Category: Cryptocurrencies

With Maiar Wallet you can actually more easily now buy, deposit, transfer cryptocurrencies, pay directly your friends & participants in the network. It is also an easier entry way for your journey through crypto & blockchain space you may want to try. Maiar is made with a user friendly approach, leaving behind much of the technicalities – thus now it is a good timing for many to look more closely at it and at Blockchain in general.

Maiar is a milestone

The release of Maiar marks a starting point for Elrond’s steady growth plans towards a mainstream user adoption of the digital money system of the (middle term) future. A system possible with the help of blockchain technology, today.

The Maiar Wallet app (on android & apple) is the digital wallet in which you can have for now, only one Elrond wallet address – simply put, that wallet is in essence, one address in the Elrond blockchain. That address keeps your track in the amount of Elrond money you own.

Elrond’s Cryptocurrency is eGold / EGLD in Maiar Wallet

Elrond’s cryptocurrency or short crypto coin or money if you wish, is called eGold (the analogy from the actual real gold to the virtual gold) = EGLD (the shorten exchange name of Elrond’s eGold). Along with the EGLD address there are also another 2 addresses (a strategic move) in the Maiar app created automatically for you. One of it is for Ethereum and one is for BNB (the coin of the Binance exchange.) More coins will be integrated soon. Yes, Ethereum is the coin that does more than Bitcoin, it was the first to use “smart contracts”.

After installation, the Maiar Wallet attaches your phone number to that blockchain address (yes, a kind of WhatsApp approach to Maiar). But one consequence you need to mind: if you created first an Elrond wallet on the Elrond Wallet internet page (it was made available before Maiar app) then you already own a blockchain entry on the Elrond network. You can import that address into the Maiar Wallet app, thus have that one associated automatically to the phone number. Otherwise, you will own 2 Elrond addresses. That’s not a bad thing – it can be used also in the future, in the Wallet. For the moment if you want to have your EGLD from the Elrond’s internet Wallet into the Maiar Wallet app, you need to Deposit between the two addresses (with very little fees) or you can wait for an update of the app when it will handle more than one Elrond Blockchain addresses.

You can get a glimpse of the Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies application which is the Maiar Wallet, by installing it on your mobile with the referral link (invitation based only) below:
https://get.maiar.com/referral/roin1udek1

A short look at the Maiar Wallet interface

Well, I find that much of the application is self explanatory, I will not do some detailed review, but good to mention first that protecting your wallet (PIN, etc.) should be a mandatory step. Also at security settings, always check “sign for transaction” to be enabled.
The characteristic with the most Wallets for crypto space, is that because they are owned by the user, thus are decentralized & transactions publicly traceable (are true blockchain traits – away from “grey” uses), they are very powerful tools. They are subtracting another layer of interaction moving us toward a digital future: this is another just-one-click-away from important things to happen, so be cautious.

In case of phone lost or damaged or wallet app deletion, the way to restore it is through the key words you will get when you install the Wallet. You should write them down on paper and store it in the physical vault. And do not share them with anyone, ever!

A Wallet lost in the Network with all the coins will remain blocked and no one can restore it for you, nor free its value back into the network (for now). You and only you should have the key words at hand in case something like that happens.

To note also that in the near future of a DEFI (decentralized finance) system, phishing, or sending wrong amounts, or to the wrong party could be seen as an issue, because there are no centralized middle in between. But of course, this will be addressed, anticipating that you will have the option to opt for an insurance provider – one from the DEFI space too.

The Network strengthening

As seen in the Wallet, you can get a hint how you can participate in the Blockchain network of Elrond. The network functions by Staking or Delegating your eGold to it. Or you can be a Validator node (must apply as server owner). Either way, you lend but at the same time gain more of your eGold units just by being active in the network.
Also to ease the user adoption, the Wallet adds a user Tag abstraction, user avatar – in order to avoid technicalities of the Blockchain terminology and ease the transfers.

Blockchain adoption & value

The adoption of the Elrond (the Blockchain technology in general) means the use of the Elrond (Blockchain) network as much as possible for as many people as possible (1 Billion is a milestone for Elrond). The value is in the Network:

Its value will not be correlated to real gold but to the Network itself as its cryptocoin. That’s a very clever way to start with, in order to have a sustainable eEcosystem. It can be seen as a new level, as we can get ourselves beyond physical objects values in the future. It will help by reducing the necessity of harnessing the planet’s resources to some significant extent. That’s how big the blockchains potential is.

And the Elrond’s Network design allows that scalable growth and very fast execution of many many transactions per second – global scale handling possibilities.

Why I write about Elrond

Because it is a good project, from Sibiu. Just that. This article is my view only. In case you have some questions and suggestions to it just contact me.
Yes, the project has the ambitious aim to facilitate worldwide payment, on their Blockchain platform that performs fast, with small fees. It was designed from ground up to make that, and much much more in DEFI space. When I look back, in 2016, that is when I was asked by D. to directly discuss and possibly join a forming team for a new project described as “a project that will want to make a new crypto coin with blockchain and a project that wants to change the financial system” I was a skeptic then. We have to recall that it was the time when Bitcoin was a “strange” hype and crypto was perceived as “parallel” money, rather than what could blockchain as technology bring.

Towards Blockchain maturation & DEFI

Now at the time of this writing we are already at a third generation of Blockchain systems. We see Elrond in the phase when they just released their first, for mass adoption application on blockchain the Maiar Wallet. But that Maiar to happen it meant a 3 years of software infrastructure building. Under the hood there is much more at stake and still in development (transparent in Github), all concentrated to take advantage of the Blockchain technology: a fast infrastructure (software and servers that secure the Elrond network across the globe) a coin associated with it this eGold – the measure of the value of the network and the DEFI ecosystem – a blockchain ecosystem thought to replace the actual “millennial” money system and its middle tiers.

DEFI will be a complex digital financial system, with a whole new foundation that is taking only what is best from the old one and will, at the same time, bring the financial system to another level with new applications. The Elrond network includes already facilities of DEFI, like smart contracts support, protocols bridges, third party integration, tokens creation, crypto exchanges support, NFT, etc.
We are just at the beginning and a bit more, it is still a long way to go in order to have a fully developed system, think of it only on the long run perspective…years, 5, I guess.

A comparison with other Blockchains

A bit of comparison with other similar providers, Elrond in general is:
* Unlike Bitcoin which by now is only capable and valuable to store wealth, it is not suitable for fast transactions at wide scale.
* Unlike Ethereum which is currently under a fundamental re-design it is only at the beginning of road-map update. Elrond has taken a fast start on the road-map, possible with 1-2 years ahead of Ethereum.
* Unlike Cardano / Binance (although akin to Elrond network) or other projects in which their road-map is not certain, are patched systems at places, or behind the Elrond’s map.

An ongoing project

In short, Elrond has a good start ahead, with a wast ecosystem in the making and with mainstream user adoption strategy.
In order to be stronger, it needs to get further adoption and continuous successful roll-up of milestones, to unravel the stages of their ecosystem within their Blockchain ecosystem with new applications. To go through them with solid testing, so no catastrophic bugs or events are allowed to happen.
They need also to attract investors from Ethereum and other popular networks. And to gain trust at institutions, at states level, political support, and encouragements by personalities of our times.

Read and invest knowingly – exchanges, buy, sell & withdraw

Attention, invest only that much which you can afford to lose and read a lot about cryptospace and blockchain along the way. One more thing, after you install Maiar, in order to buy EGLD you can use the interface (then through moonpay.io or other). In order to withdraw actual money, in a future app update, it will be enabled by direct Maiar and a Card connection. At the moment it is possible to withdraw (but also to buy) in EURO/USD using Binance (you have to make an account there too). And then transfer there through Blockchain addresses as below: so in order to Withdraw (steps the same also for other coins) you will make a Deposit action: from your EGLD address to your Binance’s EGLD address -> Trade action: EGLD/USDT -> Sell action: EGLD in USDT -> Convert action: USDT to EURO -> EURO Withdraw: EURO with SEPA.

Feb. 2021 / C.S.