“Ether’s net daily issuance is less than bitcoin’s for the first time on record. Ether’s daily annualized net issuance fell to 1.11% earlier this week versus bitcoin’s 1.75%.

EIP 1559, which went live on Aug. 5, burns a portion of fees paid to the miners, removing a notable chunk of coins from circulation. Since activation, the upgrade has eliminated over 100,000 ETH, representing 36% of the new coins issued over the same period.

If the trend continues, ether could attract store-of-value demand, which until now has been concentrated mainly toward bitcoin.

Previously closer to digital oil, ETH’s value moved in tandem with its usage; now that its issuance is probably lower (and potentially deflationary), it is likely to develop a monetary premium like BTC.”

See Also: Early Uber Investor Bill Gurley Takes ‘Personal Position’ in Ethereum

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“Bitcoin gained Friday, and the U.S. dollar dropped in foreign-exchange markets, after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell leaned dovish in a key speech at the U.S. central bank’s annual Jackson Hole, Wyo., conference. He provided no concrete date for starting to taper or scale back the Fed’s $120 billion-a-month bond-buying program.

In the highly anticipated speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual economic symposium, Powell said the economy no longer needs as much policy support but the central bank should refrain from making an “ill-timed policy move” in response to this year’s “transitory” rise in inflation.

The timing and pace of the coming reduction in asset purchases will not be intended to carry a direct signal regarding the timing of interest rate liftoff, for which we have articulated a different and substantially more stringent test.”

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“This is the problem we’re going to solve: make it easy to fund a non-custodial wallet anywhere in the world through a platform to build on- and off-ramps into Bitcoin. You can think about this as a decentralize[d] exchange for fiat.

We’d love for this to be Bitcoin-native, be entirely developed in public, open-source, open-protocol.”

---

“Weiss Crypto, the subsidiary of financial ratings firm Weiss Ratings, slammed Cardano’s partnership with Coinfirm, describing it as a “bad move all around.”

The Cardano Foundation announced its partnership with the blockchain analytics provider on Tuesday, which will see Coinfirm’s analytics being utilized to ensure compliance with frameworks such as the 6th Anti-Money Laundering Directive and Financial Action Task Force’s guidelines.

The excessive regulation is how the banking system was choked to death. With this announcement, it would seem ADA is proudly announcing they want to follow in their footsteps.

[Cardano] is now closer to becoming a censorship-prone, politicized, and manipulated network.”

See Also: SEC reportedly contracts blockchain analytics firm to monitor DeFi industry

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“The central bank, which is known as the BCC, said it may authorize, for reasons of socioeconomic interest, the use of certain virtual assets in commercial transactions and license virtual asset service providers to allow them to conduct certain financial activities, such as collecting payments.

Financial institutions and other legal entities may only use virtual assets among themselves and with natural persons to carry out monetary and mercantile operations, and exchange and swap transactions, as well as to satisfy pecuniary obligations.”

---

“In this year’s Hype Cycle report, research firm Gartner has ranked NFTs at “Peak of Inflated Expectations.”

Every year, global research and development company Gartner publishes its Hype Chart, which highlights the 25 breakthrough technologies that the company considers will have the most impact on business and society over the next two to ten years.

With the top marketplaces generating $2.5 billion worth of trading volume in the first half of the year, and popular collections such as CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club recording new peaks, NFTs have yet to reach the “trough of disillusionment” that Garner predicts will come after the “peak of inflated expectations.”

NFTs are establishing themselves as an exciting new asset class with a regular inflow of new buyers. Whilst many have already called the top multiple times on NFT markets, the consolidation of price followed by new market highs continues to surprise.”

---

“Banks helped force a hugely disruptive porn ban on OnlyFans. With public fury focused on their outsized power, the banks seem to have backed down.

The ban, announced just a week ago, was met with widespread outrage both from adult performers and, more generally, those concerned about the power of banks to effectively shut down businesses they don’t like by cutting off payments service. Public discussion of that threat, often referred to as “banking censorship,” was likely a key element in the reversal of the ban.

95% of coverage about OnlyFans supports [sex workers].

Meanwhile, adult performers have been organizing protests against Mastercard scheduled for Sept. 1. Those may still continue and could be hugely embarrassing for banks and financial services – particularly to the degree they highlight payment processors’ ability to block pretty much any payment they please.

All of this marks a major defeat for efforts by social conservatives and other anti-porn activists to leverage the payments system to impose their views on society. It also appears to have more broadly raised awareness about the threat of banking censorship.

For cryptocurrency advocates who have spent more than a decade banging on about the threat of bank censorship, this may come to be viewed as a watershed moment.”

---

“The new warrants authorize police to hack the personal computers and networks of suspected criminals, seize control of their online accounts and identities, and disrupt their data. The Greens slammed the bill for hastening Australia’s march down the path to becoming a “surveillance state”:

What’s worse, the data disruption and network activity warrant could be issued by a member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal […] It is outrageous that these warrants won’t come from a judge of a superior court.”

“Now there’s a simpler way to get plugged into the ENS ecosystem, where users own their domain name data and can use their web addresses as crypto wallets. ENS announced today that website owners with a Domain Name System (DNS) can now integrate directly with ENS without having to change to a .eth name, as they previously would have had to do.

For example, if you own ‘example.com’ on DNS, you can import it into ENS — as example.com, not example.eth, the latter is a separate name.

You can then send and receive ETH and other assets, including Dogecoin, via that .com (or .net, .org, .edu , and so on) name.”

See Also: Full DNS Namespace Integration to ENS Now on Mainnet

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“According to the patent, creating and managing tokens is currently “difficult and cumbersome” due to the lack of standardization across different blockchains. Microsoft’s patent describes a ledger-independent system for helping users to create tokens, and for managing them across different networks.

On receiving a request from a user, the system offers templates with various attributes and control functions. Those would depend on the type of token required, representing, for example, a digital or physical asset. Once the user has selected the desired template, the system creates the token on the designated networks.”

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“Around 6% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply has been accumulated by asset managers and companies, signaling ever increasing mainstream and institutional adoption of crypto assets.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, represents more than 3% of the Bitcoin supply, managing 654,600 BTC (worth $32 billion). CoinShares’ XBT Provider ranks second with 48,466 BTC ($2.4 billion) representing 0.23% of supply.

The data provider also tracks 34 public companies that hold BTC on their balance sheets, which collectively command 1% of Bitcoin’s supply. Half of all Bitcoin held by public companies is in the possession of MicroStrategy. Tesla accounts for 20% of the Bitcoin held by private companies. Roughly 80% of BTC stashed away by private companies is held by Block.One.

A further 260,000 BTC are attributed to the balance sheets of national governments.”

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“Following a pair of controversial votes in the governance forums of the Uniswap exchange, venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) said in a blog post Thursday it will “open source” its decentralized finance (DeFi) delegation procedures.

Given the size of the DeFi ecosystem – now rivaling mid-sized American banks at $146 billion in total value locked (TVL) – and the considerable governance token reserves controlled by a16z, this effort towards transparency sheds light on policies that have the power to shape an emerging financial vertical.

The “open sourcing” of the delegate program is a bid to lift the veil on how a16z approaches protocol governance. The goal moving forward is to “build in public.”

If we’ve had a fault to date, it’s been a lack of transparency.

DAO voting and delegation will be managed by a new, four-person team. The a16z Protocol team will be perhaps the first-ever third-party professional protocol politicians with a purview that will comfortably rank a16z among the most powerful voices in DAO governance.“

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“A total of 42,500 option contracts worth roughly $2 billion are set to expire on Friday. The max pain price for Friday’s bitcoin options expiry is $44,000.

The cryptocurrency is trading at about $47,000 at press time, representing a 4.4% drop on the day. The decline has reversed Wednesday’s 2.7% gain and exposed bitcoin to the widely tracked 200-day moving average (MA) line located at $46,040.

What we are seeing is typical pre-expiry price volatility. [The] market generally rebounds after monthly settlement.”

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“The former Ethereum alternative darling is far off its all-time high for total value locked. A growing number of “rug pulls” or exploits on BSC, meanwhile, has also raised questions around BSC’s security, as some BSC users have left the platform over fears about the safety of their funds, according to analysts.

BSC should’ve just rebranded to Binance Rug Chain.

Messari’s second quarter review on layer 1 blockchains highlighted that BSC was particularly hurt by the May market crash because most of the value locked on BSC was money-oriented capital looking for liquidity mining rewards, and the majority of assets on BSC had few use cases.

In developing layer 1 blockchains, one of the three fundamentals, scalability, security and decentralization, has to be sacrificed to optimize the other two, a so-called blockchain trilemma. In BSC’s case, decentralization was sacrificed. The BSC blockchain’s security algorithm, known as Proof-Of-Staked-Authority (PoSA), is controlled by 21 node operators who are mainly controlled by Binance.“

See Also: Can Avalanche Keep It Up? DeFi Users Rush In as Incentives Roll Out

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“Two bills introduced in the U.S. Congress on Wednesday seek to push the CFTC to clarify the regulation of cryptocurrencies, prevent price manipulation, boost acceptance of blockchain technology and, ultimately, make U.S. cryptocurrency businesses more globally competitive.

This is the third iteration of the two bills, which were both first proposed in 2018.”

See Also: India’s Securities Watchdog to Launch System for Monitoring Financial Instruments

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“Weiss will produce and direct episodes of “Hold On for Dear Life”—a backronym for HODL, the rallying cry of Bitcoin maximalists. “HODL” watchers will be eligible for NFTs of artwork and content from the show.

The series hinges on its young protagonist, Mel, who creates a token in honor of her best friend, who has gone missing. She must then navigate the crypto scene a la “Silicon Valley” or “Betas” alongside a motley crew of friends, including a crypto anarchist and a Lambo lover.

Like “Ballers” and “Entourage,” it’s supposed to be funny. But there’s serious potential for crossover appeal as the show has minted its own ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain so that token holders can receive a share of the series profits. The token sales will also go toward funding the production.”

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“Blockchain firm Constellation Network is to provide end-to-end security for data sharing between the U.S. Department of Defense and its commercial partners. The contract is a transition from the Phase I contact secured by Constellation two years ago.

In partnership with Kinnami Software, Constellation has applied its Hypergraph Transfer Protocol to create a security product that uses blockchain encryption and distributed data management.”

See Also: VeChain launches blockchain platform to encourage carbon data reporting

“Evidence is mounting to suggest that Ethereum has finally either caught up to or surpassed Bitcoin across a number of key metrics.

For starters, Ethereum is surpassing Bitcoin in total value transferred on-chain. So far in August $185 billion worth of ETH has been moved on Ethereum while only $180 billion of BTC has exchanged hands on Bitcoin.

Every month since June 2020, users have been paying more in fees to send transactions on Ethereum than Bitcoin. In 2021 alone, total fees in dollar terms on Ethereum were four times higher than Bitcoin, suggesting demand for block space on Ethereum is outpacing demand for block space on Bitcoin.

The Puell Multiple suggests the profit-taking opportunities for investors holding ETH have been greater than those for investors holding BTC almost consistently for the past 15 months. 

As a result, trade activity for ETH-USD pairs have surpassed or come close to surpassing that of BTC-USD pairs. For the first time ever, aggregated monthly trade volume in the ETH spot markets surpassed that of the BTC spot markets in May. This suggests market interest in ETH is trending as high as BTC. 

There are also telltale signs in the cryptocurrency derivatives market of a shift in market sentiment placing Ethereum in the same rankings as, if not more bullish rankings than, Bitcoin.

How much people are willing to pay for bitcoin or ether one or three months out into the future is a good sense of the market sentiment around where things are going. The future premium you pay for ether is close to 10%, whereas for bitcoin it’s right around 7% to 8% right now and the amount of calls being bought out into the future is more skewed to the upside on ether than bitcoin.

Institutions and professional investors that got involved in the crypto industry because of their interest in bitcoin are getting serious about their interest in ether, too, and, more importantly, they are beginning to value ether as a unique investment separate from bitcoin.”

See Also: Ethereum Supply Shock: Exchange ETH reserves continue to fall after a 26% drop in 2021

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“The beer company purchased the Beer.eth domain name for 30 ether, or roughly $95,000. Budweiser USA also changed its Twitter profile picture Tuesday to that of a rocket ship designed by NFT artist Tom Sachs.

Budweiser is taking its first steps into the NFT universe.”

See Also: Facebook Considering NFT Support in Novi Digital Wallet
See Also: Fox Leads Investment in Blockchain Tech Firm Eluvio

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“The report by Allied Market Research published Tuesday projects a compound annual growth rate of 12.8% between 2021 and 2030.

The main drivers will be increased demand for international remittances and more transparency in global payments systems.”

---

“Crypto trading commissions increased from just 7% of total commissions a year ago to 73% in the second quarter of this year.

The company had 23.2 million total users as of June 30. In May, eToro announced that it plans to go public via the merger, which values the combined company at $10.4 billion.”

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“Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has increased for the third time in a row in yet another sign of the network’s staying power following a crackdown on the industry earlier this year by authorities in China. The latest increase in the bitcoin mining difficulty comes as some operators creep back online after previously dropping off the network following China’s crackdown and as North American miners expand capacity.

Bitcoin mining has never been more profitable. Look at the percentage of price run that bitcoin had over the last 12 months and look at the hashrate percentage increase, and it’s nowhere near in line.”

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“Goldman Sachs now sees the probability of a formal November announcement at 45%, versus a previous forecast of 25%.

The upward revision comes days before the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual Jackson Hole symposium, where Chair Jerome Powell is expected to strike a dovish tone, considering the resurgence of the Delta variant.

Historically, that has been a headwind for bitcoin. In past cycles, both the anticipation and start of tapering have tightened monetary conditions, boosting the dollar in the process.”

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“The tokenized green bonds are the Bank of International Settlements Innovation Hub’s first green finance project. Under so-called Project Genesis, they will build a “prototype digital infrastructure,” which will enable sustainable investments while improving transparency of how proceeds are used.

Tokenizing the bonds through blockchain technology will allow investors to buy small denominations of the assets, which the institutions hope will boost investment. Investors can also track environmental output in real time.”

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“A mix network or “mixnet” (taking its name from the proxy servers it employs, called “mixes”) obscures the metadata left behind when data passes through a network, providing a higher level of privacy when it comes to network-level surveillance. Manning’s audit will be completed before the Nym network launches on mainnet later in the year.

As methods for network traffic analysis have dramatically improved in the last decade, I have frequently called for research (since 2016) into alternative methods to Tor. Nym is one such viable alternative worthy of research and developmental implementation.”

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“Mafia groups and criminal organizations are increasingly using cryptocurrencies, according to the Italian Anti-Mafia Directorate (DIA). The DIA recently published a report that covers organized crime in Italy during the first six months of 2020.

Ndrangheta, the country’s strongest and most powerful criminal syndicate, are growing more and more attuned to modern tools like cryptocurrency and the deep web.

Only the most sophisticated can obfuscate their traces by now. That prevents small dealers from participating in the market and a natural tendency towards fewer but larger dealers on those markets.”

“VanEck and ProShares both pulled their applications just two days after filing them, suggesting the SEC reached out to the issuers and indicated an ether futures fund was not likely to be approved.

The fact that both companies’ bitcoin futures ETF filings, as well as those of several other firms, remain active is a positive for their prospects, according to Seyffart. He expects at least one bitcoin futures ETF to launch in the U.S. in the fourth quarter, perhaps as soon as October.

If eventual bitcoin futures ETFs are able to operate successfully, and open interest and volume in ether contracts continue to rise, Seyffart said he believes it won’t be long before ether futures ETFs are approved by the SEC.”

See Also: Citigroup Gearing Up to Trade CME Bitcoin Futures: Sources

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“The House voted 220-212 to bar amendments from consideration on the Biden administration’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill. The agreement brought together progressive and moderate Democrats who had foreseen different ways forward for the legislation.

While the Treasury Department under the Biden administration has reportedly suggested it won’t enforce the tax reporting requirements on miners and the like, crypto advocacy groups believe the House should have amended the bill that now sits before them.”

See Also: House Moves to Consider Unamended Infrastructure Bill

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“Six crypto entities including exchange Kraken and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols Uniswap and The Graph have donated $250,000 each to efforts around upgrading the Ethereum blockchain.

The $1.5 million donation will support execution-layer teams working on technical upgrades to achieve “Ethereum 2.0.” The five Ethereum clients that will receive this funding are Besu, Ergon, Geth, Nethermind and Nimbus.

Ethereum’s goal is to lessen the risk associated with the network’s over-reliance on a single entity.”

See Also: Ethereum’s Most Popular Software Client Issues Hotfix to High Severity Bug

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“The number of bitcoin held in exchange wallets is rising, departing from the recent trend of outflows. Data tracked by Glassnode show crypto exchanges received 16,606.80 BTC on Monday, the highest daily net inflow in over a month.

Whales, or large investors with an ability to make or break market trends, who accumulated coins after the mid-May price crash, have begun running down their inventory. These large investors began accumulating coins after bitcoin’s slide to $30,000 in mid-May, signaling a price bottom.

Technical studies indicate the cryptocurrency may consolidate before scaling the critical resistance level of $51,110, which is the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement of the mid-April to July sell-off. The DeMark indicators are signaling short-term upside exhaustion.

Bitcoin is coming into resistance at a 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level near $51,000, which would be a natural place for a short-term pause in the rally.

Stockton, however, added that the long-term momentum has strengthened, with the 200-day moving average (MA) rising again. As such, the cryptocurrency would eventually topple resistance at $51,110.“

See Also: Bloomberg strategist explains why 30-year US bonds have ‘bullish implications’ for Bitcoin

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“In its “Global DeFi Adoption Index,” the blockchain data firm found that while DeFi adoption has increased significantly over the past 18 months in both emerging and developed markets, most of that growth has occurred in countries and regions with higher incomes and more professional investors and traders.

DeFi adoption has primarily been powered by experienced cryptocurrency traders and investors looking for new sources of alpha in innovative new platforms.

The majority of DeFi use cases are “more sophisticated” applications that have posed challenges for retail investors to embrace. Although DeFi has attracted larger investors, the sector will need to do better in engaging smaller retail investors, the report said.”

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“China’s digital yuan has been used to pay storage fees to a delivery warehouse in the Chinese city of Dalian, marking the first use of its kind within the domestic futures market. The interbank payment using the e-CNY afforded a zero-cost, efficient, and convenient payment option in real time, according to the report.

During the Winter Olympics in Beijing next year, foreign visitors will be able to access and trial China’s digital currency without needing to open a local bank account.”

“Visa has bought a female CryptoPunk for around $150,000, taking a step into non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as it seeks to learn more about the burgeoning market. CryptoPunks, of which 10,000 have been minted, are considered to be the original NFTs. CryptoPunk 7610 is one of 3,840 “female” punks.

We think NFTs will play an important role in the future of retail, social media, entertainment and commerce. To help our clients and partners participate, we need a firsthand understanding of the infrastructure requirements for a global brand to purchase, store, and leverage an NFT.

He also said Visa wanted to signal its support for the creators, collectors and artists who are developing NFT commerce, as well as to ‘collect an NFT that symbolizes the excitement and opportunity of this particular cultural moment.’

Following the news of Visa’s purchase, a further 90 CryptoPunks NFTs were snapped up in the next hour for combined sales of around $20 million.”

---

“The rollout is the first expansion of PayPal’s crypto offering outside the U.S. The process will begin this week and should be available to all eligible customers within the next few weeks.

The company has not yet allowed users to move crypto holdings off-platform, though this stance may change.”

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“Stablecoin USDC will be 100% backed by cash and short-term U.S. Treasurys by September, developer Circle announced. Circle revealed last month that only 61% of tokens were backed by “cash and cash equivalents,” referring to cash and money-market funds.

Earlier this month, Circle announced its desire to become “a full-reserve national commercial bank” operating under the supervision of the U.S. Federal Reserve, U.S. Treasury Dept., Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC).”

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“Because the CFTC doesn’t regulate commodities themselves – only futures contracts or derivative products like swaps – Stump said it doesn’t matter whether digital assets are classified as securities or commodities, because they wouldn’t fall under the authority of the CFTC unless a futures or derivatives contract was involved.

Stump also explained the difference between the CFTC’s regulatory authority, which Stump said doesn’t apply to digital assets, and its broader enforcement authority, which Stump suggested does. Using the CFTC’s case against crypto exchange and derivatives trading platform BitMEX as an example, Stump said the agency has historically used its anti-manipulation and anti-fraud enforcement authority to protect cash commodities.”

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“Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance is pushing back against allegations of market manipulation and working against the interest of its users.

In a Monday Twitter thread, Binance seemingly laid the blame for any claims of manipulating the crypto market on publications spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt as well as certain individuals impersonating employees at the exchange. The firm said it “reserves the right to take legal action to protect its interests.”

Binance has never traded against our users nor manipulated the market, and we never will.

It’s unclear if the exchange was referring to any specific incident, but the statement comes after a pseudonymous Twitter user under the name RealFulltimeApe alleged on Aug. 21 that Binance ‘keeps an overview of big liq levels and purposely pumps/dumps the price to take them out for profit.’ The user claims to be a former “big data engineer” at the exchange and would be ‘providing proof soon.'”

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“In a note to the Poly Network team, the attacker or attackers referred to the saga as “one of the most wild adventures in our lives.”

Poly Network subsequently tweeted its thanks to the attacker or attackers, posting a link to a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain confirming that the key worked.”

“Deloitte’s annual global blockchain survey has found that 76% of finance professionals think that digital assets ‘will serve as a strong alternative to, or outright replacement for, fiat currencies in the next 5–10 years.’

81% of respondents agreed that the technology is ‘broadly scalable and has achieved mainstream adoption.’ 73% thought that their business should adopt blockchain and digital assets, and would lose a competitive advantage if they do not adopt the technology.

The firm surveyed more than 1,000 finance professionals based in Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.”

See Also: Ranking the Currencies That Could Unseat the Dollar

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“Boba is an L2 Ethereum scaling & augmenting solution built by the Enya team as core contributors to the OMG Foundation. Boba offers fast exits backed by community-driven liquidity pools, shrinking the Optimistic Rollup exit period from seven days to only a few minutes, while giving LPs incentivized yield farming opportunities.

Boba’s extensible smart contracts will enable developers across the Ethereum ecosystem to build dApps that invoke code executed on web-scale infrastructure such as AWS Lambda, making it possible to use algorithms that are either too expensive or impossible to execute on-chain.

Our goal is to build a pragmatic L2 that is the first step towards opening Ethereum to the next Billion users.”

See Also: Arbitrum One Portal
See Also: Hop supports instant $MATIC withdrawals

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“Nxtp is a simple protocol for fully noncustodial crosschain transfers and contract calls. Nxtp opens the door for developers to build contract-to-contract interactions across chains and rollups.”

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“Tally is a community owned and operated Web3 wallet, building off of what the early MetaMask team paved for the Ethereum community. As entrenched products move toward corporate capture, Tally is an opportunity to deliver a wallet built on openness.

Unfortunately, there’s been a recent counter-trend against open source in the cryptocurrency space. Projects afraid of forks have resorted to closed source and restrictive licenses — to the detriment of their users. MetaMask — many users’ first introduction to Web3 — made this fundamental mistake. This Friday, August 20th, marks the 1-year anniversary of the team’s decision to abandon free and open source software.

Anywhere you can use MetaMask today to farm, swap, lend, and borrow, you’ll be able to use Tally. Instead of enriching a select few, all fees generated by the wallet will go to users, bootstrapping a robust community.“

---

“While people are waiting with bated breath on how the SEC will regulate the DeFi industry, Germany’s BaFin has already found a way. Realistically, the full stack needs to be regulated before institutional capital can move in.

BaFin has modernized its securities laws to bring DLT-issued assets in line with traditional financial laws, stipulating that crypto tokens should be classified as securities. While many may fear this ruling, clarity is actually helpful for the market and its participants who now have a clear direction.

It means asset-backed security tokens, when applicable, must have a prospectus like in traditional markets. This is a positive development for DeFi markets as it helps facilitate integration between traditional and crypto markets.

The synthetic products that currently exist are murky when it comes to the underlying assets backing them. The solution to this is to tokenize more real-world assets which will contribute to expanding the current DeFi ecosystem even just 10-100 times. For this to be meaningful, it needs to be done using a compliance wrapper and under a legal construct and prospectus recognized by a regulator, like BaFin or the SEC.”

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“Across the globe, women have been sidelined when it comes to finance and technology, and the Middle East is no exception.

The distribution of knowledge is more egalitarian nowadays, as anyone with access to the internet can learn to code or trade. Decentralized finance (DeFi) can help to level the playing field when it comes to women’s finances, removing the need for intermediaries and reliance on centralized institutions that often fail to safeguard their money.

Where permitted, women in the Middle East stand to benefit disproportionately from access to cryptocurrency. The decentralized and anonymous nature of crypto transactions means that women will not be discriminated against based on their gender and can take control of their money without the involvement of intermediaries.”

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“Wall Street doesn’t seem to be worrying about a taper tantrum next week, which is helping the cryptocurrency break out.

The institutional world is turning cautious on stocks and that is making cryptocurrencies look very attractive.

The next major resistance, for now, is at the $50,000 zone. If bullish momentum remains in place and next week, Fed Chair Powell pours cold water over tapering asset purchases, bitcoin could rally towards $52,500 by the end of next week.”

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“Armstrong wrote that the company had “received board approval” to add these assets to its balance sheet.

He also wrote that Coinbase will invest 10% “of all profit going forward in crypto.” He added that he expected “this percentage to keep growing over time as the crypto economy matures,” and that he hoped to “operate more of our business in crypto.”

The company is in a strong position to lead by example and double down on how we can enable crypto adoption and utility.”

See Also: BlackRock Has Almost $400M Invested in Bitcoin Mining Stocks: Report

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“Investment firms VanEck and ProShares have both withdrawn their applications with the SEC for approval of ether futures ETFs, just two days after filing them.

Senior ETF Analyst for Bloomberg Eric Balchunas speculated that the abrupt withdrawals could mean that the SEC spoke to both firms and told them they were unlikely to approve an ETF futures fund.“

See Also: Eurex to Launch Bitcoin ETN Futures to Meet ‘Significant Demand’

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“New customers must now supply a government-issued ID and pass facial verification to meet “Intermediate” verification for access to services such as crypto deposits, trades and withdrawals.

Existing customers who have met only the “Basic” verification standard – by simply providing personal information – will have their services limited to withdrawal, order cancellation, position close and redemption.”

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“Small and medium-size banks are gearing up to provide e-CNY services to their customers. Another 94 banks, including three foreign ones, plan to access the digital yuan via a new clearing platform.

Initial testing for the digital yuan only included China’s big six state-owned banks. The People’s Bank of China has said it will also test it during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.”

See Also: Brazil’s central bank president endorses crypto regulation

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“Facebook learned pretty quickly it wouldn’t be able to “move fast and break things” in the world of payments. Finance requires trust, and the company had none when it announced its stablecoin project, then called Libra, now called Diem, in 2019.

As the Diem-attached Novi digital wallet readies for market – two years later, a lifetime in crypto – it remains to be seen whether regulators and the public will be willing to accept and use this corporate-driven attempt to create a global payments medium.

At the very least, Diem will familiarize a new generation with the foundational technologies – wallets, QR codes, hashes – that make crypto run. And perhaps it will set a race to the bottom on fees for financial services or set the expectation that monetary systems should be built on open, interoperable protocols.”

“Wells Fargo on Thursday registered a private bitcoin fund with U.S. regulators, becoming the latest mega-bank with an indirect crypto investment vehicle for its wealthiest clients.

JPMorgan also registered its passive bitcoin fund with U.S. regulators Thursday.”

See Also: Visa Adds Crypto Payments Startup Wyre to Its Fast Track Payments Program

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“Institutional investors looking for cryptocurrency exposure should weigh the cost of remaining in their comfort zone. German crypto custody firm Finoa crunched the numbers and found that fees for crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) cost four to six times more than fees for custodial services. Research from custody firm Finoa finds it cheaper for big investors to just hold crypto.

Smith said Finoa has non-disclosure agreements with three or four large financial institutions and the mood is moving toward direct crypto exposure, given the possibility to put those assets to work on a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform.“

See Also: Galaxy Digital Launches DeFi Index Tracker Fund

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“Regulated cryptocurrency custody firm Anchorage is offering blockchain governance voting services, starting with decentralized finance (DeFi) major Aave. Bringing offline digital assets on-chain in order to vote has been viewed as cumbersome and risky by many institutions holding governance tokens, despite the growing desire to participate in changes to a protocol.

Institutions and token holders can use Anchorage’s governance portal to participate in on-chain governance decisions critical to the Aave lending protocol. The system uses a separate voting key so that digital assets can remain safely in storage.

We can delegate to some other key the ability to vote on these protocols.”

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“Gensler warned that decentralized finance (DeFi) projects aren’t immune to oversight by the markets’ regulator.

Even though they are decentralized, with no central entity in charge, DeFi projects that reward participants with incentives or digital tokens could enter territory that is subject to SEC regulation, he said.

There’s still a core group of folks that are not only writing the software, like the open-source software, but they often have governance and fees. There’s some incentive structure for those promoters and sponsors in the middle of this.”

See Also: Gary Gensler Isn’t Buying Your Decentralization Theater
See Also: Polygon to Form Decentralized Autonomous Organization

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“Poly Network, the China-based blockchain protocol exploited earlier this month for more than $600 million, said Thursday it had sent a bounty worth nearly $500,000 to the attacker.

There are users who are panicking that they might lose control of their assets, and we want to minimize the impact on them, so restoring our network and our users’ assets in a secure manner as quickly as possible is our top priority.

But the attacker apparently has yet to provide a key needed to unlock the remaining $141 million.

There are still 28,953 ETH and 1,032 WBTC (about $141 million) left in 3/4 multi-signature wallets for which we await Mr. White Hat to provide his private key authorization.”

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“Coinbase has announced a new support phone line for customers who believe their account has been compromised by outside actors. Users will be able to speak to a live support agent, who can kick off an investigation immediately.”

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“Robinhood, has revealed crypto trading surged in popularity on the platform and now represents 41% of its revenue.

According to its second-quarter financial results, the firm generated $233 million from crypto trading services for the quarter, up from $5 million for the entirety of 2020. More than 60% of funded Robinhood accounts traded digital assets during Q2 2021.

With early 2021 witnessing the speculative dog-token trading frenzy, a whopping 62% of Robinhood’s crypto revenue was derived from Dogecoin trades.”

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“Buterin has taken a deep dive into token-based decentralized governance, suggesting that existing voting mechanisms are flawed and may be holding the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector back from realizing its full potential.

Many projects have come under fire for allowing their voting process to be dominated by whales holding vast swathes of the governance tokens.

The crypto community needs to move beyond coin voting as it exists in its present form.

Buterin advocated the exploration of “Proof-of-Humanity”-based governance systems where one vote is allocated per each of a protocol’s users. Buterin also offered “Proof-of-Participation” as a possible solution, where voting is limited to the users of a protocol who have contributed work to the benefit of a project or its community.”

See Also: ‘Like-to-Earn’ NFT Platform RARA Looks to Monetize the Future of Online Engagement

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“The Ethereum Strategy ETF would invest in ether futures contracts, Canada’s approved ether ETFs, private ether funds and exchange-traded products with exposure to ether. What it won’t do is buy the digital asset itself, according to a filing.

Earlier this month, D.C.’s self-appointed crypto cop hinted the SEC could look more favorably upon bitcoin ETFs that only trade futures contracts. He did not comment more broadly on crypto ETFs. Ether and bitcoin are the only two crypto assets approved for futures trading in the U.S.

VanEck already has a pure-play ether ETF before the SEC. But that product’s fate remains unclear and is likely tied to that of over a dozen bitcoin ETF bids.”

See Also: Evolve Funds Files for Crypto ETF in Canada

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“Facebook said Wednesday that the global payments system is seriously flawed and that the social media giant can fix it.

Marcus, the former PayPal chief hired in 2018 to lead Facebook’s blockchain efforts, said Novi, the digital wallet subsidiary he oversees, is “ready to come to market.” Marcus noted that Facebook has secured licenses and approvals for Novi in nearly every state in the U.S., and said, ‘We will not launch anywhere we have not yet received such clearances.’“

See Also: MobileCoin Raises $66M to Build Out Privacy-Focused Payments Tech

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“Chervinsky stated he was informed that the Treasury Department had initially opposed exempting network validators and software developers from stringent third-party reporting requirements under the bill, as it was concerned the altered legislation would not “adequately capture DeFi.”

We found out very quickly that it wasn’t just a senator’s misunderstanding […] The Treasury Department had played an important role in drafting the language and also [ensuring] that any revision we proposed was going back to the Treasury Department for their approval or rejection.

This is all about DeFi […] This is the Treasury Department trying to work out how to get jurisdiction over DeFi […] and also expand its warrantless surveillance over a peer-to-peer financial system.

Despite the Treasury Department backing down on its position after realizing it could not “steamroll the industry,” Chervinsky emphasized he was concerned unelected Treasury officials have too much influence on the legislative process.”

See Also: The State of Crypto Regulation | Jake Chervinsky (Video)

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“The Lightning Network has surpassed 25,000 active nodes for the first time. During the past 30 days, the number of active nodes has risen 8%. Not every node, however, operates a channel. Currently, the number of nodes with channels is 14,419, or about 58% of all nodes. The remaining 42% are simply there, for the time being, at least.

Since we last reported on July 15, the number of channels has increased to 65,739 and expanded their capacity by roughly 78%, from 1,800 to over 2,300 BTC. More channels also translates to more competition in facilitating transactions. The median fee that is being charged is only 0.000006 SAT/SAT spent or $0.000000003018/SAT spent.

In order to open a channel, node operators have to “fund” it with a small amount of BTC. Right now that average funding amount is about 0.035 BTC. Whatever amount is in that channel represents the maximum value of any transaction that can be routed through that channel. In return for providing that channel liquidity, node operators collect a small fee when a transaction routes through one of their channels.”

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Ethereum will be the new government bond.

Staked ETH, or PoS asset of a dominant blockchain, will replace US Treasuries as the risk-free asset in any portfolio.

This shall be the biggest revolution in the history of financial markets.

Here’s how I think it’ll go down 👇

— Tascha (@RealNatashaChe) August 16, 2021

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“The Michigan-based company hopes to become the first nationwide mortgage lender to accept cryptocurrency. The lender will start by taking bitcoin but is looking into ether and other cryptocurrencies as well.

UWM is a national mortgage lender that had $59.2 billion in loan volume last quarter.”

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“Fidelity says that 90% of its biggest clients are interested in accessing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The firm is now planning to open up the digital asset space to retail investors.

What really got people off the fence was the pandemic, because you’ve got this scarce asset class and an environment where our currency is being debased, and there’s a ton of money printing.

Institutional interest mostly remains in purchasing Ethereum or Bitcoin directly. Fidelity Investment seems to be one step ahead, aiming to be among the first to offer the infrastructure necessary for investors to directly access the crypto market.”

See Also: Eqonex Launches Peer-to-Peer Crypto Lending Marketplace for Institutions

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“Some of the biggest names on Wall Street and even a handful of U.S. states ended Q2 with multimillion-dollar bets on Coinbase. The investments speak to the exploding demand for exposure to the crypto economy, not just the assets themselves.

A review of regulatory documents reveals that a parade of megabanks, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, CitiGroup and Bank of America; asset managers such as Millennium Management, BlackRock, Miller Value Partners and Bridgewater; and even states such as Tennessee’s Treasury, have told securities regulators they held COIN.

Still, more straight-laced institutional types – namely state-run investment entities – held notable Coinbase positions last quarter. Pennsylvania’s public school employee retirement fund was long on $2.6 million while the Wisconsin Investment Board held $6.4 million, the state of Tennessee $1.7 million and Utah Retirement Systems $13.2 million.”

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“The move to the layer 2 network makes 1inch Network the second decentralized finance (DeFi) app on Optimistic Ethereum, with the first being Uniswap.

The launch on Optimistic Ethereum will facilitate a dramatic increase in transaction speed.”

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“The U.S. House of Representatives will start debating a bipartisan infrastructure bill next week, but Democrats are threatening to withhold their support for it for various reasons. This means the fate of a crypto tax provision might depend on whether another bill makes its way out of the Senate.

There is a group of progressive Democrats who are threatening not to vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill unless the Senate passes a much larger $3.5 trillion package, which likely won’t happen until autumn.

At the moment whether the bill passes at all, let alone with amendments to address industry concerns about the crypto provision, is very unclear.”

See Also: Emmer, Soto Reintroduce Legislation to Clarify ‘Money Transmitter’ Designation

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“Blockstream Energy utilizes modular mining units (MMUs), which are essentially independent mining facilities that can be operated remotely. Power producers like turbine or nuclear power plant owners can sell energy to the operators of these MMUs that otherwise would have gone unused.

Energy producers can use Blockstream MMUs for a variety of purposes including balancing electric grids and improving carbon trading strategies. Since MMUs can be shipped globally and are plug-and-play, many renewable energy mixes can fuel them.

For the first time, energy producers can control and scale demand to meet their supply. This incredibly powerful tool can be used to make existing electrical grids far more efficient while also significantly improving the economics of renewable energy projects.

The global Blockstream Satellite network can connect to MMUs anywhere in the world and allow their operators to manage them remotely, opening up the potential for them to situate their operations at sites isolated from high-demand civilian or commercial power infrastructures.”

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“Non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace SuperRare launched a “Curation Token” on Tuesday to decentralize the project. At launch, 15% of the RARE token’s total supply was airdropped to past users of the platform.

SuperRare has done over $90 million in NFT art sales since 2018 and is backed by the likes of Mark Cuban, Velvet Sea Ventures, 1confirmation and others. The platform raised $9 million in a Series A in March. A portion of the governance token will be vested to investors over the next four years.

SuperRare’s newly formed DAO will vote on additional “Spaces” or galleries to inspire community-driven art and earn commission on each sale. Commissions will go to the treasury and be used for further projects decided on by RARE token holders, aimed at creating a decentralized and sustainable marketplace.”

See Also: NFT Trading Surges 8X as Penguins, Apes Drive New Boom

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“The Dogecoin Foundation, a nonprofit organization that aims to support the development of the memecoin through advocacy, governance and trademark protection, has been re-established. Originally launched in 2014, the foundation became inactive over time and eventually dissolved. The foundation is now hoping to secure a three-year budget so that it can hire a small staff to work on dogecoin full-time.

The foundation boasts some well-known board members and advisers, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who is serving as the foundation’s “blockchain and crypto adviser.”

Jared Birchall, a representative who was appointed by Tesla co-founder and influential dogecoin supporter Elon Musk and who is the head of Musk’s family office, joins as the foundation’s legal and financial adviser, while dogecoin core developer Max Keller will serve as a technical adviser.”