Web3 Hand-copied Newspaper: This week's industry hotspots and explosions that should not be missed

Foresight News gives you a quick look at this week’s trending topics and recommendations:

01 Inscription Storm

Behind the Smoke of Ordinals, Understanding the “Undisputed” BTC Token Standard SRC-20

02 2023，2024

Here’s a bullish list for the 2024 bull market

a16z 2024 Outlook Checklist: Modular, AI, Web3 Gaming…"

CoinDesk’s Top 50 Most Influential Annual List of 2023

03 Behind the scenes

In the Founder’s Story: Everything You Want to Know About Mint Cash

Fortune Magazine Interview with Tether CEO: The Hustle Behind the $90 Billion and the Road to Expansion

"Tear off the personal label, New Binance once again “travels light”

04 Project Observation

“6 times up in a single month, a quick look at the gameplay mechanics of Web3 shooter Sipher”

How to Add Omnichain Interoperability to BTC? ZetaChain Gives a New Answer

Metis PoS “Sequencer Pool”: The First Practitioners of Decentralized Rollups"

05 Industry Thinking

Crypto AI Agents: First-Class Citizens of the On-Chain Economy

BitMEX Research: Timelocks are critical to BTC’s long-term security

Which U.S. state is the friendliest for BTC holders?

Why do rollups need safety committees?

01 Inscription Turmoil

On December 6, Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr said on X, “The inscription is using the Bitcoin Core vulnerability to send spam to the blockchain, and Ordinals and BRC-20 will disappear once the vulnerability is fixed.” Luke single-handedly stirred up the inscription track, which is also reflected in the market and is being extended to the SRC-20 and the Bitcoin Stamps protocol on which SRC-20 is based. Recommended Articles:

"Behind the smoke of Ordinals, read the “uncontroversial” BTC token standard SRC-20

Bitcoin Stamps is implemented by encoding the binary content of an image into a Base64 string, placing that string as a suffix in the “STAMP:” in the transaction description key, and then broadcasting it to the BTC ledger using the Counterparty protocol.

we can’t talk about Bitcoin Stamps without talking about Counterparty. In 2014, Robert Dermody, Adam Krellenstein, and Evan Wagner introduced the Counterparty protocol, which extended BTC capabilities to write data in the blank spaces of normal BTC blockchain chunks, opening up endless possibilities for BTC.

Bitcoin Stamps can be decoded directly from raw BTC transactions. To speed up processing and eliminate the need for indexing, the Counterparty API is leveraged to decode raw BTC transactions, and once decoded, the images are uploaded to the stampchain.io for use through a web application, designed to enable anyone to decode these transactions and interpret the underlying image data for rendering on any application.

02 2023，2024

At the beginning of this week, the market has gradually entered a bull market, and Web3 researcher Jake Pahor has made a list of promising projects for this round of bull market. Recommended Articles:

Here’s a bullish list of the 2024 bull market**

Your main portfolio should always include BTC and ETH. However, with the peak of BTC dominance, we can expect altcoins to start outperforming (capital rotation). This article will provide an overview of my top picks for altcoins as we head into 2024 and will provide a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of each of the coins listed.

I have categorized as follows:

• Large market capitalization: Over $5 billion

• Mid-cap: $1 billion - $5 billion

• Small market capitalization: $200 million - $1 billion

• Micro Market Cap: Less than $200 million

A diversified portfolio should include projects of all sizes. The percentage assigned to each category will depend on your individual risk tolerance.

This week, a16z released a comprehensive list of large ideas that tech builders are likely to explore in the coming year. Recommended Articles:

a16z Outlook 2024 List: Modular, AI, Web3 Games…

Decentralized blockchains are a counterweight to centralized AI. Currently, AI models, such as ChatGPT, can only be trained and operated by a handful of tech giants at the moment, as the computational and training data required is too much for smaller players to afford. But with encryption, it is possible to create multilateral, global, permissionless marketplaces where anyone can contribute computation or a new dataset to someone who needs it on the network and be compensated. Leveraging the long tail of these resources will allow these markets to reduce the cost of AI and make it more accessible.

But as AI changes the way we produce information, changing society, culture, politics, and the economy, it also creates a rich world of AI-generated content, including deepfakes. Encryption also has a role to play in this to open black boxes, track the origin of what we see online, and so on. We also need to find ways to distribute generative AI and govern it democratically so that no one actor ultimately decides everyone else, and Web3 is a lab to solve that. A decentralized, open-source encrypted network will democratize (rather than centralize) AI innovation, ultimately making it more secure for consumers.

—Andy Hall, Stanford University Professor (@ahall_research) ;D aren Matsuoka, Data Scientist (@darenmatsuoka on Farcaster | Ali Yahya, Partner (@alive.eth on Farcaster | @alive_eth on Twitter）

This week, CoinDesk released its 2023 Most Influential Annual List, revealing the Top 50 Most Influential Annual List of 2023. Recommended Articles:

CoinDesk’s Top 50 Most Influential Annual List of 2023

Top 10 Most Influential Annual List of 2023:

Casey Rodarmor is the founder of Ordinals, a BTC protocol.

Ryan Selkis is not only the founder and CEO of Messari, but has spent the last two years building a political “fundraising machine” for the crypto industry, preparing to influence the 2024 election.

Jenny Johnson, CEO of Franklin Templeton, an asset manager with $1.33 trillion in assets under management, is leading the company to the forefront of the crypto space.

Lido DAO, which democratizes ETH staking, is already dominant.

Paolo Ardoino, as CTO of Tether, is looking to diversify the company’s investments.

Jose Fernandez da Ponte, senior vice president and general manager of PayPal, pushed the payments giant this year to launch the US dollar stablecoin PYUSD to bring more efficient internet-based payments to people around the world.

Gary Gensler (SEC Chairman) is undoubtedly the most influential regulator or enforcement official.

Brian Armstrong is an exchange heavyweight who is still uneventful.

Sam Altman is changing the world. From ChatGPT to Worldcoin, Sam Altman is ambitious and stands tall in the new wave.

Brad Garlinghouse (Ripple co-founder) has emerged victorious this year in a legal case that will have a significant impact on the future of cryptocurrency.

The Story Behind 03

On the night of January 26, the entire Luna line skyrocketed, and the USTC even reached a daily increase of 154%. Overnight, the heat of USTC returned again, with market speculation related to the airdrop empowerment of Mint Cash, developed by former Terra members, and the proposal to restore the $USTC peg. Hear the story of Mint Cash’s founder, Shin Hyojin, who sued the stablecoin project. Recommended Articles:

"** Founder’s Statement: Everything You Want to Know About Mint Cash****

Mint Cash is a continuation of the previous work done by the Terra stablecoin system, patching its mechanism-level flaws and unlocking more use cases. It’s a major redesign that involves so many fundamental changes that it’s closer to an overcollateralized stablecoin like DAI than an algorithmic system like UST. Especially:

• Make all stablecoins fully backed by BTC collateral, inspired in part by Jump Trading’s original proposal for the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG);

• Organic synthesis exchange mechanism between BTC collateral, Mint (equivalent to LUNA) and CASH (equivalent to UST) provided;

• Anchor becomes part of the stablecoin leverage, not a money printing machine;

Tether, the world’s largest issuer of stablecoins, has been the subject of controversy. Tether’s new CEO, Paolo Ardoino, spoke to Fortune magazine about Bitfinex’s strategy in emerging markets and his views on Binance and Changpeng Zhao’s rapprochement with US authorities. Recommended Articles:

Fortune Magazine Interview with Tether CEO: The Hustle and Bustle Behind the $90 Billion and the Road to Expansion

What do you think of Changpeng Zhao and Binance’s deal with U.S. prosecutors, and is this good for Bitfinex?

Unlike many of our competitors, we don’t like to gloat over the misfortunes of others. I think some of the other CEOs are acting on their toes in a way, and that’s a very sad thing. I think it’s important to think about your company and not want to get better for yourself and expect others to decline, which is sad.

Bitfinex is a different company compared to Binance. We are a smaller exchange. We decided to get smaller, we’re proud of our compliance efforts, we’re proud of our technology. Over time, we pass away different opportunities because they align with our risk appetite. This is not the case for many other exchanges that have decided to take on more risk. We want to win the marathon, not because someone else has fallen.

After experiencing a 4.3 billion settlement, 175 million bail, and CZ stepping down, what happened to Binance now?

"** Tear off the personal label, New Binance once again “travels light”****》**

In terms of market share, although it has been affected by events in the past two years, including the FTX crash, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) indictment, and the U.S. Department of Justice investigation, Binance’s current market share of trading share and reserve asset value remains around 50%, and its status as the “first brother of the exchange” has not been shaken.

04 Project Observation

Recently, the momentum of the Web 3 gaming sector has begun to heat up, and the token prices of StepN and TreasureDAO, which have been dormant before, are quite strong. The price of SIPHER, the Sipher Odyssey token, which was only raised at the end of the last bull market, soared 6 times in just one month, which is very impressive. Recommended Articles:

"** Rises 6 times in a single month, a quick look at the gameplay mechanics of the Web3 shooter Sipher******

Just a month after >, Sipher announced a public token offering with a total supply of 1 billion. Adopting a dual-token model, the governance token $SIPHER and the in-game token are $ATHER, and the economic model forms a loop through “fighting→ obtaining resources→ leveling up→ trading → battles”, and using the game trading market to trade will also reduce gas fees.

also officially announced that a total of $44 million (99,501,314 ETH) was raised, with 13,159 investors participating, and the unit price of the $SIPHER token was 0.00024 ETH, but the cost of a single token was $0.984 based on the price of about $4,100 in ETH at that time, so although the price of the currency has increased more than six times in the past month, the price of the currency is still about 70% lower than the public sale price at the time of writing.

The Web3 narrative of “cross-chain” has transitioned from the earliest “bridge” to “full-chain interoperability”, and while the bridge itself still has the need and value to exist, the market’s focus has shifted to Omnichain. Rather than a “tool” for interoperability, ZetaChain chooses to use the chain itself as the “center” of Omnichain. Recommended Articles:

How do I add Omnichain interoperability to my BTC?

ZetaChain’s full-chain interoperability mechanism is inherently uncomplicated. To put it simply, it can be understood that the chain itself is used as a guarantee of the credibility of messages passed between chains, and the blocks containing relevant messages can be confirmed when they are packaged, and the number of validators with a large number of chains and wide distribution and the assets pledged by the validators are the greatest guarantee of security.

There has been a long history of discussion and advocacy for the decentralization of sequencers, and recently Metis has been the first to provide an answer to this question. Recommended Articles:

Metis PoS “Sequencer Pool”: The First Practitioners of Decentralized Rollup

As one of the first Layer2 networks to practice decentralized sequencers, Metis provides a model for the way forward. This template not only implements the decentralization of sequencers, but also provides a “decentralized optimistic rollup” solution. In this template, there are three main roles to implement the decentralization of the sequencer: the administrator (Admin), the sequencer, and a PoS-based consensus layer.

05 Industry Thinking

Mason Nystrom, investment partner at iant Fund, believes that bots are becoming first-class citizens of the crypto economy. While bots in crypto have been fairly rudimentary so far, bots outside of crypto have begun to evolve into powerful AI agents due to the rise of large language models (LLMs). Recommended Articles:

Crypto AI Agent: A First-Class Citizen of the On-Chain Economy

Building these AI proxies in the crypto space brings several important enhancements:

Native payment flows: AI agents can exist outside of cryptocurrency, but if we want AI agents to perform complex operations, they will need to be funded. Compared to giving AI agents access to bank accounts, payment procedures (such as Stripe), or dealing with the vast majority of other inefficiencies that exist in the off-chain world, cryptocurrencies enable AI agents to access funds, which is a significant improvement.

AI agent wallet ownership: AI agents connected to the wallet will be able to own assets (e.g., NFTs, etc.), giving the AI agent the inherent digital property rights of all crypto assets. This is especially important for transactions between agents.

Verifiable, deterministic actions: AI agents will be most effective when the actions are provable (they can ensure that certain actions have been completed). On-chain transactions are inherently deterministic – either they happen or they don’t – meaning that AI agents will be able to complete on-chain tasks more accurately.

The BTC timelock feature is often overlooked, and it’s a key component of transitioning incentives to expenses. Recommended Articles:

BitMEX Research: Timelocks are critical to the long-term security of BTC

BTC has four types of built-in timelock features. These mechanisms ensure that BTC transactions can only be included in the blockchain at a specific point in time or after the block height. The following table provides an overview of the various different types of timelocks.

The BTC index is a new tool for BTC enthusiasts looking for the perfect place to live. Recommended Articles:

Which state in the United States is the friendliest to BTC holders?****

Sources of inspiration for the index include the Moderate Currency Defense Alliance’s Moderate Currency Index and the Cato Institute’s 50 States of Freedom Index. Another source of inspiration was New Hampshire’s Free State project, which aims to attract enough liberals to the state to support the direction of liberal influence policy. However, what sets the BTC index apart is that it is written by BTC enthusiasts.

All discussions around blockchain protocols, governance, and security committees are crucial. The existence of this discussion is what makes cryptocurrencies so special. Recommended Articles:

Why does Rollup need a safety committee?****

In the context of rollups, multisig is often referred to as a security committee, where signers are given the power to upgrade all related smart contracts.

Let’s take a look at the Security Committee in Arbitrum (as I’m very familiar with it) to get an idea of the types of responsibilities this organization might have:

• the right of veto. If the Security Committee believes that a proposal passed by the Arbitrum DAO violates the Arbitrum charter and may harm the Arbitrum ecosystem, it may cancel the proposal. For example, cancel a proposal that passed due to a governance attack.

• Maintenance. Upgrade the Arbitrum smart contract suite to make minor changes that are less impactful and don’t require Arbitrum DAO involvement.

• Emergencies. Respond quickly in case of an emergency, and if they believe that user funds are at imminent risk, they can urgently upgrade the smart contract.