“The new crypto council will be publishing online ratings for digital assets on a scale of 1 to 5, where the highest value means that a certain token is considered as a security that cannot be issued, sold or traded by unregulated firms.

Kraken’s general counsel, expressed hope that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will view the initiative as a positive step.

Other members of the Crypto Ratings Council include Circle Internet Financial, Bittrex, Genesis Global Trading, Grayscale Investments, Anchor Labs and DRW Holdings’ Cumberland unit.”

---

“Originally expected to activate on Oct. 2 at block height 6,485,846, Istanbul was released two days earlier than planned due to unusually fast block confirmation times.

The majority of miners on the Ropsten blockchain did not upgrade to the latest software, since the time of the hard fork caught many developers off guard. This has resulted in a split of the test network between those mining on the upgraded chain and those mining on the outdated chain.

Issues with the Ropsten network so far appear to be the result of poor miner communication, not flaws in the Istanbul upgrade code.”

See Also: Ethereum’s Istanbul Upgrade Will Break 680 Smart Contracts on Aragon

---

“OpenLaw’s so-called “Limited Liability Autonomous Organization” or LAO project aims to conform with guidelines set forth by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) established in the wake of the 2016 DAO hack.

Done correctly, Wright said, DAOs do have the potential to replace venture capital and private equity firms. That could be a monumental achievement in fueling the future of blockchain network development.

Operating as a [LLC] means the entity is responsible for contracts and the entity is responsible for taxes and the entity is responsible for violations of the law, not necessarily the individuals who are acting on behalf of the entity.

Without that, Hinkes said, ‘it could mean that the individuals [in the DAO] are liable for everything.‘ At the same time, regulatory clarity also comes with stricter policies and rules as to how a legal DAO can and cannot operate. In this way, the LAO may not differ all that much in substance from a traditional business.

I think the next step will come when states start to experiment with their own laws and allow for flexibility in corporate structure to accommodate more code-driven conduct.”

See Also: The LAO: A For-Profit, Limited Liability Autonomous Organization

---

Bitcoin, (BTC), the leading cryptocurrency by market value, is on track to post a monthly loss of more than 16 percent – the biggest since November 2018. Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency ether (ETH), however, is currently reporting a monthly gain of 0.30 percent.

In fact, ETH is the best performing top 10 cryptocurrency of September. Bitcoin SV (BSV) is the worst performing cryptocurrency this month, with a 35 percent monthly drop.

Most alternative cryptocurrencies are based on ethereum’s blockchain. Hence, many observers often consider ether’s rise, especially against BTC, a positive sign for alts.”

---

After several months of due diligence, Tsai said Fidelity Digital Assets is now on board to provide custody for the fund.

I think what was missing in the crypto market is a lot of very solid traditional types of products, but with crypto assets.

Wave Financial has launched the Wave BTC Income & Growth Digital Fund, touting the fund to be the first crypto-derivatives-based yield fund on the market.”

---

“On Sept. 30, Binance revealed that it would add support for TRX staking starting Oct. 1, with initial estimation of rewards to be calculated through Nov. 1 and subsequently distributed before Nov. 5. The system will then continue on the same basis monthly.

BeatzCoin COO Misha Lederman noted in a tweet on Sept. 29 that Binance has essentially frozen 12 billion TRX, taking 1/6 of the coin’s supply out of circulation.”

---

German police have raided and shut down Cyberbunker 2.0, a decommissioned NATO bunker that housed dark web market servers and child porn. 

The bunker held multiple dark web markets including the financial scam site “Wall Street Market,” drug portal “Cannabis Road” and “Orange Chemicals,” a market for synthesized drugs.”

---

“The described arrangement is prohibited by the C.B.A., which provides that ‘no player shall assign or otherwise transfer to any third party his right to receive compensation from the team under his uniform player contract.

Dinwiddie, on the other hand, told the outlet that he intended to better illustrate the investment scheme to league officials, hoping to change their minds.”

---

“The software streamlines commodities trading with applications supporting every step of the process — pre-trade KYC, trade execution and post-trade risk management.

Where there are multiple parties, that require trust and verification on a secure, permanent record that eliminates double counting and provides one accurate record of ownership or transfer details – EnHelix delivers.”

---

“The impetus behind the initiative is to trace how companies’ funds are spent within social impact projects. Individuals and companies who utilize Impactio should submit their projects, providing clear objectives.

After that, curators receive Impactio Tokens in a digital wallet, with the platform using a system based on ConsenSys’ research on Token Curated Registry (TCR) to curate and choose high-potential projects and subsequently present them to potential funders.”

“[Since] merchants are still cashing out in fiat and Fold is handling channels on behalf of users, it’s unclear how the economics of such services will play out as usage increases. After all, keeping channels open locks up precious bitcoin.

As such, the jury is still out on whether Sheinfeld’s vision of building a “lightning economy” over the next five years is remotely probable.

Although some hobbyist node operators currently make a few dollars a month in bitcoin, via routing fees, Lightning co-creator Dryja told CoinDesk that providing such services probably won’t be a profitable business model, even if adoption increases.

Dryja stopped working on the open-source technology last year because he felt the current development process, spearheaded by Lightning Labs and Blockstream, diverged from his vision for the bitcoin scaling solution.

I worry the lightning network has been overpromised.”

---

“The new service will enable Binance users to deposit their token holdings and earn staking rewards, but without having to set up their own nodes to fulfill minimum staking amounts and/or time lengths.

You literally don’t have to do anything. Your funds on Binance automatically participate. You can still trade as you normally would.”

---

“So why would people own Bitcoin if they can own a digital dollar?

Pompliano said that he ultimately believed that people would opt for something that is not manipulatable, nor seizable, nor censorable. The movement may be slow at first, he said, but people will ultimately choose a currency that the government can’t control.”

---

“Mark Cliffemight, speaking in an ING video published Friday, argued that the Facebook-led Libra cryptocurrency project is putting pressure on monetary authorities. With Libra slated for launch in 2020, central banks would have to make a move in that timeline.

I think we’ve already got some sense of urgency amongst the policy community.

It would ‘open up a whole range of policy options,’ the economist said, as well as providing other ways to support economic activity in a future downturn.”

See Also: ECB President: Stablecoins and Crypto Not Suitable Money Substitutes
See Also: Libra Association Talks With EU Regulators Following Opposition

---

“Stocks of China’s fintech firms have seen a notable surge this year amid investors’ anticipation of China’s launch of its own digital currency as well as the demand it would generate for security and payment services.”

---

“According to the announcement, the WDMM will be the first global network to connect mining hardware owners with mining farms who will provide the available power resources to host them for a fee.

In turn, network members will get access to a number of personalized services from Bitmain, including assistance with mining farm design, connections to foreign clients to host, and support with operations, purchasing, and construction.”

---

“As part of the pilot, MediConnect will integrate online pharmacy UK Meds’ processes into its blockchain-based platform, allowing thus to trace products through its supply chain and prevent the misuse of prescription medications.

Earlier this year, the Ugandan government partnered with MediConnect to trace counterfeit drugs in the country.”

“The Venezuelan central bank is reportedly studying proposals that would see cryptocurrencies counted toward the country’s international reserves.

The state-run oil and gas company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PSDV), had requested the central bank look into the matter after the oil producer ran into difficulties receiving payments from international clients due to U.S. sanctions against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s current regime.

The unnamed sources said that the PSDV is looking to transfer Bitcoin and Ether to the Venezuelan central bank and then have the central institution pay its suppliers in cryptocurrencies.”

---

“We know that everyone’s been most eager to see the release of the Devcon5 Schedule, and we’re thrilled to say that today is the day!

This year’s schedule will be available in multiple formats. Beginning now, the official online release is live at Devcon.org/Agenda.“

See Also: Devcon.org

---

“Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has refused to commit to the planned 2020 launch for the Libra cryptocurrency project.

Obviously we want to move forward at some point soon [and] not have this take many years to roll out. But right now I’m really focused on making sure that we do this well.”

---

“Analyzing price behavior from January 2018 to August 2019, the company found that 75% of the times immediately before CME issued payouts, Bitcoin fell. 

The figures thus support a hypothesis that the bitcoin price is manipulated in advance of CME settlement.”

---

---

“According to 1ML, the number of nodes on the LN has grown by 3.17% over the past 30 days to reach a record high of 10,003 network nodes at press time. At the same time, the number of nodes with active channels is 5,975 out of total of 36,246 channels at press time, with just a 0.34% growth over the past month.”

---

“Digix wants to build a global platform where DGX is available directly to users via over-the-counter (OTC) broker-dealers. The firm is particularly targeting Southeast Asian countries with its planned fiat-on ramping platform, where mobile payments and ePayment options are used as “everyday payment methods.”

The fiat-DGX currency pairs will include – Singapore Dollar, Thai Bhat, Philippine Peso, Burmese Kyat, Indonesian Rupiah, Euro and Sterling Pound (GBP). The project is expected to be fully operational by end of Q2’2020.”

---

“Founded by Prince Lorenzo de’ Medici, a descendant of the Renaissance-era Italian banking family, Medici Bank will join the short list of financial institutions that welcoming to crypto companies. ‘There are [fewer] than 10 banks on the entire planet that are crypto-friendly.’

Medici Bank is launching into private beta in October. The Puerto Rico-based bank will be testing the digital onboarding process, web portals and its application programming interface with five companies from around the globe. The bank plans to fully launch in the first quarter of 2020.”

---

“Kik hopes to go to trial as soon as May 2020. Meanwhile, the SEC’s action has slowed adoption of Kin and restricted trading.

The CEO said that he remains committed to Kin because he sees such tokens are the only way to tackle an ever-increasing concentration of wealth.”

“One explanation is that the temporary downturn in mining was connected with a move to update S9 ASIC miners from Bitmain ahead of the Bitcoin network’s forthcoming difficulty increase.

The head of research at digital asset manager CoinShares, has meanwhile attributed the sharp spike downward to a statistical relic.

Bitcoin hash rate is not a known measure. It can only be estimated from previous block intervals. Block times are Poisson distributed which sometimes causes large variance in block intervals. If several slow blocks happen in a row, it makes these estimates spike down.”

---

“Lloyds Bank, one of the “Big Four” clearing banks in the U.K., said that it would use Komgo’s platform ‘to enable quicker international commodity trade finance.’

Komgo’s DLT platform digitises and streamlines the commodity trade finance process, enabling businesses to quickly and automatically exchange data and associated documents across a wide range of solutions – from letters of credit and KYC management to receivables discounting – in a digital, secure and decentralised way.“

---

“Binance users can now buy crypto using their Visa and MasterCard debit and credit cards. The London-based payment processor charges 2.5% per transaction, with the purchased assets on average taking five to 20 minutes to reach a Binance wallet.

To date, Koinal does not support bank cards issued within Mainland China, Russia, the United States, Vietnam, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Algeria, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Taiwan and Cambodia.”

---

“With the new platform, SoFi joins a number of digital-first trading firms – including eToro and Robinhood – to enter the crypto market. Coinbase was tapped to provide the firm’s crypto liquidity.”

---

“H&R Block has rolled out a new service targeting people who have engaged in digital currency transactions, specifically providing consultations on how to properly file their cryptocurrency gains and losses on tax returns.”

---

“The current focus of the team is reportedly refining the protocol design, finalizing cryptographic proof construction, launching long-running testnets and growing the project’s community. 

Filecoin is developed by Protocol Labs, the creators of the decentralized data storage solution InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), which will work as an incentive system for Filecoin.”

---

It means nothing because Google’s quantum breakthrough is for a primitive type of quantum computing that is nowhere near breaking cryptography.

---

Tokenization […] provides inspiring new ways to classify value, either by creating new assets or reimagining traditional ones […] Businesses that take advantage of tokenization can open the door to entirely new process improvements, revenue streams and customer engagement opportunities.

“Data from Coin.dance — corroborated by other sources — indicates that the network’s hash rate plummeted yesterday from over 98,000,000 TH/S to 57,700,000 TH/s.

By press time, Bitcoin’s hash rate has somewhat recovered back to almost 88,300,000 TH/s — yet remains well below its earlier records.

The flash drop remains unexplained as of press time.”

---

“Following reports its crypto-focused subsidiary Kin had laid off 70 employees, Kik Interactive CEO Ted Livingston announced Monday that Kik will also be shutting down its core messaging service.

While the Kik app is shutting down, Livingston said the core developer team is pivoting toward developing the KIN token.

After 18 months of working with the SEC the only choice they gave us was to either label Kin a security or fight them in court. So with the SEC working to characterize almost all cryptocurrencies as securities we made the decision to step forward and fight. Kin is a currency used by millions of people in dozens of independent apps. So while the SEC might be able to push us around, taking on the broader Kin Ecosystem will be a much bigger fight.”

---

“Commissioner Hester M. Peirce expressed concern about “overriding investor preferences,” saying that the job of the SEC is not to make decisions for investors.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver asked Clayton whether any concerns had been sent to Facebook. Clayton said that there is a group within the SEC that is working on the question and has its doors open.

Rep. Anthony Gonzalez commented further on concerns that innovation in crypto was leaving the U.S. due to lack of regulation. He asked the commissioners: ‘when can we expect something a little bit more concrete from the SEC — or what are you doing to get there — so we can just provide some certainty here?‘ Gonzalez’s concluding remark was simply ‘Go faster.'” 

---

“Marsh & McLennan, the world’s largest insurance broker, has arranged an unusually generous and comprehensive insurance program for a new cryptocurrency custodian called KNØX.

Unveiled Tuesday, Montreal-based KNØX is courting wealth managers and hedge funds with its cold storage service, in which the cryptographic private keys to a wallet are kept offline. To give potential clients additional peace of mind, the insurance arranged by Marsh covers them in case of external theft and internal collusion, up to the full value of their holdings.”

---

“The new cryptocurrency payments system is launching via a partnership between point-of-sale technology provider Global POS, the EasyWallet application and payments platform Easy2Play.

While payments will be made in Bitcoin (BTC), funds will be automatically converted into euros at the moment of sale.  While Bitcoin remains the sole cryptocurrency on the cards for now, Dijane has indicated the platform intends to roll out support for altcoins in the future.”

---

“Bitfinex has announced the relaunch of its Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) platform Tokinex as Bitfinex Token Sales and will offer the token of P2P digital content and monetization blockchain K.IM on October 22.

I founded K.im to allow artists, content creators and digital businesses to cut out all the middlemen and sell content and digital goods without censorship.”

---

“Bitfinex does not need to continue turning over documents to the New York Attorney General’s office (OAG) – at least, for now. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court has stayed a previous ruling by New York Supreme Court Judge Joel Cohen.

An NYAG spokesperson told CoinDesk that, ‘The injunction that prohibits the movement of money between Tether and Bitfinex is still in place, that has not changed. We look forward to making our case in court as we seek to have Judge Cohen’s decision upheld and continue our investigation.'”

---

“The point of the Connext Network is to help Ethereum to process more transactions without actually changing the nature of the Ethereum network itself.

To do so, Connext runs on Counterfactual, a protocol for using state channels on the Ethereum mainnet.”

---

“The SEC has begun evaluating the proposed rule change to allow NYSE Arca to list and trade shares of Wilshire Phoenix’s Bitcoin and Treasury Investment Trust.

The SEC faces a final deadline to approve or disapprove a bitcoin ETF proposed by Bitwise Asset Management in the middle of October.”

---

“To meed the internationally recognized ISO/IEC 27001 standard, Binance said, it was audited by Norway based DNV GL, an international accredited registrar and classification society, and the United Kingdom Accreditation Service.

For the audits, Binance was examined on 114 criteria across 14 categories, including security policy, asset management, operational security and information systems.

Obtaining the ISO certification is one significant aspect of our security commitment to the industry and our community. We will continue to advance our investment and endeavours in improving cyber security defense.”

“After two delays and 13 months of questions, the Intercontinental Exchange-backed bitcoin warehouse and futures contract facilitator is launching Monday, opening the door for institutional investors to take positions on the cryptocurrency in a federally regulated venue.

It is unlikely that there will be an immediate surge in demand. Institutional adoption won’t occur with a single catalyst.

It will take time for these entities to become comfortable with the asset class, identify strategies that are best used to trade the space, understand crypto market liquidity, and also understand the different regulatory and tax obligations across jurisdictions they operate in.

The contract is “well-designed,” Sarumi added. ‘The basis to the cash market would be very tight. It’ll be interesting to see if it’s the lead or the follower. In theory the cash market should dictate the price of the derivatives [futures] market. In practice, it’s the other way around for a lot of commodities.'”

See Also: Bakkt CEO: 3 Reasons Why Today’s Bitcoin Product Launch Is a Big Deal
See Also: Bakkt Exchange’s Bitcoin Futures See Slow Start on First Day of Trading

---

“BSDEX will open for German retail and institutional investors slowly followed by the entire EU. As of now, BSDEX is trading only one pair, the bitcoin-euro. The exchange said it plans on adding ethereum, litecoin, and XRP euro trading pairs this year and tokenized assets sometime in 2020.

BSDEX will give retail and institutional investors direct access to digital assets and provide flexible and relatively low-cost trading.”

See Also: Swiss Stock Exchange SIX Launches Digital Assets Exchange Prototype

---

“50 percent of the basket will be the U.S. dollar, while the remaining portion will consist of the euro, the yen, the British pound and the Singapore dollar, with 18 percent, 14 percent, 11 percent, and seven percent, respectively.

The basket will not include the Chinese yuan, the legal tender of the world’s second-largest economy.”

See Also: PBoC Denies Claims It Will Launch Digital Currency in November

---

“Our clients are ready to work with [Facebook] and we’re ready to work with all of them to bring it together.

The company is looking to spur collaboration in the space, noting that ‘blockchain is a team sport.‘ Kelly did not say whether the firm was interested in joining the Libra Association.”

---

“uPort has entered a partnership with Onfido and PwC to develop blockchain-based identity management in the United Kingdom’s financial sector.

The Ethereum-based digital identity platform uPort said the three firms are exploring how portable identity verification can improve the sign-up process for customers and reduce compliance costs.

Our view is that consumers will eventually be able to build dynamic, robust financial identities based on data from all financial institutions they have accounts at, and be able to port their identities across service providers.“

---

“The number of initiatives dedicated to scaling the ethereum blockchain is manifold. Ethereum 2.0, Plasma, Raiden, zk-SNARKs – the list goes on.

We believe the on-chain data availability and … scaling solution the Matter Labs team is building will be the integral piece in accelerating the growth of [ethereum’s decentralized finance] space.

Matter Labs has built a prototype of its scalable payments platform and is working towards creating a new minimum viable product over the coming months.”

---

“Venture capitalists are becoming more interested in the concept of truly owning digital items. The latest evidence: Naspers Ventures led a $15 million round in Immutable Games, the maker of Gods Unchained.

Similarly, Dapper Labs, the firm behind the ERC-720 standard that spurred the boom in NFTs with its CrypoKitties game, just announced an $11 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz. These are significant bets by some of the biggest investors in crypto.

True ownership of digital objects reflects the next paradigm for interactive content by aligning the long-term incentives of publishers, developers, creators and players.”

---

“Networking giant Cisco Systems selected the blockchain-based platform developed by SingularityNET to host its decentralized AGI project.

SingularityNET’s platform democratizes AI by decentralizing its source, preventing any single force or player from hoarding computers’ capacity to learn. Cisco and SingularityNET see the potential in building AGI together, according to Goertzel.

To really build a global decentralized thinking machine we are going to need to put a lot of complicated ingredients together, and the collaboration between Cisco and SingularityNET has the potential to accelerate things tremendously.”

---

“According to the report, the IFRIC has ruled that cryptocurrencies are ‘not cash nor an equity instrument of another entity,‘ but rather “intangible assets” — defined as ‘identifiable non-monetary assets without physical substance.‘

The IFRIC’s position with regards to cryptocurrencies will enable governments to establish a legal basis for taxation and businesses to sketch out frameworks for corporate accounting. The report further argues, however, that the position represents a setback regarding cryptocurrencies’ prospective recognition or status as currencies.”

---

“The report reveals that the cleanest exchanges since its latest report continue to be Kraken, Coinbase, Poloniex, and Upbit. OKEx and Bibox, on the other hand, are the exchanges with the highest rates of wash trading.

Since the start of 2019, global wash trading has reduced by 35.7% among the real Top-40 exchanges.”

We’re live!

The first Bakkt Bitcoin Futures trade was executed at 8:02pm ET at a price of $10,115

— Bakkt (@Bakkt) September 23, 2019

Sunday Reading. Grab a coffee and dig in — Highly recommended read!
(Part 1 is summarized below)

“The innovation behind the Internet was to make data cheap, available, and infinitely copiable. However, cheap, available, copiable is the opposite of what money and value is. Money and value is by definition scare, expensive, and difficult to access.

When Bitcoin solved the Internet’s double-spend problem, it achieved creating Internet scarcity. However, with Bitcoin, this is only true if you are sending bitcoins; the Bitcoin protocol only provides scarcity to bitcoins, nothing else.

This is where Ethereum comes in: a platform for providing digital scarcity for any digital asset. “Tokenization”, and the ERC20 standard, is the printing-press for digital scarcity. As a result, Ethereum has become the asset-agnostic settlement layer for the Internet. Because of its permissionlessness and openness, any asset can come to Ethereum and use it for management of its scarcity and settlement between parties.

Ethereum exists as a new layer on the Internet. Ethereum is the value-layer of the Internet.

The Internet of Web 2 is the Internet of centralized databases and centralized data. While the Internet of Web 2 is saturated, and dominated by gargantuans, Web 3 provides an unclaimed landscape of potential value-applications.

Open Finance on Ethereum has begun to lock-in Ethereum as a global value settlement platform. The open finance movement that started as a curiosity in 2018, has erupted into what is perhaps Ethereum’s main purpose: A network for permissionless financial applications and services.“

---

“With the Token Builder, you can create tokens that track the price of anything (the S&P 500, the # of Twitter/IG followers someone has, the # of upvotes your meme has…). All you have to do is choose the price feed and deposit DAI.

UMA is a decentralized financial contracts platform built to enable Universal Market Access. Use UMA’s self-enforcing contract design patterns and provably honest oracle mechanism to create your own financial products.”

---

“Introducing Charts, a new tool for traders, researchers, and journalists to compare up to ten cryptocurrencies at one time across multiple sentiment, fundamental, and market metrics.”

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“The main result is that lightning network is as secure as bitcoin. An honest participant of lightning network can only lose their money if the signatures or the hash function used by bitcoin are broken.

While the specification verification is an important step, it only applies to the code blueprint of lightning and not the software implementations that have been produced by developers. There are three main lightning network implementations. ‘Our analysis is based on the formal specification, not an implementation.'”

---

“This guide will walk you through how to set your computer up to interact with the beta when it launches on the 24th of September 

Good read.

“The reserve asset quality of ETH provides utility to the Ethereum economy.

Here’s how Vitalik Buterin put it last week:

ETH has a lot of intrinsic utility as a reserve asset for the Ethereum ecosystem. It’s the only fully trustless asset that can be used as collateral for a lot of decentralized finance applications. It’s the natural asset to use for things like security deposits. It’s the most convenient asset to use for payments between Ethereum applications.

ETH as collateral backing. ETH for security deposits. ETH to balance transactions. ETH providing intrinsic utility to the Ethereum economy not just for fuel or for network security, but through its value as a reserve asset.”

---

“Last week, seven of the eight Eth2 clients under active development succeeded in marking the major milestone of moving from single-client to multi-client testnets at the “Interop Lock-in”

• All 7 clients in attendence were successfully run on a single network.
• All participating languages’ libp2p implementations are now interoperable 
• Isolated load tests with Nimbus and Lighthouse handled 2000+ validators on a single machine paired with similarly full nodes over LAN.
• Multiple clients were built and tested on a small raspberry pi network.

Interop marked a major inflection point for Eth2. There is still much work to accomplish before launch, but engineering efforts will increasingly be geared toward testnets, optimizations, and usability – work that begins to shift this software into the hands of users.”

See Also: Ethereum 2.0 Development Update #35 — Prysmatic Labs

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“The goal of Proof of Stake is the be the most efficient way to keep a public blockchain validated, not to maximize rewards for a specific use case.”
— Vitalik Buterin

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“The project has long been plagued by fears that its structure was too centralized, and now the lion’s share of entities that govern the chain are in China, prompting fears of state intervention.

EOS contributors devoted to building decentralized apps (dapps) and development tools for the blockchain are losing clout – and making little or no money from contributing to the health of the ecosystem.

Luzgin left, in short, because he said it is no longer possible to earn funds for maintaining the blockchain without support from major EOS whales. Those whales are overwhelmingly supporting BPs located in China.

I can’t help but think that’s the new trend. This downward spiral (which ultimately is just a race to the bottom) isn’t a good situation to be in, as rent seekers continue to take over.”

---

“It has around [a] five-second master chain block time [confirmation], and an average of about two to three seconds on the work chain.

Blockchain critic David Gerard has long noted that documentation on the TON network never adequately addressed security concerns, and this new documentation doesn’t do much better.

But that’s not all: Telegram has given little information about where and how user data is stored. ‘There are more users here than on any other chain, and having it stored in a proper place is one of the largest concerns.’ With a novel, untested protocol, launching to more people than ever before, TON is a risky business.”

---

“Specifically, the developments will focus on the means of distributing staking revenues and greater engagement of the community.

TRON Partner Staking & Vote Reward: for each block, the most-voted 127 nodes (TRON partners) will receive TRX rewards in proportion to the votes they get.”

“The IMF said banks could lose their role as intermediaries, as the public would switch to stablecoin providers.

The blog further states that new monopolies represented by tech giants could evolve. As such, tech companies could use their networks to sidestep rivals and monetize data.

In countries subject to inflationary changes, stablecoins in foreign currency could replace local currencies, the blog noted, which could subsequently undermine monetary policy and financial development.”

---

“Derivatives marketplace CME Group has announced that it will offer options on its bitcoin futures contracts starting in the first quarter of next year.

Based on increasing client demand and robust growth in our Bitcoin futures markets, we believe the launch of options will provide our clients with additional flexibility to trade and hedge their bitcoin price risk. These new products are designed to help institutions and professional traders to manage spot market bitcoin exposure, as well as hedge Bitcoin futures positions in a regulated exchange environment.”

---

“Firstly, the spot market has become more efficient, with the average deviation of Bitcoin prices across the top 10 exchanges falling. Although this was just below 1% back in December 2017, it has now dropped further to under 0.1%.

In addition, many new institutional-grade Bitcoin custody services are springing up. Meanwhile, this year has seen record Bitcoin futures volumes on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, suggesting that the regulated futures market is now of significant size.

Bitwise hopes that this will allay the SEC’s concerns over its Bitcoin ETF application, and finally give it a green light next month.”

---

“The U.S. House Financial Services Committee plans to question the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about cryptocurrencies and Facebook’s Libra project next week. The committee will hold a one-panel hearing with SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, as well as Commissioners Robert Jackson, Elad Roisman, Allison Lee and “Crypto Mom” Hester Pierce on Sept. 24.

The hearing will cover the SEC’s actions around the cryptocurrency space, as well as private markets vs. public markets; public company disclosures; enforcement; and fiduciary responsibilities.

Thursday’s notice also hints at possible securities implications for Libra’s companion token, which would be distributed to members of the association.”

See Also: Facebook Set on 2020 Launch for Libra, Despite Regulators’ Pushback

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“Transaction support for monero (XMR), dash (DASH), zcash(ZEC), bittube (TUBE), and PIVX (PIVX) will end Monday, Sept. 30.

Upbit announced its investigation of the 6 coins at the beginning of September. The exchange was determining if the privacy coins met the requirements listed by the FATF guidance issued last June.”

---

“Ripple has filed a controversial motion to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of selling unregistered securities. Now, fresh suspicions are swirling after the lawyers’ motion to dismiss failed to address the securities aspect of XRP at all. 

They make twelve separate arguments for dismissal of the plaintiff’s claims. Not a single one squarely addresses whether XRP is an unregistered security.”

---

“Waves is transitioning to a self-regulating monetary system, allowing the community to determine the block generation reward size and coin supply.

The reward for block generation is to be agreed by network participants via a voting process that concludes every 100,000 blocks, or around 70 days. Block rewards can be increased or decreased by 0.5 WAVES each period or left unchanged.

The new model will purportedly benefit miners as it will enable them to express their preference in monetary policy and increase their revenues by up to 5% annually.”

---

“Telecommunications conglomerate Verizon is eyeing the use of blockchain technology to underpin the dynamic creation of virtual SIM cards. The patent describes how a physical SIM card can be replaced by a software equivalent – a virtual SIM (vSIM) – that is secured with blockchain-based encryption.

In one implementation, users can accept new vSIM certificates into a user account, transfer a vSIM among client devices associated with the user account, or deliver a vSIM certificate to another user.”

---

“Nebula has rolled out anonymous genetic testing, enabling clients to purchase whole genome sequencing and provide saliva samples without the need to share personal data such as their name, address or credit card number.

Enabling individuals to remain anonymous would eliminate the dependence on data de-identification by personal genomics companies prior to data sharing with researchers.”

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“Fees for takers is down to five basis points from eight bps on the Seed Digital Commodities Market, while makers, who previously traded on the exchange for free, receive one bp rebate.

Crypto exchanges charge five to 20 to 25 times, potentially, as what you would charge in equity trading. We have seen a bunch of exchange startups and then a number of additional over-the-counter desks providing liquidity. These new entrances to the market over the past one and a half years has made execution more competitive.”