Gate.io Podcast | Andre Cronje’s Crypto Departure, Apple Co-Founder Supports Bitcoin

Crypto space saw the departure of DeFi pioneer, Andre Cronje. How did the market perform after the announcement? Followed by a deep dive analysis regarding the way in which an individual invests: companies or people.

In today’s Headlines

- Andre Cronje, DeFi Pioneer, Quits Industry Causing Crypto Market Crash.
- Swiss City, Lugano Adopts Bitcoin & USDT As Legal Tender.
- 12yrs Old Kid Made Fortune By Selling NFTs.
- Family Lost Crypto Life Savings.
- Apple Co-Founder: Bitcoin Is Pure Gold Mathematics.
- Sponsor: Solice $SLC
- Deep Dive: Do You Invest In Companies Or People?

Introduction

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Welcome back to the Gate.io Podcasts. I’m Peter, this is the show to get a neutral perspective on some of the latest headlines in DeFi, Metaverse, NFTs, and Big Tech. Today’s episode is sponsored by Astar Network and brought to you by Gate.io, a centralized exchange with a neutral stance on current events.

Before we get in, the information presented in this podcast is to help you stay up-to-date on the latest happening in the crypto space, and nothing presented hereby is financial advice. The news that I cover in this podcast will have the original source at your discretion. Stick by this podcast as I show you how to stay vigilant and learn to do your own research.

But, before jumping in, make sure to subscribe to this podcast or youtube channel and don’t forget to turn on the notification bell so you’ll not miss any info about the crypto space!

Now, without further ado.

Now, without further ado.

Andre Cronje, DeFi Pioneer, Quits Industry Causing Crypto Market Crash

Anton Nell’s Tweet: His & Andre’s Cronje Departure From The Crypto Industry.
Sunday 6th March was definitely not a day to remember for many DeFi investors, in fact, just last weekend, Anton Nell, Fantom software architect, announced that both he and his colleague André Cronje, stopped contributing to the decentralized finance development and to the cryptocurrency industry.

The tweet has definitely made the crypto space to tumble, because not only two prominent characters have announced their departure from the industry, but the most serious consequence is that, as stated by Nell, about 25dApps and other services, are going to be terminated on April 3th 2022.

It’s obvious that the reaction of most investors has been to sell their token bags, resulting in the collapse of higher-priced projects in the crypto space.

dApps Market Crash
As reported by the Gate.io marketlist, Fantom, on Monday 7th, hit a low of $1.31 suffering a drop of about 18%, while Keep3r Network on the same day experienced a loss of almost 34%. Yearn Finance did not experience a better performance, in fact, it dipped from $20K to a minimum of $17K.

But among these projects, the most significant one is definitely Solidly, a hybrid automated market maker, launched by Cronje about two weeks ago, which according to Coingecko, it has suffered a loss of 86.6%, a consequence not only due to the departure of the founder himself but also due to a security flaw in the system.

Of course, the news of Cronje’s possible departure was already in the air. In fact, the same software developer, long ago, had made several statements regarding the crypto space, defining it as a difficult and stressful industry, stressing out that the community itself was toxic and that the whole situation was leading him towards an imminent departure.

In any case, many of the companies in which Cronje and Nell were involved, have announced that they will continue to improve, bringing updates and new services to their projects.

One of these being Fantom which publicly thanked Cronje on Twitter for his contribution to crypto space and reassured investors that the departure of the DeFi Pioneer will not affect the development of the whole project.

Was It A Rug Pull Or Not?
Currently, it seems that the crypto space is divided into two: if on the one hand many users consider this move as a rug-pull, others, instead, continue to support the projects in which they’ve invested, considering the fall in prices as a classic sell the news move.

In the meantime, on the first day of the week, it started with ever-declining projects, likely a consequence of the BTC breaking through the $38K mark.

Source:
https://beincrypto.com/andre-cronje-quits-defi-projects-billions-dollars-jeopardy/
https://cointelegraph.com/news/defi-godfather-cronje-quits-as-tvl-and-tokens-tank-for-related-projects

Swiss City, Lugano, Adopts Bitcoin & USDT As Legal Tender

Lugano’s Plan B: BTC, USDT & LVGA As Legal Tender.
Still remaining on the DeFi space, we move to Switzerland, precisely to Lugano, where last weekend, the city announced its Plan B. Certainly, that B, has only one meaning in this context, exactly, Bitcoin.

On Thursday 3th March, the city presented its Plan B that has already started the financial revolution within Lugano. The event was presided over by the city’s mayor, Michele Foletti, who together with Tether’s CTO, Paolo Ardoino, joined forces to achieve the goal of bringing Lugano to become the most important Bitcoin hub in Europe.

The agreement reached by the city is the implementation of Bitcoin, Tether and LVGA as legal tender currencies. Similar to the situation in El Salvador, the citizens of Lugano will be able to pay taxes, fines and other public and private services through the use of those three cryptocurrencies.

The Investment.
With Plan B, Lugano provides 100 million francs for start-ups in the cryptocurrency sector, in order to stimulate the development and adoption of the blockchain throughout the country. In fact, the incentives do not end there: the project will also focus on the activation of a BTC mining farm with exclusive use of renewable resources, in addition to the allocation of 500 scholarships for students of 3 major Swiss universities.

The mayor of Lugano said how the city wants to commit to adopt the technological evolution that for a couple of years is characterizing the financial sector, thanks to the development and continuous adoption of Bitcoin and blockchain.

Will This Influence The European Crypto Adoption?
Plan B is certainly a project that can be an example for other European cities and not only whereas Switzerland is a much more developed country in terms of infrastructure and services than El Salvador and given the importance of the country within traditional finance.

The adoption of cryptocurrencies as legal currencies can be considered as a choice with too little impact globally, but it might be a step forward for future European regulations and debates on the cryptocurrencies adoption.

Source:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/swiss-city-of-lugano-to-pay-taxes-in-crypto-via-tether-partnership
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/03/03/swiss-city-of-lugano-to-make-bitcoin-and-tether-de-facto-legal-tender/

12yrs Old Kid Made Fortune By Selling NFTs

Benyamin, The 12yrs Old NFT Artist
It is not unusual to hear that even people that aren’t professional artists have managed to make money by selling their NFT collection to thousands of users that want to accumulate as many digital assets as possible.

One of the most recent news concerns Benyamin Ahmed, a 12-year-old boy, who managed to sell his collection of NFTs and earn 750 million pounds.

Exactly, we’re talking about pounds. In fact, the young boy lives in England, in Pinner, and he’s passionate about technology: already at 5 years old he had learned to code thanks to his father's teachings.

The Kid’s Fortune Collection
Benyamin created an NFT collection of pixelated whales that were traded for almost $4M of dollars, earning the small crypto enthusiast a profit of $145,000.

The kid has said that he does not yet have a bank account and that he therefore keeps his token bag safe in Ethereum coins. Benyamin has also advocated that NFTs are the future of the crypto space, and it is for this reason that he currently seeks to engage and improve his skills more and more.

Having become popular at school, the young man said that his classmates congratulated him for having reached such a milestone, even if few people have really understood what a non fungible token is.

This is one of the reasons why the child intends to continue to support the industry of cryptocurrencies and to introduce more and more people to the NFTs world.

Surely this is a perfect example of how sometimes, it’s easier for technology to be understood and appreciated by young people compared to adults, and so it can definitely represent the bridge we need to reduce the gap between generations, in order to introduce more and more people into the crypto space.

Source:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10584443/Schoolboy-12-makes-750-000-selling-whale-themed-NFTs.html

Family Lost Crypto Life Savings Due To Cold Wallet Hacking

From a $14K BTC Investment To $0 Profits.
While we have seen how in the world of cryptocurrencies even young people can generate a lot of profits, there are also completely opposite stories. In fact, at the center of the next news, there is a family of Adelaide who has been hacked and lost almost $100K dollars in Bitcoin.

In 2018, Rajendra Yadav, a man who works in the IT industry, invested $14K dollars in BTC, keeping the bag in a cold wallet, hoping to cash it out further on to pay for his children’s studies and financially support his wife.

Unfortunately, not everything went according to his plan: in October 2021, when the bull market started, the price of the BTC went up considerably, and only then Rajendra decided to cash his bag out, knowing that his investment was worth $93K.

But when the father had access to his account, he was shocked: all his savings were gone. He immediately realized that the last transaction made, dating back to July 2019, had been executed by someone else, a hacker who had managed to access the cold wallet.

The Cold Wallet Hacking: Ledger & Police Statements.
But Rajendra’s most immediate question was how someone outside his family managed to bypass a wallet that wasn’t connected to the internet.

In fact, as the victim himself stated, his safe, a Ledger Nano S, presents a password characterized by a set of 24 words that must be typed in a very precise order. Thus, the holder of the cold wallet can be the only one aware of the string of words, resulting in the only person able to access the device.

The French company Ledger argued that someone must have managed to get hold of those 24 words, because there was no other way to bypass such a technological device.

Rajendra, not satisfied by the company’s words, decided in December to seek help from SA Police, in order to find a way to get back his life savings.

But, once again, his hopes dashed, as even the investigating agency stated that it was impossible to identify the criminal unless the cryptocurrencies were transferred to a cryptocurrency exchange that required a KYC identification.

Keep Your Password In A Safe Place.
This story is an example that shows us that even a hardware wallet isn’t the safest place where to custody your cryptos at all and it demonstrates that even if you are the direct responsible of your wallet, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to keep safe your cryptos for the rest of your life: remember that private keys can get lost or destroyed resulting in a personal financial disaster.
While a decentralized exchange grants you the ownership of your funds but it’s still very technical to comprehend for a newcomer and hard to use compared to a CEx (centralized exchanges) a custodial Exchange Such as Gate.io doesn’t require people as much responsibility as a non-custodial wallet and it’s also usually more convenient, easier to access and it gives you a lot of possibility of token transfer compared to a DEx.

These are the reasons why many users decide to use exchanges as direct wallets. With a hardware wallet, even if you’re the direct owner of the keys, usually to transfer tokens that are not supported by the platform, the wallet itself will require you to have different digital wallets, so you’re basically going to have more wallets than you need for every token that you want to transfer in and out of that hardware wallet.

So, as the Ledger Chief security officer himself said, always remember to keep safe all your passwords and strings of words related to your personal wallets, whether they are exchange, cold or hot wallet.

Source:
https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/adelaide-family-loses-93000-after-bitcoin-hackers-empty-secure-offline-wallet/news-story/4382a1bac6cf10e7c5db5daac4e1104d

Apple Co-Founder: “Bitcoin Is Pure Gold Mathematics.”

Steve Wozniak’s Statement About Bitcoin.
Apple’s co-founder, Steve Wozniak, in a recent interview for Business Insider, has once again highlighted his support for the father of cryptocurrencies, the Bitcoin.
The IT engineer had already shown some time ago his support for Nakamoto's cryptocurrency, in fact, during the Talent Land Digital conference held in 2021, he defined Bitcoin as a technological miracle and a unique mathematical formula.

Last year, Wozniak had already compared the BTC to gold, defining the cryptocurrency as the new gold, adding that it was more easily obtainable and easier to transport compared to the latter one, without neglecting its fundamental feature: being decentralized, or without any central control.

Recently, at Business Insider, he has again consolidated his opinion about Bitcoin, calling it as pure-gold mathematics, despite claiming that he has not yet invested into it.

Wozniak Warns About Crypto Project Frauds.
In fact, Wozniak seems to be quite skeptical about the cryptocurrency space, considering the fact that he has stated that in his opinion most of the projects in the industry are fraud and the developers are only meant to fool investors, trying to raise as much money as possible and then run away as soon as possible.

In any case, the co-founder of Apple, does not want to appear as a person who discredits the work of others, in fact he has advised investors to approach projects with caution and to do accurate research about the objectives and interests of a company, in order to find the real hidden gem, in short, the Apple of the future.

Be Careful, Do Your Own Research.
So, once again, the best of the approaches remains the one that before investing is better to be properly informed, analyzing the pros and cons of a project, without following the trends of the moment or trusting external advice. As I have always told you, learn to do your own research, remember that DYOR is one of the best approaches you can have in the crypto space.

Source:
https://timestabloid.com/apple-co-founder-says-bitcoin-btc-is-pure-gold-mathematics/
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-is-a-miracle-and-better-than-gold-says-apple-co-founder-wozniak

Sponsor

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Solice $SLC

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Solice, the first cross platform VR metaverse on the Solana blockchain, is an open 3D world with limitless possibilities and the interconnected metaverse of virtual worlds, NFTs, and communities.

It was created by a team of senior software engineers, crypto & DeFi natives, IT architects, creative designers, and VR and gaming technologists in multinational blockchain tech and VR/AR/XR companies. They are gathered to create a fully immersive metaverse, in which users can play, build, own, socialize and monetize their virtual experiences.

While the metaverse gives users increased lifelike involvement in the virtual world and people spend more and more time in VR, it’s vital to keep their data and exchanges secure. Solice was come with three aims: to secure users’ privacy, to maximize the immersiveness of metaverses, and to enable interoperability across platforms and blockchains.

Most of the GameFi projects on the market right now are often only available on a single platform which is either on a smartphone or web-based. By enabling the Solice metaverse on VR, users will get a more immersive feeling within the virtual metaverse. Besides, users without VR devices are also able to play and enjoy the Solice metaverse on their PC and eventually on iOS and Android devices.

At the same time, users are often limited to connecting with other users on the same platform. Solice solves this by enabling cross-platform options. Whether the user is on their smartphone, desktop, or VR device, all users are able to connect to the same metaverse to play, communicate, socialize and even work together.

LAND on Solice is a non-fungible, scarce digital asset stored in the Solana blockchain. Each LAND is unique and transferrable, making it the most desirable NFT inside the Solice ecosystem. Like Decentraland, players will be able to create assets, build games, place 3D static objects and more on their purchased LAND plots. Apart from owning LAND spaces, players will have numerous options to monetize in-game collectibles like pets, gemstones and other NFTs.

$SLC is an SPL token (Solana Program Library) and the native currency of Solice. $SLC will be the governance and economic token that will play a pivotal role in the monetization of in-game assets and NFT collectibles. A certain portion of $SLC is reserved for the users to reward them for their active participation and for the core team for staking rewards and community treasury.

SLC tokens will have a fixed supply of 400 million. It is important to note that only 2% of the total supply was offered to the public which is merely 8,000,000. The public sale price of each token was $0.07. On February 26, Solice announced that their presale and public sale were sold out and had ended.

Deep Dive

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Do You Invest In Companies Or People?

As mentioned earlier, last weekend the crypto space was characterized by the departure of one of the most famous figures within the DeFi: Andre Cronje. His decision to stop contributing to the cryptocurrency industry has greatly impacted the market performance of certain projects, resulting in a collapse in prices.

It doesn’t matter what is the real reason behind the decision made by the developer, and that is why it must be respected.

What we need to understand more is the reaction that has characterized the decisions made by the investors.

Surely the collapse of the prices is the result of a remarkable sale of many bags, caused by fear and uncertainties about what may be the future of some DeFi projects.

The initial reaction of most of the users was to sell their tokens, causing a dip of the prices.

But once again, the decisions of others should not be judged, rather it is to understand what lies behind an investment:

Do you invest in the project or in the people behind it?

It might seem like a trivial question, but in reality there is much more behind it and that is what strengthens our position and opinion regarding an investment.

The project can be considered as the idea of the team, without which it would have neither a beginning nor an end. But without the project, there would be no company, right?
So while they are two different things, there are still two interconnected elements.

You might think that the departure of a person of considerable importance within a company could be the move that brings down the project. But that’s not always the case.

One of the most striking examples is Steve Jobs’s death. Many thought that after his death, the company would have ceased to be relevant and innovative within the industry, calling early on Apple’s failure.

But as we’re all seeing, the situation hasn’t gone this far. The giant of Cupertino has reached a market cap of $2,599 Trillion and has remained one of the most influential companies in the technology industry.

On the other hand, If we would want to take a crypto project as an example, we could refer to Bitcoin. No one knows the identity of its founding father, indeed he literally vanished, yet the network continues to grow both in use and popularity without the need to discover Nakamoto’s identity.

So, there are already two examples that show us that it is not always true that a single person makes the difference within a project, but rather the team’s results are the ones that help achieve positive effects, thanks to the ability of an entire squad.

So even if an individual is able to build the foundation of a project, he needs the help of a whole team to make it grow and improve.

From a certain point of view, we are accustomed to associate the foundation of a company or project around an individual, a bit like it happens with Ethereum and Vitalik Buterin.

Most likely, if tomorrow the young man would announce his departure from the platform, the result would be similar or if not worse than what happened with Andre Cronje.

But the departure of Vitalik would not mean the collapse of the ideals and objectives of Ethereum, because they are precisely those that have made it so unique and innovative, not only for investors all over the world, but also for the IT industry in general.

So, these kinds of projects demonstrate how essential it is to do "your own research" and understand exactly what the project’s goals are, by learning about the team's skills and contribution to its development.

The situation with Cronje revealed that many people did little to know about the team behind the projects in which the Defi pioneer was involved. In fact, just as Micheael Kong (Fantom CEO) tweeted, Cronje had worked on a single Fantom protocol, so his contribution wasn’t as extreme as many users thought, demonstrating that the project had not grown as a result of the contribution of an individual but rather to the professionalism of an entire team.

The situation that happened last weekend shows how many times the wave moved by the community, in this case of fear and uncertainty, It can totally compromise the market performance and bring down the trust that the individual had placed in the project in which he had invested.

But this could also be considered as a consequence of little research by the investor who could have avoided selling his position just because pushed by the general reactions.

It’s a circumstance that exhibits that sometimes, certain negative news can have a greater impact than the goals achieved by a project in a certain period of time.

And from a certain point of view, the emotions of the community would probably also affect the morale of the company that could feel inferior or unable to withstand the pressure of the moment, creating repercussions on the project itself.

In conclusion, there is probably no exact answer to the question "Do you invest in the project or in the people behind it?" because one is the representation of the other.

So it is good not to get carried away by the emotions. We should first learn and inform about the project we are going to invest our money in. After that we should remain focused on personal decisions and when situations similar to the one experienced a few days ago happen, it is always good to look around and understand what is really happening, without listening to any advice or rumors.

Source:
https://twitter.com/michaelfkong/status/1500654223712833543?s=20&t=oZ9BPyGMJgboB48iSMNv0w
https://companiesmarketcap.com/apple/marketcap/


Listen the whole episode：
1: Andre Cronje Quits Crypto & DeFi, Swiss City Adopts BTC
2:Andre Cronje Quits Crypto & DeFi, Swiss City Adopts BTC

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