1confirmation Newsletter - Issue #63
Much of the technical discussion about blockchains to date has been about designing new consensus algorithms for better scalability. Meanwhile, state growth is an important but little-discussed issue and is an existential threat to the growth of the industry if left unsolved. Ethereum 1.0, for instance, can only sustain state growth for three more years.
Fortunately, there is a lot of great research being done by different teams to solve the state growth problem. Ethereum is working on state rent and state pruning; Nervos is working on "cap and trade" state storage; and Cambrian Tech is working on stateless blockchain clients.
Read more in our latest piece: The State Growth Problem Facing Blockchains
Required reading this week
Ethereum: The Digital Finance Stack — medium.com
David Hoffman summarizes the different layers of the Ethereum DeFi stack: Layer 0 (Ethereum), Layer 1 (MakerDAO), Layer 2 (Lending and Borrowing), Layer 3 (Applications), and Layer 4 (Liquidity).
Incomplete Contracts (and Scaling Crypto)
Many apps built atop smart contract platforms are likely to be "incomplete contracts," meaning they will require ongoing human input and decision making. Jesse Walden writes about contract theory as a framework for classifying crypto projects and how they scale.
Smart Wallets are Here — blog.gnosis.pm
Eric Conner discusses the benefits of security and fund protection that smart contract wallets are bringing to Ethereum.
Web3 Business Models in the Wild — medium.com
Alex Hoffmann takes a look at various Web 3 business models, such as transactions fees, fees to mint or sell tokens, monetizing cToken interest, subscriptions, and more.
9 Things You Didn't Know About Ethereum 2.0 — our.status.im
The Status team explains several uncommonly known facts about the upcoming Ethereum 2.0 upgrade.
Cryptocurrency Data 101: Market Landscape of the Bitcoin & Crypto Data and Analytics Sector — www.chrismccann.com
Chris McCann compiles a market ecosystem map of the cryptocurrency data and analytics space, a market which could see the next billion dollar companies emerge from.
1confirmation portfolio reading this week
Nervos CKB Public Token Sale Update — medium.com
Nervos shares some early information about its upcoming CK Byte public token sale and how to participate.
Polkadot: Promise and Problems — medium.com
Tom Shaughnessy explores the benefits and potential concerns of Polkadot as the project approaches its mainnet launch the end of this year.