Pieter Wuille On Bitcoin Scaling, Sharding, Sidechains ...

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1. The price of your token continues to go down. What factors do you think influence it and what’s your strategy to keep holding communities attention? 2. Could you share more details about the marketplace you are working on? When is it going to be launched, what products will be there, etc? 3. When will you share the progress made so far with your announced partners?
For now the crypto market is a highly speculative market and the token price almost has nothing to do the projects’ progress for most of the projects. IoTeX is such an ambitious project that our goal is to change how the physical world works with the blockchain world and not a lot people can understand our vision and hold the belief of it. So it is not a surprise to me that speculative investors come and go rather than hodl. But I see more and more long term believers are joining us recently, no matter through investment, development and other forms of ways to work with us, which is super encouraging! In addition, it seems like we are in the initial phase of another bull run for the entire crypto market and usually bitcoin is taking the lead but more attention will be shifted to other projects once bitcoin finished its sprint. We have more focus on the underlying privacy/TEE technologies as for now which is innovative, unprecedented and not easy. Once the underlying hardware/protocol is stylized, we will kick off trusted data marketplace project. For partnering with other projects and companies, we are selective because we want to work with our partners seriously rather than for PR purposes. We are working with many projects such as Chainlink (we announced the partnership yesterday), Neutral dollar (stablecoin), Celer (l2 scaling), Harmony (zkp projects) and many other companies from the traditional world. As great and solid progress is made, we will make official announcements.
1. How many nodes do you have ? How many token do you need to run a node? And what are the rewards? 2. “IoTeX and Lineable hope to connect 1,000,000+ Lineable devices to the IoTeX blockchain in 2019.” What is the status thereof?
I assume you mean delegate nodes — globally we have ~60 delegates on-board and the top 36 of them are serving the network by producing and validating blocks. We specifically designed the low entry barrier for delegate candidates — one has to stake down 1.2M IOTX and get another 0.8M IOTX from others (including oneself) to be eligible as a delegate candidate. Check out the reward details here; my impression is that the annual return is 10% — 15%. Lineable project is going well. They will host their chain (for orchestrating lora gateways) within IoTeX network. We are kind of slow on the development of subchain SDK given other priorities; and we are actively staffing the team to have more hands working on the subchain SDK.
“How did you survive during a long bear market? What difficulties, if any, have been encountered in this period?” What has been the biggest technical challenge that you overcame this year? And what from your pov is the biggest one to come , this year and beyond? Do you see IoTeX having a role in home surveillance and home automation some day — and of what kind?
To be honest, I don’t have a strong feeling about the bear market in the past year since we have been so focused on building things :) I am an early bitcoin investor and user and tell me about the bear markets — bitcoin has been through many much tougher market situations and it is true that a blockchain project (including its token) becomes valuable only after being through tough times! In terms of the technical challenge, it is an interesting topic. We used to have lots of internal discussions around the technical roadmap — opinion 1 is to develop a useful blockchain by focusing more on the application/user-facing features while option 2 is to focus on the moonshot features which will likely not useful in the near term but important for the future. Both of them are legit and great. I would think option 1 may partly because the aforementioned “bear market” made people more realistic and desperately want a landing case for blockchain. Still, we decide to go for option 2 since we are an ambitious project for changing the world. The biggest one to come this year and beyond is decentralization — I feel like the industry focus is slightly off the right track as it puts too much attention on scalability technologies such as sharding — for which I think it is totally wrong. The blockchain is only valuable cuz it provides low-cost trust which roots in the decentralization. If one wants a fast system, there are many such as cassandra and kafka. Blockchain is not meant to be fast, at least the layer 1 chain. Yes! Device identity and trusted data are the two concrete things we are working on rewarding IoT+blockchain. We have quite a few inbound requests from home surveillance manufacturers and companies around these two.
Can you explain better so that the token is used IoTeX Foundation and Ecosystem? Could you update the amount of available foundation and Ecosystem tokens? Why are not the foundation and Ecosystem tokens used for new associations? Any explanation of the current status of the iotex project? Do you plan to sell OTC iotex tokens? In that case, what provision of tokens are available for sale. Why is not iotex published in more media crypto and YouTubers? What idea of expansion is there currently, globally, which countries are you most interested in? How many fairs of iot and crypto do you plan to go to in 2019 and 2020? How many companies have contacted you interested in security iot? How many staff resources do you currently have? How much available capital is there for the project? People are procured with the alts, in what position do you think is iotex as a project, from 1 to 10? Why do you think iotex is better than similar projects? Do you have a board of directors, how often do you meet? Early stage venture capital investors, is there any of them that joins the board of directors and decisions? How can big investors contribute to iotex? He thinks it would be interesting to buy more tokens from venture capital investors. Do you communicate with new venture capitalists and other iot companies to buy iotex tokens?
Thanks for such a list of thorough questions. The Binance Research Report will have some concrete numbers for some of the questions here; let me address them from a high level. IOTX is used for governance (through staking/voting), utility (like gas in Ethereum) and operating of subchains in IoTeX Network. Please see the Binance Report for concrete numbers of tokens allocation. One change we made recently is to distribute last trance of the private-sale tokens in July (which is already done) according to http://member.iotex.io/polls. Otherwise, everything else stays the same. Foundation and ecosystem tokens will be used for incubating new projects/initiatives on top of IoTeX network. We received some ideas and applications already and are selecting which are the ones we want to start with. We have no plans to sell IOTX via OTC. Any interested investors can buy from the secondary market. We are focusing on building :) As the project gets more well-established, we are talking about ourselves more on media, conferences and etc.. We already have enough number of inbound queries from IoT companies to start with. We are a team of 30+ people and most of us are engineers and scientists. For procuring of tokens, I cannot give financial advice. IoTeX has an ambitious vision and solid execution, it is a great project. We have few advisors from IoT industry, academia and venture side, and we meet roughly once a month. We are open to strategic investors especially the ones coming with industry resources. We are working with some of them but cannot disclose the details for now.
What role do you think IOTEX will play in making blockchain highly adaptable in the worldwide stage?
IoTeX’s role is clear — it connects the physical world and the blockchain world by leveraging the machines/devices and things. To make it highly adaptable, IoTeX has this blockchains-in-blockchain structure that we encourage applications/scenarios to have their specific subchains that acting like adapters to specific verticals. It is interesting to see that Polkadot adopts similar designs which they call parachains.
Where do you and the team see the world of blockchain being in years to come, and how will $vita change the landscape of the cryptocurrency space in years to come? What do you think is the biggest problem Team will solve that no other project is solving now, and why is the problem important to solve?
Connecting the physical world with the blockchain world is a huge trend in the next 5 years. VITA’s mission is to engage the community and make crypto super easy to use for normal people in this world, so it is another way to connect the physical world with the blockchain world. The important problem is “how to connect physical and blockchain worlds”. This is super important: 1. The physical world needs a parallel virtual world to enable programmability and automation for lots of things; 2. The blockchain world needs to have an impact on physical world to demonstrate its value and generate revenue potentially. There are very few projects working on this now, e.g., chainlink takes a great first step on this. IoTeX continuously pushing this forward.
When you look back to the day you guys started IoTeX, are you guys satisfied with the progress you have made? When you say IoTeX is a truly private blockchain, how do you think it is better than other private blockchain implementations in the industry?
I am super impressed by the progress of the team — we started with three co founders and we now have 30 employees all over the world and ~100K people in our community in 18 months; we started with a whitepaper and now we have a decentralized, stable and performant public blockchain already processed 1million transactions and every line of code of this blockchain is written by us, no fork, no clone. IoTeX project has been highly recognized in the industry by top exchanges, top institutional investors and top companies in internet and IoT industry. Very different. If you look at the privacy-focused blockchains as Monero, Zcash and Grin — they are all slow, hard to use (like in Grin, sender and receiver should cosign a message before transferring coins) and has limited privacy (like monero has limited anonymity set). Most importantly, they set a high bar for developers and users to embrace this privacy technology. What we want is to set a privacy-preserving enabled platform so users and developers can enjoy using it without hassling with the hardcore techniques underlying. Also compared to ZKP, ring-sig approaches, our TEE-based approach provides faster and easier user experience.
What killer features has IoTeX that are ahead of the competition and how does IOTEX intend to open up the technology to the community and to researchers so it can be continuously improved on?
In short, PoS-based decentralization and TEE-based trusted computing are the two killer features of IoTeX. The former one is in production, and we are welcome anyone to join our Delegate Program! The second one is still under R&D stage and we will gradually open to the community once features are stabilized.
Is it possible to introduce such an option as re-delegation of profit (type of reinvestment) so that the coins are not sent to the delegate’s purse but are automatically delegated, implementing the concept of compound interest.
Hah, this is the second time I received such a requirement! This is something definitely technically feasible and let me pass this back to my PM as they are building an auto reward-distribution service for all delegates and this could be one fancy feature.
1. Do you guys worry when the price of your token goes down in the market and try something to bring it up? 2. Why did you made the Vita token pre-mined? 3. Do you believe adding Blockfolio, Citex as delegates will benefit Iotex in the long run?
A little bit since we do not let our supporters suffer; but not too much since we know it will pick up in the near future. Basically to me, the “blue chip” age in the crypto market is coming or already came. Great projects with an ambitious vision and solid execution are getting more attention from the market. VITA is not pre-mined, as the purpose is to create a fair token for everyone to enjoy. We have no intention to do fundraising using it. Yes, if you look at our delegates they are really coming from different sectors — community/media, tech, investors, exchanges/wallets, developers, ambassadors. All of them are contributing and make IoTeX a prosperous ecosystem! Check to see who they are
I saw that IoTeX is currently holding its first network-wide vote via smart contract. Why is such community engagement important for IoTeX and what role will this type of voting play going forward? What kind of decisions do you think is important from IoTeX to put to the community?
Great question. Decentralization is the soul of a blockchain. Every shareholder’s opinion is important to us! We will have more voting events like this regarding how to grow tech, community, token economics and etc..
What’s your outlook on the future of cryptocurrencies? What can we do to keep increasing adoption?
We long both crypto and the world! We identify ourselves as the connector of the physical world and blockchain world, which will have massive adoption.
Can you explain why IoTeX is unique and how you expand your project?
IoTeX’s role is clear — it connects the physical world and the blockchain world by leveraging the machines/devices and things. PoS-based decentralization and TEE-based trusted computing are the two killer features of IoTeX.
What other platforms (if any) are you and your team working on to expand blockchain development and technologies?
We are exclusively focused on IoTeX Network for now but we use different techniques/tools to make it better such as graphql, typescript, tee and etc..
Hello, I’m just a newbie in this current new world, what’s your plan to expand/grab knowledge about cryptocurrency especially for IOTEX project?
docs.iotex.io is definitely a great place to start. We will also launch our codelabs in a few weeks which would be a great place for starters. You can also check out lots of useful resources here https://www.iotex.io/community-resources
How do you see the project develop in 3–5 years from now, both business wise & company wise? What are the plans to expand in different regions? Will you outsource the team/skills or keep it centralized and set up offices?
The past 18 months is a great start for the project and we are working even harder since then. This year we aim to finish most of the tech foundation (blockchain + trusted computing); 2020 will be one year we focus on some use cases — device identity, trusted collecting of IoT data, trusted storage of data and compute. Second half of 2020, we will focus on commercialization of such as the data marketplace on top of our technologies. In terms of where to start, we found out that Asian and Europe are most passionate about IoT that’s where we will likely to push first. Decentralization is the soul of the blockchain, both at operation level (e.g., delegates) and organization level (e.g., diversified team and decentralized offices). We are always trying to make IoTeX more decentralized and we would love to have believers to join us no matter from where!
Why iotx doesnt spend more time to promote more news about the project?
We are focusing on building :) As the project gets more well-established, we are talking about ourselves more.

In case you missed it: Major Crypto and Blockchain News from the week ending 12/14/2018

Developments in Financial Services

A cryptocurrency exchange-traded product (ETP) that trades on Switzerland’s Six Exchange saw record trading volumes on Thursday and Friday last week, suggesting that institutional investors may be buying the dip in cryptocurrencies. Four major cryptocurrencies underlie the HODL ETP, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). While HODL ETP’s one-month average daily trading is 20,000 shares, on Thursday, December 6th, and Friday, December 7th, 53,233 shares and 62.986 shares were traded, respectively.
A report published last week by global anti-money laundering policymaker, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), indicates that cryptocurrency exchanges in the United Kingdom pose a, “low risk,” for money laundering and terrorist financing activities. The report, however, does highlight that such activities on UK cryptocurrency exchanges are an, “emerging risk,” although there is not yet enough evidence to suggest that these activities are occurring through cryptocurrency exchanges. In its report, the FATF urged UK regulators to, “Continue to develop an understanding of emerging risks (such as virtual currencies) and intelligence gaps, and take appropriate action.”
Andreas Utermann, CEO and CIO of Allianz Global Investors, called on global financial regulators to ban cryptocurrencies while speaking at a panel discussion in London. According to a report by Reuters, Utermann said, “You should outlaw it,” while participating in a panel alongside Andrew Bailey, the head of Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority. Bailey responded by saying that Utermann’s comments were, “quite strong,” before adding that cryptocurrencies have, “no intrinsic value.”
Basis, a major US-based stablecoin project, is shutting down its operations and returning most of its funds to investors, according to a report by crypto news outlet The Block. The report by The Block cited, “multiple people with direct knowledge of the situation,” in claiming that the algorithmic stablecoin project, which generated UDS$133mm of funding through private investments in April, will return funds to investors. According to the Co-Founder and CEO of competing stablecoin project Nevin Freeman, Basis’ shutdown is due to regulatory concerns around one of its token types. Freeman explained, highlighting that algorithmic stablecoins implement a “secondary token”, known as a “bond token”, to help maintain the primary token’s peg. In many cases, regulators like the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) consider these secondary tokens to be securities.
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume, announced that it has added Circle’s US dollar-pegged stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), to its combined Stablecoin Market. Circle, a company backed by Goldman Sachs, first released its stablecoin in September of this year. Binance’s combined Stablecoin Market features other notable stablecoins, like Tether (USDT), that trade against cryptocurrencies as interchangeable base pairs.
Coinone, a South Korea-based cryptocurrency exchange, has officially launched Cross, a cross-border payments application that leverages Ripple’s xCurrent product to increase efficiencies. The application, released by Coinone’s payments subsidiary, Coinone Transfer, targets unbanked or underbanked South Koreans by enabling the transfer of funds to Thailand or the Philippines at a low cost.
Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange heralded by the Winklevoss twins, released an official company blog post this weekend announcing that the firm will support Bitcoin Cash (BCH) custody and trading. The exchange will support only the Bitcoin Cash ABC network at this time, adding that they, “are continuing to evaluate Bitcoin SV over the coming weeks or months, and we may or may not choose to support withdrawals and/or trading of Bitcoin SV in the future.” Additionally, the company detailed that its listing of BCH is pending regulatory approval by the New York State Department of Financial Services.
Gemini, the cryptocurrency trading platform founded by the Winklevoss twins, announced the launch of a mobile crypto trading application in an official blog post today. Accompanying the launch of the crypto trading app is a new investment vehicle, dubbed, “The Cryptoverse,” that is comprised of a basket of cryptocurrencies weighted by market capitalization. While speaking to Bloomberg today, Cameron Winklevoss said that, “A lot of our decisions have perhaps given off a perception that we’re more institutional-based. The reality of the situation is that we have a diverse customer base. And the retail story is just beginning.” The Winklevoss twins went on to detail of a goal to expand reach to Asian markets by 2019’s end.
Good Money, a US neo-banking platform, has closed its Series A investment round that generated USD$30mm led by cryptocurrency-focused merchant bank Galaxy Digital and the founder of EOS (EOS) Block.one. Good Money aims to provide a variety of banking service and certain financial instruments to US account holders while exploring innovative changes to traditional banking practices. “Modern banking is a primary driver of so many issues we as a society face – from economic inequality, institutional racism, environmental destruction to political corruption,” said Good Money founder Gunnar Lovelace. Specifically, Good Money eliminates ATM fees while offering each bank user equity in the company.
Kraken, a notable cryptocurrency exchange, is seeking to raise funding with a USD$4bn valuation for the company and a USD$100,000 investment minimum, according to CoinDesk. In an email to investors, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell wrote, “There is presently a limited time opportunity available to a very small select number of clients to purchase shares.” The email goes on to detail that the exchange will close its offer on December 16th.
OKEx, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume, will begin listing Bitcoin Cash ABC under the original Bitcoin Cash ticker (BCH), as per an official announcement Tuesday. Additionally, OKEx will change the Bitcoin Cash SV ticker from BCHSV to BSV. The announcement by OKEx comes after other notable cryptocurrency exchanges have made the same switch, including Coinbase and Gemini.
PayPal, an online payments portal, has launched its own internal private blockchain platform that will allow staff to trade and exchange tokens while generating ideas and participating in programs to foster innovation, as per a report by news outlet Cheddar. The private blockchain network, which was built by 25 PayPal employees in just 6 months, will allow employees to earn more for enrolling in learning and development programs. The PayPal tokens are not tradeable, or worth anything for that matter, outside PayPal’s blockchain.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a big four consulting firm, is partnering with Bitfury Group, a large blockchain software and mining firm, to develop a blockchain accelerator specific to Russian businesses. As per an official press release by PwC, the partnership will leverage Exonum, Bitfury’s open source framework to build blockchain applications, for educational courses and seminars. The partnership aims to meet the, “current needs,” of PwC’s enterprise clients in Russia.
Revolut, a digital banking alternative with an in-application cryptocurrency exchange, announced that it has been awarded a European banking license. Seeking to become the, “Amazon of banking,” the license will allow Revolut to offer traditional banking services alongside its current cryptocurrency offerings to European customers. Nikolay Storonsky, Founder and CEO of Revolut, said in regards to the newly acquired license that, “With the banking license now secured, commission-free stock trading progressing well, and five new international markets at final stages of launch, we are living up to our reputation as the ‘Amazon of Banking’. Our vision is simple: one ap with tens of millions of users, where you can manage every aspect of your financial life with the best value and technology.”
Shinhan Bank, the second-largest commercial bank in South Korea, is launching a new project to implement blockchain technology in its internal processes with a goal of eliminating human error. According to a report by news outlet The Korea Times, Shinhan also recently completed a training program for its staff to increase their knowledge of blockchain technology across various applications. After Shinhan implemented blockchain technology for interest rate swap transactions on November 30th, South Korea’s second-largest bank is now aiming to apply the technology in its record-keeping process to enhance overall efficiencies.
SolarisBank, Germany’s second-largest and Europe’s ninth-largest stock exchange, is partnering with Stuttgart Exchange Group, a German fintech company, to jointly develop a cryptocurrency exchange. As per a report by Cointelegraph Germany, the joint cryptocurrency exchange venture, “is scheduled to launch in the first half of 2019.” This news comes after SolarisBank announced plans to launch a zero-fee cryptocurrency trading application this past May.
The Canadian city of Calgary is becoming the first city in Canada to launch a digital version of its local currency, according to a report by the Global News. Dubbed as the Calgary Digital Dollar, the digital currency will be exclusive to Calgary and operate alongside the country’s Canadian Dollar. Calgary-based businesses will now be required by law to accept at least 10% of a payment in digital currency, although they are allowed to accept up to 100%.
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is launching a pilot of its Global Payment Initiative (GPI) to combat growing blockchain and fintech solutions, according to an official announcement last week. Currently, the SWIFT Network is used by global financial institutions to conduct global financial payments and cross-border transfers of fiat currency. Although the project is still in its early stages, the GPI pilot hopes to, “build the foundation of a new integrated and interactive service that will significantly improve efficiencies in the payments process and which will ultimately be made available to all 10,000 banks across the SWIFT network.”
The United Arab Emirates’(UAE) central bank is partnering with the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) to develop a cryptocurrency to facilitate cross border transactions between the two countries, according to a report by news outlet GulfNews. In a meeting pertaining to global banking standards and regulation in the Arab region, Mubarak Rashed Al Mansouri, the governor of the UAE’s central bank, said, “This is probably the first time ever that witnesses the cooperation of monetary authorities from different countries on this topic and we hope that this achievement will foster similar collaboration in our region.” The prospective digital currency will be used by both central banks and financial institutions in the countries.
TokenSoft, a security token offering (STO) startup, has acquired a 20% stake in regulated broker-dealer Marpine Securities LLC in order to launch its own regulated broker-dealer. After acquiring the 20% stake, TokenSoft will launch its new regulated broker-dealer entity, called TokenSoft Global Markets, that will be registered through the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The new regulated broker-dealer entity will allow TokenSoft to advise token issuers through every step of the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) process. Additionally, TokenSoft will now be able to legally operate in services related to insurance and management.
Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors and a notable cryptocurrency pundit, believes that the current fair value of Bitcoin (BTC) is between USD$13,800 and USD$14,800, according to a note published on Thursday. Lee arrived at this valuation by taking into account the number of active wallet addresses, usage per account, and other supply and demand metrics. Additionally, Lee forecasted that the fair value of BTC will reach USD$150,000/coin once BTC wallets account for 7% of Visa’s 4.5bn account holders.
UAE Exchange, an exchange based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is partnering with Ripple to launch a blockchain-based cross-border remittances platform by 1Q2019, as per a Reuters report on Thursday. The report details further that Finablr, a payments and foreign exchange company that owns UAE Exchange, observes a high level of remittance inflows from expatriate workers in the Middle East region. “We expect to go live with Rippel by Q1, 2019 with two other Asian banks,” said Finablr CEO Promoth Manghat, adding, “This is for remittances to start with, from across the globe into Asia.”

Regulatory Environment

De Nederlandsche Bank, the Netherlands’ central bank, will soon require domestic cryptocurrency providers to obtain a license from the regulator to operate, as per a report by Dutch news outlet DeTelegraaf. The Netherlands' central bank is taking these measures in the hope that it will, “prevent such cryptocurrencies from being used to launder money obtained through crime or to fund terrorism.” In order to receive a license, cryptocurrency firms must maintain Know-Your-Customer procedures and report any suspicious activity to the Dutch central bank.
Eddie Hughes, a conservative member of the United Kingdom’s Parliament, suggested that Bitcoin (BTC) should be accepted as legal tender for tax and utility payments, according to news outlet Express.co.uk. The article discusses that Hughes, who is a self-described, “crypto enthusiast with amateur knowledge,” recently met with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which accepts cryptocurrency donations. This news comes after the US state of Ohio announced that it would begin accepting BTC as legal tender for tax payments.
Following a case in Canadian courts that resulted in a ruling ordering mistakenly sent crypto funds to be returned to their owner, a blog post from the University of Oxford Faculty of Law is noting that there could be repercussions with the case potentially setting a precedent for lost or stolen cryptocurrency claims. The Canadian court case’s ruling will require defendant Brian Wall to return USD$370,482 worth of Ethereum (ETH) tokens to the plaintiff, Copytrack. The blog post from the University of Oxford Faculty of Law reads, ‘This precedent may have major repercussions for the enforcement of claims regarding lost or stolen cryptocurrencies,” adding that the ruling allows the plaintiff to recover tokens, “in whatsoever hands those Ether Tokens may currently be held.”
Japan’s government is considering plans to ease cryptocurrency taxes in an effort to revitalize the domestic cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. This week, Japanese Congressman Takeshi Fujimaki proposed four significant changes to taxation requirements pertaining to digital assets, which include: a reduction on the cryptocurrency gains tax from 55% to 20%; elimination of taxes on crypto-to-crypto payments; elimination of taxes on miniscule cryptocurrency payments; and an adjustment that would allow cryptocurrency investors to carry forward losses across quarters and years, effectively until cryptocurrencies are ‘cashed’ out.
Jay Clayton, Chairman for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC), said during a speech that Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), “can be effective,” for fundraising, but that, “securities laws must be followed.” Clayton went on in his speech to comment on the US SEC’s work regarding distributed ledger technology (DLT), digital assets, and ICOs, saying that it is an, “area where the Commission and staff have spent a significant amount of time,” and, “that this trend will continue in 2019.”
Jay Clayton, the Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), expressed his optimism for distributed ledger technology’s potential impact on traditional financial markets in a testimony before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs yesterday. According to a transcript published on the SEC’s website, Clayton said, “I am optimistic that developments in distributed ledger technology can help facilitate capital formation, providing promising investment opportunities for both institutional and Main Street Investors.” Additionally, Clayton highlighted that the SEC is, “Focusing a significant amount of attention and resources on digital assets and initial coin offerings (ICOs).”
Maxim Akimov, the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, announced that no significant changes will be made to the draft of a bill concerning cryptocurrency regulation in the country, as per news outlet Finmarket. The bill was already approved by Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, in May 2018, although the bill has generated substantial discussion since. Since approval of the bill, all cryptocurrency and token-related terminology have been removed and replaced with the term “digital rights”. At the beginning of December, Pavel Krasheninnikov, Chairman of Russia’s State Duma, said that the bill needed to be, “significantly,” changed.
Pan Gongsheng, a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, highlighted that Security Token Offerings (STOs) in China are illegal while speaking at a summit in Beijing. As per a report by news outlet the South China Morning Post, Gongsheng told the summit that, “illegal financing activities through STOs and ICOs were still rampant in the mainland despite a nationwide clean-up of the cryptocurrency market last year.” In citing reasoning for the continued ban on STOs, Gongsheng explained that, “Virtual money has become an accomplice to all kinds of illegal and criminal activities.”
Pantera Capital, a blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused investment firm and hedge fund, is warning investors that as much as a quarter of their ICO project could potentially be violating US securities laws, according to a Bloomberg report. In a newsletter to clients, Pantera Capital warned, “While we believe the vast majority of the projects in our portfolio should not be affected, approximately 25% of our fund’s capital is invested in other projects with liquid tokens that sold to US investors without using Regulation D or Regulation S”
Russia has no intention of implementing Venezuela’s state-backed digital currency, the Petro, into commercial operations, according to a report by news outlet RIA Novosti. While speaking to reporters this week, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak said, “Representatives from our tax service and central bank... got acquainted with the cryptocurrency Venezuela is introducing,” adding, “But no more than that. As for payments, they’re not happening yet.”
South Korea’s representative body, the National Assembly, held its first official meeting with seven of the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges on Monday. The purpose of the meeting was to debate cryptocurrency regulation between stakeholders of South Korea’s cryptocurrency industry. Cryptocurrency exchanges Bithumb, CobitCoin, Coinone, Upbit, Gopax, Coinplug, and Hanbitco were among the attendees of the debate, which reportedly focused on Anti-Money Laundering (AML) customer protections and Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures.
The United Kingdom’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental financial security body, is calling on the country’s government to increase monitoring of cryptocurrency markets. According to an official report last week, the UK must overhaul its Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and combat terrorist financing (CFT) efforts in order to prevent illicit activities with cryptocurrencies. “Virtual currency exchange providers are not yet covered by AML/CFT requirements,” the report details, adding, “this is an emerging risk and there is not yet evidence to suggest that broad scale ML/TF is occurring in the UK through this relatively small sector.”
The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is interested in learning more about the Ethereum (ETH) network, its technology, and the markets build around it. On Tuesday, the CFTC published a Request for Input (RFI) that requests the public’s feedback on different questions concerning Ethereum. The RFI explains that its goal is to inform the CFTC about Ethereum and similar emerging technology, saying, “The input from this request will advance the CFTC’s mission of ensuring the integrity of the derivatives market as well as monitoring and reducing the systematic risk by enhancing legal certainty in the markets. The RFI seeks to understand the similarities and distinctions between certain virtual currencies, including here ether and bitcoin, as well as ether-specific opportunities, challenges, and risks.”
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC) is ordering that cryptocurrency asset manager CoinAlpha Advisors LLC pay a USD$50,000 fine, alleging that the firm conducted an unregistered securities sale. After forming in October 2017, CoinAlpha raised more than USD$600,000 from investors to invest in digital assets. In an official release, the US SEC said that CoinAlpha did not file a Notice of Exempt Offering of Securities, meaning that the firm breached securities laws by soliciting securities investors. Additionally, the firm allegedly did not adhere to proper know-your-customer procedures to verify that investors were accredited.
Venezuela is reportedly beginning to convert its citizens’ monthly pension payments into Petros, Venezuela’s controversial state and oil-backed cryptocurrency, according to a report by local economics blog the Caracas Chronicles. The conversion of Venezuelan pensioners’ payments into Petros came after the country already sent pensioners their monthly payment in the form of a check for Venezuelan Bolivars -- normally, upon receiving their check, pensioners would deposit their funds into a bank account where they could then withdraw fiat from local branches. The Venezuelan government, however, converted pensioners’ fiat payments into the Petro upon their deposit into a bank. In the first few weeks of the Petro’s existence, its value has risen from 9,000 to more than 15,000.
Warren Davidson, an Ohio Congressman and notable advocate of blockchain and digital assets, is floating blockchain technology as a solution to fund US President Donald Trump’s prospective US-Mexico border wall. While interviewing with NPR, Congressman Davidson suggested, “the American people, or whomever should choose to donate,” could pay for the border wall, adding, “you could do it with sort of like a crowdfunding site or you could do a blockchain and you could have WallCoins.”

General News

“The long-term value of Bitcoin (BTC) is more likely to be USD$100 than USD$100,000,” says Kenneth Rogoff, a former Chief Economist for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the current Harvard University Professor of Economics and Public Policy. While writing an article for major UK news outlet The Guardian, Rogoff highlighted that, because BTC’s use is limited to transactions, it makes the digital asset more vulnerable to a bubble-like collapse. Rogoff also cited that BTC’s energy-intensive verification processes is, “vastly less efficient,” than systems that leverage, “a trusted central authority like a central bank.”
A new report by PeckShield, a blockchain security company that monitors various cryptocurrency ecosystems, details that decentralized applications (DApps) on the EOS (EOS) blockchain have lost as much as USD$1mm in hacks since July 2018. The report details further that DApps on the EOS network have sustained 27 breaches since July, which are responsible for the up to 400,000 EOS that have been compromised from hacks. Guo Yonggang, a blockchain security expert cited in a report on the matter by crypto media firm Blockchain Truth, believes that the hacks can be attributed to security problems with the DApps themselves, rather than with the EOS network.
A new study published by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance on Wednesday finds that the number of unique ID-verified cryptocurrency users nearly doubled in in the first 3 quarters of 2018. The study details that total ID-verified users increased to 35mm in the first three quarters of 2018 from 18mm at the end of 2017, representing an increase of 94%. As per an analysis of the study by Bloomberg, the growth of crypto’s userbase despite the market decline, “could signal that an eventual recovery could be coming.”
Amid the continued cryptocurrency sell-off, only two cryptocurrency mining machines remain profitable, according to real-time data from ASICMinerValue.com. ASICMInerValue.com, which calculates the profitability of Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) miners, indicates that only indicates that only the Ebank Ebit E11++ and ASICminer 8 Nano 44Th mining models are profitable for mining cryptocurrencies based on the SHA-256 hash function -- notable cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) use this has function.
Bitmain, a large Chinese cryptocurrency mining firm, announced that it is closing its development center in Israel, citing current cryptocurrency market conditions. In closing Bitmaintech Israel, the crypto mining giant was forced to fire all 23 employees. Among the employees let go is Gadi Glikberg, head of Bitmain’s Israeli branch and Vice President of International Sales, who said on the recent market turmoil, “The crypto market has undergone a shake-up in the past few months, which has forced Bitmain to examine its various activities around the globe and to refocus its business in accordance with the current situation.”
Busan, a major South Korean city, will be the beneficiary of the South Korean government’s plan to spend 4bn Korean won (USD$3.5mm) to establish a blockchain-enabled virtual power plant (VPP). As per a report by South Korean news outlet Yonhap News Agency, the project will be angled as a national competition in 2019, hosted by South Korea’s largest electric utility, Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO). The VPP will integrate the idle capacities of multiple energy resources through a cloud-based distributed ledger in order to optimize power generation and decrease costs.
Church’s Chicken, a large international fast food franchise, is partnering with Dash Venezuela to accept cryptocurrencies in its Venezuelan locations. According to an official press release, 13 Church’s Chicken establishments will begin accepting Dash (DASH) as payment following, “extensive and rigorous days of training,” staff to understand cryptocurrencies. With the addition of Church’s Chicken, more than 2,200 establishments in Venezuela accept DASH as payment.
Crypto.com, a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency payments platform, announced the appointment of former PayPal executive Tyson Hackwood to serve as the firm’s Vice President and Head of Global Merchant Acquisition in an official press release today. Crypto.com aims to increase cryptocurrency adoption by both merchants and consumers through their point-of-sale (PoS) transaction terminals. Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek believes that Hackwood will be integral in furthering this goal, saying, “As we develop the Crypto.com Chain to fulfill the current industry need to pay and be paid in crypto, Tyson will play an important role in expanding the number and quality of merchants that are part of our network.”
Hyperledger, a notable blockchain consortium, is continuing its robust expansion after announcing the addition of 16 new members at the Hyperledger Global Forum in Basel, Switzerland. Among the notables to join the consortium are, Alibaba Cloud, Citigroup’s Citi Ventures arm, and Deutsche Telekom. The latest addition of 16 members brings the total membership of Hyperledger to more than 260 different companies. In a public statement, Hyperledger Executive Director Brian Behlendorf said that, “The growing Hyperledger community reflects the increasing importance of open source efforts to build enterprise blockchain technologies across industries and markets. The latest members showcase the widening interest in and impact of DLT and Hyperledger."
Jeremy Henrickson, the former Chief Product Officer at Coinbase, has departed the US-based cryptocurrency exchange after serving since July 2016. “Jeremy’s contributions to Coinbase over the past two years were invaluable,” said a Coinbase spokesperson, adding that, “he helped to build our scrappy startup team into a high-functioning product and engineering organization -- overseeing a 5x+ growth of the team.” Henrickson’s departure comes after long-term Coinbase executives Adam White and Hunter Merghart left the US-based cryptocurrency exchange in recent months.
LinkedIn’s, “2018 U.S. Emerging Jobs,” report released on Thursday ranks the role of blockchain developer as the fastest growing job in the United States. The report by LinkedIn indicates that blockchain developer jobs have increased 33-fold in the past 12 months alone. San Francisco, New York City, and Atlanta are among the cities with the highest demand for blockchain developer jobs.
Orbs, a unique hybrid blockchain platform, raised more than USD$15mm in cryptocurrencies to fund its development of a public blockchain, according to a company blog post. South Korean application provider Kakao lead the fundraising efforts with a representative telling CoinDesk that the company, “always seeks to invest and support innovative startups, and Orbs is a good example.” In total, Orbs raised 139,000 Ether (ETH) and 892 Bitcoin (BTC), amounting to roughly USD$15.4mm. Orbs aims to build a public blockchain with this funding that is, “universal,” and, “scalable,” for decentralized applications (DApps) with the, “liquidity of a base layer.”
Samsung has reportedly filed patent applications for three different blockchain-related trademark requests that all pertain directly to smartphones, according to news outlet Galaxy Club. Specifically, the patents named “Blockchain KeyStore”, “Blockchain Key Box”, and “Blockchain Core” all pertain to cryptocurrency custody capabilities on smartphones. This news comes amid the release of HTC’s Exodus 1 and Sirin Labs’ FINNEY, both of which are being marketed as blockchain smartphones with cryptocurrency custody capabilities.

Become a Crypto News Partner Request a News Story Submit a Press Release Submit a Sponsored Article Request a Review Request News Feed Integration Write For Us. More . Events Interviews Crypto Jobs Resources Advertise Contact us. Bitcoin. Pieter Wuille on Bitcoin Scaling, Sharding, Sidechains, ETH and More. Thursday 28 May 2020, 2:09 AM AEST -4 months ago. Crypto News Bot. via Trustnodes ... Interview w/ Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) & Wei Zhou. We discuss the reasons behind their rapid growth. Binance is the #1 exchange by volume on Nomics. Scaling Bitcoin was initially created as a two-phase event; the first event was held in Montreal, Canada and the second event was held in Hong Kong, SAR, China. However, due to an overwhelming demand from the attendees, the conference was continued as an annual event. The ScalingNOW! Summit was an in-person gathering in March 2018 hosted by Web3 Foundation and Giveth. ScalingNOW! brought together scaling solution developers and DApp teams. Together we reviewed… Also Read: Bitcoin Cash Scaling Benchmarks, Brewdog, and Rising Transaction Volume . Plaintiff’s Analysis of Documents Shows David Kleiman’s PGP Signature Was Created Almost a Year After He Died. A transcript of an affidavit was recently submitted to the Kleiman v. Wright (9:18-cv-80176) court case, which shows that an expert witness found many flaws within certain documents filed in the ... New York State’s financial regulator has ordered Bittrex to cease operating in the state after rejecting its application for a Bitlicense. Multiple deficiencies were cited, some of which Bittrex ... Read more Economics 101 -- "How the Economic Machine Works." Created by Ray Dalio this simple but not simplistic and easy to follow 30 minute, animated video answers the question, "How does the economy really work?" (transcript, video) Grokking Bitcoin Kalle Rosenbaum participated in a Bitcoin developer meetup and gave a presentation at London Bitcoin Devs. The meetup discussion focused on the role of Bitcoin technical education, BIP32 HD wallets, and soft fork upgrades. For the presentation, Rosenbaum used the content in his book to discuss how the segwit upgrade of 2017 addressed transaction ... **TRANSCRIPT** TRACE: Warning: to mildly comprehend this interview may take many hours. The show notes will contain about 15 hours with the background homework and you may want to listen to this episode at least 3 to 5 times. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome back to the Bitcoin podcast. We have an incredible interview today with Caitlin Long, a Wall Street legend, right, and so welcome ... Scammer Demands 300 Bitcoin From Binance in KYC Data Ransom - August 7, 2019 . Bitcoin value: $11981.15 Bitcoin value 10 days later: $10220.6 View Event #129 on Chart. Binance has been the victim of an attempted ransom demand from a scammer. The attacker threatened to release KYC information if the company did not cough up 300 Bitcoins. In its efforts to be totally transparent, Binance has ...

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