EthHub Weekly #144
YAM and UMA team up, EIP-1559 updates, EPNS raises $750k, Badger Finance now live and much more!
Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)
đąÂ A Wild Ride
Weâre just over 2 weeks out from the end of 2020 and what a year it has been. We started off with the crypto markets recovering after a brutal 2019 bear market, then we hit March and saw double digit ETH again (due to the pandemic-induced fear dump), we came into DeFi summer in June as the pandemic had basically forced the world to hit âpauseâ, we came off the highs of DeFi during September/October and now weâre about to finish the year out with a vaccine for COVID19 on its way and ETH hovering near $600. Itâs been a strange and wild year and Iâm sure many of you are as glad to be done with it as I am! Anyway, weâre not through 2020 just yet, but I was just thinking about this year as I put together this newsletter so I wanted to share some brief thoughts with you all - hope youâre all staying safe!
Quick reminder: Itâs your last chance to get your Gitcoin donations matched this week - donât forget to donate to the EthHub Grant as it would be greatly appreciated - check that out here.
Have a great week everyone!
-Â Anthony
News of the Week
đ±Â Bitwise Lists its Crypto Index Fund on OTC Markets
Cryptocurrency asset manager Bitwise has listed the shares of its index fund on over-the-counter (OTC) markets, making them tradeable via traditional brokerage accounts.
Until now, the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund was available to buy via private placements, at net asset value. Now the fund's listing on OTCQX, a market offered by OTC Markets Group, will make its shares publicly traded.
Bitwise is a bit late to the scene. Rival Grayscale's funds have since long been available on OTC markets. When asked why the delay, Bitwise's global head of research, Matthew Hougan, told The Block that the firm's primary clients are "just now starting to allocate to crypto in a major way."
đ JPMorgan Conducted a Blockchain-based Repo Transaction Using JPMCoin
JPMorgan announced on Thursday that it executed a blockchain-based repurchase agreement transaction, leveraging its eponymous JPMCoin. The announcement comes two months after JPMorgan unveiled a rebrand of its blockchain unit â now dubbed Onyx â and said that its stablecoin-like product had gone into production.
As for the repo transaction, the bank said the use of blockchain translated into an "atomic trade settlement." The maturity of a transaction on the platform can take hours, rather than days, according to the bank.
"The repo market provides a widely used form of secured financing, however, current operational limitations prevent the meaningful use of such financing to meet intraday liquidity needs," the bank said in a press release. "Using blockchain enables borrowers and lenders to execute shorter-term, intraday repo transactions with real-time, simultaneous transaction settlement, creating new ways to access intraday liquidity."
Project Updates
Whatâs New in Eth2 - 12 December 2020
Your latest dose of eth2 updates from Ben Edgington as he walks us through the first couple of weeks of the beacon chain, slashings that have happened, Vitalikâs roadmap update and more.
The State of 1559 - Update 004
Lots of updates on EIP-1559 in this post including an overview of the analysis that Tim Roughgarden did, an update on testnets, updates on simulations and much more!
EF-Supported Teams: Research & Development Update
The second part of the EF-supported teams update goes through the many, many teams that the EF has supported over the last few months and the progress that they have made.
Introducing the Gnosis Custom Market Maker
The Gnosis Customer Market Maker (CMM) Safe App is a new, early-stage tool for decentralized finance, combining two core Gnosis products. It enables traders to provide liquidity to maximize returns on Gnosis Protocol DEX directly from the Gnosis Safe Multisig.
Swivel Finance Closes 1.15M Seed Round
The round was led by Multicoin Capital and included Electric Capital, CMS Holdings, Divergence Ventures and Defiance Capital as well as influential angels.
YAM x UMA: Degenerative Finance
Yam has teamed up with UMA to launch a new suite of degen derivatives that will begin with UMAâs recent uGas contract and expand into a variety of speculative and hedging products catered to the DeFi ecosystem.
Curv DeFi Released
Curv DeFi is an enterprise-grade decentralized finance (DeFi) solution for institutions. Curv DeFi builds on an integration with the Compound protocol earlier this year and Curvâs new partnership with ConsenSys.
Kyber Ecosystem Report #21 - November 2020
Updates on the KyberDAO, the Reserve Innovation Program, Kyber Network stats, integrations and much more!
Circle Launches Major Platform Upgrade
Circle has launched a bunch of new features for connecting digital dollars (like USDC) and traditional finance.
EPNS Raises $750,000
The team behind a decentralized notification protocol Ethereum Push Notification Service (EPNS) has raised $750,000 at a valuation of $5 million. The India-based service received backing from several investors in the web3 ecosystem, including former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, former head of smart contracts at MakerDAO Mariano Conti and Gitcoin co-founder Scott Moore.
Introduction to BlackPool
BlackPool is a new fund operating within the non-fungible tokens (NFT) space: from sports cards to game items to digital art.
Badger Finance Now Live
Badger Finance hopes to bring BTC to DeFi and can be thought of as a âyearn for the BTC ecosystemâ.
(Re)Introducing Colony
Colony is a powerful, practical, flexible, and easy to use DAO framework. In this post, the team reintroduces the project and the improvements that have been made.
Interesting Tweets
Ecosystem Bits
Blog Posts
Stability, Elasticity, and Reflexivity: A Deep Dive into Algorithmic Stablecoins
Validated, staking on eth2: #6 - Perfect is the enemy of the good
Eth2 on MacOS: A beginners guide for the technically-challenged
Videos
Podcasts
Matic â A Scalable Layer-2 Dapp Platform for Ethereum - Epicenter
#20 Kevin Chou, Founder of Rally on The Potential of the "Creator Economy" - Cryptotesters
Misc
Meme of the Week
Looking for Work?
Top jobs listed on Cryptocurrency Jobs this week:
Product Designer - Zapper
Frontend Developer - Nansen
Growth Community Lead - MakerDAO
Founding Backend Engineer - RabbitHole
+1000âs more on the Cryptocurrency Jobs website!
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