Off-chain scaling has been one of the more popular solutions that are being considered for the issue of low throughputs on modern decentralized blockchains. Second layer platforms that would take most of the load off the actual blockchain can create an environment where it’s possible to exchange cryptocurrency in a fast, easy, and secure manner. One such platform recently saw itself become Binance Launchpad’s third ICO and is being touted as the next best thing in crypto. The name of this platform is Celer Network and we’ll be taking a closer look at its features and prospects in this article.Celer Network is a project that wants to provide an infrastructure for development of highly scalable, decentralized applications. Unlike with other two Binance Launchpad projects, Celer’s idea is nothing really new and has been addressed by several other cryptocurrency projects. Check out our review of Fetch.ai and Bittorrent token – first and second ICO launched by Binance Launchpad.Lightning Network or RSK for Bitcoin, Raiden Network or Plasma for Ethereum, and blockchain agnostic protocols like GEO, Loom, and others have all delved deep in the idea of providing off-chain solutions for issues like scalability, privacy, liquidity etc.Celer’s focus will be on scalability, looking to improve the throughput of many crypto blockchains. The project is blockchain-agnostic, meaning that its application won’t be limited to a single decentralized ledger. “It enables everyone to quickly build, operate, and use highly scalable decentralized applications through innovations in off-chain scaling techniques and incentive-aligned cryptoeconomics,” to quote the project themselves.Overall, second layer platforms have solidified themselves as popular solutions for known blockchain ailments. By moving most of the transaction activity off-chain and then simply emitting the final balances on-chain, it’s possible to scale a decentralized blockchain network to where it’s capable of handling millions of transactions per second. Celer is confident that on-chain solutions won’t bring the desired global throughputs to future decentralized blockchains and are proposing to solve this problem with their off-chain platform. Celer Network is not a standalone blockchain but a networked system running on top of existing and future blockchains. Its architecture is named Cstack; this architecture will be layered to enable faster development/maintenance. As such, Celer Network will have four main layers:cRoute – This layer is in charge of value transfer routing. It uses DBR (distributed balanced routing) to distribute payment traffic in a decentralized and trust-free manner. cRoute is transparent, decentralized, and can achieve 15x greater throughput than Raiden or the Lightning Network.cOS – This layer is the project’s off-chain Dapp development framework/ mobile-based off-chain operating system. It provides design patterns and standardization, enabling developers to handle operation, storage, disputes, and tracking of the off-chain infrastructure.cChannel – This layer is a sidechain suite that provides liquidity and assists rapid state transitions. eChannel is a generalized state channel which utilized DAG technology to support off-chain state transactions. This layer allows gaming applications, exchanges, insurance platforms, and other high throughput applications to function on Celer Network.cApps – Application layer of the ecosystem. Designed to scale and maintain user privacy.First launched token by Binance’s token sales platform was BTT – read our price prediction for Bittorrent token.Celer Network’s layered architecture is cleanly split up to allow for rapid evolution of each individual component. With its generalized state channel and sidechain suite that support fast and generic off-chain state transitions, its value transfer routing mechanism that can outperform other popular state-of-the-art solutions, its development framework and runtime environment for off-chain applications and its new cryptoeconomic model that provides network effect, stable liquidity, and high availability for the off-chain ecosystem, many see it as the solution that will unlock internet-level blockchain scalability.Celer Network token was given the ticker CELR and is of the ERC-20 standard. It has a total supply of 10 billion CELR and 6% of that were sold in a public ICO that was held on March 19th, 2019. The ICO was a one-time only event and all tokens were sold out within seconds, with the project accumulating $4 million worth of sales.  ICO investors were required to use BNB to purchase their CELR.One interesting thing about the ICO was the token price; each CELR was priced at $0.0067 per token. Public investors will be pleased to hear that his price didn’t differ much from the token’s seed sale price (11.5% of tokens were sold during this stage), which sat at $0.0065. Also worth noting is the private sale (15.5% tokens allocated) which saw the tokens go for $0.0150; all of this implies that investors should be discouraged from dumping their tokens early, meaning that the price should remain stable. Naturally this only works in theory as CELR price dropped significantly in just a couple of days since the ICO. The token currently sits at just above $0.002 which shows us that someone did in fact dump their tokens onto the market. That “someone” might be coming from one of the groups that were handed the rest of the CELR supply:Remaining 25% will be handed out to Celer nodes as mining rewards.The token will be used to drive the network’s economy (called cEconomy) and perform the following services:This economy will look to provide stable liquidity and availability to every member of the ecosystem and will include a proof of liquidity commitment, liquidity backing auction, and state guardian network.Celer Network introduces a consensus algorithm called Proof of Liquidity Commitment (PoLC). Liquidity can become a problem for off-chain scaling, and the project introduces this type of mining to incentivize liquidity providers (called Network Liquidity Providers or NLBs) into locking their liquidity into “dumb boxes” or Collateral Commitment Contracts (CCCs). While their funds are in these boxes, they can only be used to supply Celer Network’s liquidity.Liquidity Backing Auction (LiBA) is another element of the project’s economy, enabling off-chain service providers to solicit liquidity through “crowd lending”. Off-chain service providers who lack liquidity can start a LiBA on Celer and borrow liquidity for a certain amount of time; interested “whales” can provide said liquidity by bidding to stake their funds into a CCC and after some complicated mathematics takes place, one of them will become the liquidity backer. PoLC and LiBA are designed to make the process of bringing transactions off the chain simple and feeless.Final element of the project’s economy is the State Guardian Network, or a special side chain which monitors the entire ecosystem. CELR token holders can stake their CELR into SGN and become state guardians. Users who are going offline can submit their state to SGN’s and have them watch over it for a certain fee. Goal of SGN is to make sure that only the most recent states are broadcast onto the blockchain. This feature is similar to Lightning Network’s Watchtowers. The project recently saw the launch of the 2.0 version of their public testnet, alongside the release of CelerX, a layer-2 Dapp gateway mobile application/wallet. Testnet 2.0 (officially called Sirius) will see the project’s developers work on “refining user experience and expanding development framework features”. CelerX is a part of this refinement effort, as it represents a unique layer-2 platform for iOS and Android users. It contains several interactive games and even a prediction market which users can access and use with minimal transaction latency. The platform also features feeless transactions and off-chain smart contract execution. On the development framework side, the new Sirius testnet provides a variety of useful features for those who are looking to build on top of it:There’s more to the technology of the project which isn’t anything new or revolutionary but seems to be very well implemented and actively developed (project’s GitHub is regularly updated and development/community channels are generally buzzing). Near future will see the devs working on various aspects of the project’s architecture, before a full Ethereum mainnet is rolled out in Q2 of 2019. Fully functional network is expected in second half of 2019, with SGN and LiBA features set for their mainnet launches at that time. For more details, check out Celer Network’s official whitepaper and roadmap.Nothing really stands out about the project’s team, as most of the individuals involved seem to have significant experience with coding and developing. Most important members of the team are:Celer Network has made many technical partnerships with some popular blockchain-focused projects like AELF, ChainLink and QTUM. The project has received financial backing from various sources, including Arrington XRP Capital and FBG Capital. Perhaps most importantly they were invested in by Pantera Capital, a well-known supporter of some of the more successful blockchain projects on the market. Celer Network definitely stands out of the Binance Launchpad bunch mainly due to its relative readiness for real world application. While it’s still in early stages, it seems to be much closer to being implemented than Fetch.ai and at the same time doesn’t suffer from questions about its necessity that BTT struggles with. Ultimately, Celer is a project aiming to provide multiplatform scalability support for the blockchain market; whether or not their solution turns out to be effective and commercially accepted is only a matter of time.CaptainAltcoin’s writers and guest post authors may or may not have a vested interest in any of the mentioned projects and businesses. None of the content on CaptainAltcoin is investment advice nor is it a replacement for advice from a certified financial planner. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CaptainAltcoin.com

We are very excited to announce that Celer Network partners with Binance Labs as a mentor for the Binance Labs Incubation Program.Binance Labs is the venture arm of Binance and an initiative to incubate, invest, and empower blockchain and cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, projects, and communities. Binance Labs Incubation Program is a 10-Week On-Site incubation program designed to identify and help top early-stage blockchain projects deliver something that has strong product market fit. This partnership will allow Celer Network team to share experiences and lessons learnt in the early product growth phase, technically empower the new projects with Celer Network’s advanced layer-2 scaling platform and organically grow Celer Network’s ecosystem.Celer Network shares the same vision of product market fit with a proven track record. Recently, Celer Network launched Sirius Testnet along with CelerX, the user entry point to Celer Network on mobile platforms. Within one month, CelerX quickly acquires 22,000 monthly active users, has more than 20% 7-day retention ratio and engages each active user for more than 12 mins per day. One interactive game application, Gomoku, in CelerX is played 110,000 times monthly, generating more than 4 million transactions on the testnet. Even though Gomoku is the only decentralized application on Celer Network and still runs on testnet, it has become one of highest-DAU blockchain applications and achieves the level of user engagement statistics resembles centralized applications. What’s more, Celer Network’s growth is truly global with users coming from 58 different countries.“Mo will be a valuable mentor at the Binance Labs Incubation Program as Celer has been focusing on product market fit and user adoption since day one. We also expect to see and will support synergies and new growth points amongst Celer Network and the project teams through their interaction during the program,” said Ella Zhang, Head of Binance Labs.Dr. Mo Dong, CEO and Cofounder of Celer Network comments: “We truly appreciate and applaud the efforts and vision shown by this great incubation program from Binance Labs. This is exactly what blockchain industry needs right now. We thank Binance Labs for the opportunity to onboard us as a mentor. We look forward to meeting all the new teams and sharing our experiences on product growth, marketing, community and technology. We will also look out projects that are good fit for Celer Network ecosystem.”Together, we hope to bring mass adoption to blockchain technology.Founded by four PhDs from MIT, Princeton, UC Berkeley and UIUC, Celer Network is a leading layer-2 scaling platform that enables fast, easy and secure off-chain transactions for not only payment transactions, but also generalized off-chain smart contract. It enables everyone to quickly build, operate, and use highly scalable decentralized applications through innovations in off-chain scaling techniques and incentive-aligned cryptoeconomics. For more information, visit: https://www.celer.network/Binance Labs is an infrastructure impact fund and an initiative launched by Binance to incubate, invest in, and empower blockchain and cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, projects, and communities. The mission of Binance Labs is to solve the problems that matter most to the ecosystem and change the world for the better. Learn more about the Binance Labs Incubation Program at https://www.binancelabs.co/.Layer 2 Scaling Solutions: Bring Internet Scale to Every Blockchain

Binance Launchpad, the exclusive token launch platform of global cryptocurrency exchange Binance, today announced the launch of its next supporting project, Celer Network, a testnet deployed solution bringing Internet scale to every blockchain, on March 19, 2019 at 9am EST, 10pm GMT+8. Celer Network has created the blockchain industry’s first known solution to comprehensively allow developers and companies to build, operate and utilize interactive and low-cost decentralized applications that match the user experience of centralized applications. Bringing on Celer Network to Launchpad is also part of Binance’s mission in supporting and responding to the market needs in prioritizing infrastructure and development tools to advance robust utility frameworks and tangible use cases. “The lack of valuable solutions and good user experiences of blockchain-based technologies are caused by its limited scalability possibilities which have been a major hurdle towards unlocking its significant adoption potential to date,” said Binance CEO and Founder, Changpeng Zhao (CZ). “Celer is currently at the forefront of solving this challenge with the early demonstrations of its sustainable crypto economics construct and layer-2 blockchain architect powering it.”Through its blockchain-agonistic, layer-2 scaling technology and incentive-aligned crypto economics architecture, Celer Network enables instant, easy and secure blockchain transactions. Celer Network’s testnet currently hosts Ethereum transactions, and its finality latency, to be 20,000 times faster with zero-fees for smart contract transactions, which is positioned to unlock blockchain’s innovation potential on a larger scale for various real-world use cases and solutions such as interactive gaming, general pay-per-use services, non-custodial financial assets exchanges, microinsurance; and decentralized derivative exchanges, electricity power exchange and Internet services. This February, during its testnet launch, Celer Network released CelerX, the earliest layer-2 application platform for iOS and Android, backed by an advanced off-chain scaling platform where CelerX users have tested and continue to use its instant and payment-free application for the skill-based game, Gomoku.This is Binance Launchpad's third inaugural project of 2019 following the post-ICO era to help transformative blockchain startups raise funds needed to develop its products aiding in cryptocurrency adoption by providing them with Binance’s advisory resources and access to its ecosystem. Binance Launchpad hosts high-quality token projects, hoping to create a higher standard for the token launch market and continuing to help projects raise awareness and capitalBinance Launchpad continues to conduct a rigorous vetting process to select projects that are compliant, have strong teams and products with large scalability potential that benefit the global cryptocurrency community. Learn more about Celer Network and its tokenomics from Binance’s in-depth research report here: https://info.binance.com/en/research/CELR-2019-03-05.htmlAlso, join Binance’s AMA with Celer Network’s CEO and Founder, Mo Dong, on Friday, March 8, 2019 at 10pm PST to ask and learn about Celer’s tokensale and layer-2 scaling platform. Stay tuned for the latest updates via the official telegram here: http://t.me/celernetworkTo learn more about Binance Launchpad and pre-registration information for Celer Network, visit: https://launchpad.binance.com/Binance Launchpad is the exclusive token launch platform for entrepreneurs to bring the most transformative crypto projects to life, with the help of Binance users around the world. Projects accepted to launch on Binance Launchpad will have greater access to resources and support from across the Binance ecosystem.Binance is a blockchain ecosystem comprised of Binance Exchange, Labs, Launchpad, Info, Academy, Research, Trust Wallet and Charity. Binance Exchange is the leading global cryptocurrency exchange, with users from over 190 countries and regions. Capable of processing more than 1.4 million orders per second, Binance is the largest crypto exchange by trade volume and one of the fastest in the world. The platform focuses on security, robustness, and execution speed — attracting enthusiasts and professional traders alike. For more information, visit: https://www.binance.com

Bitcoinist | Jan 01, 2021 | 14:00

PAID Network (PAID) has closed a $2 million funding round led by the Alphabit Fund & Master Ventures. Other investors and partners include A195, AU21, Brilliance Ventures, Phoenix VC, and X21. 

PAID’s private sale has been oversubscribed, with more than $21 million committed already. According to PAID’s spokesperson, the value of allocation requests is growing by $1 million daily. 

PAID Network is using the funds from the recent funding round to continue to build the world’s first decentralized SMART Agreement DApp powered by Polkadot. After successfully launching the PAID Network MVP in December, allowing parties to sign Agreements on the PAID Network, the team has set their eyes on their upcoming TGE (token generation event) coming January 2021. Currently operating on the Rinkeby test net, anyone can create and sign contracts that are saved on the IPFS/Ethereum network ledger forever and access it via connecting their Ethereum wallets.

The close of the fundraising acknowledges PAID’s early mover advantage as one of the first legal tech using digital ledger technology (DLT) to make business on the blockchain more secure for everyone. The powerful e-signature is backed by negotiation, arbitration, and Defi services — providing an end-to-end contracting solution. The smart contract executes all functions on the blockchain and because the market for blockchain platforms and services is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 67.3 percent to $39.7 billion by 2025, the PAID team has a headstart. 

The PAID Network was launched as a blockchain incubator project by Master Ventures — a venture studio focused on building and funding blockchain projects with a focus on driving mass adoption of the industry. Some notable investments from the venture studio include Coinbase, Kraken, Bitfinex, Elrond, Reef, and Ultra.

Disclaimer: The information presented here does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest. The statements, views, and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author/company and do not represent those of Bitcoinist. We strongly advise our readers to DYOR before investing in any cryptocurrency, blockchain project, or ICO, particularly those that guarantee profits. Furthermore, Bitcoinist does not guarantee or imply that the cryptocurrencies or projects published are legal in any specific reader’s location. It is the reader’s responsibility to know the laws regarding cryptocurrencies and ICOs in his or her country.

1. The Zilliqa platform is the hub of many decentralized applications, and it also allows staking and yield farming. Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains have struggled to process transactions faster. As a result, the transaction fees soar whenever the transaction count increases. Moreover, the Zilliqa blockchain is capable of scaling as the network grows in size.

2. Its platform is very useful to those users who want to develop high-volume smart contracts and dApps.

3. In other blockchains, when the number of transactions increases, the network usage fees also soar. However, due to the scaling ability, fees on Zilliqa are low, even though it allows micro-payments to be processed.

4. Zilliqa can host transaction-intensive social media dApps like Facebook or Twitter. Moreover, it has the potential to support advertising campaigns and offers payment processing services.

5. Token: The native token for the Zilliqa blockchain is known as ZIL. It is used as a mining incentive, as well as a tender for paying transaction fees. The token holders can enjoy staking returns on their investments.

6. Wallet: There are many wallets which we can use for the native ZIL tokens. However, the Zilliqa team recommends the Moonlet wallet, which is a wallet that supports both Ethereum and Zilliqa chains. Users can also use Trust wallet and hardware wallet Ledger.

7. It allows developers to create smart contracts on their blockchain using Scilla. Scilla is a language that checks for bugs within each smart contract before they go live. It also has its own library which removes the need to rely on external programming libraries.

8. Users can buy attractive merchandise and collectibles from their website, which supports payment in ZIL tokens.

10. While the Ethereum network is only capable of processing 15 transactions per second, the Zilliqa network can process thousands of transactions per second via sharding.

1. Ethereum 2.0 is creating a state sharding system, but Zilliqa has implemented network sharding. Zil divides the network nodes to process the transactions. 2. The validator that maintains the sharding system is a single point of failure. Zilliqa has no such central entity on which the entire system is dependent. 3. Zilliqa has reported throughput which is 250 times higher than Ethereum.

🐉Includes a new innovative web browser that allows you to use dApps 🐉Supports .zil domains 🐉Provides clear overview of transactions & more…

Next stop ➡️ @GooglePlay

-MS https://t.co/mJKUdbnPwe pic.twitter.com/gK2pNfjlEa

— Zilliqa (@zilliqa) January 7, 2021

Zilliqa Technical Analysis Zilliqa’s price today is $0.062730 with a 24-hour trading volume of $165,125,299. It has a circulating supply of 11.5 billion ZIL coins and a max supply of 21 billion. The top exchanges for trading ZIL are currently Binance, Huobi Global, OKEx, and BiKi.

With the above fundamental news and recent partnerships, it has already shown a strong rally. It is facing resistance at $0.05393 Level and also consolidating between $0.05393 and $0.04570, which is also a pivot resistance and support zone. If it will break out through this resistance, then it can reach $0.06812.

In the near future, the number of blockchain users will increase and the need for a high transaction speed blockchain will be indispensable. Zilliqa will play a major role in the high-speed blockchain era.

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Disclaimer The information discussed by Altcoin Buzz is not financial advice. This is for educational and informational purposes only. Any information or strategies are thoughts and opinions relevant to accepted levels of risk tolerance of the writer/reviewers and their risk tolerance may be different than yours. We are not responsible for any losses that you may incur as a result of any investments directly or indirectly related to the information provided.

Do your own due diligence and rating before making any investments and consult your financial advisor. The researched information presented we believe to be correct and accurate however there is no guarantee or warranty as to the accuracy, timeliness, completeness. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are high-risk investments so please do your due diligence. Copyright Altcoin Buzz Pte Ltd. All rights reserved.

Best place to purchase SKALE at true cost with zero fees and markups

The SKALE Network (SKALE) is listed on the Crypto.com App today, 6 January 2021. SKALE joins a growing list of 90+ cryptocurrencies and stablecoins on our App, such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Cardano (ADA), Chainlink (LINK), VeChain (VET), USD Coin (USDC), as well as Crypto.com Coin (CRO). SKALE proposes a decentralized, configurable network of on-demand blockchains that support high-throughput, low-cost, and low-latency transactions enabled with storage capabilities and advanced analytics. Additionally, SKALE proposes messaging protocols that enable participants to communicate between these disparate systems. With SKALE added to the Crypto.com App, users can now purchase it at true cost with no fees - credit card and bank transfer both supported. As Crypto.com also offers a Visa Card, this adds additional utility to SKALE as users can easily convert cryptocurrencies into fiat currencies and spend at over 60m merchants globally. Note: - SKALE is not available for residents of the United States.

What makes Celer different? Please read our 2018 Annual Report — Part I Technology Innovation.As the new year approaches, Celer Network team wishes everyone a wonderful new year! Thank you all for your continued support. Since we first came out of stealth in Q1 2018 with some early supporters, we have seen significant growth in Celer Network’s vision, technology, team and community. We would like to share our 2018 highlights with all of you! Our Annual Report 2018 is composed of four parts:In the next four days, we will release each part separately. 🙌Celer Network aims to bring Blockchain technology to mass adoption. It is an Internet-scale, trust-free, and privacy-preserving off-chain scaling platform where everyone can quickly build, operate, and use highly scalable decentralized applications. It provides unprecedented performance and flexibility through innovations in off-chain scaling techniques and a crypto economics model designed based on game theory principles to bring essential value to the off-chain ecosystem.Celer Network is founded by PhDs from MIT, Princeton, UC Berkeley and UIUC and has an all-star engineering team with years of industry experiences from top startups or tech giants like Google, Amazon, Cisco, Oracle, HP and more.Celer Network continues to lead the technology innovation in the space of off-chain (or “layer-2”) infrastructure with many the world’s first: we led the cutting-edge research and development of layer-2 scaling; we delivered the world’s most advanced off-chain scaling Testnet; we released cWallet: the first-ever mobile wallet supporting Celer Network; we released first-ever mobile native off-chain SDK; we delivered on our promise of being “blockchain agnostic” by supporting two architecturally very different blockchains, Ethereum and DFINITY, at the same time.On the research front, we were the first to propose a complete technology and crypto economics architecture for the layer-2 scaling space. We were the first to publish a full spec of off-chain smart contract design and a three-layered off-chain technology architecture. We also introduce the first-ever layer-2 crypto economics design with the CELR token driving State Guardian Network, Proof of Liquidity Commitment and Liquidity Backing Auction (CESC talk). These mechanisms together solve the fundamental challenges of state availability, data connectivity and liquidity shortage. Our crypto economics model is now widely recognized by the entire community with our submission accepted by high-profile academic and developer conferences like CESC and Ethereum Devcon 4.We have also launched Celer Network’s first production-grade Testnet with code name Centauri (as the closest star system to earth). Centauri is the world’s first off-chain scaling Testnet with multi-hop generalized state channel network support. There is no other system running in the world where end users can be seamlessly connected together by a generalized state channel network and run general purpose off-chain smart contracts. Centauri is currently running on top of Ethereum’s Ropsten Testnet with both ETH and ERC-20 support. Not only being the first, Centauri’s transaction performance gain is a stunning 20,000X improvement: a transaction on Celer takes only about 25ms to 100% finality while an Ethereum layer-1 transaction usually takes more than 450s (30 confirmations) to be considered final on major exchanges. This level of latency reduction will directly translate to entirely revolutionized blockchain user experience. As for TPS, Celer Network keeps a horizontal scaling paradigm and therefore can increase TPS simply by adding more nodes.Along with the Testnet, we released Celer Network SDK on three platforms: Android, iOS and a Go client. With these SDKs, developers can build a long list of off-chain dApps including pay-per-use micro-services with SLA guarantee, instant machine to machine IoT payment and services, prediction market and decentralized assets exchanges with instant off-chain order matching, non-custodian hybrid exchanges, highly interactive blockchain games (such as Blackjack, Monopoly, Chess and Texas Hold’em), online micro auctions, micro insurance and many more. We would like to highlight that we are the world’s first to deliver a mobile native off-chain transaction SDK as we believe mobile platforms will be a prevailing platform for blockchain application adoption. You can access our SDK for Android here and for iOS here.Leveraging the Celer Network SDK, we have built and released alpha version of cWallet, the first-ever mobile wallet built with Celer Network support. Blockchain applications are in desperate need of good UX and many of the UX challenges are deeply rooted in the lack of scalability today. We have a focus on end user access to Celer platform from day 1.With cWallet, we confidently show that Celer Network Testnet is not an “obscure black console” or some exciting numbers on a website. Instead, Celer Network is something every user can touch and try today with instant off-chain payment and highly interactive fun games. See a video demo of cPay and cGomoku. We have received overwhelmingly positive feedbacks from the community. cWallet serves as not only an entry point to Celer Network, but also a reference design for our future crypto wallet partners to quickly provide a pattern for our partners to integrate with Celer Network. Finally, we have used cWallet to collect important feedbacks from users in terms of onboarding Celer Network platform and that has helped us to design a better user experience to onboard new users to the crypto world.Celer Network set out to a general layer-2 platform that brings Internet scale to every blockchain. We are delivering our promise by supporting multiple blockchains with drastically different architectures. We currently support all EVM-compatible blockchains, such as Ethereum, Thunder Token and Oasis Labs, and also support an entirely different programming paradigms proposed by DFINITY. However, with our cChannel abstraction, users and developers interacting with upper layer APIs won’t notice the differences in the underlying blockchains, and can focus on just building and using better apps. This layered abstraction brings a new level of interoperability that makes Celer Network a potential “narrow waist” in the broader blockchain ecosystem like TCP/IP is for the Internet architecture. Checkout our smart contract open source repo here.We have always believed that user adoption is paramount for blockchain’s progression and is the only way to progress to the next phase of blockchain industry. To this end, we released our user-facing app cWallet alpha on Android and iOS platform. cWallet allows users to access to cApps: cPay, a simple payment app with instant transaction and no fee; cGomoku, a board game where you can bet some testnet ETH with your friends on the outcome of the game, in an entirely trust-free way.Also, come and celebrate holidays with Celer Network by participating our cGomoku Pop-up Challenge and win ETH. Thank you for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow for our Part II update: Product Market Fit and User Adoption. Happy New Year!! 🙌Layer 2 Scaling Solutions: Bring Internet Scale to Every Blockchain

The surge in bitcoin’s price on Friday has propelled the cryptocurrency past Facebook’s market cap. Next, bitcoin stands to flip Tesla, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and then Apple.

Bitcoin’s frequent rise past all-time highs this week has made the size of the cryptocurrency larger than Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook.

The price of bitcoin broke another all-time high early Friday morning, reaching $41,970. At the time of writing, BTC stands at $41,147; its market cap is about $770 billion while Facebook’s market cap is approximately $752 billion. Gemini cryptocurrency exchange’s founder Cameron Winklevoss commented:

Bitcoin has surpassed Facebook in market cap. Makes sense that a money network would be more valuable than a social network.

The Winklevoss twins have been major holders of bitcoin since April 2013 when they bought $11 million worth of BTC, an equivalent of a full 1% of all bitcoins at the time. This came less than a decade after the twins sued Zuckerberg in 2004, claiming that the Facebook founder stole their idea for the social network platform while attending Harvard together. The twins won a $65 million settlement from that lawsuit and went on to found the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange.

Bitcoin developer and educator Jimmy song wrote, “Bitcoin just flippened Facebook. You still think Zuckerberg is the smart one and not Tyler or Cameron?”

Instead of embracing bitcoin, Facebook is helping develop the diem cryptocurrency, formerly known as libra. The social media giant first proposed the Libra project in June 2019. It was subsequently redesigned and a new whitepaper was published by the Libra Association, which is now called the Diem Association. The new design augments the Libra network by including single-currency stablecoins. In November, reports suggested that the new cryptocurrency could launch early this year, pending regulatory approval.

The Facebook-backed cryptocurrency has attracted the attention of many regulators worldwide. They are worried that since Facebook has about 2.7 billion users, the proposed “global stablecoin” will achieve scale without an appropriate regulatory framework, which could undermine their monetary systems. Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), recently downplayed bitcoin as a risk to financial stability but warned of the risks posed by global stablecoins, such as the diem cryptocurrency.

After flipping Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway last week, bitcoin has risen in market capitalization above Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group Holding, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), Tencent, and now Facebook.

The next company to flip is Elon Musk’s Tesla, which itself overtook Facebook on Thursday. Bitcoin actually surpassed Tesla’s market cap briefly on the same day before Tesla’s stock price took a leap in response to a prominent analyst lifting a bear call on the stock. The rise in Tesla’s stock price also helped CEO Elon Musk become the world’s richest man, overtaking Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

After Tesla, bitcoin stands to overtake Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and then Apple. In terms of asset classes, bitcoin is near overtaking silver but still has a way to go before overtaking gold. Abra CEO Bill Barhydt opined:

Bitcoin’s market cap has just passed Facebook. There is a good chance it’ll pass Apple this year and become more valuable than any company in the world.

What do you think about bitcoin overtaking Facebook’s market cap? Let us know in the comments section below.

Purchase Bitcoin without visiting a cryptocurrency exchange. Buy BTC and BCH here.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Litecoin recently had an incredible surge, where it grew well off the $100 price range early this year. Sources linked the new gains to two crucial factors presently working within the crypto space. PayPal’s decision to add Litecoin and several other cryptocurrencies increased volumes of retail buyers reported by several exchanges, making many assets used on the platform climb.

Last year, PayPal took several steps in the space, including partnering with crypto-tech companies to create a platform that assures safe and easy buying of digital assets. Another factor is the recent rallies that improved the prices of most cryptos. Also, it became the fourth largest cryptocurrency used within the past few weeks.

Flare Networks will empower Litecoin to take smart contracts on the latest developments. The project explained that Litecoin’s empowerment was necessary and should occur within the next six months this year. The smart contracts feature similar to Ethereum-based smart contracts on several levels, according to Flare Networks.

The project mentioned that the new move would improve the digital asset in many aspects. The project did not share much details concerning smart contracts, but sources imagine it will be to create decentralized applications.

It’s also great news to Litecoin users as they will perform in subsequent Flare Network airdrops alongside several holders that receive tokens from the projects. The project explained that it would share billions of its tokens to those who participate in the event. Apart from Litecoin, Flare Network has plans for Ripple’s cryptocurrency in a bid for it to partake in its airdrops.

The Litecoin team is very receptive to the new idea and hope for the new feature. Historically, cryptocurrencies are hardly responsive to third-party involvements in their operations, but Flare Networks manage to gain some trust.

The digital asset seems interested in gaining smart contracts ability due to its use on Abra. Abra is a platform that supports Litecoin smart contracts, but people suggested that Abra limits the crypto’s smart contracts feature based on the exchange’s infrastructure. Since then, the firm envisioned a brighter future for the currency in smart contracts, and Flare Network’s new opportunity could significantly change things for digital assets.

Despite plans going on to create the new feature for the crypto, the adoption and usability is a source of concern to the crypto space. Some are afraid that people will not use the third-party platform even though the popular project created the platform. Additionally, experts see the altcoin rising soon. The cryptocurrency performed relatively well in 2020, creating the perfect platform for performance in the crypto space.

Crypto volatility is one of the biggest problems facing the new industry, discouraging investors from putting in lots of money in Altcoins. Last year saw some institutional buyers of digital assets, mainly the Bitcoin; altcoins are yet to stand against the strong monopoly Bitcoin has in the institutional markets. Other coins see primarily retail investors, being the primary reason volumes from altcoins cannot beat Bitcoin’s market cap.

TL;DR Breakdown

China has begun working on a new blockchain initiative. The project, tagged Blockchain Service Network (BSN), is geared towards integrating international Central Bank digital currencies (CBDC).

According to a recent report, BSN looks to standardize digital currency transfer practices and processes. This means that the network would build a universal digital payment network (UDPN) to ease such transactions.

The report states that it is expected that CBDC projects would drastically change the conventional payment method. Not only that, but these projects would also considerably improve resilience and the international payment system.

BSN is working with different international banks and technology companies to build UDPN. The project is expected to be finished in the next five years, and it is built on the CBDC projects of countries working on one presently.

After the project, the network would allow resources like banking, insurance, mobile applications, and ERP to use the services of UDPN to initiate a digital currency transaction payment process.

The project is still in the design stage, but its beta version is expected to be launched later in the year.

While other countries are still reluctant to embrace blockchain technology, China has taken bold steps towards implementing a national blockchain and a digital asset.

Its current BSN project shows that the country is effectively looking at integrating blockchain into everyday economic life. This would considerably ease financial transactions in the country.

The country’s blockchain project is built on the idea that it would allow smart cities, applications, and the digital economy. The government, banks, and technology companies are working hand in hand to ensure the project’s success.

Celsius Network’s CEO recently confirmed that the platform will list Cardano (ADA). ADA will be officially brought to Celsius in Q2 of this year, allowing users to gain rewards from holding it. Unfortunately, the amount of yield offered on ADA was not yet announced.

The crypto market continues to grow, both in terms of adoption and prices. Bitcoin, as usual, leads the charge, with the coin sitting only slightly below the $30k mark. Meanwhile, crypto rewards platforms are seeing a great deal of interest from their clients, including Celsius Network, which just confirmed that ADA will be listed in a few months.

According to Celsius Network’s recent announcement, Cardano (ADA) is about to become the newest addition to its list of supported cryptocurrencies. The platform will add the coin in only a few months, as Q2 2021 kicks off.

Crypto rewards platforms such as Celsius have been seeing major growth in usage. Meanwhile, the surging prices allowed their users to see some record-high interest payments on their cryptocurrency deposits.

With ADA joining the platform, the coin’s holders would be able to benefit from holding the coin in their wallets in more ways than just trading it away after its price grows. Instead of that, users would be able to earn yield in addition to staking ADA directly, on-chain.

While this was an attractive option thus far, it was also the only thing that users could do with Cardano’s coins. Now, they will have the opportunity to earn an additional portion of rewards, and secure a steady, passive income.

Alex Mashinsky, the CEO of Celsius, confirmed that ADA will be added to the platform, himself. He said as much yesterday, January 1st, during an AMA.

Unfortunately, the amount of yield offered on ADA still remains unknown, with the platform and its officials either still waiting for the right time to disclose the information, or still having to make that decision, in the first place.

The range of APY on Celsius Network tends to vary from token to token. Some tokens bring only 2.53%, while others can go as high as up to 16.16%. These percentages refer to yields for users in the US only. Those outside of the US get to earn even more — between 3.3% and 21.49%.

Some speculate that ADA might bring even more to cover the risks of staking it off-chain. But, as mentioned, the official confirmation has yet to arrive.

Flare announced today that they will be integrating Litecoin ahead of the Flare Network launch in Q2.

According to a tweet from the Flare Networks, this integration will allow LTC to be used trustlessly on Flare with Ethereum style smart contracts and gives LTC interoperability and composability.

Flare also stated that in light of these developments, the Flare token allocation will be reduced so that 5 billion FLR can be distributed to LTC participants. Further details on this reallocation to those participating in the airdrop are likely to come next week, according to reports.

Flare has also been working to integrate smart contracts with the XRP Ledger and is expected to release tokens from that airdrop later this year.

The rationale for choosing to integrate with Litecoin, over other similarly sized digital assets, may have come down to the fact that after XRP, LTC was the next biggest asset currently without smart contract capabilities.

The Litecoin Foundation has stated that it is “very excited to see the capability of smart contracts and interoperability coming for Litecoin through Flare.”

This also opens up the possibility of more such integrations that would bring the DeFi ecosystem to all non-ETH coins in the near future.

— Flare Finance (@FlrFinance) January 8, 2021

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Samyuktha is a full-time journalist at AMBCrypto. Currently pursuing her Masters in Finance and Business Analytics, she is interested in cryptocurrencies, fintech, and blockchain technology adoption across various sectors.

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