NFT

skr_replicator

If we wanna ever legitimize crypto, we are going to need some sensible regulations. Opppsing that at any cost will never allow crypto to become mainstream. Voting Trump in will only attract ridicule and crime to crypto, as he is the dfirst potus who shamelessly sold a shitty NFT collection probably money-laundering in the process.

UnseenUFO

At the time right now, they earn $20-30 a month per slot (the most basic eyes). There's 6148 slots in total. The more the casino makes, the more NFT owners make. It was a free mint and .1 SOL when it made it to public. 🔥 bullish. Staking released last week The casino is active at certain time zones(around this time). It has a live bet section at the bottom of the site that shows every bet made on the platform. Way better than other casinos because the devs made it from the ground up. Some of their competition are white label casinos that have UGLY UI and zero creativity. Their token $MRC is hella undervalued. @moonroll matter of time 📈🚀. I don't like slots, so sport betting is going to be nice for me and others.

jawni

How many people probably said that about Ethereum? And most alts have never gotten to the levels of usage or PMF that Solana has. Based on pretty much any metric, it would be the exception rather than the rule. We have literally never seen an alt pass Ethereum's volume (both NFT volume and DEX volume) until Solana did it.

Oaker_at

>they even have taken an oath by purchasing an oath NFT Sometimes I just can’t…

coinfeeds-bot

tldr; Despite the significant decline in the value of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs and the overall downturn in the NFT market, a group of dedicated collectors, known as the Mutant Cartel, remains optimistic about the future of Yuga Labs and its NFT collections. They have even taken an oath, symbolized by purchasing an "oath NFT," to show their commitment. Plans for a Yuga-themed hotel in Bangkok are being discussed, despite skepticism and the challenges faced by NFT projects in generating revenue and mainstream acceptance. Yuga Labs still enjoys support from venture capital and web3 companies, but the enthusiasm that once surrounded NFTs has significantly waned. *This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR.

UnseenUFO

Buy Moon Rollers NFT(Solana) on Magic Eden. They earn 20% revshare from the casino. Once the team implement Sportbooks betting, it will go crazy. Sport bets going to be nice, and they bring in more people to the site. Don't miss out on easy money

Mountain-Ad326

I did this last run. I sold 75% of my stack in the early to mid 60's. Primary reason being the whole NFT thing looked to be this pathetic self feeding monster that was destined to blow up. 300k for a picture of a monkey was laughable. I also sold a vintage Japanese sports car for 150k and bought another one almost as good at about the same time as the BTC low for 75k. I bought back into BTC at the FTX collapse. So sold most at 60k-64k and loaded back up at 17-22k

80UNC3EBACK

Don't worry they donated the rest of the money to trump's NFT, memecoins, and stock.

wpjunky

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "bank-like user experience"? When I think of an ideal marriage of crypto and banking, I imagine an all in one app where I can hold both crypto and USD (or a USD pegged stablecoin), and swaps done on the fly so I can send wires or payments, make purchases, invest in defi, hold NFT's, and pay bills in any fiat or crypto currency. I don't know if we're far off from something like that, or if it perhaps already exists, but I'm interesting in hearing more about what's being developed to compete with functionalities like these (by glue and anyone else). 😉

Extreme_Nectarine_29

NFT are not bad. The problem is when you try to convince someone that one of them is worth more than 1000$

GateWhole3191

GOMINING BEST BTC CLOUD MINING SERVICE AROUND!! GoMining NFT Crypto Cloud Mining I would recommend GoMining it uses NFT powered mining and is probably about one of the most legit cloud mining services I’ve used I currently get about about $10-$20 per day deposited into my BTC wallet the more you invest the more you make, you can upgrade your NFT by 2 ways you can upgrade your TH, which is the power your miner has,same way as like a real miner would have. You can also upgrade your W/TH, which is the amount of “power” your nft uses, the higher upgraded it is the less service fee you have to pay per day, which also increases your daily pay out. I’ve seen on the app some people that make upwards of $1,000, $5000 and even up to $15,000/day, yes it takes a lot of money to get to that point but it is possible, theres also discounts you can get from paying the maintenance fee in their crypto currency, its called GMT (GoMining Token) then there is also a “game” in which you click this button that says service daily and if you remeber to do this daily you’ll get 0.3% discount that is stackable as long as you tap the “service” everyday and that discount will go up to 3% maximum, then also as your level increases based on your total TH you will get a 0.6% discount whenever you get a total of 5TH, 10TH, 50TH, 100TH, 200TH, and so on till you reach level 20, there is also pool mining where you can combine your TH with other players with up to 50 players per pool and get rewarded if your pool mines the current block it’s randomly picked which pool wins and mines that current block but your pool has a better chance of mining the block the higher TH your mining pool has combined, but depending on weather you can get in a good pool that take the game serious and actually makes their pool a good and competitive to keep the total amount of TH up then you can make a lot pool mining but thats pretty general description of how it works and what to do to start out and give you the best shot at starting up, this is my referral link to anyone that would be open to trying this app it really does work and I’d recommend it to anyone GoMining https://gmt.io/?ref=8xL6i

CointestMod

#Ethereum Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by Nostalg33k which won 2nd place in the Ethereum Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > ​ > > # Ethereum: Use-case driving value > > Ethereum is a very valuable Blockchain. This blockchain is driven by innovation and utility. To understand what makes Ethereum such a valuable eco-system we need to discuss the inner-working of Ethereum. > > # Introduction: Ethereum explained > > According to [Ethereum.org](https://Ethereum.org) : > > >What is Ethereum? > > Ethereum is a technology that's home to digital money, global payments, and applications. The community has built a booming digital economy, bold new ways for creators to earn online, and so much more. It's open to everyone, wherever you are in the world – all you need is the internet. > > So the topic driving this discussion is badly worded. If we are discussing top coins then we should discuss Ether and not Ethereum. Since Ethereum is such an interesting ecosystem I will treat this argument as a pro Ethereum post. I'd love to see the discussion focused on Ether next time. > > Ethereum is not managed by a single entity nor managed by the Ethereum Foundation but is managed through a decentralized process explained [In their governance page](https://ethereum.org/en/governance/). > > Time for some metrics: Ethereum is currently trading north of 1750 $ and has a circulating supply of 122 millions ETH for a Market cap at around 218 billions > > Let's go back to the quote: "Ethereum is a technology that's home to digital money". This point is important. Ether is not the only coin which is using the Ethereum blockchain. A lot of value on the Ethereum Blockchain is not in Ether coins. This will be discussed further down. Ethereum is also home to global payment, so Ether and other cryptocurrencies can be used to settle transactions between P2P in a permissionless way. > > Applications called Dapps exist on the blockchain. We are going to discuss all of these aspects. We are also going to tackle NFTs on the Ethereum Blockchain. > > Ethereum is also completed by L2s. These are going to be mentioned. > > Ethereum has been switched from POW to Asic resistant POW to POS. These are going to be discussed. > > ​ > > # Ethereum: Home to digital money. > > Ethereum strength is that the blockchain is home to many cryptocurrencies. If gas fees are paid in Ether, many tokens have billions circulating in the Ethereum ecosystem. A quick look at Etherscans reveal how strong the ethereum ecosystem is. > > According to [EtherScan](https://etherscan.io/tokens) the blockchain has 40 Billions $ in USDT, 46 Billions in USDC and 7 Billions $ in Wrapped BTC. The market cap of Ether may be around 200 billions but the on chain value of assets in the Ethereum Blockchain is far higher. > > All of these USDT and USDC are stablecoins which can be used for transactions. In fact, it can be used for P2P transaction in a permissionless way but also to buy stuff from businesses. [Here is a list of business accepting USDT (which exists in the Ethereum blockchain)](https://nowpayments.io/blog/businesses-accepting-tether) and [Here is a list of business accepting directly Ethereum](https://www.analyticsinsight.net/top-10-companies-accepting-ethereum-as-a-payment-method-in-2022/) > > These classical transactions are not the only use of the Ethereum Blockchain: Dapps and NFT are also thriving ! > > # Ethereum: Home to dapps and NFTs > > Ethereum is home to a lot of different applications: Marketplaces, exchanges, defi, wallets, games... > > These application are different because they are called dapps: > > >A decentralised application (DApp,\[1\] dApp,\[2\] Dapp, or dapp) is an application that can operate autonomously, typically through the use of smart contracts, that run on a decentralized computing, blockchain or other distributed ledger system.\[3\] > > [Wikipedia Dapps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_application) > > To give a glance to these dapps you can head to this website tho be wary of the first dapp listed being an advertisement for shady businesses (I haven't found a better website to source dapps) [Here you go](https://dappradar.com/rankings/protocol/ethereum/1) > > While I don't believe in the current state of NFT technology being viable (See my write up in favor of NFT speaking about the future of this technology), we have to take into account that even after losing 60% of their value there is still 3 Billions USD in NFTs in the Ethereum Blockchain [Source](https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-nft-collections-lost-nearly-60-of-their-market-cap-in-2022-report) > > # Ethereum: Layers of goodness. > > Ethereum can be a bit expensive for people, this is why it was layered. There are side chains existing just to be cheaper than Ethereum while offering bridges to and from Ethereum. For example Polygon. > > >Polygon is a Layer-2 scaling solution created to help bring mass adoption to the Ethereum platform. It caters to the diverse needs of developers by providing tools to create scalable decentralized applications (dApps) that prioritize performance, user experience (UX), and security. > > So if you want to be able to evaluate Ethereum you need to go and read about the biggest layer 2 pro and cons. > > [A small list of Ethereum layer 2 given by Ethereum.org](https://ethereum.org/en/layer-2/) > > # Ethereum: Evolve to thrive > > Ethereum has been a rapidly evolving ecosystem. It has seen the evolution of mining from GPU to Asic. In order to not become reliant on Asic mining, Ethereum was made Asic resistant. This created other problems: A pressure on the GPU market but also a concern for energy efficiency. In order to improve the footprint but also reduce the fees, Ethereum was made to transistion from POW to POS. Proof of stake is a protocol in which you need to stake coins to run a node in the network. > > This shows an ability to look ahead and to tackle challenges. > > # Conclusion: Ethereum is a rapidly evolving ecosystem which has a lot of value in it. Since Ether is their native coin, all of this impacts Ether's value. > > This is where we go back to the TOP COIN aspect of this write up. Everything I have said has an impact on the value and use of Ether. If you believe in the future of the Ethereum Blockchain, you can go ahead and look a bit more into Ether. If you don't believe in the Ethereum Blockchain then you should try to find a competitor. > > Just know that Ethereum is trying to become deflationary and that their economic outlook seems on par with good cryptos. > > Ethereum is one of the techs of the future and this essay has shown some of the most important aspects of it. > > Have fun ! ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p71b/top_coins_ethereum_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Ethereum) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds.

CointestMod

#Solana Con-Arguments Below is a Solana con-argument written by a deleted user. > #CONs > > This is the Cons section of [my analysis on Solana](https://np.reddit.com/r/MPlankton/comments/vk42tn/solana_research_june_2022/) > > There are many flaws with Solana's network and design. Retail investors should be cautious of investing in Solana until the upcoming **QUIC** and **Localized Fee Prioritizations** fix the ongoing outage and stability issues with the network. > > ##Way too many outages > > One of the biggest problems with Solana is that it has had way too many outages ever since its Mainnet launch. It's had at least [4 major outages, 3 partial outages](https://status.solana.com/uptime), and numerous congestions caused by DDoS attacks (some unintentional) in the 9 months between Sept 2021 and Jun 2022. That's way more than most of its competitors. These numerous outages have ruined its reputation in the crypto community. > > The network is very vulnerable to DoS attacks, which have brought down the network many times. In Sept 2021, a [DoS attack flooded the entire network](https://solana.com/news/9-14-network-outage-initial-overview) to the point it could not recover for almost a full day. In Jan 21-22, 2022, [bots brought down the network](https://fortune.com/2022/01/25/solana-founder-anatoly-yakovenko-crypto-crash-blockchain-instability/) with excessive duplicate transactions. A similar DDoS attack happened on Apr 30, when a [NFT minting bots took down the network](https://solana.com/news/04-30-22-solana-mainnet-beta-outage-report-mitigation) with 4M TPS of spam. > > During DDoS attacks, validators continue forwarding transactions to the leader. Since there is no mempool, the leader has to keep up with the traffic. If the leader can't keep up, the transaction drops and the user has to resubmit it. When congested and attacked by DDOS, the number of forks increases greatly, and leaders end up picking branches quickly and inaccurately, often extending empty blocks. This ends up reducing throughput of valid transactions and creating wasted forks. For example, during the Jan 21-22 attacks, the true throughput fell to 140 TPS. It's really easy for DDoS attacks to create a disruptive positive feedback loop that shuts down the whole network. > > ##Blockchain Design > > **Slower Finality** > > Due to the design of Proof of History consensus, Solana has probabilistic finality with a moderate chance of wasted forks. It takes [32 blocks before any transaction is final](https://docs.solana.com/proposals/block-confirmation). At 2.5s per block, this means 80 seconds. Users will see their transactions posted in 2.5s. If there's no congestions, they can probably wait 10s and assume it's probabilistically final. But if there's congestion, lots of skipped blocks, and people DDoS'ing the network, it's not deterministically final until they wait 80 seconds. This is much slower than many of their competitors, which have 2-10s deterministic finality. > > **Exaggerated/Useless TPS metrics** > > Solana's reported 50K TPS in ideal conditions is completely exaggerated. > > First, that number is based on a 400 ms slot time, but the current slot time is around 600-800 ms, which reduces the ideal TPS 25-50%. > > Solana also exaggerates their throughput by including non-useful transactions in their metrics. This includes vote transactions, which account for 70-90% of transactions. > > The count of valid TPS (excluding vote transactions and erroneous transactions) is much lower. About 80-85% of transactions are either vote transactions that are used for consensus or erroneous transactions. The true [non-vote TPS limit is much lower at around **400-600 TPS**](https://dashboard.chaincrunch.cc/public/dashboard/cc7a0d94-7f70-46f4-aae4-2f8810430931#theme=night) when the network isn't congested. As of June 2022, on average only 15% of total counted transactions are working transactions. > > In addition, validators routinely skip blocks, encounter bad forks, or post empty blocks. Even when there's no congestion, validator's unweighed skip rate is [10-25% of blocks](https://solanabeach.io/validators). > > ##Opaque Ledger and Block Explorer > > Solana has several explorers, and all of them are very opaque. The official explorer doesn't allow you to browse blocks and transactions, and it's practical useless. Solana Beach is probalby the best explorer, but it too shows almost no data except for the address and transaction fee. It is very confusing trying to decipher these transactions. There's almost no information on the identity of validators. Both of the main explorers are very slow and often stall when querying details. > > Another part of Solana's obscurity is the 30% of the total supply of SOL that is non-circulating but staked. It's supposedly owned by the Solana Foundation. This has been discussed several times by developers on Discord, but no one seems to understand why it's there and how they're using it. It also doesn't help that Solana's main explorer and Solana Beach explorer won't load details about its non-circulating supply. > > **Unable to Audit Smart Contracts** > > Probably the worst issue on Solana (even worse than the outages) is that you can't audit smart contracts. When you use a smart contract on Solana, you are blindly trusting that it does what it says it'll do. There's not a single Solana Explorer that currently shows smart contract code. > > Developers can publish their source code on another website, but they can also redeploy their on-chain contract at the same address. So users don't have a reliable method of trusting source code published off-chain. > > ##Poor Tokenomics > > **Transaction fees are 99% subsidized by Staking Rewards, which feed back into SOL as supply inflation** > > Like many networks, the low transaction fees are not enough to pay for the cost of running the network. > > Solana is expected to make [$12M in transaction fees in this year going by the current 30-day average]( https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/solana). Staking rewards is expected to [pay out around $1.4B in SOL in 2022](https://messari.io/asset/solana/profile/supply-schedule). That means 99.1% of validator rewards are being paid by staking rewards instead of the artificially-low transaction fees. And staking rewards inflate the supply of the SOL token. > > Total supply inflation for staking started out [at 8% and gradually declines by 15% annually until it reaches 1.5%](https://docs.solana.com/inflation/inflation_schedule). Note that this is an underestimate because these calculations are based on total supply, not circulating supply, which is 30% smaller. Messari currently lists [circulating supply inflation as 7.4%](https://messari.io/screener/supply-and-marketcap-EB1755C2). > > Solana is fully-vested as of Jan 2022, though there is a 30% gap between the recorded circulating and total supply because most of the [Foundation's staked SOL](https://explorer.solana.com/supply?filter=nonCirculating) is not included in circulating supply. (Their Explorer website barely has any supply details or charts, and doesn't even loading half of the time, so it's hard to investigate.) > > ##Other Points > > **Requires insecure bridges to other networks** > > Solana is a bit isolated from other blockchains. It requires insecure bridges to connect to other networks, which is also an issue for many other networks. Bridges often get exploited, like the [Feb 2022 $320M Solana Wormhole hack](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/320-million-stolen-from-wormhole-bridge-linking-solana-and-ethereum.html). Solana needs a safer cross-chain protocol if it wants to communicate safely with other networks. > > **High validator requirements** > > The minimum requirements for validators are 12-cores and 128GB of memory. 300 Mbit internet server is preferred. These are enterprise-server requirements, and they're expensive to maintain. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Solana) to find submissions for other topics.

CointestMod

#Solana Pro-Arguments Below is a Solana pro-argument written by a deleted user. > **Solana Pros** > > **Proof-of-History** > > The development and use of the Proof-of-History consensus method, which enables Solana to achieve extraordinarily fast network speeds, is the most notable competitive advantage of the Solana blockchain. The sole purpose of this method was to raise TPS more than leading networks like Ethereum or Bitcoin. Due to the time normally needed to obtain consensus and properly organize the blockchain in response to time passing, proof of history helps other networks' scalability issues. > > **Transaction fees** > > Solana has a block size of 20,000 transactions and block time of 0.4 seconds. The Solana network offers an exceptionally cheap transaction cost of just 1c per transaction, which is made possible by the greater block time and block size. Solana is now among the blockchains with the lowest transaction costs because to this cost. > > **NFTs** > > Currently, NFTs account for a sizable portion of why individuals use these networks. The major factor behind Solana's NFT ecosystem's rapid expansion is the network's scalability, which enables it to handle transactions effectively. Ethereum can only handle 15 transactions per second, whereas Solana can process 50,000. This is important information for users to know because sluggish network speed also equates to expensive costs. The freedom that artists enjoy with their NFT works on Solana is enormous. This is mostly caused by the other blockchains' technical shortcomings. Fast processing times and affordable prices enable artists to produce works that, for instance, would be too expensive to mint on Ethereum. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Solana) to find submissions for other topics.

flavourantvagrant

I second this. How can crypto NOT be political? It’s not an NFT of a football player, it’s a decentralised monetary system that revokes govt control which has typically stealth taxed/enslaved the masses

UnseenUFO

Buy Moon Rollers NFT(Solana) on Magic Eden. They earn 20% revshare from the casino. Once the team implement Sportbooks betting, it will go crazy. Sport bets going to be nice and they bring in more people to the site. Don't miss out on easy money

smashspete

His embrace as in the guy tried to cash in on the shitty NFT craze/bubble like every other dishonest asshole celebrity out there

jawni

That was the most obvious inverse r/cc trade in the history of the sub. Every time SOL got brought up there were two dead horses that got beat: downtime and centralization. The only problem is that Solana's uptime is 99.99% anyways and no one outside of this sub cares about the 00.001% and it's also far from centralized. The other thing is that every thread where the haters were circlejerking about SOL, were actually bullish developments being downplayed. Visa partners with Solana, for actual payment applications? Nah, they must've been paid. Stripe goes on stage, announces Stripe will accept crypto payments, literally uses Solana live to do it. Nah, they must've been paid. Shopify, Paypal, etc. Solana DEX volume overtakes ETF for top spot. Solana NFT volume overtakes ETH for top spot. Any other onchain metrics being top of the industry. Nah, they must be faked. Or my favorite, where they say transactions don't count if bots did it, as if we aren't talking about networks whose defining feature is the ability for autonomous transacting... You're drinking the r/cryptocurrency kool-aid if you're bearish on SOL at this point.

jawni

I've addressed this before so I'm just going to copypaste my previous comments: 1. People can change their minds. 2. He really had no incentive to learn about crypto and although it's unfair to label it a scam, he rightfully saw it as a threat to the US dollar. 3. He's now incentivized to take a position as it's become a bigger issue during an election year. 4. The anti-CBDC angle is completely legit and congruent with something he'd believe. 5. He's firsthand seen the benefits of crypto because of his NFT project and accepting BTC donations for his campaign. 6. He made this statement after meeting with multiple executives from the largest BTC miners in the US. God forbid someone is bearish on crypto until they use it or learn more about it... surely that must be an impossible scenario. If I had to guess if he genuinely hates crypto or supports it, I don't see how you could lean towards him hating it, but I'd like to hear if you disagree. FYI I hate Trump, never voted for him and never will, just trying to be objective. https://np.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/1de2s8p/in_a_bizarre_statement_trump_says_bitcoin_should/l8aylfb/

FidgetyRat

Blockchain should be transparent and supplement a real game. Instead what we get is games written specifically for a token or NFT requiring the same convoluted wallet and addresses while clearly being written just to sell tokens.

Tvmouth

Blockchain is a new layer of internet. We have FTP, HTTPS, Email, Usenet, Bit torrent... there's plenty of layers, and now, blockchain is a financial layer that serves a function that enhances all other layers. Right now, kids go to local stores to by cards with in-game currencies... game passes, subscriptions, or software licenses for the game environments. Online stores exist, but traditionally, gaming has kinda lost its magic from the brick-and-mortar hype days. It makes sense to me that blockchain gaming will make the most sense when a young person can just buy some crypto at a BTC ATM (*or CEX app, whatever*) at a local store, and buy a small card or placeholder box on a shelf with a game item, such as NFTs for in game racecar rentals or tracks. I'd love to own a share of an NFT for an entire racetrack used in an online sim, because the shareholders will get a dividend for each race with entry fees and prizes that is renting that digital venue. We should have NFTs for fancy shoes for the Esports avatars so sponsorship is embedded into the base textures of everything. The companies don't realize it yet (maybe?), but by outsourcing the server function to IPFS and NFT references directly to the users, and ALSO, slipstreaming a sharing economy into the base operations of the game, they'll be almost totally relinquished of duty while being paid by it for as long as it is still wanted... *whatever IT is.* (probably gun skins, really.) It'll be the same stuff, you'll buy from the same places and companies, **you'll just hold it different. Just like every other generation of everything.**

boredprot

Trump had his own NFT collection, minted it, sold it, then later sold the ETH for profits.

Clipzzi

I hope so, remember when the bitcoin and the litecoin did the thing so that dogecoin rallied and SHIB was minted into an NFT so that it was adopted in the Korean cow market and that helped us get more moons?

Peasantbowman

Meanwhile, trump...the actual NFT scammer, will also do anything for votes. At least Harris isn't abusing the crypto system like her opponent.

MaximumStudent1839

It is really laughable to call “current gaming industry is greedy, etc.” as your motivation for crypto gaming. All these games with micro transactions don’t ask users to buy a $600+ secondary floor price NFT as an entry price. Blockchain gaming suffers from an impossible problem. The need to deliver ridiculous returns to both short-term VCs and early ape degens, when you are at a nascent stage of growth needing to lower barrier entry as much as possible to iron out your kinks, issues, and build a real community.

Olmops

Good games need time to be developed. 2021 is just 3 years ago. All serious gaming projects I followed (not pure NFT nonsense) are just launching these days. We will see whether some of them become hits, but I can't tell yet. In two days we'll have the launch of Illuvium which is the one with the biggest budget I know of. However, my current favorite is Influence on Starknet. Small Indy game, sci-fi strategy. Really uses blockchain technology in a meaningful way. But this is I guess just for hardcore space nerds and may stay niche as it is a bit too complex for the average player.

Yodan

Trump doesn't know shit about fuck when it comes to literally anything. He just parrots and agrees with whoever he just spoke with last giving him money. He only knows crypto that someone on his team made an NFT for him. He made money so he's pushing crypto stuff. This dude is nearly 80, can't speak, can't read, he just babbles shit. Don't believe a word.

coinfeeds-bot

tldr; Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney mentioned that Fortnite might use blockchain technology in the future, but not for cryptocurrency or NFT trading. He's interested in blockchain as a decentralized solution for distributed transactional evolution, rather than its financial applications. Sweeney has been a vocal supporter of an open metaverse, emphasizing the need for interoperability and open standards across digital experiences. Despite the challenges blockchain faces due to its association with financial speculation and scams, Sweeney believes in its potential for positive technological applications. *This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR.

GreedVault

I hope he will at least try to promote his new[ NFT collection](https://cointelegraph.com/news/donald-trump-hints-nft-collection-interview).

SevereCalendar7606

Fair point, I guess my transactions were just gas heavy. Average fee for minting one NFT is 0.08 TON. Average fee for sending any amount of TON is 0.0055 TON. Average fee for sending any amount of a custom Jettons is 0.037 TON.

CointestMod

#Ethereum Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by Nostalg33k which won 2nd place in the Ethereum Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > ​ > > # Ethereum: Use-case driving value > > Ethereum is a very valuable Blockchain. This blockchain is driven by innovation and utility. To understand what makes Ethereum such a valuable eco-system we need to discuss the inner-working of Ethereum. > > # Introduction: Ethereum explained > > According to [Ethereum.org](https://Ethereum.org) : > > >What is Ethereum? > > Ethereum is a technology that's home to digital money, global payments, and applications. The community has built a booming digital economy, bold new ways for creators to earn online, and so much more. It's open to everyone, wherever you are in the world – all you need is the internet. > > So the topic driving this discussion is badly worded. If we are discussing top coins then we should discuss Ether and not Ethereum. Since Ethereum is such an interesting ecosystem I will treat this argument as a pro Ethereum post. I'd love to see the discussion focused on Ether next time. > > Ethereum is not managed by a single entity nor managed by the Ethereum Foundation but is managed through a decentralized process explained [In their governance page](https://ethereum.org/en/governance/). > > Time for some metrics: Ethereum is currently trading north of 1750 $ and has a circulating supply of 122 millions ETH for a Market cap at around 218 billions > > Let's go back to the quote: "Ethereum is a technology that's home to digital money". This point is important. Ether is not the only coin which is using the Ethereum blockchain. A lot of value on the Ethereum Blockchain is not in Ether coins. This will be discussed further down. Ethereum is also home to global payment, so Ether and other cryptocurrencies can be used to settle transactions between P2P in a permissionless way. > > Applications called Dapps exist on the blockchain. We are going to discuss all of these aspects. We are also going to tackle NFTs on the Ethereum Blockchain. > > Ethereum is also completed by L2s. These are going to be mentioned. > > Ethereum has been switched from POW to Asic resistant POW to POS. These are going to be discussed. > > ​ > > # Ethereum: Home to digital money. > > Ethereum strength is that the blockchain is home to many cryptocurrencies. If gas fees are paid in Ether, many tokens have billions circulating in the Ethereum ecosystem. A quick look at Etherscans reveal how strong the ethereum ecosystem is. > > According to [EtherScan](https://etherscan.io/tokens) the blockchain has 40 Billions $ in USDT, 46 Billions in USDC and 7 Billions $ in Wrapped BTC. The market cap of Ether may be around 200 billions but the on chain value of assets in the Ethereum Blockchain is far higher. > > All of these USDT and USDC are stablecoins which can be used for transactions. In fact, it can be used for P2P transaction in a permissionless way but also to buy stuff from businesses. [Here is a list of business accepting USDT (which exists in the Ethereum blockchain)](https://nowpayments.io/blog/businesses-accepting-tether) and [Here is a list of business accepting directly Ethereum](https://www.analyticsinsight.net/top-10-companies-accepting-ethereum-as-a-payment-method-in-2022/) > > These classical transactions are not the only use of the Ethereum Blockchain: Dapps and NFT are also thriving ! > > # Ethereum: Home to dapps and NFTs > > Ethereum is home to a lot of different applications: Marketplaces, exchanges, defi, wallets, games... > > These application are different because they are called dapps: > > >A decentralised application (DApp,\[1\] dApp,\[2\] Dapp, or dapp) is an application that can operate autonomously, typically through the use of smart contracts, that run on a decentralized computing, blockchain or other distributed ledger system.\[3\] > > [Wikipedia Dapps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_application) > > To give a glance to these dapps you can head to this website tho be wary of the first dapp listed being an advertisement for shady businesses (I haven't found a better website to source dapps) [Here you go](https://dappradar.com/rankings/protocol/ethereum/1) > > While I don't believe in the current state of NFT technology being viable (See my write up in favor of NFT speaking about the future of this technology), we have to take into account that even after losing 60% of their value there is still 3 Billions USD in NFTs in the Ethereum Blockchain [Source](https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-nft-collections-lost-nearly-60-of-their-market-cap-in-2022-report) > > # Ethereum: Layers of goodness. > > Ethereum can be a bit expensive for people, this is why it was layered. There are side chains existing just to be cheaper than Ethereum while offering bridges to and from Ethereum. For example Polygon. > > >Polygon is a Layer-2 scaling solution created to help bring mass adoption to the Ethereum platform. It caters to the diverse needs of developers by providing tools to create scalable decentralized applications (dApps) that prioritize performance, user experience (UX), and security. > > So if you want to be able to evaluate Ethereum you need to go and read about the biggest layer 2 pro and cons. > > [A small list of Ethereum layer 2 given by Ethereum.org](https://ethereum.org/en/layer-2/) > > # Ethereum: Evolve to thrive > > Ethereum has been a rapidly evolving ecosystem. It has seen the evolution of mining from GPU to Asic. In order to not become reliant on Asic mining, Ethereum was made Asic resistant. This created other problems: A pressure on the GPU market but also a concern for energy efficiency. In order to improve the footprint but also reduce the fees, Ethereum was made to transistion from POW to POS. Proof of stake is a protocol in which you need to stake coins to run a node in the network. > > This shows an ability to look ahead and to tackle challenges. > > # Conclusion: Ethereum is a rapidly evolving ecosystem which has a lot of value in it. Since Ether is their native coin, all of this impacts Ether's value. > > This is where we go back to the TOP COIN aspect of this write up. Everything I have said has an impact on the value and use of Ether. If you believe in the future of the Ethereum Blockchain, you can go ahead and look a bit more into Ether. If you don't believe in the Ethereum Blockchain then you should try to find a competitor. > > Just know that Ethereum is trying to become deflationary and that their economic outlook seems on par with good cryptos. > > Ethereum is one of the techs of the future and this essay has shown some of the most important aspects of it. > > Have fun ! ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p71b/top_coins_ethereum_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Ethereum) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds.

miawmiawpaws

Coffee NFT by Tokenin Indicium will be the first real use case where you can redeem coffee with nft.

shrazzy

Trump was anti-crypto and btc until he learned about NFT and rug pulls. He <3 it now.

CointestMod

#Bitcoin Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by a deleted user which won 1st place in the Bitcoin Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **First-Mover Advantage and The Network Effect** > > Bitcoin is currently the most popular cryptocurrency and market cap leader by a long shot. The [Bitcoin dominance chart](https://www.coingecko.com/en/global-charts) shows that Bitcoin represents 60% of the entire cryptocurrency market cap. This has increased from 40% in 2020. > > Bitcoin is the **gateway**. People start out with Bitcoin before checking out other cryptocurrencies. They're likely going to keep holding any Bitcoin they bought along the way. > > People will flock to whichever product has the largest user base. For half a decade, Bitcoin was almost synonymous with cryptocurrency. The Network Effect creates a **positive feedback loop** and makes Bitcoin's lead grow even more. > > If Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin were all released simultaneously, Bitcoin would lose to its PoW competitors because its competitors have cheaper fees with higher throughput. But the reality is that Bitcoin's first-mover advantage gave it such a huge head start that the others can't catch up. > > **Has the largest block reward for security** > > Due to its high price, Bitcoin has a huge [block reward of 6.5 BTC](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin/bitcoin-halving) (halves every 4 years) or ~$180k per block. This gives it the security lead because its block reward is so much bigger than other PoW cryptocurrencies, which attracts more miners. > > **Anti-censorship** > > Bitcoin provides partial censorship-resistance against sanctions and totalitarian government restrictions. It's much harder to prevent Bitcoin transactions than it is to prevent financial transactions at a centralized bank. [Legal sex workers](https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/24/22639356/onlyfans-ceo-tim-stokely-sexually-explicit-content-ban-banks) (e.g. Onlyfans) and [marijuana industries](https://www.leadingretirement.com/blog/cannabis-banking) are blocked from using traditional financial services due to social stigma. Even though they can operate legally, many TradFi banks avoid operating with them. Bitcoin provides those workers a way to transfer funds around that censorship. > > **Avoids Hyperinflation**: As long as governments keep causing high inflation through money-printing, people will run to Bitcoin for safety, which pumps up Bitcoin's price. > > **Considered a commodity by both SEC and CFTC**: Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that both the SEC and CFTC have openly agreed is a commodity. And the CFTC is much less lawsuit-happy than the SEC. > > **Legal tender**: El Salvador has shown (despite some technical mishaps) that Bitcoin can be successfully used as legal tender for a country. > > **Ordinals provide utility** > > Even though Bitcoin Maxis hate Ordinals, this new protocol gives utility to Bitcoin and adds demand. NFT bros are using it as an **on-chain data storage layer** for their own blockchains (e.g. Ethereum, Stack). This has an advantage over IPFS since IPFS is stored in centralized databases instead of on-chain. > > This generates more fees for Bitcoin miners. Transaction fees have finally [risen to ~20 sats/vByte](https://mempool.space/graphs/mempool) on days with high Ordinals activity like Mar 22-24. This gives hope that there may be sufficient demand for Bitcoin as an on-chain data-storage layer even after the block subsidy eventually disappears due to halvings. > > **Pseudonymous**: Bitcoin's UTXO transactions can provide moderately-high levels of obscurity. A single wallet can produce a near-unlimited amount of addresses, and there's no way to link them unless they interact with each other. It's much harder to trace UTXO-based wallets than Account-based wallets because the former creates new UTXO addresses with each transaction while Account-based blockchain wallets typically reuse the same account. > > **Lightning transactions are near-instant and cheap** > > As long as you're spending small amounts of Bitcoin, you can use the Lightning network to make near-instant, sub-$0.01 transactions. Many Lightning nodes for merchants are connected to 3rd-party services that convert between cash and Lightning, making it easy to transfer Bitcoins. Consumers usually don't have to care about rebalancing issues since they're only spending small amounts. > > And the [total capacity of the Lightning Network](https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-capacity) in BTC keeps increasing steadily. > > **Cannot be counterfeited**: Cash can be counterfeited, but you can't fake Lightning transactions. Merchants have to deal with counterfeit cash in many markets around the world. > > **Bitcoin has a very strong community of die-hard supporters** > > A huge portion of Bitcoin supporters have become Bitcoin Maxis who will keep spreading their arguments, regardless of accuracy. Because Bitcoin is a gateway cryptocurrency, crypto newbies will encounter it first and gobble up these narratives because they don't have the experience to know their flaws. And they're very convincing when you keep repeating them in an echo chamber: > > * Maximum supply cap of 21M BTC vs Fed's money printer > * Amazing past-performance gains vs fiat > * Works as Store of Value (despite volatility) > * Had a "fair launch" without an ICO > * Is not a risky altcoin > * Is decentralized (based on largest number of miners) > * Has instant payments via the Lightning Network > > **Ultimately, people are mainly using crypto for speculative investing and long-term Store of Value. Most people don't care about technology, Defi, or utility. Thus Bitcoin is sufficient for their investment needs.** > > And since cryptocurrency value is largely based on a Keynesian Beauty Contest (i.e. you buy not based on your own value, but on what you think others are going to buy), people are going to keep buying Bitcoin as long as the investment narrative holds. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p7vq/top_coins_bitcoin_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Bitcoin) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds.

Shillfinger

Dream on.. He will launch some extra NFT´s: The Drumpf Monarchs. Rug pull it Put the world on fire. Suck D**k of Putler

CointestMod

#Solana Con-Arguments Below is a Solana con-argument written by a deleted user. > #CONs > > This is the Cons section of [my analysis on Solana](https://np.reddit.com/r/MPlankton/comments/vk42tn/solana_research_june_2022/) > > There are many flaws with Solana's network and design. Retail investors should be cautious of investing in Solana until the upcoming **QUIC** and **Localized Fee Prioritizations** fix the ongoing outage and stability issues with the network. > > ##Way too many outages > > One of the biggest problems with Solana is that it has had way too many outages ever since its Mainnet launch. It's had at least [4 major outages, 3 partial outages](https://status.solana.com/uptime), and numerous congestions caused by DDoS attacks (some unintentional) in the 9 months between Sept 2021 and Jun 2022. That's way more than most of its competitors. These numerous outages have ruined its reputation in the crypto community. > > The network is very vulnerable to DoS attacks, which have brought down the network many times. In Sept 2021, a [DoS attack flooded the entire network](https://solana.com/news/9-14-network-outage-initial-overview) to the point it could not recover for almost a full day. In Jan 21-22, 2022, [bots brought down the network](https://fortune.com/2022/01/25/solana-founder-anatoly-yakovenko-crypto-crash-blockchain-instability/) with excessive duplicate transactions. A similar DDoS attack happened on Apr 30, when a [NFT minting bots took down the network](https://solana.com/news/04-30-22-solana-mainnet-beta-outage-report-mitigation) with 4M TPS of spam. > > During DDoS attacks, validators continue forwarding transactions to the leader. Since there is no mempool, the leader has to keep up with the traffic. If the leader can't keep up, the transaction drops and the user has to resubmit it. When congested and attacked by DDOS, the number of forks increases greatly, and leaders end up picking branches quickly and inaccurately, often extending empty blocks. This ends up reducing throughput of valid transactions and creating wasted forks. For example, during the Jan 21-22 attacks, the true throughput fell to 140 TPS. It's really easy for DDoS attacks to create a disruptive positive feedback loop that shuts down the whole network. > > ##Blockchain Design > > **Slower Finality** > > Due to the design of Proof of History consensus, Solana has probabilistic finality with a moderate chance of wasted forks. It takes [32 blocks before any transaction is final](https://docs.solana.com/proposals/block-confirmation). At 2.5s per block, this means 80 seconds. Users will see their transactions posted in 2.5s. If there's no congestions, they can probably wait 10s and assume it's probabilistically final. But if there's congestion, lots of skipped blocks, and people DDoS'ing the network, it's not deterministically final until they wait 80 seconds. This is much slower than many of their competitors, which have 2-10s deterministic finality. > > **Exaggerated/Useless TPS metrics** > > Solana's reported 50K TPS in ideal conditions is completely exaggerated. > > First, that number is based on a 400 ms slot time, but the current slot time is around 600-800 ms, which reduces the ideal TPS 25-50%. > > Solana also exaggerates their throughput by including non-useful transactions in their metrics. This includes vote transactions, which account for 70-90% of transactions. > > The count of valid TPS (excluding vote transactions and erroneous transactions) is much lower. About 80-85% of transactions are either vote transactions that are used for consensus or erroneous transactions. The true [non-vote TPS limit is much lower at around **400-600 TPS**](https://dashboard.chaincrunch.cc/public/dashboard/cc7a0d94-7f70-46f4-aae4-2f8810430931#theme=night) when the network isn't congested. As of June 2022, on average only 15% of total counted transactions are working transactions. > > In addition, validators routinely skip blocks, encounter bad forks, or post empty blocks. Even when there's no congestion, validator's unweighed skip rate is [10-25% of blocks](https://solanabeach.io/validators). > > ##Opaque Ledger and Block Explorer > > Solana has several explorers, and all of them are very opaque. The official explorer doesn't allow you to browse blocks and transactions, and it's practical useless. Solana Beach is probalby the best explorer, but it too shows almost no data except for the address and transaction fee. It is very confusing trying to decipher these transactions. There's almost no information on the identity of validators. Both of the main explorers are very slow and often stall when querying details. > > Another part of Solana's obscurity is the 30% of the total supply of SOL that is non-circulating but staked. It's supposedly owned by the Solana Foundation. This has been discussed several times by developers on Discord, but no one seems to understand why it's there and how they're using it. It also doesn't help that Solana's main explorer and Solana Beach explorer won't load details about its non-circulating supply. > > **Unable to Audit Smart Contracts** > > Probably the worst issue on Solana (even worse than the outages) is that you can't audit smart contracts. When you use a smart contract on Solana, you are blindly trusting that it does what it says it'll do. There's not a single Solana Explorer that currently shows smart contract code. > > Developers can publish their source code on another website, but they can also redeploy their on-chain contract at the same address. So users don't have a reliable method of trusting source code published off-chain. > > ##Poor Tokenomics > > **Transaction fees are 99% subsidized by Staking Rewards, which feed back into SOL as supply inflation** > > Like many networks, the low transaction fees are not enough to pay for the cost of running the network. > > Solana is expected to make [$12M in transaction fees in this year going by the current 30-day average]( https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/solana). Staking rewards is expected to [pay out around $1.4B in SOL in 2022](https://messari.io/asset/solana/profile/supply-schedule). That means 99.1% of validator rewards are being paid by staking rewards instead of the artificially-low transaction fees. And staking rewards inflate the supply of the SOL token. > > Total supply inflation for staking started out [at 8% and gradually declines by 15% annually until it reaches 1.5%](https://docs.solana.com/inflation/inflation_schedule). Note that this is an underestimate because these calculations are based on total supply, not circulating supply, which is 30% smaller. Messari currently lists [circulating supply inflation as 7.4%](https://messari.io/screener/supply-and-marketcap-EB1755C2). > > Solana is fully-vested as of Jan 2022, though there is a 30% gap between the recorded circulating and total supply because most of the [Foundation's staked SOL](https://explorer.solana.com/supply?filter=nonCirculating) is not included in circulating supply. (Their Explorer website barely has any supply details or charts, and doesn't even loading half of the time, so it's hard to investigate.) > > ##Other Points > > **Requires insecure bridges to other networks** > > Solana is a bit isolated from other blockchains. It requires insecure bridges to connect to other networks, which is also an issue for many other networks. Bridges often get exploited, like the [Feb 2022 $320M Solana Wormhole hack](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/320-million-stolen-from-wormhole-bridge-linking-solana-and-ethereum.html). Solana needs a safer cross-chain protocol if it wants to communicate safely with other networks. > > **High validator requirements** > > The minimum requirements for validators are 12-cores and 128GB of memory. 300 Mbit internet server is preferred. These are enterprise-server requirements, and they're expensive to maintain. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Solana) to find submissions for other topics.

CointestMod

#Solana Pro-Arguments Below is a Solana pro-argument written by a deleted user. > **Solana Pros** > > **Proof-of-History** > > The development and use of the Proof-of-History consensus method, which enables Solana to achieve extraordinarily fast network speeds, is the most notable competitive advantage of the Solana blockchain. The sole purpose of this method was to raise TPS more than leading networks like Ethereum or Bitcoin. Due to the time normally needed to obtain consensus and properly organize the blockchain in response to time passing, proof of history helps other networks' scalability issues. > > **Transaction fees** > > Solana has a block size of 20,000 transactions and block time of 0.4 seconds. The Solana network offers an exceptionally cheap transaction cost of just 1c per transaction, which is made possible by the greater block time and block size. Solana is now among the blockchains with the lowest transaction costs because to this cost. > > **NFTs** > > Currently, NFTs account for a sizable portion of why individuals use these networks. The major factor behind Solana's NFT ecosystem's rapid expansion is the network's scalability, which enables it to handle transactions effectively. Ethereum can only handle 15 transactions per second, whereas Solana can process 50,000. This is important information for users to know because sluggish network speed also equates to expensive costs. The freedom that artists enjoy with their NFT works on Solana is enormous. This is mostly caused by the other blockchains' technical shortcomings. Fast processing times and affordable prices enable artists to produce works that, for instance, would be too expensive to mint on Ethereum. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Solana) to find submissions for other topics.

CointestMod

#Bitcoin Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by a deleted user which won 1st place in the Bitcoin Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **First-Mover Advantage and The Network Effect** > > Bitcoin is currently the most popular cryptocurrency and market cap leader by a long shot. The [Bitcoin dominance chart](https://www.coingecko.com/en/global-charts) shows that Bitcoin represents 60% of the entire cryptocurrency market cap. This has increased from 40% in 2020. > > Bitcoin is the **gateway**. People start out with Bitcoin before checking out other cryptocurrencies. They're likely going to keep holding any Bitcoin they bought along the way. > > People will flock to whichever product has the largest user base. For half a decade, Bitcoin was almost synonymous with cryptocurrency. The Network Effect creates a **positive feedback loop** and makes Bitcoin's lead grow even more. > > If Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin were all released simultaneously, Bitcoin would lose to its PoW competitors because its competitors have cheaper fees with higher throughput. But the reality is that Bitcoin's first-mover advantage gave it such a huge head start that the others can't catch up. > > **Has the largest block reward for security** > > Due to its high price, Bitcoin has a huge [block reward of 6.5 BTC](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin/bitcoin-halving) (halves every 4 years) or ~$180k per block. This gives it the security lead because its block reward is so much bigger than other PoW cryptocurrencies, which attracts more miners. > > **Anti-censorship** > > Bitcoin provides partial censorship-resistance against sanctions and totalitarian government restrictions. It's much harder to prevent Bitcoin transactions than it is to prevent financial transactions at a centralized bank. [Legal sex workers](https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/24/22639356/onlyfans-ceo-tim-stokely-sexually-explicit-content-ban-banks) (e.g. Onlyfans) and [marijuana industries](https://www.leadingretirement.com/blog/cannabis-banking) are blocked from using traditional financial services due to social stigma. Even though they can operate legally, many TradFi banks avoid operating with them. Bitcoin provides those workers a way to transfer funds around that censorship. > > **Avoids Hyperinflation**: As long as governments keep causing high inflation through money-printing, people will run to Bitcoin for safety, which pumps up Bitcoin's price. > > **Considered a commodity by both SEC and CFTC**: Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that both the SEC and CFTC have openly agreed is a commodity. And the CFTC is much less lawsuit-happy than the SEC. > > **Legal tender**: El Salvador has shown (despite some technical mishaps) that Bitcoin can be successfully used as legal tender for a country. > > **Ordinals provide utility** > > Even though Bitcoin Maxis hate Ordinals, this new protocol gives utility to Bitcoin and adds demand. NFT bros are using it as an **on-chain data storage layer** for their own blockchains (e.g. Ethereum, Stack). This has an advantage over IPFS since IPFS is stored in centralized databases instead of on-chain. > > This generates more fees for Bitcoin miners. Transaction fees have finally [risen to ~20 sats/vByte](https://mempool.space/graphs/mempool) on days with high Ordinals activity like Mar 22-24. This gives hope that there may be sufficient demand for Bitcoin as an on-chain data-storage layer even after the block subsidy eventually disappears due to halvings. > > **Pseudonymous**: Bitcoin's UTXO transactions can provide moderately-high levels of obscurity. A single wallet can produce a near-unlimited amount of addresses, and there's no way to link them unless they interact with each other. It's much harder to trace UTXO-based wallets than Account-based wallets because the former creates new UTXO addresses with each transaction while Account-based blockchain wallets typically reuse the same account. > > **Lightning transactions are near-instant and cheap** > > As long as you're spending small amounts of Bitcoin, you can use the Lightning network to make near-instant, sub-$0.01 transactions. Many Lightning nodes for merchants are connected to 3rd-party services that convert between cash and Lightning, making it easy to transfer Bitcoins. Consumers usually don't have to care about rebalancing issues since they're only spending small amounts. > > And the [total capacity of the Lightning Network](https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-capacity) in BTC keeps increasing steadily. > > **Cannot be counterfeited**: Cash can be counterfeited, but you can't fake Lightning transactions. Merchants have to deal with counterfeit cash in many markets around the world. > > **Bitcoin has a very strong community of die-hard supporters** > > A huge portion of Bitcoin supporters have become Bitcoin Maxis who will keep spreading their arguments, regardless of accuracy. Because Bitcoin is a gateway cryptocurrency, crypto newbies will encounter it first and gobble up these narratives because they don't have the experience to know their flaws. And they're very convincing when you keep repeating them in an echo chamber: > > * Maximum supply cap of 21M BTC vs Fed's money printer > * Amazing past-performance gains vs fiat > * Works as Store of Value (despite volatility) > * Had a "fair launch" without an ICO > * Is not a risky altcoin > * Is decentralized (based on largest number of miners) > * Has instant payments via the Lightning Network > > **Ultimately, people are mainly using crypto for speculative investing and long-term Store of Value. Most people don't care about technology, Defi, or utility. Thus Bitcoin is sufficient for their investment needs.** > > And since cryptocurrency value is largely based on a Keynesian Beauty Contest (i.e. you buy not based on your own value, but on what you think others are going to buy), people are going to keep buying Bitcoin as long as the investment narrative holds. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p7vq/top_coins_bitcoin_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Bitcoin) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds.

CointestMod

#Ethereum Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by Nostalg33k which won 2nd place in the Ethereum Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > &#x200B; > > # Ethereum: Use-case driving value > > Ethereum is a very valuable Blockchain. This blockchain is driven by innovation and utility. To understand what makes Ethereum such a valuable eco-system we need to discuss the inner-working of Ethereum. > > # Introduction: Ethereum explained > > According to [Ethereum.org](https://Ethereum.org) : > > >What is Ethereum? > > Ethereum is a technology that's home to digital money, global payments, and applications. The community has built a booming digital economy, bold new ways for creators to earn online, and so much more. It's open to everyone, wherever you are in the world – all you need is the internet. > > So the topic driving this discussion is badly worded. If we are discussing top coins then we should discuss Ether and not Ethereum. Since Ethereum is such an interesting ecosystem I will treat this argument as a pro Ethereum post. I'd love to see the discussion focused on Ether next time. > > Ethereum is not managed by a single entity nor managed by the Ethereum Foundation but is managed through a decentralized process explained [In their governance page](https://ethereum.org/en/governance/). > > Time for some metrics: Ethereum is currently trading north of 1750 $ and has a circulating supply of 122 millions ETH for a Market cap at around 218 billions > > Let's go back to the quote: "Ethereum is a technology that's home to digital money". This point is important. Ether is not the only coin which is using the Ethereum blockchain. A lot of value on the Ethereum Blockchain is not in Ether coins. This will be discussed further down. Ethereum is also home to global payment, so Ether and other cryptocurrencies can be used to settle transactions between P2P in a permissionless way. > > Applications called Dapps exist on the blockchain. We are going to discuss all of these aspects. We are also going to tackle NFTs on the Ethereum Blockchain. > > Ethereum is also completed by L2s. These are going to be mentioned. > > Ethereum has been switched from POW to Asic resistant POW to POS. These are going to be discussed. > > &#x200B; > > # Ethereum: Home to digital money. > > Ethereum strength is that the blockchain is home to many cryptocurrencies. If gas fees are paid in Ether, many tokens have billions circulating in the Ethereum ecosystem. A quick look at Etherscans reveal how strong the ethereum ecosystem is. > > According to [EtherScan](https://etherscan.io/tokens) the blockchain has 40 Billions $ in USDT, 46 Billions in USDC and 7 Billions $ in Wrapped BTC. The market cap of Ether may be around 200 billions but the on chain value of assets in the Ethereum Blockchain is far higher. > > All of these USDT and USDC are stablecoins which can be used for transactions. In fact, it can be used for P2P transaction in a permissionless way but also to buy stuff from businesses. [Here is a list of business accepting USDT (which exists in the Ethereum blockchain)](https://nowpayments.io/blog/businesses-accepting-tether) and [Here is a list of business accepting directly Ethereum](https://www.analyticsinsight.net/top-10-companies-accepting-ethereum-as-a-payment-method-in-2022/) > > These classical transactions are not the only use of the Ethereum Blockchain: Dapps and NFT are also thriving ! > > # Ethereum: Home to dapps and NFTs > > Ethereum is home to a lot of different applications: Marketplaces, exchanges, defi, wallets, games... > > These application are different because they are called dapps: > > >A decentralised application (DApp,\[1\] dApp,\[2\] Dapp, or dapp) is an application that can operate autonomously, typically through the use of smart contracts, that run on a decentralized computing, blockchain or other distributed ledger system.\[3\] > > [Wikipedia Dapps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_application) > > To give a glance to these dapps you can head to this website tho be wary of the first dapp listed being an advertisement for shady businesses (I haven't found a better website to source dapps) [Here you go](https://dappradar.com/rankings/protocol/ethereum/1) > > While I don't believe in the current state of NFT technology being viable (See my write up in favor of NFT speaking about the future of this technology), we have to take into account that even after losing 60% of their value there is still 3 Billions USD in NFTs in the Ethereum Blockchain [Source](https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-nft-collections-lost-nearly-60-of-their-market-cap-in-2022-report) > > # Ethereum: Layers of goodness. > > Ethereum can be a bit expensive for people, this is why it was layered. There are side chains existing just to be cheaper than Ethereum while offering bridges to and from Ethereum. For example Polygon. > > >Polygon is a Layer-2 scaling solution created to help bring mass adoption to the Ethereum platform. It caters to the diverse needs of developers by providing tools to create scalable decentralized applications (dApps) that prioritize performance, user experience (UX), and security. > > So if you want to be able to evaluate Ethereum you need to go and read about the biggest layer 2 pro and cons. > > [A small list of Ethereum layer 2 given by Ethereum.org](https://ethereum.org/en/layer-2/) > > # Ethereum: Evolve to thrive > > Ethereum has been a rapidly evolving ecosystem. It has seen the evolution of mining from GPU to Asic. In order to not become reliant on Asic mining, Ethereum was made Asic resistant. This created other problems: A pressure on the GPU market but also a concern for energy efficiency. In order to improve the footprint but also reduce the fees, Ethereum was made to transistion from POW to POS. Proof of stake is a protocol in which you need to stake coins to run a node in the network. > > This shows an ability to look ahead and to tackle challenges. > > # Conclusion: Ethereum is a rapidly evolving ecosystem which has a lot of value in it. Since Ether is their native coin, all of this impacts Ether's value. > > This is where we go back to the TOP COIN aspect of this write up. Everything I have said has an impact on the value and use of Ether. If you believe in the future of the Ethereum Blockchain, you can go ahead and look a bit more into Ether. If you don't believe in the Ethereum Blockchain then you should try to find a competitor. > > Just know that Ethereum is trying to become deflationary and that their economic outlook seems on par with good cryptos. > > Ethereum is one of the techs of the future and this essay has shown some of the most important aspects of it. > > Have fun ! ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p71b/top_coins_ethereum_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Ethereum) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds.

Thagalaxy

Good lord, if you read the article it's just him boasting about his personal NFT grifting. He's suddenly pro-crypto after raking in a few million off of morons.

goldyluckinblokchain

Xhamster do some cool NFT's 👀

SlimGlassShark

Listen - if/when this becomes a thing and you’re a DAO member visiting, then only 2 things matter: 1. Being respectful to yourself & others 2. Holding the DAO’s NFT It’s a life-changing experience when you’re in a space where people truly accept you as you, regardless of what you look like

alejandrosan3

Or on the first internet line of code or something like that. I went to MOCO in Amsterdam last year and there was this freaking NFT of a stick figure walking that was worth 800k and was bought by Jared Leto... I laughed and cried at the same time 🫠

Tornare

Yeah, but its implemented like garbage so far. Web3 gaming could be HUGE, but right now it suffers from extreme backlash from gamers. With zero knowledge solutions rolling out game cosmetics could technically be implemented without anyone seeing a huge difference other then the fact they would have the option to resell those FOMO items in the future. Here is a example. Lets say they used something like IMX Passport (look it up if you don't know) *1. You buy a fancy FOMO hat from your favorite MMO exactly as you would today. Its in your account like any other MMO* *2. You can just play your MMO as you would today. The hat that you bought in the in game store just exists in the game, and you don't even need to know its a NFT* *3. If you choose you can learn a little about crypto, and wallets and sell your hat on the marketplace later which a percent of each sale can go back to the MMO Company.* There would be no disadvantage to the customer in this scenario. Nothing new to learn, but it would add value to cosmetics that currently have none. But Currently... Games based on NFTs are usually terrible. They are getting ever so slightly less terrible, but still terrible none the less, and they are almost all just trying to profit off being NFT games instead of good games that just happen to have NFTs. For any of this to work the game has to come first, and anything crypto related has to just be a bonus without the game company trying to sell cosmetics for 10x what they do today because they are a NFT. This greed is why people hate the idea of crypto games.

justjoner

and just like that we are going to witness the birth of many NFT artists

indexcap

Making money hand over fist. I think he has a new NFT collection coming soon as well.

CointestMod

#Shiba Inu Con-Arguments Below is a Shiba Inu con-argument written by shitiforgotmypasswor. > - SHIB doesn't really have a use case well defined. There are some people accepting it as a payment, there are some NFT being minted, but all without a clear use besides hodling. > > - The developers are anonymous, nobody know who they are and what they got out of it. > > - ShibaSwap is not well developed, lots of manual processes, rewards are deployed manually, last reward cycle delayed due to a dev having personal issues. The security excuse for it at this day and age is a red flag > > - Roadmap is full of ideas but still lacks a clear vision on what is SHIB going to address and make itself relevant. The ecosystem has 3 coins, with another 2 on the horizon, but again, no real use case for them. Feels like they just throw some words like "governance" but what is it governing? What pairs are to be added to the swap? What else? > > All in all, it comes down to lack of an appealing use case. It's marketed as community experiment, but it feels like a group of people with wishful thinking trying to make the coin value go up. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Shiba_Inu) to find submissions for other topics.

gethereddout

Misleading post. NFT traders need to be careful- nothing to do with SOL…

CointestMod

#Solana Con-Arguments Below is a Solana con-argument written by a deleted user. > **Solana Cons** > > **Centralization** > > An estimated 1,700 validator nodes support Solana. If a single entity or collection of entities comes to possess a sizable portion of the SOL token supply, the Solana network may become unduly concentrated. The network's decentralization may suffer because Solana requires more specialized equipment to join and is unable to draw a sizable user base. There is a high concentration of stakes among validators, with 22 validators controlling 33% of total staked SOL. Accordingly, if 22 validators conspired, the network might theoretically come to an end. > > **Network Outages** > > * September 14,2021: 15 Hours of outage as bots capitalized on an IDO on raydium > > * January 2022: The whole month faced partial outages of 6-12 per day due to high demand of NFT minting and defi usage. > > * April 30, 2022: 7 Hour outage due to a DDOS attack by bots > > **Solana, the token** > > The token distribution on Solana reveals that the top 0.04% of addresses, or around 3,000 addresses outright, hold 88.5% of the current outstanding SOL. Along with early investors and the founding team, these wallets also contain staking pools and exchanges. 11.7 million SOL are included in the biggest wallet. Less than 1% of the outstanding SOL is held by the bottom 98.6% of wallets on Solana. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Solana) to find submissions for other topics.

CointestMod

#Solana Pro-Arguments Below is a Solana pro-argument written by a deleted user. > #PROs > > This is the Pros section of [my analysis on Solana](https://np.reddit.com/r/MPlankton/comments/vk42tn/solana_research_june_2022/) > > ##Low Transaction Fees > > Solana has very low transaction fees at about $0.0002 / transaction. They could still increase the fee schedule by ~40x before exceeding penny in cost. That's mainly because the fees are subsidized by staking rewards paid to powerful validators, which then contribute to ongoing SOL token [inflation of ~7%](https://messari.io/screener/supply-and-marketcap-EB1755C2) as of 2022. > > ##Moderately-high TPS > > The true TPS limit of Solana over the past year after subtracting invalid transactions and vote transactions is [about 400-600](https://dashboard.chaincrunch.cc/public/dashboard/cc7a0d94-7f70-46f4-aae4-2f8810430931#theme=night). It's not anywhere close to their marketed throughput of 50K TPS, but it's still moderately-high for a smart contract network. > > ##Centralization is not as bad as the reputation > > Solana has a very bad reputation for being centralized as **SQL**ana. It's actually not that centralized. There are currently 1900 validators, and the Nakamoto Consensus for shutting down the Solana network (needs 33% staked) is [currently 33 validators](https://solanabeach.io/validators). > > On the other hand, there's almost no information about the identity of these validators, so it's still possible they're mostly centrally-owned by the foundation. We just don't know. > > ##Outage and stability issues likely to be resolved by 2 upcoming updates > > The days of making fun of Solana for their outages could be coming to an end. Solana is working on [2 major updates](https://decrypt.co/103106/solana-new-gas-fees) that are meant to mitigate outages and provide stability to the network. > > **QUIC** replaces UDP for Solana's IP and Transport layer protocols. [QUIC] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUIC) provides flow control, allowing nodes to throttle incoming traffic when there's too much from both intentional and unintentional DoS attacks. > > **Localized Fee Prioritization** allows Solana to dynamically charge higher fees for specific high-demand transactions. When a dApp or NFT project is congesting the network, the fee will rise for that app without affecting the rest of the network. This is a really cool solution I'd love to see other networks copy. > > ##Lots of DeFi projects > > There are a ton of DeFi projects on Solana. It has 39 DeFi projects above $1M in TVL. [DeFiLlama shows Solana at $1.4B in TVL](https://defillama.com/chains), which puts it between Tron and Arbitrum at #6. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Solana) to find submissions for other topics.

CointestMod

#Bitcoin Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by a deleted user which won 1st place in the Bitcoin Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **First-Mover Advantage and The Network Effect** > > Bitcoin is currently the most popular cryptocurrency and market cap leader by a long shot. The [Bitcoin dominance chart](https://www.coingecko.com/en/global-charts) shows that Bitcoin represents 60% of the entire cryptocurrency market cap. This has increased from 40% in 2020. > > Bitcoin is the **gateway**. People start out with Bitcoin before checking out other cryptocurrencies. They're likely going to keep holding any Bitcoin they bought along the way. > > People will flock to whichever product has the largest user base. For half a decade, Bitcoin was almost synonymous with cryptocurrency. The Network Effect creates a **positive feedback loop** and makes Bitcoin's lead grow even more. > > If Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin were all released simultaneously, Bitcoin would lose to its PoW competitors because its competitors have cheaper fees with higher throughput. But the reality is that Bitcoin's first-mover advantage gave it such a huge head start that the others can't catch up. > > **Has the largest block reward for security** > > Due to its high price, Bitcoin has a huge [block reward of 6.5 BTC](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin/bitcoin-halving) (halves every 4 years) or ~$180k per block. This gives it the security lead because its block reward is so much bigger than other PoW cryptocurrencies, which attracts more miners. > > **Anti-censorship** > > Bitcoin provides partial censorship-resistance against sanctions and totalitarian government restrictions. It's much harder to prevent Bitcoin transactions than it is to prevent financial transactions at a centralized bank. [Legal sex workers](https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/24/22639356/onlyfans-ceo-tim-stokely-sexually-explicit-content-ban-banks) (e.g. Onlyfans) and [marijuana industries](https://www.leadingretirement.com/blog/cannabis-banking) are blocked from using traditional financial services due to social stigma. Even though they can operate legally, many TradFi banks avoid operating with them. Bitcoin provides those workers a way to transfer funds around that censorship. > > **Avoids Hyperinflation**: As long as governments keep causing high inflation through money-printing, people will run to Bitcoin for safety, which pumps up Bitcoin's price. > > **Considered a commodity by both SEC and CFTC**: Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that both the SEC and CFTC have openly agreed is a commodity. And the CFTC is much less lawsuit-happy than the SEC. > > **Legal tender**: El Salvador has shown (despite some technical mishaps) that Bitcoin can be successfully used as legal tender for a country. > > **Ordinals provide utility** > > Even though Bitcoin Maxis hate Ordinals, this new protocol gives utility to Bitcoin and adds demand. NFT bros are using it as an **on-chain data storage layer** for their own blockchains (e.g. Ethereum, Stack). This has an advantage over IPFS since IPFS is stored in centralized databases instead of on-chain. > > This generates more fees for Bitcoin miners. Transaction fees have finally [risen to ~20 sats/vByte](https://mempool.space/graphs/mempool) on days with high Ordinals activity like Mar 22-24. This gives hope that there may be sufficient demand for Bitcoin as an on-chain data-storage layer even after the block subsidy eventually disappears due to halvings. > > **Pseudonymous**: Bitcoin's UTXO transactions can provide moderately-high levels of obscurity. A single wallet can produce a near-unlimited amount of addresses, and there's no way to link them unless they interact with each other. It's much harder to trace UTXO-based wallets than Account-based wallets because the former creates new UTXO addresses with each transaction while Account-based blockchain wallets typically reuse the same account. > > **Lightning transactions are near-instant and cheap** > > As long as you're spending small amounts of Bitcoin, you can use the Lightning network to make near-instant, sub-$0.01 transactions. Many Lightning nodes for merchants are connected to 3rd-party services that convert between cash and Lightning, making it easy to transfer Bitcoins. Consumers usually don't have to care about rebalancing issues since they're only spending small amounts. > > And the [total capacity of the Lightning Network](https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-capacity) in BTC keeps increasing steadily. > > **Cannot be counterfeited**: Cash can be counterfeited, but you can't fake Lightning transactions. Merchants have to deal with counterfeit cash in many markets around the world. > > **Bitcoin has a very strong community of die-hard supporters** > > A huge portion of Bitcoin supporters have become Bitcoin Maxis who will keep spreading their arguments, regardless of accuracy. Because Bitcoin is a gateway cryptocurrency, crypto newbies will encounter it first and gobble up these narratives because they don't have the experience to know their flaws. And they're very convincing when you keep repeating them in an echo chamber: > > * Maximum supply cap of 21M BTC vs Fed's money printer > * Amazing past-performance gains vs fiat > * Works as Store of Value (despite volatility) > * Had a "fair launch" without an ICO > * Is not a risky altcoin > * Is decentralized (based on largest number of miners) > * Has instant payments via the Lightning Network > > **Ultimately, people are mainly using crypto for speculative investing and long-term Store of Value. Most people don't care about technology, Defi, or utility. Thus Bitcoin is sufficient for their investment needs.** > > And since cryptocurrency value is largely based on a Keynesian Beauty Contest (i.e. you buy not based on your own value, but on what you think others are going to buy), people are going to keep buying Bitcoin as long as the investment narrative holds. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p7vq/top_coins_bitcoin_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Bitcoin) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds.

TheSmoothPilsner

Metaverse and NFT hype was crazy back in late 2021. We may see it make a small comeback but now most people realize it was all crap. Metaverse coin and NFT prices will likely never reach those highs again.

joe-masepoes

I can’t understand why.. that real estate should be almost as valuable as like an NFT.. oh wait..

geekbread

Hey, I only have 100 Bitcoin, is that enough for the upcoming bull run? Please advise me, redditors with 0.01 ETH and an outdated NFT. Thanks!

letsdrinktothat

I heard flipping his first NFT collection was very profitable, not sure about fourth time to the well though.

GreedVault

His survival of the assassination definitely added some positive value to his NFT collection.

kirtash93

Trump creating another NFT collection so his friends can do some money laundering. Btw, if he doesn't release an NFT looking like Neo avoiding a bullet... That would be a marketing miss /s https://i.redd.it/wzuj8gjaq7dd1.gif

Agile_Ad7864

"That example suggests that what they're using isn't an LLM, because that sort of answer isn't how LLMs work. In fact at that point it's questionable if they're even using AI, or if their DKG is more similar to Google's old MapReduce search algorithm." Sorry but im not familiar with the Google's old MapReduce search algorithm :D The DKG can use any LLM, Chatgpt, Gemini etc.. to query the DKG. It sort of grounds the knowledge (RAG or in the DKG's case dRAG) and provides the answers information provenance. The information is also secure/verifiable since a single data/information in the DKG is basically uploaded as an NFT (aka. A knowledge asset) the DKG is also blockchain agnostic so it can be integrated in to any blockchain and thus avoids scalability issues. If youre interested, you can listen about the new V8 update and how it improves the scalability to make the DKG work at internet scale. https://www.youtube.com/live/yp4Zjoc6xGc?si=xuBZ3Obr4ot8A-x0 "Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, none of this explains why Crypto/Blockchain is integral to their tech. If it can run on a public blockchain then it can also run on a private server for a fraction of the cost, so what does Blockchain add as a positive benefit above and beyond the negative risks, costs, and complexity that it brings?" Blockchain brings trust and immutability that, as far as I know, you cannot get from anywhere else. The DKG holds alot of valuable information that are private and also public and some information is something you want to be sure is untampered with. Here is a good thread of current examples where Origintrail and the DKG is being used: https://x.com/DrevZiga/status/1804870262111740121 I urge you to scroll through @BranaRakic X account for dev level stuff information about the Origintrail and the DKG. Im ultimately just a fanboy and can only answer so much.

coinfeeds-bot

tldr; Former President Donald Trump announced plans to release a fourth NFT collection, citing the success of his previous collections and the demand from the public. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Trump highlighted the rapid sell-out of his earlier NFTs and expressed his growing comfort with the crypto industry, which has shown significant support for his reelection campaign. Trump's campaign has started accepting crypto donations, and he has endorsed pro-Bitcoin senator J.D. Vance as his running mate. Trump, who was once a crypto skeptic, now embraces the industry, emphasizing the importance of the U.S. not falling behind countries like China in this field. *This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR.

NEO_R1CH

 Yes, you can click on the blue link below the expression and claim a RCA NFT

Every_Hunt_160

I don't see why the fuck they wouldn't sunset their NFT programme (which has been pretty much a failure, nobody outside of Reddit really knows of it and 99% of non-crypto Redditors don't even bother) if they decided to sunset Moons which was actually a legitimate way of rewarding contributors and was starting to get mainstream popularity after the Kraken listing

Kraken_Kraterium

Trump wont do shit for us. He will grift like he always does, selling worthless NFT or shoes, etc...

CointestMod

#Bitcoin Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by a deleted user which won 1st place in the Bitcoin Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **First-Mover Advantage and The Network Effect** > > Bitcoin is currently the most popular cryptocurrency and market cap leader by a long shot. The [Bitcoin dominance chart](https://www.coingecko.com/en/global-charts) shows that Bitcoin represents 60% of the entire cryptocurrency market cap. This has increased from 40% in 2020. > > Bitcoin is the **gateway**. People start out with Bitcoin before checking out other cryptocurrencies. They're likely going to keep holding any Bitcoin they bought along the way. > > People will flock to whichever product has the largest user base. For half a decade, Bitcoin was almost synonymous with cryptocurrency. The Network Effect creates a **positive feedback loop** and makes Bitcoin's lead grow even more. > > If Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin were all released simultaneously, Bitcoin would lose to its PoW competitors because its competitors have cheaper fees with higher throughput. But the reality is that Bitcoin's first-mover advantage gave it such a huge head start that the others can't catch up. > > **Has the largest block reward for security** > > Due to its high price, Bitcoin has a huge [block reward of 6.5 BTC](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin/bitcoin-halving) (halves every 4 years) or ~$180k per block. This gives it the security lead because its block reward is so much bigger than other PoW cryptocurrencies, which attracts more miners. > > **Anti-censorship** > > Bitcoin provides partial censorship-resistance against sanctions and totalitarian government restrictions. It's much harder to prevent Bitcoin transactions than it is to prevent financial transactions at a centralized bank. [Legal sex workers](https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/24/22639356/onlyfans-ceo-tim-stokely-sexually-explicit-content-ban-banks) (e.g. Onlyfans) and [marijuana industries](https://www.leadingretirement.com/blog/cannabis-banking) are blocked from using traditional financial services due to social stigma. Even though they can operate legally, many TradFi banks avoid operating with them. Bitcoin provides those workers a way to transfer funds around that censorship. > > **Avoids Hyperinflation**: As long as governments keep causing high inflation through money-printing, people will run to Bitcoin for safety, which pumps up Bitcoin's price. > > **Considered a commodity by both SEC and CFTC**: Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that both the SEC and CFTC have openly agreed is a commodity. And the CFTC is much less lawsuit-happy than the SEC. > > **Legal tender**: El Salvador has shown (despite some technical mishaps) that Bitcoin can be successfully used as legal tender for a country. > > **Ordinals provide utility** > > Even though Bitcoin Maxis hate Ordinals, this new protocol gives utility to Bitcoin and adds demand. NFT bros are using it as an **on-chain data storage layer** for their own blockchains (e.g. Ethereum, Stack). This has an advantage over IPFS since IPFS is stored in centralized databases instead of on-chain. > > This generates more fees for Bitcoin miners. Transaction fees have finally [risen to ~20 sats/vByte](https://mempool.space/graphs/mempool) on days with high Ordinals activity like Mar 22-24. This gives hope that there may be sufficient demand for Bitcoin as an on-chain data-storage layer even after the block subsidy eventually disappears due to halvings. > > **Pseudonymous**: Bitcoin's UTXO transactions can provide moderately-high levels of obscurity. A single wallet can produce a near-unlimited amount of addresses, and there's no way to link them unless they interact with each other. It's much harder to trace UTXO-based wallets than Account-based wallets because the former creates new UTXO addresses with each transaction while Account-based blockchain wallets typically reuse the same account. > > **Lightning transactions are near-instant and cheap** > > As long as you're spending small amounts of Bitcoin, you can use the Lightning network to make near-instant, sub-$0.01 transactions. Many Lightning nodes for merchants are connected to 3rd-party services that convert between cash and Lightning, making it easy to transfer Bitcoins. Consumers usually don't have to care about rebalancing issues since they're only spending small amounts. > > And the [total capacity of the Lightning Network](https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-capacity) in BTC keeps increasing steadily. > > **Cannot be counterfeited**: Cash can be counterfeited, but you can't fake Lightning transactions. Merchants have to deal with counterfeit cash in many markets around the world. > > **Bitcoin has a very strong community of die-hard supporters** > > A huge portion of Bitcoin supporters have become Bitcoin Maxis who will keep spreading their arguments, regardless of accuracy. Because Bitcoin is a gateway cryptocurrency, crypto newbies will encounter it first and gobble up these narratives because they don't have the experience to know their flaws. And they're very convincing when you keep repeating them in an echo chamber: > > * Maximum supply cap of 21M BTC vs Fed's money printer > * Amazing past-performance gains vs fiat > * Works as Store of Value (despite volatility) > * Had a "fair launch" without an ICO > * Is not a risky altcoin > * Is decentralized (based on largest number of miners) > * Has instant payments via the Lightning Network > > **Ultimately, people are mainly using crypto for speculative investing and long-term Store of Value. Most people don't care about technology, Defi, or utility. Thus Bitcoin is sufficient for their investment needs.** > > And since cryptocurrency value is largely based on a Keynesian Beauty Contest (i.e. you buy not based on your own value, but on what you think others are going to buy), people are going to keep buying Bitcoin as long as the investment narrative holds. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p7vq/top_coins_bitcoin_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Bitcoin) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds.

ThatOtherGuy254

I am utterly amazing at the incompetence of Reddit. Their cryptocurrency tokens and NFT market could have been worth billions if they had done it correctly.

CointestMod

#NFT Con-Arguments Below is a NFT con-argument written by Laughingboy14. > NFTs, in their current iteration, are overpriced JPEGs. Currently we have no serious use case of NFTs and they are merely known for JPEGs. Supposedly, NFTs show proof of ownership. However, what they show are you own this token on the blockchain. It does not show, however, that you actually own the rights to that JPEG, because the JPEG could've been uploaded to the blockchain without the original artist's permission. This, combined with the hefty price NFTs command, is a complete waste of money and technology. > > Additionally, a lot of people point to the use case of NFT tickets, such as GET. Yet, the benefits are not evident. Currently, one can have a unique bar code which is attributable to them and does not require the blockchain. On GET's website they mention a number of benefits. These include "digital collectibles" and "ease of integration". However, digital collectibles, i.e. the idea that you can show off you bought a ticket, is the same, tired idea that underlies JPEG NFTs. Additionally, "ease of integration" is not actually an argument for using NFT tickets, as other technology is easy (and perhaps easier) to integrate. It just seems like a gimmick with no real advantages over normal ticketing. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_NFT) to find submissions for other topics.

CointestMod

#NFT Pro-Arguments Below is a NFT pro-argument written by Nostalg33k. > # NFT, the tech that will change the world. > > &#x200B; > > Welcome to this small presentation that will try to explain how NFT is a world changing technology. First of all, I won't discuss the application for the art world because I can't fathom writing an argument trying to defend absurdities and JPEG worth millions. If you want to read my take on this trend, read my con-argument (if I write one). > > &#x200B; > > NFT technology promises to be game changing for multiple reasons. We are going to tackle three main aspects of NFT. The first will be IP and property related. The second will be about exchangeable virtual assets. And the last will be about virtual ID, and administrative documents. > > &#x200B; > > # NFTs and property: the future of property management. > > This argument is an attempt to show how the use-cases of NFTs can improve the world. I don't know if a company is doing what I suggest and I don't have the ability to sell this idea or whatever so you can grab it and develop it. This is clearly what will happen and everyone should be preparing for it: The great migration of property management. > > &#x200B; > > Nowadays, to find who owns which property you need to search for it on a database, often parts of these databases are not online and you need to go to the Town hall or Town archives to find outdated data about someone who died and then search for eventual kids. Lost property through time and administrative black holes are a pain to manage and are often stopping project or not allowing people to get paid when they get expropriated because of some public works. > > Blockchain through the use of NFT can solve this problem. When each property is linked to a token which is turn can be link to biometric data or some kind of secure access, then, property can be moved, traced, and people can offer money for the property without accessing the identity of the owner. This database, through the use of blockchain, would be far more secure than any database we have right now. > > In France, some properties are lost because people can reach the person who is supposed to inherit the property. With a smart system associated to a blockchain, upon the death of anyone, their account would send a smart contract to the owner of the blockchain (the government) which would apply the will of the deceased. The NFTs would then be sent to the next of kin or to the persons supposed to get them. > > Of course, some property would still end up managed by the state if the person doesn't connect to their online space or doesn't connect to any public services. This system is not a question of If but a question of when. This is what NFTs put on the table for classic properties. > > &#x200B; > > For Intellectual properties, right now there are multiple companies which are renewing the intellectual properties for their client in multiple countries. This system is antiquated and blockchain technology promises to crush these companies as soon as blockchain adoption will hit the sector (It is starting to see the light of day through companies and start up). The renewing of the IPs would simply become a smart contract and the payment would be fees in a stablecoin. This would allow a simplification of the whole industry and through the emergence of a global standard, to know which companies can use which IP. > > &#x200B; > > Nfts will also change the entertainment industry through virtual assets. Let's dig in how it can be an opportunity for both consumers and companies. > > # Imagine League of Legend with a secondary market, Renting skins, Selling skins, Exchanging Skins and other cosmetics. > > Nft games tend to be predatory but they don't need to. We need to start to see NFTs as an opportunity to have control on our virtual assets. These assets don't need to be scarce to have value and a secondary market is not a net loss for a company. Let's dig in. This whole part will take League of Legend as an example. You can apply the same thoughts to games with a similar monetization. > > Right now Riot games sells their new skins and then the hype fades and another line of skin is sold. Most skins have fixed prices and unless a temporary promo, they don't tend to change their price point. With a secondary market, Riot could capitalize on the hype cycle by monetizing the perceived value of old skins while collecting data on good pricing for their promos. > > By allowing people to Rent and sell or exchange skins from one another, with a proportional or flat fee paid to riot for maintaining the blockchain and for their profit margins, people would be able to buy the skins they want from people who don't use them anymore. The fact that all transactions are done in a money which is not exchangeable in fiat means that this system would be a closed system. This new service would just mean more use for riot points which could in turn translate to more profits. > > This is a good application of NFTs and we can even imagine a successful implementation while using real crypto-currencies or fiat. > > NFTs allows these properties to be secured and exchanged by smart contracts and, through a good security, to never be lost. > > &#x200B; > > # The biggest change: Data management in governing authorities. > > Lastly, NFTs promise to revolutionize the way countries are managing their data. Just like the management of properties, governmental databases are often old, incomplete and not numerized. The opportunity for NFT technology is enormous. Anyone through their biometrics or other secure way could access all the data collected about them by the state and get a copy of any document any time. The government, when needed, could also find data points about people in a dynamic way. You need data about people aged 50 or more who were born in a state and worked in a specific sector => easy peasy. > > &#x200B; > > The NFT aspect of the tool would be that all the documents would appear in your data wallet and that you could control through smart contracts who gets them. For example, you need an ID to rent some place, just connect to your wallet and send a copy to your landlord. This copy would be a token which would disappear when the landlord would confirm your identity to complete your file or after some time. > > &#x200B; > > The uses and practicality are infinite. > > &#x200B; > > # Conclusion: Nfts are not JPEG, they are a disruptive technology and promise to allow users to simplify their daily lives. > > Through this small argument, I have presented how NFTs are promising to change our world for the better. Each use-case is of course flawed and could be used in malicious ways by governments, YET they all provide utility and would be game changing if applied to their sectors. > > NFT application is not a question. The only question is WHEN. Selling JPEG may have been profitable in the short run but companies managing NFTS at the scale of a government or at the scale of the international regulation of intellectual properties will grow to be multi billion companies. > > Disruption is on the way and a better world is on the way. All thanks to these three letters. > > N F T s > > # ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_NFT) to find submissions for other topics.

CointestMod

* Relevant Cointest topics: [Ethereum](https://www.reddit.com/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_ethereum), [Cardano](https://www.reddit.com/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_cardano), [Solana](https://www.reddit.com/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_solana), [Algorand](https://www.reddit.com/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_algorand). * Relevant subreddits: r/CCNFT, r/Ethereum, r/Cardano, r/CosmosNetwork. * [NFT tutorial](https://reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/lzjuf7/nft_madness_what_they_are_and_what_they_are_not/). * Sort comments as controversial first by [clicking here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/1e5qfhn/reddit_avatar_nft_emojis_to_be_removed/?sort=controversial). Doesn't work on mobile.

CointestMod

NFT {{pros}} & {{cons}} with related info are in the collapsed comments below.

Astramie

Apologies for the long comment, but for those who are genuinely curious... I use Cardano to stake, buy nfts, make swaps, DCA, and vote for projects. You can also mint an nft to link with an email address, or mint an nft as a handle so you can receive txs using a more user friendly address, like Eth domain names. There's DePIN projects like Iagon, which is like Filecoin, to store your data with a decentralized storage provider. They also host dapps and are working on decentralized compute services. There's NFT royalty platforms for creators like NEWM, Books, and Jpgstore. You can also lend NFTs. Some lending protocols even offer double yield on lending since the liquidity pools are staked. It is kind of like staking liquid staking derivative tokens, but much simpler. You don't have to exchange your ADA for stADA and potentially trigger a taxable event. Also let's say your order has not yet executed at the limit price you set, it can still earn staking rewards while the order is pending. Staking is liquid and self-custody, less middlemen and more ownership for the user. There's RWA projects like Palmyra and Empowa. The ecosystem is growing much faster now that infra and tooling is improving. Community built their own languages like Aiken and Opshin that are based on more popular languages like Typescript and Python, which compiles down to Haskell-based Plutus. You don't need to know Haskell anymore. Although you do need to know how to build on an extended UTXO model, but it is getting easier as more devs open source their code and share their designs. There's even a new batcherless AMM design that got funded this Catalyst round, and designs are rapidly adapting especially with Plutus V2 and V3 now with Chang upgrade, enabling zk primitives support on the L1. There's also new L2's on the horizon that offer unique benefits due to UTXO's deterministic properties like way cheaper fraud-proofs and better mobility between L1 and L2. There's also Leios and Peras to make the L1 faster. Hydra has interesting Catalyst proposals this round as well. The one thing I wish I could use Cardano for is stablecoin stuff. They have home grown stablecoins that are algorithmic and fiat backed, but they don't have the more established ones like USDC and USDT with higher liquidity, stability, and connections. MyUSD on Cardano is backed by USDC and USDT. There are also ways to bridge over USDC using Wanchain. Your implication is right, it is relatively a small ecosystem, a small island compared to the others. But it's fast growing. It's important to note that it is growing without Ethereum's network effect and heavy VC support. But interoperability is increasing with the recent Plutus V3 upgrade, that makes it more interoperable with Ethereum, and other developments like Cardano's integration with Cosmos. There's also Polkadot's Substrate tech powering Cardano's partnerchains. Cardano devs are also bridging the knowledge gap between them and Bitcoin devs with Fluidtokens and Maestro sharing protocol designs. It appears that this cycle, the alpha on Cardano is on Twitter, not on Reddit. Here's a few recent tweets from non-Cardano people. [https://x.com/CryptoConan/status/1811416874552611129](https://x.com/CryptoConan/status/1811416874552611129) [https://x.com/NftswithDiz/status/1813229438370259276](https://x.com/NftswithDiz/status/1813229438370259276) [https://x.com/TannerCartier/status/1813167238599655792](https://x.com/TannerCartier/status/1813167238599655792) [https://x.com/ZKDID\_/status/1799400337612190153](https://x.com/ZKDID_/status/1799400337612190153) Some recent posts to show typical daily chatter. [https://x.com/CardanoRami/status/1805971403675779203](https://x.com/CardanoRami/status/1805971403675779203) [https://x.com/Padierfind/status/1813519559703335109](https://x.com/Padierfind/status/1813519559703335109) [https://x.com/zkFold/status/1813271373802053835](https://x.com/zkFold/status/1813271373802053835) [https://x.com/FluidTokens/status/1813247448015307080](https://x.com/FluidTokens/status/1813247448015307080) [https://x.com/cosmos/status/1806357065960407485](https://x.com/cosmos/status/1806357065960407485) [https://x.com/ZengateGlobal/status/1803850888085189072](https://x.com/ZengateGlobal/status/1803850888085189072) and more... [https://x.com/sharlhuskens/status/1803442866280341529](https://x.com/sharlhuskens/status/1803442866280341529) [https://x.com/VioletNoRegarde/status/1805955713111670974](https://x.com/VioletNoRegarde/status/1805955713111670974) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4txesKsL\_M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4txesKsL_M) [https://x.com/ore\_times\_3/status/1810691719848952084](https://x.com/ore_times_3/status/1810691719848952084) [https://x.com/HouseOfTitans\_/status/1811829651121000663](https://x.com/HouseOfTitans_/status/1811829651121000663) [https://x.com/Omen4Omen/status/1804855019864207402](https://x.com/Omen4Omen/status/1804855019864207402) [https://x.com/MoparGirls/status/1813180347494113438](https://x.com/MoparGirls/status/1813180347494113438)

CointestMod

#Bitcoin Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by a deleted user which won 1st place in the Bitcoin Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **First-Mover Advantage and The Network Effect** > > Bitcoin is currently the most popular cryptocurrency and market cap leader by a long shot. The [Bitcoin dominance chart](https://www.coingecko.com/en/global-charts) shows that Bitcoin represents 60% of the entire cryptocurrency market cap. This has increased from 40% in 2020. > > Bitcoin is the **gateway**. People start out with Bitcoin before checking out other cryptocurrencies. They're likely going to keep holding any Bitcoin they bought along the way. > > People will flock to whichever product has the largest user base. For half a decade, Bitcoin was almost synonymous with cryptocurrency. The Network Effect creates a **positive feedback loop** and makes Bitcoin's lead grow even more. > > If Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin were all released simultaneously, Bitcoin would lose to its PoW competitors because its competitors have cheaper fees with higher throughput. But the reality is that Bitcoin's first-mover advantage gave it such a huge head start that the others can't catch up. > > **Has the largest block reward for security** > > Due to its high price, Bitcoin has a huge [block reward of 6.5 BTC](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin/bitcoin-halving) (halves every 4 years) or ~$180k per block. This gives it the security lead because its block reward is so much bigger than other PoW cryptocurrencies, which attracts more miners. > > **Anti-censorship** > > Bitcoin provides partial censorship-resistance against sanctions and totalitarian government restrictions. It's much harder to prevent Bitcoin transactions than it is to prevent financial transactions at a centralized bank. [Legal sex workers](https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/24/22639356/onlyfans-ceo-tim-stokely-sexually-explicit-content-ban-banks) (e.g. Onlyfans) and [marijuana industries](https://www.leadingretirement.com/blog/cannabis-banking) are blocked from using traditional financial services due to social stigma. Even though they can operate legally, many TradFi banks avoid operating with them. Bitcoin provides those workers a way to transfer funds around that censorship. > > **Avoids Hyperinflation**: As long as governments keep causing high inflation through money-printing, people will run to Bitcoin for safety, which pumps up Bitcoin's price. > > **Considered a commodity by both SEC and CFTC**: Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that both the SEC and CFTC have openly agreed is a commodity. And the CFTC is much less lawsuit-happy than the SEC. > > **Legal tender**: El Salvador has shown (despite some technical mishaps) that Bitcoin can be successfully used as legal tender for a country. > > **Ordinals provide utility** > > Even though Bitcoin Maxis hate Ordinals, this new protocol gives utility to Bitcoin and adds demand. NFT bros are using it as an **on-chain data storage layer** for their own blockchains (e.g. Ethereum, Stack). This has an advantage over IPFS since IPFS is stored in centralized databases instead of on-chain. > > This generates more fees for Bitcoin miners. Transaction fees have finally [risen to ~20 sats/vByte](https://mempool.space/graphs/mempool) on days with high Ordinals activity like Mar 22-24. This gives hope that there may be sufficient demand for Bitcoin as an on-chain data-storage layer even after the block subsidy eventually disappears due to halvings. > > **Pseudonymous**: Bitcoin's UTXO transactions can provide moderately-high levels of obscurity. A single wallet can produce a near-unlimited amount of addresses, and there's no way to link them unless they interact with each other. It's much harder to trace UTXO-based wallets than Account-based wallets because the former creates new UTXO addresses with each transaction while Account-based blockchain wallets typically reuse the same account. > > **Lightning transactions are near-instant and cheap** > > As long as you're spending small amounts of Bitcoin, you can use the Lightning network to make near-instant, sub-$0.01 transactions. Many Lightning nodes for merchants are connected to 3rd-party services that convert between cash and Lightning, making it easy to transfer Bitcoins. Consumers usually don't have to care about rebalancing issues since they're only spending small amounts. > > And the [total capacity of the Lightning Network](https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-capacity) in BTC keeps increasing steadily. > > **Cannot be counterfeited**: Cash can be counterfeited, but you can't fake Lightning transactions. Merchants have to deal with counterfeit cash in many markets around the world. > > **Bitcoin has a very strong community of die-hard supporters** > > A huge portion of Bitcoin supporters have become Bitcoin Maxis who will keep spreading their arguments, regardless of accuracy. Because Bitcoin is a gateway cryptocurrency, crypto newbies will encounter it first and gobble up these narratives because they don't have the experience to know their flaws. And they're very convincing when you keep repeating them in an echo chamber: > > * Maximum supply cap of 21M BTC vs Fed's money printer > * Amazing past-performance gains vs fiat > * Works as Store of Value (despite volatility) > * Had a "fair launch" without an ICO > * Is not a risky altcoin > * Is decentralized (based on largest number of miners) > * Has instant payments via the Lightning Network > > **Ultimately, people are mainly using crypto for speculative investing and long-term Store of Value. Most people don't care about technology, Defi, or utility. Thus Bitcoin is sufficient for their investment needs.** > > And since cryptocurrency value is largely based on a Keynesian Beauty Contest (i.e. you buy not based on your own value, but on what you think others are going to buy), people are going to keep buying Bitcoin as long as the investment narrative holds. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p7vq/top_coins_bitcoin_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Bitcoin) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds.

justjoner

yea... hes definitely going to come out with a new NFT lol

Agile_Ad7864

"If you need to verify what it was trained on or whatever for legal reasons there are ways to potentially do that, but none of them require blockchain." What are the ways to potentially verify the sources from an answer that are provided by the ai? Origintrail has figured this out with decentralized retrieval augmented generation through the decentralized knowledge graph and the knowledge assets (NFT's) it holds. Basically you can integrate any LLM to work in tandem with the DKG to form answers that can be tracked and verified. Here is an example of what I mean: https://x.com/DrevZiga/status/1755625036486988174

Every_Hunt_160

You should see how he grifted US citizens with his NFT collection lol

Defender_Of_TheCrown

He would be using an NFT, campaign pacs, DJT stock, anything he can. He is a con man. It’s what he does.

goldyluckinblokchain

If he did he certainly wouldn't be using an NFT collection to launder it. He just wants some pocket money

UnseenUFO

Go buy a Solcasino bear NFT. Come back in 2 months and tell me how good it is

Oheson

2021 called. Said they want their NFT Ponzi scheme back.

CointestMod

#Bitcoin Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by a deleted user which won 1st place in the Bitcoin Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **First-Mover Advantage and The Network Effect** > > Bitcoin is currently the most popular cryptocurrency and market cap leader by a long shot. The [Bitcoin dominance chart](https://www.coingecko.com/en/global-charts) shows that Bitcoin represents 60% of the entire cryptocurrency market cap. This has increased from 40% in 2020. > > Bitcoin is the **gateway**. People start out with Bitcoin before checking out other cryptocurrencies. They're likely going to keep holding any Bitcoin they bought along the way. > > People will flock to whichever product has the largest user base. For half a decade, Bitcoin was almost synonymous with cryptocurrency. The Network Effect creates a **positive feedback loop** and makes Bitcoin's lead grow even more. > > If Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin were all released simultaneously, Bitcoin would lose to its PoW competitors because its competitors have cheaper fees with higher throughput. But the reality is that Bitcoin's first-mover advantage gave it such a huge head start that the others can't catch up. > > **Has the largest block reward for security** > > Due to its high price, Bitcoin has a huge [block reward of 6.5 BTC](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin/bitcoin-halving) (halves every 4 years) or ~$180k per block. This gives it the security lead because its block reward is so much bigger than other PoW cryptocurrencies, which attracts more miners. > > **Anti-censorship** > > Bitcoin provides partial censorship-resistance against sanctions and totalitarian government restrictions. It's much harder to prevent Bitcoin transactions than it is to prevent financial transactions at a centralized bank. [Legal sex workers](https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/24/22639356/onlyfans-ceo-tim-stokely-sexually-explicit-content-ban-banks) (e.g. Onlyfans) and [marijuana industries](https://www.leadingretirement.com/blog/cannabis-banking) are blocked from using traditional financial services due to social stigma. Even though they can operate legally, many TradFi banks avoid operating with them. Bitcoin provides those workers a way to transfer funds around that censorship. > > **Avoids Hyperinflation**: As long as governments keep causing high inflation through money-printing, people will run to Bitcoin for safety, which pumps up Bitcoin's price. > > **Considered a commodity by both SEC and CFTC**: Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that both the SEC and CFTC have openly agreed is a commodity. And the CFTC is much less lawsuit-happy than the SEC. > > **Legal tender**: El Salvador has shown (despite some technical mishaps) that Bitcoin can be successfully used as legal tender for a country. > > **Ordinals provide utility** > > Even though Bitcoin Maxis hate Ordinals, this new protocol gives utility to Bitcoin and adds demand. NFT bros are using it as an **on-chain data storage layer** for their own blockchains (e.g. Ethereum, Stack). This has an advantage over IPFS since IPFS is stored in centralized databases instead of on-chain. > > This generates more fees for Bitcoin miners. Transaction fees have finally [risen to ~20 sats/vByte](https://mempool.space/graphs/mempool) on days with high Ordinals activity like Mar 22-24. This gives hope that there may be sufficient demand for Bitcoin as an on-chain data-storage layer even after the block subsidy eventually disappears due to halvings. > > **Pseudonymous**: Bitcoin's UTXO transactions can provide moderately-high levels of obscurity. A single wallet can produce a near-unlimited amount of addresses, and there's no way to link them unless they interact with each other. It's much harder to trace UTXO-based wallets than Account-based wallets because the former creates new UTXO addresses with each transaction while Account-based blockchain wallets typically reuse the same account. > > **Lightning transactions are near-instant and cheap** > > As long as you're spending small amounts of Bitcoin, you can use the Lightning network to make near-instant, sub-$0.01 transactions. Many Lightning nodes for merchants are connected to 3rd-party services that convert between cash and Lightning, making it easy to transfer Bitcoins. Consumers usually don't have to care about rebalancing issues since they're only spending small amounts. > > And the [total capacity of the Lightning Network](https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-capacity) in BTC keeps increasing steadily. > > **Cannot be counterfeited**: Cash can be counterfeited, but you can't fake Lightning transactions. Merchants have to deal with counterfeit cash in many markets around the world. > > **Bitcoin has a very strong community of die-hard supporters** > > A huge portion of Bitcoin supporters have become Bitcoin Maxis who will keep spreading their arguments, regardless of accuracy. Because Bitcoin is a gateway cryptocurrency, crypto newbies will encounter it first and gobble up these narratives because they don't have the experience to know their flaws. And they're very convincing when you keep repeating them in an echo chamber: > > * Maximum supply cap of 21M BTC vs Fed's money printer > * Amazing past-performance gains vs fiat > * Works as Store of Value (despite volatility) > * Had a "fair launch" without an ICO > * Is not a risky altcoin > * Is decentralized (based on largest number of miners) > * Has instant payments via the Lightning Network > > **Ultimately, people are mainly using crypto for speculative investing and long-term Store of Value. Most people don't care about technology, Defi, or utility. Thus Bitcoin is sufficient for their investment needs.** > > And since cryptocurrency value is largely based on a Keynesian Beauty Contest (i.e. you buy not based on your own value, but on what you think others are going to buy), people are going to keep buying Bitcoin as long as the investment narrative holds. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p7vq/top_coins_bitcoin_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Bitcoin) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds.

CointestMod

#Bitcoin Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by a deleted user which won 1st place in the Bitcoin Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **First-Mover Advantage and The Network Effect** > > Bitcoin is currently the most popular cryptocurrency and market cap leader by a long shot. The [Bitcoin dominance chart](https://www.coingecko.com/en/global-charts) shows that Bitcoin represents 60% of the entire cryptocurrency market cap. This has increased from 40% in 2020. > > Bitcoin is the **gateway**. People start out with Bitcoin before checking out other cryptocurrencies. They're likely going to keep holding any Bitcoin they bought along the way. > > People will flock to whichever product has the largest user base. For half a decade, Bitcoin was almost synonymous with cryptocurrency. The Network Effect creates a **positive feedback loop** and makes Bitcoin's lead grow even more. > > If Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin were all released simultaneously, Bitcoin would lose to its PoW competitors because its competitors have cheaper fees with higher throughput. But the reality is that Bitcoin's first-mover advantage gave it such a huge head start that the others can't catch up. > > **Has the largest block reward for security** > > Due to its high price, Bitcoin has a huge [block reward of 6.5 BTC](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin/bitcoin-halving) (halves every 4 years) or ~$180k per block. This gives it the security lead because its block reward is so much bigger than other PoW cryptocurrencies, which attracts more miners. > > **Anti-censorship** > > Bitcoin provides partial censorship-resistance against sanctions and totalitarian government restrictions. It's much harder to prevent Bitcoin transactions than it is to prevent financial transactions at a centralized bank. [Legal sex workers](https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/24/22639356/onlyfans-ceo-tim-stokely-sexually-explicit-content-ban-banks) (e.g. Onlyfans) and [marijuana industries](https://www.leadingretirement.com/blog/cannabis-banking) are blocked from using traditional financial services due to social stigma. Even though they can operate legally, many TradFi banks avoid operating with them. Bitcoin provides those workers a way to transfer funds around that censorship. > > **Avoids Hyperinflation**: As long as governments keep causing high inflation through money-printing, people will run to Bitcoin for safety, which pumps up Bitcoin's price. > > **Considered a commodity by both SEC and CFTC**: Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that both the SEC and CFTC have openly agreed is a commodity. And the CFTC is much less lawsuit-happy than the SEC. > > **Legal tender**: El Salvador has shown (despite some technical mishaps) that Bitcoin can be successfully used as legal tender for a country. > > **Ordinals provide utility** > > Even though Bitcoin Maxis hate Ordinals, this new protocol gives utility to Bitcoin and adds demand. NFT bros are using it as an **on-chain data storage layer** for their own blockchains (e.g. Ethereum, Stack). This has an advantage over IPFS since IPFS is stored in centralized databases instead of on-chain. > > This generates more fees for Bitcoin miners. Transaction fees have finally [risen to ~20 sats/vByte](https://mempool.space/graphs/mempool) on days with high Ordinals activity like Mar 22-24. This gives hope that there may be sufficient demand for Bitcoin as an on-chain data-storage layer even after the block subsidy eventually disappears due to halvings. > > **Pseudonymous**: Bitcoin's UTXO transactions can provide moderately-high levels of obscurity. A single wallet can produce a near-unlimited amount of addresses, and there's no way to link them unless they interact with each other. It's much harder to trace UTXO-based wallets than Account-based wallets because the former creates new UTXO addresses with each transaction while Account-based blockchain wallets typically reuse the same account. > > **Lightning transactions are near-instant and cheap** > > As long as you're spending small amounts of Bitcoin, you can use the Lightning network to make near-instant, sub-$0.01 transactions. Many Lightning nodes for merchants are connected to 3rd-party services that convert between cash and Lightning, making it easy to transfer Bitcoins. Consumers usually don't have to care about rebalancing issues since they're only spending small amounts. > > And the [total capacity of the Lightning Network](https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-capacity) in BTC keeps increasing steadily. > > **Cannot be counterfeited**: Cash can be counterfeited, but you can't fake Lightning transactions. Merchants have to deal with counterfeit cash in many markets around the world. > > **Bitcoin has a very strong community of die-hard supporters** > > A huge portion of Bitcoin supporters have become Bitcoin Maxis who will keep spreading their arguments, regardless of accuracy. Because Bitcoin is a gateway cryptocurrency, crypto newbies will encounter it first and gobble up these narratives because they don't have the experience to know their flaws. And they're very convincing when you keep repeating them in an echo chamber: > > * Maximum supply cap of 21M BTC vs Fed's money printer > * Amazing past-performance gains vs fiat > * Works as Store of Value (despite volatility) > * Had a "fair launch" without an ICO > * Is not a risky altcoin > * Is decentralized (based on largest number of miners) > * Has instant payments via the Lightning Network > > **Ultimately, people are mainly using crypto for speculative investing and long-term Store of Value. Most people don't care about technology, Defi, or utility. Thus Bitcoin is sufficient for their investment needs.** > > And since cryptocurrency value is largely based on a Keynesian Beauty Contest (i.e. you buy not based on your own value, but on what you think others are going to buy), people are going to keep buying Bitcoin as long as the investment narrative holds. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p7vq/top_coins_bitcoin_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Bitcoin) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds.

CointestMod

#Ethereum Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by Nostalg33k which won 2nd place in the Ethereum Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > &#x200B; > > # Ethereum: Use-case driving value > > Ethereum is a very valuable Blockchain. This blockchain is driven by innovation and utility. To understand what makes Ethereum such a valuable eco-system we need to discuss the inner-working of Ethereum. > > # Introduction: Ethereum explained > > According to [Ethereum.org](https://Ethereum.org) : > > >What is Ethereum? > > Ethereum is a technology that's home to digital money, global payments, and applications. The community has built a booming digital economy, bold new ways for creators to earn online, and so much more. It's open to everyone, wherever you are in the world – all you need is the internet. > > So the topic driving this discussion is badly worded. If we are discussing top coins then we should discuss Ether and not Ethereum. Since Ethereum is such an interesting ecosystem I will treat this argument as a pro Ethereum post. I'd love to see the discussion focused on Ether next time. > > Ethereum is not managed by a single entity nor managed by the Ethereum Foundation but is managed through a decentralized process explained [In their governance page](https://ethereum.org/en/governance/). > > Time for some metrics: Ethereum is currently trading north of 1750 $ and has a circulating supply of 122 millions ETH for a Market cap at around 218 billions > > Let's go back to the quote: "Ethereum is a technology that's home to digital money". This point is important. Ether is not the only coin which is using the Ethereum blockchain. A lot of value on the Ethereum Blockchain is not in Ether coins. This will be discussed further down. Ethereum is also home to global payment, so Ether and other cryptocurrencies can be used to settle transactions between P2P in a permissionless way. > > Applications called Dapps exist on the blockchain. We are going to discuss all of these aspects. We are also going to tackle NFTs on the Ethereum Blockchain. > > Ethereum is also completed by L2s. These are going to be mentioned. > > Ethereum has been switched from POW to Asic resistant POW to POS. These are going to be discussed. > > &#x200B; > > # Ethereum: Home to digital money. > > Ethereum strength is that the blockchain is home to many cryptocurrencies. If gas fees are paid in Ether, many tokens have billions circulating in the Ethereum ecosystem. A quick look at Etherscans reveal how strong the ethereum ecosystem is. > > According to [EtherScan](https://etherscan.io/tokens) the blockchain has 40 Billions $ in USDT, 46 Billions in USDC and 7 Billions $ in Wrapped BTC. The market cap of Ether may be around 200 billions but the on chain value of assets in the Ethereum Blockchain is far higher. > > All of these USDT and USDC are stablecoins which can be used for transactions. In fact, it can be used for P2P transaction in a permissionless way but also to buy stuff from businesses. [Here is a list of business accepting USDT (which exists in the Ethereum blockchain)](https://nowpayments.io/blog/businesses-accepting-tether) and [Here is a list of business accepting directly Ethereum](https://www.analyticsinsight.net/top-10-companies-accepting-ethereum-as-a-payment-method-in-2022/) > > These classical transactions are not the only use of the Ethereum Blockchain: Dapps and NFT are also thriving ! > > # Ethereum: Home to dapps and NFTs > > Ethereum is home to a lot of different applications: Marketplaces, exchanges, defi, wallets, games... > > These application are different because they are called dapps: > > >A decentralised application (DApp,\[1\] dApp,\[2\] Dapp, or dapp) is an application that can operate autonomously, typically through the use of smart contracts, that run on a decentralized computing, blockchain or other distributed ledger system.\[3\] > > [Wikipedia Dapps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_application) > > To give a glance to these dapps you can head to this website tho be wary of the first dapp listed being an advertisement for shady businesses (I haven't found a better website to source dapps) [Here you go](https://dappradar.com/rankings/protocol/ethereum/1) > > While I don't believe in the current state of NFT technology being viable (See my write up in favor of NFT speaking about the future of this technology), we have to take into account that even after losing 60% of their value there is still 3 Billions USD in NFTs in the Ethereum Blockchain [Source](https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-nft-collections-lost-nearly-60-of-their-market-cap-in-2022-report) > > # Ethereum: Layers of goodness. > > Ethereum can be a bit expensive for people, this is why it was layered. There are side chains existing just to be cheaper than Ethereum while offering bridges to and from Ethereum. For example Polygon. > > >Polygon is a Layer-2 scaling solution created to help bring mass adoption to the Ethereum platform. It caters to the diverse needs of developers by providing tools to create scalable decentralized applications (dApps) that prioritize performance, user experience (UX), and security. > > So if you want to be able to evaluate Ethereum you need to go and read about the biggest layer 2 pro and cons. > > [A small list of Ethereum layer 2 given by Ethereum.org](https://ethereum.org/en/layer-2/) > > # Ethereum: Evolve to thrive > > Ethereum has been a rapidly evolving ecosystem. It has seen the evolution of mining from GPU to Asic. In order to not become reliant on Asic mining, Ethereum was made Asic resistant. This created other problems: A pressure on the GPU market but also a concern for energy efficiency. In order to improve the footprint but also reduce the fees, Ethereum was made to transistion from POW to POS. Proof of stake is a protocol in which you need to stake coins to run a node in the network. > > This shows an ability to look ahead and to tackle challenges. > > # Conclusion: Ethereum is a rapidly evolving ecosystem which has a lot of value in it. Since Ether is their native coin, all of this impacts Ether's value. > > This is where we go back to the TOP COIN aspect of this write up. Everything I have said has an impact on the value and use of Ether. If you believe in the future of the Ethereum Blockchain, you can go ahead and look a bit more into Ether. If you don't believe in the Ethereum Blockchain then you should try to find a competitor. > > Just know that Ethereum is trying to become deflationary and that their economic outlook seems on par with good cryptos. > > Ethereum is one of the techs of the future and this essay has shown some of the most important aspects of it. > > Have fun ! ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p71b/top_coins_ethereum_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Ethereum) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds.

CointestMod

#Bitcoin Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by a deleted user which won 1st place in the Bitcoin Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **First-Mover Advantage and The Network Effect** > > Bitcoin is currently the most popular cryptocurrency and market cap leader by a long shot. The [Bitcoin dominance chart](https://www.coingecko.com/en/global-charts) shows that Bitcoin represents 60% of the entire cryptocurrency market cap. This has increased from 40% in 2020. > > Bitcoin is the **gateway**. People start out with Bitcoin before checking out other cryptocurrencies. They're likely going to keep holding any Bitcoin they bought along the way. > > People will flock to whichever product has the largest user base. For half a decade, Bitcoin was almost synonymous with cryptocurrency. The Network Effect creates a **positive feedback loop** and makes Bitcoin's lead grow even more. > > If Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin were all released simultaneously, Bitcoin would lose to its PoW competitors because its competitors have cheaper fees with higher throughput. But the reality is that Bitcoin's first-mover advantage gave it such a huge head start that the others can't catch up. > > **Has the largest block reward for security** > > Due to its high price, Bitcoin has a huge [block reward of 6.5 BTC](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin/bitcoin-halving) (halves every 4 years) or ~$180k per block. This gives it the security lead because its block reward is so much bigger than other PoW cryptocurrencies, which attracts more miners. > > **Anti-censorship** > > Bitcoin provides partial censorship-resistance against sanctions and totalitarian government restrictions. It's much harder to prevent Bitcoin transactions than it is to prevent financial transactions at a centralized bank. [Legal sex workers](https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/24/22639356/onlyfans-ceo-tim-stokely-sexually-explicit-content-ban-banks) (e.g. Onlyfans) and [marijuana industries](https://www.leadingretirement.com/blog/cannabis-banking) are blocked from using traditional financial services due to social stigma. Even though they can operate legally, many TradFi banks avoid operating with them. Bitcoin provides those workers a way to transfer funds around that censorship. > > **Avoids Hyperinflation**: As long as governments keep causing high inflation through money-printing, people will run to Bitcoin for safety, which pumps up Bitcoin's price. > > **Considered a commodity by both SEC and CFTC**: Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that both the SEC and CFTC have openly agreed is a commodity. And the CFTC is much less lawsuit-happy than the SEC. > > **Legal tender**: El Salvador has shown (despite some technical mishaps) that Bitcoin can be successfully used as legal tender for a country. > > **Ordinals provide utility** > > Even though Bitcoin Maxis hate Ordinals, this new protocol gives utility to Bitcoin and adds demand. NFT bros are using it as an **on-chain data storage layer** for their own blockchains (e.g. Ethereum, Stack). This has an advantage over IPFS since IPFS is stored in centralized databases instead of on-chain. > > This generates more fees for Bitcoin miners. Transaction fees have finally [risen to ~20 sats/vByte](https://mempool.space/graphs/mempool) on days with high Ordinals activity like Mar 22-24. This gives hope that there may be sufficient demand for Bitcoin as an on-chain data-storage layer even after the block subsidy eventually disappears due to halvings. > > **Pseudonymous**: Bitcoin's UTXO transactions can provide moderately-high levels of obscurity. A single wallet can produce a near-unlimited amount of addresses, and there's no way to link them unless they interact with each other. It's much harder to trace UTXO-based wallets than Account-based wallets because the former creates new UTXO addresses with each transaction while Account-based blockchain wallets typically reuse the same account. > > **Lightning transactions are near-instant and cheap** > > As long as you're spending small amounts of Bitcoin, you can use the Lightning network to make near-instant, sub-$0.01 transactions. Many Lightning nodes for merchants are connected to 3rd-party services that convert between cash and Lightning, making it easy to transfer Bitcoins. Consumers usually don't have to care about rebalancing issues since they're only spending small amounts. > > And the [total capacity of the Lightning Network](https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-capacity) in BTC keeps increasing steadily. > > **Cannot be counterfeited**: Cash can be counterfeited, but you can't fake Lightning transactions. Merchants have to deal with counterfeit cash in many markets around the world. > > **Bitcoin has a very strong community of die-hard supporters** > > A huge portion of Bitcoin supporters have become Bitcoin Maxis who will keep spreading their arguments, regardless of accuracy. Because Bitcoin is a gateway cryptocurrency, crypto newbies will encounter it first and gobble up these narratives because they don't have the experience to know their flaws. And they're very convincing when you keep repeating them in an echo chamber: > > * Maximum supply cap of 21M BTC vs Fed's money printer > * Amazing past-performance gains vs fiat > * Works as Store of Value (despite volatility) > * Had a "fair launch" without an ICO > * Is not a risky altcoin > * Is decentralized (based on largest number of miners) > * Has instant payments via the Lightning Network > > **Ultimately, people are mainly using crypto for speculative investing and long-term Store of Value. Most people don't care about technology, Defi, or utility. Thus Bitcoin is sufficient for their investment needs.** > > And since cryptocurrency value is largely based on a Keynesian Beauty Contest (i.e. you buy not based on your own value, but on what you think others are going to buy), people are going to keep buying Bitcoin as long as the investment narrative holds. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p7vq/top_coins_bitcoin_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Bitcoin) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds.

chuckrabbit

Literal president and NFT shiller. Go ahead and give him all of your money lmao.

chuckrabbit

You going to buy his NFT? That is how I know he’s a scammer. Don’t trust an NFT shiller. Maybe he’ll make some ordinals next! He’s a conman. Plenty of pro-BTC millionaires and billionaires have donated. It’s all about the money.

CointestMod

#Polygon Pro-Arguments Below is a Polygon pro-argument written by Chysce. > Polygon is a blockchain built on top of ethereum and it addresses the well-known [scalability issue](https://education.district0x.io/general-topics/ethereum-scaling/introduction-to-ethereum-scaling/) of Ethereum. Polygon is also EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible which allows them to benefit from Ethereum's security. > > **>> Layer 2 solution - zkEVM Rollup** > > By using Layer 2 technology, Polygon enables faster and cheaper transactions compared to the Ethereum blockchain. This makes it a more practical choice for everyday transactions. The fact that zkEVM is EVM compatible allows seamless migration of Ethereum dApps to Polygon without the need for any code rewriting. > > **>> Partnerships and ecosystem** > > Polygon shines in terms of partnerships with both web 2 and web 3 companies and a number of NFT collections. Impressive list of partnerships can be found [here](https://www.blockchain-council.org/blockchain/polygon-technology-top-10-partnerships-depicting-the-rise-of-layer-2-ethereum-scaling-solution/) (Adidas, Starbucks, Meta, Reddit, Hamilton Lane, Magic Eden etc.). > > Polygon has an aggressive business development model. They have successfully brought in all types of web 3 participants into one [ecosystem](https://polygon.technology/ecosystem). > > **>> Current usage** > > * In terms of daily transactions [polygon (3 million)](https://polygonscan.com/chart/tx)has overtaken [ethereum (1 million)](https://etherscan.io/chart/tx). > * In terms of NFT Sales on Polygon is at a [3rd place](https://chainparrot.com/nft-trade-volume-by-chain-24s.html) just behind Ethereum and Solana. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.

mrjune2040

1/ The previous bull market occurred during one of the greatest speculative bubbles of our lifetimes, fueled by stimulus and low interest rates. See: NFT’s and half of the top 50 crypto currencies. Many of the ATH’s set during that time are completely arbitrary imo, and most tokens are unlikely to ever reach them again. 2/ There are now over 20 thousand tokens, and an absurd 67 with over 1 billion in market cap. Every large cap that enters the market dilutes that speculative money even more, and there just isn’t the liquidity to support the majority of large cap tokens. 3/ Look around- the global economy ain’t exactly on fire. There is only so much capital in the world and crypto is still at the speculative end of the investment tree. 4/ Bitcoin and Ethereum remain the only two ‘sure bets’ in crypto imo. It’s really as simple at that- and they are exactly where the vast majority of capital should be going. There will be a lot of large cap tokens that aren’t around in 10 years from now, simply because they are designed purely as exit vehicles for VC’s and early investors to dump token allocations on retail (see almost every layer 2 and retaking protocol)- the incentive is for a chain to derive metrics (TVL and user count) in the first 12-24 months- beyond that many of these chains don’t have sustainable plans for growth for the longterm.

CointestMod

#Ethereum Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by Nostalg33k which won 2nd place in the Ethereum Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > &#x200B; > > # Ethereum: Use-case driving value > > Ethereum is a very valuable Blockchain. This blockchain is driven by innovation and utility. To understand what makes Ethereum such a valuable eco-system we need to discuss the inner-working of Ethereum. > > # Introduction: Ethereum explained > > According to [Ethereum.org](https://Ethereum.org) : > > >What is Ethereum? > > Ethereum is a technology that's home to digital money, global payments, and applications. The community has built a booming digital economy, bold new ways for creators to earn online, and so much more. It's open to everyone, wherever you are in the world – all you need is the internet. > > So the topic driving this discussion is badly worded. If we are discussing top coins then we should discuss Ether and not Ethereum. Since Ethereum is such an interesting ecosystem I will treat this argument as a pro Ethereum post. I'd love to see the discussion focused on Ether next time. > > Ethereum is not managed by a single entity nor managed by the Ethereum Foundation but is managed through a decentralized process explained [In their governance page](https://ethereum.org/en/governance/). > > Time for some metrics: Ethereum is currently trading north of 1750 $ and has a circulating supply of 122 millions ETH for a Market cap at around 218 billions > > Let's go back to the quote: "Ethereum is a technology that's home to digital money". This point is important. Ether is not the only coin which is using the Ethereum blockchain. A lot of value on the Ethereum Blockchain is not in Ether coins. This will be discussed further down. Ethereum is also home to global payment, so Ether and other cryptocurrencies can be used to settle transactions between P2P in a permissionless way. > > Applications called Dapps exist on the blockchain. We are going to discuss all of these aspects. We are also going to tackle NFTs on the Ethereum Blockchain. > > Ethereum is also completed by L2s. These are going to be mentioned. > > Ethereum has been switched from POW to Asic resistant POW to POS. These are going to be discussed. > > &#x200B; > > # Ethereum: Home to digital money. > > Ethereum strength is that the blockchain is home to many cryptocurrencies. If gas fees are paid in Ether, many tokens have billions circulating in the Ethereum ecosystem. A quick look at Etherscans reveal how strong the ethereum ecosystem is. > > According to [EtherScan](https://etherscan.io/tokens) the blockchain has 40 Billions $ in USDT, 46 Billions in USDC and 7 Billions $ in Wrapped BTC. The market cap of Ether may be around 200 billions but the on chain value of assets in the Ethereum Blockchain is far higher. > > All of these USDT and USDC are stablecoins which can be used for transactions. In fact, it can be used for P2P transaction in a permissionless way but also to buy stuff from businesses. [Here is a list of business accepting USDT (which exists in the Ethereum blockchain)](https://nowpayments.io/blog/businesses-accepting-tether) and [Here is a list of business accepting directly Ethereum](https://www.analyticsinsight.net/top-10-companies-accepting-ethereum-as-a-payment-method-in-2022/) > > These classical transactions are not the only use of the Ethereum Blockchain: Dapps and NFT are also thriving ! > > # Ethereum: Home to dapps and NFTs > > Ethereum is home to a lot of different applications: Marketplaces, exchanges, defi, wallets, games... > > These application are different because they are called dapps: > > >A decentralised application (DApp,\[1\] dApp,\[2\] Dapp, or dapp) is an application that can operate autonomously, typically through the use of smart contracts, that run on a decentralized computing, blockchain or other distributed ledger system.\[3\] > > [Wikipedia Dapps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_application) > > To give a glance to these dapps you can head to this website tho be wary of the first dapp listed being an advertisement for shady businesses (I haven't found a better website to source dapps) [Here you go](https://dappradar.com/rankings/protocol/ethereum/1) > > While I don't believe in the current state of NFT technology being viable (See my write up in favor of NFT speaking about the future of this technology), we have to take into account that even after losing 60% of their value there is still 3 Billions USD in NFTs in the Ethereum Blockchain [Source](https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-nft-collections-lost-nearly-60-of-their-market-cap-in-2022-report) > > # Ethereum: Layers of goodness. > > Ethereum can be a bit expensive for people, this is why it was layered. There are side chains existing just to be cheaper than Ethereum while offering bridges to and from Ethereum. For example Polygon. > > >Polygon is a Layer-2 scaling solution created to help bring mass adoption to the Ethereum platform. It caters to the diverse needs of developers by providing tools to create scalable decentralized applications (dApps) that prioritize performance, user experience (UX), and security. > > So if you want to be able to evaluate Ethereum you need to go and read about the biggest layer 2 pro and cons. > > [A small list of Ethereum layer 2 given by Ethereum.org](https://ethereum.org/en/layer-2/) > > # Ethereum: Evolve to thrive > > Ethereum has been a rapidly evolving ecosystem. It has seen the evolution of mining from GPU to Asic. In order to not become reliant on Asic mining, Ethereum was made Asic resistant. This created other problems: A pressure on the GPU market but also a concern for energy efficiency. In order to improve the footprint but also reduce the fees, Ethereum was made to transistion from POW to POS. Proof of stake is a protocol in which you need to stake coins to run a node in the network. > > This shows an ability to look ahead and to tackle challenges. > > # Conclusion: Ethereum is a rapidly evolving ecosystem which has a lot of value in it. Since Ether is their native coin, all of this impacts Ether's value. > > This is where we go back to the TOP COIN aspect of this write up. Everything I have said has an impact on the value and use of Ether. If you believe in the future of the Ethereum Blockchain, you can go ahead and look a bit more into Ether. If you don't believe in the Ethereum Blockchain then you should try to find a competitor. > > Just know that Ethereum is trying to become deflationary and that their economic outlook seems on par with good cryptos. > > Ethereum is one of the techs of the future and this essay has shown some of the most important aspects of it. > > Have fun ! ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p71b/top_coins_ethereum_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Ethereum) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds.

PackagedRebellion

Nothing says loser like the words, "NFT marketplace"

coinfeeds-bot

tldr; Alchemy Pay has partnered with Mastercard to enhance the account opening process and combat fraud. Utilizing Mastercard's advanced machine learning and identity solutions, Alchemy Pay aims to provide a seamless registration experience while improving security measures. This collaboration will bolster Alchemy Pay's offerings, including On & Off-ramp solutions, NFT Checkout, and Crypto Card Solution, by increasing protection against identity fraud and reducing malicious activities. Alchemy Pay's network supports over 300 payment channels in 173 countries, facilitating mainstream access to fiat payments for crypto and Web3 services. *This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR.

Mundane-Farm-4117

Well one of the most exciting ones is the bruh. It's sub is over at r/thenewsbruh They create a daily NFT on some news of the world , users can buy as many as they want. The next day they take a snapshot and airdrop you an allocation based on the number of NFTs you brought yesterday. They then also do an a small percentage for the number of NFTs you hold since the beginning. The Sub is r/thenewsbruh

themapwench

gets it... I think blockchain being used as a broad term, like smart contract/NFT style embedded digital attributes as watermark. There are still a lot of people, perhaps not directly affected, that don't realize creative AI is basically built (learned) on plagiarism and "creative" results are just the tweaking thereof, IMO.

coinfeeds-bot

tldr; Mastercard has integrated its account opening API with Alchemy Pay to enhance security for Alchemy Pay's crypto services. This partnership aims to secure services like On & Off-ramp solutions, NFT Checkout, and Crypto Card Solution by using advanced machine learning technologies for user verification. Alchemy Pay, which supports 50 fiat currencies, bridges cryptocurrencies and traditional fiat currencies. The integration will allow Alchemy Pay to assess users' risk profiles and improve customer protection against identity fraud. Alchemy Pay has expanded globally, obtaining licenses and expanding its network to over 300 payment channels in 173 countries. *This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR.

HillBillyHangdown

Check out $MEME we have a killer community that holds! Dev is always cooking and rewarding the holders with $MEME coin or NFT's. Jump on the discord and look in the announcements! 🔥 Socials listed below 👇 Twitter@meme_coin_club Discord- https://discord.gg/KBe4XPfwKY Telegram- https://t.me/the_memecoin_club… Reddit- https://reddit.com/r/MemeCoin_on_Cronos/s/wxWe3g9wcr… CA- 0xE20648e234D2D09D0763Fa84B485e582a1FD11DE

CointestMod

#Bitcoin Pro-Arguments Below is an argument written by a deleted user which won 1st place in the Bitcoin Pro-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **First-Mover Advantage and The Network Effect** > > Bitcoin is currently the most popular cryptocurrency and market cap leader by a long shot. The [Bitcoin dominance chart](https://www.coingecko.com/en/global-charts) shows that Bitcoin represents 60% of the entire cryptocurrency market cap. This has increased from 40% in 2020. > > Bitcoin is the **gateway**. People start out with Bitcoin before checking out other cryptocurrencies. They're likely going to keep holding any Bitcoin they bought along the way. > > People will flock to whichever product has the largest user base. For half a decade, Bitcoin was almost synonymous with cryptocurrency. The Network Effect creates a **positive feedback loop** and makes Bitcoin's lead grow even more. > > If Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin were all released simultaneously, Bitcoin would lose to its PoW competitors because its competitors have cheaper fees with higher throughput. But the reality is that Bitcoin's first-mover advantage gave it such a huge head start that the others can't catch up. > > **Has the largest block reward for security** > > Due to its high price, Bitcoin has a huge [block reward of 6.5 BTC](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin/bitcoin-halving) (halves every 4 years) or ~$180k per block. This gives it the security lead because its block reward is so much bigger than other PoW cryptocurrencies, which attracts more miners. > > **Anti-censorship** > > Bitcoin provides partial censorship-resistance against sanctions and totalitarian government restrictions. It's much harder to prevent Bitcoin transactions than it is to prevent financial transactions at a centralized bank. [Legal sex workers](https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/24/22639356/onlyfans-ceo-tim-stokely-sexually-explicit-content-ban-banks) (e.g. Onlyfans) and [marijuana industries](https://www.leadingretirement.com/blog/cannabis-banking) are blocked from using traditional financial services due to social stigma. Even though they can operate legally, many TradFi banks avoid operating with them. Bitcoin provides those workers a way to transfer funds around that censorship. > > **Avoids Hyperinflation**: As long as governments keep causing high inflation through money-printing, people will run to Bitcoin for safety, which pumps up Bitcoin's price. > > **Considered a commodity by both SEC and CFTC**: Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that both the SEC and CFTC have openly agreed is a commodity. And the CFTC is much less lawsuit-happy than the SEC. > > **Legal tender**: El Salvador has shown (despite some technical mishaps) that Bitcoin can be successfully used as legal tender for a country. > > **Ordinals provide utility** > > Even though Bitcoin Maxis hate Ordinals, this new protocol gives utility to Bitcoin and adds demand. NFT bros are using it as an **on-chain data storage layer** for their own blockchains (e.g. Ethereum, Stack). This has an advantage over IPFS since IPFS is stored in centralized databases instead of on-chain. > > This generates more fees for Bitcoin miners. Transaction fees have finally [risen to ~20 sats/vByte](https://mempool.space/graphs/mempool) on days with high Ordinals activity like Mar 22-24. This gives hope that there may be sufficient demand for Bitcoin as an on-chain data-storage layer even after the block subsidy eventually disappears due to halvings. > > **Pseudonymous**: Bitcoin's UTXO transactions can provide moderately-high levels of obscurity. A single wallet can produce a near-unlimited amount of addresses, and there's no way to link them unless they interact with each other. It's much harder to trace UTXO-based wallets than Account-based wallets because the former creates new UTXO addresses with each transaction while Account-based blockchain wallets typically reuse the same account. > > **Lightning transactions are near-instant and cheap** > > As long as you're spending small amounts of Bitcoin, you can use the Lightning network to make near-instant, sub-$0.01 transactions. Many Lightning nodes for merchants are connected to 3rd-party services that convert between cash and Lightning, making it easy to transfer Bitcoins. Consumers usually don't have to care about rebalancing issues since they're only spending small amounts. > > And the [total capacity of the Lightning Network](https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-capacity) in BTC keeps increasing steadily. > > **Cannot be counterfeited**: Cash can be counterfeited, but you can't fake Lightning transactions. Merchants have to deal with counterfeit cash in many markets around the world. > > **Bitcoin has a very strong community of die-hard supporters** > > A huge portion of Bitcoin supporters have become Bitcoin Maxis who will keep spreading their arguments, regardless of accuracy. Because Bitcoin is a gateway cryptocurrency, crypto newbies will encounter it first and gobble up these narratives because they don't have the experience to know their flaws. And they're very convincing when you keep repeating them in an echo chamber: > > * Maximum supply cap of 21M BTC vs Fed's money printer > * Amazing past-performance gains vs fiat > * Works as Store of Value (despite volatility) > * Had a "fair launch" without an ICO > * Is not a risky altcoin > * Is decentralized (based on largest number of miners) > * Has instant payments via the Lightning Network > > **Ultimately, people are mainly using crypto for speculative investing and long-term Store of Value. Most people don't care about technology, Defi, or utility. Thus Bitcoin is sufficient for their investment needs.** > > And since cryptocurrency value is largely based on a Keynesian Beauty Contest (i.e. you buy not based on your own value, but on what you think others are going to buy), people are going to keep buying Bitcoin as long as the investment narrative holds. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/100p7vq/top_coins_bitcoin_proarguments_january_2023/) to be taken to the original topic-thread for this argument or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Bitcoin) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds.

Ludi_Radule

Tbf I have used it heavily when they were Crypterium. And they have worked flawlessly. You deposit crypto and spend with VCC. I have used it on Amazon tons of times. Then they became choise and thats when shitshow started with thwir NFT launches and asking for reverification of KYC almost weekly. In the end I gave up and moved on. They are not scame per se as in they take the money and do notmprovide the service. You can use their services with the deposited funds, but they become scammers once you try to cash out, which is weird thsts the least tehnical par of the whole system…

Apprehensive_Sun7382

Do you even know what an NFT is or how it works?

Apprehensive_Sun7382

Do you even know what an NFT is or how it works?

Every_Hunt_160

Hilarious how Donny Boy started embracing crypto after he launched his Pump and Dump NFT collection and earned millions out of it

Ok-Squirrel-9361

You need to invent a narrative to explain why a BTC supply shortage is squeezing the price and the alt prices are correlated to BTC. You gotta keep the printing press running. Chinese new year, Wallstreet bonuses, Christmas, Corona money, NFT, AI, CB adoption, Visa....yada yada yada

biba8163

> Bullish on Cardanzo. Chang upgrade gonna be huge Down -70% since the gullible were cheerleading themselves getting scammed into buying ADA because of a bullshit partnership with the Ethiopian government https://np.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/mzp7gr/cardano_developer_iohk_strikes_partnership_with/ Down -60% since the gullible were cheerleading themselves getting scammed into buying ADA because of 900 Bullshit projects > 400 New projects on Cardano....MinSwap - Museliswap - Sundaeswap - AnetaBTC - Genius Yeild - World Mobile Token - Maladex - Drip Dropz, NMKR (NFT Maker Pro) - JPG Store - Tokhun - Artano - Tent, Optim Finance - Indigo Protocol, Slick City - Fre5sh Music, Book Token - Lido Nation - The Alexandria Project - ADA Bookworm, Nami - Flint - Gero - Game Changer, COTI, ADAPay, World Mobile, Empwa, Melda, SingularityNet https://np.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/u731d9/cardano_records_400_new_projects_building_on_ada/

R4ID

> Protocol fees generated are how decentralized systems work at scale. Protocol fees are a burden put on non stakeholders and stakeholders within the network. > Idk how you don’t know this Once again you are announcing how much you dont understand. >in a centralized world, fees are already extraordinarily high Because fees are friction, so removing them makes payments easier, this benefits stakeholders and non stakeholders... > in a decentralized format, you can reduce fees while inheriting all the other benefits of decentralization, and within a sustainable model. Having fees is simply taking the current problem and digitizing it. Again, fees are friction within the system that stakeholders and non stakeholders must take as a burden. >Again, you hold a token that doesn’t serve a purpose in the protocol You litterally cant send a trasaction, create an address, mint an NFT, issue a smart contract, use the DEX or a multicurrency exchange without it. >and doesn’t accrue value in any way. Value is derived from utility