There is now more than $1 billion worth of bitcoin on Ethereum, record-setting transaction volume is boosting Ethereum miners revenue and VeChain joins Chinas food safety watchdog to build track and trace capabilities.

Top shelf

Token reflectionsUniswaps decision toairdrop its new governance token was less about competingwith its genetic clone SushiSwap, and more about building a community, CoinDesks Brady Dale reports. I think its genius in every way, Robert Leshner, Compounds founder, said. It brought a huge number of users into the fold. Tokens were airdropped not just to liquidity providers (LPs), but essentially anyone who has played with the app meaning upwards of 250,000 unique Ethereum addresses that have made trades on it could come into possession. This could help Uniswap achieve the effective decentralization necessary to avoid the prying eyes of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. While the token is likely to spur a new round of liquidity mining, bumping up transactions fees on the platform, Dale also suggests UNI could be a means for the protocol which raised an $11 million Series A to repay its investors.

Ethereum recordsEthereumminers earned a record $16.5 millionon Thursday as the number of transactions on the network ticks up. More than 42,763ether(ETH) were paid out in transaction fees for 1.4 million transactions another all-time high. CoinDesks Paddy Baker points to a meteoric rise in decentralized finance (DeFi) to make sense of the surging Ethereum activity. There is currently over $9 billion worth of assets locked in DeFi applications, according to DeFi Pulse, up from approximately $675 million at the start of the year. Decentralized exchanges too are growing led by Uniswap, Curve and Balancer having recently surpassed $16 billion in total monthly volume.

Community pointsThe number of monthly users who earned T-Points, or loyalty points,for bitcoin (BTC) payments on the bitFlyer exchange in Japan reached a record highin August. Though the exchange did not specify the number of users of the service, CoinDesk Japan previously reported approximately 30% of new visitors to the exchange are in their 20s.BTCwas trading at 1.3 million Japanese yen ($12,400) in August for the first time in a year. Midori Kanemitsu, a market analyst at bitFlyer, indicated that this reflects a larger trend: against the backdrop of COVID-19 and global monetary easing, bitcoin is shifting from a speculative investment for individuals to an institutional hedge against inflation.

Track and traceThe VeChain Foundation has become thefirst blockchain-based entity to join the China Animal Health and Food Safety Alliance(CAFA). According to a blog post, VeChain joins the 130 strong member group as its only public blockchain technology provider, and will further provide technical and infrastructural support for member firms. According to the post, CAFA intends to build a farm to table traceability system across China that would record the various stages of the food supply process on the blockchain in order to build trust with consumers.

Wallet challengeU.S. Homeland Securitys Science and Technology Directorate (S&T),wants you to build its next digital wallet.CoinDesks Danny Nelson reports the directorate is putting $25,000 up for grabs in their new digital wallet challenge, a user interface design competition to pair with DHSs work in the blockchain and decentralized identity space. Finalist wallets must demonstrate ease of use and visual consistency, while supporting interoperability, security, and privacy, said Anil John, technical director of S&Ts Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP). Applications are open through Oct. 15, with the chance for three finalists to win $5,000 and an additional $10,000 to the competition winner.

Quick bites

At stake

Judge Joel M. Cohen, the judge who has been overseeing the New York Attorney Generals (NYAG) offices examination pertaining to the sister firms alleged $850 million cover-up, is applying pressure in what appears to be an attempt to speed up what has become a 17-month-long investigation.

Bitfinexs legal fight with the NYAG began in April 2019, when the state prosecutor first alleged that Bitfinex had lost access to $850 million in funds held by Crypto Capital Corp., a payment processor whose operators were later indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Stablecoin issuer Tether extended a line of credit and provided a loan to Bitfinex to cover the shortfall. The NYAGs office requested access to the documents surrounding this deal.

Specifically, the NYAG wants to know where the funds went, whether any of the funds went to company executives and why transfers from Tether to Bitfinex were necessary.

Bitfinex and Tether are now appealing this request for documentation, with its representatives saying it is literally impossible to comply with, because the NYAGs office has asked for all documents aroundUSDT. A legal representative compared the request toasking GM for all documents about cars,earlier this week.

Defendants counsel also argues the investigation is past its prime. Weve now had 17 additional months of disclosure. All the dirty laundry about Crypto Capital has been aired Whatever risk there may have been 17 months ago is gone, Charles Michael, an attorney with Steptoe and Johnson, representing Bitfinex, said.

Cohen didnt set a firm deadline for when Bitfinex and Tether would have to produce these documents, leaving that decision to a special referee, but said a deadline would need to be set. As part of his order, he extended an injunction that would have ended in the next few weeks barring Tether from loaning funds to Bitfinex by 90 days.

Market intel

Indecision reigns?Bitcoin clocked highs of $11,104 and $11,050 on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, butprinted a UTC closing price below $11,000 on both occasions.Indecision is now the mood of the market. Increasing amounts of bitcoin are leaving wallets associated with miners for exchanges, an indication of selling pressure. According to data source Glassnode, 1,113.85 BTC were transferred to exchange wallets from miner wallets on Sept. 13 the biggest single-day outflow since December. Should the latest indecisive price action end with an upward move, the focus would shift to the next hurdle at $11,200, CoinDesks Omkar Godbole reports.

$1B bitcoinOver$1 billion worth of bitcoin has been tokenized on Ethereumas of Thursday, CoinDesk news reporter Zack Voell found. In January, less than 1,200 BTC were tokenized worth less than $7 million. There are now more than 92,600 tokenized bitcoins (BTC), representing 0.42% of the total BTC supply. Wrapped bitcoin (WBTC), the largest tokenized bitcoin project, has minted over 60,500 tokenized BTC since its launch in early 2019, representing over 65% of the total tokenized BTC supply, while RenBTC, the second largest tokenized bitcoin project, has issued 22,000 tokenized bitcoins since May.

Op-ed

A little realityPreston Byrne, a CoinDesk columnist and Anderson Kill partner,wants American companies to stop issuing tokensand airdrops. Reflecting on Uniswaps decision to distribute their new governance token widely, Byrne writes, Cheerleaders will say that entrepreneurs are leaving money on the table by not doing a Uniswap-style airdrop to the American public. But as a practical matter, many, if not most, of [token sales are securities]. No mental gymnastics, no think-pieces, no cryptographic magic dust, no novel naming conventions, and no gotchas! can work around the fact that courts work with economic reality, and economic reality on this most recent DEX token airdrop looks a lot like an investment contract.

Podcast corner

Pals polemicRaoul Pal, CEO and co-founder of Real Vision, joins the latest episode of The Breakdown for a wide-ranging conversation into the mechanics behind the Federal Reserve, stablecoin disruption and why all macro debates are boring. (Editors note: Not this one.)

Who won #CryptoTwitter?

Excerpt from:
Blockchain Bites: Airdrops, Record Volumes, $1B BTC on Ethereum - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

Every week theres usually at least one article in CoinDesk, a blurb in a newsletter and several charts in the Twittersphere about bitcoins correlation with something or other.

This week,we were told that the 60-day correlation between gold and bitcoin (BTC) had reached all-time highs. Last week,our monthly report featured a chart of BTCs correlation with the DXY dollar index. A few weeks before that, the correlation with the S&P 500 was in the headlines.

If you feel dizzy from the rapid turns in attention on which correlation metric matters, youre not alone. But, you had better get used to it because the fascination with BTCs correlation status is unlikely to fade any time soon.What this reveals about bitcoin is intriguing. Its not so much the correlation measures per se they are fun to watch go up and down, but theyre not the deeper story. The deeper story is why it matters so much to us.

When we point to BTCs increasing correlation with the S&P 500, gold, avocados or whatever, we are searching for a handle on its prevailing narrative. We hope that correlations will give us a clue.

BTC is a difficult asset to pin down. It is a scarce asset like gold, yet with a harder cap. It can be used for pseudonymous transactions, as can cash. It is a speculative holding for many, like equities. It is a bet on a new technology, like a growth stock. It is a hedge against a dollar collapse, a way to spread financial inclusion, an investment in financial evolution, a political statement. It is all of these, or none of these, depending on your intellectual leanings, economic philosophy and mood.

The narrative we choose for bitcoin matters, though. Not only does it form our investment thesis around the asset, but it also influences our valuation methods. Do we extrapolate its potential price using the size of the gold market? The payments universe? Transaction fees? Something else entirely?

So, faced with such a slippery narrative, we look to correlations to tell the story. If its highly correlated with gold, then the market views it as a safe haven. If its more closely correlated to the S&P 500, then its a risk-on investment. If bitcoins correlation to the dollar index plummets, then its a hedge.

We look to the market to tell us what bitcoins narrative is. But this creates a feedback loop (Follow gold! Follow Nasdaq!) that helps to perpetuate bitcoins momentum-fueled volatility, and which is often thrown off course by the evolving nature of markets.

BTCs 60-day correlation with the S&P 500 has been coming down recently. That must mean its no longer a risk-on asset. Its increasing correlation with gold corroborates that, putting BTC back in the safe haven story.

But wait. Youll have heard that BTC has not had a good run over the past few days. Youll probably also have heard that Tesla has had a particularly bad time this week. I wonder if theyre correlated.

What do you know, it looks like BTCs correlation with TSLA is increasing! BTC is now more correlated to TSLA than to the S&P 500. That must mean that bitcoin is now being seen as a tech stock. No wait, its being seen as a proxy for market hype. No wait, I mean its being seen as a moon shot.

Obviously, Im kidding, but point Im trying to make is that short-term correlations can tell a good story, but theyre not that meaningful.

With a happy ending

Correlations are based on price movements, which, especially in these crazy times, do not always respond to common sense. Prices have, on the whole, become untethered from fundamental factors and are being pushed around by sentiment. Sentiment fuels momentum, which we often mistake for a trend; it also perpetuates the directionality of prices, which can exaggerate correlations.

Yet, sentiment can turn fast when investors are jittery, and theres plenty to be jittery about. The story changes again.

This grasping for data to back a story reveals our very human need to put bitcoin in context of things were already familiar with. If it goes into a certain mental box, its easier to understand and easier to make decisions about. Boxes are comfortable. Yet, in the long run, they are unsustainable.

In the short run, too: These markets are nuts, and boxes are being smashed all over the place. Bitcoin, which never did belong in any box that we know, is hopping from one story to another, as told by correlation metrics.

I like a good chart as much as anyone, probably even more so (after all, I am an analyst), and I plan to continue to watch the numbers stories with interest. But rather than use return relationships as a narrative crutch, Ill be keeping an eye on what they say about what investors are looking for.

For short-term market movements, what we think bitcoins narrative is doesnt matter as much as what other peoplethink bitcoins narrative is. Other people move the market, so we should know what asset framework theyre using. The correlation stories are useful for that.

For long-term market movements, correlations matter more for portfolio diversification than for anything else. In the not-too-distant future, markets will hopefully be less confusing and even short-term covariance and other relationships might be steadier, and easier to use for planning purposes. By then, even bitcoins correlations might start to matter less for the story and more for the allocation calculations.

By then, we will hopefully no longer need to put bitcoin in a pre-conceived box. It will have found its own narrative, understandable by all.

Drawing lines

Investor activism comes to crypto. Technically its not the first time, but as far as I know its the first initiated by an institutional investor, which pushes it into a more public arena with potentially far-reaching consequences.

California-based hedge fund manager Arca is stepping up its campaign to overhaul decentralized exchange and prediction market platform Gnosis, which raised $12.5 million in a 2017 initial coin offering (ICO). Arcas complaint is that the project has seen its initial ICO proceeds and therefore its balance sheet multiply simply due to the increase in the price of ETH, and yet has not produced anyproducts that accrue value to the token holders.

Arca insists Gnosis should at least trade at the net asset value of its treasury, which is at current prices $139 per GNO (the platforms token, which at time of writing has a market price of $67), and that the mispricing is due to poor decisions on the part of management.The investor has suggested to management that it use the bulk of its treasury to make a tender offer for all outstanding GNOs. This would value each token at approximately $90, providing a decent return for early investors. Since the report of Arcas proposal came out last week, GNO has increased 34% in price (at time of writing), while bitcoin has fallen 4% overthe same period.

The interesting part is not the potential flip for investors as they crowd out the upside. Whats important about this is how it changes the conversation around token investments, on so many levels.

First, it will unleash a healthy discussion around responsibility. Token sales, especially those issued in the heyday of 2017, are lightly regulated if at all, with no clearly defined lines of obligations. This discussion could professionalize the field and encourage other institutional investors to take an interest.

Second, it could refine the definition of token. Is it like a venture investment, where investors are expected to help their portfolio companies in exchange for greater potential returns? Yet venture investments arent liquid, and tokens to some extent are. So, is it more like equity, in which case, do token holders have stakeholder rights? ArcaCIO Jeff Dorman believes his firms holdingis like an interest-free loan, which comes with the expectation that lenders are kept informed of the borrowers progress and plans for the proceeds.And, third, it could influence investment strategies. Weve seen the price of GNO jump over the past few days, presumably in the expectation that management will listen to Arcas demands. Will we see activists intentionally accumulate tokens in order to influence a companys direction?

Finally, this could trigger some governance innovations. Apart from investors collectively insisting on more transparency and accountability, we could start to see some protocol or algorithm adjustments. What could investor activism look like on staking networks, where the amount of tokens you hold programmatically determines the say you have in certain governance issues? What if an investor wants to leverage that position to influence more than the protocol had contemplated? How can a project protect itself against predator stakes?

Given the scope of the problem and what it means for the evolution of token issuance as a fund-raising mechanism and as a value proposition, this situation is worth keeping an eye on. Arcas initiative will most likely end up being about much more than a fair return on an investment.

Anyone know what's going on yet?

As the relentless growth in COVID-19 cases around the world shines greater focus on the bumpy road to a vaccine, uncertainty in the timing of an economic recovery seems to be spilling over into stock market valuations. The S&P and Nasdaq look on track to have their second week of declines, for the first time since March.

Amidst the growing uncertainty, BTC also had a down week, significantly underperforming gold and equities and giving a boost to its 30-day volatility.

While it may feel like stock market volatility is back with a vengeance, the VIX is still well below its June level, and about where it was in December 2018. In other words, this isnt too unusual.

Both the latest U.S. unemployment and consumer price indexfigures came in slightly higher than expected, adding to the overall unease. As renowned investor Stanley Druckenmiller re-ignited the heated debate between those that expect inflation and those that expect deflation, expect greater focus on bitcoins narrative as an inflation hedge.

CHAIN LINKS

My colleague Nathan DiCamillo shows how we can follow the initial public offering of INX, the first registered offering of security tokens in the U.S., and gives more insight into how the issuance will work. TAKEAWAY: This is an eye-opening peek at the transparency of a security token offering, vs. a normal security offering. You can actually watch the securities move, in real time. That, plus the innovative business model behind them, and the evolution of capital markets they represent, andthe fact that its the first token sale to register for retail distribution with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, make this issuance worth following.

Another issuance worth watching is that of Diginex, the Hong Kong-based company behind the newly launched EQUOS.io crypto exchange. This week it announced that it has raised $20 million from four family offices and a hedge fund, ahead of an anticipated Nasdaq listing later this month via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC). TAKEAWAY: This will be the first crypto exchange to publicly list in the U.S., as well as an indication of public interest in crypto market infrastructure. For investors, its a listed play on the growth of the ecosystem. For analysts, its a welcome peek at the accounts of a market infrastructure participant, which could be even more interesting as rumors of a Coinbase listing continue to circulate.

Options market data shows an upward trend over the past couple of months in the traded volume of ether (ETH) puts vs. calls, which hints at a growing fear of a price drop. TAKEAWAY: The bitcoin (BTC) put-call ratio is flat over the same period, which implies that the hedging is specific to ETH. This could indicate greater concern about the fragility of the recent inflows into some decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, and the potential impact on the networks congestion and token price.

The recent growth in bitcoin accumulation addresses, or addresses with at least two incoming bitcoin transfers in the last seven years and no spends, could indicate growing support for bitcoin in spite of lackluster price performance. TAKEAWAY: That we can even extract this metric is an example of the unique data sets available to crypto asset investors. Imagine having this level of information with traditional assets.

More than 30% of new customers at bitFlyer, one of the leading Japanese crypto exchanges, are in their 20s, according to a recent survey. TAKEAWAY: Its not news that millennials are interested in crypto assets. Last year investment management firm Charles Schwab revealed in a quarterly report that bitcoin was the fifth most popular investment among its millennial customers. A JPMorgan report issued last month also flagged millennials penchant for bitcoin over gold.

Investment management firm Wave Financial has received its first round of investment from clients for the Wave Kentucky Whiskey 2020 Digital Fund, which it plans to tokenize in a year or two. TAKEAWAY: I include this as an example of how interesting the tokenized security field will soon get. It should be clarified that holding a fund token does not give you access to the whiskey. It does allow you to share in the profits when the whiskey is eventually sold to wholesalers. Yes, this could be achieved without tokenization. And it remains to be seen how comfortable investors will be with this concept. The investment so far is still relatively small, but will be worth watching.

Podcast episodes worth listening to:

Read more:
How Bitcoin Correlations Drive the Narrative - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

Its been a tough week for Bitcoin. The price has fallen more than 8 percent and dipped below $10,000 on three consecutive days. Analyst Willy Woo, though, thinks its all looking good. He believes that on-chain indicators, such as the NVT ratio, suggest a bullish outlook, while Su Zhu of Three Arrows Capital believes that a surge to $100,000 is more likely than a fall to $5,000.

The son of gold investor and Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff is convinced. The 18-year-old college freshman just bought some more Bitcoin, against his fathers advice. Asked whether they want to follow the student whos never had a job or the 30-year investment professional, Twitter picked the Bitcoin fan.

At least the young Schiff will be set for the end of the world. Podcaster Adam Curry has told comedian Joe Rogan that the apocalypse is coming, and as you hide in your bunker and battle the zombies, youre going to need a Bitcoin. Its no wonder that Bitcoin is now the worlds sixth-largest currency. And thats despite dying again. As the cryptocurrency lost value this week, the Bitcoin Obituary got to add another eulogy to its list.

As youre mourning the 382nd death of Bitcoin, you might want to hold off on loading up on Bitcoin Cash, though. It turns out that Tim Draper didnt recently buy some or thank Roger Ver. It looks like his Twitter account was hacked or a paid ad went wrong.

But if the apocalypse does come, maybe the GoodDollar will save us. The eToro token will set aside a daily amount as a basic income for the platforms participants. Andrew Yang would like it. Or alternatively, you could just hack a wallet. Crypto Twitter user Alon Gal has declared that he has a wallet containing 69,000 Bitcoins. He just doesnt have the password. Hackers have been trying to crack it for two years with no luck. Did they try password123?

The number of active decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs, has jumped over the last year. Its up 660 percent, from ten a year ago to 76 now. At the same time, thefirst phase of the MakerDAO debt auction is reaching its final stages. Bidders have already committed to buying $2 million worth of Maker tokens using Dai.

Its not only DAOs that are on the up, though. Starbucks is now getting ready to deploy a blockchain to trace its coffee beans and enable greater product transparency. Chinas Hainan Wenchang International Aerospace City will use a blockchain to support its Smart Brain Planning and Design Institute. And Bangladesh is about to get its first blockchain-powered remittance service. The service will let Bangladeshi expats in Malaysia send their money home.

There have been a few setbacks too this week. The Texas State Securities Board has detected some more cryptocurrency scams. Texas Securities Commissioner Travis J. Ilesnamed Kumar Babu Bondesi and Darwin Eric Balusek as the alleged operators of the Forex Birds and PEK Universe scams. They could face up to ten years in jail. Balusek is also known as Bitcoin Pope.

And YouTube pulled the plug on Sunny Decrees crypto livestream. The platform said the video violated its policy against harmful and dangerous content.

Finally, Jay Cassano, Cointelegraphs editor-in-chief, has been promoted to CEO. His position will be taken by Jon Rice, previously the managing editor of Cointelegraph Magazine. Congratulations to them both.

Check out the audio version here:

Joel Comm is an internet pioneer, New York Times best-selling author, futurist speaker and co-host of The Bad Crypto Podcast. Thats a fancy way of saying he writes words, says things and loves to play with cryptos.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Continued here:
Bitcoins obituary and a Starbucks blockchain: Bad crypto news of the week - Cointelegraph

The Philippines SEC has released an official warning about Bitcoin (BTC) cloud mining company Mining City, advising the public to steer clear of the scheme and others like it. Despite the official condemnation, the price of a related cryptocurrency is on the rise.

The warning describes the company as an unlicensed entity in the country and said it was not functioning in accordance with guidelines for virtual currency exchanges, stating:

The notice also identified Mining Citys CEO Gregory Rogowski, team leader Anthony Aguilar, and Facebook page admin Jhon Rey Grey as key personnel involved in the scheme all of whom will also be reported to the Bureau of Internal Revenue for investigation regarding their tax assessments.

The scheme offers cloud mining packages in the form of three-year contracts where hash power is rented to investors worth between $300 up to $12,600, and purports to provide daily returns of up to $92 per day. Mining City operates in partnership with MineBest, creator of the Bitcoin Vault scam, with investors receiving their profits in the form of BTCV tokens.

The regulator told the public not to invest or stop investing in plans offered by Mining City or by entities that engage in smart contracts, cryptocurrencies or digital asset exchanges that are not registered with the commission, adding that promoters could be criminally prosecuted with fines over $100,000 or imprisonment of up to 21 years.

In the two weeks prior to this warning, the price of BTCV plummeted 76% from $425 on Aug. 23, to $100 on Sept. 10. It has since risen to $163, suggesting the warning may not have been effective in deterring public interest in the scheme. On Mining Citys website, it states the program will continue to run even if its website is closed for any reason implying that it is immune to government intervention due to its decentralized nature.

The Philippines SEC previously flagged notorious Ethereum gas gazzler Forsage as a Ponzi scheme in July; however, it was stronger than ever in August boasting an expanded user base of 390,000 users and a daily turnover of over $3 million. Forsage currently has over 1,900 daily active users on Ethereum (ETH) and 800 active users on Tron (TRX), according to DappStats.

Excerpt from:
Philippines SEC warns of cloud mining Ponzi related to Bitcoin Vault - Cointelegraph

In brief

It didnt even exist 48 hours ago, but Uniswaps governance token is already the fourth-most-traded token on cryptocurrency exchanges.

According to data from CoinGecko, 24-hour trading volume for UNI stands at $4.7 billion, behind only Tether ($38.9 billion), Bitcoin ($20.7 billion), and Ethereum ($12.7 billion). That means that Uniswap isnt just setting the pace among DeFi platforms, but that its running with the established players in all of crypto, at least for now.

UNI is decentralized exchange Uniswaps new governance token, released on Wednesday in something of a response to competitor/clone SushiSwap, which did all the same things as Uniswap with the added bonus of distributing its own SUSHI token as a reward to network users. Though ostensibly meant to bestow governance privileges to liquidity providers, such tokens have become valuable commodities themselves. Hence, UNIs current trading volumes.

To be certain, some of the initial trading can be explained by the newness of the token, with some people choosing to sell the 400 UNI they received as network participants for $1,200 or more. Yet there have also been plenty of buyers, pushing the price up.

Still, despite its current good fortune, Uniswaps UNI token does not have the established pedigree of Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency; the market dominance of Tether, the original stablecoin; or the ubiquitousness of Ethereum, the blockchain the UNI token runs on.

Thats evidenced by some of the other numbers. While Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether are also top-three in terms of market cap, UNIs market cap is $654 million, which is good enough for a top-40 spot behind DeFi competitors yearn.finance, Aave, and Dai.

But its not terribly far behind them and given Uniswaps sudden ascendance in other variables, it may well rise through the market cap rankings as well.

Exhibit A? TVL, or total value locked, a measure of the dollar value of all Ether and Ethereum-based tokens a protocol holds in smart contracts. Though a controversial metric, its widely used as a measuring stick to determine which DeFi products are capturing the most attention at the moment.

Earlier this week, before it launched the UNI, Uniswap had around $750 million in total value locked. Today it has more than double that. Its $1.6 billion was enough to overtake Aave for first-place in the metric, according to DeFi Pulse.

Again, however, historical figures are instructive, although historical only means a few months within the fledgling world of decentralized finance. Users have flocked to decentralized applications that allow them to earn interest and protocol tokens in exchange for putting up digital assets as collateral, turning a $690 million market at the start of the year into a $9 billion market today.

Within the volatile DeFi market, Aave has managed to remain remarkably steady, holding a TVL above $1 billion since August 15. Only Maker has been there longer; it initially broke the $1 billion barrier on July 27 and currently ranks third in TVL.

Uniswap's decision to distribute governance tokens has certainly shaken up the young DeFi landscape, but its much too early to tell whether UNI is a tourist or a permanent resident at the top of the crypto charts.

Excerpt from:
Uniswap Trading Volume Trails Only Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether - Decrypt

NEW YORK, Sept.17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Bit Digital, Inc. (Nasdaq: BTBT) (the "Company"), an emerging bitcoin mining company headquartered in New York, U.S. today announced that the Company has contracted to cooperate with the colocation partner in U.S.

On September 1, 2020, the Company's wholly-owned subsidiary Bit Digital USA, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware, United States and on September 15, 2020 Bit Digital USA, Inc. entered into a certain service agreement with Compute North LLC. Compute North is the world's leading bitcoin colocation company headquartered in Nebraska U.S. Pursuant to the service agreement, Compute North will provide bitcoin mining facilities for the Company's colocation, managing mining equipment which will save the Company's operating cost, including utilities and rent.

The pilot test with Compute North LLC represented the Company's strategy to source the best bitcoin and bitcoin mining resources in North America and further help the Company to balance its operations worldwide.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release may contain certain "forward-looking statements" relating to the business of Bit Digital, Inc. and its subsidiary companies. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein are "forward-looking statements." These forward-looking statements are often identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "believes," "expects" or similar expressions, involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties, and these expectations may prove to be incorrect. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in the Company's periodic reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on its website at http://www.sec.gov. All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. Other than as required under the securities laws, the Company does not assume a duty to update these forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Bit Digital, Inc.

More:
Bit Digital, Inc. Announced Officially to Cooperate with the World's Leading Bitcoin Colocation Partner In US - PRNewswire

Jameson Lopp, co-founder and CTO of Casa, a crypto custody firm has released a test result report on Bitcoin multi-signature hardware signing performance on the Casa blog on Sep. 13.

The result shows that hardware crypto wallet devices can handle small, simple transactions well. However, they have trouble performing once the transaction becomes complicated. Casa is said to be built upon geographically distributed multisig, dedicated hardware devices to secure keys, designed user experience, and client services.

Lopp pointed out that while the company has no control over the hardware devices, the goal is to support any device at the end of the day. Thus, he decided to conduct research and hoped to draw some conclusions and help multisig software providers better understand the limits of hardware and customize wallet software for better performance.

Casa is currently compatible with six hardware including Trezor, Ledger, Coinkite and Coldcard The test was done on all the supported hardware devices and also BitBox.

Lopp set up the test by leveraging Electrum's 4.0.2 appimage on Debian Linux and created a variety of P2WSH (native segwit) multisig wallets that use Bitcoins testnet and with the hardware devices plugged in via USB. In each wallet, there was a deposit of 100 UTXOs.

Lopp created a series of tests to determine these hardware wallet capabilities when signing multi-signature transactions of varying complexity. He repeated these tests and concluded that its better and more secure if hardware devices can show progress indicators for loading and signing. He added that:

I came to really dislike hardware devices that don't show progress indicators for loading and signing. As such, I highly prefer Coldcard and Trezor in this respect. BitBox and Ledger are anxiety-inducing because you have no idea if anything is actually happening.

When it comes to overcoming transaction size limitation and delay of transaction processing time, Lopp suggested that hardware wallets could try to break up a send into multiple smaller transactions that are below its limits.

When the transaction process takes too long, some devices will lock itself from inactivity. Lopp suggests that the least device manufacturers could do to avoid such inconvenience is to disable the screen lock timeout while the device is still working on the transaction.

According to Lopp, hardware devices should also support Partially signed Bitcoin transactions (PSBT) and all possible valid multisig transactions. He added that:

I believe it's time for hardware manufacturers to start acting like platform providers and ensure that they are providing robust platforms that can be used to build a wide variety of solutions.

There are two steps for hardware devices to follow when signing a Bitcoin transaction, according to Lopp:

First, The transaction gets loaded onto the device, it parses the details and displays them on the screen for user confirmation. These details are generally the address(es) to which funds are being sent, the amount(s) being sent, and the fee being paid. Then, Upon user confirmation, the device signs each transaction input and then returns the signed transaction to the wallet software.

See original here:
Bitcoin hardware devices need to improve to handle complex transactions - Cointelegraph

Bitcoin (BTC) starts a new week in uncertain territory as $10,000 stays in place but fundamentals shift to bullish.

Cointelegraph highlights five things that could shape BTC price action in the coming days.

In what will likely become a frequently-quoted announcement, oil giant BP said this weekend that the world has hit peak demand for the black gold.

In a report quoted by Bloomberg, BP said that demand for oil would stay broadly flat for the next twenty years, with pressure coming from alternative fuels and coronavirus.

It subsequently recovers but never back to pre-Covid levels, Spencer Dale, the firms chief economist said.

It brings forward the point at which oil demand peaks to 2019.

Macro asset year-to-date returns. Source: Skew

The startling admission is yet another surprise to come out of the global economy, at the same time as central banks admit that unconventional monetary policy has become the norm in 2020.

With coronavirus at the helm and lockdown returning to at least one country on Monday, Bitcoin looks poised to benefit from oil and fiat currency weakness, as before.

As Cointelegraph reported, previous extreme volatility in the price of certain oil assets allowed BTC to shine as a hedge against losses.

Another week, another meeting for the United States Federal Reserve and a chance for safe havens to capitalize on its policy shifts.

On Wednesday, the Fed will outline how it plans to implement economic measures which will impact inflation something which previously sparked dollar weakness.

Maintaining a policy status quo in this context would be akin to throwing in a towel, which would undermine the credibility of the new framework right out of the gate, Aneta Markowska, chief financial economist at Jefferies told MarketWatch on Monday.

Any actions from the Fed could weigh on the U.S. dollar currency index (DXY) once again, something to which Bitcoin has shown significant inverse correlation since July.

Gold markets are already considering the likelihood of a shake-up, analysts say, betting on the Fed putting itself in an increasingly difficult position. The precious metal has formed a golden triangle and is ripe for a breakout.

For Bitcoin, its all about DXY a reversal of recent strength at the beginning of September would be a clear bull signal. Conversely, continued gains would likely keep selling pressure at $10,500 intact.

DXY 2-month chart. Source: TradingView

The coronavirus crisis is many times more destructive than the financial crisis of 2008, Steve Barrow, head of forex strategy at Standard Bank, meanwhile summarized to Bloomberg.

Theres every reason to believe that the move to tighter monetary policy will take as long - and probably much longer -- than the post-financial-crisis period.

In terms of central bank policy specifically, this year is seeing a seismic change similar to oil demand.

With Bitcoin as an antidote to central bank meddling with the money supply, any further devaluation in fiat is only to be welcomed by BTC proponents looking for a safety net.

Global central bankers are discovering that monetary policies they once viewed as unconventional and temporary are now proving to be conventional and long-lasting, Bloomberg summarized about the situation worldwide.

According to data from the publication, major central banks are employing crisis policies in 2020 that they have never used before.

As RT host Max Keiser often comments on his show, The Keiser Report, nothing is as permanent as temporary fiscal policy from a central bank.

Within Bitcoin, however, the future looks decidedly rosy. Hash rate a measure of how much computing power miners have decided to dedicate to validating transactions has broken out to hit yet another all-time high.

On Monday, data from Blockchain shows, the seven-day average hash rate stood at 135 exahashes per second (EH/s).

Bitcoin 7-day average hash rate 2-month chart. Source: Blockchain

Hash rate strength underscores miners continued faith in Bitcoins long-term profitability. Difficulty, perhaps the most essential measure of blockchain health, is set for a 5.4% increase this week something which will send it, too, to record highs.

Commenting on the general situation, Cointelegraph Markets analyst Michal van de Poppe suggested that zooming out was all that was needed for a bullish take on Bitcoin.

If you'd like to compare periods and market cycles, the current state of the market is comparable to 2016, he tweeted on Monday.

Slow upwards grind, with long sideways consolidation periods. In 2016, several were seen. In 2020, 2021, it's likely we'll see that too. Bullish.

Cryptocurrency commentators are also eyeing moves by stablecoin Tether (USDT) as a pointer for BTC price trajectory.

Specifically, Tethers burgeoning market cap, passing $15 billion in recent days, has historically spurred Bitcoin gains.

Bitcoin tether printer divergence. This story always seems to end the same way, analyst Cole Garner tweeted, highlighting how previous increases in the USDT supply positively impacted Bitcoin.

As Cointelegraph previously reported, stablecoin holders, including those of USDT, appeared keen to snap up cheap BTC at prices around $10,000.

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Fed, oil and record hash rate: 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week - Cointelegraph

On September 16, the Bitcoin Unlimited development team launched a new application called Votepeer. The software is powered by the Bitcoin Cash network and allows anyone to set up a transparent two-option voting process.

This week a couple of Bitcoin Unlimited (BU) developers released a new voting protocol called Votepeer. BU software engineers, Dagur and Jrgen Svennevik Notland, revealed the initial version of Votepeer, which can be located at the website voter.cash.

Votepeer is powered by Bitcoin Cash and allows anyone to easily set up a two-option vote using the simple and transparent voting protocol, the project announcement details. Participating, verifying, and tallying can be done through the SPV (Simple Payment Verification) technology in use in most bitcoin cash wallets and therefore does not require a full node.

The announcement published on the bitcoin cash (BCH) powered blogging platform read.cash, explains that the new release concludes the initial phase of BUIP129. During the second phase, BU developers will study more in order to make anonymous voting possible.

The third phase of the project is to build the technology into an easy-to-use app and release it publicly for general use, the announcement notes.

Hopefully, we can make online elections safer, Jrgen Svennevik Notland said. We are currently in research and development mode, open-sourcing our tools and apps as they mature, and a paper. Our current research item is to figure out how to make the election process in the two-option Voterpeer smart-contract anonymous.

The developer also detailed that individuals who are interested in contributing to Votepeer can reach out via Keybase.io. The engineers also said that the team released voter.cash now so the project can locate partners who will benefit from this type of voting technology.

We look forward to all the interesting ways the cryptocurrency community can use this technology to supercharge their governance processes, the BU devs concluded.

On social media and crypto oriented forums, BCH proponents seemed to like the Voterpeer project and the blockchain voting concept. The release comes 47 days prior to the U.S. Presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden on November 3. Already, thanks to the vast number of mail-in ballots this year due to Covid-19, many Americans think the vote will be an utter calamity.

A few members of the BCH community discussed governments leveraging a platform that utilizes blockchain technology. Meanwhile, a few other crypto supporters recommended ideas to the BU team that could allow the protocol to execute building out a multi-choice voting process.

What do you think about the Votepeer project released by BU software developers? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

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Bitcoin Unlimited Launches Two-Option Voting App Powered by Bitcoin Cash | Technology - Bitcoin News

Youve probably seen the comic posted in one of the many online crypto communities; an adaptation of a popular Reddit meme. A jolly little character offers up two games, one adventurous, the other challenging.

His friend asks about a third option.

When you play that game, the first little guy replies, days will blur together. Regular meals are a thing of the past. Friends will become concerned. And the whole time youll be unsure if youre even having fun.

That third game is, of course, Bitcoin.

That comic is familiar to those of us in the crypto industry. From traders staying up until the early hours, to crypto journalists working day and night to cover the fast-growing space, we all relate to it and thats why it makes us laugh.

But what is it about Bitcoin that initially grabs us and sends us down the rabbit hole? Why do these lines of code reach out of the computer screen, grab our imaginations and pull us in?

During four interviews, with diehard Bitcoiners, Decrypt identified some common traits: a dislike for authority, with a political stance that leans towards libertarianism. But while they revel in Bitcoins attributes as a hedge against inflation, or its security, it wasnt those factors that initially drew them in. Rather, it was the moment they first used Bitcoin or were able to visualise it, that flicked a subliminal switch. So, while the current narratives are important, what gets us obsessed with Bitcoin is something a little more intimate.

On a day in September 2015, David Bennett, senior administrator at the Texas Tech University, felt confined.

He was at work in his cubicle, lit by a lamp instead of the overhead fluorescent lights that were never turned on. The office was so buried in the middle of the gray, chunky concrete building that was the universitys library, he couldnt even hear it when it rainedan event that, in the southern end of the High Plains desert landscape, would typically bring everyone running to the windows.

Bennett looked at his monitor. He was just about to send 0.2 Bitcoin, worth $80, from his Coinbase account to Jack Spirko of the Survival Podcast, so he could become a member. He had heard about Bitcoin online a few years ago, but it was only from listening to these podcasts that he was starting to learn more. He popped in Spirkos address and hit send.

It quickly dawned on him that there were so many things he hadnt done. He hadnt put in his bank account details, his home address, his telephone number. He hadnt authorised someone to take payments from his account. There would be no phoning the bank up to complain that further scam payments had been taken from his account. That was it, done.

He felt liberated.

That started the whole trip down the rabbit hole, he told Decrypt. I sat back. I didnt say anything then, but later told my co-workers about Bitcoin.

Bennett soon became a regular listener of Bitcoin educator Andreas Antonopoulos as well as Trace Mayers weekly Bitcoin Knowledge podcast. Finding himself ill-content with just one podcast episode every week, he set up his own called Bitcoin and where he discusses news on a daily basis.

To this day, he continues to maintain that Bitcoin is a weapon, but, in the words of Parallax Digital CEO Robert Breedlove, one for peace.

It was a cold day in late October, 2019, when Phil Gibson, a software salesman, drove home for his lunch hour. His friend had convinced him to buy a range of altcoins, such as the Brave browsers Basic Attention Token and business-focused Syscoin, on crypto exchange Binance. Only the friend had warned him to get a VPN first.

Standing at the kitchen table with his laptop out, Gibson tried paying for NordVPN. But his debit card refused to work, flagging an error message. He tried his credit card. Still no dice. He got on the phone to his bank, to find out what was going on. While he was waiting on hold, it dawned on him that it was probably to do with what he was buying. The customer service assistant came back on and confirmed his suspicions.

Gibson was angry that the bank was banning him from spending his money how he wanted. He ignored the idea of calling his local branch and looked for another way. He noticed the VPN provider accepted Bitcoin, so he took out CashApp, bought Bitcoin and paid for the VPN directly.

Once I saw that it worked, it was just amazing, he said. Bitcoin is FU moneyits a hell of a drug.

While he had heard about Bitcoin in 2017 during its epic run to $20,000, this was the moment he truly understood its value. It slotted straight into his libertarian-leaning beliefs and he started binging Bitcoin information, such as the Bitcoin audible podcast by Guy Swann.

But there was one thing about Bitcoin thatunlike the fiat money he had in his bank accountreally resonated with him.

Its mine, he said. Even if I sound like Gollum.

Economics student Marty Bent was sitting alone in the library of DePaul University in Chicago, one evening in the summer of 2012. Outside of his evening classes, he had spent the day working at a managed futures fund where he wrote almost exclusively about central banks and monetary policy. With his anti-authority bent, it was clear to him that governments were getting it all wrong.

I was pretty glued to what the central banks were doing for three to four years. In the depths of QE2, QE3, Operation Twist, I quickly learned the central banks didnt really have any idea of what they were doing, he said, referring to examples of quantitative easing and bond buying by the Federal Reserve.

In that moment, he wasnt studying for his economics lessons the next evening, nor was he preparing for the next days commentary at his day job. Instead, he was on BitcoinTalk, poring over everything there was to know about Bitcoin.

Bent said, I was reading up on Bitcoin and getting a better understanding of the technology and the monetary policies behind itand it sort of clicked.

Bent soon started making Twitter lists of prominent Bitcoiners to keep track of what was going on. In the winter of 2013, he used his bonus check to buy his first Bitcoin for $800. Soon after that, it shot up to $1,200 and, driven by the feeling of euphoria, he was suddenly telling his coworkers all about it.

Bent now writes a daily newsletter called Marty's ent and is host of the Tales from the Crypt podcast. Both of which are focused, as you might expect, on Bitcoin.

In early 2017, Robert Breedlove was in his home office in Las Vegas, reading a paper on his iMac. Breedlove was a libertarian who had long wondered about moneywhat it was, and why governments had a monopoly on it. He had read a book called The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, and one Christmas, he had even handed out copies of an abridged versioncalled Dishonest Moneyto his family.

So, its unsurprising that, at that very moment, he was reading Nick Szabos explanation of smart contracts, a technology for coding agreements between two parties. Breedlove had known about Bitcoin for several years but it was at this moment, when he finally got what it was for.

When i read Nick Szabos work on smart contractswhich was actually written in the late 90sthat was when I had my lightbulb moment, he said. Oh my gosh, this whole finance industry is basically this intermediate function that could be disrupted by smart contracts.

It was Szabos example of a vending machine that struck him. A canonical real-life example, which we might consider to be the primitive ancestor of smart contracts, is the humble vending machine, Szabo wrote.

At that moment, Breedlove could visualize how Bitcoin or Ethereum could play the part of the vending machine, removing the need for the legacy finance industrywhile rivalling state-backed fiat currencies. Thats when I realised that the tech was really going to be a big deal, he said.

He soon came to believe that it was Bitcoin that had the strongest foundation to disrupt the concept of money. After reading The Bitcoin Standard, by Saifedean Ammous, he devoured books by economists Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard and Friedrich Hayek. He went on to become the CEO of Parallax Digital, which invests in Bitcoin-focused products, and has written a 62-tweet-long thread that sheds light on Bitcoin in an exoteric nutshell.

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Why We Get Obsessed With Bitcoin - Decrypt