Bitfinity Weekly: Rolling Up
Welcome to Issue #113 of Bitfinity Weekly for our #BITFINIANS community. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, sign up here.
What's in Today's Email?
- Global Crypto News
- This Week in our Blog
- NFT Market Bytes
- Tweet of the Week
- Meme Time
- A Matter of Opinion
Global Crypto News
Distributed (Social) Security: Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer ($USDT), and Uquid have partnered to enable social security payments in the Philippines through the use of stablecoins issued on The Open Network. This collaboration aims to provide a faster, more efficient, and cost-effective way for Filipino citizens to receive their social security benefits. Uquid is a Web3 e-commerce platform launched in 2016.
The Taxman Cometh: The U.S. Treasury has introduced new tax regulations for crypto brokers, which will come into effect in 2025. While these new rules now require centralized crypto entities to file 1099 forms (as their tradfi counterparts must), DeFi still awaits itsown defined guidelines. This does not mean that self-custodied agents are free from tax filings, as regulators are expected to determine regulation on DeFi and other categories later this year.
Full Circle: On Monday Circle, a major stablecoin issuer, has become the first global stablecoin service to achieve compliance with MiCA (the European Union's new Markets in Crypto Assets regulatory framework). Circle is now authorized to issue its pegged stablecoins $USDC and $EURC within the EU. MiCA, which was passed last year, is a comprehensive, multi-national law specifically addressing how crypto companies should operate.
Amber Alert: Sony has announced the acquisition of Amber Japan, which includes cryptocurrency exchange WhaleFin. WhaleFin which will be rebranded as S.BLOX Co. and will feature an updated user experience with plans to expand supported currencies and functions. This acquisition is Sony's biggest move within the web3 space since its patenting of a novel NFT framework in 2023.
This Week in our Blog
In this week's article we take a deep dive into Rollups, scaling solutions which enhance certain L1s' speed and fees competitive with other more efficient blockchains. Learn the basics on rollups as well as more about how Bitfinity can improve the experience for both builders and users on Bitcoin.
Fred
NFT Market Bytes
Caught in the Draft: A U.S. District Court judge in Massachusetts has denied DraftKings' motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit, which claims that its NFTs are unregistered securities under the Howey test. Decrypt, a major web3 news site, has pointed out that a key difference between the DraftKing's class action and the recent Dapper Lab's settlement is that Dapper Labs utilized its own proprietary blockchain while DraftKings issues tokens on Polygon, a public Ethereum L2 network.
Closed Ports: OpenSea has quietly amended the code that disabled the Kemonokaki NFT collection from appearing on its Trending list. After a week-long community effort to raise awareness about the shadowban, OpenSea finally commented on the matter, saying that an internal review had been done, but did not answer questions about why there was a limitation on the collection in the first place. The 'shadowban' code affected multiple collections, and not all of them have been resolved.
Ice Cold: Igloo, the parent company behind Pudgy Penguins NFT, have acquired Frame, a team that includes notable pseudonymous crypto devs Cygaar and Beans. The Frame blockchain will be sunsetted so that the team can focus on building a new Ethereum L2, named Abstract, "designed to take on the consumer crypto opportunity".
Tweet of the Week
🌊Deep Dive
— Bitfinity Network (@bitfinitynet) July 3, 2024
Solidity is the number one Smart Contract programming language 🥇
Smart Contract Automation, DAO Governance, DeFi and NFTs - key features of Ethereum - are all made possible through Solidity 🧐
The Bitfinity EVM looks to bridge the gap between Solidity Smart… pic.twitter.com/vKtcvpnCRK
Meme Time
A Matter of Opinion
When is marketing not worth it? This week, the Polkadot community has found itself in a serious debate about whether or not the governing DAO (OpenGov) has been using its treasury funds correctly. This discussion follows the publishing of the 2024-H1 Polkadot Treasury Report, which showed a $37m marketing budget for the first half of this year. The community criticism largely revolves around the effectiveness of the marketing efforts, as well as concerns over its remaining funds.
Community members have voiced their frustration, arguing that the marketing efforts have not translated into tangible growth or increased adoption. There is a sentiment that the funds could have been better utilized to support developers and enhance the platform's technology. Additionally, accusations of discrimination against Asian developers and projects have further fueled the controversy, suggesting a possible bias in the allocation of resources.
This controversy over the budget has raised concerns about the platform's long-term financial sustainability, especially if the current spending patterns continue as Polkadot's Treasury holds roughly $245m in total assets, and $86m has been spent in the past 6 months alone. Tommy Enenkel, Polkadot's head ambassador, has made statements warning the the community that the Treasury's reserves could be depleted within 2 years. Web3 Foundation CEO Fabian Gompf said he did not expect funds to run out, estimating that the current runway is a minimum of 5 years.
This situation presents an interesting case into what happens with decentralized governance applied on a large scale. While it is easy to blame a centralized "foundation" for these community-perceived budget snafus, in this particular situation, the governing body is a DAO, its decisions made through community votes. What happens next is anyone's guess.
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