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RelayNode NYC #8 - July 1

David Gogel

Welcome to RelayNode NYC Area edition! The NYC blockchain ecosystem is growing rapidly. My goal is to harness its energy, expertise, and innovation for the benefit of New Yorkers and provide a weekly curated list of interesting content and upcoming events.

RelayNode Links: Sign up | Submit events

RelayNode NYC is curated by:

David Gogel
Associate @ Techstars' Blockchain Accelerator fmr Co-president @ Wharton FinTech

Things to read

  • After trading below $4,000 for much of 2019, the Bitcoin price jumped to an 18-month high reaching $13,666 last week. It then dropped by more than $2,000 in just under 30 minutes amid a service outage at Coinbase. Volatility remains high. What’s driving the recent rally - retail / institutional investors, Libra news, whales, Tether? According to Ben Muster from Decrypt, Bitcoin’s recent rise appears to coincide with the creation of $600m in new Tether token (USDT), a stablecoin pegged 1-to-1 to the USD but whose reserve are not fully backed by dollars. In the last 3 months, total supply of Tether increased from $2b USDT to $3.5b USDT. One possible explanation is that buyers in China have been using Tether as an OTC on-ramp to Bitcoin. Some crypto analysts suspect Tether (the company) is creating USDT to buy bitcoin, driving up its price, through Bitfinex, an affiliate exchange. The companies deny this. John Griffin and Amin Shams, finance professors at the University of Texas at Austin, published a research paper describing the suspicious trading patterns between Tether and Bitcoin.

  • Arthur Hayes, Co-Founder & CEO of BitMEX, shares his views on Libra and compares it to a Blackrock ETF. In a bold move, social networking giant Facebook, has challenged the traditional finance and ETF industry, with its "Libra ETF". There are many unanswered questions about Libra, which may lack transparency, when compared to traditional ETFs. Another key disadvantage of Libra is that unlike with legacy ETFs, investment income is not distributed to unit holders. However, Facebook's wide consumer reach could give Libra a key commercial advantage.

  • The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the inter-governmental body that recommends global standards relating to anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), published new guidance on how its 36 members will have to start regulating virtual assets. This includes a controversial requirement that virtual asset service providers (VASPs) pass information about their customers to one another when transferring funds between firms. Jake Chervinsky, General Counsel at Compound, shares key takeaways.

  • Private markets are picking up steam. Several startups received funding last week. Dfuse, a blockchain API company, raised $3.5m in seed financing co-led by Multicoin Capital (thesis here). 3Box, a ConsenSys spin-out building identification tools for Dapp developers, raised $2.5m in a seed financing led by Placeholder (thesis here). The Web3 Foundation closed on a $60m private sale of tokens to fund the development of Polkadot, a blockchain interoperability project started by ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood. 500,000 DOT tokens (5% of total supply) were sold implying a $1.2b valuation.

Events this week:
Lighter week ahead with many celebrating July 4th!

Libp2p (Transport & Protocols) + Sample IPFS Project + Intro to Ethereum (Free)

When: Monday, July 1, 2019, 6:30-9:00 PM

Where: WeWork Dumbo Heights, 81 Prospect St, Brooklyn

The Flatiron School // Access Labs are proud to support the Ethereum Blockchain Devs Study Group. This is a regular gathering for Blockchain Devs of all levels to learn, present, work on in collaboration with one another or on solo projects in this fast-growing field. Our community is a welcoming space where any Ethereum and decentralized ledger related question is fair game, be it beginner, intermediate, or advanced.

Introduction to Music  & Blockchain ($20)

When: Tuesday, July 2, 2019, 6:30-8:30 PM

Where: Distributed Global HQ, 16 Vestry St, 4th Floor, New York, NY

If you are a musician, manager or label looking to learn about how blockchain will disrupt the music industry, then this is for you. Curated for musicians and artists, this class will kick start your understanding of blockchain and how it can help in the music industry. Presented by Einnovations (Ei), a modern music services firm and Paul Johnson - Adjunct Professor, Fordham Gabelli School of Business in conjunction with Fordham University New York.

Bitcoin Center's Satoshi Square (Free)

When: Thursday, July 4, 2019, 7:00-10:00 PM

Where: Satoshi Square, 157 Prince St · New York City, NY

As seen on the netflix documentary “banking on bitcoin!” The Bitcoin Center's iconic Satoshi Square meetup returns Thursday night. Join us for an evening of speakers, cryptocurrency discussion, and peer-to-peer trading.


Upcoming events

Understanding The Libra Coin (Free)

When: Tue, July 9, 2019, 6:00-9:00 PM

Where: Gabelli School of Business, 140 West 62nd Street, Room 333, New York, NY

Industry practitioners and 2 professors analyze the Libra coin, its implications to the markets and what it all possibly means. Lectures, townhall style discussions, Q&A and networking.


Summer Series: Mesh Networks and How Bitcoin Can be Used to Incentivize Networks

When: Wednesday, July 10, 2019, 6:30-8:30 PM

Where: Chaincode Labs, 450 Lexington Ave 38th Floor · New York, NY

Join us for a Summer Series event with GoTenna (https://txtenna.com/) founder Daniela Perdomo and engineer Richard Myers who will introduce mesh networks and talk about Lot49 (https://global-mesh-labs.gitbook.io/lot49/) -- a Bitcoin Incentivized Mesh Network.

BitAngels NYC July Event ($25)

When: Thu, July 11, 2019, 9:00-11:00 AM

Where: Ideanomics (18th Floor), 55 Broadway, New York, NY 10006

This BitAngels event will be hosted in conjunction with Trending Topics in Finance and FinTech at Ideanomics. BitAngels is a group of cryptocurrency investors helping to grow the blockchain ecosystem through community events and company spotlights. The brainchild of industry leader Michael Terpin, BitAngels launched in 2013 as the world's first angel network for digital currency startups.

Hacking the DAO and Parity: How we can learn from it and take steps to secure your smart contracts? (Free)

When: Thu, July 18, 2019, 6:30-8:30 PM

Where: General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10010

Join us to learn how MythX, a smart contract security platform, and ConsenSys Diligence, a security-focused group, are working together to build, test, audit and secure smarts contracts so what happened in 2016 doesn’t happen ever again because of a vulnerability in the smart contract. They’ll talk about other recent hacks and what they're doing to keep the Ethereum ecosystem secured.

Mondo.NYC music festival & global music / tech business conference ($99 - $598)

When: Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 4:00 PM – Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 5:00 PM

Where: Williamsburg Hotel, Brooklyn, 96 Wythe Ave., Brooklyn, NY

Mondo.NYC is the first music festival and global business conference focusing on the intersection of emerging music discovery, blockchain and other frontier technologies, and how these new applications and economies will significantly impact both music and tech industries. Emerging artists, innovators and industry insiders will connect and collaborate with fans in a mission to advance human creativity in an ever-changing world.

Notable Conferences