HANGING OUT A SHINGLE: The blockchain team from Royal Bank of Scotland has quit to form Chorum, a ConsenSys-like venture studio that will build on top of R3's Corda platform.
"The blockchain space has outgrown and outpaced the incumbents including RBS," said Richard Crook, who formerly headed up the bank's blockchain work, explaining his decision to jump ship. "We wanted to be part of this wave of disruption to both."
Crook and three engineers he brought with him will work under Chorum CEO David Williams, who is working on a token sale for up to $30 million for the startup's Arqit blockchain. Full story
ZAIF HACKED: The Japan-based crypto exchange Zaif lost $60 million worth of cryptocurrency in a theft disclosed today. The exchange first noticed suspicious activity on September 14, which prompted it to freeze the movement of assets.
The currencies that were stolen were bitcoin, bitcoin cash, and MonaCoin, which were procured from the hot wallets on the exchange. The local authorities have been alerted and will further investigate the incident.
Another Japan-based exchange, Coincheck, was attacked earlier this year. It had lost $520 million in NEM tokens. Full Story
GUESS WHO'S BACK: David Chaum, a digital currency pioneer, has returned and claims to have found the solution for all the problems plaguing cryptocurrency.
In an exclusive with CoinDesk, the creator of ecash said he believes that his new cryptocurrency, Elixxir, is able to to mitigate the speed, privacy, scalability and sustainability problems faced in the market today. However, his choice to require node operators to fill out KYC forms has some observers questioning the improvement in privacy.
The spread of unfounded claims in the crypto space is what brought the "father of online anonymity" out from his fortress of solitude. At the core he believes that "cryptography is the only thing that can give power to the individual in the Information Age." Full Story | 
