📢 Call to Action — CFTCs Request for Comments
In case you missed it last week, the CFTC submitted a public “Request for Input”which asks for clarity and answers around Ethereum.
EthHub was quick to respond publishing a template on our Github repo in order to crowdsource community responses. So far, 18 members of the Ethereum community have contributed their invaluable knowledge and we currently have a stellar piece of work that we’ll eventually be sending to the CFTC.
We encourage everyone to get involved and submit any ideas you may have via a pull request.
News of the Week
😲 Stablecoin Project Basis is Shutting Down
Basis, one of the most well-known stablecoin projects, is shutting down and returning nearly all capital raised to investors.
According to a Basis investor, Basis had a specific contract with investors defining how the majority of capital raised was required to be held. Most of the money was legally required by contract to be held in the currency in which it was contributed and could not be touched by the company until Basis launched its stablecoin.
In the event that Basis failed to launch, the capital was required to be returned in the form in which it was escrowed. Since Basis contributions were made primarily in cash by investors, nearly the entire treasury of the company remains intact and will be returned to investors.
The firm, which raised $133 million in funding, ran into regulatory headwinds as it attempted to get its algorithmic stablecoin off the ground, said multiple people with direct knowledge of the situation. As a result, Basis is shutting down operations and returning the majority of capital raised to investors. Backers include Bain Capital Ventures, GV, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Ventures and a number of other firms.
Note: Qiao Wang of Messari predicted something like this would happen 8 months ago!
🚓 Prosecutors Call for Ten Year Jail Term for Mark Karpeles
The former CEO of defunct Japanese Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, Mark Karpeles, could spend ten years in jail over alleged embezzlement, Japanese daily news outlet Nikkei reported Dec. 12.
Karpeles, who presided over the major hack of Mt. Gox in 2014 that resulted in the loss of 850,000 BTC ($2.87 billion), has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
In a Tokyo court on Wednesday, prosecutors read out an indictment against the embattled executive, who is currently confined to Japan as a condition of his bail, claiming he stole funds worth 340 million yen ($3 million). The prosecution has asked for a ten-year prison sentence for Karpeles’ alleged embezzlement.
⚖️ Former AriseBank Execs Settle Charges in SEC ICO Fraud Lawsuit
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has settled charges with two former executives of AriseBank, which was hit with a token sale fraud lawsuit in early 2018.
Former AriseBank CEO Jared Rice Sr. and former COO Stanley Ford will pay a combined $2.7 million in disgorgement and penalties, as well as $187,767 each in penalties. While neither admitted or denied the charges, both have also agreed to lifetime bans from serving as officers or directors of public companies and from participating in digital securities offerings.
Moreover, both are permanently prohibited from violating antifraud and registration provisions of federal securities laws.
🤔 Facebook’s Blockchain Group on Hiring Spree
Facebook’s small blockchain group has ambitious plans to potentially disrupt the entire payments industry, but the company is also running into recruiting challenges amid its many public scandals.
In recent months, the world’s largest social network has been quietly trying to recruit product managers, engineers, academics, and legal experts with experience in cryptocurrencies and payments, according to people familiar with the effort. Nearly 40 employees — including several former PayPal execs — work in Facebook’s secretive blockchain group, and the company recently appointed a head of business development to oversee acquisitions and deals in the space.
Since officially forming its blockchain group just eight months ago, Facebook has sent staffers to crypto conferences around the world to recruit researchers, cryptographers, and top academics in the field. At a private dinner Facebook hosted during a recent crypto conference, one attendee told Cheddar that Facebook employees pitched the idea of creating a decentralized digital currency for the social network’s 2 billion users.
👍 Major German Stock Exchange to Launch Crypto Trading Platform
Germany’s second-largest stock exchange, Boerse Stuttgart Group, is set to launch a cryptocurrency trading platform in the first half of 2019.
The firm announced Wednesday that it has partnered with a local fintech company solarisBank to create an engineering infrastructure for digital assets trading. solarisBank, which operates with a banking license in the country, will also be Boerse’s banking partner for the venture.
Initially, trading for bitcoin and ether will be enabled on the platform, with support for other tokens expected once its initial coin offering (ICO) platform — also currently under development — goes live.
Project Updates
Proposal to Decrease the MakerDAO Stability Fee
On December 17 there will be an Executive Vote to decrease the stability fee for Dai from 2.5% to 0.5%. If approved by the community of MKR holders, the new rate will go into effect immediately. Because this is a decrease, rather than an increase, there is no need for a 1 month warning period.
The voting application is at https://vote.makerdao.com and voting starts on December 17, 2018 at 16:00 UTC.
The team at DDEX has decided to fork the 0x protocol (removing the token and rewriting a large portion of the codebase). The new protocol will be called Hydro and emphasizes that liquidity matters above everything else.
Will Warren, founder of 0x, put out an explanatory post discussing DDEXs decision to leave the 0x ecosystem.
Community member Trenton Van Epps also put out some of his thoughts on the topic.
0x Ecosystem Acceleration Program
The 0x team announced the 0x Ecosystem Acceleration Program (EAP) this week.
The 0x ecosystem has grown organically to serve a wide array of markets ranging from in-game items to traditional financial assets. The mission of the Ecosystem Acceleration Program is to accelerate that growth.
Settle announced this week that Ethereum OTC trading — using the most trusted decentralized exchange protocol, 0x — is now possible in chat on Settle!
The Dai and MKR ERC20 tokens on our mainnet in the Wanchain-wrapped form.
The Dai token will utilize Wanchain’s cross-chain functionality allowing for Bitcoin to be exchanged for Dai in a fully decentralized manner and to potentially add Bitcoin to its collateralized debt position in addition to Ether.
Opera Adds Built-in Ethereum Wallet
This week, Opera announced the public release of its “Web 3-ready” Android web browser, which notably sports a built-in cryptocurrency wallet.
StarkWare reflects on 2018 and shares their plans for 2019.
FOAM Launches Holiday Treasure Hunt
Solve riddles & add locations on the FOAM map to discover 10 hidden digital collectables. Starts Monday the 17th of December.
OpenSea Acquires Atomic Bazaar
OpenSea has acquired Atomic Bazaar — an Ethereum digital asset marketplace focused on trading mixed sets of NFT’s. They’re bringing on the Atomic Bazaar team and integrating the product’s feature set into the OpenSea platform.
Kyber packs a number of updates into this post including progress on WBTC, trading enhancements, development of software plugins and much more.
Alethio Launches New Ethereum Block Explorer
View it over here.
Coindesk Highlights the 8 Teams Working on Eth2.0
Coindesk writer Christine Kim put together an excellent piece that runs through the 8 teams building Eth2.0 clients. Recommended read!
Prysmatic Labs Eth2.0 Development Update #18
Latest research updates, merged code and updates on planned work from the PryLabs team.
Greg Hysen from the 0x team updates us on everything that happened in the month of November including the launch of 0x instant, the 0x launch kit and much more.
You can now download the Gemini Exchange mobile app from the Apple App Store here or from the Google Play Store here.
Project Spotlight
Guesser — Prediction Markets Made Simple
Guesser makes it easy to buy & sell Augur outcomes with only 3 clicks.
No complicated trading charts. No waiting or unmatched orders.
Immediate settlement at the best price possible.
Sign up on their website for early access starting in January 2019.
Ecosystem Bits
Blog Posts
- A Minor Winter
- 16 Ways to Measure Network Effects
- MakerDAO: The Decentralized Global Reserve Bank
- TCR Party Part I: A Token Curated Registry for Humans
- Reinventing Token Distribution
- The (Future) Most Valuable Company In The World
- The 40 Best Ethereum Games
- 4 Eras of Blockchain Computing
- Stablecoins: Collateralization Types
- Mapping Out Enterprise Blockchain
- 5 Reasons Why Enterprise Ethereum Is so Much More Than a Distributed Ledger Technology
- Unsolved Problems in Blockchain Sharding
- MakerDAO Governance Risk Framework (Part 3)
- Insights Into Augur — 2018 Year In Review
- Bitcoin & Ethereum: Prices are Down More than the Fundamentals(recommended read)
Podcasts
Misc
Website Updates
New research added to the Block by Block website
- Unsolved Problems in Blockchain Sharding
- Stablecoins: Collateralization Types
- MakerDAO Governance Risk Framework (Part 3)
New resources added to the Block by Block website
Feedback
Thanks for reading. We’d love to get your feedback so please send an email to info@ethhub.io and we’ll be sure to get back to you! :)
