EthHub Weekly #136

CirclesUBI now live, Kwenta launched, ParaSwap joins StarkEx, Coinbase Wallet adds Optimistic Ethereum support and much more!

Oct 19, 2020

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

🤯 “Ethereum is like the internet”

Speaking at CoinDesk’s ‘Invest ETH’ event, CFTC Chairman Heath Tarbert had only good things to say about Ethereum and even went as far as to say that he’s “impressed” by Ethereum and considers it akin to the internet. I wrote down some of my thoughts in this daily gwei post about this and Eric and I will also be discussing this on the weekly recap podcast - don’t forget to tune in!

Want to dive deeper into the various EIPs that go into Ethereum network upgrades/hard forks? Well then, there’s an awesome YouTube channel from the Ethereum Cat Herders that gives great overviews of these EIPs - check it out here.

Have a great week everyone!

- Anthony

News of the Week

⚖️ Coinbase Received ~2,000 Data Requests from Governments in First Half of 2020

Crypto exchange Coinbase has published its first-ever "transparency report" quantifying the information requests it receives from global law enforcement agencies. The report comes a month after the exchange was called out by a digital rights organization for failing to publish this information.

The report, published Friday, revealed that Coinbase received a total of 1,914 such requests in the first half of 2020. About 90% came from three jurisdictions: the U.S., the U.K., and Germany.

U.S. agencies alone sent 1,113 requests, representing around 60%. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was the most active U.S. law enforcement agency, sending 340 requests. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), local state agencies, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) followed with 184, 180, and 104 requests, respectively.

🏦 OECD Plans to Issue Crypto Tax Reporting Framework in 2021

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization that promotes better economic policies, is planning to issue a tax reporting framework for cryptocurrency assets by 2021.

In a report published Monday, the OECD said it is "advancing its work to design a tax reporting framework that will ensure tax transparency with respect to crypto-assets, including the income derived from the sale of such assets."

The framework could be used by countries, such as G20 member nations, looking to strengthen their crypto taxation regime, according to the 63-page report. The OECD first called for a crypto taxation framework in 2018.

Project Updates

What’s New in Eth2 - 18 October 2020

All eyes on the eth2 deposit contract in this weeks update from Ben - he expects it to go live “any day now” with eth2 phase 0 mainnet going live 6-8 weeks after that.

Ethereum Cat Herders Update #31

Eth2.0 Zinken launch, EIP-1559 community outreach, Berlin, YOLO v2/v3, Eth1.0 clients’ update, EIPIP, breakout room, Peep an EIP, community updates, and more.

The State of 1559 - Update 002

Another healthy EIP-1559 update from Tim Beiko this week that provides updates on latest core dev discussions, the implementers call and that the mainnet readiness checklist is now live.

Ethereum Gas Price Extension Updated

You can now select a gas price provider, you can now see a ‘rapid’ price option on the extension and more in this update.

CirclesUBI Now Live

CirclesUBI sells itself as “universal basic income on the blockchain” but it goes beyond that. It can be used as a decentralized money, a credit system and more.

The Block Launches Data Dashboard

This dashboard provides data from 10+ different sources including CoinMetrics, Dune Analytics, FlipsideCrypto. It shows metrics such as exchange inflow/outflow, on-chain metrics for Ethereum, spot volume metrics and much more.

Dune Analytics Updates

View Dune dashboards without logging in, browse user profiles directly, cleaner links and a whole new design for Dune Analytics in this update.

Horizon Finance Raises $1.3M

The round had participation from firms such as Framework Ventures, DeFiance Capital, Mechanism Capital, Spartan Group, Alameda Research, NGC, Ruby Capital and Incuba Alpha Capital.

Kwenta is Now Live

Kwenta is a dApp built on the Synthetix protocol, allowing traders to gain access to a vast range of assets on Ethereum, including forex, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and indices.

Aave Raises $25 Million

The investment comes from Blockchain Capital, Standard Crypto, and Blockchain.com ventures, among others.

ParaSwap Joins StarkEx

ParaSwap will use StarkWare’s StarkEx technology to scale its decentralized exchange aggregator product.

Updates from Andre

Andre Cronje published a few updates over the last week including a piece where he details his involvement in DeFi, a new tool for launching governance tokens, and an experimental impermanent loss offset product.

BarnBridge Yield Farming Now Live

You can stake USDC/DAI/sUSD to farm BOND tokens - there’s even a desktop version of the UI available as well.

Arbitrum Rollup Testnet Now Live

Arbitrum Rollup is a fully featured EVM-compatible Optimistic Rollup with a testnet that’s open to all.

Aztec 2.0 Released

Aztec 2.0 is a layer 2 zkRollup network. Aztec is building the infrastructure for scalable and programmable private payments on Ethereum, running off the DeFi capital system.

Phase 2 of Synthetix OVM Testnet Begins

The purpose of this second phase is to trial the migration from L1 to L2, which will be an important part of the eventual mainnet launch. This phase is open to all SNX holders who had up to 5000 SNX staked (including escrowed SNX) at 9:31 pm UTC on Monday Oct 5th.