The Daily Degen - Beating Back the Bear
The newsletter/magazine for and by the IOTA community
From the editorial desk …
[ - by DigitalSoul.x ]
Let's face it: the IOTA token price is shit right now. It's dropped ~90% from its recent highs and hopium is in short supply. The IF is restructuring and adopting a lean, research-focussed approach which leads one to question their financial standing. With no ETAs given, we don't even have Shimmer to look forward to in the very near term, since it is still in alpha and may need a couple of more months for beta testing before release is possible. If you follow the macro crypto news closely and watch the prices daily, you are probably in a deep depression now and wondering where you went wrong in your crypto investing analysis. But don't submit that McDonalds job application yet...
Listen, I'm as disappointed in the token price as you are, but it's important to keep the big picture in mind. This precipitous drop isn't isolated to IOTA; all alts are similarly down. Bitcoin is sitting around $19000 at the time of writing, and it's dragged everything with it. This isn't the first time we've experienced a 90% drop if you've been around since 2017. It just shows that we're still at the mercy of the market and haven't decoupled (yet). Personally I already have some low bids on exchange, waiting to be filled. As counter-intuitive as is sounds, I'm hoping for slightly lower prices because you get so much more IOTA for your money!
Regarding the IF's restructuring announcement, I'll admit that the timing was not the best. With the token price having dropped so much, it sounded like a desperate attempt to conserve funds when I first read the headline. But after digging deeper the blog post states that this process was initiated about 6 months ago and is only now being announced. So what could be spun off? Well it's clear that the team researching IOTA 2.0 will remain with the IF, but perhaps we'll see the IOTA Streams, IOTA Identity, and Firefly teams spun off to name a few. These new spin-off entities can adopt a much more flexible regulatory framework, allowing former IF employees to work much closer with community ecosystem initiatives, perhaps even as core team members! The spin-off entities may be able to accept outside VC investment, spurring innovation and slashing development time as more devs are hired. Of course this is all spec at the moment, but the more I think about it, the more incredibly bullish I think this move is. And yes, Shimmer may not arrive until the end of the summer, but that just gives us more time to pack our bags before the shuttle launch to the moon. There are so many projects waiting to launch on Shimmer that it will be impossible to keep up. It's already getting tough to stay up to date with all of the developments and my list of Discord memberships is completely out of hand. We are considering moving to bi-weekly Daily Degen issues once Shimmer launches, just to try to keep them short and succinct!
Lastly, I'd like to discuss a bit of investing psychology. I think it's important to keep in mind WHY we're invested in IOTA. On the one hand, sure, we all are here to make money. But is that it? Is money everything? For me, I wouldn't personally make an investment in a company that squandered natural resources, promoted child labor, or did not limit their pollution and impact on the environment, for example. I believe that I have an ethical responsibility to support projects that will make the world a better place, and that's one of the main reasons that I'm here. IOTA can eliminate the waste of other blockchains, reduce pollution, preserve our natural resources, open financial services to the unbanked and smooth communication between humans and machines to generally make life easier. The bottom line is that the world that has IOTA as the king of DLTs is the one I want to live in, and that gives me confidence in my investment choice. Even in the worst case and if IOTA failed, at least I followed my heart and put my money in the technology that I felt had the best chance of making a positive impact on the world.
In “soon”, we trust:
AMA with Dominik Schiener (7 July, 2022)
Did you, for any reason, miss out on Dom’s AMA last week? Fear not, Linus has a ball-by-ball recap on the IOTA subreddit, which you can read here.
Q6: Are you satisfied with Coordicide solution? What is still missing?
Dom: "We´re 90% there.”
Last points to be ironed out:
- Congestion control/aMana currently discussed (see Hans Moog’s recent blogpost). Answers expected in a couple of weeks based on tests and simulations.
- Incentives to use protocol need to be defined (Maybe inflation to reward participation and honest behavior)
- Community will be involved in these discussions
You should also check out the article Ratification of the EPCIS 2.0 Standard on the official IOTA blog.
TL;DR: EPCIS 2.0 has finally been ratified by GS1 Member Organizations across the world. It is a unified language for sharing supply chain data on a decentralized basis by multiple actors and can be used with IOTA as a trust anchor for the authenticity, immutability, and non-repudiation of its data. Digital Product Passports (DPPs) are one of the key applications of EPCIS 2.0, making interoperability possible as mandated by new proposed EU regulations on batteries and sustainable products.
FUD of the month: Controversies, Confusions, and Clarifications
[Editor’s note: In this section, we highlight certain confusions and controversies in the community. Our goal is not to inflame the situation further or to take sides, but to offer a platform for the relevant parties to present their side of the story. In this edition, Tamasik and and DigitalSoul.x present the controversy around the proposal to increase the supply of Shimmer.]
Proposal to increase the Shimmer supply by 20%
FUD overview: Kappy (@Rob_Daykin) raised a proposal on the IOTA governance forum (govern.iota.org — a forum that everyone should follow, by the way). The proposal, which you can read here, proposes to increase the Shimmer (SMR) supply by 20%, to help boost ecosystem growth. In the current proposal, half of these new tokens will go to the EDF for the IF to allocate as they see fit while the other half will go to a Community DAO for the community to allocate. There are ongoing discussions about how this DAO should be organized in the Governance channels of the IOTA Discord, and all interested parties are invited to contribute. This proposal will need to be voted on before Shimmer launches, because to increase the supply afterward would require a hard fork. We all know how difficult it can be to coordinate these forks with node owners and particularly exchanges (remember the Chrysalis launch?) We should expect another Firefly governance vote to determine the future Shimmer supply soon.
The core of the the opposition’s point of view is that it is an unwarranted dilution — a theft of holdings. People held onto their IOTA tokens and didn’t sell, even with falling prices, because they were earning SMR (and ASMB) from their staked IOTA. It’s not fully clear how the “stolen” funds will be used, which projects will be funded by the new treasury, and how much the dilution (and consequent treasury) will bolster the ecosystem or pump the token price. “Don’t touch the supply” is what some are saying. Others are questioning giving the EDF half of the newly-generated tokens. In effect, this is taking tokens from the community and giving them to the IF.
The vocal majority seems to be on the side of accepting the proposal, however. We got in touch with the proposer himself, and he was gracious enough to answer our questions. You can read about his defense of the proposal as well as what he considers the main points of contention, here.
Community Member Spotlight: Dutch (@wiredutch)
[Editor’s note: In this edition, _tamasik_ from The Daily Degen has a few questions for WireDutch — who has been quite vocal (and aggressive) in calling out fake NFT projects. Do write to us if you have someone special in mind that we should contact soon.]
Click the link below to read the full interview with WireDutch, the punisher of scammy NFT projects.
SCAM ALERT! (though not necessarily always so)
First-glance telltale signs:
(a) NFTs that are made up of collages i.e. a collection of images that make up the whole but don’t quite seem to fit together in colour, style, quality and so on.
(b) The artwork is really good, and I mean really good such that it warrants a further look. Sounds counter intuitive, but go with your gut feeling on this.
(c) There is something recognizable about the artwork that you can’t quite put your finger on.
What’s new in Moonaco?
[Editor’s note: In this edition, ICCD member Mart summarizes a couple recent episodes of The Moonaco Podcast. ]
Moonaco Podcast 29: In this episode, Thomas was joined by Benjamin from the ETO Group.
ETO Group is active in many different sectors, for example in the field of commercial vehicles and automotive industry products. They have locations around the world and currently about 2500 people work for the ETO Group.
They found out about IOTA by a “lucky incident” in 2020, when Benjamin met Markus Hoppa from Filancore and attended a panel discussion about IOTA. The reason they build with IOTA technology today, is simple. They need a feeless, scalable and secure platform for their business cases. They reviewed other DLT protocols but saw the biggest potential in IOTA.
ETO Group hopes to release their first product, agricultural, solar-powered sensors for farmers towards the end of 2022. This product will feature different sensors for soil or weather conditions. The data will be verified with IOTA technology and farmers can freely decide what they want to do with their data. They can use the sensors to get trustworthy data, they can sell their data on a market place or they can just buy data from other participants.
ETO Group is also involved in other IOTA related projects, namely the ALFRIED project which aims to enhance and optimize traffic infrastructure.
Regarding the IOTA token: ETO Group received an early version of the Firefly mobile wallet about 7-8 months ago. When their agricultural sensors launch, participants will not only be able to buy / sell data with FIAT, but also with IOTA. Nobody will be forced to complete KYC processes or buy tokens on an exchange though. Benjamin said it will be a little surprise, but they think they found an interesting solution that makes everything as easy as possible, even for people who aren’t as familiar with technology.
Podcast 31: In this episode, Thomas was joined by Chip, core team member of Apeswap and co-founder of ApeLabs
At the start of June, Chip held a DeFi-course in cooperation with Tanglesea and ApeDAO. If you are interested in learning more about DeFi you can have a look at the courses at ApeLabs.
In the podcast, Chip talked about DeFi in general, what the advantages and disadvantages are and how the implementation of DeFi can affect the IOTA Token. The traditional financial system is outdated and DeFi can revolutionize finances. An educated market and educated builders are key for a working DeFi space, therefore ApeLabs was founded.
What is DeFi? DeFi is a better term for financial transactions running on blockchains and describes all financial activities without any intermediaries or custody. Instead DeFi uses Smart Contracts.
What are the advantages of DeFi? DeFi is 24/7 accessible, available and permissionless. Furthermore it provides a way to escape the surveillance systems in the first world. So it brings back the power of finance to the people.
Are there any disadvantages? Chip says that the biggest problem with DeFi is that you need to have knowledge of what you are doing since transactions on blockchains are final. He also talked about the security issues with DeFi. Here are some tips on how to stay safe in the DeFi space according to Chip: don’t fall for phishing links, keep your private keys safe and always do your own research!
For the Degens out there: Chip sees a ton of demand for the IOTA Token as soon as DeFi activities like Dapps and DEXs are implemented in the IOTA ecosystem. Although it might take some more time until IOTA is broadly adopted, Chip ensures that the time waiting is worth it.
Mart also informs us that he, alongside the rest of the community, is super hyped about SpecWeekly:
If you are interested in news around the IOTA ecosystem, presented in a unique and fresh way, check out SpecWeekly. Spec Channel's very own Kutkraft covers topics from every corner of the ecosystem, GAIA-X, Nedo, Project Alvarium, you name it. Filled with original Speculation-channel magic and degen attitude, you will love his sense of humour and you will also learn a lot about important IOTA partnerships and projects.
Check out the latest episode that released this Friday:
We are also ever inspired by the Tangle Report, by Digidus Prime.
And that’s a wrap! Please like, share, smash that subscribe… or better yet, join us! Do you love to write? Passionate about the IOTA ecosystem? Do you have a project to share? Master at making memes?
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Special thanks and honourable mentions to all the hardworking ICCD degens who contributed (in the form of written, editorial, design, advisory, and memetic support) to this edition: DigitalSoul.x (Rob), Mart, WaywardRaspberry (Surfyce), Linus Naumann, Pathin, and tamasik, as well as Wiredutch, Kappy, CryptoVam, and Durerus.
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