EthHub Weekly #118

Onyx eth2 testnet announced and launched, Starkware introduces Volition, Coinbase explores adding additional assets and much more!

Jun 15, 2020

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

🏃‍♂️ A Busy Week in Ethereum

The price action over the last week has been quite mellowed but that doesn’t mean the Ethereum ecosystem has slowed down at all. As you’ll see throughout the rest of the newsletter, it was a very busy week in Ethereum. Be sure to check out the ‘Ecosystem Bits’ section for a lot of new reading material!

The two biggest events from the week were the mystery of the really large fees (which I wrote about here) and the launch of the next PryLabs eth2 phase 0 testnet - Onyx! This testnet is the successor to Topaz which ran smoothly for a few weeks and gave the team lots of juicy data/insights to work off of. For a full breakdown of the eth2 testnet action over the last few weeks, you can read the piece I wrote here.

Also, Gitcoin Grants Round 6 is now live so you can donate to all of your favorite projects and it’ll get match (sometimes up to 100x!). If you’d like to support EthHub, our grant can be found here.

Have a great week everyone!

- Anthony

News of the Week

😬 Quadriga Was a Ponzi Scheme, Ontario Securities Regulator Says

QuadrigaCX operated like a Ponzi scheme. That’s the key finding of an Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) report made public Thursday.

OSC, one of Canada’s provincial securities regulators, said the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange, which went into bankruptcy a few months after founder and CEO Gerald Cotten was reported to have died in India, “was an old-fashioned fraud wrapped in modern technology.”

The report, dated April 2020 but released publicly on Thursday, took aim at Cotten’s practices, including allegations that he traded against his own customers, set up fake accounts on other exchanges to trade using his customers’ funds and failed to maintain records. These allegations have been made in the past by Ernst and Young (EY), a court-appointed auditor tasked with recovering customer funds following the exchange’s February 2019 collapse.

The company has recovered about C$46 million to date.

⚖️ India’s Rumored Crypto Ban May Be Overblown, Say Industry Pros

Rumors that India might be considering a new ban on crypto may be premature, exchange founders and startup CEOs working in the sector believe.

Indian news site The Economic Times created a stir Friday by suggesting that lawmakers in India, where the Supreme Court only overturned a punitive banking ban from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) four months ago, were planning on slapping a new ban on crypto companies.

The story, titled “With a law, India plans lasting ban on crypto,” cited one unnamed “senior government official” who told The Economic Times that, “A note [presumably on crypto] has been moved (by the finance ministry) for inter-ministerial consultations.”

The article doesn’t provide any information on what the note could be but says that it was spurred on by the Supreme Court ruling, which allowed crypto exchanges to finally access banking services after nearly two years stuck in the wilderness.

They then claim that it could well lean on a previous government draft law, from July 2019, which proposed that all forms of cryptocurrency be banned, with anyone caught holding them facing up a fine and up to 10 years imprisonment.

Project Updates

Introducing the Onyx Testnet

PryLabs’ next eth2 phase 0 testnet, Onyx, was announced this week. This testnet replaces the old Topaz one and will run the new v0.12.1 spec. It went live a couple of days ago. There’s also a FAQ doc about the testnet here.

What’s New in Eth2 - 12 June 2020

All your regular eth2 updates packed into Ben’s weekly newsletter as per usual - this one has a great section on the current testnet status.

Lighthouse Update #26

Sigma Prime provides technical updates on the work they’ve been doing on their eth2 client - Lighthouse.

StarkWare Introduces Volition

Volition is a hybrid on-chain/off-chain data solution that allows users to dynamically pick where they want their data stored. StarkEx will support Volition soon.

mStable Offers Cheap Stablecoin Swaps

To celebrate mStable’s beta launch, the team are offering low fee stablecoin trading on their zero slippage swap product! Fees have been temporarily reduced from 30 basis points to 2.5 basis points.

Blockscan Launched

Blockchain is a earch engine for a decentralized web. Explore websites on .eth, .crypto and .zil domains, with more to come.

Kyber Ecosystem Report #15

This update is the biggest yet for Kyber Network as they have a laundry list of new things to tell us about from the month of May.

ConsenSys Launches Codefi Compliance

Codefi Compliance is a new offering in the Codefi product suite. It’s an automated and agile regulatory and compliance platform for digital assets.

Coinbase Explores Adding More Assets

Coinbase announced that they are exploring the addition of a host of new assets to the platform. Among these are popular ERC20/DeFi tokens LEND, NMR and SNX.

New Maker Auction System Proposal Announced

This new system would use Dutch auctions which supports flash loans and instant arbitrage to tap into DEX and broader DeFi liquidity.

Bitfly Revamps Beacon Chain Explorer

New features include the ability to find eth1 deposits, check eth2 deposits and link them together so that you can find all of your validators!

Upvest Raises $1mil

Upvest is a startup building a prediction tool for Ethereum gas fees. This week, they raised $1mil from the European Regional Development Fund, through the ProFIT program of Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB).

Dove Mountain Data Launched

Regan Bozman of CoinList has launched Dove Mountain Data - the most comprehensive database of crypto investors and their investments.

Curve Finance Integrates RenVM

You can now use Curve to earn yield with your BTC, on-ramp to WBTC from BTC and swap renBTC with WBTC using the liquidity pool.

SafeKeep Public Beta Launched

SafeKeep’s app goes beyond account balances and positions to a full-blown record-keeping & PnL solution. List of initial features here.

Matic Updates

This week, Matic published an update on when staking will launch, welcomed a collectible card game to the platform and teamed up with Koinfox to launch TrustScore.

Maple’s New Groove

Maple Loans deployed a brand new front end design to their website this week.

Introducing Alchemy Notify

Alchemy Notify is a new product for the Alchemy blockchain developer platform that solves one of the most critical UX problems in blockchain: real-time notifications for transactions and events.

Community Member Spotlight

This week we’re highlighting the great work of Philippe Castonguay!

Philippe is currently working at Horizon Games in Ethereum research and development where he’s building an Ethereum-based TCG called Skyweaver. Philippe is also quite active on Github where he works on various projects including the ERC-115 token standard, NiftySwap and more.

Keep up the great work Philippe!