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SYMBIONT RELATIONSHIP: Enterprise blockchain startup Symbiont has closed a $20 million Series-B funding round led by Nasdaq Ventures with participation from Galaxy Digital, Citi, Raptor Group and others.
The firm, which has kept a fairly low profile the last two years as the cryptocurrency market's gyrations overshadowed the enterprise sector, previously raised a combined $15.4 million from a seed round in 2014 and Series A in 2017.
“We have been very good stewards of capital for the six years we have been in business. I think we have done more with less than anybody out there," Symbiont CEO Mark Smith said. "So it was time for us to do a bigger round and adding the Nasdaq as an investor and partner, and Citi as an investor and partner, really solidifies our strategy.”
As part of the investment, Nasdaq Financial Framework, a software company owned by the exchange, will integrate Symbiont’s Assembly smart contracts platform to explore new avenues involving tokenization.
“Symbiont will give Nasdaq the ability to originate a financial instrument and the smart contract to custody it on a blockchain, to allow trading to occur with their matching engine, to allow surveillance to occur across the network using Nasdaq technology and then to perform settlement on a blockchain,” Smith said. Full Story
LIGHTNING SUITE: Blockchain technology firm Bitfury has released a suite tools aimed to drive adoption of bitcoin’s lightning network.
Although the network is still under development, Bitfury announced a comprehensive product list to support the tech on Wednesday, including an open-source lightning wallet and hardware and software tools for merchants and payment processors to accept payments. It also released developer tools and a public lightning network node called “The Peach” to let bitcoin users open or create payment channels.
The product bundle is designed to make using the lightning network “easier for vendors and consumers to use,” Bitfury said.
A “layer-2” payments technology that debuted on bitcoin early last year, lightning enables transactions with near-instantaneous confirmation speeds without having to store information directly on the blockchain.
“By providing these products to the market, Bitfury is encouraging worldwide adoption of this technology and providing unparalleled support to consumers and merchants,” said Valery Vavilov, CEO of Bitfury. Full Story
STAFFING UP: Ahead of its hotly anticipated launch, bitcoin futures exchange Bakkt has launched a hiring campaign with eight new job postings being published Tuesday.
Bakkt is looking for several experienced software developers, including mobile and blockchain developers; an institutional sales manager with experience in North America or Asia; and three higher-level positions including a director of finance, director of security engineering and director for blockchain engineering.
An institutional-grade regulated exchange for crypto derivatives founded by the Intercontinental Exchange (the New York Stock Exchange’s parent company), Bakkt was expected to go live on December 12 last year, but the launch was postponed twice.
It was initially delayed to until January 24, with the company citing a need for “additional time for customer and clearing member onboarding.” It is now delayed indefinitely while the exchange waits for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to grant an exemption for Bakkt’s plan to custody bitcoin on behalf of its clients. The ongoing government shutdown has contributed to the delay.
However, Bakkt’s team hasn’t been sitting idly by waiting for the green light: it closed a $182.5-million funding round and acquired “certain assets” belonging to Rosenthal Collins Group (RCG), an independent futures commission merchant, earlier this month. Full Story
NOT MONEY: Pennsylvania's Department of Banking and Securities (DoBS) has clarified that crypto exchanges and service providers do not require a money transmission license to operate in the state.
The DoBS published the new guidance for the local crypto industry on Wednesday, following a number of inquiries from businesses, it said.
The department explained that as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not "money," neither the Money Transmission Business Licensing Law nor the Money Transmitter Act of Pennsylvania apply to crypto trading platforms.
The act also states that parties conducting the business of transmitting money need to be licensed if they transfer fiat currency and must charge a fee for the transfer. However, as crypto exchanges “never directly handle” fiat currency and the transactions are conducted through a bank account, these “are not money transmitters” that require the license, according to the DoBS.
Other businesses in the sector, such as cryptocurrency kiosk, ATM and vending machine providers are also not money transmitters, the department added. Full Story
NOTES FROM DAVOS: For the third consecutive January, the blockchain industry has descended on the remote Swiss mountain village of Davos to pitch the virtues of decentralized trust to the throngs of global elites. And for the first time, CoinDesk is on the ground participating in the festivities and reporting back on interesting developments.
For those who may not be familiar, Davos plays host each January to the World Economic Forum – the global stage where CEOs, politicians, celebrities and other influencers gather to schmooze and discuss current economic and geopolitical topics.
While the Congress Center where the event takes place is an impenetrable fortress surrounded by heavily armed guards, interest groups of all sorts take to Davos’ main promenade to showcase their companies and solutions in hopes that the various bigwigs inside the main event might pass by and take an interest in their cause.
The emergence of the blockchain industry in Davos commenced in 2017 when the Global Blockchain Business Council planted its flag with an official dinner and event series. After that it was off to the races: in January 2018, the peak of the bitcoin bubble, the peaceful ski village was swarmed by crypto and ICO enthusiasts and promoters.
Yet despite the brutal crypto winter, the industry has managed to put a strong and far more reputable foot forward this year. The GBBC has put together a strong lineup of live content in its Blockchain Central lounge on the main promenade. Just a few doors down is Consensys’ popular Ethereal Lounge, and a few doors further still, CryptoMountain is hosting open-air panels in a venue that looks something like a shipping container tipped on its side.
But the award for creativity goes to Tradeshift, the B2B payments and enterprise blockchain firm, for building an extravagant temporary event space inside a historic church directly adjacent to a checkpoint to the Congress Center.
Be sure to follow CoinDesk’s Twitter feed and daily newsletter for more dispatches from Davos. The WEF event ends Friday, Jan. 25. |
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 CoinDesk’s Crypto-Economics Explorer aggregates data points across the industry to measure the size and opportunity of crypto markets. In addition to price and market cap, CoinDesk’s explorer provides users with a comprehensive way to view the crypto-economic forces that shape an asset’s market maturity, growth and potential. Network interest is important in determining the activity occurring within a blockchain’s internal ecosystem. Today, January 23, we observed one metric within network interest: onchain transaction volume. This is the amount of total USD volume of transactions within the blockchains of each crypto. The top five coins by volume are: - BTC
- BCH
- ETH
- XRP
- EOS
BTC is in the top spot with 6x the volume of the 2nd place, BCH. They are followed by ETH, XRP, and EOS which nearly halve with each descending rank.
It’s important to contextualize these volumes. BTC prioritizes a store of value approach which encourages less transfers and more holding. This will change when second layer solutions gain traction and that will also move transfers off the BTC blockchain into a different ledger system, like Lightning Network.
Check out the CoinDesk Crypto-Economic Explorer to learn more.
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PARTNER
 CryptoKitties and CoinDesk are teaming up to turn one lucky blockchain fan into their own CryptoKitty, a totally unique non-fungible token that can’t be copied and lives forever on the blockchain. To enter, head to the contest page and submit your email. Share the contest on your social channels for extra entries and an even better chance to become your own immortal Kitty NFT. |
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| LOSING LUSTER: A pullback in gold prices could bode well for bitcoin as the two assets look to have established a strong inverse correlation over the last three months. The yellow metal is showing signs of weakness, having hit three-week lows on Monday. Full Story |
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BEST OF THE BEST THE NEXT WEB: SIM-swapping is the latest crime trend to hit crypto holders, and Google's head of account security thinks his company has a solution, he told The Next Web. SIM-swaps occur when someone is able to clone an individual’s mobile account and intercept security codes from apps such as crypto wallets and exchanges. A notable court case against AT&T in the U.S. claims that $24 million-worth of a customer’s crypto was stolen in this way. Google’s Mark Risher hardware devices like Google‘s Titan Keys, launched last summer, could help tackle the problem by removing the telecoms firms from the equation. “There’s no code that sends over the airwaves, nothing is sent to the telcos,” he said. “If your phone number has changed, we won’t even know as part of this flow, and if someone else has grabbed your phone number, they won’t have any higher credibility than a complete stranger.” Put simply, Titan Keys cryptographically links app accounts with devices to act like a ramped up form of two-factor authorization (2FA). While most crypto exchange apps aren’t yet registered with the Google scheme, Risher suggested users could protect their email with the key for now. THE REST HACKER NOON: If the unthinkable happens and nuclear war strikes, bitcoin would be more durable than fiat currency, according to crypto entrepreneur Charlie Shrem. In a piece for Hacker Noon, Shrem writes that, hypothetically, should nuclear warheads detonate over major cities, banking organizations would “quickly become non-functional.” Cash would be incinerated and contaminated by radioactivity, and electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) would destroy their technical infrastructure. Even if some survived a short time, a run on the banks would render them useless within 24 hours, says Shrem. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has no physical token to become contaminated and is decentralized – that is, without a single point of failure. “As long as there is at least one node running bitcoin, the bitcoin network will continue to function,” he writes. And with nodes distributed across the globe, some would likely survive, maintaining communications via satellite internet. FORBES: Online retailer Bitrefill says bitcoin payments made through the Lightning Network now account for more payments than any of the altcoins the company accepts, according to Forbes. The company allows customers to purchase gift cards, prepaid phone cards and other items using cryptocurrencies. According to John Carvalho, the number of payments made through Lightning is "increasing every day almost," and now account for roughly 4 percent of daily sales. He noted that "it's actually double most of the altcoins." However, the majority of Bitrefill's payments still come from on-chain bitcoin transactions. |
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