In the US, blockchain- and cryptocurrency-specific laws are proliferating at the state level, evidently without any technical literacy--leading to silly, half-baked efforts to attract "blockchain businesses," whatever those are.
"The blockchain laws range from the creation of task forces to study the technology, to tautologies like Tennessee’s, to more substantive initiatives like Wyoming’s decree that some cryptocurrencies issued on a blockchain will not be regulated under state securities law. But they all share a common goal: encouraging blockchain companies to bring their high-paying jobs to the state."
"But those laws also provide uniformity, whereas Tennessee’s smart-contract law is not even identical to Arizona’s. If enough states create differing versions, 'it’s just going to be chaos,' says Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at Coin Center, a policy think tank that advocates for blockchain technologies."
Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex plans to move to Switzerland
(Bitcoin Magazine, by Amy Castor)
"Adding to the opaqueness of Bitfinex’s business dealings, since April 2017, Bitfinex and Tether have been cut off from banks in the U.S. and Taiwan and have been left to move among a series of banks in other countries, without informing their customers."
Bittrex now supports the Tether and Tether-Wannabe pair
Quick update: The USDT-TUSD market is now open and trading will begin shortly on the @BittrexExchange. For more information about TrueUSD, visit: https://t.co/i89VgOiyMA
— Bittrex (@BittrexExchange) March 29, 2018
Almost half of fund allocators don't know what to make of crypto
(Bloomberg, by Katia Porzecanski)
"Almost half of the more than 400 institutional allocators, such as pensions, sovereign wealth funds and family offices, surveyed at a Context Summits conference in Miami said they don’t know what to make of cryptocurrencies. Twenty-seven percent of the respondents consider them to be a legitimate asset class, while 26 percent think they’re a fraud. The survey was conducted from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2."
Thread on White House officials explaining European Community's plan to Henry Kissinger
Here's another archive in which White House officials explain the EC plan to Henry Kissinger, noting that "We’ve been trying to get away from gold into a system in which we can control...it’s a question of who has the most leverage internationally." https://t.co/icRVGdhaQX
— Luke Gromen (@LukeGromen) March 29, 2018
Can social media be saved?
(NYT, by Kevin Roose)
"The primary problem with today’s social networks is that they’re already too big, and are trapped inside a market-based system that forces them to keep growing. Facebook can’t stop monetizing our personal data for the same reason that Starbucks can’t stop selling coffee — it’s the heart of the enterprise."
Electrum Personal Server beta release
Electrum Personal Server beta release from r/Bitcoin
Bitcoin Q&A: Decentralised exchanges with fiat
Walking through ERC721 full implementation
(Karen Scarbrough)
"Basically, since ownership of ERC721’s is based on the ownership of a unique index or id, the fundamentals of token creation and transfer need to be extrapolated to accommodate that case. Also, the latest full implementation includes a safeTransferFrom() function that checks for implementation of a standard interface prior to transferring tokens."
Bitcoin's Lightning Network is live, but can it keep from going corporate?
(CoinDesk, by Leigh Cuen)
"This business opportunity worries some cryptocurrency enthusiasts. After all, Silicon Valley startups from Facebook to Twitter have long perfected the model of getting users hooked on a free service, only to later embrace practices at scale that may not have the best interests of users in mind."