Bitcoin fund launches in Hong Kong / Eth 2.0 reaches nearly 20,000 validators / Dash Core Group to update Evonet every six weeks

Inside Cryptocurrency .

Inside.com Part of   Network April 20, 2020

Dear subscribers, Welcome to your Monday edition of Inside Cryptocurrency. Today's issue is filled with the latest and best news taking place in the crypto space - enjoy! For readers who want more content, consider signing up for the premium version of the newsletter. By doing so, you'll receive all the news straight to your inbox for just $10 per month, or $100 for the entire year. Here's what you'll get: Full access to content five days a week, with an ad-free experience. Q&As with crypto experts, such as this interview with Ray Youssef, CEO and co-founder of Paxful. The latest studies and reports on crypto, including our own in-depth analysis. Our Throwback Thursday feature, which takes a look back at the most newsworthy items in the crypto space over the last decade. So if you'd like to continue reading all of Inside Crypto and its special features, click here to upgrade to premium for $10 per month. You can also get two months free when you buy the one-year package for $100. Stay healthy, stay safe, Rebecca

Market Watch Coin prices across the board are in the red as we go through Monday trading. However, despite the slight dip in values, the total market capitalization is above $200 billion at the time of publishing. Bitcoin: $7,071 (⬇️ 1.96%) // $129.6 billion market cap. Ethereum: $180 (⬇️ 1.65%) // $19.9 billion market cap. XRP: $0.190 (⬇️ 1.42%) // $8.3 billion market cap. Tether: $1.00 (⬇️ 0.62%) // $6.3 billion market cap. Top 100 Winner: MaidSafeCoin: $0.121 (⬆️ 75.34%) // $55 million market cap. Top 100 Loser: Nervos Network: $0.004 (⬇️ 6.52%) // $68 million market cap. Prices are as of 1:30 p.m. ET.

First Bitcoin fund launches in Hong Kong. A company has launched the first regulated Bitcoin fund there that tracks the price of Bitcoin and provides institutional investors access to Bitcoin via a traditional fund structure... To find out more about the fund's launch, subscribe to our premium edition for only $10 per month, or $100 for the entire year. UPGRADE TO INSIDE CRYPTO PREMIUM

Ethereum 2.0 testnet reaches nearly 20,000 validators. Signaling the arrival of proof-of-stake (PoS), the launch of Ethereum 2.0 has generated much debate... To read more about the Ethereum 2.0 Topaz testnet, subscribe to our Premium edition below. UPGRADE TO INSIDE CRYPTO PREMIUM

Dash Core Group to update Evonet test network every six weeks. The developers behind the Dash altcoin released an announcement as to its plans for future releases regarding the Dash platform. According to the release, it hopes that these changes will make it more reliable, transparent and predictable. As a result, going forward, Dash Core Group said that they will be releasing updates to Evonet roughly every six weeks. The first release is projected to take place between April 22 and May 5. With frequent updates, Dash Core Group expects to receive more feedback, which will help to uncover any false assumptions made during the update, according to the developers. DASH CORE GROUP

U.S. Congresswoman: Libra is still a security despite a change to its whitepaper. According to a new statement published by U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas), the release of the second whitepaper for Facebook's Libra project doesn't address the concerns she raised with Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg when he addressed the U.S. House Financial Services Committee last October. Garcia is concerned Facebook and Libra can't be separate from each other if Facebook is involved and has some control over it. Due to the fact that Facebook and the Libra Association have chosen not to listen to what Garcia described as bipartisan concerns, she noted that she will continue to work with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to ensure that it regulates the asset as a security under current securities laws. SYLVIA GARCIA

BitMEX has launched a COVID-19 Response Fund to help with the global health crisis. The derivatives exchange platform has become the latest to join efforts in tackling the coronavirus pandemic. In an announcement today, HDR Global Trading, BitMEX's operator, said that it had contributed a total of $2.5 million, which will go toward four organizations. With grants between $300,000 and $1 million, those that will be receiving them are the two Gates Philanthropy Partners COVID-19 Funds, the biosecurity program at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, OpenMined, and Our World in Data. These four organizations are working to identify the most vulnerable countries to COVID-19, as well as creating privacy-preserving apps, developing vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments. The Stellar Development Foundation committed up to 2.5 million Lumens earlier this month for non-profits working to beat the pandemic. BITMEX

Facebook's Calibra is seeking to create 50 new jobs for its Dublin-based team. Despite the current climate around COVID-19 and many companies laying off or furloughing their staff, Facebook's Calibra is going against the trend and it set on creating 50 new positions by the end of the year. According to the social media platform, Ireland remains "critically important" to the organization and is planning to continue investing in the country. Facebook first landed in Ireland in 2009 when it employed just 30 people. Now, though, the company has expanded to other regions outside of Dublin such as Clonee, Co Meath and Cork. Facebook employs 5,000 people across the country in various organizations such as Instagram and Whatsapp, which it also owns. THE IRISH TIMES

Survey: 38% don't trust decentralized digital currency. In a survey of more than 3,000 users, The Economist and Crypto.com have looked at the level of trustworthiness toward the digital currency sector. It, surprisingly, found that... To read more about how users think of the trustworthiness of digital currencies, click here to upgrade to our premium version of the newsletter for only $10 per month, or $100 a year. UPGRADE TO INSIDE CRYPTO PREMIUM

Bank of China: Digital yuan won't cause inflation. That's according to an update released yesterday on China Central Television. According to a person in charge of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China, the development of the digital yuan, also known as DC/EP (digital currency/electronic payment) was making steady progress, adding that closed pilot tests have been carried out in the cities of Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong'an New District, Chengdu, and the future Winter Olympics location. However, the individual wanted to clarify that the testing of the DC/EP doesn't mean that it has been officially issued to the general public; it also won't affect the RMB issuance and circulation system or the financial market beyond the testing environment. The report noted that because it won't be issued in large quantities and will only be promoted in the short-term, the DC/EP won't cause inflation. COINTELEGRAPH

This newsletter was written and curated by Rebecca Campbell. She has been writing and reporting on various industries for the past 10 years, more specifically tech in the last three.  Editor Beth Duckett is a former news and investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic who has written for USA Today and other publications.

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dForce's Doomsday

A DeFi protocol is insolvent, ConsenSys cuts staff and bitcoin ATMs see growth

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April 20, 2020 By Daniel Kuhn If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it, sign up here.  TOP SHELF A weekend hack drained funds from a popular decentralized finance application, Ethereum incubator ConsenSys is laying off about 90 employees and bitcoin ATMs are seeing growth during the coronavirus contagion event. Here's the story: DeFi Disaster Decentralized finance protocol dForce is insolvent following a late-night weekend exploit. While the perpetrator is unknown, the hack exploited a known vulnerability of the ERC-777 standard. Due to the way dForce lending program Lendf.Me’s smart contract is set up, the hacker was able to continually withdraw funds without the program’s balance updating, eventually scoring 99 percent of the assets – more than $25 million – locked within. The Multicoin Capital-backed dForce had been accused of cribbing code from competing application Compound.  The hackers allegedly returned $126,014 back to Lendf.Me with a note saying, "Better luck next time," according to Chain News. ConsenSys Cuts Ethereum incubator ConsenSys is laying off "just over 90" staffers, or about 14 percent of the firm's headcount. "The global COVID-19 pandemic has deeply impacted the world's health and livelihood," a company spokesperson told CoinDesk. "ConsenSys has carefully analyzed its business in relation to what is occurring globally. Like most of its peers, the company is seeing extraordinary uncertainty in the market, with businesses rebalancing priorities and reevaluating timelines." Bitcoin Futures Renaissance Technologies $10 billion Medallion fund is considering jumping into bitcoin futures, recent regulatory filings show. The firm has “permitted” the Medallion fund to enter the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s (CME) cash-settled bitcoin futures market, a financial instrument widely considered to be a proxy for institutional interest in bitcoin. Hong Kong's securities regulator has approved the jurisdiction's first-ever bitcoin index fund designed for institutional investors. Arrano Capital, the blockchain investment arm of asset management firm Venture Smart Asia, hopes to surpass $100 million in total assets under management through a fund tracking bitcoin prices. Movers & Shakers  Coinbase has hired former Barclays markets veteran, Brett Tejpaul, to head up institutional coverage at the San Francisco-based crypto exchange. Tejpaul spent 17 years at Barclays in various leadership roles including global head of sales, global head of credit and commodities, and Barclays’ first “head of digital” role, which included managing fintech venture investments.  Calibra, a Facebook subsidiary helping to develop the blockchain-based Libra currency, is looking to hire 50 people in Ireland. (The Irish Times) 20K, 2 Days Topaz, the Ethereum 2.0 testnet, has garnered nearly 20,000 validators two days after its April 18 debut. “One of the key goals for Topaz is to test the Phase 0 proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol implementation on Ethereum 2.0, to which the network will eventually transfer from the current computationally-intensive proof-of-work consensus mechanism,” Decrypt’s Liam Frost reports.  Cash Doings Crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Binance.US are reporting a spike in the number of buys and deposits of $1,200, the amount gifted to some U.S. citizens as part of a Federal government’s financial stimulus during the coronavirus-led downturn. "People do seem to have deposited exactly $1,200 into Binance.US in the past couple of days," a Binance.US representative said, adding that the transactions coincided with the date the checks were cut.  Meanwhile, Russians are stocking up on cash. One trillion rubles ($13.6 billion) were issued from ATMs and banks through March – more than for all of 2019, according to a report by BNN Bloomberg. Airdrop Regulation From Up High Singapore’s tax authority will not take a cut of airdropped cryptocurrency so long as the recipient gets it for free, according to an income tax treatment guide published Friday. Bitcoin ATMs Some bitcoin ATM operators are reporting an increase in transactions while others are taking advantage of shelter-in-place rulings to expand their networks. The number of bitcoin ATMs in the United States increased 5.6 percent from March to April, as companies like LibertyX and DigitalMint expanded into new markets. And as interest in Bitcoin soars during COVID-19, other crypto ATMs are experiencing their highest ever amount of transaction volumes. Asian Expansion Institutional custody startup Curv has expanded into Asia with an office in Hong Kong and a partnership with Japan-based Crypto Garage, the companies announced Friday. The startup will help Asian exchanges self-custody various cryptocurrencies with its multi-party computation (MPC) technology. CEO Itay Malinger said Asia has more exchanges per capita than other parts of the world, and are more likely to self-custody. Olympic Use Case The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said that its digital currency could be used in the 2022 Winter Olympics event. (The Block) Opinion: Dai Should Consider Negative Interest Rates On March 12, U.S. equity prices plunged 10 percent, bitcoin and ethereum prices plummeted almost 50 percent, and dai – a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar – skyrocketed as high as $1.50. “This shouldn't have happened,” CoinDesk columnist J.P. Koning writes in his latest op-ed, which raises the question if MakerDAO should have negative interest rates for dai. “It's role is to mimic the performance of an underlying national currency, in this case the U.S. dollar. But at $1.50, dai was suddenly worth one-and-a-half U.S. dollars. It didn't look very stable at all.”   COINDESK LIVE: LOCKDOWN EDITION CoinDesk Live: Lockdown Edition continues its popular twice-weekly chats with Consensus speakers via Zoom and Twitter. Here you'll get a preview of what’s to come in Consensus: Distributed, our first fully virtual - and fully free - big-tent conference May 11-15.  On the show, we'll chat with developers from the most exciting crypto projects, unpack the basics - and not so basics - of the industry and hear from entrepreneurs disrupting traditional industries. Then we’ll open the floor for you to ask questions directly to our guests. Register to join our second session Tuesday, April 21, with Foundations speakers Priyanka Desai and Aaron Wright from The Lao to discuss for-profit DAOs. MARKET INTEL Easing Volatility Bitcoin market volatility has hit three-month lows, marking a price squeeze that could soon pave the way for a big move on either side. The spread between bitcoin’s Bollinger bands – volatility indicators that often indicate an impending price swing – narrowed to $895 on Monday, the lowest level since Jan. 6. “When it tightens, it is because we have been consistently trading in a narrower range for a prolonged period and we should see a breakout very soon,” said Chris Thomas, head of digital assets at Swissquote. Testing, Testing Bitcoin appears on track to test the psychological hurdle of $8,000, having found acceptance above a key hurdle last week. The cryptocurrency closed last week above the horizontal 100-week average resistance, which has consistently capped upside the preceding four weeks, part of an ongoing rally from the March low of $3,856.  Halving Webinar Join CoinDesk’s Noelle Acheson and Christine Kim for a chat about the upcoming bitcoin halving. They’ll talk about their recent report which explains what it is, why it matters and what its impact on the sector and the bitcoin price could be. We attempt to reconcile the various models and theses around the potential bitcoin price reaction as the adjustment approaches, and look at metrics that will shed light on the technological impact. COINDESK PODCASTS Chia's Cohen CoinDesk reporter Leigh Cuen sits down with Bram Cohen, author of the BitTorrent protocol and CEO of Chia. In this wide-ranging interview, they talk about Cohen’s early interest in “hard problems,” his unexpected ascent from sketchy to celebrity and why getting rich is a terrible metric of success.    WHO WON #CRYPTOTWITTER Copyright © 2020 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 here.

An upgrade, an integration, and two CZ lessons

Loom Network Bi-Weekly Update Hello, Really hope you are doing well and staying safe out there.  Our worlds have been tossed upside-down and it may be a while before things get back to "normal" (whatever normal may look like once this event passes).  At the very least, I'm guessing a lot more companies will keep using remote workers where they haven't before — they are now figuring out how much work can actually be done from home. If you are stuck at home, I hope you're getting creative with your time. And if you need some things to watch, I found a list of livestream events you can check out. Hope this helps a bit. Now I got a few pieces of news for you... Basechain Got an Upgrade (Hard Fork) ⛓ Yup yup... we have released Basechain's build #1376 hard fork. This build includes a few fixes to the DPOS system, new RPC methods for querying chain state, and a couple of small tweaks to optimize node resource usage. So if you want to get nerdy with me... 👉 Check out the full release notes and upgrade instructions. In other Basechain news... Huobi Token Integration Is Live 🔥  Our latest Basechain integration is live — Huobi Token! With this integration, Basechain developers are now able to build dapps that accept payment in Huobi Token (HT) — as well as trade HT for ETH, LOOM, DAI, and many other ERC20 tokens. And you may be happy to hear that... Two New CryptoZombies Lessons Are Ready for You 🎉 That's right... two new CryptoZombies lessons are now available  🎉  They are part of a three-part series on how to build and interact with an oracle. In the first two lessons, we will teach you to build and interact with the simplest possible oracle that allows only one user, its owner, to fetch data from Binance's public API. So go ahead and dive into... 👉 How to Build an Oracle – Part 1 👉 How to Build an Oracle – Part 2 ...and stay tuned for Part 3, in which we show you how to make your oracle more decentralized. And please please please... Wash your hands, Stay away from others, and Wear a mask if you MUST go out. The more we work together, the faster we can beat this. Until next time... – Robert P.S. I want to give a shout out to all the essential workers out there who literally can't work from home... the brave folks putting their own lives on the line to keep this whole machine running amongst all the chaos. Of course, Marc Rebillet says it best. To make sure you keep getting these emails, please add us to your address book or white list. But if you want out of the loop... Unsubscribe Our postal address: 26/47 12A Floor Orakarn Building, 46 Chit Lom Alley, Khwaeng Lumphini, Bangkok, Thailand, 10330