Vitalik's 'Personal Crypto User Experiences

GM Readers!📪 It's BitDegree Insider, and you know why you're here.

⭐️Today's selection:

• 🗣Vitalik Speaks
• ⚔️Binance Vs. Forbes
• 😎Cool Facts Tuesday
• 👌Selected Meme of The Day
• 📰Bite-Sized News

VITALIK SPEAKS

So, Vitalik Buterin, the face of Ethereum, and one of the most prominent icons of the crypto world has weighed in about the potential of cryptocurrencies for everyday payments.

Even the recent adoption of Bitcoin as a legal tender in El Salvador hasn't cleared up the doubts, as most people in the country still do not use "BITCOINS".

In fact, Vitalik even confessed that he had his share of struggles using digital currencies to buy his morning coffee.

Sometimes it worked, but often it did not. From this experience, he drew some important lessons.

In his blog, he posted a text called 'Some personal user experiences'. In it, he addresses exactly what the title says. Here are the key takeaways from it:

• The Internet is unreliable, especially for the client. For the convenience of mutual settlements in cryptocurrency, an analogue of NFC is required to transfer the payment directly to the seller.
• Cryptocurrency payments need to be straightforward enough for everyone to understand, ensuring merchants can receive payments quickly and easily.
• Wallet interfaces need to be simple and user-friendly. Many users are not familiar with technical terms such as "gas".
• Confirming a transaction can take hours, which is unacceptable in the service industry where time is money.
• If a transaction is cancelled because the base fee is too high, it's like returning an item because it costs more than your monthly rent. Luckily, some wallets are addressing this issue.
• Social wallet recovery can be a bit like solving a complicated math problem. But using a smart contract and ERC-4337 is like having the answer key - it simplifies the process. (That's what Vitalik said! Do not worry if you do not know what ERC-4337 is).
• Wallet developers need to think about security issues and how to keep everything as much decentralized as possible.

What can we say. Every crypto newbie agreed.

TL;DR: Co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, has just posted a new blog post. In it he addresses the problems of global adoption of crypto.

FORBES VS BINANCE

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has been accused by Forbes of engaging in "behind-the-scenes manoeuvring" after allegedly transferring $1.78 billion in collateral to various hedge funds.

However, Binance's CEO, Changpeng Zhao, responded to the allegations on Twitter, claiming that Forbes had deliberately misrepresented the facts and that the transactions were actually customer withdrawals, not the exchange moving collateral.

Below you'll find the summary of claims by both sides.

Claims by Forbes:

• Binance transferred $1.78 billion in collateral to various hedge funds, with $1.1 billion going to Cumberland/DRW traders.
• The exchange sent "smaller transfers" (in the hundreds of millions) to Amber Group, Alameda Research, and Justin Sun.
• Binance fully exhausted its B-peg USDC provision without cutting its supply, leaving other investors unprotected.
• The media likened Binance's behaviour to FTX before bankruptcy, claiming that the exchange "shuffled assets" and carried out strange transactions.

Changpeng Zhao's (Binance CEO) response:

• Forbes misrepresented the facts and referred to old transactions made by Binance's customers.
• The transactions were actually customer withdrawals, not the exchange moving collateral.
• Binance's customers first deposit assets before withdrawing them, and these deposit transactions are traceable on the blockchain.
• Forbes made no mention of the deposit transactions in its report.
• Binance has stood the test of time, as evidenced by customers quietly withdrawing billions of dollars from the platform in December.
• The Proof of Reserve mechanism uses the ZK (Zero Disclosure, Zero Knowledge) approach, which protects customer security and privacy.
• Binance users' assets are 100% secured.
• Forbes once again mentioned Changpeng Zhao's Chinese nationality, which he viewed as unnecessary and irrelevant to the allegations.

TL;DR: Forbes accused Binance of manipulating customer funds and engaging in shady behaviour. CZ views this as somewhat of an attack on Binance and the exchange's reputation. A heated debate ensued.

COOL FACTS TUESDAY

Apparently, "Etherdelta" is what one of the very first Decentralized Exchanges (DEXes) was called. In 2018 using it got... complicated, as the SEC went after its founders.

Conor Rogan (Director at Coinbase) posted an interesting insight into the fact that despite the governmental crackdown on the DEX... the Etherdelta smart contracts are still in operation.

And they hold $42M in assets. And... People can still withdraw their assets from in. One of the reasons why there's so much money still held there... Is that people may have simply forgotten about it.

Conor Rogan even found someone else's deposits in there:

'<...>I found 23 ETH of yours. You can still withdraw via contract. Worth a bit more than the ~$600 when it was deposited'.

Just imagine waking up one day... And receiving a notification from someone that they found your 23 ETH that you had completely forgotten about.

SELECTED MEME OF THE DAY

BITE-SIZED NEWS

• Crypto Exchange Coinbase to Suspend BUSD Trading in the Middle of March. The exact date is March 13th.
• DeFi Protocol LaunchZone Lost Over $300,000 in a Liquidity Pool Exploit. Well, the exploiters truly Launched Themselves Into The Zone.
• Ten Leading Japanese Firms Join Forces to Launch a New Metaverse Project. The enthusiasm is never-ending.