Devcon 5: Building a decentralized revolution at scale

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The Ethereum community gathered in Osaka, Japan, for its fifth developer-focused conference. Here are all the highlights and everything you need to know.

Breaking news and features live from Devcon's fifth conference.

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Tim Copeland

OSAKA, Japan—Enclosed in a dark room, three developers were crowded around a table featuring a dead plant, a yellow clock and a black suitcase, while standing on a pile of crumpled bank notes.

This was an immersive experience set up by Elsewhere, and a cryptocurrency called Kong, to get attendees at Devcon 5 this week “to discover for themselves what they think about money,” said Elsewhere’s “head of dream logistics” Greg Crawford.

Things were just as trippy outside the conference area, in “Devcon Park.” There one could find unicorn dinosaur cut-outs, spaced across the grounds, interspersed among stalls offering custom-made rice balls and t-shirts. The whole thing felt a bit like the utopian future, if your idea of utopia involves cute pink monsters.

But Ethereum isn’t just about turning the world pink, nor theorizing endlessly about money. Its supporters—the thinkers, devs, money people, anarchists and everyone else who makes up the community—want to create a better, more utopian financial system. And, based on what else was on display at the biggest Ethereum developer-focused conference of the year, it’s making steady progress.

DEVCON AS A PROTEST EVENT

The unlikely person spearheading the charge at the Ethereum-focused event was none other than Bitcoin.com founder and Bitcoin Cash proponent Roger Ver. He was at the conference to show solidity with other blockchain projects, believing that people should use whichever blockchain works for them.

In one of his most brazen interviews, he spoke on stage about how it was time for developers to break the rules and do whatever they wanted—if they believed it would make the world a better place.

“This is a protest event,” Ver said onstage, adding, “We are building tools to empower individuals. That’s the goal that still has me excited today.”

SHARPENING THE TOOLS FOR A FINANCIAL REVOLUTION

There were many companies on display this week building those tools.

Orchid Labs’s upcoming decentralized VPN uses blockchain technology to create a more perfect privacy layer on the Internet, allowing anyone to access content from anyone else. It’s a first step toward a paid-for Internet, where users make micro, or nano transactions, to pay for services from each other, rather than from a telco, cable or Internet provider.

At the other end of the spectrum, we saw new privacy tools from the likes of accounting firm Ernst & Young. It’s leading the charge for businesses to use its tools compliantly, within the law. It’s open-sourcing its tools, meaning anyone can use them, for anything. (And, according to EY’s blockchain lead Paul Brody, developers are already thanking them for building the first tool, Nightfall.)

Inside EY’s radical plan to get major businesses using Ethereum
Experiments with radical funding methods were also in evidence. The key technology here is the DAO, which, once launched is self-sustaining and virtually impossible to shut down. One DAO, MetaCartel, issued a grant used to fund another DAO, Orochi. That was used to fund events held around Devcon (including, of course, a DAO-themed event). While this was used to simply organize a whisky event, the same technology could be used to organize funding for Hong Kong protests, for example.

And the community is ganging up on big business too—and subverting their technology. While Facebook attempts to keep its cryptocurrency plans on track for 2020, Ethereum developers have forked the code to create their own version, dubbed OpenLibra.

Radically, according to its website, it’s, “An alternative to Facebook's Libra, that places emphasis on open governance and economic decentralization.” That pretty much sums up the ethos at Devcon—if you don’t like the way corporations are doing it, do it your own way.

Of course, this being Devcon, some influencers objected to even deigning to fix Libra. “Shame on us for lending our legitimacy to Libra,” Ethereum Foundation researcher Vlad Zamfir tweeted, adding, “I've never been more disappointed in the Ethereum community.”

BUILDING AN ALTERNATIVE FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Many developers are working on more pure forms of finance on Ethereum, known as DeFi. This is the idea of creating financial contracts between any number of people, without the need of a trusted third party. For example, you can lend, or borrow cryptocurrencies on the financial platform, Compound. One of the cryptos you can lend or borrow is DAI, which is itself a great example of DeFi: it’s a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar that doesn’t have a third party holding dollars in reserve to maintain the peg. Instead users lock up ether as collateral in smart contracts.

Interest in DeFi continues to grow. About $525 million is currently locked up in smart contracts for DeFi related activities, about half of which is for DAI. Nearly all protocols are on Ethereum, although that figure does include $6.9 million locked up on Bitcoin, in the Lightning Network. This is where Ethereum poses a real threat to the current financial institutions. Now it has a stablecoin that protects everyone from the volatility that cryptocurrencies have, these protocols can create effective financial products, without a bank in sight.

These protocols, though launched and maintained by DeFi companies, are carrying out financial services via decentralized protocols. In a sense, no one is running them, which is one reason regulators are so alarmed.

THE CHALLENGES AHEAD

The biggest thing holding back Ethereum’s growing DeFi sector and splurge of new DAOs is scalability. The Ethereum blockchain is struggling to run too many transactions every day. Nodes on the network (that help to keep it running) had to increase block sizes by 25 percent, to enable more transactions. But that makes the blockchain more unwieldy and harder to maintain.

Ethereum has a roadmap to solve this, and phase zero is underway. Though it’s an ambitious plan, Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin said in his keynote address this week that he is confident that, when it’s complete, the Ethereum blockchain will be faster, and a much more secure system, too.

Plasma—Ethereum’s fast-payment answer to the Lightning Network—has made big strides. Alongside decentralized exchange protocol, Uniswap, it released a tool for running smart contracts on a “layer-two solution,” which will help keep as many transactions as possible off the main Ethereum chain. That’s great news for DeFi projects, which are transactions heavy.

The Ethereum Foundation’s Zamfir put the whole thing in perspective during a thought-provoking speech. He argued that the Ethereum movement was getting so big and so radical that regulators and lawmakers are increasingly alarmed. He said it would be wise for the Ethereum community to consider its future more deliberately: Should the platform work with governments and regulators around the world to find a compromise? Or continue to create a fully decentralized world that was free of censorship or outside interference?

Judging by the revolutionary flair at this year’s devcon, it looks like the community may have spoken.


The establishment is cracking down on Ethereum’s alternative financial system. But that’s only making devs build faster.

The new tools, protocols and infrastructure shaping crypto today.

The establishment is cracking down on Ethereum’s alternative financial system. But that’s only making developers build faster.

A look at Orchid’s decentralized VPN: What it means for Web3

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orchid's vpn

OSAKA, Japan—Orchid Labs is building a decentralized VPN to provide a new and potentially better way of accessing the Internet anonymously. It’s the first product in a suite of products, that will create a new privacy layer on the Internet, using blockchain technology. And if the plan works, its technology could help replumb and improve the entire Internet.

The startup raised $48 million in 2017 through two SAFT token sales to accredited investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Blockchain Capital, Polychain Capital and Sequoia. Its stated mission is to, “build open source software that keeps the Internet open and accessible—a natural resource for everyone, everywhere.” That was a hot topic at Devcon 5 this year, with Bitcoin Cash booster Roger Ver name-dropping Orchid’s VPN as an example of how we can reclaim the Internet.

“We’re combining some real hardcore network security with blockchain. Folding these two things together,” Orchid CEO Steven Waterhouse told _Decrypt_.

SOLVING THE PRIVACY PROBLEM

Blockchain + anything has become a bit of a joke of late. There are so many things that the technology is not good for. But it turns out to be just the thing to ensure unbreakable anonymity.

Orchid comes, in part, as a reaction to the growing erosion of privacy on the Internet. As the Internet has become more centralized, service providers and major infrastructure providers have become hubs that governments can lean on. Last year, free speech social network Gab briefly shut down when it was mass deplatformed, and it ended up decentralizing to survive.

Its technology relies on good, old-fashioned VPN technology—but with a twist.

Virtual private networks were designed to create a safe way for employees to connect remotely to their companies’ sensitive computer networks. But the problem with VPNs from a privacy, _anonymity_ standpoint, Waterhouse explains, is that most of them are run by companies that can see who’s using it, and what for.

And for people who use VPNs for privacy for their private use, there’s even less privacy. VPN providers tend to operate within certain IP address ranges, the network provider can see your packet data and people typically pay with credit cards.

ORCHID’S APPROACH

Orchid’s VPN is paid for with Orchid’s own cryptocurrency, the Ethereum-based OXT token. Using OXT,  they’re not paying anything to Orchid, but to the computers that are routing its traffic. That will create a kind of marketplace of bandwidth, enabling anyone to become an internet provider.

“In most VPNs you have a series of VPN servers that are either in one location, or multiple locations. But in our system you can route traffic between different VPN servers in a network or choose between multiple VPN servers. This makes for a much more flexible system, adding extra security and increased privacy,” Waterhouse said.

It’s the first step towards a paid-for internet. At the moment we pay for access to the internet, but the actual information itself is passed around for free. Instead, Orchid hopes to see monetary incentives used to keep it decentralized, rather than relying on for-profit companies providing free services, a dangerous combination for ensuring online privacy. For example, you might pay a website itself every time you access it, rather than the money going to your internet service provider. This would give a new stream of income for people who own websites. While some might see this as a less open system, Waterhouse argued that there are multiple benefits.

“You could argue a lot of the bad things about the internet are because things are free. Spam, right? If you had to pay to send emails, spam wouldn’t be necessary,” said Waterhouse.

THE CHALLENGE OF USING CRYPTOCURRENCIES

There’s an obvious problem with this approach, however. Namely, transactions on most public blockchains are transparent. That could potentially reveal the websites a user was visiting, among other things.

Jake Cannell, a researcher at Orchid said the problem could be ultimately averted by privacy coins, but they’re not ready for prime time yet. On top of that, cryptocurrency fees are way too high for nanopayments—the fees would be orders of magnitude higher than the payments. Instead, Orchid has a cunning solution, solving both problems, that involves “nanopayments.”

The system works like a lottery. Rather than getting paid $0.02 for performing a service, you get entered into a lottery. The lottery has a one in 100 chance of paying you an amount that’s 100 times greater. So, 99 times, you’ll get nothing, and once in every 100 times, you’ll get $2.

If you do just one transaction, it’s a terrible idea. You’ll come away with nothing. But, doing this for millions of transactions, it works really well. You’ll end up with the same amount of money but will only have paid a handful of transaction fees.

Cannell said, “It allows you to scale up to an enormously high transaction throughput. ”

Plasma Group and Uniswap release new Ethereum scaling solution at Devcon
Not only will it save on fees, but it solves the privacy issue too. Since only one in 100 (that’s our example numbers, it may be much higher) transactions result in an actual blockchain-based transaction, that means that far fewer payments will be on the blockchain. This will mean there’s much less data available about who’s paying how much to whom.

But at the same time, Orchid recognizes that there will be some blockchain-based payments made. Waterhouse recommended that users who want full privacy should mix their cryptocurrency before making payments, using a mixing service. These helps to keep people anonymous when using cryptocurrencies.

“We’re building a marketplace of bandwidth using the Ethereum blockchain and a new token OXT. We figured out how to scale transactions and specifically payments to data networking speeds, and our first application of this is a decentralized VPN,” Waterhouse said.

To maximize its incentive mechanism, Orchid built a rating system for computers providing the routing services (not the end users). The more OXT they stake (lock up as collateral), the more traffic gets directed to their computers.

THE END GAME

The decentralized VPN technology and its underpinnings is just the start.

Orchid plans to expand its technology stack of privacy tools, enabling a more private and secure Internet on the back of Web3 technology. That would be the first step toward a paid-for, decentralized Internet, that restores users’ anonymity and privacy.

To Waterhouse, that’s the burning issue of our time, thanks to the issues with Facebook and “before the dear leaders of the US and the UK were elected,” he said. But now, issues of privacy and anonymity “seem less wacky to me all the time. I think it’s generational. The statistics and the awareness [of online privacy] is much higher than any other generation.”

“We want to see the Greta Thunberg moment of privacy at the moment but we don’t have one. Nobody’s screaming about this,” he said.


Orchid is making full use of Web3 technologies to bring privacy back to the Internet. But it has a far broader mission, too.

OSAKA, Japan—Orchid Labs is building a decentralized VPN to provide a new and potentially better way of accessing the Internet anonymously.

Business

Binance

LinkedIn

Changpeng Zhao

Binance Coin

accounts

bad actors

binance

crypto

crypto companies

employees

exchange

fake

fake profiles

linkedin

Rakesh Sharma

Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, has 642 employees on its payroll. But on professional networking site LinkedIn, that number swells to 1,600, including a fake executive director who seems to be working there even before the exchange launched. 

The fake listings appear to have gotten the goat of Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao, who  tweeted about “scammers impersonating [the] Binance Team,” and said that the actual number of his employees who had LinkedIn profiles was a scant 30.

 “Welcome to crypto and LinkedIn,” he sniffed.

At first glance, Binance’s LinkedIn profiles problem—as well as many other crypto companies "employees" listed on the professional networking site—may seem similar to the fake profiles malaise that afflicted crypto twitter a while back. In that phenomenon, fake profiles promised crypto giveaways to followers.

  

Fake LinkedIn profiles, however, have different motivations. The incentives for creating such profiles range from phishing scams, to building email lists, to generating leads for recruitment agencies. In Binance’s case, fake profiles are also responsible for tarnishing its brand by soliciting listing requests from tokens for its Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) platform.

> Case in point. Silly people. pic.twitter.com/YjMtI9arGh
> 
> — Philip Arthur Moore 🇻🇳🐷 (@cryptophilip) October 12, 2019

 

 “Any LinkedIn accounts that claim themselves as “Binance Listing Director/Coordinators” are absolutely fraudsters, as our listing team would not reveal their title or any social media,” Kathy Zhu told Decrypt. That said, she says the fake profiles have little impact on the company’s operations. “We have internal channels to verify employee identity and report phishing accounts and information,” said Zhu.

She added that many people who list themselves on LinkedIn as employees are actually just traders. “A large number of them who claim themselves as Trader/Investor/Early Investor at Binance are, in fact, just users of investors of BNB (the native token used for transactions in Binance).” 

 LinkedIn has said it uses a “variety of automated techniques, coupled with human reviewers and member reporting to keep our members safe from all types of bad actors and abuse.” But identity fraud is virtually impossible to stop on the site, which offers up an easy way to rat out bad actors.

Larry Cermak, a researcher at  The Block, attempted to put together a more accurate list of employee accounts at crypto companies.

But CZ said the number of people working at his exchange misses the point:  “Wrong goal. Active users is the number to go for.” LinkedIn does not, of course, even attempt a guess at that one.


Crypto’s LinkedIn Problem 

The people and companies shaping the crypto industry.

Little is known about Facebook's Libra five months after its launch. But Congress now has a chance to get answers straight from the horse's mouth.

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Libra

A wrap up of news covering the announcement of Facebook's cryptocurrency, Libra.

The latest news on Facebook's Libra

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance before Congress on October 23 is an opportunity for lawmakers to find out more about Libra. 

Since its launch this past June, Facebook’s idea for a cryptocurrency that spans its social network has drawn opprobrium and criticism from legislators and international organizations around the world. This is partly due to its lack of details. 

While it released a tranche of Libra documentation in June, Facebook has revealed little about the coin afterwards. Even Libra co-creator David Marcus’ appearance before Congress in July failed to provide answers.    

Zuckerberg’s appearance will allow Congress to pull back the curtains on an ambitious project that could have significant implications for the world economy. Here are three questions that lawmakers should ask him when they face off next week.

1. WHO REGULATES LIBRA?

When he appeared before Congress, Libra co-creator and chief David Marcus insisted that the blockchain and cryptocurrency would take into account concerns from regulators around the world before its launch.

But it is difficult to identify the appropriate regulators, given the breadth and absence of details about its operations. Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) encapsulated the problem in one of her remarks during the previous Congressional hearing. “I am not sure if this [Libra] is a problem for my investor protection subcommittee or my consumer protection subcommittee,” she said.

When extrapolated on a global stage, the regulation problem multiplies. In previous interviews, Libra co-creator Marcus has stated that developers who create apps on its blockchain are responsible for complying with laws in their respective jurisdictions. It is an approach used by other crypto businesses, such as Localbitcoins, a peer-to-peer money transfer mechanism.

 Stripe, eBay, Mastercard and Visa quit Facebook's Libra

The problem, at least in Facebook’s case, is that it is held to a higher standard. This is primarily because its massive geographical reach multiplies the scope of Libra’s operations. In a centralized system of money transfers, financial services providers, such as PayPal, assume responsibility for such operations because they provide the rails to make it happen.

That is not possible in a decentralized system. As an example, the division of responsibility is unclear in a money-laundering case where a payment app situated in a jurisdiction that may not comply with AML/KYC obligations transmits money using Libra to another, similar entity.

2. HOW DOES LIBRA PLAN TO DISTRIBUTE ITS TOKENS? _ _

Based on the documentation released so far, Libra is intended to be distributed through authorized resellers. Besides the fact that this practice further centralizes Libra operations, the mechanics and requirements to become a reseller are not known. This is important because an authorized reseller plays an important role in the Libra ecosystem, similar to the one played by commercial banks in an economy.

Interestingly CoinFLEX, a futures platform, recently released futures contracts for betting on a date for Libra’s launch. The contracts are physically-settled and traders will receive Libra tokens equivalent to the amount of their bet upon expiration. News of the contract raises an important question. Is CoinFLEX an authorized reseller of the token or has it applied to become one? Either way, the answer to that question might provide clues to the functioning and place of authorized resellers within the Libra ecosystem.

3. IS LIBRA A SECURITY?

Libra is planned to be governed by the Libra Association, a consortium of established companies and non-profits who will each contribute $10 million to its reserves. They are also responsible for running mining nodes that will mine Libra’s coin which will have “low volatility.” The association plans to make periodic payouts to them for their investment.

The current set of arrangements potentially makes Libra a security, per the SEC’s definition, which is based on the Howey test. The test uses four prongs—an investment contract, expectation of profits, use of a third party for promotion, and the existence of a common enterprise—to determine whether a token is a security.

The Libra Association could be construed as a common enterprise, and the existence of low volatility in Libra’s price could ensure profits for its members. While he refused to comment specifically on Libra, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton told lawmakers at a hearing recently that it “sounds like a security.” 

Congress should get to the heart of Libra’s functioning to find out more about how Facebook plans to incentivize Libra Association members and developers for its proposed blockchain. 


3 Libra questions Congress should ask Facebook’s Zuckerberg

Orochi: The mysterious DAO powering events at Devcon 5

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whisky

autonomous organization

decentralized autonomous

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event

moloch dao

orochi

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rage quit

Osaka, Japan—“This year was the year of the DAO,” Makoto Inoue told us at Devcon 5. But he would say that, being the creator of Orochi DAO, the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that was used to organize events at Devcon 5 this week. Including, naturally, events about DAOs themselves.

A decentralized autonomous organization functions as if a computer program went rogue and operated all on its own accord. They essentially work as a non-partial arbitrator between multiple individuals or parties and can be used for such purposes as choosing which grants to fund, or where to allocate money for events.

This is exactly what happened at Devcon 5, with Orochi. Large chunks of the sponsorship money for the four-day Ethereum-focused conference were plugged into this DAO. Then, each of the respective parties communicated among themselves to organize ideas. When a proposal looked good, it would be proposed on the DAO and voted on. If approved, the money would be directly sent to the organizer, who would use it to run the event.

Inside EY’s radical plan to get major businesses using Ethereum
And it worked really well. The DAO was used to fund two events—using up its funding of $6,500—to show it was a successful proof of concept. Two days before Devcon 5 started, DAO fans eagerly gathered together on the 6th floor of the conference hall, to listen to DAO-themed talks. The event was largely focused on Moloch DAO—the funding scheme laid out by Spankchain CEO Ameen Soleimani that Orochi was based on. This was organized by Inoue.

Later that week, a small group flocked to a whisky tasting event, which was a little more laid back. But this one saw the DAO take on a life of its own.
[Orochi DAO whisky tasting event]Happy attendees at Orochi DAO's whisky tasting event. Photo Credit: YAP Global
“The whisky tasting, I didn’t do anything for that—who set that up? The DAO takes care of itself,” Inoue said. Since the DAO is decentralized, anyone can make proposals, which the sponsors (or members of the DAO) vote on. If the event goes ahead, and a sponsor doesn’t approve, they can “rage quit” and take their funds out.

Moloch DAO has a voting period of one week and a grace period of one week, allowing sufficient time for proposals to be seen and to let members rage quit if they need. For Orochi, Inoue chose to reduce this time to one day for each, he said, in order to make it a much more responsive DAO for organizing short term events.

DAOS FUNDING DAOS

Funding for the DAO actually came from another DAO, believe it or not. Metacartel DAO gave a 10 ether ($1,850) grant to Inoue, who split it with Odyssy—a decentralized collective building on Ethereum—which offered to code the whole thing.

"Orochi, with its simple purpose of organizing an event, is one of the most practical, real-world applications of a DAO seen to date. Due to the success of the event, Orochi has validated that a DAO works as a means of decentralized event coordination,” said Ven Gist, cofounder of Odyssy.

But why did it work so well?

Turbocharging the events was a platform called Kickback Events, which Inoue also runs. When attending an event, users put up 10 DAI ($10) as a deposit. If they attend, they get the money back—if not, it’s confiscated and split across all attendees. So, if only half the people turn up, those who do double their money.

And to provide an even greater incentive to attend the DAO-themed event, Inoue used some of the sponsorship money to create ten “fake” attendees. Since they wouldn’t turn up, the money would be split between anyone who did. In this case, 62 people attended (it’s all recorded on the blockchain) out of 75, plus the extra ten addresses. So, all the attendees took home $12, including a bonus $2.

DESIGNING THE OROCHI DAO

The Orochi DAO itself is themed in the same vein as Moloch; it’s named after an eight-headed snake known as Yamata no Orochi.

“Moloch is all about sacrifice. I googled ‘sacrifice, Japanese monsters’. Orochi came up because the part of their storyline is they used to eat villagers’ daughters every year. That’s how I first got into that story,” Inoue said, adding, “Then I came across sake. It’s a combination of the scary creature and getting drunk. It symbolises the DAO.”
[Designing the Orochi DAO]“Susanoo slaying the Yamata no Orochi,” by Toyohara Chikanobu.
He added that Moloch’s symbol is a goat, and he needed a stronger image. Hence the snakes dipping into bowels of sake, a striking picture based on “Susanoo slaying the Yamata no Orochi,” a painting by Toyohara Chikanobu.

But don’t worry, no eight-headed snakes were harmed in the making of this DAO.


This year, events at Devcon 5 were organized on the blockchain. And it was super effective.

At Devcon 5, large chunks of the sponsorship money for the four-day Ethereum-focused conference were plugged into this DAO.

In a move that was fully expected, the SEC said it will not decide the fate of a Bitcoin ETF proposal until the end of summer at the earliest.

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Guillermo Jimenez

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission took its sweet time on this one, but the result on the the latest Bitcoin ETF proposal was the same—which was no result at all.

On Monday, the SEC once again chose to delay making a decision on whether to finally greenlight a bitcoin-backed exchange-traded fund, this latest bid brought forth by the investment management firm VanEck and blockchain startup SolidX.

It’s a move that was entirely expected, said former securities litigator Jake Chervinsky on Twitter:

> As expected, the SEC has delayed the VanEck bitcoin ETF proposal. Read the order here: https://t.co/OB3TBgVGwg.
> 
> VanEck's new deadline is August 19. The SEC can & likely will delay one more time for a final deadline of October 18.
> 
> Looks like this ended up the right explanation: https://t.co/bkzeVRt1Hg
> 
> — Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) May 20, 2019

Chervinsky had, in fact, predicted just yesterday that a delay on the VanEck/SolidX Bitcoin ETF was the most likely outcome, given the SEC’s track record on these sorts of proposed rule changes.

The Commission has said more times than we care to actually research and count that it _will not approve_ a Bitcoin ETF proposal until it is satisfied that trading on cryptocurrency exchanges, and therefore the resulting volatile price of Bitcoin, is safely free of market manipulation. After all, an exchange-traded fund is widely believed to be the Bitcoin gateway that leads to untold legions of both retail and institutional investors buying into the game—allowing for investment in the coin without having to go through the trouble of actually purchasing and holding the underlying asset.

So what could have possibly changed in the crypto market to have convinced regulators their conditions had been met and their fears assuaged?

Absolutely nothing. And yet, here we are.

Last Tuesday, the SEC similarly opted to delay ruling on the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF and put out its customary call for public comments on the matter.

As Chervinsky noted, however, it was _slightly_ unusual that the SEC chose not to make its (in)decision on the VanEck/SolidX ETF at the same time as the Bitwise proposal. The delay provided the slightest glimmer of hope that an approval could alas be forthcoming from the Commission— hope which Chervinsky obliterated in the aforementioned Twitter thread yesterday.

In the end, the delay on the SEC’s delay meant nothing at all—the latest Macbethian twist in a tale that's full of sound and fury, signifying diddly-squat.

The next deadline is August 19. We can hardly wait to breathlessly report the next painfully predictable result.


SEC again delays ruling on VanEck Bitcoin ETF, surprising no one

SEC again delays ruling on VanEck Bitcoin ETF, surprising no one

In a move that was fully expected, the SEC said it will not decide the fate of a Bitcoin ETF proposal until the end of summer at the earliest.

Experience Web 3.0.