CoinDesk Crypto

Bitcoin had a small rally Thursday. Meanwhile, the ether options market is giving some investors protection from decentralized finance downsides.

• Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $10,653 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. EDT). Gaining 3.3% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $10,135-$10,736.
• BTC above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians.

Bitcoin’s price made gains Thursday as the world’s oldest cryptocurrency began a modest rally at around 15:00 UTC (11 a.m. EDT). It jumped $343 to as high as $10,736 in just two hours on spot exchanges such as Coinbase. Bitcoin was changing hands at $10,653 at press time. 

Thursday’s bitcoin price pop came after several days of stagnation followed by a quick drop in tandem with equities Wednesday. 

Related: Bitcoin Options Open Interest Hits Record High in Expiry Week

George Clayton, partner at Cryptanalysis Capital, maintains that the average cryptocurrency holder is a risk-oriented trader and that quantitative strategies kept bitcoin’s price near at $10,400 in the days leading up to Wednesday’s decline. 

“If volumes are low, traders and algorithms are in charge,” Clayton said. “This last move down was on pretty low volume and coincided with the sell-off in stocks.” 

Momentum in the crypto market had been absent this week prior to bitcoin’s rise Thursday, according to Denis Vinokourov, head of research for the digital assets prime broker Bequant. “There has been a distinct lack of aggressive liquidations and the actual bitcoin futures curve has been flat for much of the month,” he said. 

Liquidation volume in September on derivatives exchange BitMEX has fallen. Liquidations, the crypto equivalent of margin calls, often exacerbate price movements as long or short traders have their positions wiped out.

Related: First Mover: Federal Reserve, Congress Play Game of Chicken Over Stimulus as Market Lurches

Rupert Douglas, head of institutional sales at crypto brokerage Koine, says he still has some concerns that investors will quickly sell off crypto should traditional markets take another nosedive. “Risks are still to the downside,” he said.

Read More: Strengthening US Dollar Could Bring Further Downside for Bitcoin

Bitcoin has performed poorly compared to equities thus far in September, down 10.7% while the S&P 500 is in the red 7.9%. Major stock indexes in Europe and Asia are also treading below 0% month-to-date.

Bequant’s Vinokourov points to decentralized finance, or DeFi, as contributing to the bitcoin market’s lack of overall momentum. “It appears that leverage flow has already been sucked out and quietly exited or transitioned to other parts of the crypto ecosystem, namely DeFi,” he said. 

Despite this, Vinokourov sees positive sentiment towards bitcoin’s use in DeFi-based yield generation to eke out profits in slow market cycles. “The use of bitcoin on the Ethereum network remains on a strong uptrend, with over 100,000 BTC now locked,” he noted.

Ether options hedging DeFi

Ether (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Thursday, trading around $346 and climbing 5.5% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT). 

Read More: Uniswap Users Have Claimed $560M-Worth of UNI Tokens in a Week

The ether options market for October expiration seems to favor the cryptocurrency being priced below $360. Traders are betting there is a 50% chance of ether trading over $340 at next month’s expiration, a 40% chance of it priced over $360, and just a 24% chance of it being over $400 according to data aggregator Skew.

Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of derivatives exchange Alpha5, said this market behavior signals smart investors are likely hedged on DeFi’s risks. 

“This is a protective premium against DeFi total value locked; a lot of people have ETH locked up in pools,” he said. “The larger players definitely are hedged, plus this can make offering DeFi structured products a lot easier [such as one with a] USD-yield with protective puts against the pool.”

Other markets

Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mostly in the green Thursday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT):

• chainlink (LINK) + 20.4%
• orchid (OXT) + 9.7%
• 0x (ZRX) + 7.9%

One notable loser as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT):

• dogecoin (DOGE) – 1%

Read More: Ex-Pantera Partner’s New Crypto Fund Is ‘Not for the Faint of Heart’

Equities:

• Asia’s Nikkei 225 closed in the red 1.1% as traders in Tokyo eyed an equities sell-off in the United States amid a contentious presidential election.
• Europe’s FTSE 100 ended the day slipping 1.3% as a rise in coronavirus cases on the continent dampened sentiment.
• In the United States the S&P 500 slipped 0.10% on a volatile trading day as unemployment numbers declined but were higher than forecasted.

Commodities:

• Oil was up 1.5%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.22.
• Gold was in the green 0.32% and at $1,869 as of press time.

Treasurys:

• U.S. Treasury bond yields fell Thursday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the 2-year, dipping to 0.137 and in the red 5.4%.

Related Stories

• Strengthening US Dollar Could Bring Further Downside for Bitcoin
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Privacy tech company Aleo has launched a data privacy-oriented blockchain and developer kit to make writing zero-knowledge proofs in web applications easy and scalable.

The startup is releasing its first round of software tools to let developers write private applications for the web using a new programming language called Leo, as well as integrate these tools into pre-existing browsers’ functions. 

“I think it’s become very clear that the internet is broken,” said Aleo co-founder Howard Wu on a phone call. “As users of the internet, we give up our personal data in exchange for services from providers. This model is really outdated. It’s an antiquated one. For us, the goal is to provide a new type of model where this incentive can be aligned for both sides.”

Zero-knowledge proofs

Related: This Crypto Startup Takes Bitcoin Advocacy to a Whole New Level

Aleo leverages zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), a cryptographic technique that allows two parties on the internet, such as an app and a user, to verify information with each other without sharing the underlying data related to this information.

If you think about it in the context of logging into a website for example, it would verify who you are without sharing info such as your password, geolocation data or other information that can be used to suss out additional details about yourself that you aren’t aware you might be giving up.

See also: Zcash’s Halo Breakthrough Is a Big Deal – Not Just For Cryptocurrencies

“The idea is that we can provide user interface (UI) components and frameworks that look just like traditional web applications,” said Wu. “But when you click on something, it does some magic under the hood, and makes executing ZKPs much easier, happening within your browser. We will provide a UI toolkit, a UI framework that lets web developers build it into existing web applications.”

Aleo’s development toolkit

Related: Fireblocks, X-Margin Partner to Offer Institutions Cross Margin Trading in Crypto Derivatives

Aleo’s initial release is made up of four different components. 

There is the Aleo Studio, the first integrated development environment (IDE) for writing privacy-focused, zero-knowledge applications. An IDE is a holistic environment for developers to write computer programs. 

The Aleo Package Manager is focused on letting developers manage and store data packages. Integrated with Aleo Studio, the package manager makes it easier for developers to organize and share their work. 

SnarkOS is Aleo’s decentralized operating system for private web applications and the first implementation of the Aleo protocol.

“It runs a blockchain and it supports all sorts of applications,” said Wu. “So it’s very similar to ones that people know and love on Ethereum. The idea for us is to use snarkOS as the foundation or the backbone of this entire system. So snarkOS is meant to checkpoint, verify and store data in state.”

See also: Privacy Startup Nym Will Pay You in Bitcoin to Run Its Mixnet

As users interact with the web, they’re making transactions such as payments, inputting their data, or interacting with games through applications, all of which involve state transitions, or the ways that data moves throughout the internet. Private app integrations with Aleo can address all of these phases, meaning the data privacy functionality isn’t negated at any one point. 

The last part of Aleo’s developer kit is the “Aleo Testnet I,” a testnet on snarkOS that allows developers to write and deploy applications. 

Developers must build programs on the Aleo blockchain to use the kit, as Aleo is the foundation for everything else developers want to build and integrate with. The focus is on establishing a strong and private core, so that users are able to choose whether they want their data to be public or not. 

The whole goal, however, is for developers to integrate existing apps with Aleo. Existing applications will be able to integrate on Aleo using normal web paradigms. 

“Our goal isn’t to disrupt the web, it’s to integrate with it.” said Wu. “Aleo will host infrastructure and services to make it easy for web applications to use Aleo.”

Leo: programming privacy with a new language

The company has also created a new programming language called “Leo.” Wu explained that while Leo looks and feels like JavaScript, under the hood, it is uniquely able to abstract low-level cryptographic concepts, so developers can build private applications without a degree in cryptography. 

“We built Leo to make it easy to write private applications,” said Wu. “For crypto-natives, Leo allows developers to build applications like dark pools, anonymous mixers, private marketplaces – you name it.”

He added, for web developers, Leo provides a framework that allows developers to build secure components for applications like password-less login, instant checkouts and more. 

Addressing shifting attitudes around data privacy

According to a recent report from AI-powered fraud detection company Sift, if a company inadvertently exposes a customer’s data, whether it’s the companies fault or not, 56% of survey respondents said they’d stop using the site altogether. 

“The idea here is to provide an ecosystem that is robust enough to give you alternative options and I think that’s a model that’s far more far more cohesive for both companies and consumers,” said Wu. 

Right now, according to Wu, Aleo’s goal is to plant a seed and get as much feedback as they can before they launch their mainnet. 

“Many of the common L1 foundations have tried Aleo Studio and Leo in private,” said Wu. “We have been using the opportunity to architect requirements to integrate. After all, many blockchains would like a shielded pool for applications on their chain.”

See also: These Illicit SIM Cards Are Making Hacks Like Twitter’s Easier

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Andreessen Horowitz’s (a16z) late-stage venture fund has received a green light from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for a transaction involving Coinbase. It is unclear at press time whether the approval is for the fund’s previously disclosed purchase of shares in the cryptocurrency exchange or for a new purchase.

• The VC giant’s $2 billion fund, Andreessen Horowitz LSV Fund I, L.P, received antitrust clearance from the FTC in a filing dated Sept. 22 involving “Coinbase Global, Inc.”
• Given that Coinbase’s $8 billion valuation would represent nearly half of a16z’s $16.6 billion assets under management, it’s extremely unlikely the clearance is for an outright purchase.
• a16z most recently participated in Coinbase’s $300 million Series E in October 2018. Its first investment in the crypto exchange came in 2013’s Series B, a round it led. 
• Since a16z already has a stake in Coinbase, it’s likely the FTC clearance is for the firm’s previously disclosed purchases of Coinbase shares, or for a purchase of additional shares. The exchange is reportedly considering going public.
• A Coinbase spokesperson confirmed that “Coinbase Global” is the firm’s parent entity but would not comment further. A spokesperson from a16z declined to comment on the record.
• Coinbase has had close ties with a16z since at least 2013. The exchange added a16z chief Marc Andreessen as a board observer in August.

Read more: Andreessen Horowitz Doubles Down on Crypto Investments With New $515M Fund

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A new cryptocurrency trading platform is gearing up to offer zero-fee trades to users in six countries in the Gulf Region. Announced on Thursday, the platform Fasset Exchange (FEX)  has started sign-ups for its private beta and is planning a public rollout later this year. 

• According to a press statement emailed to CoinDesk, FEX will be available to investors in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. 
• Launched by fintech firm Fasset, the exchange aims to service both tokens backed by real world assets like gold and cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and USDT. 
• While the platform plans to not levy trading fees, it will charge consumers for services like withdrawal and over-the-counter fees. According to the emailed statement, users who sign up for its private beta testing, will have full access to the FEX platform and marketplace. 
• Earlier in July, Fasset had also announced the launch of an Ethereum based operating system to help tokenize investment in climate-friendly infrastructure.

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A new cryptocurrency trading platform is gearing up to offer zero-fee trades to users in six countries in the Gulf Region. Announced on Thursday, the platform Fasset Exchange (FEX)  has started sign-ups for its private beta and is planning a public rollout later this year. 

• According to a press statement emailed to CoinDesk, FEX will be available to investors in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. 
• Launched by fintech firm Fasset, the exchange aims to service both tokens backed by real world assets like gold and cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and USDT. 
• While the platform plans to not levy trading fees, it will charge consumers for services like withdrawal and over-the-counter fees. According to the emailed statement, users who sign up for its private beta testing, will have full access to the FEX platform and marketplace. 
• Earlier in July, Fasset had also announced the launch of an Ethereum based operating system to help tokenize investment in climate-friendly infrastructure.

Related Stories

• Saudi Arabia Pitches Blockchain-Based Business Passport to Boost Trade Finance
• Tata Consultancy Launches Crypto Trading Solution for India’s Financial Firms
• What the Stock Market’s ‘Robinhood Rally’ Means for Bitcoin
• Accel, Coinbase Join $17M Funding Rounds for Institutional Crypto Trading Firm FalconX

Three Arrows Capital just completed the single largest issuance of new wrapped bitcoin tokens by any merchant, minting 2,316 WBTC through BitGo Thursday afternoon.

• The Singapore-based firm’s mint represents nearly 3% of the current wrapped bitcoin supply, just over 81,000 at last check.
• One week ago, Alameda Research set the previous record for most tokens issued in a single mint with 1,999 WBTC issued.
• Since January, the total supply of wrapped bitcoin has grown by over 13,000% from less than 600 WBTC, according to data from Dune Analytics.

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On Thursday, ConsenSys-incubated startup Liquality released a new wallet that lets you atomically swap digital assets directly from your browser.

The Liquality Atomic Swap Wallet can act as a trustless alternative to current methods of porting cryptocurrencies into the decentralized finance (DeFi) space due to the peer-to-peer (P2P) nature of atomic swaps, Liquality co-founder Thessy Mehrain told CoinDesk in a phone interview.

The wallet interacts similarly to cryptocurrency wallet MetaMask, but with an entirely different end-game: swapping assets trustlessly.

Related: BitGo Is Bringing DeFi-Friendly Wrapped Bitcoin to the Tron Blockchain

“It’s called a chain abstraction layer, which basically is a way of making different blockchains talk the same language and interact,” Liquality co-founder Simon Lapscher said.

Liquality’s wallet leans on atomic swaps and hashed time locked contracts (HTLC), a cryptographic escrow scheme that allows two parties to swap assets without trusting the other party. HTLCs are also the foundation of Bitcoin’s second-layer payment scheme, the Lighting Network. 

Atomic swaps: an alternative to asset wrapping

Notably, atomic swaps let investors hold onto their private keys throughout the entire exchanging process.

Mehrain and Lapscher believe these swaps can act as a trustless alternative for DeFi investors looking to bring value from one blockchain to another. To date, over $1.1 billion worth of bitcoin has been tokenized on Ethereum.

Related: Uniswap Users Have Claimed $560M-Worth of UNI Tokens in a Week

Yet, investors have increasingly relied on private firms to bring value from other blockchains to Ethereum’s DeFi markets. 

Read more: Supply of Tokenized Bitcoin on Ethereum Now Tops $1.1B: Here’s Why

Current methods of transferring value from Bitcoin to Ethereum, such as BitGo’s wrapped bitcoin (WBTC), require third-party custodianship. P2P atomic swaps, on the other hand, do not.

Liquality itself currently acts as the counterparty to all wallet swaps, with advanced users having the ability to choose other counterparties. The startup makes revenue acting as market maker for swaps, Lapscher said.

Enough adoption should create sufficient network liquidity within the wallet to allow Liquality to disinvolve itself entirely from the process, he added.

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A new bill could bring cryptocurrency exchanges under a single federal framework.

The Digital Commodity Exchange Act of 2020, introduced Thursday by Rep. Michael Conaway (R-Texas), seeks to create a federal definition of “digital commodity exchanges,” putting them in their own legal category and charging the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) with oversight.

The bill outlines a new framework for digital currencies, treating them similarly to commodities under the Commodities Exchange Act, which governs that asset class. Under the framework, crypto exchanges would enjoy a federal jurisdiction, allowing them to operate in the entire U.S. rather than applying for 49 different state money transmission licenses. The DCEA also allows for certain types of initial coin offerings.

Related: Leaked EU Draft Proposes All-Encompassing Laws for Crypto Assets

If passed, the act would streamline a number of disparate cryptocurrency regulations in the U.S., creating legal clarity for token issuers and lowering the barrier to entry for exchanges hoping to operate in a compliant manner.

“The proposed legislation builds on the existing commodity market practices required of Futures Commission Merchants (FCMs) to protect customer assets. DCEs would be required to segregate customer assets and hold them in separately regulated entities which are licensed to custody digital assets,” a summary of the bill said. 

Conaway is the ranking member on the House Committee on Agriculture, which oversees commodity exchanges in the U.S. The committee’s Senate counterpart, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, oversees the CFTC.

The DCEA wouldn’t create prescriptive rules on how exchanges can comply with the new law. Rather, it would describe the requirements and let the exchanges themselves figure out the best way to meet those requirements.

Related: Tassat Gains CFTC ‘No-Action’ Relief Ahead of Eventual Bitcoin Swaps Contract Listing

“The CEA works through principles-based regulation, laying out high-level principles – ‘core principles’ – that a regulated entity has to meet,” a committee aide told CoinDesk. “The regulated entity is given flexibility on how to meet those principles, but the CFTC has oversight and can decide if it has met those principles or not. The regulatory regime under the CEA works in large part because it creates a more flexible framework and lets regulated entities be more innovative.”

Federal jurisdiction

The idea of regulating cryptocurrencies under a single, nationwide regime has attracted renewed interest this summer. The Conference of State Bank Supervisors announced earlier this month that it was consolidating its supervision exams for certain crypto exchanges, and there may be plans in the works to streamline the application process for startups to avoid needing more than 50 state and territory licenses in order to operate nationally.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a federal banking regulator, wants to bypass the state-by-state regime entirely, instead creating a national payment charter that would let exchanges operate across state lines. 

The DCEA follows the latter path, but shifts crypto assets into a familiar framework and grants the CFTC primary supervisory authority over the space.

If enacted, the bill would preempt the state money transmitter licensing regime entirely. 

“What we’re proposing is first, a simplification of the multi-state money transmitter license regime but, second, a more appropriate regime which addresses all the aspects of the business of operating a trading venue,” Conaway said through a spokesperson.

Read more: CFTC Chair: ‘A Large Part’ of Financial System Could End Up in Blockchain Format

The DCEA would essentially mimic existing regulations around futures commission merchants, creating similar rules around customer fund protection, cybersecurity, capital requirements, public reporting requirements, governance standards, conflict of information reporting and other issues. 

“This should also help to better define the line between SEC and CFTC jurisdiction: pre-sale agreements will continue to be regulated by the SEC, but there will be less need for continued SEC wariness once the tokens are delivered and the network is live because the CFTC will be picking up the regulatory slack and supervising sales to the public upon network launch,” said Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at industry think tank Coin Center.

State regulators might not have the same authority over order books or matching engines the way federal markets regulators do. In other words, a national regulator like the CFTC might have an easier time finding or stopping wash trading and similarly deceptive practices.

Companies could voluntarily register but would not be required to shift from the state-level regime if they didn’t want to.

“If a company has gone through the work of getting individual state money transmitter licenses and it likes the regime it is operating under, we’re not going to require that it give those up and come into a federal regime,” the aide said. “But, if it does come into a federal regime, with regulations which cover more aspects of its business, it will have the opportunity to innovate and serve customers with more complex products.”

Token offerings

Perhaps the more daring aspect of the DCEA is a carve-out for token creation and sales. At present, initial coin offerings fall under the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) remit. The federal securities regulator has treated almost all such token sales as securities sales, either bringing enforcement actions against unregistered offerings or allowing registered sales. 

Under the DCEA, companies would be able to raise funds by selling tokens to investors, and remain subject to the SEC during this period. However, if the companies then deliver a token which meets the definition of a digital commodity under the new bill, “transactions involving that asset would be subject to the regulatory regime provided in the DCEA,” the document said. 

Read more: DeFi Is Just Like the ICO Boom and Regulators Are Circling

The bill also provides for token presales. This restricts the initial trading or secondary market sales of the tokens to either individuals who could have participated in the original securities sales or under specific conditions.

This changes if and when a regulated exchange believes the token cannot be easily manipulated and lists it for public trading.

The summary likened the process to the one existing designated contract markets follow when listing new derivatives contracts, but noted it will depend on the specific purpose of a digital commodity.

The bill is unlikely to pass before the upcoming election, but with its introduction, the general public can begin providing feedback or suggestions on how to improve it for a future Congressional term.

“The introduction of this bill in this Congress is an important step in a process that is likely to play out more fully when the new Congress convenes in January,” Van Valkenburgh said. “At that point we expect to see the bill re-introduced which would then allow for the process including possibly hearings and then committee consideration.”

Read the full draft of the bill below:

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Open interest in bitcoin options has risen to new record highs this week. But the market will witness $1 billion in notional value expiring Friday, which could trigger heightened volatility.

• A record $2.14 billion worth of options contracts were open on Tuesday, up nearly 53% from the multi-month low open interest of $1.14 billion back on Aug. 28, according to data source Skew.
• As of Wednesday, open interest was $2.03 billion.
• The previous record high of $2.11 billion was reached on July 30.
• Options are derivative contracts, which give the purchaser the right but not the obligation to buy or sell the underlying asset at a predetermined rate on or before a specific date. A call option gives its owner the right to buy and a put option gives its owner the right to sell.

• Deribit, the world’s largest crypto options exchange, contributed 75% or $1.6 billion of the total open interest of $2.11 billion on Tuesday.
• Meanwhile, the CME, which is considered synonymous with institutional activity, accounted for 13% of the total open positions.
• While open interest has risen to new record highs, trading volumes have remained mostly steady in the $100 million to $200 million range throughout the month.

• “A trend higher in open interest amidst a backdrop of steady volume indicates the concentration of risk behind a specific theme/trade,” said Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of Polychain Capital-backed derivatives exchange Alpha5. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing but shows where the market conviction is coalescing.”

Monthly expiry

• At press time, there were 89,100 options contracts with a notional value of over $1 billion set to expire on Friday across major exchanges – Deribit, CME, Bakkt, OKEx, LedgerX – according to data provided by the crypto derivatives research firm Skew. 

• Some experts foresee the big expiry adding volatility to the spot price.
• Traders often hedge exposure on loss-making options positions ahead of expiries, putting upward or downward pressure on prices in the spot market.
• “The theory is that the maximum pain point (which is very hard to know or evaluate) of the market will trigger delta hedging of those expired options,” Patrick Heusser, senior cryptocurrency trader at Zurich-based Crypto Broker AG, told CoinDesk.
• The maximum pain point is the price at which option buyers would lose the most money and option writers or sellers would profit the most.
• Large institutions are generally net sellers of options and gain from pinning the spot price at the maximum pain point. Depending on the size of the market, they may try to push the spot price ahead of expiry, causing volatility.
• However, bitcoin’s options market is quite small compared to the spot market. Hence, the expiry may not have any impact on the spot price.
• Bitcoin’s options market saw a total trading volume of roughly $160 million on Wednesday. That’s just 0.8% of the spot market volume of $20 billion, according to data source Coingecko.
• “We have seen it too many times in the past that just nothing happened on a big expiry,” Heusser said.

Related Stories

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• Strengthening US Dollar Could Bring Further Downside for Bitcoin
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• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Drops to $10.2K; Scaling Solution xDai Doubles in Value Locked

MakerDAO has voted not to compensate victims of the “Black Thursday” flash crash, a former Pantera partner is launching a new crypto-focused hedge fund and bitcoin may be headed to the doldrums as the U.S. dollar rises.

Top shelf

Decentralized governance
MakerDAO will not compensate victims of March 12’s “Black Thursday” flash crash that left some of the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform’s investors out $8.33 million, according to a vote that closed Tuesday. Large MKR holders dominated the vote as only 38 unique votes (8.74% of MKR holders) were cast, CoinDesk’s Will Foxley reports. In March, market making bots exploited a flaw and were able to buy ETH at near-$0 prices, as the entire crypto market tanked, thereby liquidating many collateral positions. Investors lobbied the community for partial compensation denominated in the platform’s MKR governance token. The Maker community had initially voted in early April to refund sunken investors. 

Data markets
Taking cues for DeFi, Ocean Protocol has teamed with Balancer Labs to create the first automated market maker (AMM) for data. “Our goal is to unlock this data economy with data marketplaces, connecting the buyers and sellers of data. These can be individual humans, families, small companies, large companies, cities, nations, etcetera,” Ocean founder Trent McConaghy said. The decentralized market approach aims to make pricing data easier, by allowing anyone to discover, price and trade using a variety of cryptos like Ocean’s native token (OCEAN) or other cryptos like ether (ETH) or dai (DAI).

Related: First Mover: Federal Reserve, Congress Play Game of Chicken Over Stimulus as Market Lurches

Global south
JBS, the biggest meat packer globally by sales, plans to use blockchain technology to stem deforestation caused by cattle suppliers in the Amazon. The Brazilian company will monitor all of its meat suppliers on a blockchain system by 2025, saying current monitoring efforts enable its suppliers further down the chain to potentially “launder” meat from cattle raised on illegally cleared ground. Meanwhile, to the north, Venezuela has legalized crypto mining but only under the direction of the government. All mining activities must be registered and carried out through an official National Digital Mining Pool, a centralized pool that will keep the government in control of disbursing profits. This comes as Iran continues to clamp down on crypto mining – despite its citizens’ growing reliance on the borderless technology.

Banking the unbanked
FastBitcoins has partnered with prepaid voucher giant Flexepin to expand to 14 countries in Africa. Announced Thursday, the deal also expands FastBitcoins’ coverage to some 20,000 point-of-sale locations in Australia where Flexepin is based, as well as across Canada and Europe. Flexepin caters to users who want to make online payments without using credit or debit cards. It also supports mobile money payments in Africa, opening the possibility of exchanging prepaid vouchers for bitcoin and accessing the larger global financial system. 

Fintech, meet crypto
Visa’s Global Fintech Lead, Terry Angelos, told Forbes cryptocurrency companies had shown a “significant interest” in working with them. And they, them. Visa is currently “onboarding” 25 crypto companies,”at various stages of development,” through its fast track program and other methods. This is in addition to other major firms like Coinbase, Visa is working with. Meanwhile, Coinbase announced it has hired former executives from Venmo, Adobe and Google to VP roles on its product, engineering, and design & research teams. 

Quick bites

• This Ethereum Startup Is Building a ‘DeFi Firewall’ for Institutional Investors (Ian Allison/CoinDesk)
• Different Cars, Same Radio Presets: Daimler Blockchain Venture Lets Settings Follow Users (Jaspreet Kalra/CoinDesk)
• Iran Is Ripe for Bitcoin Adoption, Even as Government Clamps Down on Mining (Sandali Handagama/CoinDesk)
• $1 Billion in Bitcoin Options Expire Friday. Here’s What It Means (Robert Stevens/Decrypt)
• Bureau of Fiscal Service launches next phase of blockchain study focused on grant payments (Aislinn Keely/The Block)

At stake

Bitcoin returns?
For early bitcoin investors, like those at the maverick hedge fund Pantera Capital, heart pounding returns may seem like a thing of the past. 

Related: Blockchain Bites: BTC on Ethereum, DeFi’s Latest Stablecoin, the Currency Cold Wars

Founded in 2003 by Dan Morehead, Pantera was originally focused on global macro hedge fund investments. A decade later, the firm switched its focus exclusively to the world of crypto. 

This appears to have been an auspicious move. Its first bitcoin fund, opened in late-2013, has rallied by over 10,000%.

Such returns on BTC now appear beyond the pale. MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor has sunk close to half a billion dollars of his firm’s treasury into bitcoin, not as a venture investment, but as a means to beat inflation. He told CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson that MicroStrategy is prepared to hold BTC for the next 100 years. 

Paul Brodsky, a former partner at Pantera Capital, also appears skeptical that bitcoin will see another breakout rally. He believes that bitcoin is too easily accessible, its derivatives market too established and its network too energy-demanding to offer massive investor upside.

Though he hasn’t soured on crypto broadly. 

Brodsky is opening a new hedge fund, called PostModern Partners, aimed at volatility plays across cryptocurrencies and traditional assets. Set to open in 2021 the fund is seeking high-risk, high-return blockchain investment opportunities, CoinDesk’s Nelson reports. 

While it isn’t clear precisely what assets might have Brodsky’s eye, PostModern’s organizational documents reads, “we believe there are greater scaling opportunities in Proof-of-Stake tokens.” 

Market intel

Dollar-led doldrums
The U.S. dollar is showing signs of life and a continued breakout could weigh over bitcoin, which surged amid the greenback’s sharp sell-off this summer. Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at $10,320 – up nearly 2% from Wednesday’s low of $10,140. The dollar index (DXY), which tracks the greenback’s value against major fiat currencies, has broken above its two-month-long range of 92.00-94.00. CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole reports the dollar and bitcoin (like other assets including gold, and increasingly stocks) are inversely correlated, meaning a rise in one might cause a downside in the other.

Tech pod

Version 2
Parity Technologies has released the second version of its blockchain building kit, Substrate 2.0, CoinDesk’s Will Foxley reports. The new release gives developers additional tools to customize a blockchain “precisely for your application or business logic,” a blog post reads. Parity Technologies is the developer of the Polkadot blockchain with ambitions for developing a Web 3.0, undergirded by a meshing of various blockchains running on a “tooling kit” called Substrate. The latest code update includes 70 composable “modules” for blockchain architects to build and modules to bring off-chain data onto the blockchain.

Podcast corner

Incentive loops
Corey Hoffstein, Chief Investment Officer of quantitative research and investment fund Newfound Research LLC, joins the latest episode of The Breakdown to discuss how the Federal Reserve, passive investing and volatility-correlated strategies have joined to create a market incentive loop that is causing markets to aggressively react to exogenous shocks. 

Who won #CryptoTwitter? Related Stories

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Tron, the blockchain launched in 2017 by former Ripple devotee Justin Sun, has entered a strategic alliance with custody specialists BitGo.

The partnership will bring BitGo’s wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) into the Tron ecosystem as a TRC-20 token. (The token is backed roughly 1:1 by bitcoin deposited by users at BitGo Trust, a qualified custodian in the U.S.)

The introduction of WBTC – plus a newly-created wrapped ether token from BitGo – is meant to help fuel the incipient decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem on Tron. WBTC has been a key driver in the growth of DeFi on Ethereum. (Note: BitGo has nothing to do with the existing wrapped ether (WETH) token used widely in Ethereum DeFi applications.)

Related: ConsenSys-Incubated Startup Releases In-Browser Atomic Swap Wallet for DeFi

Tron founder Sun said the move will help sidestep surging transaction fees on the Ethereum blockchain.

“Everyone may now use their BTC/ETH to enjoy all the benefits of the Tron DeFi ecosystem without the high gas fees on Ethereum,” Sun said in a statement.

Read more: Supply of Tokenized Bitcoin on Ethereum Now Tops $1.1B: Here’s Why

Sun also pointed to a service similar to Uniswap on Tron called JustSwap, which he said has achieved $100 million 24-hour volumes since it was launched about a month ago.

Related: Uniswap Users Have Claimed $560M-Worth of UNI Tokens in a Week

BitGo CEO Mike Belshe said WBTC has seen tremendous growth in concert with DeFi’s boom.

“Our new strategic alliance with Tron creates even greater opportunities for users to expand to other chains and tokenize their BTC on the Tron dApp ecosystem while transacting at a lower cost and faster speed,” Belshe said in a statement.

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Uniswap users have snapped up much of the supply of free UNI tokens in the first week.

• Data from Dune Analytics on Thursday shows that eligible participants in the DeFi project have claimed approximately 78% of the existing UNI supply – just under 117 million tokens.
• At the current $4.78 market price, that means just under $560 million-worth of the tokens have been claimed.
• Last Wednesday, Uniswap announced it was giving away 400 of its newly minted tokens to each address that had used its protocol prior to September.
• The decentralized trading platform said it will ultimately issue and distribute 4 billion UNI tokens to the community over the next four years.
• So far, 190,000 eligible wallet addresses have claimed their tokens; nearly 140,000 did so the day after the announcement.
• The volume of claimants has fallen over the past week, with 1,557 addresses on Wednesday and just under 500 addresses so far today.

• Designed to power on-chain decision making, UNI has made the headlines almost every day since it first started trading last week.
• At an initial price of $2.97 on Wednesday, UNI had surged to over $7.80 by Friday.
• Following a market slide that took the price down to $3.80 by Tuesday, UNI has since recovered and has currently edged past the $4.80 mark, according to CoinGecko data.
• UNI is currently the 32nd biggest digital asset by market cap.

See also: Uniswap Users Say Uniting Can Strengthen UNI

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Climate-change startup Nori has been funded to build a blockchain-based market for carbon credits that will start by paying farmers to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Announced Thursday, the Seattle-based startup closed a $4 million funding round which included Placeholder, North Island Ventures and Tenacious Ventures. A large, unnamed agribusiness also invested in the round, according to Nori CEO Paul Gambill.

The firm, which was part of 2019’s Techstars Sustainability program, previously closed a $1.3 million pre-seed round in December.

Related: Ex-Pantera Partner’s New Crypto Fund Is ‘Not for the Faint of Heart’

The funds will be used to expand the team and onboard more carbon-removal suppliers (i.e. farmers), the company said in a statement, laying the foundations for an industrial-grade carbon marketplace.

The same way that blockchains prevent the double-spending of digital coins, so too can they solve the double-counting problem in the carbon offset market. The first generation of carbon markets, though well-intentioned, led to the selling of carbon credits over and over again, while really it’s the same ton of CO2 being traded every time.

Read more: Carbon Credits Have a Double-Spend Problem. This Microsoft-Backed Project Is Trying to Fix It

“The idea is to build a carbon-removal marketplace that makes it really simple for people to pay for carbon dioxide that’s being removed from the atmosphere in a verifiable way,” Gambill said in an interview.

Green blockchain

Related: Facebook’s Libra Co-Founder Morgan Beller Departs to Return to VC

Step one for Nori is about working with farmers, who can remove carbon from the air and “sequester” it in the soil by adopting more sustainable farming practices. This part of the Nori project is not really blockchain-intensive, said Gambill.

“It’s more of a traditional software and data challenge to really improve the way in which we’re quantifying and verifying the carbon,” he said, adding:

“Right now we’re able to sell carbon for cash, so no tokens are involved. The next stage of the roadmap will involve building out a forward market in addition to our spot market, and integrating a token into that. And so the forward market will be an auction-based concept. And that’s where price discovery will happen.”

The idea is that when a farmer removes CO2 from the atmosphere, and then that gets verified, they are issued a Nori Carbon Removal Tonne (NRT) electronic certificate stored on the blockchain, which they can then sell to buyers in exchange for one nori (NORI) token. One token is always worth one ton, but the price of the token will fluctuate based on supply and demand, Gambill explained.

Read more: Ocean Protocol and Balancer Want to Do for Data What Uniswap Did for Coins

“The true price discovery is happening is on the nori token, and then the carbon is immediately retired, which is carbon-market language meaning that the buyer owns it forever,” said Gambill. (The carbon-removal certificate takes the form of an Ethereum-based non-fungible token that is non-transferable.)

In other words, Nori is transparently separating the trading part, so that the carbon is retired immediately, and then a token, representing one future ton of CO2 removed, is traded as a commodity.

The funding is one of Placeholder’s first investments that bridges the gap between crypto and the “real-world,” said Chris Burniske, a partner at the blockchain-focused VC firm. 

“With Nori, farmers can adopt regenerative practices like planting cover crops in empty fields over the winter and get paid for doing so, as the same process that rejuvenates the soil also sequesters carbon,” Burniske said in a statement, adding:

“In pursuit of an elegant solution to a tough problem, Nori has employed a host of cutting-edge technologies, including blockchains, to account for and audit the carbon-backed assets produced by farmers.”

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As part of our ongoing efforts to be maximally transparent and accountable to the community we serve, CoinDesk has substantially updated and expanded its ethics policy. 

I encourage all readers to take a close look at the new page, which lays out, in greater detail than ever before, a number of important items, including:

• Our relationship with parent company Digital Currency Group and the editorial independence policy, mutually agreed upon by both firms, that ensures we cover the industry without fear or favor
• Our revised guidelines about when and how we disclose our ownership by DCG in articles
• Our journalistic standards, including guidelines on issuing corrections and using anonymous (and pseudonymous) sources
• CoinDesk’s company-wide policy on personal investing, and related disclosure requirements for the journalists on staff
• Our social media guidelines
• Our advertising policy (you may notice that ads have returned to the site, but they’ll never again be the intrusive and seedy kind of programmatic advertising that made our staff cringe along with readers during the 2017 boom)

Some of the practices laid out on the new page have been in place for a long time. For example, our journalists have been required to disclose crypto holdings in their profile pages since before I joined in 2017, and the company-wide trading and investing policy has been in effect for well over two years. Other policies have been revised and iterated over the years.   

How the sausage is made

Related: Money Reimagined: What CoinDesk’s Style Debate Says About Crypto as Public Tech

When I started at CoinDesk, our policy was to include an in-text disclosure of our ownership each and every time an article mentioned DCG or any of its investments. Over time, checking every startup name against a list of 100-plus firms in DCG’s portfolio before publishing any article became unwieldy for a 24-hour news operation.

Later, we replaced the in-text requirement with a built-in disclosure of our ownership that automatically appeared at the bottom of every article, whether or not the piece mentioned DCG or one of its holdings. While this guaranteed disclosures, the placement was not conspicuous and fed a misperception in some corners that we were trying to hide something. 

Compounding that problem, for a time after we rebooted our website in late 2019 the standard disclosure required users to click to see it. Luckily, this design feature was short-lived.

Tough customers

None of this helped us when covering and serving the crypto community, who are an instinctually distrustful bunch – as well they should be. In this day and age, no media outlet can demand the benefit of the doubt from its audience anymore, but especially not when reporting on a technology whose very raison d’etre is mistrust of intermediaries and authorities.

Related: CoinDesk Takes Consensus 2020 Virtual

Returning to the disclosure question, in 2020 we have adopted a policy I believe combines the best of both worlds. As explained on the new ethics page, the standard disclosure still automatically appears at the bottom of every story and is again plainly visible, no clicks required. Better yet, it now contains links to the full list of DCG’s portfolio companies, digital assets and wholly owned subsidiaries (which you’ll also find in an appendix to the new ethics page). 

On top of that, we once again require in-text disclosures of our ownership in any article mentioning DCG or one of its wholly owned subsidiaries (Genesis, Grayscale, Foundry or Luno). We have also added such disclosures in other appropriate instances, such as a lengthy piece on Decentraland (an asset in which DCG is a significant investor). It’s a belt-and-suspenders approach designed to be workable in practice. 

Again, I invite everyone to review CoinDesk’s full, expanded ethics page – we welcome reader feedback as we strive to inform, educate and serve the crypto and blockchain community with the utmost integrity. You know how to find us. 

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The European Union’s executive branch has laid out plans to create a comprehensive framework for digital assets.

• Confirming CoinDesk's report last week, the European Commission on Thursday proposed legislation that will turn cryptocurrencies into a regulated financial instrument.
• Dubbed the “Regulation on Markets in Crypto Assets” (MiCA), the bill will provide clarity on what constitutes a “crypto asset,” as well as definitions for different token subcategories.
• It will provide rules on digital asset custody and capital requirements, while also stipulating what the relationship between the token issuer and the token holder will be, including laying out a procedure for investors to file complaints against projects.
• Officials also floated the idea of a regulatory sandbox initiative for companies developing infrastructure for the trading and settlement of digital assets.
• If passed, the MiCA would turn the EU into the largest and most significant regulated space for cryptocurrencies anywhere in the world.
• The framework will be applicable in all 27 member states, giving regulated crypto companies passporting rights across the entire bloc.
• Following on from concerns expressed last week by five European finance ministers, the commission has also warned that stablecoin issuers will likely be subject to more stringent regulatory checks.

See also: ‘Misleading’ Term Stablecoin Should Be Ditched, Says ECB

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• World’s Biggest Meat Processor to Tackle Amazon Deforestation Using Blockchain Tech

Russia’s Ministry of Finance is seeking strict measures regarding cryptocurrency use in the country, including the reporting of wallet balances and large transactions to the tax authorities.

• According to Russian news source RBK, the ministry has prepared a package of amendments to Russia’s law on digital assets.
• The law, signed by the president Putin in July, comes into force in January 2021.
• The Ministry of Finance previously tried to introduce harsh restrictions for crypto transactions in the country.
• In this latest attempt, it wants crypto users to have to report their digital wallet address, transaction history and balance if the wallet receives more than 100,000 Russian rubles (around $1,300) during one year, according to RBK.
• Failure to report a wallet which received over $13,000 in one year would lead to a punishment of up to three years in prison.
• Using crypto in financial crimes would also be considered an aggravating circumstance in court and could lead to more severe punishment.
• Further, over-the-counter (OTC) cryptocurrency dealers would be obliged to report all transactions involving rubles and Russian IP addresses to the tax authorities, RBK wrote.
• The previous draft bill on digital assets sought harsh punishment for facilitating crypto transactions in Russia, including prison time of up to seven years.
• The most draconian parts of that proposal did not become law, following criticism from the cryptocurrency community and the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Economic Development.

Read more: Russia’s Economy Ministry Calls for ‘Controllable Market’ Rather Than Crypto Ban

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It’s becoming clear just how hooked investors have become on dollars injected into the economy by the U.S. government and Federal Reserve. 

Just take a look at what happened on Wall Street this week as the Republican-led U.S. Senate shifted its focus to confirming a new Supreme Court justice, and away from the passage of a new fiscal-stimulus package. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 2.4% Wednesday, wiping out gains for the year and putting the U.S. stocks gauge on track for its worst month since March. 

“The market continues to reevaluate its previously very optimistic stance on the status of global risks out there,” Ben Randol, senior FX strategist at BofA Securities in New York, told Reuters. 

Related: Bitcoin Options Open Interest Hits Record High in Expiry Week

The simplest takeaway is that the lack of fresh stimulus is negative for economic growth, and therefore bad for corporate earnings and stocks. The diminishing chances for a new package prompted Ian Sheperdson, chief economist for the forecasting firm Pantheon Macroeconomics, to slash his forecast for fourth-quarter U.S. growth to 4% from 10%. Without more money injected into the economy, consumer spending will be lower than previously expected.

“It’s just not possible for consumption to continue at its current pace in the absence of a much bigger income-replacement program,” Shepherdson wrote. 

Bitcoin, which recently has shown a high correlation with stocks, has sold off this week as well, showing that most investors still prefer cash in a flight to safety. 

“Crypto has been unable to shake its recent correlation to the S&P,” Micah Erstling, a trader at the cryptocurrency firm GSR, wrote in an emailed comment. 

Related: Blockchain Bites: MakerDAO’s Do or Dai Moment, Bitcoin in Africa, Dollar Trends Up

The cryptocurrency is still sitting on a 42% gain for the year, and indeed digital assets were ranked this week by Bloomberg News as the world’s top-performing investment category. As headlines trumpeting new stock-market highs in the mainstream financial press start to fade, bitcoin might get a second look from investors on the prowl for an alternative to traditional assets.

One clear theme is just how unified top Federal Reserve officials are in harping on Congress to provide a new fiscal-stimulus package, even as such efforts prove increasingly futile. 

A Bloomberg article on Wednesday recounted how not just Fed Chair Jerome Powell but a “parade” of top officials from the central bank’s Chicago, Boston and Cleveland branches used public appearances to clamor for more fiscal aid. 

The upshot is that any new stimulus in the near term is going to have to come from the Fed itself, which already has cut interest rates close to zero and is currently printing about $120 billion a month to buy U.S. Treasuries and government-backed mortgages. 

Mary Daly, who heads the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said Wednesday that central-bank economists won’t know it’s time to start tightening monetary policy until higher inflation actually shows up. 

The Federal Reserve has already printed about $3 trillion of new money this year, expanding its balance sheet by about three-quarters, which has encouraged cryptocurrency analysts in their assertions that bitcoin stands to benefit as an inflation hedge. 

A new round of stimulus to stanch the losses on Wall Street might bolster demand for inflation hedges, which might get bitcoin prices going up again. That could help cement crypto’s lead in the 2020 asset-class rankings, which in turn would probably lure in even more buyers.   

Bitcoin Watch

Bitcoin has bounced up to $10,400 from Wednesday’s low of $10,150.  The cryptocurrency, however, may have a tough time maintaining the bullish momentum with the U.S. dollar showing signs of life. 

The dollar index (DXY), which tracks the greenback’s value against major fiat currencies, is trading at two-month highs above 94. 

Bitcoin had been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the dollar’s sell-off this summer. 

“Bitcoin will likely follow further downside together with precious metals given the DXY breakout,” Matthew Dibb, co-founder, and COO of Stack, a provider of cryptocurrency trackers and funds, told CoinDesk.

– Omkar Godbole

Read More: Strengthening US Dollar Could Bring Further Downside for Bitcoin

Token Watch

Uniswap (UNI): Decentralized exchange token’s new governance tokens defy DeFi sell-off. 

MakerDAO (MKR): DeFi stablecoin lending protocol won’t compensate victims of March 12 flash crash, based on voting results.  

Ether (ETH): Volatility could surge on Friday, FX Street writes via Forex Crunch, as Ethereum’s native token approaches September options expiry that is biggest “in the history of the digital asset.” 

What’s Hot

Winklevoss exchange Gemini now lets U.K. residents buy cryptocurrencies with British pounds (CoinDesk) 

Ethereum-based Ocean Protocol, which creates data tokens for things like DNA, taps Balancer Labs in new effort to create DeFi-based data marketplace. (CoinDesk)

In Iran, inflation, currency depreciation sends locals scurrying to buy bitcoin (CoinDesk)

Analogs The latest on the economy and traditional finance

JPMorgan reportedly set to pay $1B to resolve U.S. regulatory allegations over “spoofing” in metals futures markets (Reuters)

Election risks could send gold prices to new record above $2,000 by end of this year, Citigroup says (Bloomberg)

Interactive Brokers is raising margin requirements on leveraged trades because of expectations for heightened U.S. elections volatility in November (CNBC)

Bank stocks tank as markets grow dicey again (WSJ)

Chinese yuan strengthens versus dollar in offshore market, outpacing regional currencies of Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia (Bloomberg)

Tweet of the Day Related Stories

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Developing a crypto market regulatory framework takes time, so surveillance at the exchange and participant level is critical.

Paul Brodsky, a former partner at storied crypto investment firm Pantera Capital, has left to launch a hedge fund aimed at volatility plays across cryptocurrencies and traditional assets.

Brodsky’s new fund, PostModern Partners, will open in 2021 with a focus on high-risk, high-return blockchain investment opportunities, according to a source familiar with the matter. It will be open only to accredited investors – and only those, the source said, who can stomach potentially heavy market dips.

The fund’s launch comes three years after Brodsky joined Pantera. Leaning on Brodsky’s traditional portfolio management chops, CEO Dan Morehead had tapped the former derivatives trader in October 2017 to lead his crypto VC’s investor outreach. 

Related: Climate Startup Nori Raises $4M to Solve Carbon Market Double-Spending

But even back then, regulatory filings indicate that Brodsky, a founder and chief of multiple funds, was laying the groundwork for an eventual pivot back to asset management. He first registered PostModern Partners GP LLC with FINRA in early 2017.

The PostModern that Brodsky is now preparing to lead will trade in highly liquid asset classes of all kinds with a special focus on high-growth, volatile cryptocurrencies, according to organizational documents obtained by CoinDesk.

That means shying away from a bitcoin-heavy portfolio, the documents said. PostModern asserted that bitcoin is too easily accessible, its derivatives market too established and its network too energy-demanding to offer massive investor upside.

“We believe there are greater scaling opportunities in Proof-of-Stake tokens,” the documents state – while leaving open the possibility of investing in bitcoin for near-term upside.

Related: Violent Reflexivity: Why Market Movements Are More Aggressive Than Ever, Feat. Corey Hoffstein

Pantera’s bitcoin fund rallied by over 10,000% since its late-2013 launch. PostModern’s refusal to embrace bitcoin indicates Brodsky is on the hunt for the eye-popping returns that bitcoin can no longer deliver.

Such a calculus on the market-leading crypto clashes with the long-on-bitcoin mantra sloshing around some corners of Wall Street. Michael Saylor, whose publicly-traded business intelligence firm MicroStrategy put its $425 million treasury reserve into BTC this month, publicly touts the sprawling network as a strength. 

But PostModern is playing for capital accumulation rather than capital preservation, the source said. It’s for accredited investors looking to place risky bets on volatile crypto assets with the alluring yet hardly assured potential of extremely high returns.

“It’s not for the faint of heart,” the source said.

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A new blockchain-enabled mobility platform from Mercedes-parent Daimler will kick off with a product that lets users’ in-car settings follow them to other vehicles.

• Announced Thursday, Daimler is building the platform in partnership with Ontology, an open-source blockchain specializing in data and digital identity.
• The first product to emerge out of the partnership, “Welcome Home,” will be demonstrated at Dalmier’s virtual live event at the Startup Autobahn event today and is built to service users who’d like to transfer preferences from one auto to another. 
• “Preferences in a car are settings such as lighting, the seat, the music players,” said Gloria Wu, Chief of Global Ecosystem Partnerships at Ontology. She also said that a user, “could basically use a ‘Welcome Home’ application to access another car rental service provider within the app without having to do all the registration.” 
• The platform built under the Daimler and Ontology partnership would allow a user to both port identification information and in-car preferences from one region to the other, given that the rental service or leasing agent is registered with the platform. 
• The statement added that the ‘Welcome Home’ solution is the first product on the MoveX platform. Being built in partnership by the Daimler AG Blockchain Factory and Ontology, the MoveX platform is targeted at solving barriers to adoption around “user roaming, bundling, and sharing.”
• “‘Welcome Home’ combines mobility with social networking,” said Harry Behrens, head of Blockchain Factory at Daimler Mobility, in the emailed statement. The statement also said that the platform is not limited to in-car experiences and can also include smart devices. 
• “What did you eat, what kind of itineraries you had, you can save it to one of your profiles, and share it with a friend, assuming that she’s also using ‘Welcome Home,’” Wu said.
• She added that following the demonstration on Thursday, the platform is targeting a release to potential business partners and potential operators in October. 

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