Blockchain’s Mr. Universe Contest
Two Tickets to the Ethereum Gun Show
Let me start off by stating that I love Bitcoin. It’s visionary, rebellious, and in many ways, it’s the standard. I bought my first Bitcoin several months before the Ethereum crowdsale in July of 2014*. As many others, I was not idealistic enough at the time to see the long-term vision behind Vitalik Buterin and the other seven co-founders’ novel blockchain technology.
To the Bitcoin maximalists and realists, do not hate Ethereum. Satoshi created Bitcoin for an initial purpose, and it is serving that purpose wonderfully. Bitcoin is already a functional store-of-value, with the mainstream media referring to it as digital gold since 2017*. Sure, many who read the Bitcoin whitepaper believe the vision is much deeper than just being a store-of-value. In fact, it would be correct to point out that a tremendous amount of development is occurring across the Bitcoin network. Core developers have delivered a Lightning Network to boost the transaction speeds, are scaling with Segregated Witness, and are building a convenient smart contract platform via Rootstock.
Overall, I’m okay with the expansion of Bitcoin, I just fear the simplicity of its design will soon be lost with continued growth. Please, do what you do best Bitcoin and focus on being a digital store-of-value. You will not be replaced! Together with Ethereum’s open-source smart contract platform, you can transform the ecosystem for good.
Ethereum development is thriving
Going pound for pound on Github, the Ethereum and Bitcoin platforms have more development activity than any other project. Many writers seem to pull data from a single Ethereum repo, but if you look at more accurate reports, there is a massive influx of activity. Ethereum is actually growing during a bear market.
In addition to Ethereum core, the Ethereum ecosystem is thriving with a gamut of token standards including ERC20, ERC721, ERC223, and several others. The robust system continues scaling, and whilst transaction speeds are a small concern in the community, there are several development teams actively working on solutions to improve this.
The most exciting developments may in fact stem from the teams that were jumpstarted from 2015 to 2017. These include projects like OmiseGO, Status, Storj, Aragon, Augur, Origin Protocol, 0x, Gnosis, Raiden Network, Metamask, Decentraland, Chainlink and countless others. Interestingly enough, since the last time I researched these projects in depth last year, I was amazed to see just how much larger the ecosystem has grown in 2019.
Build it and they shall come
There are more Ethereum projects than I can count. I’m even more amazed that this isn’t being talked about by every news outlet, every day, on every magazine cover.
At the heart of Ethereum development is ConsenSys, a Blockchain incubator building decentralized applications and infrastructure. It may even be the most important company in the cryptosphere. In Osaka, Japan this week Consensys announced new Software-as-a-Service models:
“Infura, MythX, and Alethio, launched subscription services to support a range of offerings — from beginner to enterprise level usage some of the most widely-used security and infrastructure services on the Ethereum Network with infrastructure, data analytics and security audit software.”*
Taking the lead from ConsenSys are a plethora of projects building on and around this tremendous ecosystem. As each project grows in size and scope, we’re looking at a disruption of the current day fintech space. Take a step back and look at a sliver of the Ethereum ecosystem projects below, beginning with decentralized finance, otherwise known as DeFi.
DeFi Accelerates
The DeFi sector has been growing quickly in the Ethereum ecosystem. Besides the well known transparent lending finance project MakerDAO, there are many new faces in the crowd. With too many to mention them all I’ll drop two of the projects with more interesting developments. The Monolith website is straight out of a sci-fi movie! A decentralized banking alternative, Monolith connects you to decentralized applications (dApps) without relinquishing ownership of your tokens. The bzX Network website is as sharp as their project. Margin lending and trading, the core of DeFi.
If you are interested in building in the DeFi ecosystem consider using AAVE. With their platform you can lend, make payments, and use their APIs to integrate with your products and services.
Aragon One has been revolutionary in thought while bringing governance to the blockchain. Their sister project Aragon Black is focused on adapting current smart contract governance models.
Another unique approach to the ICO model was adopted by the Lukso Network with their RICO model. The Lukso Network is an Ethereum based blockchain using their expertise to focus on the Design and Fashion Industry.
Matic Network is bringing layer two solutions and massive scaling to Ethereum using a version of Plasma with PoS-based side chains.
Gaming projects are being built and assisted by Enjin which is an ecosystem of integrated software products that can assist in your gaming development.
NFT card gaming has grown with Cryptokitties and its newest competitor MarbleCards, a platform where you can transform any URL into a collectible card.
OpenSea is an eBay-like marketplace for digital collectibles and on Maecenas you can buy a share of famous paintings when they are auctioned.
Cryptovoxels and Decentraland are both building virtual worlds on the Ethereum blockchain. Both are live and early in development, buy some land on OpenSea and get in the game!
Projects running token offerings can run bounties for community growth through The Bounties Network and Bounty0x.
Golem is utilizing shared decentralized computing power, and Storj is allowing you to rent your computer’s spare memory.
Do you require tools and infrastructure for blockchain transactions? Look at a company like Blocknative. They are keen on growing whilst offering their expertise to the Ethereum ecosystem.
Stablecoin projects such as the Circle USDC and the Reserve RSV/RSR seek to stabilize currencies when they are needed.
Security Token Offerings are being launched from NBA players tokenizing their contracts to entire token platforms like Polymath where you create, issue, and manage digital securities on the blockchain.
Decentralized Exchanges are everywhere on Ethereum, many using the 0x Protocol to build out their exchange. Some prefer to utilize the Bancor Network or the Kyber Network exchanges.
Stateofthedaps shows over 2600 DApps on the Ethereum network as of today! There are far too many projects to include them all in this article… visit them and dive in!
This vibrant community meets far and wide
Ethereum projects are in constant search of ways to grow the ecosystem and boost partnerships. From these yearnings of relationships a vibrant array of conferences, hackathons, and meetups have grown.
There are plenty of Ethereum-based conferences across the planet. A simple Google search will show a long list of conference opportunities to get involved with. Some of my favorites are listed below.
Initiated in 2015, Devcon is the most attractive conference which hosts their event in different city each year.
“Devcon is an annual gathering held by the Ethereum Foundation and their goal is to push the boundaries of possibility in our mission to bring decentralized protocols, tools, and culture to the world.”
From 2018, OFFDevcon has runalongside Devcon to celebrate all that is blockchain before, during, and after the Devcon event. Post-conference parties and blockchain based events are all in the cards for OFFDevcon.
The Ethereum Developers Conferences EDCON has been rotating cities since 2017 and is the first conference every year that Ethereum developers have their eye on attending. Their goal, amongst others, is to accelerate the organic development of the Ethereum ecosystem.
Hackathons are happening everywhere. These have been organized to teach new skills, strengthen developer communities, and push the limits of new technologies. Over the last few years we have seen huge hackathon events and communities building up in cities across the globe. ETHWaterloo, ETHBoston, ETHDenver, ETHIndia, ETHCapeTown and ETHParis to name a few. Check out what ETHGlobal is doing to organize and publicize these events!
Have you visited Reddit lately? The Ethereum communities at r/ethtrader and r/ethereum are subreddits you should consider visiting daily. These communities are essential for interacting with vibrant, friendly, intelligent Ethereum supporters and discovering a plethora of information on the Ethereum ecosystem.
Need some local and live interaction? One just has to visit MeetUp.com and search for Ethereum to see there is something happening almost certainly near your home. The knowledge you will gain along with a possibility of friendships and networking are invaluable. I know a MakerDAO developer who hosts the Columbus, Ohio Ethereum Meetup. The few conversations I’ve had with him have been enlightening and have opened my mind to additional possibilities of DeFi (decentralized finance). Take a look at this map of current Ethereum meetups!
The growth level of the Ethereum community should show anyone paying attention that Ethereum is not going away anytime soon. The excitement and yearning for interaction and knowledge is something special that you can only fully grasp once you attend one of these events.
The time is now
With the current state of the world economy, many people are looking for economic protection if a global recession comes afoot. The most popular safe havens discussed are gold and silver… with an occasional mention to Bitcoin. In a recent report from MarketWatch, Patrick Byrne, the recent CEO of Overstock (a billion dollar company) recently stepped down and sold off his company stocks. His reasoning was exciting to say the least.
“Any suggestion that [Patrick] sold the shares due to a lack of confidence in the company’s prospects was “wrong,” and said that [Patrick] would invest almost all the money in gold, silver and two unnamed cryptocurrencies as a “hedge” against the economy failing and taking Overstock with it.”
Although a bleak statement, this is a good sign that the cryptocurrency community and the Ethereum community in particular are on the right track. I would assume Bitcoin and Ethereum are Mr. Byrne’s two unnamed cryptocurrencies for the reasons stated in this article. I’d also like to emphasize how impressive the growth in development of Ethereum in a crypto bear market is.
Have you looked at the ETH/BTC trading pair history lately? Here is the 30 month ETH/BTC chart:
The Ethereum price drop in ratio to Bitcoin makes perfect sense to be with a global recession looming. Digital gold is surely a hedge, but a decentralized software platform that is additionally a virtual currency…a bit questionable for those who haven’t seen the vibrant, constant growth. As we are seeing other blockchains falter, doubters are beginning to realize how important Ethereum really is. A great hedge of economic safety versus the inflationary fiat dollar and legacy financial markets.
Although as we’ve observed, Ethereum is much more than just a store of value and its vision is not becoming digital gold. I am convinced a thriving Ethereum ecosystem will encompass connections and momentum from the global business world bringing further acceptance of Bitcoin with its success.
Let’s continue to grow together. Bitcoin will always be The King of crypto and may become the primary store of wealth for all of the world. It will, however, happen faster and smoother if Ethereum continues to fulfill its massive potential. I’m excited to watch these two blockchain brothers transversing the cryptosphere side by side.
*The Ethereum presale took place from Tuesday, 22 July 2014 to Tuesday, 2 September 2014
* please visit https://www.ethereum.org
**Disclaimer: This article is not tax or financial advice, please seek the help of a professional tax consultant or financial advisor.
