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Block.one to Provide over US$1.5 million in Grants to Promising Businesses Built on EOSIO

EOS VC, the venture capital arm of blockchain software company Block.one wants to make it possible for more EOSIO ideas to become tangible innovations and is now accepting applications for its Grants Program.

According to a press release on Dec. 17, the Grants Program is designed to drive growth in the EOSIO ecosystem by welcoming active EOSIO community members as well as those nurturing up-and-coming projects using the protocol and the grants are awarded with no ownership conditions. Recipients who qualify will be awarded the equivalent of US$50,000 each to complete milestones related to the advancement of the EOSIO ecosystem.

Brendan Blumet, CEO, Block.one said, “Since the EOSIO software was released in 2018, Block.one has supported the collaboration that has helped fuel the growth of the community of users and developers in all corners of the world. We continue to be inspired by the passion we see from innovative blockchain companies that promote the global entrepreneurial spirit of our community. Through the EOS VC Grants Program, we intend to identify and empower even more people to further enrich the ecosystem with fresh ingenuity and imagination.”

Through direct investments as well as via holdings through its partner funds, EOS VC is invested in projects that have built or intend to build on the EOSIO protocol. Its current portfolio spans a wide breadth of investments which now include Alpha’a, Biscuit, CAPSL, Obsidian Labs, Persollo, Sprout Records, among others.

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Blockchain Could Potentially Level the Playing Field for Startups and Entrepreneurs

The world of business is growing daily, in an article published by Brad Haddin, a privacy consultant, pointed out that there are 150 million startups in the world today with 50 million new startups launching every year. This means that every day, an average of 137,000 companies have been founded by someone in the world. This number has risen since 2005, which is due to massive globalization and industrialization engaged in by different countries around the world.

Apart from startups, the emergence of entrepreneurs is also on the rise, all of this is due to the fact there is more funding available for people to leverage, and there are free courses teaching people how to be innovative and start their own businesses.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of blockchain that makes it suitable for startups?

Idealog, one of New Zealand’s popular websites for innovation and technology, introduced a program called the Blockchain Accelerator Program, which is an accelerator program that provides an enabling environment for many startups in New Zealand.

One of these first ways blockchain is helping the startup environment, is in the legal sector, as startups using blockchain technology could automate their legal agreements through smart contracts. This will remove human involvement, which usually delays the process. For example, contract agreements that are sitting in email inboxes for days without being attended to – will be eliminated.

This second factor is critical for startups, which is access to capital. Lack of capital is the reason many entities stay away from forming startups. In developing countries and the less developed parts of the world, capital is scarce, and even when it is available, the cost of getting it is very high.

By utilizing technology such as blockchain will give these individuals a level playing field by giving them access to capital anywhere in the world, because the reach blockchain technology is not restricted by geographic location.

Fundraising on a blockchain platform will save entrepreneurs the effort of moving to meet investors in person. By using blockchain self-verifying systems, financial investors and venture firms can choose a project, transfer funds to invest in it, in as little as five minutes, giving the entrepreneur time to engage in more activities, which is critical to their startup’s survival. Given the advantages of blockchain, adoption is still yet to be seen as one of the disadvantages of blockchain is the current lack of talent in the industry.

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DeFi Liquidity Project Paradigm Labs Shuts Down, Unable to Find Niche in DEX Ecosystem

The ambitious DeFi liquidity project, Paradigm labs is shutting down its operations citing an inability to build a resilient business within the DEX ecosystem.

According to the post on Medium today, Liam Kovatch CEO and Founder of Paradigm Labs stated, “After almost two years of active research and development, our team has come to the decision that without significant product-market fit and limited resources to pursue emergent opportunities, the kind of success we envisioned for Paradigm Labs is unlikely.”

Where is the Niche?

The project began in 2018 with the impetus to enhance liquidity within the DEX ecosystem and was believed to be a gamechanger for decentralized finance (DeFi) and cryptocurrency.

In the announcement, Kovatch said, “The reasoning behind our failure to carve a viable niche in the DEX marketplace is multifaceted, and ultimately a result of both factors within and outside of our control. We have taken some time to reflect on our journey and would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the challenges we faced that ultimately forced us to make this difficult decision.”

As outlined by Kovatch, the timing, hesitation to pivot, and capital constraints were at the heart of the decision to dissolve the company.

In terms of timing, the CEO believes they were unlucky as the decentralized exchange space witnessed a number of developments “such as the launch of Uniswap, the establishment of the decentralized finance (DeFi) movement and more,” that made the DEX space incredible fluid and challenging for an organization like Paradigm Labs to navigate.

During their time, Paradigm Labs had two different products on offer – Zaidan and Kosu. The former was far more effective than the latter and it was a failure of Paradigm labs to turn their back on Kosu and focus on Zaidan that accelerated their fate.

What do users do now?

The post instructed users who are staking ZRX with Zaidan’s War Chest to deposit their stake with other validators as they will no longer be active on Paradigm Labs after March 16.

The project will be legally dissolving by the end of the month. The Discord Channel will still be available for users until the 1st of April, 2020.

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Tether's Blockchain Ecosystem Continues to Grow with USDT Launch on Bitcoin Cash Network

Tether’s USDT token, the world’s largest stablecoin by marketcap, has launched on the Bitcoin Cash network.

As the Coronavirus disruption has taken hold of the markets, it appears that people are not turning to either Bitcoin or Gold in the face of the crisis but cold hard cash and their digital alternatives. Tether in particular has seen a surge of interest and its stablecoin, USDT, currently has a market cap of over $5.7 billion and over $180 million in new tokens have been created over the last few days.

USDT is available on the Bitcoin Cash network via the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) which is BCH’s token conceptually similar to Etheruem’s ERC20. USDT is also available on Algorand, EOS, Tron, Omni and the Liquid Network.

The SLP protocol allows anyone to create tokens on the Bitcoin Cash network in a permissionless way. The majority of Tether token run on Ethereum and a moving a significant proportion to the Bitcoin Cash network , which has larger blocks and lower fees than bitcoin itself, may help reduce demand on the Ethereum network and lower gas fees.

“A key strength of Tether is that it is underpinned by a rich diversity of different blockchains,” said Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Tether. “Our latest collaboration with Bitcoin Cash will provide Tether with a variety of benefits. We expect the adoption after launch to be pretty easy for any integrator. The launch will also support more applications on the Bitcoin Cash chain, with Tether facilitating payment for these applications.”

Bitcoin Cash Wallet Upgrade

Bitcoin Cash’s Bitcoin,com recent wallet upgrade supports its users in accessing SLP tokens and now USDT as well.

“It’s extremely exciting to hear that the world’s biggest stablecoin will be using the Bitcoin Cash Blockchain and that the millions of Bitcoin.com wallet holders will be able to send and receive Tether using SLP tokens,” said Roger Ver, Executive Chairman of Bitcoin.com.

With built-in token management support, users can send, receive, and store a variety of tokens that represent anything from dollar-pegged stablecoins to virtual gaming assets and company loyalty points, with the private keys held only by the user.

USDT hosted by different platforms

Tether has emerged as a behemoth in the stablecoin arena as it is the most utilized by traders on market capitalization and has existing partnerships with other platforms, such as Tron, Omni, EOS, Ethereum, and the Liquid Network.

Prior to the Bitcoin Cash announcement, Algorand became the latest platform to host USDT, and its users will be able to access it using high scalability and speed. For instance, it has been revealed that Tether’s presence on Algorand will see block confirmation undertaken in less than four seconds, and transaction fees will be a fraction of a cent, which optimizes blockchain opportunities for micropayments.

Tether’s CTO, Paolo Ardoino, acknowledged, “Our collaboration with Algorand leverages the speed and security of Algorand’s protocol to give traders fast settlement and reduced counterparty risk in their fiat to digital asset transactions. Tether and Algorand both share a desire to keep building next-generation financial products, and we feel our growing customer base will appreciate and benefit greatly from this collaboration.”

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Kraken Brings Crypto Asset Liquidity to Skrill and Neteller

Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform has chosen US-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken as their crypto asset liquidity provider.

Paysafe has become the latest enterprise payments platform to choose Kraken as its crypto asset liquidity provider.

According to the announcement, the partnership will further strengthen Paysafe’s own cryptocurrency trading services through its massively popular digital wallets— Skrill and Neteller.

Leveraging Skrill and Neteller, Paysafe customers will now be able to buy, sell and spend cryptocurrencies while Kraken will provide the underlying liquidity.

Daniel Kornitzer, Paysafe’s Chief Business and Development Officer said, “We’re delighted to be collaborating with Kraken as we continue our journey of delivering industry-leading, frictionless crypto-asset trading services to our Skrill and Neteller clients.”

For Kraken, the announcement is indicative of the strength of their global liquidity as they are now powering more than 150 real-time markets for the cryptocurrency and fiat currency transactions.

Maximillian Marenbach, Kraken’s EMEA Head of Banking said:

“We are proud and thrilled to have been chosen by Skrill and Neteller to be a source of crypto liquidity.” He added, “This is a great sign for the growing acceptance of and interest in crypto and amazing news…for the whole industry.”

How Liquid is Kraken?

Recent independent research conducted by Finery Tech found Kraken cryptocurrency exchange to be the “clear leader” and offers the deepest liquidity for BTC/EUR pairing. The study determined Kraken as the front runner while also assessing popular exchanges Binance, Bitstamp, and Coinbase.

As recently reported by Blockchain.News—Kraken Futures, a subsidiary of Kraken, also known as Crypto Facilities, recently announced it had been granted a Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) license from the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

A Multilateral Trading Facility is a term used for trading systems that facilitate the exchange of financial products between different parties in Europe. However, with the Brexit deal still in negotiation, it has not been made clear how regulatory licensing will be treated for after the event.

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Algorand Protocol Stateful Smart Contract Upgrade Targets Scalable DeFi Solutions and Dapps

Algorand, the first pure proof of stake (PoS) blockchain protocol, is entering the decentralized finance (DeFI) ecosystem with its new highly scalable smart contract capabilities.

The Algorand Foundation announced the launch of the comprehensive smart contract capabilities that will purportedly enable DeFI developers to create Defi solutions and Dapps that “can scale to billions of users” while benefiting from the security of its base layer Algorand protocol.

According to the blog on Aug 19, restrictions around scale, transaction speeds and high transaction fees have been barriers to mainstream blockchain adoption. Algorand’s latest upgrade of “stateful smart contracts […] removes these barriers and enables DeFi and dApp developers to build more sophisticated solutions, scale their applications, and make the promise of a borderless economy a reality.” The layer-1 integration of stateful smart contracts join existing capabilities such as Atomic Transfers.

Algorand and Defi

Algorand’s Pure Proof-of-Stake consensus protocol was designed for enterprise-grade utility and was built to overcome what was known as the blockchain trilemma which was the issue of achieving scalability, decentralization, and security simultaneously in a blockchain, which many saw as unfeasible.

As the blockchain industry continues to approach maturity, the developer team is hoping that these latest advances in Algorand’s smart contracts could propel decentralized applications and the DeFI space to take on established financial systems.

Silvio Micali, Founder of Algorand said “DeFi gives the world access to an essentially unlimited number of financial products and services. It’s important for the new generation of dApps not to be stalled by the shortcomings of the first-generation blockchains” He added, “Algorand’s protocol serves as a solid foundation to power truly frictionless applications, and our approach to smart contracts makes them high-performing and functionally advanced enough to rival today’s existing financial services.”

CBDC in Marshall Islands

Since Algorand’s mainnet launch a year ago, nearly 400 companies have joined Algorand’s ecosystem, leveraging the platform to build an assortment of applications, from investing with Republic to supporting stablecoins like Tether and even the development of central bank digital currencies or CBDCs for the Marshall Islands.

The Republic of the Marshall Islands revealed back in March, that the blockchain for the world’s first sovereign digital currency will be built using Algorand’s technology.

Plans for the Marshallese Sovereign (SOV)were first announced in February 2018 following a vote by the nation’s parliament in favour of proceeding with the plan.

SFB Technologies is the company responsible for developing the blockchain infrastructure for the Marshall Islands. In an announcement on March 2, the technology provider shared that the initiative to implement the Algorand protocol into the Marshallese SOV’s infrastructure was necessary to bring together the digital currency and mainstream regulatory compliance.

The SOV will circulate alongside the US dollar and help the Marshall Islands efficiently operate in the global economy. According to Algorand in the statement, “The SOV supply will be algorithmically fixed to grow at 4% each year to prevent runaway inflation. The SOV will be introduced through a token pre-sale: rights to future SOV will be sold in a series of auctions as part of a time-release monetary issuance (TRMI), which is expected to begin this year.”

Here’s A Look at The Top Outlets For Blockchain Developers To Source Grants

Monetary grants are essential in any field – be it the arts, media, technology – especially nascent ones where there is a lot of scope for growth and development. For example, blockchain is one such domain which over the course of the last decade or so has seen an incredible output of innovation (ala smart contracts, decentralized finance, etc.) from relatively independent developers working with limited resources.

Thus, to help spur such individuals’ efforts, the last couple of years have seen an increasing number of high profile blockchain and crypto oriented firms release grants to help evolve this space at the pace it truly deserves. In this article, we will look at some of the companies leading the roost in this regard, so without any further ado, let’s get right into it.

Bluzelle Developer Grant Program

The issue of censorship is one that has become extremely prominent over the last decade, so much so that an increasing number of individuals across the globe believe that big tech platforms are actively censoring their voices – including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook – simply because their political leanings, views do not align with the outlook of these multinational corps.

In this regard, Bluzelle, a decentralized, scalable database service provider, has recently released a first-of-its-kind developer grant program – worth $500,000 – that seeks to spur the creation of novel “censorship-resistant” applications that can enable users to voice their opinions irrespective of their left or right-leaning nature.

That’s not all, a core aspect of what sets Bluzelle’s grant apart is that developers who are allocated funds do not have to surrender their IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) to Bluzelle after their project has gone live. Instead, the final product can be leveraged by the creators to raise additional funds for themselves to increase their overall market reach and enhance their global visibility.

That being said, the only condition that the applicants need to bear in mind in case they are selected is that all of their development-activities need to be facilitated atop Bluzelle’s decentralized database which currently boasts of a native throughput capacity of 10,000 transactions per second as well as seamless compatibility with a wide array of programming languages including JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Java, Go, etc.

ConsenSys Grants

ConsenSys is an American blockchain software technology company that has at its helm crypto royalty, i.e. the co-founder of Ethereum ‘Joseph Lubin’. Since its inception, the firm has been involved in creating various decentralized apps and various blockchain-based financial platforms using its novel product suite.

As part of its grants program, the company is looking to fund emerging blockchain projects that are evolving the Ethereum ecosystem to meet its rapidly evolving technical demands, especially concerning certain key areas such as scalability, infrastructure development and social impact.

Some of Consensys’ notable grantees include Lighthouse, a security-centric Ethereum Serenity client that allows users to enjoy the benefits of a sharded, proof-of-stake Ethereum platform and Notus, a platform that enables users to receive real-time notifications from Ethereum smart contract events as well as Graph Protocol GraphQL subscriptions.

Chainlink Community and Integration Grants Program

Chainlink is a tokenized oracle network that has been designed to provide users with price and events data in realtime from a whole host of on-chain, real-world sources. In this regard, the Chainlink Community Grants Program seeks to facilitate the creation of novel smart contract applications and critical tools that can help in the addition of high-quality data, and key services to the existing platform’s ecosystem.

Furthermore, the company also offers what it refers to as ‘Integration Grants’ that aim to encourage independent developers/teams to procure specific technological work and services from Chainlink to foster interoperability across various prominent blockchain ecosystems.

Some of the companies that have recently been awarded handsome grants from Chainlink for their efforts include IC3, a blockchain initiative launched by faculty members from prestigious institutions such as Cornell, UC Berkeley, UIUC and Cdot, an interoperability-focused blockchain platform.

Coinbase Crypto Community Fund

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced its grant program last October to sponsor at least two Bitcoin Core developers for tackling issues currently affecting the BTC ecosystem, ranging from bug fixes to implementing improvements related to the project’s libraries and tooling framework.

The recipients of this grant, João Barbosa and pseudonymous developer 0xB10C, were chosen by the fund’s advisory board, which consisted of Dan Boneh, a professor of cryptography at Stanford University along with other prominent Bitcoin developers such as Anthony Towns, Amiti Uttarwar and Felix Weis.

While applications for the most recent round of grants closed on January 11, many such opportunities will most likely be announced in the near future as well.

Kraken Developer Grants

Much like Coinbase, US-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has become quite proactive in the grants space over the last year or so, having doled out more than $450,000 to deserving candidates/research entities since Q2, 2020.

In this regard, the company has opened up its open-source grant program to anyone looking to help the cryptocurrency sector grow and reach its full potential. For example, in 2020, Kraken announced its decision to match $150,000 in donations to open-source Ethereum projects in collaboration with Gitcoin, an Ethereum-based platform for fundraising.

Similarly, late last year, Kraken agreed to donate a total of $300,000 to Brink, an R&D center aiming to educate younger Bitcoin developers and the open-source bitcoin payment processor BTCPay Server to help support its development.

Solana Development Fund

Solana, a web-scale blockchain that seeks to create scalable decentralized apps and marketplaces, recently announced that it would be releasing a $5-million fund pool for any crypto projects possessing a tangible physical presence across Southeast Asia.

The fund was established by the Solana Foundation in conjunction with Vietnamese investment firm Coin98 Ventures, to allow regional startups to build on Solana’s ecosystem and receive $100,000 in funding per project.

As pointed out earlier, the resource pool is only available to startups operating out of South East Asia, with special consideration being given to platforms related to DeFi and Web3.

RockX Investment Program

During September last year, digital asset development company RockX announced the creation of a $20 million investment program to support the Polkadot (DOT) ecosystem over the next five years.

Projects applying for financial aid will be provided with funding worth $500,000 of DOT tokens each and afforded the opportunity to receive technical support from the team’s developers. For its efforts, RockX, which currently runs a node for Polkadot, Cosmos, Solana, Oasis, and Terra, will be provided with tokens or equity from each of the projects it supports via its above-mentioned program.

Square Crypto Grant Scheme

From the traditional fintech space, no other company has done more than Square to aid the crypto industry development. To date, the company has rolled out a total of more than 20 grants, with a vast majority of them going to prominent Bitcoin Core developers like Gloria Zhao, Justin Moon, and ZmnSCPxj.

Square Crypto’s most recent grant was awarded to pseudonymous Bitcoin developer Fi3 to help facilitate his work which seeks to improve the hashing power of collective BTC mining pools.

Union Bank of Philippines Cooperates with Hex Trust for Promoting Pilot Digital Assets Custody Service

Union Bank of Philippines (UnionBank) announced Wednesday the bank has paired with Hong Kong-based Hex Trust to pilot digital assets custody service.

In response to maturing space and growing interest in digital assets and blockchain technology, and the need for trust and regulated institutions to manage digital assets from retail and institutional investors, this partnership will start by Hex Trust to provide internal services for the bank’s employees as a trial run, before “fully commercialised digital assets service” to the public, according to the press release.

UnionBank believes the cooperation will help the bank enter the digital asset sector as a pioneer by fully complying with compliance with Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) regulation.

Henry Aguda, Chief Technology and Operations Officer, Chief Transformation Officer of the Union Bank of the Philippines, indicated that the market demand in the various forms of digital assets, including cryptocurrency, NFTs, or tokenised assets are arising, he said in the statement:

“We are excited to be the first Philippine bank to pilot a custody service for digital assets for our own employees, overseen by the BSP, so that we can prepare the groundwork for a safe and protected system for customers’ digital assets,”

The HK-based Hex Trust said the company provides “bank-grade service” to their customers. Calvin Shen, Head of Sales & Business Development of Hex Trust, said:

“Hex Trust’s collaboration with UnionBank enables secure access to the digital asset ecosystem via our award-winning enterprise-level custody platform. Millions of the bank’s customers will soon have access to this new asset class,”

In May, Hex Trust has paired with Chianalysis to provide a compliance-driven custody solution for financial institutions. The Trust is also expanding to the European market in this remaining year, the company said.

SEC Chair Calls for Open Dialogue in Pursuit of a Regulated Crypto Market

Gary Gensler, the Chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), wants an inclusive and transparent capital market with plans to extend oversight to the crypto ecosystem.

According to a statement detailing the proposed speech of the Chairman ahead of his testimony before the United States Banking Committee on Tuesday, September 14, Gensler believes the crypto market is replete with fraud.

“Currently, we just don’t have enough investor protection in crypto finance, issuance, trading, or lending,” the Chairman wrote, adding:

“Frankly, at this time, it’s more like the Wild West or the old world of ‘buyer beware’ that existed before the securities laws were enacted. This asset class is rife with fraud, scams, and abuse in certain applications.”

Gensler noted that the country’s digital currency ecosystem could do better. The commission will be working along two major lines; bridging all gaps through the help of regulators, and working with other regulators with overlapping oversights on the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

“With respect to investor protection, we’re working with our sibling agency, the CFTC, as our two agencies each have relevant, and in some cases, overlapping jurisdiction in the crypto markets. Concerning a broader set of policy frameworks, we’re working with not only the CFTC but also the Federal Reserve, Department of Treasury, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and other members of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets on these matters,” Gensler added.

In all, the Chairman will inform the lawmakers how he hopes to promote inclusiveness amongst the key stakeholders in the crypto ecosystem by encouraging them to come and engage the commission with details of their plans. Gensler notably affirmed that he has oftentimes “suggested that platforms and projects come in and talk to us” so the agency can help categorize whether the tokens listed on their platforms are securities or not.

Gensler will end the section on crypto by affirming that he is technology-neutral. His ultimate aim is to collaboratively bring regulations to the highest regulatory controversial digital currency ecosystem. Part of these controversies fueled the ongoing Ripple-SEC legal tussle, an occurrence that will be prevented with the promise of comprehensive regulation.

Digital Currency Growth Brings "Opportunities and Challenges": IMF

A recent report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has highlighted that the current evolution in the digital currency ecosystem presents both opportunities and challenges for the broader financial ecosystem.

According to the report, the IMF pointed out the potential advantages that may emanate from the growing adoption of digital currencies, including the boost to financial inclusion.

The IMF report detailed:

“The rapid growth of the crypto ecosystem presents new opportunities. Technological innovation is ushering in a new era that makes payments and other financial services cheaper, faster, more accessible, and allows them to flow across borders swiftly. Crypto asset technologies have potential as a tool for faster and cheaper cross-border payments,”

The international monetary watchdog also noted that bank deposits can be transformed into “stablecoins that allow instant access to a vast array of financial products from digital platforms and allow instant currency conversion.” The broad innovation powering digital currencies is also known to power flexible utilities in the form of decentralized finance that can potentially transform the monetary ecosystem.

Observed Challenges

The IMF also pointed out the inherent risks involved in crypto adoption, dwelling on the limited framework to provide the necessary investor protection.

“Challenges posed by the crypto ecosystem include operational and financial integrity risks from crypto asset providers, investor protection risks for crypto-assets and DeFi, and inadequate reserves and disclosure for some stablecoins,” the report noted.

Providing recommendations to tame the flaws that are observable in the fast-emerging cryptocurrency industry pose, the IMF suggests the creation of enhanced monitoring systems for protocols operating under their jurisdictions.

“Policymakers should implement global standards for crypto-assets and enhance their ability to monitor the crypto ecosystem by addressing data gaps. As the role of stablecoins grows, regulations should correspond to the risks they pose and the economic functions they perform. Emerging markets faced with cryptoization risks should strengthen macroeconomic policies and consider the benefits of issuing central bank digital currencies,” the report said.

Crypto regulation is a volatile and diverse affair amongst various countries nowadays. While South Korea is intensifying its demands from crypto exchanges operating in the country, others particularly China are stumping out any digital currency-related activity in a sweeping regulatory stance.