Independent worker in Web 3? Opolis provides payroll, health insurance, and benefits!
Dear Bankless Nation,
“Crypto is the only money I still have, and today I can say without exaggeration that BTC, ETH, and NFT are going to save my life while I can’t come back home.” – Ukrainian citizen
Reports of people fleeing their countries. Banks freezing accounts in the east and the west. Rising censorship of speech on our communication platforms.
Earlier this week, people were reporting MetaMask was temporarily unavailable in certain jurisdictions. 👀
MetaMask is client-side software and can’t be censored. But its data providers can.
As the story developed, it turns out that Infura, which MetaMask uses as a default data provider, had “misconfigured” certain locations and restricted Ethereum access for a subset of users in places like Venezuela.
It’s easy enough to get around this by changing MetaMask settings to point to a different data provider (including a growing list of decentralized ones) but it does raise alarm bells.
We are facing new challenges in the 2020s and they’re digital.
Digital inflation. Digital censorship. Digital surveillance. Digital misinformation. Digital war.
All this had me thinking about the new survival skills for this new world. Here’s a list:
Private Key Management: These are the keys to your new world vault and bank accounts. Know what private keys are, where to store them, and how to use them to restore your wallets.
Cold Storage: A chunk of your crypto value should be in your personal cold storage for safe keeping. Cold storage refers to offline wallets not connected to the internet. This maximizes security, while ensuring you can always move your funds.
Encrypted Messaging: End-to-end encryption is an essential security practice to keep your conversations from prying eyes. But the principle here extends beyond just messaging. It’s using encryption to verifiably prove identity. Signal is a good start.
Digital Freelancing: Web3 is the future of work, and that work is digital. Learn where to find the right opportunities and what skills are required. Develop these high-demand skills that allow you to work from anywhere in the world.
VPN Tunneling: VPNs protect your internet activity from unwanted onlookers. But more broadly, obfuscating and sheltering your digital footprint is an important technical skill to learn.
Running an ETH Node: Given the problems with Infura earlier this week, another skill is learning how to run your own ETH node, which lets your interact with the network without relying on third parties. This is especially useful for ETH staking.
You don’t have to do learn all these things a once. Just commit to learning a bit more each week. Tune into the Bankless program as often as possible to keep leveling up.
This is the right decade to upgrade your digital sovereignty skills.
Buy crypto. Learn DeFi.
This is no longer geekstuff. These are your future everyday survival skills.
Here’s what’s planned for next week:
See you next week.
– RSA
🙏 Sponsor: Polymarket—Bet on your Beliefs & Harness the Power of Free Markets
Recap for the week of February 28th, 2022
🎙️ WEEKLY PODCAST EPISODE
Listen to podcast episode | Apple | Spotify | YouTube | RSS Feed
ACTION RECAP 📚
📘 Weaponized Banks (Premium Version)
TL;DR
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As war rages between Ukraine and Russia, NATO and its allies are imposing severe economic sanctions and are working to disconnect Russia from the global financial system.
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Russia has been expelled from SWIFT, a global messaging network used by financial institutions to send transactions. The US and many EU member states have frozen access to Russia’s foreign exchange reserves of over $640B. The Russian Ruble has taken a massive hit relative to the value of other foreign currencies.
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Throughout all this, tens of millions of dollars have been donated to Ukraine in ETH/BTC/DOT. Some only have access to their crypto wallets as their banks and credit cards no longer work. Others are dumping their Rubles into crypto and taking it with them across borders.
📘 5 ways to earn fixed-rate yields on DeFi
TL;DR
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Fixed-rate yield products are among the key pillars of the mainstream financial system. These offerings allow people and institutions to earn fixed amounts over a fixed period by locking in their interest rates ahead of time.
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The 5 protocols we cover are: BarnBridge, Element Finance, Maple Finance, Notional Finance, and Yield Protocol
📘 Why Gamers Shouldn’t Hate NFTs
TL;DR
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The gaming community has had a visceral response to NFT in games, causing many publishers to backtrack on their in-game NFT experiments. Many of these gamers cite financialization as intrusive into their leisure-time activities.
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However, many games are already financialized, but exist within closed economies: Play-to-earn, microtransactions, freemium, etc. Blockchains provide a way to legitimize every facet of the gaming economy and include the 99% in the process of wealth creation.
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The blockchain serves as a way to disrupt intermediaries. Gaming publishers are able to maximally extract value from their users by pointedly manipulating in-game economies. This is what blockchain aims to disrupt. NFTs are just one mechanism that the gaming industry is starting to experiment with.
📘 Top 10 Airdrops Opportunities for 2022
TL;DR
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Airdrop farming is still a lucrative method to generate income while also learning how to use protocols. This guide contains 10 airdrop opportunities we anticipate seeing in 2022.
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Airdrop opportunities for free subscribers: Hop Protocol, ZigZag Exchange, zkSync, Arbitrum, and Optimism.
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Paid subscribers get access to an additional 5 Ethereum protocols and another 5 on Solana
💬 What’s your crypto origin story?
TL;DR
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Crypto journeys are often winding, start in odd places, and contain many twists and turns. What’s yours?
WATCH & LISTEN 🔊
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📺 Watch Panel | The Social Web3 Protocols for a Digital Society
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📺 Watch Recap | Ukraine Crypto Donations | Russia SWIFT | EBay & ETH
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🖼️ Watch Overpriced JPEGs | Why Gamers Won’t Hate NFTs Forever
METAVERSAL 🧙♂️
BANKLESSDAO 🏴
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Monaverse, the Renaissance of the Metaverse | Decentralized Arts
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Website Design, Global Tax Guide and Meme-ing for The Rug | Gearing Up
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Featuring Bankless Africa, GPe and Governator proposal | Making Bank
Weekly Subscriber Perks 🔥
Bankless Premium Members get access to perks like these:
Go Bankless. $22 / mo. Includes archive access, Inner Circle & Badge—(pay w/ crypto)
🎙️ STATE OF THE NATION
Listen to podcast episode | iTunes | Spotify | YouTube | RSS Feed
🎙️ WEEKLY ROLLUP
Listen to podcast episode | Apple | Spotify | YouTube | RSS Feed
Jobs opportunities 🧑💼
✨ See all listings on the Bankless Job Board✨
Go Bankless. $22 / mo. Includes archive access, Inner Circle & Badge—(pay w/ crypto)
🙏Thanks to our sponsor
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Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here.
