EthHub Weekly #75
/r/ethfinance launched, Ethereum.org translation program announced, rDai introduced and much more!
Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)
đ A new era for Ethereum on Reddit
A bit of drama unfolded this week as 6 (out of 10) of the moderators of the /r/ethtrader subreddit stood down and created a new subreddit - /r/ethfinance. Basically, the main moderator of the subreddit stripped 2 of the other moderators privileges away over a small disagreement (among other things). You can read the full explanation here. Eric and I will be giving more thoughts on this topic on next weeks extended weekly recap podcast!
Youâll notice that in this issue of the newsletter weâve (sadly) removed the âOn-chain Activityâ section. This was done because we believe that there are now other newsletters which do much better dives into network activity than anything we curate for the EthHub Weekly - these include Coin Metricsâ âState of the Networkâ newsletter and Camila Russos âThe Defiantâ. Go subscribe to both of them!
Eric and I are now both in Berlin for blockchain week and weâll be attending Dappcon from Wednesday to Friday - donât forget to come find us to get some free stickers (but only if you say âETH is moneyâ)!
Have a great week everyone!
-Â Anthony
News of the Week
đ¤Â Coinbase Acquires Xapo
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has acquired the institutional business of cryptocurrency wallet and custody service provider Xapo.
Coinbase said in an announcement on Thursday that the deal will help expand its custody business and will increase its assets under custody to be more than $7 billion.
According to a Fortune report on Thursday, Coinbase acquired Xapoâs institutional business for $55 million after beating another strong contender, the investment giant Fidelity.
âď¸Â SEC Delays Decisions on 3 Bitcoin ETF Proposals
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) delayed making a decision on three bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) proposals Monday.
The ETFs, proposed earlier this year by asset managers Bitwise Asset Management, VanEck/SolidX and Wilshire Phoenix, and filed with exchanges NYSE Arca and Cboe BZX, are all seeking to become the first such investment vehicle based on bitcoin.
The filings were published in the Federal Register in February and June, kicking off the legally-mandated 240-day clock on a final decision.
Final decisions on the Bitwise and VanEck/SolidX proposals are expected by Oct. 13 and Oct. 18, respectively.
đ Crypto and Security Token Exchange INX to Raise $130 Million in Landmark IPO
INX Limited, a crypto exchange startup, plans to raise up to $129.5 million through an IPO, in the first security token sale registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
No, thatâs not a typo for âICO,â the initial coin offerings that tested the limits of securities law during the go-go days of 2017. IPO means IPO here: INX, which is domiciled in Gibraltar, filed a draft F-1 (the SECâs prospectus form for foreign issuers) with the agency on Monday and will market the tokens to retail and institutional investors through the initial public offering.
The securities will be represented as ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.Â
Project Updates
Translating Ethereum.org Program Announced
The Ethereum Foundation announced the launch of a large-scale translation program for Ethereum.org, which will translate the website and other resources into more than 15 languages.
tBTC Announced
tBTC is a Bitcoin implementation on Ethereum that aims to be a decentralized alternative to WBTC by utilising a method similar to how a Maker CDP is created (locking up collateral).
Compound Announces the Open Oracle System
The Open Oracle System splits the trust and logic required for an Ethereum price feed into four parts - Off-chain price data, posting price data to Ethereum, on-chain storage and price views.
Introducing the ETH25
ETHGasStation announced the additional of the ETH25 page to their (freshly revamped) website. The ETH25 leaderboard tracks the total ETH, average price in Gwei, and total USD value of the top 25 gas guzzlers on the Ethereum network for the past 30 days.
Set Community Update #1
Lots of updates from the Set team including reaching the $1mil assets under vault milestone, the launch of the ETH20SMACO Set and Anthony (yours truly) joining the team!
Release of Loopring 3.0-beta3 and Start of Security Audit
Loopring 3.0-beta 3 brings with it many new improvements including a simplified fee model, reduced gas cost for ZKP proof-verification, increased throughput and much more. Loopring has also started a security audit on the 3.0 contracts.
Introducing Profit Pools
Felix Feng from Set Protocol introduced the idea of âProfit Poolsâ which is a smart contract that pools together profit-seeking capital in order to fill transactions for various events (liquidations, rebalances etc).
Whatâs New in Eth2 - 16 August 2019
Lots of Phase 0/Beacon chain updates, implementers call notes and a nice overview of the highlights of the Eth2 gitter channel from the last 2 weeks.
Introducing ttcX
Matteo from The Block introduced the concept of the Top Trading Cycle algorithm (ttcX) as it relates to NFTs. The aim of this algorithm is the provide a more efficient means of exchanging goods between participants with distinct subjective valuations.
Moloch Updates
Moloch has been very busy over the last few weeks with $120k+ in grants distributed to 17 projects, launching the Moloch Pool and much more.
Introducing Topo Finance
Topo Finance is an open financial services platform designed to optimize your use of existing Ethereum-based Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols.
StarkWare Giving Away ETH
Find a collision in one of the STARK-Friendly Hash (SFH) puzzles to collect your share of 200 ETH.
StarkWare also introduced instant payments for StarkPay this week.
Select the Next Compound Asset
Compound users will have the opportunity to vote for one of twelve potential assets. At the end of the 14 day voting period, 2 winning tokens will be added to the protocol.
0x Development Update #21
Updates on the 0x mesh, the multi-land initiative, protocol work and new hires on the 0x team.
Uniswap Updates
Uniswap crossed a total trading volume milestone of 1 million ETH this week and to celebrate the team rolled out some updates including: dark mode, adjustable slippage and improved token selection.
Introducing rDai
rDai is a token backed by cDai that allows users to assign an external third party to receive the interest earned by the underlying cDai.
ENS Now Supports Tor .Onion Address Resolution
The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) now supports the resolution of Tor .onion addresses which gives users increased privacy.
Introducing Tickets
You can now buy tickets to real-world events using the Ethereum blockchain and Unlock Protocol.
REN Protocol Updates
Users can now play around with a demo of the RenVM here and DeFi teams can build an MVP using the Ren SDK located here.
Community Member Spotlight
This week weâre highlighting the great work of Josh Stark!
Josh is a long-time member of the Ethereum community and currently works on state channels for L4 Ventures, organises Ethereum meetups around the world for ETHGlobal and was recently responsible for leading the redesign effort of Ethereum.org.
Keep up the great work Josh!
Interesting Tweets
Ecosystem Bits
Blog Posts
Ethereum 2.0 Terms Demystified (recommended read)
Building The Best Damn Crypto Experience We Could: A Short Story About Engaging Your Users
Videos
Live Eth 2.0 Workshop With Vitalik Buterin, Whiteblock, Prysmatic Labs, & PegaSys
What is DeFi - Crypto Bobby
Podcasts
Ryan Selkis: Messari and the State of Crypto - Into the Ether
Mariano Conti on the Argentine Peso Losing 30% vs USD - POV Crypto
DAOs and ETH vs BTC with Ameen Soleimani - POV Crypto
Misc
Meme of the Week
A rite of passage for an Etherean is to reach the coveted 32 ETH holding mark so that theyâre ready to stake once the Ethereum 2.0 beacon chain goes live - we feel that this meme perfectly captures that sentiment!
Looking for Work?
Top jobs listed on Cryptocurrency Jobs this week:
Ethereum Smart Contracts Engineer - MakerDAO
Finance Analyst/Associate - ConsenSys
Software Engineer - Set Protocol
CSIRT Analyst - Coinbase
+100âs more on the Cryptocurrency Jobs website!
Protect Your Crypto
Buy a hardware wallet:
Donations:Â 0xA19FCDaD77C1F0fd184689aca88BabCF68010347