Crypto Weekly: 12/9/18
A weekly summary of the latest crypto news
PRICE CHANGE WTD/YTD
- BTC ($3,555): -13% / -73%
- ETH ($95): -17% / -87%
- LTC ($26): -24% / -88%
- XRP ($0.32): -14% / -83%
- Crypto Market Cap ($115B): -14% / -81%
- BTC dominance: 55%
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- Coinbase announced a major expansion that could see the US-based exchange list up to 30 new tokens. The company said it is considering supporting Ripple's XRP, EOS (the Ethereum challenger that raised $4 billion in its ICO), Stellar (started by a Ripple co-founder), Kin (chat app Kik's token), and more. Coinbase currently offers support for nine tokens: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Zcash, USD Coin, 0x, and Basic Attention Token. Link.
- Coinbase announced it was adding more ERC20 tokens to its trading platform. Following recent launches of 0x (ZRX), Basic Attention Token (BAT), and the USDC stablecoin (USD Coin), Coinbase announced support for Civic (CVC), district0x (DNT), Loom Network (LOOM), and Decentraland (MANA) on Coinbase Pro. Link.
- The massive decline in cryptocurrency prices this year has led to many crypto startups closing their doors or laying off staff. Many of the companies are suffering because they kept a portion of their funds in digital assets like bitcoin and ether. When token prices collapsed this year by more than 90 percent in some cases, and the value of bitcoin and ether in their digital wallets thinned out, many developers found they couldn't raise additional funding. Companies who have suffered include ETCDEV, the startup that led development on Ethereum Classic, who announced it was shuttering operations due to a funding crunch. Adult entertainment site SpankChain also faced a cash crunch, which forced it to downsize its team from 12 to 8 people recently. Link.
- Presto, a South Korean blockchain startup, plans to file a constitutional appeal against the country's ICO ban, claiming it violates the rights of the people. South Korea's financial regulatory prohibited ICOs in September 2017. Link.
- Infura, one of the ethereum's most popular and controversial technologies, handles around 13 billion code requests per day and provides a way for developers to connect to ethereum without having to run a full node. Exact usage stats of the of the service are not public, but it is said to underpin the majority of decentralized applications in the ethereum ecosystem. Infura is operated by a single provider - ethereum development studio ConsenSys - and relies on cloud servers hosted by Amazon. Developers are becoming increasingly concerned that the service represents a single point of failure for the entire network. Link.
- Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), one of the top five hospitals in the US, are collaborating with Korean blockchain startup MediBloc in an effort to find better ways to store and share patient data. MediBloc is developing a distributing ledger for storing and sharing medical data, and is also working on a tool that would convert data now held by hospitals from existing formats to a universal one. Link.
- Venezuelan President Maduro announced that Venezuela would sell oil for Petro tokens instead of US dollars by next March. President Maduro has been looking to amplify cryptoassets in the industry to minimize national and international dependence on the dollar. The new national currency is pegged to the Petro token, and is part of Maduro's six year economic plan to mitigate the devastating impact of US-led sanctions on Venezuela. The country began selling Petros to citizens in October via a government system. Link.
- ConsenSys, the Ethereum development studio founded by Ethereum co-creator Joe Lubin, announced it was laying off 13 percent of its workforce as part of its "refocusing of priorities". Before the restructuring, ConsenSys had over 1,200 staff working on over 50 projects. The studio has now shifted its business approach to focus on sustainable projects while suspending unproductive ones. Blockstream CSO Samson Mow responded to the news on Twitter announcing that Blockstream had doubled its size in 2018. Link.
- Crypto custody solution provider Trustology announced it had raised $8 million from venture firm Two Sigma and Ethereum development studio ConSensys. Trustology is known for developing the TrustVault, a service that safeguards private keys by keeping them in "tamper proof, programmable hardware security modules hosted in secure data centers, with encrypted backups in the cloud." Link.
Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins, announced it would begin accepting bitcoin cash deposits. Bitcoin cash is the fifth cryptocurrency added to Gemini's exchange, joining bitcoin, ether, litecoin, and zcash. Gemini will only provide support for the Bitcoin ABC network, which the exchange will refer to as bitcoin cash. Link.
- Crypto trading platform ErisX closed a $27.5 million Series B with participation from Bitmain, ConsenSys, Fidelity Investments, Nasdaq Ventures, DCG, Pantera Capital, and Valor Equity. The company aims to be a Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulated futures market and clearinghouse. ErisX plans to launch spot contracts sometime in Q2 of 2019, with futures contracts following in the second half of the year. Link.
- UnitedCorp launched a suit against Bitmain, Bitcoin.com, Roger Ver, Kraken, and others alleging they illegally manipulating the market for personal gain. The The suit claims that bitcoin.com and Bitmain hijacked the Bitcoin Cash network, especially by dedicating mining power to the Bitcoin ABC chain. Link.
- Mastercard filed a patent application for a system of conducting transactions over a blockchain which would obfuscate both the point of origin and the amount being transacted - this new system would enable crypto transactions to remain private. The system would work by using an intermediate address during a transaction that interacts with the public key, allowing wallets and transaction amounts to stay anonymous. Link.
- Crypto custody startup BitGo hired Richard Corcoran as CEO of BitGo Trust Company, BitGo's institutional custodian that works with hedge funds, family offices and mutual funds. Richard Corcoran had retired in 2016 after 25 years leading the trust department at First National Bank. Link.
- The Department of Homeland Security's Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) released documents showing that the US government is looking for ways to utilize blockchain forensic analytics for privacy-centric cryptocurrencies such as Zcash and Monero. SBIR wants to design a blockchain analysis ecosystem so it could forensically analyze transactions on Zcash and Monero for homeland security and law enforcement applications. Analytics could also help financial institutions enforce KYC and AML compliance. Link.
- JumpStart, an Ohio-based accelerator, announced plans to invest over $100 million into blockchain startups based in Ohio. Other investment teams plan to invest as much as $200 million over the next three years for blockchain startups that take advantage of Ohio's "Opportunity Zones," which provide tax incentives for businesses that invest in poor neighborhoods. Link.