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RelayNode NYC #7 - June 24

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.

NYC Blockchain Week is finally upon us with many activities and events going on throughout the week.

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

  • Enter Libra: David Marcus, Director of Libra / VP of Messaging Products at Facebook / former President of Paypal / former Board member at Coinbase, announced Facebook’s ambitious plan to create an alternative financial system that relies on a new cryptocurrency called Libra. “A simple global currency and infrastructure that empowers billions of people” will launch in the first half of 2020. Libra’s mission is to provide access to the 1.7 billion adults who do not have bank services but may have a mobile phone or internet access. The World Bank has an excellent report on the unbanked issue.

  • Why Now? Joel John, analyst at Outlier Ventures, provides an excellent breakdown of Facebook’s strategy and rationale behind the launch (growing ARPU from users in developing markets, hedge against collapse of the ads-driven model of web 2.0, etc.). Kevin Werbach, Professor at the Wharton School, penned a NYT op-ed explaining how Libra is the last, best hope to re-establish trust between Facebook and the world.

  • The Netscape / iPhone moment for the blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystem has arrived. The crypto market has an estimated ~40M users today and Libra has the potential to onboard 2B+ people into this market. Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures explains why Libra has the potential to be a catalyst that brings the entire cryptocurrency and cryptoasset market into the mainstream.

  • The Libra Blockchain is a “decentralized”, programmable database designed to support a low-volatility cryptocurrency that will have the ability to serve as an efficient medium of exchange. Jameson Lopp, CTO at Casa, provides a detailed explanation of the technical whitepaper. The protocol is open source and supported by a new programming language called Move. The Libra protocol does not link accounts to real-world identities providing pseudonymity for users, following the example of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Features include support for smart contracts that may facilitate other financial services to customers, such as lending and investing. Ryan Selkis, founder of Messari, argues that Libra could be akin to the App store for fintech developers. The Libra blockchain is being launched as a permissioned blockchain, meaning only members of the Libra Association will be permitted to run the validator hardware required to operate a node and participate in the consensus process, but is planning to transition to a permissionless proof-of-stake blockchain within 5 years. Jerry Brito, Executive Director at Coin Center, explains potential issues with this transition.

  • The Libra Association is an independent, Swiss-based not-for-profit organization that will govern Libra. The Libra Association is targeting 100 diverse partners and already has 27 founding partners who will work on the organization’s charter. These partners currently include payment companies (Mastercard, PayU, PayPal, Stripe, Visa), telecom (Iliad, Vodafone), tech & marketplaces (Calibra, Farfetch, eBay, Mercado Libre, Booking Holdings, Spotify, Uber, Lyft), education / nonprofits (Women’s World Banking, Kiva, Mercy Corps, Creative Destruction Labs), blockchain companies (Anchorage, BisonTrails, Coinbase, Xapo) and venture capital firms (Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Initiatives, Thrive Capital, Ribbit Capital, and Union Square Ventures). Governance is achieved through decisions with voting power proportional to the amount of investment token held, capped at 1%. Protocol changes demand a supermajority: ⅔ of the votes.

  • Libra Currency & Reserve: Libra is a non-pegged uncapped stablecoin backed by a reserve of low volatility real assets denominated in USD, JPY, EUR, GBP. The money in the reserve will come from investors in an Investment Token and users of Libra. The Libra Association will pay out incentives in Libra coin to Association members to encourage adoption by users, merchants, and developers. On the user side, every time a user buys a Libra, the money will be deposited into the reserve. Chris McCann, GP at Proof of Capital, explains the bull case.

  • Calibra is “a regulated subsidiary [of Facebook] that will ensure separation between social and financial data and build and operate services on its behalf on top of the Libra network.” Calibra will introduce a digital wallet for Libra, which will be initially available in Messenger, WhatsApp, and as a standalone app, for users to store and transact Libra. Users of Calibra will be verified via government-issued ID. However, there is nothing currently in the Libra code that blocks non-KYC wallet transactions. Eric Wall, Privacy Technology Fellow at the Human Rights Foundation, explains how Libra will flow into the black market economy while still being compliant with traditional financial entities’ compliance policies.

  • Risks: In the days following the release, the reviews have been mixed. The biggest risks are execution, politicized regulation, organizational, and adoption in emerging markets. Facebook is already battling regulatory scrutiny stemming from their misuse of user data and the company has already begun seeing backlash from regulators in the United States and Europe. The G7 is forming a task force to examine the Libra and the US Senate Banking committee scheduled a hearing for next week. Chris Hughes, co-founder at Facebook, argues that Libra would hand over much of the control of monetary policy from central banks to companies. If Libra succeeds, it may ultimately replace state central banks with a corporate-backed global (de)central bank.

  • This initiative is expected to have a major impact on global markets, with significant implications on the cryptoasset, financial, and economic landscape. SO many questions still to unpack including...

    • What does Libra mean for other cryptocurrencies? Thousands of start-ups are still trying to build a new world of financial services on top of existing cryptocurrencies. Saifedean Ammous, Bitcoin maximalist, explains how Bitcoin remains popular with people who are concerned about personal privacy and the power that governments and big corporations have in the financial system.

    • What does this mean for other smart contract platform like Ethereum and EOS?

    • What does this mean for stablecoins such as MakerDAO, Gemini Dollar, USDC?

    • What does this mean for messaging platforms such as Telegram, Kin, Kakao?

    • What does this mean for tech giants such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon?

    • What does this mean for Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu?

    • What does this mean for traditional Wall Street and central banks?

    • What does this mean for international payments (JP Morgan) and remittance companies (Western Union, MoneyGram, Ripple)?

    • How will regulators respond?

    In other news:

    • Ripple announced a strategic partnership and a 10% stake in money transfer giant MoneyGram. Under the deal, Ripple will spend $30 million (with an option for an additional $20 million) to buy shares at a price of $4.10 (3x market price pre-announcement). MoneyGram will utilize XRP as part of its day-to-day operations by way of Ripple’s xRapid transaction product. Ripple and MoneyGram anticipate settlement fees to drop from $30 per transaction to fractions of a penny while settlement times are expected to drop from 15-60 minutes to just a few seconds.

    • Delphi Digital released an awesome research report on Uniswap, a leading DeFi protocol for automated token exchange on Ethereum.

    • In light of the official launch of the Algorand Mainnet and the Algorand Foundation’s successful first $60 million dutch-auction (implying a $24 billion valuation!!!!), where 25 million Algos were allocated to participants at a final clearing price of $2.40 per Algo, Arrington XRP Capital released an excellent paper exploring the Algorand network and the monetary experiment.

Events this week:


Hyperledger Fabric for the Enterprise - Privacy and Security Strategies (Free)

When: Monday, June 24, 2019, 6:00–9:00 PM

Where: NYC Blockchain Center, 54 W 21St Street, Suite 1001, 10th Floor, New York, NY

Hyperledger Fabric (HLF) blockchain’s architecture was designed from the ground up to be highly extensible with plug and play modules in order to meet most business cases. In this session, we will address the challenges of privacy and security by presenting the best patterns and methodologies, of how to implement enterprise-grade HLF blockchain implementations. Furthermore, we will cite real-world examples – illustrated with diagrams, code-patterns and in some cases short demos or video segments.

NYC Cardano Meetup: Getting ready for Shelly and Goguen (Free)

When: Tuesday, June 25, 2019, 6:30-8:30 PM

Where: dLab, dLab 255 W 36th St. (between 7th and 8th) Floor 3 · New York, ny

Please join us for an exciting look at the decentralized future of the Cardano blockchain. As Cardano progresses ever closer to implementing staking and smart contracts with the Shelly and Goguen phases of the project lets discuss the implications to coin holders and developers. We will have a presentation from Khoa Phan dLab/Emurgo Fellow and Founder of Soshen, a company which will help developers build, test, and launch applications built on Cardano network. Also presenting is Umed Saidov Founder and CEO of Oqulent a firm which will help investors evaluate digital assets through the use of AI and next generation portfolio analytics.

Facebook Libra NYC Meetup - The Genesis Meetup (Free)

When: Wednesday, June 26, 2019, 7:00-10:00 PM

Where: TBU

We are still confirming our first meetup location, but will be looking for a bar in lower manhattan. Event will go from 7pm-10pm.

Summer Series: Lightning Implementations Discussion (Free)

When: Wednesday, June 26, 2019, 6:30-8:30 PM

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

The Summer Series hosted in the Chaincode Labs office continues with talks headlined by Fabrice Drouin (Eclair) and Christian Decker (C-Lightning) doing a deep dive into the tradeoffs of their Lightning implementations. Expect these talks to be deeply technical in nature.

NYC Blockchain Center and BigApps present: Introducing NYC BigApps Blockchain Challenge: Propose a Blockchain Solution for NYC Government (Free)

When: Thursday, June 27, 2019, 12:00–2:00 PM

Where: NYC Blockchain Center, 54 W 21St Street, Suite 1001, 10th Floor, New York, NY

Do you have an idea for how New York City government agencies could use blockchain? NYC BigApps Blockchain is SecondMuse x NYCEDC’s open innovation challenge that asks startups and entrepreneurs to design meaningful blockchain solutions that will improve the efficiency, security, and transparency of public sector services in New York City. Come learn about the Call for Proposals, the Challenge Areas, meet with government leaders, and connect with fellow innovators from across the city.

Upcoming events

Ethereum Blockchain Devs Study Group (Free)

When: Monday, July 1, 2019, 6:30 PM to 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.

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