Roman Onanchenko

Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high standing in pop culture,[2] his books have sold more than 350 million copies,[3] and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. King has published 63 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, and five non-fiction books.[4] He has also written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in book collections.[5][6]

King has received Bram Stoker Awards, World Fantasy Awards, and British Fantasy Society Awards. In 2003, the National Book Foundation awarded him the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.[7] He has also received awards for his contribution to literature for his entire bibliography, such as the 2004 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and the 2007 Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America.[8] In 2015, he was awarded with a National Medal of Arts from the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts for his contributions to literature.[9]

Early life

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine, on September 21, 1947. His father, Donald Edwin King, was a merchant seaman[citation needed] who was born with the surname Pollock but changed it to King as an adult.[10][11][12] King's mother was Nellie Ruth King (née Pillsbury).[12] His parents were married in Scarborough, Maine, on July 23, 1939.[13] Shortly afterwards, they lived with Donald's family in Chicago before moving to Croton-on-Hudson, New York.[14] King's parents returned to Maine towards the end of World War II, living in a modest house in Scarborough. When King was two years old, his father left the family. His mother raised him and his older brother David by herself, sometimes under great financial strain. They moved from Scarborough and depended on relatives in Chicago; Croton-on-Hudson; West De Pere, Wisconsin; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Malden, Massachusetts; and Stratford, Connecticut.[15][16] When King was 11, his family moved to Durham, Maine, where his mother cared for her parents until their deaths. She then became a caregiver in a local residential facility for the mentally challenged.[1] King was raised Methodist,[17][18] but lost his belief in organized religion while in high school. While no longer religious, he says he chooses to believe in the existence of God.[19]

As a child, King apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train, though he has no memory of the event. His family told him that after leaving home to play with the boy, King returned speechlessly and seemingly in shock. Only later did the family learn of the friend's death. Some commentators have suggested that this event may have psychologically inspired some of King's darker works,[20] but King makes no mention of it in his memoir On Writing (2000). He related in detail his primary inspiration for writing horror fiction in his non-fiction Danse Macabre (1981), in a chapter titled "An Annoying Autobiographical Pause". He compared his uncle's dowsing for water using the bough of an apple branch with the sudden realization of what he wanted to do for a living. That inspiration occurred while browsing through an attic with his elder brother, when King uncovered a paperback version of an H. P. Lovecraft collection of short stories he remembers as The Lurker in the Shadows, that had belonged to his father. King told Barnes & Noble Studios during a 2009 interview, "I knew that I'd found home when I read that book."[21]

King attended Durham Elementary School and graduated from Lisbon Falls High School in Lisbon Falls, Maine, in 1966.[22] He displayed an early interest in horror as an avid reader of EC horror comics, including Tales from the Crypt, and he later paid tribute to the comics in his screenplay for Creepshow. He began writing for fun while still in school, contributing articles to Dave's Rag, the newspaper his brother published with a mimeograph machine, and later began selling stories to his friends based on movies he had seen (he was forced to return the profits when discovered by teachers.) The first of his stories to be independently published was "I Was a Teenage Grave Robber", which was serialized over four issues (three published and one unpublished) of a fanzine, Comics Review, in 1965. That story was published the following year in a revised form as "In a Half-World of Terror" in another fanzine, Stories of Suspense, edited by Marv Wolfman.[23] As a teen, King also won a Scholastic Art and Writing Award.[24]

From 1966, King studied at the University of Maine, graduating in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in English.[25] That year, his daughter Naomi Rachel was born. He wrote a column, Steve King's Garbage Truck, for the student newspaper, The Maine Campus, and participated in a writing workshop organized by Burton Hatlen.[26] King held a variety of jobs to pay for his studies, including janitor, gas pump attendant, and worker at an industrial laundry. King met his wife, fellow student Tabitha Spruce, at the university's Fogler Library after one of Professor Hatlen's workshops; they wed in 1971.[26]

Career

Beginnings

King sold his first professional short story, "The Glass Floor", to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967.[1]

After graduating from the University of Maine, King earned a certificate to teach high school but, unable to find a teaching post immediately, he initially supplemented his laboring wage by selling short stories to men's magazines such as Cavalier. Many of these early stories have been republished in the collection Night Shift. The short story "The Raft" was published in Adam, a men's magazine. After being arrested for stealing traffic cones (he was annoyed after one of the cones knocked his muffler loose), he was fined $250 for petty larceny but had no money to pay. However, a check then arrived for "The Raft" (then entitled "The Float"), and King cashed it to pay the fine.[27] In 1971, King was hired as a teacher at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. He continued to contribute short stories to magazines and worked on ideas for novels.[1] During 1966–1970, he wrote a draft about his dystopian novel called The Long Walk[28] and the anti-war novel Sword in the Darkness,[29][30] but neither of the works was published at the time; only The Long Walk was later released in 1979.

Carrie and aftermath

In 1973, King's novel Carrie was accepted by publishing house Doubleday. Carrie was King's fourth novel,[31] but it was the first to be published. It was written on a portable typewriter that belonged to his wife. The novel began as a short story intended for Cavalier magazine, but King tossed the first three pages of his work in the garbage can.[32] Tabitha King fished the pages out of the garbage can and encouraged him to finish the story, saying that she would help him with the female perspective; he followed her advice and expanded it into a novel.[33] King said, "I persisted because I was dry and had no better ideas… my considered opinion was that I had written the world's all-time loser."[34] According to The Guardian, Carrie "is the story of Carrie White, a high-school student with latent—and then, as the novel progresses, developing—telekinetic powers. It's brutal in places, affecting in others (Carrie's relationship with her almost hysterically religious mother being a particularly damaged one), and gory in even more."[35]

When Carrie was chosen for publication, King's phone was out of service. Doubleday editor William Thompson – who would eventually become King's close friend – sent a telegram to King's house in late March or early April 1973[36] which read: "Carrie Officially A Doubleday Book. $2,500 Advance Against Royalties. Congrats, Kid – The Future Lies Ahead, Bill."[37] According to King, he bought a new Ford Pinto with the money from the advance.[36] On May 13, 1973, New American Library bought the paperback rights for $400,000, which—in accordance with King's contract with Doubleday—was split between them.[38][39] Carrie set King's career in motion and became a significant novel in the horror genre. In 1976, it was made into a successful horror film.[40]

King's 'Salem's Lot was published in 1975. In a 1987 issue of The Highway Patrolman magazine, he stated, "The story seems sort of down home to me. I have a special cold spot in my heart for it!"[41] After his mother's death, King and his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, where King wrote The Shining (published 1977). The family returned to western Maine in 1975, where King completed his fourth novel, The Stand (published 1978). In 1977, the family, with the addition of Owen Philip (his third and youngest child), traveled briefly to England, returning to Maine that fall, where King began teaching creative writing at the University of Maine.[42]

In 1982, King published Different Seasons, a collection of four novellas with a more serious dramatic bent than the horror fiction for which King is famous.[43] The collection is notable for having had three of its four novellas turned into Hollywood films: Stand by Me (1986) was adapted from the novella The Body,[44] The Shawshank Redemption (1994) was adapted from the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,[45] and Apt Pupil (1998) was adapted from the novella of the same name.[46][47]

In 1985, King wrote his first work for the comic book medium,[48] writing a few pages of the benefit X-Men comic book Heroes for Hope Starring the X-Men. The book, whose profits were donated to assist with famine relief in Africa, was written by a number of different authors in the comic book field, such as Chris Claremont, Stan Lee, and Alan Moore, as well as authors not primarily associated with that industry, such as Harlan Ellison.[49] The following year, King published It (1986), which was the best-selling hard-cover novel in the United States that year,[50] and wrote the introduction to Batman No. 400, an anniversary issue in which he expressed his preference for that character over Superman.[51][52]

The Dark Tower books

Main article: The Dark Tower (series)

In the late 1970s, King began what became a series of interconnected stories about a lone gunslinger, Roland, who pursues the "Man in Black" in an alternate-reality universe that is a cross between J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth and the American Wild West as depicted by Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone in their spaghetti Westerns. The first of these stories, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, was initially published in five installments by The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction under the editorship of Edward L. Ferman, from 1977 to 1981. The Gunslinger was continued as an eight-book epic series called The Dark Tower, whose books King wrote and published infrequently over four decades.[citation needed]

Pseudonyms

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, King published a handful of short novels—Rage (1977), The Long Walk (1979), Roadwork (1981), The Running Man (1982) and Thinner (1984)—under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The idea behind this was to test whether he could replicate his success again and to allay his fears that his popularity was an accident. An alternate explanation was that publishing standards at the time allowed only a single book a year.[53] He picked up the name from the hard rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, of which he is a fan.[54]

Richard Bachman was exposed as King's pseudonym by a persistent Washington, D.C. bookstore clerk, Steve Brown, who noticed similarities between the works and later located publisher's records at the Library of Congress that named King as the author of one of Bachman's novels.[55] This led to a press release heralding Bachman's "death"—supposedly from "cancer of the pseudonym".[56] King dedicated his 1989 book The Dark Half, about a pseudonym turning on a writer, to "the deceased Richard Bachman", and in 1996, when the Stephen King novel Desperation was released, the companion novel The Regulators carried the "Bachman" byline.

In 2006, during a press conference in London, King declared that he had discovered another Bachman novel, titled Blaze. It was published on June 12, 2007. In fact, the original manuscript had been held at King's Alma mater, the University of Maine in Orono, for many years and had been covered by numerous King experts. King rewrote the original 1973 manuscript for its publication.[57]

King has used other pseudonyms. The short story "The Fifth Quarter" was published under the pseudonym John Swithen (the name of a character in the novel Carrie), by Cavalier in April 1972.[58] The story was reprinted in King's collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes in 1993 under his own name. In the introduction to the Bachman novel Blaze, King claims, with tongue-in-cheek, that "Bachman" was the person using the Swithen pseudonym.

The "children's book" Charlie the Choo-Choo: From the World of The Dark Tower was published in 2016 under the pseudonym Beryl Evans, who was portrayed by actress Allison Davies during a book signing at San Diego Comic-Con,[59] and illustrated by Ned Dameron. It is adapted from a fictional book central to the plot of King's previous novel The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands.[60]

Digital era

In 2000, King published online a serialized horror novel, The Plant.[61] At first the public assumed that King had abandoned the project because sales were unsuccessful, but King later stated that he had simply run out of stories.[62] The unfinished epistolary novel is still available from King's official site, now free. Also in 2000, he wrote a digital novella, Riding the Bullet, and saying he foresaw e-books becoming 50% of the market "probably by 2013 and maybe by 2012". However, he also stated: "Here's the thing—people tire of the new toys quickly."[63]

King wrote the first draft of the 2001 novel Dreamcatcher with a notebook and a Waterman fountain pen, which he called "the world's finest word processor".[64]

In August 2003, King began writing a column on pop culture appearing in Entertainment Weekly, usually every third week. The column was called The Pop of King (a play on the nickname "The King of Pop" commonly attributed to Michael Jackson).[65]

In 2006, King published an apocalyptic novel, Cell. The book features a sudden force in which every cell phone user turns into a mindless killer. King noted in the book's introduction that he does not use cell phones.[citation needed]

In 2008, King published both a novel, Duma Key, and a collection, Just After Sunset. The latter featured 13 short stories, including a previously unpublished novella, N. Starting July 28, 2008, N. was released as a serialized animated series to lead up to the release of Just After Sunset.[66]

In 2009, King published Ur, a novella written exclusively for the launch of the second-generation Amazon Kindle and available only on Amazon.com, and Throttle, a novella co-written with his son Joe Hill and released later as an audiobook titled Road Rage, which included Richard Matheson's short story "Duel". King's novel Under the Dome was published on November 10 of that year; it is a reworking of an unfinished novel he tried writing twice in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and at 1,074 pages, it is the largest novel he has written since It (1986). Under the Dome debuted at No. 1 in The New York Times Bestseller List.[67]

On February 16, 2010, King announced on his Web site that his next book would be a collection of four previously unpublished novellas called Full Dark, No Stars. In April of that year, King published Blockade Billy, an original novella issued first by independent small press Cemetery Dance Publications and later released in mass-market paperback by Simon & Schuster. The following month, DC Comics premiered American Vampire, a monthly comic book series written by King with short-story writer Scott Snyder, and illustrated by Rafael Albuquerque, which represents King's first original comics work.[68][69][70] King wrote the background history of the very first American vampire, Skinner Sweet, in the first five-issues story arc. Scott Snyder wrote the story of Pearl.[71]

King's next novel, 11/22/63, was published November 8, 2011,[72][73] and was nominated for the 2012 World Fantasy Award Best Novel.[74] The eighth Dark Tower volume, The Wind Through the Keyhole, was published in 2012.[75] King's next book was Joyland, a novel about "an amusement-park serial killer", according to an article in The Sunday Times, published on April 8, 2012.[76]

During his Chancellor's Speaker Series talk at University of Massachusetts Lowell on December 7, 2012, King indicated that he was writing a crime novel about a retired policeman being taunted by a murderer. With a working title Mr. Mercedes and inspired by a true event about a woman driving her car into a McDonald's restaurant, it was originally meant to be a short story just a few pages long.[77] In an interview with Parade, published on May 26, 2013, King confirmed that the novel was "more or less" completed[78] he published it in June 2013. Later, on June 20, 2013, while doing a video chat with fans as part of promoting the upcoming Under the Dome TV series, King mentioned he was halfway through writing his next novel, Revival,[79] which was released November 11, 2014.[80]

King announced in June 2014 that Mr. Mercedes is part of a trilogy; the second book, Finders Keepers, was released on June 2, 2015. On April 22, 2015, it was revealed that King was working on the third book of the trilogy, End of Watch, which was ultimately released on June 7, 2016.[81][82]

During a tour to promote End of Watch, King revealed that he had collaborated on a novel, set in a women's prison in West Virginia, with his son, Owen King, titled Sleeping Beauties.[83]

In 2018, he released the novel The Outsider, which featured the character of Holly Gibney, and the novella Elevation. In 2019, he released the novel The Institute. In 2020, King released If It Bleeds, a collection of four previously unpublished novellas.

Collaborations

Writings

King has written two novels with horror novelist Peter Straub: The Talisman (1984) and a sequel, Black House (2001). King has indicated that he and Straub will likely write the third and concluding book in this series, the tale of Jack Sawyer, but has set no deadline for its completion.[citation needed]

King produced an artist's book with designer Barbara Kruger, My Pretty Pony (1989), published in a limited edition of 250 by the Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Alfred A. Knopf released it in a general trade edition.[84]

The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red (2001) was a paperback tie-in for the King-penned miniseries Rose Red (2002). Published under anonymous authorship, the book was written by Ridley Pearson. The novel is written in the form of a diary by Ellen Rimbauer, and annotated by the fictional professor of paranormal activity, Joyce Reardon. The novel also presents a fictional afterword by Ellen Rimbauer's grandson, Steven. Intended to be a promotional item rather than a stand-alone work, its popularity spawned a 2003 prequel television miniseries to Rose Red, titled The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer. This spin-off is a rare occasion of another author being granted permission to write commercial work using characters and story elements invented by King. The novel tie-in idea was repeated on Stephen King's next project, the miniseries Kingdom Hospital. Richard Dooling, King's collaborator on Kingdom Hospital and writer of several episodes in the miniseries, published a fictional diary, The Journals of Eleanor Druse, in 2004. Eleanor Druse is a key character in Kingdom Hospital, much as Dr. Joyce Readon and Ellen Rimbauer are key characters in Rose Red.[citation needed]

Throttle (2009), a novella written in collaboration with his son Joe Hill, appears in the anthology He Is Legend: Celebrating Richard Matheson.[85] Their second novella collaboration, In the Tall Grass (2012), was published in two parts in Esquire.[86][87] It was later released in e-book and audiobook formats, the latter read by Stephen Lang.[88]

King and his son Owen King wrote the novel Sleeping Beauties, released in 2017, that is set in a women's prison.[89]

King and Richard Chizmar collaborated to write Gwendy's Button Box (2017), a horror novella taking place is King's fictional town of Castle Rock.[90] A sequel titled Gwendy's Magic Feather (2019) was written solely by Chizmar.[91] In November 2020, Chizmar announced that he and King were writing a third installment in the series titled Gwendy's Final Task, this time as a full-length novel, to be released in February 2022.[92][93][94]

Music

In 1988, the band Blue Öyster Cult recorded an updated version of its 1974 song "Astronomy". The single released for radio play featured a narrative intro spoken by King.[95][96] The Blue Öyster Cult song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" was also used in the King TV series The Stand.[97]

King collaborated with Michael Jackson to create Ghosts (1996), a 40-minute musical video.[98] King states he was motivated to collaborate as he is "always interested in trying something new, and for (him), writing a minimusical would be new".[99] In 2005, King featured with a small spoken word part during the cover version of Everlong (by Foo Fighters) in Bronson Arroyo's album Covering the Bases, at the time, Arroyo was a pitcher for Major League Baseball team Boston Red Sox of whom King is a longtime fan.[100] In 2012, King collaborated with musician Shooter Jennings and his band Hierophant, providing the narration for their album, Black Ribbons.[101] King played guitar for the rock band Rock Bottom Remainders, several of whose members are authors. Other members include Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, James McBride, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount, Jr., Matt Groening, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Sam Barry, and Greg Iles. King and the other band members collaborated to release an e-book called Hard Listening: The Greatest Rock Band Ever (of Authors) Tells All (June 2013).[102][103] King wrote a musical entitled Ghost Brothers of Darkland County (2012) with musician John Mellencamp.

Analysis

Writing style and approach

King's formula for learning to write well is: "Read and write four to six hours a day. If you cannot find the time for that, you can't expect to become a good writer." He sets out each day with a quota of 2000 words and will not stop writing until it is met. He also has a simple definition for talent in writing: "If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented."[104]

When asked why he writes, King responds: "The answer to that is fairly simple—there was nothing else I was made to do. I was made to write stories and I love to write stories. That's why I do it. I really can't imagine doing anything else and I can't imagine not doing what I do."[105] He is also often asked why he writes such terrifying stories and he answers with another question: "Why do you assume I have a choice?"[106] King usually begins the story creation process by imagining a "what if" scenario, such as what would happen if a writer is kidnapped by a sadistic nurse in Colorado.[107]

King often uses authors as characters, or includes mention of fictional books in his stories, novellas and novels, such as Paul Sheldon, who is the main character in Misery, adult Bill Denbrough in It, Ben Mears in 'Salem's Lot, and Jack Torrance in The Shining. He has extended this to breaking the fourth wall by including himself as a character in The Dark Tower series from The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla onwards. In September 2009 it was announced he would serve as a writer for Fangoria.[108]

Influences

King has called Richard Matheson "the author who influenced me most as a writer".[109] In a current edition of Matheson's The Shrinking Man, King is quoted as saying, "A horror story if there ever was one...a great adventure story—it is certainly one of that select handful that I have given to people, envying them the experience of the first reading."[citation needed]

Other acknowledged influences include H. P. Lovecraft,[110][111] Arthur Machen,[112] Ray Bradbury,[113] Joseph Payne Brennan,[114] Elmore Leonard,[115] John D. MacDonald, and Don Robertson.[116]

King's The Shining is immersed in gothic influences, including "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe (which was directly influenced by the first gothic novel, Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto).[117] The Overlook Hotel acts as a replacement for the traditional gothic castle, and Jack Torrance is a tragic villain seeking redemption.[117]

King's favorite books are (in order): The Golden Argosy; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Satanic Verses; McTeague; Lord of the Flies; Bleak House; Nineteen Eighty-Four; The Raj Quartet; Light in August; and Blood Meridian.[118]

Critical response

Science fiction editors John Clute and Peter Nicholls[119] offer a largely favorable appraisal of King, noting his "pungent prose, sharp ear for dialogue, disarmingly laid-back, frank style, along with his passionately fierce denunciation of human stupidity and cruelty (especially to children) [all of which rank] him among the more distinguished 'popular' writers."

In his book The Philosophy of Horror (1990), Noël Carroll discusses King's work as an exemplar of modern horror fiction. Analyzing both the narrative structure of King's fiction and King's non-fiction ruminations on the art and craft of writing, Carroll writes that for King, "the horror story is always a contest between the normal and the abnormal such that the normal is reinstated and, therefore, affirmed."[120]

In his analysis of post–World War II horror fiction, The Modern Weird Tale (2001), critic S. T. Joshi[121] devotes a chapter to King's work. Joshi argues that King's best-known works (his supernatural novels) are his worst, describing them as mostly bloated, illogical, maudlin and prone to deus ex machina endings. Despite these criticisms, Joshi argues that since Gerald's Game (1993), King has been tempering the worst of his writing faults, producing books that are leaner, more believable and generally better written.[citation needed]

In 1996, King won an O. Henry Award for his short story "The Man in the Black Suit".[122]

In his short story collection A Century of Great Suspense Stories, editor Jeffery Deaver noted that King "singlehandedly made popular fiction grow up. While there were many good best-selling writers before him, King, more than anybody since John D. MacDonald, brought reality to genre novels. He has often remarked that 'Salem's Lot was "Peyton Place meets Dracula. And so it was. The rich characterization, the careful and caring social eye, the interplay of story line and character development announced that writers could take worn themes such as vampirism and make them fresh again. Before King, many popular writers found their efforts to make their books serious blue-penciled by their editors. 'Stuff like that gets in the way of the story,' they were told. Well, it's stuff like that that has made King so popular, and helped free the popular name from the shackles of simple genre writing. He is a master of masters."[123]

In 2003, King was honored by the National Book Awards with a lifetime achievement award, the Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Some in the literary community expressed disapproval of the award: Richard E. Snyder, the former CEO of Simon & Schuster, described King's work as "non-literature" and critic Harold Bloom denounced the choice:

The decision to give the National Book Foundation's annual award for "distinguished contribution" to Stephen King is extraordinary, another low in the shocking process of dumbing down our cultural life. I've described King in the past as a writer of penny dreadfuls, but perhaps even that is too kind. He shares nothing with Edgar Allan Poe. What he is is an immensely inadequate writer on a sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph, book-by-book basis.[124]

Orson Scott Card responded:

Let me assure you that King's work most definitely is literature, because it was written to be published and is read with admiration. What Snyder really means is that it is not the literature preferred by the academic-literary elite.[125]

In 2008, King's book On Writing was ranked 21st on Entertainment Weekly's list of "The New Classics: The 100 Best Reads from 1983 to 2008".[126]

Political views and activism

In 1984, King endorsed Gary Hart's presidential campaign.[127]

In April 2008, King spoke out against HB 1423, a bill pending in the Massachusetts state legislature that would restrict or ban the sale of violent video games to anyone under the age of 18. King argued that such laws allow legislators to ignore the economic divide between the rich and poor and the easy availability of guns, which he believed were the actual causes of violence.[128]

During the 2008 presidential election, King voiced his support for Democratic candidate Barack Obama.[129] King was quoted as calling conservative commentator Glenn Beck "Satan's mentally challenged younger brother".[130]

On March 8, 2011, King spoke at a political rally in Sarasota aimed against Governor Rick Scott (R-FL), voicing his opposition to the Tea Party movement.[131]

On April 30, 2012, King published an article in The Daily Beast calling for rich Americans, including himself, to pay more taxes, citing it as "a practical necessity and moral imperative that those who have received much should be obligated to pay ... in the same proportion".[132]

On January 25, 2013, King published an essay titled "Guns" via Amazon.com's Kindle single feature, which discusses the gun debate in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. King called for gun owners to support a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons, writing, "Autos and semi-autos are weapons of mass destruction...When lunatics want to make war on the unarmed and unprepared, these are the weapons they use."[133][134] The essay became the fifth-bestselling non-fiction title for the Kindle.[135]

King has criticized Donald Trump and Rep. Steve King, deeming them racists.[136][137][138]

In June 2018, King called for the release of the Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who was jailed in Russia.[139]

In the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, King endorsed Elizabeth Warren's campaign.[140] Warren eventually suspended her campaign, and King later endorsed Joe Biden's campaign in the 2020 general election.[141]

Maine politics

King endorsed Shenna Bellows in the 2014 U.S. Senate election for the seat held by Republican Susan Collins.[142]

King publicly criticized Paul LePage during LePage's tenure as Governor of Maine, referring to him as one of The Three Stooges (with then-Florida Governor Rick Scott and then-Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker being the other two).[131] He was critical of LePage for incorrectly suggesting in a 2015 radio address that King avoided paying Maine income taxes by living out of state for part of the year. The statement was later corrected by the Governor's office, but no apology was issued. King said LePage was "full of the stuff that makes the grass grow green"[143] and demanded that LePage "man up and apologize".[144] LePage declined to apologize to King, stating, "I never said Stephen King did not pay income taxes. What I said was, Stephen King's not in Maine right now. That's what I said."[145]

The attention garnered by the LePage criticism led to efforts to encourage King to run for Governor of Maine in 2018.[146] King said he would not run or serve.[147] King sent a tweet on June 30, 2015, calling LePage "a terrible embarrassment to the state I live in and love. If he won't govern, he should resign." He later clarified that he was not calling on LePage to resign, but to "go to work or go back home".[148] On August 27, 2016, King called LePage "a bigot, a homophobe, and a racist".[149]

Philanthropy

King has stated that he donates approximately $4 million per year "to libraries, local fire departments that need updated lifesaving equipment (Jaws of Life tools are always a popular request), schools, and a scattering of organisations that underwrite the arts."[132][150]

The Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, chaired by King and his wife, ranks sixth among Maine charities in terms of average annual giving with over $2.8 million in grants per year, according to The Grantsmanship Center.[151]

In November 2011, the STK Foundation donated $70,000 in matched funding via his radio station to help pay the heating bills for families in need in his home town of Bangor, Maine, during the winter.[152]

Personal life

King married Tabitha Spruce on January 2, 1971.[153] She too is a novelist and philanthropic activist. They own and divide their time between three houses: one in Bangor, Maine, one in Lovell, Maine, and for the winter a waterfront mansion located off the Gulf of Mexico in Sarasota, Florida. King's home in Bangor has been described as an unofficial tourist attraction, and as of 2019, the couple plan to convert it into a facility housing his archives, as well as a writers' retreat.[154][155]

The Kings have three children—a daughter and two sons—and four grandchildren.[1] Their daughter Naomi is a Unitarian Universalist Church minister in Plantation, Florida, with her partner, Rev. Dr. Thandeka.[156] Both of the Kings' sons are authors: Owen King published his first collection of stories, We're All in This Together: A Novella and Stories, in 2005. Joseph Hillström King, who writes as Joe Hill, published a collection of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, in 2005. His debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box (2007), was optioned by Warner Bros.[157]

In the early 1970s, King developed a drinking problem which would plague him for more than a decade.[158] Soon after Carrie's release in 1974, King's mother died of uterine cancer; King has written of his severe drinking problem at this time, stating that he was drunk while delivering the eulogy at his mother's funeral.[159]: 69  King's addictions to alcohol and other drugs were so serious during the 1980s that, as he acknowledged in On Writing in 2000, he can barely remember writing Cujo.[159]: 73  Shortly after the novel's publication, King's family and friends staged an intervention, dumping on the rug in front of him evidence of his addictions taken from his office, including beer cans, cigarette butts, grams of cocaine, Xanax, Valium, NyQuil, Robitussin, and mouthwash. As King related in his memoir, he then sought help, quit all drugs (including alcohol) in the late 1980s, and has remained sober since.[159]: 72  The first novel he wrote after becoming sober was Needful Things.[160]

King told Bon Appétit magazine in 2013 that he married Tabitha "because of the fish that she cooked for me." He said his favorite foods are baked salmon and cheesecake. King said he did not like oysters.[161] A recipe from King, Lunchtime Gloop, is included in the 2020 cookbook Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook. The Rachael Ray magazine printed the recipe as made with "greasy hamburger" and canned spaghetti.[162] The vegetarian journalist Avery Yale Kamila said in the Portland Press Herald newspaper the recipe had a "scary meat-based atmosphere" and suspected it of harboring "secret vegetarian undertones" because his daughter Naomi King once owned a vegetarian restaurant name of Tabitha Jean’s in Portland, Maine in the 1990s.[163] In 1988, King ate a steak and drank a bloody Mary cocktail at the Peter Luger Steak House restaurant in New York with New York Times writer Bryan Miller. King told to Miller of eating beef stew and homemade bread at home. He said he does not like lobster. He described making what sounded like the Lunchtime Gloop recipe for his children.[164]

King and his wife Tabitha own Zone Radio Corp, a radio station group consisting of WZON/620 AM,[165] WKIT/100.3 & WZLO/103.1.

In sports, King is a longtime fan of Major League Baseball team Boston Red Sox, his nonfiction book Faithful published in 2004, co-written with his friend and fellow author Stewart O'Nan, chronicles the exchanges between King and O'Nan (also a longtime fan of the Red Sox) about the historic 2004 Boston Red Sox season that culminated with the Red Sox winning the 2004 World Series, ending an 86-year championship drought.[166]

Car accident and aftermath

On June 19, 1999, at about 4:30 p.m., King was walking on the shoulder of Maine State Route 5, in Lovell, Maine. Driver Bryan Edwin Smith, distracted by an unrestrained dog moving in the back of his minivan, struck King, who landed in a depression in the ground about 14 feet (four meters) from the pavement of Route 5.[159]: 206  Early reports at the time from Oxford County Sheriff deputy Matt Baker, claimed King was hit from behind and some witnesses said the driver was not speeding, reckless, or drinking.[167] However, Smith was later arrested and charged with driving to endanger and aggravated assault. He pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of driving to endanger and was sentenced to six months in county jail (suspended), and had his driving license suspended for a year.[168] In his book On Writing, King states he was heading north, walking against the traffic. Shortly before the accident took place, a woman in a car, also northbound, passed King first and then the light-blue Dodge van. The van was looping from one side of the road to the other, and the woman told her passenger she hoped "that guy in the van doesn't hit him."[159]: 206 

King was conscious enough to give the deputy phone numbers to contact his family but was in considerable pain. He was transported to Northern Cumberland Hospital in Bridgton and then flown by air ambulance to Central Maine Medical Center (CMMC) in Lewiston. His injuries—a collapsed right lung, multiple fractures of his right leg, scalp laceration and a broken hip—kept him at CMMC until July 9. His leg bones were so shattered that doctors initially considered amputating his leg but stabilized the bones in the leg with an external fixator.[169] After five operations in 10 days and physical therapy, King resumed work on On Writing in July, though his hip was still shattered and he could sit for only about 40 minutes before the pain became unbearable.[159]: 216 

King's lawyer and two others purchased Smith's van for $1,500, reportedly to prevent it from appearing on eBay. The van was later crushed at a junkyard, to King's disappointment, as he had fantasized about smashing it.[170][171]

In early 2014 additional developers joined Buterin, including Gavin Wood and Jeffrey Wilcke listed as Lead C++ Developer and Lead Go Developer respectively as well as Anthony Di Iorio, Mihai Alisie, Joseph Lubin, and Stephen Tual in primarily non-development roles. The Ethereum Foundation (Stiftung Ethereum) was founded in July 2014 in SwitzerlandSwitzerland.At the same time, a Twitter page was created.

What is Sprink

Sprink is a ERC20 utility token which allows users to buy subscription based meals at Sprink. Any holder of sprink is entitled to a discount on sprink offerings, periodic airdrops and invite to sprink club

Why Sprink

Sprink is revolutionizing the daily meals market

Contactless & Free Delivery

Sprink runs on a contactless and free delivery model for its subscription based meals. Meals are delivered at a pre decided time to users. No more tracking the delivery person!

Preorder & Chill

Try before you start a subscription! No more cooking. No more ordering.

Super tasty meals. Super affordable.

Sprink offers subscription based affordable and hygienic meals starting at Rs 58 for breakfast and snacks and Rs 116 for lunch and dinner. This is all inclusive price with no delivery or add on charges.

About Us

Kinematic Foodtech, the parent company of Sprink, is a new age food tech company which has researched and developed ingredients, recipes and processes which enable preparing complicated Indian dishes in minutes by just assembling components. These products and processes enable us to eliminate the 2 biggest problems faced by the food industry - delivering consistent delightful food at scale across geographies by eliminating dependency on trained chefs or skilled manpower and reducing dependency on refrigerated infrastructure. Using these proprietary processes and a unique business model, we are building the most affordable and hygienic food brand in India in the daily essential meals category. The ultimate aim is to become the default kitchen for daily Indian food across the globe. Sprink.online is our hygiene-first meal subscription platform designed for homes & offices which gives consumers access to the largest variety of good quality daily food at the most affordable price points delivered at their doorstep with 0 delivery fee. Kinematic Foodtech is founded by 2 graduates from IIT and an IHM grad with a successful entrepreneurial track record and an unstinted focus on tech. The startup is backed by Axilor ventures (run by Infosys co-founders), Bennett and Coleman (Times Group) and many prominent angels.

KAU Price Live Data

The live Kauri price today is $0,186395 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $835,05 USD. We update our KAU to USD price in real-time. Kauri is down 15,23% in the last 24 hours. The current CoinMarketCap ranking is #7024, with a live market cap of not available. The circulating supply is not available and a max. supply of 50 000 000 KAU coins.

The Kauri crypto project is an investment environment built around its utility ERC20 token Kauri (KAU). Within this ecosystem, KAUs were designed as the main medium of exchange and the building blocks for the investment activities of the British Asset investment group. Principally, the project focuses on establishing and developing a wide network of real businesses and applications, whilst them being in line and spreading main thoughts and visions of the cryptocurrency industry.

What is Green Satoshi Token (GST)

GST is earned in STEPN, a Web3 running app with fun social elements and gamification design.

GST serves as the replacement to experience points and in-app currency. Users equipped with NFT Sneakers – walk, jog or run outdoors to earn GST, which can be used to level up and mint new Sneakers.

When should I buy Green Satoshi Tokens (GST)?

Players buy GSTs to spend/burn in the STEPN app. GSTs are minted by players through moving and leasing their NFT Sneakers, and burned through making progress in the social and gamification components. GST is different from GMT, which is the Governance Token of STEPN with a supply of 6 billion tokens.

What is STEPN?

STEPN is a Web3 running app with fun social elements and gamification design. Users equipped with NFT Sneakers – walk, jog or run outdoors to earn GST, which can be used to level up and mint new Sneakers.

Player can choose to lease or sell their NFT Sneakers on the in-app Marketplace; users’ GST earnings are stored in the in-app Wallet, which has a built-in Swap function.

What Are Crypto Faucets?

A crypto faucet is an app or a website that distributes small amounts of cryptocurrencies as a reward for completing easy tasks. They’re given the name “faucets'' because the rewards are small, just like small drops of water dripping from a leaky faucet. However, in the case of crypto faucets, tiny amounts of free or earned cryptocurrency are sent to a user’s wallet. In order to get free crypto, users need to complete tasks as simple as viewing ads, watching product videos, completing quizzes, clicking links (be careful!) or completing a captcha.

Crypto faucets are certainly not a get rich quick scheme. The simpler the task, the lesser the reward. Most websites offer a minimum payout threshold, so the rewards earned by completing tasks are deposited into an online wallet of the site. A user can withdraw this reward only after reaching the minimum set threshold. With the best crypto faucets, this might take just a day, but often, it can take longer than a week.

But, what is the purpose of a crypto faucet?

Though cryptocurrencies have had a great last year, they are yet not completely mainstream and are still new to many people around the world. The idea behind crypto faucets is to give free cryptocurrencies to people so they would take the time to learn about digital assets and hopefully invest in them.

How Does A Cryptocurrency Faucet work?

The operation of a crypto faucet is mainly based on finishing simple tasks as well as participating in established activities. The faucet website can fix the rewards and can set a timelock for users to claim the rewards.

Usually, users need to register on a crypto faucet by entering their details along with the wallet address. After solving a task on the website, the reward earned goes to a micro wallet — a wallet similar to traditional wallets, but one which is capable of collecting small amounts of crypto assets. For most crypto faucets, micro wallets are automatically created upon signing up.

As soon as these micro wallets are filled, the rewards are automatically sent out to the main wallet of the users.

Best Bitcoin Faucet

Introduced by senior Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen in 2010, Bitcoin faucets were developed to give a reward of five Bitcoins (!) for completing simple tasks. The purpose was to spread awareness about Bitcoin because the concept of cryptocurrency was very new.

Another reason to start a free Bitcoin faucet was the limited availability of exchanges in the earlier days of cryptos — there were simply no exchanges, so buying Bitcoin was difficult. Giving out free Bitcoins to people was a great incentive to get people interested in Bitcoin and drive its adoption, without having to risk any capital.

A Bitcoin faucet can be defined as a reward system from which small amounts of Bitcoin can be rewarded, known as Satoshi, the one-millionth unit of 1 Bitcoin (0.00000001 BTC). The reward system offers you Satoshis in exchange for solving captchas, clicking links or other simple tasks. The number of free Bitcoin a faucet can offer you vary — some sites have great rates, while others don’t.

Bitcoin was introduced as the first coin faucet, and it got so popular that other digital assets jumped onto the bandwagon.

Some of the best and biggest Bitcoin faucet sites can be found on bestfaucetsites.com, with the most popular being Freebitcoin, Cointiply and Firefaucet. Users can earn BTC through solving reCaptcha, SolveMedia, playing games or mining. Minimum withdrawal range from 0.0002 BTC to 0.002 BTC. Most of these Bitcoin faucets have instant, direct payout.

Best Ethereum Faucet

An Ethereum faucet works like a Bitcoin faucet, but instead of Satoshis, it rewards users with Ether for completing different tasks. It is a great way to earn free Ethereum tokens by contributing to advertising and data mining. A few Ethereum faucet options are:

Ethereum-faucet.org offers ETH tokens for solving captchas. Additionally, the website allows you to participate in its lottery with a contribution. (Updated: Ethereum-faucet.org does not offer faucet services as of August 2021)

Bestfaucetsites.com offers a comprehensive list of the best Ethereum faucets where users can earn ETH by solving reCaptcha, SolveMedia, playing games or mining.

Allcoins.pw is a crypto faucet that offers miner and auto-faucet features along with a few games. The faucet is free to earn Ether, but you need to pay for playing the games.

Fire Faucet offers multiple ways to earn ETH tokens, including browser mining and completing captchas.

Dutchy CORP is another free Ethereum faucet website that allows you to earn rewards by solving captchas and playing games.

In CoinMarketCap’s Earn program, you can also earn some of the hottest DeFi tokens, such as 1Inch, Kava and Band Protocol!

Best Litecoin Faucets

You can get free Litecoin from crypto faucets, which reward users with a small amount of LTC tokens in exchange for actions performed on the website. Essentially, with Litecoin faucets, you’re trading your time for rewards in LTC, also known as Litoshi. Following are two faucets that offer free Litecoin tokens:

Moon Litecoin offers free LTC to users for completing multiple tasks. The faucets use Coinpot.co micro wallet to store the small rewards earned by a user. After reaching the minimum threshold, the LTC rewards can be deposited into your wallet with no fees.

Fire Faucet is an auto faucet that pays you Litecoin in addition to BTC and other cryptocurrencies as long as you have Auto Claim Points (ACP). To get free ACP, you need to register on the website. The faucet will run automatically until your ACP is exhausted. You can earn more ACP through gift boxes and by performing tasks like visiting short links, clicking ads, etc.

Best Bitcoin Cash Faucet

As the name suggests, a Bitcoin Cash faucet will give you free Bitcoin Cash tokens by performing whatever options asked by a provider on a regular basis. In general, you’ll have to sign up for a micro wallet to use a Bitcoin Cash faucet, which will allow you to receive a small amount of BCH tokens. The faucets below allow you to get free Bitcoin Cash:

Faucet Crypto is a multi-coin faucet that rewards you with free Bitcoin Cash tokens along with other cryptocurrencies for using their services. You can claim your BCH by simply clicking on the tab “Ready to Claim”, which refreshes every 40 minutes. To get additional rewards of free Bitcoin Cash, you can click on short links and PTC ads.

Konstantinova is another faucet that allows you to generate free BCH tokens, but the rewards are sent out automatically to FaucetPay.io. So, you need to create an account on FaucetPay.io. Konstantinova allows you to claim a reward of .00000121 BCH every five minutes for a maximum of 50 times a day.

Best Monero Faucet

People who would like to get their hands on Monero coins for free can start by using Monero faucets. You can earn XMR tokens on a Monero faucet by working on tasks like completing captchas and watching ads. Some of the best faucets to earn Monero tokens are:

Monerofaucet.info allows you to earn between 0.000005 to 0.025 Monero tokens per reward, which can be claimed every 60 minutes.

Express faucet lets you claim a reward of up to 0.00042754 XMR every four hours. The faucet also has a lottery game that you can play to earn additional free Monero if you win.

Allcoins.pw is another Monero faucet where you can earn a reward of up to 0.00001716 every five minutes. The faucet doesn’t have any threshold for withdrawal.

Best ZCash Faucets

Just like other faucets, Zcash faucets offer free Zcash rewards for completing small tasks.

Pipeflare faucet supports ZEC coin, which you can claim every day for free by creating an account and solving one captcha. The average claim reward is 0.0000500 ZEC and there is no minimum limit for withdrawal.

Globalhive faucet also provides free Zcash that can be claimed every 20 hours. The average claim reward is 0.00003100 ZEC which can immediately be withdrawn directly to your wallet.

Best Tron Faucet

A Tron faucet acts as a rewarding system for people looking to earn free Tron tokens. Whether you are playing games, referring friends, completing surveys and more, you can earn free TRX tokens. Below are a few faucets you can use for earning Tron tokens:

Xcolander.com has a great reputation for being a Tron faucet for a number of users. The amount of TRX coins you get will depend on the number you get while rolling out the wheel on the platform.

Free - Tron is a faucet where you can get a free Tron reward by simply creating an account. The minimum withdrawal limit is set as 10 TRX tokens that can be withdrawn without any fees.

The Faucet Crypto allows you to earn TRX tokens for solving a captcha and by playing games every 20 hours.

What Is a Crypto Debit Card?

Just like a conventional debit or credit card, cryptocurrency debit cards allow you to complete day-to-day transactions using BTC, ETH, XRP and other altcoins. Often, you don't need to worry about whether your physical card will be accepted by a merchant. That's because many of the products out there have been released in conjunction with Visa and Mastercard, meaning they can be used in millions of locations.

Here's how they work. First, you top up your crypto debit card with the digital currency of your choice — often through a mobile app or website. Then, you can hit the shops. Many cryptocurrency debit cards offer more generous spending limits, as well as lower transaction fees.

Let's imagine you finally get that long-awaited cappuccino with your crypto debit card. Once the transaction is complete, the card provider will convert the digital currency into cash, meaning that the coffee shop will get your payment in fiat currencies such as USD, GBP or EUR. What could be easier than that?

What's the Point? Why Not Use My Normal Visa Card?

Good question. The short answer is this: you'll probably get some exciting perks.

For example, crypto-focused products can protect you from nasty exchange rates when you’re traveling outside your home country. With conventional Visa debit cards, you can often end up paying sky-high conversion fees while on holiday as the dollars in your bank account are switched to pounds and euros. With a crypto debit card, your Bitcoin acts as a bridge to other fiat currencies, meaning you'll save money.

But there are advantages of having a crypto debit card even if you don’t travel that often.

Traditional credit cards often add all sorts of charges. You might have to pay a yearly membership, or fees whenever you make a transaction at home and abroad. Generally speaking, crypto debit cardholders will find life a lot less expensive.

You'll be able to use your crypto debit cards for ATM withdrawals — and many of the products on the market also support Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay. Some cards offer rewards, like airport lounge access or cashback on transactions, so it’s worth shopping around to see which one suits you.

These prepaid cards can also foster financial inclusion, as they can be set up without the need for a bank account. Some products also offer a virtual card instead of a physical one, making them ideal for online purchases through PayPal and other e-commerce platforms.

Of course, there are downsides. Some providers will require you to stake coins in order to unlock access to the best rewards. And although your crypto debit card might be well suited to small, daily transactions, it might not be the best way to pay if you're thinking about splashing out on a car or a yacht.

Then there's the issue of Bitcoin's volatility. The BTC you use to buy a $1,000 holiday on your crypto debit card now could end up being worth double or triple as much in the years to come, meaning you'll feel short changed. (Or it could crash, meaning that your trip to Paris really was a bargain.)

Last but not least, it's important to do your due diligence on the blockchain brands offering cryptocurrency debit cards. In the United States, Europe, Singapore and elsewhere, they may be subject to regulation — and you'll probably have to complete Know Your Customer (KYC) checks.

Are Crypto Debit Cards the Future?

Some of the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance and Coinbase, now offer their own Visa debit cards. Account top ups are easy, and you'll be charged no fees for moving funds from your crypto exchange account to your card. Other major card providers include Crypto.com and Blockcard.

With PayPal wading into the cryptocurrency space, and crypto awareness rising all the time, these products could be about to become a lot more common.

Definition: What Is Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 is the upcoming third generation of the internet where websites and apps will be able to process information in a smart human-like way through technologies like machine learning (ML), Big Data, decentralized ledger technology (DLT), etc. Web 3.0 was originally called the Semantic Web by World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, and was aimed at being a more autonomous, intelligent, and open internet.

The Web 3.0 definition can be expanded as follows: data will be interconnected in a decentralized way, which would be a huge leap forward to our current generation of the internet (Web 2.0), where data is mostly stored in centralized repositories.

Furthermore, users and machines will be able to interact with data. But for this to happen, programs need to understand information both conceptually and contextually. With this in mind, the two cornerstones of Web 3.0 are semantic web and artificial intelligence (AI).

Web 3.0, Cryptocurrency and Blockchain

As Web 3.0 networks will operate through decentralized protocols — the founding blocks of blockchain and cryptocurrency technology — we can expect to see a strong convergence and symbiotic relationship between these three technologies and other fields. They will be interoperable, seamlessly integrated, automated through smart contracts and used to power anything from micro transactions in Africa, censorship-resistant P2P data file storage and sharing with applications like Filecoin, to completely changing every company conduct and operate their business. The current slew of DeFi protocols are just the tip of the iceberg.

Web 3.0 Technologies

There are a few details that we need to keep in mind when looking into Web 3.0 tech. First of all, the concept isn’t new. Jeffrey Zeldman, one of the early developers of Web 1.0 and 2.0 applications, had written a blog post putting his support behind Web 3.0 back in 2006. But talks around this topic had begun as early as 2001.

Evolution of the Web 3.0 Technologies

Web 3.0 will be born out of a natural evolution of older-generation web tools combined with cutting-edge technologies like AI and blockchain, as well the interconnection between users and increasing internet usage. Apparently, Internet 3.0 is an upgrade to its precursors: web 1.0 and 2.0.

Web 1.0 (1989-2005)

Web 1.0, also called the Static Web, was the first and most reliable internet in the 1990s despite only offering access to limited information with little to no user interaction. Back in the day, creating user pages or even commenting on articles weren’t a thing.

Web 1.0 didn't have algorithms to sift internet pages, which made it extremely hard for users to find relevant information. Simply put, it was like a one-way highway with a narrow footpath where content creation was done by a select few and information came mostly from directories.

Web 2.0 (2005-present)

The Social Web, or Web 2.0, made the internet a lot more interactive thanks to advancements in web technologies like Javascript, HTML5, CSS3, etc., which enabled startups to build interactive web platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia and many more.

This paved the way for both social networks and user-generated content production to flourish since data can now be distributed and shared between various platforms and applications.

The set of tools in this internet era was pioneered by a number of web innovators like the aforementioned Jeffrey Zeldman.

Web 3.0 (yet to come)

Web 3.0 is the next stage of the web evolution that would make the internet more intelligent or process information with near-human-like intelligence through the power of AI systems that could run smart programs to assist users.

Tim Berners-Lee had said that the Semantic Web is meant to "automatically" interface with systems, people and home devices. As such, content creation and decision-making processes will involve both humans and machines. This would enable the intelligent creation and distribution of highly-tailored content straight to every internet consumer.

Key Features of Web 3.0

To really understand the next stage of the internet, we need to take a look at the four key features of Web 3.0:

Ubiquity

Semantic Web

Artificial Intelligence

3D Graphics

Ubiquity

Ubiquity means being or having the capacity to be everywhere, especially at the same time. In other words, omnipresent. In that sense, Web 2.0 is already ubiquitous since, for instance, a Facebook user can instantly capture an image and share it, which then becomes ubiquitous since it's available to anyone no matter where they are, as long as they have access to the social media platform.

Web 3.0 simply takes this a step further by making the internet accessible to everyone anywhere, at any time. At some point, internet-connected devices will no longer be concentrated on computers and smartphones like in Web 2.0 since IoT (Internet of Things) technology will bring forth a plethora of new types of smart devices.

Semantic Web

Semantic(s) is the study of the relationship between words. Therefore, the Semantic Web, according to Berners-Lee, enables computers to analyze loads of data from the Web, which includes content, transactions and links between persons. In practice, how would this look? Let’s take these two sentences, for instance:

I love Bitcoin

I <3 Bitcoin

Their syntax may be different, but their semantics are pretty much the same, since semantics only deals with the meaning or emotion of the content.

Applying semantics in the Web would enable machines to decode meaning and emotions by analyzing data. Consequently, internet users will have a better experience driven by enhanced data connectivity.

Artificial Intelligence

Wikipedia defines AI as intelligence demonstrated by machines.

And since Web 3.0 machines can read and decipher the meaning and emotions conveyed by a set of data, it brings forth intelligent machines. Although Web 2.0 presents similar capabilities, it is still predominantly human-based, which opens up room for corrupt behaviors such as biased product reviews, rigged ratings, etc.

For instance, online review platforms like Trustpilot provide a way for consumers to review any product or service. Unfortunately, a company can simply gather a large group of people and pay them to create positive reviews for its undeserving products. Therefore, the internet needs AI to learn how to distinguish the genuine from the fake in order to provide reliable data.

Google’s AI system recently removed around 100,000 negative reviews of the Robinhood app from the Play Store following the Gamespot trading debacle when it detected attempts of rating manipulation intended to artificially downvote the app. This is AI in action, which will soon seamlessly fit into Internet 3.0, enabling blogs and other online platforms to sift data and tailor them to each user's liking. As AI advances, it will ultimately be able to provide users with the best filtered and unbiased data possible.

Spatial Web and 3D Graphics

Some futurists also call Web 3.0 the Spatial Web as it aims to blur the line between the physical and the digital by revolutionizing graphics technology, bringing into clear focus three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds.

Unlike their 2D counterparts, 3D graphics bring a new level of immersion not only in futuristic gaming applications like Decentraland, but also other sectors like real estate, health, e-commerce, and many more.

Web 3.0 Applications

A common requirement for a Web 3.0 application is the ability to digest large-scale information and turn it into factual knowledge and useful executions for users. With that being said, these applications are still at their early stages, which means that they have a lot of room for improvement and are a far cry from how Web 3.0 apps could potentially function.

Some of the companies that are building or have products that they are transforming into Internet 3.0 applications are Amazon, Apple and Google. Two examples of applications that utilize Web 3.0 technologies are Siri and Wolfram Alpha.

Siri

Over the years, Apple’s voice-controlled AI assistant has grown more intelligent and has expanded its abilities since its first appearance in the iPhone 4S model. Siri uses speech recognition, along with artificial intelligence, to be able to perform complex and personalized commands.

Today, Siri and other AI assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Samsung’s Bixby can understand requests such as “where is the nearest burger joint” or “book an appointment with Sasha Marshall at 8:00 am tomorrow” and immediately come up with the right information or action.

Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha is a “computational knowledge engine” that answers your questions directly by computation, as opposed to giving you a list of webpages like search engines do. If you want a practical comparison, search “england vs brazil” on both Wolfram Alpha and Google and see the difference.

Google gives the results of the World Cup even if you didn’t include “football” as a keyword, since it is the most popular search. Alpha, on the other hand, would give you a detailed comparison of the two countries, like you asked. That’s the key difference between Web 2.0 and 3.0.

Closing Thoughts

The new internet will provide a more personal and customized browsing experience, a smarter and more human-like search assistant, and other decentralized benefits that are hoped will help to establish a more equitable web. This will be achieved by empowering each individual user to become a sovereign over their data, and creating a richer overall experience thanks to the myriad of innovations that is to come once it is in place.

When Web 3.0 inevitably arrives — as hard as it is to fathom considering how smart devices have already changed our behavioral patterns — the internet will become exponentially more integrated in our daily lives.

We will see nearly all of today’s normally offline machines, from home appliances like ovens, vacuums, and refrigerators to all types of transport become part of the IoT economy, interacting with its autonomous servers and decentralized applications (DApps), advancing new digital realms like blockchain and digital asset to power a myriad of new tech “miracles” for the 21st century.

What Is APY in Yield Farming?

Yield farmers, and most protocols and platforms, calculate the estimated returns in terms of annual percentage yield (APY). APY is the rate of return gained over the course of a year on a specific investment. Compounding interest, which is computed on a regular basis and applied to the amount, is factored into the APY.

Since the DeFi summer of 2020, yield farmers have been chasing eye-opening thousand percent APYs. However, these protocols and coins may be highly risky and susceptible to rug pulls. Furthermore, the yield is earned in the form of protocol tokens, and is subject to highly volatile price swings.

The Ten Most Popular Yield Farming Protocols

Yield farmers will often use a variety of different DeFi platforms to optimize the returns on their staked funds. These platforms offer variations of incentivized lending and borrowing from liquidity pools. Here are seven of the most popular yield farming protocols:

Aave is an open source non-custodial decentralized lending and borrowing protocol to create money markets, where users can borrow assets and earn compound interest for lending in the form of the AAVE (previously LEND) token. Aave has the highest TVL locked among all DeFi protocols, sitting at over $21 billion as of August 2021. Users can earn up to 15% APR for lending on AAVE.

Compound is a money market for lending and borrowing assets, where algorithmically adjusted compound interest rate as well the governance token COMP can be earned. It is audited and reviewed to ensure the highest level of security standard. Total supply is over $16 billion as of August 2021 and APY range from 0.21% to 3%.

Curve Finance is a DEX that lets users and other decentralized protocols exchange stablecoins with low fees and low slippage using its unique market-making algorithm. It is the largest DEX in terms of TVL, with over $9.7 billion locked. Base APY can go as high as 10%, while rewards APY can go over 40%. Stablecoin pools are generally safer as they do not lose their peg value.

Uniswap is a hugely popular DEX and AMM that enables users to swap almost any ERC20 token pair without intermediaries. Liquidity providers must stake both sides of the liquidity pool in a 50/50 ratio, and in return earn a proportion of transaction fees as well as the UNI governance token. There are two live versions – Uniswap V2 and V3. The latest version, Uniswap V3, is a growing protocol ecosystem with over 200 integrations. TVL is $5 billion for V2 and over $2 billion for V3 as of August 2021.

Instadapp is the world's most advanced platform to leverage the potential of DeFi. Users can manage and build their DeFi portfolio and developers can build DeFi infrastructure using their platform. As of August 2021, over $9.4 billion is locked on Instadapp.

SushiSwap is a fork of Uniswap, which caused a huge wave in the community during their liquidity migration process. It is now a DeFi ecosystem, with multi-chain AMM, lending and leverage markets, onchain mini Dapps and launchpad. TVL on the platform is $3.55 billion as of August 2021.

PancakeSwap is a DEX built on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) network for swapping BEP20 tokens. PancakeSwap uses an automated market maker (AMM) model where users trade against a liquidity pool. It has the highest TVL among BSC protocols, with over $4.9 billion locked as of August 2021. It focuses heavily on gamification features, with lottery, team battles and NFT collectibles. APYs can go as high as over 400%.

Venus Protocol is an algorithmic-based money market system that aims to bring lending and credit-based system on the Binance Smart Chain. Users supply collateral to the network and earn APY for lending, while borrowers pay an interest. Venus differs by its ability to use the collateral supplied to the market not only to borrow other assets but also to mint synthetic stablecoins with over-collateralized positions that protect the protocol. These synthetic stablecoins are backed by a basket of cryptocurrencies. TVL is over $3.3 billion as of August 2021.

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Balancer is an automated portfolio manager and trading platform. Its liquidity protocol distinguishes itself through flexible staking. It doesn’t require lenders to add liquidity equally to both pools. Instead, liquidity providers can create customized liquidity pools with varying token ratios. Over $1.8 billion is locked as of August 2021.

Yearn.finance is an automated decentralized aggregation protocol that allows yield farmers to use various lending protocols like Aave and Compound for the highest yield. Yearn.finance algorithmically seeks the most profitable yield farming services and uses rebasing to maximize their profit. Yearn.finance made waves in 2020 when its governance token YFI climbed to over $40,000 in value at one stage. Users can earn up to 80% APY in Yearn, and $3.4 billion is locked in the protocol.

Yield Farming for Bitcoin

As far as crypto farming goes, most users would ask if there is yield farming for Bitcoin? While there are no DeFi yield farming protocols for Bitcoin, wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) effectively brings Bitcoin into the Ethereum blockchain and DeFi applications. By learning how to wrap bitcoin, holders of Bitcoin can earn a few percent of yield while lending it out on protocols such as Compound.

CoinMarketCap Yield Farming Rankings

Looking to find the best yield farmings pools across various DeFi protocols? Look no further! CoinMarketCap's DeFi Yield Farming Rankings tracks the liquidity pools across DeFi protocols like Venus, Curve, Sushi, Synthetix, Yearn, PancakeSwap and more. Yield farmers can see the crypto pair, total value locked (TVL), reward type, impermanent loss and APY.

The Risks of Yield Farming

Yield farming can be incredibly complex and carries significant financial risk for both borrowers and lenders. It is usually subject to high Ethereum gas fees, and only worthwhile if thousands of dollars are provided as capital. Users also run further risks of impermanent loss and price slippage when markets are volatile. CoinMarketCap has a yield farming ranking page, which an impermanent loss calculator, to help you discover your risks — CoinMarketCap also has a page that tracks the prices of the leading yield farming tokens.

Most notably though, yield farming is susceptible to hacks and fraud due to possible vulnerabilities in the protocols’ smart contracts. These coding bugs can happen due to the fierce competition between protocols, where time is of the essence and new contracts and features are often unaudited or even copied from predecessors or competitors.

Examples of vulnerabilities that resulted in severe financial losses include the Yam protocol (which raised over $400m in days before a critical bug was exposed) and Harvest.Finance, which in October 2020 lost over $20 million in a liquidity hack.

DeFi protocols are permissionless and dependent on several applications in order to function seamlessly. If any of these underlying applications are exploited or don’t work as intended, it may impact this whole ecosystem of applications and result in the permanent loss of investor funds.

There has been a rise in risky protocols that issue so-called meme tokens with names based on animals and fruit, offering APY returns in the thousands. It is advised to tread carefully with these protocols, as their code is largely unaudited and returns are whim to risks of sudden liquidation due to price volatility. Many of these liquidity pools are convoluted scams which result in “rug pulling,” where the developers withdraw all liquidity from the pool and abscond with funds.

As blockchain is immutable by nature, most often DeFi losses are permanent and cannot be undone. It is therefore advised that users really familiarize themselves with the risks of yield farming and conduct their own research.

Crypto Lending Explained

Crypto enthusiasts are often encouraged to “HODL” their assets — keeping them safe in a wallet until the price of their chosen currency appreciates. But just like you’d feel uneasy about leaving your cash sitting around in a bank with a low interest rates, a common question is this: how can you get your digital currency to grow?

This is where crypto lending comes in. Not only can it enable savers to receive interest on their stash of Bitcoin, but it enables borrowers to unlock the value of their digital assets by using it as collateral for a loan.

When investing, one of the biggest challenges can be cashflow — and there’s nothing worse than having to raid the capital you’ve got tied up in assets for short-term costs and lack liquidity.

Bitcoin Loan

Let’s imagine that Steve has 2 BTC. He doesn’t want to sell any of it because he’s confident that prices are going to appreciate substantially. Steve’s also worried that, if he does end up offloading his crypto, there’ll be a risk that he ends up with less Bitcoin when he buys it back at a later date.

Crypto lending platforms can come to the rescue here. Typically, Steve will be given the opportunity to use his Bitcoin as collateral — and receive a loan in stablecoins. Owing to the volatility of digital assets, he’ll normally have to “overcollateralize,” meaning he’ll have to lock up more BTC than the overall value of the funds he’s receiving.

Once he’s repaid back the loan, plus interest, his crypto will be returned in full — and he’ll make a handsome profit if BTC ended up appreciating as he predicted. His crypto would only be at risk if he failed to keep up with the loan’s terms, or if the value of the Bitcoin held as collateral fell below the value of the loan he received.

How Did Crypto Loans Start?

So… when did crypto lending start to take off? Well, it was right around the time that economies came to a screeching halt in 2020 due to the pandemic. This saw the interest rates get slashed, and lending for big-ticket items take a nosedive. Many people were looking for other ways to make their assets work for them. Crypto loans became a quick and easy way to gain access to fiat currencies almost instantly, all without selling it. All of a sudden, the days of Bitcoin and Litecoin gathering dust in an exchange or cold storage were numbered.

Unlike personal loans or credit cards, collateralized loans are much more secure for the lender, which enables the borrower to take advantage of cheap interest rates.

Cryptocurrencies can be very volatile, which is why these loans are almost always overcollateralized. This provides insurance for the lender should the price of crypto plummet. However, this can negatively impact the borrower — especially if the platform they use requires them to always maintain their loan-to-value (LTV) ratio.

Benefits of Taking on a Crypto Loan

One of the major bonuses many see in a crypto loan is that, unlike traditional banking, you won’t be subject to your credit score being assessed. This means that lending is more accessible to people who don’t have a financial history, underbanked consumers who don’t have a bank account and self-employed workers who struggle to access credit because their fluctuating earnings don’t meet a bank’s strict lending criteria. Repayments can also be more flexible.

And whereas it can take several days for loans to clear in the old-fashioned financial world, BTC loans can be practically instant. You’ll also be able to make your assets liquid without triggering a taxable event — and you can adjust the loan to suit your needs. Users can also switch between crypto assets, so you could deposit Ether and borrow Tether, all on the same platform.

How to Get a Bitcoin Loan

If you like the sound of a BTC loan but you’re not sure where to begin, you have two main options — centralized and decentralized lending platforms.

Crypto Loan on Centralized Exchanges

Centralized ecosystems such as BlockFi, Nexo and Binance have to follow certain rules and procedures to be compliant. You’ll have to create an account by signing up for your chosen platform and go through Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures that are in place to prevent fraud and money laundering.

These platforms typically have protocols in place to ensure that your collateral is safe. Some protect crypto assets via insurance or keep the majority of the digital assets in their custody in cold storage, meaning they’re away from an internet connection.

Centralized crypto lending platforms will still record all deposits and withdrawals using blockchain technology, visible to everyone, and offer a great way to earn interest on Bitcoin, alongside many other cryptocurrencies and stablecoins like USDC and DAI. To put it in perspective, the best USD savings account bank rates barely scrape past the 1% APY mark, yet many platforms offer up to 8% on crypto interest rates. It’s worth doing your homework to get the best deal — and avoid paying above-average fees.

There’s more paperwork involved in getting a loan through a CeFi platform, but the fact that there’s a regulated environment — and a customer service representative who’s just a click or a phone call away — could make these platforms more appealing to traditional investors.

Crypto Loan on Binance

Binance offers crypto loans to their users that want to borrow stablecoins like BUSD and USDT, top cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH, and many more on the Binance loan platform. Loan collateral can be BTC, ETH, BNB and other cryptos assets. The initial LTV is 65%. Important to note for interested parties is the margin call, which occurs at 75%, and liquidation LTV at 83%.

Loan terms are 7, 14, 30, 90 and 180 days, and interest is calculated hourly. Binance users can choose to repay the loan in advance, however interest will be rounded off to the nearest hour. As of Sept. 9, 2021, the hourly interest rate is 0.001667%, and accumulates on the hour once the user successfully borrows the crypto asset.

Crypto Loan on BlockFi

BlockFi was founded in 2017 to provide credit services to markets without access to simple financial products, by offering leading rates and institutional quality services. BlockFi's main product is its interest account, which allows users to earn up 8% APY by lending out their crypto assets. BlockFi also offer crypto loans, which rates for as low as 4.5% APR.

However, BlockFi crypto loans have higher requirements compared to Binance. For starters, the minimum loan amount is USD $10,000. Also, LTV is lower, i.e. more stringent, at 50% and margin call at 70%. However, BlockFi users will be able to receive their loan funds on the same business day, and they are able to repay the loan in advance, similar to Binance.

Is BlockFi Safe?

BlockFi's primary custodian is Gemini Trust Company LLC, a company regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services. It is also backed by notable institutional investors, such as Galaxy Digital, Fidelity, SoFi and Coinbase Ventures. However, crypto accounts on BlockFi are not FDIC or SIPC protected. Additionally, three US states — New Jersey, Alabama and Texas — have banned BlockFi interest accounts, citing that it violates the state's securities law. While this does not affect BlockFi crypto loan product directly, it may negatively impact users access to BlockFi.

Crypto Loans Without Collateral

The second option for crypto lending would be to go via a decentralized platform, known as DeFi for short.

Unsecured crypto loans, also known as crypto loans without collateral, are innovative new financial services that provide short-term liquidity, and can be paid back in fiat or cryptocurrency. The idea is to borrow funds directly from a lender using a cryptocurrency as collateral instead of traditional assets such as property and gold. If you are interested in an unsecured crypto loan, or a crypto loan with no collateral, there are a number of platforms that make that possible. For example, flash loans are a popular example of crypto loans without collateral, but they do require a high level of crypto knowledge to navigate.

Before moving forward on any crypto loans without collateral, be sure to do your own research and make sure that the platform is legitimate.

What Is Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Lending?

DeFi lending platforms are completely decentralized, and transactions are handled by code rather than by people. On services such as Aave, Compound and dYdX, smart contracts use algorithms and protocols to automate loan payouts.

Anyone can access the protocols on a decentralized finance platform, which makes them completely transparent, as nothing can be hidden on the blockchain. Unlike CeFi platforms, there’s no middleman or financial regulator, which means you don’t have to go through a verification process like KYC. However, DeFi interest rates for crypto lending often pale in comparison to what centralized rivals can provide.

Getting a BTC or ETH loan — or any other type of crypto loans on a DeFi platform — is very quick as you won’t need to pass any kind of due diligence. Thanks to smart contracts, all a user will need to do is apply for the loan and then send the crypto they want to use as collateral to a specified wallet associated with the lending platform.

The users of decentralized lending platforms can apply for a loan of any size without having to confirm their identity to a third party. Loans can be supported in stablecoins such as USDC, fiat currencies, or cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum or BTC.

Should You Get a Crypto Loan?

On many centralized and decentralized lending platforms, you’ll have the option to open up a savings account using your crypto, as well as trade tokens or take out loans.

With both types of lending platforms still in their early stages, it’s clear that this is an exciting space to watch. There’s a lot of room for growth, and the potential to access borrowing without the usual formalities could be a game changer for both the people and the financial services industry.

What (Isn't) the Metaverse?

Before we dive into understanding what a metaverse is, it would be helpful for us to understand what it isn't. You would often hear people say that it is a derived form of virtual reality. But that is not the case since the metaverse isn't really limited to a digital realm in which the world of virtual reality operates. In fact, it extends far beyond that.

Some often say that it is just another theme park for the digital space. That again is true to a certain extent because the metaverse can have a space that is similar to a theme/amusement park. However, the idea of a digital theme park is limited because of what it offers. In that sense, while the metaverse can definitely offer that experience but it extends much farther than that.

Some even link the concept of metaverse to a game, like Fortnite. And this is where most people get it right because the idea of a metaverse (in some way) is quite similar to the idea of entering a new world of gaming, like Fortnite. Many features of the metaverse, like having a consistent identity across various closed platforms, giving users the ability to get compensated for content, and being a gateway to a multitude of features, are already offered by the game. However, because this is a "closed" world (read: metaverse), this again fails to encompass the much wider expanse of the metaverse. Thus, while Fortnite is definitely conceptually a metaverse, it is one that exists in itself and operates within the boundaries set by its creators.

This is where the true definition of a metaverse is derived.

What Is the Metaverse?

While it is quite hard to define it, we will give a working definition. A metaverse is simply a wide expanse of digital space where users can interact with each other in real-time and get similar experiences to what they experience in the real world, and in most cases even more. This definition of the metaverse highlights a crucial point - the fact that it is a wide expanse of a digital realm that can be said to be continuing the realm of the "real world". The only reason why we put the real world in double quotes is that it is conceptually hard to distinguish between what the metaverse is and what the "non-metaverse" is. This is where its core features come in.

A Metaverse Is Infinite

The metaverse is an extension of what we define as real. Because it is not limited by the physical spaces of the world that we operate in, it can be said to be extending to infinity. There is no end to the metaverse.

A Metaverse Is Synchronous

A crucial point to add here is that it offers synchronous communication between users from all over the world. Thus, it offers (potentially) billions of users the ability to interact in real-time.

A Metaverse Is a Thriving Economy

This point is a complement to the first core feature outlined above. Since it is an extension to the real world, users have the option to offer and receive the same experiences that they would in the real world. For instance, artists can host art shows, philosophers can hold discussions, colleagues can host meetings and the list is simply endless. A simple token mechanism can be implemented for the exchange of value.

A Metaverse Is Interoperable

This is understandably a controversial point to make. If we say that the metaverse is simply an extension of our own reality, then how can we define its interoperability? And if there is a need for interoperability then it means that several different metaverses exist in siloes, right?

This is true. But when we say that the metaverse is interoperable, it means that whatever skin I choose for my character in a particular conception of metaverse can also be ported easily over to another conception that is being implemented by a separate entity.

A crucial point to note here is that several different entities can establish their own metaverse. For instance, Meta can create a social space for its users or Microsoft can create a dedicated co-working metaverse. The general idea remains the same, while the implementation is different.

Now that we have discussed what metaverse conceptually is, let's look at some of the most popular metaverses that exist today.

Decentraland

Decentraland is one of the most well-known metaverses to exist in the market today. The amount of money spent within the metaverse has seen a steady increase since it was launched in 2016. Given its age, a community already exists around the platform, and even some bigger brands have started marketing/advertising their products on the platform.

In a nutshell, it is a virtual world and community that is based entirely on blockchain. What truly makes it special is that it is wholly decentralized. That is, the holders of the MANA cryptocurrency can participate in voting events on the platform. It also uses NFTs to signify representation/ownership of in-game items like clothes, virtual real estate, and so on. These tokens are stored in users' wallets.

Let's understand how it works.

How Does Decentraland Work?

The metaverse uses the dual-token economy model with two primary tokens: LAND and MANA. The latter (MANA) is the native token of the platform and gives its holders the voting power to participate in the Decentraland DAO.

MANA: To vote on major governance decisions, users lock their wMANA (wrapped MANA) into the DAO. Thus, each wMANA represents a singular vote in governance proposals. The token can easily be acquired on the Decentraland marketplace by simply selling digital items that you have collected.

LAND: This is the NFT that represents ownership of the virtual real estate on the platform. This token, too, provides voting power to their holders.

Just like most metaverses, users in Decentraland can create and/or sell experiences on the virtual land that they buy/rent out. You can easily buy land on the Decentraland marketplace. In addition to that, when navigating through the metaverse, you need a digital wallet (like MetaMask) to participate.

What Is So Special About Decentraland?

It is the first decentralized metaverse that offers you the option to interact with other users in real-time and acquire virtual experiences and trade them. The lack of a centralized authority implies that you exert absolute control over how you want to participate within the marketplace, the experiences that you want to create and how you wish to maintain the virtual land that you already possess.

The entire metaverse is based on Ethereum, thus replacing the centralized authority with hundreds of different smart contracts that give you limitless options to what you can do within the metaverse.

Decentraland consists of three primary layers.

The first layer is responsible for recording ownership via smart contracts.

The second layer stores LAND content and all the data that has been uploaded to the virtual parcels on the metaverse.

The third layer is the peer-to-peer network which enables you to interact with other users in real-time.

The underlying programming language utilized by the metaverse helps create dynamic scenes and 3D models.

You have the option to trade MANA in the crypto market. The supply of the token is limited and whenever users buy LAND with MANA, some percentage of MANA is burned. This helps in creating a healthy price dynamic within the market.

Bloktopia

Bloktopia offers an incredible and slightly interesting story. It is a "VR Crypto skyscraper" that is powered by the Polygon network. It consists of 21 levels that are said to "pay recognition" to the limited 21 million supply of Bitcoins.

Bloktopia claims to offer an incredible collective space for crypto users of all experience levels. All of them have access to crypto information and immersive content, all in one place. Revenue generated within the platform is shared via NFTs.

The platform uses the "world's most advanced real-time 3D creation engine" which helps the metaverse provide a much immersive and stunning visual experience to its users.

The metaverse is comprised of what is known as real estate "bloks" that are available for purchase via the $BLOK token.

How Does Bloktopia Work?

Bloktopia has 21 levels through which you have to go to reach the "top". These levels are explained below.

Spawning: Just when you enter the metaverse, you are "spawned" outside the Bloktopia skyscraper.

Level One: This is the place that all Bloktopians have access to and is said to have the largest footfall. It consists of pricing charts, a helpdesk, a navigation area, and so on. You will also have the opportunity to register yourself for various events. Some of the space is commercialized with the likes of Binance, CoinMarketCap, and Coingecko promoting their products.

Penthouse and Gaming: This is the eventual destination for all Bloktopian explorers. It is the 21st floor of the skyscraper and it features a penthouse that is reserved exclusively for gaming. This is the space where you compete for BLOK by playing various games.

Auditorium: The auditorium is where most key events in the crypto world are hosted. When you register yourself for any event in the first level, you are directed to this level to attend them. Attendance within these events is rewarded via BLOK. The auditorium is considered a premium location within the metaverse.

What Makes Bloktopia Special?

The stunning visual experience! In addition to that, the metaverse also incentivizes you to learn and earn at the same time. Here are some core features of the metaverse that make it stand apart.

#learn: The metaverse provides a platform where you can join other users to learn the fundamentals of crypto.

#earn: Just like in Decentraland, you can own land in Bloktopia. You can use that land to earn passive income, for instance, by leasing it to a fellow user.

#create: You can use their provided builder tool to create different artworks and experiences for fellow users. Experienced developers can also use the SDK to create games within the metaverse.

Just like every other metaverse, you can enjoy a vivid social experience by participating in multiple activities. The visual immersion complements that experience incredibly.

The Sandbox

The Sandbox is another metaverse and gaming ecosystem that offers incredible experiences. It gives you the ability to create different assets, like avatars and tools, freely.

How Does The Sandbox Work?

The metaverse is made up of three main products that are listed below.

VoxEdit: It enables you to create 3D objects in the metaverse like, avatars and animals. The only limit here is your creativity! All these objects are known as ASSETS and use the ERC-1155 token standard. Thus, they offer both fungible and non-fungible token mechanisms.

Sandbox Marketplace: This is the place where you can trade your ASSETS with fellow users. To do that, however, you need to upload them to the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS).

Sandbox Game Maker: It gives you the option to create 3D games at zero cost.

All transactions within the metaverse are carried out using their native SAND token. It is an ERC-20 token that is used to play games, purchase equipment, or even customize the avatar. When the metaverse transitions into a DAO, it will be used as a governance token.

The token is also used for purchasing ASSETS and LANDS (virtual real estate). LANDS are represented by ERC-721 tokens, which means that they are NFTs. The metaverse only has 166,464 LAND plots that will ever exist. If you decide to combine multiple LANDS into one property, it is called an Estate.

A crucial feature of the metaverse is that it covers the Ethereum gas fees, thereby not having the user pay exorbitant fees. This creates a much more seamless and immersive experience for the users.

What's So Special About The Sandbox?

The metaverse alsooffers you the option to create customized avatars that can be traded on their native marketplace. Since these are NFTs, they are provably scarce digital items that can be used in the marketplace. Additionally, you can also lease your LAND for some passive income.

Star Atlas

Star Atlas is a one-of-a-kind blockchain-based multiplayer video game with an exceptionally appealing and immersive space theme. It is an MMO that is set in the year 2620 and has been built on Solana. The storyline revolves around the colonization of the universe. Your role is to look for hidden treasures and progress. Players earn in-game currency like $ATLAS and $POLIS, and use those tokens to buy assets within the ecosystem.

How Does Star Atlas Work?

The metaverse uses the dual-token economy model. These tokens are:

$ATLAS: This is the usual in-game cryptocurrency. Players generally earn that by engaging in activities like mining ore, creating assets, and trading on the marketplace. All the assets in the metaverse are NFTs, which means that every item within the game is owned by at least one player.

$POLIS: This is the cryptocurrency used for participating in the governance of the game. Thus, the holders of these tokens can form factions, communities, and even behemoth corporations that influence the core decisions of the game. The idea is to give players the chance to "out-vote" the creators.

A crucial point that the team building the ecosystem has often highlighted is the portability of in-game assets. While the assets that you create or buy on traditional gaming platforms are only usable within that ecosystem, the ones that you build in Star Atlas can easily be traded with players just like you. This plays into the core feature of the metaverse, which is interoperability.

What Makes Star Atlas Special?

Star Atlas provides players the opportunity to literally do whatever they want, and have utmost fun while doing it. For that very reason, they have created a governance system where players have as much right to the future of the metaverse as the creators themselves.

Imagine being able to build entire nations within the metaverse! Because you have control over how the economics of your community work, you can create micro-nations and form several sub-DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations). Since everything is tokenized, every player has ownership over the asset they possess. This creates a truly individualistic experience where every player feels special.

The metaverse also features an unconventional deflationary mechanism through which players can indulge in much riskier activities like exploring deeper areas of the metaverse in an attempt to gain higher rewards. Those who succeed in their adventurous pursuits might succeed or perish. If they perish, then other users can collect the NFTs that get lost in the battle.

Radio Caca

Radio Caca is known as the "GameFi" vehicle for the USM Metaverse. It is also the builder of the Metamon P2E game, which has become quite popular. While not a metaverse itself, it has helped in the creation of the USM Metaverse, which is a non-token-based community. It is built on Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and was launched in October 2021.

What Is the USM Metaverse?

It is a unique metaverse where each player is considered a "builder". Thus, you have the option to build your own social network, establish a custom economic system, and create an entirely new virtual civilization.

NFTs are used to denote ownership of digital items. One of the core highlighted features of the metaverse is the "Kiss-Up Dog" NFTs, which can be bought on their website.

Meta

Meta is one of the most recent (and much talked about) metaverses in the world today. Given that a platform like Facebook decided to dive into this digital realm is symbolic of the fact that Mark Zuckerberg is focused on creating revolutionary spaces where people can connect with each other.

Unlike Facebook, Meta will offer virtual experiences to users where they will all come together to share experiences. While the attempt is commendable, critics have highlighted the fact their version of the metaverse will be more like a separate world than being a continuum of the existing one. This is because to access it, users will have to wear external devices (which again are being produced by the company).

How it works, what it will look like, and the extent to which the experiences will be available to users is still to be discovered.

The Bottom Line

While it would have been hard to imagine such a space not under the control of anyone, blockchain makes that possible. Again, just to highlight the definition of metaverse - it is not an isolated space (or spaces) that are controlled by different authorities. In an ideal world, all the different implementations of these metaverses will be bridged with each other, making the experience seamless for the users.

The "how" of all that is yet to be found.

What Are Fan Tokens?

Fan tokens are cryptocurrencies that permit their holders to access a variety of fan-related membership perks like voting on club decisions, rewards, merchandise designs and unique experiences. They can be used by sports clubs, music fan clubs and other organizations to democratize and organize experiences, establish club leadership and more.

Unlike NFTs, fan tokens are completely “fungible” or interchangeable. This means that, just like fiat or cash, the tokens can be exchanged for sports club merchandise, VIP experiences and more. Additionally, they play an important role in tightening the club community with another team-branded piece of fandom.

Fan tokens are cryptocurrencies that aren’t necessarily backed by underlying value principles of Bitcoin or Ethereum. They receive their worth from how much fans value being able to participate in the club and earn unique benefits.

The Chiliz token is the first and most prominent fan token that has prompted an explosion of new tokens like the Manchester City Fan Token, AC Milan Fan Token, the Juventus Fan Token and many more. These currencies are a brand new use case for crypto as innovation across the blockchain space reaches new highs.

How Do Fan Tokens Work?

Fans can purchase digital tokens and trade them like other cryptocurrencies. When trading, the price of a fan token is generally set by the seller. It is also subject to change according to market movement and how popular the token is at the time.

Once users gain access to a set amount of fan tokens, they are granted the right to vote on a variety of matters concerning their favorite club. These matters that fans can vote on largely depend on the club, but they could include:

A club's merch design

Tour bus designs

Ticketing matters

Match locations

MVP categories

These perks allow fans to feel more involved in the club they already support, and they add an extra level of pride and prestige as their fan tokens will likely increase in value as the club grows over time.

Fan tokens create an exclusive community of the most dedicated fans. They give a new way for fans to take part in an exciting voting and rewards system. The more fan tokens you own, the more sway you have over the club and the more loyalty you show to your team.

How to Buy Fan Tokens

Fans must purchase CHZ via a crypto exchange in order to acquire fan tokens that exist on the Chiliz network. However, there are fan tokens that exist outside of Chiliz and their Socios.com website.

These tokens  are specific to a team or club and  are rare digital assets that provide access to an encrypted ledger of voting and membership rights ownership. CHZ tokens can also be used to purchase and trade different fan tokens on Socios.com. Fan tokens can be traded on Chiliz.net – their in-house exchange and trading platform against CHZ.

Some fan tokens are available on popular centralized exchanges, but some may not be certified or large enough to be listed yet. In this case, fan tokens could only be available for trading or swapping on decentralized exchanges (DEX) like PancakeSwap. You will need to have a cryptocurrency to trade for fan tokens on DEXs.

You can currently buy the largest fan token, Chiliz on platforms like:

Binance.com

Coinbase Pro

Huobi Global

Bithumb

KuCoin

Chiliz

Learn more about buying cryptocurrencies with this guide.

How to Identify a Fan Token

Fan tokens generally are used as a part of fan clubs and sports clubs. They differ from other cryptos like Ethereum or Chainlink because they don’t solve the same financial or technical problems. In other words, they are more of a fun, rewards-based token.

Here are a few fan tokens that span both sports and music:

KPOP Fan Token

Professional Fighters League Fan Token

Paris Saint-Germain Fan Token

FC Barcelona Fan Token

Galatasaray Fan Token

What Is Chiliz?

Chiliz describes itself as “the world’s leading blockchain fintech provider for sports & entertainment.” Chiliz (CHZ) is the most popular fan token platform to date and it has its own blockchain. Chiliz also developed the Socios.com platform for fans to engage with their favorite teams and clubs.

CHZ is the native ERC20 utility token on the Chiliz network that is secured by the Ethereum blockchain, serving as the digital currency for the Chiliz and Socios.com platform.

Chiliz is generally responsible for the birth of a new form of cryptocurrency  –  the fan token. Once fans reach the Socios.com platform, club partners host a Fan Token Offering (FTO) – a period where prices of fan tokens are fixed and made available to fans before they reach the marketplace.

Ownership offers fans the ability to vote on a mobile platform, and it acts as a ticket into an exclusive inner circle of fans who share a passion for the team and the sport (or other categories like music). The more tokens a fan holds, the more power they have in their vote (with a higher fan ranking), moving them upwards through different reward tiers until they have access to the biggest VIP benefits that are offered.

Football clubs intend to use Socios.com as part of their fan engagement strategy to continue to build their global fan bases, particularly in Asia where the football fan community is experiencing incredible growth. Socios.com connects the clubs to their fan bases, securing additional revenue streams that are digital, secure, transparent and entirely connected to the real fan experience.

The CHZ Token enables the Socios.com platform – the consumer-facing site where fans can use tokens to participate in polls and surveys and earn rewards with active engagement.

Users need CHZ tokens to participate in FTO, the initial sale of fan tokens and to access the Socios Locker Room – a space to entice new club entries.

The CHZ token is highly liquid and traded globally on some of the major exchanges like Binance, Turkish exchange Paribu, Huobi Global and Mercado Bitcoin in Latin America.

Should I Buy Fan Tokens?

Purchasing cryptocurrency is still seen as a high-risk investment by many. The crypto market is known to be volatile already, and meme coins are the most prone to drastic swings in price. However, great risk can always mean great reward as some fan coins may skyrocket in price if they catch on and become even more popular.

With any investment, it is always best to carefully weigh the value and the solutions presented by the product. Fan tokens may be less of an investment and more of a buy-in to the special benefits that sports clubs can provide.

Newbie Catchup: The A-Z of NFTs

In the last year, NFTs have gone from a relatively unknown asset class primarily used by blockchain games and a handful of early digital artists to a full-fledged disruptive innovation leveraged for a huge range of novel applications.

With NFT trading volume skyrocketing, more well-known names and brands launching their own NFT-enabled projects and collections and interest in NFT use cases and platforms reaching record highs, few could argue that NFTs aren’t causing quite the stir.

But for those that don’t yet understand the hype or aren’t sure where to start in the fast-paced and oftentimes wacky world of NFTs, we’re breaking the NFT industry down into 26 bite-size chunks with the A to Z of NFTs!

Here, we will detail 26 popular projects building in the NFT space, each of which has its own token, giving you the foundations you need before exploring the sprawling NFT landscape further.

A is for Axie Infinity

Widely regarded as the first major player in the play-to-earn (P2E) genre, Axie Infinity is a massively popular NFT breeding and battle game that was initially built on the Ethereum blockchain, but recently migrated to a custom-built Ronin sidechain.

It was the first blockchain game to reach a multi-billion dollar market capitalization. It is also the first NFT game to clock in more than $1 billion in sales for in-game assets.

Check out our full deep dive to learn more about Axie Infinity.

B is for Binemon

Binemon is a massively popular NFT game built on the Binance Smart Chain blockchain.

The game is centered around unique digital pets known as Binemon, with varying combinations of 10 body parts with different desirability, stats and rarity. These pets can be used to participate in various game modes to earn rewards, experience points and more.

As of writing, the game has a staggering 169,000+ players, and close to half a million Binemon now exist.

Check out our full deep dive to learn more about Binemon.

C is for Chromia

Billed as a relational blockchain platform, Chromia is designed to make it easy to build highly secure and scalable decentralized applications (DApps).

The platform can be used to build practically any kind of DApp, but is most commonly used for NFT-enabled games like My Neighbor Alice and Chain of Alliance.

The platform combines the security and decentralized resilience of blockchain with relational databases to produce a powerful, easy to build on, highly scalable infrastructure that can support even the most ambitious projects.

D is for Decentraland

Decentraland was one of the first blockchain games to demonstrate the potential of NFTs and cryptocurrency-powered in-game economies.

The game is a sprawling virtual world divided into individual player-owned parcels of land. On these parcels, players can build their own experiences and services using the platform’s free-to-use builder tools, making it easy to monetize and make use of their plots.

Decentraland can also be accessed in VR — making for one of the more immersive blockchain gaming experiences.

DuckDAO also deserves an honorable mention for the D section. Besides having its own NFT game (known as DUCK DAO Hunters), it has also helped launch a wide variety of NFT projects — including Wanaka Farm, Mist, Monsta Infinite and Hodooi.

E is for Enjin

Enjin is widely known as one of the most capable platforms for building NFT-enabled products, whether that be games, art collections, digital experiences or anything else.

The platform provides all the solutions needed to launch NFT-enabled projects, including powerful creation tools, a marketplace and wallet, as well as distribution capabilities.

Enjin currently powers a huge range of NFT projects and is trusted by dozens of major players in the blockchain — some of the most prominent projects include Binance Collectibles, Microsoft's Azure Heroes, Ether Legends and more. We even partnered with Enjin for our “RIP 2020” NFTs which were given away to 500 winners earlier this year.

Ethernity is another prominent name well-deserving of the E slot. Launched in 2021, Ethernity is one of the more recent NFT projects but has quickly grown to become a force to be reckoned with.

The platform allows artists and creators to easily launch their limited edition authenticated NFTs (aNFTs) collections. Players are able to bid on these aNFTs with the Ethernity token (ERN) and part of the revenue this generates is donated to charity.

For more on Ethernity, click here for our tech deep dive!

F is for Flow

Built by Dapper Labs, the behemoth development firm behind the ever-popular CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot, Flow is a powerful platform for creating and launching mainstream games and applications.

Flow provides the tools and services developers need to build highly scalable, intuitive decentralized applications that can rival current centralized offerings. It is widely regarded as one of the most capable platforms for NFT-enabled games since it's incredibly easy to build on and accessible to even those with limited experience with blockchain technology.

G is for GameZone

GameZone is a new platform designed to make blockchain games as accessible as possible while providing a launchpad for new gaming projects.

The platform allows stakers of its native token, known as GZONE, to access initial NFT offerings (INOs) and initial game offerings (IGOs) for blockchain game NFTs and assets respectively. It also offers incubation services for blockchain-enabled games to help them develop sustainable tokenomics, grow their player base and more.

GameZone was created by BlueZilla, the same team behind the popular BSCPad and ADAPad project launchpads.

H is for Hic et Nunc

Hit et Nunc (Latin for "here and now") is a rapidly growing NFT marketplace that is built to empower creators by providing a permissionless NFT creation and trading solution.

The platform is one of the first major NFT projects building in the Tezos ecosystem and offers a decentralized computing environment where users can create and trade static or interactive NFTs known as OBJKTs.

In development since 2020, Hic et Nunc is now one of the more promising NFT projects, and features a huge range of creators and NFT collections.

I is for Illuvium

Illuvium is an open-world RPG centered around alien creatures known as Illuvials, which players can collect, fuse and battle to earn $ILV tokens. Despite being built on the Ethereum blockchain, the platform is set to be one of the first play-to-earn games to eliminate gas fees thanks to its integration with Immutable X.

Illuvium is currently one of the largest NFT-enabled games as far as market capitalization is concerned, and is one of the few blockchain games with genuine AAA-quality graphics.

J is for Juggernaut

Juggernaut is a decentralized exchange platform and DeFi product suite built for NFTs.

It's designed to help blend NFTs with the burgeoning DeFi ecosystem through a decentralized marketplace where users can browse their favorite collections and buy/sell NFTs.

Besides the aforementioned NFT exchange, the Juggernaut ecosystem consists of two additional components. These are Diamond JGN (a membership program for JGN token holders and supporters, and JuggerDRAW (a mini-game that allows users to win NFTs).

K is for K21

K21 is a new protocol for digital art, as well as an NFT vault that will eventually contain a unique collection of 21 digital artworks curated by an experienced team of art connoisseurs.

As of writing, a total of 18 pieces have already been collected for the K21 art vault: these include works dating back as far as 1985 from a variety of well-known artists.

The K21 token represents partial ownership of the artwork collection and entitles holders to a share of the proceeds if the collection is ever bought out.

L is for LUKSO

LUKSO is a blockchain built to power the next generation of digital products. It's an EVM-based platform that aims to become the first to adopt the Ethereum 2.0 consensus engine to provide a high-throughput environment developers can use to host powerful applications.

The platform is primarily designed to provide infrastructure solutions for physical and digital goods, including a new set of standards and services that help empower the creators, holders and users of digital products.

M is for Monsta Infinite

Monsta Infinite is an upcoming play-to-earn game that is currently being built on Binance Smart Chain.

The game is centered around rare and powerful creatures known as MONSTAs, which are used to participate in battles to earn Stamen Tellus (STT) — the game's digital currency. Players can also clone their MONSTAs and fuse them to produce more powerful variants to help maximize their success in battle.

Each of these MONSTAs is backed by an NFT and is fully tradeable.

The game is currently in development, and its beta version is scheduled to launch in December 2021.

N is for NFTLaunch

NFTLaunch is one of the first launchpads dedicated to NFT projects — such as those building NFT-enabled games, NFT art collections, digital collectibles or anything else that can be represented as an NFT.

On NFTLaunch users are able to stake their NFTL tokens to participate in NFT decentralized offerings (NDOs) — allowing them to get early access to sought-after NFT mints.

The platform features deflationary tokenomics, with a 12% fee applied to all NFTL sell transactions. Out of this, 5% is used to purchase NFTs that are randomly airdropped to its users, 4% is redistributed to stakers in ETH, 2% is used for token buybacks/burns and the remaining 1% is allocated to charitable causes.

O is for Origin Protocol

Origin Protocol provides a range of products designed to help make NFTs and DeFi more accessible.

Chief among these is its powerful NFT launchpad, which can be integrated into any website to allow firms and creators to host their own NFT sales and manage their own branding. The platform is unique in that it features seamless support for both fiat and crypto payments.

Origin's self-serve NFT launchpad has already been used by prominent names, including 3LAU — which used the product to conduct the largest-ever NFT music sale.

P is for Polkadex

Polkadex is a decentralized orderbook-based exchange platform that aims to make trading cryptocurrencies more accessible, cost-effective and efficient by leveraging the capabilities of Polkadot.

The platform is set to support trustless cross-chain transfers, up to 500,000 transactions per second with minimal fees and decentralized KYC and fiat options to make DEX trading more accessible to retail users.

But more than this, it’s also set to become one of the first DEXs to gamify the trading experience through the use of NFTs.

Q is for QuickSwap

QuickSwap is the most popular DEX on Polygon and an entire ecosystem unto itself. The platform offers a simple to use trading platform for a range of Polygon-based assets, in addition to several pools and farms used to generate a further yield on QuickSwap LP tokens.

It's also one of the first projects on Polygon to dabble with NFTs, and regularly gives away NFTs to its users via its socials. Most recently, it gave away a bunch of NFTs in celebration of its one-year birthday. These currently trade on OpenSea for ~$1,000 a pop.

R is for Rarible

Rarible is one of the longest-standing and most popular NFT marketplaces operating today. The platform allows users to easily mint, sell, buy and collect NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain.

The platform supports many of today's most popular NFT collections, including MekaVerse, BoredApeYachtClub, MutantCats and hundreds of others, and provides an easy-to-use wallet that makes securely storing NFTs a less daunting task.

The platform has its own native governance token, known as RARI, which is used to submit proposals and vote on changes to the Rarible protocol.

S is for SuperFarm

SuperFarm is a burgeoning NFT ecosystem that combines the benefits of DeFi with the unique qualities of NFTs to provide an outlet for NFT enthusiasts.

The SuperFarm ecosystem is comprised of five major products, these are:

NFT Launchpad: for launching limited edition NFT collections on SuperFarm’s drop platform;

NFT Farm: a yield farm that rewards users with NFTs;

NFT Creator: a tool to simplify the creation of NFTs;

NFT Marketplace: for buying, trading and selling NFTs;

NFT Swap: for performing direct NFT swaps.

T is for TRON

TRON is one of the most powerful smart contract platforms and a diverse ecosystem of projects and services built on a high-speed layer one blockchain.

The platform is designed to provide a suite of tools and protocols that help users better manage their resources while providing the infrastructure for the next generation of DApps.

Though TRON is largely picking up momentum for its DeFi platforms like JustLend, JustSwap and decentralized file-sharing sister project BitTorrent, it’s also rapidly gaining prominence for its NFT projects.

Tpunks is arguably the most popular of these — a collection of 10,000 unique characters (some of which resemble TRON CEO Justin Sun). The most expensive Tpunk recently sold for 120 million TRX (approx $10 million at the time).

U is for Ultra

Billed as a "new era for gamers," Ultra is an entertainment platform that offers a wide variety of gaming-related tools and services to both developers and consumers.

Ultra provides a powerful blockchain and toolkit developers can use to integrate novel features and game mechanics that were previously not possible without blockchain technology. Its SDK can also be used to turn regular in-game assets into blockchain-based NFTs — opening up new revenue streams while allowing players to truly own their assets.

Unisocks also deserves an honorable mention in the U section if for no other reason than its sheer obscurity. The platform offers a bonding curve for NFT-backed socks (known as Unisocks) — only 500 will ever exist and each pair is now worth a whopping $100k+.

V is for Velas

Velas is an AI-powered blockchain that was forked from the Solana code base. The platform is billed as the first AI-optimized blockchain platform and uses “artificial intuition” to automatically adjust its operating parameters to maximize security, speed and efficiency.

As a fork of Solana, Velas inherits all of its capabilities — which means it supports practically any scale of NFT-enabled projects.

And with the recent advent of VelasPad (a Velas-centric launchpad and incubator), the number of NFT projects building on the platform is likely to skyrocket in the coming months. Velas is also offering grants to teams to help bootstrap its NFT ecosystem with an NFT marketplace and minting platform.

W is for WAX

The Worldwide Asset Exchange (WAX) is a blockchain specifically designed for eco-friendly blockchain games and digital collectibles.

Being purpose-built for NFTs, WAX makes it easy for brands to launch their NFT collections. Besides being fast and efficient, it's also certified as carbon neutral — allowing creators and enthusiasts to create, buy and sell NFTs without worrying about any environmental consequences.

WAX technologies have already been used by a huge range of well-known brands, including the likes of Atari, Topps, Capcom, Bratz, Funko and Robotech.

X is for XCAD Network

XCAD Network is a platform that allows YouTube content creators to launch their own creator tokens. Users with the XCAD plugin installed will earn these creators tokens as a reward for watching and interacting with their content.

The platform provides a way for creators to further monetize their platform while allowing fans to better interact with their favorite YouTubers. To help achieve this, the platform allows fans to earn special creator NFTs by staking their creator tokens. These tokens can also be redeemed by merch and other experiences.

Want to learn more about XCAD Network? Check out our full deep dive.

Y is for Yield Guild Games

Yield Guild Games, or YGG, is a play-to-earn gaming guild and decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that helps players easily gain exposure to a wide range of blockchain gaming asset NFTs.

The platform aims to maximize the value and utility of NFTs used in blockchain games, and helps reduce the barriers to entry for earning a return from blockchain games like Axie Infinity. It features a variety of yield generation options for participants, including the rental and sale of YGG-owned assets — which generates profits shared with the community.

Want to learn more about Yield Guild Games? We’ve covered it in more depth — here.

Z is for Zilliqa

Zilliqa is a high-speed blockchain that leverages a unique sharded architecture to achieve a level of scaling that few competing platforms can rival.

In development since 2017, Zilliqa has grown to become one of the most promising smart contract platforms and is currently host to a wide array of applications — including popular DApps like Unstoppable Domains.

Due to its speed and versatility, Zilliqa has recently begun picking up momentum among NFT projects, including Mintable (which now supports Zilliqa NFTs), and upcoming projects like XCAD Network, DeMons and Heroes of Lowhelm.

Still Hungry For More?

We’ve got a whole range of resources about NFTs on CoinMarketCap Alexandria. But, for now, consider taking a deep dive into how NFTs work or learn how to mint an NFT!

What Are Automated Market Makers?

Ever wondered how decentralized exchanges (DEX) process trades and discover prices? Unlike traditional exchanges, a DEX uses an automated market maker (AMM) to enable a fluid trading system that borders on autonomy, liquidity and automation. Continue reading to understand the concept of an automated market maker and how it powers decentralized exchanges.

Market Making: What Is It?

Before we dive into the technicalities associated with AMMs, it is crucial to understand the concert of market making in the financial landscape.

As its name implies, market making connotes the process involved in defining the prices of assets and simultaneously providing liquidity to the market. In other words, a market maker does create liquidity for a financial asset. It must find a way of meeting the selling and buying requests of traders, which in turn plays into the pricing of the said asset.

For instance, a Bitcoin exchange uses an order book and an order matching system to facilitate Bitcoin trades. Here, the order book records and showcases the prices at which traders desire to buy or sell Bitcoin.

The order matching system, on the other hand, matches and settles sell and buy orders. At every given time, the most recent price at which Bitcoin was bought will automatically feature as the market price of the digital asset.

In some cases where there are not enough counterparties to trade with, the market is said to be illiquid or prone to slippage. Slippage occurs when the processing of large order volumes drives the prices of an asset up or down.

To mitigate this occurrence, some crypto exchanges employ the services of professional traders — in the form of brokers, banks and other institutional investors — to continuously provide liquidity. These liquidity providers ensure that there are always counterparties to trade with by providing bid-ask orders that would match the orders of traders. The process involved in providing liquidity is what we call market making, and those entities that deliver liquidity are market makers.

Now that you understand what market making is, it is easier to grasp the workings of an automated market maker.

What Then Is an Automated Market Maker?

From the explanation above, it is clear that crypto market makers work around the clock to reduce price volatility by providing the appropriate level of liquidity. What if there was a way to democratize this process such that the average individual could function as a market maker? This is where automated market makers enter the fray.

Unlike centralized exchanges, decentralized trading protocols do away with order books, order matching systems and financial entities acting as market makers: some examples are Uniswap, Sushi, Curve and Balancer. The goal is to eliminate the input of third parties so that users can execute trades directly from their personal wallets. Hence, a majority of the processes are executed and governed by smart contracts.

In other words, AMMs allow traders to interact with smart contracts programmed to enable liquidity and discover prices. While this summarizes the concept of AMM, it doesn’t explain the underlying processes and systems that make this possible.

How Do AMMs Work?

First and foremost, have it at the back of your mind that AMMs use preset mathematical formulas to discover and maintain the prices of paired cryptocurrencies. Also, note that AMMs allow anyone to provide liquidity for paired assets. The protocol allows anyone to become a liquidity provider (LP).

To explain this further, let's take Uniswap as a case study. The protocol uses the popular x*y=k equation where X denotes the value of Asset A and Y represents that of Asset B. K is a constant value. Hence, regardless of changes in the value of assets A or B, their product must always be equal to a constant.

Note that the equation highlighted as an example is just one of the existing formulas used to balance AMMs. Balancer uses a more complex formula that allows its protocol to bundle up to eight tokens in a single pool.

While there are a variety of approaches to AMMs as exemplified by Uniswap and Balancer, the fact remains that they require liquidity to function properly and negate slippages. As such, these protocols incentivize liquidity providers by offering them a share of the commission generated by liquidity pools and governance tokens. In other words, you get to receive transaction fees when you provide capital for running liquidity pools.

Once you stake your fund, you will receive liquidity provider tokens that denote your share of the liquidity deposited in a pool. These tokens also make you eligible to receive transaction fees as passive income. You may deposit these tokens on other protocols that accept them for more yield farming opportunities. To withdraw your liquidity from the pool, you would have to turn in your LP tokens.

Another thing that you should know about AMMs is that they are ideal for arbitrageurs. For those that are unfamiliar with this term, arbitrageurs profit off inefficiencies in financial markets. They buy assets at a lower price on one exchange and sell them instantly on another platform offering slightly higher rates. Whenever there are disparities between the prices of pooled tokens and the exchange rate of external markets, arbitrageurs can sell or buy such tokens until the market inefficiency is eliminated.

Impermanent Loss

Although AMMs offer significant returns to LPs, there are risks involved. The most common is impermanent loss. This phenomenon arises when the price ratio of assets in a liquidity pool changes. LPs who have deposited funds in affected pools automatically incur an impermanent loss. The larger the shift in the price ratio, the larger the loss.

However, this loss is called impermanent for a reason. As long as you do not withdraw deposited tokens at a time that the pool is experiencing a shift in price ratio, it is still possible to mitigate this loss. The loss disappears when the prices of the tokens revert to the original value at which they were deposited. Those who withdraw funds before the prices revert suffer permanent losses. Nonetheless, it is possible for the income received via transaction fees to cover such losses.

Conclusion

Over the last couple of years, AMMs have proven to be innovative systems for enabling decentralized exchanges. In this time, we have witnessed the emergence of a slew of DEXs that are driving the ongoing DeFi hype. While this does not mean that the approach is flawless, the advancements recorded in the last 12 months are indicative of the several possibilities that AMMs provide. It remains to be seen where we go from here.

What Is a Crypto ETF?

If you have invested in crypto and Bitcoin for longer than a year, chances are you’ve heard of a crypto ETF. Considered the holy grail of the crypto industry’s quest for mainstream adoption and something that many companies are clamoring for, this financial investment fund, if approved in the U.S., would bring the redemption of virtual assets full circle as a legitimate asset class on par with other traditional finance choices such as gold and silver. While U.S. regulators have staunchly resisted its approval thus far, there is reason to believe that 2021 may be the Year of the Crypto ETF.

What Is an ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund)?

An ETF (exchange-traded fund) is a type of investment fund made up of a collection of securities such as stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies and is listed for trading on conventional stock exchanges. An ETF tracks the price movements of an underlying asset. Utility tokens, despite being mere virtual currencies, may also be part of an ETF.

ETFs are somewhat identical to mutual funds, except that their shares trade on a 24-hour cycle, similar to directly interacting with a company's shares on a stock exchange. Mutual funds trading, on the other hand, hinges on its price at the end of a trading day.

An ETF in short will help mainstream finance investors to put their money into Bitcoin and other crypto assets without having to own or manage their crypto, which can get tricky.

Regulations in This Industry

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which operates in the largest capital market, regulates ETFs under the Investment Company Act of 1940, which is generally under the same regulatory guidelines as mutual funds and unit investment trusts (UIT).

According to the SEC’s investor alerts for ETFs, regulatory requirements for ETFs include: federal securities law and relevant exemptions that are designed to protect investors from risks and conflicts; statutory limitations on the use of leverage and transactions with related parties; exact reporting requirements and disclosure obligation; reviewed by a board of directors.

New SEC Ruling on ETF Regulations

On Sept. 26, 2019, the SEC announced that it has voted to adopt a new rule that would modernize regulations of ETFs. This was done by establishing a transparent, consistent and efficient regulatory framework, so that ETFs do not have to apply for individual exemptions, which takes time and expenses, before they go to market.

One year from the introduction of this rule, the SEC has halted exemptive relief that was previously authorized to certain ETFs. Therefore, ETFs that rely on this rule will have to comply with the conditions laid out by the SEC to protect investors. Ultimately, a clear and consistent regulatory framework promotes greater innovation and competition within the ETF industry, and benefits investors. This is especially true for retail investors (dubbed “main street”), that are increasingly adopting ETF products as part of their investment portfolio, given its low cost and passive investing nature. In fact, a record $305 billion flowed into US-listed ETFs, as of June 2021, as compared to $249 billion for the entire year of 2020.

Benefits of Investing in an ETF

While private investors have access to equity in pre-public companies fundraises or private funds, and institutional investors and family offices are offered exclusive access to financial products with a high minimum investable amount, exchange traded funds are generally suited for the mass market retail investors. This is due to the small upfront amount required to start investing, extremely low fees (typical ETF expense ratio is around 0.05%) and wide availability on online brokerages.

Furthermore, during the post-pandemic crash and subsequent bull run of 2020, where growth stocks, especially those of technology companies, performed exceptionally well, numerous ETFs made headlines for their stellar performance. One that generated a cult-like following among retail investors is ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) of star fund manager and founder of Ark Invest — Cathie Wood. The growth-focused fund generated a return of 152.82% in 2020, which is exceptional for an ETF, and when compared to a return of 20.9% in the broad U.S. equities market.

What Is a Crypto ETF?

A crypto ETF is an ETF that tracks the value shifts of one or more digital currencies. Fundamentally, it works like a traditional ETF and is traded like a standard share on a stock exchange.

For a cryptocurrency ETF to work, the company issuing and listing it on an exchange needs to bear custody of the underlying digital coin. Then, investors buy shares to represent their rights into the exchange-traded fund. As such, the investors gain indirect exposure to the volatility of the base cryptocurrency.

ETFs provide a less risky way to invest in blockchain-powered assets. In some cases, a blockchain investment may involve buying into a blockchain ETF. Here, an investor interacts with ETFs that mimic holding stocks of a firm dealing with blockchain technology, the same technology behind digital currencies.

An example of a blockchain ETF is BLOK, which launched in 2018. The exchange-traded fund plows 80% of net assets into firms interacting with decentralized ledger technology (DLT).

Note that for a crypto ETF to be active, it must receive a regulatory green light from financial watchdogs in its preferred operating jurisdictions. For instance, a crypto ETF seeking to attract investments from U.S. residents must get a regulatory nod from the country's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

How Will a Bitcoin ETF Work?

The ETFs that are available today (for most of the world, non-Bitcoin ones) can be bought on retail-friendly mobile applications such as the Fidelity app, Robinhood, and TD Ameritrade, and they differ slightly from mutual funds, since they trade continuously throughout the day.

A Bitcoin ETF is an exchange-traded fund that tracks the price of BTC, and if it was approved in the U.S, it would be available for trading on traditional stock trading avenues like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

However, as of today, BTC mostly trades on crypto exchanges such as Binance or Coinbase — not in the form of an ETF.

Note that a Bitcoin mutual fund is an investment vehicle under a professional money manager's stewardship. A Bitcoin ETF, however, gives investors indirect exposure to the leading cryptocurrency without the risks of holding the actual cryptocurrency.

Notably, investors' stake in the ETF fluctuates according to the price of the top cryptocurrency. Therefore, when the BTC's value rises, the ETF's value also increases and vice versa.

Regulators Are Yet to Open the Gates

Unfortunately, regulators in major countries are yet to give a Bitcoin ETF regulatory approval despite a handful of applications. For example, the founders of the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, the Winklevoss twins, filed an exchange-traded fund tracking the price of the leading cryptocurrency with the SEC. Their application for a Bitcoin ETF was rejected twice by the SEC, the second time in July 2018.

Fortunately, Canadian financial regulators are on the front lines as the first few watchdogs to give the green light for a crypto ETF. In February 2021, the country welcomed a BTC ETF that hit over $420 million in assets under management in 48 hours.

Filed by Purpose Investments, the ETF opened its doors to investors on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) with the symbol "BTCC."

Another Bitcoin ETF, known by ticker "EBIT," trades on the TSX and is under the custody of Evolve Funds Group. EBIT gives investors exposure to Bitcoin by tracking its daily price fluctuations in terms of the US dollar.

Ethereum ETF

An Ethereum exchange-traded fund is a crypto ETF that gives investors exposure — via trading on stock exchanges — to the second-largest cryptocurrency. The ETF is comparable with stocks or bonds, only that the underlying asset here is Ethereum (ETH).

Despite numerous filings of an Ethereum ETF in the U.S., the country's financial watchdog is yet to give a thumbs-up, citing crypto price volatility and security issues.

Canada, on the other hand, is slated to be the first country to approve an Ether ETF, after CI Global announced the CI Galaxy Ethereum ETF in February 2021.

With the price volatility of Ethereum and other digital currencies, crypto enthusiasts view Ethereum ETFs as a great way to invest in the cryptocurrency without buying actual ETH coins. Investing in an ETF also means that people would not have to own the ETH themselves, which could be safer for some investors, as a custodian would typically have more security mechanisms in place than the average investor.

Advantages of Crypto ETFs

There are many benefits of cryptocurrency ETFs. These include:

Merging of Traditional Finance and Crypto

Despite hitting over $1.5 trillion in market cap, the crypto market is still minuscule compared to the tens of trillions sitting in large traditional hedge funds, mutual funds, insurance firms and other institutions.

Crypto ETFs could potentially close the gap between the crypto economy and the rest of the world's economies. And broader market participation is likely to have a positive impact on the valuations of not only Bitcoin, but also the rest of the cryptocurrencies.

Diversification

First, note that an ETF can contain more than one asset. For instance, an Ethereum ETF (despite its name) could also hold Bitcoin or even Facebook stocks. Consequently, it gives investors a way to diversify their portfolios.

This option also helps investors hedge against risks inherent in denominating a portfolio in a single asset. Furthermore, interacting with a regulated stock exchange enables investors to utilize existing portfolios further.

Convenience

Cryptocurrency ETFs mask the hassle of buying, selling and storing virtual currencies. They also eliminate the need to learn the technology behind blockchain-based assets. Generally, a crypto ETF simplifies mass market investors' indirect entry into the crypto ecosystem, while allowing them to gain exposure to major digital assets as a whole, or to specific verticals, such as decentralized finance (DeFi), if they invest in thematic ETFs.

Furthermore, the passive nature of ETFs, which automatically rebalance if they are actively-managed, allows mass market retail investors to invest and forget, which is deemed as the investment strategy with the highest return, according to a study by Fidelity Investments.

Efficiency During Tax Filing

The unregulated nature of cryptocurrencies prohibits major bodies such as pension funds from allowing the purchase of digital assets directly, but leveraging regulated platforms such as stock exchanges can allow for the efficient tax filing of cryptocurrency ETFs.

Greater Confidence

Another advantage of crypto ETFs is that they come from regulated firms and are traded on regulated avenues. Therefore, non-crypto investors can put their money in them with much confidence knowing everything is continuously monitored.

Disadvantages of Crypto ETFs

Despite numerous benefits, crypto ETFs also have their shortcomings. Some factors hindering cryptocurrency ETFs include:

ETFs Are Centralized

Cryptocurrencies have lessened the reliance on centralized financial entities, such as central banks. Additionally, they provide a greater level of privacy compared to government-issued currencies.

While these are good reasons for adopting cryptocurrencies, the use of crypto in ETFs sacrifices one crucial aspect of cryptocurrencies: decentralization. Investing in crypto ETFs means allowing a custodian to hold your digital assets. This leaves crypto ETFs open to the watchful eyes of financial watchdogs, which water down the benefits of decentralization and privacy.

ETFs Are Costly to Manage

The convenience of crypto ETFs comes with a management fee. Since the cost is usually a percentage of the total shares, investments into a cryptocurrency exchange-traded fund can attract high management premiums proportional to the duration of the investment.

ETFs Are Not Tradable with Other Currencies

BTC, ETH and other currencies are normally tradable against each other on a digital currency exchange. Unfortunately, crypto ETFs aren't tradable with other cryptos. Furthermore, with a crypto ETF, it's impossible to pay for goods and services, unlike the underlying crypto asset, which some merchants may already accept.

Accuracy Isn't Guaranteed

We've seen that a crypto ETF can contain more than one asset, including non-crypto ones. And although an ETF mimics the price movements of its underlying assets, multiple assets in a portfolio can affect the tracking accuracy. For instance, a 60% increase in ETH's value may display as a 45% rise in the ETF. Therefore, the tracking may be inaccurate compared with the same asset in the spot market.

Liquidity May Be a Risk

The liquidity risk sets in if the ETF fund manager sells short. When that happens, shareholders pay the price. Additionally, ETFs are likely to cause a dramatic change in the price of the tracked cryptocurrencies as more investors are exposed to them.

Why Is There No Approved Crypto ETF in the US?

The absence of approved crypto ETFs in the US is largely due to a regulatory environment that concentrates on cryptocurrencies' unregulated nature. With no central authority and watchdog, the SEC considers the crypto industry prone to manipulation by whales, or wealthy investors, and fraudsters.

However, the change in administration in 2021 has seen more pro-crypto individuals head key financial departments. For example, Gary Gensler, a known crypto supporter, was appointed as the SEC's new head. Consequently, this has increased crypto enthusiasts' faith that a crypto ETF is on the way.

Moreover, a move by the Ontario Securities Commission to approve a Bitcoin ETF in Canada brings a glimpse of hope that the US is likely to follow the steps.

The Canadian Bitcoin ETF from fund manager Purpose Investments hit staggering sales of over $420 million in over two days when it launched in February 2021.

Closing Thoughts on ETFs

In 2017 and 2018, the SEC cited volatility as the primary reason for rejecting an ETF, a rejection some cite as one of the reasons behind the market downturn at the time. Three years later, the crypto ecosystem has made great strides towards maturity.

We have witnessed that the market efficiency has improved, the regulatory watch has evolved, audit processes have strengthened and advanced custody products are now on the market.

Unfortunately, it's not yet clear whether the crypto market has fulfilled the SEC's definition of maturity. Experts such as Cathie Wood, an executive at Ark Investment Management, believe that the crypto industry's maturity is pegged at a market capitalization of roughly $2 trillion, which is drawing nearer.

In any case, with Gary Gensler in charge of the SEC and many big institutions and high-profile business figures like Paul Tudor Jones, Elon Musk, Stan Druckenmiller and many more piling in to invest in Bitcoin, the odds have never been better for at least a Bitcoin ETF to finally be given the greenlight by the SEC in 2021.