Robert has reported for a variety of international publications including the Associated Press, The Guardian, Vice, and Decrypt. Current areas of interest include the political economy of technology, cryptocurrencies, and privacy. Robert has a Bachelor of Science from UCL, and a Master's degree from the University of Oxford's Internet Institute.
What is CTSI?
CTSI is the native token of Cartesi, an operating system for blockchain developers that lets them use tools they’re familiar with — like pre-blockchain coding languages C++ and Python — in order to build decentralized applications. It’s a kind of “blockchain OS” in the same way mobile developers build on top of Android or iOS.
Cartesi’s developers say it could help blockchains unlock the same innovation as traditional operating systems: if developers build popular blockchain applications using a common set of tools, they say, then others can use those same tools to build applications on top of those applications, creating a growing snowball of activity that crushes the competition.
What can you do with CTSI?
You can use CTSI to settle transactions on Cartesi blockchains (like the Noether sidechain). For example, you could use it to pay the transaction fees when the network processes a transfer. Also, you could stake it — temporarily locking it up within the network to earn rewards. CTSI is supported on all major Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible blockchains.
Outside of the Cartesi OS, you could buy and hold CTSI to expose yourself to its volatile price, or stake it within DeFi smart contracts to earn additional returns.
How can you buy CTSI?
The first way to buy CTSI is through a brokerage, such as Wealthsimple Crypto. All you have to do is create an account, provide your ID, and pay for your purchase.
The second method is to use a cryptocurrency exchange company. Crypto exchanges let you trade CTSI (and other crypto) with users via a “matching engine” — a piece of software that matches buyers with sellers on a centralized order book (not through a blockchain).
The third method is to trade CTSI through a decentralized exchange, like Uniswap. Instead of matching buyers with sellers, decentralized exchanges maintain huge reserves of tokens, called liquidity pools, that traders swap in and out of.
To trade on decentralized exchanges (also known as DEXes), you’ll need a Web3 wallet, such as MetaMask. You’ll have to fill that wallet with the cryptocurrencies you’d like to swap for CTSI, plus the coin native to the blockchain on which you’re buying CTSI — that’s to pay for transaction fees.
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