29 September

Market Wrap: Traders Seek Protection as Crypto and Stocks Dip on US Debt Ceiling Impasse

“Cryptocurrencies were mostly lower on Tuesday, tracking losses in equities after the U.S. Senate failed to act to extend the debt ceiling and avoid a partial federal government shutdown as soon as Oct.15. The 10-year Treasury bond yield rose to 1.50%, the highest level since June, accompanied by a rally in the dollar as investors position themselves for a potential government default.

In equities, we are about to enter the most dangerous month of the year – October has been the month where crashes and major corrections take place.
Crypto is vacillating between resistance and support, waiting for regulatory clarity in the U.S. and central bank moves around the Chinese debt crisis.”

You Can Be a Bitcoin Maximalist and Like Ethereum, Too

“Some prominent bitcoin influencers have begun pushing back against toxicity and isolationism in the bitcoin community. As Wertheimer argues, the case for coin tribalism is wearing thin.

For the past few days noted bitcoin booster Udi Wertheimer has been kicking the cyber hornet’s nest, challenging a non-dominant opinion in some of the online spaces bitcoiners congregate that bitcoin is the one, true crypto asset.

He’s been on a tear, questioning the immune-like response bitcoiners activate when anyone denigrates “the coin” or mentions other cool crypto things happening on other chains. Everything “crypto” – that is non-bitcoin – is a scam; everyone who sees value elsewhere is a scammer.

As bitcoin continues to gain prominence in the global economy and activity on the internet, it has also become central to some people’s sense of identity. Bitcoin is not just an asset to hold but a movement in which you participate. Extreme fanaticism conflates perceived attacks on the Bitcoin network to one’s sense of self. Bitcoin became a mind colony. Ideas about bitcoin hardened, the scope of acceptable debates shrunk and everyone slightly heterodox was now a heathen.

[S]eparatism used to be a fitting response, e.g., in 2017, when actual bad actors tried to hurt the movement. [H]owever, 2021 is different, the new crowds aren’t trying to hurt anyone, and separatism doesn’t achieve the stated goal of ‘educating’ anyone.

‘I used to believe that Bitcoin should be the base layer of everything and we should just build layer 2 solutions on top … to add flexibility.’ Looking a little closer, however, Wall discovered that these add-ons failed to live up to their expectations. That wasn’t the case for Ethereum, which has suffered from its own expansion issues but found “flexible,” “feature rich” and “decentralized” solutions like rollups.

That’s something that made me start to change my position on whether or not bitcoin was the only asset that had a role to play in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Sometimes when people invest in a blockchain’s promises, ‘they feel as if they have no way of backing out or changing their mind in light of new information or evidence.’ But crypto markets are open 24/7, and markets account for all available information.

When I realized this, the only thing that I had to do was to buy some ether [the native currency of the Ethereum blockchain] to be in alignment with my beliefs. Now I’m not afraid of ether becoming successful.”

Connext Launches NXTP Protocol to Improve Liquidity

“Connext, a platform based on the Ethereum blockchain that allows users to conduct transactions across different Ethereum-compatible networks, announced the launch of NXTP, a tool that allows communication between different blockchains and their offshoots, known as layer 2 systems and sidechains.

Our vision for NXTP is that it will become the internet protocol of the Ethereum multi-chain ecosystem. Now that it’s live, our focus will be on growing liquidity within the system, rapidly adding support for new chains/L2s, and transitioning the protocol to becoming entirely owned and operated by the community.

The growing field of “cross-chain interoperability” networks also includes Hermez, Loopring and StarkEx. Connext says one big advantage of NXTP is that it doesn’t introduce third-party validators to control user funds, which can pose a security risk.”

What Eth 2.0 Validators Can Expect After the 'Altair' Upgrade” London and Altair updates coming very soon. PoS & low fees.: ethereum

ETH 2.0 Moves Closer to Fruition as Devs Set Altair Upgrade for October

“Altair, which is described as the first mainnet upgrade to the Beacon Chain, is scheduled to take place at epoch 74240, or roughly Oct. 27.

This upgrade brings light-client support to the core consensus, cleans up beacon state incentive accounting, fixes some issues with validator incentives and steps up the punitive params as per EIP-2982.

EIP-2982 introduces “punitive parameters” to ensure that the proof-of-stake protocol is economically secure. “Inactivity leak” and “slashing” are the two proposed penalties under the improvement proposal.”

Digital Dollar Needs Legislative Support, Fed Chair Says

“The issue of CBDCs and financial privacy were featured during Tuesday’s contentious Senate Banking Committee hearing. Powell called the development of a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC) “critical work,” telling Senate Banking Committee ranking member Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) that “broad consultation and, ultimately, authorizing legislation from Congress” would be “ideal.”

The privacy of Americans has to be respected. We shouldn’t design a central bank digital dollar that allows the government to spy on Americans every transaction. [Sen. Toomey]

Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), a well-known supporter of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, lambasted the Treasury Department for the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) push to enact new regulations requiring banks to report transactions from all accounts with over $600.

This is invasive of privacy. Wyoming’s people literally will find alternatives to traditional banks just to thwart IRS access to their personal information, not because they’re trying to hide anything, but because they’re not willing to share everything.”

Securitize Launches Its Secondary Marketplace for Trading Tokenized Securities

“Securitize has been issuing security tokens since 2017 through its U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission-registered transfer agent. Now it can sell and trade them through its alternative trading system (ATS), which is run by its broker-dealer.

We want to facilitate liquidity to companies earlier on without having to go through the expensive and lengthy process of registering with the SEC. We also want to give the opportunity to individual investors to invest in these companies early on and get a return that is otherwise not available to the public.”

US Senators Propose Tracking Foreign Crypto Mining

“Announced Monday, the bill would task the Treasury Department, Attorney General, U.S. Trade Representative, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and members of the Federal Reserve with monitoring how crypto is used by both governments and private entities.

These groups would also be charged with estimating how much crypto was mined overall between 2016 and 2022, and identifying which cryptocurrencies were mined. It is unclear whether mining in the context of the bill refers solely to cryptocurrency mining through proof-of-work coins like bitcoin, or if proof-of-stake coins would also qualify.

The bill would also require the U.S. agencies to ‘identify vulnerabilities, including those related to supply disruptions and technology availability of the global microelectronic supply chain, and opportunities with respect to virtual currency mining operations.'”

The Disrupt

In Cryptography We Trust