For the week ending 23-Oct-2018

This is a roundup of top stories from the EOS community, and from the greater blockchain industry in which EOS exists.

Curated weekly by Jeanene and brought to you by Thomas. 

EOS Bet was hacked for the second time through a loophole in its smart contract. The company said the dApp had been taken offline to “figure out exactly what happened” and the bug which caused the “faulty assertion statement” in the code has been identified. The company maintained that the code had been audited extensively by its development team and “multiple independent third parties,” and promised to “harden” their security measures. (Link 1)

Block.one has announced a new game-based tutorial, called Elemental Battles, to provide an easily-digestible method of learning EOS-based blockchain coding. According to the announcement, any developer with knowledge of C++ and JavaScript will be able to build their own fully-functioning version of the Elemental Battles. The process is completed through a series of 8 separate lessons, which includes the basics of EOSIO smart contract development, AI code and game logic validation. (Link 2)

The Ethereum Foundation has announced the fourth round of grants, totaling over $3 million, to 20 different entities working on Ethereum-based projects. (Link 3)

According to research published by Cryptocompare, the majority of assets in the ecosystem today to be highly centralized. The almost 80-page document is designed to provide investors, regulators and the industry with an independent classification of coins and tokens to help differentiate from a long list of ever-growing options. (Link 4)

Satire site The Onion published a short guide to blockchain entitled, “The Onion’s Guide To Blockchain Technology.” (Link 5)

Australia

Global Tech Exchange has ceased its ICO, citing the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) requirements. The move appears instigated by GTE itself, which evidently voluntarily applied to the ASIC to deregister its ICO. (Link 6)

China

Carlson Tong Ka-Shing, the current chairman of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), recently spoke on cryptocurrencies, stating, “We have to carefully consider the regulatory approach for these platforms because they are new technology and may not qualify as securities.” (Link 7)

The Cyberspace Administration of China published a policy statement entitled, “Public Consultation on the Regulations on the Management of Blockchain Information Services.” According to the release, the main aim of the action by CAC is to streamline blockchain services, create a healthy development of blockchain services, safeguard citizens who venture into this technology and protect national security in lieu of the advancements made by the blockchain industry. (Link 8)

Russia

Anatoly Aksakov, head of Russia’s parliamentary Financial Market Committee, announced the latest amendment to the bill to regulate digital assets, saying it would not make any sense to refer to mining in the revamped bill, given that it no longer includes any mention of cryptocurrencies. (Link 9)

USA

The SEC is launching a new division, the Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology (FinHub), which will act as a central point for the SEC to interact with entrepreneurs and developers in the financial technology world, in particular with groups focusing on DLT, automated investment advice, digital marketplace financing and AI. (Link 10)

CFTC Commissioner Brian Quintenz recently stated that smart contract coders could be held liable if they knowingly use blockchain technology to create functions that are deemed as predictive "event contracts." "In the past, the CFTC has generally prohibited prediction markets as contrary to the public interest," he said. "For example, event contracts based upon war, terrorism, assassination, or other similar incidents may be contrary to the public interest – in which case, the CFTC can prohibit an exchange from offering the contract." (Link 11)

In court actions, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has ordered Gelfman Blueprint, Inc. and its Chief Executive Officer Nicholas Gelfman, to pay in total over $2.5 million in civil monetary penalties and restitution for operating a bitcoin Ponzi scheme. (Link 12) The Colorado Securities Commissioner Gerald Rome signed two final orders against Davor and Cyber Capital Invest for unregistered and potentially fraudulent sales. The North Dakota Securities Commission issued cease and desist orders for unregistered and potentially fraudulent sales against Crystal Token, Advertiza Holdings (Pty) Ltd., and Life Cross Coin. (Link 13) More than a dozen lawsuits against Bitconnect have been merged into a single case, following the submission of an Amended Consolidated Class Action Complaint, filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. (Link 14)

The city of Ephrata, Washington has voted to ban all new crypto mining developments in the city, due to noise complaints. The moratorium will only block new cryptocurrency operations from locating in Ephrata, and has no effect on the four currently located in the city. (Link 15)

Venezuela

The Venezuelan government announced it has authorized six websites it claims are cryptocurrency exchanges to market and sell the petro. (Link 16)

EOSIO Usage

Spacebit is a futuristic space company with a team of globally acknowledged professionals who aim to democratize space by tokenizing the data and communications associated with commercial space missions and provide further operational mission execution with IoT networks in space. By decentralizing the entire process, they are providing common masses with the opportunity to participate in different space programs. Spacebit has partnered with Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station to create a DLT platform for a decentralised ground station on EOS beta and was developed to provide access to low-Earth and deep space communication. (Link 17)

Banking / Finance

U.K.-based security services company G4S now offers a crypto custody service. According to the press release, with the rising popularity of cryptocurrencies, it developed the new service to offer "high-security offline storage that helps to protect assets from criminals and hackers." (Link 18)

Despite the partnership with Forbes and The Associated Press, Civic's ICO failed to reach its minimum target of $8 million. (Link 19)

According to a press release, Visa is readying its Visa B2B Connect, a blockchain-based digital identity system for cross-border payments, for launch in the first quarter of 2019. (Link 20)

Education

The University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash. began accepting donations in crypto back in 2014. Most universities in the US still are not set up to do so, including prestigious schools such as Harvard. (Link 21)

General technology

The "bulletproofs," invented by cryptographers Benedict Bunz and Jonathan Bootle, promises to dramatically decrease the weight of confidential transactions, is being tested with the monero token. (Link 22)

HTC is officially releasing its first blockchain-enabled phone. The HTC Exodus is now available for pre-order, can only be bought using BTC or ETH. (Link 23)

Bitcoin Cash developers James Cramer, Attila Aros and ‘Hapticpilot’ have announced the launch of a working product called Bitcoinfiles.com, a platform that allows people to upload and download files tied to the BCH blockchain. (Link 24)

New Cryptocurrency Usage

U.S. jewelry retailer Marks Jewelers has started accepting payments in BTC, BCH and ETH. (Link 25)

The app Marco Coino, which helps bitcoiners find BCH brick-and-mortar retailers on a global map, now hosts over 500 known merchants. (Link 26)

Coins 4 Clothes started its charity to help homeless people face the Canadian winter with clothes purchased with BCH. Coins 4 Clothes purchased the items from wholesalers and introduced them to bitcoin cash. So far Coins 4 Clothes has donated 3,112 articles of clothing to people in the region and at the same time, the group has managed to entice clothing sellers to open 42 BCH wallets. Additionally, if residents in the region want to sell garments to the group they can book an appointment with Coins 4 Clothes and earn BCH for clothes. (Link 27)

Financial / Exchanges / Wallets

Restoration of its fiat deposit system has not alleviated concerns about Bitfinex. In the announcement, the exchange described a complex process, starting with a new minimum deposit of $10,000 of fiat currency from now on, with a 6-10 day wait for the funds to clear. (Link 28)

Ilker Dagli, a system and network administrator at Near East University in North Cyprus and creator of a literal valve that throttles internet access, has created a button that allows a user to sell off all their cryptocurrency holdings at once. “I had some coins and orders on my Binance account, when I pressed the button it immediately canceled all my orders and sold all my coins” he said. “So I became 'safe'. Hassle free. No need to login to exchange, cancel all orders manually then sell all my coins one by one... Just press the emergency button!“ (Link 29)

After having closed up shop in India due to regulatory issues, Zebpay has a registered office in Malta. According to its website, the exchange will be providing services to residents of about 20 countries, but not India. (Link 30)

Mining

For peak efficiency, nuclear reactors needs to create power at a constant rate. Crypto mining can help keep a constant rate by utilizing the excess energy that reactors typically generate outside peak periods of consumption. (Link 31)

The Sia network has released the code for an imminent hard fork that will block miners using Bitmain and other major manufacturers. The new code also included major updates to resist Sybil attacks. (Link 32)

Amazon Web Services' (AWS) China division is partnering with public blockchain project Qtum to develop blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) solutions for enterprises and developers. (Link 33)