Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Crypto News Recap: Cryptocurrencies are in the green as Coinbase gears up for its largest expansion of crypto listings to date

Crypto News

  • About 80 representatives from large financial institutions and cryptocurrency firms met with US lawmakers in Washington yesterday and conveyed a consistent message: they need more clarity in regard to regulatory guidelines of cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings. Financial institutions made it clear that they are hesitant to enter cryptocurrency markets as they are unsure whether cryptos will be treated as securities or not. Crypto firms and startups are also unclear about how to approach compliance in regard to cryptos. Congressman Warren Davidson, the host of the event, told participants that he would begin to introduce “light touch” legislation within the next few weeks.  
  • According to a study by McAfee Labs, cryptocurrency mining malware attacks surged 86% in the second quarter of this year. The majority of attacks have been aimed at personal computers, but cryptojackers have begun to turn their attention more towards smartphones and other gadgets with internet connection. McAfee Labs notes that while crypto mining malware attacks have spiked, ransomware attacks have fallen 30% in the second quarter of 2018.  
  • Afri Schoedon, the release manager for Parity Technologies, Ethereum’s software client, caused an uproar after tweeting that, due to scaling challenges, to, “stop deploying dApps to Ethereum.” Ethereum creator, Vitalik Buterin, eventually stepped in to defend the network, but others continued to point towards other blockchains as better solutions that are “here now” and not in development.  
  • Bitcoin’s largest block ever was added to its blockchain on September 5th, 2018. While Bitcoin maintains an average block size of roughly .8MB, Bitcoin block 540107 had a size of 2.26MB, making it the largest block ever added to Bitcoin’s chain. Many are taking this as a positive sign for Bitcoin and as a sign of technological progression.  
  • Coinbase announced Tuesday that it is launching a new policy for listing new cryptocurrencies with hopes of expanding the range of assets traded on its exchange. Coinbase will replace their ad hoc review process for new coins with an online evaluation form that should streamline the process. Coinbase will also restrict certain coins from certain areas depending on which criteria they meet and do not meet in order to comply with different regions’ legal requirements.  
  • Crowd Machine, a crypto platform working to build a blockchain replacement for Amazon Web Services, may not survive after the firm was hacked. A member of the Crowd Machine team posted Saturday that the team’s crypto wallet was hacked and robbed of more than 1 billion of its native token, Crowd Machine Compute Tokens (CMCT). After the theft was announced, CMCT tanked 87% to a low of about USD$0.0019.  
  • Dell EMC Technologies is furthering its blockchain, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and cloud-compliance capabilities in order to remain the leader in India’s server market. Dell currently has the largest overall market share in India’s server market, with 28.4% of market share in 1Q2018. In an interview with the Economic Times India, Dell’s Senior Director and General Manager of its Infrastructure Solutions Group, Manish Gupta, expressed that cloud, AI, analytics, and blockchain are key to optimizing traditional servers.  
  • Joe Lubin, founder of ConsenSys and co-founder of Ethereum, believes cryptocurrencies are the most logical step in the evolution of money. Lubin believes that cryptocurrencies’ ability to reduce costs and operate without a central actor leads it to be the next logical step for currencies. In explaining his belief, Lubin cited quotes from Margaret Boden’s, “The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms” and Hernando de Soto’s, “The Mystery of Capital.”  
  • Monero (XMR) developers have patched a bug that could have allowed an attacker to “burn” funds in a user’s wallet while only sacrificing network transaction fees. The bug was discovered after users on the XMR subreddit were discussing a hypothetical attack. Monero developers have urged exchanges, merchants, and other relevant individuals or organizations to apply a new software patch. 
  • SBI Ripple Asia, a joint venture between SBI Holdings and Ripple, announced today that it has completed registration with the Kantou bureau of Japan’s Ministry of Finance to serve as a licensed agent for handling electronic payments. The new license for SBI Ripple Asia will allow the joint venture to roll out its MoneyTap payments app geared towards facilitating peer-to-peer payments for retail users over a distributed ledger. SBI Ripple Asia will initially launch MoneyTap in partnership with three domestic Japanese banks but hopes to expand to over 60 financial institutions.  
  • The blockchain developed by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, processed a massive 30,000 transactions per second (tps) in its first test on Amazon’s cloud computing network. Dubbed, “Red Belly Blockchain”, the blockchain was developed jointly between the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and the Concurrent System Research Group at the University of Sydney.  

Sources:

r/https://www.ccn.com/cryptojacking-surged-by-86-in-the-second-quarter-of-2018-mcafee-labs/ 
r/https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-firms-to-congressmen-we-need-clarity-on-blockchain-token-rules/ 
r/https://www.coindesk.com/you-wont-have-to-wait-for-this-ethereum-scaling-solution-it-works-now/ 
r/https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-current-state-of-the-bitcoin-network-and-its-biggest-block 
r/https://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-gears-up-for-biggest-ever-expansion-of-crypto-asset-listings/ 
r/https://bitcoinist.com/coinbase-teases-new-coin-listing-policy/ 
r/https://www.ccn.com/game-changer-coinbase-overhauls-cryptocurrency-listing-process/ 
r/https://cointelegraph.com/news/new-coinbase-listing-process-will-allow-exchange-to-rapidly-increase-supported-assets 
r/https://www.coindesk.com/the-crowd-machine-crypto-token-theft-what-we-know-thus-far/ 
r/https://cointelegraph.com/news/tech-giant-dell-looks-to-blockchain-to-stay-competitive-in-indian-server-market 
r/https://cointelegraph.com/news/tech-giant-dell-looks-to-blockchain-to-stay-competitive-in-indian-server-market 
r/https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/09/26/ethereum-co-founder-cryptocurrency-next-logical-step-in-evolution-of-money/ 
r/https://cointelegraph.com/news/monero-developers-have-patched-the-burning-bug 
r/https://www.coindesk.com/sbi-ripple-asia-wins-payments-license-for-blockchain-money-app/ 
r/https://www.ccn.com/australias-science-agency-scales-30000-txs-s-on-first-global-trial-of-its-red-belly-blockchain/ 


No comments:

Post a Comment