TL; DR

🔮 2022? We have some thoughts 👇
📢 Introducing: Findora Academy 🎓
🧑‍🌾 Using Findora with MetaMask 🦊
👷 Discreet Labs’ new VP of People!
📺 Findora in Forkast, and introducing Findora Fridays!
👀 … and more!

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🔮 Looking Ahead

In our last newsletter, we recapped the previous 12 months of Findora, which was a zero to one year for the project. Looking ahead at the entirety of 2022 is a trickier task, but it’s one that we’re up for.

On Findora
Findora will extend its native layer 1 blockchain privacy to the rest of the crypto world. The recently launched (on Anvil Testnet) Rialto bridge will begin by connecting Findora to Binance Smart Chain, followed by Ethereum.

Two Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs) — the community-organized FairySwap and Venice — have announced their plans to launch. This year will see even more DeFi activity on Findora, as existing DApps seek out privacy solutions for their products. We also expect the Findora developer community to continue growing at a rapid pace as they discover new use cases involving Findora’s privacy capabilities by utilizing both UTXO native chain and EVM Smart chain.

Lastly, the world is slowly but surely opening up again to travel and attend in-person conferences. Expect to see Findora as a major sponsor / presenter at several of these events, and in attendance for many more throughout the year!

Crypto at Large
It should come as no surprise that privacy will be one of — if not THE — most important themes in crypto in 2022. If 2020 was the year of DeFi, and 2021 was the year of NFTs, then 2022 should be the year of privacy. In order for the rest of the traditional financial (TradFi) world to join in on all the fun, they must feel confident in their — and their users’ — privacy rights being taken care of. We’re cool with that.

We are not alone in this outlook either. The second half of 2021 saw hundreds of millions in funds raised for privacy and zero-knowledge-based projects, not to mention multiple privacy acquisitions by major players in the space. Look for this trend to continue for the next 12 months and beyond!

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📢 Protocol Updates & Releases

Introducing: Findora Academy 🎓

Findora Academy is an ongoing educational series that covers blockchain basics and posits to answer every question you may have about Findora and its many features and attributes. Follow along on the blog and on Medium for regular posts that dive into the technical aspects of blockchain technology in general, and Findora more specifically, in an easy to read format.

💟 Findora Academy #1: What’s the Difference? UTXO vs. Account Model for Blockchains

Findora is a leading privacy-focused blockchain that combines an innovative hybrid of UTXO and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchain technologies to enable programmable privacy. This Findora Academy article will discuss the key concepts and technical details behind both the UTXO and account-based blockchain architectures that power the Findora blockchain architecture.

What is a UTXO Blockchain Model?
UTXO stands for unspent transaction output. A UTXO model functions much like cash does in two respects:

All data necessary for the transaction are contained in the transaction itself
UTXO amounts cannot be changed

For example, if you owed a store $22 but only had a $20 dollar bill and a $5 dollar bill, you’d need to give both bills to the store to pay for the transaction. Then, you’d then receive $3 back from the store as the spare change. In this example, the $20 bill and the $5 bill act like UTXO amounts.

Read the first Findora Academy entry in its entirety here.

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🧑‍🌾 Ecosystem Updates

Findora Academy: Setting up MetaMask🦊 for FRA-Smart Tokens

[Findora Community Post 💟 — The following is an excerpt from Discreet Labs’ Head of Operations, Maggie Wang, on Medium]

This guide shows you how to transfer FRA-Native tokens from the privacy-preserving UTXO native chain to the programmable EVM-based smart chain, where you can interact with all the Dapps in the Findora ecosystem.

With the launch of Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) on the Findora Mainnet Beta, developers can now deploy smart contracts and build Dapps on the Findora network. Full-EVM compatibility marks a major milestone towards introducing programmability and interoperability to the Findora ecosystem; it also means users can access Dapps built on the Findora network with FRA-Smart tokens that are compatible with Ethereum.

To acquire FRA-Smart tokens, a user needs to:

Set up and fund Findora Desktop Wallet with native FRA-Native tokens (UTXO)
Set up MetaMask and connect to the Findora EVM
Fund MetaMask wallet with FRA-Smart tokens using “Prism” (more on this later…)

Read the rest of the article here and get started today!

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👷 Recent Hires at Discreet Labs

The Discreet Labs team is thrilled to announce the addition of Bob Lehto to the team as its new VP of People! Bob comes to us from Okcoin, where he spent the past 2 years scaling the team by 5X and transitioning to a remote-first work culture, all through the pandemic. Bob brings 20+ years of global HR and recruiting experience and has worked in the crypto industry since early 2018. Bob is based in San Francisco, CA.

Welcome to the Discreet Labs team and greater Findora ecosystem, Bob!

🙌 Discreet Labs and Findora Foundation are Hiring!

Speaking of Bob, he’s excited to onboard the next hires at Discreet Labs! The Findora Foundation and its ecosystem of developers, Discreet Labs included, are now hiring for many positions available in areas such as Engineering, Community, and Marketing.

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📺 Media and Events

Always getting the word out about Findora, here’s the latest.

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Twitter Spaces and Telegram AMAs

Findora waded into the world of video AMAs in January, with the first taking place on Telegram. Hosted by Discreet Labs’ Head of Operations, Maggie Wang, the first guest was Warren Paul Anderson, Discreet Labs’ VP of Product. They started off with Warren’s journey from being an early Bitcoiner to now building Findora, and continued on with questions from the community on what he envisions for Findora’s near-term future.

This was followed by Findora’s first ever community call on Twitter Spaces, again with Maggie and Warren, on January 21st (listen to the recording here), for a recurring segment we are calling Findora Fridays. If you’re new to Twitter Spaces, it’s a live audio-only format where @FindoraOfficial followers can join in and listen to conversations, and if you have a question for the host or guest, you can ‘raise your hand’ to request microphone access (mic drops heavily encouraged).

The second Findora Friday took place January 28th and introduced Discreet Labs’ “Chancellor of Code,” Charlie Chen. Charlie brought a whole perspective to the format, this time from the engineering side, and it was great to hear his thoughts on the past, present and future of Findora. Stay tuned for many more perspectives in the coming weeks on future episodes of Findora Fridays!

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Find Findora @ ETH Denver

Discreet Labs will be in Colorado for ETH Denver later this month! Are you also attending? Be on the lookout for Warren, Maggie, and David Lin, VP of Engineering. They’ll be on hand for the core dates of February 17–21, so reach out and set up a meeting if you want to chat with this trio. They will be sporting some new Findora swag courtesy of Custom Ink.

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Findora x Forkast

“It’s a myth that crypto transactions are anonymous, writes Warren Paul Anderson of Discreet Labs. Confusing anonymity with privacy is what causes trouble.”

This op-ed, penned by Discreet Labs’ VP of Product, perfectly encapsulates Findora’s vision for 2022 and beyond.

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About Findora

Findora is a public blockchain with programmable privacy and full EVM compatibility. Originally conceptualized as a university cryptography research project in 2017, and finally launched to the public in 2021, Findora utilizes the latest breakthroughs in zero-knowledge proofs and multi-party computation, to allow users transactional privacy with selective auditability. For more information, please visit findora.org.

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Resources
Whitepaper | Github | Newsletter | Testnet

Mainnet
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