Block by Block Weekly Newsletter #31
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News of the Week
This week, Circle and the CENTRE open source consortium introduced a service to tokenize US dollars and use those dollars over public blockchains on the internet: USD//Coin, also known as USDC. Individuals and institutions can enroll in this service to deposit US dollars from bank accounts, convert those dollars into tokens usable everywhere the internet reaches (subject to the token’s compliance controls), and redeem USDC tokens and cash out to bank accounts.
USDC joins a slew of stablecoin projects that have popped up over the last few months that you can track here.
⚖️ 1Broker Charged with Securities Law Violations
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are suing a Marshall Islands-based securities dealer for allegedly violating federal law through a bitcoin-based security swap scheme.
The SEC announced in a press release that it filed charges against 1pool Ltd., also known as 1Broker, as well as its CEO Patrick Brunner for selling security-based swaps to U.S. and international investors without following proper “discretionary investment thresholds.”
The SEC is further claiming that 1Broker was not a registered “security-based swaps dealer” and “failed to transact its security-based swaps on a registered national exchange.”
👍 Austria to Issue €1.15 Billion of Government Bonds on Ethereum
The government of Austria will utilize Ethereum’s public blockchain for the issuance of €1.15 billion ($1.35 billion) of government bonds in an auction that started on October 2nd.
One of Austria’s biggest bank, Oesterreichische Kontrollbank (OeKB), will operate the auction procedure for the issue of government bonds on behalf of the Austrian Treasury (OeBFA).
A system developed internally by OeKB’s IT Department will notarize hash values on Ethereum’s public blockchain data from Austria’s already established system called the Austrian Direct Auction System (ADAS).
🤔 Rampant Collusion in EOS Exposed by Huobi Leak
A spreadsheet has been leaked, allegedly authored by Shi Feifei, a Huobi employee. Titled “Huobi Pool Node Account Data 20180911,” the document details mutual voting and sharing of proceeds from producing blocks in EOS. The document shows Huobi votes for 20 Block Producers (miners) in EOS with 16 of them voting for Huobi in return.
An analysis of the document further shows Huobi was previously supporting seven standby BPs which have “no public nodes, no website, no ownership information, no node interaction, etc,”.
These arrangements allegedly earn Huobi 1,116 EOS per day, currently worth about ~$6,000 a day. In addition, Huboi is a block producer itself which earns them quite a bit more.
👏 Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and the Hyperledger Project Join Forces
Announced Monday, the Hyperledger Project and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) have agreed to collaborate on bringing common standards to the blockchain space and cross-pollinate a wider open-source community.
If the team-up succeeds in creating common standards between the two platforms, it could sway enterprises previously on the fence to build their blockchains on one or the other, since the risk of creating new silos that don’t talk to other systems is being addressed.
👊 ErisX Announces New Exchange for Digital Asset Investors and Traders
This new venture is backed by both new and existing investors spanning the traditional capital markets and digital asset markets including DRW Venture Capital, Valor Equity Partners, TD Ameritrade, Digital Currency Group, Pantera Capital and more.
ErisX is currently seeking regulatory approval to list futures tied to bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash, and litecoin.
The firm expects spot trading of cryptos to begin in Q2 of 2019.
🔒 Crypto Assets on Winklevoss Gemini Exchange Are Now Insured
Crypto exchange Gemini has obtained insurance coverage for the digital assets it holds in custody, it announced Wednesday.
The Gemini Trust Company, co-founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, said in a press release that its insurance will be provided through a consortium of insurers arranged by global professional services firm Aon, which provides “a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions.”
💰 Coinbase Now Worth $8 Billion
Coinbase is finalizing a deal that would value the company at about $8 billion, a transaction that would make Coinbase one of the highest-valued startups in the U.S. and help further legitimize the entire cryptocurrency industry.
The company is in talks with Tiger Global and its current shareholders for an investment of up to $500 million, according to people familiar with the matter. Coinbase is expected to add about $250 million in new money to its own coffers, the people said, and as much as $250 million more could go to buying out existing investors, though the exact amount has yet to been determined.
🕵️ WSJ investigates ShapeShift
The Wall Street Journal tracked funds from over 2,500 suspected crimes that used bitcoin and ether, identifying ~$90M laundered through 46 cryptocurrency exchanges. The top five exchanges, by laundered funds received, includes Binance, Bitfinex, ShapeShift, BTC-e, and Bittrex. Of these 46 exchanges, ShapeShift processed ~$9 million of the laundered funds, which is more than any other U.S.-based exchange.
ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhes hit back against the WSJ with an explanation as to why their analysis was wrong.
Project Updates
Ethereum 2.0 Prysm Demo Release v0.0.0
Prysm have released a demo of their software which includes a basic Ethereum 2.0 beacon-chain and validator demo! The team also released development update #14.
The first FOAM Map Developer Update is now available. Almost 3000 points of interest have been registered on the FOAM Map which a total of 329 users.
In this update Dharma has a Q&A with their newest hire, Max Bronstein, and gives a short overview of what the team has been up to.
The native Aion coin is now supported on Ledger hardware wallets and Aion partnered with Blockdaemon!
After months of development, three separate external audits and rigorous internal testing, the dYdX Margin Trading Protocol and expo are both live!
Compounds money market protocol allows individuals, institutions, and applications to frictionlessly earn interest on or borrow cryptographic assets without having to negotiate with a counterparty or peer, It’s now live and supports WETH, ZRX, BAT and REP.
Various development updates from the team at Radar Relay including trezor hardware wallet support and batch cancels for orders!
The team from OmiseGO gives a roadmap update and an overview of how the protocol will work under the hood.
This week Coinbase rolled out a bundle feature that allows users to quickly purchase a market-weighted selection of five cryptocurrencies, informational asset pages and a dedicated education hub called Coinbase Learn.
Shapeshifts CoinCap Relaunched
Reliable real-time crypto market data, 1200+ assets, 65+ exchanges, market volume metrics, new comprehensive API, TradingView charts, and dark mode! Check out CoinCap.
0age from Zeppelin gives a detailed breakdown of version 1 of the Transactions Permission Layer Protocol (TPL). The TPL is a method for assigning attributes to Ethereum addresses (such as identity).
Ben Edgington shares his notes on all the happenings around Ethereum 2.0.
Project Spotlight
Crypto Coin Watch reports open source development activity of popular cryptocurrency projects on GitHub.
The main page shows aggregate metrics over multiple repositories managed by a single user or organization. The aggregates include: (a) code additions and deletions, (b) commit activity, © contributors, (d) stars, (e) forks, (f) subscribers, and (g) the last updated time.
Ecosystem Bits
Blog Posts
- What Are the Benefits of “Crypto” Anyway?
- How Zcash Can Fill Ethereum’s Privacy Gap
- Livepeer Case Study
- IPFS: A Complete Analysis of the Distributed Web
- Cryptonetworks and the Theory of the Firm
- The Myth of the Infrastructure Phase (recommended read)
- A RadicalxChange between Vitalik Buterin and Glen Weyl
- Why On-chain Governance?
- Blockchain Governance 101
- A Deep Look Into Cosmos — The Internet of Blockchains
- The State of Decentralized Oracles
- Blockchain Governance
- EthBerlin 2018 Recap
- Ever Wonder How Merkle Trees Work?
- FOAM Map: Overview of the TCR Design and Incentives
- A Simplified Look at Ethereum’s Casper
- We Talk About Blockchain Governance, So Why Not Blockchain Politics?
- On Consensus
Videos
Misc
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.
