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Crypto && Coffee 018 | Banque de France Publishes RFP for CBDC

Technology Recap: 

Bitcoin: 

  • We are less than 50 days away from the next block halving event! On May 13, 2020 at 18:28:20 UTC the block reward will decrease from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. 

Ethereum: 

  • GitCoin grant has been opened for the deliverable of Vitalik’s request for a BTC<->ETH DEX using Interledger with Uniswap-like price discovery and settlement over Lightning for Bitcoin and Connext Network for Ethereum. 
  • Over the past month, fiat-collateralized stablecoins built on Ethereum have seen substantial inflows. The 30 day change in supply is: 
  • USDT: +51.5% 
  • USDC: +55.4% 
  • PAX: +26.5% 
  • BUSD: +186.0% 
  • HUSD: +74.7% 
  • The Ethereum.org website now runs on IPFS and is accessible via ENS at ethereum.eth. 
  • The Eth2.0 Phase 0 Pre-Launch Bounty Program has been launched. In addition, the current update on Eth2.0 has been released.   

Other Chains:  

  • Heartwood, the next major Zcash network upgrade, improves interoperability through Flyclient support and gives miners the option to immediately shield mining rewards in coinbase transactions. Full details here. 
  • e-Money, which claims to be the leading issuer of interest-bearing, currency-backed tokens on a blockchain, has launched their mainnet on March 25, 2020. The validator community includes Cosmos, Cosmos Hub, and Interchain. View the network via their block explorer.  
  • Chainlink has been chosen by Kava Labs to be their official oracle. By powering Kava’s stablecoin, USDX, and being set as a default for all projects built with Kava, the integration will become a great way for Cosmos Hub developers to access Chainlink oracles.  
  • On March 26, 2020, the Maker Foundation Interim Governance Facilitator placed an Executive Vote proposal into the voting system to unblock the remaining debt auctions. Full details here. 
  • Aztec Protocol is getting into the zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) rollup game with a focus on the outer ZKP for hundreds of transactions per second on mainnet and the inner ZKP for making those transactions private. Full details here. 
  • After the debacle of Justin Sun’s Tron Foundation taking over Steem and the breakaway of users onto the Hive blockchain, we have seen a market action fair on the side of Hive. 
  • BitGo’s CTO, Benedict Chan, shared his thoughts on Kyber Network’s on-chain liquidity protocol and its critical role in DeFi and the upcoming Katalyst upgrade. Watch the interview here. 
  • MakerDAO is fighting a liquidity crunch with 0% rates and some centralization. Full report here. 
  • Stellar released their newest developer digest, digging into OpenSolar and the Stellar Core v12.5.0 release.  
  • Nomadic Labs discussed their Tezos Sapling Integration at the Protocol 007 Fireside chat. Watch the video here. 
  • Chainlink is looking to move towards BLS signatures that will enable drastic improvements for their oracles. These improvements include lower off-chain costs, larger signer groups, lower network data, and lower latency. 
  • Burner Wallet and Fuel are teaming up with a beta version of the Fuel Burner Wallet. The experimental version has been launched here and uses the optimistic rollup sidechain running on Görli.  
  • Lightning Labs released their specification for Lightning Service Authentication Tokens (LSAT), which will combine LN, HTTP-402, and macarons to create a new way to handle payments and authentication on the web.  
  • Fantom is excited to integrate Chainlink as the official oracle solution recommended for use by all Fantom developers.  
  • Balancer Protocol is live on Ethereum mainnet. View the contract here. 

Mainstream Recap: 

  • Coinbase is aiming to make it easier to earn interest with DeFi apps by integrating them into the Coinbase Wallet experience. 
  • CodeChain Foundry released their PoC on ICS (Interchain Standard) support. ICS was proposed by the Cosmos team for IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication). This will allow direct communication with other chains via ICS support.  
  • CoinMetrics has raised $6M in a Series A round with participation from Fidelity and Coinbase Ventures. 
  • Block.one has hired EOS New York founders Rick Schlesinger and Kevin Rose, as well as their team. Their focus will be to work on community outreach initiatives.  
  • Binance introduced the Binance Card. With this card you can shop and pay with crypto anywhere. 
  • The zkRollup DEX, Loopring.io, visualizes how users can check the Ethereum smart contract to see how exactly many assets are on the exchange.  
  • Casa explained their Bitcoin Inheritance Protocol via Casa Covenant.  
  • Lending platform Celsius Network has teamed with oracle provider Chainlink to make price feeds it uses to calculate crypto asset interest rates less centralized. 
  • France’s central bank, Banque de France, has published a request for proposals for central bank digital currency (CBDC) experiment applications. 
  • HDR Global Trading Limited (HDR) announced that they have decided to provide an increased $100K to Bitcoin Core maintainer Michael Ford.  
  • Bitstamp is exploring support for additional digital assets such as: Basic Attention Token (BAT), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Paxos Standard (PAX), USD Coin (USDC), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Zcash (ZEC), and 0x (ZRX). 

This Week’s Cup of Coffee: 

This week, we are brightening up the mood with some aloha vibes from Hawaii. The surfing legends known as the Smith Brothers from Oahu are releasing their famous Sunrise Shack Coffee from Common Room Roasters. This medium roast from Peru will lighten your mood and is awesome as a Bulletproof Coffee! Enjoy! 

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