All or nothing

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March 15, 2019 BATTLE SONG: More or less decentralized? For Jimmy Song, there's no in between. An author and partner at venture firm Blockchain Capital, Song made that point repeatedly in a debate with IBM engineer and Hyperledger Fabric co-lead Chris Ferris at SXSW Thursday, where he told the crowd in no uncertain terms: "You either have control over your stuff or you don't. It's a zero or a one." Defending corporate approaches to distributed ledger technology (DLT), Ferris cited the QuadrigaCX debacle in the debate, saying, "The whole point of permissioned blockchain, enterprise blockchain, is reducing risk." Full story FUTURES FREEZE: Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE) said Thursday that it would not add a new bitcoin futures contract for March, citing a need to review how it approaches the space. The firm said in a notice to traders Thursday that "CFE is assessing its approach with respect to how it plans to continue to offer digital asset derivatives for trading." Currently listed bitcoin futures contracts will remain available for trading until they expire, the exchange added. Full story GATE CLOSING: Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Gatecoin is to shut down and enter liquidation after an unsuccessful attempt to recover lost funds. The firm explained that the suspension of its service occurred after months of battling to stay afloat, and ultimately, a court order to wind up and cease operations. Gatecoin blamed an unnamed payment service provider for the situation, claiming it "retained a large part of our funds." Full story GOX GUILT: Mark Karpeles, former CEO of the long-defunct bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, has escaped some charges, but was found guilty of manipulating data connected to the exchange's books by the Tokyo District Court. The court found Karpeles innocent on the charges of embezzlement and breach of trust. He was handed a suspended sentence of two and a half years, and will have to keep a clean record for four years to avoid jail time. Full story STRONG HANDS: Bitcoin's daily trading volumes remain elevated at highs above $10 billion, contradicting the technical theory that investor interest drops during periods of consolidation. Volumes have been strong since the corrective rally kicked off in early February, so a range breakout toward the recent high of $4,200 looks likely. Full story BEST OF THE BEST BUG SWARM: White hat hackers have discovered 43 bugs on blockchain and cryptocurrency platforms in the last month, according to The Next Web’s Hard Fork. Submissions to bug disclosure platform Hacker One indicate that the vulnerabilities were found at 13 firms in the space from Feb. 13 to March 13. TNW says that none of the issues found seems to be severe and that they netted their finders over $20,000 in bounties. THE REST WALLET WEAKNESSES: Hardware crypto wallet maker Ledger says it has found five vulnerabilities in wallets made by its competitor Trezor. Ledger’s Attack Lab, according to a blog post, found that the “genuineness” of a Trezor device can be imitated, giving a bad actor “complete control” over the code running on it. It also found that it’s possible to guess someone’s Trezor PIN via a side channel attack, and three other attack vectors. The firm said it analyses the security of its own devices too, and that it told Trezor of its findings before disclosing them publicly. PRIVATE GAMING: Oasis Labs has released a new-from-the-ground-up SDK that helps developers build and deploy blockchain games with added privacy, Hacker Noon reports. The developer kit uses confidential smart contracts to prevent players from gaining access to data that should be hidden, such as what cards other players are holding or predicting cards before they’re dealt. The kit is designed for turn-based and collectible blockchain games specifically. WHO WON #CRYPTOTWITTER Copyright © 2019 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