Istanbul hard fork delayed / DeFi and Ethereum's supply and demand / Stablecoins

Inside Bitcoin presented by Odoo.

Presented by Subscribe | View in browser Good afternoon Bitcoiners! This is an exciting edition of Inside Bitcoin for a number of reasons. There is a lot of analysis, from how decentralized finance is affecting Ethereum's supply and demand to the realistic profitability expectations of crypto mining. We'll wrap it up with some geek stuff from celebrity bitcoin developer Jimmy Song and a podcast interview with the youngest resident at Chaincode Labs. If you don't find something that interests you in this issue of Inside Bitcoin, I'll eat my merkle tree. Also, don't forget about the top 100 Bitcoiners on Twitter list (it currently has 66 members as we're still building it). Recent additions include @kanzure, who gave us the bitcoin data structures transcript from Song and @MartyBent, editor in chief of Tales from the Crypt. Talk to me: allen.taylor@inside.com -- Allen, guest editor       Market Watch: Bitcoin had a wild weekend, losing 6% Saturday and bouncing back to $10,500 on Sunday. It's down a little bit again today, as are Ethereum and XRP. Bitcoin Cash is lowest among the gainers. Bitcoin: $10,295 (⬇️ 1.39%) // $184.5 billion market cap. Ethereum: $181.19 (⬇️ 0.13%) // $19.5 billion market cap. XRP: $0.260 (⬇️ 1.31%) // $11.18 billion market cap. Bitcoin Cash: $305.54 (⬆️ 0.09%) // $5.49 billion market cap. Top 100 Winner: Cosmos: $2.82 (⬆️ 10.11%) // $538.6 million market cap. Top 100 Loser: Energi: $3.35 (⬇️ 16.11%) // $68.2 million market cap. Prices are as of 2:16 p.m. EDT.       1. Ethereum pushed back the Istanbul hard fork launch on its testnet to October 2 as developers look to review some additional Ethereum Improvement Protocols recently submitted. Originally, the activation date was set for September 4. The Istanbul update is expected to improve the Ethereum blockchain in a number of ways, including the ability to interact with Zcash, a privacy-focused blockchain. Developers also expect the hard fork to enhance blockchain efficiency and provide protection against replay attacks. Developers picked a block number for the upgrade, which means the actual date of the hard fork could be one or two days before or after the target date. -- ETHEREUM WORLD NEWS       2. Decentralized finance (DeFi) on the Ethereum blockchain is leading to more demand for ether and increasing the price of ETH at exchanges, Tradeblock Research writes in a new report. DeFi platforms offer similar products to traditional financial companies, such as loans, bonds, derivatives, mortgages, etc. The difference is that the products are collateralized with digital assets. An onslaught of DeFi platforms last year led to more ETH being used as collateral, but that has tapered off some recently. The avergage monthly ETH added to DeFi platforms last year was 125,000. The average daily demand for ETH last year was more than 4,000, but in July 2019 it was approximately 1,300 ETH. TradeBlock predicts the daily ETH supply rate to be approximately 3,000 by November 2020. -- TRADEBLOCK       A MESSAGE FROM ODOO New Conference: Odoo Connect 2019 [Business Software]   Business leaders, entrepreneurs, CEOs/Founders, IT professionals, and developers from around the world come together for 3 days of workshops, presentations, and business software demos to help businesses connect their teams and scale their growth. Inside subscribers are invited to get a free pass! Free Pass   3. Since banking is one of the leading industries being transformed by blockchain technology, and banks aren't known for taking huge risks, tech analysis firm CB Insights has identified a "stablecoin invasion" with at least 57 different stablecoins released or in development. A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency pegged to another asset that has proven itself to be stable. As a result, they have less volatility than other cryptocurrencies. The four leading types of stablecoins are fiat-collateralized, commodity-collateralized, crypto-collateralized, and non-collateralized. -- CB INSIGHTS       4. NEO is aggressively taking on Ethereum to become the most developer-friendly blockchain with $100 million set aside for projects against Ethereum Foundation's $30 million. Based in China and launched in 2015 as Antshares, the blockchain rebranded in 2017 and moved into the market cap top 10 in August that year. The NEO cryptocurrency is now ranked 20th in market capitalization. With $535 million in assets on its balance sheet, the company is leveraging its resources to be more competitive including key hires from Microsoft. In February, the company set up shop in Seattle where tech giants Microsoft and Amazon reside. NEO is aiming to capitalize on Ethereum's weaknesses. -- CRYPTOSLATE Do you think NEO can overtake Ethereum as the most developer-friendly blockchain? Email me at allen.taylor@inside.com and let me know.       A MESSAGE FROM AUDIBLE Start listening with a 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook plus two Audible Originals are free. Explore all the ways listening on Audible can help improve mind, body, and soul with entertainment, information, and inspiration. Sign up at audible.com/insidenews for your 30-day Audible free trial.   5. Researchers at Seoul National University use the traditional economic analysis mode called rolling window long short-term memory (LSTM) to predict bitcoin's price. LSTM uses empirical analysis methods to make predictions. Using blockchain data due to its direct relationship with bitcoin's supply and demand, researchers determined that LSTM was more accurate than other proposed analysis models. In their report, researchers also recommended a new approach to maintaining stable bitcoin prices adjusting the monetary volume based on the estimated inflation rate. -- SEMANTIC SCHOLAR       6. An analysis of cryptocurrency mining technology has revealed that bitcoin is leading in long-term profits while altcoins struggle to maintain network security. GPU mining is easier, but the profitability is so low for most altcoins due to insufficient hashrates, according to Cryptobriefing writer Darren Kleine. ASIC miners, which can net $17-$25 per day in profit, can be more lucrative, but they are expensive. Some ASIC-resistant cryptocurrencies, however, are making it difficult for miner manufacturers to keep up. Mining pools are more affordable, but their payout structures can be confusing. With the technological arms race keeping manufacturers and developers on their toes, competition is heating up. -- CRYPTOBRIEFING       7. There were 1,600 wallets with more than 1,000 bitcoin last year, according to Cryptomorrow blogger David Kariuki. Kariuki busts the myth that crypto whales control the market and says collusion of 20 whales, let alone 1,000, would not be likely even though they control about a third of the market. Kariuki also says crypto trading is not a quick path to riches, and funds are secure on today's cryptocurrency exchanges. With almost 5,000 altcoins on the market and 150 crypto hedge funds launching last year, it's not too early or late to start trading cryptocurrency, according to Kariuki. Finally, he proclaimed that crypto being illegal is another myth. -- CRYPTOMORROW         8. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) says Kik Interactive, Inc.'s initial coin offering was an illegal securities sale. Kik raised $97 million in 2017 through its ICO for the launch of Kin, the messaging app's native cryptocurrency. The SEC claims the ICO meets the test of an "investment contract" as defined by the Supreme Court in SEC v. Howey Co. in 1946. Kik's defense hinges on the Kin ecosystem not being operational at the time of the ICO. -- MONDAQ        9. Bitcoin developer Jimmy Song gave a 90-minute talk on Bitcoin data structures at Bitcoin Edge Dev++ at Tel Aviv University earlier today. Among the topics addressed were how to create bitcoin addresses, the inputs and outputs of BTC transactions, Bitcoin's smart contract language script, parsing and processing scripts, and several SegWit transaction formats. -- DIY HPLUS WIKI       10. PODCAST: Tales from the Crypt Editor-in-Chief Marty Bent interviews software developer Elichai Turkel, Bitcoin resident at Chaincode Labs. Turkel learned programming in high school and got into cryptography. That led him to bitcoin and has gone on to become a bitcoin developer. Turkel is a free market advocate, even for currencies, and he sees bitcoin as the ultimate free market currency. He discusses Rust as a bitcoin language, describing it as a coding language "without a garbage collector," open source development, and other topics related to bitcoin programming. Before joining Chaincode Labs, he worked at Enigma. Podcast length: 1:04:33. -- ANCHOR.FM       Inside Bitcoin is written and curated by award-winning journalist and former newspaper editor Allen Taylor. Recognized by the Dallas Bar Association three times for excellence in legal reporting, Allen has since gone on to author, edit, or ghostwrite several white papers, books and e-books, and over 10,000 blog posts for clients ranging from small business owners to global management companies and corporate executives. Learn more about him on LinkedIn. Editor: David Stegon (senior editor at Inside, whose reporting experience includes cryptocurrency and technology).       Ad Want to attend Odoo Connect? Visit the event page to get a free ticket at odoo.com/inside Start listening with a 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook plus two Audible Originals are free. Visit audible.com/insidenews

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