Miner disruption

Bitmain now has a serious rival

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Sponsored by   September 12, 2018 NEW CHIP ON THE BLOCK: In a CoinDesk exclusive, Bitwei, an upstart mining chip manufacturer, has raised $20 million to bring its product to market. The well-financed company is led by Yang Zuoxing, the former director of design at market leader Bitmain. The two-year-old Bitwei is set to release the WhatsMiner M10, which outshines the most recent Bitmain product in terms of energy efficiency, this month.  Tyler Xiong, the COO of Bixin, one of the early investors in Bitwei, believes that its WhatsMiner chips are "game changers." Yet while incumbent Bitmain has suffered financial setbacks, it still dominates the hardware market and is backed by prominent mining pools.  Xiong ackowledged, “It's hard for a new hardware company to get that influence now. Besides, there are only 4 million bitcoins left to mine." Full Story ALL IN ONE: After months of beta testing, the Jaxx Liberty, a refurbished version of the popular Jaxx multi-coin crypto wallet, is launching today. Decentral CEO Anthony Di Iorio aims to make this wallet "the most versatile app in the ecosystem."    Unlike its predecessor, the new Jaxx Liberty includes such features as in-app block explorers for a variety of currencies and news feeds from sites like CoinDesk. But can Decentral overcome the security issues that plagued Jaxx last year? Full Story      ANOTHER STABLECOIN: Carbon is the latest startup to launch a price-stable cryptocurrency. CarbonUSD runs on the ethereum network, although the company is interested in the yet-to-be-released, energy-efficient hedera hashgraph as a possible future home. While Paxos and Gemini have also released stablecoins in the past week, joining an increasingly crowded field, Carbon co-founder Miles Albert is confident that the algorithmic model of CarbonUSD will set it apart. Full Story Crypto bear market got you down? Here's some perspective: Compared to the traditional Nasdaq 100, which has returned 26% in the 12 months through Sept. 11, bitcoin has gained 49%. For more research insights check out the CoinDesk Research section here. SPONSOR SECTION   We made the first blockchain-recorded property deal in California a reality via our proprietary Transaction Platform. If you are looking to diversify your portfolio, we can help you find and securely pay with crypto for an investment property anywhere in the world. Visit our website for new opportunities.   GLINT OF HOPE: Technical charts suggest bitcoin could enjoy a minor corrective rally if it can break above the resistance at $6,400. Full Story BEST OF THE BEST WALL STREET JOURNAL: Here's an in-depth profile of Olaf Carlson-Wee, founder of the world's largest crypto hedge fund. The 29-year-old runs Polychain Capital, which generated outsize returns for investors last year.  But 2018 is a different story. While Carlson-Wee says he's unperturbed by the bear market, Polychain has blocked investors from immediate redemption of their money since the start of the year.  THE REST BLOOMBERG: The newswire rather dramatically declares that the current crypto market downturn is worse than the dot-com crash of 2000, citing an 80% drop since January in one crypto index.  "It just shows what a massive, speculative bubble the whole crypto thing was — as many of us at the time warned," Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at London-based Market.com, is quoted as saying.  However, the article notes that the effect on the world’s economy is likely to be minimal. TIMES OF INDIA: The local authorities of Illinois and Arizona have written to the Crime Investigation Department (CID) of the Indian staste of Gujarat to seize the property of promoters of the ill-fated Bitconnect.  The U.S. state authorities have gotten involved as citizens of their states had invested in the company, which was widely accused of being a Ponzi scheme.    We've launched our new podcast, Late Confirmation, which are the top stories in the blockchain world, delivered daily from the team at CoinDesk, sponsored by the Oxford Blockchain Programme.  Listen to Latest Episode and Subscribe   WHO WON #CRYPTOTWITTER   ConsenSys Jobs Blockchain Jobs Circle Jobs BitGo Jobs Copyright © 2018 CoinDesk. All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 636 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY, 10011, US Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list