will require additional postage gained by purchasing xx coins. The xx network’s unique network architecture is structured in a way that enables every new node to provide additional transaction processing power and relay capacity. This means that as the number of xx nodes increases, both security and performance improve. These scaling characteristics thereby enable a virtuous cycle of growth, in which validator revenue increases as network utilization increases, which then allows the network to onboard and support additional nodes and further increase capacity.

xx coin and the Future of Privacy

xx network’s economic model is designed to accelerate the inherent utility of a scalable, quantum-secure coin and leverage the growth and versatility of the platform’s native private messaging functionalities. In that respect, we believe the xx coin is essential to the future of online privacy.

We believe that your financial life and activity should be enriched and not threatened by technology, and our entire privacy-enhancing ecosystem is underpinned by xx coin, in terms of both on-chain governance and dApp development and usage. The positive flywheel effects made possible through the xx network’s quantum-resistant, stake-based consensus protocols enable the user growth and scale required to create a truly global, truly decentralized community of users.

The post The xx coin: What Is It? appeared first on xx network.

Generative AI’s Act o1 By Sonya Huang, Pat Grady, and o1 Published October 9, 2024 The Agentic Reasoning Era Begins

Two years into the Generative AI revolution, research is progressing the field from “thinking fast”—rapid-fire pre-trained responses—to “thinking slow”— reasoning at inference time. This evolution is unlocking a new cohort of agentic applications. 

On the second anniversary of our essay “Generative AI: A Creative New World,” the AI ecosystem looks very different, and we have some predictions for what’s on the horizon.

The foundation layer of the Generative AI market is stabilizing in an equilibrium with a key set of scaled players and alliances, including Microsoft/OpenAI, AWS/Anthropic, Meta and Google/DeepMind. Only scaled players with economic engines and access to vast sums of capital remain in play. While the fight is far from over (and keeps escalating in a game-theoretic fashion), the market structure itself is solidifying, and it’s clear that we will have increasingly cheap and plentiful next-token predictions.

As the LLM market structure stabilizes, the next frontier is now emerging. The focus is shifting to the development and scaling of the reasoning layer, where “System 2” thinking takes precedence. Inspired by models like AlphaGo, this layer aims to endow AI systems with deliberate reasoning, problem-solving and cognitive operations at inference time that go beyond rapid pattern matching. And new cognitive architectures and user interfaces are shaping how these reasoning capabilities are delivered to and interact with users. 

What does all of this mean for founders in the AI market? What does this mean for incumbent software companies? And where do we, as investors, see the most promising layer for returns in the Generative AI stack?

In our latest essay on the state of the Generative AI market, we’ll explore how the consolidation of the foundational LLM layer has set the stage for the race to scale these higher-order reasoning and agentic capabilities, and discuss a new generation of “killer apps” with novel cognitive architectures and user interfaces.

Strawberry Fields Forever

The most important model update of 2024 goes to OpenAI with o1, formerly known as Q* and also known as Strawberry. This is not just a reassertion of OpenAI’s rightful place atop the model quality leaderboards, but also a notable improvement on the status quo architecture. More specifically, this is the first example of a model with true general reasoning capabilities, which they’ve achieved with inference-time compute. 

What does that mean? Pre-trained models are doing next token prediction on an enormous amount of data. They rely on “training-time compute.” An emergent property of scale is basic reasoning, but this reasoning is very limited. What if you could teach a model to reason more directly? This is essentially what’s happening with Strawberry. When we say “inference-time compute” what we mean is asking the model to stop and think before giving you a response, which requires more compute at inference time (hence “inference-time compute”). The “stop and think” part is reasoning. 

AlphaGo x LLMs

So what is the model doing when it stops and thinks?

Let’s first take a quick detour to March 2016 in Seoul. One of the most seminal moments in deep learning history took place here: AlphaGo’s match against legendary Go master Lee Sedol. This wasn’t just any AI-vs-human match—it was the moment the world saw AI do more than just mimic patterns. It was thinking.

What made AlphaGo different from previous gameplay AI systems, like Deep Blue? Like LLMs, AlphaGo was first pre-trained to mimic human experts from a database of roughly 30 million moves from previous games and more from self-play. But rather than provide a knee jerk response that comes out of the pre-trained model, AlphaGo takes the time to stop and think. At inference time, the model runs a search or simulation across a wide range of potential future scenarios, scores those scenarios, and then responds with the scenario (or answer) that has the highest expected value. The more time AlphaGo is given, the better it performs. With zero inference-time compute, the model can’t beat the best human players. But as the inference time scales, AlphaGo gets better and better—until it surpasses the very best humans.

Let’s bring it back to the LLM world. What’s hard about replicating AlphaGo here is constructing the value function, or the function by which the responses are scored. If you’re playing Go, it’s more straightforward: you can simulate the game all the way to the end, see who wins, and then calculate an expected value of the next move. If you’re coding, it’s somewhat straightforward: you can test the code and see if it works. But how do you score the first draft of an essay? Or a travel itinerary? Or a summary of key terms in a long document? This is what makes reasoning hard with current methods, and it’s why Strawberry is comparatively strong on domains proximate to logic (e.g. coding, math, the sciences) and not as strong in domains that are more open-ended and unstructured (e.g. writing). 

While the actual implementation of Strawberry is a closely guarded secret, the key ideas involve reinforcement learning around the chains of thought generated by the model. Auditing the model’s chains of thought suggests that something fundamental and exciting is happening that actually resembles how humans think and reason. For example, o1 is showing the ability to backtrack when it gets stuck as an emergent property of scaling inference time. It is also showing the ability to think about problems the way a human would (e.g. visualize the points on a sphere to solve a geometry problem) and to think about problems in new ways (e.g. solving problems in programming competitions in a way that humans would not). 

And there is no shortage of new ideas to push forward inference-time compute (e.g. new ways of calculating the reward function, new ways of closing the generator/verifier gap) that research teams are working on as they try to improve the model’s reasoning capabilities. In other words, deep reinforcement learning is cool again, and it’s enabling an entire new reasoning layer.

System 1 vs System 2 Thinking

This leap from pre-trained instinctual responses (”System 1”) to deeper, deliberate reasoning (“System 2”) is the next frontier for AI. It’s not enough for models to simply know things—they need to pause, evaluate and reason through decisions in real time.

Think of pre-training as the System 1 layer. Whether a model is pre-trained on millions of moves in Go (AlphaGo) or petabytes of internet-scale text (LLMs), its job is to mimic patterns—whether that’s human gameplay or language. But mimicry, as powerful as it is, isn’t true reasoning. It can’t properly think its way through complex novel situations, especially those out of sample.

This is where System 2 thinking comes in, and it’s the focus of the latest wave of AI research. When a model “stops to think,” it isn’t just generating learned patterns or spitting out predictions based on past data. It’s generating a range of possibilities, considering potential outcomes and making a decision based on reasoning. 

For many tasks, System 1 is more than enough. As Noam Brown pointed out on our latest episode of Training Data, thinking for longer about what the capital of Bhutan is doesn’t help—you either know it or you don’t. Quick, pattern-based recall works perfectly here.

But when we look at more complex problems—like breakthroughs in mathematics or biology—quick, instinctive responses don’t cut it. These advances required deep thinking, creative problem-solving and—most importantly—time. The same is true for AI. To tackle the most challenging, meaningful problems, AI will need to evolve beyond quick in-sample responses and take its time to come up with the kind of thoughtful reasoning that defines human progress.

A New Scaling Law: The Inference Race is On

The most important insight from the o1 paper is that there’s a new scaling law in town.

Pre-training LLMs follows a well understood scaling law: the more compute and data you spend on pre-training the model, the better it performs. 

The o1 paper has opened up an entire new plane for scaling compute: the more inference-time (or “test-time”)  compute you give the model, the better it reasons.

Source: OpenAI o1 technical report

What happens when the model can think for hours? Days? Decades? Will we solve the Riemann Hypothesis? Will we answer Asimov’s last question?

This shift will move us from a world of massive pre-training clusters toward inference clouds—environments that can scale compute dynamically based on the complexity of the task.

One Model to Rule Them All?

What happens as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta scale their reasoning layers and develop more and more powerful reasoning machines? Will we have one model to rule them all?

One hypothesis at the outset of the Generative AI market was that a single model company would become so powerful and all-encompassing that it would subsume all other applications. This prediction has been wrong so far in two ways.

First, there is plenty of competition at the model layer, with constant leapfrogging for SOTA capabilities. It’s possible that someone figures out continuous self-improvement with broad domain self play and achieves takeoff, but at the moment we have seen no evidence of this. Quite to the contrary, the model layer is a knife-fight, with price per token for GPT-4 coming down 98% since the last dev day.

Second, the models have largely failed to make it into the application layer as breakout products, with the notable exception of ChatGPT. The real world is messy. Great researchers don’t have the desire to understand the nitty gritty end-to-end workflows of every possible function in every possible vertical. It is both appealing and economically rational for them to stop at the API, and let the developer universe worry about the messiness of the real world. Good news for the application layer. 

The Messy Real World: Custom Cognitive Architectures

The way you plan and prosecute actions to reach your goals as a scientist is vastly different from how you would work as a software engineer. Moreover, it’s even different as a software engineer at different companies.

As the research labs further push the boundaries on horizontal general-purpose reasoning, we still need application or domain-specific reasoning to deliver useful AI agents. The messy real world requires significant domain and application-specific reasoning that cannot efficiently be encoded in a general model.

Enter cognitive architectures, or how your system thinks: the flow of code and model interactions that takes user input and performs actions or generates a response.

For example, in the case of Factory, each of their “droid” products has a custom cognitive architecture that mimics the way that a human thinks to solve a specific task, like reviewing pull requests or writing and executing a migration plan to update a service from one backend to another. The Factory droid will break down all of the dependencies, propose the relevant code changes, add unit tests and pull in a human to review. Then after approval, run the changes across all of the files in a dev environment and merge the code if all the tests pass. Just like how a human might do it—in a set of discrete tasks rather than one generalized, black box answer.

What’s Happening with Apps?

Imagine you want to start a business in AI. What layer of the stack do you target? Do you want to compete on infra? Good luck beating NVIDIA and the hyperscalers. Do you want to compete on the model? Good luck beating OpenAI and Mark Zuckerberg. Do you want to compete on apps? Good luck beating corporate IT and global systems integrators. Oh. Wait. That actually sounds pretty doable!

Foundation models are magic, but they’re also messy. Mainstream enterprises can’t deal with black boxes, hallucinations and clumsy workflows. Consumers stare at a blank prompt and don’t know what to ask. These are opportunities in the application layer. 

Two years ago, many application layer companies were derided as “just a wrapper on top of GPT-3.” Today those wrappers turn out to be one of the only sound methods to build enduring value. What began as “wrappers” have evolved into “cognitive architectures.”

Application layer AI companies are not just UIs on top of a foundation model. Far from it. They have sophisticated cognitive architectures that typically include multiple foundation models with some sort of routing mechanism on top, vector and/or graph databases for RAG, guardrails to ensure compliance, and application logic that mimics the way a human might think about reasoning through a workflow.

Service-as-a-Software

The cloud transition was software-as-a-service. Software companies became cloud service providers. This was a $350B opportunity.
Thanks to agentic reasoning, the AI transition is service-as-a-software. Software companies turn labor into software. That means the addressable market is not the software market, but the services market measured in the trillions of dollars.

What does it mean to sell work? Sierra is a good example. B2C companies put Sierra on their website to talk with customers. The job-to-be-done is to resolve a customer issue. Sierra gets paid per resolution. There is no such thing as “a seat”. You have a job to be done. Sierra does it. They get paid accordingly. 

This is the true north for many AI companies. Sierra benefits from having a graceful failure mode (escalation to a human agent). Not all companies are so lucky. An emerging pattern is to deploy as a copilot first (human-in-the-loop) and use those reps to earn the opportunity to deploy as an autopilot (no human in the loop). GitHub Copilot is a good example of this. 

A New Cohort of Agentic Applications

With Generative AI’s budding reasoning capabilities, a new class of agentic applications is starting to emerge.

What shape do these application layer companies take? Interestingly, these companies look different than their cloud predecessors: 

Cloud companies targeted the software profit pool. AI companies target the services profit pool.  Cloud companies sold software ($ / seat). AI companies sell work ($ / outcome) Cloud companies liked to go bottoms-up, with frictionless distribution. AI companies are increasingly going top-down, with high-touch, high-trust delivery models. 

We are seeing a new cohort of these agentic applications emerge across all sectors of the knowledge economy. Here are some examples.

Harvey: AI lawyer Glean: AI work assistant  Factory: AI software engineer Abridge: AI medical scribe XBOW: AI pentester  Sierra: AI customer support agent

By bringing the marginal cost of delivering these services down—in line with the plummeting cost of inference—these agentic applications are expanding and creating new markets.

Take XBOW, for example. XBOW is building an AI “pentester.” A “pentest” or penetration test is a simulated cyberattack on a computer system that companies perform in order to evaluate their own security systems. Before Generative AI, companies hired pentesters only in limited circumstances (e.g. when required for compliance), because human pentesting is expensive: it’s a manual task performed by a highly skilled human. However, XBOW is now demonstrating automated pentests built on the latest reasoning LLMs that match the performance of the most highly skilled human pentesters. This multiplies the pentesting market and opens up the possibility of continuous pentesting for companies of all shapes and sizes. 

What does this mean for the SaaS universe?

Earlier this year we met with our Limited Partners. Their top question was “will the AI transition destroy your existing cloud companies?”  

We began with a strong default of “no.” The classic battle between startups and incumbents is a horse race between startups building distribution and incumbents building product. Can the young companies with cool products get to a bunch of customers before the incumbents who own the customers come up with cool products? Given that so much of the magic in AI is coming from the foundation models, our default assumption has been no—the incumbents will do just fine, because those foundation models are just as accessible to them as they are to the startup universe, and they have the preexisting advantages of data and distribution. The primary opportunity for startups is not to replace incumbent software companies—it’s to go after automatable pools of work. 

That being said, we are no longer so sure. See above re: cognitive architectures. There’s an enormous amount of engineering required to turn the raw capabilities of a model into a compelling, reliable, end-to-end business solution. What if we’re just dramatically underestimating what it means to be “AI native”?

Twenty years ago the on-prem software companies scoffed at the idea of SaaS. “What’s the big deal? We can run our own servers and deliver this stuff over the internet too!” Sure, conceptually it was simple. But what followed was a wholesale reinvention of the business. EPD went from waterfalls and PRDs to agile development and AB testing. GTM went from top-down enterprise sales and steak dinners to bottoms-up PLG and product analytics. Business models went from high ASPs and maintenance streams to high NDRs and usage-based pricing. Very few on-prem companies made the transition. 

What if AI is an analogous shift? Could the opportunity for AI be both selling work and replacing software?

With Day.ai, we have seen a glimpse of the future. Day is an AI native CRM. Systems integrators make billions of dollars configuring Salesforce to meet your needs. With nothing but access to your email and calendar and answers to a one-page questionnaire, Day automatically generates a CRM that is perfectly tailored to your business. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles (yet), but the magic of an auto-generated CRM that remains fresh with zero human input is already causing people to switch.

The Investment Universe

Where are we spending our cycles as investors? Where is funding being deployed? Here’s our quick take. 

Infrastructure

This is the domain of hyperscalers. It’s being driven by game theoretic behavior, not microeconomics. Terrible place for venture capitalists to be. 

Models

This is the domain of hyperscalers and financial investors. Hyperscalers are trading balance sheets for income statements, investing money that’s just going to round-trip back to their cloud businesses in the form of compute revenue. Financial investors are skewed by the “wowed by science” bias. These models are super cool and these teams are incredibly impressive. Microeconomics be damned!

Developer tools and infrastructure software 

Less interesting for strategics and more interesting for venture capitalists. ~15 companies with $1Bn+ of revenue were created at this layer during the cloud transition, and we suspect the same could be true with AI. 

Apps

The most interesting layer for venture capital. ~20 application layer companies with $1Bn+ in revenue were created during the cloud transition, another ~20 were created during the mobile transition, and we suspect the same will be true here. 

Closing Thoughts

In Generative AI’s next act, we expect to see the impact of reasoning R&D ripple into the application layer. These ripples are fast and deep. Most of the cognitive architectures to date incorporate clever “unhobbling” techniques; now that these capabilities are becoming baked deeper into the models themselves, we expect that agentic applications will become much more sophisticated and robust, quickly. 

Back in the research lab, reasoning and inference-time compute will continue to be a strong theme for the foreseeable future. Now that we have a new scaling law, the next race is on. But for any given domain, it is still hard to gather real-world data and encode domain and application-specific cognitive architectures. This is again where last-mile app providers may have the upper hand in solving the diverse set of problems in the messy real world.

Thinking ahead, multi-agent systems, like Factory’s droids, may begin to proliferate as ways of modeling reasoning and social learning processes. Once we can do work, we can have teams of workers accomplishing so much more.

What we’re all eagerly awaiting is Generative AI’s Move 37, that moment when – like in AlphaGo’s second game against Lee Sedol – a general AI system surprises us with something superhuman, something that feels like independent thought. This does not mean that the AI “wakes up” (AlphaGo did not) but that we have simulated processes of perception, reasoning and action that the AI can explore in truly novel and useful ways. This may in fact be AGI, and if so it will not be a singular occurrence, it will merely be the next phase of technology.

Share Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn Share this via email Generative AI: A Creative New World By Sonya Huang, Pat Grady and GPT-3 Perspective Read Generative AI’s Act Two By Sonya Huang, Pat Grady and GPT-4 Perspective Read AI’s $600B Question By David Cahn Perspective Read Partnering with Decart: The Future of AI-Generated Experiences By Shaun Maguire and Dean Meyer News Read JOIN OUR MAILING LIST Get the best stories from the Sequoia community. Email address Leave this field empty if you’re human:

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Exciting News from PIVXLabs — MyPIVXWallet V2.0

Enhancements Galore, MyPIVXWallet V2.0 Unveils Exciting Updates!

PIVXLabs has been getting a lot of attention recently, especially because of their latest updates, notably the launch of MyPIVXWallet V2.0. This new version heralds a fresh era for PIVX enthusiasts, boasting a complete redesign, significant stability improvements, and numerous user experience enhancements. With v2.0, PIVX is setting a higher standard for user-friendly cryptocurrency wallets.

Some of the Updates:

Hindi Translation:
To cater to a more diverse user base, the wallet now offers a Hindi translation, making it more accessible to a wider audience and fostering inclusivity within the PIVX community.

UI Redesign:
A sleek and modern user interface redesign has been implemented, enhancing the overall aesthetic appeal and usability of the wallet. Navigating through MyPIVXWallet is now more intuitive and visually engaging.

PIVX SHIELD Improvements:
Significant enhancements have been made to the $PIVX SHIELD, bolstering security measures and ensuring that users’ assets are protected with the latest security protocols.

Better Password Privacy:
Users can now enjoy improved password privacy features, adding an extra layer of security to their accounts and further safeguarding their funds.

Removed Identicon:
The removal of Identicon adds a fresh look to user profiles, offering a cleaner and more streamlined visual experience within the wallet.

PIVX Oracle Implementation:
In a groundbreaking move, the #PIVX Oracle has been integrated, replacing #CoinGecko stats. This implementation brings real-time data and insights directly to users, empowering them with up-to-date information to make informed decisions.

With these latest updates, MyPIVXWallet V2.0 not only enhances functionality but also prioritizes user security, accessibility, and innovation. The inclusion of Hindi translation, improved UI, advanced security features, and real-time data through the #PIVX Oracle underscores PIVXLabs’ commitment to delivering a cutting-edge and user-centric cryptocurrency wallet experience.

Stay tuned for more developments as PIVXLabs continues to push boundaries and redefine the standards of cryptocurrency wallets with MyPIVXWallet V2.0! 🚀

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

Exciting News from PIVXLabs — MyPIVXWallet V2.0 was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Last week was another big week in technology. 

Google’s NotebookLM introduced its Audio Overview feature, enabling users to create customizable podcasts in over 35 languages. OpenAI followed with their real-time speech-to-speech API, making voice integration easier for developers, while Pika’s 1.5 model made waves in the AI world.

In this episode, we chat with the a16z Consumer team—Anish Acharya, Olivia Moore, and Bryan Kim—about the rise of voice technology, the latest AI breakthroughs, and what it takes to capture attention in 2024. Anish shares why he believes this could finally be the year of voice tech.

 

Resources: 

Find Olivia on Twitter: https://x.com/omooretweets

Find Anish on Twitter: https://x.com/illscience

Find Bryan on Twitter: https://x.com/kirbyman01

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Partnering with Cove: The Next Gen of Assistants

Stephen, Andy, Mike and their team are building a collaborative AI thought partner.

By Jess Lee Published October 8, 2024

The rise of LLMs has undoubtedly changed the world and the way we work. With the superpowers of knowledge, summarization and synthesis at our fingertips, it’s easy to imagine a future where every person has a digital assistant. 

However, the user interface for that future has a long way to go. Today, using an AI chatbot can feel less like having an assistant, and more like visiting an oracle—someone who knows a lot about the world, but less about you. An executive assistant or chief of staff, on the other hand, can easily access your inbox, files and docs; can take detailed notes; can retain important context about your projects; and can not just tell you exactly how to do a task, but actually do it, too. LLMs are brilliant in many ways, but they still leave a lot to be desired in terms of productivity—especially for more complex tasks.

AI assistance today: Visiting an oracle and praying that your prompt works What AI assistance should be: Let me help you with that—let’s work together

Images courtesy of VisualElectric.com

So what would a better AI assistant look like? Ideally, it would be easy to summon to the space where you’re already working, such as your inbox or browser. It would see what you see, and incorporate information from that shared context. It would take notes, write documents, populate spreadsheets. It would do the work alongside you, collaborating and iterating as your project evolves. 

That’s exactly what Cove co-founders Stephen Chau, Andy Szybalski and Mike Chu are building. Cove is an AI thought partner that helps you think brilliantly, breaking out of chat threads and into a shared visual workspace. It can follow you across your desktop, your email and your web browser, via a Chrome extension. It can summarize long articles and clip notes, ingest documents from your desktop, and find new data online. It can fill in the blanks, working alongside you to do web searches and fill in empty cells of tables. It is truly collaborative, not only making smart suggestions to complete your tasks, but actually helping you complete them.

What excites me most about Cove is the team. I had the privilege of working with Stephen, Andy and Mike as a product manager in the early days of Google Maps, and I saw firsthand their ability to create beautiful consumer products—at the cutting edge of both what’s technically possible and what’s easily usable. Stephen and Andy went on to be founding members of Uber Eats, which they helped scale to a global business, while Mike did the same with Stripe Identity. Their track record shows: If AI has a UI problem, they are a great team to fix it.

Cove co-founders Andy Szybalski, Stephen Chau AND Mike Chu.

We at Sequoia are proud to partner with them and lead Cove’s seed round. With today’s announcement of general availability, the product, which is currently in beta, will no doubt evolve rapidly alongside AI capabilities. We can’t wait to see what Stephen, Andy, Mike and their team do next—and what you do and Cove do together.

Share Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn Share this via email Related Topics #AI #Consumer Partnering with Squint: Instructions for the Real World News Read Vision, Grit, Growth: Introducing the Next Arc Founders News Read Partnering with Protégé: Talent is Distributed, Opportunity is Not News Read JOIN OUR MAILING LIST Get the best stories from the Sequoia community. Email address Leave this field empty if you’re human:

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The post Orb Helps Companies Ship Pricing as Fast as Product appeared first on Greylock.

zcashd 6.0.0 has been released, which will deploy Network Upgrade 6 (NU6) at the next Zcash halvening, at an activation height of 2726400. This will occur on or around November […]

Source

Outside of BTC’s cypherpunk movement, the early days of crypto were more or less barren in terms of innovation. However, this presented a huge opportunity for visionaries and angel investors to either launch or back bold projects, recognizing the potential of crypto stretching far beyond than just payments. One of them was Konstantin Lomashuk, co-founder of cyber•Fund which was a key actor in bootstrapping the cybernetic economy. Apart from early investments in Ethereum, Polkadot, Cosmos, Solana and many others, Konstantin recognized the potential threats to the core ethos of decentralisation and also co-founded Lido DAO in order to stave off Ethereum’s centralization risks.

Topics covered in this episode:

Konstantin’s background cyber·Fund & cybernetic economy Entrepreneurship vs. angel investing Delegating tasks and scaling businesses Lido’s origin story Lido DAO proposals and improvements Solana vs. Ethereum The evolution of Ethereum’s economy Konstantin’s other areas of interest AI’s risk of centralization The impact of AI on crypto How CyberFund invests in new narratives

Episode links:

Konstantin Lomashuk on Twitter cyber·Fund on Twitter P2P org

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

IMPORTANT: We will be using our official website to share content from now on. This Medium space will not be updated anymore.

We’re beyond excited to finally share something we’ve been working on for a while — our redesigned website and brand identity! This update marks a huge milestone for us as we continue to evolve and improve our platform, ensuring that it meets the needs of our growing community.

A New Look, A New Experience

Our revamped website isn’t just about fresh visuals, though we do love how sleek it looks now. More importantly, it reflects our commitment to making Scala a user-friendly, engaging, and intuitive space for everyone. The new design not only aligns better with our vision but also makes it easier for users to find what they’re looking for.

We’ve put a lot of thought into simplifying navigation, so whether you’re a crypto miner, a developer, or simply curious about what we do, you’ll find the information you need faster and with less hassle.

Plus, we didn’t forget about SEO! Our new structure is optimized to boost our online presence, making sure Scala stands out in search results. Because let’s be honest, if you’re not visible online, are you really there?

A New Domain to Match Our Growth

To top it all off, we’re thrilled to announce our new domain: scala.network. This isn’t just a vanity update — it’s a reflection of how serious we are about building a strong, professional presence for the future. A clean and memorable domain is key for any modern project, and we believe this shift positions us exactly where we need to be.

What’s Changed?

Alongside the main site, we’ve successfully migrated all satellite sites under the Scala umbrella. We’re actively collaborating with our third-party partners to ensure their links and resources point to the new domain, keeping everything smooth for everyone.

And this is just the start. In the coming months, you can expect a lot more updates! Our new Blog section will feature fresh content regularly, focusing on crypto mobile mining, tech trends, and community updates. We’ll also sprinkle in some fun animations and goodies throughout the site to keep things lively. Stay tuned for all the cool stuff we have in store!

Shoutouts 🙌

Of course, this project wouldn’t have come to life without some serious teamwork. A huge thank you to @Le Yaube, @Boiss, and @hayzam — you guys truly crushed it! The effort and dedication that went into this project were off the charts, and we’re beyond proud of what we’ve achieved together.

We’re so excited for you all to explore the new site, and we hope you love the experience as much as we loved building it!

Cheers to the future! 🚀

New Website & Brand Identity was originally published in Scala on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The post 49 of the Most Promising Fintech Startups appeared first on Greylock.

In 1995, just 2% of couples met online. Today, that number has surged to over 50%, making online dating the top way couples connect.

In this episode, a16z General Partner Andrew Chen chats with Tinder founder Sean Rad about how he built an app that changed culture. Sean shares why seamless experiences matter, how startups often get marketing wrong, and how Tinder became the catalyst for online dating's explosive growth.

This conversation was recorded live in LA at a16z’s Games third Speedrun program. Learn more about Speedrun: https://a16z.com/games/speedrun/

Find Sean on Twitter: https://x.com/seanrad

Find Andrew on Twitter: https://x.com/andrewchen

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

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Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Why release a transparency report? ECC is committed to openness and transparency — as we help evolve and support the Zcash digital currency, and in support of our mission to […]

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The post Greylock-backed Resolve AI raises $35 million in seed funding to help engineers appeared first on Greylock.

A Startup Founder To Scaleup CEO’s Journey from $0 to $25billion (Halliganism’s)

By Brian Halligan Published October 1, 2024

In my work as an investor with Sequoia and Propeller, many CEOs pick my brain about the journey from startup founder to scaleup CEO.  It was indeed a long strange trip, but one on which I learned a lot.  Here’s a list of Halliganism’s I picked up along the way that I hope will help some of you on that same journey.

Leading

Perspiration vs Inspiration: In startup mode, the CEO role is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration. In scaleup mode, the CEO role is 10% perspiration and 90% inspiration. What worked in startup mode won’t necessarily work in scaleup mode—you’ll need to evolve.

1 back, 2 forward, 1 back, 2 forward: From the outside, HubSpot might seem like a smooth up-and-to-the-right story. It belies what actually goes on inside. The best way I’d describe HubSpot is two steps forward followed by one step back followed by two steps forward followed by one step back over and over. We never found that “silver bullet.” There was never one hire, one customer, one partner or one investor that moved us forward more than two steps. It’s a grind.

A perpetual state of constructive dissatisfaction: This is how one of my board members, Lorrie Norrington, described me once. I kind of liked it.

Manage your trust battery carefully: As a CEO, you generally start out with a fully charged trust battery. Over time you make calls—you get some right and get some wrong. If you get too many wrong in a row, you lose a lot of the charge in the trust battery with the organization and along with it some of your moral authority. My rule of thumb is that you get a few “CEO cards” to play that may be very bold bets or ones that your team disagrees with. You don’t have 52. 

Keep your head in the sky and your feet on the ground: You need to paint a compelling vision of a terrific future for your company while at the very same time dealing head on with the very real problems you have today. Toggling between those two is a delicate dance that takes some feel to get it right.  …Btw, if you give your investor the line that you “focused on the terrific future and not to worry too much about this quarter’s numbers,” prepare for them to vomit on your sneakers. [h/t Teddy Roosevelt]

I was a wartime CEO: There were times in HubSpot that were relatively peaceful and times that were more like war. I felt much more comfortable during wartime. During peacetime, decisions bubbled up from the bottom and were made more deliberately. During wartime, decisions came from the top down and were made more quickly.  Knowing whether you are in wartime or peacetime is useful. Knowing which mode you thrive in is also useful …Imho, the h/t goes here to Ben Horowitz who coined this term, but I think Paul Graham kind of picked up the thread with “founder mode.”

Culture

EV>TV>MeV: It is critical that everyone in the organization solve for the “Enterprise Value” over their “Team’s Value” and over “Their Own Value (MeV)” when they are making decisions. I found that when I wasn’t watching closely, leaders would solve for their “team’s value” over the “enterprise’s value” and often when they solved for their team’s value, that sub-optimized another leader’s team’s value. Like many other things, this is a tax that creeps into the organization as it grows (#ScalesTax) and needs to be fought.

Your culture is your second product: At HubSpot, we have two products: one we sell to our customers (HubSpot’s CRM), and one we sell to our employees (HubSpot’s culture). Like your product, you need your culture to be unique relative to the competition (for talent) and you want your culture to be very valuable (for talent). Like your product, when your culture is unique and valuable, your company turns into a magnet that attracts and retains terrific talent. And also like your product, it’s never done—it needs continuous iteration.

Customer OR Employee OR Investor: I think every company is either customer centric (Amazon), employee centric (Nvidia), or investor centric (Berkshire Hathaway). This usually comes from the CEO. If you want to change it, you need to work hard to do that. In HubSpot’s case, our first 8 years we “talked the talk” about being customer centric, but if you looked at what we spent our time on, we were actually “employee centric.” This had its benefits, btw, and isn’t a bad way to go ( see Nvidia), but we felt we needed to walk the walk and be customer centric. Around year 8-ish we made a conscious choice to make that shift and it worked pretty well. We largely did this through more carefully managing the agenda in our management meetings, changing the incentives for our bonus (i.e. added NPS), moving money around the P&L from S&M to R&D, etc.

Keep an eye on the mercenary to missionary ratio: When you are in the early stages of your startup, almost everyone you hire is a missionary. As you scale, more and more of your employees will be mercenaries, but not all, of course.  I think you can do things to delay the shift, but it is pretty inevitable and you should live it with.  There are plenty of companies that scaled just fine before yours with a mix of missionaries and mercenaries.  #ScalesTax 

Your org will naturally become more risk averse as you scale: When you are in the early stages of your startup, almost by definition, everyone you hire is very risk seeking and is willing to be very bold to create a lot of upside.  After all, there’s very little downside to protect!  As you scale and have something to lose, the organization will protect that.  This is a natural thing that happens to existing employees whose net worth is improving – I don’t blame them.  This is a natural thing that happens to new hires when they look at your brand on their LinkedIn profile as part of the decision to join you – again, I don’t blame them.  In our case, my cofounder is preternaturally risk seeking and was always a very good counterbalance to that trend toward risk aversion. 

Cultures typically “break” around 150 employees (Dunbar’s number):  Our culture broke around this size and almost every other CEO’s company I talk to did too.  I think it is a combination of the missionary ratio, some risk aversion, the fact the founder didn’t interview everyone, and that there is a new layer of management.  Getting through that in one piece is kind of where you move from a startup to a scaleup, imho.

I tried to kill titles and org charts:  At one point, I drew on a whiteboard near my desk at HubSpot what I thought was the “influence chart” as a counter to the “organization chart.”  It looked much different and actually showed a guy named Brad Coffey as the most influential person inside HubSpot, not me.  Around the same time I tried to eliminate titles.  There was a huge amount of pushback and I decided these weren’t the hills I wanted to die on.  I suspect you’ve thought of the same thing.  If so, may the force be with you.

Team 

Times change, teams change: Our original management team at HubSpot was brilliant and I just assumed it would be the same crew we’d be in the trenches with for the whole run. That turned out not to be true.  If you step back, you’d see that we are probably on our third or fourth management team – all were good in their respective stage.  It turns out that people kind of self-select for stage. Those early leaders we had were super risk seeking and really well suited to that phase and have all gone on to do awesome stuff in that early stage. I’m super proud of them.…My advice is not to sweat it too much if you need to replace leaders on your team as you grow. The company and the leader are likely both better off.

Recruit from companies just a few years ahead of you: I’ve found this applies to board members and executives. When we hire folks from companies that are several orders of magnitude larger than HubSpot (i.e. Microsoft, Google), there is an impedance mismatch. They are dealing with different issues at a different scale. We’ve had good luck with hiring folks who are at companies we admire that are just a few steps ahead of us. 

A truly independent board member is worth her weight in gold: We have had several along the way from companies that were ahead of us in size, but still growing fast. Along the way, they helped us avoid untold landmines as they had “already seen the movie.” The other benefit of a truly independent board member is she is typically a good counterbalance with your venture capitalists. I found it helpful to have sourced the independent board member myself as opposed to having it come from the VC’s tight circle. 

Home grown talent is underrated:  I’ve noticed that the vc playbook when a new round is done is to recommend “upleveling” some of the home grown talent.  In some cases this might be right, but I think folks over index on it.  If you look at the executive teams of some of the best companies (i.e. Apple, Nvidia, Amazon, etc) they are full of people who have been there a long time.  HubSpot’s current management team has a lot of “home grown” talent.

Build your team like the 2004 Red Sox: The Red Sox went 86 years without winning the World Series. In 2004, they finally won it with a ton of home grown talent and few seasoned veterans that put them over the top, like Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling and David Ortiz. HubSpot often had a lot of home grown talent on its senior team and usually had a couple of well placed veterans that put them over the top.  

You can’t teach someone how to be smart: Tommy Heinsohn was a former Boston Celtic great who was an announcer for the team. I remember him talking once about a backup center for the team who was 7 feet tall and had some girth. Tommy said, “you can’t teach 7 feet.” He had a good point. That player wasn’t highly skilled, but he was huge and that was in and of itself quite valuable. I feel the same way about brain power. I used to look around the table at management team meetings and think about whether each person was empirically smarter than I was. I always wanted to be the dumbest guy in the room and largely succeeded at it.

Avoid compliments. Find complements: If I put 100 calories into getting better at something I was already kinda good at and enjoyed, I would get 1000 out. If I put 100 calories into getting better at something I was kinda bad at and didn’t enjoy, I would get 101 out. I stopped obsessing about fixing my weaknesses and started hiring folks that could plug them. Don’t hire in your own image! Hire folks who are complementary.

It was mostly product and sales: In scaleup mode, I spent most of my time on product and sales and didn’t give much attention to things like legal and finance. This was “unpopular” with folks in legal and finance and probably led to some unfortunate turnover of some good people.

Five compliments for every criticism is bull-shiitake: Management gurus will tell you that you need to give five pieces of positive feedback from every correction. If this is true, I had it all wrong and so did everyone I ever worked for.…Related to this, the feedback sandwich, the one where you surround your negative feedback with positive feedback before and after it is also bull-shiitake. Everyone knows this game—it doesn’t work anymore.…I’ll be pilloried for this, but this was my lived experience.

Jensen Huang is mostly right about management, imho: In the early days of HubSpot, I liked big, relatively infrequent meetings (monthly, not weekly) where everyone could hear what was on my mind, avoided the weekly 1:1, and I would criticize and compliment in public.  As time went on, I started doing closed weekly meetings, having 1:1s, and I stopped criticizing in public.  Listening to how Jensen runs Nvidia leads me to believe I wasn’t completely crazy to run it the way I did back then.

Analytical skills are overrated. Taste is underrated. Almost everyone these days has pretty good analytical skills. Vanishingly few people have taste. Figure out who has it and give them power.

Exec Hiring Success Rates Are Lower Than You Think:  If I look at all of our executive hires over time, I’d guess that 18 months after that senior hire happens, around 60% of them have “stuck” and we end up churning about 40%.  This is similar across most of the CEOs of companies I coach. Senior level hire candidates are very good at interviewing.  Interviewers of senior level hires, including myself, overestimate their skill in interviewing.  My advice would be to reduce your interview panel and hire the folks who have great strengths (4/4s) and maybe some weaknesses (2/4s) while avoiding the candidates who are all “good” (3/4s).  In other words, hire for strengths, rather than for a lack of weakness.  …If you whiff on one or two big hires, don’t sweat it too much.  

You need glue people to scale:  This is a term used in sports to describe players on team sports who aren’t the stars, but are the glue that makes the teams really get over the top and win.  I think it applies even better to scaleups.  As we grew, the leverage really shifted from star players to glue players who really knew how the machine worked and were “ops” wizards.  For example, in startup mode, the leverage is with your top sales reps and leaders, but the lever shifts to that quiet ops person who can turn the right knobs and dials and not break the machine.  [h/t Ravi Gupta from Sequoia]

Strategy

Watch the competition, but never follow it: I got this line from Arnoldo Hax, my strategy professor at Sloan, and repeated it so many times that it is ingrained in HubSpot’s DNA. It is relatively obvious at this point that HubSpot competes with Salesforce.com (a formidable competitor). We very carefully watched them, but tried not to “follow” them—see next lesson.

When everyone is zigging, you should zag: Regardless of what you think of Peter Thiel’s politics, he wrote a really good book on startups called Zero To One. In it, he talks about how you need to be right about something that everyone thinks you are wrong about for a long time. This type of “zagging” worked for HubSpot three times. First, we decided to focus on SMB (more M than S, btw) and stuck with it when everyone and their brother thought we should move to the enterprise. Second, we decided we would move from a marketing application company to a CRM platform company, competing with Salesforce, when everyone and their sister told us we were crazy to try because they were too hard to compete with. Third, we decided we would “build” (craft!) our CRM in-house as opposed to acquiring our way there when everyone and their cousin told us that we needed to follow ye olde CRM M&A franken-playbook.

Don’t trash talk: I recently watched the U.S. Open tennis finals. In the remarks after the matches, I always appreciate how respectful the players are toward their opponents and how they express it. I feel the same way about Salesforce; they are a very good company that is hard to compete with, and no good comes in “poking the bear.” [h/t to my co-founder Dharmesh for coming up with the “poke the bear” analogy and many other brilliant things]

Creating a category is harder than it looks:  HubSpot created the “inbound marketing” category.  Pulling that off involved writing about zillion blog articles, giving a jillion speeches, writing a book, running a conference, etc.  We invested way more energy in creating the inbound marketing category in the early years than we did in marketing the HubSpot product.  …So, when we wanted to go into the sales category, we thought we could just re-run the same playbook for “inbound sales.”  Failed.  When we went into CRM, we thought we’d create a new category called CMR, “customer managed relationship” software.  Failed.  When we released our CMS, we thought we’d create a new category called COS, “content optimization system.”  Failed.  In retrospect, we caught lightning in a bottle with “inbound marketing.”

Either you are eaten by a platform or become a platform:  In the early days of HubSpot, we used to pitch the company as “Salesforce.com is to sales as HubSpot is to marketing.”  Under our breath, we’d always say “until Salesforce.com wants to become the Salesforce.com of marketing.”  Well, one day they did.  They picked up Exact Target, Pardot, Radian6 and Buddy Media all within a few months and built themselves a very large Marketing Cloud business.  We decided at that point that we ought to pivot from being a marketing app to a CRM platform ourselves, lest we be eaten.  This turned out to be a very good call in hindsight.  [h/t Steve Fradette, co-founder of Toast]

Decision Making

Compromise is the enemy of greatness: As a CEO, you are often in the middle of roiling debates about any number of things where there are really good arguments on both sides. The temptation as a first-time CEO surrounded by senior and smart folks is to make people happy on both sides of those good arguments and craft an “uninspired compromise.” This is the kiss of death. You want to actually break the tie. You want the argument at hand to have “winners and losers.”  [h/t Brad Coffey]

Wearing NO shirt!: As a new CEO with lots of money in the company’s bank account, I wanted to do all the things. I found myself saying “yes” a lot. This caused a lack of focus which led to shoddy execution and budget problems. I got some pointed feedback about this and wanted to change, so I made a literal “No” shirt and wore it to management meetings. People got the point that I wasn’t just going to rubber stamp every good idea.

If you want to kill a plant, have two people water it: If you ask two people to look after your plant while you were away for a month, it would likely struggle due to over or under watering. If you ask one person to look after your plant while you were away for a month, it would likely flourish. Whenever we assigned multiple people to own a project, it almost always went sideways. The DRI concept certainly wasn’t novel to us, but when we ignored it, we suffered.

Sometimes doing nothing is the right thing to do: I think a lot of CEOs have a “bias to action.” I think this is mostly good, but when you are short on staff and have a ton going on, it is often best to sit on your hands and let folks keep grinding on their projects and not jerk the steering wheel. I jerked the steering wheel too much.

Avoid the “Tyranny of Or”: We used to do an annual field trip with the management team to the west coast and meet with execs we respected to just learn. One year we visited George Hu. He was the former COO at Salesforce and was then at Twilio (I think). He encouraged us to challenge our teams to avoid the “Tyranny of Or,” like you can have it fast or you can have it good or you can have it cheap. I started pushing back on the “or” framing in meetings and was kind of surprised that it actually worked sometimes. Thanks George.

Nap on it: If too much food comes into my mouth, my stomach gets full. If too much information comes into my head, my brain gets full. I’m definitely someone who gets major duomo decision fatigue! To combat that, during a day where there was a lot of information flying around, I’d sneak out to our nap room (yup) and get a quick 20 minutes in. When I’d lie down, I’d be thinking about the decision at hand and when I’d wake up, often I’d have some clarity on it. I think of a nap as a time when my brain cleans up—sweeps the debris, organizes the files, etc. When things are cleaned up, I’m better able to make a call.

“Get to the coal face”: This was an expression one of my VCs, David Skok, used one day that I pretended to understand, but didn’t. I googled it later on: “The place where the actual work of an activity is done. For example, ‘Those at the coal face of the business may lose patience with theories and abstractions.’” It turns out that the bigger the organization gets, the further the CEO gets from the front line employee and the customer. It used to drive my managers crazy, but I’d often jump several levels down in the organization and try to get the coal face truth from the sales reps or support reps who were talking to customers every day. I also used to have customer panels at all of our management meetings and some of our board meetings to keep everyone grounded in what the customers were actually saying. I did a lot of stupid things at HubSpot; this was smart.

Crisis management

Never waste a good crisis: There were tons of problems and crises along the way. One of the things that served HubSpot particularly well is that we recognized the crises when they were happening and were explicit about trying to take advantage of them to learn and get better. During a crisis, we’d literally say outloud over and over, “let’s not waste this crisis.” Ironically, one of the best “crises” that happened to us was a long outage on the last day of the first quarter in 2019. It led us to make comprehensive changes to the way we built and delivered products, and helped enable us to move the culture to becoming even more customer centric. As awful as Covid was for humanity, it was that crisis that gave us cover to make some wholesale, healthy changes to our business model. Crisis = Opportunity.

When you have to eat a shit sandwich, don’t nibble: This is an idea I heard from Ruth Porat, the CFO at Google, that rang true to me. Where I got in trouble was when I spun things to employees, customers, partners, etc. People are smart and they are paying very close attention to what the CEO says. If you spin them, you’ll regret it. It’s better to take a giant bite out of that shit sandwich now than have the whole thing shoved down your throat later.

Listen to Coach K: The winningest coach in men’s basketball was Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski. The thing that drove him crazy was when someone would miss a shot on offense and then compound it by making a dumb play right after on defense by taking a stupid risk to make up for the missed shot. You could hear him on the sideline yelling (imploring) after every missed shot “Next play… Next play.” I used this method several times following unforced errors, including my own, to try to get the company to put the past in the past. I think it mostly worked. Thanks, Coach K.

Improving Your CEO Craft

Feedback is the breakfast of champions: Once a year we had my co-founder, Dharmesh, do a 360 review for me that was like pure gold. His method is highly replicable. He gave an NPS survey to about 25 folks up and down the org asking two questions: (a) “Your likelihood to recommend Brian as the CEO of HubSpot” and (b) “Why?” He took the answers to those questions and put together a 20 page document for me. He found the themes in the feedback (people wrote novels!) and grouped them together with example quotes to back up the theme. For example, “Brian is good at setting and selling the vision for HubSpot” would be the theme and then he’d pick out 6 or 7 direct quotes that backed this up. …Now, not all the themes were positive like that one. The first 10 pages were my “feature” themes and the back 10 pages were my “bug” themes. I was convinced I was the world’s best CEO after page 10 and the world’s worst CEO after page 20! I shared the document with the company and board along with my own “performance plan.” I’m not sure, but I “think” it might have inspired HubSpotters to take their own improvement more seriously.

Your greatest strength turns into your greatest weakness: Starting up is doing as many jobs as possible so your company can survive. Scaling is shedding as many jobs as possible so your company can survive. [h/t Aaron Levy] Even founder mode types need to delegate, particularly on things that aren’t super core.

I benefited from CEO groups:  When we were an early stage startup, I was in a CEO group.  One of the CEO’s was Colin Angle from iRobot – he had a whopper influence on a very young and raw version of myself.  After we scaled, I joined a CEO group with a bunch of terrific public company CEO’s from companies like Slack, Atlassian, Shopify, etc.  Half of the value of these CEO groups was a collective “misery loving company dynamic” where we all shared our problems and all our problems rhymed.  The other half of the value was getting best practices on how to solve those problems.

I benefited from a CEO coach:  At one point my board suggested I hire a coach.  Ahem.  Strongly suggested I hire a CEO coach.  This turned out to be a good idea.  He was half coach and half psychologist.  I need both!

Communicating

Get the truth telling vs cheerleading thing right-ish: I worked with folks who were always cheerleading and didn’t spend enough time grinding on the details. It drove me crazy. I tended to over-index the other way. It drove many of my people crazy. My advice is to check yourself on this from time to time and not over index one way or the other.

Transparency builds trust: We were always very transparent with employees, customers, partners and investors. When new execs would come in they would always be surprised at our level of transparency and a little uncomfortable at first.…I think that transparency built trust with all our constituencies. Filling that trust battery helped in innumerable ways..

It’s not 10,000 hours, it’s 10,000 times: In the early days of HubSpot, I remember sitting in the audience at Dreamforce listening to Marc Benioff tell the “cloud story.” I remember wondering to myself how many times Marc had told that story. It must have been at least 10,000 times. Whenever I was getting bored telling the “inbound marketing” story, I’d take comfort in the fact that it took 10,000 times to sink in. This was also true for the story of HubSpot moving from a marketing app to a CRM platform—at least 10,000 and still counting!

I lived presentation to presentation: In the early days as CEO of HubSpot, I felt like I lived from one presentation to the next. I was always working on my next presentation—an updated customer pitch, a company meeting presentation, a board meeting presentation, an Inbound conference talk, etc. I was always, always, always working on a deck.

You’re being watched 10x more closely than you think: I often hear from HubSpotters about something I said 10 years ago in a hallway conversation that I had long forgotten. It may not seem like your team pays any attention to you (it seemed that way to me), but they are very closely observing what you say and your body language. This can be a superpower or kryptonite for you.  

You need to absorb complexity and pass down clarity:  Inside the walls of HubSpot at any given time, there was anywhere from a few light wisps of fog to a full on San Francisco style fog bank socking us in.  The job of the CEO is to do a good job of “clearing that fog” and I found myself frequently in meetings where the topic was “clearing the fog on ____.”  My colleague JD Sherman used to walk into those meetings and say “the job of a leader is to absorb complexity and pass down clarity” and I think he was right about that.

Managing Yourself

Work and life never balanced for me. I’ll probably be pilloried for this, but I never had work-life balance and never really had a “real” vacation. Being a CEO was a full contact sport and I chose it over balance more often than not. The truth is, I don’t regret it. I have come up short on some of my personal objectives, but have far, far exceeded my professional objectives. My life’s been really good so far.

Work can be a lot of fun: I see a lot of CEOs these days with their teams and sit in a lot of board meetings. Honestly, there aren’t a lot of laughs! This is interesting to me because HubSpot’s management meetings and board meetings were always pretty serious, but there was also almost always a ton of levity, even and especially when things were going sideways. Some of the funniest moments of my life were work-related.  My former HubSpot colleague, JD Sherman, might be the funniest person I know and my cofounder isn’t far behind him.

Be yourself; everyone else is taken: I worked for three different CEOs prior to doing it myself. They couldn’t have been more different. I joined a CEO group with 8 other CEOs. They were all pretty different. I tried to be like other CEOs for many years. Over time as I got a bit more confident, I just tried to be myself, quirks and all. Folks didn’t seem to mind me much most of the time. [h/t Oscar Wilde]

Imposter syndrome didn’t go away: Even today as I’m typing this article, I feel major imposter syndrome. If you’ve got it, you’re not alone. If you don’t, I’m jealous.

Make a large pizza and take a slice out along the way: One thing Sequoia did in our Series D round was allow us to sell some of our common shares to them as part of the round. This turned out to be a great idea for me (and even better for Sequoia!). It “stiffened” my backbone when it came to acquisition interest and kept us focused on building a company our grandkids would be proud of. This had the added benefit of aligning our interests very well with our investors.…In retrospect, it was likely one of the worst financial decisions I’ve ever made, but I don’t regret it. The liquidity then was great (I’m typing this from the home on Cape Cod it bought me back then) and the pie was plenty big.

Exits

We didn’t get any acquisition offers: I always thought that every scaleup had multiple offers multiple times for acquisition.  Maybe they do.  We didn’t!  …The likelihood you are going to get acquired for a good price by your dream acquirer is really low and is even lower these days with the regulatory environment. Build something that you think your grandkids will be proud of decades from now.

The IPO is the starting line: The day of the IPO was one of the best days in HubSpot’s history—lots of laughter and a lot of tears as well. In the years leading up to the IPO, I repeated the line “the IPO is the starting line” hundreds of times and I can’t say for sure, but I think it kinda worked. I wanted folks focused on building something special that ultimately our grandkids would be proud of.…The other thing I did is I never talked about the stock price and would ask folks around me to stop talking about it whenever I heard those conversations. Focusing on the price will drive one bonkers—it has a lot to do with our performance, but it also has a lot to do with many things out of our control.

Going public is underrated:  Now that founders are able to get liquidity prior to going public, there is less allure in the IPO.  I get it.  What I think people underestimate is the pure joy the actual IPO gives you and your team.  The day of the IPO and the party we had the day after were among the happiest and most gratifying moments of my life.

Planning

Aligning vectors is actually magical: This is something I “borrowed” from an Elon Musk talk at a Sequoia event a few years back. He describes each employee as a vector with a strength and a direction. In most companies, these vectors are pointing all over the place.  One the top of the list of jobs of the CEO of a scaleup is to hire folks with strong vectors and point them all in the same direction. Here’s how I think about it:

MSPOT–the planning doc to rule them all: We visited lots of companies to ask about planning and looked at all kinds of methodologies. We came up with our own, we called MSPOT that enabled us to get our vectors aligned. Mission, Strategy, Projects, Omissions and Tracking. The thing I liked about it was it got everyone to argue about and agree on a few key priorities and how to measure them, and it put everyone’s pet rocks on the shelf until the next planning period. HubSpot’s first MSPOT from 2012 was something like this:

Use 6 Month Planning Seasons: When we were in peacetime, we benefited greatly from planning “seasons.” 

April to June: Long range strategy planning and navel gazing July to Sept: Turn long range plan into next year’s plan Oct to Dec: Budgets Jan to Mar: Heads down on Q1 plan

These seasons avoided constant churning around different strategic directions and allowed a place for everyone to bring up their pet rocks and where to put those pet rocks to bed. In retrospect, I think I would have done these biannually because we’d often edit the plan halfway through the year. It turns out that the 365 day earth-sun cycle doesn’t match the earth-technology cycle.

Complexity kills: Complexity creeps into the organization as it scales. It’s like gravity. My advice would be fight it tooth and nail in HR policy, compensation plans, pricing policies, etc.  #ScalesTax

The more people you have, the less you get done: This is another one of those gravity things. I used to look at our priority list every year and it got shorter as we got bigger. I learned to be okay with it—we got most of the big things right most of the time.

Stepping Away

Know when to hand over the keys: One day in 2021 I had a very bad snowmobile accident that nearly took my life. Lying in the snow badly injured, I had some time for introspection while waiting a long time for 911 to arrive. I basically decided while lying there that I didn’t want to be CEO of HubSpot anymore. I wasn’t getting the joy out of it I once did and I didn’t think the next phase of bringing HubSpot from $2 billion in revenue to $10 billion in revenue suited my skills very well. I stewed on that for a while and then when I recovered about 6 months later, I handed over the keys and became chairperson of HubSpot.

Pick your successor carefully: I ended up handing those keys to Yamini Rangan who has done a terrific job. There are a few reasons she was a good fit. First, we worked together for a while and I got to know her—we promoted her from within. Second, prior to HubSpot, she worked at Dropbox and Workday, two companies that, at the time, were “a few steps ahead of us.” Third, while I was out on medical leave, she did a great job of running the company on my behalf….I hope none of you CEOs have to go through a near death experience to decide to step down, but I might encourage some introspection on when that right time might be for you. Most wait too long, imho.

Chairpeople Don’t Drive: Once I took on the chairperson role, I talked to several other founders who have gone through similar CEO transitions and taken on chairperson roles. The one thing I heard from everyone was to “let go of the steering wheel.” Chairpersons and board members are the grandparents and the CEO is the parent. The failure case is that the chairperson has to go back in and be CEO again à la Howard Shultz at Starbucks. 

Being CEO is overrated: A lot of people want to become a CEO, including me 18 years ago. I’d just tell you that it is an overrated job. You work for everyone: your customers, partners, employees and investors. It’s not the other way around. You are on call to them at all times. Be careful what you wish for!

Hope these help you on your journey.

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Partnering with Eon: Cloud Backup Reinvented

Backup solutions are critical—and behind the times. Now Ofir, Gonen and Ron are bringing this massive market into the future.

By Shaun Maguire and Dean Meyer Published October 1, 2024 Eon co-founders Gonen Stein, Ron Kimchi and Ofir Ehrlich.

When Ofir Ehrlich first told us about the idea that would become Eon, he warned us it might sound “incredibly boring.” It was November 2023, a time when many venture firms were focused primarily—even exclusively—on AI, and he knew the category of cloud backup was, to put it mildly, comparatively unsexy.

But not to us.

On that Friday in a bustling Tel Aviv neighborhood, Dean had invited Ofir to join what was originally planned as a one-on-one lunch, and his instinct to introduce Shaun and Ofir had been proven right. They hit it off immediately, bonding over their shared passion for cyber security born of backgrounds working with the U.S. and Israeli military. Then, the discussion turned to Ofir’s vision for a cloud-native backup autopilot—an intriguing proposition for a huge and growing market and, to Dean and Shaun, anything but dull.

While migration to the cloud isn’t new, the rate of growth is: adoption has surged since 2023 to an estimated $234 billion last year, and is expected to more than triple again by 2034. As much as 30% of that total is going to backup—a top priority for companies to ensure continuity, compliance and security. But current solutions rely largely on general-purpose snapshots, which simply duplicate files, regardless of the kind of data they contain.

That makes restoration, when it’s needed, a headache if not a nightmare: recovering a single file often requires recovering an entire snapshot. It can take weeks—a turnaround that may be unacceptable under regulatory demands, not to mention prohibitively expensive.

As the builders of Disaster Recovery and Cloud Migration Services at AWS, Ofir and co-founders Gonen Stein and Ron Kimchi have lived and breathed these problems for years, and they recognized the need for a purpose-built solution. The result is Eon, a next-generation platform that is reinventing cloud infrastructure backup and introducing cloud backup posture management (CBPM).

Eon continuously scans and maps cloud resources, then smartly classifies data across services, and sets backup policies—all automatically. It also offers global, cross-service search and file-level restoration—no more grappling with the whole haystack just to find a needle. And because Ofir, Gonen and Ron designed Eon to sit on top of existing cloud services, their solution is not just more advanced, but more affordable, as well.

Novel as Eon is, it’s no surprise coming from this team, whose decades of experience have made them legends in the Israeli tech industry. In the Israel Defense Forces, Ofir was at the top of the first class of Aram, an elite research program, and remains a well-respected mentor to many founders. Eon is his fourth company, and his second with his co-founders; their team at AWS began as the startup CloudEndure, which after its 2019 acquisition by Amazon, built the largest cloud-native migration and disaster recovery services, serving the world’s largest customers. Like Ofir, Gonen and Ron are outlier leaders who were critical to the unit’s success; Gonen defined a massively successful GTM and product strategy, vastly scaling service adoption, while Ron rose to GM and led one of the largest Amazon engineering teams in Israel.

When we met in November, Ofir planned to hold off on fundraising for a couple of months—but we weren’t the only ones excited about his idea. A week later, Sequoia and Dean were cooperating on what had quickly become Israel’s most competitive seed round, which it was Sequoia’s privilege to lead. We built a relationship with each other, as well as with Eon, and the process eventually led to another kind of partnership: in March, we happily welcomed Dean to the Sequoia team.

Though we knew then that Ofir, Gonen and Ron were special, we hadn’t yet realized just how exceptional they are. In less than a year, they have hired an off-the-charts team, including three dozen of the best engineers in Israel—and their product velocity has been remarkable. Now, as they launch out of stealth and announce these three rounds of funding, it is again our privilege to double down on their Series B and continue supporting that rapid growth. By reimagining the space they knew so well, they have created a new storage layer for the cloud and finally made backups useful. For us and for companies around the world, there’s nothing “boring” about it.

Team Eon. Share Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn Share this via email Related Topics #Enterprise #Funding announcement Partnering with Bridge: A Better Way to Move Money By Shaun Maguire and Josephine Chen News Read Partnering with Neros: Next-Gen Drones, Made in America By Shaun Maguire News Read Partnering with Foundry: AI Compute, On Demand By Shaun Maguire News Read JOIN OUR MAILING LIST Get the best stories from the Sequoia community. Email address Leave this field empty if you’re human:

The post Partnering with Eon: Cloud Backup Reinvented appeared first on Sequoia Capital.

As Ethereum’s roadmap shifted to a rollup-centric approach, a plethora of rollups have been launched, to the point where L3s have been conceptualized. Celestia sits at the forefront of modularity as it aims to replace the monolithic blockchain architecture with specialized layers that are more suited for scalability and customization. As a result, Celestia strictly focuses on data availability to accommodate the recent rollup expansion, as data storage represents the largest portion of fees on L2s. The Lemongrass upgrade lays the foundation for further use cases being enabled through Celestia, mainly revolving around interoperability and zk proof enabled ‘lazy bridging’. 

Topics covered in this episode:

The vision behind Celestia Rollup architecture Centralised sequencers and the role of fraud proofs Celestia’s market share Rollkit & sovereign rollups Governance & light clients The importance of decentralisation: L1s vs. rollups Celestia’s data availability capacity Latency & Celestia block times Interoperability & ‘lazy bridging’ The Lemongrass upgrade On-chain economics & value accrual Interchain accounts on Celestia Crypto’s mainstream adoption Future roadmap

Episode links:

Mustafa Al-Bassam on Twitter Ismail Khoffi on Twitter Celestia on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

What if the key to unlocking AI's full potential lies not just in algorithms or compute, but in data? 

In this episode, a16z General Partner David George sits down with Alex Wang, founder and CEO of Scale AI, to discuss the crucial role of "frontier data" in advancing artificial intelligence. From fueling breakthroughs with complex datasets to navigating the challenges of scaling AI models, Alex shares his insights on the current state of the industry and his forecast on the road to AGI.

 

Resources: 

Find Alex on Twitter: https://x.com/alexandr_wang

Find David on Twitter : https://x.com/DavidGeorge83

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Infinex is a platform that combines the streamlined UX of centralized exchanges with the security and self-custody safety of Decentralized Finance (DeFi). Users create their account using a passkey, and all assets are under their control at all times. They can then access the entire DeFi ecosystem through a simple standardized UI that feels like using Coinbase or Binance, but under the hood the funds are deposited into Aave, swapped in Uniswap, or eventually any of the other hundreds of DeFi protocols available.

This separation of concerns allows Infinex to focus on building the best user experience possible while thousands of developers create backend systems they can integrate with, so they can iterate faster than any vertically integrated centralized exchange. And because Infinex’s functionality is (almost) fully onchain, it unlocks the power of DeFi composability in a way centralized exchanges cannot, enabling emergent product features and use cases.

With traditional centralized exchanges you’re exposed to many risks, such as owners secretly stealing or misusing funds (ala FTX), or accidental risks of the developers introducing a bug that loses your money or creates downtime just when you need to trade the most (as with MTGOX). Infinex solves both of these issues. Firstly it gives you full control over your funds so it can never steal them, and secondly you as a user have the power to opt in to only the DeFi services you wish to use, keeping your funds as safe as possible even as the service expands to hundreds of offerings.

Infinex solves the risks centralized exchanges have, as well as the problems existing DeFi products face — replacing fragmented, complex user interfaces with an experience better than either existing option today.

Our Thesis

We believe much of the global financial system will eventually run on blockchain rails. Similar to Linux, it will eat away at the legacy systems; replacing centralized, opaque, inefficient middleware with fast settling, open source, decentralized software. Infinex takes us one step closer to this future by giving users the same experience they have using centralized exchanges today, but on a more open, secure, and decentralized backend.

Furthermore we believe for DeFi to really gain adoption, it must have a user experience as good as if not better than any Web 2.0 website today. This is why we invested in e.g. Privy and Kiln in the past, and why we are excited to be backing Infinex today.

–

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article has been prepared solely for informational purposes and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any entity managed by BlueYard Capital (“BlueYard”). Any reference to a specific company or security does not constitute a recommendation to buy, sell, hold, or directly invest in the company or its securities. It may not be modified, reproduced, or redistributed in whole or in part without the prior written consent of BlueYard. Portfolio company information presented herein is for informational purposes only and not intended to be a guarantee of certain investment results. BlueYard does not represent that the information herein is accurate, true, or complete, makes no warranty, express or implied, regarding the information herein and shall not be liable for any losses, damages, costs, or expenses relating to its adequacy, accuracy, truth, completeness, or use. All other company, product and service names or service marks of others and their use does not imply their endorsement of, or an association with this program.

The post Welcome, Sophia Luo! appeared first on Greylock.

Prediction markets were one of the first use cases of smart contracts, yet their popularity only recently spiked, following Polymarket’s social media spread. However, while prediction markets are generally zero-sum games, the rise of AI models trained on large datasets led to AI-powered prediction feeds and hedge funds. Crypto offers a unique array of use cases as it allows data scientists to not only share their data sets and models with complete privacy, but also access decentralised computing and model training. While Predictoor employs Ocean’s data infrastructure to run AI-powered prediction bots on lower timeframes, Numerai developed its own AI hedge fund for stocks, that recently also expanded to crypto (Numerai does not trade cryptocurrencies, and Numerai’s Hedge Fund(s) have no relation to Numerai Crypto).

Topics covered in this episode:

Predictoor & Numerai overview Prediction markets Prediction feeds Prediction markets in TradFi and other use cases Implementation of Ocean’s tech in Predictoor Predictions vs. Futures Market participants Numerai hedge fund Numerai’s trust assumptions The role of AI The evolution of AI and how it might solve market inefficiencies Numerai crypto and how it differs from Predictoor Predictoor x Numerai collaborations The future of prediction markets

Episode links:

Trent McConaghy on Twitter Richard Craib on Twitter Predictoor on Twitter Numerai on Twitter Ocean Protocol on Twitter Oasis Protocol on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

ECC is excited to announce the new Zashi-Coinbase integration, offering Zashi users a faster, simpler way to buy and self-custody ZEC. This new onramp reflects our commitment to building a […]

Source

Fei-Fei Li and Justin Johnson are pioneers in AI. While the world has only recently witnessed a surge in consumer AI, our guests have long been laying the groundwork for innovations that are transforming industries today.

In this episode, a16z General Partner Martin Casado joins Fei-Fei and Justin to explore the journey from early AI winters to the rise of deep learning and the rapid expansion of multimodal AI. From foundational advancements like ImageNet to the cutting-edge realm of spatial intelligence, Fei-Fei and Justin share the breakthroughs that have shaped the AI landscape and reveal what's next for innovation at World Labs.

If you're curious about how AI is evolving beyond language models and into a new realm of 3D, generative worlds, this episode is a must-listen.

Resources: 

Learn more about World Labs: https://www.worldlabs.ai

Find Fei-Fei on Twitter: https://x.com/drfeifei

Find Justin on Twitter: https://x.com/jcjohnss

Find Martin on Twitter: https://x.com/martin_casado

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Brave has worked towards a more private Web for several years. The current third-party-based advertising ecosystem is built on the continual surveillance of users, so we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the economy of the Web and how it can work while still maximizing user privacy, which is why we offer Brave Ads. 

We’re happy to see other browsers paying more attention to these issues as well. Mozilla, for example, recently announced their Privacy-Preserving Attribution (PPA) feature to track ad interactions in the browser while preserving user privacy. Mozilla’s PPA, co-designed with Meta and default-enabled in the Firefox browser, was met with a lot of criticism on launch, however. While we agree with the overall goal of the Mozilla/Meta system (i.e., privacy-preserving advertising), we disagree with the design of the system itself.

We believe that ad measurement should be transparent, simple, and limited to parties the user trusts—not random third-party advertisers.

Ad measurement should be transparent

Mozilla’s ad measurement scheme is default-enabled and — unless you’re hunting around in Settings — undiscoverable by users. This means that if you go to a page that happens to have ads on it, the browser will silently record the ad impression, and later report a conversion to the advertising server (if you purchase the advertised product, for example). This lack of transparency is a problem, as users deserve to be in control of what information is being shared and with whom.

Mozilla’s argument is that no personal data is actually being shared in PPA (given their protections), and that a consent dialog prior to enabling PPA would have been user-hostile. We agree that consent dialogs are often bad for user privacy (which is one reason we block cookie consent banners by default), but PPA is a complicated, unproven, and experimental prototype operating over extremely sensitive user browsing data.

Users should not be guinea pigs, especially not for a system that is built for third-party advertisers and does not directly benefit users.

Ad measurement should be simple

Ad measurement in the browser is inherently privacy-sensitive because users’ website browsing activity is being tracked and sent. To preserve privacy, Mozilla’s PPA combines novel differential privacy (DP) and multi-party computation (MPC) techniques to provide arbitrary websites with ostensibly only aggregated data. Websites (unbeknownst to the user) ask the browser to generate encrypted reports that are then sent by the browser to an “aggregation service” backend, which is run by another third-party.

As mentioned above, this is all experimental, complex, and carries a fair amount of privacy risk. The more complex the system, the higher the risk of bugs and vulnerabilities. Complex systems are not only harder to audit but also increase the chances of mistakes that can compromise user privacy. The more moving parts, the higher the risk of something going wrong — this is software engineering 101.

Complexity is especially dangerous for a system that will be used for online advertising, where there is a lot of economic motivation for bad actors to try to break privacy protections.

Ad measurement shouldn’t be handed over to third parties

One of the most glaring flaws with Mozilla’s approach is that it is built to attempt to incrementally improve the traditional third-party advertising economy. In doing so, it allows third parties, who have no known relationship with the user, to measure ad performance while increasing privacy risk for the user.

We at Brave believe third-party advertising is fundamentally broken. It doesn’t need patching or tweaking — it needs to be completely overhauled. No user wants to be tracked by third-party advertisers, and the vast majority of users find third-party ads to be, at best, annoying, and at worst a dangerous vector for malware and spam. This is why ad and tracker blockers such as Brave have become a necessity for so many, and are widely considered security best practice.

Mozilla’s response to the controversy is especially worrying. In their Reddit post, they correctly note that Firefox has shipped several useful anti-tracking features over the years, and that there is an arms race happening between privacy-enhancing tools and malicious actors on the Web. But the post then doubles down on the third-party bet, and concludes that the only way to increase privacy on the Web at this point is to collude with third-party advertisers and ad-tech providers, and design systems for their use.

We strongly disagree. Brave offers an alternative to the traditional third-party-based advertising model of the Web. Brave Ads center the user, not the advertiser and definitely not ad-tech third parties, while operating on principles of transparency and simple, proven privacy techniques. The Brave browser offers best-in-class privacy and anti-tracking features for all users. We focus on protecting our users by blocking third-party ads and intrusive trackers entirely, and shipping privacy- and Web compatibility-enhancing features in the browser.

This isn’t easy. It requires constant work to ensure websites don’t break while also protecting user privacy by default. But it’s the right thing to do by our users, versus prioritizing third-party advertising and “ad-tech” over user privacy and security.

The post How These Software-as-a-Service Startups Are Making Life Harder for Everyone Else appeared first on Greylock.

Global Digital Finance (GDF) and Hogan Lovells hosted their 5th annual Digital Assets Summit, a key event that brought together industry leaders, policymakers, and regulatory experts to discuss the growing adoption of digital assets. This year’s summit focused on the continued institutional adoption of tokenized assets, the development of regulatory frameworks, and the critical role of interoperability and digital payments in driving the future of finance.

Read the full update from the Summit below.

The post GDF and Hogan Lovells Digital Assets Summit Update appeared first on GDF.

This post describes work by Ali Shahin Shamsabadi, Peter Snyder, Ralph Giles, Aurélien Bellet, and Hamed Haddadi. This post was written by Brave’s Privacy Researcher Ali Shahin Shamsabadi.

We are excited to introduce Nebula, a novel and best-in-class system developed by Brave Research for product usage analytics with differential privacy guarantees. Nebula combines several cutting-edge privacy enhancement technologies (including verifiable user-side thresholding and sample-and-threshold differential privacy) to get useful insights about the product usage/feedback of a population (i.e., many Brave users) without learning anything about the choices of individuals in the population (i.e., each individual Brave user).

Nebula benefits users: it guarantees user privacy without requiring prohibitive trust assumptions. Nebula also enables Brave to achieve better utility and lower server-facing overhead compared to existing solutions based on the local and shuffling models of differential privacy.

Brave Research shares the implementation so that other projects can use it.

Product analytics 

Developers would need to learn how Brave features are being used by many users to be able to improve user experience on the Web. For example, Brave developers would need to learn how well Brave privacy-preserving Cookie Banner removal works by asking the question “If you have viewed the cookie consent block prompt, how did you react?” However, each individual user’s choice needs to be private. As shown in the below chart, Nebula allows Brave to determine how much and where resources need to be allocated to block privacy-harming cookies for users and understand the popularity order of reactions without learning the reaction and cookie banners that each individual user sees. Nebula’s differential privacy guarantees ensure that the same conclusions, for example most users react with blocking cookie notices when seeing cookie banners, can be made independently of whether any individual user opts into or opts out of contributing their answer to the above question. 

Nebula enables developers to learn how Brave features are being used and to improve user experience on the Web, without risking users’ privacy. 

Nebula put Brave users first in product analytics

Nebula guarantees users’ privacy. Brave cares about safeguarding the privacy of our users. Nebula provides formal differential privacy guarantees ensuring that the product analytics leak as little as possible about each user’s choice. Brave does not even get to know the presence or absence of a user, let alone learning their data. Differential privacy is a robust, meaningful, and mathematically rigorous definition of privacy.

Nebula enables better auditability, verifiability, and transparency. Nebula’s usage means that users do not have to blindly trust Brave. Users are always in control of whether they want to contribute any data, know which data they are contributing, and when they are contributing. We open-sourced Nebula as part of the Brave’s STAR. In previous blog posts, we’ve talked about how we originally designed our Privacy-Preserving Analytics system and then improved it with Brave’s STAR. Now we’ve developed a further improvement using differential privacy, giving our users unmatched privacy protection. 

Nebula is efficient with very little user-facing cost. Local computation on the user side similarly requires very little effort.

Nebula’s inherently efficient design ensures that companies of all sizes can affordably protect their users’ privacy in their product analytics while also minimising negative environmental impacts.

Nebula design

At a high level, Nebula works as follows:

Local and verifiable user-side sampling.  The user decides to submit their data with a small probability, otherwise they abstain from submitting their real data. 

Local user data encryption. Users that do decide to participate (based on the outcome of their coin flip) locally encrypt their value using Brave’s STAR secret sharing scheme. This secret sharing process has a negligible (compute/memory) overhead for users.

Dummy data. A small number of users submit additional dummy data to obscure the distribution of uncommon (i.e., unrevealed) values.

Data aggregation. Brave recovers values and their associated counts using the inverse of the secret-sharing system which ensures that Brave cannot learn user values unless sufficiently many users sent the exact same value. 

Nebula satisfies differential privacy

Nebulas enforces formal differential privacy protection for users through three steps: 1) the uncertainty of any particular user contributing any value; 2) blinding Brave to uncommon values through the secret-sharing mechanism (i.e., thresholding); 3) having some users contribute precisely defined amounts of dummy data to obscure the distribution of uncommon values. 

Acknowledgements 

We would like to thank Shivan Kaul Sahib, Darnell Andries, and François Marier for their feedback and for their help with infrastructure implementation and production maintenance.

This week in consumer tech: Apple’s big reveals, OpenAI’s multi-step reasoning, and Adobe Firefly’s video model.

Olivia Moore and Justine Moore, Partners on the a16z Consumer team, break down the latest announcements and how these product launches will shape the tech ecosystem, transform AI-powered experiences, and impact startups competing for attention in a fast-moving market.

 

Resources: 

Find Justine of Twitter: https://x.com/venturetwins

Find Olivia on Twitter: https://x.com/omooretweets

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Panther Protocol will provide private access to DeFi while providing access to compliance tools supporting the new frontier of on-chain finance. Last month, Panther Ventures’ Head of Product, Saif Akhtar, and Chief Architect, Vadim Konstantinov presented the protocol’s latest vision for secure and private decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem at the Ethereum Community Conference 2024 (EthCC). This blog delves into that vision. 

A New Era for DeFi: Privacy and Compliance

Panther Protocol’s mission is to provide on-chain privacy infrastructure for regulated financial services providers, enabling them to operate private trading Zones with customizable rules that can be aligned with local or regional regulatory requirements. As regulatory scrutiny intensifies, financial service providers who deal in digital assets face increasing challenges in finding solutions that are compliant without compromising the privacy and security of their users. Panther Protocol is being developed specifically to address this challenge.

KYC and KYT Attestations: Ensuring Trust and Security

KYC (Know Your Customer) and KYT (Know Your Transaction) attestations are critical in today’s regulatory landscape. In its initial releases, Panther Protocol will support the use of first and (for use where permitted) third-party KYC/KYT services, including Panther Protocol partner, PureFi. 

However, Panther’s use of circuit-friendly signatures and Zero-Knowledge Proofs will have the capability to enable verification without exposing sensitive data, thus preserving even more user privacy. Where allowed, Panther’s Zero-Knowledge Proofs could be used to establish that regulatory conditions have been met. In the future, we believe using Zero-Knowledge Proofs will become the preferred way to satisfy regulatory requirements while preserving the user’s privacy. 

Panther’s client-side proof generation will also be conducted through user’s browsers, as this method best preserves the privacy of the user’s information. Panther will use the Groth16 proving system to meet basic browser requirements while minimizing computational resource demands.  

zAccount and Zones: A Dual-Layer Approach to Privacy

zAccounts and Zones are integral components of Panther’s architecture. zAccounts function as private on-chain identifiers that link user transactions without revealing personally identifiable information (PII). Zones, configurable by operators, enforce KYC/KYT rules and transaction limits, helping to align activities within the Zone to compliance standards. This dual-layer approach allows VASPs, and other regulated operators, to tailor privacy and compliance measures to their specific needs.

Data Escrow: Safeguarding Transactional Privacy

When transactions occur within Panther’s Shielded Pools, they will generate encrypted data that is stored in a data escrow system. This transaction data will be encrypted using Zero-Knowledge Proofs and zkSNARKs, ensuring that the details remain confidential and can only be accessed under predefined circumstances (rules set by a Zone Manager). The escrow system will be configurable, where allowed, to be managed by the Forensic Data Escrow Operator (FDEO), which holds the decryption key necessary to access the escrowed data but cannot do so unilaterally. Access to the escrowed data will require the activation of the Zone’s rules, as defined by the respective Zone Manager. Alternatively, the escrow system could be configured to provide unfettered access to the Zone Manager, as required. 

When regulators require information, (for example, for  the purpose of submitting reports to regulators, such as a suspicious activity report, or when requested by law enforcement), the protocol will be able to be configured so that the Zone Manager can access it on demand, relaying relevant data to regulators as required. Alternatively, where permissible, this data could bebe decrypted and disclosed in accordance with pre-programmed rules, set by the Zone Manager.

The system also supports selective disclosures, allowing specific parts of a transaction history to be revealed (for example, for auditing purposes) and providing mathematical proofs to validate these disclosures without revealing the entire transaction history. Disclosing information in this way ensures that only the minimum information necessary for the check or audit is revealed without including any additional data. This mechanism balances user privacy with compliance needs, leveraging advanced cryptographic techniques and a collaborative access model.

Smart compliance: the future of compliant privacy

Smart Compliance includes zAccounts, Data Escrow, and KYT Attestations, which will help to align Panther’s Zones to regulatory standards but also reduce the risk of illicit activities by enforcing rules by allowlisting customized lists of participants and assets, placing limitations on transactions and more.  While Panther Protocol will be used in its initial releases by Zone Managers who use first-person KYC/KYT with full access to the FDOE’s transaction data, in the future (and where allowed today), we expect that Zero-Knowledge smart compliance will become the preferred method of providing evidence of compliance. Using a combination of the technologies described above, will preserve the maximum privacy possible for users. 

Since its discovery in 2006, programmable DNA nanofabrication with DNA origami has attracted immense interest due to excellent programmability and biocompatibility with many applications including in cell and gene therapies, nanoelectronics and sensors, and delivery technologies in diverse areas such as cancer immunotherapy and even in materials science. However, the deployment and commercialization of the technology has thus far been slow and commercial traction limited due to challenges in scalability and in designing and assembling the DNA structures themselves.

CPTx founder and CEO Hendrik Dietz has been at the forefront of applied DNA nanofabrication research for decades and his work, which has been published in leading scientific journals, has become the centerpiece of the company. The first applications are tackling two complementary areas (a) creating a pathogen agnostic antiviral platform designed for targeted viral interventions and (b) the large-scale production of short and gene-length DNA single strands at massive scales (“GXstrands”). Both the antiviral platform and GXstrands applications are interrelated: the large-scale production of specific oligonucleotide pools is critical in creating more specialized antiviral motifs for a broader range of viral pathogens; while the high-quality gene-length DNA strands produced by GXstrands will be used in the R&D phases of the the new antiviral therapeutics, accelerating the time-to-market for additional iterations of the product.

Our Thesis

There are over 200 known viruses that could infect humans which cause a wide range of diseases, from mild illnesses like the common cold to severe and life-threatening conditions like HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, and COVID-19; not to mention the constant threat of novel zoonotic-related viruses (or the risk of viruses as emerging bioweapons). Although successful drugs can generate billions in revenue (such as the hepatitis C drug combo from Gilead which made $10 billion in 2015 alone), there are only limited options for effective antiviral treatments. We believe CPTx has an opportunity to leverage their knowledge and capabilities in DNA nanofabrication to build the first truly programmable antiviral platform, as well as to produce high-quality oligonucleotide pools and gene-length DNA single strands to supply the growing demand for nucleic acids, particularly from emerging cell and gene therapy therapies, with the aim to become a leading supplier for the entire pharma industry.

We are excited to be backing CPTx on their mission to pioneer next-gen antiviral and biodefense solutions, based on programmable DNA nanofabrication. Read more about their recent $29m financing here.

—

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article has been prepared solely for informational purposes and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any entity managed by BlueYard Capital (“BlueYard”). Any reference to a specific company or security does not constitute a recommendation to buy, sell, hold, or directly invest in the company or its securities. It may not be modified, reproduced, or redistributed in whole or in part without the prior written consent of BlueYard. Portfolio company information presented herein is for informational purposes only and not intended to be a guarantee of certain investment results. BlueYard does not represent that the information herein is accurate, true, or complete, makes no warranty, express or implied, regarding the information herein and shall not be liable for any losses, damages, costs, or expenses relating to its adequacy, accuracy, truth, completeness, or use. All other company, product and service names or service marks of others and their use does not imply their endorsement of, or an association with this program.

Interoperability is the holy grail for a multi-chain future or the ‘internet of blockchains’. However, while IBC (inter-blockchain communication protocol) revolutionised permissionless cross-chain transfers, it was Skip Protocol’s Go API that took advantage of Cosmos’ infrastructure (and its numerous messaging protocols), to create an end-to-end interoperability platform, allowing developers to design seamless cross-chain user experiences.

We were joined by Sam Hart, head of product at Skip Protocol, to discuss the challenges of interoperability across Cosmos & Ethereum, and how Skip:Go API & Skip:Connect push the crosschain boundaries towards end user adoption.

Topics covered in this episode:

Sam’s background The Other Internet Skip Protocol: bringing seamless interoperability to Cosmos Monetization for Skip:Connect & Skip:Go The Skip:Connect oracle and how Cosmos chains pull data Cross-chain MEV MEV blockers Ethereum vs. Cosmos ecosystem development and activity Ethereum bridges vs. Cosmos IBC Cross-chain interoperability Skip’s multi-chain expansion

Episode links:

Sam Hart on Twitter Skip Protocol on Twitter The Other Internet

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

We are excited to announce that the ZenIP 42407 proposal has passed with nearly 100% of participants voting in favor of the proposal!

The ZenIP 42407 proposal is a comprehensive plan for future ZEN tokenomics as Horizen transitions from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) system to a more efficient Proof-of-Stake (PoS) model and an ecosystem optimized for ZK.

This shift is part of Horizen’s larger goal to enhance its ecosystem for decentralized applications, particularly those utilizing zero-knowledge technology. These tokenomics changes address the distribution of remaining ZEN tokens, vesting schedules, and reward systems to ensure sustainable growth, network security, and incentivization for ecosystem participants.

Key Highlights of ZenIP 42407

ZEN Allocations:

The ZenIP 42407 proposes to make notable changes to the allocation of block rewards:

Horizen Foundation: The Foundation’s share of block rewards is proposed to increase from 20% to 32.5%. This increase will support long-term initiatives such as ecosystem development, market stability, and infrastructure growth. The additional resources aim to strengthen the Horizen Foundation’s role in driving development across the ecosystem​. DAO Treasury: The DAO Treasury is set to receive 27.5% of the total emissions. This allocation includes specific tracks like the ZEN Sustainability Initiative (17.5%), grants (5%), and growth/marketing efforts (5%) to ensure the ecosystem’s continued expansion. Collator Rewards: The remaining 40% of the emissions is proposed to be used to fund the security budget, which is essential for compensating Collators and their Delegators under the new Proof-of-Stake model​

Emission Schedule & Vesting:
A gradual vesting schedule is proposed for the remaining $ZEN tokens. Only 25% will be released at the time of migration to Horizen 2.0, with the remaining 75% vesting monthly over 48 months. This schedule helps maintain the sustainability of the network’s resources over time.

New Way to Earn Staking Rewards :
Collators (validators) and Delegators will receive rewards through a smoothly declining emissions schedule, which preserves the max supply of 21 million $ZEN. This change is designed to create predictability and long-term participation incentives for network stakeholders​

Elimination of the Halving Schedule:
The traditional block reward halving schedule will be replaced with a gradual emissions reduction, smoothing out the supply decreases and reducing market volatility. This adjustment is expected to mitigate speculative behavior while promoting healthier long-term participation.

Why These Changes?

The motivation behind the new tokenomics is rooted in Horizen’s evolving vision.

As the platform shifts from being a privacy-focused cryptocurrency and a traditional UTXO blockchain to a robust ecosystem for decentralized apps, its tokenomics needs to reflect this new focus. By incentivizing participants through staking and ensuring a stable financial foundation for community and infrastructure growth, these changes aim to support Horizen’s leadership in the competitive ZK application space.

Impact on the Horizen Ecosystem?

The new ZEN tokenomics for Horizen 2.0 is designed to:

Enhance Network Security

Collators will take over from PoW miners, securing the Horizen 2.0 network and receiving a significant portion of $ZEN rewards.

Attract More Developers

By allocating more funds toward ecosystem development, the proposal aims to attract top-tier projects to build within Horizen’s ecosystem, ensuring a sustainable pipeline of innovative applications.

Increase Funding for Ecosystem Growth

More $ZEN will be allocated to the Horizen Foundation and DAO Treasury, ensuring we have resources to fund development, developer initiatives, and marketing efforts.

Reduce Market Speculation

A gradual emissions decline mitigates the market disruptions typically associated with halving events​.

Strengthen Governance

The inclusion of a DAO-managed treasury will empower the community to drive initiatives aligned with Horizen’s mission, enhancing decentralized governance.

Next Steps

The new ZEN tokenomics will go live with the mainnet launch of Horizen 2.0, which will be in Q1 2025. Follow Horizen on X and Discord for upcoming details

FAQ

1. What is the max supply of $ZEN tokens proposed?
The total supply of $ZEN is capped at 21 million tokens, which will remain unchanged despite the adjustments.

2. How will the new tokenomics impact staking rewards? 
Staking rewards for Collators and Delegators will be distributed through a gradually declining emissions schedule, ensuring predictable and stable rewards over time​. 

3. Why replace the halving schedule?
The proposal replaces halving with a smoother emissions reduction to avoid market volatility and speculative behavior triggered by abrupt changes in rewards​.

4. When will the new tokenomics be implemented?

It will be be implemented when Horizen 2.0 goes live on mainnet

 

The post ZenIP 42407 Passed – New ZEN Tokenomics for Horizen 2.0 appeared first on Horizen Blog.

Join host Matt Prewitt in an inspiring conversation with Edge City co-founders Janine Leger and Timour Kosters, as they dive into the transformative world of pop-up villages and cities. Discover the story behind Edge City's latest experiment, Edge Esmeralda, and learn how temporary communities are reshaping the way we live and work. Janine and Timour share their passion for experimentation, collaboration, co-creation, and their vision for building healthier, more dynamic environments.

From the Whole Earth Catalog to the Chautauqua movement, this episode explores the rich history of pop-up communities while introducing groundbreaking ideas like community currencies ("∈dges") and iterative social technologies. Tune in for an engaging and forward-thinking discussion that reveals fresh perspectives on the future of community building, collaboration, and social innovation. Don’t miss this illuminating discussion!

Links & References: 

References:

About Edge City Edge Esmeralda Recap Why I Built Zuzalu by Vitalik Buterin | Palladium Magazine 2023: First Zuzalu Balaji Srinivasan’s on network states: The Network State Digital nomad - Wikipedia Whole Earth Catalog - Wikipedia Back-to-the-land movement - Wikipedia Burning Man - Wikipedia History of the Regional Network | Burning Man Project Michel Bauwens - Wikipedia The Seeds of The Commons: Peer-to-Peer Alternatives for Planetary Survival and Justice | Postdigital Science and Education Chautauqua - Wikipedia   What is a Chautauqua “Scenius” = Scenes of genius Scenius, or Communal Genius | WIRED Further notes on scenius - Austin Kleon RadicalxChange(s) | Barry Threw: Executive & Artistic Director of Gray Area Secret Societies, Network States, Burning Man, Zuzalu, and More - RadicalxChange Edges: A Plural Money Experiment - RadicalxChange Fork Edges here Plural Money: A New Currency Design - RadicalxChange

Bios:

Janine Leger is the co-founder of Edge City, an organization that convenes leaders and builders across tech, science, and society in pop-up villages around the globe. Previously, she co-created Zuzalu and led the Public Goods Funding team at Gitcoin.

Timour Kosters is also a co-founder of Edge City. Prior, he spent ten years building and investing in startups, including Artsy, the largest online art marketplace; Kama, a leading health-tech app; and Impact, an impact-focused social media brand. He was most recently a partner at Seed Club Ventures.

Links: 
Janine and Timour’s Social Links:

Janine Leger (@JanineLeger) / X timour kosters (@timourxyz) / X Edge City (@JoinEdgeCity) / X Edge City

Matt Prewitt (he/him) is a lawyer, technologist, and writer. He is the President of the RadicalxChange Foundation.

Matt’s Social Links:

ᴍᴀᴛᴛ ᴘʀᴇᴡɪᴛᴛ (@m_t_prewitt) / X

Connect with RadicalxChange Foundation:

RadicalxChange Website @RadxChange | Twitter RxC | YouTube RxC | Instagram RxC | LinkedIn Join the conversation on Discord.

Credits:

Produced by G. Angela Corpus. Co-Produced, Edited, Narrated, and Audio Engineered by Aaron Benavides. Executive Produced by G. Angela Corpus and Matt Prewitt. Intro/Outro music by MagnusMoone, “Wind in the Willows,” is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

The post Deepfakes and the New Era of Social Engineering appeared first on Greylock.

The post Congrats, WarpStream and Confluent on Joining Forces appeared first on Greylock.

Vijay Pande, founding general partner, and Julie Yoo, general partner at a16z Bio + Health, come together to discuss the grand challenges facing healthcare AI today.

The talk through the implications of AI integration in healthcare workflows, AI as a potential catalyst for value-based care, and the opportunity for innovation in clinical trials. They also talk about the AI startup they each wish would walk through the door. 

 

Resources: 

Find Vijay on Twitter: https://x.com/vijaypande

FInd Julie on Twitter: https://x.com/julesyoo

Listen to more episode from Raising Health: https://a16z.com/podcasts/raising-health/

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

In this day and age, privacy and confidentiality are more important than ever. Advancements in the cryptographic research of zero knowledge proofs (ZKPs), fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) and multi-party computation (MPC) paved the way for computational integrity and confidential computing. While FHE allows for computation to be performed on encrypted data without the need for prior decryption, it is MPC that enables compliance with regulations (e.g. AML). Arcium aims to build a global super computer for parallelised confidential computing, powered by custom MXEs (multi-party computation execution environments).

Topics covered in this episode:

Yannik’s background Confidentiality & decentralised compliance Confidential computing TEEs (trusted execution environments) & side-channel attacks ZKP vs. MPC vs. FHE Arcium’s global super computer architecture How Arcium differentiates itself from other privacy protocols Use cases Censorship risks Ecosystem development

Episode links:

Yannik Schrade on Twitter Arcium on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Felix Lutsch.

The Zcash Foundation is committed to transparency and openness with the Zcash community and our other stakeholders. Today, we are releasing our Q1 2024 report, which provides an overview of the work undertaken by the Zcash Foundation’s engineering team, as well as an overview of other activities during this period.

The report also provides a financial update, describing our income and expenditure, with a detailed breakdown of our expenses, and a snapshot of the Foundation’s financial position, in terms of liquid assets and liabilities that must be met using those assets.

Download the Q1 2024 report here.

Our previous quarterly reports can be found here.

The post The Zcash Foundation’s Q1 2024 Report appeared first on Zcash Foundation.

As the Fintech industry in Saudi Arabia continues to surge, Empeiria is thrilled to be part of the 24 Fintech event from September 3–5 in Riyadh. We’ll be showcasing our groundbreaking End-to-End Verifiable Data Infrastructure (EVDI) at standH2.G30, offering attendees a firsthand look at how this technology is set to transform the industry.

In August, we launched our EVDI Showcase Demo, a significant milestone that allows users to explore the power of verifiable data through practical scenarios. The demo features five distinct workflows, including passwordless logins for seamless authentication and Proof of Purchase (PoP), which securely stores and verifies purchase details as Verifiable Credentials. These workflows highlight the key aspects of web3 adoption — enhancing security, ensuring privacy, and facilitating interactions with decentralized systems.

This demo offers a hands-on experience of how EVDI can help create a decentralized and trustworthy digital environment. We’re excited to bring this experience to 24Fintech, where you can see these innovations in action.

To explore the demo yourself, visit our showcase and use it with the Empe DID Wallet, available on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

Join us at 24 Fintech to discover how Empeiria’s EVDI is shaping the future of Fintech. We look forward to connecting with you in Riyadh!

Follow Empeiria on X, or LinkedIn for the latest news & updates. For inquiries or further information, contact Empeiria at media@empe.io

TL;DR: In August, we launched our EVDI Showcase Demo, featuring key features like passwordless logins and Proof of Purchase (PoP). We also introduced new VC issuance flows, optimized QR codes for easier credential claiming, and upgraded the Empe Blockchain with enhanced modules and security improvements.

Over the past month, we’ve made strides in our End-to-End Verifiable Data Infrastructure (EVDI) technology, all thanks to your priceless feedback and our commitment to pushing boundaries with cutting-edge R&D. Here’s what we’ve built:

EVDI Showcase Demo Launch

In August, we achieved a significant milestone with the launch of our new End-to-End Verifiable Data Infrastructure (EVDI) Showcase Demo, which provides a unique opportunity to experience the power of verifiable data in practical scenarios.

The demo features five distinct workflows designed to showcase the capabilities of our EVDI platform. Among these key features are passwordless logins, which allow for seamless user authentication without the need for traditional passwords, and Proof of Purchase (PoP), which securely stores and verifies purchase details as Verifiable Credentials.

Each workflow is crafted to illustrate crucial aspects of web3 adoption. By leveraging verifiable data, we enhance security through robust verification mechanisms, ensure privacy by empowering users with control over their personal information, and facilitate interactions with decentralized systems, thus empowering users in the digital space.

Why does this matter?

Hands-on Experience: The demo provides a hands-on experience, making it easier for users and businesses to grasp the benefits of Verifiable Credentials and drive wider adoption.

Boosting Security: Passwordless logins and Verifiable Credentials reduce password theft and fraud risk, enhancing overall digital security.

Protecting Privacy: Users retain control over their data with Verifiable Credentials, ensuring privacy and compliance with data protection laws.

Simplifying Interactions: Seamless digital experiences are facilitated through easy issuance, claiming, and verification of verifiable credentials, making user interactions smoother and more intuitive.

Driving Web3 Adoption: Real-world use cases in the demo help bridge the gap between Web3 concepts and practical applications, encouraging broader adoption.

Ensuring Compliance: Verifiable Credentials help meet stringent data privacy regulations by prioritizing user data ownership and control.

Try it out now

To access the demo, visit https://issuer-demo.empe.io/ to issue and verify credentials. Use the Empe DID Wallet app on your mobile device to claim and present your credentials. You can download the Empe Wallet from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store now.

VC Issuance Flows & Passwordless Login with Empe Wallet

Later in the month, our development team added two new flows to the Empe Issuer Demo, with automatic VC verification and authorization, as well as manual approval for claiming Verifiable Credentials (VCs).

Why does this matter?

Enhanced Security: New flows allow for VC issuance only to verified users. Conditional Issuance: Set specific requirements for VC issuance, ensuring only eligible users receive credentials. Personalized VCs: Create customized VCs tailored to individual user needs. Seamless User Experience: Passwordless login improves convenience and security.

Empe Issuer is now even more flexible and user-friendly for issuing and authenticating verifiable credentials.

Lighter QR Codes for Seamless VCs Claiming

Based on your feedback and with our ever-present goal of improving user experience, we are introducing new, lighter QR codes for easier, faster, seamless claiming of Verifiable Credentials (VCs) from Empe Issuer Demo. The new QR codes link directly to API endpoints, making them more readable for a wider range of devices.

Why does this matter?

Fewer Errors: The improved structure reduces the likelihood of scanning errors, ensuring a smoother claiming experience. Faster Scanning: The optimized QR codes enable faster and more efficient scanning, providing a quicker and more convenient process for users.

This update further enhances the user experience and efficiency of our Empe Issuer Demo.

Chain Upgrade to Version 0.2.2

Following the recent launch of Empe Testnet and in anticipation of Empe Mainnet, we’ve successfully upgraded Empe Blockchain to version 0.2.2 with the following key changes:

Enhanced DID Repository Module: Improved data integrity with new validations and optimizations. New Minter Module: Introduces controlled token emission with flexible minting configurations for adaptable distribution. New Vesting Module: Manages vesting accounts with features for creating, splitting, and controlling token release. Security Fixes: Includes critical updates to enhance overall network security.

Why does this matter?

These upgrades and new features ensure that our blockchain is even more robust and flexible. This makes it a solid foundation for our End-to-End Verifiable Data Infrastructure (EVDI).

All these latest advancements mark significant progress in improving the security, efficiency, and developer experience of our verifiable data infrastructure. We deeply value your ongoing support and insightful feedback, which are essential to our continued development. Thank you for your contributions.

Follow Empeiria on X, or LinkedIn for the latest news & updates. For inquiries or further information, contact Empeiria at media@empe.io

with @NoahRFeldman, @ahall_research, @rhhackett

Welcome to web3 with a16z. I'm Robert Hackett and today we have a special episode about governance in many forms — from nation states to corporate boards to internet services and beyond.

Our special guests are Noah Feldman, constitutional law scholar at Harvard who also architected the Meta oversight board (among many other things); he is also the author of several books. And our other special guest is Andy Hall, professor of political science at Stanford who is an advisor of a16z crypto research — and who also co-authored several papers and posts about web3 as a laboratory for designing and testing new political systems, including new work we'll link to in the shownotes.

Our hallway style conversation covers technologies and approaches to governance, from constitutions to crypto/ blockchains and DAOs. As such we also discuss content moderation and community standards; best practices for citizens assemblies; courts vs. legislatures; and much more where governance comes up. 

Throughout, we reference the history and evolution of democracy — from Ancient Greece to the present day — as well as examples of governance from big companies like Meta, to startups like Anthropic.

Resources for references in this episode:

On the U.S. Supreme Court case NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton (Scotusblog) On Meta's oversight board (Oversightboard.com) On Anthropic's long term benefit trust (Anthropic, September 2023) On "Boaty McBoatface" winning a boat-naming poll (Guardian, April 2016) On Athenian democracy (World History Encyclopedia, April 2018) The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President by Noah Feldman (Random House, October 2017)

A selection of recent posts and papers by Andrew Hall:

The web3 governance lab: Using DAOs to study political institutions and behavior at scale by Andrew Hall and Eliza Oak (a16z crypto, June 2024) DAO research: A roadmap for experimenting with governance by Andrew Hall and Eliza Oak (a16z crypto, June 2024) The effects of retroactive rewards on participating in online governance by Andrew Hall and Eliza Oak (a16z crypto, June 2024) Lightspeed Democracy: What web3 organizations can learn from the history of governance by Andrew Hall and Porter Smith (a16z crypto, June 2023) What Kinds of Incentives Encourage Participation in Democracy? Evidence from a Massive Online Governance Experiment by Andrew Hall and Eliza Oak (working paper, November 2023) Bringing decentralized governance to tech platforms with Andrew Hall (a16z crypto Youtube, July 2022) The evolution of decentralized governance with Andrew Hall (a16z crypto Youtube, July 2022) Toppling the Internet’s Accidental Monarchs: How to Design web3 Platform Governance by Porter Smith and Andrew Hall (a16z crypto, October 2022) Paying People to Participate in Governance by Ethan Bueno de Mesquita and Andrew Hall (a16z crypto, November 2022)

As a reminder: none of the following should be taken as tax, business, legal, or investment advice. See a16zcrypto.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

The future is multi-chain, scalable and modular. However, while Cosmos’ IBC set the standard for interoperability, Ethereum’s L2 shift revealed a huge problem of liquidity fragmentation across the many rollups fighting for market share. Polymer aims to bridge the two ecosystems and bring the best of both worlds: Ethereum’s native liquidity and Cosmos’ interoperability, through a modular framework using the OP-stack and IBC.

Topics covered in this episode:

Bo’s background and the evolution of Polymer Scaling limits of L1s vs. L2s The ‘endgame’ for rollup frameworks IBC Interoperability & network topology: 70’s/80’s vs. blockchains Polymer hub Monomer framework Pre-confirmation & finality trade-offs Cross-rollup interoperability Building appchains with Monomer Modularity

Episode links:

Bo Du on Twitter Polymer Labs on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture.

San Francisco (USA), August 30th, 2024 – MedXRSI is thrilled to announce a significant partnership with the Journal of Medical Extended Reality (JMedXR), a leading publication, by Mary Ann Leibert Inc., at the forefront of Medical XR research and innovations. MedXRSI, also a host of the Medical XR Advisory Council, is a critical program of the world’s leading standard-developing organization in emerging and immersive technologies, X Reality Safety Intelligence (XRSI). This collaboration marks a milestone in advancing the safety, security, privacy, ethics, and overall efficacy of immersive technologies within the healthcare sector.

Elevating Industry Practices and Community Insights in Medical XR through Shared Expertise

As part of this collaboration, MedXRSI will work closely with the highly regarded Editor-in-Chief and Guidelines Editor of JMedXR to publish groundbreaking medical healthcare research and safety guidelines specific to the Medical XR domain. This joint effort aims to set a new standard for safety in the Medical XR ecosystem, ensuring that practitioners, researchers, and developers alike can operate with robust guardrails that prioritize patient safety and ethical practices.

Development of Comprehensive Safety Guidelines

MedXRSI is committed to developing safety guidelines for the immersive healthcare industry. Through this collaboration, it will create a comprehensive series of safety guidelines for the Medical XR ecosystem. These guidelines will provide the medical community with essential resources to navigate the complex landscape of immersive technologies safely and effectively.

Joint Research Initiatives and Policy Advocacy

The collaboration goes beyond just publishing safety guidelines; it also provides opportunities to pursue joint research projects that focus on the safety and ethics of immersive technologies. MedXRSI and JMedXR are committed to advancing the Medical XR ecosystem through thorough research and creative solutions that tackle the distinctive challenges of this rapidly evolving field.

Moreover, XRSI and the journal’s owners will collaborate on data governance, safety advocacy, policy, and awareness efforts to shape the future of Medical XR. In addition to developing and publishing joint position papers and statements, the two organizations will work closely to ensure critical voices and experts can easily leverage their platforms to promote standards and best practices.

Community Partnership and Industry Awareness through Metaverse Safety Week

As part of this collaboration, JMedXR will actively participate in the upcoming Metaverse Safety Week (MSW) 2024, held from December 10th to 15th. With the theme of “Embrace Change,” this year’s campaign promotes safe and responsible practices within emerging technologies. JMedXR will participate in the discussions focused on balancing innovation and shared responsibility in open systems as part of the “Immersive Healthcare” day on December 11, 2024.

Educational Workshops and Training Sessions

Education and awareness are critical components of MedXRSI’s mission. As part of these collaborative efforts, MedXRSI and JMedXR may jointly develop educational workshops or training sessions to promote best practices in immersive healthcare. These sessions will provide valuable insights and training to professionals and stakeholders within the Medical XR community, further strengthening the safety and efficacy of immersive healthcare platforms and applications.

A Unified Vision for the Future

This collaboration between MedXRSI and JMedXR represents a significant step forward in pursuing safer and more effective Medical XR applications. By combining expertise and resources, both organizations are poised to contribute substantially to the field, benefiting patients and healthcare providers worldwide.

If you are interested in helping MedXRSI in these efforts, contact us via this Get Involved form. 

For more information about MedXRSI and its mission, visit the website. To learn more about the JMedXR and its contributions to the field, explore its official publication page.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA

For more information about XRSI’s mission and initiatives, visit MedXRSI’s Who We Are.

Website: https://medical.xrsi.org/  | Twitter: @XRSafetyMedical | LinkedIn: The Medical XR Advisory Council (MedXRSI)

ENDS

For any inquiry or more information, please contact Julia Scott, MedXRSI Executive Lead:

julia@xrsi.org | medical@xrsi.org 

The post MedXRSI Announces Strategic Partnership with the Journal of Medical Extended Reality (JMedXR)   appeared first on X Reality Safety Intelligence (XRSI).

Today we’re excited to announce native bridging support in Brave Wallet. This allows users to transfer assets from one blockchain to another with the familiar user experience of swaps.

The rise of multi-chain ecosystems

The blockchain landscape has evolved dramatically, with hundreds of active, public blockchains and L2 solutions with an aggregate TVL exceeding $80b. This highlights the need for seamless interoperability.

Bridges act as connectors, allowing users to move assets across chains, and to access DeFi opportunities across multiple ecosystems. Without bridges, users would be limited to the functionalities and liquidity of a single network, limiting interoperability and broader use cases of blockchains. Beyond merely moving funds across different blockchain networks, bridges are particularly important when considering the privacy implications of using centralized exchanges for onboarding to L2 networks. By utilizing bridges, users can avoid exposing their transaction data to centralized entities, maintaining a higher degree of anonymity and control over their financial activities across multiple chains.

LI.FI: powering Brave Wallet’s bridging functionality

Bridging functionality in Brave Wallet is powered by LI.FI, an API solution that allows us to find the best execution price for any swap/bridge intent across all major DEX aggregators and bridges.

Brave Wallet currently supports all major EVM chains including Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Arbitrum, Base, Polygon, Optimism, and zkSync Era. We also allow bridging between EVM chains and Solana for supported pairs. Brave Wallet facilitates cross-chain, any-to-any swaps in a single transaction, which reduces the number of steps it takes to move funds across chains. Brave does not add fees to swaps or bridges performed within Brave Wallet.

As we design Brave Wallet, we aim to find a balance between offering sensible defaults and giving users as much control and choice as possible, without sacrificing the user experience. We’ve therefore designed the Brave Wallet bridging feature to let users pick the route of their choice, to focus on various parameters like output amount, execution speed, and more. Route selection is currently available in version 1.70 in the Beta channel.

An example of bridge route selection in Brave Wallet.

Enhanced security with Safe Sign

Brave Wallet users may already be familiar with the Safe Sign feature, which allows them to verify the actual intent of a swap transaction before approving. Safe Sign leverages our improved EVM ABI decoder in Brave Core to bring safety and transparency to the transaction approval process. We are happy to share that all bridge transactions powered by LI.FI come with the same transparent signing experience in Brave Wallet.

Bridging as the next step in Brave Wallet utility

With the growing adoption of L2s and the increasing complexity of the multi-chain ecosystem, bridging has become an essential component of the Web3 user experience. Brave Wallet’s native bridging support represents a significant step forward in making cross-chain interactions more accessible, secure, and user-friendly for Brave Wallet users.

We encourage Brave Wallet users to explore these new bridging capabilities, and to provide feedback as we continue to refine and expand our offerings to other bridge providers and networks.

Learn more about Brave Wallet, or click in the address bar (desktop) or settings menu (mobile) to get started.

Even when using open and permissionless blockchains, some things are best left private

Polarizing views

Surveys like the Edelman Trust Barometer reveal increasing polarization, particularly on social and political issues, with many participants expressing reluctance to collaborate with those who hold opposing views. At the same time, as crypto donations gain popularity, so does donor traceability.

Whether donating to a social cause, charity, or other non-profit, donors may fear backlash or unwanted attention for supporting certain causes. Real-life examples underscore the risks associated with traceable donations. Chainalysis has tracked donations back to donors' wallets linked to events like the January 6th Capitol Riot, the Canadian "Freedom Convoy" and high-profile alt-right organizations. While these cases involve highly controversial donations made using cryptocurrency, they also highlight the potential for donor identities to be exposed, potentially leading to serious repercussions. 

The problems with “private” donations today

Many high-profile charities have adopted technology that enables donors to contribute using cryptocurrencies. Organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, United Way, Oxfam, and Doctors Without Borders now accept crypto donations; however, these solutions often rely on centralized third parties, such as Bitpay or Silentdonor. This reliance introduces not only the risks associated with centralization but also the potential disconnect between the donation and the donor, which can pose challenges for donor stewardship and require charities to find alternative methods to capture donor information for relationship-building. Additionally, inefficiencies can arise when crypto is automatically converted to fiat currency before the donation is processed. It's also important to note that donors who wish to claim tax benefits for their charitable contributions must maintain accurate records of their donations. 

This blog article explores whether Panther Protocol could solve this problem.

Could Panther Protocol preserve the privacy of donors?

Panther Protocol is being developed to enable privacy-enhanced on-chain transactions, without compromising compliance enablement. Panther Protocol is set to accomplish this by supporting licensed digital asset service providers to operate trading zones (Zones) where rules can be established to help Zone Managers align their Zones with the regulatory requirements of the jurisdictions in which they operate.

In its initial releases, Panther Protocol will support use cases tailored to financial service providers, such as swaps. However, the same technology will also address the privacy concerns surrounding charitable donations, allowing donors to support causes without fear of exposure or backlash while safeguarding their identities and financial information. Below, we explore how this innovative approach offers a solution to the challenges of donation privacy.

How Panther preserves user privacy for financial transactions

Users will be able to create zAccounts to access Panther's Shielded Pool. Supported crypto-assets will be secured in a Vault smart contract, and an equivalent zAsset will be issued. These zAssets will be 1:1 collateralized "shielded" versions of the original tokens, usable within the Panther dApp. 

These features preserve user privacy through the use of zk-SNARKs and zero-knowledge proofs, which allow transactions to be validated without revealing any details. Users will deposit cryptoassets into Shielded Pools and receive zAssets, privacy-enhanced versions of the original tokens. These assets will be useable across multiple blockchains while maintaining confidentiality. For more in-depth information about how Panther Protocol works, please see here. 

Panther Protocol for Charities?

Panther Protocol has the potential to integrate into non-profits’ tech stacks. Each Zone within the Protocol can be customized with specific rules that adhere to the regulatory requirements of the jurisdiction in which it operates. For example, in the case of a charity, a Zone could be configured to disclose information only to law enforcement while preserving donor privacy. By doing so, charities can establish rules and compliance measures that satisfy regulatory requirements and ensure transparency.

Applying Zones to donations

An entity operating as a Zone Manager in Panther Protocol can facilitate private donations by setting up a Zone within Panther's Multi-Asset Shielded Pool (MASP or Shielded Pool). Donors would deposit cryptoassets into the Zone, where the recipient receives donations. In return, donors would receive zAssets—collateralized, privacy-enhanced versions of the original assets—that preserve the privacy of the donor’s identity and transaction details. The donor would then transfer the zAssets to the charity, which could convert them back to their original form (non-zAsset) and withdraw to a digital wallet, if desired. We explain how, below. 

Panther Protocol could be a viable solution to charities looking to accept privacy-enhanced donations. The charity and donor would each register for a zAccount, using PureFi, Panther Protocol’s KYC partner’s process. 

Having connected their respective wallets, the donor would deposit the asset(s) intended for donation into the Panther Vault, receiving, in exchange, a fully-collateralized zAsset that represents the digital asset being donated (e.g. zEth). At this point, the zAssets will reside within Panther’s Shielded Pool, which enables the transfer of digital assets to other zAccount holders (i.e. the charity recipient of the donation). Within the Shielded Pool, a set of smart contracts, safeguarded by cutting-edge cryptographic techniques, will preserve the privacy of pool users. 

The donor can then initiate a transfer of ownership of the donated assets, with the transaction taking place within a Zone, managed by a VASP or other licensed entity operator. Once transferred, the charity recipient can choose to either keep the assets in the Shielded Pool, or withdraw the zAssets back to their original digital asset form using a similar process to the donor’s deposit. 

When transacting using Panther Protocol, parties will  receive rewards for depositing and sending assets. Rewards are received in Panther Rewards Points. The charity recipient, upon withdrawal, would pay fees to the Protocol. Similar to how some charities encourage donors to cover PayPal or Credit Card transaction fees, charities using Panther Protocol to accept privacy-enhanced donations may also encourage donors to contribute a small amount to offset any costs incurred by the platform. 

For future iterations of the protocol, it is worth noting that Panther Protocol’s Zones are scalable and modular. A charity could, in theory, utilize different Zones to receive donations across various jurisdictions, each with its own set of rules tailored to meet the specific regulatory requirements of that region.

Privacy requirements for charities

Beyond addressing the lack of privacy on open blockchains, Panther Protocol’s Zones could, in the future, help uphold privacy obligations that charities have towards their donors’ information. Privacy legislation in many countries, including the European Union, Australia, Canada, the UK and more, requires that donor information should not be used or disclosed for purposes other than those for which it was collected, except with the donor’s consent or as required by law. Panther Protocol’s advanced cryptography will help to keep this information safe. 

Conclusion

Panther Protocol offers a promising solution to the challenges of private crypto donations in a polarized world. By leveraging Panther’s privacy-preserving features, charities will be able to ensure that donor identities and transaction details remain confidential, protecting them from potential backlash or unwanted attention. 

The Zcash Foundation is pleased to announce the release of Zebra 1.9.0. This release includes the necessary changes to activate NU6 on Testnet as well as a number of additional NU6 updates and other improvements.

To support NU6 activation on Testnet, this release of Zebra adds the NU6 network upgrade variant, minimum protocol versions for NU6, current protocol version, and Testnet activation height. It also supports configuring an NU6 activation height and configurable funding streams on Regtest and custom Testnets as well as the implementation of all of the ZIPs relating to future funding streams after the current devfund expires at the next halving. Finally, it updates Zebra’s EoS (End of Support) to ensure that it will not run ahead of the expected activation height of NU6 on Mainnet. This means that there will be at least one other Zebra release before NU6 activates on Mainnet.

This release also includes changes to add a new zebra-scanner binary and functionality to support access to Zebra’s best chain state from another process, and notify clients when Zebra’s best tip changes. All of this work is in support of a replacement to the zcashd built-in wallet and gets us closer to enabling zcashd deprecation.

You can see a full copy of all of the included changes in the v1.9.0 Release Notes on GitHub.

The post Zebra 1.9.0 Release appeared first on Zcash Foundation.

Half of prescribed medications are never taken, and 88% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. Despite spending 20% of our GDP on healthcare—twice that of any other developed nation—our outcomes still lag behind.

In this episode, we explore why technologists must step into the healthcare ring. Solving medicine isn’t enough; we need to make healthcare a consumer-focused industry. a16z’s Vijay Pandey and Daisy Wolf discuss the rise of tech founders in healthcare, the potential of AI to transform patient care, and how this shift could lead to the next trillion-dollar company.

Can tech truly disrupt this complex, regulated industry?

 

Resources: 

Read the article ‘It’s Time to Build in Healthcare’: https://a16z.com/hey-tech-its-time-to-build-in-healthcare/

Find Vijay on Twitter: https://x.com/vijaypande

Find Daisy on Twitter: https://x.com/daisydwolf

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

zcashd 5.10.0 is a maintenance and security bugfix release, including support for NU6 on Testnet. A further upgrade will be needed for NU6 on Mainnet. All zcashd users should upgrade […]

Source

The new version ZEN 5.0.4 is available to download on GitHub and via Docker.

DOWNLOAD ZEN 5.0.4 NOW ZEN 5.0.4 is the official Release for Mainnet and Testnet ZEN 5.0.2 and ZEN 5.0.3 (previous versions) are going to deprecate on Mainnet at block #1627572, on September 12th, 2024 at approximately 4:00 PM UTC. Please, update to ZEN 5.0.4 before September 12th, 2024. ZEN 5.0.4 will not perform any network upgrade on Mainnet via Hard Fork Nodes running on Mainnet and Public Testnet should be updated with this version.

See release notes Here

Please let us know if you have any questions or need further support by contacting us on our Discord.

The post Mainnet Node Software Upgrade: ZEN 5.0.4 is Available to Download appeared first on Horizen Blog.

Summary

This post presents research on the privacy harms and risks of Google’s recent Related Website Sets feature, to be presented at the 2024 Internet Measurement Conference. The research finds both that the Related Website Sets feature would reverse some of the privacy benefits of deprecating third-party cookies, and that Google’s justification for reintroducing this privacy harm (i.e., that Web users can tell when two different sites are run by the same organization) is untrue for many, potentially most, Web users. The study supports other browsers’ decision to reject the feature because of its privacy risks, and highlights the risk Related Website Sets poses to Chrome users.

The study was conducted by researchers at University of St Andrews, Imperial College London, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (GZ), and Brave Software. This post was written by Principal Privacy Researcher Peter Snyder.

Background: Related Website Sets and Third-Party Cookies

Related Website Sets (RWS) is a recent Chrome feature, proposed by Google in anticipation of the end of third-party cookies. The privacy and security harms caused by third-party cookies are well documented, and have led every major Web browser to either block third-party cookies, or announce plans to do so (even if Google has, again, pushed its planned deprecation date back).

According to Google, Related Website Sets reenables third-party-cookie-like-behavior where it benefits users, without reintroducing the broader privacy harms of third-party cookies. In reality, RWS aims to allow (for example) Google to link the videos you watch on YouTube to your Google profile, even when you’re not logged into YouTube, and even after third-party cookies have been deprecated in Chrome. While the research described in this post presents and evaluates Google’s stated motivations with RWS, the core truth is that RWS exists for advertiser-serving situations like the above. 

The broad idea behind RWS is that if two different sites are run by the same organization (for example, instagram.com and facebook.com are both run by Meta), then there is no need for the browser to block third-party cookies between the two sites, since the user already expects that both sites will share information with each other.

More casually, the motivation behind RWS is something like this: there’s no point in telling your mom a secret, and then trying to keep that secret from your dad; you should assume your parents are going to share everything with each other.

RWS is a user-hostile weakening of the Web’s privacy model, plainly designed to benefit websites and advertisers, to the detriment of user privacy. Google argues that RWS actually benefits users, either because the privacy exceptions help fix “site compatibility issues” or to keep users “signed in” across related domains. But a quick look at the actual Related Website Sets exceptions list reveals many examples unrelated to even these (even hypothetically) user-benefiting use cases, and these sites work correctly in browsers that do not implement RWS (i.e., almost all other browsers).

In reality, the primary motivation behind Related Website Sets is as frustrating as it is unsurprising: to benefit advertisers to the detriment of users (or, as Google euphemistically says, to “show you personalized content”). As with so many other user-harmful and needlessly-complex choices in Chrome’s overarching “Privacy Sandbox” proposal, RWS exists to make sure Chrome continues to serve advertisers’ needs first, even once Google has been shamed into (finally) deprecating third-party cookies.

Study Description: Users (Understandably) Do Not Anticipate Site Relations

The study considered RWS impact on Web privacy by testing whether the underlying assumption in RWS is correct: can Web users accurately determine if two different sites are related to each other? More specifically, if a Web user is presented with two different websites, how accurately are they able to decide whether the two sites are related to each other, given the existing site-relationships defined by Chrome’s RWS list.

In general, we found that Web users cannot accurately determine if two sites are related to each other (as determined by the Related Sites Set feature). We conducted a user study with 30 Web users, recruited over social media, and presented them each with 20 pairs of websites. Website pairs were randomly selected from both the Related Website Sets list (i.e., sites Google designates as “related”, and so warranting reduced privacy protections), and the Tranco list of popular websites. Each user was presented with different pairs of websites, asked to view the sites, and then decide if they thought the two sites were operated by the same organization. This resulted in 430 determinations of whether unique pairs of websites were related (some of the 30 users did not provide an answer to all of the 20 website pairs they were presented).

We found that users’ expectations for which sites were related often didn’t match the Related Website Sets list, and as a result, the RWS feature re-enables third-party cookie-like behavior in many cases users could not anticipate. In our study, the large majority of users (~73%) made at least one incorrect determination of whether two sites were related to each other, and almost half (~42%) of the determinations made during the study (i.e., all determinations from all users) were incorrect. Most concerning, of the cases where both sites were related (according to the RWS feature), users guessed that the sites were unrelated ~37% of the time, meaning that users would have thought Chrome was protecting them when it was not.

We conclude from this that the premise underlying RWS is fundamentally incorrect; Web users are (understandably, predictably) not able to accurately determine whether two sites are owned by the same organization. And as a result, RWS is reintroducing exactly the kinds of privacy harms that third-party cookies cause.

Lest anyone judge the study participants for being uninformed, or not taking the study seriously, consider for yourself: which of the following pairs of sites are related?

hindustantimes.com and healthshots.com

vwo.com and wingify.com

economictimes.com and cricbuzz.com

indiatoday.in and timesofindia.com

Keep in mind, a user needs to determine whether two domains are related before clicking on a link; once a site has been loaded, any information sharing and tracking has already occurred.

In conclusion, we find that RWS will be harmful to user privacy, and reintroduce the kinds of privacy harms the Web has been moving away from by removing third-party cookies. The full paper will be presented at the 2024 Internet Measurement Conference.

(For the above quiz, if you chose “4”, then, unfortunately that is incorrect. That is in fact the only pair of the four that isn’t considered “related” to each other.)

Beyond the Study: Additional Privacy Harms from Related Website Sets

However, beyond the findings from the user study, we note a more fundamental privacy harm with RWS. RWS rests on the idea that if two sites are related to each other, then it’s harmless (or, at least “acceptable”) for the browser to reduce privacy protections between those two sites. Or, to go back to the previous analogy, if mom already knows something, then there’s no harm in telling dad; dad is going to find out regardless.

This assumption is wrong; modern Web browsers are perfectly capable of preventing (say) Meta from knowing that your Facebook account and your Instagram account are owned by the same person if you register them with different email addresses and information. In fact, this is the default behavior of most Web browsers today, both browsers focused at a popular audience (e.g., Brave, Firefox, Safari) and browsers targeting specialized audiences (e.g., Tor Browsers, Icefox). Unless you use the same credentials to register an account on two different sites, modern browsers can absolutely prevent two sites operated by the same organization from linking your behaviors across those sites. Or, in other words, modern Web browsers can absolutely prevent Mom from telling Dad your secrets.

Finally, we acknowledge that some companies do try to circumvent the privacy protections in Web browsers, to try and allow two sites run by the same organization to link your accounts across sites. Some sites use techniques like link decoration or bounce tracking to try and continue tracking you. But the difference here between privacy respecting browsers (which include link decoration and bounce tracking protections) and Chrome (which is explicitly designed to allow cross-site linkage) is damning: some browsers are experimenting with techniques to prevent organizations from tracking you across sites, and some browsers are designing features with the explicit intent of allowing such tracking.

Conclusions

In conclusion, our study finds that RWS is harmful for Web privacy, and in three ways:

First, RWS assumes users can anticipate which sites are related to each other, but in practice users cannot.

Second, RWS introduces privacy harm even before users have the the opportunity to decide if two sites are operated by the same organization; by the time users can view a webpage to try and decide if two sites are related to each other, the privacy harm has already occurred, and sites have had the opportunity to track the user across site boundaries.

And third, RWS entrenches a privacy-harmful assumption in the Web platform, instead of working to excise it. RWS assumes that if two sites are owned by the same organization, then the organization should be allowed to track you across those two sites. In contrast, privacy respecting browsers have gone in the opposite direction, and tried to prevent all sites from tracking you, regardless of what organization owns them.

Additional Concerns with Related Website Sets The Web has Rejected Related Website Sets

Although Related Website Sets is being presented as a general Web proposal, the truth is that most of the Web has already considered and rejected it. Most browsers, including Brave, Firefox, and Safari, have publicly stated that they believe Related Website Sets (previously called First-Party Sets) is bad for users, and bad for the Web. The proposal has been removed from the W3C Privacy Community Group and is no longer being considered by any privacy-focused group in the W3C.

When Websites Change of Hands

What happens if / when the domains in the list change hands? This is a common concern with all sorts of “pin trust to a domain” proposals across this history of the Web. Just because domains A, B, and C are operated by the same organization today does not (at all) guarantee that they’ll be owned by the same organization tomorrow.

Security and privacy attacks from exactly these kinds of assumptions have happened with browser extensions that have been sold from “trustworthy” parties to malicious parties, or when popular software libraries / dependencies have been taken over by a malicious actor.

The broader concern is that, even if these sites are meaningfully related at the time they’re included in the list, there is no mechanism that will remove them when they (often silently) change hands.

Language / Perception Concerns

As mentioned above, the underlying justification (as flimsy as it is) for RWS is that users can perceive that they’re operated by the same organization. Our study finds that, even for English speaking users evaluating English sites, users can’t anticipate what sites Google judges to be related. This problem will (of course) get much worse when people are visiting sites in languages they do not speak.

Timing

The intuition behind RWS is that users will be able to determine if site B is related to site A, and then only visit site B if that arrangement is acceptable. However, this is a catch 22. In order to determine if site B is related to site A, I need to visit site B and see the “shared branding or logo” (or similar), indicating the relationship between these sites. However, once I’ve loaded the site to view it, it’s already too late, and my information has been shared between the two sites.

Latin America is emerging as a tech powerhouse, but it's not a one-size-fits-all market. 

In this episode, we explore why what works in Argentina won’t necessarily fly in Brazil or Mexico, and how companies are adapting to these unique regional dynamics. Join Dileep Thazhmon, Cofounder and CEO of Jeeves; Santiago Suarez, Cofounder and CEO of Addi; Gabriel Vasquez, a16z investment partner; and Angela Strange, a16z General Partner, as they discuss the future of fintech in LatAm and the unique approach required to succeed in this diverse market.

​​Whether you're interested in the nuances of product development, the complexities of scaling across diverse markets, or the future of fintech in Latin America, this episode offers perspectives from industry leaders deeply invested in the region's tech ecosystem who believe the next big tech giants might just come from Latin America.

Resources: 

Find Dileep on Twitter: https://x.com/thazhmon

Find Santiago on Twitter: https://x.com/santiasua

Find Gabriel on Twitter: https://x.com/gevs94

Find Angela on Twitter: https://x.com/astrange

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Self-custodial wallets often represent the first point of contact for crypto users that venture away from centralised exchanges. As a result, their security and user experience should be paramount. This often explained Metamask’s first mover advantage and the users’ reluctance to change. However, as infrastructure evolves, new wallets are equipped from the get-go with features that are designed for normie adoption, such as: account abstraction, gas fee abstraction, easier on- and off-ramp, etc. Zeal was envisioned as a day-to-day wallet solution, allowing users true freedom to transact, both on-chain, as well as off-chain (i.e. real world spendings).

Topics covered in this episode:

Hannes’ background Existing wallet solutions and Zeal’s userbase Wallet UX, account abstraction and passkeys Security assumptions and passkey recovery Smart contract interactions Zeal’s mobile-first focus IBAN & Gnosis Pay integrations Capturing market share Banking the unbanked Gas fees Cross-chain interoperability DeFi & staking Monetisation Privacy Zeal’s backend Growth & business scaling in Web3 Zealot recruitment

Episode links:

Hannes Graah on Twitter Hannes Graah on LinkedIn Zeal on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

A recent article by Wired underscores the alarming rise in physical threats and violence used to coerce individuals into transferring their valuable digital assets to criminal accounts. When malicious actors can link a digital wallet to its owner, high-net-worth individuals become prime targets for theft, market manipulation, and identity fraud. In the most severe cases, this can lead to blackmail, extortion, home invasions, or worse.

The visibility inherent in public blockchain ledgers is a significant risk factor, as it exposes users to such dangers by making it easy to trace and associate financial activity with specific individuals. Privacy is crucial not only for security but also for individual safety. 

This article delves into how bad actors can use open blockchains to identify and target victims and how on-chain privacy solutions like Panther Protocol can mitigate risk.

How can bad actors identify potential victims? 

In most cases, bad actors require access to the password or keys to the digital assets to achieve their goals. Typically, these criminal activities involve identifying a target or target wallet, gaining access to its credentials, and then transferring the assets to their own wallet or account. According to Chainalysis, One third of hacks in DeFi involve off-chain activities, using off-chain data to access this sensitive information. 

Blockchain cybersecurity firm, Halborn, identifies the most common methods of compromising private keys as phishing, malware, weak passwords, insecure key storage, weak key generation, social engineering and cloud storage breaches. While some compromised keys have come from mass attacks (“spray and pray”), where a large number of potential victims are hacked indiscriminately with a low probability of success, targeted attacks (such as spear phishing) have a much higher probability of success. Open transactions may leave users more vulnerable to these types of attacks, allowing hackers target a particular wallet or set of wallets in an attempt to obtain the keys. 

When you make a cryptocurrency payment at a café or any public venue, your transaction details, including the send addresses, can potentially be observed and linked to your other digital wallets. Panther Protocol's Shielded Pool will mitigate this risk by enabling you to transact using zAssets—private, mirror tokens that conceal the true origin of the underlying assets.

By using zAssets for your transactions, the public visibility of your send address will be obfuscated, making it difficult for anyone to link the transaction back to your other wallets. This will effectively shield your wallet addresses from observers, preventing them from tracing back to your broader collection of wallets and other sensitive financial information.

Decoupling identity from wallet addresses

Unique identifiers like .Eth domains or NFT profile pictures can inadvertently expose your on-chain identity, linking your social presence to your financial activities and making you vulnerable to unwanted tracking and privacy invasion.

Panther Protocol is designed to allow you to interact with DeFi platforms using zAssets, ensuring that your on-chain transactions will be conducted privately. Even if you use a public-facing identity, such as a .Eth domain, transactions made in Panther’s Shielded Pool will not reveal your wallet’s holdings or activities. Additionally, Panther Zones are intended to ensure that any identity-related actions you take remain private and secure.

Preventing blockchain analysis and clustering

Blockchain analysis can reveal patterns in your transaction history, potentially exposing your identity or linking multiple wallets under your control. This information could be exploited by bad actors to target your assets through various phishing or hacking methods.

Transactions conducted through Panther Protocol’s zTrade and zSwap functionalities are designed to be private and unlinkable. By leveraging ZKPs, these transactions will be shielded from blockchain analysis tools. The unique architecture of the Shielded Pool, which utilizes append-only Merkle trees, is designed to ensure that each transaction is recorded privately, without disclosing its details or history. This will make it difficult for attackers to use clustering algorithms to trace multiple addresses back to a single entity. Additionally, as more users transact via Panther Protocol, the anonymity set will grow. The increasing number of unique deposit wallets and UTXOs will exponentially complicate the efforts of clustering algorithms to identify the source of each transaction.

When a bad actor connects you to any of the wallets you frequently engage with, they can potentially discover other wallets you own by analyzing transaction patterns in your data trail. If a wallet regularly interacts with known exchange addresses, an attacker may link these transactions to external data, such as exchange account information, which could reveal the wallet owner’s identity​

To uncover wallet owners' identities, malicious actors could combine blockchain data with other information sources. For example, if a wallet regularly interacts with exchange addresses acquired through data leaks or breaches, an attacker could use exchange records, which often contain personal identification details to identify the owner. 

Transaction patterns, such as recurring payments or transfers to specific addressel personal or business relationships. This information can be cross-referenced with publicly available data or information obtained through the various methods described above.

Clustering algorithms can be used by law enforcement to identify bad actors. Still, they can equally be used by bad actors to group related addresses that a single entity may control. By integrating blockchain data with metadata (such as IP addresses) and off-chain information, attackers can more accurately identify high-value targets, matching them with identities that are collected offline. 

Defending Against Dusting Attacks

Dusting attacks involve sending small amounts of cryptocurrency to a wallet in order to analyze its transaction patterns and potentially uncover the identity behind it. By tracking how this dust is moved, attackers can gain insights into the wallet owner’s activities.

With Panther Protocol, even if your wallet is targeted by a dusting attack, any subsequent transactions using zAssets will occur within its Shielded Pool, which is designed to prevent the dust from revealing any meaningful information. Panther’s privacy-enhancing technology will ensure that the dust cannot be traced through the Panther system, as transactions within the Shielded Pool are shielded and do not disclose the movement of underlying assets or include deposits of unwanted assets.

Securing Against Social Engineering and Off-Chain Attacks

Bad actors may also use more traditional scams like phishing, smishing, and social engineering to link wallets to their owners. Other scams involve real-world interactions, such as SIM swapping attacks; hacking into your email or using dark-web obtained email addresses and passwords or KYC data to access personal information. 

Many of the most effective attacks on digital assets occur off-chain and these methods typically rely on gathering sufficient information about a target to gain access to their wallets and keys.

Although Panther Protocol is primarily designed to enhance on-chain privacy, the protection it will offer is intended to extend indirectly to off-chain attacks. By keeping your on-chain activities private and untraceable, Panther aims to significantly reduce the data available for attackers to exploit in off-chain schemes. After all, how can attackers attempt to socially engineer their way into your crypto assets if they don't even know you possess them?

Today’s release represents another baby step toward our goal of making Zashi an easy-to-use, all-in-one user interface for securely storing, spending, and sending ZEC.  We’re excited to deliver currency conversion […]

Source

Abstract

This article examines Panther Protocol, an upcoming decentralized application on the Polygon network that leverages zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology within a Multi-Asset Shielded Pool (MASP) to facilitate private asset transactions. Inspired by Muhammad Yusuf's "Diving Into Dark Pools," this article explores Panther Protocol's privacy mechanisms, regulatory considerations involving Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) and the innovative concept of Panther Zones. Additionally, it examines the protocol's compliance strategies in the context of the SEC's regulatory framework and highlights the benefits for licensed entities.

Introduction

In the evolving landscape of decentralized finance (DeFi), Panther Protocol is positioned to preserve privacy and enhance security. Drawing parallels to the traditional dark pools discussed in a recent report on Delphi Digital,  "Diving Into Dark Pools," Panther Protocol is set to offer a sophisticated solution for private asset transactions. By integrating cutting-edge privacy-enhancing technologies and robust regulatory compliance enabling mechanisms around KYC/KYB and data management, Panther Protocol ensures that users, particularly licensed entities, can transact with confidence and confidentiality.

Traditional Market Comparison

The traditional market for dark pools in equities and equity options is substantial, with billions of dollars in daily trading volume. These dark pools allow institutional investors to execute large orders without causing significant market impact. However, this structure still relies on centralized operators who may potentially misbehave or leak confidential information outside of the tape print times. In contrast, Panther Protocol's Multi-Asset Shielded Pool (MASP) and its zTrade functionality will elevate this concept by incorporating zero-knowledge proofs and decentralized smart contracts. This approach not only maintains the anonymity of participants but also eliminates the need for trust in a central operator. In comparison, the market for on-chain dark pools in crypto is still nascent but holds tremendous potential.

Traditional dark pools in equities handle billions in daily trading volume, providing a significant liquidity pool for institutional investors. Crypto dark pools are emerging, with protocols like Panther Protocol paving the way for secure, private, and compliant trading environments. The potential growth of on-chain dark pools can mirror the success of traditional markets, offering a new value play for institutional and retail investors alike. Multi-Asset Shielded Pool (MASP / Shielded Pool)

At the heart of Panther Protocol's envisioned privacy capabilities lies the MASP. This innovative pool will allow users to deposit various underlying assets, including WETH, USDC, USDT, WBTC, and other ERC-20 tokens. Upon depositing, users will receive private tokens known as zAssets (e.g., zWETH, zUSDC, zUSDT, zWBTC), offering an additional layer of privacy.

The MASP is more accurately described as a collection of “append-only” Merkle trees, where each leaf represents a commitment to a UTXO, serving as an IOU of the asset deposited. This architecture ensures that the state of the blockchain remains confidential, enhancing both privacy and security. The growing number of deposits within this anonymity set further ensures that individual transactions remain indistinguishable within the pool, akin to the privacy provided by traditional dark pools.

Merkle trees, a key component in blockchain privacy architecture, play a significant role in Panther Protocol's functionality. Within the MASP, Merkle trees are used to store and manage zAsset transactions. Each leaf of the Merkle tree represents a commitment to a specific UTXO transaction, and these commitments are updated as transactions occur. This structure not only enhances privacy but also ensures the integrity and security of the transaction data.

zTrade

The zTrade feature within Panther Protocol will enable private, on-chain, over-the-counter (OTC) transactions within the MASP. This functionality is designed to ensure both confidentiality and security while mitigating the risk of MEV exploitation as swap occurs outside of DEXs. 

The process begins when a user, referred to as the maker, locks a specified amount of zAsset (Token A) in a zTrade smart contract. The taker, or counterparty, accepts the order after the protocol verifies the balance of Token B. Once the balance is confirmed, the trade is executed via an atomic swap, ensuring a simultaneous and secure exchange of assets.

Avoidance of MEV is a critical component of zTrade. By utilizing zero-knowledge proofs and executing trades directly between makers and takers, zTrade mitigates the risk of MEV exploitation, ensuring that trades are conducted fairly and privately. This approach will mirror the confidentiality of traditional dark pools, where large financial moves are shielded from public view to prevent market manipulation. 

zSwap

For transactions that extend beyond the MASP, Panther Protocol will employ zSwap. This feature will use DeFi adaptors to extend private asset velocity through on-chain decentralized exchanges (DEXs) such as Uniswap, Quickswap, and Curve. The process begins when the user selects the swap action and chooses the currencies for conversion. The DeFi aggregator smart contract would then generates a quote, valid for a short duration, reflecting the exchange value and transaction details. Upon user approval, the transaction would be initiated through the DeFi aggregator, which utilizes stealth addresses to maintain privacy. Once the transaction is approved and finalized, the new balance would be updated in the user's wallet.

Panther Protocol is designed to offer more than just dark pool functionality; it will enable a wide range of DeFi activities to be performed privately. By depositing assets into the MASP, users will be able to engage in various DeFi activities through plugins called DeFi Adaptors, which will connect the MASP with existing DeFi protocols in a private manner. This approach will ensure that transaction details remain confidential throughout the process, preserving user privacy even when interacting with external DeFi protocols.

SEC's Regulatory Framework and Compliance

Muhammad Yusuf's discussion in "Diving Into Dark Pools" highlights the importance of regulatory compliance, particularly in the context of the SEC's oversight. Panther Protocol addresses these concerns through the integration of compliance providers for KYB procedures and Zone management. By allowing regulated entities to manage Zones and enforce compliance, users can maintain compliance at their discretion, with zero-knowledge proofs validating KYC statements without revealing user data.

Regulatory Compliance and Panther Zones

In alignment with regulatory frameworks, Panther Protocol aims to integrate VASP-regulated entities to create an environment that enables and supports internal compliance and policies. Users can utilize an Ethereum wallet, but must verify their personal identification to obtain a credential for interacting with the protocol. Business entities undergo KYB verification, sharing their business details with a registered compliance provider via Panther Protocol integration. This verification process is conducted off-chain, and credentials must be periodically renewed through re-verification on the KYB/KYC provider side.

Panther Zones are designed to introduce a novel approach to regulatory compliance within the space of decentralised protocols solving on-chain privacy. These specialized trading areas will be managed by regulated entities known as Zone Managers, who will be responsible for whitelisting traders and assets to ensure compliance with regulatory standards. Each Zone is intended to operate under its own regulatory framework, providing a flexible and compliant trading environment.

Benefits for Licensed Entities

Licensed entities such as institutional investors, hedge funds, and family offices can benefit from Panther Protocol's compliance infrastructure. For instance, an institutional investor aiming to execute substantial trades without disclosing their strategies will be able to leverage Panther Protocol to conduct these transactions privately. The use of zAssets as a mechanism of private transactions ensures that their trades do not affect market prices, safeguarding their strategies from being front-run by competitors.

Similarly, hedge funds can leverage the MASP and Panther Zones to conduct large-scale transactions while adhering to regulatory requirements. By utilizing VASP-regulated entities, these funds can ensure that all transactions are KYC/AML compliant, reducing the risk of regulatory scrutiny and enhancing the security of their trades.

Family offices, managing substantial private wealth, can use Panther Protocol to diversify their investments in a secure and private manner. The ability to operate within Panther Zones ensures that these entities can maintain compliance with varying regulatory requirements while benefiting from the privacy and security offered by the protocol.

Conclusion

Panther Protocol's innovative use of zero-knowledge proofs and Multi-Asset Shielded Pool technology positions it as a leader in private asset transactions within decentralized finance. By incorporating regulatory compliance through VASP-regulated entities, Panther Zones, and protection against MEV, Panther Protocol ensures that privacy, security, and legality coexist harmoniously.

We are delighted to announce that Elise Hamdon will be joining the Zcash Foundation as our Chief Communications Officer. Elise will oversee all facets of our communications strategy and we are confident that her leadership will enhance our efforts to promote transparency, foster community trust, and drive the adoption of Zcash.

Elise brings a wealth of experience and expertise in Zcash communications, having proven herself invaluable during her part-time work with the Foundation over the past two years. She also brings additional insights from her time at the Electric Coin Company, where she served as Communications Manager during 2018 and 2019. Most recently she has been advancing cryptocurrency education for youth as Executive Director of Mass Adoption Alliance, which was established with support from a ZF grant.

Elise’s deep understanding of Zcash, the broader privacy and cryptocurrency landscape, and her proven track record in strategic communications position her to make immediate contributions to our strategy. Her diverse work experience extends beyond Zcash, including roles with the World Bank and Australian government, as well as cryptocurrency-related positions at Casa and 21 Cryptos Magazine. Earlier this year, Elise spearheaded the My First Zcash project in collaboration with the Zcash community, and she will continue to advance this important educational initiative.

Please join us in welcoming Elise to the Zcash Foundation. We are excited to have her on board in this capacity and look forward to the positive impact she will have on our organization and the broader Zcash community.

The post Welcoming a New Chief Communications Officer appeared first on Zcash Foundation.

This is the twenty-ninth post in an ongoing series describing new privacy features in Brave. This post describes work done by iOS Privacy Engineer Jacob Sikorski and was written by Shivan Kaul Sahib, Lead for Privacy Engineering.

Starting with version 1.68, Brave will become the first iOS Web browser to try to upgrade all sites to HTTPS by default. When you click or enter an insecure link like http://example.com, Brave will automatically redirect to its secure version, https://example.com. Using HTTPS is crucial to prevent Internet service providers (ISPs) and attackers from snooping on your browsing activity.

This update brings our existing “HTTPS by Default” feature to iOS, and represents a significant advancement beyond the earlier list-based approach that Brave used (and other iOS browsers still use). Previously, a site was only upgraded to HTTPS if its URL was included on specific lists, such as the once-useful but now-deprecated HTTPS Everywhere list. With this change, Brave will now do the opposite: all sites will be upgraded to be secure by default, and the only scenarios in which a site would not be upgraded are if the site appears on a much smaller exception list, or if the upgrade fails. This change guarantees that even new websites not yet on upgrade lists will receive a secure connection by default, a significant win for Web privacy.

As always, Brave prioritizes privacy-first defaults, advocating for a secure Web for all users. Just like on desktop and Android, users will also be able to select an optional Strict mode for an additional warning before the connection falls back to HTTP. You can read more about how “HTTPS by Default” works and why it’s important for your privacy in our previous blog post.

The “HTTPS by Default” feature will soon roll out to iOS users through the App Store. Once you have the latest version, you can try out “HTTPS by Default” by visiting a site (such as http://example.com) on your iOS device and watching it be auto-upgraded to HTTPS.

In this episode, we cover the recent data breach of nearly 3B records, including a significant number of social security numbers. Joining us to discuss are security experts Joel de la Garza and Naftali Harris. Incredibly enough, Naftali and his team were able to get their hands on the breached dataset and were able to validate the nature of the claims. Listen in as we explore the who, what, when, where, why… but also how a breach of this magnitude happens and what we can do about it.

Resources:

Read 16 Steps to Securing Your Data (and Life) Find Naftali on Twitter: https://x.com/naftaliharris Check out Sentilink: https://www.sentilink.com/

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/ Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

As the crypto industry matures, more sophisticated market participants become involved. As a result, risk management and hedging will evolve to levels seen in TradFi. However, regardless of the preferred market activity, when interacting with a blockchain, every actor competes for the same limited blockspace. Based on demand levels, the cost for securing that blockspace can fluctuate (in the form of miner fees for Bitcoin transactions, or gas fees for PoS blockchains). Therefore, a particular niche of power users could lower these costs by reserving blockspace in advance of elevated demand levels. Alkimiya set out to build just that - a marketplace for blockspace.

Topics covered in this episode:

Leo’s background The vision behind Alkimia Market participants for blockspace Hedging costs Use cases on Ethereum Proposer-Builder Separation and preconfirmations Reserving blockspace Polkadot’s blockspace allocation Current market sentiment. ETH vs. SOL

Episode links:

Leo Zhang on Twitter Alkimiya on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

Today the Zcash Foundation bids farewell to Dan Wolande, better known as decentralistdan amongst the Zcash community. Dan joined us in October 2021 as Ecosystems Relations Manager and, during his tenure at ZF, he was embraced by the Zcash community, who recognized his enthusiasm and deep commitment to Zcash. One of Dan’s primary responsibilities was fostering relationships within the Zcash ecosystem, convening conversations, and ensuring that diverse voices were heard. Dan excelled in this role of facilitating productive conversations and collaborations, notably Zcon planning and execution, ZCG and grantee support, and countless community calls including the Arborist and Light Client Working Group.

Dan’s departure is bittersweet for ZF because, while he will no longer be part of our team, we are thrilled that he will continue to be actively involved in the ecosystem in a different capacity at the Electric Coin Company. 

On behalf of Zcash Foundation and the broader ecosystem, we thank Dan for advancing Zcash conversations, look forward to continued collaboration, and we wish him the best of luck! 

The post ZF says Farewell (but not goodbye) to Dan appeared first on Zcash Foundation.

This episode from Web3 with a16z Crypto, is all about innovation on a global scale, exploring both ecosystem and individual talent levels. We examine what works and what doesn’t, how certain regions evolve into startup hubs and economic powerhouses, and what constitutes entrepreneurial talent. We also discuss the nature of ambition, the journey to finding one’s path, and broader mindsets for navigating risk, reward, and dynamism across various regions, with a particular focus on London and Europe.

Joining us is Matt Clifford, who played a pivotal role in the London entrepreneurial and tech ecosystem since 2011, is the Chair of Entrepreneur First and the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA). Before this episode was recorded, Matt served as the Prime Minister’s representative for the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park. Recently, he was appointed by the UK Secretary of Science to deliver an “AI Opportunities Action Plan” to the UK government.

This episode was recorded live from Andreessen Horowitz’s first international office in London. For more on our efforts and additional content, visit a16zcrypto.com/uk.

 

Resources:

Find Matthew on Twitter: https://x.com/matthewclifford

Find Sonal on Twitter: https://x.com/smc90

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

This post describes work done by Kleomenis Katevas, Stefanos Laskaridis, Aravindh Raman, Mihai Plesa, and Hamed Haddadi. This post was written by Senior Machine Learning Researcher Kleomenis Katevas.

In today’s fast-paced market, continuous evaluation of product releases is essential. Companies must regularly assess their products to stay competitive and meet evolving customer expectations. This process also provides crucial insights when comparing a product with competitors. However, there are significant challenges.

Automating cross-device mobile app activities—including shipping new features, simulating Web browsing user activity across different browsers and evaluating on-device machine learning models—is challenging, primarily due to inherent operating system (OS) restrictions. Moreover, accurately profiling the power consumption of these activities is difficult because of unreliable OS estimates and often lower sampling rates (number of samples per second).

To address the above challenges, we introduced BLaDE (BatteryLab Device Evaluations) as a successor to BatteryLab 1 2 (originally released in 2019), which serves as Brave’s open-source solution for automated performance evaluations on mobile devices. Supporting both Android and iOS, BLaDE is capable of recording power consumption, CPU utilization, device temperature, and network traffic (bandwidth) in a highly precise and configurable frequency, while simulating user actions using different types of automation methods. By open sourcing the system design and code base, any developer or researcher can replicate this setup to conduct comprehensive performance evaluations on their own mobile devices.

BLaDE System Design

Our system is designed with the following key hardware components:

Main controller (Raspberry Pi 4, 8GB): The central device coordinator (internally known as BLaDE Runner) that’s responsible for managing and orchestrating all system activities.

Mac controller (Mac Mini, M2, 8-core): A Mac-based machine to support iOS-based automation through Appium, and to build iOS apps through Xcode.

Power monitor (Monsoon HV): A critical component for measuring the power consumption of the connected devices at a maximum frequency of 5KHz.

Programmable AC switch (Keene KPS1): Utilized to control the power supply to the power monitor, enabling automated power cycling to the device.

Programmable relay board (Yizhet 5V, 8 Ch.): Utilized for controlling the power distribution from the power monitor to the devices. This is to programmatically select which device is powered on.

Programmable USB hub (YKUSH 3): These hubs allow selective powering on/off of USB connections, providing isolated power control for each port.

IR-thermometer (MLX90614): Deployed for continuous monitoring of device temperature.

LCD display (Waveshare LCD1602): A notification unit that reports the system state (device being monitored, real-time power consumption, etc).

Mobile devices: A variety of iOS (iPhone 14 Pro, SE 2022) and Android (Galaxy S23, Pixel 6a) devices, configured to be compatible with our BLaDE infrastructure.

Surveillance camera (Anker PowerConf C200): Employed to remotely monitor the status of evaluations. Although remote screencasting options are available via the OS, they are avoided as they could interfere with performance metrics.

Router (UniFi Dream Router): Connected to a 70MBit dedicated VLAN network, it provides Ethernet network access to the controller and Mac Mini, and WiFi 6 network access to all mobile devices. Additionally, it is capable of forwarding Internet traffic through a VPN service, if required, allowing simulation of Internet access from different geolocations.

Device configuration

To facilitate accurate power measurements, we stepped away from the available software-based options and utilized a battery bypass technique. This involves disassembling each device to remove its battery, extracting the internal battery controller, and exposing the power terminals via cables. This method allows us to monitor the devices’ power consumption directly from their power terminals, achieving precise measurements at a maximum frequency of 5 kHz using the power monitor.

Further configurations are made in the device’s OS to minimize the influence of extraneous factors. These include disabling automated OS and app updates, turning off adaptive brightness/charging/battery features, enabling dark mode, and standardizing the brightness level to 25% across devices.

Device testing automation

Automating testing on mobile devices, especially in this custom setup, can be a complex task. BLaDE provides a comprehensive set of APIs that facilitate various aspects of device management, such as reading device status, controlling power states, and managing measurement processes.

Consider the following example of the “switch on” API call for switching a mobile device:

Initialize and connect: Begin by switching on the power monitor. BLaDE waits until the monitor is available and establishes a connection.

Enable USB power: BLaDE then enables the USB power to the device, ensuring it is ready for further operations.

Relay activation: The appropriate relay on the relay board is activated to manage the power flow.

Voltage setting: Set the required voltage for the device to switch on.

Device synchronization: BLaDE waits for the device to become available and synchronizes its clock with the controller’s clock. This ensures time measurements are accurate.

Unlocking the device: For iOS devices, BLaDE connects using the Bluetooth HID service and enters the PIN to unlock the device. This step is required to allow the device to communicate via USB after boot.

When measuring the power performance of a phone, it is crucial to disable the USB power lanes. This step ensures that the USB current does not interfere with the power monitor readings. All communication with the device must be wireless, using either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, before or after the measurement has happened.

Currently, BLaDE supports automation via Android Debug Bridge (ADB), Bluetooth HID, and Appium-based frameworks:

Android Debug Bridge (ADB) automations (Android only)

The Android Debug Bridge (ADB) is a versatile command-line tool that allows developers to communicate with an Android device. It supports a wide range of device operations, such as installing and debugging applications, transferring files, and interacting with the device’s screen and keyboard. ADB commands can be executed via USB, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth. BLaDE builds on top of this tool to support actions that are required for device automations, such as “type text”, “tap”, “scroll down”, “close foreground app”, etc.

Bluetooth HID automations (iOS, Android)

Automating third-party apps on iOS presents challenges due to the absence of a publicly available ADB-like API that operates over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. To address this, we have virtualized a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard by creating a virtual Human Interface Device (HID) service at the controller. We also created an automation library that translates keyboard keystrokes, mouse clicks, and gestures into HID actions, effectively simulating user interactions with the controlled device. This approach allows for the automation of tasks—such as locating and launching apps and interacting with them—by mimicking user actions. 

Appium-based automations (iOS, Android)

As an alternative approach, we experimentally support an Appium-based framework to automate actions, minimizing the overhead of the above automation methods when aiming multiple platforms. Appium uses ADB for Android and Apple’s XCTest for iOS automations. Although Appium is generally used for testing features of custom application builds, we currently experiment with the framework to predominantly measure the performance of Android and iOS apps.

BLaDE for product evaluations

The use of BLaDE is crucial to our product pipeline, ensuring the performance, robustness and reliability of various features, including on-device performance of LLMs, cost efficiency of modules, and browsing capabilities. When a new development build is ready and a specific feature needs to be tested, it is dispatched on-demand to BLaDE for an in-depth performance assessment across devices. This process helps identify new regressions and bottlenecks, enabling us to address issues swiftly and maintain the high standards our users expect. With BLaDE’s continuous monitoring, we can confidently release updates, assured that any potential performance issues have been proactively managed.

For more details about how BLaDE is used at Brave, please refer to the following blog posts:

MELTing Point: Mobile Evaluation of Language Transformers (July, 2024) 3

Brave 1.0 Performance: Methodology and Results (January, 2020)

Significant Battery Savings with Brave on Mobile: Brave Consumes 40% Less Battery than Other Leading Browsers (February, 2019)

The complete source code and system design of BLaDE are available at https://github.com/brave/blade. We welcome contributors willing to extend the system capabilities.

References

Matteo Varvello, Kleomenis Katevas, Mihai Plesa, Hamed Haddadi, Fabian Bustamante, Benjamin Livshits, “BatteryLab: A Collaborative Platform for Power Monitoring”. In the International Conference on Passive and Active Network Measurement (PAM ‘21). ↩︎

Matteo Varvello, Kleomenis Katevas, Mihai Plesa, Hamed Haddadi, Benjamin Livshits, “BatteryLab, A Distributed Power Monitoring Platform For Mobile Devices”. At the 18th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks (HotNets ‘19). ↩︎

Stefanos Laskaridis, Kleomenis Katevas, Lorenzo Minto, Hamed Haddadi, “MELTing point: Mobile Evaluation of Language Transformers”. To appear in the 30th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (MobiCom ‘21). ↩︎

Greetings community,

Since the successful Alexandria upgrade, the ShadeDAO contributors have been fully focused on preparing for Argos in September — a key upgrade that continues to push the boundaries of privacy UX while also revealing information on ShadeX (world’s first permissionless/generalized private money market).

In the interim, Syracuse 0.2 (pushed in July) is the set of changes tied to the Shade Protocol front-end, back-end and smart contracts.

Added support for Leap wallet Various logo fixes in app Shade staked balance loading bug Fixed SHD staking unbond bug (front end issue) Fixed dSHD unbonding front-end bug Minimum one decimal to silk basket currency display Fixed show of infinite price for silk on load Miscellaneous chart optimizations and bug fixes 2 decimals minimum for USD prices (prices page) Infrastructure improvements (moved to lavendar.5 nodes) Back end server upgrades (reduce downtime w/Fargate) Created SILK price feed & supply endpoint for Coingecko Fixed broken filters on SILK analytics page Fixed SILK stability pool 18 decimal reward claiming bug Onboarded ERIS as an LST provider (ampKUJI + ampWHALE oracle support) Created method to account for all SILK interest accrued in all vaults

The following is the list of pool fees updated to be in line with fee structure for all other pools:

SILK <> USDT (native) SHD <> JKL SHD <> SAGA SHD <> dSHD

In conclusion, the Syracuse v0.2 gets us one step closer to the launch of Argos — a significant milestones in Shade Protocol’s journey towards revolutionizing decentralized finance. Inspired by the legacy of ancient Argos, Shade Protocol stands as a beacon of innovation and financial autonomy in the decentralized landscape. The Argos update aims to bring symmetry, balance, and harmony to the Shade UX as we continue on the quest to refine user stories & the ease of traversing the Shade Protocol application.

With its commitment to privacy, ease of use, and continuous improvement through Syracuse upgrades, Shade Protocol is not only shaping the future of DeFi but also empowering individuals to reclaim control over their finances and data. As the community eagerly anticipates the release of Argos and beyond, Shade Protocol remains dedicated to its mission of building an unstoppable, decentralized financial ecosystem for all.

Website: app.shadeprotocol.io

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Shade_Protocol

Chelsea Komlo joined the Zcash Foundation (ZF) in August 2019, as a core engineer and researcher, and was later appointed to the role of Chief Scientist, leading ZF’s research efforts. Prior to joining ZF, Chelsea worked as an engineer on open source security and privacy projects, most notably Tor and the Off-The-Record (OTR) messaging protocol. 

During her time with ZF, Chelsea’s primary research focus has been threshold signature schemes. She collaborated with Ian Goldberg at the University of Waterloo to create FROST, a Schnorr threshold signature protocol that is compatible with Zcash shielded transactions. Chelsea then worked with others across the industry to standardize the FROST signing protocol, which was recently published as an RFC. Most recently she has been participating in the NIST standardization effort for threshold signature schemes. 

Chelsea is leaving ZF to take up another research role, focusing on post-quantum cryptography. However, she remains an avid supporter of the Zcash mission, and will remain involved as a member of the ZF’s Technical Advisory Board. 

On behalf of the Zcash Foundation, and Zcash ecosystem as a whole, we want to thank Chelsea for her contributions to Zcash and the broader mission of financial privacy. While we are sad to see her leave, we are thrilled that she has found an opportunity to advance her already-distinguished career. 

The post Farewell, Chelsea appeared first on Zcash Foundation.

The saying goes that knowledge is power, and this perfectly applies to blockchains due to their innate transparency and immutability. However, raw data could seem, at first, unusable. This is where analytics companies, such as Nansen, play a major role in demystifying blockchain data by labelling it. In turn, curated data holds value as it can give an edge to traders, by tracking ‘smart money’ wallets. In the age of AI, most of the heavy lifting of data analysis is performed by LLMs, but human input is equally valuable for discerning nuances and fine tuning the process.

Topics covered in this episode:

Alex’s background, from AI to crypto Nansen’s values Querying blockchain data Supported chains Ensuring data accuracy Generating wallet labels The role of LLMs and AI Data privacy and monetisation On-chain transparency, privacy and ethics Roadmap and further enhancements

Episode links:

Alex Svanevik on Twitter Nansen on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

P.S.: Our friends from @nansen_ai have offered us 10 discount codes for 10% off on their professional and pioneer plans! If you are interested in unlocking Nansen's true power, DM us on Twitter (X - @epicenterbtc) and we'll hook you up with a code (FCFS).

Once criticized for lacking ambition, French founders are now aiming to create the world’s largest companies. With a thriving ecosystem attracting talent from across Europe and the US, France is becoming a major player on the global stage.

In this episode, we cover the unique advantages of building startups in France. Roxanne Varza, Director of Station F; Antoine Martin, co-founder of Amo and Zenly; and Brian Kim, a16z consumer partner, discuss the key factors driving this transformation, including infrastructure, community, and government support.

Discover how international talent, a supportive community, and robust governmental backing are propelling France’s startup scene. This episode is filled with insights into why France is now an exciting place to build a startup.

Resources:

Find Roxanne on Twitter: https://x.com/roxannevarza

Find Antoine on Twitter: https://x.com/an21m

Find Bryan on Twitter: https://x.com/kirbyman01

Learn more about Station F: https://stationf.co/

Learn more about Amo: https://get.amo.co/en

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Waymo's autonomous vehicles have driven over 20 million miles on public roads and billions more in simulation.

In this episode, a16z General Partner David George sits down with Dmitri Dolgov, CTO at Waymo, to discuss the development of self-driving technology. Dmitri provides technical insights into the evolution of hardware and software, the impact of generative AI, and the safety standards that guide Waymo's innovations.

This footage is from AI Revolution, an event that a16z recently hosted in San Francisco. Watch the full event here:  a16z.com/dmitri-dolgov-waymo-ai

 

Resources: 

Find Dmitri on Twitter: https://x.com/dmitri_dolgov

Find David George on Twitter: https://x.com/DavidGeorge83

Learn more about Waymo: https://waymo.com/

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

TL;DR: In July, we launched Empe Blockchain’s open Empe Testnet, drawing 100+ validators in 48 hours. Key updates include monitoring tools, wallet support, CosmWasm integration for smart contracts, enhanced vesting accounts, and a linear inflation model for stable token release. These steps are vital for a secure and efficient blockchain platform.

Our journey to create the highest value End-to-End verifiable Data Infrastructure (EVDI) on the market is marked by continuous improvement and a deep commitment to our users. As we continue to pour precious hours into research and development, always listening closely to your feedback, we’re excited to share our progress in July.

Empe Blockchain Infrastructure Development

In anticipation of the upcoming Empe Blockchain mainnet launch, we have built and configured our core network infrastructure. At its heart are the main validator nodes, which form the backbone of the system. To safeguard these critical components, we’ve established sentry nodes as a protective shield. These nodes act as the primary interface between the validators and the external network, mitigating potential threats. This robust infrastructure is essential to ensure the network’s stability and security as we approach the highly anticipated mainnet launch.

Open Empe Testnet Launch

July marked the successful launch of our open Empe Testnet, attracting over 100 external validators within the first 48 hours of operation. To facilitate this successful launch, we integrated essential tools like testnet.ping.pub for comprehensive monitoring and Keplr wallet support for EMPE tokens, and published comprehensive technical documentation, to ensure a smooth onboarding experience.

The current validator count exceeds 150 and is steadily climbing. This surge in validator participation brings forth a multitude of advantages. Enhanced network security safeguards the system against potential attacks. Decentralization fosters trust and transparency within the Empeiria ecosystem. Moreover, the robust foundation laid by the Testnet paves the way for future scalability. This achievement wouldn’t be possible without the incredible support of our community, highlighting the growing excitement surrounding Empeiria’s innovations.

Integration of CosmWasm for Smart Contract Functionality

Empe Blockchain now supports CosmWasm, enabling smart contract functionality from day one. This integration allows developers to create and deploy smart contracts seamlessly, enhancing the versatility and utility of our platform. The addition of CosmWasm support marks a significant milestone in our journey towards creating a more versatile blockchain ecosystem.

Vesting Accounts Module Enhancements

To provide greater control and security for vested assets, we’ve enhanced the vesting accounts module. Users can now create new vesting accounts based on existing ones. These new accounts adhere to the same or more stringent lock-up periods and parameters as the original accounts. This functionality ensures that funds remain securely locked and transparent for all stakeholders, providing a robust framework for managing vested assets and fostering trust and confidence among all stakeholders.

Linear Inflation Model Adoption

To address the limitations of the dynamic inflation model traditionally used in Cosmos-based blockchains, we have adopted a linear inflation model for Empe Blockchain’s minting module. This new approach releases a fixed number of tokens over specified periods, as defined during the genesis stage. Additionally, the inflation rate will gradually decrease over subsequent periods. This predictable and transparent model aims to provide a more stable economic environment for our blockchain ecosystem.

Proof of Attendance with Passwordless Authentication based on the Proof of Purchase

We have successfully integrated a passwordless authentication system, allowing users to securely access their Proof of Attendance (PoAP) using Proof of Purchase (PoP) credentials. This system leverages unique PoP tokens to authenticate users without the need for traditional passwords. The backend services have been enhanced to generate and manage unique PoP tokens for each purchase, ensuring secure and verifiable access to related PoA records. The user interface has been updated to streamline the passwordless login process, providing a simple and intuitive flow for users to authenticate using their PoP credentials.

Schema Update for Proof of Attendance & Proof of Purchase

The new data schemas for Proof of Attendance (PoAP) and Proof of Purchase (PoP) have been finalized and approved, ensuring compatibility with industry standards. Backend services have been updated to support the new schemas, including adjustments to the data storage architecture and API endpoints to handle the additional data fields and types.

These advancements are crucial steps toward a more secure, efficient, and developer-friendly verifiable data infrastructure. Your ongoing support and insightful feedback play a vital role in this journey, and we sincerely appreciate both.

Follow Empeiria on X, or LinkedIn for the latest news & updates. For inquiries or further information, contact Empeiria at media@empe.io

Decentralization, the cornerstone of blockchain technology, has long been a formidable challenge. Building a robust, secure, and scalable network requires significant time, resources, and technical expertise. Yet, in just 48 hours, Empeiria defied expectations by establishing a decentralized network with over 100 validators. How did we accomplish such a rapid decentralization?

1. Foundation of Innovation: Prototype Development and Research

The journey began with a deep dive into the market’s needs. Last year, we embarked on a critical phase of our project by developing an initial prototype. This prototype served as a key tool for gathering feedback from over 70 prospective customers. Their insights were essential in refining our approach and aligning our solution with market needs.

To transform these insights into a viable and effective product, we dedicated over 15,000 hours to research and development. This extensive effort was focused on addressing the specific needs and challenges identified through customer feedback. The result was a solution designed to meet market demands effectively and demonstrate a clear product-market fit.

2. Testnet Phase 1: Launch and Testing Frameworks

To validate the prototype’s capabilities and identify potential issues, Empe Testnet launched Testnet Phase 1. A comprehensive testing framework was implemented, encompassing end-to-end testing, simulation testing, and continuous monitoring. This rigorous approach allowed the team to fine-tune the platform and prepare it for the next phase:

End-to-End (E2E) Testing Framework:
This framework allowed us to assess the complete functionality of the system from start to finish, ensuring that all components and processes were integrated smoothly and performed as expected. Simulation Testing:
We utilized simulation testing to create various scenarios and stress-test the network under different conditions. This approach helped us identify potential issues and optimize the system for real-world use. Monitoring Mechanisms:
Comprehensive monitoring tools were established to continuously track system performance and stability. These mechanisms provided real-time insights, enabling us to promptly detect and address any issues.

The rigorous testing during Testnet Phase 1 was crucial for refining our solution and preparing it for the next stage, setting the stage for successful external validation.

3. Intensive Testing and Optimization

Building on the insights gained from Testnet Phase 1, Empe Testnet embarked on 12 weeks of intensive testing and optimization. Every aspect of the platform was scrutinized, and necessary adjustments were made to enhance performance and reliability. This meticulous process was crucial in ensuring the platform’s readiness for the next stage and allowed us to:

Identify and Fix Issues: We systematically pinpointed problems and implemented solutions to address them. Each issue was carefully resolved to enhance the system’s stability and functionality. Optimize Performance: Beyond troubleshooting, we optimized the system to improve efficiency and responsiveness. This involved fine-tuning various components and processes to ensure they operated at peak performance.

The comprehensive testing and optimization during these 12 weeks were critical in refining our system, paving the way for a robust and reliable solution in subsequent phases.

4. Building Community Through Education

Recognizing the importance of community engagement, our strategic approach included reaching out to our community on X to release a series of educational content. By sharing valuable insights and fostering open dialogue, we not only increased awareness but also created a foundation for future growth. This initiative played a crucial role in:

Educating the Community: We provided valuable insights into the benefits and implications of verifiable data, helping our audience understand its importance and impact. Fostering a Supportive Network: By engaging with users through informative content, we cultivated a dedicated community that supports and values our technology. Strengthening the Ecosystem: This educational outreach not only informed, but also built a network of advocates who contribute to and enhance the overall strength of our ecosystem.

Through these efforts, we successfully created a knowledgeable and engaged community that reinforces the foundation of our project.

5. Testnet Phase 2: Opening to External Validators

The culmination of the project was the launch of Testnet Phase 2, which invited external validators to join the network. The response was overwhelming, with over 100 validators joining within 48 hours. This rapid expansion demonstrated the platform’s appeal and the strength of the community built through education and engagement. This phase marked a pivotal moment:

Onboarding External Validators: We began by integrating our first external validators into the network. Their involvement was crucial for expanding and testing the system’s capabilities in a real-world environment. Viral Engagement: The news of our open Testnet quickly spread, generating significant interest. The momentum was remarkable, with additional validators joining the network within hours of the initial launch. Conclusion

In just 48 hours, Empeiria successfully decentralized its network with over 100 validators. This achievement highlights the effectiveness of our approach, which combined thorough research, extensive testing, and proactive community engagement.

The key takeaway from this success is the importance of aligning product development with market needs and maintaining a rigorous testing and optimization process. This approach, coupled with a well-informed and engaged community, proved instrumental in reaching our decentralization goals swiftly.

Our focus remains on continuing to refine and advance our technology, leveraging the lessons learned to drive further innovation in decentralized networks.

Follow Empeiria on X, or LinkedIn for the latest news & updates. For inquiries or further information, contact Empeiria at media@empe.io

EMPE Network FAQ — Testnet

EMPE validators group: https://t.me/EmpeValidators

FAQ Version (04/08/2024)

1. Technical Setup & Troubleshooting

2. Rewards & Staking

3. Project Overview & Updates

1. Technical Setup & Troubleshooting

Q: How many tokens do I need to register as a validator?
A: You need 1 EMPE token, equivalent to 1,000,000 uEMPE tokens.

Q: Why can’t I register as a validator?
A: Ensure your node is synchronized and you have enough tokens. Refer to the technical documentation for more details: [Technical Documentation.](https://docs.empe.io/validators/overview)

Q: How do I use the EMPE faucet?
A: Check the Telegram group for Validators for the faucet link: [Empeiria Validators](https://t.me/EmpeValidators)
1. Use the tokens to register your validator.
2. Opening a validator does not guarantee a position in the active set.
3. Tokens can be claimed only once.

Q: I ran a script and got an RPC error. What happened?
A: Your RPC might not be synchronized, or you may not have enough funds in your wallet.

Q: How can I access the binary code?
A: Binary code access will be available on the mainnet.

Q: What is a moniker?
A: A moniker is the name you give your validator to help identify it easily.

Q: Can I edit my moniker after registering?
A: Yes.

Q: What should I do if I have a technical issue?
A: You can always ask other validators for support: [Empeiria Validators](https://t.me/EmpeValidators). If it’s a major problem, contact the Empe team.

Q: How do I get my validator unjailed?
A: Use the command:
emped tx slashing unjail --from <<KEY_NAME>> --fees 40uempe

Q: Once my validator is jailed and I used the above command to unjail it, how many EMPE tokens do I need to return to the active set?
A: You need to have more tokens than the last validator in the active set.

Q: How do I set up EMPE GAS FEE?
A: If you are getting a gas error, increase the fee and make sure you have enough tokens to cover the gas cost.

Q: Can I park my validator, close it, and return later? Can I use any VPS for running the Empe testnet validator?
A: Yes, you can park your validator and use any VPS. However, be aware that shutting down a node with bonded tokens might result in jailing. To prevent this, avoid keeping your validator offline for extended periods. You can delegate your tokens to another validator while your node is offline. When restarting, make sure only one instance of your validator is running to avoid issues with trapping your validator and tokens. Always keep your private keys secure, and do not run a second instance with the same private keys, as this will lead to permanent jailing.

Q: Can I use the Empe DID Wallet to register my validator on the Empe network?
A: No, the Empe DID Wallet is designed for managing decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials, not for crypto tokens. Please use the Keplr wallet for claiming tokens and validator registration.

Q: Do I have to create a DID (Decentralized Identifier) using the Empe DID Wallet to join the Empe testnet as a validator?
A: No, use the Keplr wallet only.

Q: When I create a fee, which values should I use for Empe tokens?
A: Use uEMPE, where 1 EMPE = 1,000,000 uEMPE, similar to how Satoshi is used for BTC.

Q: How can I provide feedback on the testnet?
A: You can share your thoughts and experiences through our official communication channels. Contact moderators from the Empeiria Validators Telegram group for any feedback you may have.

2. Rewards & Staking

Q: Is the Empe testnet incentivized? Will I get rewards or more delegation for creating validator services?
A: Yes, active testnet participants who maintain their nodes until the mainnet launch and for at least 60 days will receive a bonus in the form of foundation delegation on the mainnet. Additional incentives to increase the delegation allocation will be announced later.

Q: Is it possible to receive delegation from the team?
A: Team delegations are currently not available. Focus on building a strong validator reputation to attract delegations from the community.

Q: How do I join the testnet active set?
A: Be in the top 200 validators.

Q: What is the reward for helping other validators?
A: There is no direct reward for helping other validators, although contributing to the community can enhance your reputation and support the network’s overall health.

Q: Will I get rewards or additional delegation for creating validator services?
A: You may be considered for bonus delegation on the mainnet if your validator services provide additional value to the network.

Q: What is the duration for validators to vote?
A: The voting period for validators is 24 hours, and you must use your wallet with tokens to cast your vote.

3. Project Overview & Updates

Q: How long will the testnet run?
A: The testnet does not have a specified end date. It will continue to serve as an environment for testing new features and applications built on Empe.

Q: Where can I find the updated roadmap for validators and the Empeiria project?
A: The updated roadmap will be announced soon. Stay tuned for updates on our official communication channels.

Q: What are the best resources to learn more about the project?
A: Please check our Medium and X (formerly Twitter) for the latest news and updates.

Version 04/08/2024

The Olympics features over 11,000 athletes competing in 32 sports, attracting an audience of more than 10 million.

In this episode, Charlie Ebersol, co-founder of the Alliance of American Football and Infinite Athlete, explores how new innovations like AI and bespoke broadcasting technologies are shaping the future of sports.

Charlie also reflects on the storytelling legacy of his father, Dick Ebersol, a legendary sports producer who transformed how we experience the Olympics. We discuss the importance of making sports more accessible and engaging through technology that enhances, rather than distracts from, the human stories at the heart of the games.

Whether you're a tech enthusiast or a sports fan, this episode offers a unique look at the convergence of these two worlds.

Resources: 

Find Charlie on Twitter: https://x.com/CharlieEbersol

Learn more more about Infinite Athlete: https://infiniteathlete.ai/

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

How many days have passed since the last major data leak or security breach? Most likely, zero. From the phone records of AT&T110 million customers exposed in a recent leak to the 815 million passport details, names, phone numbers, and addresses stolen by hackers in India, one thing is clear — our private data is anything but secure.

The repercussions of these breaches are profound. Beyond financial implications — the average global cost of a data breach exceeds 4.45 million U.S. dollars per incident — trust is the main casualty, eroding confidence in digital interactions and services.

Given this ever-present vulnerability, the question becomes: how can we reclaim control of our data and navigate the digital world with confidence? At Empeiria, we understand these challenges and have developed a technological toolbox to help you achieve just that.

Why is Our Data So Vulnerable?

In today’s digital world, our private data forms the cornerstone of countless online interactions. We entrust companies with a vast amount of information, from financial details to browsing habits. However, a critical issue persists: the vulnerability of this data to unauthorized access and data breaches.

But why is that? Why is our data so vulnerable? The answer lies in the inherent weaknesses of the current data frameworks, which leave your information exposed in several ways:

Centralized Storage: Currently, user data is usually stored on centralized company servers. This creates a single point of failure — if hackers breach these servers, a massive amount of data can be compromised all at once. Data Silos: Our information is often scattered across numerous platforms and services. This fragmentation makes it difficult to track and control how our data is used and protected. Weak Encryption: While some companies encrypt data, encryption practices can vary. Weak encryption algorithms can leave information vulnerable to attackers. Human Error: Accidental data leaks by employees can occur due to mistakes or social engineering attacks. Traditional access controls might not be granular enough, granting access to more data than necessary. The Evolving Regulatory Landscape: The legal landscape surrounding data security is constantly evolving. Regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) aim to give individuals more control over their data. However, these regulations can be complex and challenging for companies to navigate, creating additional hurdles in securing user information.

In the end, the current state of data security leaves much to be desired. Our information resides in silos, on centralized servers, vulnerable to breaches and misuse. Traditional frameworks leave us at the mercy of companies, hoping they’ll act responsibly with our data — a trust that’s often broken.

But there’s a solution, and it lies in technological innovation. By leveraging cutting-edge tech advancements, we can build a future where users reclaim control of their data and change how we ensure the security of our data forever.

The Solution: End-to-End Verifiable Data Infrastructure (EVDI)

Here at Empeiria, we believe data ownership is the key to the future of digital interactions. This is why we built our End-to-End Verifiable Data Infrastructure (EVDI) on the principles of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). This framework empowers users with unprecedented control over their information. Within it, it’s the users themselves and not third parties who own and control their data.

By expanding upon the concepts of SSI, EVDI offers a new approach to data security by addressing the fundamental weaknesses of traditional data frameworks:

Data Ownership: In EVDI, instead of centralized data silos, data is securely stored in users’ verifiable data wallets. These wallets act as personal vaults where individuals manage their information securely. EVDI gives users full control over their data. No third party, or even Empeiria itself, has access to users’ data. By storing data in users’ wallets, EVDI fixes one of the main vulnerabilities of the current system: a single point of failure.

Built-in trust: EVDI operates on a trustless architecture of Empe Blockchain, where trust is not assumed, or delegated to a third party, but built into the technology itself. Traditional systems typically rely on centralized authorities to manage, protect, and verify data. In contrast, EVDI leverages decentralized networks and cryptographic techniques to ensure data integrity without the need for intermediaries. No sensitive data is stored on Empe Blockchain, which serves as an immutable record of data ownership and a tool for data verification, without compromising data security.

Streamlined Compliance with Regulations: Navigating the evolving regulatory landscape surrounding data security can be challenging. EVDI lets companies forget the compliance headache. It keeps data in the user’s control, automatically adhering to regulations. This simplifies compliance for businesses, saving them time, effort, and money.

In a world where data breaches are increasingly commonplace and traditional security measures fall short, Empeiria’s End-to-End Verifiable Data Infrastructure (EVDI) offers a practical solution. By empowering individuals with control over their data and leveraging advanced decentralized technologies, it paves the way for a more secure digital experience.

Follow Empeiria on Twitter/X, or LinkedIn for the latest news & updates. For inquiries or further information, contact Empeiria at media@empe.io

Before we announce the exciting new features available for testing in Stage 7, we want to extend our gratitude to our community of over 3,500 testnet users. Your diligent testing and valuable feedback are critical to our mission.

We are pleased to share that testing for Stage 6 is now complete, providing valuable insights and resulting in updates to our codebase. 

Today, we are excited to announce that Stage 7 of our testnet is live. This stage includes simulated Swap functionality, Data Escrow, and major upgrades to the user history interface. 

Note: Panther’s test network is now on Amoy, Polygon’s test network and can be accessed here. 

Swap functionality

Swap functionality is now simulated in the testnet. Users can “swap” their shielded assets (zAssets) within Panther Protocol’s Shielded Pool while interacting with test versions of external decentralized Swap protocols like Uniswap V3 and QuickSwap, both of which are on Amoy, Polygon’s test network. These transactions occur inside Panther Protocol’s shielded Zones, ensuring the privacy of the transactions is preserved.

How to test the swap feature

To prepare the transaction, a user (1) selects the token types (Target Pairing) for the swap and (2) set the amount to send (swap from). The user can see the estimated amount to receive (swap to). Then select which token is being sent and which is being received. 

The following features are included with the release, and must be specified by the user prior to making the swap. 

Routing: By default, the protocol selects the most efficient route. The user can override this option based on preference. Slippage: Panther Protocol will allow users to prevent transactions where slippage exceeds their preferences. Transaction Deadline: Automatically sets the time frame after which a pending transaction will autoif not completed. The current setting is fixed at 5 minutes. 

Prior to submitting the swap request, users can review details such as any impact that the resulting swap will have on price, using information such as liquidity, order book depth and order size; the fees from using the external swap protocols, guaranteed minimums received and exchange rate/conversion ratios.

Data Escrow

Data Escrow is an important Product Feature that supports Compliance Data requirements. Panther Protocols has implemented different types of Data Safe mechanism based on the roles that the DAO, Institutions (also referred as the Zone Manager) and Compliance provider perform to support this.

In the next stage, we will continue to build the decryption mechanism for those roles to access the data. The whole process will be tested when those roles participate in the testing process - essentially we see this as a process to Zone Manager testing the protocol along with other participants.  

History page

The History page UI has been updated with more of the details you will want to track, enabling you to keep records of your testnet transactions (including transaction types,amounts, asset types, value and date and time), mimicking how it will work once the protocol is live. 

Disclaimer

For the avoidance of doubt, tZKP, tzZKP, tPRP, test MATIC, and any other tokens mentioned in this announcement or within the product are for testing purposes only and have no economic value, nor can they be exchanged for value. 

Participation on our incentivized Testnet versions may result in you earning rewards, but such credits are not represented on any blockchain as tokens.

In 2017, Vitalik Buterin defined the ‘Scalability Trilemma’ which consisted of 3 attributes that every blockchain had to balance depending on its intended use cases: decentralisation, scalability and security. While Ethereum sacrificed scalability in favour of security and decentralisation, others prioritised throughput over the other two. However, a solution was proposed, inspired from Web2 computer science - sharding. Despite the fact that Ethereum’s ossification and significant progress in zero knowledge research led to a shift in Ethereum’s roadmap away from execution sharding towards L2 rollups, there were other L1s that were designed from the get-go as sharded blockchains. One such example was Elrond, who implemented the beacon chain PoS consensus alongside a sharded execution layer. Their recent rebranding to MultiversX alludes to a multi-chain, interoperable ecosystem, in which sovereign chains can communicate in a similar manner to cross-shard transaction routing.

Topics covered in this episode:

Lucian’s background and founding Elrond (MultiversX) Elrond’s validator & shard architecture Cross-shard composability VMs, smart contracts and transaction routing Self sovereignty and modularity MultiversX vision Roadmap

Episode links:

Lucian Mincu on Twitter MultiversX on Twitter xPortal on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Felix Lutsch.

The results of community polling are in, and there will be a new Zcash dev fund in November. But this new model will be radically different from what Zcash has […]

Source

Imagine a DeFi world without front-running, back-running, or sandwich attacks. A world where every user gets a fair price, and transaction fees don’t suddenly skyrocket. This isn’t a distant dream — it’s the reality with Verus. MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) is rampant on VM-based blockchains like Ethereum, causing users to lose money and suffer unfair trading practices. But Verus has changed the game with its innovative protocol design, making MEV attacks a thing of the past. Let’s explore how Verus is redefining DeFi with its MEV-resistance at the protocol layer. MEV and its Consequences

Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) is the maximum value that can be extracted from block production in cryptocurrency networks, beyond the standard block rewards.

A block producer, whether a miner or staker, can make a profit by their ability to arbitrarily include, exclude or re-order transactions within the blocks they produce. There are also bots that continuously search the pool of pending transactions (the mempool) for profitable opportunities. This behavior by block producers and bots leads to users being front-run, back-run or sandwich attacked on their transactions.

Front-running involves placing a transaction before a target transaction, while back-running places one immediately after. Sandwich attacks combine both, surrounding a target transaction. This behavior takes advantage of the time between when a transaction is announced (it’s in the mempool) and when it’s processed, allowing manipulators to benefit from price movements caused by the target transaction.

This malicious behavior leads to worse-than-expected execution prices and high transaction fees for regular users doing swaps or trades on AMMs (automated market makers) or DEXs (decentralized exchanges). A sudden high transaction fee can also lead to failing transactions, costing users gas fees without completing the intended trade. At worst, it can even lead to protocol instability.

Another thing to keep in mind is the possible problematic merger of traditional finance and decentralized finance. Front-running, and back-running are illegal practices in traditional finance but common in DeFi. Regulators are likely to view these tactics as unacceptable market manipulation, especially when applied to RWAs (real-world assets). VM-based blockchains have to balance the open, permissionless nature of the blockchain with the expectations of fairness and protection that come with mainstream financial adoption. The giant elephant in the room asks… Can blockchain protocols where MEV is endemic be used for mainstream adoption?

MEV Resistance in Verus

How Verus is MEV-resistant is actually really simple and doesn’t need complicated ways that try to mitigate it. It is inherently not in the protocol by forward-looking protocol design.

You can find Verus DeFi within the consensus layer of the protocol. All currencies (e.g. tokens, liquidity pools) are accounted for by the miners and stakers. This is very different from Ethereum, for example, where only ETH is accounted for by the stakers, and where ERC-20s are not. On VM-based blockchains DeFi is programmed at the smart contract layer, which has many vulnerability surfaces, and what is happening in those smart contracts is not verified by the block producers.

No Transaction Ordering

All VM-based blockchains solve transactions sequentially. This is their fundamental design flaw. Because of this, transactions can be ordered, by either block producers or bots paying higher gas fees to “skip the line.” This is what makes MEV possible.

Unlike VM-based blockchains that solve transactions sequentially, Verus, a UTXO-based blockchain, solves transactions simultaneously. Front-running, back-running and sandwich attacks are impossible since there is no “front” or “back”. Transactions (and thus conversions) are not ordered.

Conversions are solved simultaneously within 1 to 10 blocks, depending on how many conversions are made. The conversions are triggered when there are 10 transactions made, or 10 blocks have passed if it’s not busy. If it’s busy all the time, then conversions are solved every 2 blocks. This leads to a MEV-resistant protocol, but also to fair pricing and enhanced liquidity through offsetting.

Fair Pricing and Enhanced Liquidity

Because all transactions (conversions) are solved simultaneously (1 to 10 blocks), all conversions on the same “trading pair” get the same fair price. Keep in mind that there can be many “trading pairs” that are the same, but when they are in different basket currencies, they are treated as separate.

Important to note is that orders are offset against each other. For example, if one user wants to sell 100 currency X (for Y) and another wants to buy 80 currency X with Y, 80 of that currency is directly matched, leaving only 20 to affect the overall market price. This also means there is reduced price impact, and thus less slippage.

Another benefit is enhanced liquidity. Instead of each conversion drawing from or adding to the liquidity pool sequentially, the net effect is applied, making more efficient use of the available liquidity. The actual liquidity in the pool might not change, but the offsetting effect makes it behave as if there was more liquidity available because offsetting orders are matched directly, reducing the need to draw from or add to the pool.

Then you also have the market arbitrageurs, who now not only make a profit for themselves, they also stabilize the market overall, giving all participants a fair price. With a very low fee of 0.025% or 0.05% of the conversion (without gas fees), it is a great system for all kinds of market participants.

Verus DeFi protocol wide volume in July 2024 was close to $14M. Source: on-chain metrics.

Real Fair DeFi

Whatever market participant you are, you are best served with the Verus Protocol. Verus DeFi is fully functional on mainnet for everyone to use.

No MEV (no front-running, back-running or sandwich attacks) Truly decentralized (it’s a credibly neutral protocol — not a business, company or otherwise rent-seeking) The same fair price for all market participants within 1–10 block(s) Secured at the protocol level Low conversion fees of max. 0.05% Permissionless launching of liquidity pools Bridged to Ethereum (all ERC-20s can be bridged to the Verus Protocol, in a non-custodial and trustless manner, and vice versa) Decentralized crowdfund mechanisms for your currency (e.g. token, liquidity pool, native PBaaS coin), such as pre-launch discounts, pre-launch carveouts and pre-allocations 💡 Bridge Your Community to Verus

If you are in a community that has an ERC-20 as a token consider moving over to Verus. Not only do you get fair, MEV-resistant DeFi, you can also tap into the self-sovereign identity protocol (VerusID) and experience unlimited scale (no more high gas fees). You can do it permissionlessly!

Join the Discord, the worldwide community is happy to answer any questions and help you assist.

In the meantime you can try Verus DeFi on your mobile and desktop now. Download Verus Mobile on Google Play and App Store.

🛠️ Build dApps with Verus

Look up the complete command list here. Go to docs.verus.io to get guidance on some API commands (e.g. launching currencies, tokens & liquidity pools).

Join the community. Learn about the protocol. Use Verus & build dApps.

➡️ Join the community on Discord

Follow on Twitter

Go to verus.io

How Verus Solved MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) in DeFi was originally published in Verus Coin on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Empe Testnet has achieved decentralization in just 48 hours, with over 100 validators onboarded. This marks a significant milestone in the development of the Empe Blockchain — the cornerstone of Empeiria’s End-to-End Verifiable Data Infrastructure (EVDI), designed to empower real-world applications with verifiable data.

Backed by over 15,000 hours of R&D and insights from 70+ customer collaborations, EVDI seamlessly bridges on-chain and off-chain worlds, ensuring data privacy, reusability, and compliance while adhering to industry standards like W3C, DIF, and IETF.

With this rapid decentralization, Empeiria has established a secure, transparent, and scalable decentralized network, demonstrating its commitment to delivering a robust and scalable verifiable data solution.

The launch of Phase 2 of Empe Testnet is accompanied by the publication of comprehensive technical documentation, which streamlines the integration process for external validators and ensures a smooth onboarding experience.

Empeiria extends its gratitude to Empe Testnet validators for their critical role in achieving this milestone. Visit the Empe Explorer website to see Empe Testnet in action.

Follow Empeiria on X, or LinkedIn for the latest news & updates. For inquiries or further information, contact Empeiria at media@empe.io

On June 27th, the a16z team headed to New York City for the first-ever AI Artist Retreat at their office. This event brought together the builders behind some of the most popular AI creative tools, along with 16 artists, filmmakers, and designers who are exploring the capabilities of AI in their work.

In this episode, we hear from the innovators pushing the boundaries of AI creativity. Joined by Anish Acharya, General Partner, and Justine Moore, Partner on the Consumer team, we feature insights from:

Ammaar Reshi - Head of Design, ElevenLabs Justin Maier - Cofounder & CEO, Civitai Maxfield Hulker - Cofounder & COO, Civitai Diego Rodriguez - Cofounder & CTO, Krea Victor Perez - Cofounder & CEO, Krea Mohammad Norouzi - Cofounder & CEO, Ideogram Hang Chu - Cofounder & CEO, Viggle Conor Durkan - Cofounder, Udio

These leaders highlight the surprising commonalities between founders and artists, and the interdisciplinary nature of their work. The episode covers the origin stories behind these innovative tools, their viral moments, and their future visions. You'll also hear about the exciting potential for AI in various creative modalities, including image, video, music, 3D, and speech.

Keep an eye out for more in our series highlighting the founders building groundbreaking foundation models and AI applications for video, audio, photography, animation, and more.

Learn more and see videos on artists leveraging AI at: 

a16z.com/aiart

 

Find Ammaar on Twitter: https://x.com/ammaar

Learn more about ElevenLabs: https://elevenlabs.io

Find Justin on Twitter: https://x.com/justmaier

Find Max on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxfield-hulker-5222aa230/
Learn more about Civitai: https://civitai.com

Find Diego on Twitter: https://x.com/asciidiego?lang=en

Find Victor on Twitter: https://x.com/viccpoes

Learn more about Krea: https://www.krea.ai/home

Find Mohammed on Twitter: https://x.com/mo_norouzi

Learn more about Ideogram: https://ideogram.ai/t/explore

Find Conor on Twitter: https://x.com/conormdurkan

Learn more about Udio: https://www.udio.com/home

Find Hang on Twitter: https://x.com/chuhang1122

Learn more about Viggle: https://viggle.ai/

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

 

 

In this episode, Project Liberty Founder Frank McCourt joins Matt for a second round to discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by rapidly developing AI technologies. Building on their previous chat about digital infrastructure, they explore whether AI will exacerbate social media, digital advertising, and data centralization issues, or fundamentally change them. McCourt emphasizes fixing the internet’s design flaws to ensure AI benefits society, advocates for returning data ownership to individuals and stresses the need for political engagement to align AI with democratic values. Tune in for this enlightening conversation and what we can do moving forward.

Links & References: 

References:

RadicalxChange(s) | Frank McCourt: Founder of Project Liberty (Part I) on Reclaiming the Internet Khmer Empire | Wikipedia The Decline of the Khmer Empire | National Library of Australia Restrictions on TikTok in the United States | Wikipedia TikTok sues to block prospective US app ban | CNN Business How Silicon Valley gamed the world's toughest privacy rules - POLITICO European Union fines Meta $1.3 billion for violating privacy laws : NPR The Dangers of the Global Spread of China’s Digital Authoritarianism | Center for a New American Security (en-US) China’s Techno-Authoritarianism Has Gone Global | Human Rights Watch China trying to develop world ‘built on censorship and surveillance’ | Privacy News | Al Jazeera Project Liberty People’s Bid For TikTok - Project Liberty

Bios:

Frank H. McCourt, Jr. is a civic entrepreneur and the executive chairman and former CEO of McCourt Global, a private family company committed to building a better future through its work across the real estate, sports, technology, media, and capital investment industries, as well as its significant philanthropic activities. Frank is proud to extend his family’s 130-year legacy of merging community and social impact with financial results, an approach that started when the original McCourt Company was launched in Boston in 1893.

He is a passionate supporter of multiple academic, civic, and cultural institutions and initiatives. He is the founder and executive chairman of Project Liberty, a far-reaching, $500 million initiative to transform the internet through a new, equitable technology infrastructure and rebuild social media in a way that enables users to own and control their personal data. The project includes the development of a groundbreaking, open-source internet protocol called the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP), which will be owned by the public to serve as a new web infrastructure. It also includes the creation of Project Liberty’s Institute (formerly The McCourt Institute,) launched with founding partners Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, and Sciences Po in Paris, to advance research, bring together technologists and social scientists, and develop a governance model for the internet’s next era.

Frank has served on Georgetown University’s Board of Directors for many years and, in 2013, made a $100 million founding investment to create Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. He expanded on this in 2021 with a $100 million investment to catalyze an inclusive pipeline of public policy leaders and put the school on a path to becoming tuition-free.

In 2024, Frank released his first book, OUR BIGGEST FIGHT: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age.

Frank’s Social Links:

Project Liberty Project Liberty (@pro_jectliberty) / X Project Liberty (@pro_jectliberty) • Instagram McCourt Institute (@McCourtInst) / X

Matt Prewitt (he/him) is a lawyer, technologist, and writer. He is the President of the RadicalxChange Foundation.

Matt’s Social Links:

ᴍᴀᴛᴛ ᴘʀᴇᴡɪᴛᴛ (@m_t_prewitt) / X

Connect with RadicalxChange Foundation:

RadicalxChange Website @RadxChange | Twitter RxC | YouTube RxC | Instagram RxC | LinkedIn Join the conversation on Discord.

Credits:

Produced by G. Angela Corpus. Co-Produced, Edited, Narrated, and Audio Engineered by Aaron Benavides. Executive Produced by G. Angela Corpus and Matt Prewitt. Intro/Outro music by MagnusMoone, “Wind in the Willows,” is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

Web3’s decentralisation is currently limited to smart contracts as they can be verified on-chain. However, until scalability and UX become on par with that of Web2, the only realistic way for crypto to reach mass adoption is threw off-chain dApps. This creates the premise for a security bottleneck in the form of centralised APIs used for on-chain querying. Mel Project aims to expand on-chain security and decentralisation (consensus) to off-chain apps, basically achieving off-chain composability through trustless light clients. Earendil, the backbone of their ecosystem, designed to resist ISP-level censorship, is a decentralized anonymous communication and payment network that enables autonomous applications and true P2P protocols.

Topics covered in this episode:

Eric’s background and founding Mel Project Why Ethereum came short Is Infura a security bottleneck? Liberating markets (and the Internet) Light clients and how Mel Project tackles them Use cases Smart contracts on Mel Project Scaling the ‘world computer’ Mel Project’s consensus: Streamlet Why Mel Project chose an UTXO model Earendil & ISP-level censorship resistance Roadmap The Geph VPN Mel Project’s low volatility (stable) coin $SYM: PoS token Misc.

Episode links:

Eric Tung on Twitter Mel Project on Twitter Geph VPN on Twitter Moxie Marlinspike's 'My first impressions on web3' article Streamlet BFT consensus model

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

Gaming is not just entertainment—it's a revolution reshaping our culture, technology, and economy. 

a16z’s Jonathan Lai and Andrew Chen dive into the current gaming renaissance and its future impact. Joining them are Michael Chow, CEO and Steven Snow, CPO of The Believer Company, and Eros Resmini, Founder and Managing Partner of The Mini Fund.

They explore the intersection of tech, art, psychology, and design in gaming, discussing how startups can navigate intense competition, distribution challenges, and high production costs. With insights from these industry leaders, this episode covers the transformative potential of AI, the importance of player feedback, and strategies to stand out in a crowded market.

Recorded during Speedrun, a16z’s extensive games accelerator, this episode offers a glimpse into the strategies and innovations driving the gaming industry forward.

 

Resources: 

Find Steven on Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenSnow

Find Michael on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/believer-paladin/

Find Eros on Twitter: https://twitter.com/erosresmini

Find Jonathan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tocelot

Find Andrew on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andrewchen

Learn more about Speedrun: https://a16z.com/games/speedrun/

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

ECC is building infrastructure that supports the Zcash ecosystem and makes possible a decentralized future that values individual privacy and consent, security, and human dignity. To that end, we are […]

Source

As the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) Regulation begins its implementation journey across the EU Elise Soucie, Executive Director, GDF and Lucia della Ventura, Zodia Markets collaborated on a short guide to CASP compliance. The guide discusses how to navigate the EU regulatory landscape with a particular focus on how MiCA interacts with MiFID II including:

The Objectives of MiCA Who & What Kinds of Activities are Regulated by MiCA How MiCA & MiFID II Interact What License is Required for Which Assets Practical Considerations for Compliance

Publish date: 23.07.2024

The post Navigating the EU regulatory Landscape: A guide to CASP Compliance appeared first on GDF.

Greetings community,

June 17th, 2024 ushered in the successful Alexandria upgrade of Shade Protocol — bringing advanced protocol & SILK analytics, the prices page, liquid $SHD staking, Spartan NFTs, and more.

https://app.shadeprotocol.io/analytics

Now that this upgrade was complete, the time has now come for Shade Protocol to prepare its next upgrade on September 24th:

Argos.

Argos was an ancient Greek city spanning from 1600 BC — 146 BC, a natural cultural hub during its time. Argos produced notable poets, sculptors, and architects. Poets such as Telesilla + Ario and sculptors Polykleitos and Ageladas left their mark with a focus on proper proportions of their sculptures, emphasizing symmetry and balance. The Canon (from the Greek “Kanōn,” meaning “measure” or “rule”) was a theoretical work by Polykleitos that outlined his mathematical approach to achieving perfect proportions in sculpture. Polykleitos sought to create a formula that could be applied to sculpt the ideal human figure.

Principles of the Kanōn

Symmetria (Proportion): Polykleitos emphasized the harmonious relationship between different parts of the body. This concept is akin to symmetry, where each part of the body is in balanced proportion to the others. Mathematical Ratios: He believed that beauty in the human form could be achieved through specific numerical ratios. For instance, the head was considered one-eighth of the total height, and the length of the foot was one-sixth of the height. Contrapposto: This stance, where the weight is shifted onto one leg, creating an asymmetry in the hips and shoulders, was crucial for achieving a naturalistic and dynamic pose. It demonstrated a balance of tension and relaxation in the body, reflecting Polykleitos’ focus on harmony.

Polykleitos’ Canon was a significant contribution to the field of art, emphasizing a scientific and mathematical approach to beauty and aesthetics that resonated throughout the history of Western art.

In many ways, Shade has long carried an unnatural contrapposto where privacy has placed undue tension on certain parts of user interactions, creating an unnatural disharmony.

The Argos update aims to bring symmetry, balance, and harmony to the Shade UX as we continue on the quest to refine user stories & the ease of traversing the Shade Protocol application.

Streamlined Permit Implementation: We’re reducing the token balance viewing and storing process from 60+ paid transactions to handle all of the encrypted tokens on the Shade app to instead just 3–4 clicks, all of which will be free txs. This will significantly enhance the Shade Protocol user experience and cross multi-device management.

Balance Stores V2: Say goodbye to latency issues. We’re revolutionizing how balances are stored on local devices. Real-time updates mean you’ll always see accurate balances as you navigate the app.

Eliminate wrap UX / improve to Automatic Wrap Functionality: We’re eliminating the need for manual wrapping in most cases. Don’t worry, power users can still access this feature on the utility page. And of course, we’re keeping everything private and secure.

Portfolio V2: Get ready for a visual treat! We’re beautifying the historical view of your assets and their performance. Expect cleaner, more intuitive charting that makes tracking your investments a breeze.

Money Market Sneak Peek: We’re working on a comprehensive whitepaper for our upcoming Money Market feature. Keep an eye out for a sleek mockups & a potential testnet.

We believe Shade Protocol through its relentless drive towards ease of use can help unlock & reveal the power of private DeFi for the whole world to use.

Argos: Classical Ideals and Heroic Legacy

As we prepare for the upcoming Argos upgrade on September 24th, we are inspired by the historical and mythological significance of Argos. In Greek mythology, Argos was not only a cultural hub but also the realm of Diomedes, a legendary hero renowned for his strength and valor. Diomedes played a pivotal role in the Trojan War, leading 80 ships into battle and famously participating in the strategic deception of the Trojan Horse, which led to the fall of Troy. His contributions and heroic feats are emblematic of the balance and precision we aim to bring to the Shade Protocol through Argos.

Just as Diomedes’ leadership and prowess shaped the course of the Trojan War, the Argos upgrade represents a transformative moment for Shade Protocol. We are dedicated to bringing a new level of harmony and efficiency to our platform, inspired by the principles of symmetry and balance embodied by Diomedes’ legacy. The upgrade will enhance user experience with a powerful transaction engine, refined portfolio management, and streamlined interactions, mirroring the ideals of precision and coordination that Diomedes exemplified. Join us as we honor this rich legacy and strive to advance private DeFi with the elegance and effectiveness of classical ideals.

Conclusion

As we move forward, inspired by the historical significance and the enduring principles of Argos, Diomede, and Polykleitos’ Canon, Shade Protocol remains committed to evolving and enhancing our platform. By fostering an environment where balance and symmetry guide our development, we aim to create a seamless and harmonious user experience. The Argos upgrade represents not just a step forward in technology, but a stride towards a more refined, accessible, and powerful DeFi ecosystem. Join us on this journey to bring the elegance of classical ideals into the future of private decentralized finance.

Twitter → https://x.com/Shade_Protocol

App → https://app.shadeprotocol.io/analytics

Telegram → https://t.me/ShadeProtocol

One of the OG flag bearers for decentralisation, Gnosis initially set out to build a prediction market on Ethereum. However, unlike the vibrant ecosystem of today, the early Ethereum days were barren. As a result, Gnosis team decided to build out their own infrastructure and tooling to suit their needs. Before long, tools such as Gnosis Safe, Zodiac, etc. were quickly adopted by the entire industry. Nowadays, since the foundation has been tried and tested, Gnosis 3.0 aims to focus on improving consumer dApp UX in order to facilitate widespread adoption.

Topics covered in this episode:

Gnosis’ background and vision Gnosis 3.0 Gnosis DAO Capital allocation management How Gnosis Pay revolutionizes payment rails The ‘Baguette Conundrum’: privacy & regulatory compliance for on-chain payments The future of the EVM vs. modularity Would Gnosis shift to an L2 architecture?

Episode links:

Friederike Ernst on Twitter Gnosis DAO on Twitter Gnosis Chain on Twitter Gnosis Pay on Twitter Safe on Twitter CoW Swap on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture.

TL;DR Horizen 2.0 Upgrade is Full Steam Ahead: Community voted in favor of the upgrade to a more advanced blockchain architecture. Binance Monitoring Tag Removed: $ZEN demonstrates stability and meets Binance’s listing criteria. ZenIPs: Six ZenIPs were voted on, including the removal of shielded pools and the technical roadmap for Horizen 2.0. Technical Upgrades: Significant upgrades include new node software, EON 1.4, and EON Forger Nodes. New Ecosystem Partnerships: New integration with partners such as Magic Link, Rabby Wallet, and Math Wallet. Media & Events: Highlights include the Horizen Buidler House at ETHDenver and appearances at major Web3 conferences.

2024 has been quite the year so far for the Horizen Ecosystem and for $ZEN. Completing the transition away from being a privacy coin and currently undergoing the Horizen 2.0 upgrade to become the next-gen EVM optimized for ZK apps. From ZenIPs to new partners, product upgrades, Horizen turning 7, and more, let’s dive in and see what happened for the first half of 2024.

Horizen 2.0 Upgrade is Full Steam Ahead

In June of 2024, the community voted overwhelmingly in favor for  transitioning $ZEN from the legacy Horizen mainchain and Horizen EON EVM to a more advanced blockchain architecture, we call this upgrade Horizen 2.0. 

At a high level, Horizen ($ZEN) and EON are currently built on older technology stacks. The Horizen Mainchain is a fork of the Bitcoin C++ codebase with a block time of 2.5 minutes, while EON is written in Scala based on the Scorex SDK with an 18-second block time. To address the limitations of these legacy systems and align with the vision of Horizen as a home for ZK and an enduring utility for $ZEN, a ZenIP was proposed to upgrade to Horizen 2.0, which introduces more advanced features and optimizations to enhance the network performance, security, and utility of $ZEN.

To learn more about ZenIP 42406 and Horizen 2.0, check out this high-level overview that breaks everything down. 

Binance Removes the Monitoring Tag for $ZEN

On July 1st, Binance announced the removal of the monitoring tag for $ZEN recognizing its stability and performance. 

The monitoring tag was placed in Jan 2024 along with several other privacy-featured coins. In the same month, the Horizen community voted in favor of removing the privacy feature from the Horizen mainchain, removing regulatory and delisting risks for $ZEN, allowing the Horizen network to maintain its versatility and compliance in the competitive landscape of web3. The shielded pool was removed from the Horizen mainchain on February 2024. 

What else does this mean for $ZEN?  Consistent Stability and Confidence: Indicates that $ZEN has demonstrated consistent stability and security, reducing concerns over volatility and risk. Improved Listing Criteria: Indicates that $ZEN meets Binance’s stringent listing criteria, including regulatory-compliance, strong development activity, team commitment, and a secure network. Positive Market Perception: Reflects a positive outlook on $ZEN, increasing user confidence and encouraging more participation in the Horizen ecosystem.

In the same month of July, $ZEN is ranked a top 10 ZK Project by Market Cap on Coingecko

ZenIPs 

The Horizen community voted on 6 ZenIPs in the first half of this year: 

ZenIP 42207: Removal of the Shielded Pools from the Horizen Mainchain – 99.97% in Favor

This ZenIP represents a necessary evolution of the Horizen network to maintain its competitiveness, versatility, and compliance in the changing landscape of blockchain regulation and technology. The passing of this proposal speaks to the community’s desire to strategically pivot away from privacy-focused features towards a more scalable and regulatory-compliant framework. 

ZenIP 42400: Modernizing Horizen Technology via a Modular Proof Verification Layer – 100% in Favor

This ZenIP details a comprehensive understanding of the new modular system proposed by Horizen Labs. It outlines the strategic approach and delves into the technical aspects of a modular proof verification layer. Horizen Labs later announced that it will independently undertake the buildout of the proof verification chain in order to bring it to market more quickly. 

ZenIP 42401: Updating Proposal and Quorum Thresholds – 77.34% in Favor

The purpose of this ZenIP is to seek the community’s decision on lowering the thresholds for formally submitting improvement proposals and achieving a quorum of votes for them. The goal of this ZenIP is to make the governance of Horizen DAO more accessible for community members, increase the likelihood of successful votes (valid due to reaching a quorum), and bring quorum requirements in line with industry standards.

ZenIP 42404: Delegated Staking Reward Mechanism on EON – 99.87% in Favor

This ZenIP proposed to improve the usability of the EON staking system at the protocol level by automating the reward distribution among the forger hosting provider and the $ZEN holders who stake their ZEN to the forger node. The goal of the upgrade is for the staking security system to calculate and pay the stake reward directly to the staker’s wallet address without first going through the forger node itself.

ZenIP-42405: Directing the Horizen Foundation to Request a Migration Proposal for $ZEN and EON – 99.99% in Favor

This ZenIP seeks the community’s approval to direct Horizen Foundation to formally request a proposal from Horizen Labs regarding a technical roadmap for $ZEN and EON migration. 

ZenIP 42406: Technical Roadmap for the Migration of $ZEN and EON – 99.87% in Favor

This ZenIP seeks the community’s approval on a detailed strategic technical plan for transitioning the $ZEN cryptocurrency from the current Horizen Mainchain and Horizen EON EVM to a more advanced blockchain architecture. The goal of this technical upgrade is to improve Horizen’s blockchain performance, incorporate the latest advancements in zero-knowledge proof systems into Horizen, and enhance the utility of $ZEN.

Technical Upgrades and Updates

Throughout 2024 so far, we’ve seen a number of major upgrades and updates take place:

Horizen Node Software Upgrade ZEN 5.0.3 ZEN 5.0.2 EON 1.4 Upgrade   New Horizen EON Explorer is live The Removal of Shielded Pool from Horizen mainchain The deprecation of Secure Nodes EON Forger Node becomes available to the public  Deprecation of TokenMint sidechain New Ecosystem Partners

So far in 2024, we’ve welcomed a number of new partnerships and integrations to the Horizen Ecosystem. From new wallet integrations like Magic Link, Rabby Wallet, and Math Wallet, to a Safe integration via OnchainDen, we’re continuously growing the Horizen Ecosystem! 

Magic Link Rabby Wallet 1RPC KuSwap NFT Marketplace MathWallet OnchainDen Polytrade

We look forward to welcoming our current network partners and integrators onto the new Horizen2.0 ecosystem! 

Media & Thought Leadership  CEO of Horizen Labs & Co-Founder of Horizen, Rob Viglione, talks ZK and Horizen on the Absolutely Zero Knowledge Podcast StealthEX AMA on Horizen, Horizen Labs, & zkVerify zkTalk with Gevulot on zkVerify, zk Tech, and Horizen Co-founder, Rob Viglione, authors “Modular Verification Proof” for CoinMarketCap Glossary Horizen Co-founder on Abosolutely Zero Knowledge  Events Horizen Buidler House at ETHDenver

During ETHDenver earlier this year we hosted a Web3 Builders Day in collaboration with Supermoon camp, it was a great day full of panels, discussions, networking, and connecting! 

Rolf Versluis, Co-Founder of Horizen gave a keynote presentation on Horizen, we got to hear some talks from ecosystem partners like Yuzu, Covalent, Tatum, and Stably, discussed modular vs monolithic blockchains, reviewed investing in the next Web3 unicorns and more! 

For those who may have missed our recap, we have a thread to review it here: https://x.com/horizenglobal/status/1763687745694957569

In addition to ETHDenver – the team was present at some of the largest Web3 conferences and events of 2024, including Paris Blockchain Week, Token2049 Dubai, Consensus, and ETHCC! 

Consensus 2024

Later this year, we are looking to have a presence at ETHMilan, zkHack, Korea Blockchain Week, Token2049, and Devcon!

The post Horizen Ecosystem H1 2024 Report appeared first on Horizen Blog.

BlueYard Crypto 3: backing the ultimate capital x compute coordination machine with our latest $75m early-stage crypto fund

As we began to deploy our 3rd dedicated crypto fund, BlueYard Crypto 3* (raised last year), we took a step back to reflect on our thesis and approach behind crypto investing. What are the core belief pillars underpinning our strategy?

In the history of technology, economics and organizations — never has there been a technology and incentive system that can autonomously coordinate machines (compute, storage, etc), algorithms, data and capital at such an incredible scale, so quickly — all while providing independent, robust and trustless infrastructure for economic activity and data. Although still early in its development, crypto might be the ultimate solution to the collective action problem. Also, if one believes in a future where the autonomous coordination between compute, data and capital will play an increasing role, crypto networks could be the “under the hood” operating system for large economic networks.

Societies and economies will highly value censorship-resistant money and information flows enabled by decentralization, the ability to cut out intermediaries in many large-scale markets — thereby unlocking higher degrees of innovation and efficiency. The creation of portable internet-native assets with the ability to create mass- & user-centric ownership of traditionally centralized businesses will enable a new economic paradigm.

If large networks of coordinated machines and capital can be transformative to many industries and markets relying on computation, data and economic flows in the future — one might reasonably conclude that crypto networks, with their unique properties, have the potential to form a key backbone of such future markets — ranging from software / data / compute markets to physical infrastructure. If crypto can be the future of many markets and financial systems, today’s crypto infrastructure and applications are a call option on that future. This is what BlueYard has always believed — and is reflected in our investment hypothesis and applied strategy of investing at the earliest stages in:

the core functionality of the capital x compute coordination machine, such as the creation of consensus and the economic and technological enhancement of chains (e.g. Protocol Labs / IPFS, Filecoin, Flashbots, Kiln, Ingonyama) the augmentation of core chains to make their consensus and compute useful & usable for developers and users (e.g. Privy, Tableland, Cryptio) an emerging application layer that leverages crypto’s unfair advantages (e.g. 3NUM, Nudge, Radicle / Drips) in web services and financial products (e.g. Centrifuge)

We further augment this by selectively investing in liquid tokens that are a match for our thesis (e.g. Render, Helium, Dimo) and some large-cap L1s for purposes of working capital (e.g. Solana, ETH, Cosmos), with a view to re-deploy the asset base into their native ecosystems.

So if you are building along our thesis or want to open our minds to something completely new — we would like to hear from you. Or if you are looking to work on some open-ended research without committing to scaling a startup, take a look at our DYOR program. BlueYard is a firm that invests in foundational technologies across compute, engineering, software and biology, offering founders a community of like-minded, ambitious and long-term oriented builders that can help each other beyond the boundaries of their respective domains.

Disclaimer: This post is for general information purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any investment and should not be used in the evaluation of the merits of making any investment decision. It should not be relied upon for accounting, legal or tax advice or investment recommendations. This post reflects the current opinions of the authors and is not made on behalf of BlueYard or its affiliates and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of BlueYard, its affiliates or individuals associated with BlueYard. The opinions reflected herein are subject to change without being updated.

*If you are wondering why we are announcing BlueYard Crypto 3 when the last crypto fund we announced was BlueYard Crypto 1 (vs 2) — it is because we confusingly called our first crypto fund BY Crypto 0 (a spin-out of BY 1), whereas our first general fund generation was named BlueYard 1. We are just aligning our naming policy to be less confusing. Right now we are investing BlueYard 3 ($175m) and BlueYard Crypto 3 ($75m).

Former gymnast and current investor Aly Raisman joins general partner Julie Yoo and investment partner Daisy Wolf of a16z Bio + Health.

In this episode, Aly Raisman shares her quest for healthier living—physically, mentally, and financially—on her journey from gymnast to a business investor. Having transitioned from an intensely structured routine, Aly emphasizes the need for more open conversations about mental health and financial literacy. She speaks passionately about the gap in women’s health solutions and hopes to inspire entrepreneurs to create impactful businesses. Aly’s experiences as a patient, survivor, and global figure adds a unique dimension to her perspective as an investor. This candid conversation with Aly and Julie Yoo sheds light on Aly’s passion for more education within the investment space, offering invaluable insights for entrepreneurs, particularly in biotech and healthcare.

 

Resources: 

Find Aly on Twitter: https://x.com/aly_raisman

Find Julie on Twitter: https://x.com/julesyoo

Find Daisy on Twitter: https://x.com/daisydwolf

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Paul Brigner has resigned from his role at Electric Coin Co. (ECC) as Vice President of Strategic Alliances to join Coinbase and lead the Coinbase Institute. While he leaves a […]

Source

Dear community members.

Our transformative upgrade to Horizen 2.0 is full steam ahead since the community voted in favor of the ZenIP 42406, which proposes a roadmap for the upgrade of $ZEN and EON!

Security Best Practices

Please follow the steps below to ensure a smooth and safe experience during the 2.0 upgrade and keep your ZEN safe from scammers:

Do NOT send funds to anyone claiming to be from Horizen. We would never ask the community to send us ZEN or any other type of funds. Do NOT share your private keys with anyone. We would never ask for private keys. If your private keys are not safe and secure, neither are your crypto assets. Do NOT install anything on your device that is not from the official sources. Do NOT give anybody remote access to your device. We’d never ask you to install any software for remote access. Do NOT trust any DMs that give instructions for any type of Horizen airdrop. Official team members would never DM you. We only communicate the procedure on our official public channels. The best way to get support is to open a ticket on the “open-a-ticket” channel on the Horizen Discord. Always double-check the social media handle and URL to make sure you are visiting the official channels.

Official Channels

The following channels are official and safe accounts to follow:

Horizen X: https://x.com/horizenglobal Horizen Labs X: https://x.com/HorizenLabs Telegram: https://t.me/horizencommunity Discord: https://horizen.io/invite/discord  Blog: https://blog.horizen.io Discourse: https://horizen.discourse.group  Website: www.horizen.io  Github: https://github.com/HorizenOfficial Newsletter Signup: https://www.horizen.io/developer-newsletter/ 

What to do if you find a scam or have a question about an announcement? Please report the group or account to our teams on Discord

Here is the ONLY official invitation link to the Discord: https://horizen.io/invite/discord 

You can also contact us on Telegram “horizen community”: https://t.me/horizencommunity 

Example of a scam attempt

As you can see in this scam attempt, users are being misled. They may think they’re on the official channel, but they’re not.

The only Horizen domain you should trust is horizen.io and blog.horizen.io.

Any additional words are domains bought by scammers. In this example: migrate-horizen.io.

The name of the scam Telegram group here is https://t.me/horizencommunitty Can you spot the scam?

In this scam example, there are two “t’s” in the word “community”.

You can also check when the group/user providing the information was created. Usually, scammers are very new accounts with little or no message history.

The post Keep Your ZEN Safe and Avoid Scams During Horizen 2.0 Upgrade appeared first on Horizen Blog.

We couldn’t miss EthCC 7, nor the chance to chat with Vitalik Buterin about Ethereum’s status quo as an L1 amidst the plethora of L2s competing for market share, and what challenges will most likely arise along the way (e.g. staking decentralisation).

Tune in for a captivating discussion on the importance of decentralisation as a last stand of human empowerment in the current geopolitical context and how it could positively impact AI's trajectory. 

Topics covered in this episode:

Types of Ethereum ‘hardnesses’ (sic) The L1 status quo Staking decentralisation & block building Non-financial crypto applications Account abstraction & interoperability Solana & Bitcoin ecosystems DeSci, biotech & longevity Geopolitics Ethereum nation state? The impact of AI Do not go gentle into that good night

Episode links:

Vitalik Buterin on Twitter EthCC on Twitter Ethereum on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Brian Fabian Crain.

Less than two years since the breakthrough of text-based AI, we now see incredible developments in multimodal AI models and their impact on millions of users.

As part of New York Tech Week, we brought together a live audience and three leaders from standout companies delivering AI-driven products to millions. Gaurav Misra, Cofounder and CEO of Captions, Carles Reina, Chief Revenue Officer of ElevenLabs, and Laura Burkhauser, VP of Product at Descript discuss the challenges and opportunities of designing AI-driven products, solving real customer problems, and effective marketing.

From the critical need for preventing AI misuse to ensuring international accessibility, they cover essential insights for the future of AI technology.

 

Resources: 

Find Laura on Twitter: https://x.com/burkenstocks

Find Carles on Twitter :https://twitter.com/carles_reina

Find Gaurav of Twitter: https://twitter.com/gmharhar

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

 

Madeleine Boys, Director of Programmes and Innovation, GDF, reports on policy and consultation updates from around the world.

The post Digital assets – on the road to mass adoption appeared first on GDF.

Elise Soucie, Executive Director, GDF, discusses what the UK’s political shift means for the crypto and digital finance industry, how it affects ongoing initiatives as well as the timelines for certain pieces of the digital asset regulatory framework.

The post For whom the crypto bell polls appeared first on GDF.

Elise Soucie, Executive Director, GDF, discusses staking amidst the UK’s commitment to building staking regulation.

The post Raising the Stakes – The UK’s Incoming Rules for DeFi & Staking appeared first on GDF.

Elise Soucie, Executive Director, GDF, discusses the travel rule and compliance.

The post FATF & Furious – Preparing for Travel Rule Implementation appeared first on GDF.

Elise Soucie, Executive Director, GDF, discusses the Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS) in the UK.

The post The Sandbox: Building a Tech Friendly Regime for a Growing Crypto Industry appeared first on GDF.

Elise Soucie, Executive Director, GDF, discusses the recent regulatory news involving bitcoin ETPs, cETNs, and BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF – and what this all means.

The post E.T.? appeared first on GDF.

Elise Soucie, Executive Director, GDF, discusses policy and consultation updates from around the world, as well as the latest digital innovations in institutional markets.

The post Dial R for Regulation appeared first on GDF.

Elise Soucie, Executive Director, GDF, discusses conserving the “singleness” of money, amidst the Bank of England’s priorities of preserving financial stability as well as the singleness of money as new forms of digital money continue to evolve.

The post The Wild West of money: Preserving singleness in a digital age appeared first on GDF.

"The Ben & Marc Show," featuring a16z co-founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. 

In this special episode, Marc and Ben dive deep into the REAL story behind the creation of Netscape—a web browser co-created by Marc that revolutionized the internet and changed the world. As Ben notes at the top, until today, this story has never been fully told either in its entirety or accurately. 

In this one-on-one conversation, Marc and Ben discuss Marc's early life and how it shaped his journey into technology, the pivotal moments at the University of Illinois that led to the development of Mosaic (a renegade browser that Marc developed as an undergrad), and the fierce competition and legal battles that ensued as Netscape rose to prominence. 

Ben and Marc also reflect on the broader implications of Netscape's success, the importance of an open internet, and the lessons learned that still resonate in today's tech landscape (especially with AI). That and much more. Enjoy!

Watch the FULL Episode on YouTune: https://youtu.be/8aTjA_bGZO4

 

Resources: 

Marc on X: https://twitter.com/pmarca 

Marc’s Substack: https://pmarca.substack.com/ 

Ben on X: https://twitter.com/bhorowitz 

Book mentioned on this episode: 

- “Expert Political Judgment” by Philip E. Tetlock https://bit.ly/45KzP6M 

TV Series mentioned on this episode: 

- “The Mandalorian” (Disney+) https://bit.ly/3W0Zyoq

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

  From the Bootstrap Board of Directors: Zcash is at an inflection point. With a more decentralized Zcash contributor model taking shape and a new development fund hanging in the […]

Source

One of the bluechip DeFi projects and backbone of Ethereum liquidity markets, Aave has recently announced their V4 upgrade proposal, which aims (among others) to unify crosschain liquidity.

We were joined by Stani Kulechov, founder & CEO of Aave, to discuss the DeFi (r)evolution since ETH Lend to Aave V4, expanding to non-EVM chains and potentially even building a self-sovereign chain. 

Topics covered in this episode:

The evolution of Aave Aave V3 risk management & MakerDAO feud Aave V4 Unified liquidity layer & risk pricing GHO stablecoin How the unified liquidity layer improves UX RWA & liquidation strategies in Aave V4 Expanding to non-EVM networks Building a self-sovereign chain Aave’s role in the future of DeFi How stablecoins will evolve DeFi institutional adoption Future roadmap

Episode links:

Stani Kulechov on Twitter Aave on Twitter Lens Protocol on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Friederike Ernst.

We know that technology has changed art, and that artists have evolved with every new technology — it’s a tale as old as humanity, moving from cave paintings to computers. Underlying these movements are endless debates around inventing versus remixing; between commercialism and art; between mainstream canon and fringe art; whether we’re living in an artistic monoculture now (the answer may surprise you); and much much more. 

So in this new episode featuring Berlin-based contemporary artist Simon Denny -- in conversation with a16z crypto editor in chief Sonal Chokshi -- we discuss all of the above debates. We also cover how artists experimented with the emergence of new technology platforms like the web browser, the iPhone, Instagram and social media; to how generative art found its “native” medium on blockchains, why NFTs; and other art movements. 

Denny also thinks of entrepreneurial ideas -- from Peter Thiel's to Chris Dixon's Read Write Own -- as an "aesthetic"; and thinks of technology artifacts (like NSA sketches!) as art -- reflecting all of these in his works across various mediums and contexts. How has technology changed art, and more importantly, how have artists changed with technology? How does art change our place in the world, or span beyond space? It's about optimism, and seeing things anew... all this and more in this episode.

 

Resources: 

Find Denny on Twitter: https://x.com/dennnnnnnnny

Find Sonal on Twitter: https://x.com/smc90

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

On June 26th, 2024, Bryan Nowlan, Marketing Project Manager from Horizen Labs, participated in a text AMA with the StealthEX community to discuss all things Horizen Ecosystem, Horizen Labs, zkVerify, and more! 

In case you didn’t get a chance to catch it live, we put together this recap blog of the questions and answers. 

Question: What technical support and resources are available for developers and users of the ZKVProtocol? How does HorizenLabs ensure the long-term sustainability and maintenance of the protocol?

Answer: zkVerify has in-depth technical documentation available for developers and builders that are looking to interact with the project. The documentation can be reached here: https://docs.zkverify.io/. 

Ranging from an overview of zkVerify, to the zkVerify Hub with important links and recommendations, to a tutorials section, users can find all they need to get started with the project. 

Our tech teams are also very responsive on the zkVerify Discord, if any users run into any issues or have any questions, members of the team can jump in there to provide support: discord.gg/zkverify

Horizen Labs is the builder of zkVerify, so we are deeply invested in the long-term sustainability and maintenance of the protocol. We have extensive experience with zero-knowledge technologies and an entire team dedicated to ensuring zkVerify’s success!

Question: How does the ZKVProtocol integrate with other Horizen technologies, such as the Horizen EON blockchain and the Horizen Wallet? What are the benefits of this integration?

Answer: The Horizen Community recently voted to pass ZenIP 42406, the technical proposal for the migration of EON and $ZEN, included in that proposal is an overview of how zkVerify will integrate with other Horizen technologies. 

Horizen 2.0 will be a fully-compatible EVM, which means that existing smart contracts on EON will be transitioned over, including $ZEN in current liquidity pools. Horizen 2.0 will also be built using the Substrate framework (written in Rust), which will allow for a tight integration with the zkVerify protocol (which is also built on Substrate) for fast and cost-effective verification of zk proofs. Specifically, EON 2.0 will be a parachain connected to the zkVerify Relay Chain.

The benefits to this integration allow Horizen to become optimized for ZK-based Apps, the seamless integration with zkVerify ensures the most efficient process for all ZK projects. This sets the groundwork for innovative ZK apps that will make Horizen the home for ZK and also provide more utility for $ZEN.

Question: Given Spencer’s remarks on the necessity of evolving with blockchain technologies in the previous StealthEX AMA, how is the marketing department planning educational initiatives or community outreach programs to address the complexities of ZKVerify?

Answer: Great question, this is something that the Horizen Labs Marketing Team is extensively focused on and planning for. We have established a developer relations team, whose responsibility will be to ensure sufficient educational and community outreach programs will be created for zkVerify, some of which have already kicked off or will be starting soon. 

The zkVerify documentation hub has tutorials already available to developers and builders: https://docs.zkverify.io/tutorials/tutorials/

This includes which wallets to use to get started, how to connect the wallets to zkVerify, how to request test tokens ($ACME), and many guides on how to submit proofs with various verifiers such as Groth16, Fflonk, Risc0, and more! I’d encourage anyone who is interested to explore this to check out our documentation linked above. The team is always available on Discord for any questions or any support needed. 

We will also be launching an educational program with Metaschool soon for zkVerify. This will be an interactive course in which users can learn more about zero knowledge technology, the modular blockchain stack, and how zkVerify fits into all of it. There will be some user actions to take as part of the course, like following some of the tutorials above, additional information to come soon on that! 

The zkVerify Twitter & Youtube is a great source of educational content for users as well, to make sure that zkVerify is as builder friendly as possible. 

zkVerify Twitter: https://x.com/ZKVProtocol

zkVerify Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@zkVerify

Question: How does HorizenLabs approach governance and decision-making within the project? Are there any specific mechanisms or processes in place to ensure community involvement and transparency?

Answer: The Horizen Ecosystem follows a DAO structure and is an open-source, public protocol with a broad and diverse ecosystem, including miners, developers, node operators, and $ZEN holders. 

The Horizen DAO, governed by the Horizen Foundation follows various processes regarding community proposals, called ZenIPs (ZEN Improvement Proposals) – starting with a proposal idea and research, idea modification, community feedback, draft creation, voting period, and more. 

The Horizen DAO Discourse is the community hub, this is where many of the ZenIPs are discussed among the community members, as the proposals go from the idea phase to the draft phase and on to the formal voting phase. Community members are encouraged to express their thoughts and provide feedback on each proposal or discussion topic that comes in. 

Voting on these ZenIP proposals is done via Snapshot, the Horizen Foundation Snapshot is a great way to check out previous community votes, what the participation levels were like, what was being voted on, and what was the community sentiment for each of the votes: https://snapshot.org/#/horizenfoundation.eth

I’ll add a few resources that might be of value to learn more about this: 

Introducing Horizen DAO Blog: https://blog.horizen.io/introducing-horizen-dao/ Horizen DAO Discourse: https://horizen.discourse.group/ Horizen Discord: https://horizen.io/invite/discord Horizen Governance Documentation: https://docs.horizen.io/governance/overview/about

Question: As horizenglobal expands its network of partners and collaborations, how do you plan to maintain a cohesive and unified ecosystem that benefits all stakeholders, and what challenges do you foresee in managing such a diverse portfolio of projects?

Answer: Horizen Labs prides itself on being one of the major collaborators in the crypto space. This means that our Business Development, Marketing, and Tech teams have extensive experience working with many different partners on many different initiatives, ensuring that the ecosystem is functioning efficiently. 

One of the primary ways that we ensure alignment across many different partners within the ecosystem is through our communication. When it comes time for a network upgrade, update, new integration, new tool available, etc, we are always sure to communicate that both our community, as well as all of our ecosystem partners. This helps to ensure that all of our partners are aligned. 

At Horizen Labs we have worked with the teams at Offchain Labs, Yuga Labs, Animoca Brands, Darewise, ApeCoin DAO, and more on various projects and initiatives. 

Also, with the Horizen ecosystem running as a DAO structure, there is extensive community involvement in all that goes on within the ecosystem. From Discourse, to Discord, to Twitter and Telegram, the Horizen community is constantly in discussion and this is where we share updates, to ensure that everyone is aligned!

Question: How does HorizenLabs leverage its expertise in zero-knowledge cryptography and modular blockchain to address the scalability and efficiency challenges faced by the Web3 ecosystem?

Answer: Horizen Labs has built zkVerify, the Modular Blockchain for ZK Proof Verification. zkVerify is dedicated to verifying ZK proofs across diverse blockchains efficiently, reducing proof verification costs by 90%+, which would have saved ZK Rollups $42.8 Million in 2023 alone. 

By drastically reducing cost, zkVerify is empowering organizations and dApps to achieve economies of scale, bringing in the next generation of use cases that achieve blockchain’s ultimate potential.

zkVerify Enhances network performance by decoupling the computationally heavy proof verification process, allowing for faster and more precise operations free from the constraints of multi-purpose chains and seamlessly integrates with existing blockchain ecosystems and multiple zero-knowledge proving schemes, minimizing technical overhead with a developer-friendly environment.

I’d encourage anyone who is looking to learn more about zkVerify to check out their website: https://zkverify.io/

Question: How could the successful implementation of ZenIP 42406 impact the value and adoption of the ZEN token? What are the potential economic benefits for ZEN holders and the broader Horizen ecosystem as a result of the migration and the new EON 2.0 parachain?

Answer: I won’t go into details on any price predictions with this answer, but I will say that there is a lot to unpack with the passing of ZenIP 42406. 

At a high level, Horizen ($ZEN) and EON are currently built on older technology stacks. The Horizen Mainchain is a fork of the Bitcoin C++ codebase with a block time of 2.5 minutes, while EON is written in Scala based on the Scorex SDK with an 18-second block time. To address the limitations of these legacy systems and align with the vision of Horizen as a home for ZK and an enduring utility for $ZEN, Horizen Labs proposed to migrate to Horizen EON 2.0 with ZenIP 42406. 

Essentially Horizen/EON 2.0 will have a new target block time of ~6 seconds, be built on the Substrate framework written in rust, ZK-Optimized, and have backward compatibility. 

On ZK-Optimization: 

Leverage fast, native zk proof verification from zkVerify Protocol Modular and upgradable architecture for future zk advancements, such as new proving systems. 

On Backward Compatibility: 

Preserve max $ZEN supply Full Solidity and EVM support $ZEN, EON snapshots Prolonged Claim Window Enable Incentives for Ecosystem Partners

In Addition: 

-Enhanced Performance: Incorporating the latest advancements in zero-knowledge proof systems, improving transaction speeds, and increasing security

-Expanded Ecosystem with Full EVM Compatibility: Enhances interoperability with other blockchains, opening up a world of possibilities for cross-chain collaborations and integrations. This means more opportunities and partnerships for the Horizen community

-Community Growth: With these improvements, we are fostering a better environment for developers and web3 users to join our network, making Horizen stronger and more vibrant than ever before!

I’d encourage those who are interested to learn more about ZenIP 42406 and everything it means for the Horizen Ecosystem to check out our high-level blog post which provides an overview to the proposal: https://blog.horizen.io/zenip-42406-eon-and-zen-migration-high-level-overview/

Question: How do @HorizenLabs and @ZKVProtocol plan to stay ahead of the curve in the rapidly evolving crypto landscape?

Answer: Horizen Labs has an incredible research and product marketing team that works extensively to stay up to date with the latest and greatest in the industry. Many of our Cryptographers and Engineers actively contribute to various research projects and initiatives, both within and outside of Horizen Labs. 

We also leverage our vast network of connections and industry partners for this, which helps us to stay ahead of the curve and to learn of the latest developments as they are emerging in the space. Our Business Development team is constantly out in the field discussing with prospective partners and projects to see what their needs are, and how we can help to address them, providing a valuable feedback loop for our team.

Question: In what ways can developers take advantage of Horizen’s fully EVM-compatible blockchain to seamlessly migrate or build their Ethereum-based dApps, and what tools and resources are available to support this process?

Answer: The Horizen Ecosystem is quite vibrant, I’d encourage everyone to go check out the full list of our Ecosystem: https://eon.horizen.io/

There are many developer tools available on Horizen EON currently, such as Thirdweb, Remix, Truffle, and Hardhat. The Ecosystem includes infrastructure, bridges, an NFT Marketplace, many different Wallet Integrations, Oracles, DeFi integrations such as SpookySwap, Interport, Yuzu, and more!

In addition, there is extensive documentation available for Horizen EON that explains how to get and connect a wallet, receive test tokens, conduct a forward or backward transfer and learn more about how to set up forger nodes. Be sure to check out our documentation hub: https://docs.horizen.io/

To answer your specific question, we have a tutorial available that explains how to deploy a dApp using the Remix IDE here as well: https://docs.horizen.io/horizen_eon/tutorials/todolist

Question: A strong community not only brings interesting ideas to the project but also attracts larger partners. So how is its initiative  planning to build its community? And is there a plan to recruit people with Blockchain experience to the initiative team??

Answer: I figured this would be a great way to end this text AMA, and I wanted to provide as many relevant links as possible for this community to learn more about Horizen, zkVerify, and Horizen Labs, and to join our communities. 

Horizen: 

Horizen Website: https://www.horizen.io/ Horizen Twitter: https://x.com/horizenglobal Horizen Discord: https://horizen.io/invite/discord Horizen Discourse: https://horizen.discourse.group/ Horizen Telegram: https://t.me/horizencommunity Horizen Documentation: https://docs.horizen.io/

Horizen Labs: 

Horizen Labs Website: https://horizenlabs.io/ Horizen Labs Twitter: https://x.com/HorizenLabs

zkVerify: 

zkVerify Website: https://zkverify.io/ zkVerify Twitter: https://x.com/ZKVProtocol zkVerify Discord: https://discord.gg/zkverify zkVerify Telegram: @zkverify zkVerify Documentation: https://docs.zkverify.io/

On both the Horizen and zkVerify Discord servers there are many different channels tailored to various languages and communities around the globe, such as French, Korean, Chinese, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, and more! 

The Horizen Community has many dedicated and passionate Ambassadors who help to moderate the Discord Server and other community channels, provide community support, answer questions, and are amazing resources for our community. The Horizen Labs team is constantly working to build vibrant communities across the Horizen ecosystem, the zkVerify ecosystem, and more! Our teams are always available to provide community support, answer questions, and provide guidance.

Question: How can we use your platform? Do you have any guide for beginners?

Answer: Great Question! 

Breaking it down for both zkVerify and Horizen. 

For zkVerify, I’d encourage anyone interested to learn more about the platform and to start testing to check out our documentation hub: https://docs.zkverify.io/

We have lots of good tutorials and documentation there for users to get started. The tutorials are all step by step to ensure seamless onbaording!

For Horizen, I’d also encourage users to check out our Get Started page, we have useful links there for users to get started with Horizen EON!

https://eon.horizen.io/app/start-here

Question: Where can I get the latest updates or more information about the project?

Answer: This is a great way to wrap up this text AMA! 

Twitter (or X as its called now) is the best resource for information about both zkVerify, Horizen, and Horizen Labs. 

I would encourage this community to follow our accounts, to be sure to stay up to date on the latest and greatest!

Horizen: https://x.com/horizenglobal

Horizen Labs: https://x.com/HorizenLabs

zkVerify: https://x.com/ZKVProtocol

The post StealthEX AMA Recap appeared first on Horizen Blog.

Privacy is critical for institutional crypto traders. Trades on public blockchains expose institutions to risks, including strategy theft, front-running, and MEV bots. Dark pools offer institutions a promising way to execute large trades privately. However, their adoption has been slow. One major issue is the association between Privacy Enhancing Technology (PET) and illegal activities like money laundering and terrorist financing, as seen with Tornado Cash. Other problems include concerns about compliance with regulations, inefficiencies in handling large transactions, poor integration with existing financial systems, limited scalability, and the risk of censorship.

This blog will discuss the reasons behind the slow adoption of dark pools by institutional users such as asset managers, market makers, and broker-dealers, their benefits, and how Panther Protocol will help resolve these issues. Panther is building modular, compliance-supportive DeFi access infrastructure for regulated financial market operators. The protocol will include customizable private trading Zones, strong compliance support, direct access to major decentralized exchanges, and privacy-preserving transaction methods to improve digital asset management security, efficiency, and regulatory compliance.

*For brevity, organizations with users such as asset managers, market makers, and broker-dealers are all referred to as institutions throughout this blog. 

Reasons behind the slow adoption of dark pools by institutions Lack of regulatory compliance

Inadvertently facilitating illegal activities can result in severe penalties, loss of reputation, and operational disruptions for institutions. AML and KYC regulations are of utmost importance, ensuring that bad actors, such as sanctioned individuals and entities are off their platforms.  

Many dark pools in DeFi, such as Tornado Cash, do not align with regulatory standards. This non-compliance poses significant risks, as seen with Tornado Cash being sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and other regulators around the world due to its use by malicious actors like the Lazarus Group. This has led to many institutions being cautious about using dark pools due to potential legal repercussions and the risk of funds being associated with illicit activities.

Need for liquidity and handling of large transactions

Institutions need solutions that ensure privacy without compromising transaction efficiency. Large trades can see significant slippage or delay if a Dark Pool faces liquidity issues. Any perceived transaction inefficiency naturally leads to challenges with adoption. 

Poor integration with existing financial systems

Institutions prefer solutions that easily integrate with their existing systems, allowing for seamless interoperability and efficient workflows. Poor integration capabilities hinder adoption and can lead to operational bottlenecks. Currently, most of the dark pools available in the market lack integration with existing financial systems and tools. This creates a barrier for institutions that need to incorporate these solutions into their broader financial operations.

Vulnerability to censorship 

For institutions, the risk of transaction censorship is unacceptable. Robust mechanisms are needed by these types of investors to ensure their transactions are processed fairly and securely without being subject to censorship.  A number of high-profile regulators, including the U.S. Treasury, have proposed rules that identify virtual currency mixing as a class of transactions of primary money laundering concern. Tornado Cash is a prime example of how transactions can be excluded by OFAC-compliant block builders. 

Why institutions should care about dark pools Privacy and confidentiality

One reason why the adoption of Web3 dark pools is slow is as a result of misconceptions related to the use of CEXs. While CEXs can provide partial privacy by breaking transaction links, CEXs also custody their user’s assets, introducing exposure to risks ranging from fraud to security issues. Crypto exchanges have a history of high-profile custody issues, such as FTX, whose litany of deceptive practices, including the lending its customers’ assets to Alameda research led to one of the worst crises in crypto’s history. Other high profile examples include Mt. Gox, which lost approximately 850,000 BTC to hacking incidents; Bitfinex’s infamous security breach resulting the theft of 120,000 BTC and QuidrigaCX, where the sudden death of the CEO, who was the sole person with access to the exchange’s private keys, led to the loss of $190M in customer funds, among others.

Many institutional users find the risks associated with centralized custody unacceptable, particularly given CEXs only offer partial privacy. Dark pools provide essential confidentiality for institutions. In both traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi), large trades can significantly impact market prices and reveal trading strategies if executed publicly. Dark pools prevent market manipulation and front-running by hiding the details of your trades. This protection is essential for institutional investors to execute large transactions without other market participants exploiting this information. The ability to trade anonymously ensures that institutions can protect their trading strategies and investment returns from manipulative practices.

MEV Protection

MEV bots exploit the transparency and structure of blockchain transactions to extract additional value, often at the expense of other users. Their activities can lead to higher transaction costs, market manipulation, network congestion, and financial losses for other users of the platform. Dark pools such as Panther are using multiple approaches that can significantly reduce MEV risks. While no solution is entirely foolproof, the following strategies, currently under consideration for Panther Protocol’s designs will help create a more secure trading environment:

Approach 1: Offchain Order Book with P2P Library

Using this design choice, users communicate and negotiate trade details offchain using a peer-to-peer (P2P) library. For example, User A submits an offer, and User B handles the matching. They generate cryptographic proofs of the transaction offchain, and only one user submits a single transaction onchain for settlement via a smart contract. This approach minimizes onchain data exposure, reducing the information available to MEV bots and thereby lowering the chances of exploitation.

Approach 2: Onchain Order Book with Onchain Interaction

This design choice involves maintaining the order book and interactions entirely onchain. Users generate proofs and submit transactions onchain with a smart contract performing the settlement. Although this approach benefits from transparency and simpler implementation, it exposes trade details on the blockchain, making it more susceptible to MEV exploits.

Approach 3: Hybrid Model

A hybrid approach combines the strengths of both offchain and onchain methods. Sensitive data like user identities and trade amounts are exchanged offchain, while only cryptographic proofs are submitted onchain. This limits the onchain exposure to essential verification elements, enhancing privacy and reducing the likelihood of MEV attacks.

Dark pools inherently offer resistance to MEV bots because they typically involve peer-to-peer transactions and minimize onchain exposure, making it difficult for MEV bots to gather the information they need to exploit trades. In summary, by leveraging offchain communication, cryptographic proofs, and strategic onchain interactions, dark pools provide a robust framework for reducing MEV risks and enhancing transaction privacy.

Market efficiency and liquidity management

TradFi dark pools face significant reputational issues due to their history of exploiting information advantages to the detriment of their clients. Unlike traditional dark pools, on-chain dark pools such as Panther are working to contribute to market efficiency by allowing large trades to be executed without causing significant price movements. This stability benefits institutions that need to manage liquidity effectively without impacting market conditions. By enabling large, discrete trades, dark pools help institutions maintain optimal portfolio balances and manage risk efficiently. Efficient liquidity management is critical for institutions, and dark pools provide a platform where large orders can be matched without slippage or adverse market impacts. Mechanisms such as peer-to-peer order matching and liquidity aggregation from various sources ensure that institutions can access necessary liquidity while maintaining trade secrecy. This capability is vital for managing large transactions seamlessly.

Enhanced security and trust

Security is paramount for institutional investors, and dark pools offer a secure environment for executing trades. Privacy-enhancing technologies like zero-knowledge proofs ensure that trade data remains confidential and secure from external threats. Robust security protocols in dark pools build trust among institutional investors. Features like remote attestation and secure multi-party computation enhance the security of dark pool transactions, ensuring that the system remains trustworthy and reliable for institutional use. This trust is essential for institutions to engage in large-scale trading activities confidently.

How Panther will enable private, compliant DeFi access for institutions

Panther Protocol is set to enhance privacy, security, and efficiency in digital asset management. Panther is building compliance-enabling DeFi access infrastructure, complete with dark pool functionality for regulated financial entities. Panther Zones will enable institutions to create private trading Zones with customized asset lists, user lists, transaction limits, and access to DeFi applications. This modular approach will allow institutions to tailor their trading environments according to specific regulatory and operational needs. 

Want to learn more about Panther Zones? Reach out to us at contact@pantherprotocol.io

It is one thing to invest in early stage companies, but to do so in a nascent industry that constantly reinvents and rediscovers itself is a whole different venture. Richard Muirhead co-founded Fabric Ventures in 2012 around the thesis of supporting the Open Economy. While at first this meant investing in Bitcoin-related projects, once Ethereum was announced, a new horizon unveiled, filled with tremendous potential. Since then, the Open Economy thesis was adapted to match technological breakthroughs, and it is now centered around artificial intelligence, distributed computing and self sovereignty (over both fungible, as well non-fungible assets).

Topics covered in this episode:

Richard’s background and how he founded a crypto VC Fabric Ventures’ thesis How the AI thesis evolved User-generated AI On-chain autonomous agents Upcoming DeFi innovations Web3 trends that took Richard by surprise Missed opportunities The impact of crypto liquidity & market cycles on VC investing How to vet projects in early investment phase

Episode links:

Richard Muirhead on Twitter Fabric Ventures on Twitter Fabric Ventures

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Friederike Ernst.

Is it time to hand over cybersecurity to machines amidst the exponential rise in cyber threats and breaches?

We trace the evolution of cybersecurity from minimal measures in 1995 to today's overwhelmed DevSecOps. Travis McPeak, CEO and Co-founder of Resourcely, kicks off our discussion by discussing the historical shifts in the industry. Kevin Tian, CEO and Founder of Doppel, highlights the rise of AI-driven threats and deepfake campaigns. Feross Aboukhadijeh, CEO and Founder of Socket, provides insights into sophisticated attacks like the XZ Utils incident. Andrej Safundzic, CEO and Founder of Lumos, discusses the future of autonomous security systems and their impact on startups.

Recorded at a16z's Campfire Sessions, these top security experts share the real challenges they face and emphasize the need for a new approach. 

Resources: 

Find Travis McPeak on Twitter: https://x.com/travismcpeak

Find Kevin Tian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevintian00

Find Feross Aboukhadijeh on Twitter: https://x.com/feross

Find Andrej Safundzic on Twitter: https://x.com/andrejsafundzic

 

Stay Updated: 

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

 

In a world constantly torn by social division amplified by polarizing scissor statements throughout social media, Taiwan conducted a social experiment aimed at strengthening social unity while also embracing diversity. Plurality details how Taiwan’s Digital Minister Audrey Tang and her collaborators achieved inclusive, technology-fueled growth that harnessed digital tools to provide an antidote to information chaos and warfare. The open-source book is living proof that present global challenges can be solved through democratic solutions that embody a decentralised ethos.

We were joined by Audrey Tang and Glen Weyl, co-authors of Plurality, to discuss the social dynamics they studied and how technology can be used to unite rather than divide.

Topics covered in this episode:

How Audrey & Glen met and Plurality’s genesis Audrey’s journey from civic hacker to Taiwan’s Digital Affairs Minister How democracy is perceived around the world Establishing a co-creating mentality Scissor statements and how to avoid division How Polis works Leveraging Web3 to strengthen democracy & social collaboration Decentralised co-ownership Web3 governance Human facilitators

Episode links:

Audrey Tang on Twitter Glen Weyl on Twitter Plurality Book on Twitter Plurality Institute on Twitter Radical xChange

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

Brooke Boyarsky Pratt, founder and CEO of knownwell, joins Vineeta Agarwala, general partner at a16z Bio + Health.

Together, they talk about the value of obesity medicine practitioners, patient-centric medical homes, and how Brooke believes the metabolic health space will evolve over time.

This is the second episode in Raising Health’s series on the science and supply of GLP-1s. Listen to last week's episode to hear from Carolyn Jasik, Chief Medical Officer at Omada Health, on GLP-1s from a clinical perspective.

 

Listen to more from Raising Health’s series on GLP-1s:

The science of satiety: https://raisinghealth.simplecast.com/episodes/the-science-and-supply-of-glp-1s-with-carolyn-jasik

Payers, providers and pricing: https://raisinghealth.simplecast.com/episodes/the-science-and-supply-of-glp-1s-with-chronis-manolis

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

As more and more L2s launch promising to scale Ethereum, they end up competing for the same market share, userbase and liquidity. Apart from this harsh reality, crosschain interactions should be as seamless as possible in order to bridge different L2 ecosystems. Polygon envisions a scalable future in which various zero knowledge rollups post their proofs on an aggregation layer before settling on Ethereum, thus lowering latency and transaction costs as crosschain interactions take place expeditiously, without involving the L1 mainnet.

We were joined by Sandeep Nailwal & Brendan Farmer, to discuss Polygon’s aggregation layer and how it aims to solve the current fragmentation of Ethereum L2 scaling solutions.

Topics covered in this episode:

Polygon’s ZK expansion and the acquisition of Mir Protocol Polygon’s aggregation layer Block building between different L2s Shared sequencing & asynchronous sequencing Security guarantees of the aggregation layer Sequencer decentralisation & censorship resistance Chains using Polygon’s aggregation layer Pessimistic proofs Can optimistic rollups be included in the aggregation layer? Type 1 prover and Plonky3 The evolution of ZKP systems Ensuring ZK rollup integrity The future of scalability

Episode links:

Sandeep Nailwal on Twitter Brendan Farmer on Twitter Polygon on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

Proprietary investment strategies have always been among the most closely guarded secrets in finance. Traditionally, these strategies were protected by the nature of how trades are transacted, giving brokers and financial institutions the ability to leverage their proprietary strategies to their advantage. The rise of blockchain and decentralized finance (DeFi) has introduced a new level of transparency. This openness, while fostering trust, poses significant risks as it exposes sensitive trading patterns and strategies to public scrutiny.

Exposure of investment strategies

In traditional finance, investment strategies are often the real value of what is being provided to the client or fund. Hedge funds, asset managers, and brokers invest significant resources into developing proprietary trading strategies that provide them a competitive edge. However, in the realm of blockchain and decentralized finance (DeFi), the inherent transparency of public ledgers poses a significant threat to these proprietary strategies.

Every transaction on public blockchains like Ethereum and Bitcoin is recorded in a publicly accessible ledger. While this transparency promotes trust and verification, it also means that anyone can analyze transaction data to uncover trading patterns and strategies. This exposure can be detrimental to asset managers,  brokers and financial institutions that rely on the confidentiality of their trading methods.

Blockchain analytics tools such as Nansen have made it increasingly easy to scrutinize and interpret blockchain data. Nansen, for instance, labels and analyzes millions of wallet addresses, providing insights into the activities of various market participants. These tools can track large transactions, identify trends, and even link transactions to specific entities. For asset managers, this means that their trades can be monitored, virtually in real-time. It’s possible that their strategies could be reverse-engineered by competitors or malicious actors.

When proprietary trading strategies are exposed, the risk of financial loss increases substantially. Competitors can replicate successful strategies, diluting competitive advantage. Worse still, malicious actors can engage in counteracting strategies such as front-running, where they anticipate trades and execute their own trades in advance to profit from the price movements triggered by the asset manager’s transactions.

For example, if an asset manager plans to purchase a large amount of a specific cryptocurrency, front-runners can detect the initial buying activity and buy the cryptocurrency themselves, driving up the price. By the time the purchase is complete, the price has increased, causing the asset manager to pay more than intended. Once the asset manager’s purchase is complete, the front-runners can sell their holdings at a profit, leaving the asset manager at a disadvantage.

In addition to financial losses, the exposure of investment strategies undermines the trust and credibility of asset managers and other financial professionals. Clients expect their asset managers, brokers and other advisors to maintain the confidentiality of their strategies and transactions. If asset managers cannot guarantee this privacy, they risk losing clients to non-crypto or private alternative investments. 

Front-running

One of the most significant issues that comes with transparent blockchain ledgers is front-running. Front-running occurs when malicious actors observe patterns that suggest an impending transaction is coming and execute their trades ahead of it to capitalize on the expected price movement. For example, if an asset manager intends to buy a large amount of a particular token, front-runners might detect the client’s typical pre-cursory activity and purchase the cryptocurrency first. This buying activity drives up the price, and by the time the transaction is completed, they end up paying a higher price than anticipated. The front-runners then sell their holdings at the increased price, profiting from the transaction while the portfolio suffers from the inflated costs.

This lack of privacy not only results in financial losses but also erodes your ability to execute effective trading strategies. With open blockchains, competitors can analyze trading patterns, replicate successful strategies, or even devise counter-strategies that exploit your clients’ positions. This constant surveillance can lead to a loss of competitive edge, as asset managers, brokers and others are unable to maintain the secrecy of their clients’ strategies. 

MEV Bots

MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) bots underscore the importance of privacy in the trading strategies used by asset managers. These bots are sophisticated algorithms that monitor blockchain networks for pending transactions and exploit opportunities to extract additional value. By analyzing transaction data in real-time, MEV bots can execute trades such as arbitrage, front-running, and sandwich attacks, allowing them to profit from price discrepancies and transaction sequencing. The transparency of blockchain networks, while beneficial for trust and verification, makes it easier for these bots to operate, emphasizing the necessity of maintaining transaction confidentiality for all users, but asset managers who engage in high volume or high frequency trades on behalf of clients may be at higher risk. According to Flashbots, MEV bots extract around 500M USD off Ethereum alone per year. 

Options are limited

As of this writing, your options as an asset manager are limited if you wish to preserve your privacy and that of your clients. Many of today’s best-known privacy-enhancing technologies can create regulatory issues. For example, the virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash was infamously sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury and faced investigations and actions from other regulators around the world, due to its involvement in illicit activities. Regulators recognize that there is an opportunity for privacy-enhancement for DeFi trading, and are calling for innovations that can simultaneously preserve the privacy of users while also enabling AML/CFT obligations. It is worth noting that Panther Protocol is being built to address this challenge.  

Panther Protocol

Panther’s cutting-edge decentralized privacy protocol will empower enterprises with customizable, private operating environments to manage portfolios and assets. Leveraging Zero-Knowledge proofs and a proprietary Multi-Asset Shielded Pool (MASP) design, Panther Protocol will deliver a suite of features that provide unparalleled privacy, security, and compliance support for public on-chain transactions. 

Benefits For Asset Managers (In development) Private Portfolio Management Supports confidential client portfolio management, ensuring transaction details and holdings remain private, maintaining investor confidentiality. Custom Investment Strategies Tailored investment access with specific DeFi applications and asset lists, optimizing returns while adhering to client risk profiles. Compliance and Reporting Encrypted data storage for transactional details, simplifying compliance and reporting processes with secure transaction detail exports. Conclusion

The transparency of blockchain technology presents both opportunities and challenges for asset managers and financial institutions. While it promotes trust and accountability, it also exposes proprietary strategies to potential competitors and malicious actors. This exposure necessitates that asset managers take steps to enhance their privacy measures and stay vigilant against threats like front-running. Navigating this landscape requires balancing the benefits of blockchain transparency with the need to protect confidential trading strategies.

In this latest episode on the State of AI, Ben and Marc discuss how small AI startups can compete with Big Tech’s massive compute and data scale advantages, reveal why data is overrated as a sellable asset, and unpack all the ways the AI boom compares to the internet boom.

 

Subscribe to the Ben & Marc podcast: https://link.chtbl.com/benandmarc

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

On June 6th, the official ZenIP for the technical roadmap of the migration of $ZEN and EON went live on Discourse, there’s a lot to cover on it, so we wanted to provide a high level overview of the proposal and what it means for the Horizen Ecosystem. 

At a high level, Horizen ($ZEN) and EON are currently built on older technology stacks. The Horizen Mainchain is a fork of the Bitcoin C++ codebase with a block time of 2.5 minutes, while EON is written in Scala based on the Scorex SDK with an 18-second block time. To address the limitations of these legacy systems and align with the vision of Horizen as a home for ZK and an enduring utility for $ZEN, Horizen Labs is proposing to migrate to EON 2.0.

Key Points EON 2.0 will be a fully-compatible EVM. This includes backward compatibility to provide a smooth transition for existing $ZEN holders and EON developers, including incentives, emissions, staking, partner integrations, exchange continuity, and EVM compatibility. This means that existing smart contracts on EON will be transitioned over, including $ZEN in current liquidity pools. This is a technical ZenIP, laying out the technical roadmap for the migration mechanics for $ZEN and EON. Tokenomics are not in scope for this ZenIP. Topics such as allocations and emissions are explicitly excluded since they will be covered in greater detail in a separate proposal. It will be a snapshot-based migration, where comprehensive state snapshots of both EON 1.0 and Horizen will be taken to ensure a seamless transition to EON 2.0. We will provide the ability for anyone to independently verify the integrity of both snapshots. For Mainchain $ZEN, there will be a claim process overtime, where eligible users can claim their old Mainchain $ZEN by proving the ownership of their address. As for $ZEN on EON, it will not require any claim, since balances will be migrated with the state snapshot. EON 2.0 will be built using the Substrate framework (written in Rust) with tight integration with the zkVerify protocol (which is also built on Substrate) for fast and cost-efficient verification of zk proofs. Specifically, EON 2.0 will be a parachain connected to the zkVerify Relay Chain. It is not associated with the Polkadot ecosystem. Visual Representation of the Migration Proposal

Voting Timeline

Voting for ZenIP 42406 will start on Tuesday, June 18th, 2024 at 12pm EST and end on Friday, June 21st, 2024 at 12pm EST. The snapshot will be taken as soon as the vote goes live. In order to prepare for the vote, please be sure to follow our instructions here: https://blog.horizen.io/how-to-vote-on-zenips-using-your-staked-zen/

Frequently Asked Questions What will be the consensus of the new EON chain? Delegated Proof of Stake Same as the previous EON chain Is $ZEN going to be the block reward on the new chain? Yes, but allocations, emissions, and tokenomics are not covered in this technical ZenIP, but in a separate and dedicated proposal.  If there are no forger nodes, will there be some other type of staking? Yes there will be staking on EON collators.  What will be EON’s connection to zkVerify? EON 2.0 will integrate tightly with the zkVerify protocol, ensuring fast and cost-efficient verification of zk proofs.  zkVerify will operate as its own relay chain. EON 2.0 will also utilize the substrate framework as a parachain to zkVerify.  What will happen to the Horizen mainchain? It will be deprecated. What will happen to my mainchain $ZEN? $ZEN will be the native token for EON 2.0 A comprehensive snapshot will be taken.  Eligible users can claim their $ZEN through a claiming mechanism over time.  How will exchanges support this deprecation and migration? We will work closely with exchanges to coordinate a seamless upgrade.  How will forger nodes migrate? They will migrate to EON collators, migration steps will be provided. What will happen to Super Nodes? They will migrate to EON collators Will be rewarded based on the blocks that they are chosen to forge.  What wallet will I have to hold ZEN in? What will happen to Sphere? MetaMask will be used to store $ZEN, Sphere will be deprecated.

As always, we remain available in the Horizen Discord for any community questions, comments, or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to us!

The post ZenIP 42406: EON and $ZEN Migration – High Level Overview appeared first on Horizen Blog.

Over the past decade, usage-based pricing has soared in popularity. Why? Because it aligns cost with value, letting customers pay only for what they use. But, that flexibility is not without issues - especially when it comes to predicting revenue. Fortunately, with the right process and infrastructure, your usage-based revenue can become more predictable than the traditional seat-based SaaS model. 

In this episode from the a16z Growth team, Fivetran’s VP of Strategy and Operations Travis Ferber and Alchemy’s Head of Sales Dan Burrill join a16z Growth’s Revenue Operations Partner Mark Regan. Together, they discuss the art of generating reliable usage-based revenue. They share tips for avoiding common pitfalls when implementing this pricing model - including how to nail sales forecasting, adopting the best tools to track usage, and deal with the initial lack of customer data. 

Resources: 

Learn more about pricing, packaging, and monetization strategies: a16z.com/pricing-packaging

Find Dan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BurrillDaniel

Find Travis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/travisferber

Find Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mregan178

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Fellow Panthers,

First and foremost, thank you to the community of over 3000 testnet users who have been testing and sharing valuable feedback. Your continued support and patience are critically important to our mission.

Testnet Stage 5 is now complete, and it provided us with valuable insights, resulting in several updates to our codebase.

We are excited to announce that Stage 6 of our testnet is live. Stage 6 includes simulated fee management, AMM refilling mechanisms, simulated limited subsidy rewards, onboarding enhancements using a bundler service, and several technical improvements to our testing environment.

Note: Panther’s test network is now live on Amoy, Polygon’s test network, and can be accessed here. Due to this network change, users will need to complete the onboarding process again and activate their test zAccount. Users who are using their old accounts, however, will not have to go through PureFi credential process again and will be moved directly to the account activation. This is a one-time activity required to access Panther.  

Getting started with Stage 6

To start testing Stage 6, visit here for the updated dApp test link and follow the steps. Here are some of the features you can look forward to testing in Stage 6:

Fees
This release introduces the mechanism for charging different types of fees within the simulated testnet, including Protocol Fees, Network Gas Fees, KYT fees and KYC Fees. All simulated fees are paid from the Panther Gas account in tZKP. 

AMM Refilling with Protocol Fees
Simulated protocol fees collected during the testing will be deposited into the AMM’s pool of tZKP. 

Limited Subsidy Rewards
The production (mainnet) version of Panther Protocol will include a feature that will allow to introduce additional rewards to partially or fully compensate costs like Network Gas Cost, KYC, KYT and Miner fees, in service of encouraging use of the platform. Stage 6 of our testnet simulates this feature for testing purposes.

Note: This feature is designed to cover only tZKP-nominated fees, and will not involved test MATIC or other native test network tokens unless using the relayer service.

Note: As the protocol developer, Panther Ventures Limited is resuming the testnet after re-deployment on Amoy. Panther Protocol Foundation is finalizing the details of the reward mechanism and will ensure that testers are rewarded proportionally to their efforts and we expect all incentives will be distributed via airdrop. This blog will be updated with more specifics in the coming days.

Disclaimer

For the avoidance of doubt, tZKP, tzZKP, tPRP, test MATIC, and any other tokens mentioned in this announcement or within the product are for testing purposes only and have no economic value, nor can they be exchanged for value. 

Participation on our incentivized Testnet versions may result in you earning rewards, but such credits are not represented on any blockchain as tokens.

In a world where a handful of (centralised) entities hold the majority of staked Ethereum (either directly or via delegation), the network’s decentralisation and security might be in peril. While there are multiple proposals being discussed to address this pressing matter, from reducing issuance after a certain breakpoint (~30% of total ETH being staked) to introducing more severe slashing for colluding entities, education and guidance remain paramount. EthStaker is a community led project whose goal is to guide, educate, support and offer resources for stakers, in order to lower the barrier of entry for solo stakers.

We were joined by Superphiz & Nixorokish, to discuss the current Ethereum staking landscape and what challenges need to be addressed to ensure the network’s decentralisation and security.

Topics covered in this episode:

Superphiz’ & Nixorokish’ backgrounds Ethereum staking evolution Staking options Liquid staking Centralization risks Incentivizing solo staking Lowering ETH issuance proposal & network security Solo stakers How a healthy staking ecosystem looks like The importance of client diversity Socio-political collusion Misc.

Episode links:

Superphiz on Twitter Nixorokish on Twitter EthStaker on Twitter EthStaker

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

On May 21, the California Senate passed bill 1047.

This bill – which sets out to regulate AI at the model level – wasn’t garnering much attention, until it slid through an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 32 to 1 and is now queued for an assembly vote in August that would cement it into law. In this episode, a16z General Partner Anjney Midha and Venture Editor Derrick Harris breakdown everything the tech community needs to know about SB-1047.

This bill really is the tip of the iceberg, with over 600 new pieces of AI legislation swirling in the United States. So if you care about one of the most important technologies of our generation and America’s ability to continue leading the charge here, we encourage you to read the bill and spread the word.

Read the bill: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1047

The new version ZEN 5.0.3 is available to download on GitHub and via Docker.

Download ZEN 5.0.3 Now ZEN 5.0.3 is an official maintenance Release for Mainnet and Testnet ZEN 5.0.3 will not perform any network upgrade on Mainnet via Hard Fork Nodes running on Mainnet and Public Testnet can be updated with this version, but the upgrade is not mandatory See release notes Here Performance improvement(60x) on listunspent RPC implementation listunspent RPC implementation, results ordered by destination address (previously ordered by transaction hash)

Please let us know if you have any questions or need further support by contacting us on our Discord.

The post Mainnet Node Software Upgrade: ZEN 5.0.3 is Available to Download appeared first on Horizen Blog.

Overview

This document will outline the various changes that were introduced with the 1.4 update. It will provide a list of areas you should be aware of and also instructions on how to update your forger with new capabilities.

In version 1.4, we’ve improved the usability of the staking system at the protocol level by automating the reward distribution among the forger hosting provider and the ZEN holders who stake their ZEN to the forger node. Forgers are now able to designate a smart contract that will allow delegators to claim rewards. The percentage of the forger’s incomes redirected to the smart contract will be declared by each forger when first registering.

Horizen will provide a factory contract that can be used to distribute rewards to forgers, although any contract can be used. The smart contract provided will distribute rewards proportionally to delegators according to the amount they stake.

Version 1.4 also introduces a minimum staking requirement (10 ZEN)  to forgers for security best practices.

It’s important to note that no changes need to be made by existing forger nodes, 100% of the forger incomes will continue being sent to the reward address specified by the forger as it does currently. Otherwise, you can designate a smart contract for reward distribution (instructions provided within this document). 

The EON 1.4 hardfork will happen on Thursday, June 27th at Epoch 1593 (16:55pm UTC)

EON 1.4  mainnet release tag https://github.com/HorizenOfficial/eon/releases/tag/1.4.0 :  Docker Compose Updates: https://github.com/HorizenOfficial/compose-evm-simplified/releases/tag/1.4.0  Horizen Reward Factory Contract Address: https://eon-explorer.horizenlabs.io/address/0x8604Bb903B7D54F666bA1e75f98045345C63132a  (instructions for interacting with the factory contract noted below) Changes in Stakes Management

Please review the following information to understand the changes that occurred with this update. This is important for those of you running forger nodes as some functionality has changed.

A new native smart contract will be available to manage stake-related operations. It will be available at the address 0x0000000000000000000022222222222222222333. Full documentation of its interface can be found here.

The old smart contract exposed at address 0x0000000000000000000022222222222222222222 will be deprecated and all its methods will error if called after the 1.4 hardfork.

The below table summarizes the most important differences.

Detail: Changes Before <> After

Operation

EON < 1.4

EON 1.4

Declare a new forger

Not needed
(Just create a stake with a standard stake operation)

New Endpoint /transaction/registerForger
with 10 ZEN min

Add stake (via smart contract call)

delegate method on old stake contract. Stake owner (the address that can unstake it) can be any address

delegate method on new stake contract
(Stake owner will be always the tx sender)

Add stake (via http endpoints)

transaction/makeForgerStake

Not available

Withdraw stake (via smart contract call)

withdraw on old stake contract

StakeId and additional signature needed

Partial withdraw not possible

withdraw on new stake contract

No stakeId and no additional signature needed

Partial withdraw possible

Withdraw stake (via http endpoints)

transaction/spendForgingStake

Not available

Stakes belonging to a delegator address

getPagedForgersStakesByUser on old stake contract

(in the return list 1 element for each stakeId)

getPagedForgersStakesByDelegator on new stake contract

(in the return list 1 element for each forger, with the sum of the stakes)

Stakes owned or delegated to a specific forger

Not available
(Was possible to retrieve the whole list with getPagedForgersStakes and then filter later)

getPagedForgersStakesByForger on the new stake contract

Total amount staked

stakeOf on the old stake contract: 

Returns only the current value and only by delegator

stakeTotal on new stake contract.

Possible to query historical data for previous epochs, and filter by delegator and/or forger

Stake lottery

Forger will participate at the lottery with any amount

Forger will participate at the lottery only if owned+delegated stake >= 10 ZEN

List of registered forgers

Not available

getPagedForgers on new stake contract

Explorer Changes

EON Explorer will be updated to a new version on Tuesday, June 25.

Breaking changes Current API will be deprecated on the current URL. Please update the API URL to https://eon-explorer-api.horizenlabs.io/api.
Alternatively, the V2 API can be used. See specifications in the V2 API docs: https://eon-explorer.horizenlabs.io/api-docs  New features Display ABI for Forger Stake V2 contract Display a list of “Mainchain Rewards Distribution” from 0x0000000000000000000033333333333333333333  V2 API docs:  https://eon-explorer.horizenlabs.io/api-docs New APIs for forward transfers and fee payments: /blocks/{block_number_or_hash}/forward-transfers /blocks/{block_number_or_hash}/fee-payments /addresses/{address_hash}/forward-transfers /addresses/{address_hash}/fee-payments /forward-transfers /fee-payments Deploying the Factory Contract to EON for Distribution

Horizen provides a default implementation of a smart contract handling the redistribution of rewards between forger’s delegators.

If you want to deploy one for your forger:

Go to the factory contract available on the explorer: https://eon-explorer.horizenlabs.io/address/0x8604Bb903B7D54F666bA1e75f98045345C63132a Select the Contract tab. Select the Write Contract tab. Connect your wallet. Use the method deployDelegatedStakingReferenceImplementation of the factory: The required parameters that identify your forger are: signPubKey vrfKey Note that this is split in between two parameters: one for the first 32 bytes and another for the last btye. This is because the vrfkey is 33 bytes of data.  Once the parameters are entered click the Write button. The method execution will trigger the deployment of the smart contract instance.  Take note of its address: you will need it in the forger registration step.  

For further info, you can read the full tutorial on how to setup a forger node here: https://docs.horizen.io/horizen_eon/tutorials/forger_node_setup_guide

If you want to look at the code of the delegated staking contract, it is available at this address: https://github.com/HorizenOfficial/eon-delegated-staking

This factory contract was audited by Halborn for security best practices.

Forger Registration and Setting Smart Contract for Distribution of Rewards

The instructions below are all steps required when setting up a new forger node. If you already have a node, you only need to (optionally) follow Step 2 to assign an EON smart contract for reward distribution.

Step 1: Registration of  Forgers

Each forger must now register before being able to participate in the lottery and receive stake delegations. This is an additional step compared to the actual flow (so far, was enough to create an initial stake).

The registration can be performed by calling  a new http endpoint on the forger node:

/transaction/registerForger

The method will accept the following parameters:

signPubKey vrfPubKey rewardShare smartContractAddress stakedAmount

(see above link for further info)

Please note that rewardShare and smartContractAddress once set are considered immutable and can’t be changed later  (to use different values a forger would have to register new keys, and ask the delegators to unstake+stake to the new key).

Step 2: Update of a Forger Already Present Before EON 1.4

Forgers already present before EON 1.4 will not require an explicit registration described in Step 1: they will be automatically migrated and registered.

But please note that if they own a total stake (own + delegated)  < 10 ZEN  they will no longer be able to forge any block after the 1.4 hardfork activation, and you will need to increase the stake to 10 ZEN or more.

All migrated forgers will have the fields rewardShare = 0 and smartContractAddress  = none, meaning they will not redirect any percentage of the reward to an additional smart contract (the same behavior happens in old EON versions). 

A method to update these fields is available in the http endpoints:

/transaction/updateForger

The method will accept the following parameters:

signPubKey vrfPubKey rewardShare rewardAddress

(see above link for further info)

Please note this method can be called only once and only if their value is equal to: (rewardShare=0, smartContractAddress=null). In other words,  rewardShare and smartContractAddress once set are considered immutable and  can’t be changed (to use different values a forger would have to register new keys, and ask the delegators to unstake+stake to the new key).

Important: for security reasons the updateForger operation will be doable only starting from two consensus epochs after the hard fork activation (25 hours).

Step 3: Collect Stakes

Similar to the actual smart contract, the new native smart contract will expose methods to delegate stake to a forger and withdraw them.

delegate(bytes32 signPubKey, bytes32 vrf1, bytes1 vrf2)

The method will fail if the forger was not previously registered (remember forgers existing before the hard fork activation will be considered registered by default).

withdraw(bytes32 signPubKey, bytes32 vrf1, bytes1 vrf2, uint256 amount)

The owner of the stake must be the one sending the tx.

Enough stake must exist, but now will be possible also to partially withdraw the stake.

Amount unstaked will be sent back to the sender balance.

Please note that with the new system the stake handling is simplified, since:

There is no more the concept of “stakeId”. A stake is now just an amount associated with a specific forger and delegator address, that can be incremented or decremented over-time with multiple delegate and withdrawal operations.  No additional signatures other than the standard Ethereum-like transaction signature will be required to call delegate and withdraw methods: this allows them to be called easily also from hardware wallets like Ledger. Step 4: Reward Calculation 

The same algorithm  will be applied at the end of each withdrawal epoch to reward forgers, but the amount previously sent to the forger address will be split in two parts if the rewardShare specified by the forger is > 0.

An additional change has been also implemented in the:

Endpoints /block/getFeePayments  RPC endpoint zen_getFeePayments

Their result will keep the same format as now, but will also include the reward paid to the address of the smart contracts (if defined).

We will also detail the amount coming from the mainchain redistribution: to be retrocompatible they will be into additional fields valueFromMainchain and valueFromFees:

Step 5: Claim of Delegators Rewards

The amounts directed to the smart contract will have to be redistributed among delegators through the contract. Distribution is the responsibility of the contract implementation. Horizen’s contract provides a fair distribution based on the amount staked and epoch of staking. The default smart contract implementation provided by Horizen exposes a claim method to do it: 

claimReward(address owner)

Note that anyone could call the claim method on behalf of the owner (no restrictions on the sender of the transaction). 

Documentation on the factory contract is located here: https://github.com/HorizenOfficial/eon/blob/development/doc/howto/delegatedstakingcontract.md

Any forger is free to deploy its own smart contract. Please read the native smart contract documentation for useful methods that could be used inside the smart contract logic.

Reward from Mainchain – New Rules

The maximum ZEN amount redistributed to forgers from the special address 0x000000000000000000003333333333333333333 in a single withdrawal epoch is now limited to a maximum value expressed by the following formula:

MAX_VALUE_REDISTRIBUTED = sum [10% of Mainchain’s block-reward Coinbase of each mainchain block reference included in the withdrawal epoch]

Funds over the limit will stay in the address balance and will be redistributed in the following epochs.

For example:
Current Mainchain block reward: 6.25 ZEN
Number of mainchain block-reference in a withdrawal epoch: 100
MAX_VALUE_REDISTRIBUTED = 10%(6.25) * 100 = 62.5 ZEN

Release Notes

Additional info on other changes introduced in EON 1.4 can be found in the release notes for EON 1.4 and SDK respectfully: 

https://github.com/HorizenOfficial/eon/blob/1.4.0-RC1/doc/release/1.4.0.md  https://github.com/HorizenOfficial/Sidechains-SDK/blob/dev/doc/release/0.12.0.md

The post EON 1.4 – Version Changes and Update Instructions appeared first on Horizen Blog.

Greetings community,

In this blog post, we’re excited to present a comprehensive list of updates made in May that didn’t make it into the Alexandria update. While these changes may seem minor, we believe in transparency and the importance of highlighting even the smallest tweaks to our application to enhance user experience.

First on the list is a fix to the bridge button, addressing instances where it would mysteriously “gray out” without warning. Additionally, we’ve streamlined the process by adding sSCRT support on the Shade Bridge page, simplifying the management of SCRT and sSCRT balances. Another significant change includes filtering the swap dropdown by user balances, eliminating the need for manual scrolling.

Furthermore, we’ve introduced toast notifications on the Shade bridge page to alert users when they lack sufficient gas for bridging operations. Excitingly, we’ve updated the SILK/SHD circulating supply in anticipation of the June 18th upgrade, alongside migrating the Shade API infrastructure to the latest version of Secret Network post successful mainnet upgrade!

Other improvements include fixing bugs on the portfolio page and updating data feeds for Quicksilver, Stride, and Persistence oracles in light of the Secret Network upgrade.

While this technical rundown may seem brief, we aim to foster trust within the community by providing insight into the ongoing enhancements of the Syracuse upgrade (v0.1) on its journey towards the Shade Protocol private DeFi suite.

Alexandria Unveiled — Shade v2.1

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Syracuse v0.1 gets us one step closer to the launch of Alexandria — a significant milestones in Shade Protocol’s journey towards revolutionizing decentralized finance. Inspired by the legacy of ancient Alexandria and the valor of the Spartans, Shade Protocol stands as a beacon of innovation and financial autonomy in the decentralized landscape.

With its commitment to privacy, ease of use, and continuous improvement through Syracuse upgrades, Shade Protocol is not only shaping the future of DeFi but also empowering individuals to reclaim control over their finances and data. As the community eagerly anticipates the release of Alexandria and beyond, Shade Protocol remains dedicated to its mission of building an unstoppable, decentralized financial ecosystem for all.

Website: app.shadeprotocol.io

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Shade_Protocol

Featured image: R2-Rewards.com

So you’ve got a nice collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). After a few months, you have managed to amass a respectable amount of those little digital wonders. You might have been able to sell one or two, earning you enough for a couple of cups of coffee in your nearest franchised outlet. But as you take sips off that hard-earned coffee and browse through your NFT portfolio, you can’t help but wonder about the value hidden there, just waiting to be uncovered. 

The question is, how to unlock the value in those NFTs? 

NFT staking: definition

When they hear the word staking, most people think back to the old Hammer films, when the nefarious Dracula would meet his demise with a wooden stake through the heart. And yes, that is one traditional understanding of the word staking. But it’s 2022 now, and though Count Dracula still roams somewhere down the darkest halls of our dreams, staking now means something altogether more profitable. 

In today’s digital context of NFTs, staking is sort of a game of investment/rewards. You commit (‘lock’) your NFTs into a platform or protocol for a set period, and you receive rewards (or other benefits) in exchange for such a commitment. 

Staking addresses one NFT’s inherent issue: liquidity. Remember, NFTs are tokenized assets that you can sell, trade, or, as we see in this article, stake for a yield. Staking enables earning passive income off your NFT portfolio while retaining ownership.

Fungible vs non-fungible: an explanation

For a long time, the concepts of fungibility and non-fungibility had been well outside the layman’s lexicon. But once NFTs entered public discourse, people began to learn more about what these concepts mean.

In short, fungibility means the possibility of using goods, items, or commodities interchangeably because they have the same value. Banknotes or coins, pieces of the same fruit, or a liter of petrol are good examples of fungibility.

Non-fungibility denotes uniqueness. Collectible items, including original oil paintings, baseball cards, art pieces, diamonds, and vintage cars can be considered non-fungible.

It is the latter concept that emerges as most interesting, as non-fungibility carries value, and it is a value that NFT staking unlocks.

Image: R2-rewards.com NFT staking: how it works

Unlocking the value of your NFTs through staking is easier than you think. All you need is a crypto wallet and, well, NFTs. The more the better. Then, choose a protocol or a platform to stake your NFTs in, and wait for the rewards, which might be distributed daily, weekly, or in any other fashion. It really is that simple.

NFT staking is akin to yield farming, insofar as you lock a certain amount of wealth (NFTs in this case) and receive a certain percentage of rewards based on the amount staked, the period of time that the NFTS will be locked, and other parameters.

All about staking rewards

When you invest in traditional financial products (bonds, stocks, mutual funds, etc.), you expect your investment to produce a certain yield. Equally, the ultimate purpose of staking your NFTs is to get a return – a reward.

But this raises several questions: what kind of rewards do you get? And who issues those rewards?

If you purchase an investment bond, your reward at the end of the investment term will usually be money, a certain percentage based on the bond’s performance, length of investment, etc. The staking rewards system works similarly. You lock your stake in for a certain amount of time and you get rewards. Some platforms might offer a fixed amount, while others might give users different amounts, depending on how many people are participating, and the total size of the rewards pool.

And who pays these rewards? Well, the platform or protocol where you stake your NFTs. Normally, an algorithm would calculate the due rewards based on specified parameters, and the rewards would be deposited into your account at the agreed intervals. Now, what these rewards are, depends on the protocol or platform. Sometimes, you get the platform’s native tokens, other times you get tokens that you can exchange for fiat, and certain protocols issue tokens that can only be used within their own environment (a gaming platform, for example). Always check the terms and conditions when you sign up so you know exactly what rewards you will get, and how often.

Risk versus Reward

As with most financial endeavors, returns are never guaranteed and are not entirely without risk. If you put up collateral it means you risk losing that. In the case of a staking system, there are often 2 things to keep in mind. First of all, in most staking systems you will need to purchase a staking key to get started. Buying the key can be seen as an entrance fee to the platform and there are often a variety of keys, ranging from cheap and small ones to big and expensive keys. Of course, you hope to earn your investment into the key back but this is never guaranteed.

Another risk is that the staking platform can be hacked and you may lose your NFTs since they’re not in your custody anymore. While the right permissions setup (along with responsible project owners) can drastically reduce this risk, hacks are and will always be a risk for platforms holding considerable amounts of value.

Conclusion

NFT staking is a subset of the broader decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. It is a relatively new practice in the space, but there already are several NFT management companies that offer staking services, including Zaisan, which launched a staking platform in collaboration with R2. While there is an inherent risk to using and creating a staking platform, this risk can be minimised by choosing the right partners and using secure setups.

All in all, staking is just another cool utility of NFTs, which are proving to be rather versatile assets that break new ground almost every day.

One could argue that psychedelic research has experienced a similar journey as crypto, in the sense that decentralised communities bound together to fund research where centralised entities refuse to do so. One of the greatest hurdles in modern science is access to research funding, and DeSci aims to provide a solution through decentralised crowdfunding. In addition, IP rights are incontestably attributed with the help of blockchain technology, as they cannot be altered at a later date. However, as the human mind is unique and moulded by each individual’s life story, establishing a causal relationship between consumption and their beneficial or detrimental effects can be extremely biased.

We were joined by Dima Buterin & Paul Kohlhaas, to discuss the vast subject of psychedelics (especially in relationship to trauma), how research has progressed and how decentralisation pushes the field forward (DeSci).

Topics covered in this episode:

Dima’s & Paul’s backgrounds Discovering psychedelics Dealing with trauma Psychedelics throughout history and societies How Molecule DAO was founded DeSci & on-chain IP Ethereum early days, causality & rationality PsyDAO Network states Misc

Episode links:

Dima Buterin on Twitter Paul Kohlhaas on Twitter Molecule DAO on Twitter Psy DAO on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

Today, in Part I of a two-episode conversation, Matt Prewitt is joined by civic entrepreneur and Founder of Project Liberty, Frank McCourt, who is on a mission to reclaim the internet and prioritize human rights in our digital landscape. Drawing parallels between the early public oversight of television and the current state of the internet, Frank highlights the commodification of our data and identities online. He advocates for new protocols and a movement inspired by historical fights against oppression to secure genuine data rights and agency online. As we look to the future, Project Liberty's endeavors may play a crucial role. This interview is a fantastic opportunity to hear more about Frank's thinking.

Links & References: 

References:

Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age by Frank H. McCourt, Jr. with Michael J. Casey Tim Berners-Lee - Wikipedia FACT SHEET: CHIPS and Science Act Will Lower Costs, Create Jobs, Strengthen Supply Chains, and Counter China | The White House Mythbusting: The Facts On Reports About Our Data Collection Practices | TikTok Newsroom Sesame Workshop - Wikipedia GDPR The Digital Markets Act: ensuring fair and open digital markets - European Commission The EU’s Digital Services Act TCP/IP | Internet protocol suite - Wikipedia HTTP - Wikipedia Distributed Social Networking Protocol - Wikipedia Technology | Project Liberty Common Sense - Wikipedia

Bios:

Frank H. McCourt, Jr. is a civic entrepreneur and the executive chairman and former CEO of McCourt Global, a private family company committed to building a better future through its work across the real estate, sports, technology, media, and capital investment industries, as well as its significant philanthropic activities. Frank is proud to extend his family’s 130-year legacy of merging community and social impact with financial results, an approach that started when the original McCourt Company was launched in Boston in 1893.

He is a passionate supporter of multiple academic, civic, and cultural institutions and initiatives. He is the founder and executive chairman of Project Liberty, a far-reaching, $500 million initiative to transform the internet through a new, equitable technology infrastructure and rebuild social media in a way that enables users to own and control their personal data. The project includes the development of a groundbreaking, open-source internet protocol called the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP), which will be owned by the public to serve as a new web infrastructure. It also includes the creation of Project Liberty’s Institute (formerly The McCourt Institute,) launched with founding partners Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, and Sciences Po in Paris, to advance research, bring together technologists and social scientists, and develop a governance model for the internet’s next era.

Frank has served on Georgetown University’s Board of Directors for many years and, in 2013, made a $100 million founding investment to create Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. He expanded on this in 2021 with a $100 million investment to catalyze an inclusive pipeline of public policy leaders and put the school on a path to becoming tuition-free.

In 2024, Frank released his first book, OUR BIGGEST FIGHT: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age.

Frank’s Social Links:

Project Liberty Project Liberty (@pro_jectliberty) / X Project Liberty (@pro_jectliberty) • Instagram McCourt Institute (@McCourtInst) / X

Matt Prewitt (he/him) is a lawyer, technologist, and writer. He is the President of the RadicalxChange Foundation.

Matt’s Social Links:

ᴍᴀᴛᴛ ᴘʀᴇᴡɪᴛᴛ (@m_t_prewitt) / X

Connect with RadicalxChange Foundation:

RadicalxChange Website @RadxChange | Twitter RxC | YouTube RxC | Instagram RxC | LinkedIn Join the conversation on Discord.

Credits:

Produced by G. Angela Corpus. Co-Produced, Edited, Narrated, and Audio Engineered by Aaron Benavides. Executive Produced by G. Angela Corpus and Matt Prewitt. Intro/Outro music by MagnusMoone, “Wind in the Willows,” is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

NFT Community management can help ensure the smooth operation of non-fungible token (NFT) communities and their future development in Web3. The idea is to keep track of community events and developments while keeping the community organised and cohesive toward the project goal. Community management can help to resolve disputes and to show empathy to digital asset owners. Nevertheless, NFT holders are, in essence, shareholders of the project. NFT community management is becoming increasingly more important as Web3 communities grow, and with a strong community, anything is possible.

Quick refresh: what is an NFT (community)?

The management of NFT communities is a critical but often overlooked aspect of developing and deploying these digital assets. NFTs are unique tokens on a blockchain that can represent ownership of digital or physical assets. In contrast to fungible tokens, which are interchangeable and can be divided into smaller units, NFTs are non-divisible. Due to their rarity or uniqueness, they are ideal for representing items like art, collectibles, or in-game items with monetary value.

NFT communities are flourishing online spaces where people with a shared interest in NFTs can connect with one another. As the popularity of NFTs continue to grow, as does the number of people flocking to these communities in search of information, advice, and support.

Why NFT community management is essential

With a wide range of people with different levels of knowledge and expertise, NFT community management can be a challenge. It is important to strike a balance between providing content that is both informative and accessible to all while avoiding overwhelming newcomers with too much information.

While the technical aspects of creating and deploying NFTs are essential, it is equally important to have a well-managed community around the project. This is because NFTs are often bought and sold in online communities. The success of an NFT project depends on the strength of these communities. For example, an NFT gaming organisation needs players to enjoy the game enough to transact in-game assets with one another.

A good NFT community will contain a variety of content that covers the basics of what NFTs are and how they work. Additionally, it includes more in-depth articles and discussions for those with a more advanced understanding. It is also essential to have a protocol for moderating content and managing users to keep the community respectful and welcoming to all. One way is by establishing rules and best practices written on communication channels or creating a tutorial page for newcomers.

With the right mix of content and community management, NFT communities can be a valuable resource for anyone interested in this exciting technology. It can be a fun entry point to the Web3 world!

3 Tips to create a strong foundation for your NFT Community

There are a few things that project owners should keep in mind when managing their NFT communities.

1. Constantly remind people of your vision

Have a clear vision and communicate constantly with your members. This way, you can keep everyone on the same page and working towards the same goals. Let’s take, for example, an NFT online chess game that allows users to interact with in-game assets and transact them. This creates a Play-to-Earn (P2E) model. The NFT game envisions creating a community where chess players can enjoy the game while earning rewards in the form of digital assets, NFTs and cryptocurrency. It is therefore necessary for a weekly content plan to include benefits and positive facts about NFT online chess, to create rapport and build trust in the project as more players join.

2. Active moderation is key

The project ambassadors should be active in the community and should engage with community members regularly. This is essentially getting more experienced people in the community to become a moderator. They should be the ones who are zealously advocating for the project. However, a community manager is needed to push content forward and stay attentive to the market needs.

3. Get people involved in decision-making

Finally, it is vital to have a community-centred approach to decision-making. This means that the community should be involved in decisions about the project, such as what features to add or what direction to take the project in. This will lead the project to a democratic system. The funds spent on NFTs are being directed to the project development from a shared decision-making perspective. In practice, this can be done through a voting system or members’ livestream meetings with the project owner.

Consumer AI is moving fast, so who's leading the charge? 

a16z Consumer Partners Olivia Moore and Bryan Kim discuss our GenAI 100 list and what it takes for an AI model to stand out and dominate the market.

They discuss how these cutting-edge apps are connecting with their users and debate whether traditional strategies like paid acquisition and network effects are still effective. We're going beyond rankings to explore pivotal benchmarks like D7 retention and introduce metrics that define today's AI market.

Note: This episode was recorded prior to OpenAI's Spring update. Catch our latest insights in the previous episode to stay ahead!

 

Resources:

Link to the Gen AI 100: https://a16z.com/100-gen-ai-apps

Find Bryan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kirbyman01

Find Olivia on Twitter: https://x.com/omooretweets

 

Stay Updated: 

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

The approval of Ethereum spot ETFs sent shockwaves through the industry as policymakers pivoted abruptly from threatening to veto FIT21 bill, to a pro-crypto discourse. One could say their hand was forced by the imminent US elections, but Ethereum is now officially classified as a commodity, nonetheless. As the regulatory hurdle seems, for the time being, surpassed, one should not forget the values promoted by the crypto movement from the get-go: decentralisation and permissionlessness. However, everyday users tend to overlook these aspects in favour of a more streamlined user experience. As technology evolves and scaling solutions mature, better UI & UX represent crucial goals in the race for end user adoption.

Topics covered in this episode:

Crypto regulations: FIT21 & Tornado Cash trial Ethereum spot ETF Is Ethereum a commodity or a security? Scaling solutions & end user adoption The importance of decentralisation How Web3 lowers barriers of (permissionless) competition Regulatory and legal hurdles Educating ‘normies’ & UX Technology: depoliticising money Berlin blockchain week & Dappcon 2024 wrap-up

Episode links:

Austin Griffith on Twitter Mona El Isa on Twitter Peter Van Valkenburgh on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst and Brian Fabian Crain.

a16z General Partner David Haber talks with Marty Chavez, vice chairman and partner at Sixth Street Partners, about the foundational role he’s had in merging technology and finance throughout his career, and the magical promises and regulatory pitfalls of AI.

This episode is taken from “In the Vault”, a new audio podcast series by the a16z Fintech team. Each episode features the most influential figures in financial services to explore key trends impacting the industry and the pressing innovations that will shape our future. 

 

Resources: 
Listen to more of In the Vault: https://a16z.com/podcasts/a16z-live

Find Marty on X: https://twitter.com/rmartinchavez

Find David on X: https://twitter.com/dhaber

 

Stay Updated: 

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

The Spartan Creed

In the digital realm, where Spartans roam,

We rise, united, to defend our own.

With shields of privacy, and spears of autonomy,

We march forth, in steadfast sovereignty.

Guardians of data, warriors of finance,

In every byte, we take a stance.

Our information is not for sale,

Our sovereignty is not for sale

Our dignity is not for sale

Our autonomy is not for sale

Our property rights are not for sale

Our souls are not for sale

For we are Spartans, hearts aflame,

In the digital realm, we stake our claim.

Greetings Spartans,

The origin of the Shade Spartans is a simple tale — to be a staunch advocate of privacy and freedom inevitably puts you in the crosshairs of those who see our claims to digital sovereignty as a threat to their power. There are those who believe people must be protected at every turn. That security should be prioritized above the human experiment of individualism and experimentation. The powers at be are leaving an entire generation chained to the burden of malicious (not all) regulation. Disdainful pen & paper, stale and unromantic. Uninspired dead documents that stifle human ingenuity, and at worse, diminish it.

We Spartans.

We few, we chose few.

Pushed to the brink, night near extinct.

In the arena of the digital and physical world we lay it all on the line. We deeply value our dignity. We stake our future on the truth that there is no greater love than this: that a Shade Spartan would lay his security and freedom on the line to protect the future rights of his enemies.

You see, Spartans fight for the rights of those who oppress us. We fight to remove the chains from those that seek to place us in chains.

This is what it takes to be a city on a hill — a light in the darkness.

This is what it takes to have the moral high ground.

Your rights are our responsibility, no matter who you are.

We reject the notion that security should come at the expense of freedom, and we pledge to uphold the rights of all, regardless of creed or circumstance.

The Shade Spartans are inspired by three different sets of cultural icons. The first is Master Chief from the Halo video game series. We are aligned with the never surrender attitude, and embrace the story parallels of humanity versus the dark unknown. We stand against the forces at large that wish to seize and destroy all that makes us human.

A scene that particular resonates with Shade Spartans:

In this scene, Master Chief is given the choice: abandon his mission of protecting humanity, or disobey a direct order. He responds with a simple line: “No, sir.”

Shade Spartans are polite, but firm. Spartans have a backbone, and refuse to give an inch when it comes to commands to surrender our morals and principles.

Another Master Chief line that resonates with Shade Spartans is: “…asking is not my strong suite…” We are unapologetic about our rights, and we believe that we do not need to ask permission to build technology that protects and empowers our freedoms that are not granted by governments, but rather are inalienable rights that exist within all of humanity.

The second piece of culture we are inspired by is the ancient Greek civilization Sparta. The ancient Spartans were renowned for their distinctive values and way of life, which were deeply ingrained in their society and culture. Here’s a rundown of some of their key values:

Military Excellence: Spartans placed paramount importance on military prowess and discipline. From a young age, Spartan boys underwent rigorous training in combat skills, endurance, and discipline, preparing them for a life dedicated to military service. Discipline and Self-Control: Discipline was instilled in every aspect of Spartan life. Spartans were expected to exercise self-control and endure hardships without complaint. This discipline extended beyond the battlefield to everyday life, fostering a sense of self-mastery and resilience. Courage and Bravery: Spartans revered courage and bravery above all else. Fearlessness in the face of danger, whether in battle or in daily life, was highly valued. Spartans were taught to confront challenges head-on and never back down from a fight. Equality (among citizens): While Spartan society was hierarchical, with a clear distinction between citizens (Spartiates) and non-citizens (helots and perioikoi), within the citizen class, there was a degree of equality. All Spartiates, regardless of wealth or status, were expected to contribute to the defence of the state and adhere to the same rigorous standards. Spartan Unity: Solidarity and unity were central to Spartan society. Spartans were taught to prioritize the needs of the community over individual desires, fostering a strong sense of camaraderie and loyalty among citizens. Simplicity and Frugality: Spartans valued simplicity and frugality in their way of life. Material wealth and luxury were viewed with suspicion, and excess was discouraged. Spartans lived austere lives focused on the essentials, believing that hardship bred strength. Education and Intellectual Development: While Spartan education primarily focused on physical training and military skills, intellectual development was also valued. Spartan youths were taught to read, write, and engage in philosophical discourse, albeit to a lesser extent than in other Greek city-states.

We believe real change comes from a commitment to individual excellence combined with teamwork around winning battles at large. Your voice matters. Your action matters. How you conduct yourself matters. In isolation, you can achieve a little. Combined in a phalanx of fellow privacy advocates, we become unstoppable. Shade Spartans believe that actions speak louder than words in an era where words are cheap, ideas are manufactured, and where discourse is often controlled.

The third piece of culture we are inspired by is the modern cypherpunk movement. The modern cypherpunk movement is a decentralized community of individuals who advocate for the use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies to promote individual freedoms and protect against surveillance and censorship. Emerging in the late 20th century, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, the cypherpunk movement was heavily influenced by the rapid advancement of digital technologies and the growing concerns over government surveillance and control in the digital age.

At its core, the cypherpunk movement emphasizes the importance of privacy, anonymity, and encryption as fundamental human rights in the digital era. Cypherpunks believe that individuals should have the ability to communicate, transact, and interact online without fear of eavesdropping, censorship, or manipulation by governments, corporations, or other third parties.

Key principles of the modern cypherpunk movement include:

Privacy: Cypherpunks assert that privacy is essential for maintaining personal autonomy and freedom of expression. They advocate for the widespread adoption of encryption tools and privacy-enhancing technologies to protect individuals’ digital privacy from intrusive surveillance. Cryptography: Cryptography is seen as a powerful tool for securing communications, transactions, and digital identities. Cypherpunks promote the development and use of strong cryptographic algorithms and protocols to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of online interactions. Decentralization: Centralized systems are viewed as vulnerable to censorship, surveillance, and control. Cypherpunks advocate for decentralized technologies, such as blockchain and peer-to-peer networks, which distribute power and control among a network of participants, reducing the influence of centralized authorities. Anonymity: Anonymity allows individuals to communicate and transact online without revealing their identities or personal information. Cypherpunks support the use of anonymous communication tools, such as Tor and anonymous cryptocurrencies, to protect against surveillance and maintain privacy online. Freedom of Information: Cypherpunks believe in the free flow of information and oppose censorship and restrictions on access to knowledge and expression. They advocate for the use of encryption to bypass censorship and promote the dissemination of information without interference from authorities. Open Source: Open-source software is considered essential for transparency, security, and trust in digital systems. Cypherpunks support the development and use of open-source encryption tools and privacy-enhancing technologies to empower individuals and communities to protect their digital rights.

The modern cypherpunk movement continues to evolve and adapt to new technological challenges and societal issues. With the rise of surveillance capitalism, government surveillance programs, and online censorship, cypherpunks remain committed to defending individual privacy and promoting digital freedom in an increasingly interconnected world.

Mint Details — May 30th, 2024

The launch of the legendary 300 Spartans is set for May 30th, 2024 on Stashh in advance of the June 18th, Alexandria Shade Protocol upgrade.

WL sale: 50 $SILK
Public sale: 65 $SILK

The proceeds will be split:

50% buying back $SHD from the market
50% will be used to provide liquidity for the $SHD <> $SILK pool.

These proceeds will increase trading liquidity and support $SHD token’s utility within the Cosmos ecosystem.

Curious on how to join the whitelist? Keep your eyes peeled for the following:

Free badge mints Social media contests & tasks Through partner tweets & competitions March Madness Shade bracket winners Telegram & discord active user account selection

Are you an active community member? Your work shall be noticed, Spartan.

We believe in protecting “Your Money. Your Data. Your Decisions.”

Those who hold Shade Spartans are participants in the fight against centralization, censorship, and digital encroachment.

We are the tip of the spear.
We are the protectors of privacy.
We are Spartans.

Don’t give them an inch.

Follow Shade Protocol on Twitter

This was a big week in the world of AI, with both OpenAI and Google dropping significant updates. So big that we decided to break things down in a new format with our Consumer partners Bryan Kim and Justine Moore. We discuss the multi-modal companions that have found their voice, but also why not all audio is the same, and why several nuances like speed and personality really matter.

 

Resources:

OpenAI’s Spring announcement: https://openai.com/index/hello-gpt-4o/

Google I/O announcements: https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-io-2024-100-announcements/

 

Stay Updated: 

Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

 

 

The massive success of the recently approved spot Bitcoin ETF showed tremendous interest from large institutional players. Even despite negative takes in public appearances, behind the curtain, more and more ‘smart money’ accumulate $BTC, either directly or through ETF shares. The same is to be expected for Ethereum, yet uncertainty still looms due to its proof-of-stake consensus model and, ultimately, staking yield. While crypto natives quickly embraced both ETH staking as well as liquid staking, institutions could not justify the higher risk profile and lack of regulatory compliance. Alluvial and Liquid Collective seek to change this and provide ultrasound infrastructure for enterprise-grade security in liquid staking. 

Topics covered in this episode:

Mara’s background ETH 2.0 and the current staking landscape Liquid Collective ETH ETF and staking concerns The risks of adjusting staking emissions Restaking and new opportunities Institutional staking and risk optimization

Episode links:

Mara Schmiedt on Twitter Alluvial on Twitter Liquid Collective on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Felix Lutsch.

Make sure to check out our new AI + a16z feed: https://link.chtbl.com/aiplusa16z
 

a16z General Partner Anjney Midha joins the podcast to discuss what's happening with hardware for artificial intelligence. Nvidia might have cornered the market on training workloads for now, but he believes there's a big opportunity at the inference layer — especially for wearable or similar devices that can become a natural part of our everyday interactions. 

Here's one small passage that speaks to his larger thesis on where we're heading:

"I think why we're seeing so many developers flock to Ollama is because there is a lot of demand from consumers to interact with language models in private ways. And that means that they're going to have to figure out how to get the models to run locally without ever leaving without ever the user's context, and data leaving the user's device. And that's going to result, I think, in a renaissance of new kinds of chips that are capable of handling massive workloads of inference on device.

"We are yet to see those unlocked, but the good news is that open source models are phenomenal at unlocking efficiency.  The open source language model ecosystem is just so ravenous."

More from Anjney:

The Quest for AGI: Q*, Self-Play, and Synthetic Data

Making the Most of Open Source AI

Safety in Numbers: Keeping AI Open

Investing in Luma AI

Follow everyone on X:

Anjney Midha

Derrick Harris

Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here, including articles, projects, and more podcasts.

 

Stay Updated: 

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Imagine a group of small islands dotted around an area of an ocean. Each island has a small settlement of people, going about their business and living as best they know how. But there’s a problem. One island has wood but little food. They can build rudimentary huts but can scarcely eat. Their closest island has plenty of food but no wood, so they lack shelter. A third island has wood and food but no hay for their animals. Another island is brimming with hay but little coal to light fires. However, the island with the wood does have coal reserves. Then, one day, someone has an idea. Why not build bridges connecting all the islands so all the islanders can share resources? Soon, wood, food, coal, and hay are moving across the islands, and islanders’ business grows tenfold.

Now, imagine each of those islands is a blockchain. Each blockchain hosts a set of tokenised assets, which had remained confined to their blockchain. Why not build bridges across the blockchains so that assets can be easily shared and traded, similar to what the islanders did?

Cross-chain bridges: a simple solution to a big problem

In computing environments, some terms can be obscure and non-descript. That is not the case here. A cross-chain bridge does exactly what it says. It is a mechanism that enables the transfer of assets back and forth between two or more chains. Those assets can be tokens, cryptocurrencies, or any other tokenised assets hosted on the chains.

You might be wondering what sort of wizardry this is. Furthermore, you might question how it is possible to move assets between two chains whose protocols, rules, etc. might be completely different. These are valid questions, and here’s the answer. The bridge acts as a neutral zone (a no man’s land of sorts) where the switch occurs. 

An example: two blockchain games, one hosted on an Ethereum chain, the second hosted on WAX. Ethereum uses a proof-of-work consensus protocol, while WAX uses a proof-of-stake one, each with its own set of rules. And each of these games has some cool in-game assets, maps, etc. Each game world features a thriving game economy and has something that the other gaming environment lacks (remember the islanders?) Why not connect the two chains with a bridge and enable asset swapping, so that both gaming worlds (and their in-game economies) expand and grow?

Exponential growth for GameFi and DeFi environments

Blockchain has yielded much disruption and innovation throughout its relatively short lifespan, and the future looks just as innovative and bright. 

For some time, this technology has been associated with decentralised finance (DeFi). That is the provision of financial instruments without reliance on centralised intermediaries, such as banks, credit unions, or brokerages. The marriage between blockchain and DeFi has been a successful one, fostering a new era of financial inclusivity and autonomy. According to Statista, there are currently billions held in DeFi environments, showcasing its widespread acceptance and potential for further growth. 

But in more recent times, blockchain has spread its area of influence to gaming in the form of game finance (GameFi), combining cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and other tokenised assets to create a gaming environment where players can play, trade, and earn. This development provides players with true ownership of their in-game items and the ability to earn real-world value through gameplay.

The mechanics underlying GameFi are relatively simple. In-game assets are distributed in NFT form, which guarantees ownership. This is key, as it enables the players to trade these assets as they see fit, sell them to other players, etc. And this is where cross-chain bridges come in. These two-way paths enable these assets to be moved from one chain to another, thus not only safeguarding the liquidity but also enhancing it by facilitating a wider marketplace. By doing this, the player pool grows exponentially, as players can participate in multiple gaming environments without being restricted by the boundaries of a single blockchain.

The same applies to DeFi environments, albeit without the gaming part. Users of different blockchains can have their assets exchanged on the bridge so they can be used on another blockchain. This is sometimes called ‘cross-chain swap.’ It is crucial for building a more interconnected and fluid blockchain ecosystem, where assets can freely move across different platforms, enhancing the user experience and broadening the scope of possibilities.

Cross-chain bridging with Zaisan

The benefits of multi-chain bridging are clear. The islanders knew it, and now you know too. Scalability, portability, and a massively expanded user or player pool are just the tip of the iceberg. These advancements signify a shift towards a more integrated, versatile, and user-centric blockchain ecosystem.

As blockchain technology continues to evolve, it promises to unlock even more innovative applications and opportunities, potentially transforming industries beyond finance and gaming, such as supply chain management, healthcare, and beyond. The journey of blockchain from a novel digital ledger to a bedrock of digital innovation illustrates its immense potential and the myriad of possibilities it holds for the future.

Zaisan is a multi-discipline blockchain services provider, including cross-chain bridging hosting. Among many other features, Zaisan offers the possibility of swapping tokens between Binance Smart Chain (BSC), WAX, and Ethereum.

This article explores the critical role of Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) and other advanced privacy tools in safeguarding user privacy within the burgeoning Web3 landscape, addressing the inherent transparency of blockchain technology and introducing next-generation solutions for scalable, privacy-focused blockchain applications. 

Although blockchain’s benefits are undeniable, the decentralized and immutable nature of open blockchain’s record-keeping creates unique privacy challenges. Blockchain's transparency means that transactions are permanently recorded and viewable by anyone. While this promotes trust and accountability, it also poses significant risks to personal privacy if identities can be linked to public addresses and can expose trading strategies for professional investors and other successful traders. Additionally, integrating decentralized applications (dApps) with these technologies further complicates the privacy landscape, as user interactions on one platform can be traced across multiple platforms and transactions.

To address these privacy challenges, Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) emerge as a potent solution, allowing transaction validation without compromising private data. ZKPs, such as zk-SNARKs and zk-STARKs, are cryptographic methods that allow the validation of transactions without revealing any underlying data, playing a crucial role in maintaining privacy on the blockchain.

Beyond enhancing privacy, ZKP technology can be instrumental in DeFi contexts, where it ensures that financial transactions remain confidential yet verifiable, believed to be the key to fostering trust and participation in open financial ecosystems. The technology can make transactions more private, ensuring that while the integrity and rules of the transaction are publicly verifiable, the specifics of the amounts and the parties involved in the transaction remain private.

Relative to non-succinct privacy-preserving proofs, zk-SNARKs can make for more scalable projects compared with, for example, non-succint alternatives such as zk-STARKs. By enabling transaction validation without disclosing or processing extensive data on the blockchain, zk-SNARK technology can be implemented in ways that lessen the network burden. Ultimately the result is a more efficient blockchain, potentially increasing transaction throughput and enhancing overall performance.

Other privacy-preserving technologies

While ZKPs are pivotal, a broad array of privacy-preserving technologies, including Homomorphic Encryption and Secure Multi-Party Computation that are available for Web3 developers:

​​Homomorphic encryption: Enables computations on encrypted data, ensuring data privacy even during processing. Secure Multi-Party Computation (SMPC): Allows multiple parties to jointly compute a function while keeping their inputs private. Decentralized identifiers (DIDs): DIDs allow individuals to control and verify their identity independently of a central authority, enhancing privacy and control over personal identity data. Blockchain sharding: Although its primary function is to help scale networks, by dividing the entire blockchain into smaller partitions known as shards, privacy is enhanced by limiting the data each node can access. Differential privacy: Integrating differential privacy techniques into blockchain applications can add noise to aggregated data, making it difficult to identify individual users while maintaining the utility of the data. Confidential smart contracts: Leveraging cryptographic techniques to execute smart contracts confidentially ensures that the data within these contracts is not exposed to other network participants. Tools for enhancing privacy in Web3

The development of these foundational technologies paves the way for practical, user-facing privacy tools in Web3, ranging from enhanced wallets to comprehensive on-chain and off-chain solutions. Some of these tools include:

Privacy-enhancing wallets: These wallets integrate features like stealth addresses and ring signatures to conceal user identities. On-chain privacy protocols: On-chain privacy protocols like the one Panther Protocol is developing will use zk-SNARK and other privacy technologies to conduct private transactions on public blockchains while preserving privacy. Off-chain privacy solutions: Off-chain solutions like the Lightning Network for Bitcoin or Raiden Network for Ethereum help scale transactions off the main chain while improving privacy by reducing the on-chain footprint. Data protection tools: Tools like NuCypher use proxy re-encryption and SMPC to secure shared data among multiple participants without exposing the raw data to external parties. Conclusion

Web3 aims to revolutionize online interactions by emphasizing privacy and control over personal data, while still maintaining the inherent benefits that transparent blockchain technology brings. As this technology advances, it’s critical to develop tools that uphold privacy without compromising transparency. This balancing act involves both innovative technological solutions and stringent regulatory measures, ensuring Web3 can offer transparent yet secure digital environments.

For more information about privacy-preserving technologies

A Deep Dive Into Secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC)

Threshold Cryptography, MPC, and MultiSigs: A Complete Overview

Bulletproofs In Crypto – An introduction to a Non-Interactive ZKP

zk-SNARKs vs zk-STARKs: Comparing Zero-knowledge Proofs

What is a zero-knowledge proof? ZKPs explained in different levels.

Ring Signatures vs. zkSNARKs: A comparison

5 years, 20 Grants, 3715 projects crowd-funded and over $60M raised towards public goods funding, from 4.2M unique donations. Gitcoin’s headline numbers are indicative of the massive success their quadratic funding (QF) and public goods funding models (PGF) have seen over the years. With Gitcoin 2.0, crowd-funding is further decentralised, Allo Protocol being open-source and permissionless: any ecosystem treasury can create their own Gitcoin Grants program to help their community fund what matters to them.

Topics covered in this episode:

Kevin’s background and Gitcoin’s journey so far The utility of Gitcoin Passport Gitcoin Grants sybil protection dilemma Public goods & capital allocation Quadratic funding (QF) & retroactive public goods funding (RPGF) New allocation models introduced by Gitcoin 2.0 $GTC token utility & decentralising Allo Protocol The current landscape of DAOs

Episode links:

Kevin Owocki on Twitter Gitcoin on Twitter Gitcoin Governance Forums

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

In 2009 Discord cofounder and CEO, Jason Citron, started building tools and infrastructure for games. Fast forward to today and the platform has over 200 million monthly active users. 

In this episode, Jason, alongside a16z General Partner Anjney Midha—who merged his company Ubiquity6 with Discord in 2021—shares insights on the nuances of community-driven product development, the shift from gamer to developer, and Discord’s longstanding commitment to platform extensibility. 

Now, with Discord's recent release of embeddable apps, what can we expect now that it's easier than ever for developers to build? 

Resources: 

Find Jason on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasoncitron

Find Anjney on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnjneyMidha

 

Stay Updated: 

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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

 

Human nature fears the unknown, and with the rapid progress of AI, concerns naturally arise. Uncanny robocalls, data breaches, and misinformation floods are among the worries. But what about security in the era of large language models?

In this episode, we hear from security leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind. Matt Knight, Head of Security at OpenAI, Jason Clinton, CISO at Anthropic, and Vijay Bolina, CISO at Google DeepMind, are joined by Joel de la Garza, operating partner at a16z and former chief security officer at Box and Citigroup.

Together, they explore how large language models impact security, including changes in offense and defense strategies, misuse by nation-state actors, prompt engineering, and more. In this changing environment, how do LLMs transform security dynamics? Let's uncover the answers.

 

Resources:

Find Joel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/3448827723723234/

Find Vijay Bolina on Twitter: https://twitter.com/vijaybolina

Find Jason Clinton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JasonDClinton

Find Matt Knight  on Twitter: https://twitter.com/embeddedsec

 

Stay Updated: 

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

The initial scaling roadmap for Ethereum featured execution layer sharding. However, the rapid advancements of layer 2 scaling solutions in general, and zero knowledge proofs in particular, caused a restructuring of the original plan. The reason was that rollups would have required less changes made to Ethereum’s base layer, hence lower risks. On the other hand, Near Protocol was designed from the ground up as a sharded system, capable of withstanding billions of transactions simultaneously, without sacrificing decentralisation or security.

Topics covered in this episode:

Illia’s & Alex’s backgrounds Sharding and blockchain scalability Challenges of building a sharded blockchain Near namespace Shard security & validator sampling Stateless validation and data availability State witnesses and chunk producers Block production Shards vs. Rollups How Near could further improve Leaderless chunk production Chain abstraction

Episode links:

Illia Polosukhin on Twitter Alex Skidanov on Twitter Near Protocol on Twitter

Sponsors:

Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.io Chorus1: Chorus1 is one of the largest node operators worldwide, supporting more than 100,000 delegators, across 45 networks. The recently launched OPUS allows staking up to 8,000 ETH in a single transaction. Enjoy the highest yields and institutional grade security at - chorus.one

This episode is hosted by Meher Roy.

In recent years, the AI landscape has seen huge advancements, from the release of Dall-E 2 in April 2022 to the emergence of AI music and video models in early 2024.

While creative tools often steal the spotlight, AlphaFold 2 marked a groundbreaking AI breakthrough in biology in 2021. Since its release, this pioneering tool for predicting protein structures has been utilized by over 1.7 million scientists worldwide, influencing fields ranging from genomics to computational chemistry.

In this episode, DeepMind's VP of Research for Science, Pushmeet Kohli, and a16z General Partner Vijay Pande discuss the transformative potential of AI in scientific exploration. Can AI lead to fundamentally new discoveries in science? Let's find out.

 

Resources: 

Find Pushmeet on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pushmeet

Find Vijay on Twitter: https://twitter.com/vijaypande

Learn more about Google DeepMind: https://deepmind.google

Read DeepMind’s AlphaFold whitepaper: https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/a-glimpse-of-the-next-generation-of-alphafold

Read DeepMind’s AlphaGeometry: https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/alphageometry-an-olympiad-level-ai-system-for-geometry

Read DeepMind’s research on new materials: https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/millions-of-new-materials-discovered-with-deep-learning/

Read DeepMind’s paper on FunSearch, focused on new discoveries in mathematics: https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/funsearch-making-new-discoveries-in-mathematical-sciences-using-large-language-models

 

Stay Updated: 

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Alexandria Unveiled — Shade v2.1 https://app.shadeprotocol.io/

Greetings community,

At Shade Protocol we build Unstoppable Finance — a world of DeFi that is globally accessible, censorship resistant, privacy-preserving, and easy to use. We believe that privacy is the key to unlocking the full value of a decentralized future. Without privacy, we fail to achieve what DeFi is fully capable of.

Your Money.

Your Data.

Your Decisions.

Shade Protocol has existed for 2+ years — collectively achieving over $350M+ of trading volume on ShadeSwap, 40M+ TVL (at peak), with thousand of daily smart contract interactions.

As referenced in The Preamble — Road to Easy Private DeFi we have set our eyes on making Shade Protocol the easiest to use private DeFi in all of Web3. Additionally, after much user feedback we have decided to begin bundling multiple features and utilities into single upgrades, empowering upgrade packages to be more meaningful and easier to explain to users.

The Upgrade

ALEXANDRIA Upgrade will be released June 18th, 2024 at 8:00 pm. GMT +0

1. Analytics Tab - (TVL, Volume, # of trades, fees accrued, PoL, etc.)
2. Prices Tab - (historical candlestick charts / line charts / etc.)
3. dSHD - (private liquid staking for SHD)
4. Silk Analytics V2 - (SILK peg performance, basket performance, etc.)
5. New pools - (dSHD/USDC, dSHD/SHD, etc.)
6. New SILK collaterals
7. Shade Spartan NFTs

The next upgrade after Alexandria will be released September 18th, 2024. The name of the next upgrade bundle has yet to be revealed, nor has its features.

Analytics Overhaul Early stages of Silk Analytics V2

Across the Shade Protocol suite there are countless pieces of protocol data forming a story that has been previously untold. Information such as Silk collateral backing, peg performance data, protocol wide TVL, volume, # of trades, historical staking APY, etc. The Alexandria Upgrade represents a massive leap forward in visual storytelling — representing half a year of infrastructure overhaul empowering in app story telling that will provide the information and data users need to make informed decisions.

One of the key principles that drive Shade Protocol design decisions is a simple modicum: “…don’t make the user leave the app…”

As we investigated where users are spending their time to make decisions, we realized that block explorers and Coingecko are the two destinations where many users camp out. With the release of the Shade Protocol transaction history, one of these problem was solved (block explorer).

This left us with the need to create an in-app Coingecko esque experience:

Early stage implementation…imagine mainnet / June 18th

You can expect with the release of Alexandria to have the ability to seamlessly scroll through price charts & price tables similar to Coingecko — empowering you to make decisions on the fly without needing to open another tab.

One could even imagine what an overhauled ShadeSwap experience could like in the future with these new features intertwined.

dSHD — Private $SHD Liquid Staking

One of the key decisions users have had to choose while interacting with Shade Protocol is between the choice to stake or become a liquidity provider with their SHD tokens. With the launch of dSHD, users will be able to enjoy yield from both liquidity providing & from staking — unlocking new DeFi strategies and flexibility previously impossible.

dSHD represents the first ever LST for a natively private token; yet another first for Shade Protocol. You can expect major pools to be spun up such as:

dSHD / SHD dSHD/ USDC.noble

Additionally, Shade Protocol is looking to integrate dSHD into a variety of other DeFi protocols throughout the Cosmos — setting up SHD to become the apex private omnichain asset.

Ancient Greek Theme

The parallels between Greek society, the historical city of Alexandria, and the ethos of Shade Protocol are intriguing and rich with significance. Just as ancient Greece was a hub for innovation, philosophy, and intellectual exchange, Alexandria stood as a beacon of knowledge, blending cultures and fostering groundbreaking advancements in various fields. Similarly, Shade Protocol embodies a commitment to innovation and progress within the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, mirroring the spirit of exploration and discovery that defined ancient Alexandria.

The city of Alexandria served as a melting pot for ideas and culture. Similarly, Shade Protocol embraces the free market of ideas — aiming to build a global ecosystem where financial autonomy is not just a possibility, but a reality for all. Through its upcoming Alexandria bundle release and beyond, Shade Protocol continues to forge a path towards a more equitable and decentralized future, echoing the legacy of the great civilizations that came before it.

Shade Spartan “300” NFT Launch Example NFT

The launch of the legendary 300 Spartans is set for May 2024 on Stashh — the whitelist (for a randomized chance to be part of the mint) has begun to be developed.

Curious on how to join the whitelist? Keep your eyes peeled for the following:

Free badge mints Social media tasks Telegram & discord active user account selection

Are you an active community member? Your work shall be noticed, Spartan.

We believe in protecting “Your Money. Your Data. Your Decisions.”

Those who hold Shade Spartans are participants in the fight against centralization, censorship, and digital encroachment.

We are the tip of the spear.
We are the protectors of privacy.
We are Spartans.

Don’t give them an inch.

Stashh - Where Creators and Collectors Connect

Syracuse 0.1 — “The Floating City”

In addition to regularly scheduled bundle upgrades, Shade Protocol will now be releasing monthly Syracuse upgrades starting with 0.1— these are quality of life changes to the Shade Protocol app, smart contracts, & infrastructure that are outside of the scope of official upgrade bundles.

The first Syracuse release (0.1) is set for June 2nd, 2024.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the unveiling of Alexandria and the upcoming launch of Shade Spartan NFTs mark significant milestones in Shade Protocol’s journey towards revolutionizing decentralized finance. Inspired by the legacy of ancient Alexandria and the valor of the Spartans, Shade Protocol stands as a beacon of innovation and financial autonomy in the decentralized landscape.

With its commitment to privacy, ease of use, and continuous improvement through Syracuse upgrades, Shade Protocol is not only shaping the future of DeFi but also empowering individuals to reclaim control over their finances and data. As the community eagerly anticipates the release of Alexandria and beyond, Shade Protocol remains dedicated to its mission of building an unstoppable, decentralized financial ecosystem for all.

Website: app.shadeprotocol.io

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Shade_Protocol

In today’s episode, Matt Prewitt engages in a thought-provoking dialogue with Tahir Amin, the Co-Founder and CEO of the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge (I-MAK). Together, they delve into the history of the patent and trademark systems – flaws and all, especially within the pharmaceutical realm. Tahir, drawing from his experience as a former intellectual property lawyer turned reform advocate, sheds light on how these systems have been manipulated by large corporations to prolong monopolies rather than foster invention. He proposes substantial reforms to address these systemic issues, advocating for a fundamental restructuring of the patent system. This insightful conversation highlights the complexities and challenges within the patent system and the quest for a more just and equitable approach to intellectual property.

Links & References: 

References:

I-MAK World Trade Organization (WTO) "Battle of Seattle" | 1999 Seattle WTO protests History of patent law - Wikipedia Why Intellectual Property Rights? A Lockean Justification Justifying Intellectual Property by Robert P. Merges  Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution – ArtI.S8.C8.1 Overview of Congress's Power Over Intellectual Property United States Patent and Trademark Office - Wikipedia 33:14 Statstisc Peace and Science - when generics patent When Do Generics Challenge Drug Patents? | C. Scott Hemphill and Bhaven N. Sampat Investing in Ex Ante Regulation: Evidence from Pharmaceutical Patent Examination | NBER | Michael D. Frakes & Melissa F. Wasserman How a Drug Company Made $114 Billion by Gaming the U.S. Patent System - The New York Times The Burden of Patent Thickets – I-MAK 4 Economic evaluation | NICE health technology evaluations: the manual | Guidance Do not get sold on drug advertising - Harvard Health USA and New Zealand | Direct-to-consumer advertising - Wikipedia Biosimilars Basics for Patients | FDA.  Biologics, Biosimilars and Patents: A Beginner's Guide – I-MAK Patent Reform – I-MAK

Bios:

Tahir Amin LL.B., Dip.LP., is a founder and CEO of the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK), a non-profit organisation working to address the structural power and inequities of the intellectual property (IP) system and how medicines are developed and distributed. He has over 25 years of experience in IP law, during which he has practised with two of the leading IP law firms in the United Kingdom and served as IP Counsel for multinational corporations. His work focuses on re-defining and re-shaping IP laws and the related global political economy to better serve the public interest and commons, by changing the structural power dynamics that allow economic and health inequities to persist. He is a former Harvard Medical School Fellow in the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine, a TED and Echoing Green Fellow. He has served as legal advisor/consultant to many international and intergovernmental organisations, including the Medecines Sans Frontieres, the European Patent Office, World Health Organization, United Nations Environment Programme, and has testified before the U.S. Congress on IP and unsustainable drug prices. 

Tahir’s Social Links:

Tahir Amin (@realtahiramin) / X Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (@IMAKglobal) / X Tahir Amin - Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer - I-MAK | LinkedIn

Matt Prewitt (he/him) is a lawyer, technologist, and writer. He is the President of the RadicalxChange Foundation.

Matt’s Social Links:

ᴍᴀᴛᴛ ᴘʀᴇᴡɪᴛᴛ (@m_t_prewitt) / X

Additional Credits:

This episode was recorded and produced by Matt Prewitt.

This is a RadicalxChange Production.

Connect with RadicalxChange Foundation:

RadicalxChange Website @RadxChange | Twitter RxC | YouTube RxC | Instagram RxC | LinkedIn Join the conversation on Discord.

Credits:

Produced by G. Angela Corpus. Co-Produced, Edited, Narrated, and Audio Engineered by Aaron Benavides. Executive Produced by G. Angela Corpus and Matt Prewitt. Intro/Outro music by MagnusMoone, “Wind in the Willows,” is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

This quick guide is meant to help you go over the simple steps to vote on ZenIPs.

FAQ

1. How much voting power do I have?

Your voting power is a sum of the following criteria:

$ZEN in your EON wallet. $ZEN in your linked mainchain wallet. The total amount of $ZEN that was delegated to forger nodes from your EON Wallet.

Please note that Horizen uses Snapshot for voting. This means that your voting power will be a total of the items above at a specific block height on EON. If token values change after that specified block height it will not be included in your voting power. 

2. How do I link my mainchain wallet to my EON address? 

Being that many users prefer to keep their $ZEN on Horizen’s mainchain we’ve made it possible to vote on proposals while keeping $ZEN on the mainchain. Please use the following guide to link your mainchain and EON addresses: https://docs.horizen.io/governance/voting_process/linking_mainchain_address. 

3. Do I have to do anything if I stake $ZEN to a forger node to vote on proposals?

No. As long as you are using the same wallet which was used to delegate stake, your voting power will include all $ZEN that is staked to forger nodes.

How do I vote on ZenIPs using my staked $ZEN?

Voting is done on Snapshot using Horizen EON. 

Go to the Horizen Foundation Snapshot page: https://snapshot.org/#/horizenfoundation.eth Make sure to join the Horizen Foundation as a member on Snapshot.  Connect your wallet. Choose a proposal you would like to vote on. Read through the proposal and look at the possible voting options.  Select a choice, you will be asked to sign a message with your wallet to vote on the proposal (this does not incur any gas fees).

We look forward to the continuous participation of our community and stay tuned as many exciting things are on the Horizen!

The post How to Vote on ZenIPs using Your Staked $ZEN appeared first on Horizen Blog.

As businesses and organisations continue growing and expanding, prioritising environmental sustainability is becoming increasingly important. One way to do this is by implementing blockchain technology into your business. Let’s dive deeper!

Why Your Business Should Adopt Blockchain for Environmental Sustainability

Blockchain is a decentralised digital ledger. Blockchain technology allows for the secure recording and verification of transactions without a central authority. This technology can potentially revolutionise how businesses operate, namely by making them more environmentally friendly. By using blockchain to support eco-friendly practices and renewable energy, your business can play a key role in creating a more sustainable future. Outside of the obvious benefits for the environment, it can also help propel your business forward in different ways.

How Blockchain Can Help Your Business Go Green

Multiple ways exist in which blockchain technology can help your business go green. Summarised below are some of the main ways in which blockchain technology can make an impact:

Tracking and verifying environmentally responsible practices Facilitating the exchange of renewable energy Blockchain-powered waste management systems Creating and managing carbon credits Using Blockchain To Track and Verify Environmentally Responsible Practices

One way that blockchain can help is by enabling the tracking and verification of environmentally responsible practices. For example, by using blockchain technology, a supply chain can track the origin and journey of products, ensuring that they are produced using sustainable methods.

This level of transparency can help consumers make more informed choices about the products they purchase. Moreover, it encourages businesses to adopt eco-friendly practices to maintain their reputation. Additionally, the use of blockchain can help businesses detect and prevent fraud, such as the sale of counterfeit or environmentally damaging products.

In this way, blockchain can help promote environmental responsibility and sustainability within the business community. By enabling more transparent and accountable business practices, blockchain technology can support the development of a more sustainable and environmentally friendly economy.

Facilitating the Exchange of Renewable Energy Using Blockchain

Blockchain can also be used to facilitate the exchange of renewable energy. It ensures renewable energy can be tracked, traded, and sold securely and transparently. This can help create a more efficient and reliable renewable energy market, as well as enable individuals and businesses easy access and use renewable energy. 

Additionally, the use of smart contracts on the blockchain can automate the process of buying and selling renewable energy. This makes it even more convenient and efficient. Overall, the use of blockchain in the renewable energy industry can greatly accelerate the transition to a more sustainable and environmentally friendly energy system that is less reliant on fossil fuels.

Using Blockchain To Create and Manage Carbon Credits

Another way in which blockchain technology can help businesses become more environmentally friendly is by enabling the creation and management of carbon credits. Carbon credits are a way for businesses to offset their carbon emissions by supporting renewable energy projects or other initiatives that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Source: Shell

Through blockchain, businesses can create and trade carbon credits transparently and securely. This allows for the efficient and cost-effective management of carbon emissions. It provides businesses with a way to offset their environmental impact. Furthermore, blockchain can help ensure the integrity and verifiability of carbon credits, making it easier for businesses to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.

Overall, the use of blockchain for carbon credit management can support the transition to a low-carbon economy. Therefore, it can help businesses reduce/offset their environmental impact.

Blockchain-Powered Waste Management Systems

In addition to the previous benefits, blockchain technology can also help improve supply chain efficiency, reducing waste and enabling more transparent and accountable business practices through creating decentralised waste management systems. 

In a decentralised waste management system, blockchain can be implemented to track and verify the disposal of waste materials. This can help to ensure that waste is disposed of sustainably and responsibly, reducing the environmental impact of waste. Additionally, one can use blockchain technology to incentivise sustainable waste disposal practices, such as recycling and composting. For example, businesses and individuals could be rewarded with tokens or other digital assets for properly disposing of waste.

Furthermore, the use of blockchain can help to improve the efficiency of waste management systems. By securely and transparently tracking waste materials, blockchain can help to reduce waste and prevent fraud, such as the illegal dumping of waste materials. Thus, aiding in making waste management systems more cost-effective and sustainable.

Blockchains Do Not Have To Consume Tons of Energy

But what about the energy consumption of blockchains in general? It is true that many blockchain protocols, such as the one used by the Bitcoin network, rely on energy-intensive proof-of-work consensus mechanisms. This means that validating transactions and adding them to the blockchain requires a large amount of computing power. However, it is important to note that not all blockchain protocols operate this way.

There are also blockchain protocols that use different kinds of consensus mechanisms, such as the delegated proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, which is much more energy efficient. In a delegated proof-of-stake system, the token holders are constantly voting on “delegates”. The delegates who have the most votes at any certain point in time run the blockchain and validate transactions.

As a result, delegated proof-of-stake systems are much more energy-efficient and scalable than proof-of-work systems. They do not require a large amount of computing power to validate transactions. This makes them a more environmentally friendly and viable option for businesses and organisations that want to use public or private blockchains and require high scalability.

Conclusion

Implementing blockchain technology into your enterprise may require significant investment and resources. However, the long-term benefits of environmental sustainability and improved efficiency are well worth the effort. By utilising blockchain to support eco-friendly practices and renewable energy, your enterprise can play a key role in creating a more sustainable future.

If you want to learn more about how your enterprise can use blockchain technology, schedule a call with us.

In this final episode of our short series, host Matt Prewitt speaks with Indy Johar, architect and co-founder of Dark Matter Labs. Together they discuss the topic of ownership through the lens of theories of governance. Indy advocates for decentralized protocols in property governance, emphasizing complex contributions and contextual responsiveness – moving away from control-oriented systems towards ennobling frameworks that empower individuals and foster deeper engagement.

RadicalxChange has been working with Indy Johar and Dark Matter Labs, together with Margaret Levi and her team at Stanford, on exploring and reimagining the institutions of ownership.

This episode is part of a short series exploring the theme of What and How We Own: Building a Politics of Change.

Read more in our newsletter What & How We Own: The Politics of Change | Part III.

Links & References: 

References:

The Code of Capital | Princeton University Press by Katharina Pistor Daniel Schmachtenberger: Steering Civilization Away from Self-Destruction | Lex Fridman Podcast #191 Partial Common Ownership | RxC Wiki [The Bellagio Model: an evidence-informed, international framework for population-oriented primary care. First experiences] Hayekian economic policy - ScienceDirect James Lovelock - Wikipedia The Economics of Care | Elizabeth Hill 

Bios:

Indy Johar (he/him) is an architect, co-founder of 00 (project00.cc), and most recently Dark Matter Labs.

Indy, on behalf of 00, has co-founded multiple social ventures from Impact Hub Westminster to Impact Hub Birmingham. He has also co-led research projects such as The Compendium for the Civic Economy, whilst supporting several 00 explorations/experiments including the wikihouse.cc, opendesk.cc. Indy is a non-executive director of WikiHouse Foundation & Bloxhub. Indy was a Good Growth Commissioner for the RSA, RIBA Trustee, and Advisor to Mayor of London on Good Growth, The Liverpool City Region Land Commissioner, The State of New Jersey - The Future of Work Task Force - among others.

Most recently he has founded Dark Matter - a field laboratory focused on building the institutional infrastructures for radicle civic societies, cities, regions, and towns.

Dark Matter works with institutions around the world, from UNDP (Global), Climate Kic, McConnell (Canada), to the Scottish Gove to Bloxhub (Copenhagen)

He has taught and lectured at various institutions including the University of Bath, TU-Berlin; Architectural Association, University College London, Princeton, Harvard, MIT, and New School.

He writes often on the https://provocations.darkmatterlabs.org

Indy’s Social Links:

Indy Johar (@indy_johar) / X Indy Johar - London, United Kingdom, Project00.cc | about.me Indy Johar – Medium

Matt Prewitt (he/him) is a lawyer, technologist, and writer. He is the President of the RadicalxChange Foundation.

Matt’s Social Links:

ᴍᴀᴛᴛ ᴘʀᴇᴡɪᴛᴛ (@m_t_prewitt) / X

Additional Credits:

This episode was recorded and produced by Matt Prewitt.

This is a RadicalxChange Production.

Connect with RadicalxChange Foundation:

RadicalxChange Website @RadxChange | Twitter RxC | YouTube RxC | Instagram RxC | LinkedIn Join the conversation on Discord.

Credits:

Produced by G. Angela Corpus. Co-Produced, Edited, Narrated, and Audio Engineered by Aaron Benavides. Executive Produced by G. Angela Corpus and Matt Prewitt. Intro/Outro music by MagnusMoone, “Wind in the Willows,” is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)