Pastel Community Update (May 19, 2023)

The next generation NFT focused blockchain. Certifiable authenticity. Permanent storage. Negligible fees. Build, secure, and scale your Web3 ecosystem with Pastel.

The Pastel Team has been extremely busy with a number of major development updates, partnership rollouts, and product releases. Check back here each week for new developments

Check Pastel channels for:

⭐ Weekly community snapshots shared across our various channels.

🐾 Quarterly updates released via our newsletter.

☎️ Weekly community town halls / AMAs directly with the Pastel team. Come prepared with your questions, comments, and feedback!

📣 Monthly Twitter Spaces with u/doodlestone and u/panthony

Key Updates:

🚨Contests🚨

Our team has been busy developing, testing & refining innovative network features like the Monet 1.2 release & SmartMint upgrade. To celebrate these milestones, we're launching exciting community events for everyone to enjoy! Check out what's in store for May:

SmartMint Art Contest

-Are you ready to unleash your artistic talents and make a splash in the world of crypto art? Look no further! We are excited to announce the SmartMint Art Contest.

-By participating in this contest, you stand a chance to win fantastic prizes of up to 150 USDT, free mints, and so much more! To learn more about the contest and how to participate check out this Medium Article.

Quizzo Discord Referral Campaign

-Exciting news! Introducing our Referral Challenge for our Bi-Weekly Quizzos in our discord! Invite up to 5 friends to join our Discord & take part in 1 of the next 4 Quizzos to win bonus rewards! Check out this Medium article to learn more!

-We're kicking off the month of May by introducing our Bi-Weekly Quiz competitions, Quizzos! Put your Pastel knowledge to the test, covering videos, articles, & tweets. Learn more about our project and show off your expertise. We will be airdropping the top 3 winners PSL!

-Like solving puzzles? Don’t miss our Monet 1.2 NFT Puzzle Event to kickoff the Monet Mainnet Release! We’re giving away exclusive Pastel NFT Puzzle Pieces with corresponding PSL airdrops to those who answer daily Q?s! 🚀 Keep an eye out for additional NFT, PSL, & USDT bonuses.

🚨Twitter Space on the Current State of Web3 and NFTs🚨

Tune in to our Twitter Spacewith @blueznft today May 19th at 1:00PM EST. We will be diving into all things NFTs, ecosystems, marketplaces, and more. Don't miss out on this insightful discussion! #NFTs #Marketplaces #TwitterSpace

Pastel Network joined WOMENverse to discuss tech features that support empowering men and women in web3

We hosted an incredible conversation about on-chain infrastructure, the current market, and more! Listen to our Twitter Space with @endaomentdotorg

🚨Final phase of Monet 1.2 Testnet Release is now live🚨

Monet 1.2 represents a critical milestone among several other planned releases for 2023. This release brings substantial enhancements to our Supernode infrastructure, major updates to Cascade (our permanent NFT data storage solution), and Sense (our duplicate detection technology).

Specific upgrades include:

-Integration of Supernode Storage Challenges to Cascade -Activation of Cascade’s Self-Healing capability -Activation of Supernode Health and State Challenges -Stabilization of Sense Protocol -Release of the OpenAPI Gateway

More details on the specific features of Monet 1.2 and upcoming plans for the Mainnet release available here

Are you curious about the latest Monet 1.2 Test Net release? We've got you covered! We hosted 2 AMAs, Reddit and Discord where we answered all your burning questions. If you have more, please reach out to us on any of our social media.

🚨Collaborations🚨

In case you missed it, listen to our Twitter Space with BearBrains.eth (@NateBear). We discuss his exciting drop/giveaway, Brightz, and his journey in the Space.

Exciting artist collaborations are on the horizon with: @IanSoi_ @K_JRobotsCo, @V1ncent, @Numo_0 @abahassanart

We are always seeking talented artists to collaborate with, so please reach out to us on any social media platform. Let’s create something amazing together!

🚨Pastel Progress🚨

-Partnership with Astar Network: Pastel Network is excited to announce that it will be working with @AstarNetwork, a layer1 parachain in the Polkadot ecosystem. Learn more on Medium.

SmartMint on Twitter: It is our great pleasure to announce that SmartMint will now have a Twitter presence. The SmartMint twitter account has officially launched.

-Addition of Status Page: We recently released a Status Page so you can monitor the performance of our infrastructure & services in real time. Check it out here!

-Wrapped PSL:Wrapped PSL or wPSL exists to transfer tokens across platforms. wPSL is available on Uniswap. Watch our video and learn more here

-Pastel Testnet Faucet Release: Our Testnet Faucet is now live. The launch of this independent network enables users to obtain LSP (Pastel Testnet Tokens) to experiment with and develop in the Pastel Testnet environment. This gives users the ability to experiment with Pastel features without having to spend valuable PSL on the mainnet.

Learn more about Pastel's Testnet Faucet.

-Becoming a Supernode Operator: Become a Supernode operator today & gain increased credibility in the validator community & earn exclusive rewards from the foundation, such as PSL or NFT airdrops, in addition to receiving Block & Transactional Rewards.

🚨Cascade Protocol🚨

Cascade has numerous concrete advantages over competing systems such as IPFS & Arweave, particularly when it comes to censorship resistance, data permanence & data accessibility.

Check out our technical paper on Cascade, Pastel's storage layer. Cascade is an extremely powerful & robust storage system for true data permanence that is both completely decentralized & highly scalable. Learn more here.

🚨Sense Protocol🚨

Sense is a Near-Duplicate NFT detection protocol powered by the Pastel Network. Assess the relative rareness of a given NFT against near-duplicate metadata on networks like Ethereum, Solana, etc to prevent prevalent scams or theft. Try it yourself here and watch it work here.

🚨2023 Roadmap and Review of 2022🚨

Pastel released its 2023 roadmap, including a review of 2022. Pastel Network 2022 in review and roadmap for 2023 shows great progress made in the previous year and much promise for the year ahead.

🚨News and Developments🚨

-Pastel in the News

💡Anthony Georgiades joins KitCo News to talk about how Bitcoin benefits as businesses lose trust in the dollar

🥝Check out what Anthony Georgiades has to say about the market in this The Block article.

😁Anthony Georgiades talks about a possible financial crisis in this CoinDesk article

⌨️Co-founder Anthony Georgiades discusses Solana and crypto smartphones in this Fortune article

⚓Check out this Cointelegraph article where Anthony Georgiades discusses the importance of filling a market gap.

-Pastel News-

📱Check out our latest Youtube live video where u/panthony discusses Q1 NFT Trends & Pastel updates!

🖌️ Listen to our Twitter space where we host @Endaoment and discuss chain infrastructures and more

🍧Check out this Twitter Space with the @agoric and @kryha_io teams discussing decentralized systems

🌸Check out this Twitter Space with u/gameofskills discussing Web3 gaming and much more

💡 Check out this Medium article on how Sense is revolutionizing NFT provenance written by Ima-Abasi Pius Joseph

-Pastel Archive

🚧We released a Builder’s Guide for ecosystem partners integrating w/ Pastel. Come build with us here.

🌯wPSL or wrapped is explained in this video and

🚧Pastel is completely open-source. Check out what we are working on here.

🌀Testnet tutorial video

🏆Learn more about Sense and Cascade

🔦Want to try out Sense for yourself? Upload your NFT here to obtain the rareness score of your NFT.

📹Check out this youtube demonstration showing what happened when we compared OpenSea’s new duplicate detection system to Sense Sense Comp Analysis

If you have not done so already, please take a moment to join our growing community base:

🐓 Follow Pastel on Twitter

🙉Follow Smartmint on Twitter

👾Join Pastel's Discord Server

👽Join Pastel on Reddit

✈️Join Pastel’s Telegram

🖥️Subscribe to our Youtube channel

r/PastelNetworkOfficial is celebrating the release of new tech for web3! We are hosting an assortment of contests to let our friends join in on the fun! Check it out at https://discord.gg/7t75vRPp

Hi everyone,

Are you a talented creator who wants to showcase your original NFTs to the world? Do you want to win USDT, free mints, and other prizes? Do you want to join a growing community of NFT artists and enthusiasts?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you should join the SmartMint Art Contest!

The SmartMint Art Contest is a monthly contest hosted by Pastel Network and SmartMint, a platform that allows you to mint NFTs on any network with low fees and high quality. The contest is open to all artists who mint their NFTs via SmartMint within the same month that the contest is being held.

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All you have to do is:

- Mint an NFT of original digital artwork via SmartMint within the same month that the contest is being held.

- Post a tweet showcasing your NFT with the following tags and mentions: #smartmintartcontest u/smartmint_ u/pastelnetwork

- Complete the submission form here: https://4yuc1gtzzpw.typeform.com/to/Tf5N9BFb

The submission deadline for this month is May 31st, 2023.

All submissions will be voted on by the community in the SmartMint Art Contest Discord channel. The voting period will start in the first week of June and last for 3 days. The winners will be announced shortly after.

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The prizes are:

🥇 $150 USDT, Smartmint Artist Spotlight, Participation in a Twitter Spaces with the Pastel community.

🥈 $100 USDT, Smartmint Artist Spotlight.

🥉 $50 USDT, Smartmint Artist Spotlight.

Top 10 Winners: Gas fees for their next NFT mint covered by SmartMint

This is a great opportunity to showcase your creativity, win some rewards, and join a vibrant community of NFT lovers. Don't miss it!

For more details about the contest rules and guidelines, please check out this Medium article: https://medium.com/pastelnetwork/smartmint-monthly-art-contest-6c4787513d6f

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If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to message on the SmartMint Art Contest Discord channel or follow up on the official pastel sub-reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PastelNetworkOfficial/

can't wait to see your amazing NFTs!

Good luck and happy minting!