While most struggle to gain familiarity with the increasing role of distributed ledgers in the wider economy, developers are already delving deeper into providing more advanced functionality. Right now, software engineering teams are working on technology that will become integral to global functioning in the years to come.
One critical innovation in Web3 that will facilitate wide-scale adoption is the subnet. While it is possible to explore these concepts in-depth, it is much better to simply give a high-level overview. When the complicated terminology is removed, the core concepts are actually very relatable.
What Is The Crypto Scalability Problem?
In crypto “lingo,” blockchains are divided into Layer One (L1) and Layer Two (L2). Again, this sounds a lot more complicated than it is. L2 blockchains are those that address specific problems that an L1 blockchain cannot cope with. They are placed “on top” of earlier blockchains.
A prime example is Bitcoin. Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, was a wonderful innovation for its time. But it quickly ran into massive scalability problems, with high fees and network congestion. So it needed a L2 solution, which is known as the Lightning Network. In the same way, Ethereum ran into issues as an earlier crypto ecosystem. So it needed to resort to an L2 solution in the form of Plasma.
Unfortunately, these L2 solutions are not doing what they are supposed to do. Ethereum is still the primary ecosystem on which dApps are built, and NFTs are traded (as ERC-20 tokens). Still, it has massive fees, which is why developers and market newcomers are looking towards alternatives such as Avalanche.
L2 solutions are not resolving the problem of scalability. High fees and slow speeds are powerful indicators that cryptocurrency cannot go mainstream. If cryptocurrency needs global adoption, it needs to be able to cope with more people on the network. L2 solutions have not yet proven up to the mark. Subnets are a much more versatile and effective technology.
Exploring Subnets Within Web3
Subnets are a game-changer for crypto scalability. A subnet is merely a sub-level network within a larger network. Each blockchain is simply a network – a network being the number of nodes/servers that communicate with each other through distinct protocols. The subnet will take attributes from the parent chain/larger network but will have a specific use case.
Subnets are closely related to the concept of sharding. They are very reliable, efficient, and better at solving scalability than L2 blockchains. The major difference between subnets and sharding is that subnets can be created at will by customers and developers.
While sharding is built into the architecture, you can launch infinite subnets to see which ones scale the best while implementing the sharding model. In other words, you can create infinite subnets that take the best attributes from the initial blockchain network. These subnets can be put to a variety of different uses.
Subnets Are Already Taking Over
Avalanche is a prominent blockchain that has recently launched subnets, allowing many newer Web3 projects to build their own ecosystems. Ayoken Labs has launched its token on the Avalanche C-Chain. Ayoken is a digital collectibles marketplace that connects creators to global audiences. With a vision to onboard 10 million new crypto users & digital collectible owners, Ayoken Labs aims to catalyze the mainstream adoption of crypto in emerging markets. It is onboarding creatives to the metaverse. And it selected Avalanche to assist with this venture.
Avalanche offers C-Chain, X-Chain, and P-Chain subnets. P-Chain is for staking, X-Chain is for sending and receiving transfers, and C-Chain is for smart contracts (broadly speaking). These subnets allow for distinct chains to be used for specific purposes. But they are all validated by the primary network, taking its benefits with them.
Ankr is another web3 company that aims to be a major player in the subnet/sidechain space. Ankr is a major Web3 infrastructure provider that launched the first Binance Smart Chain Application Sidechain (BAS) testnet, along with Celer and NodeReal.
The BAS Testnet is a framework for creating side chains dedicated to applications in the BNB Chain ecosystem. Ankr is also the main infrastructure partner for Binance, Fantom, and Polygon and has helped these major firms to scale. Ankr also launched the first game on the Binance Application Sidechain (BAS).
It is currently the leading RPC provider and offers a cost-effective mechanism to build, deploy, and scale in Web3. Its low latency and high resilience levels can be observed from many tracking tools.
As a major infrastructure provider, Ankr is also looking to launch subnets so that Web3 projects can grow from a stable, fast, and efficient foundation. This enables projects to test and grow without being “locked-in” to a previous blockchain.
Crypto Scalability Issues: A Thing Of The Past
Subnet functionality is going to become a core necessity to build the future of Web3 and resolve the crypto scalability issue. It resolves perhaps the most pressing issue observed with previous blockchains. Development teams can tweak and test in secure environments and can create as many subnets as they wish.
These innovations will ultimately help to grow the wider ecosystem and help to quickly replace legacy systems that are already obsolete.
By: Victor Fabusola Crypto Writer & Blockchain Journalist. Lover of mental models and conscious hip-hop.
Internet Standard Subnetting Procedure. IETF. p. 6. doi:10.17487/RFC0950. RFC950. It is useful to preserve and extend the interpretation of these special addresses in subnetted networks. This means the values of all zeros and all ones in the subnet field should not be assigned to actual (physical) subnets.Troy Pummill; Bill Manning (December 1995).
Variable Length Subnet Table For IPv4. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC1878. RFC1878. This practice is obsolete! Modern software will be able to utilize all definable networks. (Informational RFC, demoted to category Historic)A. Retana; R. White; V. Fuller; D. McPherson (December 2000).
RFC 3627 to Historic Status. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC6547. RFC6547. This document moves “Use of /127 Prefix Length Between Routers Considered Harmful” (RFC 3627) to Historic status to reflect the updated guidance contained in “Using 127-Bit IPv6 Prefixes on Inter-Router Links” (RFC 6164).R. Hinden; S. Deering (February 2006).
Have you ever looked at the price of Bitcoin or Ethereum and wished you’d bought it when it was just a few dollars?Most of us do…And for a very long time, I thought I’d completely missed out on the opportunity to make huge profits from cryptos.But that’s not the case.
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The bitcoin price’s mammoth 2021 bull run catapulted its market capitalization to over $1.2 trillion last year. It’s since crashed back to a mere $400 billion. Meanwhile, ethereum’s own huge price rally saw it climb to over $500 billion before dropping to just over $200 billion. Now, some traders and investors are predicting the ethereum price will surge following its long-awaited, radical upgrade—potentially making ethereum more valuable than bitcoin for the first time, an event known as “the flippening.”
“Investor interest in ethereum has remained resilient as it nears the merge, its once-in-a-lifetime event that will see the whole network migrate onto proof-of-stake,” Gabriel Selby, lead research analyst at cryptocurrency index provider CF Benchmarks, said via Twitter. “Some have suggested it could be the catalyst for ethereum to overtake bitcoin as the world’s largest coin by market capitalization.”
This week, ethereum is expected to complete its transition from the energy-intensive proof-of-work consensus mechanism used by bitcoin to the more power-efficient proof-of-stake, removing ethereum’s reliance on miners and handing control to those that “stake” their ether on the network. The switch is expected to reduce ethereum’s carbon emissions by 99%, according to the Ethereum Foundation.
Bitcoin’s dominance, a measure of its value compared to other cryptocurrencies, has in recent weeks dipped under 40%, down from a peak of almost 50% earlier this year, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Ethereum has seen its share of the market climb to over 20%, up from lows of under 15%. “Since the start of the year, the market cap ratio between bitcoin and ethereum has converged to its narrowest differential since May 2021.
If the current trend persists, ethereum could reach the top of the league tables by the end of 2023, or sooner,” Selby said. While bitcoin has developed a reputation as digital gold due to its immutability and resistance to both change and censorship, ethereum is designed to be used as the foundation of a decentralized, blockchain-based internet—an idea that’s become known as web3.
“With the proliferation of financial products that have enabled a much broader range of investors to express their price view in the crypto markets—such as the recently launched ethereum options contract by CME—the mechanisms are very much in place for ethereum’s market cap to overtake bitcoin, should there be buy-in from a sufficient number of investors,” Selby added.
“We believe that ethereum has great utility and once the purge phase of pruning the code starts in 2023 it will be a very good blockchain with even greater adoption,” Martin Hiesboeck, head of blockchain and crypto research at crypto trading platform Uphold, said via email, adding: “The [ethereum] price could well skyrocket.”
Over the last year, ethereum has seen a demand boom due to the soaring popularity of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), digital art and media that’s tokenized on the ethereum blockchain. “Ethereum has already surpassed bitcoin in terms of the number of transactions executed,” Daniel Kostecki, a senior financial analyst at the investment company Conotoxia. “However, it is still far behind bitcoin in the volume of transactions on the blockchain or trading on exchanges.”
Kostecki warned it will be “hard to overtake a coin that was first in the world and whose issuance is limited.” Though others are more confident the flippening will eventually happen. “The merge will help global sentiment towards crypto and [the blockchain-based third iteration of the internet] web3 because the second biggest blockchain is becoming greener,” Max Kordek, chief executive of decentralized applications platform Lisk, said in emailed comments. “This is also a necessary step for ethereum to flip bitcoin, which I foresee happening in the next major bull run.”
I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk I reported on..
When the Ethereum (ETH) merge occurs in September, it will mark the end of its PoW system and begin its status as a PoS coin. The Merge will supposedly decrease ETH’s total supply. A decreased supply should help lift the price of ETH. This could assist its rise to #1. However, BTC will always be seen as “digital gold” within the digital universe, while Ethereum is known as “digital oil.”
A rapid increase in the ETH price, a decrease in BTC’s price, or a combination of these two could lead to the Flippening. The ETH merge will not reduce gas fees for transactions (at least not immediately), a primary sticking point that could prevent ETH from growing. By contrast, Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA) have cheaper fees due primarily to their PoS consensus mechanism. Could one of them overtake ETH?
Many believe the fees on the Ethereum platform will decline gradually. Instead, the ETH blockchain plans to scale its users’ activity and secure its Mainnet through a decentralized layer. This method could allow for cheaper transactions within the network (eventually). For those unaware, market cap for cryptocurrencies works the same way as that of the stock market.
Replace the word “share” with “coin or token” so that “total shares outstanding multiplied by price per share” becomes total altcoins/tokens outstanding multiplied by the price per altcoin/token equals the assets’ market cap. Market cap is one of the vital indicators of an altcoin’s value. Many newcomers (including me) to the cryptocurrency market considered only an altcoin’s price to determine its value without considering how many are circulating and how many will be produced.
However, scarcity is only one part of the Law of Supply and Demand. Between ETH and BTC, the value or market cap gap is more than $200 billion. BTC’s market cap on 19 AUG is $408,567,909,013, while ETH’s is $206,487,299,810. That’s more than double. However, many are looking at it like the “glass is half-full,” or ETH is almost halfway to the Flippening.
ETH is almost triple its next closest competitor a “stablecoin,” Tether (USDT) valued at $67,554,732,043. In fact, BTC owns more than 55% of the total value within the cryptocurrency industry. These valuations were genuine at the time of my research, though market valuations in the highly volatile cryptocurrency market change rapidly. Conversely, ETH owns just a little more than 12% of the value. This gap may be a hard one to close for ETH.
Plus, other factors may make it challenging for ETH to top BTC in the near future. Let’s explore those so you can form an opinion about the “flippening.” Some “whales” believe ETH has the presence in the crypto universe but not the asset liquidity of BTC, though some Ether watchers and owners would say “…we’re halfway there.” Most crypto enthusiasts understand that the BTC halving creates a bull run.
Well, imagine that times three. The Merge will cut emissions by 90 percent, daily block compensation will diminish from 12800 to 1280 ETH, and inflation will drop from 4.3% to 0.43%, which could be seen as a 3X halving. Many investors do not understand the difference between circulating supply, total supply, and maximum supply. It can be complicated. Of course, circulating supply refers to the number of coins in circulation.
However, total supply doesn’t necessarily refer to the total supply that will ever be produced; that is maximum supply. As opposed to government-produced and regulated fiat currencies, the maximum supply of BTC is set at 21,000,000, which it is predicted to reach by 2040. Yet the price can move quickly due to its small number compared to ETH, which has an announced total/circulating supply of 122,027,066 coins. The maximum supply is not currently known.
Although the number of coins in circulation and price will drive market cap, inflation can stifle growth. Although the Merge will help fight inflation and quell circulating supply, ETH has nearly 100 million coins in circulation than BTC ever will. Regardless of the number of coins in circulation, the demand for either will drive the price. BTC has always led the way, but it has no real project outside of its decentralized nature, limited anonymity, and stored value.
Those functions often lead to ETH being referred to as “digital oil” because it “greases the skids” for so many operations across the crypto universe. While ETH is set to complete the Merge to PoS in September, many believe it will flip BTC and become number one. However, we must wait and see how the ETH blockchain will function once the Merge is complete.
Suppose, as predicted, the gas fees remain high. What is the advantage beyond the apparent but not visible benefit to the environment? If developers and creators must pay the same high fees, what will stop them from using another platform that performs the same function for less?
The Treasury Department on Monday sanctioned a cryptocurrency firm with ties to a North Korea state-sponsored hacking group for allegedly facilitating malicious laundering—marking the latest retaliatory measures against so-called virtual currency mixing services, which effectively obfuscate cryptocurrency transactions to make them more difficult to track.
In a statement Monday morning, the Treasury announced it was sanctioning Ethereum-based Tornado Cash for allegedly helping to launder more than $7 billion worth of cryptocurrency since its creation in 2019, effectively freezing U.S. assets on the platform and barring Americans from using the service.
Laundered funds included over $455 million stolen by North Korea hacking ring the Lazarus Group in the largest known virtual currency heist to date—when North Korean cyberattackers stole some $620 million from an Ethereum-linked platform for NFT-based video game Axie Infinity in March—the Treasury said.
On its website, Tornado Cash says it has helped nearly 40,000 users obfuscate transactions through more than 150,000 deposits that help “achieve privacy” by using smart contracts to route funds to an address with no ether balance and then send it to a new public address that has no link to the original sender.
In a Monday statement, the Treasury’s Brian Nelson said Tornado Cash repeatedly failed to impose effective controls and “basic measures” designed to stop it from laundering funds for malicious cyber actors and pledged to continue to “aggressively” pursue actions against mixers that launder cryptocurrency for criminals.
The move follows the Treasury’s first-ever sanctions on a virtual currency mixer in May, when it designated Blender.io for allegedly also helping to carry out the Lazarus-backed crypto heist in March—to the tune of more than $20.5 million worth of illicit proceeds.
In addition to the heist in March, Tornado Cash was also used to launder more than $96 million of funds derived from a June hack of blockchain bridge Harmony and at least $7.8 million from an attack on Nomad, which lost about $190 million in a security exploit just last week, according to the Treasury.
Treasury officials this year have unleashed a wave of sanctions to protect against the potential use of cryptocurrency for sanctions evasion and money laundering. Shortly before the first mixer sanctions, the Treasury in April designated a cryptocurrency mining firm for the first time—targeting Switzerland-based Bitriver AG for operating in the Russian technology sector. Also that month, the Treasury designated Moscow-based exchange Garantex for “willfully disregarding” anti-money-laundering obligations and “allowing [its] systems to be abused by illicit actors.”
In a post on its website, crypto policy think tank Coin Center criticized the Treasury’s Monday decision for “sanctioning a tool that is not an alias of any person meriting sanction,” and said the move effectively limits “any American who wishes to use her own money and a freely available software tool to maintain her own privacy—including for otherwise entirely legal and personal reasons.” According to Coin Center, the sanctions also have uncertain legal ramifications because they potentially put Americans who are sent money through a Tornado address at risk of violating the Treasury’s rules—even though they can’t reject the transaction due to the nature of blockchain.
I’m a senior reporter at Forbes focusing on markets and finance. I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I double-majored in business
Coca-Cola has announced plans to release a Pride series NFT collection to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community.
Coca-Cola will be collaborating with artist and advocate Rich Mnisi.
The Pride Series NFT collection will be minted on the Polygon Network (MATIC).
The world-renowned beverage company of Coca-Cola has announced that it will be launching a Pride series NFT collection in celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community. Each NFT will be unique and ‘aims to shine color-filled light on the community’s members and spread a message of Love.Coca-Cola will be collaborating with designer and advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights, Rich Mnisi, who hails from South Africa. The team at Coca-Cola further pointed out that Rich Mnisi’s artwork ‘pushes boundaries on the concepts of identity and community.’ They explained:
136 NFTs on the Polygon Network (MATIC).
“Coca-Cola commissioned bespoke Mnisi artwork for this collection to be sliced into individual fragments and dispersed across all 136 collectibles, making each one unique. Our hope with the pieces is to increase visibility by radiating the full spectrum of the community’s colors and spreading a simple message of Love,” the firm said in an announcement last week.
Rich Mnisi and Coca-Cola will collaborate in the creation of 136 NFTs, which are currently being minted on the Polygon Network (eaMATIC). Some of the NFTs are already listed on OpenSea. The Coca-Cola Pride Series NFTs now have a floor price of 1 Ethereum.
In addition, Coca-Cola commissioned the art, hoping each NFT would ‘increase visibility by radiating the full spectrum of the community’s colors and spreading a simple message of Love.’
Furthermore, all proceeds of the initial sale of the NFTs will be donated to charities serving the LGBTQIA+ community. For the first 12 months, the proceeds will be donated directly to OUT, an LGBTQIA+ charity chosen by Rich Mnisi. The organization is the second-oldest in South Arica, professionally serving the LGBTQIA+ community with physical and mental healthcare.
Interestingly, all the funds generated from the initial sale of the 136 NFTs built on the Polygon (MATIC) network, an Ethereum scaling solution, will be donated to multiple charities supporting and fighting for LGBTQIA+ rights. Coca-Cola added that the first charity to benefit will be OUT, the second-oldest LGBT organization in South Africa, which was chosen by Mnisi.
“These free forms represent both love’s permanence and its changing state. They’re to remind us of the power that lies within all of us to choose what love will become. Love is what we make it. Choose to love freely,” Coca-Cola added.
By: Victor Fabusola Crypto Writer & Blockchain Journalist. Lover of mental models and conscious hip-hop.
