Meta and Twitter are now dominating the social media space. These web3 platforms are massively popularised among users. These platforms collect data from the bulk amount of users. In exchange for that data, the companies earn billions of dollars as revenue from user-generated content.
According to the forecast for the upcoming future, these web3 platforms are going to be demolished after the domination of decentralized social media (or Web3). That platform will give all power of access to the users.
Web2 Vs Web3 :
Web2 platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram control users through multiple policies. If the users refuse to comply with that policies they will lose their profile reach along with content.
For instance, the Twitter handle of US president Donald Trump was banned due to debates that were considered against the policy of the platform. A million followers were useless at that time. The authorization or the governing body of Twitter played a crucial role to cease the account.
Now the upcoming web3 space will give the power to the user's hand. No authority will control the user's community.
The remarkable issue with the Web2 social media platform is, that it contains a “walled garden”. If a user has 1 million followers on Instagram and aims to start a YouTube channel, that user has to start with zero followers. Because the audience community is connected with individual platforms, not with the user or creator itself. So, in web2 space, there is no option to move them.
Web3 depletes the number of mediators and develops an independent ecosystem. It also enables new ways of monetization and launches multiple solutions that empower individuals. That ways are not just related to their contents, but also their followers.
Several platforms have shifted with potential subsidiaries for Web2’s social media industry. The platforms like Lens Protocol, the Aave team, and its DeSo are backed by Andreessen Horowitz. Both platforms are developed to host decentralized social media applications. There already present many live applications which follow Leinster, Iris (decentralized Twitter), Phaver, and LensTube (decentralized YouTube).
How Does It Work?
For instance, Lens allows users to utilize Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) to directly connect their content and followers to their crypto asset wallets. There is no dependency on individual platforms as we use cross-platform access to our followers.
When a user posts anything to the platform, it automatically circulates the post across all the platforms the user get into. Also, followers are connected across platforms, so all platforms have the same number of followers of that individual user.
No More Ads, Direct User Monetization :
Another remarkable feature of Web3 Social Media is that users can monetize their creations directly on that platform. It does not generate revenue from advertising companies. These platforms offer users to publish better content. It is less complicated as it allows authors to set a fee for “collecting” their posts or choosing a fee for following a post. Revenue is generated directly by the creator. There is no involvement in the platform.
Influencers Are Adopting Web3 :
Some experts argued that Web2 forms are off to such a head start that Web3 social media can't catch up. But the actual thing is that the advantages of decentralized social media are amazing that large content creators can migrate and get their audiences.
There are several examples of effective influencers who have their social media platforms. Because the corporate platforms no longer allow content sharing. Web3 offers a clear solution to its ever-growing Web2 which is going to deplete.
A cryptocurrency entrepreneur, Darius Moukhtarzadeh is focused on decentralized platforms like social media applications. He was a researcher at Signum, the world’s first digital asset bank.
Cryptocurrency is one of the potential ways to use it in exchanges. Several countries had permitted the use of digital assets as physical currencies are used. According to experts, the coming years will be dominated by digital assets.
Iran has officially granted the use of cryptocurrency importing goods as a measure to entangle US sanctions imposed on its finance and banking fields.
Overview Of The Permission :
The Mines and Trade Ministry is one of Iran's Industries that has permitted the use of cryptocurrency importing into the country between these international trade sanctions.
According to recent reports, Reza Fatemi Amin, the trade minister, confirmed that detailed regulations are about to be in. It has outlined the use of cryptocurrencies for trade and supplying fuel and electricity to Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto miners across the country.
The trade minister explained the recent regulatory change at an automotive industry exhibition last week.
The Iranian trade ministry had earlier signaled that the cryptocurrency and smart contracts would be widely increased in foreign trade by September this year.
Keeping the eye on the cryptocurrency-funded import, Iran’s Import Association summoned clear-cut regulatory parameters to get surety that local businesses and importers are not harassed by shifting directives.
The minister mentioned that the new regulations mark all problems associated with cryptocurrencies. It includes the process which will grant licenses along with the provision of fuel and energy-creating operators in the country.
Local businesses will be allowed to import vehicles into Iran. Also, they will be able to import a range of different imported goods using cryptocurrencies instead of United States dollar or euro payments.
International trade sanctions against Iran have largely suffered for its opposition to its nuclear program. That has abandoned the country of the global banking system.
As Iran has changed its attention to adopting cryptocurrencies as a means to address and potentially ignore sanctions for imports, given the decentralized tendency of public blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. They are not regulated by the government or central authorities.
In June 2021, the Mines and Trade Ministry approved operating licenses for 30 crypto mining centers across the country. while more than 2,500 miners were granted the establishment of new mining operations. The government also took steps against illegal mining operations and a three-month ban was imposed on mining.
The Announcement :
The trade minister said that all the issues associated with crypto-assets, including how to bargain fuel and energy, and how to apply and get licenses were added.
As cryptocurrencies are not traded through basic channels such as banks and it is very difficult to track the transaction, the use of cryptocurrencies to import goods is one of the ways to ignore sanctions.
In the first period of the month, Iran performed its first official import through cryptocurrency. That was worth $10 million. It was a test run for allowing the country to trade using digital assets that neglect the dollar-denominated global financial system. It aimed to trade with other countries similarly abandoned by US sanctions, such as Russia.
Alireza Peymanpak, a deputy Iranian trade minister who leads Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO), stated that the use of cryptocurrencies and smart contracts will be increased in foreign trade with target countries by the end of September.
Iran has a complicated situation with cryptocurrencies. That caused hiding various kinds of illicit trades that were banned by the US and other European sanctions but mining them is highly energy-intensive.
Iran’s central bank has ceased trading cryptocurrencies inside the country. Though the government allowed the use of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to pay for imports.
This was primarily a theoretical concept of a digital 3-D world. It offers users to enter that world via a virtual reality (VR) headset. In that virtual world, the user will have recognition or an avatar. The user can use any home or real space to fill with the stuff he or she likes and hundreds of spaces to visit. They can easily interact with the other users of that world. They can work together, play games, and perform most of the activities that they do in their daily routine.
The metaverse has a huge potential for its usefulness as it greatly fulfills the need to travel and use physical resources and other works. In a 3D world, people can visualize and interact with any entity or personality without putting in much effort and within less time. They can even shift randomly between activities, chats, locations, and data with a simple gesture. Instead of switching between apps and a web browser, all things will be connected and easily accessible in this virtual world.
What Are NFTs?
NFT stands for nonfungible tokens which are 100% unique. A user can consider them as certificates of ownership existing on the blockchain. The tokens are created when a digital file like an image, video, or GIF is minted. It means NFT is a certificate of ownership and is originally generated via cryptocurrency. Later, it can be sold or granted to the new owner.
NFTs are important as digital art and assets are shady for their easy stealing and copying tendency. Though, NFTs cannot stop any user from stealing digital assets. But it provides a neutral confirmation of the designated owner.
NFTs Roles In The Metaverse :
As NFTs are generally related to websites and transactions that happened through web browsers and as the metaverse is mostly VR-based, there are several confusions regarding their common ground. As both components are new to the markets and these concepts are increasing interest, several companies and platforms have already found creative and potential ways to use both simultaneously.
NFTs Expected Condition In Long Run :
A recent report from Juniper Analysis showed the trajectory of the non-fungible token (NFT) market over the 5 years. According to research, world transactions associated with NFTs will raise 40 million by 2027.
Now in 2022, its amount is 24 million.
Some of the major catalysts pushing NFT adoption will be those linked to the metaverse. This NFT interest would be rising quickly within the upcoming 5 years. The NFTs associated with the metaverse are expected to rise its transactions from 600,000 in 2022 to 9.8 million by 2027.
A remarkable signal for manufacturers reminiscent of Gucci and Adidas, which have already gripped the know-how for wearables within the digital universe. This knowledge exposes that consumers need the worth of their digital assets that cover their finances.
A current report says the corporation kept an eye on establishments of NFT. The music associated with NFTs has been the most curious entity.
Music NFTs carry multi-utility apart from saving worth in pockets, reminiscent of unique artist content material and minimal stakes in music rights.
Juniper explained the information from the current report is anticipated in a “medium state of affairs” for adoption. However, these digital assets offer new progress and ways of revenue. The report spreads awareness to the distributors as several NFT scams are out there in the marketplace.
There has been various research regarding NFT scams since the growth trending line has been downward in 2021. Several pump-and-dump and phishing scams are taking place in the market.
Earning from the Crypto market is now one of the trending ways for users. A major portion of the users gets to profit from the cryptocurrency market through trading. Trading is the most known technique to earn profit. Though, the quantity is very less.
Trading is a risky way to earn profit from cryptocurrency. Users might lose their capital due to scams or market crashes. As there are several scams and fraud taking place, losing money became one of the fears for investors.
But apart from trading, there are more ways to earn profit through cryptocurrency. You are going to know about the ways through which you can get profit without risky trading.
Another two interesting ways of earning through cryptocurrency investment are Staking and Yield Farming. These two ways are a kind of passive way. In both, users have to lock or hold their tokens for a particular period. After, they get interests and free tokens instead of the holdings.
In comparison with trading, these ways are much more acceptable as they are not risky. Both methods have zero risk to earning or investing. In this article, you will get a rough theoretical idea about Staking and Yield farming.
Yield Farming in Cryptocurrencies :
Yield Farming is the process of increasing your tokens through lending. You have to lend your tokens to those who need them or who are searching for them. After lending, you will get a specific amount of interest as a profit.
Yield farming pushes the users to create or develop the liquidity pool on a Defi (decentralized finance) platform through lending their coins. It later helps the users who need the tokens.
That liquidity pool development platforms pay interest to the lenders in the exchange for their lending. The interest can be in the form of tokens or special tokens. The special tokens are known as LP tokens.
For instance, Pure Oxygen coin is one of the lending platforms. You can lend your Pure Oxygen coins to develop the liquidity pool. In exchange, you will be paid its interest. Apart from lending, you can stake your coins to earn more profit on that platform.
Staking In Crypto :
Staking is a process that validates the transactions on a blockchain using the Proof of Stake (PoS) mechanism. PoS is different from the Proof of Work mechanism. PoS allows its user community to stake its tokens to set up nodes and validate transactions. PoS is one of the efficient mechanisms in the blockchain in terms of energy consumption and set-up cost.
In this method, you don't need to invest in a costly hardware setup like mining. A user has to only stake or lock their tokens in the contract. That staking allows the user to act as a validator to validate the upcoming transactions in the network. Then they can earn the verification fee as their profit.
Yield Farming Vs Staking :
Yield farming allows the users to increase both, the number and value of their crypto. A user can earn interest from crypto. That will get the users more tokens. Additionally, the user's contribution to the liquidity pool helps many others to trade the token.
On the other hand, Staking also allows you to earn money from your crypto. You can easily get profit through an annual interest in the range of 7% to 12%. Though, staking depends on which tokens you hold.
Another advantage of staking is that it allows you to contribute to safeguarding the environment by not involving in the mining of cryptocurrencies. Mining is a more energy-intensive and costly process to generate new cryptocurrencies.
The upcoming merger announcement of the Ethereum blockchain this September took the crypto headlines. Crypto investors became enthusiasts to experience the smart and better functionalities of staked Ethereum (ETH) through this Ethereum Beacon merge. Crypto experts already anticipated that this launch would cause rising prices of the ETH blockchain products at an increasing rate in August and September. In the meantime, Staked ETH or stETH has raised a new all-time high record in the market for the upcoming launch of the Ethereum merge.
The Price Analysis :
At present, the price of stETH has converged several changes on the launch of the merge without any major hurdles in the cryptocurrency market.
Staked ETH is a token issued through the Lido protocol for crypto investors. It offers free exchange during the existence of staked ether on the Ethereum blockchain. stETH reacts as a bond of 1 ETH as the capital amount is giving an output of a 4% return annually. After the September launch of the merge, every crypto investor will get stETH and 1.04 ETH annually from the market.
According to some crypto analysts, the current stETH price seems like very low-risk premia packed with the Ethereum merge execution risk and also systemic risks, and smart contract risks. Crypto investors and crypto traders noticed the unexpected and sudden growth in Staked ETH prices to upgrade the Ethereum blockchain network ecosystem.
Alongside, the staking output is predicted to be doubled to 8% with the shift from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake beacon chain. Also, it causes the reduction of the total new ETH token issuance by 90%. Crypto investors are now getting a bullish sentiment in the market on ETH during investment in Staked ETH or stETH tokens in 2022.
Staked ETH has started its business at a huge discount to the second largest cryptocurrency Ethereum since June 2022. Though, stETH crypto investors are not able to redeem the tokens for ETH until six to twelve months post-Ethereum merge. Recently, Ethereum (ETH-USD) investors are awaiting what Ethereum's price will be after The Merge.
Notably, according to the last 30 days' data, ETH price is up 36% and up 114% since its lows ($882) in June. Currently, It's one of the best-performing altcoins in the top 50.
Previous Scenario :
In 2015, the Ethereum protocol was launched. It became a truly revolutionary concept of smart contracts.
Now, each transaction on a blockchain should be validated by node operators or validators. When Ethereum was launched, the most established and popular mechanism for that kind of block validation was Proof-of-Work (PoW). This mechanism is still used by Bitcoin.
The on-chain transaction on Bitcoin takes a long time and it is more expensive than the other. On the contrary, web 3.0 applications look for scalable, fast, and cheap transaction approval mechanisms. One of the weaknesses of Ethereum was PoW. That was soon apparent at the time of "Defi Summer 2020". At that time Defi applications exploded into the context (MakerDAO, Uniswap, Aave, Compound, etc.). Transactions were time-consuming and gas fees were also at a high rate.
The Mechanism :
Instead of miners, PoS depends on ETH takes to get validation of transactions. That is cleaner, faster, more scalable, and also cheaper.
This massive migration is extremely complicated and has changed the launching date several times. Though, after a long preparation of two years, the date for a shifting switch to PoS has been announced.
It is predicted that it could create some selling pressure from those who aim to get profits or have other reasons to increase capital and sell their ETH holdings.
