<ol><li>Trusted hardware isn’t so trustworthy</li><li>Security tooling is still too difficult to use : Or “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it run <code>./configure && make && make install </code>.”</li><li>Side channels everywhere : When God closes a door, he opens a side channel.</li><li>LANGSEC in cryptographic contexts : Figuring out which protocol you’re speaking is the third hard problem in computer science.</li></ol>

By William Woodruff Last week, over 500 cryptographers from around the world gathered in Amsterdam for Real World Crypto 2022, meeting in person for the first time in over two years. As in previous years, we dispatched a handful of our researchers and engineers to attend the conference, listen to talks, and schmooze observe the…

Themes from Real World Crypto 2022

<a href="https://thedefiant.io/olympusdao-uniswap-defi-2-0-liquidity-mining/">DeFi 2.0 </a>was expected to provide an alternative for paying out tokens in exchange for deposits. <a href="https://thedefiant.io/what-is-compound-crypto/">Compound Finance </a>may <a href="https://thedefiant.io/compound-incentive-overhaul/">cut rewards </a>. In other parts of DeFi, the money is still flowing.

Ava Labs is the primary company developing the Avalanche blockchain’s ecosystem. Lending protocol Aave launched its V3 last month on both Avalanche and Fantom. the AVAX rewards were part of Avalanche Rush, a $180M incentive program launched <a href="https://thedefiant.io/avalanche-incentives-aave-curve/">last August </a>. The rewards aren’t eye-popping by DeFi standards — as of April 20, the highest APY offered is 9.94% for people who deposit AVAX (and earn AVAX rewards on top of that). Among stablecoins USDT provides the best APY with 6.44% with over half of that coming from the AVAX incentives.

Avalanche and Fantom

Of course those yields are highly variable and have been diluted in the past day as more users supply liquidity to Aave’s V3 deployment on Avalanche — a <a href="https://twitter.com/stableyields/status/1516588586988097546">tweet </a>by Stablecoin Yields on Apr. 19 shows yields of 61% for USDT, above 38% for DAI, and over 17% for USDC.Indeed, data provider DeFi Llama shows an jump in deposits into Aave V3 deployment on Avalanche — total value locked jumped from $6.39M on Apr. 19 to $1.01B. That’s well over a hundred fold increase in a day, which shows how responsive the market is to incentives (and how quickly the resulting yields get diluted).

Jump in Deposits

Now at $4.21B, Aave V3 stands as the No. 1 ranking DeFi protocol in TVL terms on Avalanche, according to DeFiLlama. Despite the near-50% drop, Aave’s V2 on the chain ranks second at the $2.65B mark.  <a href="https://thedefiant.io/avalanche-benqi-defi/">Benqi </a>, another lending protocol native to Avalanche, sits in third on the blockchain in TVL terms at $1.61B.

Affinity for Avalanche

Token rewards for in-app deposits are in a state of flux. 

Aave V3 Depositors Can Pocket Avalanche Token Rewards - The Defiant

UK watchdogs under the banner of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF) have called for views on the benefits and risks of how sites and apps use algorithms. Whether that's which video to watch next on YouTube, which film you might enjoy on Netflix, who turns up in your Twitter feed, search autosuggestions, and what you might like to buy on Amazon – the algorithm governs them all and much more. While that all sounds pretty benign, regulators are hip to the fact that algorithms don't always work for the benefit of consumers.

The DRCF – comprised of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), and the Office of Communications (Ofcom) – has set out a workplan for the coming year in which it aims to: <ul><li>Better protect children online </li><li>Promote competition and privacy in online advertising </li><li>Support improvements in algorithmic transparency </li><li>Enable innovation in the industries they regulate </li> </ul>

"Just one of those areas is algorithms. Whether you're scrolling on social media, flicking through films or deciding on dinner, algorithms are busy but hidden in the background of our digital lives."That's good news for a lot of us a lot of the time, but there's also a problematic side to algorithms. They can be manipulated to cause harm or misused because firms plugging them into websites and apps simply don't understand them well enough. As regulators, we need to make sure the benefits win out."

Brit watchdogs ask how they can better regulate algorithms

<ul><li>Layer 2 networks are spending more gas than ever settling transactions on Ethereum mainnet. </li><li>The Wednesday following Optimism's token launch saw Layer 2 networks use a record-breaking 3.95% of the daily gas consumption on Ethereum. </li><li>Polygon's co-founder Sandeep Nailwal suggested on Twitter today that Ethereum might eventually evolve into a network where Layer 2 transactions occupy the majority of its blockspace. </li> </ul>

Weekly Ethereum gas spent by Layer 2 networks: Source: <a href="https://dune.com/funnyking/L2-Gas-Consumption">@funnyking/Dune </a> When Ethereum traffic increases it accrues value to all ETH holders. This is because the base gas fees on Ethereum are burned, reducing the overall ETH supply and thus increasing the value of all remaining tokens. In this way Ethereum “profits” as Layer 2 networks use its blockspace to settle transactions more efficiently than can be done directly on mainnet.

Ethereum Profits From Layer 2 Expansion

Ethereum is generating more and more revenue by renting its security to the steadily growing ecosystem of Layer 2 networks.

Ethereum Is Making More Money Than Ever From Layer 2 Networks

The Portuguese Parliament, Assembleia da República, rejected not one but two different proposals to tax <a href="https://finbold.com/topic/bitcoin/">Bitcoin </a>and other <a href="https://finbold.com/category/cryptocurrency-news/">cryptocurrencies </a>, both of which came from political groups in the minority.  Notably, the suggestions were put up by the left-leaning parties Bloco de Esquerda and Livre and were both shot down during a voting session for the 2022 budget on May 25, according to a <a href="https://eco.sapo.pt/2022/05/25/deputados-discutem-orcamento-pelo-terceiro-dia-acompanhe-aqui/">report </a>published in the Portuguese economic weekly ECO .

At the start of this month, the country’s Minister of Finance  Fernando Medina said that the government would begin taxing cryptocurrencies. He also stated that the government would work on the regulatory framework, but he did not provide a time frame for when this would occur. “Many countries already have systems, many countries are building their models in relation to this subject and we will build our own,” he said.

Minister says Portuguese government will tax crypto

Mariana Mortágua, a member of parliament with the Bloco de Esquerda who has been extremely outspoken about crypto taxes, blasted the administration for failing to find a mechanism to tax crypto before to the vote.  “Regardless of necessary future crypto regulations, our contribution to put an end to this offshore is to subject crypto assets to the same rate applicable to capital gains on equivalent income,” she said.

The Portuguese Parliament, rejected not one but two different proposals to tax Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Portugal’s Parliament rejects Bitcoin and crypto tax proposals

<a href="https://techcrunch.com/events/defi-the-future-of-programmable-money/?utm_medium=tc_article_01&utm_campaign=defisummit&utm_content=tc_article_01&utm_source=techcrunch&promo=tc_article01&display=true">DeFi & The Future of Programmable Money </a>, a one-day virtual conference on March 30, offers something for everyone involved with, or interested in learning about, the bleeding-edge world of decentralized finance. While there’s plenty of talk about crypto whales, a different sea creature is making waves — and a community — for current or aspiring DeFi engineers and developers.

Gas Capped: Attending DeFi &The Future of Programmable Money is free, but you must <a href="https://techcrunch.com/events/defi-the-future-of-programmable-money/?utm_medium=tc_article_01&utm_campaign=defisummit&utm_content=tc_article_01&utm_source=techcrunch&promo=tc_article01&display=true">register here </a>to reserve your seat. The summit is in partnership with <a href="https://sommelier.finance/">Sommelier Finance </a>, a leading crypto project, co-founded by Zaki Manian, and designed to automate decentralized finance trading.

One of the most active and engaged DeFi communities, it’s a resource where engineers, developers, founders and builders can discuss, among other things, open source DeFi and programmable money code.The group describes <a href="https://t.me/blockchain_lobsters">its purpose</a> as “first and foremost a crypto community for technical and economic research and discussion, with a strong focus on DeFi.”

LobsterDao

LobsterDAO gave birth to Curve Finance, and other projects that have collaborated with this community include GearBox, Ambire, CoinList, Icy.tools and DexGuru. In addition to the main channel, and the aforementioned Blockchain Lobsters, other sub-channels include a main DeFi chat, a DeFi dev chat, a daily newsletter, a job board and two NFT-related chats — NFT Avenue and Seafood Kingdom.

DeFi & The Future of Programmable Money, a one-day virtual conference on March 30, offers something for everyone involved with, or interested in learning about, the bleeding-edge world of decentralized finance. While there’s plenty of talk about crypto whales, a different sea creature is making waves — and a community — for current or aspiring […]

Learn about LobsterDAO, an influential community of engineers, devs and founders at DeFi & The Future of Programmable Money – TechCrunch

This is our third Passive House. It’s a PHIUS-certified home on remote Shaw Island in the San Juan Islands. In addition to the prefabricated walls, which we did ourselves, we also prefabricated a central core that had bathrooms and a kitchen and the mechanicals. This was our first project to win some PHIUS awards.Vogel House is somewhere around our 10th Passive House, PHI-certified. A functioning farm, it had a modest budget and by this time we were on our 5th or 6th evolution of wall assemblies, foundation details, and air tightness detailing.

Projects

Because we are a two-thirds woman-owned business now, we’re able to apply for 10% of all the work Washington state has. They have to give 10% of everything they do to small minority- or women-owned businesses. So we’re partnering with larger firms to get our feet in the door to do that kind of work. It also allows us to spread Passive House, which is exciting. Our firm has been passionate about missing middle housing for quite some time and its finally coming to fruition, with a product!

Moving forward, we’re looking at partnerships.

Just as Passive House became a potent vehicle of change for the work that we do, shaping everything in our business, the promotion of women in leadership in our firm became a potent vehicle of change for our company, making us more adaptive and effective than ever before. The key to success in your company may be women promoting women, just like it was for mine.

women promoting women

As we gained momentum with our Passive portfolio, we also gained momentum as a hospitality-focused firm. Doing restaurants and bars, it turns out the attitude towards problem-solving and tenacity based around permitting isn’t just applicable to Passive House. It’s very applicable to small businesses trying to carve out their niche in the world.

hospitality

Inspirational

Sheroes of Passive House: Tessa Smith

Cardano is a public, open-source blockchain for building and running smart contracts and other decentralized protocols. The project was built from the ground-up by a team led by Charles Hoskinson , a co-founder of Ethereum. In contrast to many blockchains, Cardano did not kick off with a white paper. But it was the first blockchain to be peer-reviewed and developed by academic experts in the field.

1. What is Cardano, and what makes it different from other blockchain platforms?

Bitcoin was created to eliminate a central authority in verifying transactions. Due to its simple design, it was very secure. Ethereum brought smart contracts and decentralized apps. But Ethereum has run into such problems as <a href="https://forkast.news/defi-8-billion-growth-scaling-transaction-fee-challenges-alchemy/">high gas fees </a>and <a href="https://forkast.news/vitalik-buterin-explains-ethereum-2-0s-four-phases-sharding-scaling-proof-of-stake-and-more/">scalability </a>.Cardano is part of the so-called third generation in blockchain technology, which includes platforms like <a href="https://forkast.news/polkadot-binance-plasm-network-blockchain/">Polkadot </a>and Cosmos. Aside from scalability, third-generation platforms like Cardano also seek to address interoperability and sustainability issues that plagued the earlier generations.

2. Blockchain technology before Cardano

Cardano is supported by the same-named foundation that aids the research and development of the protocol and its community. The Cardano project’s development is spearheaded by the for-profit company Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK). Hoskinson also heads IOHK. The project signed up leading academics in several universities worldwide to review their work before announcing Cardano to the world.

3. Cardano’s beginnings

Cardano has been different from other blockchain projects from the start. In lieu of publishing a white paper, Cardano adopted a collection of unique design principles, engineering best practices, and created <a href="https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2021/01/171316-iohk-which-supports-cardano-ada-development-has-announced-11-winning-proposals-to-receive-funding-as-part-of-project-catalyst/">avenues for continued exploration </a>to achieve its goals. This decision has seen the Ethereum challenger gaining global prominence in a few short years. The project remains entirely open source and unpatented.

4. Cardano’s philosophy

The Cardano blockchain is stratified into two layers, the Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL) and the Cardano Computational Layer (CCL).The CSL is Cardano’s balance ledger. Using a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm (Ouroboros protocol) to generate new blocks and confirm transactions.This layer is operated separately from the settlement layer to afford flexibility if the need for changes arises. It’s off-chain protocol allows it to offer greater data storage flexibility and an access model that lets users create customized rules when validating transactions.

5. Cardano’s blockchain architecture: CSL and CCL

What the Cardano team did with the Ouroboros is to divide physical time into epochs made of <a href="https://cardano.org/ouroboros/">slots</a>. These so-called epochs operate in an annular fashion whereby when one epoch ends; another comes online. This helps to reduce network congestion and save on gas fees.The epochs are divided further, with each having a slot leader chosen by other nodes. These slot leaders will see the creation and confirmation of transaction blocks to be added to the blockchain. If the selected slot leader cannot create a transaction block in an epoch, the next slot leader will have a go.

6. Understanding Key Concepts

Input Output Hong Kong is a for-profit company that <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/a-deep-dive-into-cardano">supports </a>Cardano. Signing a multi-year contract with blockchain company <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/emurgo">Emurgo </a>, the company aims to promote better financial inclusion and Hoskinson has spoken widely about <a href="https://forkast.news/watch-charles-hoskinson-co-founder-of-ethereum-and-iohk-on-why-cardano-is-a-better-platform-part-i-2/">Cardano’s uses cases in Africa and ambitions for helping lift the world’s poor </a>. The Cardano Foundation is an independent Swiss-based non-profit that aims to “standardise, protect and promote” Cardano’s technology through building partnerships with other companies as well as aiming to help shape legislation that affect the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry.

7. Teams behind Cardano

Cardano developers can now create custom tokens or import projects from other blockchains into the Cardano network. This could be beneficial for new and interesting projects such in the DeFi and <a href="https://forkast.news/nft-art-nba-top-shot-crypto-collectibles/">NFT ecosystem</a>. While Cardano is innovating, other blockchain platforms — including Ethereum — are in a race to work out issues like scalability and sustainability as well.

8. What does the future hold for the Cardano project?

Cardano’s ADA, up by 7,400% since last year, is now the 3rd most popular cryptocurrency in the world. Why is it called a ‘Ethereum killer’? Let’s find out.

HowTo

Guide To Cardano And ADA: What Is Cardano, And Why It Matters - Forkast

Part of the problem stems from hype and sensationalism in tech journalism. Journalists are storytellers, not technology experts. While they did their job of writing stories that drove people’s imagination wild, their narratives were a bit overexaggerated.

1) Sensationalism in journalism.

2) Security. All it takes is one point of entry to be compromised for the entire IoT network to be hacked. This means the engineering of these smart devices has to be pristine, and that takes time.

2) Security.

3) Privacy. We are all well aware of the privacy concerns of devices that track us 24/7. There are ethical concerns of whether the excessive amount of tracking that IoT would enable is a good thing or not.

3) Privacy.

4) Closed ecosystems. Many of the largest IoT players are large enterprises (e.g. Cisco, GE, Microsoft), and they all operate in closed ecosystems. There are no shared protocols defined for how devices connect both to each other and to a central hub. Consider: if a consumer buys two Google smart devices, three GE smart devices, and two Apple smart devices, without shared standards, these devices cannot communicate with each other.

4) Closed ecosystems.

5) Bad incentives. Consumers haven’t shown much interest in upgrading to smart devices because, frankly, the benefits do not outweigh the costs (i.e. low ROI). Enterprises have not made the effort to distribute and deploy these devices in the real world (high costs, unclear ROI).

5) Bad incentives.

Helium is a decentralized IoT network. The network consists of “hotspots” (devices) that are maintained by “miners” all around the world. These miners earn incentives for maintaining this network of hotspots, and the hotspots communicate and coordinate to provide data services for end users. The network is designed to be decentralized, the rules for orchestration and data services are hard-coded into smart contracts that live on Helium’s blockchain.Helium's algorithm,“Proof-of-Coverage”,  incentivizes the creation of this physically decentralized wireless IoT network.

At any point in time, a hotspot can play three different roles:<ol><li>Challenger: The hotspot that constructs and issues a “challenge.” Hotspots issue challenges approximately once per every 240 blocks.</li><li>Challengee: This hotspot is the target of the challenge. When it receives a challenge, it transmits the challenge response packets that nearby hotspots can listen to.</li><li>Witness: These are hotspots that are geographically close to the challengee and are responsible for “witnessing” the packets that the challengee is transmitting in response to the challenger.</li></ol>

1) Water Tracking - ReadyRefresh by Nestlé is a customizable beverage delivery service, and was one of the first customers to test the Helium network for water tracking in Connecticut.2) Agricultural Monitoring - Agulus is an agtech company and uses Helium’s network to automate water distribution based on wireless sensors connecting to the Helium hotspots.3) Micro-mobility tracking : Lime (the scooter company) uses the Helium network to find lost bikes and scooters.

cases for which Helium is being used today

4) Building & Asset Monitoring : Conserv offers wireless monitoring for art collections in private and public museums and uses Helium to provide information about artwork.5) Health Monitoring : Careband offers consumers wireless wristbands to monitor the location and temperature of people working in hospital or office environments to help track contacts related to COVID-19. Careband uses Helium to track the locations of wristbands.6) IoT Innovation : To minimize friction, Salesforce is using Helium to build an IoT program to allow employees access to these resources using their badges.

7) Asset Tracking : Digital Matter is using Helium to provide GPS tracking devices for businesses that want to protect and recover assets.8) Air Quality Monitoring : Airly uses Helium to track air quality around the globe to help identify concentrations of dangerous airborne emissions.

We might have some sunshine in the IoT sector with the upcoming decentralised companies or even DAOs. 

Remember when the “Internet of Things” (IoT) was all the rage? The concept was simple: we would put sensors on every physical object imaginable, turning objects from “dumb” to “smart.” But here we are in 2021, still waiting for the IoT revolution to happen. Could Helium be the blockchain that makes this pipe dream a reality?

Will Helium finally make IoT a reality?

For example, FaceID, the technology that allows users to unlock their iPhone X just by looking at it, stems from Apple’s M&A moves in chips and computer vision, including acquisitions of companies like <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/company/primesense">PrimeSense </a>, <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/company/realface">RealFace </a>, and <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/company/faceshift">Faceshift </a>. The cash-rich tech giant has continued writing checks amid 2020’s volatile market, snapping up edge-based AI startup <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/company/xnorai">Xnor.ai </a> (in a deal valued at $200M), weather app <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/company/dark-sky">Dark Sky </a>, speech recognition startup <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/company/voysis">Voysis </a>, and VR event streaming company <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/company/nextvr">NextVR </a> ($100M valuation) in the first few months of the year.

Why Acquire

1. <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/company/beats-electronics">Beats Electronics </a> ($3B, 2014) is Apple’s largest acquisition to date. This transaction saw Apple acquire both Beats Music, the subscription streaming music service, and Beats Electronics, which makes headphones, speakers, and audio software. This acquisition reportedly aimed to boost Apple’s music services by bringing in Beats Electronics executives.

2. <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/company/intel-smartphone-modem-business">Intel </a>’s smartphone modem business ($1B, 2019) is Apple’s most recent acquisition to make the top 10 list. The deal brought in critical engineering talent and patents, ramping up Apple’s push to develop modem chips for its 5G phones.

3. <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/company/dialog-semiconductor-chip-power-management-unit">Dialog Semiconductor </a> ($600M, 2018) is a UK-based semiconductor business. Apple expanded its chip operations in Europe by acquiring the chip supplier’s battery management business, taking on an engineering team that already had many years of experience working on chips for Apple devices.

4. <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/company/anobit-technologies">Anobit Technologies </a> ($500M, 2011) , an Israel-based semiconductor startup, was acquired by Apple for its flash memory components, a key part of many of Apple’s products, as well as for its large team of chip engineers.

8. <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/company/primesense">PrimeSense </a> ($360M, 2013) is an Israeli 3D sensing company that was used to power Microsoft’s Kinect. It is now also behind Apple’s facial recognition technology included in the iPhone X.

9. <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/company/authentec">AuthenTec </a> ($356M, 2012) , a Florida-based listed fingerprint sensors company, was used by Apple to develop its payment solution Apple Pay.

10. <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/company/pa-semi">PA Semi </a> ($278M, 2008) was Apple’s first acquisition of a semiconductor company. One of the reported reasons for acquiring the California-based chip designer was Apple’s interest in low-power processors for mobile devices.

<ul><li>Apple spent over $7.3B on its top 10 deals, over 40% of which went to its $3B acquisition of Beats Electronics.</li><li>Many of Apple’s top acquisitions have been aimed at building and improving its largest success to date, the iPhone. Four of its largest acquisitions focus on chip performance, including Intel’s smartphone modem business, Dialog Semiconductor, Anobit Technologies, and PA Semi.</li></ul>

KEY TAKEAWAYS

<ul><li>Overall, these top deals reflect Apple’s strategy evolution , from a focus on the Mac platform (NeXT Computer) in the late 1990s, to a focus on mobile (Intel, Dialog Semiconductor, Quattro Wireless), and most recently to a focus on services like Apple Music (Beats, Shazam).</li><li>Other well-known features of the iPhone that have been impacted by Apple’s top acquisitions include fingerprint-enabled payment solution Apple Pay, with AuthenTec, and facial recognition tech, with PrimeSense.</li></ul>

As Apple surpassess 100 M&A transaction since its acquisition of NeXT Computer in 1996, we visualize the Cupertino-based giant's top acquisitions.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Decebal Dobrica
@decebaldobrica

Themes from Real World Crypto 2022

Aave V3 Depositors Can Pocket Avalanche Token Rewards - The Defiant

Brit watchdogs ask how they can better regulate algorithms

Ethereum Is Making More Money Than Ever From Layer 2 Networks

Portugal’s Parliament rejects Bitcoin and crypto tax proposals

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Decebal Dobrica@decebaldobrica

Themes from Real World Crypto 2022

Aave V3 Depositors Can Pocket Avalanche Token Rewards - The Defiant

Brit watchdogs ask how they can better regulate algorithms

Ethereum Is Making More Money Than Ever From Layer 2 Networks

Portugal’s Parliament rejects Bitcoin and crypto tax proposals

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Decebal Dobrica
@decebaldobrica