Yale's crypto leap

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Sponsored by   October 5, 2018 IVY LEAGUE CRYPTO?: Reports suggest that Yale University's chief investment officer has taken stakes in two well-known cryptocurrency funds.  First, Bloomberg said that David Swensen nudged Yale's endowment into the crypto market through a fund led by a notable group: Fred Ehrsam, a Coinbase co-founder; Matt Huang, a former partner at Sequoia Capital; and Charles Noyes, who previously worked at Pantera Capital Later, CNBC said that Andreessen Horowitz's $300 million crypto fund, which closed in June, has also received an investment from the endowment. The moves, if true, fits in with Yale's reputation for seeking out offbeat kinds of investments. And with the second-largest endowment fund in the world, it seems Yale is throwing its hat in this very particular ring. Full Story BETTING ON A CASPER NO-SHOW: Ethereum, the world's second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has long inched toward shifting to a proof-of-stake consensus model by way of the Casper concept. But a group of companies -- working to develop specialized hardware for mining on ethereum -- have essentially struck a multi-million dollar bet that Casper, which would negate the need for mining ASICs, isn't coming anytime soon. It's an idea that may sound blasphemous to developers building ethereum, given the long-standing plan to shift to proof-of-stake.  Yet, entrepreneurs appear to be betting that between now and that bright future, there's money to be made. Full Story FROM VOIP TO CRYPTO: Celsius, a cryptocurrency lending startup, says it's paying thousands of users interest for depositing bitcoin and ether with its wallet app. Revealed exclusively to CoinDesk, Celsius claims to have garnered more than 10,000 users since the soft launch of its mobile app on June 29, with an average deposit of 0.5 bitcoin or 5.5 ether earning up to 6.7 percent on an annualized basis. The interest comes from income Celsius makes lending fiat and crypto, much of the latter to hedge funds that want to short, or bet against, the coins. "When we make interest income we pay a chunk of that back to the people who gave us BTC," said Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky, who's best known as a pioneer of Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP), the technology that allows phone calls via cyberspace. Full Story By looking at on-chain transaction volume, you can get an idea of the amount of total value being transmitted across a blockchain network. And over the past week, we saw some interesting jumps. Using bitcoin as a benchmark, dogecoin reached a transaction volume of 84 percent to that of bitcoin's on October 1. Yesterday on October 4, bitcoin cash saw its transaction volume rise to 37 percent to that of bitcoin. Possible explanations? The rise in dogecoin transacting could be tied to the launch of a email-to-email dogecoin payment service, called DogePal. As for bitcoin cash, the increase is potentially due to a large holder moving their funds because the number of transactions didn't increase in unison with this volume spike. For more research insights check out the CoinDesk Research section here. You can also follow CoinDesk's research analyst Peter Ryan on Twitter for the latest insights. SPONSOR SECTION   You wouldn't ride a bike on a highway, it's inefficient. Maxonrow bridges the economic divide through carefully built blockchain solutions for businesses, governments and societies... all interacting under one network and compliant in all levels with global AML/KYC policies. Stop riding the bike, welcome to Maxonrow.   CHOPPY WATERS: With bitcoin leaning towards the bulls one day and the bears the next, the unfamiliar 'choppiness index' could help market-watchers identify which way bitcoin will move. Full Story BEST OF THE BEST: WIRED: Could blockchain turn Google's ad strategy on its head? In an opinion piece, Wired Editor-in-Chief Greg Williams discusses how the world could be shifting away from the traditional business model that is heavily dependent on advertisements. "Advertising has become the de facto economic driver of the internet, but adherence to a business model of proprietary algorithms that hoover up personal data to be sold to third parties could change as we see models based on tokens," Williams wrote. But to work, the tokens need to "add value" to everyone -- both users and the platforms themselves.    THE REST:  WALL STREET JOURNAL:  The U.S. government stepped up its efforts against cryptocurrency fraud over the course of 2018, according to a survey of activity by the Wall Street Journal. Notably, the CFTC established precedent that cryptocurrencies be treated as commodities, enabling the federal regulatory body to keeper a close eye on the market. WYOMING NEWS: Blockchain went local in Wyoming this week.  The local news outlet reported on an information session at the local library that sought to educate local citizens about the nascent technology, drawing in academics, public officials and entrepreneurs. While it's not clear how blockchain will impact the lives of local residents -- the state recent passed a series of bills focused on the tech -- the session seems to have been received positively. "I did learn a lot, and I hope they continue to host these kind of events so that many of us working in the non-tech sector can follow new laws and understand them well enough to know how they are truly impacting Wyoming," event attendee Barbara Wilson was quoted as saying.     We've launched our first-ever podcast, "Late Confirmation," a digest of top stories in the blockchain world, delivered daily from the team at CoinDesk and 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: 250 Park Avenue South New York, NY, 10003, US Want to change how you receive these emails? 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