“Gazprombank, a bank from the fold of Russian energy giant Gazprom, is launching institutional cryptocurrency services in Switzerland.

Gazprombank (Switzerland) will later expand the offerings to more institutional and corporate clients, providing a custody service and bitcoin trading against fiat currencies. More cryptocurrencies are expected to be added.

We expect digital assets to become increasingly important in the global economy and, in particular, for our current and potential clientele.”

See Also: Mongolia’s largest bank to offer crypto-related services

---

“The Mate 40 line of devices will feature a built-in hardware wallet with ‘hardware-level security, controllable anonymous protection, and dual offline transactions.’

It’s the latest sign that the CBDC, developed by the People’s Bank of China, is likely to be technically ready for launch.

The Mate 40 was announced in October and will be the latest flagship from Huawei. A release date is still unclear, but prices are expected to start at just over $1,000. It’s not clear if devices shipped to other regions will sport the CBDC wallet.”

See Also: Chinese city seeks to power urban governance and more using blockchain tech

---

“Berlin is a hard fork of the current Eth 1.x proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain. A soft target of January is now in the works, following the planned launch of the Ethereum 2.0 beacon chain in December.

[Notably], EIP-2537 will no longer be included in Berlin. That EIP would make it easier for the Eth 2.0 blockchain and Eth 1.x blockchain to speak with each other by using a similar cryptographic setup.

Other important EIPs such as EIP-1559, which restructures Ethereum’s transaction model, will not be included in Berlin.”

---

“Options at a $40,000 strike price expiring in March 2021 and June 2021 went live on Deribit early on Friday. In effect, the new contracts will allow market participants to express a long-term bullish view on bitcoin.”

See Also: Deribit Sees Record Bitcoin Options Volume as Activity in $36K Calls Surge
See Also: FTX Raises ‘TRUMP’ Futures Margins as Price Suggests Lower Expectations of Election Win

---

“In a move to boost the liquidity in its $117 million IPO, INX has applied with the Canadian Securities Exchange to list its security token. The company expects to list the INX token on many other global exchanges, but the CSE will be the first.

This will provide dramatically higher access to capital and liquidity on a global scale.”

---

“Forbes claims to have obtained a leaked presentation outlining Binance’s plans for operating in the United States. The document states that in 2018 — prior to the launch of Binance.US — the crypto exchange intended to set up a “Tai Chi entity” in the U.S. to act as a type of regulatory lightning rod protecting its main operations from enforcement.

While the then-unnamed entity set up operations in the United States to distract regulators with feigned interest in compliance, measures would be put in place to move revenue in the form of licensing fees and more to the parent company, Binance.

CZ disputed many of the claims, stating that the source was ‘not produced by a Binance employee.'”

---

“The proposed fix extends the delay between a proposal’s passing and its implementation from 12 hours to 72 hours, which would give the community enough time to review and veto an unfair vote.

This proposal comes after the team from BProtocol flash borrowed $7 million worth of MKR tokens from derivatives platform dYdX to swing a vote on Maker in their own favor.”

---

“The new system, called Full Transparency, is a blockchain-based, press release-recording system ‘designed to raise the bar for corporate accountability.‘ It cryptographically bounds each press release to the blockchain, tracking and contextualizing subsequent edits.

It’s open-source, so other businesses can use it.”

---

“dHEDGE is built entirely on the Synthetix protocol. With dHEDGE, investors can earn rewards by managing a portfolio of Synths or invest in the performance of other dHEDGE portfolios.

Portfolio managers on dHEDGE hold a pool of Synths and work their way to the top of the leaderboard by achieving growth. The more successful a portfolio is, the more likely other traders are to invest in it. The more traders invested in your portfolio, the more you can earn.”

---

“Filecoin miners are paying large investors an annual percentage rate as high as 40% to borrow FIL. This dynamic has created a lending market and is leading to more questions about Filecoin’s economic model.

The lack of liquidity in tokens required to mine on the proof-of-stake storage network is forcing desperate miners to borrow FIL rather than going into the open market to purchase tokens.

There are very few tokens out there because the investments in the [initial coin offering] were done with a vesting schedule.

It’s just a temporary phase. Miners won’t need to borrow filecoin in the long run because they’re going to have so many FIL rewards as collateral.”

“The digital dollar project, he said, is now moving beyond the proof-of-concept stage and closer to being ready for launch. However, the governor deflated expectations, saying he thought there isn’t a need for one “right now.”

Even so, Macklem shared concerns about being outpaced by other countries, adding his institution wants to make sure it’s prepared for a CBDC launch if it chooses to head in that direction.

If another country has [a CBDC] and we don’t, that could certainly create some problems. We certainly wouldn’t want to be surprised by some other country.”

---

“Users of the exchange are now able to register to trade on over 12 equity and cryptocurrency pairs via the platform’s fractional stocks offering in what FTX is calling a “first of its kind” product.

The additions mean users can begin trading high demand stocks like Tesla, Apple, and Amazon, represented by tokens, against bitcoin, stablecoins and more.

These products demonstrate a powerful future, in which assets are digitized and traders have unlimited creative potential to express their beliefs about the markets.

Traders in the U.S. and FTX’s other restricted jurisdictions will not be eligible to trade the products.”

---

“Strapped for international currencies, Iran is turning to cryptocurrency to allow imports to continue to flow.

The country’s cabinet has amended recent legislation on digital assets to allow cryptocurrency to be used for import funding by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI). Miners will supply the cryptocurrency directly to the CBI within an authorized limit.

Cryptocurrency has become increasingly important in Iran as the nation suffers from economic woes brought by U.S. sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.”

---

“A multi-step transaction was created and processed that began with a borrowing of synthetic Ether, which was then used as collateral to borrow $7 million worth of MKR tokens, which are used to vote on proposals. The newly-borrowed MKR was used to pass the vote and then returned to the markets from which they were lent.

It doesn’t appear that what occurred with Maker and B Protocol was malicious in nature. Still, as the post noted: ‘Their actions are a practical example for the community that flash loans can and may impact system governance.’

The post also outlined some more immediate steps to reduce the risk to Maker’s governance architecture. This includes extra time for MKR holders to react to a governance attack and disabling some functions for governance participants.”

---

“Siam Commercial Bank, one of the largest commercial banks in Thailand, is making moves in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. SCB 10X, the bank’s venture arm, is working with DeFi ecosystem Alpha Finance Lab to attract users to DeFi.

The company’s first DeFi product, Alpha Homora, is a protocol for leveraging an investor’s position in yield farming pools, and is currently live on the Ethereum blockchain.”

---

“Should users who interacted with Uniswap through a third-party interface be entitled to the free UNI tokens other users received on Sept. 17?

That’s the question at the center of a dispute currently taking place in Uniswap governance channels. The second-ever proposal to come before the Uniswap community would distribute airdropped UNI tokens to another 12,619 addresses, ahead of a second proposal set for nearly 27,000 addresses.

As of this writing, over 20.7 million UNI have been voted in favor of the proposal and more than 714,000 have been voted against. The vote closes on Oct. 31.

While the vote may look extremely lopsided at the moment, the proposal will fail if less than 40 million UNI vote, establishing a quorum. The key obstacle to passage is probably reaching that threshold.

The decision is widely interesting enough to the crypto community that it’s inspired a betting market on Polymarket, which currently leans toward the pitch for further UNI distributions failing.”

---

“Average fees in bitcoin terms have increased by 573% in the past 12 days alongside the cryptocurrency’s price rally from $11,200 to $13,800. During that time frame, network congestion, as measured by the total number of unconfirmed transactions in the mempool, worsened by 1,800%.

As of Tuesday, there were 121,340 unconfirmed transactions in the mempool with a total block size of 66.8 MB. According to data source blockchain.com, that’s the highest level since the bull market frenzy of December 2018.

The recent slide in bitcoin’s hashrate looks to have played a big role in causing network congestion along with a general price-driven pickup in activity.”

---

“The new token called KP3R is for Cronje’s latest project called Keep3r Network which is a decentralized gig-style, smart contract powered marketplace for technical jobs.

With the release of the Keep3r Network v1 contracts a few hours ago, the project is now live. It’s designed to marry crypto projects with technical experts. KP3R tokens which will be issued as rewards for job completion.

According to Coingecko, the new token already has a market capitalization of $35 million.”

See Also: Aave transfers governance to token holders

---

“Liink now invites its 400-plus financial institutions (including 25 of the largest 50 banks) to start building on top of the platform.

Liink was designed to connect banks in a peer-to-peer fashion and help them remove the pain points from cross-border payments and other functions.

While Liink is not open-source like Quorum or, say, R3’s Corda network, JPMorgan is encouraging collaboration within the network and also expanding it beyond banks.

Liink as a new brand comes at a pivotal time, as we look to re-architect how money, information and assets move across the globe.

All told, it looks like JPM’s Liink is shaping up to be a potential SWIFT killer.”

See Also: Ethereum Developer ConsenSys to Assist French Bank With CBDC Pilot

---

“The card will be available in all states except Hawaii and comes with a new rewards feature – 4% back in stellar or 1% back in bitcoin. Any cryptocurrencies that Coinbase supports in the U.S. (and that a user holds in their account) can be spent through the debit card.

Coinbase Card has been active in the U.K. and European Union since April 2019 and currently operates in 30 countries.

Industry trends illustrate increased consumer activity. Now Coinbase is taking mainstream adoption of crypto one step further by introducing Coinbase Card in the U.S.“

---

“Avanti, like Kraken, now has to jump through a few hoops – like raising more capital – before it can be granted a certificate of authority to operate.

Along with the charter approval, the banking board approved Avanti’s future issuance of Avit, a programmable electronic currency that’s redeemable at par with a U.S. dollar. The Avit will be issued initially on Bitcoin sidechain Liquid and then on Ethereum.

Kraken definitely captured attention, but now that there’s a second one chartered it’s no longer a one-off situation and a trend is in motion.”

See Also: BitLicense Holder SoFi’s Application to Create a National Bank Conditionally Approved by US

---

“Bakong’s launch grants Cambodians a state-sanctioned platform for conducting instant mobile payments, with QR codes and phone numbers connecting digital wallets over a blockchain.

Unlike most central bank digital currency projects, Bakong does not involve digitally native money; it is entirely fiat-backed. Cambodia sees Bakong as a critical step in modernizing its payment system and de-dollarizing its economy.

The National Bank of Cambodia hosts Bakong atop the Hyperledger Iroha blockchain.”

---

“The cryptocurrency looked overbought and vulnerable to minor pullback early today, having rallied by over 20% this month alone. However, the pullback’s magnitude is likely being amplified by the losses in the global stock markets.

Risk appetite has weakened as the second wave of the coronavirus is accelerating across Europe and in the U.S. and threatening to derail the fragile global economic recovery.

While the possibility of bitcoin extending losses on continued risk aversion cannot be ruled out, fundamental metrics like the market value to realized value Z-score indicate the broader trend for the cryptocurrency is bullish.”

---

“You should expect that we will purchase additional bitcoin as we generate cash beyond what we need to run the business on a day to day basis.

Besides the 22% return on its BTC investment, the company has seen another benefit from its foray into cryptocurrency – increased visibility.”

---

“CER’s criteria included several factors such as whether a DEX underwent security audit, the availability of bug bounties and if it had proper SSL/TLS certificates. CER deemed any score below 6 as “low” and, thus, “not safe.” Only two of the DEXs received a “high” score: Uniswap and Syntetyx.

Remarking on the incredible growth of DeFi in the last few months, the researchers concluded that DEX users are more exposed to fraud than hacks.”

---

“Projects that distribute tokens to insiders (team, founders, and VCs) at the expense of the community put themselves at a disadvantage.

A substantial allocation to insiders has an opportunity cost. These coins could be used instead to incentivize the community. In addition, insiders typically get their tokens either for free or at substantial discounts, which allows them to sell early, driving prices down.

Moreover, the authors say that all of these blockchains (with the exception of Kadena and Nervos Network) employ proof-of-stake consensus — which they believe only exacerbates the problem:

Rebalancing the ratio of insider to community network ownership post-launch is an uphill battle, one that can be more difficult for Proof-of-Stake (PoS) networks since early stakeholders have a perpetual claim on seigniorage.”

See Also: ‘Hyperinflation’ DeFi coins hit the hardest in crash: Report

---

“U.S. authorities have taken legal action to obtain information from Boston-based consulting giant Bain & Company on Visa’s acquisition of Plaid.

Citizens’ financial lives often require a number of apps or platforms, countless transactions, and siloed information. Plaid aimed to bridge the disconnect between those platforms and their involved information.

Earlier this year, following the acquisition’s announcement, Plaid faced at least two lawsuits. The first surfaced in June, alleging Plaid used customers’ information for its own gain. The second legal action came out in July, claiming a breach of privacy requirements.”

“DBS is Southeast Asia’s largest bank by assets. DBS Digital Exchange will offer access to ‘an integrated ecosystem of solutions to tap the vast potential of private markets and digital currencies.’

On offer for trading against the Singapore dollar, the Hong Kong dollar, Japanese yen and U.S. dollar will be four top cryptocurrencies: bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether and XRP.

The exchange will also offer tokenization services, offering business the opportunity to raise funds by issuing digital forms of securities and assets.”

See Also: SEC-approved crypto IPO issuer INX acquires STO platform OpenFinance

---

“JPMorgan global head of wholesale payments, said a major tech firm will use the token to make global payments starting this week.

As the bank sees blockchain technology becoming commercially viable, it has also created a business unit with around 100 employees, Onyx to house related projects.

We are launching Onyx because we believe we are shifting to a period of commercialization of those technologies, moving from research and development to something that can become a real business.

JPMorgan is focusing on the wholesale payments business, where removing inefficiencies can save the banking industry hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

JPM’s blockchain-based Interbank Information Network is rebranding as Liink and will soon launch as a way to validate payments before they are sent.”

---

“Ocean v3 brings the Ocean data market proposal to life with Ethereum-based datatokens, as well as a range of other features like initial data offerings (IDOs), staking, automated market making (AMM) functionality and the potential to share and monetize machine learning models.

The goal of the project is to democratize the value from data and artificial intelligence (AI), which tends to accumulate in the hands of a few internet giants.

Assembling these component parts gives people a fighting chance to monetize their data in this new “shadow industry,” currently dominated by firms like Facebook and Google.

I’m very excited about data scientists going nuts with this. It lets you deploy data marketplaces in 10 lines of code.”

---

“Yield is jostling to join a $2.6 billion decentralized lending industry dominated by established players such as Compound by providing a benchmark product others have not: a DeFi yield curve.

DeFi predominantly offers variable rates. Those that offer fixed rates such as Aave charge a premium due to the young market’s volatility. Yield, on the other hand, provides stable long-term borrowing and lending options. Version one has six different contracts extending through December 2021.

Yield as an abstract product can be seen as a cornerstone to long-term, blockchain-based money markets.”

---

“At Immutable we’ve been working in the industry for years on games like Gods Unchained. When comparing scaling solutions, we knew we wanted the following:

• Unlimited scalability
• Instant transaction confirmation and mainstream-quality UX
• No compromise on user security
• Retaining access to Ethereum’s ecosystem and network effects

This made our choice easy: we built Immutable X as a ZK-rollup in partnership with StarkWare. ZK-rollups are the only solution above capable of scale without compromise, and though they still have disadvantages in the area of general computation, those challenges are rapidly being resolved.

When you build an application using a scaling solution, you are committing to that solution. We wanted to ensure we backed the winner not just for right now, but for years to come.”

---

“Chaincode Lab’s new blog post, “Why We May Fail Lightning” is a sobering reminder that, despite the hype, Bitcoin’s secondary network for faster, cheaper payments still needs work before it can support mass deployment.

At the heart of these attack vectors are design trade-offs that expose ‘the balance between building functionality and making [Lightning] secure.’ Some features like Neutrino, for instance, which have opened the door for more reliable and user-friendly mobile wallets for Lighting, have also opened up new types of attacks.

Lightning is great, but can’t say it is battle-tested. If script kids would be interested, they could take down those shiny new 5 BTC wumbo channels with negligible cost and no effort at all.

What follows is a list of some of the more worrisome attacks that could be launched on Bitcoin’s Lightning network.”

---

“Mining data aggregators attribute a slump in Bitcoin’s hash rate to the end of the wet season in Sichuan, resulting in many miners migrating to other jurisdictions.

The province of Sichuan is one of the world’s largest hubs for mining activity. Miners flock there to take advantage of cheap hydro-electricity during the rainy season and then just as quickly leave.

If accurate, the event would comprise 2020’s second-largest negative adjustment after the near 16% drop that followed the ‘Black Thursday’ crash in March.”

---

“Cubans are finding new ways to circumvent the embargo sanctions imposed by the U.S. government back in 1962. Remittances sent from the U.S. to Cuba often pass through a clandestine network of “crypto enthusiasts” before being converted into Cuban pesos.

Entities trading Cuban pesos for Bitcoin often endure long bike journeys though the Caribbean heat to finalize these transactions. Though the group appears to be informal and self-organized, thousands appear to be utilizing their services.”

---

“The crypto-powered Spotify competitor Audius has retroactively distributed 50 million of its native AUDIO tokens to artists and listeners using the platform.

A rather large 40.6% of the token’s supply has been allocated for the Audius team and advisors, including Deadmau5 and RAC, with 36% set for distribution among the platform’s investors and 17.8% of supply allocated to a community-governed treasury.

The token’s supply is set to inflate by 7% each year for future distributions to users.”

“Revealed by Benoit Coeure, head of the BIS Innovation Hub, at the Bund Summit in Shanghai, Oct. 23–25, the proof-of-concept initiative would be underway before then end of the year and would open a route to experimentation looking at use cases for a retail – i.e. cash equivalent – CBDC.

These could include how the digital currency might interoperate with existing payment systems, a role in digital identity and tracking financial compliance, per the report.

According to Coeure, the BIS Innovation Center is already carrying out experiments in Singapore, Switzerland and Hong Kong, and has plans to expand the work to Germany, France, the U.K., Sweden and Canada.”

See Also: Digital yuan will work with WeChat and Alipay, says bank exec
See Also: Kenya’s central bank exploring CBDCs due to ‘mushrooming’ of private cryptos

---

“The U.S. tax agency has clarified who needs to answer “yes” to a question over cryptocurrency activity.

The IRS now explains that tax payers would need to answer in the affirmative if they sold any cryptocurrency, exchanged cryptocurrency for goods or services, or exchanged cryptocurrency for property including other crypto assets. It also sets out that respondents must answer “yes” if they received any cryptocurrency for free, including via airdrops or hard forks.

The IRS draft guidance also makes clear taxpayers need not check yes if they merely held cryptocurrency in 2020, or moved it from one wallet to another owned by them.”

See Also: PayPal’s Crypto Offering May Be ‘a Huge Headache’ for Taxpayers

---

“An attacker used a flash loan – a technique that allows a trader to take on massive leverage without any downside – to manipulate DeFi prices for profit. The exploit sent the platform’s native token, FARM, tumbling by 65% in less than an hour, followed by the project’s total value locked (TVL), which dropped from over $1 billion before the exploit to $430 million as of press time.

The funds were eventually swapped for bitcoin (BTC), but not before being swept through Ethereum mixing service Tornado Cash.

Mixing the coins didn’t keep the Harvest Finance team in the dark for long. The person behind the exploit “is well-known in the crypto community” after leaving “a significant amount of personally identifiable information,” according to the project’s Discord. All seven bitcoin wallets holding the attacker’s funds are also known.

The anonymous developers behind the project do not want to doxx the party but are instead offering a $100,000 bounty for convincing the attacker to send back the funds.”

See Also: Uniswap, Curve Daily Trading Volumes Surges Past $2B, Likely Driven by Harvest Attack

---

“The election’s most direct impact on crypto policy will likely come through the federal regulators the President will appoint.

At present, the SEC is run by Chair Jay Clayton. In the event Trump wins and Clayton is confirmed to head the prosecutor’s office, Commissioner Hester Peirce could potentially take over the securities regulator, at least temporarily.

This would be a big deal. Peirce has advocated for cryptocurrency development and regulatory leniency in the past, earning the nickname “Crypto Mom” for her positions, which include a safe harbor designed to let token projects get off the ground before facing regulatory burdens. It’s unclear who Biden might tap to lead the agency should he win.

Ron Hammond, an industry lobbyist and former aide to Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) expects the agency to take more enforcement actions next year, particularly if Biden wins.

Overall the securities regulator appears to be leaning more toward “regulation by enforcement” rather than developing clear frameworks, he said.

The CFTC is more likely to create these regulatory frameworks, and current Chair Heath Tarbert only took office in 2019, giving him a few more years to helm the commodities regulator.”

---

“Notional enables fixed-rate debt on Ethereum using a new on-chain automated market maker (AMM) that can be used by DeFi, CeFi and institutional traders.

To accomplish that, Notional lets DeFi traders lock in borrowing rates on dai (DAI) to finance yield farming activities for up to six months, all while accessing fixed rates on levered long ether (ETH) trades for the same amount of time using a token called fCash.

The ability to lend and borrow at fixed rates is going to open up a brand new dimension, or financial design space, for DeFi and Ethereum’s ecosystem.”

---

“The fintech firm will be partnering with India’s United Multistate Credit Cooperative Society to build a crypto-friendly financial institution called UNICAS. This new venture will reportedly include 34 “physical branches and operations” in northern India, including the cities of Delhi and Gujarat, and the state of Rajasthan.

Earlier this month, Cashaa India stated that it would allow Indian businesses and individuals to open a savings account to buy, store, and save cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), XRP, and its native token CAS. The firm also reportedly will allow customers to use their crypto holdings as collateral for loans.

In addition, Cashaa stated it would retrofit The United’s existing locations into crypto education centers.”

---

“As the dust settles on DeFi’s most recent hype cycle, lack of privacy is emerging as one of the ecosystem’s biggest setbacks. And with a growing number of teams building to fix this, it seems that a privacy-enhanced DeFi is almost inevitable.

Currently, trading strategies on DeFi are single use only. Once you execute a sophisticated trade, that’s it- your strategy is out for the world to see, and so instantly loses its edge.

And there are security risks to non-private DeFi as well. DeFi is susceptible to miner front-running attacks. Because miners can see trades before they are finalized on the blockchain, they can bet on events before they happen.

Privacy today means sending coins to centralized exchanges and that is not a long-term solution. For DeFi to grow, we need censorship resistance through not only decentralization but also privacy.

Faced with this truth, countless new, next-generation DeFi products are emerging from the shadows; like Aztec, Stealth Swap, and Zk-Sync. While in different stages of production, these startups will ultimately offer private swaps and ERC-20s, while Aztec comes with its own private contract scripting language, Noir.

Once DeFi hits the mass market, it will be unstoppable.”

---

“In its simplest form, the metaverse is a virtual environment where people live, work, and play. Blockchain-based virtual worlds are the closest thing to a metaverse right now. These platforms are social networks, gaming platforms, e-commerce platforms, and creative platforms, all rolled into one.

What key piece of infrastructure, or “law,” would you need to feel confident spending the majority of your time in a virtual environment? For me the answer is property rights. I want to know that the items and things I acquire inside a virtual environment are not going to be taken away from me.

What else does the metaverse need?

• Digital Scarcity – If people could copy and paste everything inside the metaverse, then property rights wouldn’t really matter!
• Interoperability – A real metaverse allows assets and people from one game or environment to enter into a different game or environment.
• Programmability – Programmable assets allow any and all assets to become upgradeable. This means you’ll have more utility for the items you own. Programmability also allows for rapid iteration and experimentation.
• Easy Monetization
• Permissionless Innovation – If a company puts up barriers, then anyone can build around it.

The metaverse is just getting started. Without blockchains, the metaverse would simply not be possible. But now we have the technology. And it’s going to completely unlock unbelievable worlds that we’ve only dreamed of.”

---

“Kwenta is a new dApp powered by the Synthetix protocol, offering derivatives trading with infinite liquidity. It’s the next evolution of Synthetix.Exchange, rebuilt from the ground up.

Synthetix is targeting the largest financial market in the world: derivatives. A derivative on DeFi allows us to tokenize price exposure to just about anything—gold, the S&P500, and Tesla stock.

The biggest benefit with trading derivatives on Kwenta is you can trade with infinite liquidity and zero slippage.

Traders also have the ability to hold short positions without interest rates or hidden fees. Given Kwenta is a web3 dApp compatible with a range of different wallets, anyone can trade with deep liquidity without needing to entrust custody of your funds to a third party.

Here’s how you can onboard to Kwenta and start trading immediately.”

See Also: How to make money with digital art on Rarible
See Also: How to mint rETH on Rocket Pool

---

“In public companies, analysts and investors use metrics such as revenue, net income, EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization), EPS (earnings per share), P/E ratio (price to earnings ratio) and sales growth in order to correlate market capitalization justifications.

On-chain fees/revenue still hold a good promise for being a leading indicator of blockchain network value. Evan Van Ness aptly called a number of chains “Zombie Chains,” based on the little number of transactions that actually pass through them. That is an example of negative metric correlation that is nonetheless logical and easy to understand or validate.

We continue to be in the early stages of finding correlation metrics between crypto tokens value and usage. For this reason, I believe we are still in the era of qualitative crypto tokens valuation, where the price of tokens is primarily driven by speculative perceptions, brand value and creator promises.“

---

---

“Ayala mentioned coordinated block lists and safe lists as methods of dealing with malicious URLs in the IPFS network.

Mastodon is an example where node operators have decided how they want to filter information that they think is incorrect or bad or dangerous to the audience of people that run on a given — what they call — pub.

I think that we’re going to see that same style of filtering in either IPFS nodes, or through pubsub, where nodes want to communicate, coordinate, and share information about bad addresses.”

---

“Prosecutors allege that at the conference Griffith rendered services to the North Korean government in the form of “valuable information” he provided to DPRK officials, and that he “participated in conversations” about how to use blockchain technology to avoid sanctions.

Griffith, meanwhile, contends that his presentation was a ‘highly general speech based on publicly available information.’ Griffith argues that because he was not paid for his attendance and was not under contract as a consultant, he was not providing a “service” to the DPRK.”

“Ryan said the deposit contract won’t go live until it receives a thumbs up on an audit of a critical crypto library, BLST, performed by cryptography audit firm NCC Group.

This library is critical to creating keys, signing messages.

Ethereum 2.0 core researchers are now expecting the deposit contract – a one-way Ethereum smart contract that holds staked ether (ETH) necessary for securing the new Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network – to be released in early to mid-November pending the audit’s findings, Ryan said.

Ryan said researchers are still eyeing 2020 for the genesis block of the Beacon chain.”

See Also: Unconfirmed: Lighthouse Teases Dec 22, 2020 Beacon Chain Launch Date!

---

“The 30-day rolling daily average for Ethereum transaction volume is currently $7 billion, with Bitcoin processing less than $3 billion. If the current trend continues, Messari predicts Ethereum will become the first public blockchain to settle $1 trillion in transfers over a calendar year.

Messari’s Ryan Watkins attributes much of Ethereum’s volume spike to increased ERC-20 stablecoin volumes, with the majority of Tether (USDT) transactions now taking place on Ethereum and yield farming-driven demand pushing supply growth of more than 600% for MakerDAO’s Dai stablecoin.

Watkins also notes booming on-chain liquidity from decentralized exchanges, with Uniswap and Curve generating more than $20 billion in volume combined during September. DEXs now represent more than 13.6% of total exchange volumes.”

---

“The data shows that the institutional volume is rapidly gaining a larger share of the cryptocurrency market.

After PayPal’s news, every major bank is having a meeting about how to support bitcoin. It’s no longer optional.

Institutions are primarily exploring Bitcoin as an inflation trade and a long-term allocation. But technical analysts state that the short to medium-term outlook remains bright for BTC/USD.

The confluence of macro as well as a favorable technical structure could further intensify the demand for Bitcoin as institutions are starting to increasingly embrace the world’s biggest cryptocurrency.”

See Also: Grayscale adds a ‘cool $300M’ in a day and $1B this week
See Also: Novogratz calls PayPal’s Bitcoin news ‘the shot heard around the world on Wall Street’

---

“The proposed law recognizes the renminbi in both physical and digital form. The new version will essentially also clear the way for the digital yuan to be the one and only official yuan-pegged token in mainland China.

To prevent risks associated with virtual currency, any other legal entity or individuals can not issue or sell tokens to replace the circulation of Renminbi.

The revision would take a toll on one of the biggest crypto-related businesses in China since many Chinese investors conduct crypto-to-crypto trading with stablecoins. Tether, one of the largest crypto companies, has a yuan stablecoin.”

See Also: Digital Ruble ‘Promising,’ Pilot Likely in 2021, Says Bank of Russia Chief
See Also: EY-led consortium bids to work on Korea’s central bank digital currency pilot project
See Also: Chinese Authorities Crack Down on Gambling Sites Using Tether Stablecoin

---

“The plugin can help with copyright issues, proof of who created a piece of content, and to reassure readers it has not been altered.

WordPress currently powers around 37% of all websites and has a 60% share of the CMS market.”

---

“Over time, spurred by events such as the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the 2008 financial crisis, the BSA rules have become stricter and wider. They’ve also spawned other rules for non-bank payment providers, and given rise to powerful agencies such as FinCEN.

Sadly, there’s very little discussion of all this financial surveillance’s impact on people’s lives.

Western governments thought they were starving East African terrorist groups like Al-Shabaab of funds, but the terrorists still mobilized money. Instead, the measures starved the local population of food, creating a ripe recruiting environment for the terrorists.

Is this the system that really promotes prosperity in our world? When we look at the remittance markets and the folks who are relying on … transfers of $50 and $100 … is this really what we want our system to be cracking down on? Is this the best use of our resources?”

See Also: US Moves to Cast a Wider Net for Catching Money Launderers, Crypto or Otherwise

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“The Seychelles-based exchange said it was adding DeFi token yearn.finance (YFI) to its quanto futures contracts. Polkadot (DOT) and Binance coin (BNB) contracts are also on the way.

All three contracts will be paired against the dollar-linked tether (USDT) stablecoin. The products are slated to start trading on Oct. 30.”

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“The foundation said that as the SEC isn’t considering Kin a security and the judge didn’t find the token in violation of securities laws, Kin ‘should be free to trade on exchanges.’

Going forward, with its reserves still “deep,” the foundation said it plans to continue to grow the Kin ecosystem. Additionally, a planned token migration to the Solana blockchain will go ahead and is ‘on schedule.’

Beyond the monetary fine, Kik’s assets are still Kik’s property, including its remaining treasury, its Kin reserves and all of its intellectual capital.”

“‘Talks could still fall apart and PayPal could opt to buy other targets,’ Bloomberg quoted one of its sources as saying.

A BitGo spokesperson declined to comment on the report.”

See Also: PayPal might issue its own cryptocurrency soon, says CoinShares exec
See Also: PayPal’s Move Is Good for Crypto Adoption but Not So Much for Profits: Morgan Stanley

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“The statement reflects law enforcement agencies’ “fundamental discomfort” with any technology that could allow for private interactions.

The enforcement framework is making exactly the same argument you’ve seen being made for decades about encryption, and they’re coming from the exact same place as the fight against encryption.

In Belcher’s view, the crypto framework puts both individuals who write code for peer-to-peer transactions as well as those who use this code at risk for enforcement actions.

To say I can’t send you cryptocurrency using a script, you and I can’t transact with each other directly in a peer-to-peer way without that data being collected somewhere by a third party is a complete affront to privacy and civil liberty.

No one questions that I can hand you money without there needing to be a written record of that.

Blaming cryptocurrencies for their use in crimes does not make sense, she said.

We don’t blame Ford when one of its cars is used as a getaway vehicle in a bank robbery.

The idea that merely by exercising your right to transact anonymously is indicative of you committing a crime is wrong.”

See Also: Three Trends Killing Web Privacy and Decentralization

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“VRF will provide a decentralized source of randomness for the project’s decentralized ecosystem. A trusted source of randomness is essential for many applications, such as those in the gambling and gaming industries.

The V3 PoolTogether Protocol creates a true “money lego” for no loss prize games. An essential component of this is generating randomness. Using Chainlink VRF lets us move away from a less secure and centralized system to a decentralized one.”

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“Demand for Ethereum-based stablecoins exploded during the third-quarter DeFi bubble, with Dai’s supply growing by more than 600% and USDC expanding 200%.

Messari attributes much of Dai’s recent growth to the launch of four significant liquidity mining programs in the DeFi sector, including a change to Compound’s (COMP) yield distribution that bolstered DAI rewards on June 30, the launch of Yearn Finance (YFI) farming on July 18, Curve’s (CRV) launch on Aug. 13, and the launch of yield farming for Uniswap’s UNI token on Sept. 16.

Messari estimates that 65% of DAI’s entire supply is currently being supplied to DeFi protocols for yield farming.”

See Also: Almost half a billion USDT minted in past 36 hours as Bitcoin rallies
See Also: Introducing Loan Shifter — change your collateral or debt asset and shift between protocols using DeFi Saver

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“So far there have only been two pools, though, one using MakerDAO’s dai stablecoin, and the other using CENTRE’s USDC. That’s all set to change with v3, which will enable lots more ERC-20 tokens, more yield sources and more prize distribution schemes.

Perhaps v3’s most important feature, however, is that it will enable outsiders to create new pools with their own rules. For example, the pool could say that half of its yield goes to depositors and half to some charity. Or it could award its pool to 10 winners, rather than only one.

The thing they all have in common is they are no-loss, you can withdraw your money any time. No-loss lotteries are an underexplored and compelling alternative to high yield savings accounts.”

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“It’s the latest contribution to a long-raging debate in crypto: when, and how, is something truly decentralized? Finding that key can help investors, security researchers and even securities regulators root out blockchain projects’ sometimes bogus claims.

Thirty-three data points probe the hard facts behind blockchain decentralization. Many are obvious. For example, the focus network’s node count – a decentralized network should have plenty – and its underlying code’s licensure status – open source or bust – are clear benchmarks.

But others appear to be more novel. Ketsal’s framework proposes weighing the network’s GitHub statistics, measuring inter-node communication times, determining how large a stake of the cryptocurrency rests in wallets (and with the big-investing whales) – and even the theoretical cost of mounting a 51% attack, among others.”

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“Ant Group continues to roll out blockchain-based platforms, announcing a way for content creators to protect their copyright.

Built on its AntChain network and using AI technology as well as blockchain, the digital copyright platform allows creators to ‘quickly authenticate and verify a variety of original works.’

These can include musical scores, videos, images, articles and essays.”

See Also: Justin Sun’s BitTorrent to Acquire Esports Platform for New Streaming Ecosystem
See Also: Siemens-backed blockchain energy platform showcases in Germany

PayPal Embraces Crypto, Igniting Market as Mainstream Adoption Inches Closer

“PayPal officially confirmed Wednesday it is entering the cryptocurrency market. The payments giant, with 346 million active accounts around the world, pledged to make cryptocurrency ‘a funding source for purchases at its 26 million merchants worldwide.’

Initially, the service supports bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), ether (ETH) and litecoin (LTC). Buy, sell and hold features would be live within the next few weeks.

PayPal’s service does not allow bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies to be withdrawn or deposited. Once you buy the coins, they stay in your account until you sell. ‘The Cryptocurrency in your account cannot be transferred to other accounts on or off PayPal.’

Merchants will have no additional integrations or fees, as all transactions will be settled with fiat currency at their current PayPal rates.”

See Also: Regulation will keep PayPal’s new crypto services from looking anything like crypto
See Also: Baby Steps or Handcuffs? Crypto Pros Assess PayPal’s Bitcoin Play

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“The fintech group said it will convert up to 10% of its cash reserves into the cryptocurrency as part of a long-term strategy to ‘protect investors’ assets from currency debasement.’ The firm did not disclose a cash value of the bitcoin allocation.

Mode said it recognized the potential of bitcoin as ‘a reliable store of value and an attractive investment due to the asset’s asymmetric risk/reward attributes and safe haven status.‘

Our confidence in the long-term value of bitcoin has only increased. Today’s allocation is executed through a modern, forward-looking but prudent treasury management strategy.”

See Also: Canada’s first public Bitcoin fund hits $100M mark
See Also: Nigeria Protests Show Bitcoin Adoption Is Not Coming: It’s Here

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“The Central Bank of the Bahamas has officially launched its national digital currency. The first of its kind in the world to have been fully deployed, the sand dollar is a digital version of the Bahamian dollar.

Digital wallets will be secured with multi-factor authentication security and will be mobile-based, servicing the 90% of the population with smartphones. Underserved communities of the Caribbean nation are the primary target of the initiative.”

See Also: Hong Kong ‘Exploring’ Collaboration With China on Digital Yuan: Finance Chief
See Also: CBDC as a store of value threatens financial system, says German official
See Also: Brazil is prepping an IPO for its state-run digital bank

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“Filecoin’s miners, developers and users of the network will be able to access ConsenSys’ development tools such as Infura, MetaMask and others to integrate with Ethereum’s decentralized finance ecosystem.

Ethereum DApps and projects can become more fully decentralized by storing relevant data on Filecoin rather than relying on a centralized cloud service.

On Wednesday, Codefi Activate also launched Filecoin Storage, a dashboard for the file storage system available through a web app and an API.”

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“Unlike on centralized exchanges, where tether is the go-to stablecoin in dollar-based crypto trades, USDC and DAI seem to have found their niche as the preferred stablecoins in decentralized trades.

One advantage you have from a decentralized stablecoin is that everything is completely transparent. So from a regulatory point of view, this is almost like their dream scenario, right? Because they can see exactly how many dai are in existence and in circulation and they can see in real time.

For stablecoin king tether, more than a few market participants question whether it is as transparent as the company claims.

Tether’s first-mover advantage may have been the leading reason for its overall dominance, but even in Asia, which has historically driven demand in USDT, traders are beginning to turn to other stablecoins for liquidity.”

See Also: Harvest Finance Doubles Total Value Locked to $704M in One Week
See Also: Peer-to-peer NFT sales surge as average purchase price increases 7x

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“Today ZEC is making its debut within the bustling decentralized exchange (DEX) ecosystem.

Announced Wednesday, WZEC is the first asset to be launched by “Wrapped,” a partnership between Ethereum tokenizers Tokensoft and qualified custodian Anchorage, with over-the-counter (OTC) liquidity provided by CMS Holdings.

It’s great for people to have more alternatives to centralized exchanges (CEXs), and the way that CEXs have to comply with arbitrary demands from their banks.”

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“BitMEX, which has been charged by the U.S. government with facilitating unregistered trading, has accelerated its mandate for all customers to verify their identities by Nov. 5, three months earlier than its original deadline of early February.

By Dec. 4., all accounts must be verified in order to process withdrawals from the exchange.”

See Also: Crypto Options Exchange Deribit to Require ID Verification for All Users by Year End

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“Minds, the Ethereum-based distributed social network which claims more than 3 million users, announced that it has partnered with decentralized startup Arweave to allow users to save their social media posts to the blockchain-based permaweb.

The addition is billed as a further measure of censorship resistance for social posts.

Given the chaos we are witnessing on mainstream social networks with regards to censorship, surveillance, and algorithmic manipulation, Minds provides users with a more resilient, decentralized, and trustless infrastructure to build their digital archive.”

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“Currently, there are almost 2,800 man-made satellites orbiting Earth.

According to Sudler, moving data from one satellite to another can be a lengthy process involving multiple ground stations that stay in touch with the satellite. Using a blockchain network to transact this data could reduce such requirements and lower the operational cost of maintaining ground stations if satellites could “talk” to each other in space.“

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“Should it be illegal for the victim to pay the ransom? Earlier this month the U.S. Treasury Department did just that. It notified the world that certain ransom payments are illegal, specifically those to sanctioned ransomware operators. Should a victim pay a ransom to a sanctioned entity, that person may face a big fine.

Punishing ransom victims seems heartless. But it may be one of the best ways to protect the public from extortionists.”