cardano rust github

Rust implementation of Cardano primitives, helpers, and related applications
Cardano Rust is a modular toolbox of Cardano’s cryptographic primitives, a library of wallet functions and a future alternative Cardano node implementation written in Rust. It can be used by any third-party to build wallet applications and interact with the Cardano blockchain.

coindesk

Seismic shifts are happening in the world of enterprise blockchain.

Announced Monday, the Hyperledger Project and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) have agreed to collaborate on bringing common standards to the blockchain space and cross-pollinate a wider open-source community.

This joining of forces is notable as EEA and Hyperledger represent two of the three largest and arguably most influential enterprise blockchain communities, the third being the R3 Corda ecosystem.

If the team-up succeeds in creating common standards between the two platforms, it could sway enterprises previously on the fence to build their blockchains on one or the other, since the risk of creating new silos that don't talk to other systems is being addressed.

As EEA executive director Ron Resnick told CoinDesk:

"The enterprises of the world are going to want to purchase solutions where they have a choice of multiple vendors."

Further, for Hyperledger's 200 member organizations, there is now the promise of interacting with tokens and smart contracts on the ethereum public chain.

Stepping back, Hyperledger was founded as an umbrella organization – cast in the image of the Linux Foundation – for open source blockchain development, comprising a number of protocols designed specifically for enterprises. Meanwhile, the 500-member EEA is a standards organization looking to build private or permissioned businesses applications on the foundations of the public ethereum blockchain.

But over time, there has been growing support for ethereum within Hyperledger. Formalizing that convergence, the new alliance "will enable Hyperledger developers to write code that conforms to the EEA specification and certify them through EEA certification testing programs expected to launch in the second half of 2019," the organizations said in a blog post published Monday.

Brian Behlendorf, Hyperledger's executive director, told CoinDesk that the EEA's work on standards and attempt to align a whole universe of different vendors into a common enterprise picture is very complementary to Hyperledger.

"It's a two-way street. There's not a lot of groups effectively doing standards in the blockchain space today and EEA has a head start there. What can we contribute to that momentum?" said Behlendorf.

He said both groups can now work on a reference implementation (a software standard from which all other implementations and corresponding customizations are derived). "We think that doing that as a project or a lab at Hyperledger would be interesting," he said.

Building bridges
Illustrating how the Hyperledger community had already been moving in an ethereum-friendly direction: earlier this year Sawtooth (a codebase contributed to Hyperledger by Intel) added support for the ethereum virtual machine (EVM) as a transaction processor. This made it possible to bring smart contracts developed for the public ethereum blockchain over to Sawtooth-based networks.

That effort, dubbed "Seth," is now in active use, and gathering some momentum. Sawtooth proponent Dan Middleton was recently elected chairman of Hyperledger's technical steering committee and Seth awaits "conformance testing to the EEA specification as soon as possible," according to the joint statement by Hyperledger and EEA.

Meanwhile, EVM work is also now underway with Fabric, arguably Hyperledger's flagship protocol.

This work, which will start to really come to the fore in Fabric 1.3, aims to allow users to run ethereum smart contracts and also be able to have ERC-20 and ERC-721 (the standards that gave rise to ICOs and CryptoKitties, respectively) as the token model on Fabric, as currently is the case on Sawtooth.

Behlendorf said he keeps an open mind about how these architectures might evolve. "I think in the long term the benefits of one accrue to the other," he said in reference to Sawtooth and Fabric. "Whether that means they and other frameworks will merge together or specialize, it's still an open book."

Working on common standards and building bridges between communities would seem to pave the way to some future state of interoperability – an often talked-of ideal in the blockchain world.

"I do think that interoperability between ledgers will happen at a much higher level in the stack than most people expect," explained Behlendorf. In other words, building common standards and data formats, rather than monkeying with complex consensus protocols, will link use cases in a multi-chain universe.

As well as the working with the EVM, Hyperledger developers also want to keep a close eye on decisions being taken within the ethereum community around using WebAssembly, a coding standard for web pages, to potentially make the next generation of the public blockchain protocol more JavaScript-orientated.

"We are tracking this very closely in Burrow [a third Hyperledger implementation] and in Sawtooth and would like to be there as soon as they make that call," said Behlendorf.

South China Morning Post

An argument between staff at a cashless supermarket in northern China and an elderly man who did not know how to use his smartphone to buy a bunch of grapes has revived calls for help for those left behind in the digital economy.

The 67-year-old man, identified only by his surname Xie, tried to use cash to buy the fruit at a supermarket in Jixi, Heilongjiang province, on Sunday, video news site Pear Video reported.

Checkout workers rejected the money and insisted that he use his phone to pay via either WeChat Pay or Alipay, prompting the argument, according to the video.

Alipay is owned by Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post.

“I’ll leave if you don’t take the cash,” Xie said in the clip.

“Well, leave if you can,” the cashier replied.

As China goes increasingly cashless, PBOC says cash payment is still alive
Xie took the grapes and approached the door but was stopped by security guards.

“I know it’s not right to leave without paying,” Xie said. “But I have real yuan in my hands. It’s not fake money. Why are you humiliating this old man for not knowing how to use WeChat?”

A security guard later helped Xie process the payment with cash, the report said.

New York Times
The giant retailer will begin requiring lettuce and spinach suppliers to contribute to a blockchain database that can rapidly pinpoint contamination.

When dozens of people across the country got sick from eating contaminated romaine lettuce this spring, Walmart did what many grocers would do: It cleared every shred off its shelves, just to be safe.

Walmart says it now has a better system for pinpointing which batches of leafy green vegetables might be contaminated. After a two-year pilot project, the retailer announced on Monday that it would be using a blockchain, the type of database technology behind Bitcoin, to keep track of every bag of spinach and head of lettuce.

By this time next year, more than 100 farms that supply Walmart with leafy green vegetables will be required to input detailed information about their food into a blockchain database developed by I.B.M. for Walmart and several other retailers exploring similar moves.

The burgeoning blockchain industry has generated a great deal of buzz, investment and experimentation. Central banks are exploring whether it would be good for tracking money flows. Eastman Kodak has explored a blockchain platform that could help photographers manage their collections and record ownership of their work, while a group of reporters and investors are using the technology to start a series of news publications.

But essentially the only real-world uses have come from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, which use their own blockchains to store transactions. Walmart is now trying to bring blockchain into the lexicon of everyday consumers.

“It is the first real instance of doing this at scale,” said Brigid McDermott, vice president of I.B.M. Blockchain.

There has been a BIP (https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0322.mediawiki) made regarding a generic message signing format. Such a format would be able to be used for segwit, non-segwit, and any future changes. It is still being actively discussed however, so it probably won't go into Core or any other wallet software anytime soon.

Purpose: ProveFunds
The "ProveFunds" purpose generates a sighash and a scriptPubKey from a transaction, an output index, and a message. For multiple simultaneous proofs, it also requires access to the ordered list of proofs. It emits a VALID verification result code unless otherwise stated.

Let txid be the transaction ID of the transaction, and vout be the output index corresponding to the index of the output being spent
Return INVALID if the txid:vout pair already exists in `inputs` set, otherwise insert it
Return SPENT if the txid/vout is not a valid UTXO according to a Bitcoin node[3]
Extract scriptPubKey from transaction output
Define the message pre-image as the concatenation of the following components:[4]
the string "POF:"
the message, encoded in UTF-8 using Normalization Form Compatibility Decomposition (NFKD), including the null terminating character (i.e. write strlen(message) + 1 bytes, for a C string)
all transactions being proven for, as binary txid (little endian uint256) followed by index (little endian uint32), each separated by a single `0x00` byte
Let sighash = sha256(sha256(scriptPubKey || pre-image)

Would this function be for exchanges and large funds? I found it rather confusing. Could it serve to prove the funds that my account in the exchange says to have?

Would it be useful in a possible negotiation where I could prove that gathered several wallets, I would have funds to buy certain asset without the need to show all my public addresses?

Compound, the Coinbase and Andreessen Horowitz funded startup, launches its money market protocol for shorting cryptocurrencies or lending them to earn interest

Think Ethereum and other crypto coins are overvalued? Now you can make money when their prices fall via Compound, which is launching its money market protocol for shorting cryptocurrencies today. The Coinbase and Andreessen Horowitz-funded startup today opens its simple web interface allowing users to borrow and short Ethereum, 0x’s ZRX, Brave’s BAT, and Augur’s REP token, or lend them through Compound to earn interest.

Compound’s protocol isn’t just useful for crypto haters, or HODLers who want to generate interest instead of just having their coins gathering dust in a wallet.  “If/when Compound scales, this will lead to some really interesting improvements in market structure, namely, fairer prices” Compound CEO Robert Leshner tells me.



The startup spent the summer completing a security audit by Trail Of Bits and adding 26 hedge fund partners who will trade with Compound, offering liquidity to independent investors looking to be matched with borrowers or lenders. Next, the startup wants to offer a stablecoin on its protocol, bring in big financial institutions to add even more liquidity, and partner with a wallet provider to make signup faster.


https://app.compound.finance/
 

Coinbase adds Coinbase Bundle, a new offering that lets users buy a market-weighted sampling of its 5 available cryptocurrencies, for as little as $25

Coinbase  is shaking things up quite a bit lately and its latest tools are geared toward cryptocurrency traders just getting their toes wet.

On Thursday, the company announced that it would add a feature called Coinbase Bundle. The new offering lets users purchase a market-weighted sampling of Coinbase’s five available cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ethereum Classic. The idea is that a bundle of coins offers users a starter pack for cryptocurrency trading on the platform with stakes of their choosing. In reality, until Coinbase adds more coins, it’s not exactly a diversified portfolio so much as a slightly counterbalanced selection of Coinbase’s current limited offerings.

In June, Coinbase introduced index funds targeted toward institutional investors in the U.S. While those funds required an investment between $250,000 and $20 million, Coinbase Bundle is geared toward the casual individual investor with bundles that start at $25. For beginning traders that prefer to follow rather than beat the market, betting on broad growth over time, a product like Coinbase Bundle makes sense. Or rather it will when Coinbase adds a lot more coins.

Users who buy a Coinbase Bundle can expect to see the funds appear in their wallet like normal. There, the funds will behave like separate assets that can be sold and sent elsewhere.

Beyond bundles, Coinbase is also launching a few educational cryptocurrency tools geared toward anyone still learning the ropes. The first of those tools is Coinbase Asset Pages, the company’s own CoinMarketCap-like database where anyone can view details about the top 50 coins by market cap, whether they’re listed by Coinbase or not.


Like other resources, Coinbase’s new tool will provide “historic trading data, current market cap, a description of the cryptocurrency, and links to relevant white papers and project websites.” Unlike other resources, Coinbase artificially lists its own offerings at the top rather than depicting those coins where they actually fall in terms of market cap.

Coinbase is also launching a dedicated learning hub on its site where new users can browse topics like “What is blockchain?” and “Where do cryptocurrencies get their value?” — in many cases, a good question. Given Coinbase’s appeal to brand-new users, it’s kind of surprising that this didn’t already exist. Particularly that it wasn’t implemented late last year when many wide-eyed investors bought it at all-time highs and were handed big losses in the months to come.

After mainstream interest in digital currencies cooled from the fever-dream highs of late 2017, making Coinbase’s famously user-friendly entry point into the cryptocurrency world even more approachable for first-time buyers, if many remain, can’t hurt. The company is also clearly readying for its plan to list coins well beyond its current limited offerings, a transformation that will see the platform evolve from its historical identity as a blue chip stock shop to something more akin to digital currency’s attractive, well-lit corner store.

Coinbase’s new top 50 asset pages and learning hub are live now. Coinbase Bundles, limited to the U.S. and Europe, will start showing up for users today, and the rollout will continue through the next few weeks.

today

A large number of ICOs have a reputation of worthless projects which do not have anything apart from a whitepaper. According to a new report by Diar, it is perfectly reflected in their price as tokens struggle to keep their initial price, while 30 percent of ICOs are not listed on a single exchange.   
Going underwater
According to the abovementioned report, 70 percent of crypto tokens that didn’t make it to the top 100 currencies on CoinMarketCap fail to meet investors’ expectations, plunging below their initial value. At the same time, more than 30 percent of ICOs that were launched in 2017-2018 are not listed on any cryptocurrency exchange. Some developers behind these unlisted tokens even failed to provide the information about the distribution of token supply while raking in over $1 bln. Among these tokens, which have almost zero liquidly, there are some big-name projects in the likes of Bancor that raised a whopping $150 mln this February.     

As U.Today has already reported, over 800 ICOs have already gone bust in just 18 months. Meanwhile, it is widely speculated that the dwindling interest in ICOs is inextricably connected to the plunging Ethereum price.

coindesk

Bitmain, the Beijing-based cryptocurrency mining giant, has officially filed an application to go public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX).

Published on Wednesday, Bitmain's long-awaited initial public offering (IPO) prospectus follows various news reports that the mining giant has been mulling a Hong Kong listing for a multi-billion dollar public fundraising. The process has not been without its share of controversy, with major firms denying their role in a pre-IPO funding phase in a development that cast doubt on the company.

As the application is still in draft form and pending further listing hearings from the HKEX, it remains unclear how much the firm will be valued at eventually. As shown in the posted application, a number of details remain redacted, including the number of shares that will be offered and the timetable for the public offering.

Still, the prospectus gives insight into Bitmain's financial standing as well as the company's structure and inner workings.

According to the filing, the firm made a total of $2,517,719,000 in revenue in 2017, a major increase from the $277,612,000 in revenue it generated over the course of 2016. As of June 30 this year, Bitmain has made $2,845,467,000 in revenue.

Of that revenue, Bitmain grossed profits of $1,212,750,000 last year and $1,030,151,000 for the first half of 2018, up from $151,351,000 over 2016. Before taxes, the numbers were $137,750,000 in 2016, $897,376,000 in 2017 and $907,792,000 for the first half of 2018.

CoinDesk previously reported Bitmain's profits have surged significantly year-on-year, which jumped from $100 million in 2016 to $1.1 billion in 2017 and $1.1 billion in Q1 2018, based on documents obtained by CoinDesk.

The prospectus states that, after adjusting for costs and expenses, Bitmain's net profits were $48.6 million in 2015, $113.5 million in 2016, $952.5 million in 2017 and $952.1 million in Q2 2018.

Bitmain also reported an $886.9 million balance of cryptocurrencies denominated in bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether, litecoin and dash as of June 30 after factoring in a net loss of $102.7 million over the last 6 months, more than 10 times the net losses on previous years of holdings.

This accounted for 28 percent of its total assets so far this year, the document stated without breaking down a coin-by-coin allocation. Cryptocurrency holdings were previously valued at $56.3 million and $872.6 million, or 30 percent of assets, by the end of 2016 and 2017, respectively.

CNBC

The cryptocurrency industry has a plea for Congress: Hurry up and regulate, please.

More than 50 industry participants gathered on Capitol Hill for a roundtable discussion hosted by Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, Tuesday. Although attendees varied, none were from anti-establishment groups popular in the cryptocurrency space, nor did they include retail investors who bought bitcoin as a speculative bet.

 Right now our langauge is sloppy calling everything cryptocurrency, says congressman Warren Davidson   Right now our language for cryptocurrency is 'sloppy', says Congressman Warren Davidson 
7:09 AM ET Tue, 25 Sept 2018 | 04:36
Instead, experts from Fidelity, Nasdaq, State Street, Andreessen Horowitz, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filled a room in the Library of Congress. There, they politely but firmly addressed what they deemed unsolved issues as Davidson prepares to introduce a related bill this fall.

"We all want a fair and orderly markets, we want all the same things regulators do," said Mike Lempres, chief policy officer at San Francisco-based Coinbase. "It doesn't have to be done in the same way it was done in the past, and we need to be open to that."

A recurring complaint was the idea of applying a 72-year-old securities law to digital currencies. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission uses what's known as the "Howey Test," which comes from a 1946 U.S. Supreme Court decision, to determine whether or not a cryptocurrency is a security. SEC Chairman Jay Clayton has made it clear that he does not intend to update those standards to cater to crypto.

Carla Carriveau, senior regulatory counsel at crypto finance firm Circle, who worked at the SEC for more than a decade, said the agency could clarify existing laws and make exemptions, but it would take moves by Congress to make a real impact.

"Congress has to act because the SEC has said what they thought was right, and already did what they thought they needed to do," Carriveau said.


In the meantime, the group told stories of companies scrambling to interpret whether their initial coin offerings, or ICOs, are compliant. Because some have a "utility" use case, founders argued they should be exempt from securities laws, and instead be considered a commodity regulated by the CFTC. The SEC still treats all initial coin offerings, except for ethereum and bitcoin, as securities.

Panelists mentioned a "chilling effect" that uncertainty can have on U.S. innovation if companies are afraid of misinterpreting laws.

"If the rules are unclear, unwritten, or unknown it's not appropriate to punish people for making the wrong guess," said David Forman, chief legal officer at Fidelity Investments.

The SEC has cracked down on those who made moves it deemed wrong. Consumer protection has been a focus for the agency and while some ICOs have been proven to be outright frauds, others have been prosecuted for less egregious violations, like not registering with the agency.

Global exodus
Since bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not backed by a government, founders have fewer constraints on where to start their projects. One fear that at least half of attendees mentioned is that if the U.S. cracks down too hard, or fails to give clarity, founders will flock to more crypto-friendly jurisdictions overseas.

"The competition around the world is real. But there is still time and opportunity for the U.S. to be a leader here," said Joyce Lai, a lawyer at blockchain software technology company Consensys, which she said now employs more than 1,000 people globally.

Cryptocurrencies have already raised a record $12 billion so far this year, according to data firm Autonomous Next. Jesse Powell, co-founder and CEO of crypto exchange Kraken, highlighted the advantage of being able to freely raise capital.

"Foreign companies are able to outraise their U.S. competitors and often whoever raises the most money is who wins," Powell said. "Not only are U.S. companies not able to raise enough to compete globally, U.S. investors are not able to invest in these global companies."

Reaching across the aisle
Despite four hours of discussions, a cryptocurrency bill from Congress is "not a cooked thing," Davidson said. Tuesday's panel was mostly for listening to the industry about what to include before it's drafted and introduced, the congressman said. Still, he said moving quickly was "imperative."

"Legitimate players in the industry have a desire for some sort of certainty so we can prevent and prosecute fraud," Davidson said. "I'm confident we can move forward and make this a flourishing market in the U.S. It's an imperative for us to do, we did it well with the internet."

A few panelists were emboldened by the possibility of the bipartisan effort behind crypto. Reps. Ted Budd, R-N.C., Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and Darren Soto, D-Fla were among the Congressional representatives attending the hearing.

"We need to get moving on this now, there's no time for delay," said Emmer, who has introduced multiple blockchain bills to Congress. Blockchain is the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies, and is being applied to everything from storing health care records, to tracking vegetables that carry E. coli.

Soto agreed with his Republican colleagues, but went even further, suggesting that Congress may need to throw out the current playbook for cryptocurrency.

"I'm sensing we may need an entirely new category that treats this like a new asset, so that we're not trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole," Soto said. "There needs to be some streamlining based on the definitions of digital assets."

Bloomberg

 Seba raises $104 million from private, institutional investors
 Company in talks with Swiss financial regulator since April
Seba Crypto AG, a Swiss financial services company run by ex-UBS Group AG bankers, said it raised money as it seeks to become one of the world’s first regulated banks and let consumers trade fiat money into cryptocurrency.

The Zug-headquartered company said it secured 100 million Swiss francs ($104 million) from private and institutional investors for the venture, which is dependent on being granted a banking license from Finma, the Swiss financial regulator.

Coinbase’s new asset listing process will geo-restrict some coins
Coinbase now accepting applications

Coinbase is moving away from its predominantly US-centric approach with a new cryptocurrency listing process.

As a result, some new digital assets won’t be available to customers based in the US due to stricter regulations.

The popular cryptocurrency exchange announced today that it will be assessing coins based on their compliance with local laws.

Oh, and if you thought you can use a VPN or some other computer trickery to get around these restrictions, you’ll be unsuccessful. Coinbase makes coins available to users based on where accounts are registered.

Coins must satisfy Coinbase’s new seven step process to be listed on the exchange.

Up until now, Coinbase used to seek out cryptocurrencies to list on its exchange. However, with the revised approach will allow token issuers to approach Coinbase and apply for listing themselves.

Currently, Coinbase seeks out cryptocurrencies to list on its exchange. However, this new process will allow coins to approach Coinbase and apply for listing. > Up until now, Coinbase used to seek out cryptocurrencies to list on its exchange. However, with the revised approach will allow token issuers to approach Coinbase and apply for listing themselves.

For the record, the San Francisco-based exchange has long been teasing the arrival of a bunch of coins to its platform. Back in March, the company revealed it’s looking to expand its offering with more Ethereum-based (ERC20) tokens.

More recently, Coinbase revealed plans to add 37 new assets to its Custody platform.

https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/cboebzx/2018/34-84231.pdf

As of September 19, 2018, the Commission has received more than 1,400 comment letters on the proposed rule change

Interested persons are invited to submit written data, views, and arguments regarding
whether the proposal should be approved or disapproved by [insert date 21 days from publication
in the Federal Register]. Any person who wishes to file a rebuttal to any other person’s
submission must file that rebuttal by [insert date 35 days from publication in the Federal
Register].
Comments may be submitted by any of the following methods:
Electronic comments:
 Use the Commission’s Internet comment form (http://www.sec.gov/rules/sro.shtml); or
 Send an e-mail to rule-comments@sec.gov. Please include File Number SR-CboeBZX2018-040
on the subject line.

What do you think about? It is clear that there is a great opportunity there. But I do not know exactly what is going on. It will crash to 5600 or go up to 7100?

BBC

Bitcoin and other digital currencies are a "Wild West industry" and need to be regulated to protect investors, a committee of MPs has urged.

Problems include volatile prices, minimal consumer protection and risks of hacking and money-laundering, says the Treasury Committee.

The committee said there were no well-functioning crypto-currencies and preferred to call them "crypto-assets".

It urged City watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority to supervise them.

At present, the FCA has no power to regulate either the issuers of these assets or the exchanges on which they are traded.

"Crypto-asset investors are currently afforded very little protection from the litany of risks. Namely, there are no formal mechanisms for consumer redress, nor compensation," said the committee.

There are now more than 1,500 varieties of crypto-asset being traded on about 190 exchanges around the world.

Prices have soared and crashed alarmingly. In 2017, the price of a Bitcoin rocketed to nearly £15,000 before losing two-thirds of its value in just a few months.

Crypto-fundraising schemes, known as Initial Coin Offerings, have posed challenges for regulators around the world.

As the government and regulators decide whether the current Wild West situation is allowed to continue, or whether they are going to introduce regulation, consumers remain unprotected," said the Treasury Committee.

Nicky Morgan, who chairs the committee, said: "It's unsustainable for the government and regulators to bumble along issuing feeble warnings to potential investors, yet refrain from acting.

"At a minimum, regulation should address consumer protection and anti-money-laundering."

CryptoUK, which was set up in February as a self-regulatory body for the crypto-currency industry, said it welcomed the Treasury Committee's recommendations.

Iqbal Gandham, who chairs it, said: "Self-regulation by the industry was always intended to be a starting point - this must now be matched by government action.

"Regulatory oversight is essential to ensuring consumer safety, guarding against malpractice and providing much needed clarity to an industry that is fast maturing.

"It is therefore pleasing that the committee has endorsed our suggestion on how this can be delivered, by bringing responsibility within the FCA's perimeter of oversight."

http://www.businesscloud.co.uk

Bitcoin will lose 50 per cent of its cryptocurrency market share to Ethereum within five years, according to an influential tech expert and business analyst.

Ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, began a price recovery on Friday after being hit hard with a major sell-off in recent weeks.

Bitcoin – the biggest digital currency – had also been in decline, but it bounced back quicker than its nearest competitor. Indeed, Ethereum had crashed 85 per cent overall this year.

However, Ethereum regained ground late last week, jumping almost 14 per cent after its most recent plunge, only find itself trading again 10 per cent lower once more in the past 24 hours.

“Turbulence is a regular, and sometimes welcome, feature of the crypto sector.  Therefore, the Ethereum rebound was, and is, inevitable,” said Ian Mcloed, who established art-tech agency Thomas Crown Art with renowned art dealer Stephen Howes.

“But not only do we think it will rebound considerably before the end of 2018, I believe that over the longer time it will significantly dent Bitcoin’s dominance.

“In fact, I think we can expect Bitcoin to lose 50 per cent of its cryptocurrency market share to Ethereum, its nearest rival, within five years.

“Ethereum offers more uses and solutions than Bitcoin, and it’s backed with superior blockchain technology.

“This is why we use Ethereum’s blockchain in our art business.  It has allowed us to create a system to use artworks as a literal store of value; it becomes a cryptocurrency wallet. 

 “It also solves authenticity and provenance issues – essential in the world of art.  All our works of art are logged on the Ethereum’s blockchain with a unique ‘smART’ contract.”

Howes explained: “Using this cutting-edge technology, the art world can eradicate one of its biggest and most expensive problems – forgery – and can protect artists, galleries, and private owners and collectors.”

Venture



Ukey Card

We’re still at the beginning of the blockchain and crypto journey, and making it easier to store and use cryptocurrencies through common platforms and devices will be essential to mainstream adoption.

With that in mind, Biometrically secured hardware wallet solution provider Unikeys has announced its hardware wallet, the UKey card, which introduces fingerprint technology to secure users’ cryptocurrencies in a familiar form factor: a credit card-style device.

Hardware wallets aren’t new, but they usually take the form of a USB key that requires a connection to a computer or tablet device for storage and retrieval of digital assets. And software wallets, while popular, are vulnerable to hacks.

So what makes the UKey card different?

A smart hardware wallet, it offers three-factor authentication by introducing patented biometric security to a design that looks like a regular credit card. In partnership with French smartcard designer MeReal Biometrics, Unikeys has included a fingerprint sensor that lets users store biometric data without ever exposing that information to the internet or storing it with a third party.

“The UKey card is a cold wallet,” Unikeys CEO and cofounder Alexandre Tabbakh told me. “Cold storage wallets refer to any type of wallet that is independent of any internet connections (paper wallets, brain wallets, or hardware wallets), like physical devices that safely store and isolate private keys.”

The card only works after successfully authenticating a registered fingerprint, and it has various failsafes and backup procedures built in for emergency access. The UKey card is compatible with all Apple and Android phones and tablets via NFC and Bluetooth functions, and it supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, ERC20 Tokens, and the Unikeys Token.

The design works independently from the smartphone, which adds an extra layer of protection for budding cryptocurrency holders.

“With the UKey card, the private keys are isolated inside the card and can only be utilized to sign transactions through an accurate fingerprint authentication,” Tabbakh said. “Even if the user’s phone gets hacked, the hacker won’t be able to retrieve the private keys.”

With a commonly accepted design and three-factor security, Unikeys hopes to make cryptocurrencies more acceptable to the masses.

“We intend to accelerate and facilitate the process for users to adopt cryptocurrencies by enabling them to use cards that are easy to use, secure, and versatile for more flexibility,” Tabbakh said. “The biometric feature also provides a sentiment of security that is needed on the card market, which is at the moment proposing very little security [for] NFC connections.”

I do not know how safe biometrics is, but I find it much more practical to use biometrics than having to always type long passwords or read them on paper.

CCN

Nasdaq, the world’s second-largest stock exchange, announced Friday that it is in the works to acquire Cinnober, a trading solution provider based in Sweden.

Cinnober has a history for bullishness towards digital assets and making it easier for institutions to invest in them. One of those efforts is the partnership with BitGo, a behemoth for institutional-grade cryptocurrency custody security. BitGo itself has built partnerships and acquisitions over its history, which have helped it firm up its mission, including the acquisition of Kingdom Trust and a partnership with the South Korea exchange Korbit.

Nasdaq: More Prepping for Cryptocurrency Trading?
Nasdaq’s latest acquisition highlights, though indirectly in this case, its taste for cryptocurrency trading. As CCN reported, on the heels of the SEC’s second rejection for the Winklevoss twins’ ETF, the Nasdaq held a closed-door meeting with cryptocurrency industry experts. In the meeting, participants discussed ways to legitimize cryptocurrencies as a traditional securities product, especially in ways to appease the fickle SEC.

Cinnober’s BitGo platform is well-suited for large institutional investors in Nasdaq. The multi-signature security and custody solution with BitGo has made it one of the most popular in the space. Nasdaq’s release points to their interest in Cinnober’s success in offering newer asset types. Adena Friedman, President and CEO, Nasdaq, said:

“The combined intellectual capital, technology competence and capabilities of Cinnober and our Market Technology business will expand the breadth and depth of our fastest growing division at Nasdaq. Not only have the global capital markets continued to evolve rapidly, new marketplaces in various industries are demanding market technology infrastructure that enables rapid growth and scale as well as access to tools to promote market integrity. This acquisition will enhance our ability to serve market infrastructure operators worldwide, and will accelerate our ability to expand into new growth segments.”

Cinnober has developed in-house solutions and technology acquisitions that make it a prime candidate for the tech-heavy Nasdaq Corporation. Cinnober’s cryptocurrency custodian service, in specific, could be one of the most coveted arms of the acquisition, as questions over custodianship have made many institutional investors leery.

Household names in finance are racing to developer regulated and clearly audited custodian solutions, including Citigroup and Bank of America.

CCN

Once again in the world of cryptocurrency, we have a mystery on our hands.

A $720 million sleeping giant has woken up after four years, with $100 million moved to Bitfinex and Binance over the course of ten days at the end of August. The bitcoin wallet contains 111,114 BTC or 0.52% of the total supply. The sudden movement of these dormant funds could have a disruptive potential in the market price action, particularly if the funds belong to one of the two possible likely candidates suggested by Reddit sleuth u/sick_silk.

The Redditor brought the movement of the funds to the attention of the crypto community by publishing a series of posts tracking each transaction in detail accompanied with graphs representing the activity.

The first post was made on 31 August and suggested that the funds may be connected to the now-defunct dark web market Silk Road which handled the trade of billions of dollars worth of contraband such as recreational and prescription drugs, illegal weapons and pornography, malware, hacking services, guides to various types of criminal activity, and other black market goods and services.

u/Sick_Silk points out:

“It seems that the owner of a huge SilkRoad related wallet is moving funds actively since 3 days, dividing it in chunks of 100 coins by subwallets.

The original wallet owned 111,114.62 BTC / BCH , which is currently valuated ~ $844M (without taking in account other #Bitcoin forks).

Last movements on these subwallets are 4 years and 5 months old (March 9th, 2014).

The chunks have been divided over time to 60,000 coins then to 30,000 / 20,000 / 10,000 / 5,000 / 500 and now 100 coins.”

Sick_Silk connected the original address to the Silk Road via the following bitcointalk thread in which user assortmentofsorts connects the dots to from an address operated by DPR (Dread Pirate Roberts AKA Ross Ulbricht, creator of the Silk Road) to the one in the Reddit post over the course of six traced transactions.

[$6.3 billion]

cointelegraph.com

Brazilian retail giant Via Varejo has partnered with blockchain payment service Airfox, according to a September 12 press release.

Via Varejo, which owns home appliance and furniture chain Casa Bahia, is integrating Airfox’s digital banking platform on its e-commerce platforms, as well as in nearly 1,000 of its offline shops.

As the press release notes, customers will be able to purchase goods in Casa Bahia by paying directly via Airfox, or will be able to use microloans provided by the retail group. Customers can also reportedly use the app for personal finance, such as depositing and withdrawing cash, at the chain’s location. 

Airfox is a mobile financial service launched in February 2018 that includes fiat and blockchain payments via its AirToken (AIR) coin, an ERC-20 based token.

The press release outlines the importance of the collaboration for mass adoption of blockchain-powered payment services, letting the Airfox “extend its mobile digital wallet to Via Varejo's national customer base and drive mainstream adoption.”

Via Varejo is one of the largest consumer electronics and home appliance retailers in Brazil, reaching 60 million customers in Brazil via its brands Casas Bahia and Pontofrio. The company owns over 900 stores in 350 Brazilian cities, reportedly making as much as 1 million deliveries per month.

According to the recent press-release, Via Varejo handled approximately $6.3 billion sales in 2017.