Block by Block Weekly Newsletter #18
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News of the Week
🤯 Andreeseen Horowtiz Launches New Crypto Fund
They’re calling it ‘a16z Crypto’ and have raised a war chest of $300 million to pour into the crypto space. Along with the new fund, the firm has brought aboard its first female general partner: Katie Haun — who is leading the fund with Chris Dixon.
Katie is a former federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice, specializing in fraud, cybercrime and corporate compliance alongside the SEC, FBI and Treasury. She also lectures at Stanford Business School and sits on the board at Coinbase.
The fund is structured so that a16z can hold investments for 10+ years as they believe that the space is still in its infancy with many decades of growth ahead of it.
👊 Binance Set to Launch Its First Crypto-Fiat Exchange in Uganda
The new platform, Binance Uganda, will be the company’s first exchange that supports fiat-crypto trading.
Binance Uganda will be an independent structure but still have strong ties with the existing Binance platform. On the technical side, the Ugandan exchange will be an identical implementation of the regular Binance exchange.
CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) stated that Binance is interested in developing countries like Uganda due to their low bank penetration (only 11% of the population in Uganda have a bank account). CZ believes it may be easier for Ugandans to adopt cryptocurrency instead of trying to push for bank adoption.
❤️ Coinbase CEO Launches Crypto Charity Fund
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wants to raise $1 billion in cryptocurrency on his new platform GiveCrypto.
Brian has launched the project with a personal donation of $1 million and encourages anyone who has amassed wealth through crypto to donate some to the fund.
Armstrong noted that distribution of funds will be the hardest part in the endeavor but the project will eventually rely on “crypto ambassadors” who will help identify people in need and get them set up with a crypto wallet.
You can find a full list of the current donors to the fund over here.
👍 LINE App Plans to Launch Crypto Exchange
Popular Japanese social messaging app LINE will launch a cryptocurrency exchange with 30 different coins this month including BTC, BCH, ETH and LTC.
The exchange, named Bitbox, will offer crypto-to-crypto trading globally excluding the U.S. and Japan.
🤔 Facebook Reversing Ban on Crypto Ads
Preapproved advertises will now be able to promote crypto business and services (such as exchanges) but ads for initial coin offerings (ICOs) or similar products/services are still banned.
⚖️ FBI Running 130 Crypto Investigations
The FBI claims to be running 130 different crypto-related investigations. They are investigating a variety of crimes including human trafficking, drug-related transactions, kidnapping and ransomware.
🇬🇧 Coinbase to Add GBP Support
Coinbase will roll out support for GBP withdrawals and deposits over the next few weeks. Currently, UK users have to withdraw euros from Coinbase using SEPA transfers or via mobile banking apps such as Revolut.
👌 The Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA) Welcomes Over 74 New Members
Notable new members include online marketplace giant eBay and Chinese technology manufacturer Foxconn.
Project Updates
The Token Sale will start on July 31st with registration and whitelisting to run from July 16th to July 27th.
Don’t forget to check out the recap post on FOAMs third community call.
Zcash ‘Overwinter’ Upgrade Completed Successfully
Overwinter was activated at block 347500 on the Zcash network and includes versioning, replay protection for network upgrades, performance improvements for transparent transactions, a new feature of transaction expiry, and more.
The Zcash Company also released a new proposed roadmap.
Plasma Cash for Loom Network Sidechains Released
The initial release allows the use of ERC721 non-fungible tokens on Loom sidechains. That means users will now be able to have gas-less transactions and sub-second confirmation times on sidechains, all while having their token fully backed by the security of Ethereum mainnet.
MetaMask Launches Monthly Newsletter
The MetaMask team have launched a monthly newsletter which aims to keep people updated on everything the team is doing.
0x V2 Deployed to Kovan Testnet
Version 2 of the 0x protocol is now available on the Kovan test network to all developers. The first round of audits for the new smart contracts have also begun.
The app is now live on the Ethereum mainnet and includes a new chat UI, updated DApp list and much more.
ENS Progress Update — mid 2018
Nick Johnson gives an update on all the work being done within the ENS project including new hires, new logo & website and a new roadmap!
Prysmatic Labs Ethereum Sharding Update #7
Prysmatic Labs updates us on their last 2 weeks of research and development into sharding.
A work-in-progress document describing the specification for the Casper+Sharding chain has been published.
ERC-1155 — Crypto Item Standard
Witek Radomski from Enjin outlines the thinking behind ERC-1155 and how it can be used to improve the current token standards on Ethereum.
Project Spotlight
Trivial is an Ethereum Blockchain Explorer that tracks different metrics for tokens such as Top Holders, Daily Active Users, News and much more.
Fetch searches multiple exchanges to find you the best price, factoring in transaction and exchange fees. Trade with confidence knowing you are getting the best price on the market.
Currently accepting waitlist applications.
Crypto Drama & Controversy
Pornhub to Accept Tron Cryptocurrency
It seems that Pornhub just loves to accept shitcoins on their site. Following this years earlier announcement that they’d be accepting controversial crypto Verge on their platform, they’ve now announced that they will also integrate Trons native currency, TRX.
I guess Tron ‘investors’ love to get screwed in more ways than one.
EOS Block Producer Gets Abused by the ECAF
Another week, another EOS governance issue. It seems all the problems that people predicted before EOS launched have come to fruition a lot quicker than many expected.
Supposedly the ‘EOSIO Core Arbitration Forum’ (ECAF) has ‘abused’ one of the EOS block producers (BP) for not “complying with an order”. Basically, the particular BP “failed to update their blacklist” in accordance with a directive given by the ECAF.
So much for “decentralized governance”.
Random Bits
Blog Posts
- Crypto Commons
- Blockchain Security: Will it scale?
- Diablo III’s failed Auction House: Why true ownership won’t save your game
- Scaling Consensus for Enterprise: Explaining the IBFT Algorithm
- Subjective vs. Objective TCRs
- Monero Analysis by Token Daily
- The Challenge of UX in Ethereum
- The Most Lucrative Ethereum Scams
- Nontechnical: What is ERC-721?
- Redesigning Web3 UX with WalletConnect
Videos
Misc
Personal Updates
Website Updates
New research added to the site:
New resources added to the site:
Feedback
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Disclaimer: None of the information outlined in this piece should be taken as investment advice. Please click here for more information.
