Current Events > Blockchain and Cryptocurrency General: All things from development to investing

(+) Yeah! (+)

The Ethereum Community Conference is currently ongoing this week in Paris and the biggest announcement is Chainlink's bridging protocol has been announced and is available for testnet usage for all developers today; Cross Chain Interoperability Protocol or CCIP.

A bridge connects blockchains together to allow them to communicate to one another. But for general solutions right now, they only allow transferring of tokens. Chainlink's CCIP will allow you to send commands and other arbitrary information in addition to token transferring. The end goal is in CCIP merging ALL blockchains together using the Chainlink network as an interface so you don't need to pay attention to what blockchain you're on if you're a user. If you're a developer, you can pick and choose what blockchains to use for your application and have your application run on all blockchains seamlessly as opposed to today where an application deployed on one chain is isolated from the same application deployed on another.

Developing secure bridges is massive challenge in this space. Last year, there was some 2 billion dollars worth of bridge hacks and then there was a hack for at least $126M just a couple weeks ago for another bridge hack.

This past Monday, Chainlink just announced their release date for CCIP with the goal of becoming the internet of blockchains similar to the TCP/IP protocol for the internet standard we have now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTOfANfvwUg

What makes this solution different from the other bridging solutions existing in the space (Hyperlane, Connext to name a couple), is that Chainlink built up a track record of highly secure services with their data feeds
so big name crypto protocols like Synthetix and Aave and Ethereum Name Service are waiting on Chainlink for their solution and aren't going to risk integrating those unproven bridging solutions. More importantly (and nefariously), Chainlink has been in cahoots with SWIFT and is working on a pilot project with multiple banks like Citi and BNY Mellon to bridge each of those banks private blockchains together.

https://www.swift.com/news-events/news/swift-explores-blockchain-interoperability-remove-friction-tokenised-asset-settlement

The biggest deal of CCIP is that Chainlink is stealing everyone else's gas money. If your invested coin's value depends on buy pressure from people purchase the coin to pay for gas (how ETH took off in 2020 for the DeFi explosion of shitcoin casinos, people bought ETH to pay for transactions to farm), CCIP abstracts that away. You would pay for the service with Link tokens instead of paying with the coin of the blockchain you're using. You can pay using another asset, but you'll get hit with a 10% premium upcharge and the network will convert it to Link tokens anyway.

This release is magnitudes bigger than ETH 2.0's release and it's a shame a lot of people aren't talking about it. So I might as well let you boys here know about it.

people are still falling for this scam?

I wear a USB mounted to my nipples on some funny shit
Word to the wise I strictly call it my digital money clip

Does crypto still require enough electricity to power small nations?

This video does a great job of showing why NFTs are the next big thing.

https://youtu.be/1WjczD5Q5VU

ooger posted...

This video does a great job of showing why NFTs are the next big thing.

https://youtu.be/1WjczD5Q5VU

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/0/1/AAABTgAAEG3d.jpg

"Investing"

Yeah, like I "invest" at the card table.

Euripides posted...

Does crypto still require enough electricity to power small nations?

yes ( -_-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1fR6hZ8Bgg

CEO of Chainlink is speaking right now regarding CCIP and the industry at large.

ooger posted...

This video does a great job of showing why NFTs are the next big thing.

https://youtu.be/1WjczD5Q5VU

Will look into this after the speech.

Blockchain technology isn't a scam but the majority of people have no idea what crypto does or how it works. As for ETH I'd rather invest in xrp it does the same thing but with clean energy.

I logged on this morning and was surprised by the sudden LINK pump

Ethereum is a joke

Literally one of the worst pieces of "technology" that morons have ever come up with

If people had brains the value would quickly plummet to $0

When does Bigfoot take the stage

bigfoot is boycotting the event; they refused his demand to only have green m&ms in his dressing room

Sad_Face posted...

Will look into this after the speech.

It is very informative. Please let me know your thoughts.

Euripides posted...

Does crypto still require enough electricity to power small nations?

Bitcoin does, Ethereum transitioned to a proof of stake consensus model (instead of running a farm of GPUs to compute some algorithm, just hold X amount of ETH) so it's far cheaper. Most blockchains run a proof of stake model as it's considerably cheaper to manage. Plus the environmental complaints is bad for marketing.

apocalyptic_4 posted...

Blockchain technology isn't a scam but the majority of people have no idea what crypto does or how it works. As for ETH I'd rather invest in xrp it does the same thing but with clean energy.

It does not. Ripple's blockchain is not a smartcontract blockchain, the smart contract support is extremely limited. In addition, the majority of developer tools and support are on Ethereum. If you want to build something of value, you're better off working on Ethereum or some Ethereum virtual machine blockchain (a fork of Ethereum with their own bells and whistles like Fantom, or Polygon or Binance).

Investing wise, I only believe in Link but if you're looking for a new project, I heavily recommend looking for a protocol you plan to use that utilizes a blockchain, not investing in a blockchain coin itself (Ex. investing in a dapp like Aave, not ETH itself).

EndOfDiscOne posted...

I logged on this morning and was surprised by the sudden LINK pump

Same. I have been planning to make this topic for a while but procrastinated. The combination of CCIP release and the pump spooked me into making the topic.

MarthGoomba posted...

Ethereum is a joke

Literally one of the worst pieces of "technology" that morons have ever come up with

If people had brains the value would quickly plummet to $0

Too late. Even banks are "adopting" it. And by adopting, I mean copying it and running their own private version of it. People who use it recognize the value of having a ledger everyone can refer to to prove the state of some transaction.

TMOG posted...

When does Bigfoot take the stage

Next year, sorry.

ooger posted...

It is very informative. Please let me know your thoughts.

I got a good chortle out of it. Thank you. LMAO at the ending.

Sad_Face posted...

I got a good chortle out of it. Thank you. LMAO at the ending.

I'm glad you found it funny. :)

Sad_Face posted...

Too late. Even banks are "adopting" it. And by adopting, I mean copying it and running their own private version of it. People who use it recognize the value of having a ledger everyone can refer to to prove the state of some transaction.

Nobody wants to use Ethereum itself because of the absurd transaction fees

No company or bank will use actual Ethereum because it would bankrupt them in a week. They are adopting better versions from ALGO and HBAR, not Ethereum.

MarthGoomba posted...

Nobody wants to use Ethereum itself because of the absurd transaction fees

No company or bank will use actual Ethereum because it would bankrupt them in a week. They are adopting better versions from ALGO and HBAR, not Ethereum.

You're right that they're not using Ethereum itself. Banks are using blockchains that are EVM (they take the base code of Ethereum and create their own version with their own adjustments) or they use IBM's hyperledger or some other private chain. And even in the future, banks and retail users will use a Layer 2 chain that settles on Ethereum. L2 chains are blockchains that derive their security from a Layer 1 chain (L2s like Optimism, Coinbase's Base, or Arbitrum) and settle their transasctions on a Layer 1 chain (L1 being Ethereum).

I haven't heard of people using Hedera or Algorand. Those two are public blockchains and the development support for them is incredibly poor. The last time I saw Hedera at a Chainlink event was back in 2020 or so. I don't know what's going on with them honestly. But given how Chainlink is practically carrying the industry with their tools, if we're not seeing Chainlink support for Hedera hashgraph, then there's a problem.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


What a coincidence!

You're not going to impact the world if you don't have a healthy dose of crazy in you.

https://www.theblock.co/post/240714/chainlink-ceo-wants-to-bring-trillions-of-dollars-into-crypto-from-banks

Based on Chainlinks work dealing with Swift and banks, Nazarov explained why he thinks banks will build their own blockchains.

Nazarov claimed there are three stages of bank adoption. Stage 1 focuses on custody, and entails simply looking after crypto assets (driven by customer trading demands) on their native chains. Stage 2 encompasses tokenizing real-world assets, in a similar way to making derivative assets, which raises the question: onto which chain will these assets be placed? Nazarov contended that this juncture is when banks recognize the need to establish their own chains to exert full control over their tokenized real-world assets.

Pointing to banks that have set up their own digital asset departments, Nazarov observed, And what all of those departments are coming to as a conclusion is we have to have our own app chain because why am I going to pay fees to some other one, some other persons chain? Ill just have my own chain. He argued that this is when banks realize they should create their own chains to have complete control over their own tokenized real-world assets.

Stage 3 emerges when banks start the development of financial protocols on their proprietary chains, essentially mirroring the contemporary DeFi landscape but within a tighter, regulated framework. This is where Nazarov reckons Chainlink will come in.

In that third stage, they're invariably going to be dealing with us because we power the vast majority of DeFi. They're going to need market data, they're gonna need identity data, they're gonna need automation, they're going to need functions. All the stuff we make, they're going to need, he said. I know that because I've already seen a lot of the designs, and the designs are basically copying the DeFi [protocols] we already power.

As mentioned before, SWIFT and a number of banks like Bank of America are already on board and doing their internal testing.

Fucking lol

DCA day wooooo

shockthemonkey posted...

Hows that fight against Wayfair going?

who

Sad_Face posted...

And even in the future, banks and retail users will use a Layer 2 chain that settles on Ethereum

Layer 2 "solutions" are part of why Ethereum is pure garbage. Their fees still become prohibitively expensive when traffic on the layers increases

There is no future for ethereum. It is simply an ecosystem of scams and the suckers that sill fall for it.

Sad_Face posted...

You're not going to impact the world if you don't have a healthy dose of crazy in you.

"Impact the world" is a nice euphemism for "make the world a shittier place". Anyone dealing in cryptocurrency should be locked up.

the only thing these dudes have impacted is their colon

https://omgitsatrap.ytmnd.com/

apocalyptic_4 posted...

Blockchain technology isn't a scam but the majority of people have no idea what crypto does or how it works

Blockchain technology isn't a scam, but crypto certainly is.

about to take a nap, will check out the talk later

how does chainlink contend with zero knowledge cross-chain communications protocols

CoyoteTheGreat posted...

"Impact the world" is a nice euphemism for "make the world a s***tier place". Anyone dealing in cryptocurrency should be locked up.

The biggest innovation of blockchains is smart contracts. If you understand the value of a smart contract, then you'll recognize it's the next evolution of the internet. This is why this field has persisted for over a decade and why so many major tech companies and banks are actively researching and developing in the field.

Now I'll give you this link on the purpose of smart contracts an Web3 but I'll give my own explanation below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JeRq7Gwj5Y

First and foremost, have you ever been in a deal with someone; where one of you (A) would do X and in return the other (B) would do Y? Have you ever been in a deal where A did X, but B didn't reciprocate in doing the agreed upon Y? This happens quite often as a fact of life. But the world has adopted many systems to limit this from happening; from being able to take someone to court for evading payments (A contractor does X work for B client, but B client doesn't make Y payment), to having some 3rd party facilitate a trade by holding an escrow for A and B participants to give to so the contents of the escrow can be divvied out to whoever on certain conditions.

Seriously, go back and make sure you have a story you can relate to on this because "trust", the reduction of this, is the main driver of this field.

Now for the definition, smartcontracts are purely applications on the blockchain, but what makes them so powerful is that they're immutable (unable to be changed once executed on the chain) and they act accordingly, IF X, then Y. If some X event happens, then Y action happens.

Because of these basic properties, developers are in a mad rush to recreate any and every financial tool, and major website with these properties. Some are in it to make the world a fairer place. Others, admittedly are only in it for EZ profits and have no conscience in achieving it. Celsius Network's Mashinsky and FTX's SBF are clear examples of this and also evidence of why this industry needs to gatekeep more to ensure people who have noble and genuine intentions are supported while those who are clearly in it for their own selfish gain are pushed out.

TheMikh posted...

about to take a nap, will check out the talk later

how does chainlink contend with zero knowledge cross-chain communications protocols

I did hear about later down the road ZK L2 chains being interoperable with other ZK chains, in some Bankless podcast with ZKsync developers. As it stands right now, not to my knowledge.

But Chainlink has a ZK function coming up, DECO, but this is only to allow sensitive data to be used on the blockchain without revealing it. "Is this girl above the age of 18?", a age limiter on some new age dating app. DECO can use a passport or some other piece of data to demonstrate her identity to answer the question but ensure the item used isn't revealed to the chainlink node operator or the network at large. Basically simple Zero Knowledge proof functionality.

But when the ZK chains gain the cross chain communication functionality, they'll definitely be a competitor to Chainlink. I'd imagine Chainlink's dominance at that point will be determined by the strength of the network effect (Chainlink has found itself in everyone's tech stack already and cross chain solutions out presently get ignored as everyone was waiting on Chainlink's cross chain solution) and whether ZK chains will offer more meaningful functionality that can't be replicated and will make it more profitable to transition.

I'm not too familiar with the ZK world, so I'd love to hear your thoughts.

It's odd how people think crypto is a scam and yet buy into fiat currency.

C_Pain posted...

It's odd how people think crypto is a scam and yet buy into fiat currency.

The fact that you don't have to "buy into" fiat currency is part of that reason.

Sad_Face posted...

Because of these basic properties, developers are in a mad rush to recreate any and every financial tool, and major website with these properties. Some are in it to make the world a fairer place. Others, admittedly are only in it for EZ profits and have no conscience in achieving it. Celsius Network's Mashinsky and FTX's SBF are clear examples of this and also evidence of why this industry needs to gatekeep more to ensure people who have noble and genuine intentions are supported while those who are clearly in it for their own selfish gain are pushed out.

not fond of gatekeeping, but the sector would be well-served by a metaregulatory apparatus, with or without state regulation. basically taking advantage of the verifiability and transparency inherent to the sector to roll out services assisting users in vetting protocols, contracts, addresses for reputability and safety. custodial services should be completely and utterly rebuked except as on/offramps and providers of liquidity towards that ends, with all facets of onchain ux being further refined towards the ends of ending reliance on custodial services. much easier said than done, but important.

I did hear about later down the road ZK L2 chains being interoperable with other ZK chains, in some Bankless podcast with ZKsync developers. As it stands right now, not to my knowledge.

But Chainlink has a ZK function coming up, DECO, but this is only to allow sensitive data to be used on the blockchain without revealing it. "Is this girl above the age of 18?", a age limiter on some new age dating app. DECO can use a passport or some other piece of data to demonstrate her identity to answer the question but ensure the item used isn't revealed to the chainlink node operator or the network at large. Basically simple Zero Knowledge proof functionality.

But when the ZK chains gain the cross chain communication functionality, they'll definitely be a competitor to Chainlink. I'd imagine Chainlink's dominance at that point will be determined by the strength of the network effect (Chainlink has found itself in everyone's tech stack already and cross chain solutions out presently get ignored as everyone was waiting on Chainlink's cross chain solution) and whether ZK chains will offer more meaningful functionality that can't be replicated and will make it more profitable to transition.

I'm not too familiar with the ZK world, so I'd love to hear your thoughts.

i haven't worked with zk chains, and am not familiar with the use of zk for offchain consumer data privacy, though i have an idea of how they might work for private-public blockchain interoperability, and a more vague idea of how they could be used for scaling onchain computation. also some potential applications for offchain auditability of sensitive data and untrusted collaborative computing, but i'm not sure if anything's been explored on this side of things.

it seems unlikely that zk chains will be spearheading crosschain since the zkevm is a challenge they've been consumed by for a couple years at this point, but there's a burgeoning subsector of expressive zk communications and data protocols that seem posed to nibble on the oracle market share. if chainlink/ccip consumes less gas relative to traditional communications protocols, zk eliminates that gas completely - or at least sends it offchain to the end user or whoever's generating the proof of computation or data.

i don't think it's far off when you'll be able to do extensive transacting on one less expensive chain and prove it in full context on another more secure chain without expensive relays, intermediaries, or (heaven forbid) bridging when it isn't absolutely necessary; just submitting a proof to another contract when appropriate. one implication includes liquidity balancing across networks, for instance, which in turn provides for more robust onchain-based liquidity oracles comparatively less vulnerable to flash loan attacks. others include unlocking more expressive credit/reputation applications, and chain-agnostic transactions and other activities.

chainlink's unchallenged as a source of offchain data, and challenging it is a fool's errand, but interchain is ripe for disruption.

full disclosure, i'm a little biased because i work in zk; just curious whether chainlink's current r&d is anticipating the expansion of the space and its use cases.

MarthGoomba posted...
i'm cautiously optimistic about the concept of layer 2s as a scaling solution for ethereum, but working on layer-1 and layer-2 interoperability, the data situation for l2 networks leaves more than a bit to be desired. you need big guns to do interesting things with metadata, big guns don't come cheap and access isn't scalable, and cheap big guns are not credibly neutral.

but anyway, there aren't really layer 1 options outside ethereum with the same security assurances and credible neutrality without their own tradeoffs. other decentralized l1s are just cheaper because they're comparatively underutilized and sacrifice decentralization, and when they see heavy utilization, it brings ethereum-esque fee surges or worse.

Anteaterking posted...
you kinda do

C_Pain posted...

It's odd how people think crypto is a scam and yet buy into fiat currency.

Probably because fiat currency and crypto are two very different things. For starters one of them doesnt vary wildly when Elon Musk farts.

Tanthalas posted...

Probably because fiat currency and crypto are two very different things. For starters one of them doesnt vary wildly when Elon Musk farts.

thanks! i always wondered what caused those little swings in valuation

I prefer to keep my money where it's federally insured, not where the coin can go poof overnight and lose all its value for reasons

C_Pain posted...

It's odd how people think crypto is a scam and yet buy into fiat currency.

I don't need to spend my money "buying into" fiat.

The fiat currency I "have" also doesn't swing wildly in value based on what some weirdo tech billionaire does

Also, it's very telling that in almost no cases is the goal ever to "stay" in crypto. The goal is to buy it "low" then when the value gets high enough, trade it for real currency.

Doom_Art posted...

Also, it's very telling that in almost no cases is the goal ever to "stay" in crypto. The goal is to buy it "low" then when the value gets high enough, trade it for real currency.

This isnt true at all. There is a large staking community that is perfectly comfortable holding and holding.

TC, isnt DOT a bridge that was supposed to allow different chains to communicate? What does this announcement mean for that?

I like ETH for growth but the gas fees have always been too high for it to be used on a wide scale. I have a weekly buy in it because I think there are enough uses and the tech is good enough that it will still gain in use and grow but Im also watching alternatives (SOL) as potentially surpassing ETH in use at some point.

whitelytning posted...

This isnt true at all. There is a large staking community that is perfectly comfortable holding and holding.

Well duh. If that "staking community" tries to sell, the value of the currency immediately plummets. Endgame for crypto is always waiting to see how much the price goes up before someone blinks and starts selling.

It's also why people keep trying to make new crypto, because the real money is there, when the currency is new. The people that profited most from bitcoin were the early adopters, not the people currently holding "millions".

I was told that we would be able to buy groceries and cars and stuff with crypto by now.

Euripides posted...

I was told that we would be able to buy groceries and cars and stuff with crypto by now.

Yep, if you can't easily buy bread with it, it's not a currency.

whitelytning posted...

There is a large staking community that is perfectly comfortable holding and holding.

Holding for...?

Euripides posted...

I was told that we would be able to buy groceries and cars and stuff with crypto by now.

It'd be like if I went into my local grocery store and said to the checkout person "hey I wanna buy these frozen pizzas, I'll be paying with my Disney stock today thanks"

Sad_Face posted...

Too late. Even banks are "adopting" it. And by adopting, I mean copying it and running their own private version of it. People who use it recognize the value of having a ledger everyone can refer to to prove the state of some transaction.

Not because it's good for the people that invest in it, but because they are riding the trend so people will give them their money.

Doom_Art posted...

It'd be like if I went into my local grocery store and said to the checkout person "hey I wanna buy these frozen pizzas, I'll be paying with my Disney stock today thanks"

Yep. Hence why they are not actual feasible currencies.