Crypto News, August 13 2018: Red Day
Highlights: A warning against Bitmain’s IPO, Charles v. Vitalik round two, and baseball crypto collectibles.
Bitmain IPO Controversy
Source: Medium
There’s some controversy swirling today over Bitmain, starting with a tweet from Samsung showing the mining hardware producer’s crypto holdings. As of March 2018, Bitmain is holding around $887 million in BCH. During the same timeframe, their BTC holdings have dropped significantly, raising speculation that they have been selling BTC to accumulate BCH. The concern here is that this means Bitmain is essentially all-in on BCH, over-invested to the point of liability. The source linked above documents some transfers from Bitmain’s wallets which could indicate an attempt to sell off some of the BCH - and if that is the case, they’ve unloaded about 20% of their holdings - but this could also be OTC trades or simply transfers to other wallets.
Adding to the concerns, there are rumors that Bitmain’s last round of hardware production was a failure - a loss of nearly half a billion USD. And their attempts to break into the AI market with Bitmain B3 soured when it was pointed out that a single GTX 1080 Ti could outperform it.
All this, the author argues, make a compelling case to avoid Bitmain’s upcoming IPO. He thinks that if Bitmain can’t dump their bags with the IPO, the community might be looking at a large-scale exit scam. We’re not quite sure we’re on board with the last speculation, but we’ll agree this doesn’t look like an attractive investment.
Charles v. Vitalik: Round 2
Source: Reddit
A team member from Cardano, endorsed by Charles in a later tweet, posted a response to Vitalik’s last arguments on Reddit. To summarize: Cardano had alleged that Casper lacked appropriate proofs and documentation, to which Vitalik literally responded “WTF,” and Vitalik had pointed out the possibility of an attack on Cardano’s network.
Cardano’s response gets more specific about the things it perceives Casper’s documentation of lacking, specifically, there is “no exact description of what Casper does in all possible situations,” citing again proofs. As to Vitalik’s point about a possible attack, Cardano replies that “answering this is easy” due to their extensive documentation and goes on to pull out data points from their paper to disprove the possibility.
Vitalik’s response is uncharacteristically incomplete; he doesn’t respond to their first point about documentation at all. It’s possible, then, that there are gaps in Casper’s docs, although we’d still expect Vitalik to acknowledge that if it were the case. He does ask for clarification around one of the points made by Cardano regarding the possibility of a network attack, an answer to which we’ll presumably see in Round 3.
$50 Million Tether Transfer
Source: Block Explorer 1 | 2
Despite some misleading headlines, there has NOT been any new Tether minted. Rather, Omni facilitated a $50 million USDT transfer to Bitfinex from the Tether Treasury. It’s possible the exchange made a large purchase; in any case, there is not any new Tether on the market.
Drones on the Blockchain
Source: CoinDesk
A group of Russian engineers have begun using drones as the latest innovation in supply chain tracking. The drones report data in real time to the immutable ledger, allowing for “trust between counterparties” like banks and government agencies, and that data can then be leveraged by the entire supply chain. A spokesperson for the project claims that this could be an effective tool for banks to evaluate the financial value of drones, which previously has been an obstacle in attempting to obtain financing for projects using them.
Moondex Beta Launch
Source: Medium
Moondex, a new decentralized exchange, has launched its beta. The DEX is built on a masternode-driven network, which allows for high-speed services, and handles cross-asset trades. Our research on this particular DEX right now is superficial, so approach with appropriate caution.
MLB Crypto Pre-Sale Today
Source: Twitter | Referral Link
The MLB crypto collectibles pre-sale starts today, with the fully-functional game expected to launch at the end of the month. Interested in playing? You’re in luck - we’ve got a referral link all picked out just for you.
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Written content adapted/edited by @thepinkfreudian.