Finally understood NFTs? Well, there are SBTs now
NFTs have surely made a lot of hype in the past couple of months. There’s enough hype about NFTs these days that even mainstream media has started explaining the concept of NFTs to the masses and how a picture of a monkey can be worth millions of dollars.
Well, in the back alleys of web3, there’s a new kind of token becoming the buzz of the town - SBTs. So what are SBTs?
SBT stands for Soul Bound Tokens. Touted as the future of Ethereum, SBTs are NFTs that can’t be transferred once received. In a recent paper co-published by Vitalik Buterin, Soulbound tokens are explained as non-transferrable NFTs. Once you receive an SBT, you hold it in a Soul wallet forever. Only the issuer can burn the Souldbound token.
Want to learn more about SBTs? Check out this Twitter thread to understand the utility, use-case, and more.
This week in Web3 Wednesdays:
🌱 Terra’s rebirth
👀 Ethereum: What to expect after the merge?
🌉 L1 <-> Optimism NFT Bridge coming soon
🏹 Robinhood launches a gas-less web3 wallet
🔖 State of Crypto report by a16z
📖 Worth a read: Guide to Web3 Data: Thinking, Tools, and Teams
🪂 Earndrop: never miss another airdrop
🌱 Terra’s rebirth
Now that the storm of Terra’s collapse has subsided, the community has started working on rebuilding the ecosystem. According to the latest proposal on Terra Research Forums, the community has decided to rebirth the Terra blockchain and start afresh as a Layer-1 chain without an algo-stablecoin.
As of now, the majority of Terra community builders have vocalized their support for the rebirth and working together to rebuild. Maybe, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel after all.
If you had staked Luna period to the collapse, you can vote on the proposal here
👀 Ethereum: What to expect after the merge?
Ethereum merge (switching from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake) has been long due and has been postponed numerous times. Well, there’s some concrete news this time, coming straight from Ethereum’s co-founder.
At the ETH Shanghai Web 3.0 Developer Summit last Thursday, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin confirmed that the merge will likely occur this summer, despite being pushed ahead several times in the past.
According to the post-merge roadmap, Ethereum will focus on scalability through Sharding, before introducing additional improvements through The Verge and The Purge. The steps that will improve validation and reduce the data burden for the nodes.
Vitalik also mentioned the project will focus on Shard Chains after the merge to distribute the network load across 64 shards.
🌉 L1 <-> Optimism NFT Bridge coming soon
Hunting the alpha straight from Github, a standard NFT bridge between the Layer-1 chain and optimism has been in the works according to a tweet by Norswap.
Similar to that of an ERC-20 bridge, this bridge will allow users to move their NFTs (ERC-721) from the layer-1 chain (Ethereum) to the layer-2 chain (Optimism).
Want to check it out by yourself? Here’s the Github Repo link.
🏹 Robinhood launches a gas-less web3 wallet
At the DeFi conference Permissionless, Robinhood announced a non-custodial web-3 wallet allowing users to trade and swap crypto without any network fees.
According to Vlad (CEO, Robinhood), the web3 wallet will be a standalone app where users will be:
Trade & swap with NO network fees — and of course, no commissions.
Easily access DeFi protocols to earn the yield
Store NFTs and connect to NFT marketplaces
Intrigued? Learn more here
🔖 State of Crypto report by a16z
A16z, one of the biggest and most influential crypto VC firms released the 2022 State of Crypto Report last week laying down the long-term metrics around the crypto ecosystem.
The 2022 State of Crypto report is a16z crypto's first-ever data-driven overview and analysis of web3 and crypto. This is a must-read report for creators, entrepreneurs, and builders seeking to understand the evolution of the internet and the current journey towards a decentralized, community-owned, and operated alternative to web2 platforms.
TL: DR #5 key takeaways from the report
We’re in the middle of the fourth ‘price-innovation’ cycle
Web3 is much, much better for creators than web2
Crypto is having a real-world impact
Ethereum is the clear leader but faces competition
Yes, it’s still early.
Check out this Twitter thread by CryptoGucci noting down the important points mentioned in the report.
Or, alternatively, check out the complete report here
📖 Worth a read: Guide to Web3 Data: Thinking, Tools, and Teams
If you’re a data analyst who is new to web3, starting to build your web3 analytics team, or have just taken an interest in web3 data in general. Either way, if you’re already loosely familiar with how APIs, databases, transformations, and models work in web2.
Well, in that case, here’s something worth reading to get you started on web3 data.
Check out the complete guide here
🪂 Earndrop: never miss another airdrop
Earndrop is an airdrop finder/aggregator with email notifications when any of your wallets gets a new one 🪂. Thus, making it so simple to search unclaimed airdrops for your wallets.
The app is launching next month, but if you want beta access, you can sign up here
FREE WEBINAR ALERT 🤩
📅 Date and time: Today, 7:00 pm IST onwards!
What would this session cover?
👉 Basics constructs of decentralized finance - protocols, tokens, governance
👉 Introduction to staking, liquidity pooling, yield farming
👉 Anatomy of a DeFi protocol and its incentive mechanism
👉 How to research a DeFi protocol before investing in it
Last day to register! Register here