TLDR Crypto 2022-01-11

Plonky2 is a recursive cryptographic proof from Polygon that is 100 times faster than existing alternatives and natively compatible with Ethereum. It features fast proofs with no trusted set up, support for recursion, and low verification cost on Ethereum. Plonky2 can verify complex transactions, such as Ethereum smart contract interactions, and generate recursive proofs in about 170ms on a Macbook Pro. The code for Plonky2 can be examined on GitHub.

LooksRare is a new NFT marketplace that wants to index all NFT collections on the Ethereum blockchain. It was created in response to other marketplaces that had de-platformed creators, valuing business over community. The marketplace rewards participants and creators by allowing them to earn LOOKS tokens when buying or selling NFTs from eligible collections. It charges a standard 2% fee on all NFT trades that goes to LOOKS token stakers. OpenSea users who traded 3 ETH or more between June 16 and December 16 last year are eligible for an airdrop of LOOKS Tokens.

Cash App is now rolling out the Lightning Network to its users. The Lightning Network is a payment protocol layered on top of Bitcoin that allows for low-cost, instant payments. Users will be able to send to Lightning addresses once their accounts receive the update.

Governance is a tool for organizations to decide where power resides. The need for governance goes up as risk and coordination costs rise. It is usually required for decisions in which the result is unknown. On-chain voter participation is low in DAOs, with around 5% voter participation for the largest DAOs. This article looks at governance in DAOs, voter participation, how to increase voter participation, and some of the issues with governance.

The Electric Capital Developer Report covers nearly 500K code repositories and 160 million code commits across web3. It looks at the growth of web3 developers, ecosystems, and technologies. While the growth of developers in web3 has been record-breaking, it still represents a small percentage of software engineers globally. This article presents a summary of the report's findings. The full 130-page report is available.

El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt a digital currency as legal tender in 2021. It is still new in the country and most people don't know about it, but some citizens have already expressed concerns about using bitcoin. Price fluctuations make bitcoin too risky to accept as payment, many businesses still don't accept it, exchange fees are high, and many citizens just see it as rich people's tourist money. These insights show how crypto could be improved as a real-world currency and present opportunities for entrepreneurs who are willing to put in the work.

Jack Dorsey’s Block is looking to hire a team to develop the next generation of bitcoin mining ASIC. The more peers there are in a distributed network, the less reliant the network will be on any small group to securely settle transactions. Mining could be a unique opportunity for the energy industry by acting as an energy buyer of last resort, setting a global price floor for energy and creating incentives for more clean energy infrastructure. Bitcoin ASICs are still a long way from being plug-and-play, but Dorsey aims to make it as simple as plugging in a toaster.

Bloomberg estimates that Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao is worth around $96 billion, not including his personal crypto holdings. The estimate is based on the assumption that Zhao owns 90% of Binance, which has a 24-hour trading volume of $106 billion, generating at least $20 billion of revenue in 2021. Zhao's net wealth could rival that of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and it far exceeds that of his crypto peers.