Infinity Weekly: Let's Get Quizzical!

Issue 38 of the Infinity Weekly, bringing you the best ICP and global news of the week.

Infinity Weekly: Let's Get Quizzical!

Welcome to Issue #38 of Infinity Weekly for our INFINISWAPPER community. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, sign up here.


What's in Today's Email?

  • IC Ecosystem News
  • This Week in our Blog
  • NFT Market Bytes
  • Around the World
  • Meme Time
  • A Matter of Opinion

IC Ecosystem News

Electrifying Metrics: ICP was included in Electric Capital's 2022 Annual Developer Report, boasting some incredible metrics, such as a whopping 94% ecosystem growth. Electric Capital is a venture capital firm that focuses on web3 fintech ventures, and includes crypto heavyweights like Kraken, DYDX, and of course, DFINITY in their portfolio.

January Session: The DFINITY Foundation is kicking off their monthly Global R&D Meetings on Wednesday, January 25th. Catch up on essential development news like the SNS roadmap and the ckBTC Public Dashboard--which will be especially interesting for anyone keeping up with the development of Bitcoin/ICP interlinked projects. Register to attend the virtual call, or keep an eye on the next InfinityWeekly newletter for a recording of the meeting.

The Twitter Side of the Moon: Music enthusiasts were in for a surprise treat on Thursday, January 19th, when Scott Page (the former saxophonist for Pink Floyd, an influential band from the 1970s) came on as a special guest on a Twitter Space hosted by DFINITY. Check out the recording in the tweet below!

Internet Computing Club: Register to attend the first IC event in collaboration with BCIT Computing Club, a computing club at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. The virtual workshop is open for anyone interested in learning more about the Internet Computer, just make sure to sign up before January 27th to secure your seat!

Do You See Pee, Anon?: The $ICP community has a lot of inside jokes, many of them revolving around the coin's accidentally humorous name. An anonymous team has taken it upon themselves to create a meme coin paying homage to $ICP's homonym, $ICYPEE, earlier this month. The project has been gathering momentum, with a bustling Telegram group and the introduction of PeeCharts, billed as the "first charting suite for tokens on the Internet Computer".

We encourage you to exercise caution and Do Your Own Research before investing in any cryptocurrency, and especially so when it comes to meme tokens.

This Week In Our Blog

Say hello to Mises, our newest partner! Mises Browser is the world's first web3 browser with mobile Chrome extension support. Many web3 experiences are not yet optimized for mobile navigation, and Mises is tackling that problem by focusing on web3 website aggregation.

InfinitySwap Forms a Strategic Partnership with Mises Browser
InfinitySwap and Mises Browser have announced our intention to collaborate on a variety of different levels, including marketing and web3 infrastructure, allowing for seamless mobile wallet use.

As web3 attracts more people and their investments, hacks have become increasingly more sophisticated. How can the DeFi ecosystem protect itself from malicious actors? Let's talk solutions, including formal verification and audits, community bug bounties, multi-sigs and more.

Solutions to Hacks are Imperative for DeFi to Thrive
With the value locked in DeFi exceeding $40 billion, it is no secret that this burgeoning tech field has become an increasingly attractive target for hackers and malicious actors. Here we look at solutions to this ongoing issue.

The world has seen that real innovation is possible with the Internet Computer; just last year we've seen HTTPS outcalls and native Bitcoin integration, and of course, the DFINITY Foundation continues to work on supercharging the "world computer". Here is a list of 10 new developments we would love to see on the IC:

10 Developments We Hope Will Come to the Internet Computer in 2023
The IC is constantly being upgraded. The network is growing and improving daily. Advancements in the blockchain are coming thick and fast, and some of them are very exciting. For the builders, here are a few of the coolest new developments to look out for.

Our friends at Catalyze have been hard at work to make your web3 experience even better! From their integration with the Bitfinity Wallet to Multi-NFT Gated Groups, and their redesigned management processes, there are too many upgrades to Catalyze to list all of them here. Read all the exciting details in the article below:

Catalyze Your Crypto Journey: The Latest and Greatest in Web3 Innovations
Attention all cryptocurrency enthusiasts! We’re excited to announce the latest developments from our partner, Catalyze. They’ve worked hard on some innovative new features that are sure to take the Web3 world by storm.

If you're in web3, chances are good that you're much more aware of cybersecurity issues and the need for secure, private communication than the average internet user. Find out how our partners at Dmail are developing DaaS (Decentralized Identity, or DID, as-a-Service).

Experience Secure and Private Communication With DaaS (DID-as-a-Service)
Today, we are excited to announce the launch of Dmail’s newest product: DaaS (DID-as-a-Service). This innovative function allows users to utilize their domain name as their decentralized identity (DID) to log in and send/receive web3 encrypted emails through Dmail.

At Infinity Swap, we believe that an educated community is a strong community. This article honestly and critically analyzes some of the most popular Layer 1 blockchains so you can see how well they solve the Blockchain Trilemma.

Layer 1 Blockchain Comparison- What is the Future of Web3?
Let’s compare some of the main layer one blockchains: Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, Binance Smart Chain, Zilliqa, Algorand, Internet Computer and Avalanche.

NFT Market Bytes

🎨 FaeFolk has recently released a number of projects that will have their NFTs integrated into the game. The list includes Boxy, Cubetopia, Cubebot, PCheads, ICPuppies, VRSTL, Monkey Infinity, and more! There are also other projects with plans in the works, but they don’t want their name used until the details are worked out. Additionally, the team mentioned onboarding NFT collections from the Solana ecosystem, but this will require some tech updates to make it possible, so they are not announcing any of the partnerships at this time.

🎨 The Swop and Boxy have announced a major collaboration. The Swop is an eSports community that currently has four NFT collections (Goated Gamer DAO, Astro Samurai, Astro Samurai – Anime, and Astrodelics). Boxy is a metaverse NFT project that is currently two NFT collections (Boxydude and Boxygirl). They have plans for a breeding mechanism and have already launched $BOX token. It will be interesting to see what these two teams have in store for their collaboration.

🎨 Check your wallets for new art from NotDogFinity. I think it’s safe to say at this point that he’s established himself as one of the IC’s favorite artists. Whether his My Monsters art reminds you of something you have on your refrigerator that was drawn by one of your kids or you see him as the next great contemporary artist, you have to respect his ability to turn current events in the ICP ecosystem (and beyond) into NFTs.


Around the Web

🤝 In A Stable(coin) Relationship: Russia and the Iranian government are reportedly working on a stablecoin that would serve as the native "token of the Persian Gulf region". The token is likely to be a stablecoin backed by gold, according to Alexander Brazhnikov, executive director of the Russian Association of Crypto Industry and Blockchain.

🙃 Barry's Turn: Bad news for Barry Silbert's Digital Currency Group (DCG), which announced on Jan. 17th that it would halt investor dividends to strengthen their balance sheet "by reducing operating expenses and preserving liquidity". On Jan 20th, Genesis Capital (a institutional crypto lender) filed for Chapter 11 bankrupcy, which spells trouble for users with funds still locked on Gemini Earn.

😅 Bitzlato? We Don't Know Her: Some comic relief this week when the DOJ (U.S. Department of Justice) revealed that their much hyped 'big anouncement' was regarding the arrest of Anatoly Legkodymov, the co-founder of a Hong Kong-based crypto exchange, Bitzlato. Hilarity ensued on CT (Crypto Twitter) as most people had never even heard of the CEX, which was a crucial resource of darknet market Hydra, according to the DOJ.

🐕 Welcome to the Shibarium: Shiba Inu devs revealed a first look at Shibarium, a Layer 2 chain to Ethereum. They additionally announced the implementation to two more tokens to the Shiba ecosystem; tokens Shiba Inu ($SHIB), Leash ($LEASH), and Bone ($BONE). Read more on their official blog.

🏹 The Fourth Arrow: Su Zhu and Kyle Davies of failed crypto hedgefund 3AC (Three Arrows Capital) have been wooing investors to start up a new exchange. According to their leaked pitch deck, the exchange would be named GTX "because G comes after F", alluding to bankrupt FTX exchange. The crypto community reacted with disgust as 3AC's reckless plays is arguable one of the primary triggers of our industry's meltdown last year.


Meme of the Week


A Matter of Opinion: Let's Get Quizzical

So you sit down over the course of a week, write a 5000 word mega article comparing L1 blockchains, and want to ensure the community and, very importantly, that people outside of our ICP community read it and internalize the data.

How would you do that?

Well, I have decided to funnel traffic to our growing Reddit channel by placing a link to a quiz via Google forms that can only be found in our group. This quiz will be multiple choice and contain dozens of questions about the article to ensure understanding. Then, those with the highest scores will be chosen to win prizes.

This giveaway will be our best yet, containing ICP and NFTs, and the prize pool will be announced this week. While it will be great to grow our Reddit as part of our cross-chain growth strategy, it is imperative that the article is read and understood as it outlines the monumental advantages ICP has over other L1 competitors. We understand the need to incentivize learning, so we will make it worthwhile.

We would encourage everyone to start reading and learning and to share their knowledge about ICP as a result. After all, while we can have some fun with this, the end goal is to spread the virtues of the chain that we all love: ICP.

Happy New Year of the Rabbit to all far and wide.


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*Disclaimer: Note that cryptocurrencies can be volatile and speculation should not be construed as financial advice in any capacity. All opinions of the author are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or position of InfinitySwap or its staff.