Crypto && Coffee 060
- 6 minsTechnology Recap:
Bitcoin:
- Bitcoin Core v0.21.0 has been released! This latest version contains the following changes:
- The mempool now tracks whether transactions submitted via the wallet or RPCs have been successfully broadcast.
- The size of the set of transactions that peers have announced and are considered for requests drops from 100,000 to 5,000 per peer.
- Support for Tor v3 hidden services and rumoring.
- Support for serving compact filters to peers via BIP-157.
- Support for signets for efficiently working with test networks.
- Chris Belcher posts on the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list looking for ways to increase payjoin adoption and tracking projects that either provide sending or receiving support for payjoin.
- Kevin Loaec has started a discussion on the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list regarding hardware wallets and their handling of Bitcoin scripts. This falls in line with a push for hardware wallets to support more complex scripts to allow users to handle in-channel Lightning payments or payments made from vaults.
Ethereum:
- Ben Edgington shares the state of ETH2.0 in his latest update on the Beacon Chain, slashing, testnets, and new releases for tooling.
- Prysmatic Labs releases v1.1.0 of their ETH2.0 Prysm client. This enables validator slashing protection in a new database schema as well as new API endpoints to support ETH2.0 APIs.
- Ethermine announces that they are against adopting EIP-1559 in its current state. Other mining pools that oppose EIP-1559 include: Flexpool, Hiveon, 2Miners, Ethashpool, WoolyPooly, Cruxpool, and CrazyPool.
- Sigma Prime’s ETH2.0 Lighthouse client releases an update on the state of the Beacon Chain and the next steps on the phases of ETH2.0.
Other Chains:
- Coldcard adds payjoin, BIP-78, signing in their latest v3.2.1 release. This release also includes multi-sig improvements such as tracking the derivation path for each co-signer and no longer assuming they all use a shared path.
- Paxos adopts Chainlink to leverage its market-leading decentralized oracle network. This will boost the adoption of the USD-backed stablecoin Paxos Standard (PAX) and the gold-backed token PAX Gold (PAXG).
- Ren shares that it has been researching and building on Asylo, an open and flexible framework by Google, which allows RenVM to relax it’s economic constraints and gain unbounded scaling.
- BTCPay Server adds functions in a recent PR that provide support for decoding output script descriptors referring to wallets created following BIPs (44, 45, 49, 84) and other multi-sig derivations.
- Check out Julian Koh’s article on the 5 Differences between Cosmos & Polkadot.
- Chainlink announces that the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3), has been selected as a research grant recipient from the Chainlink Community Grant Program.
- On January 14th, 2021 Loopring announced that their zkRollup now holds greater than $100M of value.
- Trail of Bits has completed their security audit for Casper Lab’s Casper Highway Protocol.
- Optimistic Ethereum announces their mainnet soft launch. Similar to their testnet, they are taking their rollout to mainnet in iterative approaches by first launching with some training wheels - including a Synthetix release.
- Synthetix is now live on layer-2 mainnet, Optimistic Ethereum. Optimistic is the first scaling solution with full cross-layer porting capabilities for smart contracts without rewriting them.
- THORChain announces that they now run Cosmos Stargate. Their team will take 2-3 weeks to deep dive IBC and get an IBC bridge working.
- Financial data providers, TraderMade will launch their own Chainlink node to get their existing APIs blockchain-enabled.
- 1inch’s 1INCH Governance Reward Distribution has hit 158K over 7 days. 32M 1INCH tokens have already been staked and an additional 18M are locked in the liquidity protocol.
- Althea announces the Gravity Bridge, an Ethereum + Cosmos bridge for the Cosmos Hub.
- Spun out of Thesis, the venture studio behind Keep Network, Fold, and tBTC, has now launched Saddle Finance. Saddle is an automated market maker (AMM) designed to enable efficient trading between pegged crypto assets such as: tBTC, WTBTC, sBTC, and renBTC.
- Set Protocol releases their Set V2 updates including: added Sushi Swap trade adapters, a trade adapter for Uniswap, addition of Chainlink, BAND, HEGIC, and COVER oracles, and more.
- Curve Finance announces the live launch of cross-asset swaps that use Synthetix as a bridge. The bridge has very little slippage and can handle seven and eight figure trades with no slippage. Users can trade any asset that shares a pool with a synth (sUSD, sETH, sBTC).
- Fei Protocol launches which aims to build a new decentralized, fair, liquid, and scalable stablecoin which doesn’t use USDC, USDT, or wBTC as collateral.
- mStable releases mUSD Save V2, a tokenized savings account, for anyone, anywhere.
- Yield Protocol releases RateLock, a new tool to permit Dai borrowers on Maker to lock-in a low interest rate with as little as one click.
Mainstream Recap:
- Enjin Coin has been approved by the JVCEA and will be listed on Coincheck exchange, making it the first gaming token authorized for use in Japan.
- Brave has integrated IPFS to enable users to seamlessly browse the decentralized web via Web3.
- Coinbase acquires Bison Trails which will aid in the acceleration of providing easy-to-use blockchain infrastructure for the entire ecosystem. Bison Trails will be integrated into Coinbase’s suite of products.
- Indiana based blockchain firm, SIMBA Chain announced last week that it was awarded the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) phase II contract to build a demand blockchain-based sensing system that would anticipate the need for critical military weaponry parts.
- The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced on January 13th, 2021 that they have conditionally approved the conversion of South Dakota based Anchorage Trust Company. The company will become Anchorage Digital Bank, National Association.
- Gemini releases information on the upcoming Gemini Credit Card. The card will let users earn crypto rewards on everyday purchases with up to 3% back in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
- Bloomberg reported on January 13th, 2021 that EToro is warning clients that unprecedented demand for crypto coupled with limited liquidity may present challenges for supporting orders.
- San Francisco based, Figure Technologies, Inc., a blockchain-based loan and servicing system announced its subsidiary Figure Lending LLC has closed a $100M financing facility for conforming and jumbo mortgages from J.P. Morgan.
- CoinDesk reports that Goldman Sachs plans to enter the crypto market soon after issuing a request for information (RFI) to explore digital asset custody.
- Jersey-based CoinShares launched an exchange-traded Bitcoin product. The product went live yesterday, January 19th, 2021 and is listed under the ticker BITC on the SIX Swiss Exchange.
- Russia based Livecoin exchange announces it will close it’s business and refund any remaining customers.
- La Banque de France has successfully conducted a central bank digital currency, CBDC, pilot through a private blockchain powered by U.K. blockchain startup SETL.
This Week’s Cup of Coffee:
This week, we are dreaming of travelling to Amsterdam, Netherlands for a cup of Aged Sumatran from Screaming Beans Coffee. This dark roast has aged for two years in a whiskey barrel and brings out bold flavors of toasted sesame, chocolate, and roasted nuts. Sip up and explore some other coffees from around the world!
Jake Tarnow
Not Your Average Engineer