Welcome to a series of indefinite length where we look at the articles I'm enjoying on BULB.

The articles that caught my attention

Computing in Isolation: Taking a look at Red Star Linux

https://www.bulbapp.io/p/dab5142e-c2cf-42d5-96c9-52e020c47cf7/computing-in-isolation-taking-a-look-at-red-star-linux?s_id=25b49a1c-1880-4d2d-98b0-c5849cc185f6
"While most operating systems are products of international collaboration and technological evolution, Red Star Linux offers a glimpse into the controlled and isolated digital environment of North Korea. Developed under the guidance of the country’s government, this operating system presents a blend of functionality, ideology, and technological autonomy that sets it apart from its mainstream counterparts."

Both frightening and funny.

Tweets of Deceit: Unmasking An Attempted Crypto Con

https://www.bulbapp.io/p/1e29f156-3c80-4e86-98e1-38f78e05d861/tweets-of-deceit-unmasking-an-attempted-crypto-con?s_id=42fa26c1-2949-4ece-a767-a45f795c2e17

Twitter (or X) is just packed with scams. Many of them involve crypto airdrops. They well constructed and can be hard to spot. But the key is the scammers can’t change a bunch of things on the platform they’re on so there are some simple technics that this article details you can use to identify suspect accounts and/or posts. 
They all follow a fairly similar pattern. I’m blocking like 2–5 accounts a day, every day, on Twitter right now so I’m fairly familiar with it. 

XBT vs BTC: Are They the Same?

https://www.bulbapp.io/p/35faea84-f6ea-4483-8d06-e3c1b61d5a1a/xbt-vs-btc-are-they-the-same?s_id=c1e5d9d9-bb04-4447-9ab1-afe3281db580

XBT and BTC are the same thing. Not a long post, but it's not a short answer as to why they are the same or, in another way of looking at it, why we need XBT at all.

Polkadot Parachain Explained

https://www.bulbapp.io/p/84b285e6-af5c-4235-81fb-50d48099a53d/polkadot-parachain-explained?s_id=5726e7c7-1616-4bd1-84df-15514957ddee

You know it's a funny thing. Polkadot has lost all the mindshare and momentum in terms of large liquidity and large dapps in the race to build the multichain future.

Cosmos is the leader at present.
Avalanche has stalled badly after many had considered their subnets to become the dominant force as late as a year ago.
Polygon is doing.. something... they are a technically a blockchain of blockchains but for all noise their BD team makes it doesn't seem to translate into transactions.

It could be argued, it's the looming Layer3s on Optimism and Arbitrum that will eventually come to dominate.

And yet, despite all of that, consistently it's Polkadot that leads the charts when it comes to active developers. They're always had a very strong focus on open source and accessible tooling and the community is super strong. They might end up being one of the longest lasting communities out of all of crypto as they've proved, so far, they can still deliver even without large liquidity.

POAP: Proof of Attendance Protocol

https://www.bulbapp.io/p/dde8730e-9fd2-4987-a927-17575a2d873d/poap-proof-of-attendance-protocol?s_id=7eebc6fb-ef5b-4989-b3c0-5959aed315e9

I can't figure out if these are innovation or oddity.
A few years ago, as NFTs first hit the market at scale, the idea of NFTs for ticketing was hot. Number of projects spun up and it was touted as one of the solid use cases for crypto tech.
Years on pretty much all those projects are dead and there is barely a mention of NFT ticketing anymore.

POAPs, in their current form, are NFTs for ticketing but they've not really done anything in terms of uptake. Maybe it's the cost of NFT mints on Ethereum that scared people off.
I think probably it was the lack of any secondary market or utility for them that was the largest factor in the lack of interest from most people.

Possibly the recent release of compressed NFTs on Solana, enabling a 1000x reduction in the cost of an average Ethereum mint, will spur an interest in the ticketing aspect again as it removes the cost barrier. 

I personally think soul bound tokens will be a much better POAP implementation. They are not able to be traded but they are bound to the wallet that minted them meaning they are much more a representation, on the blockchain, of something that happened. 
SiliconValleyBonk on Solana uses soul bound tokens to distribute ongoing game royalties to all players who participate https://svbonk.com/

There's also the token2022 standard on Solana than enables someone to easily interact with holders. The BERN project is an example of this tech currently in the wild https://twitter.com/BonkEarn/status/1662481195064541189?s=20 and shares many aspects of POAPs core use cases.

Num Finance Launches nCOP, a Stablecoin for Latin American Remittances

https://www.bulbapp.io/p/beb545ca-26a6-4ac9-8c98-d3502079fedb/num-finance-launches-ncop-a-stablecoin-for-latin-american-remittances?s_id=9147d0b7-951e-4318-a983-4f454977b849

It's an often under looked aspect of stablecoins that nearly all are pegged to to the USD. It is a major hassle if you live in a country that uses USD and your local currency (a lot of Latin America).

There's massive inefficiencies in have two prices for everything and having to constantly manage exchange rates. Using crypto doesn't really solve for that if the only stablecoins you can access are USD pegged.

Whilst an Argentine peso pegged stablecoin (nARS) might not have broad appeal, the sheer number of users in Argentina would rival current combined usage of many USD stablecoins.

So the opportunity here for Num Finance is massive. And likely not well understood by people outside of these countries.

The Dollar Plunges: China Prepares To Dominate Global Trade With Its Currency.

https://www.bulbapp.io/p/296fc4be-d16b-4bff-ab74-b51c6615c8aa/the-dollar-plunges-china-prepares-to-dominate-global-trade-with-its-currency?s_id=1c7e63a4-e0d9-49e3-a041-27c243246fa1

There's no chance we get a BRICS currency. Despite the frothy media stories (pushed by Chinese and Russia state propaganda) China has zero interest in having the yuan challenge the USD as the world's reserve currency.

To become a reserve currency would require China to let market forces determine the majority of yuan's value and the CCP have no interest in any of the yuan's value being determined by anything but state policy.

These two videos from popular finance/economics YouTube channels offer detailed explanations of why the USD is not going to challenged for it's place as the world's reserve currency any time soon and why no country actually wants it to change the status quo anyway.

https://youtu.be/EO4k0fDC3eQ?si=zHsL77esBOgPek8T
https://youtu.be/JHZnVdBZJfA?si=OWP_1utFbH08gvDV

APY, APR, and Impermanent Loss in Crypto Explained in Depth

https://www.bulbapp.io/p/e85c6ba0-5d62-4222-9257-b908762bdc5d/apy-apr-and-impermanent-loss-in-crypto-explained-in-depth?s_id=e17e76bc-401d-43d9-9749-4cafc2fc87ee

Excellent overview. IL (Impermanent Loss) is really tricky for people to wrap their heads around. But that shouldn't scare people off providing liquidity (aka market making, or LPs) as that is one of the best ways to grow your assets in crypto.

To add the tips (above) about managing for IL:

• avoid low TVL LPs: It's much easier for a low value pool to be wiped out with market swings
• look for capital efficient pools: The traditional 2 token, 50-50 pool (often called Uniswap V2) is the most susceptible to IL. CLMMs (concentrated liquidity, sometimes called Uniswap V3) and advanced V2s like Balancer's 80-20 LPs and multi-token LPs e.g., Curve Finance's tri-crypto pool, are much better at handling market volatility
• if you're not experienced or have the time to manage your positions, consider using a yield aggregator to manage them for you. I use Beefy Finance for EVM compatible chains and Kamino for Solana. Kamino V2 is game changing https://twitter.com/Kamino_Finance/status/1694720744725545371?s=20

Promoting BULB. Also FREE BULB!

Hey BULB-ers I have posted this on Medium and I would LOVE your help to boost it and get some more people switching to BULB.
Or at very least cross posting their Medium blogs.

I’ll give you 100 BULB for each clap & comment on the post on Medium.

The catch is you need to put a share link from one your posts in comments to qualify. Make sure you use the referral link feature so views count towards your challenges.

No link. No BULB. So get out of your shell and promote yourself!

I reserve the right to not pay spammers. If the article you link to is low quality AI spam (or worse copyrighted) then you don’t quality.


https://medium.com/@bowhowdy/the-best-of-my-bulb-2-7a7f4e73065a