Recorem

The NFT industry surged in 2021, reaching a value of roughly $22 billion and drawing in about 185,000 distinct wallets in addition to an estimated 280,000 buyers and dealers.

However, as the market has expanded, cybercrime has also expanded, as seen by eye-catching instances of NFT fraud, NFT art scams, and NFT game scams. Continue reading to find out more about NFTs and how to evade NFT fraud.

Learning to recognize these frauds and then avoiding them at all costs is the best defense against them. We have listed down the most typical NFT frauds, and the way you can avoid them? 🤔

Impersonation 

There are third-party markets like OpenSea that help with NFT transactions and offer security for each sale. But to trick users, fraudsters might put up dummy marketplaces with similar URLs. An NFT’s visible component is an easily duplicated image and some unencrypted data, therefore these websites can resemble actual marketplaces quite closely.

Phishing scams

 One of the most typical scams is phishing. On a variety of sites and applications, such as Discord, Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram, this happens when attackers distribute nefarious links. The link frequently directs the victim to a false NFT minting page, which, if signed, enables the con artist to steal money from the victim. There are several variations of this fraud, such as when an NFT project’s official Discord account is hacked, enabling attackers to utilise the channel to spread their malicious “honey pot” link.

Customer Support Impersonation

 Scammers frequently use bogus customer care pages for legitimate NFTs to obtain private information from unaware NFT owners. On Discord, where many NFT project communities are housed, this is rather typical. Scammers may ask you for private information, such as your private key or seed phrase, in order to “repair” whatever issue you may be experiencing if you connect to one of these fraudulent customer service servers rather than the real one. If this is a concern for you, think about how you typically access NFT Discord servers. Try finding a server via the NFT creator’s official website or social media first rather than just searching for it on Google or Discord.

Rug pulls

 Rug pulls are well-known in the NFT industry. These are frauds in which the project’s originator (or project founders) advertise a venture’s apparent aim without intending to see the objectives achieved. They are frequently referred to by the shorter “rug.” In the end, the fraudsters solicit money — often through NFT mints — and steal it (also known as “rug pulling”) without making any effort to advance the initiative. Find out more about the teams behind NFT projects by looking them up on social media sites like Linkedin and Twitter. The crypto community may even know and trust anonymous artists and engineers, but it is still crucial to carefully examine follower counts and interaction on social media. Check the project’s road map to see if it’s realistic.

The sheer variety of modern scams that you can fall for is a little frightening. Every other week, cybercriminals come up with new schemes to deceive people as they get more and more creative. But if you remain cautious and knowledgeable about the various scams that exist and how to spot them, you’ll undoubtedly keep yourself safe when exploring the fascinating world of NFTs.

Smart contracts are computerized transaction protocols tailored for executing the terms of a contract. Primarily, smart contracts are created for addressing mutual conditions while reducing accidental exceptions and the involvement of intermediaries.

A smart contract security audit provides a detailed analysis of a project’s smart contracts. These are important to safeguard funds invested through them. As smart contracts are immutable once deployed, it is important to go through all the checks and ensure there are no loopholes in the code. Deploying smart contracts without proper audits could result in untoward circumstances such as discrepancies in the desired performance of the contract. At the same time, inadequate audit processes could also land you up with risks such as loss of personal data or data theft.

Process of Smart Contract Auditing

1.Agreement on Specification

The first step in the process focuses on reaching an agreement regarding the specification of smart contracts. The smart contract specification and other related documentation provide a clear explanation for the architecture, build process, and design choices of a project. The lack of a specification would leave auditors without any idea regarding the desired and actual working of the code. Therefore, the first phase of how to audit a smart contract starts with a full specification of the project.

2.Testing Process

Testing is one of the significant factors which maximize the smart contract audit cost. Testing also offers simple and easy approaches for bug detection. Different options are available such as unit tests for targeting individual functions or integration tests focused on concerns of larger code.

3. Manual Analysis

Manual inspection is a necessary requirement for improving the detection of possible smart contract code vulnerabilities. An experienced auditing team evaluates the specification for confirming the performance of a project according to desired functionalities.

4.Automated Analysis

The projects that require faster time-to-market often prefer an automated approach because it helps find vulnerabilities much faster.Automated analysis tools could evaluate a program for determining the inputs which trigger the execution of each part of the program. These tools help in streamlining the audit process by improving the ease of identification of general issues in code.

5.Audit Report

The final step in smart contract audit is the creation of an audit report. The auditors should create a detailed audit report after completing the tests, automated analysis, and manual analysis process.

Advantages of Smart Contract Audits

1.Better optimization of the code as they improve Gas Efficiency as well.

Check out our article on How to Optimize your Gas: https://www.recorem.com/blog/how-to-use-gas-optimization-techniques-in-solidity

2. Improved performance of smart contracts as most of the vulnerabilities will be removed post the audit. This leaves little to no room for performance degradation.

3. Enhanced Security of Wallets.

4. Security against hacking attacks such as:

Reentrancy attack

Reordering attack

Short address attack

Over and underflows

Replay attack

Hence, it is quite clear that Smart Contract Auditing is a crucial step in developing an error free and optimized code. A simple line of code could be the difference between a successful and a misused contract.

We saw some significant crypto-related projects crash in 2022, which caused Web3 to experience considerable setbacks.

However, technological advancement and innovation are still going strong, therefore 2023 needs to be a year with increased risk appraisal and assessment. There are a number of services planned that, over time, will become popular in order to promote Web3.According to Web3, we now have the means to build online places that are genuinely ours, as well as to implement digital democracies, thanks to technologies like blockchain, cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens, and decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs).

On the internet, we have come a long way; in the beginning, this was unthinkable. Web3 is currently the subject of agreements and controversies, yet it has a lot to offer. Businesses adopting Web3 and blockchain are preparing for the future by figuring out how to help their customers and clients get more done with less. With improved infrastructure, more human-centered and holistic Web3 trends will be visible soon.

The top web3 trends in 2023:

By 2030, the Web3 niche market will expand by 41% and address many of the problems currently experienced by internet users.

Gaming

The use of Web3 UI/UX and the usage of blockchain in gaming have both recently increased. There will also be more play-to-earn games available. There will then be a carefully considered game economy. In addition, markets will experience a 50% increase in the gaming market over the following four years.

How is Web3.0 revolutionizing gaming?

Find out here: https://bit.ly/3C2mglL

NFTs

NFTs were a significant trend in 2021 but lost steam in 2022. This is advantageous for technology since developers will need to offer more value to attract users. Future value-added drops ought to exist since an NFT with no value will collapse. Companies must educate themselves on utility NFTs, which are much more than just works of art. NFT tickets, for instance, are one method. It is a fantastic approach to involve customers for merchandise and special events.

Want to know hw NFTs are going to change the world?

Find out how here: https://bit.ly/3hWAqOv

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO)

DAOs are not a new concept in cryptocurrency, but they haven’t yet reached their full potential. We can quickly identify use cases for that kind of organisation even by looking at a few recent events. Look at Elon Musk’s poll to see if people think he should continue leading Twitter. He stated that he would follow the poll’s findings, and it turned out that the public wanted him to resign. Who did the voting, though? Could computer programmes manipulate the poll? Obviously, it might. A DAO would at least be able to verify such a vote on-chain and link it to the assets of the voters.

Want to learn more about the potential of NFTs?

Check out our detailed event: https://bit.ly/3PSUuOe

GameFi

The idea of GameFi or the metaverse most likely originated from NFTs. It gives games more economics that players can use to their advantage. The assets can be exchanged across worlds and games, traded on outside markets, and they don’t even have to be a part of one game.

Regenerative Finance (ReFi)

DeFi is an extension of what you may have heard. It blends the decentralised finance idea with the regenerative economics idea. Imagine you own a green, beautiful piece of land. You can give the land area a monetary value with ReFi. The Web3 is a platform that users may access using a wallet to invest in, purchase, or exchange natural resources. In order to protect the environment, regenerative finance is thought to be just and long-lasting.

You may have seen many posts about how to write your first Contract in Solidity. In fact, you must be tired of seeing these rudimentary posts about Solidity. 

Even we made a 5 Step Process to become a Solidity Developer.

Well, we promise you- this post is not the same.

This article will teach you what other developers are scared to learn.

So you have written a Smart Contract in Solidity? But what’s next?

Is it production ready? Is it even portfolio ready?

It’s not until you have optimised your gas!

Here are the top Gas Optimization Techniques to upgrade your Smart Contracts to the next level:

Use Solidity Gas Optimizer:

The Solidity Gas Optimizer works to make complex expressions simpler, which minimizes the size of the code and the cost of execution via inline operations, deployments costs, and function call costs.

Delete Variables that are not needed:

This should be a no brainer!

Deleting a variable refund up to 15,000 gas.

Use bytes32 instead if uint8:

If the string you are dealing with can be limited to max of 32 characters, use bytes32 instead of dynamic bytes array or string.

Use Mappings instead of Arrays:

Except where iteration is required or data types can be packed, it is advised to use mappings to manage lists of data in order to conserve gas. This is beneficial for both memory and storage.

Pack your Variables:

Packing variables into one helps in using wasted space.Most of your variables will not be using the complete space they are initialized with. Packing two or more variables will guarantee no unused space is left behind.

Use External Modifier instead of public:

The Public visibility modifier is equivalent to using the External and Internal visibility modifier, meaning both public and external can be called from outside of your contract, which requires more gas.

Don't initialize Variables with Default Values:

If a variable is not set/initialized, it is assumed to have the default value . Explicitly initializing it with its default value is an anti-pattern and wastes gas

Make State Variables Immutable if Possible:

Calling state variables from storage costs 100 gas. Making them Immutable will cost you 3 gas!

Well done!

Now you know some of the best ways to save gas on your Smart Contracts. 

“DeFi is what happens when you combine the power of crypto with the openness of the internet”

–Nick Szabo

Recorem has conducted another fantastic Masterclass on how to get started with the De-fi with Shalu Panwar, Co-Founder of Trikl, as our guest speaker. From being an IIT Bombay graduate to establishing her own startup, she has come a long way.

The event provided a roadmap for those who want to get into DeFi. The event kickstarted with evolution of internet and what is web3

Web 1.0 :

Read only

Web 2.0:

Participatory

Centralized

Web 3.0:

No intermediaries

Decentralized

USE CASES OF WEB 3.0

Defi: Ecosystem of financial applications based on blockchain that operates without any third party or central administration

NFTs: Non-fungible tokens are new type of digital token where every token is different and holds unique characteristics

Metaverse: Metaverse is a network of 3D virtual worlds focus on social connection

Web2 to Web3: so many use cases in web2 which can be made better in web3 world

DAOs: Entity structure in which tokenholders participate in the management

WHAT IS DEFI?

Decentralized finance is an ecosystem of financial applications based on blockchain technology that operate without any third party or central administration intervention. it uses a P2P network to establish decentralized applications that would enable everyone to connect and manage their asset regardless of their status and location. It aims to provide an open source transparent and permissionless financial Service environment

BENEFITS

Transparency- Since the defi app is open source it is completely auditable to know exactly what the smart contract is doing in terms of functions user permissions and user data

Transactions are in real time- The underlying blockchain is updated the moment a transaction is completed, and interest rates are updated multiple times every minute.

Many DeFi protocols are open source. Ethereum and other projects are built with open-source code, which is available for anyone to view, audit and build on. Developers can easily connect multiple DeFi applications built on open-source technology to create new financial products and services, without having to seek permission.

TRADITIONAL V/S DECENTRALIZED

Decentralized finance continues to gain traction in part because it is more open and transparent than traditional Finance

Anybody with programming skills can take part in building financial services and tools on top of public blockchain

User onboarding and easy access is the main driver of the growth of traditional finance

One must obtain proper license and authorization from regulators has limited information around the traditional financial system

WHAT ARE WALLETS AND ITS TYPES

Custodial Wallet vs Non custodial wallet:

Non custodial crypto wallets give you complete control of your keys and therefore your funds

Most (but not all) web based Crypto wallet are custodial wallet and it’s very likely that the first time you purchase Crypto via custodial wallet.

Hot Wallet vs Cold Wallet

Hot wallets are always connected to the internet.

These are less secure but have more accessibility prone to Cyber attacks risk of losing assets

Cold Wallets are offline wallets. They have a physical hardware present to store the assets.

They are more safe but not at all suitable for regular payments.

ARC OF DECENTRALIZED FINANCE

Lending: Offering cryptocurrency loans in a trustless manner. You or smart contract hold the money instead of banks or centralised party

Collateralized loan- borrowers need to deposit tokens worth more than the loan amount.

Liquidity: Total value locked without liquidity, there is no DeFi.

DeFi protocols provide incentives to the liquidity providers.

Low liquidity leads to slippage.

USE CASES OF DEFI

1. Asset Management:

-Solution for network users to sell, buy and transfer digital asset and manage them -Maintain their sensitive data and the privacy of their account

2.DAOs

3. Synthetic assets:

Assets whose value is derived from a different asset or benchmark

Synthetic assets are tokens that are digital representations of derivatives

4.P2P lending and borrowing

CHALLENGES IN DEFI

Low Liquidity

Bad User experience

Smart contract bugs

Oracle manipulations

Regulations

You have successfully taken your first step into the world of DeFi.

Recorem is the First Decentralised talent discovery platform that advertises jobs in events and shares revenue with the applicants and the event partners.

So apart from this, what is unique about this platform?🤔

Our founders figured out how Web3 is a niche, unique industry and the recruitment or the recruitment process here is quite different from other industries.

People here tend to collaborate and work with others and henceforth this industry runs on communities. These communities basically do events on a regular basis and this is where the need for top skill talent of Web3 comes into play.

Our founders, being professional recruiters, created Recorem as the traditional recruiting channels are saturated. Sourcing skilled passive talent is challenging and time consuming due to limited supply of candidates on existing platforms. The success they found in finding talent from meetups and conferences led to the creation of a platform to enable this at scale.

And this is how Recorem came into place. Our founders have been in the recruitment industry for 20 years now and they understand the crux of recruitment. They understand every inch of recruitment. The product is unique in a way that at one point of time, companies and attendees can attend more than 1 event. Hence it is very scalable, you can hire talent, discover talent from various events at one point of time. This solves the problem that in person we can attend only one event. At Recorem, we can attend more than 1 event at a single point of time. It also offers various opportunities for event organizers and recruiting companies where it helps hiring companies to hire top skill talent using augmented intelligence matching engine

Recorem allows to discover talent from untapped, niched talent pool of events in web3.

Are you a developer who is trying to enter the #Blockchain industry, but not sure where to start from?🤔

Here are 5 easy steps to start your journey to becoming an amazing #SolidityDeveloper 👇

With the increasing popularity of #Blockchain technology and its use cases, programming languages such as Solidity have also risen in demand. Solidity is the primary language for building #SmartContracts, especially on the #Ethereum network. It is a high-level language with features such as cross-chain compatibility and syntactical resemblance to Javascript. These are some of the reasons that have made it developers go-to language for #BlockchainDevelopment.

Here are 5 simple steps to start your journey as a #SolidityDeveloper: 🔴STEP 1: Learn the Fundamentals Start with the basics of #Blockchain and how it works. You need to understand the problem Blockchain seeks to solve. Learn about mining, hash, wallets, private and public keys. 🔴STEP 2: Basics of Ethereum Since #Solidity is primarily used for #Ethereum, it is crucial to know what #Ethereum is and why it is so well known. Learn about the consensus mechanism and the use cases. Understand how Gas works since it plays a major role while creating your contracts. 🔴STEP 3: Basics of Solidity Start with the basics of #Solidity, such as Data types, structs and mapping, constructors and global variables. You can now create basic #SolidityContracts such as a greeting or a lottery contract. 🔴STEP 4: Advanced Solidity Topics It’s time to get into the difficult stuff. Inheritance and Events is important to understand. Gas Optimization and Error Handling will make you more efficient as a developer. 🔴STEP 5: Keep Building Enough emphasis cannot be laid on practical use. No matter how many videos you watch, unless you implement those yourselves, you will never learn. Practice makes perfect. Keep building projects and show them to the world.

Are you wondering what the hype around Smart Contracts is?

Smart Contracts are pieces of code that live on the Blockchain. They are used to execute predetermined steps whenever certain conditions are met. The code controls the execution and the transactions that take place are irreversible.

The most popular Blockchain for deploying Smart Contracts is Ethereum. In fact, the primary idea of creating the Ethereum network was to use Blockchain for more than just monetary exchange.

Smart Contracts act as an Ethereum account itself. They have a certain balance and can be targeted for a payment.

Deploying a transaction on a chain is also a transaction by itself. Hence, you must pay a certain amount of Gas to successfully deploy it.The parties involved in the Contract must sign it with their private keys.

To deploy contracts on the Ethereum chain, developers must write their code using the Solidity language. Solidity was built by Vitalik Buterin specifically for Ethereum, but is now used by many other blockchains that are EVM compatible.

For Decentralized Applications or dApps, the smart contracts act as the back-end. They are not controlled by the users and run by themselves. Users interact with the front-end and submit transactions to execute a predefined function. Smart Contracts define rules and automatically enforce them via code. Hence, there is no option of either party not completing their obligations.

Check out Recorem for the complete article.

Recorem is here with yet another marvellous masterclass on the topic “Everything can be an NFT”. You may be totally dissolved in the world of #NFTs but it is not necessary that you might know everything. Recorem brings to you this masterclass for getting a deeper insight in the world of #NFTs. 

Our guest speakers Fabian Ferno and Daniel Mark discussed all the relevant points relating  to #NFTs and made it really easy for the audience to grasp the crucial idea behind #NFTs. Even an individual who has no idea of what #NFTs are, can learn a number of things from this masterclass. 

LET'S TALK #NFTs

Brands that want to use NFTs need a solid strategy that spans their business model and industry for particular use cases. Unfortunately, many have entered the NFT market without a proper plan or vision, rushing on the hype train or cash grabs. As a result, #NFT hype has led to confusion among investors and consumers alike.

Users want utility.

The points of discussion were as follows: 

What are NFTs exactly?🤯

NFTs are cryptographically reporesented and unique digital assets stored on a blockchain. The immutability and transparency of blockchain technology means that it is easy for NFT owners to prove that an NFT is stored in their wallet and nobody else’s 

Hype vs Utilities🤷‍♀️

Utility NFTs are NFTs with use cases beyond just being unique digital assets. They are NFTs which grant their owner privileges, rights, or rewards which they would not otherwise be able to access. 

Know  the truth🤔

However as the market has matured, it seems like it is shifting towards a focus on utility with investors becoming smarter and expecting additional use cases for their NFTs. That’s why one needs to know what else could be done with NFTs. 

Want to know more? Follow our Linkedin newsletter to read more!!!

In all, it was a really fruitful session as a plethora of important points and information was given by the speakers along with our host Lakshya Mittal 🧘

If you missed it or wish to watch it again, check out the session now!! 

Helen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much”. 

Following this quote, Recorem brings you another superb masterclass on the topic “Building sustainable #web3 communities” in the deep dive into #web3 series. 

https://www.recorem.com/spectator-mode/174/how-to-build-sustainable-web3-communities-

Our guest speaker, Swapnil J singh, the co-founder of Blotic, which serves as an entry gateway for any #web3 enthusiast in India. They are aiming to build a #web3 community pan India in an offline manner.  The most important aspect of their community is the college campus to onboard all those #web3 enthusiasts who are looking for such opportunities. 

“Let’s Build it better together.”

Following were the key takeaways:

Web2: Products                                Web3: Communities 

Why is there a need for a community in #Web3? 🤔

Roadmap to build web3 communities:💡

Step 1: 

Define your values- If you want people to join our community, you need to give them a clear to deliver. In this phase, you set a strong foundation for a community.

While defining your values, you must focus on key areas like your core values, the value you want to deliver to your community, your ideal community member, the need of your project and how it is different from the type of community you want to create and the culture and ethos of your community.

Step 2: 

Gain first 100 folks: Attract the first set of members who can actively participate and with whom you can engage often and directly. Early members feel privileged to be a part of exclusive community.

Following points to be noted to gain first 100 folks-

Step 3: 

Design community experience- In this phase you need to structure your community and create the wireframe for interaction and value addition for the members. It should define the journey of a member into the community. 

What should be done? ✅

Step 4:

 Grow your community-After setting up the community now you can open doors to new users And should formulate ways to gain new members. 

How to do it?🤔

And that’s all you need to work on building sustainable web3 communities. 

Check out this event below!

https://www.recorem.com/spectator-mode/174/how-to-build-sustainable-web3-communities-?isShared=true

Never miss out on any of our events or job updates!✔️

Follow our page!

Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/company/68221372/admin/ 

 ‘Self Starter’

When you hear this word, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

Initiative? Independent? Risk taker? Self-sufficient?

Being a self-starter is all about how well you can do things on your own without the supervision of your senior or manager.

Every manager seeks out team members who are motivated and driven for their own sake. Leading innovative projects and showcasing your independence from micromanagement can help you stand out from your coworkers. Going above than the standard set at work demonstrates your dedication to the organization's success.

So consider that you are the average of the five individuals you spend the most time with. Think about that for a minute. After reviewing your objectives, turn to the individuals next to you.

Now throwing out friendships or refusing to talk to your coworkers will not make things facile for you but to be a self-starter mixing things up a bit is a crucial step. Make sure you don’t get dragged into the complaining party or people who indulge in negative self-talk. Your focus should be on your work and the goals to be achieved.

When it comes to recruiters, they also look for focused candidates with a positive attitude towards work. Organizations seek out employees with a positive attitude because they believe that optimistic people have a winning mindset. A person with a positive outlook is more likely to be hired since they can confidently face failure and competition.

That’s why Recorem brings to you the best passive Web3 talent at scale.

We provide candidates with the passion and desire to give their best at work.

Do you know one of the most important keys to surviving in the industry today?

It is being a Self-Starter.

“What would you do if you weren't afraid?”– Sheryl Sandberg.

We often come across those phases of life when we have an urge to do something, whether it is investing in stocks, opening a startup, or taking up a course; we have a fear that what if things go wrong? What if we don't achieve what we desire to?

Nothing is more terrifying than these 'what ifs' constantly revolving around in our minds. 

Self-starters can be challenging to describe, but we can recognise them when we see them. They exhibit both excitement and enjoyment in what they are doing. Additionally, they show initiative and a readiness to work without waiting for instructions when they are in the middle of a task. They typically maintain a good attitude and frequently appear to have a strong work ethic and belief in attaining outcomes regardless of the situation. Where did all of this originate from?

Being a self-starter—someone who can spot and seize new opportunities—is fundamental to having a do-it-yourself attitude. There are three major attributes of a self-starter.

Start a problem-solving process: Employees who identify problems and find supervisors value solutions. Even if you are not asked, jump in and help solve issues.

Clarity: Self-starters know precisely what they want to achieve. This may be from their own motivation to fulfil their purpose.

Take risks: Self-starters evaluate the information at hand before taking measured risks. They prefer to strive and fail than to get complacent.

As it is appropriately said, you won't learn and advance if you don't push yourself. Similar to this, a self-starter is competent at overcoming obstacles, who acts independently when handling difficulties at work, who not only sets goals but also accomplishes them within the allotted time, initiates work, and seeks out various strategies to promote the overall development of the organisation.

Are you a developer who is trying to enter the Blockchian industry, but not sure where to start from?

Well, this post will give you a detailed path to start your journey 👇

Solidity is the primary language for creating Smart Contracts on the Ethereum Blockchain. It is used to create applications with self-executing business logic. Once deployed, these programs do not require any supervision.

Solidity is currently the most popular programming language for Blockchain Development because of its wide range of use cases. It also comes with its own

There are no compulsory prerequisites for learning Solidity

However, the syntax of Solidity is similar to that of Javascript or Python. So, some prior knowledge of programming will be helpful. In fact, previous exposure to any object oriented programming language will be beneficial. Solidity uses the concept of objects and inheritance which may prove a bit overwhelming if starting from 0 coding level.

To become a successful Solidity Developer, you must have a clear understanding of how Ethereum works. You should know Ethereum’s functions and how it operates as well as its use-cases. In addition, solidity has its own compiler to convert the high level language to byte code which is easily understandable by the Ethereum Virtual Machine. If you have used Java, you would know about the Java Virtual Machine. Learn about Gas fees and minting as well.

Next, start learning the basics of Solidity. This includes:

-Data types

-Structs and Mapping

-Constructors

-Memory, storage and call-data

-Types of functions

-Events

-Global Variables

Now you have enough knowledge to build small Smart Contracts. Keep practicing till you are familiar with the basics. You will learn advanced topics such as inheritance and Gas optimization as you build projects.

The only way to retain what you have learnt and keep progressing is practically. The most important step is to keep building new projects and working on the concepts you have learnt thus far. 

Are you wondering what the hype around Smart Contracts is?

This article is the only introduction you will need on Smart Contracts. By the end of it you will have a clear understanding of what Smart Contracts are used for and its relevance.

Smart Contracts are pieces of code that live on the Blockchain. They are used to execute predetermined steps whenever certain conditions are met. The code controls the execution and the transactions that take place are irreversible.

Smart Contracts is not a new term. In fact, it has been here for a long time. It was first termed in the early 1990s, by an American Computer Scientist, Nick Szabo. He defined them as "A smart contract is a computerized transaction protocol that executes the terms of a contract."

The crux of Smart Contracts are if-then-else conditions. The code is used to enter all the terms of the participating entities. These participants may be more than two, organizations or even individuals. Once the code is deployed, it checks whether some condition is met. If it is, it takes a particular course of action. If not, it follows another plan of action. Regardless of the conditions, once deployed, smart contracts act independently without any supervision.

Since the contracts are deployed on a Blockchain, they are immutable. This means they cannot be changed. Any error made during coding the contract can cause considerable losses for either party. Hence, the developer must take proper precautions for the precise implementation of the conditions and their outcomes.

As if we had not seen enough, 2022 marked the biggest crypto hack till date. Here’s everything you need to know about it.

On March 28, 2022 the largest crypto-hack valued at $625 million took place on the Axie Infinity’s Ronin network. This attack surpassed the $611 million hack of the DeFi protocol Poly Network in August, 2021. 

The hackers stole $625 million in USDC, which is a U.S. dollar pegged stablecoin. The hack was confirmed by Axie Infinity's Discord and Twitter accounts as well as the Ronin Network.

The Ronin Bridge was used by players to deposit Ethereum or USDC, to purchase  NFTs or in-game currency. Players could then sell their assets and withdraw money.

The attackers used hacked private keys to forge fake withdrawals.According to their report, four of the nine keys were stolen when an Axie developer clicked on a job offer PDF. The attack resulted in 173,000 Ethereum and 25.5 million USDC being drained from the Ronin Bridge in two transactions.

As stated by our guest speaker, Idris Olubisi, curiosity is what brought him into the world of Blockchain and now he is a prominent figure in the industry. He has taken great strides in bringing Web3 education to Africa.

The topics discussed in the event are as follows:

Web 1 vs Web 2 vs Web 3

Web 1 was the consumers internet. Content was delivered over the web and people could only consume the information.

Web 2 is the next stage where the audience can also interact with the content. Users can create videos and send messages all the while being governed by a central authority.

Web 3 is the current iteration where there is no central authority to control the web. It is decentralized and everyone owns their own data.

What is Tokenomics?

Tokenomics is an amalgamation of Tokens and Economics. In Layman terms, they are the economics of the tokens of a project. They help in rising the value of the project by defining the incentives and utility of the tokens.

For a successful Crypto/Web3 project having well defined tokenomics is imperative.

The factors that affect the Tokenomics of a project are:

-Token Supply

-Token Distribution

-Token Utility

-Incentive Mechanisms

-Token Burns

Types of Tokens

Tokens can broadly be classified as:

-Fungible Tokens-These tokens can be divided into multiples.

-Non-Fungible Tokens- These tokens cannot be subdivided and are distinct. They are considered unique and one of a kind.

-Original Chain- This is the actual protocol on which the projects are built.

-Forked Chain- These chains are forked off from the Original Chain.

-Layer 1 Tokens- These are native tokens that grant access to the network’s resources.

-Layer 2 Tokens- These tokens are used to upgrade already existing services of the Layer 1 Tokens.

Applications of Token Economics

-Complete Cost Accounting

-Better consumer-producer coordination leading to community-based solutions

-Examining complicated organizations

-Incentive System

Hence, to conclude Tokenomics plays a major role in the development and success of a project. Investors will only be interested in projects with well structured Tokenomics. It acts as an indicator and guidance of how much the asset will be worth in the future.

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Confused about DeFi? Not getting the hang of it? 

No worries! This article will explain the absolute basics of DeFi.

Decentralized Finance or DeFi for short is term used to describe a peer-to-peer financial system which runs on a public blockchain.DeFi eliminates the need of a third party in financial transactions.

DeFi seeks to revolutionize the Financial sector by replacing intermediaries such as banks. Most DeFi protocols operate through Decentralized Applications or dApps. These dApps are open source which means the users can inspect and innovate upon them. The most popular use cases right now are sending money anywhere in the world, storing money in crypto wallets and receiving higher yields than form banks as well as peer-to-peer lending and borrowing.

But why DeFi?

In traditional finance, your money is held by the bank and third party entities that facilitate money transfer charge a fee for using their services. Hence, all financial transactions cost money. Some bank services, such as loan applications take considerable time to process. DeFi removes the middleman and allows organizations to conduct financial transactions from anywhere in the world. All financial movements are recorded and verified by a distributed database. This database uses a Consensus Protocol to verify the authenticity of the transactions.

All the services provided by a bank are available in DeFi. Some common operations are lending, getting a loan, trading or even buying derivatives. What are the advantages of DeFi over Traditional Finance?

Features of DeFi:

Permissionless and Open– Anyone with a Crypto wallet can access DeFi services regardless of where they are.

Transparent– Every transaction is broadcasted and verified by the other users of the blockchain.

Real Time– The blockchain is updated as soon as a transaction goes through.

Data is immutable and secure

Full control over funds and assets.

Right now, Decentralized Finance is in its infancy. There are various issues that need to be resolved before it can become mainstream. New projects are launching everyday with a range of implementations working towards a decentralized system.