The Baking Sheet - Issue #136

February 03, 2023

The Tezos Community uses the blockchain to help humanity

Welcome to this week’s issue of The Baking Sheet!

lIt's never a boring week in the Tezos ecosystem, this week featured some awesome news for adoption and some unfortunate news from a community organization that contributed to the Tezos ecosystem in a big way — Let's dive in

#TezQuakeAid

The Tezos community has come together to support those affected by the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria through a new initiative called TezQuakeAid. The goal of this initiative is to raise funds and donate to Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that work on the ground to provide rescue operations, relief, and support for survivors.

Artists can participate in TezQuakeAid by minting their artwork under the initiative and using the proceeds from sales to contribute to the donation wallet. Alternatively, artists can sell existing work and directly donate the XTZ raised to quakeaid.tez. There are several options available, including Teia, Objkt, Versum, and fxhash. Guides for artists using each platform can be found on the TezQuakeAid website.

Collectors can also support TezQuakeAid by collecting artwork minted or sold under this initiative, promoting and sharing artwork by Turkish and Syrian artists, and by directly contributing XTZ to the quakeaid.tez wallet. Marketplaces can help by providing necessary support to enable minting and sales, featuring the artwork taking part in this initiative, and donating XTZ to the donation wallet.

For those who want to contribute directly, they can send XTZ to the address KT1X1jyohFrZyDYWvCPXw9KvWxk2VDwxyg2g or quakeaid.tez. The funds raised can be monitored on the quakeaid.tez wallet for transparency, and evidence of the funds sent to NGOs/Organizations will be provided through payment receipts for full transparency.

The initiative begins on February 8th, 2023, and more information can be found on the TezQuakeAid website or on Twitter @tezquakeaid. The TezQuakeAid initiative is led by the Tezos community and involves participation from artists, collectors, representatives from marketplaces, web3 galleries, and others.

At present, the main recipient for donations in Turkey is the trusted NGO AHBAP, while discussions and research are ongoing to identify trustworthy NGOs in Syria. The TezQuakeAid team will provide updates on Twitter @tezquakeaid as more information becomes available.

TezQuakeAid is a great opportunity for the Tezos community to come together and support those affected by the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria. By participating in this initiative, artists, collectors, marketplaces, and others can contribute to the relief efforts and provide aid to those in need.

Huge props to the Tezos art community to collaborate and get behind this initiative, we will doing a feature piece on the team that organized this amazing effort.

How Cure3 is changing Charitable donations

Did you know crypto donations surpassed $1B in the last year alone? Yes that’s a B for billions.

What’s even more interesting is the size of the average donation, which has been reported to be as much as $10K based on sample data. Just one donation of that size can have considerable positive impact and it paints a new image of what crypto can do when this size of capital is the average donation.

With this knowledge in mind, it’s interesting to see great causes like Cure³ implementing NFTs into their exhibition this year for raising awareness and funds for curative Parkinson’s research. Let’s dive into why this new trend of charitable giving will stick around and how the creator economy is being developed by NFT artists.

Tezos NFTs for Curative Parkinson’s Research

A few weeks ago, we witnessed the launch of the fourth edition of Cure³, the art exhibition devised by Artwise Curators to raise awareness and funds for curative Parkinson’s research. This is the first time NFTs have been included in the exhibition’s history thanks to a collaboration between Cure Parkinson’s, Bonhams, Artwise, and support from fx(hash).

Some of the featured generative works included artists of the likes of Anna Lucia, Lunarean, Nat Sarkissian, Marcelo Soria-Rodriguez, Yazid, and NFT’s from Anna Carreras and Iskra Velitchkova.

Speaking on helping support the exhibition at fx(hash), communications lead Alfredo Asuzano gave a few words on the event and what it was like to help support it.

Allowing anyone to come in, collect this art and contribute to this charitable drive while making a big statement in web3 was very nice. It also helped show traditionalists that this is a real and potentially revolutionary way to merge the arts with charitable giving.

Tying together generative art, long form collections, charitable giving and web3 merged with very traditional art auction houses like Bonham’s melded a lot of different facets together in a way that I think is probably a first especially at this scale.

A big splash was made with the exhibition raising over 250k tez on opening night with much more coming in after the auction concluded from the secondary market.

Overall, the exhibition served as a prime example of how web3 has made a significant development in the world of art and philanthropy. The use of NFTs in the context of this exhibition provided a win-win scenario allowing artists to showcase their work all the while supporting curative Parkinson’s research.

Read the full interview with Alfredo Asuzano and how Tezos is building the creator economy at Tezos Commons

This Week in the Tezos Ecosystem

The long anticipated launch of QuipuSwap V3 is here!

Learn more about this game-changing update (and why it’s so essential) from Madfish's review, and follow the guide to make your liquidity work on ultimately new level

Revolut x Tezos: Effortless Staking

Revolut, a digital banking app with over 35 million users, has launched Staking in UK and select European countries. The rollout of staking includes Tezos as one of the first 4 cryptocurrencies offered on the platform

How to Start Staking with Revolut If you’re ready to start staking your crypto

here’s how to get started:

  1. Make sure your app is the most up-to-date version

  2. Head to Hub > Crypto

  3. Select one of four supported cryptos

  4. If you already own one of the cryptos, you can start staking immediately. If you don’t, you’ll need to buy some first

  5. When you’re ready, tap on the Stake button

Learn more about staking and how it works by visiting Revolut’s FAQs.

Another Corporate Baker joins the Tezos Ecosystem

ZirconTech, a company that specializes in web2 and web3 technology solutions, has become a corporate baker on the Tezos blockchain network.

The company, which has over 20 years of experience in developing software and solutions for businesses, has developed a blockchain application called the ZirconTech Notarizer that allows universities to dematerialize diplomas and transcripts. As a corporate baker, ZirconTech will have the ability to validate, secure, and add transactions to the Tezos blockchain. With voting rights proportional to the Tezos tokens it holds, the company will help guarantee the security and verifiability of the network.

"We are delighted to confirm our involvement in the Tezos ecosystem by becoming a corporate baker. At ZirconTech, we were interested in the scalability of the Tezos blockchain and in its smart contract language conceived to facilitate formal verification.” -- Andres Zunino, Co-Founder & CEO of ZirconTech

"We are delighted that ZirconTech is increasing its involvement and exploration of Tezos. The agile methods deployed to support the digital transformation of businesses have made them a trusted partner. Strong expertise in emerging technologies that will be highly valued by the community.” -- Hadrien Zerah, President of Nomadic Labs

Kathleen Breitman featured on Founders Forum Group

The collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX has sparked change in the crypto market, according to Tezos founder Kathleen Breitman. She explains that the failure of FTX has caused billions of dollars to evaporate from the crypto ecosystem, leading the market as a whole to fall below a $1 trillion valuation. This, however, has led to a return to the "hacker culture" as companies will have to build something useful to secure venture funding.

Kathleen believes that the days of crazy speculation in the NFT space are over and companies that made a lot of money in the 2021 cycle will need to pivot and make good on value for VCs. This will create new opportunities for innovation. The founder predicts that the next big industry to be disrupted after art is gaming.

To unlock the potential of web3, which involves prototyping for impactful applications, Kathleen says that the blockchain technology behind web3 needs to scale.

Tezos is one year away from achieving this, with the ability to process one million transactions per second, compared to Bitcoin's seven transactions per second.

Read more insights from the world's top founders at Founders Forum Group

Join Tezos India at the India Art Fair

The India Art Fair 2023 is set to feature a new and exciting addition to its outdoor art installation lineup this year, with a large-scale Computational Art installation, supported by the Tezos Foundation in collaboration with Tezos India. This is the first time ever that the fair will showcase a live and dynamic installation of this kind, introducing visitors to the cutting-edge intersection of art and technology.

The installation, titled “Computational Convergence”, will feature generative NFT artworks from four talented artists: Karthik Dondeti, Pixelkar Nitant, Aranya (Ritesh Lala), and KALA (Ujjwal Agarwal). These NFT art collections will be made available for fair attendees to collect freely via their smartphones on the Tezos blockchain. With 800 editions of digital generative NFT art from each artist, Tezos India will have four 8-foot-high kiosks with a total of 3,200 unique algorithmically generated masterpieces that fair visitors can freely collect.

In addition to the installation, Tezos India is also organising a workshop titled “Computational Thinking”, aimed at artists who wish to explore how they can apply computational techniques to enhance their artistic practice and create more innovative works. The workshop will provide a platform for artists to learn and understand the opportunities that computational art offers and how it can be used to create new and exciting works.

The Tezos Foundation and Tezos India aim to raise awareness about the exciting world of computational art through this project. They aim to showcase the whole spectrum of computational artistic practices over the years, with a strong emphasis on fx(hash) on the Tezos Blockchain.

The process of collecting these unique algorithmically generated artworks is simple and straightforward. Visitors just need to scan a QR code using their smartphone, which will lead them through a 3-step process to create a blockchain wallet and collect the artwork. The Tezos India team will be onsite to assist visitors throughout the process. The generative NFT artworks can be collected for free until sold out, after which they will be available on the secondary market via fx(hash) and objkt.com.

The India Art Fair 2023’s Outdoor Art Installation, “Computational Convergence”, is a unique and exciting addition to this year’s lineup. It aims to introduce fair attendees to the exciting world of computational art, showcasing the works of four talented artists and providing a platform for artists to explore and enhance their artistic practice. Don't miss out on this exciting opportunity to experience cutting-edge technology and art at its finest!

This Week in Tezos Development

Building a Decentralized Application (dApp) on Tezos is now easier than ever, thanks to the upcoming live training session hosted by Benjamin Fuentes. This exciting opportunity is perfect for anyone interested in learning how to build dApps on the Tezos blockchain.

On February 24th, Fuentes will host the first session from 2-5 PM CET in the UK. This session will provide a hands-on learning experience for all participants, giving them the chance to build a dApp from start to finish. To ensure that everyone has the best possible experience, it is recommended that participants read the prerequisites listed on the Github page before attending the session.

To be a part of this exciting event, simply click on the "Notify Me" button on the Youtube page. This will ensure that you receive a notification when the session goes live.

Factori keeps expanding its capabilities. In addition to OCaml and Typescript, It now also generates smart contracts SDKs in Python and C#.

There are many providers for what we like to call “Tezos node storage artifacts”- snapshots and tarballs of Tezos filesystems. There are also many tools that rely on these artifacts and require information about their block height, size, etc.

Now Streaming

Join us for our next TezTalks LIVE featuring Nomadic Labs

A discussion with Yann Regis-Gianis, Engineering Manager at Nomadic Labs. Protocol Mumbai is currently undergoing voting, join us as we talk all things rollups and Mumbai!

🎬 Stream: YouTube