Pastel Quizzo Referral Challenge

Posted on May 23, 2023May 23, 2023 by Tiffany Behnam

Hey there, Pastel Fam!
We’re adding some extra fun into our bi-weekly Quizzos! For our next 4 events, we’re introducing the Quizzo Referral Challenge for our existing community members to earn bonus rewards.

Why add more excitement? We want to celebrate our loyal community and show our appreciation in addition to our standard Quizzo prizes.

Here’s the gist of the Quizzo Referral Challenge:

👫 Invite up to 5 friends to join our Discord community.

📌 Have them actively participate (along with yourself) in 1 of our next 4 Quizzos — that means joining in and answering all the quiz questions. See schedule below.

📌 If you and your referral make it through 1 of the next 4 Quizzos, you’ll earn extra bonuses!

💰 Bonus: Earn 5 USDT for each approved referral (up to 25 USDT in total!). You and your referrals are still eligible for our ongoing Quizzo rewards.

🔔 The first Quizzo of the Referral Challenge will kick-off this Thursday 5/18 at 12pm EST on our Quizzo Discord Channel.

NOTE: To be eligible for the Quizzo Referral Challenge bonus, you must be an active member of our Discord Server prior to 5/18 at 12pm EST.

Quizzo Details
Our popular bi-weekly Quizzo events remain the same — a fun-filled session our Discord Quizzo Channel where you answer questions about Pastel Network and earn points towards your final score. The top 3 community members from each event with the most points will earn PSL airdrops!

🥇 First Place = 50,000 PSL

🥈 Second Place = 25,000 PSL

🥉 Third Place = 10,000 PSL

With the new Referral Challenge, you have an opportunity to earn more!

Referral Challenge Bonus Details

Are you ready to earn more rewards? As outlined above:

👫 Invite your friends to our Discord server.

🎮 Ensure you and your referrals actively participate in 1 of the next 4 Quizzos.

💰 For every approved referral, you’ll receive a bonus of 5 USDT.

NOTE #1: You can refer only up to 5 friends and win a maximum of 25 USDT.

NOTE #2: Must be an existing community member to refer.

Quizzo Schedule
Mark your calendars for the next 4 Quizzos! You and your referrals need to participate in order to receive the Referral Bonuses.

Quizzo 1: Thursday 5/18/2023–12pm EST

Quizzo 2: Thursday 6/1/2023–12pm EST

Quizzo 3: Thursday 6/15/2023–12pm EST

Quizzo 4: Thursday 6/29/2023–12pm EST

Questions about the Quizzo Referral Challenge? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us in the Quizzo Channel on our Discord Server.

Get ready to join us this Thursday 5/18 at 12pm EST for the first Quizzo of this exciting Referral Challenge! Let’s get quizzical!

About Pastel Network
Pastel Network is a fully decentralized, developer-friendly layer-1 blockchain serving as the preeminent protocol standard for non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”) and Web3 technology.

Pastel allows for the development of third-party decentralized-applications (“DApps”) to sit on top of its Network, enabling developers to enjoy the scalable registration features, storage processes, and security of the broader ecosystem. Lightweight protocols such as Sense — which was built to assess the relative rareness of a given NFT against near-duplicate metadata — and Cascade — which conducts permanent, distributed storage of underlying NFT data — can be integrated cross-chain across various layer-1 blockchains, layer-2 protocols, or other third-party apps.

Pastel is managed by world-class developers, cryptographers, and technologists, supported alongside an experienced and extensive network of marketers, influencers, and third-party agencies. Pastel is backed by key stakeholders including Innovating Capital, a prominent venture fund.

For more information on Pastel Network, visit https://pastel.network/.

Blur’s NFT Market Domination

Posted on May 22, 2023May 23, 2023 by Tiffany Behnam

Blur.io has taken the NFT marketplace by storm since its launch in October 2022. The platform has quickly become the largest trading platform for NFTs by volume, with a user-friendly interface that caters more to professional NFT traders than retail users.

Unlike other marketplaces, Blur offers batch shelf and floor-sweeping transactions in addition to order book NFT transactions, allowing traders to make batch operations more conveniently (buying NFTs with the lowest price at once). Buyers can not only browse NFTs on Blur but also on other NFT marketplaces and place orders directly through Blur with instant liquidity.

In terms of fees, Blur has a very trader-friendly fee structure and does not charge any transaction fees for users on the platform. In terms of royalties, which are mandatory for a certain percentage of secondary transactions on other marketplaces, Blur recommends a default royalty rate of 0.5% for buyers. However, this can be customized and even set to 0 if the user wishes. Overall, Blur.io offers a more convenient and cost-effective platform for professional NFT traders.

Blur was founded by PacmanBlur, an MIT-graduate and member of the Peter Thiel Fellowship. The product was built in conjunction with support from leading venture capitalists, such as Paradigm. The platform recently completed its $BLUR token airdrop after Season 1 of the incentivization program finished. Users were rewarded ‘Care Packages’ for providing liquidity and trading on the platform, which were available to be opened on the 14th of February. Some traders earned up to $3 million in $BLUR tokens and the project launched at an eye-watering $400 million valuation.

Blur has minted 3 billion BLUR tokens, which will be made accessible over 4 to 5 years. The token allocation is divided into 51% for the community, 29% for past and future core contributors, 19% for investors, and 1% for advisors. A community treasury of 360m BLUR tokens, equivalent to 12% of the total token supply, can be claimed by NFT traders, historical users of Blur, and creators.

The community treasury will distribute 39% of the BLUR supply through contributor grants, community initiatives, and incentive programs, with 10% allocated to the next incentive release. The vesting of BLUR tokens will occur continuously according to a set schedule for each group of token recipients.

Blur has grown to become the largest NFT Marketplace in the world with the help of their incentives program. It has successfully flipped OpenSea within 6 months of release due to its user-friendly UI, low fees, and deeper liquidity for NFTs. The platform boasts impressive stats with over 400,000 active users and $1.4 billion in traded volume according to Dune Analytics.

The Blur platform runs ten times faster than other NFT aggregators, displays the pending transactions on the NFT in less than one second, and updates the list every four seconds. The fast display of pending transactions, together with the nearly real-time metadata update on the collection art display, constitutes a huge advantage for users who want to quickly come in and out. In addition, Blur’s gas priority preset can help traders to outperform the competitors who purchase NFT through other exchanges or aggregators. Most importantly, the contract in Blur is more optimized than that in other markets, saving up to 17% on gas fees.

Another popular feature of Blur is that it can clearly show the rarity of different NFTs and the floor price under specific attributes. Rather than using sales history or a series list to evaluate NFTs that are priced higher than the floor price, Blur’s platform instead searches for the lowest priced NFTs based on their individual characteristics. This function can greatly simplify the process of finding undervalued NFTs, and thus it has become one of the main reasons why collectors and investors are drawn to Blur.

Additionally, the Blur team has also put a lot of effort into improving the user experience of their platform. The website is user-friendly, visually appealing, and easy to navigate, which makes it accessible to even those who are new to the world of NFTs. The team has also made sure that the platform is secure, reliable, and can handle a high volume of transactions without any technical glitches or issues. This has resulted in a seamless experience for users, which has contributed to the platform’s success.

Comparison to other platforms

Blur has emerged as a dominant player in the NFT marketplace due to its unique features, user-friendly interface, and emphasis on security and reliability. With the growing popularity of NFTs, it will be interesting to see how Blur continues to innovate and stay ahead of the competition in the coming years.

The launch of Blur has immediately pushed OpenSea to launch OpenSea Pro, their version of an aggregator. OpenSea Pro aims to compete with this by offering a similar experience, but with added benefits.

One of the key features of OpenSea Pro is its advanced search capabilities. Users can filter and sort through millions of NFTs with ease, making it easier to find exactly what they’re looking for. It also offers better curation tools, enabling collectors to create and manage collections of their favorite NFTs.

OpenSea Pro also boasts faster transaction times and lower gas fees than the regular OpenSea platform. This is due to its integration with a Layer 2 solution called Polygon. Transactions on Polygon are faster and cheaper than on the Ethereum network, which is the main blockchain used by OpenSea.

Another advantage of OpenSea Pro is its dedicated customer support team. OpenSea has received criticism in the past for its lack of customer support, and OpenSea Pro aims to address this by offering a dedicated team that is available to answer questions and resolve issues.

OpenSea Pro is currently in beta, but it’s already making waves in the NFT community. Its advanced features and improved user experience make it a strong competitor to other platforms, including Blur. If you’re an NFT collector or seller, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Silvergate Bank Failure’s Impact on Cryptocurrency

Posted on May 11, 2023May 23, 2023 by Tiffany Behnam

How did Silvergate Bank Collapse?

Silvergate Bank was a thriving institution in the world of cryptocurrencies, but it is now a cautionary tale for those seeking to enter the market. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the rise and fall of Silvergate Bank, and explore the factors that led to its ultimate collapse.

Silvergate Bank was founded in 1988 as a California based community bank, but in 2014, the bank entered the cryptocurrency market, offering accounts to companies providing services in the Bitcoin space. This move led to the creation of the SEN (Silvergate Exchange Network), a platform that allowed for seamless payment transfers between Silvergate customers, operating 24/7. The bank grew its customer base during the crypto winter of 2018 and brought in-house software engineers to add more functionalities to the platform. The SEN was a fee generator for Silvergate and provided a significant benefit to its clients, while also serving as an anchor for its zero-cost deposit base.

The first sign of trouble for Silvergate Bank came with the collapse of FTX in 2022. This triggered a devastating bank run on Silvergate, with clients withdrawing a staggering $8.1 billion from the bank. The bank had to sell off assets, including bonds, at a lower price than their marked value on the balance sheet, thus incurring significant losses and impairing capital. The bank’s management had structured its balance sheet to withstand a 70% drawdown on deposits and kept cash reserves that exceeded all remaining deposits. However, at many levels, this wasn’t enough.

The bank’s management team took measures to ensure liquidity and accommodate deposit inflows and outflows. Silvergate adjusted its expenses, reviewed its product offerings and customer relationships, and implemented cost-saving measures like reducing its workforce by approximately 40%. They tried to fight back with decisive actions to mitigate the losses and for a moment seemed to regain control of the situation.

However, news surfaced of the Justice Department taking an interest in Silvergate and questioning FTX and Alameda transactions that took place on the SEN. While it is unclear if Silvergate did anything wrong, having the Feds start poking around and asking questions is certainly a headache and distraction that a troubled bank didn’t need.

To make matters worse, political pressure on the bank has increased to deafening levels, which has destroyed what little reputation and confidence the bank had left. The pressure grew so intense that the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco demanded the repayment of the $4.3 billion loan that they had provided when the problems started. This loan recall is already stirring up controversy, with some questioning whether it was simply political pressure and cherry-picking rather than a neutral regulatory decision.

The final nail in the coffin was the bank’s delayed annual report, caused by the need to reevaluate the losses incurred and its ability to continue as a going concern. This led to its clients losing confidence in the bank and stopping the use of its SEN, effectively killing it. Without its SEN, the very reason for the bank’s existence was mostly over. In a matter of days, the bank went from delaying the annual filing to liquidation.

While it is true that regulators, politicians, and the macro scenario contributed to the bank’s woes, the management team had a role to play as well. First, they directed the bank’s funding toward the cryptocurrency business. In hindsight, they could have diversified the sources of funding or been more conservative in the deployment of funds. On the asset side, they held bonds that went down with rising interest rates, and on the funding side, they had clients dealing in an asset class that was tremendously sensitive to interest rates.

How does the failure of Silvergate Bank impact the Cryptocurrency Industry?

The collapse of Silvergate Bank has had far-reaching implications for the crypto industry. One immediate consequence is the disruption of essential banking services for numerous crypto companies. Silvergate Bank played a crucial role in providing banking solutions, such as fiat currency accounts and digital asset custody, which are now in jeopardy. As a result, crypto businesses are grappling with financial instability and uncertainty as they struggle to find reliable banking partners to support their operations.

Another significant impact of Silvergate Bank’s collapse is the erosion of trust and confidence within the crypto industry. The downfall of a well-established institution like Silvergate Bank has raised concerns among investors and businesses. They may become more cautious and hesitant to engage in crypto-related activities, fearing similar failures in the future. This loss of trust poses a challenge to the growth and adoption of cryptocurrencies, making it harder for the industry to gain broader acceptance from traditional financial institutions and the general public.

Furthermore, the collapse of Silvergate Bank may trigger increased regulatory scrutiny on the crypto industry. Regulators could interpret this event as evidence of the risks associated with cryptocurrencies and their ecosystem. In response, they may impose stricter regulations and compliance measures to ensure the stability and integrity of the financial system. While these efforts aim to safeguard investors and mitigate risks, they could also impede innovation and impede the growth of the crypto industry.

In the aftermath of Silvergate Bank’s collapse, crypto companies are actively seeking alternative banking solutions. They are exploring partnerships with other financial institutions that are more crypto-friendly or turning to decentralized financial (DeFi) platforms that offer banking-like services without relying on traditional banks. However, while these alternatives can provide temporary relief, they may not fully replicate the comprehensive services offered by established banks like Silvergate Bank.

Moreover, the collapse of a significant financial institution in the crypto industry has the potential to induce market volatility and affect investor sentiment. The uncertainty surrounding the stability of the banking system can trigger sell-offs and price fluctuations in cryptocurrencies. This volatility could discourage new investors from entering the market and dampen overall market growth.

In the end, the collapse of Silvergate Bank serves as a cautionary tale about the importance of proper risk management and oversight in the banking industry. While the bank’s rapid expansion and lucrative cryptocurrency business may have seemed like a recipe for success, it ultimately proved to be its downfall when market conditions changed. As regulators and industry leaders continue to grapple with the fast-evolving world of digital assets, it’s likely that more lessons will be learned along the way. However, with careful attention to risk management and a willingness to adapt to changing market conditions, banks and other financial institutions can hopefully avoid a similar fate.

SmartMint Monthly Art Contest

Posted on May 10, 2023May 11, 2023 by Tiffany Behnam

We are kicking off our SmartMint monthly art contest to celebrate talented creators and foster the growth of the NFT digital art community.
Continue reading “SmartMint Monthly Art Contest”

Monet 1.2 Testnet Release

Posted on April 4, 2023April 28, 2023 by Tiffany Behnam

Introducing the final phase of the Monet 1.2 Testnet, now live!

As we strive to achieve our goals, Monet 1.2 represents a critical milestone among several other planned releases for 2023. This release brings substantial enhancements to our Supernode infrastructure, major updates to Cascade (our permanent NFT data storage solution), and Sense (our duplicate detection technology).

Specific upgrade milestones include:

Integration of Supernode Storage Challenges to Cascade
Activation of Cascade’s Self-Healing capability
Activation of Supernode Health and State Challenges
Stabilization of Sense Protocol
Release of the OpenAPI Gateway

Monet 1.2 demonstrates our commitment and passion for developing the best blockchain for Web3 infrastructure across the ecosystem.

Keep reading for more details on the specific features of Monet 1.2 and upcoming plans for the Mainnet release.

Full stable release source code is available here.

Storage Challenges: Proof of Storage

One of the most compelling aspects of Pastel Network’s storage layer, Cascade, is the trustless decentralization of data storage. In Pastel, data is fragmented and randomly distributed across validators (Supernodes) operating the network. Monet 1.2 introduces Supernode Storage Challenges to further promote trustless data decentralization.

In simple terms, Storage Challenges involve Supernodes “quizzing” each other at random to ensure they are storing the required files, using a novel Proof of Storage mechanism. If a Supernode fails a Proof of Storage challenge or does not respond, they will be penalized through slashing and loss of network income.

These core concepts are fundamental to the broader Pastel Network:

Trustless — Trust no network participant other than yourself, assuming that others may be unreliable or malicious.
Distributed — Operations like Storage Challenges are performed by multiple active, randomly selected validators.
Verify — The outcomes of Storage Challenge operations are verified by other fair network operators, and those verifications are further checked (Bob performs a task, Alice verifies the task to the network, Eve double-checks Alice’s verification).
Open — Supernodes broadcast their Storage Challenges to the entire network, ensuring transparency.
Deterministic — Each aspect of our Proof of Storage is deterministically executed as explicitly prescribed by the underlying protocol using XOR rankings and entropy from mining.

Incorporating Storage Challenges enables us to create a robust mechanism for continually verifying and validating the contents of Cascade. This ensures that Supernode operators either remain compliant or face penalties for violating the protocol (through slashing and network bans), further safeguarding the decentralization of files stored on the network.

For a deeper understanding of how Storage Challenges are implemented, we encourage you to review and contribute to our public repo.

Self-Healing Data

Storage Challenges in Cascade ensure the ongoing permanence and decentralization of data across active and compliant Supernodes. But even with Proof of Storage, what if the number of active Supernodes holding the underlying, redundant pieces of a particular file changes to the point where the entire file cannot be sufficiently reconstructed? Monet 1.2 activates the innovative concept of Self-Healing to further promote ongoing data permanence.

Cascade’s disruptive “over-provisioning” capability generates more pieces and copies of data than strictly required to reconstruct the original data. These chunks are not standard disjoint segments of data like BitTorrent but are many versions of each chunk, making them fungible. These fungible chunks of data are called symbol files.

For example, Cascade can turn a 1MB file into 12MB of 50KB symbol files. And because symbol files are each fungible, Cascade only needs to collect 1MB worth of the different 50KB files to reconstruct the original file. By generating more symbol files than necessary and by ensuring that each symbol is truly being stored via Storage Challenges, Cascade guarantees any file can be reconstructed.

In addition to over-provisioning, Cascade further reduces the risk of data loss with additional redundancy by requiring each symbol file to be stored by the 5 Supernodes that are closest to it using XOR distance. XOR is a deterministic algorithm used to define the distance between the PastelID identifier string for each active Supernode and the hash of the previous block. The Supernode’s PastelID that is “closest” to this previous block hash is then considered the “winner.” In the case of these symbol files, the 5 closest Supernodes are the winners.

However, what if these 5 Supernodes storing a set of symbol files suddenly leave the network at the same time, so that there is no chance to conduct a “handoff” of responsibility to other SNs that remain in the network? This is where self-healing comes into play.

There is a specific “seed” property in Cascade that is stored in the Pastel blockchain protocol itself. The seed enables Cascade to, after the fact, use the complete copy of the file (which can be verified by comparing it to the file’s hash — also stored directly in the Pastel blockchain) to reconstruct any of the files from the list of symbol files that were originally created. This means that Cascade can never truly lose any of the symbol files “forever” so long as the original file can be reconstructed correctly.

In practice, we use this to incorporate this concept such that whenever a symbol file goes missing, it is regenerated and redistributed to the network of Supernodes in the same way as all other symbol files: the 5 closest Supernodes to each symbol file must store each of the regenerated files.

Cascade’s self-healing property minimizes the probability of a permanent, irrecoverable loss of data through intrinsic storage redundancy.

To better understand the concept of Self Healing in practice, we encourage you to review and contribute to our public repo.

Other Features in Monet 1.2

In addition to Storage Challenges and Self-Healing, we are excited to share that Monet 1.2 will also bring the following features to Mainnet:

Activation of Supernode Health and State Challenges: Similar to Proof of Storage, Health & State Challenges will guarantee the ongoing active and enabled state of each Supernode client on the network.
Stabilization of Sense Protocol: Improvements to Chrome Driver usage, updates to Webtools 1.3, and implementation of additional tickets.
Release of the OpenAPI Gateway: Production-ready Gateway will be deployed via the Mainnet with support for a number of new endpoints, asynchronous execution, Ansible support for independent deployment, and a graphical user interface for interaction.

Our Monet 1.2 Testnet Release source-code can be reviewed here.

Monet 1.2 Mainnet Release

The Pastel Network team and community are engaged in comprehensive testing of every aspect of the current release. This is to ensure that all functionalities are running smoothly, without any bugs or glitches, and can withstand different environmental and network state conditions. After rigorous unit-level, integration-based, and protocol-level stress testing, we will start upgrading existing Miners, SuperNodes, and WalletNodes, ultimately leading to the release of Monet 1.2 Mainnet.

To prepare for this release, community members will receive prior notification to upgrade their existing infrastructure to the latest release, before a specific blockHeight. Further information on the Monet 1.2 Mainnet Release will be shared soon. Stay tuned for updates.

About Pastel Network

Pastel Network is a fully decentralized, developer-friendly layer-1 blockchain serving as the preeminent protocol standard for non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”) and Web3 technology.

Pastel allows for the development of third-party decentralized-applications (“DApps”) to sit on top of its Network, enabling developers to enjoy the scalable registration features, storage processes, and security of the broader ecosystem. Lightweight protocols such as Sense — which was built to assess the relative rareness of a given NFT against near-duplicate metadata — and Cascade — which conducts permanent, distributed storage of underlying NFT data — can be integrated cross-chain across various layer-1 blockchains, layer-2 protocols, or other third-party apps.