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Monday, November 15th, 2021

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TL;DR

A Step in the Right Direction: India Announces Conference Discussing Regulation of Digital Assets
New Developments in Privacy — Shielded Wallets and Railgun
Zeptacoin Listed On BitMart: Exchange Music Rights With Zeptacoin
Bitcoin Hits ATH - $69K - Before Pulling Back to $65K
Altcoins Form Wedge Pattern As Bitcoin Climbs Higher
Events on the Horizon: DCentral Miami Nov 30th - Dec 1st

MACRO NEWS

A Step in the Right Direction: India Announces Conference Discussing Regulation of Digital Assets

In recent news, India's Parliamentary Standing Committee of Finance had announced an upcoming official conference wherein possible regulation of digital assets will be discussed with some of the country's most significant cryptocurrency stakeholders and industry leaders.

Politicians and industry executives are therefore set to take part in extensive conversations about possible cryptocurrency regulation and legislation. The actual itinerary for the meeting though has not yet been issued, as per a representative for the House of the People (Lok Sabha) secretariat.

Whatever path the Indian lawmakers ultimately decide upon could have a domino effect on other countries in the region, and cryptocurrency advocates are thus hopeful that the negotiations will end in mainly beneficial outcomes.

India’s Relationship with Crypto

WazirX, an Indian cryptocurrency exchange, recently reported a considerable increase in its respective number of subscribers as well as overall trading volume in 2021. It had also been reported that the platform's user base expanded to 10 million this year. Furthermore, according to Coindesk, WazirX's 2021 trade volume has now managed to reach just about $38 billion, representing a 44% increase on a monthly basis.

Needless to say, there are thus many Indian citizens who are supportive of crypto, and most of these enthusiasts hail from cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Kolkata. Most of the supporters were also found to be adolescents. However, not everyone seems to be on board, as was made evident by both the central bank as well as the country’s lawmakers refusing to acknowledge the growing popularity and increasing demand pertaining to digital assets by the Indian cryptocurrency community.

As a matter of fact, Governor Shaktikanta Das of the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) recently claimed that the overall amount of Indian citizens who have expressed an interest in various cryptocurrency-based assets has in fact been grossly exaggerated and blown out of proportion. In the past, the RBI has often adopted a hostile approach towards cryptocurrencies, so this statement should not come as that much of a surprise.

Time for a Change

While there are several reasons as to why the cryptocurrency space has been experiencing exponential growth over the course of the last decade, the fact remains that it is mostly the younger generation that is spearheading the charge for the new industry.

India’s cryptocurrency community is no different, and it is this unyielding support that has now culminated in the upcoming meeting between the local government and various cryptocurrency leaders and experts. The ones representing the cryptocurrency sector hail from a variety of different companies, and noteworthy participants involve both the BACC (Blockchain & Crypto Assets Council) and the IAMAI (Members of the India Internet & Mobile Association). As per the most recent reports, the meeting is scheduled to occur on the 15^th of November, 2021.

New Developments in Privacy — Shielded Wallets and Railgun

Of the three legs of the blockchain trilemma—decentralization, scalability, and security—security is the most foundational. It is an absolute necessity that users feel assured that the system they are using will not leave them exposed.

Achieving blockchain security is motivated by what has been labeled the cypherpunk mentality—the idea that by leveraging cryptographic methods, we can develop online defenses that protect our personal information. But as crucial as security is to the adoption of decentralized financial applications, there remains a fundamental lack of privacy protection on Ethereum.

Users may think that hiding behind an Ethereum address is sufficient to keep them anonymous, but the network uses a public, auditable ledger with account-based tracking. This means that everyone can easily discover the wallet balance of every user on the network. This isn’t dissimilar to any payment you make in your daily life-giving the recipient the means to check how much money is in your bank account. Suppose you wanted to make a contribution to a liquidity pool such as Aave—with base Ethereum, the entire network knows your investment and can see when you withdraw. Or what if you wanted to interact with a DEX? Uniswap executes billions of dollars worth of trades daily, with each transaction trackable simply by looking up the Uniswap smart contract on Etherscan. Click on any one of the addresses involved in the transactions and you can view the entire trading history of the wallet. For anyone trying to develop proprietary farming strategies, they could easily be copied. Or for a credited trader with a number of users following their wallet, every investment they make notifies those users.

Beyond wallet transparency, consider how most users interact with the Ethereum network—even services that let you manage your own wallet like MetaMask are able to read your IP address. Assuredly, there are methods to enhance security, like using a VPN, using multiple addresses for different dApps, or even running a node yourself. But privacy shouldn’t require users to be developers or experts—mass adoption and true usability require layer-one, passive privacy.

In recent years, privacy-focused protocols have been developed and successfully implemented, proving the effectiveness and versatility of zero-knowledge cryptography. In 2015, Zcash launched a fork of Bitcoin that enabled users to send transactions with shielded addresses. But the more versatile Ethereum has a different environment structure, with account-based tracking and smart contracts increasing the complexity of protecting wallet information. Thus, providing the same level of privacy on Ethereum required additional research and development.

One possibility for anonymizing transactions through Ethereum is using mixers or tumblers, protocols that enable users to transfer to another Ethereum address without the deposit and withdrawal addresses being linked, often in set denominations of 1, 10, or 100 ETH. However, this privacy model is incomplete. With a balance in a mixer, it’s impossible to withdraw to a smart contract or interact with DeFi protocols. The user has to create an additional address, withdraw to that address, and then submit the contribution

or transaction to the smart contract. Additionally, they have to make sure that none of their behaviors enable someone to link the new address to their original address. Even with the proper use of a new address, only being able to exchange denominational values makes proper DeFi interaction difficult.

Railgun has introduced a stronger model of privacy that brings security to DeFi. By establishing a shielded wallet for all users, any interaction you can execute with your Ethereum wallet can be executed anonymously with your Railgun wallet. The same for the other smart contract-capable blockchains the technology has been ported to.

DeFi has been at the core of blockchain development over the past 2 years. It’s been foundational in moving the technology from ICOs and into the development of efficient financial products. DeFi applications are responsible for billions of dollars worth of transactions, all of which are easily trackable.

If these applications are to be trusted and used as true financial mechanisms, then privacy is necessary. Privacy that doesn’t require expert knowledge.

Using Railgun, once the initial contribution is made, your address is shielded. Your Railgun wallet can make a transaction to any smart contract or wallet address, and all that will be revealed is that a Railgun user executed the transaction. Contributions to a liquidity pool, exchanges over a DEX, internal or external transfers—all can be made in any denomination with a single transaction. Railgun solves the vast majority of privacy problems DeFi has been struggling with. That said, as recent years have shown, DeFi requires the mindset that no one is quite sure what is over the horizon.

Shielded wallets are a solid foundation, but constantly-evolving products, features, and methods require protocols that can adapt. The team behind Railgun is full of strong minds, cryptography experts, and accomplished engineers, but the ultimate power lies in the democratized decision-making of the DAO. With a list of enhancements already in discussion, the community has the ability to hear the voices of any DeFi innovator, Ethereum developer, or simply anyone who truly believes that privacy should be within reach. Railgun introduces a new paradigm, enabling us to unlock the full potential of DeFi.

By Nick Ulven

ANNOUNCEMENTS & FUNDING (SPONSORED)

Zeptacoin Listed On BitMart: Exchange Music Rights With Zeptacoin

For those who have an interest in both the music industry as well as the world of blockchain technologies, knowing about Zeptagram is a must. Zeptagram may be understood as a blockchain-oriented trading platform that allows intellectual property owners to successfully tokenize their respective assets. In other words, whenever an artist would use music to generate some sort of value, money would be distributed to the respective token holders with relative ease.

Zeptagram has therefore managed to gain considerable traction lately and has been making headlines for all the right reasons. As a platform that recognizes as well as rewards both music fans along with the artists themselves for their artistic expression and passion for music, it would make sense that so many have already chosen Zeptagram and continue to do so even today.

Zeptacoin

Zeptacoin's (ZPTC) main purpose is to be utilized for exchanging music rights on Zeptagram's own music platform. Additionally, there are plans to integrate it with Zeptagram's NFT-platform as well. The cryptocurrency was listed on BitMart, a popular cryptocurrency exchange, last month in October.

According to the latest charts, the current price for Zeptacoin is $0.4. While this is of course nowhere near its all-time high, it nevertheless shows that both Zeptacoin and Zeptagram itself have been able to survive the numerous fluctuations that often occur in the cryptocurrency market. Moreover, the fact that it has also been listed on both Bittrex, as well as the immensely popular PancakeSwap, is further proof of this.

NFTs

Anyone who has been paying attention knows that NFTs (non-fungible tokens) have taken the world by storm. Many celebrities and industry leaders alike have already bought and sold numerous NFTs, and these include prominent figures in the music industry as well.

Zeptagram has therefore gotten involved with NFTs too and has thus recently added a section centered around non-fungible tokens on its website. Although this new feature is still in the beta version, it has nevertheless drawn in many in and outside of the music industry. You will find new listings, popular sellers, and hot collections all gathered in one place for your convenience.

Although there is still more work to be done, it is nonetheless a safe assumption to make that Zeptagram is one to keep an eye on if you have an interest in music, NFTs, and crypto.