Weekly Update: Coronavirus, Cosmos, Mooncake
(updated on 18 Feb 2020)
Quite some different issues have happened. Different, but relevant.
Coronavirus
I find that the coronavirus outbreak is quite relevant to crypto space. For example, it has demonstrated what is meant by “single point of failure”. I briefly related this to a policy called “strengthen the trunk, weaken the branches.”.
I have tweeted quite a lot about this outbreak as I can still recall how bad it was during the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong in 2003. I will choose to overreact than downplay, especially we all know those official announcements are unreliable. After reading all those news (news, fake news, fake fake news), I have drawn a timeline up to late Jan 2020:
Regarding how this outbreak will affect the crypto market, I notice that quite some people think this is a bullish factor to crypto prices. I don’t think in this way. The economy of China has been weak before this outbreak. So the outbreak will actually help to end the economic downturn earlier. Smart (Chinese) money will risk-on China’s stocks and risk-off other asset classes, such as cryptos. In fact, they may be forced to do so.
There is also an extremely small chance of a political black swan in China due to the extreme situation: China is locking down nearly 20 cities with over 60M people and these numbers are growing. I think this has never happened in the human history.
May the mask be with you.
Cosmos
Before I talk about the drama, I need to first disclose a few points.
1) Recently I have talked quite a lot about Proposal 23 which was finally passed with more than 90% Yes vote. Our previous three posts are relating to this topic.
2) Recently we have also experienced a plunge in delegation. I tweeted on this matter:
In fact, as a startup which has spent quite some effort in validator business, we have been asked very often by potential investors how we see the sustainability of validator business. My canned response as follows:
Validator alone is not cool. As a validator with some track records, we have some income but this is not scalable. We have also earned some reputation which has helped us to create some other service income. We have built Big Dipper which is being used by people from all over the world. With our brand as a validator and the tractions of Big Dipper, we can bootstrap Desmos and its first DApp “Mooncake” easier.
3) I have criticized the centralization problem of Cosmos a few days after Cosmos Hub launch:
All I want to say is: I am not always bullish on Cosmos. I am not a yes-man. I am not always shilling Cosmos even though our own success may tie to the success of Cosmos.
As an outsider, I am not qualified to comment too much on the so-called drama. But I have the responsibility to share with you my thought as some of our audiences know (and then fall in love with) Cosmos through us, especially our friends in Asia. Here’s my comment:
Drama is a good thing for Cosmos.
Why drama? Because they care about Cosmos. Why we talk about the drama? Because we care about Cosmos. There are not many projects that have a big and engaging enough team and community to play the drama. This is a sign that Cosmos has evolved again.
Cosmos community has already reached the critical mass. It will grow in a self-sustaining way. The development of Cosmos will not be stopped by one or two or three people. There are so many people who have invested a lot of time and money in Cosmos and our only choice is to realize it together. I guess this is the true meaning of “skin in the game”.
(Note: we are also quite interested in Virgo.)
Forbole
As a company update, please join us in welcoming Monika as our Full-stack Developer. Currently she is focused on bringing Big Dipper to the next level:
Desmos & Mooncake
Morpheus-1001, which is the latest testnet of Desmos, is running smoothly with over 20 third-party validators. You can check the status on its Big Dipper.
Desmos is designed for decentralized social networks. The best way to demonstrate this is to build one. So we have built Mooncake, which is a “decentralized Twitter” powered by Desmos.
Testing version of Mooncake is now available on Android and iOS! You can download here:
➡️ Android: https://mooncake.space/download
➡️ iOS: https://testflight.apple.com/join/3Zh9mWFk
Desmos communication channels:
➡️ Web: http://desmos.network/
➡️ Blog: https://medium.com/desmosnetwork
➡️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/desmosnetwork
➡️ Telegram (general): https://t.me/desmoslabs
➡️ Discord (validators’ chat): https://discordapp.com/invite/yxPRGdq
➡️ Incentivized program: http://primer.desmos.network/
➡️ Private sale (indicate your interest): https://bit.ly/2udxZOF
