Discover Interchain Security & Cosmos Hub, and why $ATOM hit $45 in January 2022 🧵

Interchain Security: a Cosmos-specific category of shared security built using IBC

Also known as Shared Security, Cross Chain Validation, Cross Chain Collateralization, and Shared Staking

Interchain Security (IBC) is essential to Cosmos Hub's success:

- It enables hub minimalism
- Lowers the barrier to launching secure, decentralized public blockchains

The market cap of the staking token, which may take some time to gain value, relates directly to the security of the Cosmos chain

As a result, the project encounters several security risks, which is why Interchain Security is essential

Secure your chain with Interchain Security

Launch an EVM, CosmWasm, or Cosmos-SDK application and benefit from the validator set of the Cosmos Hub and Atom's entire market cap

Interchain Protection draws security from the Hub, so it's often referred to as a "consumer chain"

On platforms like Ethereum, setting up one is simple - just install a smart contract

With Cosmos-SDK, you can customize your consumer chain even further

Consumer chains come in two flavors: contract and custom

Interchain Security and similar consumer chains don't compete with other apps in terms of transactions

No unexpected congestion, plus better performance than Ethereum's shared smart contracts - it's a win-win!

Consumer chains keep more of the fees collected from users  compared to smart contract platforms

Fees can be used in the protocol or allocated towards a project's community DAO - it all depends on how it's set up!

Consumer chains don't have their own validator sets

The network will vote on which chain the Cosmos Hub validators adopt, driving engagement and showing true commitment to long-term success

Interchain Security requires 3 operations to be present in Cross-Chain Validation: Validator Set Updates, Reward Distribution, and Evidence.

Introducing Interchain Security V2: Layered Security

Combine local consumer chain staking tokens and the Cosmos Hub ATOM provider to determine your validator set for ultimate security!

What's the future of Cosmos consensus?

Interchain Security promises amazing features, like synchronous cross-chain communication. Our unofficial team just published a paper on this - check it out!

Development and further resources?

We're currently focused on Cross Chain Validation—the IBC app-level logic needed for Interchain Security

Our model-based testing is helping shape the spec to make it happen!

Stay up to date on Interchain Security and Cosmos!

Follow all of the latest news via the @cosmos Twitter feed, or check out our blog for more info

In conclusion:

Interchain Security is a game-changing security primitive with huge implications for the future of single blockchains and public blockchain applications

It drastically lowers the barrier to running secure networks - opening up exciting new possibilities!

You can read the unrolled thread here: https://www.0xilluminati.com/p/looking-at-interchain-security

Subscribe to our newsletter if you want our weekly digest of the most important happenings in the Cryptoverse: https://www.0xilluminati.com/

Interchain Security

A reaction thread to @AndreCronjeTech article - Fantom: an inside financial peak at being a 'crypto company'

🍿🧵👇

Andre Cronje has emerged from the woodwork to give a behind-the-scenes look into the financial health history of @FantomFDN

It's a rollercoaster ride of big wins and big losses

H2 2018 -

The timeline begins with a $40M treasury turning into $5M in 5 months due to ETH

May 2019 -

No team wants to be here, almost a year after the $40M raise, they have less than $2M in non-FTM + $900k in FTM in treasury

This is the inflection point of the journey...a good team would fold, but a great team finds a way out

What does Fantom do?

Feb 2020 -

Treasury: $3M in non-FTM + $400K in FTM

We're honestly surprised by how well the Fantom team's cost-cutting measures worked

They've been able to at least grow their treasury by almost $1M thanks to profits

Time to turn on the risk! FTM 🤝 DeFi

Rest of 2020 -

The Fantom team starts aggressively yield farming to meet their $8M trading profit goal

With some of the profits from farming on COMP and SNX, Fantom bought back FTM (a move that proved to be lucrative later)

By EOY, the treasury is almost back to $40M

2021 -

This seemed to be a great growth year for Fantom with increasing revenue and profit from farming activities (seems like they capitalized on DeFi summer)

Treasury Jan 2021: $51M (incl FTM)

Treasury May 2021: $1.5B (incl FTM)

Treasury Sept 2021: $263M (excl FTM)

2022 -

Bear impacts treasury, but still ends the year with a 30 yr runway

Treasury Nov 2022: 450M FTM, $100M in stables, $100M in crypto, $50M non-crypto

Side note: interesting to see what industry players (exchanges, marketplaces, RPC providers) charge for partnerships

Today -

Fantom seems to be financially healthy:

- Earns $10M/yr, exl capital gains
- Cash-flow positive
- 30 year runway at $7M salary burn rate

Lessons Andre learned 🧠:

- Don't compete for integrations, listings, partnerships
- Blockchain companies only make money by selling their token, a finite model that does a disservice to the chain and supporters
- Without DeFi, Fantom and many others wouldn't be around today

He ends the post with the statement: Crypto is dead. Long live crypto.

How do you interpret that? Comment below

Read the original article from Andre here: https://andrecronje.medium.com/fantom-an-inside-financial-peak-at-being-a-crypto-company-323d29fb5e81

Subscribe to our newsletter if you want our weekly digest of the most important happenings in the Cryptoverse:
https://thecryptoilluminati.substack.com/

Reaction Thread: Fantom: an inside financial peak at being a 'crypto company'

FTX has made us lose trust in CEXs in general

DeFi seems to be the better alternative, but it’s not completely safe as we’ve seen with recent hacks

Let’s take a quick look at your protection options when it comes to DeFi Insurance 🧵👇

The possibility of hacks and exploits leading to the loss of assets locked in smart contracts on nascent protocols has emerged as a formidable concern for DeFi

We need a decentralized intervention system to bring DeFi closer to TradFi in terms of consumer protection

How does DeFi insurance work?

Insurance in DeFi is essentially nothing different from regular insurance

It simply focuses on protecting yourself against losses due to unforeseen events

In Essence: a group of liquidity providers contributes capital to a decentralized pool of funds that provides coverage to DeFi users in the event of losses

The underwriters or liquidity providers receive insurance premiums as a reward for their stake in the pool

Through a DeFi insurance provider, users pay a specific amount to obtain coverage for the loss of their assets on a platform

The premium you pay depends on several factors, including the coverage type, provider, and duration

Instead of purchasing coverage from one specific individual or company, you can buy coverage from a decentralized pool of insurance providers

Any individual or company can function as an insurance provider by locking up capital in the decentralized capital pool

Liquidity providers, also called underwriters, serve as the primary agents in DeFi insurance protocols

They are incentivized to provide capital to these pools for a share of the premiums

Governance token holders and claims assessors are those who take on the responsibility for voting on claims and modifications to the protocol

Then there are the claimants who purchase the insurance premiums

Who has the authority to determine the validity of a claim?

In most cases, the community does, through a DAO structure

Native token holders get governance rights in the insurance protocol and participate in voting for claims verification

🔥 Pros/Cons of Decentralized Insurance

Pros
• Trustless
• Transparent
• Improved claims processing
• Smart Contracts
• Reduced insurance fraud

Cons
• Ambiguity regarding DeFi risks
• DeFi protocol exploits and smart contract bugs are costly
• Regulatory uncertainty

Now let’s look at some examples of DeFi insurance protocols:

• InsurAce.io
• Nexus Mutual

@InsurAce_io is a globally decentralized protocol that allows users to purchase mutual protection for their digital assets against losses from hacking, smart contract bugs, stablecoin de-peg, or other digital asset-related risks: https://app.insurace.io/

@NexusMutual - Members can buy cover to protect against material losses when transferring funds into a protocol’s smart contract or keeping funds with a custodian: https://nexusmutual.io/

DeFi insurance still needs to develop to cover technical and economic risks to users

(technical = exploits and hacks, economic = impermanent loss, slippage in AMMs, lending liquidations, and stablecoins depegging)

If insurance protocols can develop to cover both of these, it’ll significantly widen coverage, and likely draw more people to DeFi

It’ll give users a way to mitigate risk when partaking in different protocols, especially new ones

Here's a deep dive from @threesigma_xyz on the DeFi insurance landscape with numerous projects evaluated in-depth - https://twitter.com/threesigma_xyz/status/1587230780207529985?s=20&t=GzrEyTs3mcR_MKsxHdrZPA

🔥 In Conclusion

The growing complexity and variety of hacks and exploits in the DeFi space highlight the immediate need for decentralized insurance

DeFi insurance can also be a massive force in fields like property insurance, travel insurance, and title insurance

You can read the unrolled thread here: https://www.0xilluminati.com/p/defi-insurance-overview

DeFi Insurance Overview

Mainstream media refuses to tell the truth about SBF, are the global elite behind his fraud?

With over $10B stolen, FTX is one of the biggest scams in history

@davewangmia created a video presenting the evidence of the conspiracy, we loved it so much that we summarized it

🧵👇

Before we get started, see the full video here: https://youtu.be/wU0_ImPZCvc

Exhibit 1: Corporate structure

Alameda moved volumes into the FTX exchange, allowing FTX to attract retail and institutional crypto traders with deeper liquidity

Client deposits were then sent back to Alameda using secret backdoors in the code without triggering auditors

Alameda's new funds were then used to recycle money back to FTX and by executives for yachts, mansions, and political influence

All of this was obfuscated through a very complex corporate structure layering over 130 corporate entities

Exhibit 2: Executives’ Suspicious Backgrounds

SBF's parents are Stanford Law professors who are connected to the political elite

SBF's mother Barbara Fried leads a group, Mind the Gap, that bundles Silicon Valley cash for fundraising efforts of the Democratic Party

SBF's father Joseph Bankman drafted legislation for the powerful Senator Elizabeth Warren and has been lobbying Congress for decades, including on behalf of investment banks and hedge funds during the financial crisis

Alameda CEO, Caroline Ellison wrote in her personal blog about what she finds cute in boys

One of the points was: Controlling MAJOR WORLD GOVERNMENTS

Caroline's father is Glenn Ellison, the economics chair at MIT and very well-connected with policymakers

He was a direct boss of Gary Gensler when Gary was an MIT Professor

Gary is currently the SEC chairman, and we have evidence from public records of collusion with FTX to basically create a regulatory monopoly

Gary Gensler's end goal was to have FTX work hand in hand with the government to singularly control the global crypto flow of funds

Exhibit 3: Coordination with the Global Elite

It's clear SBF had direct connections with Gary Gensler

He used these connections to push his initiatives to government and non-government power centers

Also, SBF paid speaking fees to @TonyBlair and @BillClinton

Even though he was the largest Democratic donor of the 2022 cycle, SBF stated that he was going to donate $1B to Democrats in the 2024 election

FTX was also an official partner of the WEF

This granted him further access to influence in international circles

Sam's aunt Linda Fried is a council member of the forum committee on aging

The World Economic Forum has since scrubbed all mentions of FTX on their site

Sam's FTX Empire crumbled on November 8th, the same day as the U.S. midterm elections...

Coincidence?

Exhibit 4: Meth Abuse & Orgies

CEO of Alameda, Caroline, tweeted about her drug use:

In an interview, an FTX whistleblower recently spoke about the in-house psychiatrist prescribing meth:

Effects of amphetamines include hyper risk-taking, long-term psychosis, and erratic behavior

SBF started to show signs of neuromuscular deterioration the weeks right before the FTX collapse
https://twitter.com/ZacBissonnette/status/1592608589369446400?s=20&t=myxgZUuzJBIP3OUIrrpSrw

Another even spookier coincidence arises when you investigate known pedophilia logos

In the picture, we can see the similarities between the Alameda logo and the international logo for sexual attraction to underage boys as noted by an FBI investigation

What the Media Refuses to Say About FTX

There's a lot of noise regarding zkEVMs and how they work

Here are some of the key things you should know when it comes to zkEVMs

👇🧵

zkEVM (Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine):

VM that executes smart contracts through zero-knowledge proof computation

Unlike traditional VMs, zkEVMs incorporate the validity of inputs and outputs within the operation

The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is a runtime environment where deployed Ethereum-based smart contracts are executed

EVM works like a “world computer” powering dApps deployed on the Ethereum protocol

Often, Virtual Machines operate with smart contracts written in Solidity and other high-level programming languages

zkEVMs are EMV-compatible based on their ability to deploy smart contracts without modifying the underlying logic

ZK proofs provide the validity of a statement without revealing the information itself

The unique design makes it challenging to build EVMs compatible with zero-knowledge proofs, however, extensive research has made it possible

Similar to EVMs, zkEVMs are machines transitioning between states of a program’s operations

zkEVM goes further to define proof of correctness in all computation steps

During smart contract execution, a change is triggered in EVM's condition, called "site transition."

zkEVMs initiate zero-knowledge proofs to verify various components in each computation:

• Bytecode Access – Is the appropriate program code loaded as required from the correct address

• Read-write operations – Is the program fetching the correct values from memory before the computation? Is the program giving the correct output from memory after computing

• Computation – Are EVM Opcodes executing correctly, sequentially, without skipping steps

zkEVMs have three parts: a running (execution) environment, a proving circuit, and the verifier contract

Each section contributes to zkEVM operation from execution and proof generation through verification

Several teams are building on zkEVM roll-ups. They include:

• @0xPolygon – Project dedicated to building Ethereum’s infrastructure

• @Scroll_ZKP – A project solely devoted to researching zk proofs

• @the_matter_labs – Developers backing Zksync roll-up tech

While zkEVMs are still developing, they offer a solution to scaling Ethereum

We expect EVM-compatible zk roll-ups to be key to scaling blockchain technology

Similarly, there is anticipation for customizable zkEVMs

This is just a preview, you can find the full blog post here: https://www.0xilluminati.com/p/zkevms-quick-overview

zkEVM Overview

Here's a peak at the stories (first-hand accounts) from the ghosts of SBF's past

The FTX/Alameda situation still has us shook!

SBF decimated the markets, let's take a look at the skeletons in his closet

🧵👇

An early trader for Alameda Research spoke about the evident mistakes made during their time at Alameda and how there was a clear lack of money coming in both ways:
https://twitter.com/hosseeb/status/1592029330485698562?s=20&t=oEKdZlLkIJUt1pE7v34Wlw

Another employee under SBF cited his tyrannical nature as the main reason for the overall collapse of the SBF empire: https://twitter.com/211lp/status/1592073286007271424?s=20&t=zZhV9HCD_WlPvziBfK1lRA

An early FTX market maker tried to provide SBF with some friendly hygiene advice aiding him to look neater when representing FTX, it’s clear he ignored that: https://twitter.com/mgnr_io/status/1591979688662274048?s=20&t=H8i3jzvGBKjqOrdOlBKYPA

FTX employees also have recorded accounts of a supposed back-door implementation to the exchange's codebase

This was reportedly led by...you guessed it, SBF in an attempt to swindle auditors and cover the exec's tracks:
https://twitter.com/vydamo_/status/1591969831523602432?s=20&t=bWWO4La9jylrqEgMLMYG0w

The contagion…unimaginable, however, an FTX insider hinted at more centralized exchanges being in major trouble: https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/1591907871826268160?s=20&t=JsZQPNydr0I1RFIdF2zGqg

Looking at the internal notes, we can see evidence of FTX hedging and exiting $USDT via multiple trades with no intention of holding assets: https://twitter.com/0xstrobe/status/1591375924162957330?s=20&t=qdcxS1Ocn_FlWYlHZtQU9Q

The return of Su Zhu's significance comes into play as tweets recirculated regarding his concerns about Alameda in 2019 and explains how their pamphlet said “High Returns, No Risk":
https://twitter.com/sumfattytuna/status/1591475020995624960?s=20&t=gYVOwiIuooiLHx6FE0Fttg

An anon account added on a forum that SBF was losing money on Japanese arbitrage trades, but this was just another barricade of lies from SBF as he claimed to be profiting: https://twitter.com/AutismCapital/status/1592009944928489473?s=20&t=NtmEHjEKXJFcR29HK3Iqkg

Outside opinions provide different insights through speculation

@0xdoug suggests the scheme of Alameda’s exit plan: https://twitter.com/0xdoug/status/1591161987547168768?s=20&t=fEgRju3Ekw9XFJl8_Hx20g

Stories from the ghosts (employees) of SBF’s past

Yesterday, @mrjasonchoi released 'The Definitive Thread on FTX'

He met @SBF_FTX before FTX started, and witnessed their rise and fall

We loved the thread so much that we condensed the 60 tweets down to 20 tweets for easier consumption:

🧵👇

From the very start, @SBF_FTX wanted to bet BIG

Acquiring more leverage was the main strategy from the inception

This included deceptive fundraises, financial engineering, and ultimately, fraud

Starting his fund named @AlamedaResearch, promising "HIGH RETURNS WITH NO RISK"

@FTX_Official raised its first seed round of $8M in 2019

According to @mrjasonchoi sources, FTX started as an easy way to access capital for Alameda

Employees told him that Alameda had a trading API key that gives faster access - allowing them to front-run client trades

Around September 2019: Alameda allegedly made a failed attempt to manipulate futures on @binance
https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1173418810918916096?s=20&t=trD2rsp_leb8yKamA4FleA

FTX capitalized on DeFi hype by creating @ProjectSerum, a decentralized exchange on @solana

@ProjectSerum raised funds in a way that prioritized speed and not diligence - the faster investors committed, the lower the price

Below is a screenshot of their fundraising tranches

FTX became directly involved with multiple Serum / Solana  projects such as $FIDA, @Oxygen_protocol and $MAPS

Allegedly, much of Serum was operated by full-time FTX employees

Some projects were internally incubated or operated

Around winter 2020: Alameda moved AWAY from delta-neutral strategies and started taking massive directional risks in crypto with massive leverage

It is likely, Serum assets were used as collateral to get that leverage

This is likely how Alameda/FTX suffered the multi-billion dollar hole:

Alameda used illiquid collateral to borrow funds to finance risky bets, which got margin called as markets went down this year, leading to the theft of FTX user funds to cover the losses

Meanwhile, @SBF_FTX was actively pushing for establishing more regulation of crypto

This would ensure the equity value of FTX and $FTT - which they used to finance leveraged bets - do not collapse

The double down on marketing paid off when subsequent rounds of fundraises pushed FTX's valuation to $32B (Jan 2022), with investment from @paradigm, @Sequioa, @TomBrady, @Temasek

In Oct 2022, FTX proposes a standard for regulation that widely favored FTX over any DeFi competitors
https://www.ftxpolicy.com/posts/possible-digital-asset-industry-standards

@AlamedaTrabucco, co-CEO of Alameda steps down from the firm in Aug 2022

A month later, FTX acquired Voyage Digital for $1.4B, a brokerage firm that went under due to the collapse of Three Arrows Capital.
Despite >100K creditors and billions in liabilities

It is likely that FTX was bailing out entities with large $FTT holdings as collateral to prevent forced selling, much of its own leverage is backed by $FTT

Not long after, @SBF_FTX takes a jab at @cz_binance:

Shortly thereafter, @CoinDesk releases a concerning piece regarding Alameda's balance sheet, citing that a huge part of its $14.6B in assets are assets issued by the FTX team itself
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/11/02/divisions-in-sam-bankman-frieds-crypto-empire-blur-on-his-trading-titan-alamedas-balance-sheet/

Nov 6, 2022: @cz_binance states that in light of revelations regarding Alameda's balance sheet, Binance will liquidate the entirety of its whopping ~$584M in $FTT
https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1589283421704290306?s=20&t=B3xesF5p20LTFJdBEvyaWQ

@carolinecapital, CEO of Alameda then makes a public offer to @cz_binance to purchase all $FTT

Shortly after, @SBF_FTX publicly claimed that FTX DOES NOT INVEST CLIENT ASSETS and that it has enough to cover all withdrawals, however, withdrawals were soon frozen on Nov 8

Nov 9: a potential deal to acquire FTX by @binance was announced by CZ and SBF

Meanwhile, @FTX_Official still sent Alameda $10M in USD while freezing withdrawals for users (see image below)

Nov 10: @cz_binance called off the potential bail-out deal

Shortly after, withdrawals seemed to have resumed on FTX

Below is a DM leaked to @mrjasonchoi, where @SBF_FTX seemingly instructed one of his employees to once again commit fraud publicly

Bahamian regulators later refuted making such a statement

Speculation began to arise that insiders were cashing out, and commingling their withdrawals with actual Bahamian users

After the bankruptcy announcement, withdrawals were finally paused; however, hundreds of millions began to be siphoned from FTX
https://twitter.com/_Ryne_Miller/status/1591326796305530880?s=20&t=OIG4Q8tuHdDkA2wdL6oywA

Then, @zachxbt revealed a potential hack has likely occurred on FTX
https://twitter.com/zachxbt/status/1591475246250733568?s=20&t=ajor6QDYobkqswCSV5OVpg

According to primary sources from FTX, only 4-5 senior executives knew the extent of FTX's woes until the very end

These are: SBF, Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, Ramnik Arora, Constance Wang, Nishad Singh

This is just a summary, check out the comprehensive thread here:
https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi/status/1592502785873825794?s=20&t=OIG4Q8tuHdDkA2wdL6oywA

Prefer to listen to this? @mrjasonchoi recorded an abridged, 20-min version of this on his podcast @theBlockcrunch:
https://youtu.be/wUzKmXcNQt4

You can read the unrolled thread here: https://www.0xilluminati.com/p/jason-chois-the-definitive-thread?sd=pf

The Definitive Thread on FTX

Bangers of the Week 🔥: FTX Saga Told Through Memes

We lived through a historic event filled with emotion, pain, and loss

However also filled with some of the dankest memes that will live for years to come

Let's look back at the FTX/SBF/Binance saga...as told through memes 🔥

First it started with Sam poking fun at CZ

bruhhh... little did he know what he was about to unleash on himself with this little shitpost...

Before we knew it the billionaires were fighting on the timeline over dumping each other's token and we were all like

lfffffggggggg

Then Caroline was like "yoooooo, I'll give you $22 a pop and then f off"

CZ was like "lol no, dumping half a billy of your token"

HFSP

Sam was like "dude...we're fine... funds are SAFU"

Before anyone knew it...the once golden child of crypto was...broke??

WTFFF

Then Sam had to do it... he bent the knee

Then Sam was like "wait...actually...pls help"

And CZ was like "we got you, bro"

Unfortunately...CZ had to say no...

You see, CZ knew something we didn't...

Well...ya know how it went...

crypto nukerino'd

as if we haven't already had a rough year

So it came to be,

The Bear Market of '22 claimed another victim

In the carnage aftermath, all of CT was like

"yooo...hearing some things 😎"

waiting to see who blew up

This story still has a long way to go so make sure to follow us as we continue telling it

if only someone had warned us...

Bookmark this thread, we will update it as events unfold!

You can read the unrolled thread here: https://www.0xilluminati.com/p/ftx-saga-told-through-memes?sd=pf

We put out a newsletter that has all you need to stay up to date with everything that's going on in crypto.

Do yourself a favor. Subscribe.

https://www.0xilluminati.com/

Bangers of the Week 🔥

Last week on the Illuminati Round Table, we had @jane0mac of @zkLend on for a chat with host @Crypto_Clarke about the importance of sustainable community incentives and their strategy for designing them

Keep reading for the call notes and a replay

🧵👇
https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1RDGlaBlMdEJL?s=20

zkLend is building a money market protocol on StarkNet with borrowing and lending products

zkLend currently offers two protocols:

• Artemis - a permissionless lending protocol focused on retail users and over-collateralized loans

• Apollo - focused on KYC’d (Know Your Customer) borrowers like crypto hedge funds, VCs, and even other protocols being able to borrow under-collateralized

Jane, co-founder of zkLend, started her career in banking - did it for two years, but found it a bit too corporate for her liking

She wanted to do something more exciting and impactful so she could see her work making a difference

Jane was interested in crypto for some time, but she eventually delved deeper once her friends introduced her to different exchanges and parts of crypto

She was introduced to @bfu_fubrian and @xJonathanLEI (the other two co-founders of zkLend) to start a project together

Jane sees ‘tokenomics’ as a term that is too broad and may take a while to comprehend, so she breaks it down into a couple of buckets and functionalities:

1.  Networks - specifically POS like Ethereum

2.  The token's purpose is to allow users to stake the token to secure the network, receive fees, and payout rewards

3.  The other part is for users to transact with protocols on that network

zkLend may have a governance token in the future, but for now, only $ZEND exists as they don't want to overcomplicate it by having two separate tokens at this stage and they want to see the dual token model prove itself more

Jane said she likes “vote escrow’ which is a token lockup period before you can vote on a proposal, so they know users are in it for the long haul

Jane found how ETH proposals are voted on confusing as ETH users do not have any voting power, only the core developers - this deviates from many protocols as they do not consult the actual users

zkLend has a strong community, Jane stated that zkLend’s approach to introducing the protocol and StarkNet to the community is slightly different from others

Jane said they had deployed the testnet for Artemis on StarkNet - will soon go on mainnet (end of Q4/Early Q1)

Listen to the full episode and read the call notes here: https://www.0xilluminati.com/p/designing-community-incentives?sd=pf

Designing Community Incentives

Wanna do a bit of your own on-chain investigation after #FTX?

Keep reading this thread for everything you need to know about deciphering transactions on Ethereum using @etherscan

🧵👇

Gas and Ethereum Transactions

Reading data from a blockchain is cost-free. However, writing (changing the data recorded on the blockchain) requires you to initiate a transaction

Gas is measured by the computational work and storage needed to execute it

What are Ethereum Transactions?

These are cryptographically signed data messages with instructions facilitating the transfers of Ether from one account to another or interactions with smart contracts deployed on the blockchain. But first, what account types do we have?

Types of Ethereum Accounts

There are two types of accounts; Ethereum's Externally owned and contract accounts. These accounts can receive, hold, or even send ETH and other tokens

They can further interact with smart contracts deployed on the blockchain

Externally Owned Account (EOA):

This account type is derived from private keys. They generate transactions that invoke the ETH network to do some actions

The outstanding aspect of EOAs is that they are cost-free to create

Contract Account

Smart contracts are deployed on Ethereum’s network; they store and execute code. Creating a contract account comes with a cost because you are using Ethereum’s network storage

They only initiate transactions in response to a received transaction

Transferring from External Accounts to Contract Accounts

Executing transactions from an external to a contract account triggers code with several actions: including transferring tokens and creating a new contract

Transferring Ether Between Two Externally Owned Accounts (EOA)

By transferring ETH, you instruct the Ethereum network to decrease the balance in Account 1 and increase Account 2 by an X value, as shown below

Viewing transactions across two external accounts

Here is a sample transfer transaction on Etherscan. Check that you can locate several forms: from, to, and input data

Transferring ERC20 Tokens

What role do token contracts play? Token contracts are smart contracts that map account addresses and balances. Here is an example:

When transferring tokens from one account to another, updates feature in both accounts as per the token contract

A Sample Transaction

Here is a transfer of 10 tokens from 0x2299…3ab7 to 0x1f59…3492. As part of the transaction, one account address decreases its balance while the other increases

What’s the difference between transferring ERC20 and Ether?

The significant line between transferring ERC20 tokens and Ether is; the transaction is addressed to the Token's contract address rather than the account we want to send the tokens

What to expect when sending ERC-20 tokens from your wallet to another

While sending ERC-20 tokens from your wallet to another, stay keen to note that; In the '𝙏𝙤' section, you locate the contact address of the Token instead of the address of the receiving entity.

You can read the unrolled thread here: https://www.0xilluminati.com/p/deciphering-ethereum-transactions