New Blockchain Dubbed ‘Solana Killer

Greetings, fellow knowledge lovers. It's the BitDegree Insider newsletter, and it's time to update our brain software. But before we begin, could you answer this quick question for us:

Today's attention goes to:

• ⚡New Players in Town (Aptos)
• ⚡Do Kwon Speaks (Again)
• ⚡Censorship on Ethereum?
• ⚡Selected Meme of The Day
• ⚡Bite-Sized News

New Players In Town - Aptos

Aptos, a project with a mission to become the safest, and most scalable layer 1 proof-of-stake blockchain, has officially launched its mainnet.

After 4 years of development by a team led by ex-Meta employees, and after reappearing headlines about how the project attracting attention from investors, it's safe to say that Aptos created quite a buzz around it. I mean, the money that Aptos received is around $4 billion.

Aptos is the latest big-names-big-money attempt at creating strong competition to the current established ecosystem of prominent blockchains for smart contracts. It has even been dubbed as 'Solana killer'. Okay, so what's the big deal?

Aptos claims that, during the testing, their network was capable of handling 130,000 transactions per second (TPS). Now compare this to the 30'ish TPS on Ethereum. It's said to be so effective due to its secret ingredients, such as 'Move programming language'.

So the mainnet has been launched. And the show is on. Tier 1 Exchanges (Binance, FTX) have announced that they're about to list ($APT) on October 19th. Tomorrow.

Okay, so that's the cool-sounding part. But... Reality sometimes refuses to be easy.

Just after the mainnet's launch, Aptos' name began appearing in memes. "Hours After the Mainnet Launch, Aptos Is the New Meme Coin in Town," proclaims this headline. Apparently, the promised 130,000 TPS was... not delivered. And people started cracking jokes at the fact that the mainnet was averaging 4 tps. I mean... Overpromise-and-underdeliver intensifies?

New Opportunities?

Maybe Aptos is having a bad day (It's only the beginning). Nevertheless, the blockchain has a lot of stuff going on it already. And you can dive into it, build a reputation, get into whitelists, seek rewards, or even job opportunities. Here are some of the projects that we have found:

• AUMI 🌊. Smart automated market maker on Aptos. An alpha version has been launched which is joinable for today only by invites. (Once we get some, we'll share them with you)
• WAV 3. Platform for creating NFT collections and marketplaces.
• Tortuga.finance. Liquid Staking protocol which is focused on delegating the APT token to validators.
• Aptoslend. Decentralized lending and borrowing protocol.
• Concordia. Protocol for credit management in defi. Product launch expected soon. Very early stage of the project.

Keep in mind, it's only a tiny fraction of the ecosystem. But nevertheless, these projects may become something big in the near future.

Do Kwon Speaks (Again)

So… Do Kwon just showed up as a guest on this podcast. The conversation goes on for almost 1 hour and 30 minutes. Here's a TLDR of it:

• Do Kwon believes that charges he's facing are 'not legitimate and politically motivated'.
• Do Kwon hasn't yet received Interpol's red notice.
• Due to security concerns, Do Kwon refused to share his whereabouts.
• Do Kwon said that the amount of damage that he has caused makes it for him 'not easy to live with'

Censorship on Ethereum (?)

After the Merge, Ethereum became a Proof-of-Stake blockchain. Now this changes the regulatory requirements for the network. So it has been reported that more than 51% of Ethereum blocks are now complying with the U.S. sanctions, and has to adhere to Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) requirements. According to some, this means less decentralization, and more external control. In other words - censorship.

Justin Bons, the founder and chief investment office of Cyber Capital, has posted a 19-part thread to debunk this claim. Here are some of his main observations:

• Not even a single transaction has been censored on ETH due to OFAC
• 'Even with 50% OFAC compliance, a non-compliant ETH TX (transaction) will be confirmed within 30 sec'
• 'The threat of censorship is actually extremely small over ETH right now & it is being addressed, unlike BTC!'

Selected Meme of The Day

Bite-Sized News

• Guinness World Records Includes Several Blockchain Events
• Coinbase to Sue Georgian Users Involved in Price Bug Exploit 
• Interpol to Launch Dedicated Crypto-Crime Unit in Singapore
• Mastercard Joins Forces with Paxos to Allow Crypto Trading for Banks