“The consensus is that [China’s] token will be a private blockchain, a peer-to-peer network for sharing information and validating transactions, with the People’s Bank of China in control of who gets to participate.
It may start small, but the digital yuan can disrupt both traditional banking and the post-Bretton Woods system of floating exchange rates that the world has lived with since 1973.
These are early days, but if blockchain technology shows promise in handling a large number of transactions simultaneously, then digital currencies could become substitutes not just for physical cash but also for bank reserves.
As Harvard University economist Kenneth Rogoff notes, technology ‘is on the verge of disrupting America’s ability to leverage faith in its currency to pursue its broader national interests.’
A roller-coaster decade — not just for for banking and money but also for privacy and politics — may just be beginning.”
“DLive, which is currently built on the Lino blockchain, will migrate to the TRON blockchain as a result of the collaboration. TRON acquired BitTorrent in July 2018.
While the Lino blockchain technical infrastructure will be integrated into BitTorrent, the LINO coin cryptocurrency used by DLive to pay content creators will no longer be the fundamental unit of value in the new ecosystem.
DLive will also use BitTorrent’s new service for file storage, known as the BitTorrent Filesharing System (BTFS). The BTFS network will launch in Q1 of 2020.
As long as they use the BTFS network, it will be impossible to delete content, as everything is distributed across BitTorrent users’ computers globally.”
“Cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex has forced a password reset for all customers due to a leaked list of email addresses and passwords on Twitter.
While almost all of the [leaked] email addresses listed do not belong to Poloniex accounts, we are forcing a password reset on any email addresses that do have an account with us.”
“After Google removed Ethereum-based decentralized application (DApp) browser MetaMask from its Android application store, Coinbase warned its users that in order to comply with Apple’s mobile App Store policy, it might be forced to remove the DApp browser feature from its wallet application.
Coinbase CEO here. This is really unfortunate to see. Apple seems to be eliminating usage of Dapps from the App Store. […] Presumably this would extend to other wallets as well (Trust, Argent, Metamask) it’s beyond Coinbase and IMO a very big threat to the ecosystem.”
“2020 may see crypto’s most consequential fork yet: A split between regulated exchanges and privacy-focused users.
Late last week, Binance’s Singapore arm threw crypto Twitter into a frenzy with reports that it had allegedly suspended one user’s account. The problem? That user, @bittlecat, had tried sending their bitcoin to the hash-scrambling Wasabi wallet in an apparent violation of Binance SG’s anti-money-laundering (AML) policies.
I think the exchanges are slowly coming to a crossroads. The big picture is more regulation is coming.
Users of privacy-enhanced wallets may find it ever-harder to move coins to and from regulated exchanges. Observers see this as one battle in the larger war to determine crypto’s direction.”
“Guterres believes that blockchain should be among the technologies used by the UN.
For the United Nations to deliver better on our mandate in the digital age, we need to embrace technologies like blockchain that can help accelerate the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals.”
“KeeperDAO allows participants to earn passive income in a game-theory-optimal fashion whilst ensuring decentralized finance applications remain liquid and orderly.
At a high level, KeeperDAO enables users to pool capital into Ethereum smart contracts to collectively profit from on-chain arbitrage and liquidation opportunities. Capital staked in these pools, such as USDC and DAI, is then used to exploit on-chain profit opportunities.
By having a large pool of liquidity, KeeperDAO is able to capture opportunities much larger than what could be captured by individuals.”
“While the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is the leading blockchain-based naming infrastructure project, there are now several competing projects, many of which are run by VC-backed for-profit companies.
The creation of a new paradigm is a time of critical social importance, because it is an opportunity to set the ground rules for the new era.
As a community, we have the opportunity right now to choose to embrace an open source non-profit community model, or else allow a for-profit company to capture the new system.”
“Ethereum’s ambition is to be world-changing. It has to be global, distributed, inclusive and empowering. Unless our development process is equally global, distributed, inclusive and empowering, then Conway’s law – that systems reflect the structures of the organizations that design them – says we’re going to fail. To an extent, our approach resembles that of Linux, which has come to dominate much of the world’s computing.
Ethereum’s superpower is the engagement this approach inspires. The sense of a shared endeavor draws in brilliant people who we might never otherwise have found. No fewer than eight independent client teams have delivered working Proof of Stake implementations.
The real proof of our open, organic development approach will come in the first months of 2020. We are on track to go live with ethereum 2.0’s beacon chain, and the transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake will be officially underway.
I can’t offer you a detailed roadmap. But the brilliance and energy of our ever-growing community makes me confident that by early 2021 we will have a platform fit for one million devs.”
“MetaMask stated that its Android client was suspended “in the last week” with Google citing its policy of banning mobile mining apps from its app store. MetaMask, as an Ethereum application browser, however, does not offer mining activities.
It’s unclear whether the reviewer doesn’t understand the policy, or whether they are enforcing an unwritten policy.”
“More crypto-related content is being re-enabled on YouTube after several days of unilateral deletions and non-communication from the video giant.
This was an error on our side during the review process – your video should be reinstated and strikes resolved.
Although crypto-related content is being reinstated, many YouTubers have expressed interest in moving to blockchain-based social media platforms to share content. While content is reinstated, trust is lost.
The biggest thing I have learnt as a Youtuber is to not trust Youtube.”
“Bankers insisted that “Sand Dollar” is a “digital fiat currency” – not a cryptocurrency, stablecoin or competitor to the Bahamian Dollar. Instead, it is simply a digital version ‘equivalent in every respect to the paper currency.’
But it is also a step toward the Bahamas’ long-term goal of launching a fully-fledged central bank digital currency (CBDC). Also called the sand dollar, that larger project would link domestic residents and businesses across a seamless digital payment infrastructure.”
“Verified users were apparently asked to share information on the source of — and use of — funds, along with proof of residential address.
It is uncertain whether this latest tightening of KYC procedures has been spurred by any particular event. However, the company has been subject to an ongoing investigation by the New York Attorney General since April.”
“The upcoming Ethereum Classic (ETC) Agharta hard fork will include features of the Ethereum (ETH) Constantinople fork and intends to make ETC fully compatible with Ethereum.
This update is a signal that we want to be compatible with Ethereum. We believe in the success of public blockchains, because they are built on the strength of the community.”
“Ethereum Foundation researcher Virgil Griffith has reportedly been denied bail in New York. Currently detained, Griffith is appealing the action.
Griffith allegedly disowned his status as an American national via text messages to family members, according to texts quoted by the U.S. Attorney’s office. Griffith’s texts also allegedly included intent to facilitate money laundering activities in North Korea.”
“Chinese mining application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) manufacturer Canaan will launch new, improved mining machines with 5-nanometer chips in Q1 2020. The new firm’s 5nm manufacturing process is expected to improve performance, power and area scaling.
Canaan is one of the few cryptocurrency-related companies that managed to go public with a $90 million Initial Public Offering (IPO) held in November. As Cointelegraph recently reported, the firm’s shares have seen a 40 percent drop in value since the IPO.”
“YouTube has aggressively started deleting cryptocurrency-related content from some of the biggest influencers in the industry. YouTube suddenly began deleting a number of cryptocurrency videos on Dec. 23. YouTube has not yet released a public statement on why they are banning crypto-related content.
This is an attack not only on crypto, but on the entire notion of free speech. Centralized platforms have become way too big and powerful for their own good and their deplatforming is the reason decentralized platforms will conquer.
It may be time the crypto community take a stab at its own blockchain-enabled sensorship-resistant social media platform.”
“The top 50 blockchain-related stocks are ranked based on their average daily market value over the past six months.
SSE’s market capitalization is $3.12 trillion, making it the fourth largest in Asia and the eighth largest in the world. Major exchanges are beginning to list indexes that track blockchain and cryptocurrency-related firms.“
“According to the new alternative proposal by Vitalik, eth1-friendly validators would be expected to maintain both the old Ethereum 1.0 node and the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain.
Validators that want to participate in the eth1 system can register themselves as eth1-friendly validators, and would be expected to maintain an eth1 full node in addition to their beacon node. The eth1 full node would download all blocks on shard 0 and maintain an updated full eth1 state.”
“Following the first token distribution, HBAR plummetted by over 90 percent. In response, Harman said the company was reviewing the project’s token economics model.
Participating SAFT holders would receive additional allocations of coins, made on an annual basis, the cumulative sum of which, over time, would equal the value of their original principal investment, in exchange for stretching out the release schedule for their remaining coins.
The offer is optional; investors who choose not to sign up for the new program will remain on their existing SAFTs without change.”
“The decision comes as a surprise to many, as the country has previously displayed a relatively lenient stance toward digital currencies.
The law, [however], could prove ineffective, given that Uzbeks could use a virtual private network — or VPN — to bypass the ban and access foreign cryptocurrency trading platforms.”
“Changchun Mu, said China’s cryptocurrency will not need a currency basket to maintain a stable value.
The bank would soon be at the point where it could start gradually issuing the digital yuan to Chinese citizens through its commercial partners, which include Tencent and Alibaba-backed Ant Financial, Mu added.
At present, the digital currency DCEP of the People’s Bank of China has basically completed the top-level design, standard formulation, functional research and development, joint debugging and testing.”
“Tencent, the operator of Chinese social media app WeChat, is planning to create a digital currency research group for the further advancement of blockchain technology research projects.
The yet-to-be-established digital currency research group will reportedly focus on Tencent’s further advancement in the digital payment industry by utilizing blockchain technology.”
“Brave, the crypto-friendly browser courageously battling against both advertisements and colossal competition from Google, has hit a milestone of 350,000 registered Brave rewards publishers. This latest milestone indicates an impressive 820% jump in less than a year.
Within their website publishers, the firm cites some notable names, including Wikipedia, Wikihow, The Guardian, and even the Washington Post.”
“EOSIO, the firm behind the EOS blockchain and token, proposed a major change to the network’s resource allocation system that would require users to rent network resources. According to EOSIO, the network suffers from a poorly designed resource allocation system that allows most of the network’s resources to go unused.
Under the new proposed system, a user will pay a resource rental fee via a smart contract to be granted 30 days worth of CPU/NET from the total supply. After 30 days the rental must be renewed.
The transition to the proposed system would be gradual, with resources being progressively shifted from the old REX implementation to the rental system over time.”
“Former PayPal and Google veteran Mike Blandina has been appointed as the new CEO of major cryptocurrency trading platform Bakkt. He joined Bakkt as chief product officer in April 2019.
Alongside the new CEO, Bakkt has also appointed Adam White, a former executive at major U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase, as new president of the company. White has been serving at Bakkt as chief operating officer since joining the company in November 2018.”
“Renewable energy sources, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, blockchain’s immutable ledger and improvements in battery technology are combining to create a whole new form of energy infrastructure—one in which the grid is decentralized and users become producers as well as consumers. The building block of this new infrastructure is the microgrid.
Able to operate completely independently, owners can also sell excess energy back to the wider grid’s operator. Beyond the benefit of reducing monthly bills, microgrids can also bring peace of mind.
Accuracy and transparency are both vitally important when it comes to tracking energy usage and billing for it. Power consumption data is timestamped and logged on the blockchain, where it can’t be altered or deleted and is verified without the need for third parties.
These projects may accelerate the decentralization of energy and at the same time assist with the resilience of our energy networks.”
“No matter how bullish you are you shouldn’t keep all your wealth in crypto money. But this doesn’t mean you have to use a legacy brokerage to buy these assets. You can own gold on the blockchain today. I’ve evaluated a few tokenized gold options for us.”
“Moloch DAO, OpenLaw, and MetaCartel have been working on extensions to the initial Moloch DAO code in order to power next-generation LAOs — limited liability autonomous organizations — which would enable DAOs to engage in a greater range of for-profit ventures.
These extensions, along with the original Moloch DAO code, are poised to become ERC-like standards for building DAO-based organizations.”
“The protocols behind these new fiat-backed digital coins will, for example, create digital scarcity, meaning that, like cryptocurrencies, they can function as a de facto form of cash or bearer instrument. That’s quite different from the bank-issued IOUs of our current payments system. Also, they’ll essentially be programmable, which when combined with smart contracts and wallet-enabled internet-of-things (IoT) devices will transform the world’s commerce.
If digital fiat currencies become commonplace for payments, they’ll eventually remove banks for that core function of economic exchange. Also, if coin-to-coin atomic swaps and smart contract-based escrow solutions are used in cross-border transactions, the rise of digital fiat might quickly spell the end of the dollar’s dominance of global trade, with profound implications for the United States.
The upshot of all this is that central banks will initially acquire even more direct control over monetary conditions. However, they will do so within a digitized environment in which no single currency enjoys global hegemonic dominance and in which users can more easily move in and out of state, private or decentralized currencies of their choosing. That increased currency competition should, in theory, impose a constraint on each sovereign’s capacity to debase their citizens’ money.
“Safeguarding the MKR token contract has historically been the responsibility of the Maker Foundation. The plan from day one has been to transfer MKR token control to Maker governance shortly after the launch of Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD). With MCD released and the Protocol functioning as expected, the transfer of authority has now been scheduled.
Beginning on December 20, control of MKR token will be handed to the contracts, and therefore to the governance community, in steps as we continue on the path to decentralization. The Foundation will share control of the token with the contracts for about one month to ensure a successful handover. After that time, MKR token holders will be given full control, meaning that decentralized governance will be the only avenue for changing MKR token authorizations.”
“Right now there’s a chance there won’t be enough liquidity in the network to support the transaction, especially for larger payments. Multi-part payments tackle this problem by making it possible to break a payment into smaller pieces that are easier to send across the network. Notably, while this release supports sending these types of payments, it still isn’t possible to receive them.
Decker claims the code change also “greatly increases” the resiliency of the entire payment network. Since users sending payments are less likely to have to transact with a large node, that’s a ‘single point of failure.'”
“A team of researchers claims that the prototype silicon chip that they developed enables encryption that is impossible to break.
The system envisioned by the researchers is based on the idea of a one-time pad (OTP). OTPs are famous because they cannot be cracked, but require sharing one-time use keys the same size or longer than the data being sent before it is sent. The chip developed by the researchers tries to make a practical OTP implementation.”
“German stock exchange owner Boerse Stuttgart Group and Japanese financial giant SBI Group are teaming up on a joint initiative to expand their digital assets businesses internationally.
Besides the exchange of knowledge and technology, possible fields of collaboration include the cross issuance and listing of digital assets, trading and brokerage as well as the creation of the first global custody bridge.”
“The Crypto-Currency Act of 2020 sets out which Federal agencies should regulate each type of crypto assets.
One of the key things that the draft bill does is define three types of crypto asset; crypto commodities, crypto currencies, and crypto securities. Each type of crypto-asset would fall under the jurisdiction of a different regulatory body.”
“Money streaming means moving funds from user A to user B in real time. Imagine your employer paying you $0.01 every second. Imagine charging subscribers for your software product by the minute.
Sablier is a project that makes money streaming possible on Ethereum using magical internet money like Dai. No bank required.”
“As a semi-trusted peacekeeper, Watchtowers store local information from subscribing nodes. ‘A Watchtower is basically outsourcing the penalizing of your counterparty to somebody.’
Watchtowers are expensive to maintain as they store lots of local data, Decker said. Who will operate them remains to be seen, particularly as the lightning fee market remains immature.”
“In contrast to the new highs in impeachment markets, conviction markets are still indicating quite the long shot for the removal of the president. In fact, impeachment and the surrounding drama have seemed to have spurred the support of Trump for re-election. Shares in his re-election has been steadily rising amidst this process.”
“Projects and proposals can be made using Aragon, the governance project. Its smart contracts use OpenZeppelin. The tokens are being sold using a custom integration with Uniswap. For the Saint Fame gig, Vernon was compensated by way of his own custom ERC-20 token, BOI, which represents one hour of his time.
Fashion and aesthetics have a special place in the ethereum world. ‘We are excited to enable a new paradigm of collective creation on the internet.'”
“CipherTrace, a leader in blockchain security, has announced that it will join forces with ATII to use crypto analytics to advance the organization’s goal of combatting global human trafficking.
ATII has access to our console to conduct investigations for cryptocurrency’s use in human trafficking. Additionally, I’ve conducted training with ATII to help them detect the interconnection between human trafficking and cryptocurrency, with the goal of understanding that we can follow the money for investigations.”
“Vinnik’s extradition has been sought by the governments of the U.S., Russia and France. Vinnik himself had said he wanted to see trial in Russia. France has been seeking Vinnik’s extradition over alleged cybercrime, money laundering, membership in a criminal organization and extortion.
The U.S. Department of Justice levied a $110 million fine against BTC-e and a $12 million penalty against Vinnik in July 2017.”
“The firm said the third-generation of its zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) tech for the ethereum blockchain – originally dubbed Nightfall – is now available in the public domain.
In the updated code, EY said it’s made additions that allow private transactions at scale by batching up to 20 ZKP transfers in one transaction – a factor it says “significantly” reduces costs. One 20-batch transaction would cost around $0.05.
A key factor of the advance, EY said, is that lowering the costs of transactions in this way makes the public ethereum blockchain more competitive with private blockchain networks.
The third-gen code is ‘the most important EY blockchain milestone in making public blockchains scalable for [enterprises].‘”
“Lael Brainard said more clarity is needed about the basket of currencies underlying the stablecoin and that its model is still unproven.
Risks could be exacerbated by the lack of clarity about the management of reserves and the rights and responsibilities of various market participants in the network. It is not even clear how much price risk consumers will face since they do not appear to have rights to the stablecoin’s underlying assets.”
“Dragonfly and Paradigm intend to play an active role in maker’s onchain governance, [while] the $27.5 million raised will fund the foundation’s efforts to promote dai adoption in China and the broader Asia region.
The support and expertise of Dragonfly Partners and Paradigm will give Dai an unparalleled advantage in driving innovation and adoption in Asia.
The joint purchase means Dragonfly and Paradigm now control approximately 5.5 percent of the total MKR token supply. Combined, the acquisition makes Dragonfly and Paradigm the second-largest private holder of MKR tokens. VC firm Andreessen Horowitz remains the single largest private holder with the 6 percent stake.”
“Fireblocks, which provides an institutional-grade platform for secure transfer of blockchain-based digital assets, received the Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 Type II certification performed by EY.
Following multiple EY inspections, which reportedly took more than six months, Fireblocks is now recognized as a company providing technology and services that meet existing strict security and data protection laws worldwide.
The new certification will purportedly allow Fireblocks to attract more financial players as Fireblocks has already entered talks with Wall Street firms.”
“Gitcoin is allocating grants for two separate pools. It’ll invest $75,000 in media, community and marketing products, while pledging $125,000 for Ethereum infrastructure projects covering areas like ETH 2.0, decentralized finance (DeFi), crypto wallets and UX.
When it comes to allocating grants, the company uses the Liberal Radicalism mechanism for quadratic funding.
Over the coming year, the company plans to hold a fundraising round every quarter. Since launching in January 2019, Gitcoin Grants has distributed $797,000 to open source projects.”
“A single movement of 789,525 ETH ($105.1 million) between a known PlusToken wallet and an unknown recipient occurred early Thursday.
Suspicions had already surfaced about PlusToken’s impact on Bitcoin. In a report last month, research firm Chainalysis suggested scammers may be using over-the-counter (OTC) off-ramps to sell BTC en masse, driving down the price. Specifically, they eyed exchange Huobi’s OTC offering as a potential venue for the illicit transactions.”
“The offering came from French-ICO, a company that has developed a platform for funding projects using cryptocurrency.
Although approval is optional (ICOs are still considered legal in France without approval), only those public offerings that have received the AMF approval may be marketed directly to the public in France.”
“Dongbaekjeon is a blockchain-based card-type local currency issued by Busan City to revitalize Busan’s local economy and ease the management burden of small business.
Participants can use the ‘currency at any store in Busan with a credit card terminal,‘ although compatibility will reportedly be less common among larger retailers in an effort to encourage spending at smaller local businesses.”
“‘The Muslim world should be designing measures to save themselves from the domination of the United States dollar and the American financial regime,’ he said at the Kuala Lumpur Summit in Malaysia on Thursday.
At the summit, Rouhani also urged Muslim countries to set up a system to encourage trading in local currencies as well as to create preferential trade policies to strengthen linkage.“
“The world’s largest diamond mining firm, Russia’s Alrosa, has partnered with Tencent, the operator of Chinese social media app WeChat.
The program aims to improve transparency and consumer trust across the diamond supply chain, enabling social media users to purchase diamonds with full knowledge of their origin, characteristics and ownership history.”
“Thailand, one of the most-visited countries in the world, will soon apply blockchain to its Electronic Visa On Arrival (eVOA).
Specifically, ShareRing provides Gateway Services with its self-sovereign identity technology OneID, which enables optical character recognition (OCR) and protects data by encrypting all the information into a single file on blockchain.
We see this as a blueprint for possible expansion to other countries.”
1. The Halving 2. SEC vs. Telegram 3. Facebook’s Calibra launch 4. Recession and volatility 5. US political parties 6. Off-chain assets 7. DeFi adoption 8. Central bank digital currencies 9. “Institutional” flows 10. Ethereum 2.0 launches
“Supply chain fintech startup Tradeshift, which boasts two million firms on its platform, says it’s slashed the cost of cross-border transactions between buyers and suppliers using the public ethereum blockchain.
Tradeshift partnered with Consensys-backed e-money license holder Monerium. Monerium’s e-money on ethereum has now been approved for use in Iceland, Denmark, Germany, U.K., Lithuania, France and Sweden.
We have taken an accepted invoice and tokenized it on ethereum. On the due day, a smart contract automatically swaps the tokenized invoice for the e-money that is on-chain. We issue e-money on ethereum to an ERC-20 compliant smart contract that works as a programmable passbook.”
“Launched earlier on Wednesday, the public beta version allows users to paste code for analysis, during which it identifies security risks by testing the functionality and efficiency of a smart contract, as well as evaluating the quality of the coding. Currently the service can only review ERC-20-based smart contracts.
Our clients are increasingly entrusting key enterprise business processes and valuable investments to software code. We don’t run enterprise computing systems without anti-virus tools and it only makes sense to run blockchain-based investment systems with smart contract and token testing tools.
An EY project for running private transactions on the ethereum blockchain, known as ‘Nightfall’, has also been integrated into Analyzer.”
“Planned to go live in the second quarter of 2020, Katalyst is said to be a major upgrade to the Kyber protocol to better meet the liquidity needs of the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.
Katalyst aims to reduce friction in liquidity contribution, introduce rebates for high-performing reserves (liquidity providers) and allow DApps integrated with Kyber to add a custom spread for flexible rates.
On top of liquidity optimization, the Katalyst upgrade will include a new staking mechanism and the launch of the KyberDAO, a community platform that allows KNC token holders to participate in governance for the first time.
KNC is up 78 percent year-to-date making it one best-performing crypto assets for 2019.”
“The proposed amendment would ‘more effectively identify institutional and individual investors that have the knowledge and expertise to participate’ in private capital markets.
At present, accredited investors are defined as individuals with more than $1 million in net worth (or who earn more than $200,000 per year).
Under the SEC amendment, the term would expand to include new categories of “natural persons,” individuals who qualify as “knowledgeable employees” of certain private funds, companies which meet certain restrictions, entities which “own ‘investments'” defined under the Investment Company Act, family offices with a minimum of $5 million in assets, and spousal equivalents who can pool finances to qualify.”
“Retail investors can submit transaction records from crypto exchanges to online accounts on the firm’s website. The software will reconcile the transaction data and calculate how much in taxes the investors will pay, which will be recognized by the IRS.
One of the first questions on the IRS’s tax form is whether you have crypto assets. It is a question that taxpayers cannot ignore anymore.”
“The post says the move is being made to ‘better streamline developments and collaborations’ but does not say when the changeover will take place. Longtime contributor “Snipa” will assume the responsibilities of lead maintainer.
The role includes leading development and engineering efforts as well as administrative functions, such as signing off on email announcements.”
The Disrupt 