“Internet hosting giant Cloudflare will be able to connect to domains hosted on the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) and the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) by a new indexing service.
We are proud to announce a new resolver for the Distributed Web, where IPFS content indexed by the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) can be accessed.
The primary purpose of the eth.link service is pretty straightforward: users can append ‘.link’ to the end of a .eth name to access an IPFS website at the name like a normal website, no special browsers or extensions necessary.”
See Also: Pirated Academic Database Sci-Hub Is Now on the ‘Uncensorable Web’
“Arxnovum Investments Inc. filed documents for the “Arxnovum Bitcoin ETF” on Monday. The ETF is planned to be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the ticker “BIT.U.”
The proposed bitcoin ETF will provide investors with exposure to bitcoin and daily price movements of the U.S. dollar price of bitcoin by investing in bitcoin and/or bitcoin futures contracts, and/or other derivative instruments that provide economic exposure to bitcoin.
Winklevoss-owned Gemini Trust company will be the sub-custodian of the bitcoin held by the ETF.”
See Also: New Bitcoin ETP Launches on Swiss Stock Exchange SIX
See Also: SolidX files lawsuit against VanEck alleging Bitcoin ETF ‘plagiarism’
“Cryptocurrencies could grow fivefold by 2025 into a $3 trillion market, under new projections from Bakkt Holdings. In the investor presentation, Bakkt estimated its revenue, net of transaction-related expenses, could grow by an average 75% per year to $515 million by 2025.
The underlying assumptions behind the transaction show just how bullish investors, entrepreneurs and financial executives have become over the past year on the fast-paced digital-asset industry.”
See Also: Goldman Sachs says Bitcoin is on the path to maturity
See Also: Multiple Tokens See Rally Amid Looming ‘Alt Season’
“We had a really, really awful event in the United States last week. What has followed from that, however, is truly chilling. Now you’ve got payments companies saying that they will not process the payments of people who are of a certain political party who voted one way on a contested political issue.
Everything is at risk if financial technology is politicized.
Payments platforms Shopify and Stripe deplatformed Trump’s campaign after the violence. Brooks said this is an extension of the existing pressure payment companies have exerted on businesses in the past.
The OCC under Brooks is looking into creating a rule that would prohibit institutions from not providing services to certain industries, including the energy and crypto sectors.
We live in a world where not only information, but also money might be controlled by a handful of elites who might not like the way that any one of us thinks [about an issue]. Crypto is about freedom and if you didn’t believe that freedom mattered last week, you should think about it again.”
See Also: OCC’s Brian Brooks thinks that DeFi can root out bias and fraud in traditional banking
See Also: Brian Brooks, Crypto-Friendly Bank Regulator, Expected to Step Down This Week: Report
“Global payments provider PayPal has doubled its previous crypto volume record, with $242 million worth of digital assets changing hands on the platform during Jan. 11. Since Jan. 1, daily volume has increased by 950% from $22.8.
With the spike in PayPal’s volume coming amid Bitcoin’s rally into new all-time highs, the U.S.-based payments firm appears to be gathering popularity among retail traders.
PayPal is expected to offer cryptocurrency services to its 26 million merchants in the coming months, likely driving further demand for the company’s crypto services.”
“Traditional insurance cover within the crypto industry remains thin on the ground and prohibitively expensive. Nexus takes a different approach, offering cover to users themselves, rather than relying on an insurance policy held by the exchange – or not, as the case may be.
We are expanding to provide coverage for centralized exchanges, starting with the big ones like Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, Gemini.
The more secure an exchange is perceived to be, the more likely risk assessors will back it. Once sufficient staking has been established, cover purchases will go live and members of the mutual will be able to purchase cover.
The centralized exchange cover from Nexus will pay a claim if an exchange gets hacked and the user loses more than 10% of their funds, or if withdrawals are halted for more than 90 days.”
“[Gensler] has testified before Congress about cryptocurrency and blockchain on multiple occasions, pushing back against comparisons between cryptocurrencies and Ponzi schemes and declaring that the still-unlaunched libra token met the requirements of being a security under U.S. law.
At MIT’s Sloan School, Gensler taught a course on cryptocurrencies and blockchains, calling the technology ‘a catalyst for change in the world of finance and the broader economy.'”
See Also: ECB’s Christine Lagarde Says ‘Speculative’ Bitcoin Needs Global Regulation
See Also: Visa Abandons $5.3B Acquisition of Plaid Over DOJ Antitrust Concerns
“The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), one of Pakistan’s four provinces, announced the launch of two state-owned Bitcoin mining farms last week. The move marked one of the first instances of a government using its own funds to mine (and make a profit from) Bitcoin.
Countries like Pakistan and Iran have turned to Bitcoin to revive a failing economy.”
See Also: US Navy Commissions $1.5M Blockchain System for Tracking Critical Weaponry
“Ledger has announced its first measures to address the data breach and ensure such a hack doesn’t happen again.
These include working with blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis to hunt the hackers, offering a 10 BTC bounty for information leading to the hacker’s arrest and creating a comprehensive review of what information the company holds onto, where it’s stored and how long it’s retained.
We are announcing changes in the way Ledger will collect and handle customer data: keeping personal data for as short a time as legally possible, minimizing the display of personal data in emails, moving needed data in a further segregated environment as soon as possible, and creating a secure channel for communicating 1:1 with our customers via Ledger Live. Our goal is to delete data such as name, address, and phone number as soon as possible, even if we would be allowed to keep them under the GDPR.
We will soon release a technical solution that will remove the 24 words as the single pillar of the security of our hardware wallets and will open the door to funds insurance as well.”
“The Yearn.finance community is introducing a proposal to reform the current token economics of YFI. Currently, Yearn.finance uses a staking and dividends model. Holders must place their tokens in the yGov contract and receive a portion of the revenue generated by its yield strategies.
An alternative method of value capture used by some, like Maker, sees the protocol buyback tokens on the open market and then “burn” or retire them. This mechanism creates buying pressure on the token’s price, ideally resulting in a tight coupling between the protocol’s success and its token’s price — and finally, stakeholders’ wealth. This kind of strategy has gained significant prominence in stock and crypto markets in recent years due to its flexibility and tax efficiency for holders.
Instead of retiring the tokens bought back on the market, they would be kept in the treasury’s balance to be redistributed for development and community initiatives.
Nonetheless, the fact that the tokens are expected to eventually make their way back into circulation limits the effectiveness of this value accrual strategy. This is largely by design — One of the motivations for activating the mechanism is to concentrate all resources on the growth of the protocol.
An informal poll shows more than 90% support among community members.”
See Also: Uniswap’s growth lead bites back over Yearn Finance’s SushiSwap merger
“Metapurse recently announced that it had acquired all 20 of the 1/1 NFT artworks auctioned in December’s Beeple Everydays: The 2020 Collection. Of course, one doesn’t spend $2.2 million on NFT art without a gameplan.
On Jan. 23, it will launch the B.20 bundle. This consists of all 20 unique NFT artworks, along with prime virtual real estate in the Cryptovoxels, Decentraland and Somnium Space metaverses, and custom-designed VR galleries in each metaverse to house the art.
To celebrate the launch, Metapurse is hosting a free cultural quasi-festival called Metapalooza, featuring a live virtual performance from DJ, Producer and crypto-evangelist 3LAU.”
See Also: Avatar Social Platform IMVU Launches Ethereum Token to Power Its Virtual Economy
“Almost a decade ago, Stefan Thomas, the former CTO at blockchain company Ripple Labs, was given 7,002 bitcoins worth $2-$6 each for making a cryptocurrency explainer video.
Thomas has used eight of his most frequently used passwords in an attempt access his IronKey hard drive and his now multimillion-dollar fortune but has had no luck. Two attempts now remain before the device auto-encrypts its contents.“
The Disrupt 