Crypto && Coffee 068
- 8 minsTechnology Recap:
Bitcoin:
- Lightning Labs announces lnd v0.12.1-beta! This upgrade will entail timestamped signatures, improved graph data propagation as well as Sidecar channels in Pool. This new feature allows services to onboard new users in a non-custodial manner without requiring those users to put up any capital.
Litecoin:
- David Burkett has published the first libmw code for review! This is the first step to merge and integrate Mimblewimble Extension Blocks (MWEB) into Litecoin.
Ethereum:
- Ethereum’s Berlin upgrade announcement has been published with a full timeline for all testnets and mainnet deployments.
- Danny Ryan of Ethereum R&D publishes their latest update calling all ETH2.0 stakers to upgrade their ETH1.x nodes for the upcoming Berlin fork on April 14th, 2021.
- Ben Edgington shares the latest news in ETH2.0 including information on the merging of ETH1.0 and ETH2.0, Beacon Chain validators, the Mousse emulator, and the first Beacon Chain protocol upgrade, Altair.
- Users using Besu on public Ethereum networks must upgrade to v21.1.2! The v21.1.1 release contains an outdated version of the Berlin network upgrade.
Other Chains:
- Zaki Manian launches Sommelier, an application and tool using Cosmos Stargate SDK, Tendermint-based consensus and a bi-directional Ethereum bridge allowing for the rotation of assets in-and-out of DeFi positions.
- Aztec launches their privacy-focused rollup service on Ethereum mainnet. This service allows one’s blockchain transactions to be sheltered and stay private within Aztec’s layer-2 without the need to un-shield to access layer-1 DeFi.
- 1inch introduces the 1nch Aggregation Protocol v3 which facilitates lower gas fees thanks to assembly code optimization.
- Ethereum layer-2 scaling protocol and DEX, Loopring, shares a deep dive into their protocol, products, and vision.
- Zora, the protocol and platform bringing the NFT marketplace into itself and making NFTs/ERC-721 tokens able to accept bids and offers on their own behalf is now open to the public.
- Aave releases their new AMM Liquidity Pool enabling liquidity providers of Uniswap and Balancer to use their LP tokens as collateral in the Aave Protocol.
- Ren publishes their next steps towards decentralization for RenVM via Greycore. Once Greycore is launched, all Darknode operators will keep the network up-to-date, maintain consensus and further execution.
- The governance proposal enabling the transfer and receiving of assets using IBC’s IBC-20 standard on the Cosmos Hub is now on-chain.
- Superfluid, the protocol behind on-chain, single transaction, dollar-cost averaging, has been successfully deployed by community members on both Matic and xDAI.
- BadgerDAO releases their plan for expanding utility for Bitcoin within the DeFi ecosystem including RenVM integration, integration with Zapper Finance, and an eventual implementation of a layer-2 DEX.
- Tornado.Cash adds on-chain deposit backups allowing users to encrypt their notes and store them directly on the Ethereum blockchain.
- Polkadot shares information on Polkadot bridges and the interoperable connections between itself and other networks.
- 1 million UMA call option tokens have been minted with a $35 strike price and April 30th, 2021 expiry. These are all pooled with UMA tokens on SushiSwap.
- Nethermind announces that they will be launching a layer-2 StarkNet, Nubia, powered by StarkWare utilizing CairoLang.
- Immutable shares their design architecture for the first layer-2 for NFTs on Ethereum.
- A full starter pack has been released in anticipation of Optimism’s Optimistic Rollup launch on mainnet. This pack allows one to run a local blockchain (layer-1) with Optimism’s Rollup (layer-2) conducting interactions between both layers.
- Community members are proposing a Thorchain<->Zcash bridge providing the ability for users to transact with spot Zcash in DeFi as well as providing deposits from the Zcash shielded pool to uphold privacy.
- Overlay has launched! Overlay is a protocol that allows users to trade any streaming data without the need for traditional counterparties. Community members will be able to propose on any non-manipulable, unpredictable, on-chain data to become a tradeable market on Overlay.
- DeversiFi enables Fast Withdrawals for Aave!
- TrueFi integrates Chainlink Price Feeds on mainnet to determine the current price of TruFi’s native token, TRU, relative to TUSD and ETH in the circumstance of allowing the smart contract to execute automated coverage of loan defaults.
- In partnership with Ren, LINKSWAP and the DigiByte Community have welcomed DigiByte (DGB) to DeFi via the DBG<-> renDBG bridge.
- BarnBridge announces that SMART Yield is now live! SMART Yield allows users to tranche out the yield from debt pools of other projects to normalize the risk curve by creating derivatives for risk mitigation.
- SushiSwap launches on Avalanche, bringing another leading DEX to Avalanche’s growing DeFi ecosystem.
- Argent shares that they are working on bringing layer-2 to Argent!
- StarkWare goes in depth on the step-by-step guide to building a Cairo-based Automated Market Maker (AMM).
- Gnosis Safe releases SafeSnap, a module enabling decentralized execution of crypto governance proposals, allowing the on-chain execution of off-chain votes.
- BSCPAD, a launchpad and accelerator for projects deploying on Binance Smart Chain (BSC) will establish Chainlink as the recommended oracle solution for all future projects on the platform.
- Kyber Network releases their February 2021 Ecosystem Report highlighting the improvements of v3.0, KNC contract migration, the DMM whitepaper and more!
- Wing Finance, a credit-based, cross-chain DeFi lending platform powered by Ontology announces the launch of two new Ethereum-based Chainlink Price Feeds - WING/USD and ONT/USD.
- Stellar released their March 2021 update including information on the recent Horizon v2 launch, FinClusive’s new stablecoin, and integration with Wyre.
Mainstream Recap:
- MicroStrategy purchased an additional $15M in Bitcoin, this time accruing approximately 262 additional bitcoins at an average price of $57,146. This brings the firm’s total bitcoin holdings to approximately 91,326 BTC at an aggregate purchase price of $2.211B.
- Paxful’s CEO, Ray Youssef, states that Paxful’s mission this year is to get every wallet and marketplace in Africa and the entire Global South on the Lightning Network.
- OKCoin shares their recap of the recent AMA with Lightning Labs co-founder and CEO Elizabeth Stark.
- River Financial raised a $12M Series A financing round, led by Goldcrest Capital with participation from Polychain Capital, Craft Ventures, M13, Castle Island, and The Kraft Group. The new funding will help River expand its team and make Bitcoin more accessible to traditional investors.
- Zaki Manian’s newly launched Sommelier raises $3.5M in a seed round joined by Standard Crypto, Multicoin Capital and Alameda Research.
- Gemini shares that they now have more than $20B in crypto under custody.
- Kraken announces that they have hit 500,000 ETH ($878M) staked in ETH2.0 with 7,521 ETH ($13M) in total rewards generated by staking clients on Kraken.
- BlockFi, a financial services company dedicated to building a bridge between cryptocurrencies and traditional finance, announced the completion of its $350M Series D funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures, partners of DST Global, Pomp Investments and Tiger Global.
- Symbol, a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain from NEM Group has launched! This chain is aiming to become the enterprise-grade blockchain solution for fintech and supply chains.
- Alameda Research invests $20M into Polkadot powered cross-chain DeFi system, Reef Finance. The investment was facilitated through the purchase of REEF tokens, now making Alameda Research a significant stakeholder in the REEF ecosystem.
- Crypto investment firm, Paradigm, locks up ~$238M in ATOM to become the second largest validator on the Cosmos Hub.
- Meltem Demirors shares on March 11th, 2021 that CoinShares is now a publicly listed company. CoinShares now trades under the ticker CS on the Nasdaq First North Growth Market.
- BC Group subsidiary, OSL, has executed its first customer trades through its trading desk. This marks the first trading on a licensed crypto exchange in Hong Kong.
- Binance has hired former U.S. Senator and Ambassador to China, Maxwell Baucus as Policy and Government Relations Advisor.
- Israeli pension company Altshuler Shaham sunk $100M into the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust according to CoinDesk.
- Coinbase launches trading of Cardano (ADA) on Coinbase Pro as of March 16th, 2021.
- Both Cream Finance and PancakeSwap were DNS compromised on March 15th, 2021 by a third party. Users were being prompted for seed phrases.
- MetaMask releases v9.2.0 which allows support for multiple Ledger and Trezor hardware accounts, warnings for excessive custom gas input, and more!
This Week’s Cup of Coffee:
This week, we are heading back to Chicago, IL for a cup of Starry Eyes from Dark Matter Coffee. This dark roast yields notes of brownies, vanilla and almonds. Add a splash of cream or brew this via french press for a refined cup to start your day!
Jake Tarnow
Not Your Average Engineer