In this issue:

• This Week in Neo Tokyo: We’re Back! (by PhoenixxDown)

• Is Blur’s Season 2 Finally Coming To An End? (by Flower83)

•  Are Native Private Mempools Possible on ETH? (by MHL)

We’re BACK! We are so back! The markets are looking fine af. Not only is Bitcoin pumping, but wonder of wonders, NFTs are getting bought up too. I know, shocking stuff. Long may it continue! While it’s been all systems go out there, Neo Tokyo had a relatively quiet week on the surface, but there's more to it than meets the eye...

Firestorm has returned to the office with a bang, announcing, “We have some unreal launches incoming for Neo Tokyo Citizens.” Something exciting has been brewing behind the scenes at The Citadel, and we're on the verge of discovering what it is!

A word of caution for everyone: the Becklers are also sadly back in action. Lately, we've seen some well-known citizens falling victim to impersonation scams.

Scammers are reaching out to members of the NT community, asking for ETH while pretending to be someone they know. So far, Race4TheWin and Jeff Treves have been impersonated by these morally bankrupt heathens. 

If someone you know starts begging for crypto in your DMs, and it seems out of character, it's a good practice to click on their Discord user profile and verify that their Discord ID is genuine.

Here’s some unofficial, but experience-led, advice from myself: I block anyone who opens up a conversation calling me “fam.” They’re either a scammer, or not worth knowing anyway talking like that. Linked here and here are some examples of what to look out for. 

Moving from one set of impostors to another, here’s some news on the kind we all like. Ellio dropped into Purg to get citizens in the know on what’s been happening with his game: “Impostors have entered a new dimension,” and you can read all about it in full here.

A massive Grand Rising to Zulu who’s been promoted to Writing Lead. Citadel legend, Seize, has said they have “been laying fire down” on their calls, and Zulu remarked there’s exciting things to come. We don’t doubt it for a second, and are looking forward to what they’ve been cooking for us.

Are you happy to be a Citizen of Neo Tokyo? If you’re reading this, there’s a high chance you are, so that’s a good start. Ajay BlockChainMeta.gg is on a mission to collect 52 testimonials for Neo Tokyo that will be leveraged in “all sorts of NT marketing collateral moving forward.” You can leave your testimonial here via this dedicated channel.

Jeff Treves has three questions for you. He wants to get you thinking about how us humans feel about AI. Have a read through and let Mr. Treves know your thoughts.

We’re rounding off on a hopeful high this week. If you’ve been in Purg lately, you’d notice Becker has been talking a bit more about crypto gaming again. Are we on the precipice of something monumental happening? Maybe not for some time still, but he's been predicting a seismic shift for a while, and things are moving as expected. Read up on Becker’s current crypto gaming playbook here.

The important thing is we don’t miss out. If you’re here in Neo Tokyo, your chances are exponentially higher of benefiting than being on the outside; cold, alone and asking your wife’s boyfriend for his analysis instead. We must avoid divorce at all costs.

Until next week, citizens.

The wait is finally over. Or so it seems. If you have not been following this drama, here is a “tl;dr” in Neo Tokyo’s terms: Blur pulled a stunt that would be equivalent to a “2 weeks” meme in the NT community, except they did it to the whole NFT space. In short, the airdrop farmers who actively traded, bidded, loaned, and in other ways participated, in Season 2 should get their tokens months ago.

Blur.io consistently delayed the vague deadline they had set, and even went completely dark for a few weeks back in September. On the other hand, all this time they have been steadily paying out early investors, people on the team, and advisors. 

Their token, of course, is down more than 75% from ATH and the 3 months chart looks like it needs some help indeed. 

A lot of whales and farmers gave up long ago, some even rage-quit and removed their liquidity from the pools. Still, after pressure from the (remaining) community, they finally announced the end date for Season 2.

The $BLUR trading volume and the price spiked up after the announcement, but only very slightly. I expected more impact, and more traction on socials as well, but it seems people are not interested in this anymore as all the focus shifts to gaming tokens and #SocialFI.

Trading volume on their platform, however, did receive quite a boost, and they are now back above 20k ETH for two consecutive weeks, and firmly in the lead against other secondary marketplaces. 

Some of the farmers who still have faith are back in business and trying to maximize their gains before the end. 

I for one, am most excited to see how this plays out AFTER the airdrop, not leading up to it. I’m curious to see how the NFT landscape will look once the $BLUR token farming incentives stop affecting NFT floor prices.

In the latest article by Vitalik Buterin, he delves into various topics such as enshrining ZK-EVMs, ERC-4337, private mempools, and liquid staking into the protocol. Among these topics, I find private mempools particularly interesting, and in this article, I will explain why.

When a user sends a transaction, it immediately becomes public (on etherscan.io for example). This exposes users to economic attacks like front-running.

Some projects are working on creating "private mempools" to encrypt transactions until they are accepted into a block. 

However, this encryption requires specific methods, such as encryption to a centralized operator or using time-lock encryption, threshold encryption, or trusted hardware like SGX.

 Each solution has weaknesses: 

∙ Centralized operator is unacceptable in-protocol. 

∙ Traditional time lock encryption is too expensive for many transactions. 

∙ Delay encryption is difficult to construct and vulnerable to attacks. 

∙ Threshold encryption requires trusting a colluding majority. 

∙ SGX relies on a single trusted manufacturer.  

I would say that anyone who will be able to develop a method that would decentralize operations, reduce expenses, and secure delay encryption is likely to revolutionize the Ethereum protocol. 

Because let's face it, nobody likes being front-run! 

If you’re curious if Liquid Staking can be introduced to the protocol too, dive into my latest X thread to find out:

All content from Neo Tokyo News is for entertainment purposes only, and not financial advice.

That’s it for our 19th edition of the Neo Tokyo Newsletter. Be sure to subscribe and share with your friends so you don’t miss out on future content.

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