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RelayNode NYC #11 - July 22

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.

This week, we saw Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and Libra in the spotlight of congressional hearings. In the midst of a crisis of trust, we are seeing a trust revolution. Blockchain systems are human systems, not just code. Trust is a balance of confidence and vulnerability. It is an open question how blockchain systems and sensible regulation will strike that balance effectively.

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RelayNode NYC is curated by:

David Gogel

Advisor @ Paperchain fmr Associate @ Techstars' Blockchain Accelerator, Co-president @ Wharton FinTech

Hsin-Ju Chuang

Director of Community & Growth @TQ Tezos, ex-Head of Growth @Stellar/Lightyear, Side Hustle @Dystopia Labs

Macro

  • Ray Dalio, Co-CIO & Founder at Bridgewater Associates, provides a fascinating macro outlook on economic cycles and paradigm shifts. TL;DR: monetizations of debt and currency depreciations will eventually pick up, which will reduce the value of money and real returns for creditors. The best performing assets will be those that do well “when the value of money is being depreciated and domestic and international conflicts are significant, such as gold.” What about digital gold? In his Senate Banking Committee testimony, Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, compared Bitcoin to gold.

Libra vs. Bitcoin vs. Cryptocurrencies

  • Facebook’s David Marcus spoke before Congress on Libra and provided a written statement to the Senate Banking Committee. Facebook’s entrance has awakened Congressmen & Congresswomen to the potential of cryptocurrencies and blockchain, as well as the tradeoffs between permissioned and permissionless blockchains. Lawmakers grilled Marcus on issues spanning money laundering, privacy, consumer protection, financial stability, and whether Libra should be regulated as an ETF or a bank.

  • Meltem Demirors, CoinShares’ Chief Strategy Officer, articulated the difference between Bitcoin and Libra in her testimony. Coincenter also released a thorough analysis on the differences in protocol design. If policymakers overlook these differences, they risk adopting a one-size-fits-all response, resulting in unintended consequences.

  • Should the public trust Libra and Facebook with its money? Distrust is the consistent theme. Donald Trump, Steven Mnuchin, Jerome Powell, and many members of Congress expressed concerns about unregulated cryptocurrencies and Libra. The cryptocurrency market, like most markets, is prone to the exploitation of bad actors. Stephen Palley, lawyer, writes his thoughts on key issues with Libra from a KYC/AML compliance perspective and implications for permissionless blockchains. Lawmakers also questioned whether Facebook could be trusted to protect customer privacy given its history of lapses. It is hard for organizations to earn the public’s trust; it is even harder to regain after it is lost (and politicized!) Will Facebook become Too Big To Fail? Preston Byrne, lawyer at Byrne & Storm, highlights concerns around Libra’s design and Facebook’s potential to become a monopoly.

  • You will not have to trust Facebook because it is one of 28 current and potentially 100 or more Libra Association members and it won’t have special privileges. So, can we trust the Libra Association to not function as a cartel? Dmitriy Berenzon, Head of Research @Zenith Ventures, explores Libra’s governance model design and incentives for Association members. It remains to be seen whether a group of organizations will successfully coordinate around building and maintaining a public good. It is also unclear whether the benefits of this public good is a strong enough incentive for organizations with conflicting priorities and complex competitive dynamics to work together.

Trading

  • According to its latest report, Grayscale’s assets under management (AUM) nearly tripled from $926M in Q1 2019 to $2.7B in Q2 2019 amidst a strong rebound in digital asset prices. Greyscale also experienced a 200% increase in fund inflows from $43M in Q1 2019 to $85M in Q2 2019. Institutional demand for digital assets is on the rise.

STOs

  • Strategy&, in partnership with Crypto Valley, released its annual report on the ICO / STO / IEO markets.

DeFi

Layer 1

  • For layer-1 projects, lack of liquidity makes it challenging for users to participate in an ecosystem. This is why on/off ramps (exchanges, dexes, etc), market makers, and dapps with real-world usage are essential for adoption. In this article, Nikhil Saraf talks about how Stellar plans to solve for the liquidity problem.

  • Zcash forks into a new blockchain “Y-Cash”.

Events this week:

Presentation: La Fountain Presents Oracles and their Problem (Free)

When: Monday, July 22, 2019, 6:30-9:00 PM

Where: WeWork, Dumbo Heights: 81 Prospect St, Brooklyn

As blockchain continues to develop, the Oracle problem is a major barrier to increasing the use of blockchain technology in real-world applications. This presentation will be focused on understanding the Oracle problem and building a DAPP using technology that looks to solve the problem.

Tezos 1 Year Celebration (Free)

When: Tuesday, July 23, 2019, 6:30-9:00 PM

Where: 98 Kenmare Street, NY

Join us on Tuesday, July 23rd to celebrate the 1-year anniversary of the Tezos launch. At this event, we will reflect on the past year, discuss prominent ecosystem projects, and highlight what’s to come in the Tezos ecosystem.

Polkadot Network Topology -- how to connect and run validators (Free)

When: Wednesday, July 24, 2019, 7:00-9:00 PM

Where: Location TBD

Polkadot has many different network access points and supports enterprise style networks like substrate and kusama -- how does it all work? How do Validators stay in sync and how decentralized is and will the network be over time? Blockdaemon CEO Konstantin Richter will talk about the topology of the Polkadot network, decentralization and monitoring.

[Whitepaper Wednesday] Lot49 Mesh Networking (Free)

When: Wednesday, July 24, 2019, 7:00-9:00 PM

Where: Rent24, 25W 39th Street, 14 fl

This week, we’re reading about Lot49, a proposed mesh networking incentive protocol built on top of the Lightning Network.

DeFi NYC Presents: camlCase, Carbon, & Messari (Free)

When: Thursday, July 25, 2019

Where: Distributed Global, 16 Vestry Street

DeFi NYC is hosting camlCase (https://camlcase.io/), Carbon (https://www.carbon.money/), and Messari (https://messari.io) this Thursday, July 25, 2019 at Distributed Global.

What is Libra?: A Close Look at Facebook's New Cryptocurrency (Free)

When: Thursday, July 25, 2019, 6:30-8:30 PM

Where: 156 5th Ave, 7th Floor

We will be taking a look at Libra, Facebook's cryptocurrency set to launch in 2020. We will dive into the white paper and critical analyses as we seek to understand:

* What is Libra and how does its blockchain differ from existing projects in this pace?

* What are its potential benefits and risks?

* How might widespread adoption impact and/or disrupt the cryptocurrency space as a whole?

Socratic Seminar 94 (Free)

When: Thursday, July 25, 2019, 7:00–9:00 PM

Where: NYU Stern, 44 West 4th Room 1-70, New York, NY

BitDevs is a community for those interested in discussing and participating in the research and development of Bitcoin and related protocols.

Upcoming events

[Whitepaper Wednesday] Adding Economic Guarantees to Blockchain Oracles (Free)

When: Wednesday, July 31, 2019, 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM

Where: Rent 24, 25W 39th Street, 14 FL

This week, we’re reading about the UMA Data Verification Mechanism, an an economic approach to incentivizing oracles. At the meetup, we will talk about oracles. What are they for? Why do we need them? Why are they so difficult? Does this mechanism help?

Introduction to Decentralized Exchanges (Free)

When: Wednesday, September 18, 2019, 7:00-9:00 PM

Where: 142 W. 57th Street, New York, NY

During this meetup we'll talk about Ethereum, smart contracts and how they are used to build decentralized exchanges. We'll learn about what decentralized exchanges are and how they have the potential to revolutionize how securities are traded. Then we'll take a look at Metro, a project that I have been working on during nights and weekends that attempts to provide a central location to validate and settle trades on the Ethereum network using these three protocols allowing the trading of tokens, debt instruments and options on the blockchain. During this talk we will cover the following technologies: Ethereum, 0x, dYdX, and Dharma.

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