EthHub Weekly #117

StarkEx and DeversiFi now live, Numerai raises $3mil, 1inch introduces Chi Gastoken and much more!

Jun 08, 2020

Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)

[SPONSORED] DeversiFi— Decentralised Edge for Serious Traders — has just re-launched with StarkWare Layer2 scaling technology.

DeversiFi is a professional-grade, self-custodial exchange built with the StarkWare scaling engine to bring serious traders a speed and security advantage without sacrificing the cornerstones of profitable trading. The new platform uses ZK-Rollups, allowing for a proven 9,000+ TPS, lower fees and impenetrable privacy (resulting from rapid off-chain execution and batched on-chain settlement) as well as withdrawal-certainty for when traders need to move in and out reliably. As well as their UI, DeversiFi’s API documentation has undergone an overhaul making it extra user-friendly so traders can connect their programmatic trading bots easily.

Get started here.

📰 Launching The Daily Gwei

Last week, I announced the launch of my brand new daily Ethereum newsletter called The Daily Gwei. This newsletter does not deprecate or replace the EthHub Weekly Newsletter - rather, it complements it and allows me to deliver Ethereum-related updates to subscribers daily (along with my own commentary). If you’re interested in that, you can subscribe here.

The ETHGlobal HackMoney winners are in and they are some of the coolest projects I’ve ever seen! You can see the full list of winners here including my personal favorite, Sunset Supreme!

Gitcoin is currently raising a fund to support local businesses in Boulder suffering from covid-related economic stress. You can check that out and donate here.

Last thing - I gave a presentation to Matic Network’s community this week. The video will be out shortly but you can read the thread recap here in the meantime.

Have a great week everyone!

- Anthony

News of the Week

🕵️ Coinbase Offers US Feds New Crypto Surveillance Tools

Coinbase is getting in on the government blockchain analytics game.

The cryptocurrency exchange has initiated procurement deals with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for a cryptocurrency investigations tool called “Coinbase Analytics,” according to publicly available documents. The Block first reported on the prospective deals Friday.

Coinbase Analytics has close ties with Coinbase’s entire product ecosystem, as its Senior Product Manager “collaborates” with “Coinbase Consumer, Coinbase Pro, and Coinbase Custody as well as” Coinbase’s payments and crypto division, according to an undated but now closed job posting.

Coinbase joins a crowded field of cryptocurrency analytics companies – Chainalysis, Elliptic, CipherTrace and others – vying for a piece of the federal pie. Agencies from all corners of the U.S government regularly contract with crypto intel firms, inking deals for their tracing software worth millions, and sometimes stretching years.

⚖️ Bittrex, Poloniex Added to Lawsuit Claiming Tether Manipulated Bitcoin Market

A lawsuit alleging stablecoin issuer Tether and sister exchange Bitfinex manipulated the bitcoin market is getting bigger.

On Wednesday, cryptocurrency exchanges Bittrex and Poloniex became the latest defendants accused of fraudulently toying with crypto asset prices in an ongoing class action whose plaintiffs have been pursuing Tether and Bitfinex on allegations of fraud, deception and market-manipulation since October 2019.

The 156-page amended suit filed Wednesday continues to allege that Tether and Bitfinex orchestrated a grand scheme to launder and circulate billions of allegedly unbacked USDT stablecoins through the market to the detriment of their customers – the crux of plaintiffs Matthew Script, Benjamin Leibowitz, Jason Leibowitz, Aaron Leibowitz and Pinchas Goldshtein’s case.

Plaintiffs further claim that Poloniex and Bittrex were essentially backdoor conduits in that scheme. They claim the pair set up wallet addresses “specifically” to receive huge USDT transfers and “knew” that Bitfinex was the one sending it along.

Community Member Spotlight

This week we’re highlighting the great work of Matt Finestone!

Matt currently works in Business Development at Loopring - the Ethereum-based DEX that uses zkRollup technology to scale. He’s also the Director of Wize - an online educational platform.

Keep up the great work Matt!