EthHub Weekly #76
Berlin blockchain week, Istanbul EIPs finalized, Synthetix releases Index Tokens and much more!
Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)
đ€Ș San Francisco > Berlin > Melbourne
Iâm finally back home in Melbourne after over 3 weeks of travelling - 2 weeks were spent working with the Set Protocol team in San Francisco and the next was spent in Berlin for blockchain week.
Berlin blockchain week was amazing - I met so many of my Twitter friends in real life for the first time (as well as Eric!) and I was blown away by how many supporters the EthHub newsletter and podcast have - it was incredibly humbling. Eric and I will be discussing our experiences in Berlin in more detail on the next weekly recap podcast!
Quick plug for our friends over at ETHGlobal - their searching for a Marketing, Communications, and Content Lead to help the team in their mission of bringing Ethereum to the world through community meetups and conferences. If this sounds like something youâre interested in, head to the job posting here.
Have a great week everyone!
-Â Anthony
News of the Week
đ€ŻÂ UK Central Bank Chief Sees Digital Currency Displacing US Dollar as Global Reserve
A central bank-supported digital currency could replace the dollar as the global hedge currency, said Bank of England governor Mark Carney.
Speaking at the Economic Policy Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday Carney discussed the need for a new international monetary and financial system (IMFS), noting that while the U.S. dollar has played a dominant role in the world order over much the past century, recent developments such as increased globalization and trade disputes may have stronger impacts on national economies at the present moment than they would have in the past.
Carney highlighted the dollarâs use in international securities issuance, its use as the primary settlement currency for international trades and the fact that companies use dollars as examples of its dominance. However, âdevelopments in the U.S. economy, by affecting the dollar exchange rate, can have large spillover effects to the rest of the world.â
âWhile the world economy is being reordered, the U.S. dollar remains as important as when Bretton Woods collapsed,â Carney continued.
đ€Â At Least 3 Members Considering Cutting Ties with Facebookâs Libra Project
Several backers of Facebookâs Libra cryptocurrency project are said to be considering backing out due to growing pressure from regulators.
According to a report from the Financial Times, three of the firms (which were not named) expressed concerns over being seen to be linked to the project after watchdogs around the world raised concerns over its potential threat to financial stability.
The EU was recently reported to have even moved to investigate the Libra Association over potential antitrust issues. Over in the U.S., lawmakers have called for Libra to be halted until regulatory issues have been addressed.
As a result, two of the firms are considering pulling out of the Libra project, the FTÂ said.
đ°Â Circle Is Raising a $100 Million Fund for Its Crowdfunding Arm
Circle is hiring a new general partner to raise a $100 million venture capital fund.
The fund will take advantage of the deal flow coming through SeedInvest, the equity crowdfunding startup that Circle acquired in March 2019.
The listing on LinkedIn says: âThe Partner will be expected to develop and drive an investment thesis designed to leverage SeedInvestâs sizable deal flow and its unique network of 250,000 investors to maximize returns.â
SeedInvest emphasizes itself a registry of potential startup investments that have been thoroughly vetted by the firm before they are shown to users.
The posting says Circle is seeking someone with principal or partner-level experience at an established venture firm and strong connections throughout the funder community.
Project Updates
Istanbul EIP List Now Final
EIPs 152, 1108, 1344, 1884, 2028 and 2200 will be making their way into the Istanbul network upgrade in October. You can track the status of the client implementations for each EIP here.
ETHBerlin Hackathon Submissions
Want to know whatâs being built on the bleeding edge of Ethereum development? Well, just look at all of the apps submitted by the hackers from ETHBerlin here.
Introducing sCEX and iCEX
Synthetix released a new category of Synths this week - Index Tokens. These tokens track an index of centralised exchanges tokens. The long version is called sCEX and the short version is called iCEX.
Coinbase WalletLink Announced
WalletLink acts as a secure bridge between your Coinbase Wallet app and your desktop browser. To get started, all you have to do is scan a WalletLink QR code with your Wallet app. You can then use dapps anywhere, while keeping your funds safe and secure on your mobile Wallet app.
Ethereum 2.0 Development Update #33 â Prysmatic Labs
Bi-weekly development update from the PryLabs team that runs through all the recent work theyâve been doing on their Ethereum 2.0 client.
Guesser Launches DeFi Total Value Locked (TVL) Options on Augur
This week, Guesser launched a weekly prediction market on the amount of ETH locked in DeFi according to Defipulse, and will later add longer term markets such as monthly or quarterly options.
Ren August Development Update
RenVM Testnet has done well in its first two weeks out in the wild. Upgrades are already underway including support for Lightning Network and Bitcoin Cash interoperability with Ethereum. The team also added Google Cloud Platform (GCP) support for our Darknode CLI; encouraging further decentralization of RenVM.
AZTEC Announces PLONK
PLONK is a new, efficient universal ZK-SNARK construction that only requires one trusted setup.
ConsenSys Launches Daisy
Daisy enables anyone to accept cryptocurrency for purchases, subscriptions, usage fees and other payments.
Community Member Spotlight
This week weâre highlighting the great work of Anett Rolikova!
Anett is a âhappiness managerâ at Progressbar - a blockchain cowork, event space & hangout zone in Bratislava, a ConsenSys #BUIDL ambassador and regularly volunteers at various meetups around the world.
Fun fact: Anett was the one who originally suggested that we should have a âMeme of the Weekâ section of the newsletter!
Anthonys note: I met Anett in Berlin and we had a very serious sticker exchange.
Keep up the great work Anett!
Interesting Tweets
Ecosystem Bits
Blog Posts
Earn Passive Income with Compound (a really great guide on how to use Compound)
Podcasts
Fluidity: Bringing Real World Assets to Ethereum - Into the Ether
Ethereum 2.0 Progress with Alex Stokes - POV Crypto
Announcing tBTC with James Prestwich and Matt Luongo of Cross-Chain Group - Wyre Talks
Misc
Meme of the Week
The war between Bitcoiners and Ethereans is never-ending and Alexander once again captures this with the perfect meme.
Looking for Work?
Top jobs listed on Cryptocurrency Jobs this week:
Senior Product Manager - Bison Trails
Operations Associate - The Block
Blockchain Engineer - Brave
Marketing Manager - Multis
+100âs more on the Cryptocurrency Jobs website!
Protect Your Crypto
Buy a hardware wallet:
Donations:Â 0xA19FCDaD77C1F0fd184689aca88BabCF68010347