Friday, December 14, 2018

Token relief

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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

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"Until next time" 👋

December 14, 2018

$133 Million in Funding Couldn't Keep This Startup Alive

Backed by giants

Notable names like Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, and GV opened their wallets for a whopping $133 million to help fund stablecoin startup Basis.

However, despite a sizable war chest and a myriad of well-known investors, the startup is now shutting its doors and returning money to investors.

What happened?

In the end, regulations won. That's because as the crypto startup began to build out its price stabilizing algorithm, it found out that its blockchain would fall completely under U.S. securities laws.

Due to this, part of the project would only be able to host accredited investors and Basis would have to enforce know-your-customer and anti-money laundering checks - two heavy asks for a "decentralized" cryptocurrency.

Taking initiative

According to reports, the team made the decision to discontinue before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission even had a chance to comment.

In closing, Basis CEO Nader Al-Naji signed off saying:

"You gave us the opportunity to change the world, and we're looking forward to trying again. Until next time."

ADOPTION

Overstock's Medici Ventures Wants to Create Blockchain Applications that are Actually Used

Overstock's transition to a blockchain company

Overstock has traditionally operated as an internet retailer selling discounted furniture, jewelry, and other products. As the retail segment of Overstock's business has struggled, the company's CEO Patrick Byrne has begun to shift his company to a blockchain-focused firm.

In 2014, Overstock created a venture capital arm called Medici Ventures. Recently, Overstock announced plans to sell off its retail business by February, which will only leave Medici Ventures and its blockchain portfolio.

Since 2014, Medici Ventures has invested more than $175 million in blockchain companies. Its most notable venture is tZero which is a security token offering exchange.

Focus on real adoption

Cryptocurrencies have received crazy valuations in the past couple years, many without any sort of a working product. Critics of the asset class often point to cryptos lack of actual use for why they are destined to fail. Overstock's Medici Ventures wants to change all of this.

Jonathan Johnson, president of Medici Ventures, said that 2019 is all about execution for the company. Medici Ventures will focus on investing in blockchain companies that are creating products that are ready for production and have the potential to change the world in the near future.

Johnson did say that the company retains a long-term view on blockchain technologies but emphasized the importance of results in the near-term.

Medici's president explained the company's mission:

"We want our portfolio companies to focus on having their products in production. When you have a product, it starts to open up the creative juices, [people start] asking 'how we can use it' and it changes the discussion. When it's mostly about technology, people want to talk about the Merkle tree, mining, nonces… All that talk gets confusing and in the way of progress."

RESEARCH

Number of Crypto Users Doubled in 2018 Despite Bear Market

According to research conducted by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, the number of verified cryptocurrency users doubled in 2018, from 18 million in 2017 to 35 million this year.

This massive growth is still a deceleration from the 4x growth from 2016 to 2017 but comes in the middle of a market that is down about 80% during the year.

Some are pointing to this data as an indication that the market has the potential to recover. In theory, more investors in the market result in more demand for cryptocurrencies.

NEWS

WallCoin, a Proposal for Trump's Mexican Border Wall

Border talk

There's a new proposal to fund President Trump's Mexican border wall and it's got crypto's name on it.

That's right. It's called Wall Coin and it's an idea that U.S. lawmaker Warren Davidson revealed in an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep.

What's the purpose?

Raising money. Since Congress cannot agree on funding to build Trump's envisioned wall from his 2016 campaign, the government may shut down.

To overcome this issue, however, Davidson proposes that private citizens step up and contribute to the project themselves through a blockchain.

The donations would then return a cryptocurrency called Wall Coin to supporters.

Just a thought

There were no more details about Wall Coin. It could merely be Davidson "winging it" in the interview.

Although, Davidson is an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrencies in Congress and has even led a roundtable discussion including over 80 representatives to discuss initial coin offering (ICO) legislation.

BITS

But wait, there's more...

📈 LinkedIn reports that blockchain developer roles spiked straight to the top for most desired positions in 2018.
💳 Crypto-friendly fintech startup Revolut has obtained a banking license from the European Union.
⚡️ PwC has partnered with BitFury to create a blockchain accelerator in Russia.

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Week 50: Komodo Five Bullet Friday. AMA today on the major update to Komodo's codebase.

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Five Bullet Friday

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Week 50

#AMA today on the major update to Komodo's codebase, the Sapling Update and the new parameters.

Ask your questions now and we'll answer at 2 pm New York EDT, 7 pm London GMT, 8 pm Paris CEST, 10 pm Moscow MSK.

Sapling Update
Increase in Komodo's blocksize
Blockchain Starter Kit
MoMoM multi-chain scaling and cross chain dapp logic
7 New Assetchain Parameters

Click here to ask a question in the AMA.

Ledger to suspend Komodo (KMD) services in anticipation of the update.

Following the hard fork Ledger will update the Komodo apps for the Ledger Nano S and Ledger Blue devices. These will enable users to manage KMD with applications that support both the hard fork upgrades and hardware wallets. To read Ledger's announcement click here or if you'd like to ask a question in Komodo's Discord click here.

dPoW explained by the author of Komodo's whitepaper

An interview with the author of Komodo's whitepaper discussing delayed Proof of Work (dPoW), scaling and security, in response to a Medium post by @JEhrenhofer that was shared on Twitter. Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/blockchainists/siddhartha-the-author-of-komodos-whitepaper-explains-delayed-proof-of-work.

7 new assetchain parameters coming tomorrow.

Komodo's assetchains have always had a number of customizable parameters. These new parameters will be added to the Komodo code base, along with the Sapling upgrade and increased block sizes.

Please update your Agama to latest version 0.3.1d from our website.

If you have been using version 0.3.0, it is recommended to update to this version which comes with some bug fixes and latest Komodo binary. Download Agama version 0.3.1d from here - https://komodoplatform.com/komodo-wallets/. There are Installer version as default now and portable versions at alternative download page.

Keep using this version as this is sapling ready. Please don't use any version older than 0.3.0 as those are not sapling ready and send any tx using those version will not confirm on mainnet from 15th December.
If you have funds on any z address, please wait for further announcement after 20th December. You need to migrate your private funds to a sapling address. We will announce guides to do so and the required zmigrate dAPP.
Please save and keep your wallet.dat and private keys safely backed up to ensure your funds are safe before you update. With the hardfork there is not going to be any chainsplit, only one mainchain. If you keep using this version you will be on the main chain and your funds are safe as long as you are in control of your private key or wallet.dat file.

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COIN	PRICE	24H

BTC	$3,301.47	- 3.89%

XRP	$0.295045	- 3.08%

ETH	$86.42	- 4.62%

XLM	$0.103190	- 7.45%

USDT	$1.00	- 0.06%