Sup, nerds!

Here’s what you’re getting in today’s edition:

• 💅 This is cool: Telegram wants to share its revenue with you.

• 🔎 This seems important: Bitcoin just hit a wall (finally).

• 🤝 Partner: Stay up-to-date with AI​

• 🔪 Let's dissect this: Using crypto to vote in elections

Terms used in this edition (click for an explanation, or ask Web(GPT)3!):
Web2/3, Blockchain, Wallets, Zk-Proofs.

💅 This is cool:

Telegram Wants To Share Its Revenue With You

In one sentence: Telegram is launching a self-serve ad platform and splitting its revenue 50/50 with channel owners, who are collectively pulling in 1 trillion views per month right now.

This is going to sound odd, but hear us out…

Google kinda embodies the Web3 ethos.

Or more specifically: 

The (Google owned) YouTube platform embodies the Web3 ethos of “You helped build it? You get to profit from it” — with its shared ad revenue model, where creators get 55%, while Google takes 45%.

What excites us about blockchain technology is how it brings that model into reach for smaller platforms, by making it way easier to automatically collect/disperse monetary value between owners/users/investors.

For example:

The other day, we wrote about how Uniswap was automatically scanning its token holders’ wallets, checking they’d contributed, then — wait for it…

Dispersing the platform’s daily fee earnings (currently $200M+) between them.

(It’s such a cool concept that we’ve now written about it twice in 3 days).

And today, we have a new one for your list of ‘cool Web3 enabled revenue sharing examples’…

In March, Telegram will:

1. Launch its own self-serve ad platform.

2. Start splitting all ad revenue 50/50 with its channel owners (all paid out in the Telegram-endorsed TON token).

And sure, Telegram’s ad reach is tiny compared to YouTube’s, but it has a TON (accidental pun, leaving it in) of room left to grow — cause right now:

Telegram channels create 1 TRILLION monthly views, while only 10% of those channels are currently monetized with Telegram ads.

It’s a welcomed update to the deal most Web2 platforms make with their users…

Web2 = “Use our platform for free, we’ll monetize your attention.”
Web3 = “Use our platform for free, we’ll monetize your attention, and give you a cut of the revenue.”

🤝 

🥇 Want the news before anyone else?

🔎 This seems important:

Bitcoin Just Hit a Wall (Finally)

In one sentence: Bitcoin went from ~$50k to ~$63k in 4 days, before finally hitting a wall at ~$64k, yesterday morning — giving us hope that we’re not in a left-translated cycle.

Remember how, as a kid, every October you’d get direct access to a mountain of free candy and inevitably:

Eat too much → get an instant surge of energy → pock mark your parent’s dry wall with fist size holes → throw up → fall asleep standing up…

No? Just us. Ok, moving on.

We reminisce, because Bitcoin just did something similar — sugar rushing from ~$50k to ~$63k — in what? 4 days??

Before (finally) hitting a wall at ~$64k, yesterday morning 👇

“You almost sound excited? Why is that?”

It’s cause we’re scared of seeing a ‘left-translated cycle’ — which is a crypto cycle that peaks earlier, and drops for longer.

So instead of seeing a slow climb in price over 3 years, then a drop over 1 year, we see a sharper rise over 2 years, and a prolonged 2 year decline.

(See header image ☝️).

“Who cares? A sharp rise over 2 years sounds awesome!”

That it does!

Only problem is — IF we’re in a left translated cycle — we’re already 1 year and 10 months into that 2 year rise (the party ends in April).

Now, here’s the good news:

A left-translated cycle is yet to be confirmed — and the market may just be growing faster, earlier, thanks to the billions of dollars worth of investment coming from the Bitcoin ETFs.

(Which wasn’t a factor in previous cycles).

And we’ll be honest…

Seeing BTC get quickly rejected from $64k (where previously it has been able to maintain and plateau after each pump) has given us hope that we’ve got a good year or more of paced out gains ahead of us.

And we’re holding on to that hope for dear life.

🤝 Partner:

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🔪 Let's dissect this:

Using Crypto to Vote in Elections (Weird Concept — Wild Results)

In one sentence: The Freedom Tool is a secure and anonymous electoral voting system that uses zk-proofs to eliminate fraud, miscounts, tampering, and voter suppression.

We just learned about a new way to cast votes in elections that could be — dare we say it — world changing. 

We’re talking zk-proofs, used for voting. 

Which sounds bizarre! But here’s the thing:

Zk-proofs allow blockchains to validate information, without actually seeing all of the information. (It’s weird).

Like, a zk-proof would be able to validate your age is above 21, without having to expose your actual age or birthday. 

Here’s how it’d work with elections:

The project is called ‘The Freedom Tool,’ and the basic gist of it is that a one-time passport scan is taken, ensuring two things:

1. Each voter is eligible

2. They are given only one vote

Then, once the voter is at the booth, zk-proofs verify their eligibility and vote count → the vote is cast, and published publicly (all without exposing any of the voter’s personal information).

This new system boasts a BUNCH of cool new features/results, including but not limited to:

• Repeat or fraudulent votes would be impossible.

• Folks would be able to vote anywhere/anytime, making a range of voter suppression tactics redundant.

• Human interaction would be removed from the electoral process, stopping potential miscounts and tampering.

• Because all votes would be published on the blockchain, results could be shown in real time.

(The phrase ‘world changing’ doesn’t feel all too out of place now, right?)

Zero-Knowledge Proofs, Explained.