Good read.

“We analyzed the returns of lending DAI on Compound, supplying liquidity to Uniswap’s DAI-ETH pool, or investing in TokenSets’ ETH 20-Day and 50-Day Moving Average Crossover Strategies from the 3rd of December, 2018 until the 31st of October, 2019.

Compound earned a 7.1% return.  The Uniswap DAI-ETH pool earned a 18.15% return. The 20-Day MACO strategy outperforms the ETH buy-and-hold strategy by generating a 78.7% return, but the 50-Day strategy significantly underperforms with a 22.5% return. An Ethereum buy-and-hold strategy realized a 69.3% return and Bitcoin realized 131.4%.

Another interesting development in DeFi is the tokenization of investment positions. This means that the Compound deposit can be transferred and deposited into other smart contracts, like Uniswap (a cDAI-ETH pool exists). cDAI-ETH liquidity providers therefore earn both Compound’s DAI interest rate and the trading fees from the pool.“

---

“Today, we are proud to announce the Origin e-commerce store, a decentralized, open source alternative to Shopify, hosted entirely on IPFS with an ENS domain.

Shopify charges $79/month for their standard plan. Origin’s e-commerce store is free to run, and transaction fees are limited to crypto gas costs. Shopify prohibits certain products from sale. With Origin Store, there are no restrictions on what you can sell, now or ever. Customer and order details are encrypted with PGP before being uploaded to IPFS.”

---

---

“Currently, there are three candidates within .08 of the leader Biden (.25/share); Buttigieg (.20), Warren (.19), and Bernie Sanders (.17); with recently confirmed candidate Mike Bloomberg bringing up fifth at .12/share.”

---

“The study points out that the increased adoption of blockchain and IoT in the supply chain industry will add significant value to the food business’s supply chain. By stacking these innovative technologies, the food industry could stack up to $31 billion in food fraud savings in just five years.

The most-adopted blockchain tracking solution within the field is IBM’s Food Trust, which is based on the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain protocol.”

“Previously, banks were barred from offering direct access to crypto assets, but the new law implementing the fourth EU Money Laundering Directive would change that. The bill has already been passed by the German federal parliament.

Germany is well on its way to becoming a crypto-heaven. The German legislator is playing a pioneering role in the regulation of [crypto assets].”

---

“At least five Chinese cryptocurrency exchanges have halted or chosen to terminate operations this month in response to a perceived redoubling of Beijing’s anti-crypto stance.

It appears that, like everything else within their borders, China feels it needs to have tighter controls on the crypto market including exchanges, miners and asset issuers.”

---

“Crypto exchange Bakkt’s chief executive Kelly Loeffler has reportedly been picked by Governor Brian Kemp to serve in the U.S. Senate until the special election in November 2020. 

Isakson is set to leave office before the expiration of his term in 2022. Kemp has authority to pick a replacement to fill in until the special election in November 2020.”

---

“The San Jose, Calif.-based company submitted a patent application in June 2018 for a blockchain platform that can be natively integrated in wireless networks. The blockchain platform aims to manage data sessions between an equipment user, such as a phone or laptop, and a virtual network.“

---

“IBM’s solution is to outfit packages with an IoT sensor that only triggers if it detects a change in altitude. Once it does, the sensor periodically updates the blockchain, and the intended recipient, with the package’s altitude.”

---

“At the start of each DigixDAO Quarter, DGD token holders will be given the option of dissolution through a vote. Depending on the result of the vote, DigixDAO will either dissolve at the end of the current Quarter or continue for an additional Quarter.

If the dissolution vote passes, DGD token holders will be able to claim a pro-rated portion of remaining ETH in DigixDAO depending on the amount of DGD they hold. We would like to make our position clear that Digix is against the dissolution. DGX gold tokens will remain even if dissolution occurs.“

---

“The Cardano Foundation has launched AdaPay, an ADA payment gateway for merchants. The solution allows merchants to accept ADA payments with “near-instant” settlement in 35 fiat currencies directly in their bank accounts.”

---

“The state power utility UP Power Corporation Limited and UP New and Renewable Energy Development Agency have partnered with Power Ledger to launch a trial of P2P solar energy trading to examine its practicability.

During the trial, Power Ledger will integrate its blockchain-based platform with smart meter systems to enable residents with rooftop solar infrastructure to set prices, track energy trading and settle surplus solar energy transactions via smart contracts.“

---

“If it is decided to ban cryptocurrencies as a means of payment at the legislative level, we consider it appropriate to support this position.

Legislation clarifying the legal status of cryptocurrencies, including mining and token sales, was reported to be passing through the State Duma by the end of the last summer session, but has seen delays.”

---

“Virgil Griffith, who has lately been working at the Ethereum Foundation, has been arrested for allegedly going to a conference in North Korea and sharing his expertise in using cryptocurrency. Recently, he has been working to certify ethereum as compliant with Islamic law.

At the DPRK Cryptocurrency Conference, GRIFFITH and other attendees discussed how blockchain and cryptocurrency technology could be used by the DPRK to launder money and evade sanctions, and how the DPRK could use these technologies to achieve independence from the global banking system.”

---

“Poloniex will now operate TRX Market under the new name “Poloni DEX.” The move comes a month after Poloniex itself spun out from owner Circle.

Sun’s wording nonetheless appeared to confuse social media users. Senior market analyst at fellow trading platform eToro, quizzed Sun about how a notionally decentralized entity could possibly be placed under another entity’s control.”

Chart of the Day:

---

“Coinbase has patented a self-learning compliance enforcer that shutters “bad” user accounts. It assigns an overall compliance score from a variety of factors, including user age, account balance, transaction volume, location, verification history and the number of devices with access.

The compliance enforcer also measures ‘the level of due diligence that has been performed on the respective account, and any past history of compliance review in determining whether the account is bad or good.'”

---

“EOS Block Producer “EOS New York” has published data purportedly showing that six registered producers on the network are managed by a single entity.

DPOS is not BFT [Byzantine Fault Tolerant]. Let’s be upfront and honest about it.”

---

“With Ethereum 2 moving closer to launch, Bitcoin Suisse is pleased to announce its ETH2 staking service. Clients will retain 85% of the earnings from the incoming rewards.

Since the beginning in Zug in 2013, Bitcoin Suisse has maintained a close relationship with the Ethereum community and continues to do so in the transition to proof-of-stake with the upcoming Serenity upgrade.”

---

“Big Four audit firm KPMG has officially launched a blockchain-based track and trace platform in Australia, China and Japan. The platform enables trading partners to communicate product data across their supply chains to end users.

A blockchain solution, such as KPMG Origins, could provide a platform which will enable end-users to capture the sustainability credentials of the product directly from the grower to customer.”

---

“The Klaytn platform, which is developed by Kakao’s blockchain subsidiary Ground X, currently has 27 firms in its Governance Council.

Facebook’s Libra launched last month with aims to recruit 100 partners. Libra is taking a similar approach to ours, but it has yet to experience the milestones we have crossed. […] Next year, Klaytn will become Asia’s biggest blockchain consortium.”

See Also: EToro: Facebook Should Drop Libra and Support Third-Party Stablecoins

---

See Also: What the Fed Reserve’s Balance Sheet Expansion Means for Bitcoin

---

“Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for an official visit yesterday to discuss joint policy measures, including a digital currency plan. 

The UACEB-SAMA digital currency is named “Aber” and will be limited to financial settlements using distributed ledger technologies ‘on a probational basis and exclusive use by a limited number of banks in the two countries.'”

---

“Large financial services company Fidelity Investments is incentivizing its employees with digital currencies.

ERC-1404 [tokens] are used to restrict certain services, like whitelisting certain investing, blacklisting others, or capping the amount that can be gifted. This helps companies like Fidelity stay on the right side of the law.

Our team was excited to test this new token with Fidelity’s club members. For employees, it’s a real use case for restricted tokens and gives them an opportunity to get hands-on experience with tokens.”

---

See Also: Antonopoulos: Cash-Settled Bitcoin Futures Traders Face ‘Black Hole’

“On Nov. 27, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said that it recognizes the potential of blockchain technology and the need for the development of a shared infrastructure to carry out related use cases.

The Ministry added that it is working on the “National Level Blockchain Framework.” While India may be pro-blockchain, its stance toward cryptocurrencies is decidedly hostile.”

---

“HSBC aims to shift $20 billion worth of assets to a new blockchain-based custody platform by March, in one of the biggest deployments yet of the widely-hyped but still unproven technology.

The platform, known as Digital Vault, will give investors real-time access to records of securities bought on private markets.”

---

“As the launch of the beacon chain grows nearer and eth2 becomes ever more final, the time has come to fast-sync the community. This article will provide a high-level overview of eth2 which will form the basis for a series on all aspects of eth2 relevant to validators.

Design Philosophy:

• Safety and liveness take precedence over other design desiderata
• eth2 should be capable of surviving World War 3
• eth2 is designed to scale to millions of validators while encouraging these validators to work independently of one another
• Components of eth2 are resistant to quantum computers
• eth2 must be able to run on a consumer laptop

See Also: eth2 Phase2 Deep Dive
See Also: Stateless Clients for eth1

---

“Instead of deciding the ratio of currencies in its basket itself, the value of Saga’s coin replicates the Special Drawing Right (SDR)—a reserve basket of currencies that’s been maintained by the International Monetary Fund since 1969. 

Man said that a corporate structure—like, say, Libra—is ‘ill-fitted to issue a currency because of the simple truth, which is that the corporation is designed to serve shareholders, while a currency needs to maintain accountability to the currency holders.'”

See Also: Stablecoins Can Temper US Dollar Hegemony Risks

---

“Telegram has successfully purged a swathe of IS-related content, seriously disrupting the propaganda issued by the militant group, European Union crime agency Europol announced on Friday. 

The messaging app’s actions to beef up security suggests that it’s cozying up to regulators ahead of legal proceedings over its cryptocurrency TON.  

‘ISIS and their likes will have [a] hard time on Telegram if they continue to spread their message of violence and hatred,’ said Telegram CEO, Pavel Durov in a statement Tuesday.”

---

“Academics have extensively researched the impact of developing derivatives markets on the volatility of underlying assets and have overwhelmingly concluded that derivatives help to stabilize prices. This is particularly true for options.

With the CBOE officially out, expect the competition between CME and ICE to be heating up in 2020 as the two exchanges roll out their options offering.

It would be particularly encouraging to see corporate hedging flows taking off, led by mining companies and supported by physically delivered and options contracts.”

---

“The West African nation’s central bank said Tuesday that Ghana could issue a digital form of the nation’s currency, the cedi, in the “near future”. The technology behind Addison’s proposed “e-cedi” digital currency is as yet unclear.”

---

“The move is aimed at ‘increasing legal certainty, removing barriers for applications based on distributed ledger technology (DLT) and reducing the risk of abuse.’

The nation is already known as one that is crypto and blockchain friendly, with its Zug region playing host to a large number of industry firms.”

---

“Zooming out the lens a bit and taking a macro perspective, experts note at least three plausible reasons to think this may be just a hiccup for bitcoin.

On the demand side, institutional trading platforms like Bakkt and Fidelity Digital Asset Services (FDAS) are starting to see uptake. Retail bitcoin purchases are on the rise at the popular consumer app Square as well. And all else equal, the expected halving of mining rewards next year bodes well on the supply side since it will reduce the amount of new bitcoin regularly injected into the market.

The fundamentals around BTC and increasing institutional adoption continue up and to the right.”

---

“Average block propagation time – the time a block needs to be produced and shared throughout a blockchain – dropped to 172 milliseconds, less than half the current average time of 360 milliseconds.

We don’t send the entire block because if the other gateways know the transaction out of there, you don’t need to send the actual data itself.

BDN is already running in some large mining pools and will continue to be gradually introduced to larger pools. Once it does, he says block capacity will increase and fees could fall.“

---

“An EY team is putting “blood on a blockchain” to seek a better donor experience, transparency of blood operations, and to one day, drive better patient results.

The prototype has the potential to truly help change lives. Every blood donation is needed – and eventually each bag of blood could be paired with someone who needs it.“

---

“The partnership, announced Wednesday, means the London-based Elliptic will monitor transactions passing through Zilliqa, including those in Zilliqa’s ZIL crypto and in the upcoming Singaporean dollar-pegged stablecoin XSGD, set for release in December.

If this source is one of the illicit wallets we have previously identified, the business is alerted and can take steps to prevent the money laundering from taking place.”

---

“The decentralized exchange platform announced the official launch of its New Year’s Eve airdrop, which will give away its ETHBNT liquidity pool tokens to 60,000 people. 

A Bancor spokesperson said that the point of the airdrop is to improve DEX liquidity and significantly expand the use of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.”

---

“Major South Korean cryptocurrency exchange — run by a subsidiary of Korean tech giant Kakao — has notified users of the theft of 342,000 Ether (ETH) from its hot wallet.

The exchange has pledged to protect user assets, stating that the 342,000 ETH (roughly $50 million by press time) will be covered by corporate assets. Deposits and withdrawals will take at least two weeks to resume.”

“Former head of the People’s Bank of China Xiaochuan Zhou said the country will stress the retail use of digital payments for the digital yuan.

There are two goals for international digital currencies. The first one, which is also what China envisions is to develop digital payment and its use for retail system in the country, while the other goal is to cross-border payment for international financial institutions.”

---

“Three national units of the Red Cross — the largest humanitarian donor after the United Nations — are backing a blockchain-based currency scheme to enhance aid delivery and boost local economies, with a target set to onboard 320,000 users within two years.

Red Cross societies of Norway, Denmark and Kenya have launched a two-year plan to replace cash and voucher provision in aid and development efforts with blockchain-backed “local currencies.”

The new blockchain scheme, which has already been tested in parts of Kenya and Ethiopia, has been found to improve trade in poor communities by allowing local users to earn credits created from work, sales or aid infusions and spend them via a mobile phone app.”

---

“South Korea’s National Assembly is progressing a bill that will provide a legal basis for cryptocurrencies in the country. The bill categorizes virtual currencies as digital assets and intends to bring regulatory clarity and transparency to crypto markets.

Under the bill, all crypto-related businesses in South Korea would be required to register.”

---

“Signed by District Judge P. Kevin Castel at the New York Southern District Court on Monday, Durov’s deposition should take place on Jan. 7 or 8, 2020. That would be a little more than a month before Telegram is scheduled to meet the SEC in court to dispute the legal status of the gram token.”

---

“Ripple, in its final payment, bought $20 million of MoneyGram equity at a price of $4.10 per share, more than a dollar per share over the stock’s current price of around $3.00. With the completion of the deal, Ripple owns just under 10 percent of MoneyGram’s outstanding common stock.

Since June, MoneyGram has begun using XRP to conduct transactions in Europe, Australia and the Philippines.”

Highly recommended read.

“In 2014, I made a post and a presentation with a list of hard problems in math, computer science and economics that I thought were important for the cryptocurrency space (as I then called it) to be able to reach maturity.

In the last five years, much has changed. But exactly how much progress on what we thought then was important has been achieved? Where have we succeeded, where have we failed, and where have we changed our minds about what is important? In this post, I’ll go through the 16 problems from 2014 one by one, and see just where we are today on each one. At the end, I’ll include my new picks for hard problems of 2019.” (Vitalik)

---

“The central bank of France wants the eurozone to build a blockchain-based settlement system that will move euros more quickly and at less cost than with existing technologies.

We, at the Banque de France, are therefore quite open for experiments in that direction, together with the European Central Bank (ECB) and other central banks of the Eurosystem, in particular with regard to a wholesale CBDC.”

---

See Also: MakerDAO Oracles (Video)

---

“The number of Ether (ETH) locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications reached an all-time high of 2.7 million and has been steadily growing since the end of June. 

Of the 2.7 million ETH locked, 2.1 million (77%) are locked in the system behind the DAI stablecoin, Maker. Additionally, 337,800 ETH (12.5%) are currently locked in the decentralized lending application Compound.”

---

“0.19.0.1 includes a range of performance improvements, updates and bug fixes, resulting from 550 merged pull requests.

The “bech32” address format (BIP 173) is now set for the first time as the default option in the Bitcoin Core wallet Graphical User Interface (GUI).”

---

“Registered in Switzerland, Waves is striving to become a key blockchain provider for the Russian state. Based in Moscow, in a large office in the middle of a hipster office cluster, Waves is walking a fine line between being friendly with Russia’s state-controlled corporations (many of which are sanctioned by the U.S. and Europe) and building a positive image for the global market.

The company has recently secured partnerships with several entities linked to the Russian government.“

---

“Defendants’ control of USD₮ issuances and Bitfinex permitted Defendants and their co-conspirators to coordinate purchases and sales with rising and falling Bitcoin prices. When Bitcoin prices were falling, Defendants and their co-conspirators printed USD₮s and artificially increased the price of Bitcoin. Once Defendants and their co-conspirators artificially inflated the price of Bitcoin, Defendants and their co-conspirators then converted the Bitcoin back into USD₮s to replenish Tether’s reserves.

Bitfinex took to its blog Sunday to call the Washington case ‘mercenary and baseless.'”

“My ideal: card holds stablecoin like DAI or cDAI in smart-contract (no custody), earns interest while it sits, converts to USD when used as a Debit card, safe to leave 1-3 month amount in card account, no unnecessary token.

My ideal card isn’t available today of course, though some might be getting close. And I’m hopeful I won’t have to wait long—there are many cards coming to market in the coming months.“

See Also: A Berlin Odyssey — 7 Days of Crypto-Living on Monolith’s ETH Debit Card (Good read)

---

See Also: AA on CBDCs (video)

---

“Eight new testimonies from diplomats with knowledge of the call to Ukrainian President Zelensky were made to members of Congress this week. No single soundbite or testimony had a remarkable impact on the odds. As is, the markets predict that the House of Representatives will indeed move forward with articles of impeachment; however, the odds of Trump being convicted in the GOP-controlled Senate and removed from office are even lower (0.15/share).

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren just cannot catch a break, seeing her odds of securing the nomination (currently .25/share) reach their lowest point since August.“

---

“Cryptonetworks, a form of digital cooperatives, are redefining the way we collaborate in the modern economy, enabling all stakeholders to voice their opinions, vote and strengthen participation – thus, creating an urgent need for a new generation of coordination tools and applications.

Built on the Aragon technology framework, we offer an end-to-end suite of tools for management of open organizations, including bounties, work prioritization, dividends, budgeting, and multi-recipient financial allocations. With these tools, the possibilities for how to reward and incentivize a network of contributors has been expanded.”

---

---

“This year we’ve seen the release of Argent Wallet: an Ethereum non-custodial smart contract wallet with built-in recovery tools and improved accessibility features.

Argent introduces Guardians where wallet owners can assign trusted devices or individuals to recover their funds without the need for a private key or seed phrase; allows you to set daily limits and withdrawals on your account; and users no longer have to worry about having ETH in their wallets in order to transact their favorite ERC-20 tokens, like Dai.”

See Also: Dharma Wallet
See Also: ENS Ecosystem Update

---

---

“While we are explicitly targeting these tools at businesses and organizations, they are all about enabling people-centric data in the real world. We believe this will allow people to take control of their data together with the organizations they interact with daily.

uPort Serto allows multiple ecosystems to reference each other and finally makes it easy to connect data and rules from many different sources.”

---

“The CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance has vowed to sue industry media outlet The Block over alleged false reporting. Specifically, CZ took The Block to task over its claims Binance encountered a police raid, and that it even had a Shanghai office at all.”

See Also: New Narrative for the Next Bull Run (video)

---

“‘If investors see activities and operations related to virtual currencies in any form, they can report to authorities,’ the bank said in today’s announcement, stressing the distinction between blockchain technologies and virtual currencies. 

The bank plans to monitor crypto-related activities continuously and ‘nip the small and early-stage businesses in the bud‘ to protect investors.  

The bank also listed some of the most common “fraught” crypto activities ranging from initial futures offerings, initial exchange offerings, initial mainnet offerings, security token offerings and ICOs.”

See Also: China: Shenzhen Identifies 39 Crypto Exchanges Defying Trading Ban
See Also: Bitcoin Nosedives because of China? (video)

---

---

“Decentralized, privately-issued digital currencies are not simply a means of payment, but also tools that can shift functions traditionally performed by the government to the private sector.

Digital currencies at scale raise not only concrete questions about money laundering, monetary policy, and other topics, but also very abstract questions about self-government. Those engaged in digital currency markets should therefore expect that policymakers, in pursuing the public interest, will take a very hard look at these issues.”

See Also: CFTC Chair on Crypto Regulation: We Don’t Want to Snuff out Innovation

---

“If you’re looking for crypto presents for the holiday season, we’ve rounded up a selection of gifts to suit all wallets.”

---

See Also: How to Migrate SAI to DAI (video)

---

“The move would likely give FDAS access to a broader market and liquidity for smaller trades. OTC desks primarily trade with larger institutions and high-roller “whale” investors, whereas exchanges serve retail traders and smaller institutions.

After FDAS has onboarded New York clients, it plans in the new year to begin onboarding new assets, developing its trading capabilities, scaling its business and pursuing licenses in other states where it is not currently doing business.

[We’re] seeing traction up-market for institutional customers for security tokens and other financial assets. We think this trend will really show up in Q1 2020 when customers with potential registered offerings plan to come to the market.”

---

“Alibaba Pictures reportedly plans to tokenize distribution rights for its new film “Striding into the Wind.” The overseas distribution rights will reportedly be released on SingularDTV’s Ethereum blockchain-based distribution portal EtherVision.

The tokenization of movie ownership, could radically change film financing. As it currently stands, film financing is generally limited to a small number of high-wealth investors, but with tokenization, smaller investors could also benefit from a movie’s success.”

---

“In rolling out its staking services to a global investor base, Coinbase Custody appears to be leveraging its brand recognition to promote staking as a key emergent investment strategy for the blockchain and cryptocurrency space.”

---

“Stablecoin issuers may themselves compromise the potential financial autonomy of citizens by introducing blacklists that enable them to freeze stablecoins held at specific addresses.

The issuers of Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), TrueUSD (TUSD), Pax Standard (PAX), and Binance USD (BUSD) all have this functionality, the report notes.”

---

“The European Investment Fund (EIF) and the European Commission have together put up €100 million (over $110 million) for a dedicated investment scheme that will make capital available to AI and blockchain projects via VC funds or other investors.

The fund could ultimately raise up to €2 billion ($2.2 billion) under the InvestEU Programme.”

---

“GDLCF will purportedly be the first publicly-quoted security based on a basket of digital currencies in the United States. As of Oct. 31, 2019, DLC included 80.6% of Bitcoin, 9.2% of Ether, 6.0% of XRP, 2.5% of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and 1.7% of Litecoin (LTC).”

---

“Blockchain is among 17 categories of financial technologies, including cloud services and artificial intelligence, to be regulated under the new standards. 

The current regulations for financial services are not clear and strong enough to guide high-quality developments in the industry.”

See Also: Chinese Tech Capital Shenzhen Issues Warning Against Crypto Activities

---

“In the new bill called the “Managed Stablecoins are Securities Act of 2019,” Garcia reportedly argued that Libra and other managed stablecoins ‘are clearly securities under existing law.’

We have trusted brands marketing digital assets to consumers as secure and stable […] Everyday investors need to know they can trust the issuers behind their financial assets.”

---

“A Binance spokesperson refuted media reports that Chinese police had raided and subsequently shut down the exchange’s Shanghai offices. Furthermore, the spokesperson stated that no such offices even exist.

The spokesperson also stated that Binance is being targeted in the Chinese media, adding that there has been ‘a recent spike in the number of negative articles and activities against Binance‘ in the country.

We also encourage our friends from the media to verify if their “sources” are telling the truth or presenting their own agenda.”

See Also: Binance ‘Buidls’ Bridge With India, Acquiring Leading Bitcoin Exchange

---

“Users pay node operators for bandwidth using OXT tokens, which will be generated at launch.

Orchid is a bandwidth market where node providers stake tokens to advertise their services using the Ethereum blockchain.

The areas of VPNs and secure communications need to be decentralized, thus supra-sovereign, in order to guarantee privacy from nation-state surveillance or interference.”

See Also: Eth2 Update #4

---

“Vermont’s largest electric utility is using blockchain platform LO3 Energy for its new energy marketplace pilot project. It allows Vermonters to buy and sell renewables with a blockchain storing their transactions.

There’s a huge appetite for local businesses to be 100 percent renewable and at the same time there’s an increasing amount of home solar production. This platform pairs the local supply with demand at the grid edge and we are delighted to be working with GMP to bring this market to commercial reality.”

---

“The website now allows visitors to track prices for major cryptocurrencies, providing CMC-based data. Yahoo Finance’s cryptocurrency screener page provides pricing for a total of 118 digital currencies.

Additionally, Yahoo Finance plans to add two CMC crypto indices — Crypto 200 and Crypto 200 EX. Apart from crypto pricing, CMC will also provide some educational information to develop crypto markets’ adoption on Yahoo Finance.”

---

“A setback came when Canaan lost its biggest bank, Credit Suisse, just last week. As a result, the size of the IPO was dramatically reduced — over 75% less than expected. 

The successful completion nonetheless makes Canaan the first Bitcoin mining giant to navigate an IPO, beating major competitor Bitmain, which plans to do the same.”

---

“Venezuela plans to back its national oil-pegged cryptocurrency, the Petro (PTR), with 30 million barrels of crude oil to serve as a ‘liquid, physical, material backing.’ According to the report, the sharp decline in the quantity of the Petro’s backing was caused by United States sanctions on Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA.

Despite Maduro ordering the country’s major bank, Banco de Venezuela, to start accepting PTR in July, Reuters has reportedly been unable to find evidence of any use of the Petro as a means of commercial exchange.”

---

“Large crypto exchanges appear to have stopped misreporting their trading volumes in 2019. The 12 exchanges listed include Huobi, OKCoin, UPbit, Bithumb, Bit2c, Bitbank, Bitso, CoinCheck, Coinfloor, CoinOne, Korbit, and Zaif.

While the majority of exchanges appear to have moved away from faking volumes, there were still some exchanges that saw suspicious activity.”

See Also: Blockchain Sleuthing Firm Chainalysis Slashes 20% of Workforce

“While the U.S. central bank is looking at whether a fully digital dollar would offer benefits to the U.S., Powell said the Fed is not actively developing one. Further, a digital national currency may not offer advantages to the U.S. that it may do to other nations.

Overall, Powell concluded that the Fed has ‘not identified potential material benefits of [a] general purpose CBDC to the implementation of monetary policy relative to our existing tools.‘”

See Also: In Wargaming Exercise, a Digital Yuan Neuters US Sanctions and North Korea Buys Nukes

---

“Ten wallets, 11 blockchain explorers, one integrated development environment, one application programming interface and 11 clients have taken part in the network’s development. 

The Libra Association continues to develop the stablecoin’s network and has plans to introduce a range of new features in the upcoming months. The organization also plans to deploy 100 nodes on the mainnet, which will represent a mix of on-premises and cloud-hosted infrastructure.”

See Also: Development Update
See Also: Too Early to Tell if Libra Is a Security, CFTC Chairman Says

---

“Libor is a benchmark interest rate controlled by global banks including Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS that determines the cost for banks to lend money to each other. Ameribor is an alternative backed by the American Financial Exchange (AFX) and Cboe Futures and will use a permissioned version of ethereum and two tokens to do the same thing.

Between 2012 and 2015 billions of dollars in fines and settlements were levied against the Libor banks who manipulated the rate to their benefit. Now, in addition to AFX’s work with Ameribor, Giancarlo says a number of specialized alternatives are rushing to meet the demand for trust-worthy, transparent alternatives.”

See Also: Introducing Gorilla Funds
See Also: SingularDTV Launches First Censorship Resistant Media DAO

---

“The proposal comes as a response to demand from international institutional investors for regulated products to be able to hedge their exposure to payment tokens such as bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH).

Payment tokens such as bitcoin and ether are currently not categorized as an underlying assets for a derivative product under the oversight of the SFA. However, MAS said it has received requests to put such assets under its regulatory remit in order for them to be listed on approved venues.”

---

---

“The Ethereum network will be undergoing a scheduled upgrade at block number 9,069,000, which is predicted to occur on Saturday, December 7, 2019.

Please upgrade your node before Sunday, December 1, 2019 to account for the variable block times.”

See Also: Istanbul to Berlin: Ethereum Milestones on the Road to Serenity

---

“At the center of contention is ethereum’s consensus mechanism, proof-of-work (PoW), which only offers a statistical guarantee of transaction finality. Dossa said a different mechanism is needed for the institutions Polymath aims to serve. [Finality will be included in the launch of Eth2.]

How ethereum settles transactions through mining also came into consideration for Polymath. Since miners, who process and sign-off on transactions for a fee, can operate anywhere in the world, institutions could face government scrutiny if fees are traced back to a sanctioned country.

The mining process is permissionless. If you’re paying transactions on ethereum, you don’t really know where that transaction is going to end up. For a large institution that could be an issue.”

---

“The Gendarmerie’s cybercrime division (C3N) used the system to buy cryptocurrency from Europol-allocated funds and cover its operational costs with those assets.

Tezos claims that the system employs ‘the first smart contract ever developed by a public authority.’ Governments are showing an increasing interest in blockchain technology.“

---

“In order, the top 10 crypto exchanges in CryptoCompare’s second Exchange Benchmark are: Gemini, Paxos’ itBit, Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, Liquid, OKEx, Poloniex, bitFlyer and Bitfinex.

Our new Benchmark includes a category for recent hacks for which we penalize exchanges. As Binance was recently hacked, it is marked down in the security category.“

---

“ShapeShift released the token, akin to Binance’s BNB, on Wednesday, enabling commission-free trading with zero fees between cryptocurrencies. FOX furthers ShapeShift’s permissionless ideology by attracting users to a self-custodial exchange.

While total trade volume decreased on the platform since the implementation of KYC, liquidity has increased over the same period by 10x on the exchange’s main pair, BTC/ETH.”