Month: April 2021

Pi Network: Scam? MLM? Pyramid Scheme? Next Bitcoin?

Hi There,

There is a tiny chance that by now, you have never heard of Bitcoin. If not, do a quick wikipedia search and come back here. I will carry on with the premise you know what the Bitcoin is and also assume that you did not manage to amass it while it was still possible for a normal salaried person. I miss not being able to grab that opportunity.

So, just like I did with rushing with the NFT opportunity, I was elated when a friend invited me to the Pi Network.

Now, the Pi network is currently in a nascent stage, beta stage, if you may call it, where the pioneers mine the coin (Pi Coin) on their mobile phones using their mobile app. Recently they launched a non custodian wallet too and gave us 100 test pi coins to test out, which works just fine. The core team does plan to launch the mainnet and the coin into the public exchange by the end of 2021, a time when the coins will have some real value in terms of fiat currency. Till then, honestly it is still make believe.

What strikes strange, is the way the network is being marketed, where one has to be invited to be able to join the network and then as he/she adds more people to the network, the speed of mining increases. It sounds absolutely like a multi level marketing scam, except there is no money involved. There is an app which you must download and run. The app has a tiny battery footprint, uses minimum data, does not ask for permissions of storage, location, phone or messages. It asks for contacts permission for inviting others, which can be denied without affecting the functioning of the app. For mining to happen, the user must register and put in an attendance, once every 24 hours, maybe watch 1 or 2 ads and that’s it.

This has every smell of a scam and my brain says that it is, but the heart says, what if the the core members are not scamming us after all? What if this explodes like the bitcoin? Didn’t you hear stories where the early adopters of Bitcoins were called loons and fools? What is the risk anyway? There is no money involved and we provide our life’s data to google and facebook anyway to be used as a product, so what’s the harm?

For me, as long as there is no actual money from my pocket is on the line, I am a 100% ready to try out a new product. If, down the line they ask us for money, hard real money, then shall I decide, whether I want to continue or not.

Till then, I shall keep mining this coin.

Since you cannot join the network without an invite, you can use my code after you sign up : novemberking91

You can go to this link too : https://minepi.com/novemberking91

I wish that you take this leap of faith and that our collective leaps are rewarded. Its not completely wishful thinking though, there are multiple websites and pages which are coming up discussing about this new coin, Pi. Do check them out and do decide, just do remember, in case this hits the market good, and the values go up high, on 28th of April 2021, you had been shown the possibility of it, yet again!

This post is in no way containing all the data that is to be known about the coin, but it tries to get you, dear reader to have an interest in the matter. I hope I was able to do it.

Good luck to all of us.

Cheers!!

The photo of the Pi coin is not mine. I took the photo from this link and have added the texts on it.

by Categories: TechnicalTags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Minting your first NFT : A noob’s experiences!

Hi there,
I just minted my first NFT a couple of days back and what shall follow here is an account of my experience.

Before I begin in all earnest, know this, I am not a blockchain expert or a crypto wizard by any measure. I have a sketchy understanding of what they are and generally believe in escaping a situation, if it demands money online!

So, let’s begin!

We have heard of crypto currencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Dogecoin etc. at a time when it was already past the early adoption phase. The first time when I came to know of Bitcoin, it was during the college days, around 2011/2012. The price of 1 BTC (bitcoin) was almost as much as 1 USD, which rapidly became 100 USD. The point being, that was a time when I did not have any disposable income to invest in a tech which I did not understand fully. Most of us Indians still don’t for that matter anyway. And by the time I had some money and knowledge to invest, it was 2017/18, 1 BTC was close to 10k USD, clearly out of reach. So, I ll say, we, as a generation missed out Crypto train big time.

So, when a new kid, NFT came on the block, I was keen on finding out what it was and how to make some money out of it. An NFT is a unit of data, which is stored on the blockchain, certifying its uniqueness and authenticity. The NFT can be anything digital, a photo, a video, a song, in fact it can be anything.

And YOU CAN MINT YOUR OWN NFT and sell it.

The market right now is in a nascent stage, so the opportunity for relatively unknown people to sell pieces of digital art and collectibles is still available. With that thought in mind, I decided to go ahead and mint my own NFT.

Everything costs money. Whether real dollars or rupees or the virtual ether, bitcoin etc. but it will cost money. So does minting your NFT. These charges are known as Gas fees. There are websites which proclaim “Gasless” NFTs where you can mint it, but pay no gas charge upfront. The trick employed here is, that the gas charge will be charged against the proceeds of the sale, if you manage to sell your NFT. Also, the gasless NFTs are not allowed to be transferred to your wallet, so, you dont own it, until it has been sold at least once.

I minted my first NFT using the gasless option on Mintable.
The process is easy enough. Sign up for the website, make a wallet in Metamask. Metamask is apparently quite a popular wallet which is used by some more online marketplaces too. Then, I uploaded the photo I wanted to mint. Put in some of the details and Voila! my first NFT was created.

Check it out here.

Once I created it, then did I realize that I did not make it downloadable, so now, even if someone pays 200 USD for my NFT, which is honestly a pretty picture, they will not be able to download it. They can resell it or use it for commercial purposes, but not download it. Kinda stupid, I know, but then, a mistake is a learning.

Also, since it was gasless, Mintable owns it as of now. So, I cannot use the same NFT to sell on a different marketplace, say Rarible, Foundation, Opensea, etc.

Gas fees, which you must pay for minting, keeps varying according to the time of the day, Ethereum vs USD values, network congestion, etc. These are just some of the causes. A website to track the gas prices graphically is this one. So, do check it out before minting. It may so happen that you wait for an hour, and pay a fraction of the gas fees as of now.

Bottom line, unless you invest money into this, chances that you will get money back is negligible. Read up a bit more, set aside a few of artwork or digital assets that you feel are worth being put out in the open market. Set aside a bit of money, about 200 USD to begin with and create a proper NFT, gas fees and all included. Then, list it on the different markets. Off course, loads and loads of marketing is needed. People must know that you exist and that you are interested in selling a digital asset. Consistency and perseverance are key to this too.

Make no mistake, this is a business and all principles of a business are applicable here. Prices fluctuate wildly and it is easy to get disheartened. But when you think of the rewards that are possible, the risk seems to be bearable.

Dear reader, please know this, NFT is still new. There is still scope to jump on this bandwagon before it becomes too huge to be unaffordable for most of us. Read up, research and take the plunge. At worst, you’ll lose 200 USD. At best, the returns are unlimited.

I have tried to put in my experiences and thoughts into this post as best I can right now. I ll continue to research and find ways to get the best bang for my ether.

Let me know of your thoughts and doubts and I shall try to come up with an answer, or we shall embark on a quest together to learn something new.

Cheers!!

by Categories: TechnicalTags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A bowl of chicken thai curry within a bed of white rice.

Feast-o-Rama Recipe 1 : Chicken Green Thai Curry

Thai curry is one of our favourite dishes. We love the chicken version more than the veg one, but then, the replacing chicken with paneer will not have detrimental effects as such, since the recipe stays the same. Without much ado, let’s dive in to the recipe quickly.

The recipe has three main parts:

  1. The coconut milk
  2. The Thai curry paste
  3. The final mix and cooking.

Now, the coconut milk and the Thai curry paste are readily available in the market. But, we chose to make them from the scratch ourselves.

The Coconut Milk

The main ingredient for the coconut milk is

  1. Coconut
  2. Patience
  3. Water
  4. Strainer

Cut the coconut into small pieces and then grind it to a paste. Add water periodically to make the paste light as needed. Then strain the paste. The liquid is the coconut milk which we shall use, and the residue can be used to make coconut based sweets or used in cooking something else. Check out the video here.

The Thai Curry Paste

For the curry paste, the ingredients are as follows:

  1. Onions, diced : 2 large
  2. Chilli : 1, Ginger (instead of Galangal) : 2 inch roughly chopped, Garlic : 8 or 9 cloves
  3. Green onion stalks : 2 or 3 chopped
  4. Lemon grass stalks : 3 or 4 stalks; peeled and boiled
  5. Coriander leaves : Bowl full of it
  6. Lime leaves : 2 or 3 thoroughly washed and roughly torn
  7. Cumin powder : 1 teaspoon
  8. Coriander powder : 1 teaspoon
  9. Salt : 1 teaspoon
  10. Lime zest : 1/2 teaspoon
  11. Lemon juice : 1 lemon worth

Grind the contents into a thick paste. Add water as needed. The paste shall have a tangy and spicy flavour which is simply AMAZING!! The video for the same is below. Check it out.

The Chicken Green Thai Curry Recipe

To be honest, this is the easiest bit in the entire process.

The ingredients are as follows:

  1. Chicken : 500 gms, boneless; washed, cleaned and cut to small bite sized pieces
  2. Olive oil : 2 to 3 tablespoons
  3. The Thai Curry paste
  4. Babycorn and Capsicums, optional
  5. Coconut milk
  6. Salt
  7. Spring onions, to garnish.

In a pan, heat the oil and pour in the curry paste to cook. You have to keep on stirring the paste otherwise it will splatter around. As the paste begins to cook, add in the chicken, baby corn and capsicum pieces. The cooking of the paste is complete, when the raw ginger garlic smell is gone and the oil begins to separate. Add salt to taste and keep on stirring the pan.
Once the paste is cooked, add in the coconut milk to the mix and let it simmer for about 10 minutes, or until the chicken pieces are not cooked completely.

Voila! Your Chicken Green Thai Curry is ready to be served with rice! Bon Appetit!

This recipe is very close to our hearts and we love to make it quite often at home. Sometimes we go the whole way to make things from the scratch, or sometimes we get the Thai curry paste from the market and add chicken to it for the end result, honestly speaking. Either way, the end product is outright delicious.

Do try it out and let us know of your experiences.

Our Youtube channel is named Feast-o-Rama and can be found here! Please do check it out too for loads of more recipes and videos.

Cheers!!

by Categories: CookeryTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment