“This testnet is targeting v0.12.1 of the official Ethereum 2.0 specification, which is aimed to be the final specification before a mainnet launch and multiclient ready.
The Onyx test network is now accepting genesis deposits. We are aiming for the Onyx testnet to be multiclient compatible.“
“Federal Reserve officials see U.S. inflation as likely to stay below 2% over the next three years. The revised inflation expectations show that officials see little threat of runaway inflation despite the central bank’s trillion-dollar money injections.
Weaker demand and significantly lower oil prices are holding down consumer price inflation.
The Fed made no change to its benchmark interest rate, now set in a range from 0% to 0.25%, and officials projected no hikes through the next three years. The officials saw U.S. gross domestic product falling 6.5% this year before a 5% increase in 2021 and 3.5% growth in 2022.
The central bank pledged to continue its purchases of Treasury bonds and other securities ‘at least at the current pace to sustain smooth market functioning.‘
The Federal Reserve has expanded its balance sheet by about $3 trillion this year to $7.2 trillion as of last week. Prior to the 2008 financial crisis, the central bank had less than $1 trillion of total assets.”
See Also: Rumor ECB Eyeing $500B Debt Quarantine in ‘Bad Bank’
“Galaxy Digital’s trading arm and regulated bitcoin futures provider Bakkt said the service will offer asset managers and other institutional investors a “white glove” trading and custody solution.
Galaxy will provide all the trading services and functionalities, leveraging its existing plugins to 30 different exchange venues. Meanwhile, Bakkt will offer custody services through its Bakkt Warehouse.
The idea is to offer a safe, efficient and well-regulated route into physical bitcoin access.
We designed this partnership to service the uptick in demand our two firms have received from traditional asset managers seeking access to physical bitcoin.”
“The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) took a strong stance on bitcoin privacy tech Wednesday by announcing its new Bitcoin Developer Fund. The first $50,000 grant from the fund has been awarded to CoinSwap.
CoinSwap, a mixing technique originally invented in 2013 by Greg Maxwell, is part of a comprehensive suite of privacy tools being developed by bitcoin advocates.
The concern around mixing technology, or coin hygiene, stems from the flawed thinking that cryptocurrency transactions are identical to bank transfers using fiat currency. A peer-to-peer value transfer system fails without underlying coin privacy at its core, because the entire system would lack fungibility. This is a grand societal battle that must be won by privacy advocates.
Law enforcement methods will undoubtedly have to evolve beyond simply using money as an identity tracking device or simply relying on metadata through non-targeted driftnet surveillance. This means employing real and sometimes cumbersome police work that doesn’t violate the rights of any individuals.”
“New York congressional candidate Jonathan Herzog hosted a live YouTube broadcast with Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin on Monday, along with author and activist Glen Weyl.
Buterin skillfully framed his software project as it relates to the current economic and political crisis.
The challenge here is can we create systems that allow some groups of people to cooperate without that downside of a centralized or trusted actor having to be in the middle.”
See Also: Full Discussion (Video)
“MKR’s latest spike comes amid a community vote showing strong support for supporting non-crypto-native assets as collateral for the creation of DAI.
The vote signaled support for a protocol developed by blockchain startup Centrifuge that would allow “real-world assets” to be tokenized as ERC-20-based securities that can be used as collateral for DAI minting.
Currently, MakerDAO users can lock up Ether (ETH), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Basic Attention Tokens (BAT), or the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) to fund DAI loans.”
See Also: How Dai-enabled Debit Cards Are Driving Maker Protocol Adoption
See Also: Cosmos-Based Interoperable DeFi Project Launches on Mainnet With BNB Collateral
“Microsoft’s Bitcoin-based decentralized identity tool, ION, went live with a beta version on mainnet Wednesday as one of many efforts by members of the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF) to fast-track tools anyone can use for COVID-19 crisis response programs.
ION is meant to enable user-controlled logins that suit independent companies or services, rather than having system-providers (like Facebook) owning a user’s login credentials.
Although Allen warned no technology offers a panacea, especially with regards to government overreach or recurring outbreaks, he expects some type of new “verifiable credential” technology will probably emerge from this crisis.“
“A report published by CoinMetrics has found extreme wealth centralization among many top stablecoins, with at least 80% of the total capitalization for five top stable tokens being held in less than six accounts.
The report also found that more than 40% of transactions made using the Paxos Standard Token (PAX) are directly linked to a single multi-level marketing, or MLM, Ponzi scheme.”
“To date, Chainlink has dominated the oracle space, nabbing integrations with scores of crypto projects. Decentralized applications (dapps) are dependent on oracles to execute transactions which are then dependent on the underlying blockchain.
Initially run on the Ethereum blockchain, Band Protocol built out its own blockchain on Cosmos technology to sidestep congestion concerns. The team chose to build on Cosmos over Polkadot, another interoperability project, because of perceived costs.
For Polkadot the drawback is it’s quite expensive for any blocks to happen because you can think of it as [if] you need to rent a space on top of Polkadot.”
See Also: Algorand and Blockstack Are Building a Multi-Chain Smart Contract Language
“The Russian economy ministry is pushing back against the nation’s planned ban on cryptocurrency. The more conciliatory stance on cryptocurrency from a government ministry might be a sign Russia could yet tone down its hostile approach.
The new rules should take a different approach and work on creating a ‘controllable cryptocurrency market‘ in Russia.”
“Chinese local governments are facing difficulties when implementing blockchain applications due to stakeholders unwillingness to share privately owned data.
According to the investigation, there are more than 30 related local governments procuring blockchain technology. Their aim is to leverage blockchain to build management platforms that improve local administrative and social governance capabilities.”
The Disrupt 