Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)
đ ETHDenver + CFTC
ETHDenver happened this week and I fomoâed like crazy as I wasnât able to make it! I did keep tabs via Twitter and it was amazing to see all the stuff coming out of the 3 day event. The most exciting part for me was watching people pay for things using buffiDai!
âbuffiDaiâ was an experimental payment system that was used by attendees of the event to pay for food, swag, drinks, activities and NFTs. Vendors were also able to quickly redeem DAI for fiat currency that was sent straight into their own bank accounts via SendWyreâs payments processing technology.
I wonât be missing out on the next ETHDenver - thatâs for sure!
I also wanted to let everyone know that the deadline for the CFTC Request for Input document was the 15th of February and we submitted a piece on behalf of EthHub. Weâd like to thank the community for all of their help putting the document together!
You can view all the submissions here. There are some notable names that provided documents including Coinbase, ConsenSys and ErisX.
Have a great week everyone!
-Â Anthony
News of the Week
đ¤ŻÂ JP Morgan Launches a Stablecoin
Called JPM Coin, the token has been developed by engineers at the bank and is moving to real-world trials in âa few monthsâ.
JPM Coin will be used to settle a small portion of its transactions between clients of its wholesale payments business in real time. The bank moves over $6 trillion daily as part of that business.
Speaking to the news source, Umar Farooq, JPMorganâs blockchain lead, posited three main use cases for the bank token, including replacing wire transfers for international payments by large corporate clients and cutting settlement times from days to just moments.
It could also be used to provide instant settlement for securities issuance, as well as to replace U.S. dollars held internationally by subsidiaries of major corporations using JPMorganâs treasury services.
The JPM Coin is currently deployed to an enterprise version of the Geth Ethereum client called Quorum.
đ ShapeShift Exchange to get Revamp
Cryptocurrency exchange startup ShapeShift is planning a major rebrand this year.
Announced at ETHDenver, ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees said that starting Monday the company will be opening up a closed beta period for selected users so they can try a new version of the cryptocurrency exchange platform focused on simplifying the user experience.
Featuring greater interoperability with ShapeShiftâs cryptocurrency hardware wallet KeepKey, CMO of ShapeShift Emily Coleman said that the revitalized platform aims to bring together all of the companyâs disparate products, including cryptocurrency pricing tracker CoinCap.
You can sign up for the beta here.
âď¸Â SEC Guidance on Crypto Tokens is Coming Soon
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plans to clarify when securities laws might apply to crypto token sales, an official said Friday.
In a speech at the University of Missouri School of Law, Hester Peirce, one of the SECâs commissioners, said that the agencyâs staff are working on âsupplemental guidanceâ to help projects determine âwhether their crypto-fundraising efforts fall under the securities laws.â
While the Howey test â the U.S. standard for determining whether something is a security â generally provides clarity, she said, there is a âneed to tread carefullyâ as token offerings do not always resemble traditional securities offering.
đ Delphi Digital and 51percent Crypto Research Join Forces
This week Delphi Digital and 51percent Crypto Research merged forces in an all stock deal. Together as Delphi Digital, they hope to become a leader in blockchain research for both retail and institutional markets.
Tom Shaughnessy got his start in equity research before founding 51percent just six months ago. In that short amount of time, heâs seen growing interest with clients including Multicoin Capital, Vision Hill Advisers, and Oppenheimer.
đ Poloniex Lists Grin, Pledges Share of Fees to Dev Team
Poloniex, the Circle-owned cryptocurrency exchange, announced it has listed privacy coin Grin for trading, becoming the first major exchange to do so. Poloniex is also pledging between 25% to 50% of all Grin transaction fees to the Grin General Fund.
Project Updates
0x Updates
A couple of updates from 0x this week:
The team is offering infrastructure credits for people, companies or teams building on the 0x protocol
0x + CoinList Hackathon Recap
Vote on ZEIP-23 using ZRX tokens
Lodestar Bi-weekly Update #2
Lots of technical updates with a summary of what to expect from the upcoming Lodestar testnet client and what the Chainsafe teams deliverables are.
Pixura Platform Now Live
Pixura is a non-technical toolkit for anyone interested in launching any type of business idea based around digital items.
Let There Be Liquidity
The latest Eth2.0 spec release includes a much requested update: enabling transfers from "withdrawable" validator accounts (to open up liquidity options for validators before phase 2).
Coinbase Updates
Backup your private keys to Google Drive and iCloud with Coinbase Wallet
Earn Zcash while learning about blockchain privacy
Enigma Development Update - January 2019
The January update from Enigma contains details on recent progress towards deploying their Discovery platform on testnet and a breakdown of the features that will be included in the mainnet release.
The team also published a piece on how they plan to decentralize a âdead mans switchâ on Ethereum.
ECF Network 2.0 Announced
The team from the Ethereum Community Fund (ECF) has reimagined the project and are introducing a wide range of new features and changing existing ones.
They also announced that the fund is now open to new members!
Ethereum 2.0 Development Update #22âââPrysmatic Labs
A rather long update from the Prysmatic team this week covering lots of technical updates including a section on a beacon chain testnet that the team is running locally with 8 validators!
Etherscan Revamp
Ethereum block explorer Etherscan got a shiny new update this week with a revamped UI that includes a dark mode option among many other new features.
EEA Announces âToken Task Forceâ
The Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA) have announced a working group that will develop a specification for tokens, both fungible and non-fungible, that run on both the public Ethereum chain as well as private Ethereum implementations.
SKALE Labs Releases DevNet
SKALE Labs Inc announced the launch of SKALE DevNet this week, a production quality sidechain test network that will act as a secure, developer friendly testing environment leading up to the SKALE Mainnet launch in Q3 2019.
New Dharma Lever Now Live
Dharma Lever is the easiest way to trustlessly margin lend from anywhere in the world, instantly, and affordably. This week, the team released their latest version of the platform which includes a beautifully designed updated UI/UX.
You can get early access by signing up here and check out a nice summary tweet of Dharma Lever here.
Introducing DexPay and MakerDAO Grant Announcement
Dexpay is a Point Of Sale for physical stores and online shops that accepts Ether and many other coins and converts them instantly to DAI.
This project has been made possible by a grant from the MakerDAO stable fund!
Loom Staking Now Live
You can now stake your LOOM network tokens with the validators that were selected by Loom a few months ago.
We recommend staking with Mythos Capital and be sure to read their excellent Loom Networking staking documentation if you need any help.
Leapdao Launches Onto Mainnet
Just 1 week after launching onto testnet, Leapdao have now deployed their Plasma sidechain to the Ethereum mainnet!
Vipnode 2.0 Released
Vipnode is an open source implementation of economic incentives for running Ethereum full nodes who serve light clients. This week, Andrey Petrov from the team pushed the new 2.0 release live!
MyEtherWallet Version 5 Released
The new version comes with an fresh new UI/UX and a tonne of other new and updated features - I highly recommend checking it out!
Burner Wallet Update
The man behind the burner wallet, Austin Griffith, added a few new features to the burner wallet this week including a badges and collectibles system!
Community Member Spotlight
This week weâre highlighting the work being done by the team behind the Ethereum Name Service. There are 9 people currently working in some capacity on the project including lead developer Nick Johnson and Executive Director Virgil Griffith.
The ENS lets you assign human-readable names to Ethereum addresses. For example, you could register âyourname.ethâ and assign it to your Ethereum address. Then, people would be able to send Ether or tokens directly to your ENS name instead of having to remember an entire Ethereum address. Think of it like typing in a website name instead of having to know its IP address.
ENS registrations are currently limited to 7 characters and above but 3-6 character ENS names are coming soon!
And in case you missed it, we had Nick Johnson on the Into the Ether podcast recently to talk all things ENS (and a bit on ProgPOW).
On-Chain Activity
Dashboard for BUFF sales at ETHDenver
The Blocks on-chain activity round-up
Veil now 4th by volume for all 0x relayers
Interesting Tweets
Franklins comments on the JPM Coin (recommended read)
What happens to the MakerDAO burn rate when the stability fee changes?
Ecosystem Bits
Blog Posts
MakerDAO 2018 Revenue Analysis (recommended read)
SECâs Action Against Decentralized Exchange Raises Constitutional Questions
Looking back at the Ethereum 1x workshop 26â28.01.2019 (part 4)
A Closer Look at the Challenges and Incentives on the FOAM Map
Podcasts
Lending on Ethereum: Nadav Hollander of Dharma - Into the Ether
Ethereum 1.x â BUIDLing Things One Step at a Time - Epicenter
Videos
Misc
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