Crypto && Coffee 030
- 7 minsTechnology Recap:
Bitcoin:
- BIP910 assigns BIP85 to Ethan Kosakovsky’s deterministic entropy for BIP32 keychains proposal. BIP85 goes into detail on a super-keychain whose child keys can be used to create traditional HD keychain seeds.
Ethereum:
- Ethereum Foundation releases an update on ETH2.0 development.
- Full update on Berlin, testnets, and ETH2.0 from the Ethereum Cat Herders.
- To combat the recent sending of transactions with extremely high fees, the Geth team has recently introduced a safety feature that will block sending transactions with a fee > 1 ETH.
- Last week, miners started voting up the block gas limit with a target of 12.5M. With this the throughput of the Ethereum blockchain is 20% greater than a week ago where the block gas limit was 10M. Full recap from the Daily Gwei here.
- Update on the TurboGeth project!
Other Chains:
- As of June 20th, 2020 Compound (COMP) has $484M in crypto locked while MakerDAO has $481M. This all started on June 15th, 2020 when Compound users began earning the application’s new governance token, COMP, for all crypto lent to others on the app and also for all borrowed. View current stats at DeFi Pulse now. View the address governance leader board here. Happy Farming!
- Matter Labs launches zkSync v1.0 to Ethereum mainnet. zkSync, which was developed on Matter Labs’ zkRollup technology, can massively reduce the transaction costs while gradually enabling VISA-scale throughput of up to 2,000 transactions per second (TPS).
- Interlay has released the POC for a trustless bridge from Bitcoin to Polkadot - the BTC Parachain. Users will be able to mint 1:1 Bitcoin-backed assets onto Polkadot, already termed as “PolkaBTC”.
- StarkWare announces VeeDo, their STARK-based Verifiable Delay Function (VDF) service which is now live on Ethereum mainnet.
- Wyre releases native Apple and Google Wallet integrations for users called “Wallet Passes” which allow users to deposit crypto via Apple Pay directly into a wallet that’s connected to a DeFi protocol.
- Electric Coin Company’s security assessment of the next major release for Zcash, Heartwood, turns up no major issues in the implementation of NU3 ZIPs. The security audit was conducted by Trail of Bits.
- On June 18, 2020 the Stellar public network upgraded to Protocol v13.
- Oasis mainnet has launched their latest release candidate, the Amber Network. The Amber Network has had two external security audits, 80+ node operators, and took less than 10 minutes to launch the fully decentralized Amber network.
- Instadapp reported on June 18th, 2020 that over the past three days it has seen roughly $19M in flash loans to maximize (COMP) mining for users.
- CoinDesk releases an article on the Zcash privacy tech that is streamlining the transition to ETH2.0.
- Ren, a platform for providing access to inter-blockchain liquidity for DApps, has partnered with Synthetix and Curve Finance to introduce a new liquidity pool for farming CRV, BAL, SNX, and REN. With this, wBTC Cafe is now live.
- SyncNode is joining Chainlink as a node operator. SyncNode will begin by contributing to Chainlink’s Price Reference Data contracts.
- Alpha 8 has been released for the Bitcoin Bounty Hunt!
- A new project entitled Diogenes, is aiming to run a ceremony to generate an RSA modulus that will be incorporated in a VDF protocol for an unbiased random beacon in the upcoming ETH2.0 blockchain.
- Chainlink releases an article on multiple ways to create dynamic non-fungible tokens (NFTs) using the Chainlink protocol.
- DeversiFi hit a new record with 47 wBTC traded within 24 hours!
- The State Channels project has released Web3Torrent. Web3Torrent is a browser based torrenting client that supports incentivized P2P file sharing using micro-payments.
- The Handshake Protocol has released The Handshake Browser, coined HandyBrowser, which aims to provide true ownership of websites and domain names.
- Cosmos releases an overview for the largest upgrade yet, Stargate. This upgrade will enable higher transaction throughout, cross-chain transactions, and more.
- Ox announces the formation of Ox Labs which will focus on surfacing better prices within existing markets, establishing new markets, and creating novel trading experiences. In conjunction with Ox Labs, they are forming a special division called Periscope Trading.
- The Balancer protocol governance token (BAL) is now live on mainnet!
- Status shares their v1.4 release which allows Keycard integration and notification for Android.
- Full team update from TXRX regarding validator privacy in ETH2.0, and automated network analysis.
- Deposit and withdrawals for the Matic Network are now live!
Mainstream Recap:
- River Financial announces a $5.7M seed fundraising round led by Polychain Capital with Slow Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, DG Lab Fund, Cygni Capital, Pfeffer Capital Ltd, IDEO CoLab Ventures, Steve Lee and more participating.
- OKCoin and HDR Global Trading Limited, who own and operate the BitMEX trading platform, are providing a total of $150,000 grant over the next 12 months to Bitcoin Core developer Amiti Uttarwar.
- On Tuesday, June 23rd, 2020 Compound (COMP) began trading on Coinbase Pro.
- 1inch team investigated the critical bug found in three recently deployed versions of the Bancor smart contrat.
- Ripple now supports PayID and has joined the Open Payments Coalition.
- BRD has also joined the Open Payments Coalition and is implementing PayID into their application, BRD (BreadWallet), to make sending and receiving crypto as easy as possible.
- In conjunction with the Ethereum Foundation, Reddit is inviting Ethereum scaling projects to demonstrate how your scaling solution can be used to bring Community Points to mainnet.
- Ripple releases a policy framework for digital assets in India.
- ParaFi Capital has invested in Kyber Network Crystal through a direct purchase from the Kyber team earlier this year. ParaFi will participate in decentralized governance of Kyber through the KyberDAO.
- OpenZeppelin releases a technical report on a vulnerability found in the Argent wallet which would have allowed attackers to take over wallets with no guardians.
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken emergency action and obtained a temporary restraining order and asset freeze against two Pennsylvania-based brothers and three entities to stop an offering fraud and the misappropriation of investor proceeds.
- The Bank of Thailand has announced a project to develop a prototype for a new payment system for businesses using a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) which build upon knowledge from Project Inthanon.
- Fintech bank, Revolut, will give its users legal control of their crypto on July 27, 2020, however they are tightening down how users can use it and how it cannot leave the Revolut ecosystem. Read the updated Terms and Conditions here.
- Check out the full interview of DeversiFi’s CEO Ross Middleton from The Cryptonomist.
- Power Ledger’s solar energy trading trial of 48 households in Fremantle, Western Australia, finds P2P energy trading technically feasible. Read the full report here.
- New Zealand police have frozen $140M in bank funds linked to Russian IT expert, Alexander Vinnik while he was on vacation in Greece. On extradition order from the United States, Vinnik is alleged to have controlled cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e which operated from the United States.
- BlackBerry and Intel partner to stop cryptojacking malware. Full article from PR Newswire here.
- CoinDesk shares an article on how PayPal is planning to roll out direct sales of cryptocurrency to its 325M users.
- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP) has offered a fresh batch of use cases including: an alternative to Social Security numbers, e-commerce, food and natural gas supply chain traceability, and more.
This Week’s Cup of Coffee:
This week, we are driving over to St. Louis, MO for a fresh cup from Blueprint Coffee. As it’s summer now, why not grab a bag of _Blueprint’s Primary Series: Blue _to brew an awesome batch of Cold Brew! With some dark notes of cocoa and caramel and the full body aspect, it is sure to give you that boost on those hot summer days. Enjoy!
Jake Tarnow
Not Your Average Engineer