Forem: Oluwatunkunmi Okupa

Implementing Solana Pay's Pos system into your website

Oluwatunkunmi Okupa — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 10:45:06 +0000

New technologies are being brought to life every day, and blockchain technology is one of the emerging ones currently being utilized. In my last article, we learned how to set up Solana Pay’s Pos System to accept crypto payments on Devnet.

Now we’re going to learn how to add support for a stablecoin, quickly set up the Pos system on mainnet, and add it as a payment method to our website.

It’s 2022, and crypto payment is becoming more mainstream. How cool would it be to quickly get a crypto donation or “coffee tip” from an anonymous guest on your website? Let’s find out.

Prerequisites

To follow and understand this tutorial, you will need the following:

A text editor or IDE (preferably Vscode)
Node.js installed on your machine
Minimal knowledge of HTML
A preview of my last article on setting up Solana’s Pos system on Devnet

Moving from Devnet to Mainnet

As explained in my last article, the Devnet server is for local development and is hosted on your local machine. It enables testing and experimenting without affecting real assets, but the mainnet is used for production and will affect real assets.

Here’s how you can easily move the Solana Pos system from the Devnet server to the Mainnet server

Step 1: Open up your project folder in Vscode

Clone the original Solana pay repository and open up the project in vscode

Step 2: Locate the file containing our main react component

You can find this in point-of-sale/src/client/components/pages/app.tsx file

Step 3: Navigate to the ConnectionProvider endpoint

This can be done by searching for ConnectionProvider in the codebase. You can do this by hitting “cmd+f” to bring up a search modal

Step 4: Edit the values from Devnet to Mainnet

Once you have found the <ConnectionProvider endpoint>, edit it from DEVNET_ENDPOINT to MAINNET_ENDPOINT (it’ll probably show up as a suggestion on vscode depending on your settings), and voila, you’ve successfully ported from devnet to mainnet.

Switching token support from $SOL to $USDC stablecoin

Solana Pay supports Solana’s native asset ($SOL) and the stablecoin $USDC issued as a native SPL token on the Solana blockchain. Although you can currently only enable one at a time, adding a stablecoin gives developers and merchants the ability to add a token pegged to the US dollar to combat the volatility and fluctuations in price that they would typically get on other crypto assets.

Here’s how we can easily add support for $USDC:

Step 1: Locate the ConfigProvider in the file structure containing our main react component

In same file structure point-of-sale/src/client/components/pages/app.tsx, navigate to the <ConfigProvider> by searching for ConfigProvider in the codebase

### Step 2: Setup the $USDC token in the codebase
Edit the values in the ConfigProvider to match the code below

splToken={MAINNET_USDC_MINT}
symbol="USDC"
icon={<USDCIcon />}
decimals={6}
minDecimals={2}

Voila, you have successfully switched the support of the token from $SOL to $USDC. In the code above, we set $USDC as the spltoken to accept, edited the symbol and icon values from $SOL to $USDC, and matched the decimals and minDecimals to correlate with the $USDC token.

You can confirm the decimals and other details of the token by copying the mint address of the token and pasting it at Solscan (Solana’s blockchain explorer). In the project folder, you can find this address in the file structure point-of-sale/src/client/components/utils/constant.ts.

When completed, save the code and run it on your local machine, and the result should be similar to this:

Deploying the Solana POS on vercel

Vercel is a cloud platform for developers to host websites and web services. It supports frontend frameworks and allows for easy and automatic scaling. We will be deploying our Pos payment system there.

Step 1: Fork the original repository to your GitHub

In other to proceed, we have to fork the original repository to your GitHub and move the Pos system from Devnet to Mainnet as shown earlier, you can decide on the token you would like the Pos system to accept, but for this article, we will be making use of the stable $USDC token.

Step 2: Log in to Vercel and create a new project

Create a new project on Vercel, import the forked repository, and set the root directory to point-of-sale.

Step 3: Set the project name and Framework

Set the project name to your preferred choice and Framework to Next.js

Step 4: Deploy it

With all the necessary settings made, deploy it

Adding Solana Pay Pos to your website

Now that we have deployed the Pos payment system, we can now proceed to add it as a payment page on our website. I will be using an already existing website built by a close friend. It served as my former portfolio website. Here's the link to the GitHub repository.

Step 1: Clone the repository and open up the folder in Vscode.

Step 2: Launch the website locally

Right-click on the index.html file and copy the path to your browser to launch the website locally (this will help us to see the changes being made)

Step 3: Composing the payment page link

Copy the Point-of-sale address below and edit the domain from localhost to the domain of your deployed Vercel app. Also, add your wallet address to the recipient tag, and you can choose to edit the label to a preferred name.

https://localhost:3001?recipient=Your+Merchant+Address&label=Your+Store+Name

When completed, the result should be similar to this but with your own details

https://tunkunmi.vercel.app/?recipient=acPRRRT9LzAdp6ZcPEw9sMXRnjuRb6zrXNJbUqmDMMt&label=Tunkunmi

As we advance, we will refer to this as our “payment page link”

Step 4: Setting up the payment page

Navigate to contact within the codebase, you should see two sets within the codebase, input the code below in a new line under each.

<a class="overlayLinks" target="_blank" href="">TIP ME</a>

Input your payment page link in the href. The result should be similar to this but with your details when completed.

<a class="overlayLinks" target="_blank" href="https://tunkunmi.vercel.app/?recipient=acPRRRT9LzAdp6ZcPEw9sMXRnjuRb6zrXNJbUqmDMMt&label=Tunkunmi">TIP ME</a>

We added our payment page link to the web page in the code above. We did this by implementing an anchor tag that added our payment link as a hyperlink in a text that read “TIP ME”, considering user accessibility, we also added a target attribute that will redirect a user to the payment page link and display in a new tab when they click on “TIP ME”

Once that has been implemented, go back to your browser and refresh it, the “TIP ME” button should be evident at the top right corner of the page. Click it, you should be redirected to your Solana Pay payment page.

You can view the website here and it’s been hosted on GitHub pages.

Conclusion

In this article, we learnt how to move from the Solana Pos system from Devnet to Mainnet, how to deploy to vercel, and how to add it to their website as a payment page.

I hope you enjoyed this article. I can’t wait to see the incredible ways you experiment with this system, as it’s evident that crypto payments are becoming more popular by the day. Solutions like these will help solve many problems in the business and finance sector.

A simple guide on how to set up Solana Pay's POS system on Devnet

Oluwatunkunmi Okupa — Thu, 19 May 2022 14:58:47 +0000

Introduction

The blockchain ecosystem is expanding, as is one of its most essential concepts, DeFi (Decentralized Finance). This concept uses the blockchain's capabilities to provide financial services such as investments, loans, savings, and payments for products and services without using financial institutions or intermediaries.

Crypto payments are gaining popularity worldwide because they enable near-instant cross-border transfers, as opposed to the traditional banking system, which is riddled with restrictions and limitations that vary by region. This article will go over how to set up Solana Pay's point of sale system on the Devnet server to accept payments in the blockchain's native asset (SOL).

What is Solana Pay and how does it work?

Solana Pay is a payment platform that uses the Solana blockchain's scalability to provide businesses and customers with lightning-fast and low-cost transactions. As a decentralized digital payment platform, it gives users access to transaction records, wallet addresses, transaction amounts, and currency types but keeps the information hidden from the network. It accepts SOL (Solana's native token) and other tokens issued on the blockchain, such as USDC, as payment.

Developers can easily incorporate it into their (Dapps) Decentralized applications. An example of this is PocketPay, a POS wallet with Solana Pay integrated into it, and merchants can accept it as a form of payment to customers using Solana-based wallets like Phantom. It also brings other interesting smart contract functionalities into business transactions by allowing customers to get items at a discounted price using an NFT as loyalty points. This will enable businesses to accept crypto payments regardless of their location.

Prerequisites

To follow and understand this tutorial, you will need the following:

A text editor or IDE (preferably vscode)
Phantom wallet browser extension & mobile application
Node.js installed on your machine

Getting Started

We will set up the Pos system on the Devnet server. The Devnet server is only available for local development and is hosted on your local machine. It enables testing and experimenting without affecting real assets.

Commencing this tutorial will require us to clone Solana pay’s Github repository. You can choose to download it as a zip file from the official repository or run the command below in a terminal on vscode:

git clone https://github.com/solana-labs/solana-pay.git

After cloning the repository, run the command below to change the terminal directory to the project directory:

cd point-of-sale

Install dependencies

The next step is to install dependencies, run the command below in a terminal in order to do so:

yarn install

Set up your local development server

With the necessary packages now fully installed with the aid of yarn, we will be setting up our development server. Run the command below:

yarn dev

Once successful, open the local server in your browser and confirm it’s running. You should see something similar to this:

Set up your local client server

The next step is to set up a client server, open up a new terminal (remember to change directory to point-of-sale) and run the following code:

yarn proxy

Set up the merchant wallet address

Copy the point of sale address below into your note editor. You can get this directly from Solana Pay’s Pos repository.

https://localhost:3001?recipient=Your+Merchant+Address&label=Your+Store+Name

Next, open the phantom wallet browser extension and change network settings to Devnet (this will serve as our merchant wallet)

Copy the wallet address and edit it into the recipient section of the point-of-sale address.

Copy the edited point-of-sale from your note editor and paste it into a new tab in your browser. It should look like this:

Set up and funding the customer wallet

To make payment to a merchant address, we need a customer wallet. This is where the phantom wallet on your phone comes in.

Open the phantom wallet on your phone and change the network settings to Devnet (this will serve as our customer wallet)

Copy the wallet address by clicking on the top part of the application

Next, head over to Solfaucet, input your wallet address and an amount of 2 SOL, then select Devnet so Solfaucet can fund your wallet with SOL

Making payment to the merchant with the customer wallet

Now that we have a client wallet funded with SOL, we can easily make payments to the merchant.

Head back to your browser and navigate to the point-of-sale tab. Input an amount and generate a Payment code

Next, head back to the customer wallet and click the barcode reader button on the top right of the application.

Go back to the point-of-sale, use your phone to scan the generated payment code, and hit send.

Congratulations, you have successfully made a crypto payment in SOL via Solana Pay’s Point of Sale system.

Conclusion

In this article, you learnt about the importance of crypto payments and the leverage it has over the traditional banking systems, what Solana Pay is, and how to set up and perform transactions on its Point of Sale system on Devnet.

An Overview of the Solana Blockchain and its Ecosystem

Oluwatunkunmi Okupa — Wed, 18 May 2022 14:57:01 +0000

Solana’s Mainnet Beta ceased producing blocks on the 30th of April 2022, which led to a 7-hour outage on the blockchain caused by stalled consensus. Solana is a blockchain I follow closely, and this outage is not the first of its kind. Solana is a blockchain that boasts of being the fastest and cheapest blockchain in the ecosystem, with transaction volumes of up to 710,000 transactions per second at an average cost of $0.00025. This article will overview Solana, its consensus mechanism, its ecosystem, and some of its issues.

What is Solana?

Initially founded by Anatoly Yakovenko, a former Qualcomm employee, in 2017 after publishing a whitepaper on a unique blockchain consensus mechanism known as Proof-of-history. Solana is a Layer-1 decentralized high-performance blockchain that allows developers to quickly build scalable, efficient, and user-friendly decentralized applications (Dapps). Thanks to its unique consensus, its scalability allows for fast transaction speeds at lower transaction fees. It also acts as a platform for thousands of projects (NFTs, DeFi, GameFi, and DAO) in the blockchain ecosystem.

Solana’s Consensus Mechanism

What is a Blockchain Consensus Mechanism?

A blockchain consensus mechanism can be defined as the protocols required to meet an agreement on the decentralized network. These protocols can affect the state of data values on the blockchain, validation of transactions, and smart contracts. They also help in maintaining the blockchain’s security. An example of an active blockchain consensus mechanism is the Proof-of-work mechanism used by Ethereum and Bitcoin.

Solana’s Proof-of-History

Solana uses a consensus known as Proof-of-History. Following it’s whitepaper, it is a modified version of Proof-of-stake. Proof-of-history is a sequence of computation that records the time passed between two events and verifies it without communicating with numerous validator nodes (think of them as computers). Unlike other blockchains where validator nodes verify the order of events on the blockchain through local timestamps, which inevitably leads to more time usage for transaction verification, Solana uses a trustless consensus system that serves as the generally verifiable timestamp across the network.

It does this through a cryptographic protocol known as “Verifiable Delay Function”. By hashing every transaction or event, it assigns a unique count and hash to each transaction and executes it in a sequence, and by periodically using the output as the following transaction’s input it creates a “history of transactions” that can serve as a form of timestamp that the blockchain can use to determine time passed between events.

Moreover, it acts as a form of a cryptographic clock for the blockchain and its validators. This ultimately leads to a reduction in the node’s workload leading to a faster, lighter, and more efficient blockchain because validator nodes can produce blocks without confirming with the entire network.

The Hick in Solana

Solana has shown to have congestion issues which can be classified as usual for blockchains due to a recurrence of high transaction volumes. But the hick with Solana is that it has also had constant outages, which is a problem for a “decentralized network”. Some say it is a result of its compromise for stability with scalability prompting challenges in the way it handles critical consensus mechanisms when the transactions stream on the blockchain are swamped.

The recent crackdown on the blockchain resulted from an inflow of transactions caused by a swarm of bots trying to mint a new NFT through the Candy Machine Program. This led to the network validating around 6 million transactions per second which surpassed the initial traffic Validator nodes could handle, thus halting consensus and block production. This led to a restart of the network through human-aided intervention.

Will this happen again and should you be worried?

Solana has actively identified its problems and is working on implementing solutions. Following their recent report,they plan to implement new protocols that will aid communication between nodes and optimize data ingestion by appending QUIC - an asynchronous communication protocol built by Google. They also plan to augment their transaction prioritization by halting the first-come-first-serve routine and replacing it with a “stake-weighted transaction” model as well as an “arbitrary fee-based transaction” model for the swift execution of “urgent” transactions.

They are revamping their fee, transaction, and communication structure. While this is great, it is pretty ironic for Solana to initiate a new form of fee prioritization. Like every other “Ethereum Killer”, Solana boasts of solving the scalability issue in the blockchain trilemma and being able to handle faster transactions at a lower gas fee.

One thing to note is that Solana still refers to its mainnet as “Beta” so bugs and errors are still liable to be found on the network, which gives an idea of whether this will happen again. You can follow the status of the blockchain’s servers (mainnet RPC nodes, testnet, devnet etc) here.

Solana’s Native Token $SOL

Solana’s native asset is referred to as “SOL”. It currently has a liquid supply of 527 Million according to Messari’s metrics. The Solana token can be used to pay for transaction fees on the blockchain and can also be staked for governance purposes or assigned to validators to secure the network. By doing this, stakers earn an inflation reward of up to 8% annually.

Solana’s Ecosystem

Solana houses many blockchain projects ranging from NFTs to DeFi projects etc. It is also important to note that as an “Ethereum killer”, Solana is not EVM-compatible (Ethereum Virtual Machine), unlike other blockchains like Polygon and Fantom Opera.

However, it allows developers to build smart contracts on the blockchain using programming languages like Rust and C. There is also news of Neon Labs bringing EVM compatibility to Solana by allowing Ethereum smart contracts to run on Solana, possibly in a bid to escape gas fees. How truly ironic. A look into some worthwhile projects utilized in the Solana ecosystem:

DeFi

Solana has a TVL (Total Value locked) of $5.71 billion, according to DefiLama. This metric shows how much crypto assets are being staked in Solana’s liquidity pool.

Solana Pay: Solana Pay is an open and free-to-use payments framework. It is a direct merchant-to-client system that utilizes Solana's speed and low transaction fee while also being energy efficient. It claims to be the potential “Visa of the Blockchain ecosystem”.
Saber: Saber is a cross-chain liquidity network powered by Solana. It allows users to trade stable pairs at low slippage and minimal fees comfortably and allows liquidity providers to earn from transaction fees and liquidity incentives.
Raydium: Raydium is a Decentralized exchange platform built on the Solana blockchain. It enables users to swap tokens at breakneck speeds and enjoy yields through staking and farms. It also possesses other features like a launchpad for new Solana-based projects and NFTs.
Other Defi projects include: Crema Finance, Mercurial, etc.

NFTs

With Solana’s relatively inexpensive gas fees at play, it acts as a haven for creators looking to escape overly high gas fees on the Ethereum network.

Magic Eden: Magic Eden is an NFT marketplace built on the Solana blockchain. It enables users a smooth experience when minting their NFTs with a 0% listing fee and a 2% transaction fee. It also possesses a launchpad to allow creators to easily mint their NFT collections without knowing how to interact with smart contracts directly.
Solsea: This is the first Open NFT marketplace built on Solana. One of its many perks asides to help users mint and sell their NFTs on the blockchain. It allows users to stake their native token $AART and enjoy discounts on the marketplace fees for sale transactions.
Other NFT projects include Solanart, Alpha Art, etc.

Games and Metaverse

The metaverse is one of the most discussed aspects of the web3 world. There are projects on Solana built to further the concept.

Realy: Realy is the first live-to-earn metaverse on Solana. It is a game with 3D graphics built with unreal engine. It possesses its token economy where players can earn its native token $REAL by completing daily tasks in the game, own lands and houses in its idea of a “metaverse”, own NFTs, and borrow them as well as stake the native tokens to earn rewards.
Synergy Lands: Synergy Lands is a blockchain multiplayer RPG game set in a fantasy land divided into four natural elements; water, fire, air, and earth. This game allows players to own private land and enables the collection and trading of NFTs between players.
Other Gaming and Metaverse Projects include Hogylmpics, Naga Kingdom, etc.

Numerous other projects are constantly being furthered within the Solana ecosystem, and devs will still deploy many more.

Thought Bubble and Conclusion

The blockchain ecosystem is still developing, and we have yet to scratch the surface of its true potential. Solana has proven to be a reliable blockchain for various blockchain projects regardless of its breakdowns now and then. What is encouraging is that the platform is learning from real-world on-demand scenarios and how to respond to them appropriately. The change in the fee structure might put some Solana enthusiasts on edge, but it does seem to be a step in the right direction.

NFTs are more than fancy images

Oluwatunkunmi Okupa — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 12:59:48 +0000

There’s a tweet about someone investing what could most likely be your yearly annual income ($46,300) on a picture of a gray rock as an “NFT”, you saw it, and now you’re wondering what it is, why it is gaining so much attention, and how you can get involved. In this article, we will be covering the nitty-gritty of NFTs.

Crash course on tokens and token standards

Before we get right into the explanation of NFTs, you must first understand what tokens and token standards are and how they work on the blockchain.

Tokens

The word “token” has been used to represent several things in the crypto space, from referencing “crypto-assets” to other cryptocurrencies aside from Ethereum or Bitcoin (also known as altcoins). Technically, it is still accurate, but the main difference between a token and a cryptocurrency is that tokens are built on existing blockchains with smart contracts (immutable programs on the blockchain executed when certain conditions are met).

A token can be defined as a digital asset or utility built on a blockchain. You can use them for various functions like representing loyalty points offered by decentralized platforms or altcoins. Examples include :

Payment Tokens: These tokens allow for payments of goods and services through the blockchain with no intervention of a financial institution, making decentralized exchanges possible. E.g., USDT and SHIB.
Security Tokens: These tokens act like conventional securities like shares and bonds or stock. They can serve as financing opportunities for companies that are not publicly traded or listed on the stock exchange.
Non-fungible tokens: They allow for representation of ownership rights to a unique digital or real-world asset.

These tokens, unlike cryptocurrencies, are not built on their native blockchain, so they must follow the “rules” laid out on the ones housing them. It’s a classic case of “my house, my rules”.

Tokens standards

A token standard is a set of rules or functions that a smart contract must observe to comply with regulating standards in the blockchain ecosystem built upon to make them universally compatible. There are the rules the smart contracts that the tokens facilitate have to follow. Get it?

A couple of token standards exist in the blockchain ecosystem, most of which were initially built on the Ethereum blockchain. We will be looking at the main categories supported, currently the fungible and non-fungible ones. Examples include:

ERC-20: This standard possesses common functionalities like allowing the transfer of tokens between different accounts. It serves as a standard interface for fungible tokens that possess the same value, like payment tokens (cryptocurrency) on the Ethereum blockchain. Fungible tokens created on Ethereum can be called “ERC20 tokens”. Active examples of these tokens are Chainlink (LINK), Tether (USDT), Shiba Inu (SHIB), and any other fungible tokens built on the Ethereum blockchain.
ERC-721: This token standard supports the creation of non-fungible tokens that are uniquely differentiable on the Ethereum blockchain. This means that non-fungible tokens created on the Ethereum blockchain can be called “ERC721 tokens”. An active example of these tokens in use is Unstoppable Domains, a company building individual domains on the blockchain as ERC-721 tokens to replace long cryptocurrency addresses with human-readable names.

Other token standards like ERC-1155 aim to support multiple token standards like fungible, non-fungible, and semi-fungible tokens in the same smart contract, and ERC-721R aims to add a refund functionality to the ERC-721 and 1155 token standards to curb rug pulls in the NFT ecosystem.

Giving you the crash course on tokens clarifies the cliche perception that famous NFTs in vogue are not the images being traded. They are just tokens or “assets” hosted on the blockchains by smart contracts and not the images themselves (more on that in a bit).

What are NFTs?

The acronym “NFT” stands for "Non-Fungible tokens". They are digital assets stored on the blockchain and cannot be traded for another. You cannot sell them for one another because they are non-fungible.

You can also define NFTs as “ERC-721 tokens” that act as ownership certificates of a digital asset on the blockchain. You cannot trade these tokens for one another because, unlike “ERC-20 tokens” like USDT or SHIB, they are non-fungible.

What does an economic term like fungibility with “seemingly overpriced digital images”? Well, let's find out.

Fungibility means an interchangeable item as long as it retains its original value. An excellent example of this is currency (both real-world and crypto). A 100-dollar bill is equal to a 100-dollar bill. You could swap it for a 20-dollar bill split into five, provided it retains its original value. The dollar note is fungible.

The same goes for cryptocurrency, one bitcoin is directly equal to another, and ten Ethereum is equivalent to ten Ethereum. Cryptocurrency (ERC-20 tokens) is fungible.

Non-fungibility, on the other hand, is the direct opposite. It means an item cannot be interchangeable because it possesses a unique property or is rare.

A practical example of this is trying to exchange a one-of-a-kind limited edition jersey signed by LeBron James (he's my favorite basketballer) for perhaps a jacket owned by Elon Musk. Depending on who you ask, those items are two completely different items that aren't on the same value scale and cannot be immediately swapped for another. The same principle applies to houses (because not all houses are the same), rare Pokemon cards, art pieces, and even family heirlooms.

Get it now? So if we take all of that and sum it all up, in technical terms, we can say that an NFT is a digital asset that possesses a unique signature or property (the metadata or information in the ERC-721 token) on the blockchain. Kapische?

How exactly do NFTs work?

NFTs are created or “minted” on a blockchain. The Ethereum blockchain initially supported minting until other Layer 1 blockchains like Solana and Avalanche released support for it. Anything can be minted on the blockchain, from art pieces to audio to GIFs; as long as you can create a digital counterpart, it can become an NFT.

The blockchain (which serves as a form of public ledger) records the unique data of an NFT, meaning anyone can check the proof-of ownership of an NFT, its ownership history, and even the data linked to it. This makes for a fraud-proof system over ownership vendetta.

It is important to note that when you mint an item (for example, an image) onto the blockchain, the actual token does not hold the image itself. Those megabytes will consume a lot of space on the blockchain and will be inefficient.

You’re creating a unique ERC-721 token ID that will act as a form of ownership certificate for that image. The image is not stored on the blockchain but on a different server that you can trace back to, thanks to the token's metadata.

So, when people buy or sell these tokens or ‘NFTs”, they are simply trading their ownership rights of the token linked to the image (digital asset) and not the image itself.

What makes NFTs so valuable?

Several things make an NFT valuable. Considering the ownership verification and the fraud-proof system provided by the blockchain. Here are some reasons why they are valuable:

Hype: NFTs are not physical, and thus to survive must possess a form of value of the same quality as its intangibility attached to it, i.e., mental or societal value. NFTs mostly make up for bragging rights (as you do not own the physical asset attached to the NFT) to “exclusive digital assets” or “rare collectibles,” and in a society where that is perceived as “cool.” It accrues value.
Rarity: NFTs survive on a simple economic rule of supply and demand; essentially, they thrive on “rarity.” Since these tokens are unique, they possess unique properties, and in economics, high demand for a rare item leads to an increase in value.
Utility: They are also valuable due to the utility they possess, as in the case of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, where holders of the tokens get access to exclusive membership in the club, community meetups, and other benefits.
Ownership History: An important concept that drives NFTs its ownership history. As in the case of the Lebron James Jersey mentioned earlier, most people would be willing to own an item that belonged to someone they idolized, sometimes regardless of the price factor, i.e. (collectibles).

NFTs use cases

Let’s look at use cases for NFTs and how they can help individuals, brands, and businesses.

Control of creative content: Artists can use NFTs to control the distribution of digital art, seeing as we can download any image with the click of a button today. Artists like Beeple have claimed ownership of their artworks and made millions from selling them as NFTs. NFTs even allow creators to attach a commission, so they receive an amount from the transaction whenever it is traded.
NFTs in the metaverse: It’s no secret that Facebook recently changed its name to Meta to power the dream of the metaverse. Companies are building for the Metaverse dream, NFTs will play a role in it, and as we can see, people are now buying land in Decentraland as NFTs.
NFTs can serve as a form of investment: Since NFTs are rare, they accrue value over time by increasing demand. One can hold an NFT as its values increase and later decide to sell it once the investment goal has been obtained.
NFTs could aid transactions and represent real-world items: We can already see NFTs acting as authentic certificates to artworks. But critics speculate that NFTs will eventually be able to serve as representations for house deeds and even negative value assets like loans and aid in their trading and payments, perhaps as collaterals according to the initial proposal.

General Problem NFTs could pose

Environmental Impact: Blockchain technology consumes a high amount of electricity, seeing as it runs on thousands of computers spread across the globe. This can lead to negative impacts on the environment. With this current dilemma in play, activists pressure companies to switch to eco-friendly power sources like solar energy. Blockchain networks like Polygon have already started making moves by going Carbon Neutral.
Demand and Supply: NFTs thrive on rarity by following the principle of demand and supply. A few have a form of utility attached to them or perks for holders, so if a brand pushes an NFT project and customers do not buy into the idea, then the demand linked to its value will take a hit.
Money Laundering: NFTs themselves haven’t exactly been shown or proven to be in cases involving money laundering, but they have been placed under suspicion of falling into the money laundering risk. The risks aren’t particular to NFTs, but they are believed to be another medium through which you can perpetuate the crime.
Opportunistic money grubbers: The current boom in the NFT ecosystem has gained the attention of many people who seek to use NFTs as a business opportunity to “cash out.” While that is fine, it becomes a problem when things get a little overboard, like how the Twitter account of the late Stan Lee was used for marketing an NFT.

How to get started on your NFT journey

Now that you fully understand what Non-fungible tokens are, you might be interested in how you can be involved in the space.

Where to mint, buy and sell NFTs?

Currently, there are decentralized applications (Dapps) that serve as marketplaces and aid in the minting and trading of NFTs. Examples of those are OpenSea, Rarible, LooksRare, Foundation, Magic Eden, etc.

What you need to get started

To interact with the marketplace, you would need to own a crypto wallet like MetaMask. It acts as your account, profile, and wallet in the Web3 world, including these marketplaces.

Payment and gas (minting) fee

The form of payment on Opensea, Rarible, LooksRare, and Foundation currently is Ethereum (ETH). Still, for Magic Eden it is in Solana (SOL), so to mint, your wallet must have the equivalent amount of ETH or SOL the platform requires to mint, and if you wish to purchase an NFT, you would need to have the equal amount of ETH or SOL the NFTs have been listed for, alongside the minting fee.

Conclusion

NFTs are unique tokens that hold information and double down as a certificate of ownership. Like them or not, the concept they are based on will be helpful in different industries. No one knows where the space is going, but they have shown to be capable of offering value and utility to consumers and businesses as a whole. The current hype might be short-lived, but they will not be going away soon due to their resourcefulness.

Web3 for complete newbies

Oluwatunkunmi Okupa — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 13:06:36 +0000

Introduction

I am sure you have been seeing a lot of tweets, posts, and conversations revolving around the buzzword “Web 3”. The internet as we know it has been changing over the years, but it hasn’t always been the same way we see it today.

Web3 or Web 3.0 is the next evolutionary stage of the web that aims to be secure, transparent, and decentralized. But before we can talk about Web 3, let's go over the initial versions of the web, Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.

What is Web 1.0?

Web 1.0, also known as the "read-only web" existed from 1989 to 2004 and was created by Tim Barners Lee while working as a computer scientist at CERN. He created Web 1.0 with the primary purpose of sharing and distributing information through different computers at the time. It was the first iteration of the web where people could only consume information on the web pages and not interact with it.

Characteristics that defined Web 1.0

1. Static Pages: Webpages from the web1 era were static HTML pages that used a communication protocol known as HTTP. Users could not interact with the web pages, and the information on the pages rarely ever changed. Things like commenting and creating user pages were non-existent. Most of the web pages were personal websites owned by a select few individuals who wanted to share content or businesses who wanted to relay information about their products.

2. Emailing of Forms: Website visitors in web 1.0 had to e-mail their forms to an e-mail address provided by the website. This was because the web hosting services back then did not fully support server-side scripting which was needed to send in a form directly using the web server. Imagine having to manually mail a completed form every time you hit "submit" on a webpage. Yikes!

3. Content of websites stored in files: Most websites built then were housed in a file on the creator's computer, so, unlike our current websites that store their content in a database, Web 1.0 stored theirs in files.

4. Guestbooks: Guestbooks were an initiative to the commenting dilemma. It is a web page that allows users to post comments to the person in charge of the website. The comments of visitors were added separately to the guestbook page rather than the web page itself. This was done to avoid slowing down the overall performance of the website.

When you think about it, Web 1.0 was partially decentralized. This is because users on the web were few and they had a certain level of control over their data and content. The only problem was that only developers and a handful of creators could have content on the web.

Have a look at a Web 1.0 website

What is Web 2.0?

This is the era we currently live in, it is also known as the “read and write” web or the “social web” as it is a significant step up from Web 1.0. This version allows for user interaction, content generation, and interoperability. Examples of Web 2.0 platforms/companies are Facebook (now Meta), Google, TikTok, Amazon, and Twitter, all popularly known as “The Big Tech.”

Characteristics that define Web 2.0

1. Visually appealing websites: Unlike Web 1.0 websites that used hardcoded HTML to create static and boring webpages, Web 2.0 utilizes the latest technologies/programming languages like CSS, Javascript, and even libraries like React and Vue to enhance user experience and create beautiful, elegant websites and platforms.

2. Interactivity: Web 2.0 allows for interactivity between users, which was non-existent in Web 1.0. It operates in a way whereby users concurrently act as content consumers and creators, which encourages discussions and affiliations between users across the globe.

3. Participation: Web 2.0 allows users to be more involved in the web, allowing for widespread contribution. It highlights the contrast between content creation, participation, and distribution in comparison to idle content consumption.

The emergence of Web3

The initial concept of Web 3.0 was spearheaded by Tim Barners Lee in 1999, he termed it the "semantic web". He stated that he had a dream for the Web where computers would be capable of analyzing any form of data on the Internet, including content, links, and transactions between people and computers.

Later along the line in 2014, Gavin Woods who had just co-founded Ethereum, coined the term "web3" and stated that it was going to be the next version of the web. He then went on to build the Web3 Foundation in a bid to foster the web 3 dream as well as blockchain innovation.

Everything seemed to be going great for Web 2.0 since its debut in 2004 until October 4, 2021, when Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp suffered a global outage for over six hours. This left well over 3.5 billion users with no access to its social media platforms disrupting principal communications and operations for people and businesses.

It was not the first of its kind, but it was the most significant occurrence. This phenomenon brought to light the dangers of relying on these “big tech” companies for survival on the web. That fear further developed into a yearning for users to have full access to the web and complete ownership of their content, data, privacy, and information.

These companies have faced countless lawsuits for selling users’ data without permission and for violating users’ privacy. They have even encountered multiple security breaches that have put users at risk of identity theft.

We should also note that while these companies have created platforms that have connected people on a global scale and allowed for hidden talents to be noticed and appreciated, they operate on a centralized model that puts users at their mercy.

These holes and issues propelled the emergence of Web 3.0, a form of the web that gives the users back control of the internet.

What is Web 3.0?

There is a common misunderstanding that Web 3.0 means cryptocurrency or blockchain, and while those are vital contributors to the cause, it is not all that it entails.

Web 3.0, also known as the “semantic web” or the “read, write and own” web is an evolved version of the web that aims at decentralization without any form of middleman and strives to be privacy and security conscious on the web.

Unlike Web 2.0, which is built on a centralized client-server controlled by companies, web 3.0 operates on peer-to-peer networks that talk to each other with no kill switch, which is pretty exciting. Its primary goals are to be:

Open: It is built using open-source software by a community of developers who are open and accessible and will be carried out in full view of the public.
Trustless: Users will be able to interact with each other privately or publicly without the involvement of a third party.
Permissionless: Users can participate in the web without consent from a governing body seeing as there won’t be any.

Characteristics that define Web 3.0

1. Ubiquity: Ubiquity means “appearing everywhere or of being very common,” and what this means for Web 3.0 is that content would be accessible on multiple applications. Right now, Web 2.0 is already ubiquitous because your content is everywhere on media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Web 3.0 looks to take it further with no middle man included.

2. Semantic Web: The semantics in Web 3.0 refers to the ability of the computers to interact or “talk” to each other so they can perform sophisticated tasks in our stead through data linkage. Its purpose would be to give users a greater personalized form of experience.

3. Artificial Intelligence: The utilization of Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning in the roadmap of Web 3.0 cannot be overemphasized. They will play a vital role in Web 3.0 as they will understand and process information to provide faster significant results. This is also evident in Web 2.0, but it is mostly still human-based, which gives room for human errors, bias, and influence.

4. Spatial verse and 3D graphics: Web 3.0 will enable you to travel virtually and experience places and events directly from your comfort zone, which acts as the foundation for the metaverse. The metaverse utilizes 3D technology to create a digital world where people can interact, socialize and do business as they would in the real world. You would be able to search and access things via Virtual/Augmented reality (AR/VR). An active example would be “Live view” in Google Maps or even Google’s AR search feature, where you can search and place 3D digital objects in your own space directly from your search.

Blockchain and cryptocurrency in Web 3.0

Before we go further, let me give you a little crash course on Blockchain technology and Cryptocurrency as they play a vital role in the applications of Web 3.0.

Blockchain technology can be defined as a secure and decentralized way of storing and sharing data using cryptography and distributed networks or ledger systems without the aid of a central head as it runs on peer-to-peer networks called nodes. It can also be referred to as an open, immutable linked list of transactions or data stored on a network of computers.

Because of its openness and decentralized mode of operation, it is difficult or near impossible to hack or cheat the system, making it secure, trustworthy, and efficient.

On the other hand, Cryptocurrency can be defined as a form of digital currency that you can use to make payments or carry out transactions on the blockchain (decentralized ledger system). Examples include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, Solana (my personal favorite), and Fantom.

In the Web 3.0 world, Cryptocurrencies (digital currency) will serve as a means of payment or incentive for anyone who wants to contribute to a project being built on the blockchain (decentralized network/ledger system). Get it now? It can also serve as a means of investment into projects built on the project’s blockchain.

What does Web 3.0 bring to the table?

Well, web 3.0 is the table. Web 3.0 brings along a couple of innovations with the aid of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, such as:

Smart contracts

These are programs stored on the blockchain executed when particular conditions are met. They are immutable and cannot be changed once deployed. A simple example is the transfer of landed property documents when my account receives a particular sum of money, in the case of a blockchain - “wallet.”

Defi (Decentralized Finance)

This is a term that refers to peer-to-peer financial services that run using smart contracts deployed on the blockchain without a middle man being required. With DeFi, you can get all the standard services you would at a financial institution like lending, earning interest, trading assets, except that with the blockchain, it’s faster, open and transparent, and decentralized.

Dapps (Decentralized Applications)

These are applications that operate on the blockchain, they leverage the blockchain's distributed network to process data in order to carry out transactions like the purchase of cryptocurrency, minting of NFTs, and swapping of tokens on single or multiple blockchains.

NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens)

NFTs are digital assets that can be stored on the blockchain. This gives it a unique signature on the blockchain that allows for it to be traded with cryptocurrency.

Applications of Web 3.0

There are already existing platforms that have been built to further the Web 3.0 dream, many of which are decentralized counterparts of Web 2.0 platforms like video and audio streaming sites, online games, and browsers. Some even give you incentives for making use of the platform. Here are some existing ones:

Brave Browser: Brave is a free and open-source web browser that is privacy-focused, it provides users with an option to be paid in cryptocurrency for access to their data.
Gamic Guild: Gamic is a platform that uses a P2E (Play to earn) concept that allows players to earn money as they play games that are built on the blockchain.
Crypto task: Crypto task is a Web 3.0 project that focuses on pairing freelancers with crypto and blockchain jobs. It acts as a decentralized marketplace where business owners can find professionals for their needs.
Steemit: It is a blockchain-based blogging and social media platform that rewards its users with cryptocurrency for publishing and curating content on the platform.
Viberate: It is a decentralized talent ecosystem for live music built on the Ethereum blockchain. It connects artists, fans, and talent management systems all on the platform.
Mask Network: Mask is a one-of-a-kind blockchain platform. It acts as a bridge for users into the Web 3.0 world. It is a network that brings privacy and benefits from Web 3.0 to Web 2.0 social platforms like Facebook and Twitter with an open-sourced browser extension. It also enables users to send cryptocurrency, interact with decentralized applications, and share encrypted content.
Storj: Storj is a crypto-powered cloud storage platform that allows any computer running its software to rent unused hard drive space to users looking to store files. Imagine earning cryptocurrency for renting outdrive space that you’re no longer using.

Conclusion

The web is constantly evolving, and change is paramount for evolution to occur. Web 3.0 is the next stage of the web, but it won’t be the last as technology will continue to evolve into other forms, possibly a world that will rely solely on Artificial Intelligence as its primary driving unit. Here is a link to a resource paper that dives deeper into other possible versions of the web (Web 4.0 & Web 5.0) that are yet to come.

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope it helped!