Crypto && Coffee 111
- 5 minsTechnology Recap:
Bitcoin:
- Russel O’Connor posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list with an idea to add two new opcodes to Bitcoin’s Tapscript language which allow one to specify which parts of a spending transaction should be serialized and hashed as well as specifying keys/signatures.
Litecoin:
- Litecoin’s MWEB, Mimblewimble Extension Block, upgrade will be included as part of Litecoin Core v0.21.2rc1 which also includes Taproot! The signaling process will occur via BIP-8 at block 221760 which is expected to occur on February 25th, 2022.
Ethereum:
- The latest AllCoreDevs update has been released which covers the testing of post-merge Ethereum via Kintsugi, execution payloads, the first post-merge upgrade Shanghai and more!
- Ben Edgington shares what’s new in regard to the Beacon Chain, The Merge, testing and more!
- Erigon announces their new beta release, v2022.01.03-beta which includes a more reliable classification of transactions in the txpool, further fixes to transaction parsing, and more!
- Nomic Labs publishes a revamped release of ethereum-cryptography which has successfully been audited by Cure53 and is now 15x smaller than the original implementation. In addition, some hashing implementations are now faster than their WASM counterparts.
- Prysmatic Labs releases Prysm v2.0.6! This patch release includes improvements to memory usage, JSON API fixes and more!
Other Chains:
- Sommelier V3 mainnet is now live! With the Gravity Bridge deployed, Sommelier V3 is now producing blocks! In addition, SOMM is now live on Osmosis as well!
- StarkWare announces their strategic partnership with OpenZeppelin to help scale the StarkNet ecosystem with their development tooling and auditing experience.
- Polygon Hermez publishes the initial package of documentation about the full architecture behind the zkEVM project, aka Polygon Hermez 2.0.
- 0x introduces multi-chain NFT swaps via 0x Protocol v4. This upgrade combines creator-centric features and gas efficiencies that will make it more affordable to swap NFTs on Ethereum and 5 other EVM chains + layer-2 networks.
- A proposal is now live to add Aave onto StarkNet!
- Liquid Network starts the new year with six new Liquid Federation members including: Bitmatrix, Digital Markets, Mempool, Specter Wallet, and Zaprite.
- zkSync releases their full community update with focus on zkSync v2.0, the zkDAO and more!
- Gelato Network integrates Flashbots which will now provide developers front-running protection and privately mined transactions.
- Kuiper Finance is announced! Kuiper is a new decentralized financial protocol for indices and baskets, aiming to provide the benefits of portfolio diversification to all.
- The team supporting UMA announces that UMA’s optimistic oracle deployment to Optimism, Arbitrum, and Boba Network is now complete.
- Shard Labs is bringing Lido to Polygon to enable users to stake MATIC in a decentralized and secure way.
- Axelar Network announces the launch of Satellite, a decentralized cross-chain asset transfer application.
- Blue Wallet v6.2.17 is now out for iOS, Android, and macOS. This release includes better coin control via multi-selection and the removal of AOPP support.
Mainstream Recap:
- Brussels member of parliament, Christoph De Beukelaer, became the first European politician to convert his salary to Bitcoin.
- Senator Wendy Rogers introduced a bill proposing making bitcoin legal tender in Arizona.
- MyCrypto is joining MetaMask to lead the way to web3!
- Fidelity released an article on why investors need to consider bitcoin separately from other digital assets.
- Visa shared that in its fiscal first quarter of 2022, customers made $2.5B in payments with its crypto-linked cards.
- India has introduced a crypto tax regime with a flat 30% tax on income from digital assets or crypto.
- Dune Analytics raised $69,420,000 in a Series B funding round led by Coatue. The funds will be used to double down on making crypto data accessible and education. With the funding, they elaborated on building a new engine that will allow users to do analysis across multiple chains in a single query!
- Block, Inc. and Afterpay Limited announce the successful completion of the acquisition of all the issued shares in Afterpay.
- The Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) welcomes Meta to the COPA Board.
- Spiral renewed Christoph Ono’s grant for continuing growth in the Bitcoin design community.
- MicroStrategy has purchased an additional 660 bitcoins for ~$25M in cash at an average price of ~$37,865 per bitcoin. As of January 31st, 2022, MicroStrategy has ~125,051 bitcoins acquired for ~$3.78B at an average price of $30,200 per bitcoin.
- Robinhood announces their crypto wallets beta program is now live.
- CoinDesk reports that Terra founder Do Kwon proposed sponsoring an American sports league franchise to the tune of $38.5M.
- Coinbase features Coinbase Cloud which enables developers to build their project with Coinbase Cloud APIs and blockchain infrastructure.
- Multiple wallet software projects including Samourai Wallet, Blue Wallet, Sparrow Wallet and others are removing AOPP in the next release as it undermines self custody and pseudonymity of Bitcoin.
- LeBron James announced a multi-year partnership with Crypto.com and the LeBron James Family Foundation to help educate students on digital currency.
- Phantom announces their $109M Series B led by Paradigm and the launch of their iOS app to the public!
- Tobias “Tobi” Lütke, CEO and founder of Shopify, joins Coinbase’s Board of Directors.
This Week’s Cup of Coffee:
This week, we are heading to Barcelona, Spain for a cup of Gracias A Dios from Nomad Coffee! This espresso roast is a creamy sweet coffee with a full body that yields flavors of chocolate, cane sugar, and hints of fruit. Sip up and enjoy!!
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