EthHub Weekly #73
Blockchain.com launches crypto exchange, Argent integrates Maker, tip people on Twitter with Brave/BAT and much more!
Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)
đ Making Waves
Our friends over at MyCrypto have launched their MyCryptoSummer initiative that aims to increase blockchain and cryptocurrency awareness, education, and adoption. Thereâs lots of prizes to be won for participating so be sure to check it out!
Eric put together a spreadsheet detailing all of the various funding initiatives going on in the Ethereum community - check it out here.
Also, the video of Ericâs presentation from State of Scale is now live on YouTube!
Have a great week everyone!
-Â Anthony
News of the Week
đ Wallet Provider Blockchain Rolls Out Crypto Exchange
Bitcoin wallet and blockchain explorer provider Blockchain just launched its first exchange platform.
Blockchainâs head of retail products, TD Ameritrade alum Nicole Sherrod, said the custodial exchange, called The PIT, can connect to non-custodial Blockchain wallets for nearly instant transfers. Registration opened during the week, with the ability to trade up to 26 assets rolling out over the next two weeks.
Sherrod said that with nearly 40 million wallets already created â and an exchange matching-engine set up in Londonâs Equinix LD4 data center â PIT could be posed to attract more liquidity than competitors. âThatâs what market makers are looking for,â Sherrod said. âThey want to co-locate [data center servers] with you, they want to directly connect to your matching engine. Itâs the way itâs done on Wall Street.â
đŹÂ Facebook Libra Might Never Launch
Facebook has acknowledged what many have been saying â that regulatory issues may be an insurmountable barrier to the launch of its Libra global cryptocurrency project.
In a frank disclosure in the firmâs latest quarterly report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the firm said that the many barriers it will face regarding regulating a new technology with unclear rules in the U.S. and other nations of the world, mean âthere can be no assurance that Libra or our associated products and services will be made available in a timely manner, or at all.â
âOur participation in the Libra Association will subject us to significant regulatory scrutiny and other risks that could adversely affect our business, reputation, or financial results,â Facebook says.
đ€Â Walmart Wants to Patent a Stablecoin That Looks a Lot Like Facebook Libra
Retail giant Walmart has applied for a cryptocurrency patent that bears some similarities to the Libra token proposed by Facebook in mid-June.
In its application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Walmart touts the concept of a digital currency âtied to a regular currencyâ â that is, whatâs commonly known as a stablecoin. Libra will be a token pegged to a basket of fiat currencies and government bonds, according to Facebook.
Over and above that, the filing suggests that the proposed coin could help provide finance for those with limited access to banking services â one of the major claims Facebook has made for Libra, most likely in an effort to appeal to the public (and regulators) over the token.
Project Updates
Argentâs first DeFi launch: Maker CDPs
You can now open a CDP directly within your Argent wallet in just a few taps. All mobile, no fiddly web browsers. (Itâs iOS only for now but will be on Android too).
Tipping with Brave
This week, Brave announced that Brave users can tip individual content creators on Twitter with Basic Attention Token (BAT). When users visit Twitter with the Brave desktop browser, and have enabled Brave Rewards, they will see a new âTipâ button on each tweet. Clicking on this button will allow the users to send BAT directly to the author of the tweet for an amount of their choosing.Â
Whatâs new in Eth2 - 2nd of August 2019
A healthy update from Ben this week thatâs mostly about the networking r&d that has been going on over the last few weeks for Ethereum 2.0.
The Augur Affiliate Blueprint
Augur announced an affiliate program this week that will go live as part of Augur V2. It works like this: if you share a link to Augur, whenever someone clicks on that link and ends up trading on *any* Augur markets at *any* time the user will earn a slice of the fees.
Build an Open Investment Bank Using OpenLaw
OpenLaw released its second vertical this week - OpenLaw Finance. With OpenLaw Finance, creating legally compliant tokenized securities, fixed income products, tokenized real estate, and smart derivatives can be as easy as filling out a simple form.
Making Maker - July 2019
Makers monthly recap including updates on Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD), a collateral onboarding guide and a generous bug bounty announcement, as well as partnership news, new integrations, and more.
0x Roadmap 2019 (Part 5): Introducing Coordinators
A Coordinator is a service that enforces rules over trade execution for a specific pool of 0x liquidity. Coordinators combine the characteristics of Order Matching and Open Orderbook relayer models: market makers can perform free, instant order cancellations and users/devs can leverage contract-fillable liquidity (CFL) to power independent Ethereum applications.
Loopring Updates
More throughput gains for the Loopring DEX protocol (a 20% improvement over the previous beta) and a new post about the LRC tokens role in the protocol.
LRC will function as a staking token to earn protocol fees, provide economic security guarantees for DEXs and give a protocol fee reduction.
Counterfactual Development Update #11
Continued progress on integrating Connext v2.0, end-to-end testing of various features and work on aligning the protocol with Magmo.
Kauri Launches Ambassador Program
The goal of the program is to enable community members to identify, create and curate the quality technical content necessary for developers to succeed in building web3-enabled applications and dApps.
If this sounds interesting, apply here! Theyâll be accepting applications until August 5th.
Community Member Spotlight
This week weâre highlighting the great work of Ria Bhutoria!
Ria is a senior research analyst at Circle Research and consistently produces great insights and unique reports on the entire crypto spectrum. She recently put together an insight piece on âThe Great Ethereum Funding Debateâ that recapped the EIP-2025 drama and went deeper into the various funding mechanisms in Ethereum today.
Be sure to subscribe to the Circle Research newsletter for more unique insights and reports.
Keep up the great work Ria!
On-Chain Activity
Maker dominance down to 60% (from a high of >90%)
Set Protocols assets under vault crosses $1mil
Kyber Network now has over 10% of all DEX transactions
Interesting Tweets
Ecosystem Bits
Blog Posts
Smart Wallets are Here (recommended read)
The DeFi Series: Monitoring User Activity & Community Growth
How PegaSys is Setting the Standard for Permissioning in DLT
How Lending with DeFi Compares with Traditional Asset Classes
Preventing Identity Theft with Optional Identity Verification
Videos
Podcasts
MetaCartel: Improving and Funding Ethereum's Application Layer - Into the Ether
Maker DAO â The Central Bank of Web 3.0 - Epicenter
The Bargain of Block Reward Funding With Andrew Yang - POV Crypto
Nexus Mutual with Hugh Karp - Wizard of Dapps
Misc
Meme of the Week
Another amazing meme from our good friend Alexander this week - this time in video form!
Looking for Work?
Top jobs listed on Cryptocurrency Jobs this week:
Product Marketing Manager - Dharma Labs
Crypto Deal Partner - a16z Crypto
Product Designer - Radar Relay
Product Manager - 3Box
+100âs more on the Cryptocurrency Jobs website!
Protect Your Crypto
Buy a hardware wallet:
Donations:Â 0xA19FCDaD77C1F0fd184689aca88BabCF68010347