EthHub Weekly #85

China goes all in on crypto, Istanbul going live December 4th, Cheeze Wizards Tournament live and much more!

Oct 28, 2019

Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)

🎉 And we’re back!

Eric and I are finally back home after ~3 weeks of travelling around Japan which means that there will be new Into the Ether podcast episodes this week (including an extra long weekly recap episode)! There’s a lot to talk about so make sure you chime in if you’d like to hear our thoughts on the last three weeks worth of news (including our Devcon recaps).

Have a great week everyone!

- Anthony

News of the Week

🤯 President Xi Says China Should ‘Seize Opportunity’ to Adopt Blockchain

Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, said the country needs to “seize the opportunity” afforded by blockchain technology.

Speaking as part of the 18th collective study of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee on Thursday in Beijing, Xi said blockchain technology has a wide array of applications within China, listing topics ranging from financing businesses to mass transit and poverty alleviation.

“We must take the blockchain as an important breakthrough for independent innovation of core technologies,” Xi told committee members.

“[We must] clarify the main direction, increase investment, focus on a number of key core technologies, and accelerate the development of blockchain technology and industrial innovation.”

The Chinese president’s statements on blockchain are believed to be his first in-depth remarks on the technology.

👍 Bakkt to Launch Crypto ‘Consumer App’ in First Half of 2020

Bakkt plans to launch a consumer-facing app to help retail customers transact with cryptocurrencies, the company announced Monday.

In a blog post, Bakkt chief product officer Mike Blandina wrote that the company was working on developing an app to let consumers use digital assets when purchasing goods from merchants.

“We’ll be launching a consumer app to make it easy for consumers to discover and unlock the value of digital assets, as well as ways in which they can transact or track them. Merchants gain access to a broader set of customers with expanded spending power,” Blandina wrote.

He hinted that the app might support more than just Bitcoin, which is currently the only digital asset Bakkt and its parent company Intercontinental Exchange provide futures contracts for.

♎ Facebook Would Quit Libra if the Association Launched Prematurely

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told lawmakers that the company would pull out of the Libra Association in the event the consortium launched its proposed cryptocurrency without all needed regulatory approvals.

In a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee Wednesday, Zuckerberg fielded pointed questions on a variety of controversial issues around the social network, from election meddling to housing discrimination to deepfakes. But Libra, the proposed price-stable cryptocurrency Facebook conceived and set up the association to run, was the foremost item on the agenda

And many of the CEO’s answers to lawmakers’ questions underscored Facebook’s official position is that it no longer controls the project.

Specifically, Zuckerberg reiterated his commitment to satisfying regulators’ concerns before launching Libra. Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) homed in on the apparent tension between this pledge and the idea that the Libra Association is independent of Facebook, asking:

“You said that you won’t launch without U.S. regulator approval. What happens if the association decides to launch despite that?”

Zuckerberg replied to this hypothetical:

“I believe we would be forced to leave the association.”

Project Updates

Istanbul Going Live December 4th

Ethereum’s next system-wide upgrade, Istanbul, is scheduled to arrive on mainnet the week of Dec. 4. The decision was made during an Ethereum core developer call on Oct. 25. 6 EIPs have been accepted for Istanbul and you can view them here.

Editors note: I’m most excited about EIP-2028 which greatly reduces the cost for privacy tech such as STARKs!

MCD Security Roadmap Update: October 2019

This update from Maker goes over the findings from Maker’s Bug Bounty Program, MCD formal verification and audit report results, and progress updates on their Integration Partner Program.

Gods Unchained Update 0.19

A major update for Gods Unchained this week which includes long-awaited performance and optimization improvements. The team also introduced the concept of card ‘Evolution’, and the official Gods Unchained Genesis Invitational Tournament began!

What's New in Eth2 - 25 October 2019

Another great Eth2 update from Ben. This update includes some great color on the recent changes to sharding and composability in Ethereum 2.0 and what they mean for the network as a whole.

LSDai Now Live

Bet on the Compound DAI supply rate by buying longD or shortD to hedge your interest rate exposure. If it goes down, the value of your short position will go up. You can sell it back to the market, take profit, and make up for lost lending revenue.

GridPlus Mini Update: October 25, 2019

Justin Leroux from GridPlus updates us on the recent work done on the Lattice1, the GridPlus Energy initiative, and recent developer outreach efforts.

The Aave Protocol released on public Testnet

The release of the public testnet (Kovan Network) of the Aave protocol, including the documentation, the new website, and a developers portal, went live this week.

Cheeze Wizards Tournament Now Open

You can now compete for a chance to win $100k in the first Cheeze Wizards tournament!

Gitcoin Quests Launched

Gitcoin Quests is a fun, gamified way to learn about the web3 ecosystem, compete with your friends, earn rewards, and level up your decentralization-fu!

daometrics.com Now Live

This website tracks various metrics for DAOs such as Maker, Digix, Aragon and Moloch with many more to come!

Torque Crypto Loans Now Live

Torque.loans is the first platform for fixed rate indefinite term loans on Ethereum. It allows you to borrow against your ETH or ERC20 tokens.

Axie Infinity Teams up With Samsung

Samsung has added support for Axie Infinity to the Samsung Blockchain Wallet. Axie will be listed in the Dapp section of and can be played through a web 3 browser.

Community Member Spotlight

This week we’re highlighting the great work of antiprosynthesis!

Anti is quite active in the Ethereum community - especially on Twitter. While he doesn’t work full time on crypto, he can often be seen “fighting Bitcoin maximalists” and constantly correcting misinformation being spread about Ethereum from various parties (he does this all for free, by the way). He’s also a great educator who’s always willing to help people who want to get started with Ethereum.

Keep up the great work Anti!

Interesting Tweets

Ecosystem Bits

Blog Posts

Podcasts

How the Hong Kong Protests Gave a Boost to Gods Unchained - Unconfirmed
StarkWare – Productizing zk-STARKs to Provide Blockchain Scalability and Privacy - Epicenter
Vitalik Buterin: ETH 2.0 Driven by Simplified Sharding, Optimistic Rollups and Native Cross Shard Communications - Chain Reaction Podcast

Videos

Misc

Meme of the Week

A classic meme template re-purposed for DeFi!

Stani from Aave 👻 @StaniKulechov

Insider's view on how bankers feel about DeFi in 2019 @MakerDAO @compoundfinance @KyberNetwork @SetProtocol @dydxprotocol @AaveAave @UniswapExchange

Looking for Work?

Top jobs listed on Cryptocurrency Jobs this week:

Community Moderator - TokenPay
Marketing Manager - The Block
UX Researcher - Dapper Labs
Accountant - Numerai
+100’s more on the Cryptocurrency Jobs website!

Protect Your Crypto

Buy a hardware wallet:

Donations: 0xA19FCDaD77C1F0fd184689aca88BabCF68010347