Mortal Hazard: the dapp ecosystem, other people’s money, and the prospects for a long-term regulation-free environment

I am as guilty as anybody at enjoying the Ether price rise. I returned to this field, my second love really (after VR). Crypto dominated my 1990s and led to the abrupt change of direction after my stint in the e-gold ecosystem turned conspiratorial and (potentially) dangerous.

Mission Untraceable: How Zcash is Being Used to Obscure Ethereum Transactions

Cryptographer Andrew Miller posed for a Snapchat selfie with one of his fans at an event earlier this week where he presented a paper on how to make ethereum smart contracts untraceable.

Loss of Bitcoins in Bitfinex Could be Deducted on US Tax Returns

Following the hack at Bitfinex, many people stand to lose money as the company spreads losses among users. A 36% haircut was announced, but some users claimed even bigger losses. American tax accountant Daniel Winters explains how the IRS could allow U.S.

Bitfinex Examined: Inside the Troubled Bitcoin Exchange's History

As news major bitcoin exchange Bitfinex was robbed of more than $60m continues to echo across the media, less clear for many is who – and what – is at the center of this story. Based in Hong Kong, Bitfinex was the largest bitcoin exchange by US dollar volume prior to the hack.

Bank of America, HSBC Unveil Blockchain Supply Chain Project

Banking giants Bank of America and HSBC have teamed up with the Singapore government’s IT and telecom agency on a project that applies blockchain to trade finance.

15 R3 Members Trial Distributed Ledger Tech for Trade Finance

Banking consortium R3CEV revealed today that 15 of its members have completed a distributed ledger trial focused on applications in trade finance.

You’ve Been ButtFinessed

This post appeared in the August 8, 2016 issue of the Crypto Trader Digest. The full Digest goes into more detail about BitMEX security practices & quantifying Bitfinex counterparty risk. Please see the full digest for more.

Ransomware: Because OpSec is Hard?

This blog was authored by Edmund Brumaghin and Warren Mercer Summary Talos recently published research regarding a new variant of destructive ransomware, which we dubbed Ranscam.

Joker in the pack

THIS May Anonymous, a network of activists, briefly hacked into Greece’s central bank and warned in a YouTube message that: “Olympus will fall…This marks the start of a 30-day campaign against central-bank sites across the world.” The warning struck a raw nerve.

Crypto Tokens and the Coming Age of Protocol...

HTTP as the underlying protocol of the web allows for decentralized publishing. Anyone can operate a web server and publish their own content. And anybody with a web browser can access that content (subject to governments and ISPs imposing limitations).

Why the Cost of Living Is Poised to Plummet in the Next 20 Years

People are concerned about how AI and robotics are taking jobs, destroying livelihoods, reducing our earning capacity, and subsequently destroying the economy.

Bitfinex: Hacker used bitfinex and bitgo keys

Private keys 1 and 3 of the 2-of-3 multisig were used to steal the funds. Key 1 is bitfinex key, key 3 is the bitgo key. Backup key was not used. The obvious is C.

The Truth about the Fork

I respect Ethereum’s Classic philosophical position, in fact I was among the first to be publically against the hard fork, and helped in all other ways to avoid it.

Obviously Bitfinex is the one to blame here. But isn't BitGo's security model weak then too?

Obviously Bitfinex is the one to blame here. But isn't BitGo's security model weak then too? (self.Bitcoin) If BitGo held the 2nd key but was fooled to sign off on all these transactions then they're not adding much value here, are they?

With Socialized Loss Proposal, Bitfinex Enters Uncharted Waters

The Bitfinex hack appears to be forcing the exchange to consider unconventional measures as part of a bid to relaunch after last week's $60m hack.

cali2016

Some Bitcoin developers and miners gathered together during the end of the July to socialize and become better acquainted with each other. The following discussions were live transcribed by an untrained volunteer with attribution removed as per Chatham House rules.

New attack steals SSNs, e-mail addresses, and more from HTTPS pages

The HTTPS cryptographic scheme protecting millions of websites is vulnerable to a newly revived attack that exposes encrypted e-mail addresses, social security numbers, and other sensitive data even when attackers don't have the ability to monitor a targeted end user's Internet connection.

Attic Labs raises $8.1M and launches its new decentralized database

San Francisco-based Attic Labs is launching Noms today, a new decentralized database that takes its cues from projects like Git, Camlistore, ipfs, bup and others. As the company also announced today, Attic Labs has raised an $8.

Not-so-clever contracts

BUSINESS could be such a breeze—if it weren’t for those pesky humans. Imagine contracts that enforce themselves and are not subject to interpretation by, for instance, rent-seeking lawyers.

Mozilla Founder Unveils 'Brave Ledger' with Bitcoin Micropayments

In the world of stagnating Internet browsers, Brave is taking a completely different approach. Putting the end user in control of which ads to display – if any – and introducing Bitcoin micropayments will change the way consumers and content creators look at the World Wide Web. 

Antonopoulos: Bitcoin Will Have Hard Fork Eventually

Popular Bitcoin entrepreneur has shared his stance on the scaling issue and a looming intentional Bitcoin hard fork according to a published transcript of a Q&A session with the Chinese Bitcoin community on 8btc on Saturday July 30.

Independence May Bring Scotland Bitcoin-like Cryptocurrency

Dr. Craig Dalzell recently authored a discussion paper titled ‘Scottish currency options post Brexit’. This paper was written for a Scottish Think Tank called Common Weal. In the paper Dr. Dalzell discusses the ramifications of a possible Scottish currency after Brexit.

Chinese Exchange Yunbi Lost 40,000 ETC Over Chain Vulnerability

Yunbi, one of China’s biggest Ethereum trading exchange, announced today that they were to postpone the listing of ETC in order to undertake “security preparations” to address vulnerabilities due to “Relay Attack.

Australian Postal service will use blockchain

Australian Postal service will use blockchain applications to solve problems related to identity. According to a recent report published by ZDNet, the Postal Service wants to create a private blockchain to be used for accreditation and e-voting.

Sign All Things

I have written repeatedly about why I don’t think “encrypt all things” is the right answer for constructing a democratic society going forward. I am, however, a fan of the idea to “sign all things.” What I mean by this is that ideally all my emails, blog posts, etc.

Progress On Hardfork Proposals Following The Segwit Blocksize Increase

With segwit getting close to its initial testnet release in Bitcoin Core v0.13.0 - expected to be followed soon by a mainnet release in Bitcoin Core v0.13.

Addresses over Audio

BIP Number: 0124 Description: A standard for the efficient transmission of Bitcoin addresses over audio Author: Daniel Hoffman (danielhoffman699@gmail.com) Abstract: Bitcoin addresses are typically transmitted via QR codes and in plain text.

Microsoft Director of Sales Excellence - Eric Ligman

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Who wants even MORE FREE EBOOKS and resources this year? If so, you’ve come to the right place as I’m once again kicking off my annual FREE MICROSOFT EBOOK GIVEAWAY extravaganza!

What should go into an in-person pitch deck?

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Check out my side project Rejectionathon (discount code: EYFRIENDS), which helps founders get over their fear of rejection. The event is next weekend on July 17, 2016 in the Bay Area. I’ve previously written about the importance of having multiple decks.

The ideal email deck

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Check out my side project Hustleathon, which helps founders get over their fear of rejection. The event is on July 17, 2016 in the Bay Area. Since I wrote a post on how you’ll need multiple pitch decks, I’ve gotten a number of questions around what should go into them.

Best Seed Pitch Ever – AVC

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I read yesterday evening that our portfolio company Twilio, which priced its IPO last night, is going to live code from the NYSE this morning. That brought a powerful flashback to the first time I met Jeff Lawson, founder and CEO of Twilio.

Visualizing the Blockchain: The 7 most beautiful or informative Bitcoin visualizations

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The idea of money and currencies as flows in networks is not new. German sociologist Georg Simmel put forth similar ideas in his Philosophy of Money. With Bitcoin we finally have a currency that not only links people (or: nodes) together in financial transactions, but the network is transparent.

Curitiba is a Great Place to Launch a Startup. See a List of 150+ Local Resources

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Startup ecosystems can be fragmented, competitive, and hidden to newcomers, which is detrimental for local startups and community growth.

Arriving at the Pardot Acquisition Price

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One of the more popular questions I get from entrepreneurs that are curious about selling a company is how we arrived at the Pardot acquisition price. My normal response is that we had $10 million in trailing twelve months (TTM) revenue at time of sale and we got 9.5x TTM.

10 Common Reasons Why Fin Tech Startups Fail

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The following is a guest post by Pascal Bouvier (@pascalbouvier), venture partner at Santander InnoVentures. You have a great fin tech business plan. You assemble your team and create your startup. Here are ten common mistakes you should avoid if you want to have a chance to live another day.

Founders Fund Leads a Financing Round for Nubank, a Brazilian Start-Up

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RIO DE JANEIRO — The billionaire and prominent Silicon Valley financier Peter Thiel has returned to investing in Brazil, even as the country remains mired in recession and faces almost weekly political upheavals. Founders Fund, the San Francisco-based venture capital firm Mr.

Fundraising 2016 – Control Your Destiny

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Welcome to 2016. We’ve already heard lots of predictions about the late stage financing market, tech IPOs, and what is going to happen to unicorns this year. And it’s only Monday, January 4th. Remember that these are predictions. No one really has a clue. And a year is a long time.

What Is Going To Happen In 2016 – AVC

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It’s easier to predict the medium to long term future. We will be able to tell our cars to take us home after a late night of new year’s partying within a decade.