“The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernandez, has suggested that he is amenable to the idea of crypto playing a larger role in Argentina’s economy. Fernandez was asked if he would consider making use of a central bank digital currency, or perhaps even emulate El Salvador and adopt Bitcoin as legal lender:
I don’t want to go too far out on a limb […] but there is no reason to say ‘no.’ Perhaps that is a good path to take. They say the advantage is that the inflationary effect is largely nullified.
According to the government’s own data on inflation, $100 at the beginning of Macri’s term would be equivalent to $661 today.”
See Also: Israeli Financial Authorities Double Down on Bitcoin-Linked Investments: Report
“The U.S. Treasury Department is preparing to offer an olive branch to crypto developers, miners and hardware firms spooked by the bipartisan infrastructure bill’s tax reporting requirements. Citing an unnamed department official, Bloomberg said Friday that Treasury won’t go after crypto entities that don’t meet the tax code’s definitions of a “broker.” Guidance on the matter could come next week.
The Treasury statement, which is not yet public, could provide a workaround by effectively limiting the bill’s scope to those classified as brokers under the tax code. But it is not entirely clear how that carve-out would combat the concerns of the bill’s staunchest opponents.
Treasury is reportedly planning to exempt non-broker parties on a case-by-case basis, a far cry from the more sweeping exemptions the industry had sought.”
“Ether traders are acutely focused on data from the underlying Ethereum blockchain’s recent upgrade, known as the London hard fork – and the potential for the refresh to reduce the cryptocurrency’s supply growth. The big question is whether institutional investors who are creeping into digital-asset markets might start to see ether as an inflation-resistant asset, similar to the way many bitcoin bulls have cast that cryptocurrency.
We expect fees moving through the platform to increase concurrent with the recent uptick in market activity and consequently should continue to see further disinflationary and perhaps even deflationary effects on Ethereum’s circulating supply, resulting in positive price performance.
It’s notable that Mike McGlone, the Bloomberg Intelligence analyst who won big plaudits for his (ultimately) accurate call last year that bitcoin would hit $50,000, raised the possibility in a report this week that ether might eventually challenge the larger cryptocurrency for the top spot in the rankings of digital assets by market capitalization.
As bitcoin has rallied 16% in August, ether has outperformed with a 26% gain. On a year-to-date basis, ether has quadrupled in price while bitcoin is up 58%.
There appears little can stop the process of ethereum ‘flippening’ to take the top spot by market cap, even it takes years rather than months at current trajectories. Ethereum appears on an enduring path as the go-to platform for the crypto ecosystem and decentralization of finance akin to Amazon Inc. and e-commerce.”
“This is the first complete merger of one blockchain network into another. Polygon, a “layer 2” platform on the Ethereum blockchain, is merging with rollup platform Hermez Network in a 250 million MATIC deal.
The Polygon-Hermez merger is part of Polygon’s new strategic focus on ZK technology, also announced Friday. Polygon has made a $1 billion commitment to developing ZK-based systems.
We consider ZK cryptography the single most important strategic resource for blockchain scaling and infrastructure development.
Hermez will be absorbed into the Polygon ecosystem under the name Polygon Hermez, where it will become a part of Polygon’s line of products, including Polygon SDK and Polygon Avail. The entire Hermez project – its employees, technology and native HEZ token (which holders will be able to exchange at a rate of 3.5 MATIC: 1 HEZ) – will be integrated into Polygon’s platform.
Earlier this year, two Ethereum projects, Keep and NuCypher, announced a merger of their protocols into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) in a project nicknamed “Keanu,” but will keep their brands and companies separate. And Yearn Finance frequently announces mergers and partnerships, but it is unclear what is happening under the surface of those deals.”
The Disrupt 