Good morning! This the Yellow Dip (Twitter) - We are the Blockchain newsletter brightening up your Tuesday.

You must be enjoying the xmas week, like we are:

Today, we'll cover:

• Understanding crypto wallets with Ledger's new hardware wallet launch

• Samuel gets released (following up on FTX story)

• Quick dips

Understanding Crypto Wallets with Ledger's new hardware wallet launch

Ledger, one of the oldest & most successful wallet hardware companies, have been recently working on something cool - Ledger Stax.

Ledger Stax, set to launch in March ‘23, is a credit card sized hardware wallet, which sits comfortably in the palm of your hand and has a 3.7 inch curved touchscreen display. It comes with wireless charging and can be connected via Bluetooth and USB-C. Interestingly, the focus is also on the design & aesthetics. They went ahead and hired the designer of Apple iPod and iPhone - Tony Fadell to give this boring industry a major facelift, who is also lovingly called as the ‘Father of Ipod’. Apart from design, this new wallet will be able to secure more than 5500 types of crypto assets including Bitcoin and Ethereum, and will also be able to secure NFTs for the ones who love collecting pictures. There are a few other customizations made available to the users to make it more funky to own.\

Brief on Ledger. Launched in 2014 by 8 security engineers, Ledger is estimated to have a 20% market share in securing all cryptocurrency assets globally, having sold more than 5 million hardware wallets in 200 countries. It was last valued at a cool $1.5Bn - making it a unicorn.

But wait, let’s understand wallets. Think of wallets like physical wallets + keys to lock it. You can carry them around, they hold money (or assets) and belong to you (not a bank). There is a saying in the crypto industry- ‘Not your keys, Not your coins’. So, it becomes important to understand, how do you secure your keys, which largely defines the types of wallets that exist.

So, how do I secure the keys? Keys, which can be basically some random long string of characters, can be secured in multiple ways and defines how secure it is.

On Crypto exchanges - a crypto exchange seems as safe as your broker account(robinhood,zerodha etc) but this is far from the case in reality. Think of this as a bank locker. What if the bank (crypto exchange in our case) went out of business, or someone hacked it. Not the most secure option.

On software wallets - these can be web wallets, mobile or desktop wallets, which do not belong to an exchange. These are prone to hacks and phishing attacks since they are connected to browsers and devices which are inherently vulnerable. They work well, if you feel your device remains secured. But caution!

On hardware wallets - which is basically a small piece of hardware with keys and can be safely stored in a locker. You only connect it when you need to transact. But, if you lose the key, you lose the money. However, this is considered the safest option. (Ledger has launched this type of wallet)

Dippers recommend that for beginners a software wallet should suffice. Crypto exchange wallets are a no-no. And hardware wallets need significant upfront cost (mostly north of $1,000), so can use this, if your stakes are high.

Samuel gets released

Following up on the story we covered in this newsletter, and after all the context you have on SBF or Samuel, here’s an update you may find hard to digest - Samuel has been freed with a $250mn bail bond. Yes, you read it right (and it was right before the Xmas). But read on for more surprises…

To get this bail, you need only 10% of the money, which means what Sam needs is $25mn. Hang on…

Sam hasn’t even paid this. Guess who comes to his rescue? It’s always the parents & an undisclosed person (not revealed), no matter what you do, they are there. And if you remember, we covered that his father is into legal stuff. So, they have put up their home (in Palo Alto) as a collateral. You might be feeling cheated 🙁

However, Sam surrendered his passport & had to put a monitoring device on his body. But there are no restrictions on how he can use the internet or his computer.

We found! ;)

Quick Dips

+ Trump released a new NFT collection called Trump Cards (Collect Trump Cards)

+ Royal Enfield Forges Into The NFT Space With “The Art Of Motorcycle” Program (Mashable)

+ Starbucks Ties Up With Polygon (MATIC) To Take Patrons On A Web 3.0 NFT ‘Odyssey’ (Outlook India)

+ Mercedes-Benz files 5 trademark applications for metaverse and NFTs (Finbold)

+ Visa explores auto payments for crypto wallets (Finextra)

In case you plan to learn Blockchain technology, go through the learning series we've shared in earlier editions, plus go through the Bitcoin paper.

That's it for today. Stay curious & see ya next year!

On that note, wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Hope you have a great celebration.

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DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is strictly educational and is not an investment advice to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research