“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.”
See Also: eth2 Development Update #6
“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.”
The Disrupt 