Token relief

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December 14, 2018 STATUS LAYOFFS: Ethereum messaging startup Status.IM has cut 25 percent of its staff members in a move to streamline the company in light of the ongoing crypto bear market. Co-founder Jarrad Hope announced the move to employees Monday. He explained that the company did not anticipate ethereum's price falling more than 80 percent over the past year, and combined with issues finding banking partners, the company was no longer sustainable at its size. In addition to the layoffs, he is asking employees to take a pay cut.  Status projects a 6-month runway with its current fiat holdings, not including roughly 190,000 ETH that the company also holds.  That being said, Hope explained, "The reality is that we will have to make another assessment end of Q2 which if the market hasn't picked up we will be forced to make the organization even leaner, and the remaining fiat and our large ETH holdings will be used to create a runway measured in years." Full Story NO TRADING: Crypto exchange SeedCX is taking a strong stance against potential conflicts of interest by barring its employees from trading any cryptocurrencies. The policy was quietly put into place last year, and appears to be one of the strictest in the still-young industry. Software engineer Alex Wachli explained that personal investments could impact how his team evaluates support for different assets. However, “I think everybody here is not here to try and pick and choose winners, and to let the market to decide. If we didn’t have these policies we might be biased and we might not be focusing on the right goals,” he told CoinDesk. The policy may be comparable to those found in traditional capital markets, though a litigation partner at Jenner & Block LLP told CoinDesk that it's still unclear what insider trading knowledge might apply to the crypto space.  “We don’t necessarily know what ‘material, non-public information’ means in a crypto context,” Justin Steffen said, referring to the type of information that may move markets. Full Story ICO EXCEPTIONS: SEC senior advisor Valerie Szczepanik hinted that there may be a way for token issuers to conduct a sale without having to register as a security or file for an exemption – but such instances would be rare, and subject to conditions.  Called no-action letters, the regulatory agency’s “crypto czar” explained that they could be “a way forward” for issuers who believe they can maintain investor protections but do not want to be classified as a securities offering. "The letters set forth exactly what the person plans to do or the entity plans to do and if it's something that the SEC feels comfortable with we can release a no-action letter for exemptive relief saying 'we can recommend no enforcement action," she explained.  However, the letters are not binding, and issuers would have to abide by the terms laid out in the approved proposal exactly. Even so, some startups have already begun applying for the option through the SEC’s FinHub program, she said. Full Story WALLCOIN: U.S. Representative Warren Davidson suggested using a cryptocurrency to crowdfund a wall on the Mexican border during an interview earlier this week.  During an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, the Ohio Congresman noted that he has already proposing privately funding the controversial border wall, which Democrats don’t want to pay for, but President Donald Trump has been pushing. Under the program, U.S. residents (or even Mexican citizens) would be able to fund the wall’s construction. “You could do it with sort of like a crowdfunding site or you could do a blockchain and you could have WallCoins, but you could raise the money and frankly if we get it right at the Treasury you could even pay with Mexican pesos,” he explained. Full Story While the cryptocurrency bear market may be disappointing, individuals surveyed by CoinDesk seem to think that development will be undeterred.  In one such poll, more than half of all respondents believed that new cryptocurrencies will be launched over the next year, with only 31 percent seeing fewer cryptocurrencies still operating at the end of that period. In contrast, the 10-year view was much bleaker, with the majority of respondents believing that there will be fewer cryptocurrencies at the end of that period.   Learn more about the crypto market in Q3 across price, network, exchange, developer, and social fundamental metrics in our recently released State of Blockchains report here. BUYERS BEWARE: Bitcoin’s bears have again come out victorious in their battle with the bulls, dragging prices below the tight trading range seen in recent days. As a result, prices risk falling to $3,000 in the near-term. Full Story BEST OF THE BEST FINANCE MAGNATES: Google’s artificially intelligent search algorthm is bearish on crypto, it seems. Some in the community are reportedly upset after searches for the term “bitcoin” brought up a description card that included the words: "collapsed economic bubble." Apparently after complaints, Google later updated the definition of the number-one crypto by market valuation to say: “Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a form of electronic cash. It is a decentralized digital currency without a central bank or single administrator that can be sent from user-to-user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries.” As the article explains, issues with Google’s search algorithm were highlighted recently at the U.S. Congress, when Google CEO Sundar Pichai was forced to explain that the AI examines every keyword based on “things like relevance, freshness, popularity and how other people are using it,” when asked why searches for the word "idiot" brought up images of Donald Trump. THE REST THE NEXT WEB: Privacy-focused browser Brave has tapped Google’s open-source Chromium code in its latest release, according to The Next Web.  The move means that users should see a 22% performance improvement and up to 10 seconds faster page loading times, accord to the firm. Brave has used parts of Chromium since launch, but its user interface plugged into the Muon library. Perhaps the most notable feature of the addition is that Brave 0.57 now supports Chrome extensions, which should make it less painful for Chrome users making the switch, says TNW. Still aiming to protect users’ privacy Brave said, despite its reliance on Google’s code, it’s not sending any data to the tech giant in the background. INFORMATION AGE: Social media giant Facebook launched a blockchain team in May, dedicated to explore how to best leverage blockchain across its services. But, in a piece published Thursday, Information Age asks, how exactly might the nascent technology help the company? The possibilities are almost endless, according to Arran James Stewart, co-founder of Job.com, a blockchain recruitment platform.  But he narrowed down the most likely possibilities to areas such as securely storing user data, boosting the capabilities of money transfers over its Messenger app, and managing the site's many merchants and related payments. Further, the piece goes on, since Facebook's record on protecting user privacy is not perhaps the best, blockchain could help there too. However, there could be a conflict between the immutable nature of public blockchains and the EU's "right to be forgotten" laws. Using a private chain, like Hyperledger Fabric, could largely sidestep that issue, Stewart said.  WHO WON #CRYPTOTWITTER 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? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list