Gold silver see safe-haven and chart-based buying

Gold, silver see safe-haven and chart-based buying

Gold and silver prices are higher in midday U.S. trading Thursday, with gold sharply up and hitting a four-week high–now within easy striking distance of $1,800.00. Safe-haven demand is featured today as China-Taiwan-U.S. tensions have escalated this week. Short covering in the futures markets and some fresh chart-based buying are also featured today, as the near-term technical postures for both metals have improved this week. October gold futures were last up $29.80 at $1,796.00. September Comex silver futures were last up $0.226 at $20.12 an ounce.

The marketplace was a bit more nervous today after China fired several ballistic missiles around Taiwan, in apparent retaliation for U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan on Tuesday. China is conducting aggressive military maneuvers around Taiwan.

The Bank of England’s monetary policy meeting conclusion Thursday saw the BOE raise its key interest rate by 0.5%, the largest since 1995. The BOE also warned of a long economic recession for the U.K. The dire economic outlook for the U.K. may also be prompting some safe-haven buying in gold and silver. Some are arguing the BOE is probably more on track on forecasting a longer recession, whereas the Federal Reserve does not like to look that far out—especially if the outlook is not rosy.

Geopolitical uncertainty has quietly supported gold prices, but now the volume has been turned up

The marketplace is looking ahead to Friday morning’s U.S. jobs report for July, which is expected to show non-farm payrolls job growth of around 260,000, compared to a rise of 372,000 in the June report.

The key outside markets today see Nymex crude oil prices lower, at a 4.5-month low and trading around $88.00 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index is lower in midday U.S. trading. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note is fetching around 2.7%.
 

Technically, October gold futures prices hit a four-week high today. The gold futures bears still have the overall near-term technical advantage. However, a fledgling price uptrend is still in place on the daily bar chart to suggest a market bottom is in place. Bulls have momentum and their next upside price objective is to produce a close above solid resistance at $1,850.00. Bears' next near-term downside price objective is pushing futures prices below solid technical support at $1,720.00. First resistance is seen at $1,800.00 and then at 1,825.00. First support is seen at $1,775.00 and then at today’s low of $1,769.50. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 4.0.

September silver futures bears have the overall near-term technical advantage. However, a price downtrend has been negated to suggest a market bottom is in place. Silver bulls' next upside price objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at $21.50. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at $19.00. First resistance is seen at this week’s high of $20.51 and then at $20.75. Next support is seen at this week’s low of $17.75 and then at $19.40. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 3.0.

September N.Y. copper closed up 145 points at 348.15 cents today. Prices closed nearer the session high today. The copper bears have the overall near-term technical advantage. However, a steep six-week-old price downtrend on the daily bar chart has been negated and prices are starting to trend up. Copper bulls' next upside price objective is pushing and closing prices above solid technical resistance at 385.00 cents. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid technical support at the July low of 313.15 cents. First resistance is seen at this week’s high of 359.70 cents and then at 365.00 cents. First support is seen at today’s low of 341.60 cents and then at 335.00 cents. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 3.0.

By Jim Wyckoff

For Kitco News

Time to buy Gold and Silver on the dips

 

Tim Moseley

Gold silver pressured at mid-week by higher USDX bond yields lower oil

Gold, silver pressured at mid-week by higher USDX, bond yields, lower oil

Gold and silver prices are lower at midday Wednesday. Rising U.S. Treasury yields, a firmer U.S. dollar index and lower crude oil prices at mid-week are squelching buying interest in the precious metals. An up-tick in trader/investor risk appetite today is also bearish for the safe-haven metals. October gold futures were last down $14.50 at $1,765.30. September Comex silver futures were last down $0.234 at $19.905 an ounce.

Global stock markets were steady to weaker overnight. U.S. stock indexes are solidly higher at midday. Trader and investor anxiety has somewhat receded as U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan Tuesday evening without incident—at least not yet. China has vowed retaliation over her visit and plans on conducting a large-scale military exercise around Taiwan.

U.S. Treasury yields have up-ticked this week as U.S. Federal Reserve officials this week reiterated they plan to keep raising U.S. interest rates to choke off problematic price inflation. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note is fetching around 2.75%.

Sprott launches new ESG-focused gold ETF

The key outside markets today see Nymex crude oil prices solidly lower and trading around $91.50 a barrel. An OPEC-plus meeting Wednesday saw the group raise its collective production by only 100,000 barrels per day. The U.S. dollar index is higher at midday.

Technically, October gold futures bears have the overall near-term technical advantage. However, a fledgling price uptrend is still in place on the daily bar chart to suggest a market bottom is in place. Bulls’ next upside price objective is to produce a close above solid resistance at $1,800.00. Bears' next near-term downside price objective is pushing futures prices below solid technical support at $1,720.00. First resistance is seen at today’s high of $1,779.10 and then at this week’s high of $1,794.80. First support is seen at today’s low of $1,759.70 and then at $1,750.00. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 3.0.

September silver futures bears have the overall near-term technical advantage. However, a price downtrend has been negated to suggest a market bottom is in place. Silver bulls' next upside price objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at $21.50. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at $19.00. First resistance is seen at this week’s high of $20.51 and then at $20.75. Next support is seen at today’s low of $17.75 and then at $19.40. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 3.0.

September N.Y. copper closed down 550 points at 346.45 cents today. Prices closed nearer the session low today. The copper bears have the overall near-term technical advantage. However, a steep six-week-old price downtrend on the daily bar chart has been negated and prices are starting to trend up. Copper bulls' next upside price objective is pushing and closing prices above solid technical resistance at 385.00 cents. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid technical support at the July low of 313.15 cents. First resistance is seen at this week’s high of 359.70 cents and then at 365.00 cents. First support is seen at today’s low of 344.65 cents and then at 335.00 cents. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 3.0.

By Jim Wyckoff

For Kitco News

Time to buy Gold and Silver on the dips

Tim Moseley

Web talk Wednesday webinar

Web talk Wednesday webinar

 
webtalk

This is again a recorded session Today you have with me andrew Pray are c founder and Chief Technology officer I'll let Andrew do a quick introduction on himself to you to kick off the the webinar today.

Sure Thanks, Rj.

So Rj said, I'm c founder and Cto of Web talk I've been working on Web talk for over five years now with Rj.

And it's been a fun experience A lot of my background is software for engineering lot a financial technology, building teams, establishing startups, selling startups.

It's been a good a good experience and I think Very helpful and fitting for what we need done here at laptop Thanks Rj.

Problem Thanks, Andrew.

So we have an exciting day plan today We brought up a lot of questions that have been coming through our beta dot web dot dot c survey site and also through our help desk.

So we're gonna answer a lot of those questions in this webinar We're also gonna go ahead and and ask each other questions so you guys can get to know us a little bit better.

And at the end of the presentation, we do have a surprise, a little bit of a sneak preview slash insight to something that we are building and have been building Even though there's a little bit information out there already, we're gonna provide a little bit more.

So I think the first thing that Would like to start with Andrew is, I would like you to to let her everybody know like, what is the best explanation to get people to join talk in your view? What is the best explanation? So when I talk to people in the way I see it, it's, you know, web talk is a… It's a social media movement, you know, really changing how social media is done So when someone can hear that, you know, I can do the same thing I'm doing on these other social platforms, but get rewarded for it.

Know, that's been very appealing with people and people see that and say, I wanna be a part of that And I think we will change the the social media industry entirely.

You know, I often liken it to to to credit cards, you know, the credit card industry Right for a long time, credit cards, didn't offer rewards.

You'd actually have to pay annual fees And this is… I'm talking about Us credit cards.

I'm not I'm not entirely familiar with other financial systems in other markets By the Us, the credit cards you'd pay annual fee, and you wouldn't get rewards, but then there was a a big shift to now credit cards rewards you.

As they realized customers are valuable And the customer knows that every time I swipe the card at a grocery store, whatever company that has my credit card, they get a percentage.

So I think the same thing will happen on the social media Like, slowly, there's gonna be a realization by the social media giants that the customer the user is more valuable than than they understand or the… Or that the Social media companies appreciate.

And that's one thing that Web talk is trying to do is show value by offering more rewards For using the social platform.

Love it Yeah.

webtalk
 

So yes Probably come back to me on the same question, since it is kind of a a generalized question, but you know, I definitely agree with Andrew on the value proposition and how to explain it to me, the simplest way is based on who you're talking to as well because we do have a lot of value propositions.

And if you're doing it for the potential for rewards to actually make money from the platform, the the simplest way to explain what i talk is you get paid to join to use and to promote the world's first all in one networking app So… And what is the super networking app? I guess would be the next question.

It's a consolidated platform And that's where the next key benefits come into play.

So if somebody wants a description of what Web talk does, and not what it is and what it offers, what it does is it consolidate your social networking usage you can toggle between your personal professional lives and relationships in our built in contact manager Also with your news fee because you can toggle between personal and professional communication.

So you can post to your personal professional and you can consume content from your personal professional networks And beyond that, you can actually dive in filter your feed by a specific contact group that you've labeled that nobody else can see.

So if you own a business or your professional and you wanna put your clients into one particular channel and you can see or prospective clients into a into a particular channel You can filter that channel to just those those connections.

And then you can see what they're talking about And engage with them to help establish and grow those relationships.

And that's the Palo of our platform It's not just for managing existing relationships but it's to help you manage and grow new relationships, new relationships that can help you personally and professionally.

Help you grow a business help you grow your career That's really the power of our platform is we want it to be the end all the Swiss Army knife for your relationship management for all things relationships.

One of our key features that we offer for free for all users is social s that doesn't require you to have a lot of connections yet because so social s is simply you make a poster web talk and you can send a copy of it to your other social platforms to save you time from s and duplicating that content To multiple platforms.

We do it for you and it's for free There are paid services out there where you can pay to do that.

But that is our our key function to provide, you know a valuable service right away as we grow the community to all of our users We have several more of those features in the works as well as new tools like groups and groups on demand.

That are in development, that also help provide daily engagement and daily value for maintaining communication with a type group of of users So we do have a lot in store, but the long story short is depends on who you're talking to is the best explanation.

You have the explanation of, yeah, you can get paid to join use and promote the world's first all in one you know, super networking out And and that's really kind of the way to bring in people want the opportunity to make money from it.

But if they're actually wanting to use it for a value add purpose, it's the only platform that offers segregation consolidation of all relationship types that you can see manage relationships and the only platform that offers free s all the top social networks So we do have a lot of big value add services with many more to come.

I would also… Oh, I'm sorry Are you done Rj? Yeah.

I'm done I was better.

Next question So I I would also or ask ask our users, you know, what has been what it's been effective for you, Like as you talk about what talk to others.

What are the points of day like the best and gets them to join So they can respond to beta dot web talk dot.

Is that where that's correct And right now, too, if you've got questions for this particular webinar, we are gonna bring some people on stage today.

So that be a special treat So ask your questions in the chat and, you know, raise your hand with those questions when you want to speak.

So if you want to ask them live, then that'll let us know And when we're done going back and forth with answering some of these questions i've already come in, we'll go to the audience and look to see what questions we have and bring you on stage.

So if you have those questions, go ahead to put him in chat Alright.

So looking at the questions, we do have next one This one will be for you Andrew.

When will Web talk exit beta? That's a good question So I think I think, probably with this user or the the person that's a submitted of this question.

They're thinking about something differently than I'm thinking Like, they're probably thinking when will you start mass advertising or, you know, promoting web talk more so than we have been, which is a question on this list that I'll I'll let Rj speak to.

But just from an internal technology perspective as to what beta is You know, beta has to lot to do it expectations and level of support.

right now, we have a certain level of support that we're that we're offering You know, so when users contact our help desks or have issues, you know, there's only a capacity of support that we can provide in a timely manner.

Right? And also expectations as we deliver products Right? We deliver products and features to the public knowing that our public our beta users, you know, that they help us that they're on this journey with us.

So when we deliver something, we have a set team that can test it from from various angles, but we can't test it from every angle because our team isn't that back So we ask our beta use to help with that and then they provide feedback to ensure we when we do launch, we have a quality product and a quality experience.

So what all that boils down to from a tech perspective, not an advertising perspective is we exit beta when we have sufficient team signs and support to do so And ultimately, that comes down to revenue and funding.

So by you, going pro by you, referring others to our system by our advertising growing and such, that beta label removing that gets expedite expedited because we have more funds to grow the team And to support and put in automated processes.

And I'd like to add to that as well For my from the business perspective, not just the technology perspective.

To come out of beta also requires specific Kpi indicators that show what we have is du that is working well at a small scale at a very large scale, which includes daily engagement and it's content creation and quality of content that includes, you know, revenue and distribution of commissions So what we've done here with Web talk has never been done before Not only has nobody built a super app.

Like we built nobody has decided they're gonna pay up to sixty percent of that revenue back to users across a global scale So moving money globally is extremely difficult and costly and it is a very hard pass to accomplish.

And we've we've been working at for years to develop it and perfect it, and make sure that the, you know, it it adhere to all regulations around the world to make sure that that Ky know your customer laws or implemented tax integrations are made So all these things have to be, built and tested and optimized for different markets, different use cases.

There's a lot that goes into making sure the process of our platform is optimized for mass scale So you don't wanna put you know, millions of millions and millions of users into a system that isn't fully optimized.

And based on you know, when you bootstrap a company, you can only work on one thing at a time Now if we took a substantial amount of funding or some alternatives like cloud funding, we could, you know, obviously add more resources which get x i development and get things done faster.

Up until today, that hasn't been the case We've had to do one thing at a time and test and optimize each one of those things as we launch them.

Due to the budget and the scale of the project So we're almost to the end of of my the road map and the vision that I had.

I know Andrew's gonna his own road map and team's got their own and what those things are, but we're very, very close to where we wanna be And I think some of the things that we have planned over the coming weeks could really help kick that the acceleration to a launch campaign.

If I may interject as a personal side note from from Rj, our deal will talk a lot about automation and making sure we have support because in a past venture that Rj was a part of his company blew up pretty quickly And I don't… Yeah.

And I think you working twenty four hours just trying to get these paper checks out to people when if you had automated, would have saved yourself a lot of sleepless nights So this is always keen on our mind.

Absolutely Yeah.

webtalk
 

I mean, there is a thing called growing yourself broke So you grow too fast and your expenses if you don't have enough revenue to offset it.

Your expenses can put you under And that's one of the things too that we wanna make sure that we're we're doing correctly is that we're not bringing in users too quickly because either a need the financial support from from investors or crowdfunding or from revenue to support that growth.

Because it is expensive So we wanna make sure that that is a key element.

Also more users means more demand and support and you know better quality support That's not reason why you know, we wanna make sure that when we come out of beta, we're fully supporting every user in the platform, the best that we can.

And we know during during beta researchers are limited to do that So we try to do our best right now to support you and that's for these webinars come into play to help answer a lot of questions.

Let you know it's coming and do it kind of in a group session Alright.

So I'm gonna go on to the next question There's five questions for each of us and we're on question two for rj j and three for me.

So the question for Rj do we plan to do massive advertising campaigning is the question? Absolutely So advertising is is a big component to creating exponential growth.

So how a platform like our rewards platform works is it really depends on our our users our members and spreading the word about Web talk And getting paid to do that as promotion to help us grow our community.

But in order to help expedite that, once the system is ready for mass scale, we'll invest into a large scale advertising platform and then our users can use that content and that advertising that's generated from that campaign to help go more viral share that content through social media, through mail, text message, However, you wanna share the content And there be different channels of content from everything from rewards side of things to new product offerings, product updates, you know, feature benefits.

So we'll cover the gamut when we do the advertising platform or advertising campaign Yes.

So leading to your third question, Andrew, can we reduce the minimum payout to fifty dollars or less? And can web talk reduce for international users This a common question.

I think we've seen this a few times in the past couple of years So a couple of things I think about when I think about this question.

For one, it's important to understand that our margins are less are lower than other social networks because we do share our revenue So this minimum payout does give us somewhat of a buffer.

To ensure that, you know, for example, bot activity, we saw in the past year, we had a a substantial amount of bot activity Right? And the minimum payout helps us to catch bot activity and soon or before that bot reaches a hundred dollars, so it protects us From having to dish out to people that are to robots that should not be getting paid out.

So that there's a buffer there there's other buffers that that are helpful to us Now we have thought about ways in which we can reduce that minimum payout.

For those that are non bots, You know, some examples that come to mind adding a variable, maybe how long you've been a member of web doc you know, if you've been a member for I've talk for years, and you've helped us grow, you know, let's let's try to get you what you've what you've earned thus far Also using whatever balance you have for, you know, pro packages or pro purchases or in the future, we you know, we may have offer your opportunities to buy things on web talk.

Things like that lot how long i'm bad I think that's that's definitely feasible.

Ultimately, I think I think you, our main goal for you as a user is that everyone reaches that minimum easily I think as we grow the platform, I think I don't think the only problem.

For international users in any market You know, that's the size of scale of web talk expands to to to be what we all think it can be.

I think a hundred dollar minimum will be easily achievable for anyone that, you know, is is invested in putting forth any type of effort into the social media platform Awesome.

Yeah So just to chime into that, you know, we are looking into ways to reduce it to, you know, to simplify what Andrew said.

And there's multiple ways that that could be done So internally, we're trying to figure out the best way to do that with the lowest amount of risk to the business for fraud and other potential issues.

So we want to do our best to make sure that everybody is earning rewards and can collect them, you know, as they're earned, but we also wanna make sure the company can sustain whatever we do that it doesn't harm the company So, you know, once we have a more definitive answer there, we'll come back and let you guys know when a future webinar.

For you r Can one member be a part of multiple groups? Yes.

So right now currently, you could be a part of multiple groups in different network, so you can add somebody to a personal network and group and a single professional network group based on how our social Crm works, the contact manager works, it keeps a finite amount of options so you can keep people back to the best of your ability And how if you wanna add additional groups or i.

E Subgroups, you do that through the use of tags.

So if somebody is also part of a different group, you add them with tags, you and you enter those tags for that individual, And then anybody who is also part of that subgroup you add those tags So you can then start to build the subgroups within your contact manager using tags.

But there will be more sophisticated options with our groups on demand platform So group groups on demand is an early development right now, but how to work is you'll be able to go through your contact manager and say create group.

And once you create group, it'll give you a checkbox for anybody in your contact manager, and you can do a simple search like you would for any contacts, and then start selecting contacts from your narrowed search to add to this new group And you'll be able to give it the group a title and that title could be a subject name.

webtalk
 

It could be an event name, it could be whatever you want It could be.

Birthday party or sales event or whatever it is, and you can select a random group of contacts to add to this group And then you could choose that this group is going to be a public group or a private group and you can also choose if this group is a personal group or a professional group And by doing this, it'll add everybody to the group with a title, and it'll actually based on the activity of that role have a hierarchy of keeping it up at the top of the chat based on that activity to that group.

That's why we call groups on a man, because you can create these groups on the fly, by just checklist whoever you want in that group and that group will in your chat in in your chat groups Once we deploy it.

So it won't never go away unless you, you know, remove yourself from that group And we'll cancel out the group for everybody if if you no longer want the group open.

So these will be alternative solutions for creating groups of individuals for communication purposes As far as your contact manager is concerned, you simply use tags and these tags will help filter your contacts by those tags.

I think that there was also a question within the chat So right on time, that question.

Okay Oh, yeah.

So wait I think let me look Your next question is, can Web talk add a feature to help users know who invited someone for platinum members.

Yeah So this one make understanding, understanding what that means Right? So I think what this person is trying to say is, they're referring to their own referral.

They're not referring to people outside their referral network Can I see in my referral network who who was how did it get there, You know, who invited them to get there? I think that's achievable rj agree.

We can show some sort of indicators somewhere because as you're looking at your referral network, you know, you click on your different levels to see those contacts We should be able to filter that by a person.

Alright Well, the other big thing too… And I think it's definitely achievable, but one thing to think about here Andrea is rewards plus.

And I'll also let people know that any features that are premium features that are tied to the rewards platform form that are currently in the pro platinum subscription Will be removed from pro platinum and put into the new rewards plus subscription.

And the reason being is we're making those two subscriptions completely unique from each other We want the premium feature backers in Web talk to help enhance the networking experience.

So removing ads from your networking experience being able to send messages to non connections to search members, to post the members So we want all the the premium features in Web talk to be just talk premium features.

And premium features for rewards to remain within rewards So we are gonna have that segmentation and that's coming with the rewards plus transcription.

So I think this might actually be a good add on feature for the rewards plus subscription What do you think? Yeah.

I think we could do that K.

And like like, Rj said, you know, part of our part of our desire is kind of the keep the social network here and the rewards that kinda powers it Right? Because we don't want to dilute the or or… We still want you to have the social experience for maybe Rj you can explain it better.

Yeah So in order for people to understand what each product and service offering is, we wanna make sure that they're unique in their own entities.

Web talk being the all in one super networking app and Web talk rewards being the platform where you get paid to use and promote web talk Right? So, you know, it's kinda like the monetization platforms for Google.

Google search engine also has Google Adwords and Google ads sense attached to Google Even though, you know, it's all one company that is acquiring advertising.

They have different products that you can pay to run ads on Google, different google products, including Youtube and and Google itself and other Google platforms, but you can also get paid to drive traffic to Google And Google Adsense powers the monetization for Youtube, it powers the monetization for, you know, Google search.

So web talk rewards is equivalent to basically our adsense Right? We're we're sharing our ad revenue.

We're showing our subscription revenue with people who drive traffic and with content creators with influencers, with digital marketers with our everyday users So anybody who is helping to drive traffic to our platform is going be sharing in that revenue very similar to an affiliate who signs up for google adsense that drives traffic to Google or Youtube.

So we wanna make sure that these these entities are are unique and the feature sets associated with each of them are directly tied to those platforms So that's that's really our main goal here as we you know, get through the end of the beta.

So to answer the person's question Yes.

We it'll be available So we'll make it Alright.

Question number four for our day, two more ago You mentioned influencers.

Will they be joining and can we expect massive growth and therefore increased earnings? So absolutely Influencers will come obviously through two ways through company promotion and through individual promotion members.

Now the… It our members to bring in influencers because influencers are the largest generators of of advertising revenue through Youtube and other platforms that actually share revenue with with their content creators So if you individually refer an influencer.

And let's say that influencer right now is making a million dollars a month on Youtube and, you know, just kind of a a side note we are working on native video and it should be launching in the coming weeks So once we launch our native video platform, bringing a Youtube bar over to, you know, load their videos to us first and share them and build their audience or rebuild their audience and bring their audience over to web talk.

Well, if they do that underneath you and they're making a million dollars a month from our platform because you get matching points on what they earn, they're earning a essentially ten percent of the ad revenue that we generate, Well you'll actually earn the same So if they earn a million dollars a month, so you So it is very, very attractive for our users to reach out to influencers to bring them into the platform because they'll make money and so will you.

And those will be your biggest earners of rev share from advertising that you can have Now we are going to go out ourselves and recruit influencers for the official launch.

We want influencers to come in a platform, start loading up content, so we can prep populate content for suggested list of users to follow for Discover search So there's there's top quality influencer content discover search.

So all this is gonna happen before the official launch for will help try to help prep populate content by bringing in, you know, as many influencers we can at the beginning And we've seen some of this already.

Some of our micro influencers in international markets have really driven a lot of traffic Yeah.

Yeah that's… That when we see our biggest spikes is from youtubers, pushing our product Right you'll see a certain country.

Just spike and then, like, how did that happen? Let me just Google web talk in that country and you'll see Yep.

Videos Yeah.

webtalk
 

So we get a lot of that already People are already referring influencers into the platform.

And you know, when when this happens, you see quickly spikes and user growth and engagement and it's happening around the world So… Yeah, Andrew's right.

You know, this is already happening today It's already happening with users who see the opportunity to make money from from referring influencers in.

And it doesn't have to be big names celebrities So it could be micro influencers people on Instagram, you know, if tens of thousands or hundred thousands or maybe a million to three million followers those are all considered micro influencers.

So by bringing in these people, that have loyal and engage smaller audiences, you know, they add up too because they also no influencers So influencers no other influencers.

So once you actually bring in an influencer, if you want that ten percent rev share, through five degrees five levels of separation in the rewards platform, Well they know influencers, they own influencers nail influencers So it's kind of a chain reaction.

So it… It's really, really attractive that if you can bring those influencers in yourself right now by just messaging them on social media and say, hey, you know, here's a platform you get paid to join use promote You know, here's all the involved, check it out and send him to the reward site.

And I think it it'd be an easy sell Alright.

So your fourth question, Andrew is or no, fifth question Yeah.

Last one So this is the the personal question.

What do you love most about Web talk? So when I think about what I love most, I think about it kind of in two aspects Why it was personal, like, internal personal, you know, my cells.

And then one is how I view Web talk Right? What I love about that.

So internally, the personal aspect I really love the the spiritual journey That the unexpected, I would say spiritual journey that is web talk.

Prior to me joining Web talk I was agnostic for about my whole adult life.

And then I came to understand that God exists and the bible is true.

And about two months prior to joining Web talk, I was baptized So understanding, I say this because understanding that the faith component in my life understanding and believing that god is real.

You know, I believe they'll Let me let me give it to him.

Let's say, God, I want you to tell me what to do what to work on and how to work on it I put it all on your hands.

And it's been quite a blessing to see all the miracles, all the things that he's done The the the change in my life the change I've seen in my employees life around me like, other people I associate with Talk, my family.

So just seeing that and just being it being unexpected I didn't expect some of the things to take place that I've taken place.

Really miraculous and too much to go into detail on this call But hopefully, at someday in the future we get share.

Some of these things, and it's so it's a continuing journey So.

There it seems like there's more to share soon So that's the personal aspect.

It's very faith based love for talk that I have The the more externally facing and how i view web talk.

It's it has to do it with the users Right? I like I really love seeing the users on our site.

And what they come up with or what they're saying, you know, some of them, I I watch their videos and some of them, you know, they explain Web talk to me Alright.

I have an idea of what talk… What what talk is, what it be But then I hear what they say.

I'm like, you know what? What they say is better than when I They understand what we're building, but than I do And I find that really cool.

Also, the users that have that have promoted us and are on that cusp, you know, they're like, right there As soon as we go big know, the reward for them is just massive.

I I see, you know, tens of thousands of dollars, you know, more than that and some of these users pending sign bonuses I I watch the pending sign bonus because I… I'm I'm keen to see that come fruition.

And I think as we hit these certain milestones of growth when those start getting paid out, I'll be so excited for all these users and that that really entries me and I loved I love that So that's I would respond to that question.

And then I'll i'll throw the question back to you archie What do you love most of about Web talk.

It's probably Hardest question to answer.

Because there is there's a lot to love For me, when I initially came up with the concept it's completely morph.

You know, into something amazing And, you know, I always had the general principle of you, I wanna get back to the user for me, the problems that I saw that I thought we were solving early on was you know, social media, really harvest your data doesn't give you any access to it, monetize it doesn't give you any of the money they make from it.

And then on top of that, they try to tell you what you can and can't do with your own personal beliefs towards religion and politics And I think that by closing all this off and not giving you access to your social capital, not giving you access to your networks data.

Not give you ways to filter through communication You miss a lot.

Like, you get fed a bunch of ads and very little content that's important So I thought, you know, if we could just provide a tool for better management of contacts and communication that could help people actually truly manage relationships to stay in touch not miss anything, streamline that communication.

And and then the strength of relationships that people can build and maintain would be much grander than anything out in the market And then by sharing our revenue, we could really do something impactful.

We can really change lives But for me, it wasn't until that, you know, we came up with the five level bonus to to really changed the lives of the everyday person because a standard program for affiliates sharing revenue is only valuable to major influencers and and celebrities and major digital marketers that can bring a lot of people by offering the five level bonus it allows anybody to make a substantial amount of income for just referring a few people that refer a few people that refer a few people.

So that the power of the duplication to me and the way we structure this, I think is very, very exciting because I think we'll see so many tremendous success stories come out of every aspect of the business And that doesn't even include the fact that we're giving ten percent of our process to charity.

So So for me, it's the end goal Like, how many success stories can we create? People that use our platform to grow a business.

Use our platform form to find a job, use our platform to find their potential next spouse Used our platform to create a, you know, a successful business just by promoting it or by, you know, becoming a content creator.

Like, how new success stories can we create across the board and how much can we help advance the global economy by helping to validate data, which is the next big step for us And I'm excited about that next step because that's a big thing for me.

If you go into Linkedin, and you're hiring and recruiting and looking for vendors and partners, you have no idea if the the the data on these virtual resumes is valid So by us going into the next step in validating identification and resumes, offering that as a service for essentially due diligence on a man, but any person in the world can come to a database of people and see that they're real people with real education and real job history that's been verified.

I think will help expedite transactions to the nth degree gives small business a real fighting chance against big business who pushes, you know, pushes them out because they have big recruiting budgets And I really do think that that next layer that next level for us will change the world on a really dramatic basis So like I said, there's there's a lot to love.

And this is just the external The internal for me is the amazing team that we have.

Everybody is very faith based, very family oriented, very vision oriented They see the the big vision.

They know it's a really big vision and they're, you know, willing to work hard to achieve it So we've grown a big family over over several years of of building talk.

And you know, then I couldn't ask for anything better So I think with that being said, we do have a couple of questions.

I'd like to bring on live to answer So let me go ahead and bring in Michael and a tool Say you guys are coming in live now and let me see if I can learn how to use this system to bring to bring you guys online to answer her to ask those questions live.

Alright Tool you were up first.

How's it going a tool? I'm doing great What about to you? I'm doing great.

So I see in the chat it would be great if we can use balance upgrade as it takes one month to get it to the get it to the bank in case not being able to upgrade people lose fifty percent off That is for two or three years.

So if I'm getting your question right, you're looking to be able to use your rewards balance the money that you've earned in your rewards account to pay for any premium feature packages Is that correct? Yes.

I'm thinking about that in case if there is not enough balance in our reward that, we can add extra money from our back So we can use that well to upgrade our premium feature Alright.

So, yes That is… Actually already in the works with our credits platform.

So we have been in development of a credit platform and that credit platform will allow you to use your talk reward to purchase credits And then those credits can be used to buy anything within web talk, and you'll also be able to gift credits to other users.

Okay That's great.

Alright Hopefully question questions.

It was a good question Yeah.

Thank you for asking Thanks that's all.

Thank you Alright.

So I'm gonna bring on next Michael I go.

Good afternoon, Michael Are you there? Can you hear me? I can hear you.

Okay I.

I think i I had one question about custom groups, but I think you've already more or less answered that I'd like to be able to add different members to one custom group.

Sorry for this That one custom group, more multiple members can be members of one custom group.

Yeah So as I mentioned earlier, that was out that came into the help desk is a a top question.

So that is coming the groups on demand once we launch that So stay tuned.

We all working on it We wanna make sure it's done right, but I think it's you're gonna love what we have in the works.

Yes I have one additional question.

And you mentioned before that rewards was going to be a separate entity Does that mean that the five level bonus stays with the rewards package are how does that stay with the platinum and professional package? So the the five level a bonus because it's it's sales based.

It, you know, will stay with any package So it doesn't matter what package it is.

That is strictly sales based So with five level bonus, you for anybody who's new and watching this new.

The five little bonus kicks in, as soon as either a, you refer a new member who upgrades to a premium service package or being you purchase it yourself and that counts as your one sale qualifier fire So you have those options.

Currently, we have two subscriptions inside of Web talk pro or platinum, We are planning to release a new one called rewards plus which will be within the rewards platform Now all three of these subscriptions will qualify for the five level bonus because it they are all technically a sale that is being tracked by Web talk rewards.

Yeah Cool.

Cool Francois.

Hey, Michael Where are you calling from? That's Germany.

Oh, Germany Welcome.

What's city? You say I'm near just off I think that's the most And easy to.

I don't know how Many you know in Germany Not a lot.

Just just what I can Google Okay.

I think your google just up That's the nearest one.

I live in a little town called elm, which is cl very close to the dutch border So I'm basically near… I mean, Germany and Holland and Belgium.

So the best of all was… Oh great Welcome.

So do you know where Wolf hawk is? That sounds like down south Southwest.

Yeah Yeah.

And Actually stayed a week there in a cabin of my family friend Oh, cool.

Fears years back But… Yeah.

It's cool Way more in the in the industrial side of Germany.

So and and West Germany So… Okay.

Alright Well, thank you for coming on.

And breaks my Here's support.

Appreciate it Supposed to suggest with tours from as well We forgot to mention that.

He's the one Yeah.

He is Me go ahead.

He's muted right now Alright.

Hello Hello.

Tool Are you there? Yeah.

Okay Perfect.

So where are you calling from? I'm from india I'm on laptop for last two years Awesome.

Well, thank you very much We appreciate it.

Yeah So about afternoon fourteen years.

Awesome Even more appreciate it's.

Thank you for your support Yeah.

So we'd love to having everybody in here as our customers users, everybody that's been very supportive during the beta So thank you all for your questions.

Now with the last thing, on the agenda for today is talking about what's in store So one of the things that I do wanna discuss It is early.

It's preliminary There already as little bit of information out there about it.

But we've been working on the infrastructure for launching our own cryptocurrency called web clean And web coin will have a lot of unique benefits that we won't disclose yet.

But if you go to products dot web dot c, you'll see a little bit of a tutorial on websocket coin with our product map But we decided to move it up the rankings and potentially attach it to our crowdfunding campaign that is in the works right now So it's really exciting.

We've got some really cool things that we wanna do with the coin Obviously, it would be utility coin that you could use to purchase advertising some transcriptions, products in our marketplace.

You could use it to in our talent marketplace when launch that You'll be able to, you know, buy and sell services by the hour or by the job.

So full use of the the currency will be available Even by our swag our our gear with with our coin.

So… And That's the next big things We're also working on the the Swag store.

And this has been something that's been a bit of an issue for the last eighteen months to find a a solid vendor that could really do three key things for us One, give us on demand printing to provide high quality on demand printing and three integrate with our system to be able to award commissions for the purchases of our slack.

So if you invite somebody web talk and they buy a hat or a teacher shirt we wanna make sure that we're able to reward our our users and and rewards members with commissions for those So all three of those elements have been really, really difficult to find because they don't they really haven't gone together well.

Somebody could do the tech but had and could do on demand, but didn't have high quality items or had high quality items Could do on demand, but couldn't integrate with our tech.

So it's been a real challenge to find a good partner that can work with us because we're obviously not in the clothing business for the tech business So we want a good partner that can make sure that we're putting out a merchandise that people love they wanna wear every day.

And is high quality and at an affordable cost So I think we found that potential partner and stay tuned for more.

So we're working on that We've had a lot of partnerships come up in the last few months.

A new potential ad partner that we're testing out the Coo that's going for mobile ads The partnership with Ricardo ventures, we took an investment from them.

We've got a couple other technology partnerships that we've been developing So it's just there's a lot in the works right now.

And we're really excited for for what's to come So thank you all for for joining today again for the next spoke talk Wednesday webinar.

Make sure you go to beta dot web talk dot c And ask your questions there ahead of time so we can add them ready to go like we did today.

And there also is a survey on that site So if you can please complete survey.

There's questions about crowdfunding on there Those questions about features.

So there are Questions about what do you like what you don't like about Web talk, so you can help us improve our services So we are really counting on your support during this time to help us grow mature and develop web talk.

To what you want it to become We're building web talk for you.

So that's our main goal is to help you create more success So please let us know how we can help you do that, and we will work whatever way we can to make sure that happened So again thank you for watching.

Thank you for being here for all of you at attending live, and we will see you in a couple of weeks on the next web talk Wednesday webinar Take care, and have a great day or evening wherever you are in the world.

JOIN US: https://join.webtalk.co/6493098

Tim Moseley

Senate Bill Classifying Bitcoin As A Digital Commodity To Be Introduced Today: Report

Senate Bill Classifying Bitcoin As A Digital Commodity To Be Introduced Today: Report

by Shawn Amick 

 

The bill seeks to empower the CFTC to regulate bitcoin as a digital commodity while excluding securities from also falling under the same category.

  • A new bill classifying bitcoin as a digital commodity could be introduced today.
  • This move would empower the current watchdog of derivatives and future markets, the CFTC, to gain regulatory jurisdiction over bitcoin.
  • The bill seeks to expand on previous definitions in the bitcoin ecosystem while also excluding securities from being digital commodities.

Leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee (SAC) are planning to introduce a bill that would classify bitcoin as a digital commodity, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

The category of digital commodity is fairly new. Currently the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversees the regulation for derivatives of commodities, rather than the underlying commodity itself. This bill seeks to empower the CFTC to regulate spot markets for digital commodities which means the regulator would be given the ability to regulate the underlying asset itself.

The bill will also exclude securities from simultaneously being labeled a digital commodity. Therefore, any and all cryptocurrencies labeled as a security would fall under the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rather than the CFTC.

In fact, the SEC has already made multiple appeals to cryptocurrency exchanges suggesting they register with the SEC as security exchanges. This action would place exchanges in the same category as other securities trading platforms like the New York Stock Exchange.

Additionally, the bill will reportedly seek to regulate and define brokers, dealers, custodians, and trading facilities. While semantic, these designations go a long way towards curtailing previous attempts at regulating the ecosystem which resulted in mistaken definitions that could have made operating in the space as a transaction validator or service provider extremely difficult – as seen in the previously introduced infrastructure bill.

However, this bill reportedly includes an exclusion for “a person” if said person’s involvement in the ecosystem is “solely because that person validates digital commodity transactions.” While this could be a boon for those not directly involved in the trading of bitcoin, there is still room for these definitions to get dicey.

Furthermore, Democratic SAC Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow and leading Republican John Boozman of Arkansas plan to introduce the bill today. CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam, a former staff member for Stabenow, stated the regulator is “ready and well situated” to oversee spot markets related to digital commodities. 

 

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Tim Moseley

Foundry Digital Donates 1 BTC To Developer Working On Bitcoin Mining Pools

Foundry Digital Donates 1 BTC To Developer Working On Bitcoin Mining Pools

by Shawn Amick 

 

The developer will work on a sub-protocol of Stratum V2, a communications protocol meant to improve miner collaboration, increasing the global hash rate.

  • Foundry Digital has donated 1 BTC to a pseudonymous open-source developer – 4ss0.
  • The developer is working on Stratum V2, a communication protocol for miners and mining pools.
  • Specifically, the developer will improve the decentralization of block templates and strengthen censorship resistance on the protocol.

Foundry Digital, an institutional service provider for bitcoin mining, has donated 1 BTC to a pseudonymous developer in the bitcoin ecosystem by the name of 4ss0, who is working on Stratum V2, according to a press release.

Stratum V2 is an open-source communications protocol that allows miners, their proxies, and mining pools to better communicate with one another enabling larger contributions to the global hashrate of the Bitcoin network. The protocol seeks to provide higher levels of efficiency, security and decentralization to the proof-of-work consensus mechanism powering Bitcoin.

Stratum V2 changes the default messaging format from JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) to binary with an added encryption feature, thereby improving communication on the existing Stratum protocol. However, while this functionality is important, 4ss0 will actually be dedicating their time to the Job Negotiation Protocol (JNP).

JNP is a sub-protocol within Stratum that enables bitcoin miners to create their own block templates. These templates allow for streamlined cooperation by setting predefined attributes for participating miners while strengthening censorship resistance by decentralizing the creation of block templates.

"The Job Negotiator implementation will increase the decentralization of pool mining, enabling miners to mine their chosen transactions while preventing the censorship of transaction propagation by pools,” said 4ss0. “This will further allow people around the world to benefit from Bitcoin's borderless freedom."

In addition to Foundry’s donation, the company will offer 4ss0 access to bitcoin mining application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and hash rate data provided by the Foundry USA Pool team for testing purposes.

"The bitcoin mining industry has evolved rapidly in the past two years, while the underlying protocol that coordinates the miner and the pool has stayed stagnant," said Jay Beddict, VP of research at Foundry. "Foundry views Stratum V2 as a major improvement to the current Stratum protocol and is aligned with our mission of empowering decentralized infrastructure.”

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Tim Moseley

The Psychology of Fear

The Psychology of Fear

In the last two and a half years, perhaps, each of us experienced a surge of fear and did not escape the anxiety of a completely new situation that gripped the whole world. This is quite natural; the events touched the entire civilized world.

However, it is difficult to say what the given level and frequency of experiencing fear, apprehension, and anxiety is. Each will always be a unique cocktail in which they will most likely be mixed early, even prenatal experiences and personal settings, degree of sensitivity, genetic make-up, fulfillment or non-fulfillment of basic emotional needs in childhood, and others.

In addition, during our life, sometimes there comes a period of crises, rebirths, and changes when deep forces forcefully and without question penetrate through the shell of our consciousness. These periods can be accompanied by extreme experiences of fear, anxiety, and even terror.

"There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”

        —  Epictetus

According to one medieval story, a pilgrim was walking along the road to the city and met Death. Recognizing her, he asks: "Where are you going and why?" "I am going to the city to kill a thousand people with the plague." "Well, if you have to, go," the pilgrim replies, slowly heading to the same city. When he arrives at his destination, he finds a dead city, tens of thousands dead, not a single living being anywhere. He goes back the same way and meets Death again. "You lied to me, Death. You killed all the people with the plague." "I didn't lie,” answers the Death “exactly one thousand inhabitants of the city died of the plague. Everyone else was killed by the fear of the plague."

This horrible story illustrates well the destructive nature of fear if we are overwhelmed by it and give up the fight. The instinctive reaction to a threat is not only an attack or escape, but if we evaluate the situation as hopeless, then also paralysis and surrender to a higher power.

 

This instinctive reaction is exploited by populist leaders – saviors who can frighten a crowd to the point that it gives up its own chances of solving the urgent sense of threat by its own forces and passively places power and salvation in the hands of a manipulative higher power.

Guidelines for Manipulators and Crowd Leaders:

A manipulator will systematically present people with messages, stories, and images that will create and spread a sense of threat, anxiety, and fear in society.

A larger part of society will stop verifying ghostly information, confronting it with a different point of view. They begin to have a great need to clarify and simplify the whole problem. It is enough to help them with the right stickers and directions, which will be simple and logically comprehensible.

Put more pressure on the saw and try to create the feeling that the situation has no solution. After the initial resistance, anxiety, and then resignation to one's own activity will probably come, but there remains hope for salvation from above.

Give them such salvation with a simple instruction – explain to the crowd (yes, at that point, society is mostly behaving like a crowd) that others are incapable, look where they got us, while you are not afraid and have a solution. In doing so, you will only be repeating ideas that you have already pushed on people before. This way, your ideas will seem familiar, logical, and therefore believable to them.

How to deal with the amount of information thrown at a person? 

Restrict message viewing?
Certainly yes, and watch the news only at certain times and only from specific sources.

Adequacy, not absence of concern. Realize that worry and fear are natural emotions that have an essential function. They mobilize us, orient our attention and show what we should change to prevent the possible negative consequences of what threatens us. It's not about not having such emotions at all but *keeping them within limits where they don't harm us*.

Mental hygiene is essential! Introduce (and if you do, intensify) important psycho hygiene exercises – intensive movement, physical exercises, physical relaxation (autogenic training, etc.), yoga, meditation, mindfulness exercises, walks in nature, etc.

You can prepare crisis scenarios –  and then put them away. If you are overly worried about the possible practical consequences of the current situation for your concrete, everyday life (energy crisis, job loss, financial matters, etc.), do not avoid these considerations, but go through them thoroughly once and conclude. 

Specifically: calmly (alone or with another person who is a reasonable advisor) discuss these concerns and devote yourself primarily to planning activities and measures that (then, if they arise) you can take. Think through contingency plans ("what would I do if") and alternatives. 

Do it once, thoroughly, when you are in a stable mood. For example, write down all the points on paper. And then hide it somewhere and close everything, both realistically and symbolically. Don't come back to it. If needed, you have plans made.

Remember – feeling afraid, nervous, and upset is normal in times of uncertainty.

The way people react to the news can be influenced by how it's presented. While you want to stay informed from credible news sources, you might need to set limits on your daily media consumption.

Fears from the point of view of human biology

Fear actually has a central location in our brain. The area is called the amygdala, and it is located deep on the sides of our head in a place called the temporal lobe. It gets its name from being almond-shaped. The amygdala serves us well and helps us to avoid fearful and anxious situations in our past, so we don’t continue to make the same mistakes or subject ourselves to dangerous situations. It keeps us on alert when we must be careful.

Your amygdala fires the stress/anxiety/fear warnings based on how you see the world. It is complicated because our brain is complicated, but imagine your eyes see a threat, and messages go throughout your brain telling you to run, fight, flee, or whatever response you might take. 

Part of the message goes to your amygdala for many reasons, including the emotional component. The more your amygdala is stimulated, the more easily it can get triggered. When a pandemic has a child or adult in fear all day, the amygdala repeatedly uses minimal stimulus to fire. Everything becomes a threat – and fear and anxiety are everywhere.

First things first, do not let any kind of negativity and hopelessness stop you from taking the necessary actions to care for yourself. Mild anxiety can be beneficial to boosting efforts and achieving a favorable outcome. Excessive anxiety can make it difficult to reason and cause extreme stress. It is helpful to understand what kind of behavior and emotions are normal and which should raise a red flag. 

“Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows but only empties today of its strength.” —  Charles Spurgeon

Sources:

 

 

About: Markéta Halova. (Czech Republic) A crypto enthusiast, keen online marketer and passion for photography. I love interacting with the community of Entrepreneurs at Markethive. I believe in free speech, liberty, sovereignty for all. Find me at my Markethive Profile Page | My Twitter Account | and my LinkedIn Profile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tim Moseley

Gold gets slight safe-haven bid as risk aversion up-ticks

Gold gets slight safe-haven bid as risk aversion up-ticks

Gold prices are modestly up in midday U.S. trading Tuesday and hit a nearly four-week high earlier, as some safe-haven demand is featured amid keener risk aversion in the marketplace today. October gold futures were last up $4.80 at $1,782.60. September Comex silver futures were last down $0.152 at $20.215 an ounce.

U.S.-China tensions are on the rise today as U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in and visited Taiwan Tuesday evening. China has vowed retaliation. Global stock markets were mostly lower overnight. U.S. stock indexes are mixed at midday.

Overnight news that the U.S. military killed the leader of Al Qaida in a drone strike in Kabul had little impact on markets.

JPMorgan dominates gold market as jury deliberates spoofing charges

The key outside markets today see Nymex crude oil prices higher and trading around $94.75 a barrel. Traders are awaiting an OPEC meeting Wednesday. The U.S. dollar index is solidly higher at midday and did help to knock down the precious metals markets from their daily highs.

Technically, October gold futures prices hit a nearly four-week high early on today. The gold futures bears still have the overall near-term technical advantage. However, recent gains have negated a price downtrend on the daily bar chart a fledgling price uptrend is now in place. Bulls’ next upside price objective is to produce a close above solid resistance at $1,800.00. Bears' next near-term downside price objective is pushing futures prices below solid technical support at $1,720.00. First resistance is seen at today’s high of $1,794.80 and then at $1,800.00. First support is seen at this week’s low of $1,764.10 and then at $1,750.00. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 3.0.

September silver futures bears have the overall near-term technical advantage. However, a price downtrend has been negated to suggest a market bottom is in place. Silver bulls' next upside price objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at $21.50. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at $19.00. First resistance is seen at this week’s high of $20.51 and then at $20.75. Next support is seen at $20.00 and then at last Friday’s low of $19.825. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 3.0.

September N.Y. copper closed down 270 points at 351.50 cents today. Prices closed nearer the session high today. The copper bears have the overall near-term technical advantage. However, a steep six-week-old price downtrend on the daily bar chart has been negated and prices are starting to trend up. Copper bulls' next upside price objective is pushing and closing prices above solid technical resistance at 385.00 cents. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid technical support at the July low of 313.15 cents. First resistance is seen at this week’s high of 359.70 cents and then at 365.00 cents. First support is seen at today’s low of 344.85 cents and then at 335.00 cents. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 3.0.

By Jim Wyckoff

For Kitco News

Time to buy Gold and Silver on the dips

 

 

 

Tim Moseley

Web 30 – The Era of Decentralization Autonomy and Influence?

Web 3.0 – The Era of Decentralization, Autonomy and Influence?

The Evolution of The Internet

In simple terms Web 3.0 refers to a third major iteration of the world wide web or internet as we know it, and in many ways it is still unfolding. But what is it and what does this mean for the individual and entrepreneur? To give proper context to its evolution let’s loop back and take a look at Web version one and two.

Web 1.0

Web 1.0 saw the inception of the world wide web which emerged in 1989 out of the shadows of Arpanet and Milnet, via the innovative influence of Tim- Berners Lee. You could connect to the internet, browse websites and access information in either ‘read only’ format, or downloadable format in many cases. It was a start of a proliferation of information, yet quite passive and static in nature.

Web 2.0

2004 saw an iteration of the internet, which Tim O’Reily supposedly coined. Web 2.0 saw a more interactive version of the internet whereby users could create content, meaning two way engagement. 

The main shift was a relational one rather than a technical one per se.  More web applications emerged and this is where big tech companies such as social media giants, Facebook and Google took center stage.

YouTube arose, Wikipedia and wikileaks also emerged with editable functions as new information replaced old information. Website architecture such as WordPress came into being, with its drag and drop features, making it simple to create websites without needing to know code in detail. Communication was more interactive and applications such as direct messaging apps increased connectivity. For many it became the prime choice for communication over email.

Web 3.0

If Web 2.0 was all about interactivity, collaboration and engagement, Web 3.0 marks an even greater shift, and it seems to have emerged off the back of the last recession in 2008.

Web 3.0 is more than just an iteration, and is still unfolding. It denotes a major structural shift toward the decentralization of money and data. Most importantly It seems to be heralding an age beyond information to one of autonomy and influence.

Concepts like the blockchain, cryptocurrency, DeFi, Smart Contracts, DAO and NFT are part of the landscape of Web 3.0.  Embodied in these concepts are the themes of user control over money, and data, as well the ability to influence their livelihoods and the construction of community projects designed to answer some of the most pressing issues of our times.


Image source: https://entethalliance.org/advancing-the-web-3-0-ecosystem

It seems like the debacle of the Northern Rock bank run here in the UK back in 2007 has jolted people into realizing that their assets can effectively be stripped in a time of economic slump without their permission. That is grand theft. Are we witnessing a return of power to the people and a leveling of the economic playing field? Time will tell.

What is Decentralization and DEFI?

Decentralization is all about moving the power of influence, control and consumerism away from a central source of control. To make it easier to understand, think of AirBNB and Uber.

AirBNB is an example of the decentralization of vacation accommodation, and the removal of huge overhead costs. It came to prominence in 2008. AirBNB is like a brokerage for homeowners across the globe, who choose to rent their homes out for vacation stays. It offers an attractive alternative experience to the traditional hotel stays.

At around the same time in 2009, Uber saw the decentralization of the transport industry, specifically taxis. In this example Uber acts as a brokerage between vehicle owners and users who need to book transport, as an alternative to the traditional taxi firms. Both are like consumer to consumer models of approach, providing more income opportunities for consumers minus a broker commission in the process.

DeFi stands for decentralized finance. It's all about the decentralization of money into the hands of the community and consumer. Related to that is that, not only does it give control of money and financial data back to the consumer, but the power to influence and contribute to the building of new community structures, according to their white papers.

Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency represents digital currency and is to be distinguished from CBDCs, which are digital currencies which are under central bank ownership. Whereas In a bank run such as the Northern Rock event of 2007 you can be denied access to your money, the opposite is true with cryptocurrency.

In 2009 the largest cryptocurrency to date, Bitcoin came into being. Now you can own and control bitcoin through your private wallet, and not be denied access unless you lose your private security keys. You can send bitcoin peer to peer from wallet to wallet, and buy more everyday items via debit cards as mass adoption increases. 

Over 10,000 cryptocurrencies have spawned the exchanges since bitcoin took stage, and you can see their status and key metrics in places like nomics and coinmarketcap. Not all coins and tokens are equal, and not all fare well for a variety of reasons. 

Many are seen as dud tokens or coins, here today and gone tomorrow. So due diligence is also important if you are looking to build any sort of digital portfolio. In all cases, for transactions to take place it needs an underpinning structure. Enter the blockchain.

Blockchain

 
Image Source: https://www.simon-kucher.com/en/blog/blockchain-and-its-impact-business-success

An important aspect of the decentralization of money and transactions is something called the Blockchain. This is like a huge digital ledger which is publicly available for all to see, use and verify transactions. This is where you see the description, ‘trustless’, which is the ability to verify without needing trust.

Its transparency and verification features mark a huge development in the area of money. Whenever you buy cryptocurrency at an exchange, and send money peer to peer from your digital wallet all transactions can be tracked on the blockchain. Speed of transaction and fees vary from blockchain to blockchain. Bitcoin transactions can be viewed on the bitcoin blockchain. 

Ethereum came into being as a blockchain in 2013 and also has its own token. One of its unique aspects is the ability for a developer to build applications such as smart contracts on its blockchain. 

This is basically an executable piece of code that gets activated when the criteria of that contract is met. It effectively takes out the middleman and removes lag time often seen in the manual process of bank or legal contracts, for example. The removal of a lot of bureaucracy may be eliminated in the future with SMART contracts.

Technological advances means that a developer can build their own blockchain as well if they have the technical expertise. You can put your website on the blockchain too. The possibilities are endless with the blockchain infrastructure.

The recent proliferation of DAOs and NFTs and Artificial Intelligence are further signs of a new way of relating to technological advances which puts more autonomy and control in the hands of the user. NFT stands for non fungible tokens, meaning each token cannot be duplicated, and are being used in a number of ways in business. The advert from Budweiser at the recent Superbowl is an example of this. DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization which involves voting and co- ownership of that particular community project. It gives more say and influence to its participants.

Artificial Intelligence is streamlining and compressing a lot of manual activities, which has implications for productivity and innovation. Of course, with autonomy comes the need for greater responsibility and wisdom where technology is concerned and this applies to life in general. The more power you have, the more responsibility and wisdom is implied.

Is Web 3.0 and DeFi here to stay? The volatile nature of cryptocurrency makes it difficult to make a statement one way or the other. Also the various governmental regulations touted add to that uncertainty, such as ISO 20022. Some predict that with the new ISO 20022 standard most cryptocurrencies will be wiped out. 

What is ISO 20022?

To keep it simple ISO 20022 is an algorithmic standard, a bit like SWIFT in the banking structures, which validates financial transactions and data across the globe. It is the proposed shift from SWIFT to ISO 20022 that has caused concern about the future of cryptocurrency because only a handful of cryptocurrencies are compliant with this standard.

Ripple, Algorand, Stellar Lumens, Iota, XinFin, Hedera and Quant are the confirmed ones. Regulations in general can be a double edged sword as Ripple [ XRP ] found out, even with its ISO 20022 status, as it does battle with the Securities Exchange Commission.

Summary

Whilst the volatility of cryptocurrencies makes its course less predictable, and regulations such as ISO 20022 and SEC may throw a spanner in the works, there are a lot of moving factors beyond this that can support or derail a cryptocurrency.  

Standards of good practice are essential. Yet many see regulations as a kickback from central authorities who do not wish to lose their power and status over the people, hence giving crypto users a hard time in terms of operating freely.

What is clear is that people are fed up of the old erroneous, incompetent and corrupted structures. Bitcoin continues to lead the way in gathering pace in mass adoption in the arena of supply and demand. Markethive is also an example of an ecosystem which is navigating the obstacles through its credits system.

The regulators may view bitcoin as a commodity but the issuance of debit cards to translate bitcoin into spendable money for everyday items suggests a more powerful use value.

Expenditure in relation to supply and demand may be a more predictive indicator. Billions are being poured into blockchain solutions, and businesses are expected to increase expenditure into blockchain technology significantly, suggesting that blockchain will be a central part of business moving forward. 

Image Source: https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2021/10/this-infographic-illustrates-10-biggest.html

Web 3.0 is continuing to be shaped by these new structures and concepts of decentralized finance, which means more autonomy and responsibility for the user and entrepreneur.  Like AirBNB and Uber it seems to be part of a wider trend that is here to stay as it looks to shape a new economy.

Now more than ever the opportunity exists for the entrepreneur to shape the destiny of their business with enabling technology. If privacy, autonomy and freedom of speech are important to you then you now have the possibility to move your website to the blockchain.

The shackles of constraint can come off your mind as you seek to evaluate how your business can benefit you and your audience with these new possibilities. I look forward to establishing my website on the blockchain for peace of mind. That’s just for starters.

If it all feels new and overwhelming, know that there are academies and education hubs like Bankless and Moralis Academy that are designed to walk you through and empower you with the necessary education to enable your business to operate with greater autonomy and influence as a force for good.

 

 

 

About: Anita Narayan. (United Kingdom) My life's work is about helping individuals to greater freedom through joy and purpose without self-sabotage, so that inspirational legacy can serve generations to come. Find me at my Markethive Profile Page | My Twitter Account | and my LinkedIn Profile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tim Moseley

Gold silver see price gains on more short covering bargain hunting

 Gold, silver see price gains on more short covering, bargain hunting

Gold and silver prices are higher in early U.S. trading Monday, with gold notching a three-week high and silver a four-week high. Short covering from futures traders is featured in both metals, with cash market traders also doing some perceived bargain-basement buying after gold prices hit a 15-month low and silver a two-year low in July. October gold futures were last up $7.70 at $1,779.20. September Comex silver futures were last up $0.243 at $20.44 an ounce.

Global stock markets were mostly higher overnight, on this first trading day of August. U.S. stock indexes are pointed toward lower openings when the New York day session beings, on corrective pullbacks and pauses after posting a very good month of July. The U.S. stock indexes are in near-term price uptrends on the daily bar charts amid better trader and investor risk appetite in the marketplace.

In overnight news, China’s official purchasing managers index (PMI) came in at 49.0 in July from 50.2 in June. A reading below 50.0 suggests contraction in the sector. Meantime, the Euro zone July manufacturing PMI was reported at 49.8 versus 52.1 in June.

Growth stocks will make a quick comeback before crashing again – Chris Vermeuelen

The key outside markets today see Nymex crude oil prices down and trading around $96.75 a barrel. Traders are awaiting an OPEC meeting Wednesday. The U.S. dollar index is lower in early U.S. trading, which is also supporting the metals markets. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note is fetching 2.681%. The 2-year U.S. Treasury note yield is trading at 2.921%, to keep the yield curve inverted.

U.S. economic data due for release Monday includes the U.S. manufacturing PMI, the ISM report on business manufacturing, the global manufacturing PMI, and construction spending.

Technically, the October gold futures bears have the overall near-term technical advantage. However, a price downtrend on the daily bar chart has been negated and prices last Friday saw a bullish weekly high close that is one chart clue that a market bottom is in place. Bulls’ next upside price objective is to produce a close above solid resistance at $1,800.00. Bears' next near-term downside price objective is pushing futures prices below solid technical support at the July low of $1,686.30. First resistance is seen at $1,790.00 and then at $1,800.00. First support is seen at the overnight low of $1,764.10 and then at $1,750.00. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 3.0

September silver futures bears have the overall near-term technical advantage. However, a price downtrend on the daily bar chart has been negated and prices last Friday closed at a bullish weekly high close, to suggest a market bottom is in place. Silver bulls' next upside price objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at $21.50. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at $19.00. First resistance is seen at $20.50 and then at $20.75. Next support is seen at $20.00 and then at last Friday’s low of $19.825. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 3.0.

By Jim Wyckoff

For Kitco News

Time to buy Gold and Silver on the dips

 

Tim Moseley

Solana Premier NFT Marketplace: Magic Eden Launches a Web3 Gaming Investment Arm

Solana Premier NFT Marketplace: Magic Eden Launches a Web3 Gaming Investment Arm

Magic Eden, the most significant non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace on the Solana Blockchain, has launched an investment arm to support the Web3 gaming industry. The new entity, Magic Ventures, will invest in Web3 game developers and infrastructure builders, Magic Eden said in announcing the news on Tuesday 12th July. The company believes that gaming has the potential to bring millions of users to the blockchain. Tony Zhao, a former key member of Tencent Games, has been appointed as the head of game investment.

Jack Lu, co-founder, and CEO of Magic Eden said in the statement:

"The gaming world is a massive market that has just started to venture into the world of Web 3. We intend to deepen our relationships with both gamers and game developers alike to champion the future of games on the blockchain."

The company said that the creation of Magic Ventures and the appointment of Tony Zhao as head of gaming investments would enable Magic Eden to invest in promising games and gaming infrastructure that will fuel the growth of Web 3 gaming.

Tony Zhao will also be joined by Yoonsup Choi, Harrison Chang, and Matt Biamonte. They all deeply understand Web 3 gaming from their respective professional gaming and esports backgrounds. Yoonsup Choi and Harrison Chang are former League of Legends and Fortnite players, while Biamonte both launched NFT projects individually.

"By hiring Tony, Harrison, Yoon, and Matt, we are building a solid foundation on which we can continue to work with exciting innovators in the Web 3 gaming ecosystem. Eden Games is a rapidly growing company in our company sector. We look forward to continuing its growth,"  added Jack Lu, commenting on the new addition to the Magic Ventures team.

Magic Ventures has already made some investments and is planning more, Zhao said, but would not disclose which projects or startups it has invested in. He added that there is no set number in terms of the total dollar amount invested in projects, and the typical investment size is "pretty small" given the strategic nature.

"We're not here to fund the entire development [of games]," he said. "Our value-add is not capital—it's all of these infrastructure solutions and an NFT experience that no one else in the market can provide."

Web3 and Game Innovator Joins Together 

Along with the venture capital arm, Magic Eden's Eden Games division announced that it has entered into agreements with the makers of several Solana games, including Aurory, Mini Royale: Nations, and Genopets, to operate an in-game NFT marketplace. Once launched, players will be able to buy and sell NFTs in any game without having to travel to an external marketplace. It is designed to provide a seamless process for gamers, especially those unfamiliar with crypto wallets and self-custody assets. Zhao said that the infrastructure is available to developers, so they don't have to build integrations from scratch.

NFTs are blockchain tokens representing ownership of items such as art, collectibles, and interactive video game items. In games, NFTs can represent things like unique weapon designs, character avatars, and customizable virtual lots. As mentioned earlier, Magic Eden recently became a crypto unicorn with a valuation of over $1 billion. The company raised $130 million last month at a $1.6 billion valuation just nine months after the startup was founded.

The NFT marketplace plans to support more blockchain platforms beyond Solana in the future, although no specific chains have been announced.

Image source: Magic Eden

Magic Eden Joins in NFT Pursuit

Magic Eden's growing focus on Web3 gaming puts it in direct competition with Fractal, Solana's gaming-centric NFT marketplace co-founded by Justin Kan and co-founder of video game streaming platform Twitch. Fractal only focuses on interactive game assets, while Magic Eden also supports avatars and other types of NFT assets.

Zhao said that both Magic Eden and Fractal are focused on growing the Web3 gaming space. However, he believes Magic Eden offers a broader suite of solutions to launch and support Solana-based games and says the results boost his confidence.

He said, 

"We all want to expand the ecosystem. For game developers, we show them the data, right? It's up to them to decide who ends up choosing. The results tell developers that there are good reasons to work with us instead of Fractal."

Benefits of Launching NFT Marketplace on Solana

Solana is an open source decentralized blockchain that uses an innovative hybrid consensus model that enables swift transactions. Many digital content creators, investors, and entrepreneurs flock to Solana to create and showcase NFTs. The Solana blockchain enables a fully decentralized on-chain experience, while the Solana NFT standard and minting process provide creators with the highest level of customizability. Let's take a look at some of the business benefits of launching an NFT Marketplace on Solana.

Transactions per Second

The Solana blockchain is an ultra-fast blockchain that can process 710,000 transactions in 400 milliseconds and help transactions go through the market without delay. The average network latency for a bitcoin transaction today is between 12 to 15 seconds and takes about 10 minutes to verify on Ethereum.

Solana's block time is less than 1 second, which makes it one of the fastest decentralized networks available today! With the rapid increase in blockchain adoption and usage over the past few years, the need for faster and more efficient blockchain solutions is growing exponentially. It will continue to do so in the future as blockchain technology continues to mature and become increasingly mainstream.

Cost per Transaction

The Solana blockchain's high throughput and low transaction fees of $0.00025 make it the perfect solution for developing NFTs and NFT marketplaces of all shapes and sizes. The cost to create an item is also lower than other blockchains, making it a viable platform for developers needing quick and cheap development solutions while being able to scale easily with the platform's rising popularity.

No Memory Issues

Solana blockchain does not have mempool issues. The mempool is the waiting area for processed transactions waiting to be accepted. The result is an instant trade on the market. Solana does not have any of these problems that affect others who use Ethereum and are experiencing delays and high fees from the blockchains' inability to process the large volume of transactions in a short amount of time.

Expand the Ecosystem

The Solana ecosystem is expanding, which helps to handle large numbers of dapps and smart contracts and support more coins without network congestion. To do this, Solana added a second pool to handle all transactions, with an extra layer of security and redundancy for when the first pool goes down for maintenance or other reasons, which can happen very frequently during normal operation. This will also allow them to scale up further in the future as the community needs, without worrying about running out of capacity in the system as it grows each year exponentially!

Easy to Program

Solana blockchain is based on Rust software, which is easier to program and build different applications. This makes Solana a flexible platform for building NFT marketplaces, dapps, and more. Build your own preferred NFT marketplace on Solana and start earning with exemplary Solana NFT development services from the industry-leading Solana NFT marketplace development company.

Conclusion

The Solana NFT market is booming. The NFT marketplace and Solana blockchain impact today with their evolving advanced features and capabilities. From concept to design to delivery, Solana and the NFT market have seen significant growth in the market. The Solana network has been tested and debugged. It has grown from a prototype of an idea into a fully functional product used by hundreds of businesses worldwide today. Delivering on its promises of the best experience for all users across every device, platform, and browser, all in one place, and most importantly, on-chain! Solana will continue to focus on building the most extraordinary ecosystem on the planet as we look ahead to future releases.

 

 

 

About: Prince Chinwendu. (Nigeria) Rapid and sustainable human growth is my passion, and getting a life-changing opportunity into the hands of people is my calling. Empowering entrepreneurs provides me with enormous gratification. Find me at my Markethive Profile Page | My Twitter Account | and my LinkedIn Profile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tim Moseley

The Artist that came out of the Winter