What makes Avalanche (AVAX) special?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today, we talk about Avalanche, a relatively new blockchain technology that launched in late 2020 and has already made it into the top 10 earlier this year.

Like other projects, Avalanche’s main goal is to provide the same capabilities as Ethereum, but solve its main problems. If you’ve listened to this podcast, you will recognize them quickly: Ethereum allows for the creation of an entirely digital financial system through smart contracts, but can’t currently handle a lot of transactions and the fees are very high.

Avalanche tries to solve this problem in a couple of ways. First, it splits the three core jobs – transaction validation, exchanging money, and executing smart contracts – and operates three separate computer networks to run them. This allows it to process thousands of transactions per second as opposed to around 17 for Ethereum, and Avalanche has fees that can be thousands of times lower.

The other way Avalanche attempts to replace Ethereum is by simply being compatible with it. Computer code written to build smart contracts on Ethereum can be reused on Avalanche. That means, programmers can move over very quickly and take advantage of fast, cheap transactions, which has helped Avalanche gain rapid adoption since it’s launch.

And that’s why Avalanche is becoming so popular and starting to compete with Ethereum. And next time, we’ll talk about Polkadot.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

What makes Terra (Luna) special?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today, we talk about Terra, a blockchain that aims to make payments as easy as Paypal or Venmo for a worldwide audience.

Terra has only been around since 2019 and was created specifically with stable coins in mind. The idea is to provide numerous such stable coins, one for each major real world currency to make online payments easy. Those stable coins are all exchangeable on the blockchain, making buying something in one of the other stablecoins very simple without having to exchange currencies manually.

The Terra founders have the larger vision of making online payments with crypto extremely easy. Having started very large e-commerce websites in Asia, their hope is to get people to turn Terra into a widely accepted alternative payment method online. For that vision to come true, the Terra team created payment apps for mobile and desktop and are giving their Luna token to people for using it.

Another interesting feature of Terra is also how it creates stable coins. Instead of holding a reserve – like most stable coins – they algorithmically create and destroy coins to keep the market price balanced. In other words, the stable coins themselves adjust supply and demand.

And that’s Terra. And next time, we’ll talk about Avalanche.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

What makes Ripple (XRP) special?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today, we dive into Ripple, one of the earliest cryptocurrencies out there.

Ripple is a virtual currency that targets banks and payment networks as clients. The idea behind Ripple is to replace the antiquated inter-bank payments systems. It is not designed for consumers like us.

And that differentiation makes it one of the most adopted crypto projects out there. Major commercial banks like Santander use the technology to move money around for example.

But note how we haven’t said a word about blockchains yet? That’s because Ripple doesn’t operate on blockchain technology. Instead, the Ripple company provides validation of transactions, meaning Ripple isn’t decentralized and the company is the sole entity that has full control over its future. There is still a permanent record of all transactions though, much like Bitcoin. All that makes Ripple extremely fast with very low fees for those banks.

Another thing to know about Ripple is that major exchanges in the US have halted trading of its token. That is because Ripple is currently being sued by the security exchange commission, the US agency that oversees the stock market. They allege that Ripple sold their tokens illegally to the public. So if you decide to trade Ripple, just understand it might be hard to sell in the US.

And that’s Ripple! And next time, we’ll talk about Terra Luna.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

What  make Cardano (ADA) special?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today, we talk about Cardano, one of the most popular blockchains out there.

Cardano was created in 2017 by a former founding member of the Ethereum team and it aims to solve the problems that Ethereum has with low transaction volumes and high transaction prices.

From a technological point of view, Cardano is not unlike other projects who have the same goal. It does, however, have a couple of unique ideas.

First, changes to the blockchain don’t just get voted on, they also get peer-reviewed. The idea of peer reviews comes from the science community, where ideas can only get published if they have been reviewed in detail by other scientists. The founder of Cardano, who happens to be a mathematician, hopes that peer-reviews will bring a more solid long-term approach to the blockchain’s development.

Second, Cardano also separates the basic layer of sending and receiving money from the smart contract layer. Think of it like going to the DMV to pay for the renewal of your car registration. Instead of waiting in line with everyone else until your number is called, there is an express lane for payments and you are in and out in no time. That also means that when major functional updates happen, the transaction layer of Cardano can keep working without interruptions.

And that’s what makes Cardano special! And tomorrow, we’ll talk about Ripple.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

What is the Blockchain Trilemma?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today, we’ll talk about the three big problems every blockchain tries to solve at the same time. This is also called the “Blockchain Trilemma”. Knowing about this concept is important, because it’ll help you evaluate a blockchain’s future potential.

The three problems in the Trilemma are security, scalability, and decentralization. Achieving all of them at the same time is the holy grail that no technology has fully achieved today. Let’s take a look at why that is.

Security is the first problem, and in this context it simply means making sure that nobody can fake transactions.

Scalability is a blockchain’s ability to cheaply process so many transactions at the same time that it could replace everything from credit cards to banking – and that’s a lot.

Decentralization is about making sure that no single actor has control over the entire system, so that it is not influenced by an individual or an organization alone.

The problem is that each of those creates a tradeoff. For example, security for Bitcoin is ensured through proof-of-work, a process that slows things down deliberately, making Bitcoin too slow for real world use.

Ethereum is fully decentralized and secure, but transactions are slow and cost hundreds of dollars.

The Binance Smart chain is fast and cheap, because the company behind it chooses the few actors who can validate, but that also violates the principles of decentralization.

So you see where this is going.

But what does that mean for you? Simply use the Blockchain Trilemma to evaluate any blockchain you are researching - that’ll be a very good way of checking if something has future potential.

And next time, we’ll talk about popular blockchains again, taking a deeper look at Cardano.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

How safe are stable coins actually?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today, we’ll talk about how stable those Stable Coins actually are.

Remember from previous episodes: Stable coins are cryptocurrencies that track a real world currency in value, for example the US Dollar. That means 1 stable coin is always traded for 1 US Dollar. That protects the holder against the wild market swings in crypto like Bitcoin.

But how safe is your money in stablecoins like Tether or USDC actually? To get to the bottom of that question, first we need to understand how stablecoins work.

Imagine you collect shells on the beach. They are worthless by themselves. But let’s say you offer your friends a deal: Buy a shell from me for 1 dollar and I guarantee that I will always exchange that shell back for a dollar. In theory your friends could now buy bread with those shells, if the baker is willing to exchange them back for real dollars with you.

That’s how stable coins work too. You buy them from the issuer, and in theory the issuer creates a reserve of real currency, guaranteeing the value.

Ok! Back to your shells. Now, what happens if you had spent the money your friends gave you and suddenly they all come back, trying to exchange their shells? You wouldn’t be able to pay them. Good luck to them, finding someone on the open market to buy some useless shells.

And that’s the risk with stable coins too. Some don’t have enough reserve to cover a major exchange back to dollars. Tether for example was sued by the US government because it allegedly made misleading claims about the amount of reserve they hold. USDC went the other way and created a fully audited and regulated reserve to create trust.

So be careful and do your research. Some tokens may be less stable than you think.

And next time we will talk about the Blockchain Trilemma, the three big problems all blockchains struggle to solve.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

What makes USD Coin (USDC) special?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today is about yet another popular stable coin: USD Coin, also called USDC.

If you are just tuning into our podcast now: Stablecoins are special types of crypto currencies that follow a real world currency in value. USDC is just like that, and it follows the US Dollar, making 1 USDC always worth 1 actual US dollar. That makes it, like other stablecoins, very usable for real-life transactions.

What makes USDC special is not the technology, but who backs it and how they do it.

USDC was created in a joint venture of Coinbase, the popular crypto exchange, and Circle, a finance company based in Boston. Coinbase is a publicly traded and officially regulated exchange, Circle’ backers include big institutions, like Goldman Sachs.

Knowing that, you can easily see that credibility is the main goal here with those big names behind USDC. But the way it is backed also aims to create trust in the cryptocurrency: Every dollar of USDC in circulation is backed by the equivalent of real dollars in a reserve. And that reserve is officially regulated by the US government, and audited by a top 10 accounting firm.

So what are the downsides? Mostly transaction costs, as USDC is built on top of Ethereum. But that should be solved soon, as support is planned for competing blockchains like Algorand, Stellar and Solana.

And since we are on the topic, next time we’ll take a break from new coins and will talk a little more about how stable those stable coins actually are.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

What makes Solana (SOL) special?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today, let’s talk about Solana!

Solana is a blockchain technology that allows developers to build so-called decentralized apps, or financial systems, on its infrastructure. That could be anything from currencies, to loans, to NFTs. As such, it has very similar goals to Ethereum and Binance Coin, which we’ve discussed in previous episodes.

So what makes Solana special then? Founded in 2017, but only recently released in 2020, Solana has the goal to handle massive transaction volumes without compromising security and decentralization. In other words, it wants to replace Ethereum with none of the bottlenecks.

And to achieve that, Solana invented a few unique tricks. But the primary innovation is a process called “proof of history”. This allows for many computers in its network to validate blocks, which are groups of transactions, in parallel. In contrast, Bitcoin for example, can only validate one block at a time before all the computers have to communicate and catch up on the latest data again.

And in fact, Solana has been tested with up to ​​100,000 transactions per second, and transactions cost a fraction of a cent. Compare that to the roughly ten thousand transactions per second going through traditional Credit Cards, all of which cost a few percent in fees, and you see why people think Solana could be a leading technology in the future.

And that’s Solana! And tomorrow, we’ll talk about USD Coin.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

What makes Tether (USDT) special?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Before we start today, we want to share some exciting news. We just closed a financing round with amazing investors like Coinbase Ventures to bring you cryptohunt.it, a website where we’ll make crypto learning and discovering easy for everyone. Stay tuned and share the news and this podcast with your friends if you want to help us out!

Now, let’s get to it and talk about Tether, specifically USDT. Tether is a stable coin, meaning that its value closely follows that of a real-world currency. That means 1 Tether is always worth 1 US Dollar. This makes it a very useful crypto currency to do everyday transactions with, because it doesn’t fluctuate in price.

Tether achieves that by holding the real-world money equivalent of all Tethers combined in a reserve, and guaranteeing the value of a Tether through that. In other words, the company will always buy a Tether back for one Dollar, and in doing so, creates a stable price.

But Tether is not the only stable coin, so what made it so popular that it currently is the fourth largest crypto currency? It is the ability to operate on multiple different blockchains at the same time, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. That means it has a much larger potential user base and payments work between blockchains. It’s like sending money directly from your Paypal to a friend’s Venmo.

And before we close, it is worth noting that Tether has been sued by multiple US government agencies for allegedly misrepresenting how much they actually hold in reserve. If true, that would mean the company could run out of money if many people want to withdraw Tether.

And that’s Tether! And next time we talk about Nr. 5 on the list: Solana!

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

What makes the Binance Coin (BNB) special?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

We talked about Bitcoin and Ethereum, number 1 and 2 in market cap, extensively. Let’s spend some time exploring the rest of them! Today: Binance Coin, which currently is number 3 in market capitalization!

Binance Coin is a token that was originally issued as an alternative payment method on the parent company’s crypto exchange. The Binance exchange simply offered lower transaction costs to anyone using their token.

As Binance grew into one of the largest exchanges in the world, the vision for the token expanded. It eventually morphed into an alternative to Ethereum, meaning that it lets developers build Decentralized Finance  products – short: DeFi – with smart contracts. Make sure to check out our episodes on Defi and Smart Contracts.

While both have the same goal, the Binance blockchain wants to solve the key problems that Ethereum still faces: Low transaction volume and high transaction costs. And it does so in a unique, and sometimes criticized way: It centralizes control.

The company itself chooses who gets to validate transactions, giving that privilege to only a handful few. That makes transactions fast and cheap in theory. In fact, they are about a whopping 80 times cheaper than Ethereum right now. In addition, Binance also has the power of blocking smart contracts to decrease fraud.

But is it too risky to trust a single company with managing almost 100 bn dollars in circulation? We’ll leave that judgement up to you. But it certainly makes Binance Coin unique among many others.

And next time, we’ll talk about Tether, which currently sits at #4 in market capitalization.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.