152290277

Daily Debrief

adriana

blockchain

blockchain explorer

blockchain explorers

business

data

ethereum

explorer

explorers

100 Monkeys

_Welcome to Debrief, the newsletter that is, on sad days like today when Ben is “on holiday,” written by 100 monkeys randomly typing. See if you can spot the difference!_

OUR STUFF 

ORACLE OF ORACLES. Adriana H., _Decrypt’s_ house oracle, gets the inside scoop on Chainlink, the big dog in the blockchain oracles business. Adriana managed to score an interview with the elusive Sergey Nazarov, the CEO of the press-shy Cayman Islands-based startup. Nazarov described the technical challenges his company is solving, and talked a bit about how the oracles business is going. Read it here.

BLOCKCHAIN: THE FINAL FRONTIER. Tim C. puts up a lovely read about MyEtherWallet’s just-launched, open-source blockchain explorer. We’re _pretty sure_ it’s the first consumer-facing open source blockchain explorer for Ethereum though there are others under development. Blockchain explorers, as we imagine you know, are kind of like a cross between Google and a microscope for blockchains, allowing one to examine data at a granular, block level as well as at a macro level. (And if you want to learn more about blockchain explorers, here’s a guide Tim lovingly lashed together.) And/or read about MyETherWallet's new blockchain explorer here.

TIM THE DESTROYER. For his second number, the Great Timbo takes a look at the DestroyerDAO, and finds it wanting. What is it? It’s yet another example of a DAO—an autonomous, distributed organization—this one “formed by an anonymous team who say they invested in altcoins—cryptocurrencies that aren’t Bitcoin—only to watch them turn into ‘scams’ by teams that failed to deliver anything meaningful. In response, says the team, DestroyerDAO’s purpose is to destroy any altcoin that the community deems a scam.” Our Tim’s analysis however is that the enterprise mostly stinks: “All in all, this looks like a desperate money-grabbing scheme from a group of people who have lost money in the great cryptocurrency crash of 2018.” Read his exegesis here.

LIGHTMYFIRE. And lastly, Tim gives us a quick rundown on… torches. Surely you’ve heard of the Lightning Torch, the PR stunt whereby a symbolic $100 of bitcoin is handed, from one person to another, relay-race style? Turns out that Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and EOS all have copycat torches. Thank god for Tim otherwise you wouldn’t even know about this. Illuminate yourself herein.

 

OTHER STUFF

FRAUD ALERT: A self-described data science outfit, CryptoIntegrity, issued an intriguing “report” on Medium today that claims that 88% of the volume of select crypto exchanges is inflated. The data looks fairly compelling, and CryptoIntegrity says it’s been tracking suspicious trades via its own algorithm, which it published on GitHub. The whole thing would be more compelling if the person or person responsible would identify themselves, however. We're talking to Dmitry,” and will have a fuller story shortly.

MORNING MCAFEE: Leathery old man John McAfee says he _always_ has two guns in his hand “during every love making session.” He takes his guns with him everywhere, in fact. He even sleeps with them, in his hand, without the safeties on. This is something that he has trained himself to do due to the 31 home invasions he’s suffered at the hands of “usually” Special Forces soldiers. Let us hope that when he is finally elected POTUS, the U.S. Secret Service will relieve him of this responsibility so the great man can get some rest.

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1104908561333792776

NOT_ written by Ben M, who’s doing god knows what in Rome today. Tell him how much you miss his wit and insights via email to ben@decryptmedia.com_


The oracle of oracles

772454122

bakkt

bitcoin

decentralized

ethereum platform

guillermo

home

interesting

_[Editor's note: Young Ben Munster, the unsung hero/writer of Debrief, was at this writing, flying over the frozen Atlantic, bound for the United States of America, or "the Colonies," as he calls it. He will be on assignment in California, Colorado and New York for the next few weeks. In his stead, we have entrusted the writing of this screed to a decentralized team of 100 monkeys, who, though typing randomly, will attempt to match the level of insight and "wit" he brings to his popular Decrypt column (which is available by email!) Thank you for your patience.]_

OUR STUFF

 

A NICE SPANKING.  Ameen Soleimani, swashbuckling CEO of hot-blockchain-based-webcam-sex-site Spankchain, has some tough love for the Ethereum platform. Why should anyone care? Soleimani is one of the most respected OGs in the Ethereum firmament and Spankchain is, thus far, the decentralized network's most successful endeavor. Among other things, he says that Ethereum 2.0 is taking too long and suffers for want of a leader. This is apostasy to many people who've embraced the trustless-network, leaderless ethos of the decentralized world. Our Adriana H has the story, plus reaction, right here.

A HOME FOR THE BLOCKCHAIN. Also by the prolific Ms. H: She interviews the CEO of Propy, which today sold its first home in California, via the Ethereum platform. Propy is one of many crypto-based real-estate startups that believe smart contracts ought to replace the usual bureaucratic tangle that comes with home buying. Read all about it here.

WALLET INSECURITY. Munster's nemesis and mentor, Tim C says that those USB-like hardware wallets aren't as unhackable as most people think. We hear from a Bitcoin security expert, who details a number of fascinating though nefarious techniques that Wily E. Hacker might use to thaw one's cold storage device. Read it here, or lose sleep tonight.

TRADE SECRET. Guillermo J has an interesting angle on Abra, the crypto-investing company, which yesterday announced a product that allows people to invest cryptocurrency in the stock market. It turns out, says Guillermo, that investors can do this completely anonymously. Which is... interesting. Read his exclusive report right here.

 

OTHER STUFF

RIGOR MORTIS _DE RIGUEUR._ The Indian hospital where QuadrigaCX founder Gerald Cotten reportedly died gave a statement confirming his death to CoinDesk. According to the report, Cotten arrived on the evening of Dec. 8 at Fortis Escorts hospital in the city of Jaipur, suffering from septic shock related to "pre-existing Crohn's disease." He subsequently suffered two heart attacks, and was declared dead nearly 24 hours later. That statement is in line with similar attestations from a local funeral home, and a death certificate issued by the municipality. Of course, it'll do nothing to offset the conspiracy theories that suggest the whole thing was staged to cheat 115,000 people who used the Canadian exchange out of $147 million.

BAKKT BEFALLS BUYERS. Bakkt, the futures trading platform that will save us from our grasping, HODLing selves, has a crappy doppelganger trying to fleece people of bitcoin. Earlier this week, journalists were sent an email from a Gmail address telling recipients that Bakkt was set to launch on March 12, amid a $50 million financing round. All would-be scamees need do is head on over to [website address deleted] to dump a load of bitcoin into a wallet... And, please provide your own address to receive the sweet "profits" from the investment. Some sleuthing revealed that the domain was registered in Panama a week ago and our trusty Ethereum Phishing Detector lists it as a fake.

LITECOIN HIDES ITS MODESTY - Litecoin, the cute kid brother of bitcoin, lead by lovable crypto rogue Charlie Lee, is embracing privacy.

> Fungibility is the only property of sound money that is missing from Bitcoin & Litecoin. Now that the scaling debate is behind us, the next battleground will be on fungibility and privacy.
> 
> I am now focused on making Litecoin more fungible by adding Confidential Transactions. 🚀
> 
> — Charlie Lee [LTC⚡] (@SatoshiLite) January 28, 2019

Those "Confidential Transactions" Mr. Lee is talking about was an idea created by early bitcoin developer Gregory Maxwell, and was designed to hide the details of users when performing transactions. This technique is used by Monero, but Lee reckons the Mimblewimble privacy protocol--named after something stupid related to Harry Potter--is the way forward for Litecoin. Lee believes that implementing the privacy layer could be done using a soft fork, which allows those who don't upgrade their software to carry on as if nothing has happened. Ethereum should take a leaf out of Litecoin's book, and then burn theirs.


Death becomes him, and much, much more

We are 100 monkeys, randomly typing on typewriters, in the crypto jungle. And even we can do a better job than most of you writing about this stuff.

100 Monkeys

Stories by 100 Monkeys

The oracle of oracles

Death becomes him, and much, much more