In the cryptocurrency world, there are many blockchains. Some are public, some are private. They have different features, different transaction fees and different security measures. However, there is no direct way to send money from one blockchain to another without using an intermediary service or exchanging your coins on a cryptocurrency exchange.

A bridge is an entity that links two blockchains together.

 It allows you to make transactions on one chain with tokens from another chain. In other words, it allows you to exchange currencies even if they don't exist on the same blockchain platform.

Imagine you have some BTC but want to buy ETH because you believe it will go up in value soon. You can use a bridge service like Shapeshift or Changelly which allow users to swap currencies instantly 

without going through banks or exchanges.

But the term "Bridge" can also have an other signification.

It has been used by several projects to describe their approach to 

 with new ones. For example, Polkadot and Cosmos both use the term “bridges” to describe the way they plan to connect different blockchains together into one network. In both cases, they are building tools that allow for inter-connectivity between different chains and enable interoperability between them.

The idea behind bridges is that they allow you to transfer assets from one chain to another. This is similar to how you can move money between your bank account and your PayPal account, except that it doesn't require any intermediaries.

The cryptocurrency market is huge and growing quickly. 

There are now over 1,600 different coins in existence, with new ones being created all the time.

 You might have heard of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and Litecoin but there are many more that you might not have heard of yet.

The problem with having so many different cryptocurrencies is that they're all separate from each other. So if you want to move assets from one blockchain to another, you need a third party to help facilitate this transaction for you. In the case of Bitcoin and Ethereum, these third parties are called exchanges such as Coinbase or Binance. However, these exchanges are centralized institutions which means they can be hacked and shut down by governments if necessary (which has happened before).

Bridges aim to solve this problem by allowing people to transfer assets across blockchains without relying on centralized institutions like exchanges or banks.

The bridge is a layer 2 protocol that sits on top of the blockchain.

 It acts as a relay between the mainnet and sidechain, connecting them via an atomic swap. This means that once you have coins on either side of the bridge, you can trade them without any third party involvement.

The bridge connects two blockchains by using an ‘atomic swap’.

 In simple terms, this means that the tokens are transferred from one blockchain to another atomically — meaning that they are transferred together or not at all. This prevents double spending and ensures that only one transaction will be executed at any given time.

atomic swap relies on hash timelock contracts (HTLCs)

 which are designed to prevent cheating by requiring both parties to send their funds within a specified time frame. If one party fails to send their funds in time then they lose everything they sent over along with any new funds they might have sent during the waiting period.

Now that we have discussed how bridges help cryptocurrencies to communicate with each other, let's look at how they can help investors as well.

Bridges help investors to diversify their investments across multiple blockchains. For example, if you have invested in Ethereum but want to try out Bitcoin as well without having to sell your ETH holdings, you can use EtherBridge in order to exchange your Ether for Bitcoin.

Also, if you want to take advantage of the potential upside of investing in new cryptocurrencies but don't want the risk associated with holding onto these assets due to uncertainty about their future development or adoption rates (or lack thereof), then using bridges will allow you to quickly convert between different cryptocurrencies while still maintaining control over your private keys.

There are several ways to move your cryptocurrency from one blockchain to another.

 The most common way is to use a centralized exchange.

 This involves sending your coins to an address controlled by the exchange and waiting for them to arrive. However, this can be slow and expensive — especially if you are sending large amounts of money.

, as I said, which allow two parties to swap their coins directly on-chain through smart contracts, without having to trust each other or any third party. Atomic swaps were first proposed in 2013 by Tier Nolan and have since been implemented by several projects as a solution for cross-chain payments.

However, atomic swaps are still in their infancy and haven't been widely adopted yet due to technical limitations such as high transaction fees or slow block times on some chains.

 that supports over fifty coins and tokens across multiple blockchains—allowing users to easily trade their digital assets while providing privacy, minimal risk of being hacked or scammed and ease of use which have all been hard to come by on traditional exchanges. 

 has seen continuous growth since its start in 2018 and is now at an average monthly shift volume of $16,760,063 USD (2021 YTD).

The first iteration of SideShift was created as a sidechain swap tool for Paul Sztorc’s Drivechain project. Once a prototype was complete it became clear that SideShift could capitalize on competitor inefficiencies and grow with active development, increased functionality, integrations and expanded asset availability. The core team behind SideShift has extensive experience working with crypto and specifically crypto exchanges since 2012.

Bridges connect blockchains, the public ledgers that keep track of crypto transactions, allowing crypto coins and tokens to be exchanged.

If you had to remember one thing about this article, it would be 2 bullet points :

 These allow cryptocurrency transactions to be validated across different blockchains, but do not affect the consensus rules on either blockchain. For example, the Wanchain bridge connects Ethereum-based smart contracts with those running on Wanchain’s own blockchain.

➢ On-chain atomic swaps (also called decentralized exchanges)

. These allow users to trade one cryptocurrency directly for another without using a centralized exchange or third party service provider. The Atomic Coin Exchange Protocol is an example of an atomic swap protocol, which allows users to trade multiple cryptocurrencies through a single interface and automatically execute trades when conditions are met — such as both parties sending coins at the same time. The Lightning Network also implements atomic swaps between cryptocurrencies through its payment channels.

Thank you for reading this article, and see you soon for others articles ! 

Michael Spot

Why bridges between blockchain are necessary to the ecosystem

Ethereum is the second generation of blockchain, originally created by Vitalik Buterin in 2013. It has a different concept from Bitcoin's blockchain since it includes Smart-Contracts in its protocol. But for many years now, everybody talk about Ethereum 2.0, 

In this post we will introduce some Ethereum concepts and present some comparisons between Optimistic Rollup and ZK Rollup. Since these are complicated concepts, I don't have the full knowledge about those, it's what I understood and I want to share it with you ! 

Ethereum 2.0 is a new version of the Ethereum protocol that will be capable of processing many more transactions per second. It will also introduce a new consensus mechanism called Proof of Stake (PoS). The goal of Ethereum 2.0 is to provide scalability and security to the Ethereum blockchain.

The first step in Ethereum 2.0 is to roll out a new consensus algorithm called Optimistic Rollup, which works similarly to ZK Rollup with the exception that it does not require all validators to be online when they are proposing blocks. This allows for a more decentralized validator set, but reduces the overall throughput by about 25%. I will explain these terms further in the article.

The next step is for developers to work on implementing ZK Rollup in Ethereum 2.0 so that we can achieve an even greater level of decentralization and scalability than we currently have with Optimistic Rollup alone while still maintaining good performance characteristics.

The Beacon Chain, the heart of ETH 2.0’s Proof-of-Stake (PoS) system, is currently being tested and launched in Phase 0.

The current Ethereum 2.0 stage of development : 'Phase 0'

Phase 0 was implemented in December 2020 and include:

 The beacon chain will be an optimized version of the current mainnet Ethereum blockchain, which will serve as a validator for all other chains and store consensus history for them. It will also act as a proof-of-authority (PoA) system where validators are pre-approved by specific parties or consortiums, rather than having to go through a proof-of-work (PoW) process like the current mainnet requires.

 Sharding is meant to improve scalability by splitting up the network into smaller groups called shards, which can then process transactions in parallel. Each shard will be its own sidechain that runs on top of the beacon chain.

 The ZK Rollup algorithm is meant to reduce block sizes by aggregating transactions into one block before they're mined, which should ultimately make transaction processing faster and cheaper for miners and users alike

After this phase of the development of Ethereum 2.0 (and after all the testnet experimentations), comes 

Let's enter in the deep part of this article : Rollups.

In the world of Ethereum, there are two new terms that you should know: optimistic rollup and ZK Rollup. The difference between these two innovations is in their ability to execute smart contracts on the main blockchain.

The way optimistic rollups and ZK Rollups interact with smart contracts on the Ethereum network is another distinction. Optimistic rollups can run smart contracts on the main blockchain directly. On the other side, ZK Rollups are unable to execute smart contracts on the main chain.

Optimistic rollups use proof of fraud: the rollup contract keeps track of all its state root history and the cryptographic fingerprint of each batch. If someone discovers that a batch had an incorrect post-state root, they can post a proof on the chain, proving that the batch was miscalculated. The contract checks the proof and resends that batch and all subsequent batches.

ZK rollups, which use proofs of validity: each batch includes a cryptographic proof called a ZK-SNARK (e.g., using the PLONK protocol), which proves that the post-state root is the correct result of the batch execution. No matter how large the computation, the proof can be verified very quickly on the chain.

Because ZK Rollups or Zero-Knowledge Rollups inherit the properties of rollups—aggregation and publication of cryptographic proof on Ethereum blockchain—they allow for hundreds of transactions to be compiled into one single transaction, published on-chain as a result.

As a result, ZK Rollups allow users to interact with smart contracts as if they were interacting with one single transaction while keeping all their privacy.

The main idea behind ZK Rollups is that instead of using a single on-chain transaction for each off-chain transaction, we will use an array of transactions for each off-chain transaction. Each element in this array corresponds to one off-chain transaction and contains all its input data (in order to verify that it is valid) and all its output data (in order to prove that it has been signed). In addition, each element in this array contains a zero knowledge proof (ZKP) which allows anyone who knows some secret information about this element to verify its validity without knowing anything else about it.

ZK rollups use proofs of validity: each batch includes a cryptographic proof called a ZK-SNARK (e.g., using the PLONK protocol), which proves that the post-state root is the correct result of the batch execution. No matter how large the computation, the proof can be verified very quickly on the chain.

If you liked it, make sure to share it on Twitter, and see you soon for many others articles each week ! I write about many topics on the cryptocurrencies and blockchains ecosystem. Remember to always do your own reasearch, and don't hesitate to contact me if you want to see specific topics on my articles ! (Contact me on Twitter that you can find on my Vertical profile !)

Ethereum's Second Layer Of Innovation: Optimistic Rollup and ZK Rollup

Token burns might seem like an odd concept to the layman, 

but those who keep up with the cryptocurrency ecosystem know how important they are

. A token burn is when a blockchain project destroys a portion of its tokens. It's called a burn because it accomplishes two things: it reduces supply and increases demand (or at least it is supposed to — more on that later).

A token burn is the process of destroying a certain amount of tokens. It can be done by a company or by the cryptocurrency community in general.

Ethereum burned 100 million ETH tokens to create an incentive for miners to participate in the network

. This helped improve the security and stability of the Ethereum blockchain.

Token burns are usually done to reduce the supply of tokens available on exchanges and other platforms, which often leads to an increase in price.

The process of burning tokens is usually accounted for in the smart contract behind a specific coin or token, so you don’t have to worry about how it works. Just keep an eye out for announcements from companies doing it!

Why would a company/project burn tokens? 💡

There are many reasons why project teams choose to do so:

➢ Increase the value of their cryptocurrency: 

By reducing the circulating supply of tokens, they hope that this will increase demand and drive up prices — making each coin more valuable than before. This can also help in fundraising campaigns where they need to sell off some of their holdings so they can continue developing their product or service (which is often what investors want).

 During an ICO sale, sometimes not every investor wants to buy into your project. For example, if you sold 100 million tokens at an initial price of $0.10 each (1 billion total), but only sold 5 million during your sale (50 million total), then you would have 95 million unsold tokens. This means that you’re left with a bunch of tokens that no one wants or needs — they just sit there taking up space. In order to make these useless tokens more valuable, some ICOs try to refund them back to investors or burn them off so they can’t be used again.

What are the benefits of burning tokens? 📍

. By burning a portion of all coins, the supply decreases and demand increases. This is because fewer coins are left over to be sold on exchanges. If you want to keep selling your tokens, it would be better to burn them instead of selling them on an exchange.

building trust with investors and encouraging them to hold their tokens longer rather than sell them immediately after purchasing them

. A voluntary burn occurs when a company chooses to destroy some of its tokens for any reason it wants, for example to pay for taxes or to reward its employees.

 happens when there are not enough tokens in circulation to cover all transactions on a particular platform or exchange. For example, if someone wanted to sell 100 ETH worth of tokens but there were only 100 ETH worth of buyers, then the sale would be rejected by the platform until more buyers appeared with sufficient funds available in their accounts . To prevent this from happening, the platform might choose to destroy some of its own tokens. This would increase the number of available tokens and allow more transactions to take place.

, on the contrary, is when a blockchain project decides to destroy some of its own tokens, either by burning them or sending them to an address that can never be accessed. This can be done for various reasons, such as increasing the cryptocurrency’s scarcity and value.

1. The token issuer (such as a company or foundation) must make sure that its smart contract can receive ether from users and burn them automatically

. This is usually done by creating a separate smart contract that has no other function than receiving ether from users and burning it. This can be done through a self-executing function, which allows the user to send ethers to the contract and then automatically executes a function that burns those same ethers.

The token issuer must announce when they will be conducting the burn

, so that users know when to send their ethers into this smart contract in order for them to be destroyed forever. By announcing this well in advance, there is enough time for users to plan ahead and not miss out on any opportunities because they did not have enough time to buy or sell tokens before or after the burn event takes place.

After the burn has occurred, all relevant parties should confirm that it happened successfully

What you need to remember from this article is the 3 types of burn :

➢ Burns as part of an initial coin offering (ICO)

➢ Burns to reduce circulating supply (decrease supply)

➢ Burns to increase value per each individual token (increase demand)

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What is the role of token burns in the ecosystem ?

Does this sound like a lot of buzzwords to you?

 Well, it's "the future". The next generation of blockchains. And I'm here today to tell you about it. Don't believe me? Well, let me "convince" you by explaining what Layers 3 Blockchains are, and how they can help your business in the future. Dealing with layers 3 is a hard thing. But let's make it simple together.

I tried to popularize the concept the best I could. I probably made some errors, if so, 

contact me to complete / correct the article. Thanks !

Ready to discover Layer 3 blockchains ? Let's go !

What are Layer 0, 1 and 2 blockchain : a recap 😃

In this section, let's recap the concepts of layer 0, 1 and 2 blockchains so that anyone can understand them easily !

Layer 0: The physical layer (the hardware)

The physical layer (also known as layer zero) refers to all of the 

hardware involved in running a blockchain network

. This includes computers, smartphones, tablets and any other device capable of running software code. The physical layer is also where miners’ machines are located when they are mining for new blocks on behalf of their clients.

Layer 1: The protocol layer (the software)

The protocol layer is defined by all of the 

software code used to run a cryptocurrency network or blockchain platform such as Bitcoin or Ethereum

. It includes things like operating systems like Windows or Linux as well as applications such as browsers like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox that facilitate access to websites over the Internet (which is also considered part of Layer 1). The protocol layer is the most visible part of a cryptocurrency network.

 It’s what people think about when they imagine “the blockchain.”

 The protocol layer can also be thought of as the operating system for blockchains.

Layer 2 networks are built on top of existing blockchains, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, to 

. They are designed to provide users with greater privacy and scalability by moving some transactions off the underlying blockchain onto these secondary systems.

The main benefit of layer 2 solutions is that they can significantly

 increase the number of transactions that can be processed in a given period of time without slowing down the underlying blockchain

. This allows them to handle large volumes of transactions without requiring significant changes or upgrades to the underlying blockchain itself. Ethereum 2.0, for instance, will be a Layer 2.

The limitations of current blockchain systems 🙁

The main problem with layer 2 blockchains is their versatility.

 They can host any kind of decentralized application, from non-fungible token platforms like OpenSea to decentralized exchanges like Uniswap.

Although this is useful for users, it has several drawbacks. The most significant one is 

. Because layer 2 blockchains are fast and cheap, they attract layer 1 regulars as well as new users who are looking for a faster and cheaper solution. In addition to the large number of new users who want to use the blockchain, new protocols come from around the world who want to implement without having to pay expensive costs on layer 1.

This layer 2 congestion is particularly bad during trends—when "Play-to-Earn" applications (or video games in which players are paid to play), 

, they experienced this problem immediately. The congestion was so bad that it caused the 

. In addition, the blockchain could not keep up with the number of transactions per second required by such applications, 

which led to long wait times and downtime

. And that's not what every crypto user wants.

Why is fractality important : the layer 3 solution 💡

The concept of fractality is at the heart of the layer 3 solution

. Fractality is a property found in nature. It helps us understand the structure of complex systems, from the way that a river meanders to how plants grow from seeds. It is a phenomenon that occurs at all scales.

Fractal geometry is based on repeating patterns

, which are not necessarily self-similar. Self-similarity means that an element can be divided into smaller and smaller copies of itself, but these smaller copies are identical to each other as well as being identical to the original element.

 example of self-similarity is a snowflake

 — every part of it looks exactly like any other part (and it also looks very similar to many other snowflakes). An example of non-self-similarity would be a tree trunk — each branch could be split into smaller branches but they would not look exactly alike or identical to each other or to the original branch (i.e., they would not be self-similar).

Layer 3 is a term used in the blockchain space to describe a 

new class of networks that build on top of existing blockchains

specific use cases and are optimized for that purpose

. For example, layer 1 blockchains (like Bitcoin or Ethereum) are designed to be used as digital cash and store value. Layer 2 blockchains (like Lightning Network or Plasma) allow us to scale these networks by using them as payment channels between users, while still being able to settle on the underlying layer 1 chain at any time.

While these layers have been extremely successful at solving problems associated with scalability, they do not provide all the benefits that we might need from our blockchain infrastructure in other use cases

. For example, if you want to develop an application that needs to store data permanently but still be flexible enough to allow you to change its configuration over time; this is not possible with current layer 1 and 2 solutions (or too complicated).

The solution? Layer 3 blockchains! These new networks will be optimized for different use cases than layer 1/2 blockchains, 

allowing developers to build applications that cannot be built today on top of existing chains

Quant Network, a well-known example among layer 3 blockchain technologies, offers 

multi-ledger tokens and multi-DLT smart contracts through its Overledger protocol

. Quant is one of the first companies that created an ecosystem for cross-chain communication with its Overledger protocol.

 A layer 2 scaling solution – Overledger

Overledger is a layer 2 scaling solution that enables

 interoperability between blockchains and other private and public networks

. It connects every blockchain, enterprise system, mobile application, and device to the same global hyper-fast data network.

 This unlocks a world of possibilities for decentralized applications (dApps) built on top of Overledger

Plus, the layer 3 protocol has partnered with well-known companies including 

 A lot of people are talking about blockchain scalability.

 I think we’re on the verge of a major breakthrough.

 I believe that we can build blockchains that scale linearly with the number of nodes, and do so without sacrificing decentralization or security.

The problem with most blockchain solutions is that they are designed to have every node process every transaction. This results in 

huge bottlenecks when there are more transactions than there are nodes willing to process them.

The solution of layer 3 blockchains is to 

, that allow these types of blockchain to be really scalable, because they are ready for certain types of actions. But others solutions exist, such as 

, which have others solutions to be more scalable in every situation.

If we want blockchains to be scalable, we need to think outside of the box.

It was long to write, and there might be some errors. That's why I recommend that you 

It's important to stay curious and to learn more about the new technologies that are implemented in the crypto field. 

Stay curious, and see you soon for others articles !

Layer 3 blockchains : "not only is it the future, but it's the present"

Beautiful illustration from Be Street Smart Glendale on Behance !

Blockchain has been around for almost a decade yet most people don't really know much about it

. And some words seem weird or strange, acronym no one understand.

Today, let's talk about KYC and AML, taht are 

buzzwords thrown around by compliance departments

What exactly do they mean? What do they entail? And why should you even care? I'm here to help with answers to these questions and the big picture! Ready ? Let's go !

Cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology that it is based on are still very new to most people. But as more individuals, companies, and even governments begin to adopt this new type of technology into their daily lives, there are some questions that will have to be addressed. One of the most pressing issues at the forefront of people's minds when talking about cryptocurrencies is 

identification process of a client's identity and status within a business

. It's why you might have been asked to provide identification and proof of address to receive a parcel delivery or pre-order any products online. This kind of due diligence process is carried out for financial services companies as part of money laundering prevention measures.

AML is a set of regulatory requirements developed to detect and deter money laundering and the financing of terrorist activities

. The regulations impose internal controls on businesses so that they are able to establish customer identities, monitor effectively the activities of customers and report suspicious transactions.

To go deeper, computers make it easier to track and trace financial transactions than ever before. But, with great power comes great responsibility, and this is something AML professionals don't forget. Compliance with the AML laws is something that is vital for most financial organizations. The people who work in compliance are called

 and their main task is to make sure financial institutions have adequate processes in place to prevent money laundering activities, such as the financing of terrorism.

. Both terms belong to the bigger block of concepts that are known collectively as compliance . And both functions were created for a reason. Both acronyms are well established in financial sector and by now, probably anyone has heard about them.

 If you want precisions, here is a schema of the differences from Shuftipro.

Conclusion: we all have a role to play in helping combat money laundering 💭

If we all took a step back, my guess is that the cryptocurrency industry would be larger than it is today. It's clear 

money laundering is going to go on no matter what

, so perhaps we should make it easier for law enforcement agencies to combat money laundering. And maybe some day, the cryptocurrency industry will be bigger and more decentralized – 

with more hands in the pot working together to fight this major issue

Hope you liked it, and if so, make sure to share it on Twitter ! Do you own research, and see you soon for others articles !

KYC and AML definitions, the big picture

If you've already had a conversation with a friend in the crypto field, it's likely that you've heard the name 

Binance even if you don't completely understand what they do

. This is because the exchange has become well-known as one of the most important players in the cryptocurrency world and its significant rise in popularity over the past year has put it at the center of attention.

, and how it intends to rise its reputation through the next few years. Let's go !

Binance and its influence in the crypto industry 👑

 Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange platform that operates in Malta and Japan, is the largest in terms of volume. In the last 24 hours, 

$59.5 billion worth of cryptocurrencies were traded on Binance !

The exchange has been growing rapidly since it was launched by 

, in 2017. It’s currently one of the most popular destinations for cryptocurrency traders because it offers low fees and fast transaction times. It also has a wide range of coins available for trading — 

Binance’s influence on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology is massive. It’s as if every other cryptocurrency exchange has been built around Binance’s model; 

most exchanges have copied its features or at least tried to do so

billions of dollars in profit each year from trading fees

 alone and will continue to grow until something happens to change the way cryptocurrencies are traded online forever.

BUSD became one of the main players in the stablecoin industry 📍

BUSD is one of the most important stablecoins in the crypto market.

 It has become one of the main players that can compete with USDT and GUSD.

As a stablecoin, BUSD is likely to be used by investors who want to get their hands on cryptocurrencies without having to worry about their value dropping dramatically overnight.

But the Binance platform allows users to trade 