Crypto && Coffee 042
- 6 minsTechnology Recap:
Bitcoin:
- BIP-340 has been merged! This adds support for Schnorr signatures to Bitcoin Core’s cryptography library. This is one of the first BIPs towards enabling those in Bitcoin transactions. The proposals that are currently being iterated on and which will enable these transactions are BIP-341 and BIP-342 (Taproot and Tapscript).
BitcoinCash:
- Full rundown of the BitcoinCash drama including the upcoming November 15th, 2020 network upgrade. This next fork is a contentious one as it will include a new coinbase rule known as the Infrastructure Funding Plan (IFP). BitcoinABC is behind IFP, however those against the upgrade have created an alternative client BCH Node (BCHN). This will cause multiple blocks to not be valid on the same blockchain by different clients (who accept and deny the IFP update) and may cause massive headaches.
Litecoin:
- Litecoin Foundation shares data on Litecoin being the second most supported coin in crypto ATMs.
Ethereum:
- Latest post on the recent updates to ETH2.0 development from the Ethereum Foundation has been published!
- Prysmatic Labs releases Medalla ETH2.0 testnet client Prysm v1.0.0-alpha.25. This latest release focuses on dynamic validator key loading and various security fixes.
- Ethereum Foundation releases Geth v1.9.21, Tavum, which is a regular maintenance release. This highlights the removal of whisper, better call tracing and multiple memory stability fixes.
- Ethereum Foundation and Protocol Labs announced a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a security review of blst which is a BLS12-381 signature library.
- Vitalik Buterin shares a post on coordination, collusion, decentralization, and forking.
- The Ethereum Cat Herders share the Medalla ETH2.0 testnet challenge, YOLOv2 proposals, EIP-1559 chatter, and more.
- ERC-2309 has become an official Ethereum Standard! ERC-2309 outlines a standardized event emitted when creating/transferring one or many non-fungible tokens (NFTs) using consecutive token identifiers.
Other Chains:
- The Centre Consortium announces that USDC has officially expanded to its second blockchain, Algorand. This is the second major blockchain after Ethereum with native support for USDC.
- SynthtetixDAO announces a new initiative designed to incentivize native integration of the Synthetix protocol across DeFi platforms and protocols.
- Solana Foundation announces a new technical integration with Tether to bring the USDt stablecoin to the Solana network.
- Zcashd is ending support for Debain Jessie.
- Binance is now the number one validator on Cosmos Hub with 7.33% of voting power.
- SushiSwap creator, Chef Nomi, has returned all $14M in ETH that was cashed out via Automated Market Maker (AMM) last week. Full thread here.
- Gnosis shares their excitement of the Ethereum ecosystem and their plans to help push the ecosystem forward.
- Monero publishes a note on scheduled protocol upgrades.
- Baseline Protocol announces how they are integrating with Chainlink oracles and how this will help power the Baseline Protocol via validated external data for Baseline workflows.
- Set Protocol and DeFi Pulse launched the DeFi Pulse Index Set (DPI) on TokenSets. The DeFi Pulse Index (DFP) is built on Set Protocol’s new v2 infrastructure and consists of 10 of the most popular DeFi tokens available on Ethereum.
- As part of the Space Race events program, Filecoin team hosted an AMA with the Filecoin community to discuss Space Race, cryptoeconomics, and Filecoin mining. View the full AMA here.
- Lightning Labs announces the newest feature in their product Faraday - accounting! This new release includes full accounting reports to keep track of one’s stats with lnd. The second feature includes a suite of tools to help routing nodes and businesses run on Lightning.
- Blockstream releases c-lightning v0.9.1 which contains speedups, multi-party payment fixes and a new multifundchannel plugin which enables the ability to split channel opening into parts.
- Loopring announces the ability to now trade on Looprings layer-2 Ethereum DEX via a simple swap UI. Loopring-Swap powers this through existing order books with more advanced features coming in v3.6.
- Yearn Finance introduces StableCredit, a new protocol for decentralized lending, stablecoins, and AMMs.
- DEXTF Protocol launches. DEXTF Protocol is an asset management (AM) protocol which makes managing and investing one’s assets easier through highly liquid XTF token funds.
Mainstream Recap:
- Square launches the formation of the Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA). Blockstream and Microsoft have already joined the alliance as board members.
- On September 14th, 2020, MicroStrategy completed its acquisition of 16,796 BTC at an aggregate purchase price of $176M. To date, MicroStrategy has purchased a total of 38,250 BTC at an aggregate purchase price of $425M.
- Mastercard launches a Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) testing platform, aiming to enable central banks to assess and explore national digital currencies.
- Crypto exchange Kraken announces that on September 8th, 2020 the company, Payward Asia Inc., completed registration as a Crypto Asset Service Provider under the Payment Services Act. This will be the first time in two years that Kraken will operate in Japan.
- Francois Villeroy de Galhau, governor of the Banque de France, said that a public/private partnership would be the best move forward for the potential issuance of a CBDC to retail users.
- Loopring adds wrapped trading pairs to the Loopring Exchange including: WBTC-USDC and ETH-WBTC.
- Crypto.com has launched a liquidity platform, DeFi Swap. This follows Binance releasing their swap service after the craziness of Sushi Swap.
- bZx has been exploited once again and disclosed the event in a Twitter thread. The vulnerability was discovered two days before it was exploited. The attacker increased their own balance to 153.6M iUSDT and started draining from the USDT pool until 151.9M iUSDT were burned by the bZx admin.
- BitMEX has installed the Blockstream Bitcoin Satellite system and noted that even though it may unlikely serve any practical purposes it aids in improving the censorship resistance characteristics of the Bitcoin network.
- CoinDesk reports that Paxful is pulling out of Venezuela’s P2P Bitcoin market.
- MCDEX has closed its first funding round from several influencers and key stakeholders.
- The State of Wyoming has approved Kraken’s application to form the world’s first Special Purpose Depository Institution (SPDI), tentatively called Kraken Financial.
- The Central Bank of the Bahamas has confirmed it is moving ahead with the nationwide launch of its digital currency later this year in October. Full report from CoinDesk here.
This Week’s Cup of Coffee:
This week, we are staying local and stopping by Sightglass Coffee in San Francisco, CA! Grabbing a cup of Organic Blueboon will brighten your day with notes of milk chocolate, mandarin and honeysuckle. This roast is a blend of beans from Central America and East Africa that is definitely worth a try. Enjoy!
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