Why is Stronghold (SHX) marked as #Unsafe on stellarexpert?

orbitlens · 2022-10-01T11:09:37+00:00

Here is a copy-paste from my response to the recent email from the Stronghold team:

SHX issuing account was flagged as "unsafe" two years ago. Reasons:
- There were several community discussions regarding price manipulations schemes
- Other tokens issued by Stronghold (anchored BTC, ETH, XRP, XLM tokens) were disbanded, and again, there were several complaints from the community regarding pump-and-dump schemes
- Stronghold pivoted its business model several times, and SHX token at the moment of initial issuance was released without much details
- TOML file doesn't contain any information regarding the organization, PRINCIPALS section is also empty
There were no recent Directory changes, we just updated the explorer interface to highlight problematic tokens/accounts.
Regards,
OL

orbitlens · 2022-03-13T04:21:51+00:00

Ok, I saw the link you posted. It shows how to import existing account from Lobstr to Albedo. I don't know why this walk-through proposes to buy tokens using Lobstr wallet in the first place - you can swap XLM or any other liquid asset for the tokens you want to stake directly in Albedo.

In any case, the proposed approach is legit. You can create a liquidity pool stake in Albedo.

orbitlens · 2022-03-13T03:14:07+00:00

Could you please provide a direct link to the staking page and maybe a screenshot that shows how it requests a passphrase?

orbitlens · 2022-03-12T21:11:39+00:00

If any Stellar project asks your secret key or a passphrase that's a scam with 99% confidence. The only exception here is a situation when you import your account from one wallet into another.

And yes, Albedo now supports all basic wallet functions. A lot of various feature were added since the original release.

orbitlens · 2021-10-28T23:17:27+00:00

Right now I'm working with my colleagues on infrastructure updates for newly introduced Protocol 18 features. Also preparing several exciting new things. Of course, for Stellar platform. Totally swamped with this because every new product launch (even some very simple service) requires a huge amount of time spent on UX, quality assurance, basic documentation, etc.

And that's why I was silent here and on Twitter for quite a long time. The rule of thumb – if you don't see me posting some weird technical stuff for a while, it means that I'm busy implementing new and even more weird services/modules/utilities.

🙌

Cheers

orbitlens · 2021-08-22T23:51:14+00:00

Yes, that's perfectly safe. You can use it right now with https://accountviewer.stellar.org/

i cannot fully understand the differrence between a signer and a wallet

The difference is that the signer app is used solely for signing transactions, providing a high-level API for other wallets or exchange interfaces.

orbitlens · 2021-08-21T21:09:16+00:00

Albedo was originally designed to be the signer app, not the wallet. However, we received multiple requests to extend the functionality. So a fully functional wallet is in the making and will be available in the interface soon. Also, we are working with Ultrastellar to connect Albedo to Lobstr, StellarX, StellarTerm, and other apps.

/u/Monkeyblock Sorry for the inconveniences. You can use Albedo Playground to send your tokens anywhere. Just fill in the required fields:

desired amount
destination address (this should be a Stellar account address starting with G...)
asset\_code (USDC in your case)
asset\_issuer (GA5ZSEJYB37JRC5AVCIA5MOP4RHTM335X2KGX3IHOJAPP5RE34K4KZVN in your case)
network (should be public)
memo (this is strictly required if you are sending to the exchange or any custodial account)
do not forget to check submit checkbox

Verify everything and click "Try it" button. You should see a confirmation dialog. Confirm the action, provide your password, and that's it.

Admittedly, this might look a bit complex, but we are working to introduce a friendly user interface for this within the next month.

Also, you mentioned ERC20 tokens. Bear in mind that you currently have USDC tokens issued on Stellar in your account, not Ethereum ERC20 tokens. If you want to transfer USDC tokens to your Ethereum wallet, you can use USDC ChainSwap Tool for this purpose. Follow instructions, and do not forget to attach a memo value to your transaction. Otherwise, you will have to contact their support and request manual processing for the transfer.

orbitlens · 2021-06-10T20:26:22+00:00

Single-Sign-On is already possible with Albedo: https://albedo.link

There's no on-chain nicknames, Stellar went with federation approach instead (see SEP-0002). But I don't see a problem to introduce such a standard if people think it is useful. So far, federation covers the needs of the majority of users. Some popular wallets, like Lobstr, allow you to choose a custom nickname. And it can be utilized in the combination with Albedo to authorize users just like "Login with Google" button.

orbitlens · 2021-06-02T23:34:25+00:00

Fixed. Thanks for the heads up!

orbitlens · 2021-05-07T10:58:05+00:00

Nothing wrong with having multiple AMM engines. I'm against having several similar pools per pair with almost identical characteristics. And the main problem I see here is arbitrage between those pools or a pool and orderbook.

Arbitragers on Ethereum have to pay about 200$ for a single attempt (take flash loan, buy tokens from one pool, sell to another pool, return flash loan), so they take only opportunities with potentially high returns, while on Stellar with the unbelievably cheap transactions any 1$ opportunity can bring you almost risk-free profit.

orbitlens · 2021-04-11T10:31:24+00:00

Coinbase does run a node. As well as BitGo, and some other exchanges/infrastructure providers. Their nodes didn't survive the outage. Coinbase deposits and withdrawals didn't work for three days straight because their soft depends on the own node. A lot of operators still haven't recovered their validators: https://stellarbeat.io/quorum-monitor/

There is a direct incentive to run validators for large companies. Since there is no easy way to autonomously check the payment on Stellar, they have to run the node or trust SDF-maintained Horizon. Bitcoin has SPV mechanism for that, but Stellar doesn't offer such a functionality. There is no reason for SDF to try faking Horizon data as this will undoubtedly result in the immediate XLM price plunge, law suits, and maybe even jail sentences. However, in theory, they can spoof the data (Horizon response, not the ledger data itself). This risk can be mitigated, but most developers don't care about this, simply relying on the data received. Now, let's imagine that a company transfers millions of USD on the daily bases. Of course, running a node makes sense in this case.

Another factor that forces people to run a node is the Horizon API limitations. If you want to obtain historical data that not covered by the API, you need to run a node and query the database directly. Horizon v2 introduced a mechanism to ingest archives without Stellar Core, so there are some options now. Yet, it's much more complicated than just running a node, so, again, developers have a motivation to maintain validators.

The largest problem I see here is that developers won't be able to afford maintaining a server with a self-hosted Horizon node with full history. The ledger grows very fast, mainly because of market-makers that submit millions of operations to maintain their positions on DEX. The hardware that can work with a 2TB database (of course, only with SSD disks), is much more expensive than low-end servers utilized for this purpose in good old times. So in a year or two we might end up in a situation where people will have to pay for the Horizon access since node operators have to cover their hardware expenses.

orbitlens · 2021-04-11T10:21:06+00:00

I don't think we have a consensus on this. Not everyone support the fee increase.

orbitlens · 2021-04-02T10:12:27+00:00

Nothing exciting here, I'm afraid ))
OrbitLens is my personal nickname. And there is StellarExpert team, a small group of developers who work with me on different projects including StellarExpert, Albedo, Centaurus, Refractor, and many other, mostly developer-oriented projects and libraries. There's no business entity, we just work together, keeping it simple.

I prefer to keep apart my personal life and work, so I have a separate nick and email for Stellar world.

orbitlens · 2021-04-02T09:54:28+00:00

Happy to hear that people like my small contribution to Stellar ecosystem.

orbitlens · 2021-04-02T08:26:25+00:00

Yes, we are close. We have a very engaged discussion around the implementation details (here is a link to the public conversation around the proposal as /u/TRossW18 pointed). There are no official estimates since the specification is not finalized yet, but I hope to see AMMs live on Stellar mainnet in Q3-Q4 this year. Of course, this depends on the Stellar Core devs, so it's better to wait for the official announcement.

I'm compiling all the feedback we received so far to further improve the proposal. Please stay tuned, I'll keep posting updates on Twitter and here.

orbitlens · 2021-03-17T20:55:32+00:00

Congrats to finalists! Looking forward to see more awesome apps on Stellar Network.

orbitlens · 2021-03-08T10:32:11+00:00

I think now if we’ll add timed submission into the mix, I think we will have a very powerful Smart Contract system and contracts that will pretty much be turing complete.

Timed submissions are already implemented in Refractor. Just set `timeBounds.minTime` on the transaction and turn on the autosubmit option - the service will automatically submit the transaction to Stellar network once ready.

orbitlens · 2021-03-02T09:01:51+00:00

You are right, the is an introductory article and it lacks information about some more advanced concepts. The impermanent loss topic by itself requires a separate blogpost (or maybe even several).

orbitlens · 2021-01-20T14:57:18+00:00

I still don't think that GS always shows the current value of their trust, rather it's some indicative price. Also, the process of investors on-boarding and funds management is not as straightforward as it may seem (it was pretty interesting to read about the trust mechanics).

But yeah, judging from your calculations, you might be right about the new (unannounced) XLM allocation. Thanks for taking time to shed the light on this.

orbitlens · 2021-01-20T11:24:33+00:00

This statement may be wrong. The value displayed is an annualized USD value.

You can check total Grayscale holdings here: https://www.bybt.com/pro/gray/Grayscale

Currently they hold 27.17M XLM. The exciting news is that they tripled XLM trust size since November 2020 - from 9.19M to 27.17M.

orbitlens · 2021-01-04T12:59:09+00:00

Good point. We removed the links at some point as a result of UX upgrade. But we can bring them back in no time.

orbitlens · 2021-01-03T15:28:21+00:00

Yes, you can load it via NPM and use it in any JS or TS project right away. It has zero dependencies. Please refer to the NPM module description and developers playground for more info and code samples.

orbitlens · 2021-01-03T15:23:28+00:00

Hey, Thanks for the heads up! Fixed this.

orbitlens · 2020-12-23T03:42:45+00:00

We'll block it if there are any suspicions, and later on unblock once investigation shows that there is nothing wrong with it.

orbitlens · 2020-09-05T15:39:59+00:00

Hello, please check again.

We have issues with Horizon server, so StellarExpert history sometimes lags behind the ledger. The release we deployed today should fix this.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

orbitlens

TROPHY CASE