(Blockchain Weekly Recap)

News

World news

• US Department of Treasury built an Ethereum-based Proof of Concept to "reimagine the way asset tracking was conducted at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service."
• SEC approves first ICO portal, still unnamed.
• U.S. Congressman calls for bill to ‘outlaw’ cryptocurrencies.
• Blogging platform Cent has launched a new feature that allows users to send each other the cryptocurrency Ether via chat. The feature enables such payments even without downloading a crypto wallet like MetaMask. Coindesk report .
• Facebook Updating Ad Policies for Financial Services and Products - ads promoting cryptocurrency is back. "It’s Time to Break Up Facebook" - NY Times report Opinion.
• [PepsiCo](PepsiCo Blockchain Trial Brings 28% Boost in Supply Chain Efficiency) Blockchain Trial Brings 28% Boost in Supply Chain Efficiency
• Leading Canadian Law Firms Collaborate on Blockchain-Based Smart Contract Project.
• Armando "Pitbull" Perez announced the launch of his latest venture, an international blockchain coding competition "Smackathon" aimed at disrupting the current state of the music industry. CNBC report
• User acceptance testing for bitcoin futures custody and trading in Bakkt is planned for July.

Ethereum news

• Devcon 5 in Osaka, Japan from October 8-11, 2019.

• Ethereum core devs call #61

  • Agenda
  • Video
  • Notes

• The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) announced the publication of the Enterprise Ethereum Client Specification V3. The EEA also announced the latest Off-Chain Trusted Compute Specification V1 document.

• ConsenSys, VitalikButerin, and the Ethereum Foundation are all contributing 1k $ETH each to MolochDAO.

• Ethereum Cat Herders Update #8

Exchange, Wallet News

• Bitfinex is able to raise 1b USDt in 10 days, in a private sale.
• Binance Security Breach Update. Hackers Steal $40.7 Million in Bitcoin. API Key Reset
• UniswapExchange announcing Unisocks - a limited edition, dynamically priced sock!!!
• Dapper a new Ethereum “smart wallet” by the creator of CryptoKitties.

Technology

• Ethereum 2.0

  • Sapphire Testnet - Prysm Eth2 Testnet
  • Plasma Implementers call is coming back, details

• Release

  • Nethermind 0.9.9 - 45GB mainnet fast sync in 5 hours (4x faster than Geth on same machines in our tests)
  • truffle v5.0.17 — Some gardening and a new debugger feature
  • soltix Version 0.1 - Scalable automated framework for testing Solidity compilers.

Projects

New Projects and Protocol

• Scratch 3.0 : an extension for Ethereum integration that allows kids to build apps (mostly games) on top of Ethereum.
• Lattice1 - The Lattice1 is an un-opinionated piece of hardware. Pre-Sales and Added GRID Redemption Functionality

Projects and Protocols update

• The State of Layer-2 Protocol Development #2 by ConsenSys.
• Nimbus (Status) - Two Point Oh: Randomness. What is RANDAO? What is VDF?
• MakerDAO and Airtm Partner to Empower Financial Stability in South America.
• DAppNode goes v0.2.0. The big revamp: Lighter, with higher stability and more flexibility.
• Announcing the FOAM Grants Program. Supporting a vibrant developer community to build trustless spatial applications.
• Introducing 0x Instant, Development Update #18

Miscellaneous

Print, Video, Podcast and Interviews

• Sub0: Substrate Developer Conference Sub0 Welcome Note - Dr. Jutta Steiner, Parity Technologies
• Vitalik in Microsoft Build 2019
• Cloud + Blockchain - Build Live with Mark Russinovich and Vitalik Buterin
• Gavin Wood, Ethereum Co-Founder : “My Biggest Disappointment Is How Toxic This Space Has Become”
• ConsenSys’ Joe Lubin: Ethereum’s Competition Isn’t Even Close.
• The Golden Path Forward with Shaun Djie, Digix.

Blockchain good reads

• Control as Liability by Vitalik Buterin
• Quantifying Immutability: Understanding how blockchain immutability changes over time and visualizing it to stakeholders - Yaz Khoury
• Ethereum 1x as an attempt to change the “process” - Alexey Akhunov
• Proofs of Proofs of Work with Sublinear Complexity
• FlyClient: Super-Light Clients for Cryptocurrencies

Also check: EtherWorld's collection of Good Read on Blockchain & Cryptocurrency

Hackathon, Conferences, Events & Developer programs (Event Calendar)

• May 13-15, 2019: Consensus by Coindesk. Register here.
• May 16, 2019: TOKEN SUMMIT IV NEW YORK CITY.
• May 17, 2019: Hard deadline to accept proposals for “Istanbul” upgrade.
• May 17–19, 2019: ETHNewYork
• May 17, 2019: Deadline to accept proposals for Instanbul upgrade fork
• May 23-25, 2019: Swarm Orange Summit Madrid 2019
• May 27-28, 2019: ethcon Korea
• June 10-11, 2019: Blockchain for Social Impact Conference 2019 Building a Resilient Future at Microsoft Conference Center, 11 Time Square, New York, NY.
• June 22 – 24, 2019: Zcon, Annual Privacy Conference
• July 19, 2019: BuildEth, San Francisco
• August 2–4, 2019: ETHIndia II
• September 6–8, 2019: ETHBoston
• September 16-17, 2019: STARKWare, Tel Aviv
• October 8-11, 2019: Devcon 5, Osaka, Japan.
• October 2019: ETHWaterloo II, Sign up to mailing list to be notified when applications open.
• October 16, 2019: Istanbul. Planned Ethereum Network Upgrade.
• October 30-31, 2019: Blockchain Life 2019, Russia- Moscow

Read earlier weeks EtherWorld's Weekly.

This newsletter is an effort to bring updates of blockchain world. If you like it, please share with people of similar interest. Donations.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Disclaimer: This is not an investment advice and should NOT be viewed as project endorsement by EtherWorld. Readers are suggested to do their research before investing into any project.