Coffee&Coin Issue #3 - Exchanges, Enterprises, and the EU
August 26th 2019
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Who Stands to Win From Binance’s Woes?
Earlier this year, Binance announced that they would no longer be able to serve US customers on the Binance exchange, and would suspend US accounts as of September 12th.
While Binance has been scurrying to get a US service live under Binance.us, (which they claim is run in partnership with BAM Trading, which seems to simply be a Binance holding company) there are some serious shortcomings.... [Read Full Article]
The Summaries:
Ethereum Poised to Become First Public Blockchain in Hyperledger Consortium
The Hyperledger Consortium, an open source collaborative hosted by The Linux Foundation, aims to be the technical standards community for blockchain. Just the like the W3C (world wide web consortium) establishes standard protocols for web technology, the Hyperledger Consortium aims to build similar standards for blockchain infrastructure, which their member organizations are bound by.
The Hyperledger Consortium has attracted big names such as Accenture, American Express, Baidu, Deutsch Bank, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Citi Bank, and Alibaba - and they’ve released more than 14 open source tools and frameworks for building enterprise blockchains.
The critique thus far from hardcore blockchain pundits has been that all of these blockchain offerings have been distinctly private chains that do not integrate with mainstream blockchains.
This is set to change, as currently ConsenSys backed "Pantheon Project" is under technical review to become part of the Hyperledger ecosystem.
The Hyperledger consortium first included basic aspects of Ethereum in their spec with the introduction of Hyperledger Burrow, an open-source system that leverages the Ethereum EVM, but, it is still a private chain with customization that do not make it cross-chain compatible with Ethereum.
Project Pantheon however, is designed to run as fully compatible with existing Ethereum networks, meaning the client can be used to connect to Ethereum’s mainnet and any private blockchain developed on Pantheon will be cross-chain compatible with Ethereum.
Libra Association Members Waver
In a recent report from the Financial Times, a number of anonymous firms has raised concerns about being associated with Facebook’s "Libra" project after regulators around the world had spoken out against the project.
The EU commission is currently investigating the project over anti-trust issues, while US lawmakers have called for Facebook to suspend the project altogether until regulatory concerns can be addressed.
Perhaps the most damning part of the report is the fact that not all of the 28 members of the "Libra Association" that Facebook had announced were even fully onboard yet.
In fact, Visa’s CEO revealed previously that they had only signed a "nonbinding letter of intent" to join the project and were not yet fully committed.
These concerns have apparently lead to extended infighting between both Facebook and the Libra Association members and puts the project in major jeopardy.
Blockchain pundits have been divided on whether the Libra project would be valuable for the space. While most are in agreement that Libra is a loose representation of a blockchain, and overly centralized, there is no denying that Facebook’s reach will result in wide exposure for blockchain technology, as well as act as a forcing-function to get government agencies around the world to provide regulatory clarity.
Great Tweets:
Major News Snippets:
Grayscale Confirms More than 100K Orgs Worldwide Are Accepting Crypto:
Digital asset management giant Grayscale, recently announced that there are more than 100,000 merchants globally accepting Bitcoin as a payment method in their recent market audit.
[Read More & Discuss this on /r/Cryptocurrency]
Horizon State Project Suddenly Closes-Up Shop Over Legal Woes:
Blockchain based voting start-up Horizon State took to their Facebook page to announce they were ceasing all operations effective immediately due to legal cases brought against them in Australia.
[Read More & Discuss on /r/Cryptocurrency]
World Bank sells $33.8M worth of bonds on Ethereum Tech:
The World Bank has sold a second set of bonds, worth $33.8M in partnership with the Common Wealth Bank of Australia, RBC Capital Markets and TD Securities. The blockchain-perated debt instrument known as "bond-i" has now been used by the world bank to issue more than $108M worth of bonds on a private Ethereum blockchain.
[Read More & Discuss on /r/EthFinance]
News Roundup:
Tinlake launches to let people get loans with tokenized real world assets >>>
Michael Lewis (Toronto Star Reporter) interview with Vitalik Buterin >>>
Japanese e-Commerce giant Rakuten launches crypto wallet & exchange >>>
SEC charges ICO rating firm for failing to disclose payments >>>
Hydro Labs Partners with exchange 'Liquid' to launch Remittance product >>>
The US Treasury has blacklisted crypto addresses of foreign drug king-pins raising legal questions >>>
Coinbase launches WalletLink to allow access to DAPPS cross-platform >>>
Santander expands Ripple payments in Latin America after 3x increase in use in 6-months >>>
Stellar explores adding private transactions via Slingshot project >>>
MoneroMixer launches to help you mix 100+ coins via non-KYC exchanges >>>
Loopring launches V3 with shift to staking for high scalability >>>
0x launches a decentralized asset swapper for sourcing liquidity >>?
Other Great Publications This Week:
Mika Honkasalo’s “Uniswap and Value Capture in Decentralized Exchange Pools” >>>
ConsenSys Media’s "The State of the Ethereum Network". >>>
Cody Robertson’s "Blockchain and the Promises of Web3" >>>
Faisal Khan’s "Is Project Venus Really a Competitor for Libra?” >>>
MIT’s post on "Some Crypto-Criminals Think Jumping Across Blockchains Covers their Tracks. Big Mistake." >>>
Stuart Mills post on "The Future of Data is Political" >>>
Adam Kaplan’s post on "Cryptoeconomics for the Long-Term: Founder Lockups and Second ICOs - Part 1" >>>
Indrek Lasn’s post on "Overview of What’s New in Ethereum 2.0" >>>
Fred Wilson’s (video) post about “Bitcoin is about Freedom” >>>
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