Bitfinity Weekly: Lasers On

Welcome to Issue #93 of Bitfinity Weekly for our #BITFINIANS community. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, sign up here.

What's in Today's Email?

• Global Crypto News
• This Week in our Blog
• NFT Market Bytes
• Tweet of the Week
• Meme Time
• A Matter of Opinion

Global Crypto News

🐒 Monkey Business: After last week's Otherside 'Loot' NFT minting controversy, ApecoinDAO (comprised of Bored Ape Yacht Club's Apecoin holders) has officially announced their decision to build 'ApeChain' on Arbitrum, an Ethereum L2, in partnership with Horizen Labs. Arbitrum has been building aggressively into the blockchain gaming space, with the launch of Xai (an L3 intended to be used as a gaming network) in recent months.

🧔🏽‍♂️ Mullets vs. Beards: Farcaster, which describes itself as a "sufficiently decentralized social network" on its X bio, demonstrated what they consider to be sufficient this week, and the crypto community reacted with overwhelming outrage. Dan Romero, Farcaster's founder, reclaimed a paid username without negotiations, sparking a controversy regarding decentralization and self custody.

🇮🇩 Leading Sources: Independent polls in Indonesia have indicated that the next presidential team in office will be Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who have campaigned heavily with a pro-crypto stance. Along with clarifying tax matters, Subianto and Raka aim to set policies that will create the next generation of crypto experts. Indonesia is already a crypto-friendly nation, with more registered crypto traders than stock traders.

🔌 Dank News: Ethereum's long-awaited Dencun upgrade will be live on March 13th, according to a call with Ethereum core developers held this Thursday. The most anticipated feature of the Dencun upgrade is "proto-danksharding", which will reduce costs for auxiliary layers (such as L2 networks built on top of Ethereum) by providing a dedicated space for data storage.

This Week in our Blog

The 'Blockchain Trilemma' refer to a trio of blockchain-native problems first conceptualized by Nick Szabo in "The God Protocols", and later coined into a popular term by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. How can Bitfinity help solve a problem that predates Bitcoin itself? Take a deep dive with us into the future:

Three’s Company, Four’s a Crowd: Bitfinity Giving Blockchains a Helping Hand in Solving the Blockchain Trilemma

This article explores the blockchain trilemma, which refers to the difficulty of achieving optimal scalability, security and decentralization within blockchain networks. It examines how solutions like Bitfinity are working to resolve this challenge and enable wider blockchain adoption.

Bitfinity BlogHans

Know how to move funds cross-chain but have no idea how it works? We take you behind the scenes--in this article we cover everything you need to know about crypto bridging, including known risks with existing bridges as well as more technical details like the difference between bridging and wrapping.

The Evolution of Cryptocurrency Bridging (and Why It’s Needed)

This article explores the mechanisms of blockchain bridges and how solutions like Bitfinity aim to improve interoperability, liquidity, and programmability across blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Bitfinity BlogHans

NFT Market Bytes

🦉 Gib Proof: NFT giant Yuga Labs announced on Friday that it is acquiring Proof Collective, the exclusive buyer's club best known for launching the Moonbirds NFT collection. Yuga Labs, best known for creating the Bored Ape Yacht Club, has a reputation for being an NFT kingpin especially following their purchase of NFT 'bluechip' brand CryptoPunks in 2022. The news of the Proof Collective purchase wasn't without controversy however, as on-chain activity indicates that insider trading may have occured.

🥜 Deez Contracts: ERC404, a hybrid token standard popularized by Pandora, has a new but familiar competitor in DN404 (Divisible NFT). DN404 was created in consultation with @SerecThunderson, the original creator of the token standard that ERC404/Pandora forked without credit, and combines aspects of ERC20 and ERC721 for direct fractionalized NFT trading without a middle man.

🥃 Cheers: Glenlivet, a well-established whiskey brand, is launching a commemorative NFT collection in conjunction with an exclusive whiskey collection to celebrate its 200th anniversary. The Scottish distillery utilized generative AI for the labels of whiskey bottles in "The Twelve Elements" collection to make the physical counterparts as technologically interesting as the NFTs.

Tweet of the Week

Meme Time

A Matter of Opinion

Farcaster, which we covered briefly in last week's newsletter, has found itself the hot topic of the week once more... but not for positive reasons. The self-described "sufficiently decentralized social network" was called out by a small user for practicing the same tactics and attitudes of web2 companies, and the public backlash has been harsh and swift.

This is the situation condensed:

A user by the name of JonnyFiat registered for the name "Bankless" on Farcaster, speculating that he could sell the handle to interested buyers at a later time, when and if a buyer comes along in the future.

There is a large crypto-centric media company named Bankless, best known for their educational YouTube channel and podcast. Bankless contacted Dan Romero, the founder of Farcaster, and allegedly asked him to give them the Bankless username that JonnyFiat had already registered and paid for.

Romero contacted JonnyFiat, and instead of attempting any negotiations, offered him a choice between receiving $USDC or "warps" for a registration refund. When JonnyFiat asked why the Bankless name was being taken from him, Romero replied with a handful of excuses, such as the Farcaster TOS did not allow domain squatting, and that he had polled "10 early users" to make this decision.

JonnyFiat posted screencaps of his conversation with Romero on X, which quickly went viral on CT (Crypto Twitter). While some spectators commented on the detrimental effects of allowing domain squatting, most people had a problem with Romero's attitude and statements regarding decentralization and user sovereignty. The discussion became more heated as people piled on, with Romero first engaging with upset community members then gradually blocking them.

Romero seemed to interpret this as a simple matter of domain squatting, seemingly missing the very point that many people on CT were trying to make--decentralization cannot be a selling point of a product if it is not properly decentralized. After all crypto, at its core, is about self custody and not being at the mercy of the powerful.

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*Important Disclaimer: While every effort is made on this website to provide accurate information, any opinions expressed or information disseminated do not necessarily reflect the views of Bitfinity itself. The information provided here is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice.