Decentralized open-source blockchain, Tezos (XTZ) is making a foray into the DeFi and NFT ecosystem. This move is also the result of a tri-partnership with three different projects namely; Opus Dei, Sad Python, and the Gebo Wallet.
In a recent interview with Tezos (XTZ), the founders of the projects discussed in-depth their individual projects. Also, on how the projects are interconnected to make Tezos (XTZ) the perfect DeFi and NFT ecosystem.

More on the Projects
As previously indicated, the projects include;

Opus Dei Money Protocol – It is a decentralized multi-chain platform for trading, creating, and exchanging digital assets. Simply put, it is also a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and borrowing platform, accepting Tezos assets as collateral. Interestingly, Opus Dei is also a community-governed money protocol. This means that major decisions need to be approved by community members.
Opus Dei will also facilitate the development of DeFi-as-a-Service (DaaS), Gebo wallet, and DAO functionalities.

Sad Python – is the flagship NFT project of the Tezos (XTZ) ecosystem. It is also a unique and top-notch NFT project that is designed with DeFi features. Also, its DeFi features are made possible via its PYTH token. PYTH is the native token of the Sad Python ecosystem.

Following the company launching a fiat-pegged tied to the value of the Mexican peso, Tether, the stablecoin issuer has announced the firm has launched tether tokens on the Polygon network. The Polygon integration follows the stablecoin being added to the Avalanche and Kusama blockchain networks.

Tether Joins the Polygon Blockchain Ecosystem
The largest stablecoin by market capitalization, tether (USDT), is now supported on the Polygon blockchain (formally called Matic). USDT's market valuation today is $72.6 billion and the stablecoin trade volume is $59.15 billion out of the $106.34 billion in global trade volume on Friday.
Tether Launches on Polygon, USDT Stablecoin Now Hosted on 11 Blockchain Networks

In addition to Polygon, USDT is supported on the Omni Layer blockchain, Ethereum, Tron, EOS, Liquid, Algorand, Solana, Bitcoin Cash (SLP), Kusama, and Avalanche. Furthermore, €195,998,829 worth of EURT, ¥20,503,468 worth of CHNT, and 226,289 XAUT (tether gold) have been issued by the firm.
Expanding to the Polygon network's layer two (L2) scaling solution on top of the Ethereum blockchain will provide tether (USDT) users with cheaper transfer fees. Polygon has more than 19,000 decentralized applications (dapps) and the network's native token MATIC is the 21st largest by market valuation.

"We're excited to launch USDT on Polygon, offering its community access to the most liquid, stable, and trusted stablecoin in the digital token space," Paolo Ardoino, the CTO at Tether said in a statement sent to Bitcoin.com News. "The Polygon ecosystem has witnessed historical growth this year and we believe Tether will be essential in helping it continue to thrive," the Tether CTO added.
The Polygon team confirmed the launch on Friday when the official Twitter page tweeted: "Tether USDT launches on Polygon."

In addition to tether (USDT) launching on Polygon, Polygon Studios CEO Ryan Wyatt explained that the team had put together a multi-million dollar fund to help Terra blockchain developers migrate to Polygon.
Tether says the Polygon announcement on Friday, "further solidifies Tether's position as the most widely adopted stablecoin."

The news of tether (USDT) being implemented on the Polygon network follows the token's market capitalization losing $10.4 billion since May 10, 2022. On that day, USDT's market valuation was $83 billion and today it's approximately $72.6 billion.
Furthermore, Tether launched a fiat-pegged token tied to the Mexican peso called MXNT on May 26, and MXNT tokens will be available on Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon as well.

The most accessible blockchain application platform was in France on April 12th to 14th for the Paris Blockchain Week Summit. Joining a long list of heavyweight blockchain projects, several key Lisk figures were present at the event to showcase its latest developments in Lisk's thriving ecosystem.

With over 3,000 attendees and more than 250 confirmed speakers, PBWS was a resounding success, and Lisk certainly benefited from that.

The project's Community Lead, Miguel, took part in a panel discussion at the Junior stage of the event, and was later interviewed by David Lin, for Kitco News.
Additionally, the Marketing team at Lisk took up residence in a booth, very close to the entrance of the Palais Brongniart, making it easy to get noticed, and ultimately resulting in two days of mingling, interviews, and brand awareness.

If you missed the event, here is the recap from Lisk at the Paris Blockchain Week Summit.

Sponsoring PBWS: Tech Track by Lisk
Lisk is honored to have taken part in this exclusive event and thankful for the opportunity to sponsor the conference's tech talks, featuring highly renowned developers, startups and researchers in the blockchain industry, covering topics such as the metaverse, DAOs, NFTs and, of course, Interoperability.

Miguel discusses with the panel
Lisk is happy to report that this exposure led to productive and successful talks with numerous acclaimed companies, investors, and developers, who showed great interest in the project.

Building Awareness: Conference Booth
In Retrospect
The marketing team at Lisk made more than 100 contacts in the industry, opening up new avenues for potential partnerships, as well as educating potential future users and developers about the platform and its vision. The team is confident that sponsoring a booth was vital for that purpose.

The marketing team at the PBWS
Lisk booth at PBWS
Insights
Representing one of Lisk's USPs, the illustration below was the main attraction of the project's booth, featuring two high fiving characters dressed as Lisk and JavaScript respectively.

Miguel and David Lin after the interview
In speaking to developers, they were pleased to find out that with Lisk one can build a blockchain application, fully customizable, soon interoperable, written entirely in JavaScript and TypeScript, removing the hassle of having to learn a new programming language, and/or having to code in an unfriendly tool-kit.

Building Interest: Media Opportunities
Kitco News
Invited by David Lin, Kitco News' anchor, Lisk's Community Lead Miguel discussed a number of blockchain-related topics including:

The state of the cryptocurrency industry
The current and potential use cases for NFTs
How GameFI can contribute to mainstream adoption
How Lisk approaches Interoperability
New Lisk Illustration representing the project's USP.
New Lisk Illustration representing the project's USP.
Throughout the interview, Miguel also shared some light on his career path leading onto his current role, motivating aspiring blockchain enthusiasts to get involved regardless of their professional background.  

The full interview is now available on Kitco News' channel on YouTube.

Panel Discussion: Junior Stage
Moderated by Orian Tal from Market Across, Lisk's Community Lead, Miguel, provided his insights into "how to land a job in Blockchain".

Together with Jeremy Wauquier, Alyra's President, Miguel discussed a number of topics including:

How to find a job
Valuable skills to have
Work environment
Pro's and con's
Trends in the space
Miguel speaks with the panel on stage
"At the end of the day, having an interest in the industry will set you apart." - Miguel.

Do you want to land a job in blockchain? Click here to watch the full discussion, and don't forget to check out Lightcurve's latest openings.

Marek Stiller, Kryptowaluty
The last highlight is Marek Stiller's interview with Lisk's Marketing Manager, Michal, where the latter took the opportunity to reflect on Lisk's development. In Polish, both discussed a number of topics including the vision for the project, the importance of interoperability as well as other upcoming milestones. Here is the full interview in Polish, with English subtitles.

Michal gets interviewed at the Lisk booth
Building Conversion: Online Activity
Lisk was also active throughout the whole event on social media, live tweeting from the conference with photos and videos, which received great support and engagement from the project's community. As a result, the team intends to continue this trend at future events.

If you are curious as to Lisk's main takeaway's from the conference's talks check out this thread.

A la prochaine fois, Paris
Lisk is thrilled about its successful attendance and participation in PBWS, one of Europe's biggest blockchain events.

The venue of the PBWS on the last day
Finally, as a result of the great support and engagement received from the community during the week, the team at Lisk has revealed that it has other exciting plans throughout the year, and will announce all upcoming events on its socials in due course.

The getaway to blockchain is coming to you. Stay tuned.

Decathlon
Decathlon is a French sporting retail giant with 2080 stores in 56 countries. In 2020, they generated $11.4 billion in revenue and have close to 100,000 employees.

In 1976 the first Decathlon store was opened in Lille by Michel Leclercq, France, now it is known as the largest sporting goods retailer worldwide.

Séan Garnier
Séan Garnier is a French freestyle footballer. He is a two-time Football Freestyle World Champion, a three-time French champion, a Red Bull athlete, Urbanball Ambassador and Founder and member of S3 crew.

He a very large social following with over 3.74 million YouTube subscribers and over 5.4 million Instagram followers.

Tezos Technology Used In The Decathlon X Séan Garnier Street Football Boots
Now, it has been announced that Tezos technology has been used in the Decathlon X Séan Garnier Street Football Boots product line in order to provide an NFT experience.

The collaboration has been done with the help and support of Nomadic Labs.

The football boots come with an attached NFT 'Golden Ticket' which is said to: 'give access to new personalized and exclusive experiences with the world champion… a golden ticket that extends the experience!'

On the Golden Ticket NFT experience Decathlon stated:

'This is the first step in building a future where digital goods are connected to physical goods.'

This suggests that more utilization of Tezos blockchain technology will accompany Decathlon products in the future.

Ithaca 2 Activates And The Tenderbake Consensus Algorithm Is Now Live
'Ithaca 2' – the ninth Tezos core protocol upgrade has been activated and this upgrade switches out the Tezos consensus algorithm from Emmy* to Tenderbake.

This means that the consensus algorithm has changed from being a Nakamoto style algorithm (Emmy*), to a BFT-style algorithm (Tenderbake).

This upgrade lowers block times, delivers faster finality, and has the potential to be optimized further down the line to deliver advanced scaling solutions.

It's been a long journey towards Tenderbake activation for the Tezos community and now it has recently happened with Ithaca 2.

The first research paper on Tenderbake was submitted in early 2020. This research paper included notable people and organizations such as CEA List, Université Paris-Saclay, and Nomadic Labs among others.

CEA List, who are part of the CEA, otherwise known as the French Alternative Energies And Atomic Energy Commission. The French Alternative Energies And Atomic Energy Commission have an annual budget of €5 billion and have over 20,000 employees.

In April 2021, Tenderbake was launched on testnet.

In early 2022 Tenderbake could have also been activated in 'Ithaca 1', however that amendment upgrade did not quite secure enough of a supermajority to push it over the line.

Now, Tenderbake has been activated with the Ithaca 2 core protocol amendment upgrade on the 1st of April 2022.

Summarized optimizations included in Ithaca 2:

Lower blocktimes and improved finality.

Faster transactions.

Smoother running applications.

Preparation for scaling solutions including transaction and smart contract optimistic rollups (expected to be enshrined into the blockchain itself), and enabling WASM and EVM compatibility.

Reducing the requirement to become a network validator ("baker") by 25% from 8,000 tez to 6,000 tez, strengthening the decentralized nature of Tezos.

The GrantShares DAO is launching on Neo N3 to distribute funding to grassroots developers and ecosystem beneficial projects. The DAO will manage an initial treasury funded by the Neo Foundation.

As the first DAO to launch on Neo N3, GrantShares is designed to provide financial support to smaller initiatives that do not currently fit the scope of Neo's existing grant programs. Voting members of the organization include COZ, AxLabs, Red4Sec, NGD Enterprise, NeoResearch, NEXT, Neo SPCC, Neo Foundation, Neo Global Development, and Neo News Today.

Anyone is encouraged to submit a proposal for the members of the DAO to discuss and vote.

The initial funding limit for GrantShares is $50,000 per proposal, and can be used to fund local events, dApps, developer tools, education initiatives, and more. Projects seeking larger amounts should apply for grants through one of Neo's Eco Support tracks.

The DAO's smart contracts are developed and maintained by AxLabs and have already been deployed to the Neo MainNet. In the coming weeks, AxLabs aims to release the accompanying dApp for applicants to submit proposals. The dApp will create an issue in the GrantShares repository where DAO members can discuss the potential grantee's proposal before voting.

In addition to distributing funding, AxLabs designed the GrantShares smart contracts to serve as a reference implementation for other N3 developers. The DAO contracts are open-source on the GrantShares repository.

The GrantShares dApp is tentatively expected to launch in mid-April 2022.

Papa John's NFT Bag Giveaway
Papa John's is using the Tezos blockchain to give away free NFT bags designed by two talented NFT designers; Tom Hoff and Ash Sketch. One lucky winner given the chance to with a real-life version. The NFTs can be claimed here.

There are nine NFT bags from 19,840 to choose from and claiming a bag enters the owner into a draw to win a collectible real-life Papa John's bag, with the winner being chosen on the 14th April 2022. This will be the 'Papa 1984' yellow bag, by Ash Sketch.

The bag is worth £250 and users are able to mint one NFT bag per wallet in order to enter the draw.

Papa John's is the fourth-largest pizza delivery restaurant chain in the United States, operating over 5000 restaurant locations worldwide. The pizza bag giveaway will represent the company's first foray into the NFT market and for this they chose to utilize the environmentally friendly Tezos blockchain in order to distribute the offering.
Papa John's stated:

Most Proof of Work blockchains are very inefficient and wasteful by design. They can use millions of times more energy than modern Proof of Stake blockchains like Tezos. By comparison, creating and trading NFTs on Tezos takes around the same amount of energy as sending an email or a social media post.

Last year big rival Pizza Hut entered the NFT market with their pizza art NFT offering.

People will be able to buy the real-life versions of these bags in an exclusive drop of five real Papa 1984, Papa Cheese Melt and Papa Tag bags which will go on sale via Depop, the fashion marketplace, on 7 March 2022. 

Payvo is coming, and it is going to be our best wallet yet! Read on to find out everything that has changed since our last update, including the transition from a desktop app to a fully web-based application. There is a lot to cover, so let's get straight into it!

#Payvo is Now 100% Web-Based
When we set out to build a next-gen wallet, we had a few key goals in mind:

1. Payvo needs to be the best white label out-of-the-box solution possible.
2. Payvo needs to easily integrate with any ARK-based network.
3. Payvo needs to be user and developer friendly while featuring the intuitive interfaces we have become known for.
4. Payvo needs to be modern and future-proof.
5. If you have spent any time with Web3, then you are probably familiar with the major shift towards web-based interfaces for both DeFi and wallet management. The truth is, desktop applications are outdated, so we need to make sure that we keep up with industry standards and trends. There are a lot of benefits with a move towards a web-based application, so let's take a look at a couple of the most important ones.

#Payvo Will Always be Up-to-Date
One of the most frequent support emails we get is that someone cannot see their funds, or they stopped receiving rewards from their delegate, or that their wallet is, in some way, failing to properly update the network data. In almost all cases, the solution is to update the wallet to the latest version.

With Payvo, you will always be up-to-date, meaning you will no longer have to worry whether you have the most recent version or not—it will just work. Period.

This also means that it is easier for us to push regular updates and make changes without disrupting you as the user. This leads to a better development cycle and an ability to create a more seamless interface for the end user.

#One App, Multiple Operating Systems
With the shift to a web-based application, Payvo will effectively become 'one-size-fits-all.' Whether you are on a desktop, laptop, iPad, or mobile phone, Payvo will provide a unified experience across all of your devices. Simply access the URL, and you are off to the races!

This greatly benefits developers who no longer need to maintain multiple codebases or submit to Apple or Google for approval of the mobile app. This greatly reduces the time required to get your fork up and running and makes maintenance easy.

Not only that, but the web-based application eliminates some of the restrictions caused by the previous use of Electron. This will make some features more efficient and easier to work with (such as web workers). Payvo also loads faster, runs smoother, and generally provides a better experience for both users and developers.

#White Label and Built for ARK
The shift to a web-based application is merely one of the only major changes with Payvo. We have spent a lot of time looking at our goals as a company and have put significant effort into getting back to basics. While we originally envisioned Payvo as a multi-wallet that would support BTC, Ethereum, and other assets, we feel like we need to stay squarely focused on providing the best possible solution for the ARK Ecosystem and those who fork the ARK Blockchain Framework.

As such, our goal is to make Payvo the best possible white-label solution for ARK Based networks and focus on making it plug-and-play within the ecosystem. With this change, we will also be moving away from running 'Live Service' applications directly from the ARK Ecosystem, SCIC. Everything that we build will be freely available as open-source software for anyone to run. We do not want to be the single point of failure nor pick and choose which networks matter the most. We love all of our bridgechains and want to give each and every one of them the opportunity to provide a robust application suite and set of features to their communities.

All we ask is that you leave the license in place, give us credit where credit is due, and if you get famous, give us a shout and let us know all the cool stuff you are doing!

#So When Can We Use Payvo?
We expect to have a public beta version available within the first half of March. The beta version will be fully functional and support the following features:

Fully Customizable Networks - Decide which networks you want to see inside the wallet as well as those you don't want to interact with.
Custom Networks - Add any v2.7+ Core-based network to the Payvo Wallet by providing a valid node address.
Server Management - Add your own custom nodes for interacting and/or broadcasting transactions. You are in full control (if you want to be).
Swap Integration - Payvo will come with built-in integration for both ChangeNow and Changelly at launch.
News Feed - Payvo will feature a news feed powered by FTX (previously Blockfolio) for relevant (listed) networks (only ARK at launch).
We could not be more excited to get Payvo into your hands. We believe these changes make for the best wallet we have ever produced and will provide for a more robust, futureproof white label solution for ARK Based Blockchains. Stay tuned to our blog so you do not miss out on the upcoming Beta. We cannot wait to hear all your feedback!

A Smart Contract Call Record
Contract calls are interactions with smart contracts in the form of transactions. This is an important metric to see growth in the adoption rate of mainnet smart contracts. Since July 2020, the amount of contract calls has increased to 1,209% of the July total.

Every month we've seen a new record in the number of contract calls (except for November, which had a 10% drop).

January saw a 22% increase compared to December. At 22% it sounds ok, but if put this growth into perspective, we see that that 22% is 2.2 times the total amount of contract calls in July last year. We're witnessing exponential growth.

If we're looking at developer activity, we also continue to see growth in activity. In December, we saw an average of 700 daily new deployments on testnets. But in January, we see an average of 930 daily new deployments.

February is set to bring a lot of new launches and milestones.

Edo
The latest protocol upgrade will go live on mainnet in the second week of February. This is a feature-packed upgrade that includes privacy features.

This means that developers can easily integrate privacy into their smart contracts, which will enable them to provide private transactions and develop "privacy-conscious" applications.

Edo also introduces Tickets. Tickets is a convenient mechanism for smart contracts to grant portable permissions to other smart contracts or to issue tokens.

Tickets will be improving challenges like concurrency, which is a general issue developers face, especially in decentralized smart contract platforms.

Tickets also enable a more efficient way of interacting between contracts. It will enable self-custody of first-class coins/token permissions and improve the developer experience.

These are just a few of the advantages Tickets will bring and you can read more about tickets here.

Kalamint
Kalamint is a platform that can be used to create, sell and collect NFT's. Besides the advantage of low Tezos fees over high fees on Ethereum-based NFT platforms, Kalamint will have a unique governance design that includes a Guild.

We'll do an extensive article on Kalamint before they launch the platform on the 18th of February.

TEZEX
TEZEX is a cross-chain gateway to Tezos. It will enable value to come from Ethereum to Tezos DeFi in a few clicks. After that, users can move away from the current fees on Ethereum, and experience a drop in costs that is on average 3,000 times cheaper on Tezos.

When TEZEX launches, another crucial instrument joins the Tezos DeFi landscape.

Quipuswap
This is the second Decentralized Exchange (DEX) that is built on Tezos. Chances are that it will launch in February. This does, however, depend on the progress of the external audit of Quipuswap.

Kolibri
Kolibri is an algorithmic stable coin, built on Tezos and backed by XTZ. A February launch of Kolibri could be a bit optimistic to expect, but a testnet was released in the beginning of January, so there has some significant progress.

1,000,000 accounts
In February, Tezos will quite likely reach the milestone of 1,000,000 funded accounts.

With currently 945,284 funded accounts, and  97,253 new funded accounts in the past 30 days, ~55,000 account are likely to get created this month and break the 1 millionth milestone.

Rentfuse has launched on the Neo N3 TestNet with a demo release of Fusekind Bits NFTs, and is hosting a contest to test the protocol. The contest began at 9:00 p.m. (UTC) on Sunday, Feb. 27, and the goal is for users to complete a lend and borrow cycle using the Rentfuse protocol.

Rentfuse is a protocol that enables NFT owners on Neo N3 to rent out their assets while maintaining ownership control. It allows borrowers to use an NFT for a predetermined period of time in exchange for GAS, without the owner relinquishing custody of the asset.

To participate in the contest, users must connect their NeoLine, O3 Wallet, OneGate, or Neon Wallet to the Neo N3 TestNet, and then obtain TestNet GAS from the Neowish N3 NEO and GAS faucet. Users can then visit www.fusekind.com to mint one of three Bits NFTs: Hopper, Dreamer, or Keeper.

When a participant either rents or lends a Bits NFT, they will receive one of three Bits in return. Users can choose to rent or lend NFTs for as long as they please, with a minimum time frame of one minute.

To rent or lend the Bits NFTs, the participant must then visit www.rentfuse.com and log in with the wallet that was used to mint the initial Bit NFT. Then, select the "Lend" button, input the NFT token ID that can be copied from the Bit NFT after it is minted, and input the rent amount, duration, and collateral amount.

The more cycles that participants complete, the higher their "Bits score," tallied according to the number of Bits NFTs owned. Bits scores at the end of the event will determine the winners, with the total Bits supply limited to one million.

The contest is tentatively planned to run for two weeks, although there is no defined end date at time of press.

A federal grand jury in San Diego has indicted the founder of one of the largest scams in the digital currency space, charging him with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodity price manipulation, and international money laundering. Satish Kumbhani, the founder of digital asset mega scam BitConnect, faces up to 70 years behind bars if convicted of all the charges.

The San Diego court claimed in its indictment that Kumbhani misled investors about BitConnect's Lending Program. Under this program, the 36-year-old and his cronies allegedly told investors that they could generate guaranteed returns by using their investment funds to trade on the volatility of the digital asset markets, authorities said. They touted the 'BitConnect Trading Bot' and its proprietary 'Volatility Software' as being able to generate guaranteed returns.

The project collapsed in early 2018, and it was outed as a massive Ponzi scheme in which Kumbhani and his co-conspirators used later investors' money to pay off the early investors. They were able to raise $2.4 billion from investors before the project sank, according to investigators.

The indictment further alleges that after shutting down the Lending Program, Kumbhani directed his network of promoters to artificially and fraudulently manipulate and prop up the price of the BitConnect Coin (BCC), the project's native token. This gave the impression that the token was in high demand and increased its price.

To cover their tracks, the BitConnect leaders allegedly comingled and exchanged users' funds through their cluster of digital currency wallets, concealing the location and control of the funds.

Throughout the length of their operation, the BitConnect operators were aware but willfully ignored all the relevant regulations, authorities said. These include operating a money transmitting business through its exchange without registering with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which violates the Bank Secrecy Act.

In his comments, Eric Smith, the Special Agent in Charge of FBI's Cleveland Field Office, warned digital asset scammers that the FBI would pursue criminals who turn to digital assets to conceal their schemes.

"Dressing up a tried and true fraud scheme with a new twist and basing it overseas will not deter the resolve and dedication of the FBI to meticulously investigate and bring such fraudsters to justice."

The IRS, the Justice Department's Criminal Division, and the Southern District of California's Attorney's office all shot a warning to digital asset scammers as well, reminding them that the industry isn't beyond the scope of the law.

The indictment charges Kumbhani with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodity price manipulation, conspiracy to commit international money laundering, and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Kumbhani, from Hemal in India, could spend up to 70 years behind bars if convicted of all the charges.

As CoinGeek recently reported, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals recently sided with victims of BitConnect, giving them the green light to pursue a class-action lawsuit against the project's promoters. The Southern District of Florida had tossed the lawsuit after the promoters had argued that the Securities Act of 1933 doesn't encompass solicitation conducted through online mass media means.

In its ruling, the appellate court pointed out that the Act doesn't impose a limitation on the means of solicitation, nor does any precedent ever set in the court.

"Because the Securities Act provides no free pass for online solicitations, we reverse the district court's dismissal of the section 12 claim," Judge Britt Grant ruled.

Follow CoinGeek's Crypto Crime Cartel series, which delves into the stream of groups—a from BitMEX to Binance, Bitcoin.com, Blockstream, ShapeShift, Coinbase, Ripple, Ethereum,
FTX and Tether—who have co-opted the digital asset revolution and turned the industry into a minefield for naïve (and even experienced) players in the market.

SINGAPORE, Jan 28, 2022 - (ACN Newswire) - 2021 was a huge year for the cryptocurrency market, with huge strides in growth and adoption of digital assets, NFTs, and blockchain worldwide. It was also an incredible year for Moonstake as we rose to the top rankings of global staking providers, reaching a total staking assets of $1.8 billion thanks to the support of our users and partners worldwide. As we begin the new year 2022, Moonstake as well as our strategic coin partners have many exciting news and programs in store for you as our platforms scale and evolve. To welcome our user community into the exciting new year, we're creating a series of articles in collaboration with our strategic partner on what you need to know about our partner coins in the year 2022, this time with Tezos.

Since August 2020, Moonstake has been supporting XTZ staking via strategic partnership with TZ Ventures, a Tezos-centric blockchain startup combinator from South Korea supported by the Tezos Foundation. Since then, Moonstake has hosted a number of campaigns that promoted awareness of the Tezos ecosystem as well as adoption of XTZ staking to global users.

Mainstream adoption of crypto reached an all-time high in 2021 and Tezos was one of the biggest players. Household names include Ubisoft, Red Bull, McLaren, The Grammy Awards, Groupe Casino, Whitney Houston, Doja Cat, Linkin Park, Cambridge University, The Catholic Church, UN Migration Agency, Deloitte, Save the Children, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and many more have started building on Tezos network. This has resulted in major growth on Tezos in the realms of NFTs, DeFi, and DApps. By the end of 2021, Tezos recorded over 33 million contract calls on mainnet with 24.5 million transactions being NFT related. In this article, we will be interviewing our partner at TZ Ventures about what is in store for the Tezos ecosystem and its user community in 2022.

Q1 Which 2021 achievements are you the most proud of?

We are very proud of and still support (tech consulting) our incubating firms who received funding - 1 Seed, 1 Series A, 1 Series B funding were secured in 2021. We are also cooperating with prominent projects in the game, NFT, K-pop and fin-tech industries and have signed numerous blockchain research MOUs. Additionally, we are currently incubating established companies in the metaverse and NFT space - projects projected to be the next big thing in Asia.

Q2 What measures are you going to take in 2022 to further increase adoption of Tezos?

Firstly, we will focus on assisting projects in applying for and receiving Tezos Foundation Grants - more than US$2.5 million in funding for over 200 projects in at least eight countries has been granted since Q2 2021. Also, We will leverage the focus of the Tezos Foundation as it positioned itself as the blockchain popular for developers and creators of NFTs: Most notably in Tezos, music NFT platforms such as Quincy Jones-backed OneOf and AmplifyX, as well as art NFT marketplace Hic et Nunc among many built on Tezos. Formula One teams Red Bull Honda Racing and McLaren Racing are also partnering with Tezos to build and create NFTs for fan engagement.

Q3 What can users expect from Tezos in 2022?

As stated previously, you can expect a faster turnaround in the Tezos Foundation Grants process. Also, NFTs will flourish on the Tezos network due to the blockchain's energy-efficient design and lower gas fees.

Moonstake is proud to be strategic partners of TZ Ventures. We will continue to maintain strong support for the ever growing and developing Tezos ecosystem and hope to bring even more great value to XTZ and crypto users worldwide in 2022 to help accelerate adoption of the Tezos and Moonstake ecosystems together.

About Moonstake

As a world-leading staking service provider, Moonstake develops and operates decentralized wallet services for enterprises and end users.

Our full-scale staking business started in August 2020. With the support of users all over the world, our total staking assets has risen to 1.8 billion dollars. In June 2021, we ranked third among 15,000 staking providers globally.

So far, we have expanded our business and ecosystem through about 30 strategic partnerships, including major blockchains such as Emurgo which is a constituent organization of Cardano, TRON, and NEO. In May 2021, we became a wholly owned subsidiary of the listed company "OIO Holdings Limited" on the Singapore Stock Exchange and we are working to further expand Moonstake's business and improve our credibility.

Neo community developer Robert Oschler has won second place in the SocialFi category of the Metaverse Alliance hackathon. Oschler's project, Neo3D Live, is a 3D metaverse world that allows users to interact with one another's avatars and participate in events like real-time auctions.

Oschler developed Neo3D Live so that anyone in any part of the world can access the 3D world, regardless of their ability to purchase powerful equipment. Neo3D Live was designed for most of the world's internet users – those without VR headsets or high-end equipment. He said:

Let Metaverse residents form meaningful connections in a virtual world that will run on common hardware, including the millions of smartphones that may be the only link to the Metaverse a citizen in an economically disadvantaged region has. This is a link that has the true power to uplift the millions, if not billions of hard-working, intelligent, decent human beings who have the misfortune of being born in a region that is not economically gifted like other parts of the world.

The platform leverages the ThreeJS graphics library, a graphics engine that is widely accessible. Neo3D Live runs on almost any browser and device, so there is no need for high-powered computer setups.

The platform's beta version allows users to congregate in a digital 3D environment. Real-time video conferencing is embedded into the moveable characters, so participants can see those they're communicating with via live video feed. Oschler said, "By combining true video conferencing where participants can see each other's faces as they talk to one another and move about a fun virtual world, people can once again feel the natural human joy of forming groups based on both social and spatial relationships like they would at a party or a shopping mall."

Oschler also incorporated other elements to make the space feel more natural and interactive. In Neo3D Live, intelligent objects are embedded in the virtual world, responding to an avatar's presence. For example, walking up to a wall with an embedded YouTube video will trigger the video to begin playing. And to create a more real-life experience, a user can hear the sounds of their movements and that of others around them.

NFT Showcase
The first demo of Neo3D Live included the NFT Showcase, a custom room where an individual can purchase an NFT on auction. A demonstration of the live auction can be found below:

The NFT designer can determine who can participate in the Showcase by whitelisting public wallet addresses on Neo N3.

The Neo3D Live smart contract supports derivative commissions, so collectors can earn profits when they sell an artist's NFTs if the artist grants them that right. Further, Oschler intends the NFTs bought and sold through Neo3D Live to be viewable and transferable via third-party marketplaces (i.e., Sky Hut, GhostMarket).

Looking forward, he aims to develop and release a drag-and-drop toolkit (that doesn't require coding ability), so anyone can build a virtual world.

The Indian government has proposed taxing income from cryptocurrencies and other digital assets at 30%. India's finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, said: "There's been a phenomenal increase in transaction in virtual digital assets … The magnitude and frequency of these transactions have made it imperative to provide for a specific tax regime."

30% on Crypto Income
Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed taxing income from cryptocurrencies and other digital assets at 30% while presenting the federal budget Tuesday. She said:

I propose to provide that any income from transfer of any virtual digital asset shall be taxed at the rate of 30%. No deduction in respect of any expenditure or allowance shall be allowed while computing such income, except the cost of acquisition.

"There's been a phenomenal increase in transaction in virtual digital assets," the finance minister added. "The magnitude and frequency of these transactions have made it imperative to provide for a specific tax regime."

The tax proposal puts cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in India's highest tax band.

Harish Prasad, head of banking, India, FIS, was quoted as saying: "This has been a much awaited announcement in the context of the interest and growth in investments into these assets. The uncertainty and concerns on the legal, regulatory and taxation status of cryptocurrencies are addressed to a reasonable extent by virtue of this announcement."

Avinash Shekhar, the CEO of crypto exchange Zebpay, commented:

Thirty percent tax on income from virtual digital assets, while high, is a positive step as it legitimizes crypto and hints at an optimistic sentiment towards further acceptance of crypto and NFTs.

Nischal Shetty, the CEO of crypto exchange Wazirx, commented: "We also hope this development removes any ambiguity for banks and they can provide financial services to the crypto industry."

However, tax consultants warned that individuals could end up paying more than 30% of their crypto profits in tax and other charges. Amit Maheshwari, partner at tax consulting firm AKM Global, told Reuters: "If you made a profit of 100 rupees then including the 30% tax bracket, plus surcharge and cess the total tax outgo will be around 42 rupee."

Another announcement the Indian finance minister made Tuesday was about the launch of the country's central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital rupee. She said the central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), will introduce a digital currency starting in the financial year 2022-23, stating:

The introduction of a central bank digital currency will give a big boost to the digital economy. Digital currency will also lead to a more efficient and cheaper currency management system."

Tezos has secured a partnership with French esports giant Team Vitality. The three-year deal aims to bring Team Vitality closer to its fans than ever before by leveraging Tezos' energy-efficient blockchain.

Tezos Enters Esports Space
Tezos has entered into another game-changing partnership.

The Layer 1 blockchain, which prides itself on energy efficiency, announced a three-year partnership with French esports organization Team Vitality Thursday. Although details about what the partnership entails are still vague, Team Vitality stated that the deal would "revolutionize" its fan experience.

As part of the new deal, Team Vitality explained that the collaboration would help educate their fans on the benefits of blockchain as part of the gaming experience and showcase the advancements of these technologies. Additionally, the organization's CEO Nicolas Maurer explained what the partnership would mean for the esports team, stating:

"This is truly a game-changing partnership for Vitality, which feels appropriate given 2022 is set to be the biggest year in our history. The opportunities Tezos can bring to strengthen the relationship between us and our fans is incredibly exciting, and we're immensely proud to have Tezos join us on this journey."

For Tezos, the partnership appears to include brand visibility, possibly in the form of sponsorship logos on Team Vitality players' jerseys. "Tezos will be represented by top-performing Team Vitality rosters and star athletes and through unrivaled brand visibility across the esports ecosystem," Team Vitality said in a press release.

Last year, Tezos signed several major partnerships to boost its visibility. In June, Tezos made deals with Formula One racing teams McLaren and Red Bull Racing to launch collectible NFTs. Both teams stated that Tezos' low carbon footprint factored into partnering with the blockchain.

Last month, video game developer Ubisoft announced it would be launching NFTs on the Tezos-based Quartz platform, only to be hit with severe backlash from the gaming community. Despite this, Ubisoft put out a statement confirming that it will still pursue non-fungible tokens, explaining that the move is "a major change that will take time."

Despite attracting a lot of attention from brands, Tezos has otherwise struggled to gain significant momentum in the crypto space in recent months while other competing Layer 1 blockchains have seen huge growth. Musicians, artists, and art collectors appear to be some of the blockchain's biggest enthusiasts (besides Ethereum, Tezos is arguably the biggest hub for digital art NFTs, and it's also hosted NFT collections from the likes of Mike Shinoda and Doja Cat).  

Through its new partnership with Team Vitality, Tezos will be hoping to attract a new demographic of esports fans. However, after how poorly Ubisoft's foray into NFTs was received, whether Team Vitality's fans will be receptive remains to be seen. 

What is multi-signature?
Multi-signature, also known as Multi-sig, which is a digital signature that allows multiple users to sign one transaction. To address in a simpler way, an account that is owned, managed, signed by more than one party.

In most cases, there is only one private key that manages a single account, which we call it 1/1. Multi-sig is different, it goes m/n, "n" refers to the amount of private keys that are authorized to sign for the account, transactions only take effect when the number of signatures reaches to "m". In this case, "m" must be less than or equal to "n".

How is Multi-sig applied in cases
Multi-signature has many use cases in account authority management.

Assets management
Multi-sig greatly enhances security level by allowing multiple people managing one account using different private keys, which lowers the risks of assets being attacked.

Redundancy
By managing one account with Multi-signatures, even if one of the signatories lost the private key, the rest of them can still get access to the account that is being protected by multi-sig.

Department Authorization
A matter that must be approved and signed by multiple departments before it takes effects. Every signature can be traced and it is transparent to all parties.

Assets that supported by NULS Multi-signature
Our multi-sig comes as a DApp, which is compatible to NULS and NerveNetwork blockchain The Multi-sig DApp can be used to manage NULS and Nerve mainnet asset , also including assets bridged from Ethereum/Polygon/Arbitrum/BSC/Heco/OEC/Cronos and other blockchains to NULS through NerveBridge(currently not compatible with NRC20 assets )

A quick starter on NULS Multi-sig DApp
How to use Multi-sig DApp in NULS network

Connect Wallet
To get access to multi-sig DApp, connect wallet by Nabox or Metamask.
Click & Down extension wallet here.

NULS POCM (Proof of Credit Mining) platform was established in July 2019, the number of our SCO partners has increased 10 times within 2 years. Some of the SCO projects such as ALEPH, GGTK, SmaugsNFT have accomplished amazing progress with the community support provided by NULS in their early phase, our SCO investors also gained quite good profits participating in the SCO projects. We are very happy to witness this double win situation and we, the NULS team, will keep moving forward to provide more benefits for our SCO partners and NULS investors.
NULS POCM is probably one of the simplest ways to invest in the initial market without any financial risks. Investors stake NULS in our POCM platform to earn tokens from our SCO projects.

There are 2 ways to participate in our SCO projects now:
Stake in SCO projects on web wallet（https://pocm.nuls.io）
Stake in SCO projects on Nabox mobile Wallet. Download Nabox: (https://nabox.io)

We have been continuously receiving suggestions and feedback from our community members and SCO partners and investors ever since the POCM platform was established, to provide a better user experience, we have now updated our product in the following aspects:
Crossed-chain assets will be able to create POCM directly. New SCO projects investors no longer need to swap tokens on NeerveDEX (https://nervedex.com)
SCO projects creators give extra rewards to node owners according to their own wills.
SCO staking APR will be seen on the POCM page.

POCM page will show the current staking details such as the amount of NULS staked, the profits earned, etc
We reconstructed the staking logic.
Useless nodes will be deleted automatically to improve user experience.

NULS POCM staking platform now supports projects from ETH, BSC, NULS, Heco, OEC, Polygon, KCC, Tron, Harmony. We will be adding more diversities in the future to meet various needs from users.
About NULS POCM

POCM (Proof of Credit Mining) is an SCO Platform that allows projects to use smart-contracts to issue and distribute project tokens on blockchains. Got NULS? Stake into a project's nodes and earn their token as reward, while the project earns NULS as reward. Projects can use the NULS consensus rewards to bootstrap and help fund development. Unlike IEOs and ICOs, stakers never risk their principal, and NULS never leave their wallet. Earn project tokens while your device is off! As a universal SCO Platform, POCM can be used to issue and distribute tokens and assets from any public chain in any blockchain ecosystem.

The fourth installment of the From Ethereum to Neo video series by community developer Robert Oschler has been released. This resource for new Neo developers was launched following a grant from Neo News Today and is intended to help onboard existing Ethereum builders.

Lesson four looks at the payment processing flow on Neo N3, including a dive into the onNep17Payment functionality, context regarding how decimals are handled in tokens, and how to validate access to contract methods with CheckWitness.

Developers interested in joining future interactive labs for the series can sign up for the mailing list here. The video series should be watched in order and can be easily viewed via the provided playlist.

What Is Payvo Wallet?
Payvo Wallet is a desktop-based multi-asset cryptocurrency wallet designed for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. While many wallets already exist on the market, Payvo is unique in that it is completely open-source, runs on the open-source Payvo SDK for multi-asset integration, and features a wide range of customizations that let you truly personalize your wallet experience.

#A Truly Open Wallet
The Payvo Wallet is fully open-source and will be available on GitHub. The Payvo SDK which powers the multi-asset nature of Payvo is also completely open-source and available on GitHub. We believe that the best way to push the industry forward is to build fully open-source and decentralized systems with no compromises.

By utilizing the Payvo SDK, we can integrate a wide range of different cryptoassets and tokens which will be seamlessly integrated with the entire Payvo suite of products. To find out how you can get your project added to the Payvo SDK, make sure to read our documentation .

#Powered by Choice
The Payvo Wallet is unique in that it was built to empower the user by giving them a plethora of options to customize their wallet. That includes but is not limited to:

Choice of Assets - Payvo Wallet is multi-asset and will feature a growing list of available native assets and tokens.
Choice of Swap Engine (Exchanges) - Payvo Wallet will feature a wide range of swap engine integrations so that the user can choose which one works the best for them.
Choice of Plugins - Payvo Wallet comes will a fully functioning Plugin Manager that allows you to extend the functionality of the wallet to include Games, Explorers, Staking Calculators, and more.
We believe that your crypto wallet shouldn't be one-size-fits-all. Payvo Wallet is built from the ground up to truly give the user a custom experience through the power of choice.

#Public Alpha Details
The Initial 'Alpha' version of Payvo Wallet will be released in the upcoming weeks on our Discord . This will be a community-only release to get valuable feedback, get suggestions for improvements and fix all reported bugs. This version will support ARK (Public and Development Network), BIND (Public and Development Network) and LISK (Public and Testnet network). New networks will be gradually added over time (listed in alphabetical order):

Avalanche (AVAX)
Bitcoin (BTC)
Cardano (ADA)
Cosmos (ATOM)
Ethereum (ETH)
Nano (NANO)
Polkadot (DOT)
Ripple (XRP)
Solana (SOL)
Stellar (XLM)
TRON (TRON)
Most of these coins already have full support in our Payvo SDK (PSDK)  but will be added over time to the Payvo Wallet to ensure proper testing prior to their release.

#Payvo Wallet Sneak Peek

RedRunner is a popular open-source game developed by BayatGames and is an Infinite Running type game developed using the Unity 3D Gaming Engine.

To demonstrate the utility of Stratis' Unity SDK, Stratis has taken the RedRunner game and made modifications to incorporate the below features:

Non-Custodial Wallet
NFT Minting
Play-as-You-Earn (The further you travel, the more SRC20 you receive)
A gamer is rewarded for playing the Stratis RedRunner game. The RRT (RedRunner Tokens) Tokens are awarded to users depending on how far they travel and how many coins they collect. In addition, CRS (Cirrus Tokens) can be received and transferred within the game too.

The Stratis Edition of RedRunner can be downloaded from our GitHub repository via the below link.

https://github.com/stratisproject/StratisRedRunner/releases

Please join the Discord Server and let us know of your progress and thoughts on the game!