9 October

Robert Paulson

Sign-In With Ethereum Is Coming

“While the ‘net’s inherent anonymity is definitely a good thing, it leaves users of ID-reliant tools in thrall to major centralized identity providers and their seemingly inevitable abuses. Blockchain developers have long talked about developing “decentralized” identity standards to save us from the dangers of Big Login, and at least one significant step towards that future appears imminent: Sign-in With Ethereum is coming.

It’s just what it sounds like: a standard way to use an Ethereum wallet that you own as an identifier across multiple services.

Using a cryptographic marker as an identity means the user, not the identity provider, has total control over what information is associated with it. Eventually, you’ll be able to decide, for instance, whether a particular service needs your name, proof of your age, or a glimpse of your ETH balance. You won’t have to send all that information to every service you use.

Applications for this initial iteration, according to Spruce, are more likely to include lower-security uses like gating content for non-fungible token (NFT) holders. But, eventually, by integrating secure off-chain storage, Sign-in With Ethereum (let’s just call it SIWE) could also offer “strong” options such as government ID.”

See Also: Sign-In With Ethereum

JPMorgan Says Institutional Investors Are Replacing Gold With Bitcoin

“‘Bitcoin’s allure as an inflation hedge‘ is drawing institutional investors back to the crypto market, JPMorgan’s Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote in an Oct. 6 research note to clients. The shift into bitcoin that drove late-2020 all-time highs ‘has started reemerging in recent weeks.’

There are tentative signs that the previous shift away from gold into bitcoin seen during most of Q4 2020 and the beginning of 2021 has started reemerging in recent weeks.”

See Also: Citi Exec: Clients Started With Bitcoin and Went ‘Down the Rabbit Hole’
See Also: Google Pay to Support Bakkt Debit Card

White House Considering Executive Order on Crypto Oversight: Report

“The Biden administration is considering an executive order for federal agencies, which would require them to study the crypto industry and provide recommendations on their oversight. In addition to asking agencies to study different aspects of the industry, the order “would clarify the responsibilities” different agencies have around crypto and blockchain.

According to the report, the order would include the Treasury Department, Commerce Department, National Science Foundation and national security agencies.

The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets is also set to consider a report that would recommend Congress enact legislation to create a special purpose charter for stablecoin issuers, treating these entities akin to banks. The Federal Reserve is also set to issue reports on stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).”

See Also: Big Tech-Issued Stablecoins Could ‘Amplify Shocks’ to Financial System, Says ECB Exec

US September Jobs Report Misses, Amid Fed Tapering Speculation

“U.S. jobs rose by 194,000 in September, well below economists’ average estimate for a gain of 500,000 jobs. But the data was mixed, with August’s jobs number revised upward by 131,000.

The combination may give the U.S. Federal Reserve more flexibility after Chair Jerome Powell signaled recently that the central bank looked to be on track to start tapering its $120 billion-a-month in bond purchases later this year.

Overall, this looks like a ‘decent’ enough labor report to allow the Fed to proceed with the taper in November, as flagged at the last FOMC meeting.

The concern among bitcoiners is that they would no longer be able to count on the Fed bringing more liquidity to the markets through quantitative easing. The bitcoin price was holding steady after the report around $55,000.”

NFT Rentals Live on Ethereum

“A rising trend in the NFT sector is for projects to include community benefits that go along with the ownership of their tokens. ReNFT is giving owners a way to monetize these benefits without selling the underlying asset.

Lenders can send the NFTs they want to rent out to a smart contract after determining the daily rental price and maximum rental period. Borrowers then input how long they want to “own” the NFT, paying for the rental cost plus a collateral amount equivalent to the price of the NFT, which they get back once the NFT is returned.

reNFT sees the future of its lending protocol extending into the metaverse, where users could rent out their play-to-earn items, intellectual property and even digital real estate.

This is a valuable new primitive in web3 and in particular within the fast-growing gamefi space.”