Mon 02/12

Good Morning. Algorand foundation has big plans for the Web3 ecosystem in India, Chingari has partnered with Aptos blockchain and US’s SEC is on a roll, suing companies left and right. Happy Monday. We hope you all have a great week ahead!

🤝 The Algorand Foundation Announces Major Collaborations In India To Expand Web3: Algorand has formed a partnership with T-Hub, a major innovation hub in India with over 600 corporate partners, making it the first layer-1 blockchain protocol to do so. Algorand plans to launch faculty development programs, student developer training, and a master class series in collaboration with Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad and the ISB, all aimed at helping businesses transition critical processes to Web3. It will also act as a technology partner for the new $50 million Global Climate Resilience Fund, launched by the Clinton Global Initiative, with SEWA as a founding partner. SEWA with over 2.1 million female workers, has been improving the lives of self-employed women workers in the informal economy through various initiatives, including technical training, for the past 50 years.

🔥 Chingari Partners With Aptos Blockchain: Chingari, a Web3 social-video app, announced a partnership with Aptos blockchain to enhance its product base. The collaboration will make the Solana-native platform multi-chain, with the new version of the Chingari app offering improved scalability and new features. The launch is set for Q2 2023, while support for existing Solana-based Chingari users will continue. Aptos is investing in Chingari as part of the deal, although the details of the agreement have not been disclosed.

👽 What’s The Deal With Ordinal Punks: Ordinal Punks and CryptoPunks share similarities in their algorithmic generation and retro pixel art style, but Ordinal Punks has only 100 NFTs compared to CryptoPunks' 10,000. The creation of Ordinal Punks is expensive and requires the use of the Bitcoin blockchain, and they are traded among tech-savvy Bitcoin node operators with involvement from the project founder. The use of the Bitcoin blockchain for non-monetary transactions has sparked debate among critics and supporters. The Taproot soft fork allowed for block sizes above the 1 MB limit, enabling the use of digital artifacts such as "Inscriptions" like Ordinal Punks. Supporters see Ordinal Punks as promoting freedom and censorship resistance, while critics argue it may lead to increased transaction fees and bloating of the blockchain.

💵 Binance Adds zk-SNARK Verification To Its Proof Of Reserves System: Binance has improved its proof-of-reserves (PoR) system by incorporating zk-SNARK verifications, which use zero-knowledge proofs to maintain the confidentiality and security of sensitive user data. This upgrade was made based on a suggestion by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who had proposed this to promote trustless centralized exchanges. The zero-knowledge verification system ensures that all leaf nodes in the Merkle tree have contributed to Binance's claimed the total balance of each cryptocurrency and that no user with a negative balance is included in the tree. To prove its reserves, Binance will create and publish a zk-SNARK proof for the construction of the Merkle tree.

⚖️ SEC To Sue Crypto Trust Co. Paxos Over Binance Stablecoin: According to the WSJ, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is planning to sue Paxos, the issuer of stablecoins Pax Dollar (USDP) and BUSD, over the BUSD stablecoin. The SEC alleges that BUSD is unregistered security, although the commission has not publicly confirmed this. This news comes shortly after reports that the New York Department of Financial Services is also investigating Paxos, though the nature of the investigation is unclear. Paxos is a New York-regulated trust company with a provisional charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a federal bank regulator. BUSD is a stablecoin branded by Binance and issued by Paxos.

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What Is PancakeSwap?: PancakeSwap is a decentralized exchange native to BNB Chain. In other words, it shares some similarities with established platforms like UniSwap in that users can swap their coins for other coins without the input of middleman services. The only difference is that PancakeSwap focuses on BEP20 tokens – a specific token standard developed by Binance.