Cardano Rumor Rundown August 25, 2022

Hey Everyone!

Let’s go….

Newly Covered Today:

1. Vasil Progress today is showing 40% of blocks in Epoch 359 and 54% of Nodes reporting version 1.35.3 (Aug 24). https://pooltool.io/networkhealth
2. Apparently Tether want’s the world to know they haven’t frozen any TornadoCash related addresses. But, they’ll be happy to comply as soon as they are told to do it. https://tether.to/en/tether-holds-firm-on-decision-not-to-freeze-tornado-cash-addresses-awaits-law-enforcement-instruction/ https://twitter.com/Tether_to/status/1562468486886346753
3. It looks like MuesliSwap is now in Private Beta Mainnet for its Hybrid Dex. Vasil era dApps are starting to feel very close. https://twitter.com/MuesliSwapTeam/status/1562425751005442051
4. Coinbase is now getting in on the staking derivatives party. I wonder how much of the total delegation of ETH will end up centralized in this way. https://twitter.com/CoinbaseAssets/status/1562476695357358080
5. Congressman Emmer is formally asking Janet Yellen how OFAC can sanction something that’s not a person or an entity but just code. https://twitter.com/RepTomEmmer/status/1562084891247902721

Previously covered, but still interesting:

1. Polina Vinogradova on babel fees. https://twitter.com/timbharrison/status/1550557249868816384
2. The 3AC Founders were interviewed by Bloomberg. https://twitter.com/PastryEth/status/1550521333691387905
3. Lyn Alden makes an interesting thread about crypto being a separation of “money and state”. https://twitter.com/LynAldenContact/status/1550960304472956930
4. Here’s an article from SundaeSwap covering the perspective of a dApp team preparing for the upcoming fork. https://sundaeswap-finance.medium.com/the-vasil-hard-fork-from-a-dapp-builders-perspective-9ee454758c16
5. Elizabeth Warren and five other members of the US Congress have asked the EPA to “require reporting of energy use and emissions from cryptominers.” https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2022.07.15%20Letter%20to%20EPA%20and%20DOE%20Re%20Cryptomining%20Environmental%20Impacts.pdf
6. FutureFest is already working on a plan to have actual humans working in Cardano Metaverses. https://twitter.com/futurefestxr/status/1551607701385318400
7. There is now a “blockchain-in-a-box” project for Java devs to create blockchain solutions that Ergo, IOG, and Hyperledger have been involved in. https://twitter.com/IOHKMedia/status/1551593026568523778 https://www.bitcoininsider.org/article/176881/blockchain-tool-will-allow-java-developers-build-blockchain-solutions
8. Apparently Solana is embracing its “open for business only sometimes” history with actual physical stores. https://twitter.com/Scott_eth/status/1551539635137953793
9. While Cardano’s eras are named after historically significant figures like Voltaire, Basho, Byron, & Shelley; the Ethereum roadmap labels are more like a parody of a reproductive health class. https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1551603545752870912
10. Is security the biggest challenge facing the mass adoption of Web 3? FYEO thinks so. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1551672421769519115
11. Plutus Core programs generated from Typescript are now a thing. https://twitter.com/MicheleHarmonic/status/1551261395295080449 https://www.typescriptlang.org/
12. SpaceBudz has laid out the path to migrate to new art. https://twitter.com/spacebudzNFT/status/1552042478085308418
13. Cardano 360 will be this Thursday (July 28). https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1551968626470690816
14. Kraken apparently forgot that doing business with Iran is a hot button issue for the US government. https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-crypto-exchange-kraken-suspected-violating-sanctions-nyt-2022-07-26/
15. Senators Toomey and Sinema think you shouldn’t have to pay taxes on crypto purchases or trades under $50. https://seekingalpha.com/news/3860821-us-senators-introduce-bill-that-would-end-taxes-on-small-crypto-transactions
16. For the first time in modern history, the Federal Reserve has executed back-to-back 75 basis point hikes. https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/27/economy/fed-meeting-interest-rates-75-basis-points/index.html
17. Indigo reports that they are now feature complete! https://twitter.com/Indigo_protocol/status/1552268277438619648
18. We now have blockchain tracked clothes on Cardano. But, these shirts are expensive. https://twitter.com/OriginThread/status/1552280610923749384
19. You no longer have to dislike just Meta (Facebook) OR crypto VCs. You can now hate them both simultaneously in the form of their bastard children: Aptos & Sui. https://twitter.com/milesdeutscher/status/1552281885438488577
20. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis showed a -0.9% GDP growth print this morning (July 28). That’s two quarters in a row of negative growth which corresponds to a common definition of a recession although the National Bureau of Economic Research is considered the official arbiter of recessions and marks such events based on a wide range of economic factors analyzed over many months. https://www.bea.gov/ https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/28/economy/us-economy-second-quarter-gdp/index.html
21. The July Cardano 360 was released today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHHVaxkHFrE
22. The ADA Realm & Actum Games AMA recording is now available in discord. https://discord.com/channels/903957555083087892/913541370436808754
23. CardaStation just onboarded a game developer to their team who spent the last six years at Ubisoft working on games like Riders Republic and Ghost Recon. https://discord.com/channels/908827661504237599/909005782790586379
24. Here’s a mysterious post from Ready Player Me about some news coming from Pavia. https://twitter.com/readyplayerme/status/1552993598022508550
25. The Ledger Nano now supports 100 Cardano native tokens via Ledger Live. https://www.ledger.com/blog/ledger-expands-cardano-support-manage-100-native-tokens-with-ledger-live
26. SundaeSwap now has a monthly video development update. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc8ZCVCMcXM
27. There was a hack of the Nomad bridge for 150 million that affected several different Cardano projects and wrapped assets in Cardano. https://twitter.com/Oraclecharli3/status/1554266219787784192 https://twitter.com/samczsun/status/1554252024723546112 https://twitter.com/IagonOfficial/status/1554258785690157056 https://twitter.com/GeroWallet/status/1554264725923381248 https://twitter.com/Milkomeda_com/status/1554302195763269632
28. Charles gave us a very concise summary of what’s going on with Vasil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na09S56FwuY
29. Never forget how many people told us not to worry about the “transitory inflation”. https://twitter.com/patrickbetdavid/status/1554086521468239872
30. As I write over 18k people have signed a petition asking for the removal of Gary Gensler. https://www.change.org/p/retail-investors-fire-gary-gensler-as-sec-chairman-for-obstruction-of-justice
31. Apparently there is a Swiss bank now offering Cardano staking to its customers. https://watcher.guru/news/cardano-staking-available-at-swiss-sygnum-bank-as-ada-moves-to-crush-ethereum https://twitter.com/sygnumofficial/status/1554349276985278464
32. WingRiders posts a thread on the impact of the Nomad bridge hack and how the team responded. The thread will be sure to cause some controversy. https://twitter.com/wingriderscom/status/1554370695919976448
33. As if the Robbery Forest wasn’t busy enough yesterday, there are late breaking reports from today (August 3rd) about some kind of exploit related to the Solana world. https://twitter.com/nftpeasant/status/1554612135992479751 https://twitter.com/SolportTom/status/1554609401369137152 https://twitter.com/magiceden/status/1554620084831674370
34. Charli3 may have some bad news for you if you bought their ERC-20 tokens on the cheap after the hack yesterday. https://oraclecharli3.medium.com/charli3-update-post-nomad-hack-a3cd576237a0
35. The giant gulf between the Cardano approach to smart contract standards and that of our competitors is highlighted amid the Nomad bridge exploit coverage. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1554648163532689408 https://twitter.com/sherlock_hodles/status/1554650723291381761
36. Southrye makes an interesting observation about what I would call one of the bigger differences between Solana and Cardano. https://twitter.com/Southrye/status/1554679752430161922
37. Looks like Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin bet isn’t playing out how MicroStrategy expected. He is no longer CEO. He is now only the Chairman. https://twitter.com/Mayhem4Markets/status/1554560424267366409 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/michael-saylor-microstrategy-ceo-bitcoin-204325431.html
38. Here’s John Woods on the possibility of Algorand/Cardano collaboration. https://twitter.com/StakeWithPride/status/1555001121508249601
39. This article contains allegations that may cast a heavy shadow of doubt on the purported total value locked (“TVL”) of the Solana ecosystem. https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/08/04/master-of-anons-how-a-crypto-developer-faked-a-defi-ecosystem/
40. Pavia has unveiled the first look at one of the eight districts in the Pavia Plaza. This one appears to be Japan themed. https://youtu.be/4YCQPPo_O1U https://twitter.com/Pavia_io/status/1555210549423644674
41. The former President of the New York Fed says a full blown recession is either already here or will be very soon. https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/04/economy/recession-inflation-fed-dudley/index.html
42. BlackRock and Coinbase are now working together to bring crypto exposure to institutional clients. https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/04/economy/recession-inflation-fed-dudley/index.html
43. The US Treasury has added a bunch of Tornado Cash mixer related ETH addresses to their naughty guy sanctions list. Reports are also coming in that Circle has frozen USDC belonging to some of these Tornado Cash users. Hilarious reactions followed. https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/recent-actions/2022080 https://twitter.com/bantg/status/1556712790894706688 https://twitter.com/juthica/status/1556648502658318337 https://twitter.com/bantg/status/1556656916234965000 https://twitter.com/econoar/status/1556752321773576193
44. PWC just did a big metaverse survey of 5k consumers and 1k business leaders that indicated 67% of companies are actively engaged in metaverse projects (beyond just experimentation) and 82% expect metaverse activities to be a part of their normal business activities in the next three years. https://www.pwc.com/us/metaversesurvey
45. FutureFest is putting on a metaverse concert event on Wednesday at 7pm ET. https://twitter.com/futurefestxr/status/1556688896825516032
46. I think we have found the perfect insult: “that’s web2 thinking”. https://twitter.com/matiwinnetou/status/1556681984789086208
47. Celsius and Voyager users are currently worried bankruptcy proceedings might involve a clawback of certain withdrawals from these centralized financial platforms. https://twitter.com/TheRealPlanC https://twitter.com/SimonDixonTwitt/status/1556574979524804609
48. Someone actually did dust a bunch of .eth wallets with ETH from TornadoCash. https://twitter.com/josephdelong/status/1557011056572129280
49. Coinbase reported a $1.1 billion net loss in Q2 vs. $1.59 billion in net income last year in Q2. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/09/coinbase-coin-earnings-q2-2022.html
50. Reports are coming in that Curve was exploited for $573k. https://twitter.com/WatcherGuru/status/1557104364690489346 https://twitter.com/CurveFinance/status/1557104676830601216
51. Bank of England researchers are worried the use of cryptoassets in the metaverse could lead to systemic risks. https://bankunderground.co.uk/2022/08/09/cryptoassets-the-metaverse-and-systemic-risk/
52. A law firm representing Pavia has released a “case study” on their work with Pavia. https://twitter.com/StephensonLawHQ/status/1557360513654423559
53. More surprises from the Coinbase quarterly filing: the SEC has sent subpoenas to Coinbase regarding its stablecoin and yield generating products. https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001679788/000167978822000085/coin-20220630.htm#ibd16326c8f82466fbb851d71853b44a8_262
54. Virtua gives us a first in-world peek at a game inside their metaverse. https://twitter.com/VirtuaMetaverse/status/1557411483809636352
55. Don’t forget, the Pavia merch claim for plot holders will start today (Aug 11) and run for two weeks. https://discord.com/channels/897161313120321536/897682883471347763
56. Artifct has released some images in their discord that seem to be related to avatars for their moon metaverse. https://discord.com/channels/882364185244237884/920120911414300773
57. CardaStation also provided some in-world footage of the community center they are building. https://discord.com/channels/908827661504237599/909005782790586379
58. Pavia just unveiled their rebrand and new website. https://pavia.io/ https://twitter.com/Pavia_io/status/1557769622320996352
59. Pavia also gave us a much more extensive unveiling of the first district of the Plaza. It’s a narrated fly through with some interesting details. It sounds like the next district will be Cyberpunk. https://youtu.be/EhHuP4Z-aDk
60. Cardano Node 1.35.3, which should be the Vasil hardfork combinator event version if all goes according to plan, was released today (Aug 11). https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-node/releases/tag/1.35.3
61. There are some people debating whether the Ethereum Merge will result in tax liability. One of the items discussed is whether ETH holders will essentially be receiving a new coin if proof-of-work miners keep the old chain (and the old PoW ETH coins) alive. https://twitter.com/LucidCiC/status/1557710488955301889
62. Lots of people took a quote from Vitalik about centralization of Ethereum out of context today (Aug 11). He was actually talking about the importance of sharding. https://youtu.be/kGjFTzRTH3Q?t=2167 https://twitter.com/NerdNationUnbox/status/1557260572621766660
63. Wow! The Netherlands arrested the developer of Tornado Cash on Friday (Aug 12). The stakes just got a little higher in crypto. I suspect a lot of crypto platform developers will feel a little less easy about relying on their open source/decentralized credentials as a shield against government action. https://www.fiod.nl/arrest-of-suspected-developer-of-tornado-cash/
64. An interesting point has been made that validating blocks in ETH 2.0 that contain Tornado Cash or other sanctioned transactions would be a violation of the sanctions while not validating those blocks can also lead to financial penalties (“inactivity leaking”) in ETH 2.0. The fear is that this could lead to protocol-level censorship to accommodate sanctions. https://twitter.com/lex_node/status/1558521705244594181
65. Virtua has released a new episode of their podcast with some hints as to what they are building and some interesting discussion around building a virtual world that will operate across different technologies (browser, PC, mobile, etc). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BSl7no82nM
66. The last two episodes of CopiCafe (the Cornucopias podcast episodes 18 & 19) have revealed some interesting details including screen shots of the mobile game, that the fourth zone of Cornucopias will be inspired by the Canary Islands, the Custom Dome sale may happen in the next two weeks if they can beat the Vasil hardfork, development of land staking is in its final stages, & a custom dome video will be coming next week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvGAGNv86Y0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnUlXU_tRZY
67. Cornucopias has released the pricing on their custom domes in discord. https://discord.com/channels/829374949587419137/842583414439542805
68. The Robbery Forest strikes again. This time it’s reported to be 1.2 billion printed in AUSD. https://twitter.com/WatcherGuru/status/1558735108672065538 https://twitter.com/AcalaNetwork/status/1558785360670298112
69. IOG Researchers are at Crypto 2022 in Santa Barbara to present the “Ofelimos” Proof of Useful Work (PoUW) paper. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1559170170307985409
70. The Cardano Island Land Claim Event is going down next week! https://twitter.com/VirtuaMetaverse/status/1559261587298467841
71. Orbis has released the whitepaper for their L2 ZK-Rollup Protocol. https://papers.orbisprotocol.com/whitepaper.pdf https://twitter.com/orbisproject/status/1559178331433512960
72. WingRiders held a community vote on issues related to the Nomad Exploit Incident. https://twitter.com/wingriderscom/status/1559177924699471873
73. Here’s a great thread from Maladex on why total value locked (“TVL”) makes no sense at all as a metric in crypto. https://twitter.com/CardanoMaladex/status/1559552276234215424
74. Ethereum is having a crisis of conscience over the inevitable censorship & loss of permissionlessness that will come out of the Tornado Cash sanctions. https://twitter.com/sassal0x/status/1559357892645437440 https://twitter.com/econoar/status/1559271411658526720 https://twitter.com/freeslave06/status/1559350621714653192
75. The censorship is already there as a practical matter as shown in this interesting thread on more centralization trouble in the world of Ethereum staking/block validation. https://twitter.com/varun_mathur/status/1558905077523484672
76. CZ very convincingly makes the case that the large corporate institutions are already here in crypto. https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1559642866787426314
77. The Pavia avatar merch drop for plot holders has finally arrived. https://merch.pavia.io/ https://twitter.com/Pavia_io/status/1559852416820027395
78. Worried about quantum computing and crypto? There’s already movement in the space that can be incorporated into Cardano. https://twitter.com/JohnAlanWoods/status/1559847847264141313
79. There is so much political strife in ETH over the censorship issue that the different sides are literally adopting flags at this point. This is how civil wars start. Poloniex is now even hinting at supporting both the proof-of-stake ETH and the proof-of-work ETH Forks. https://twitter.com/ercwl/status/1559284150749765641 https://twitter.com/Poloniex/status/1555085757450272768
80. We now have more information on the first Virtua metaverse game and a naming contest. https://twitter.com/VirtuaMetaverse/status/1559940305310420992
81. Cardano metaverses seem to be doing just fine compared to what Meta put out just two days ago (Aug 15). https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/08/17/does-mark-zuckerberg-not-understand-how-bad-his-metaverse-looks/ https://twitter.com/day25/status/1559842465477435399
82. Pavia is contemplating additional use cases for the Pavia avatar merch like making the pieces keys to access special OG areas and etc. https://twitter.com/Pavia_io/status/1560186546988400640
83. The Cardano community loves watching the “Bankfull” Podcast boys get dunked on these days. After all their Cardano comments…it’s live by the sword, die by the sword. https://twitter.com/_Checkmatey_/status/1560013273545719810 https://twitter.com/AllenWu29331265/status/1560064947711000576
84. Here’s some very interesting discussion on Hydra vs. ZK-Rollups in Cardano. https://twitter.com/_KtorZ_/status/1560008315597365252
85. Lots of talk about the potential censorship problems in the ETH All Core Devs call today. Just a reminder that Cardano currently doesn’t have these problems since different architecture (e.g. No Flashbots-esque MEV-centric middleware). https://youtu.be/jJaCaS0WbIw
86. LiqwidDAO wants to form a Nonprofit Association in Switzerland to be situated in a jurisdiction with some regulatory clarity. https://discord.com/channels/759807412688388136/981259898551664650
87. Virtua has released some images of the condo towers. https://twitter.com/VirtuaMetaverse/status/1560353042997940225
88. C’mon Canada! Selective caps on crypto transactions now?!? https://twitter.com/mochains/status/1559971309597122560
89. Cornucopias Custom Dome information is here along with game play footage. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S3m_04-6hGmBPmeP74sZzbIFJIIPeoTC/preview https://twitter.com/RobGreig3/status/1560984962995818499
90. Charles addressed the dialogue around 1.35.3 on Friday (8.19) and it looks like everything has been resolved by August 20.The path for all SPOs to upgrade to 1.35.3 looks clear. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1560666160861184001 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K85M3c4VfBQ https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1561077286807318529
91. Apparently, MuesliLending will be a thing. https://twitter.com/MuesliSwapTeam/status/1560672945210503169
92. Coinbase has done a great job of summing up the regulatory progress in crypto in a single chart. https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1561455357448183808
93. Ready Player Me who Cardano knows as the avatar provider to metaverse projects like Reach and Pavia just got a $56 million Series B from a16z. https://twitter.com/readyplayerme/status/1562032070251032576
94. Nick Szabo made a very important prediction about Ethereum half a decade ago that seems to be coming true (in a bad way). Luckily, Cardano is suffering the same fate. https://twitter.com/phyrooo/status/1562118994353700864
95. Virtua gave us a little peek at what looks like the actual location of the towers on Cardano Island. https://twitter.com/VirtuaMetaverse/status/1562145145901891588
96. Cornucopias has dropped their custom dome video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL_4dTFKyJk
97. The 1.35.3 adoption continues to climb today (Aug.24). https://pooltool.io/networkhealth

~Army of Spies