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Prior to mandatory masks on flights...I wonder how many of the 15 would have not contracted it had we been smart enough to implement that simple rule faster.

Yeah... looks like I’m not flying for a long, long while. For someone who hates long car rides a road trips never looked as appealing as it does right now.

As in one person physically transmitted single handedly it to fifteen different people? Or spread it to one person and they spread it to another?

relevant findings:

Our findings have several implications for international air travel, especially because several countries have resumed air travel despite ongoing SARS-CoV-2 transmission. First, thermal imaging and self-declaration of symptoms have clear limitations, as demonstrated by case 1, who boarded the flight with symptoms and did not declare them before or after the flight. Second, long flights not only can lead to importation of COVID-19 cases but also can provide conditions for superspreader events. It has been hypothesized that a combination of environmental factors on airplanes (humidity, temperature, air flow) can prolong the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in flight cabins (27).

No evidence indicated that the regular air conditioning and exchange system on flight VN54 were malfunctioning. [a bunch of deleted by me for brevity] studies limited contact tracing to passengers within 2 rows of the index cases, which could explain why secondary flight-related transmission was not detected.

The latest guidance from the international air travel industry classifies the in-flight transmission risk as very low (34) and recommends only the use of face masks without additional measures to increase physical distance on board, such as blocking the middle seats (7,35).

Our findings challenge these recommendations.

Transmission on flight VN54 was clustered in business class, where seats are already more widely spaced than in economy class, and infection spread much further than the existing 2-row (36) or 2 meters (37) rule recommended for COVID-19 prevention on airplanes and other public transport would have captured. Similar conclusions were reached for SARS-CoV superspreader events on a flight in 2003, in which a high risk for infection was observed for passengers seated farther than 3 rows from the index case (4). This finding also concurs with transmission patterns observed for influenza virus (38) and is generally in line with the mounting evidence that airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is a major yet underrecognized transmission route (39,40).

Our findings call for tightened screening and infection prevention measures by public health authorities, regulators, and the airline industry, especially in countries where substantial transmission is ongoing (37). Making mask wearing obligatory and making hand hygiene and cough etiquette standard practice while on board and at airports seems an obvious and relatively simple measure (27). Blocking middle seats, currently recommended by the airline industry (7,35), may in theory prevent some in-flight transmission events but seems to be insufficient to prevent superspreading events. Also, systematic testing, quarantine policies, or both, for inbound passengers at arrival might be justified for countries with low levels of community transmission, high risk for case importation, and limited contact tracing capacity (5). In Vietnam, for example, as a result of this investigation, national policy was changed toward mandatory testing at arrival irrespective of departure location and 14-day quarantine irrespective of test result or clinical signs/symptoms (41). This policy change eliminated the need for resource-intensive contact tracing of flight passengers altogether and enabled detection of another 106 cases among »5,000 passengers on 44 flights until all international flights were halted on March 28. However, given the logistic and economic implications of such policies, the development of a quick and reliable point-of-care test that covers the entire infectious period remains paramount.

We conclude that the risk for on-board transmission of SARS-CoV-2 during long flights is real and has the potential to cause COVID-19 clusters of substantial size, even in business class–like settings with spacious seating arrangements well beyond the established distance used to define close contact on airplanes. As long as COVID-19 presents a global pandemic threat in the absence of a good point-of-care test, better on-board infection prevention measures and arrival screening procedures are needed to make flying safe.

The air circulation system and operational status during the flight should be considered. Often first class is first on, and the air systems are not always running.

Next, all the couples traveling in middle seats could have transmitted the virus between them.

And it appears if one takes a radial projection from the case seat, it shows a limit to projection.

And, now as of September, no one with a hacking cough will be allowed on a plane. The research and contact tracing is excellent, but jumping to all kinds of recommendations does not consider awareness now prevalent worldwide.

But I thought airplanes were supposed to have super clean air, with filtration and lots of fresh air exchange. The paper says there was no evidence of the HVAC malfunctioning. How did it happen, and why doesn't it happen more often?

This paper demonstrates what we all knew to be true that business had tried to convince us otherwise of.

The only way flights stay in business is if everyone wears a n95 without an exhaust valve the whole time.

that's a wakeup call for those like me who thought that cabin filtration would avert super-spreader events. This case study really demonstrates how contagious covid can be when you're cooped up in one seat for hours & hours near someone who's infected. I just wonder how effective a N95/KN95/KF94 would be when you're dealing with multi-hour flights without layovers?

Abstract

To assess the role of in-flight transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), we investigated a cluster of cases among passengers on a 10-hour commercial flight. Affected persons were passengers, crew, and their close contacts. We traced 217 passengers and crew to their final destinations and interviewed, tested, and quarantined them. Among the 16 persons in whom SARS-CoV-2 infection was detected, 12 (75%) were passengers seated in business class along with the only symptomatic person (attack rate 62%). Seating proximity was strongly associated with increased infection risk (risk ratio 7.3, 95% CI 1.2–46.2). We found no strong evidence supporting alternative transmission scenarios. In-flight transmission that probably originated from 1 symptomatic passenger caused a large cluster of cases during a long flight. Guidelines for preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection among air passengers should consider individual passengers’ risk for infection, the number of passengers traveling, and flight duration.

Abstract

To assess the role of in-flight transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), we investigated a cluster of cases among passengers on a 10-hour commercial flight. Affected persons were passengers, crew, and their close contacts. We traced 217 passengers and crew to their final destinations and interviewed, tested, and quarantined them. Among the 16 persons in whom SARS-CoV-2 infection was detected, 12 (75%) were passengers seated in business class along with the only symptomatic person (attack rate 62%). Seating proximity was strongly associated with increased infection risk (risk ratio 7.3, 95% CI 1.2–46.2). We found no strong evidence supporting alternative transmission scenarios. In-flight transmission that probably originated from 1 symptomatic passenger caused a large cluster of cases during a long flight. Guidelines for preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection among air passengers should consider individual passengers’ risk for infection, the number of passengers traveling, and flight duration.

Worth noting that they don't have data on mask use but the authors wrote

Face masks were neither recommended nor widely used on airplanes in early March, in particular not among travelers from Europe, who constituted the majority of passengers on flight VN54.

There's now quite a few studies about transmission on flights and I think it'd be a good research topic for somebody to write a systematic review and/or meta-analysis on this topic

Abstract

To assess the role of in-flight transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), we investigated a cluster of cases among passengers on a 10-hour commercial flight. Affected persons were passengers, crew, and their close contacts. We traced 217 passengers and crew to their final destinations and interviewed, tested, and quarantined them. Among the 16 persons in whom SARS-CoV-2 infection was detected, 12 (75%) were passengers seated in business class along with the only symptomatic person (attack rate 62%). Seating proximity was strongly associated with increased infection risk (risk ratio 7.3, 95% CI 1.2–46.2). We found no strong evidence supporting alternative transmission scenarios. In-flight transmission that probably originated from 1 symptomatic passenger caused a large cluster of cases during a long flight. Guidelines for preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection among air passengers should consider individual passengers’ risk for infection, the number of passengers traveling, and flight duration.

Fuck US just chill in another country until you die, who would even want to live there.

I guess he's trying to buy a pardon

Welcome to the U.S. Court System! Where you ‘pay to play!’

"This is not like he's going to fork over the money. This gives them a judgment they were going to get anyways," said Lawrence Lustberg, Snowden's attorney, on Monday, noting that it may be difficult for the US government to get access to Snowden's funds if they're kept out of the country.

Not OPs fault (they used the CNN headline), but the only agreement is to the funds being held pending appeal - Snowden has not agreed to a final settlement.

This is amazing. Hopefully they'll implement other stablecoins as well. I want USDT, DAI, TUSD, BUSD, SUSD, yUSD, DUSD... I want them all. Maybe even normal dollars, since they say that debit/credit card deposits are possible.

If this isn't Ethereum and dapps moving into mainstream, then I don't know what signal are we waiting for. $ETH to $1000, 4 months from now. $ETH is money.

Unlimited free trades with instant execution

How is this possible? What Layer 2 solution have they chosen?

They got me hooked at "free $100" :D

Stage 2 of the Polymarket Beta is almost here. Unlimited free trades, debit/credit card deposits, email login, and 10x more liquidity. Get early access and a free $100.

What would this mean for cardano and others? Is there a need for them if eth2 is a success?

Everyone can't wait for this update to happen.

Last chance to buy Eth below 1k

So is eth 2.0 might launch this year?

So what will happen to the folks with mining rigs?

Phase 0 mainnet is coming soon (no “™️” necessary)

They're really sure about this one... dare I believe?

Short and oh so very sweet. I love it.

Seems like we are very, very close. Congrats to the devs and community.

The suggestion that Eth2.0 phase 0 could cause ETH to fail the SEC's Howey test is a new, and somewhat concerning, one to me.

I would love to hear another opinion on this.

https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/pull/2982

Good job ppl, lookin forward to staking for years now

Thank you Danny!!

I already have one. I still can't get it on the helium network. I can't convert data credits to pay the network connection fee.

Bought 2. Shipping in December.

I understand this is sold out but I tried to buy anyways, and it processed my order. Anyone try to buy it "after" it said sold out?

Sold out already! 😞

So.... anyone bought it yet?

In short?

An eye opening essay. thanks.

Until yield farming destroys itself (and possibly Ethereum in the processes), this kind of news won't stop.

Even if we solve yield farming GAS issues, something else will replace the demand (remember Crypto Kitties?).

All hands on deck to fix the GAS problem now!

Let's finally get off ETH 1.0 and start staking or figure out a way to force the proceeds earned by these high-volume, high earning smart contracts to start subsidizing GAS.

Ethereum like Bitcoin, has unfortunately failed as a technology for its intended purpose simply due to popularity.

This is the limits of Proof of Work for Ethereum and to be honest, I'm surprised its lasted as long as it did.

I think one of the worst things we allowed as a community was removing the time-bomb functionality which forced hard forks. This created forced discourse and change which is now lacking.

It's not too late to change. We just need to remove some of these 1 MB Greg types out of the decision making process and learn to take risks and be OK with failure.

Acknowledging the elephant in the room - failure is first needed (like this Blog has done!) which is a great sign. Next is strong leadership and swift action instead of words.

I still have hope we can pull this off.

Having participated in and surviving the DAOsaster - that was a time of rapid change and risk taking along with strong leadership. We need to be OK with failure even when there's money on the line.

Let's go!

That sucks. Was really excited for something like this to work.

It's sad to see more projects shut down due to Ethereum's problems. Hopefully more diverse applications are once again possible in Ethereum. In my view, I wouldn't want it to become a DeFi only blockchain.

if its possible to be shut down then it wasn't decentralized to begin with

I wonder if this is a canary in the coalmine. Which other projects are now quietly closing shop... or moving elsewhere?

Really sad to see, it was such a great project. But you have to respect teams that give the money back to investors once they realize their initial plan isn't going to pan out rather than doing endless pivots until they've spent it all.

Wrong assumption #1 always seemed like a problem to me from day 1. Suprised you guys even tried to make it work.

All 'freemium' models where multisig wallets are created for free by the service provider on behalf of the user just won't scale in the long run. How can an SP afford even $1 per signup if its trivial to sybil attack that?

Argent will run into this problem also. It's only a matter of time.

This is a bummer. This is also a FANTASTIC post and outlines many problems, assumptions, and results, and I recommend everyone read this from top to bottom.

Best of luck to Alex and the rest of the UniLogin team in their future endeavors.

tl;dr An overview of the blog https://unenumerated.blogspot.co.il by Nick Szabo, the man behind bit gold and the term smart contracts. Touches upon many subjects including mental transaction costs, social scalability and proxy measures.

Please add a submission statement (as per rule 6) to your link posts. Thanks.

Szabo aka Satoshi

This thing just gave me 4000 dlls

It's like year 2000 all over again.

Plenty of companies are more than happy to fork over their users...

So does it make sense to use that to help cover the cost of staking on Uniswap?

These guys could have made there tokens strictly available through yield farming but they really are committed to the vision of decentralization. Great job!

If you wanna fork a user, at least buy them a drink first

Good perspectives to keep thinking about.

> You can’t escape the fingerprints of thermodynamics

​

Assume the real term time preference rate 0.5% and the worldwide average price of one kwh at 0.1 USD and the worldwide narrow money plus gold at 4.61E+13 USD, the annual energy budget to establish trust is 8.29E+18 Joules which is 1.42% of the annual worldwide total energy consumption 5.84E+20 Joules. Assume people don't change ratios of energy consumption of each economy sector as economy expands, the 1.42% of trust token maintenance/production sector remains. It means the energy fingerprints is always not an issue if the mining task can be decentralized.

​

> Lightning ..

​

People who buy in the Lightning scale solution may prefer staying off chain forever so OP's argument is not justified.

Oh no the scalability "problem" is back

Mining is likely to become more distributed we near hard physical limits on efficiency and mining chips are fully commoditized. Remember that electric space heater that mines?

Nobody's making money on lightning fees either, channels are one-time setup and rarely need to be closed. Seems like it's doing fine... anyone having issues?

Meme

Are we hurtling towards another situation where bitcoiners were promised cheap and free payments only to find out that's not technically feasible but this time with lighting? I think lighting is amazing but the last time this conception and reality diverged it caused the bitcoin community some major growing pains.

Despite the controversial title, I encourage anyone to give it a read, there are some good thoughts in it.

The TL;DR of the biggest point is: [large scale] mining is impossible to pull off without a thermodynamic fingerprint. This could create a systemic risk because miners are subject to their jurisdiction's laws/KYC obligations.

When you're powerless to help, all you can do is complain.

Thanks for sharing here.

I'd like to be a fly on Brian Armstrong's wall as he reads this.

Thanks for sharing, interesting read.

They left out an important privacy attribute of grin (pre-broadcast aggregation) but they would have reached the same conclusion nonetheless.

Don't lose the forest for the trees. Did anyone even read the paper?
Most of their suggestions, regarding Monero, if implemented by exchanges and payment service providers would mean a nightmare for everyone in this community except for those select few that are already well connected, have fancy lawyers and "optimal" legal structures.

We as a community shouldn't condone or incentivize this type of discourse, even if it means financial "gains" in the short term. Most of their suggestions if put in practice would be a direct attack on Monero users, and yet here we are, celebrating. As /u/geonic_correctly pointed out this paper feels like a missed opportunity more than anything else.

We as a community need to remain vigilant and not fall for the same traps that have plagued some other projects in this space, code can change, communities consensus can change, be mindful of playing the state apparatus game and hoping that somehow you'll "win" by playing by their rules. You'll lose, badly.

Even if some people would be financially better off in the short term. That was never Monero's goal, keep that in mind.

Cool. Been waiting for this one forever.

Great effort on this.

I did notice the following references to auditing Monero exist in the paper...

Specific view keys can be shared with any third party to grant insight into the account associated with the view keys.

...

The confidential transactions feature is a cryptographic tool that allows for verification that no additional XMR has been created or destroyed as part of a given transaction, without revealing the exact transaction amount. ^(42)

...

Unlike the Bitcoin protocol, Monero users have two sets of private keys and public keys (four keys total). The pair of public keys make up the wallet address of a Monero user, whereas the two private keys (the view key and spend key) allow an individual to determine whether an output is addressed to them (view key) and enables the individual to send XMR and determine whether it has been spent (spend key).^(43) To verify transfers of XMR, a third-party observer must know that the XMR is owned by the individual using it. To enable this verification, the individual using the XMR signs the previously received XMR with the one-time address used, thereby proving that the individual knows the private keys and therefore rightfully controls the XMR that the individual is using. The private view key may be given to others to grant transparency into certain details of particular transactions associated with the address or addresses. Monero also contains an optional text field called “tx_extra” that can store arbitrary data in encrypted format. While this text field can be used for a variety of compliance purposes, this use has not been widely recommended by researchers and developers.^(44)

… which are great!

But I personally would like to have seen a small section to show (via the Monero command-line system or a symbolic representation) some techniques, specific tools, and processes of exactly how legally liable entities or operators can, in PC's confidence, sufficiently comply, maybe with some basic examples for different entity types.

How awesome that PC did this!

Can I violate the money laundering law as a private person? Suppose I sell Monero on localmonero.co for cash. I cannot check whether the money comes from illegal transactions. I have to assume the innocence of the other person. The money laundering law turns this around. You have to prove your innocence.

With regard to the “ease of crossing borders” factor, privacy coins and other cryptocurrencies present a higher inherent AML risk than cash, which is physically bulky and therefore more difficult to transport across borders, because large amounts of cash would require sufficient physical transportation and passing government border security. But privacy coins and other cryptocurrencies arguably pose a lower risk, in this respect, than cash, card, or paper payment instruments, which can cross borders with no transfer record at all (i.e., not even a publicly broadcast blockchain transaction

.

Where on-chain surveillance tools cannot be used, a VASP would still have ample controls to address AML risks of privacy coin transactions.

When Coinbase

Thank you for sharing this. Perkins Coie is very much of the "old generation". It's good to see they're writing about crypto at all.

Safety compliance is important!

Thank you team Tari

Good opinion, but we need a little more practical effort. I hope this report would be helps to convince the US Congress or crush their irrational regulations in court.

This is a huge feather in Monero's cap, or indeed any of the coins following in their footsteps.

Great work, and well done to all those involved in making it happen.

It's very encouraging to see this kind of high-level support for privacy, but I think it needs to be forcefully argued that "anti-money-laundering" laws themselves are a grievance assault on privacy rights.

The term 'anti-money-laundering' is an Orwellian euphemism for warrantless mass-surveillance of private financial interactions, and the existence and steady accumulation of these warrantless mass-surveillance laws is a fundamental affront to a free society.

While I applaud the effort, it's disappointing that they decided to amplify the "privacy coin" meme. "Privacy-preserving" or "privacy-enabling cryptocurrencies" should've been used throughout. I would've also liked to see a section on "privacy-eroding cryptocurrencies", starting with Bitcoin, and how that affects the individual user.

This was an opportunity to change the narrative around this technology and to underline how Bitcoin's radical transparency is the niche, not Monero's privacy-preserving technology. To explain to regulators and others that Bitcoin is unlike *any product* currently available in the financial world. Does any bank offer a transparent account that anyone can peer into? Why not?

The paper also misses some of the more important benefits of fungible money. Guilt by association is a thing with Bitcoin. You need to not only be sure of the person you receive your Bitcoin from, but also be careful who you spend it with, since that person might commit a crime and you are the source of his funds. Bitcoin erodes freedoms on so many levels it is preposterous.

Does it really matter? Cryptologists, mathematicians, scholars, security experts, all have testified before congress/senate stating the backdooring crypto just won't work. Yet the keep writing new bills and will until the anti encryption passes.

Tons of greats quotes in this one, including some where PC suggests privacy coins are lower risk in practice than Bitcoin, but the conclusion perhaps put it most simply:

"Allowing VASPs to support privacy tokens under current, tested AML regulations strikes the appropriate policy balance between preventing money laundering and allowing beneficial, privacy-preserving technology to develop"

I still don't see how it helps.

In sum:

We conclude that privacy coins protect legitimate individual and commercial privacy interests and that existing financial regulations sufficiently address the AML issues that privacy coins present.

And:

Not only do privacy coins provide public benefits that substantially outweigh their risks, existing AML regulations properly and sufficiently cover those risks, providing a proven framework for combatting money laundering and related crimes.

At long last!! Thanks Perkins!

Woo! Been waiting for this!

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There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

When can I open an account? I am ready!

Congrats guys! That hard work paying off

Tweetstorm is way more epic!

Not your keys, not your Bitcoin

Kraken Financial, as a bank, is required by Wyoming law to maintain 100% reserves of its deposits of fiat currency at all times. If every client were to demand withdrawals of their fiat at the same moment, Kraken Financial would be able to fulfill each withdrawal immediately without regard to how many loans we had outstanding.

How are people not commenting on this? This post has been up for 13 hours and not a single mention of it.

This is fucking fantastic news guys. Things are being done right.

so im like here waiting for bankera to let me receive swift transfers from the us to get payed directly to an exchange without needing to convert to euro and kraken goes and buys a us bank. what will happen first. kraken allowing non us persons to open bank accounts to receive an ach which I believe will cost me zero or bankera having a way to receive swift transfers? i cant wait to be able to remove my current bank (dukascopy) from the equation of receiving my freelance payments (in my country there is currency control and the goverment forces you to convert your payments at a very very bad rate)

This is the just another beautiful step on our eah to $10,000.

Very interesting!! Adoption zone here!!!

Kraken needs to go easy on the email spam. I don't need an update on this every day.

Removed as duplicate https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/itwlie/kraken_just_won_approval_to_create_americas_first/

So, when will I be able to deposit my paycheck to Kraken for DAI?

This is good for bitcoin

This is non-news they were already a bank in europe

I would love to invest in Kraken. Is there a way to do that?

This is enormous news for the crypto community. Salute to all you who HODL!

Wyoming is the real hero here with its 13 blockchain laws.

“We would expect to offer a host of new products as we get established,” Kinitsky said. “Those will range from things like qualified custody for institutions, digital-asset debit cards and savings accounts all the way to new types of asset classes. We can engage with securities and commodities and things like that as a bank. So a lot more TBD there.” 

Look for JP Morgan to follow suit within a year.

IM assuming as a resident of Texas I wouldn't have access to Krakens services from Wyoming then again it seems as if services they are offering are the same as what JP Morgan would offer? Am I correct in this? IM trying to find out how much of this is a win for crypto.

Very interesting, looking forward to them expanding to europe.

This is a nice first step. Just goes to show how early we are in this space. It's gonna be a different landscape in another 10 years for sure.

Looking forward when dexes can onramp from fiat.

This, is HUGE. An extremely underrated event.

I just got some questions;

1. Can you please expedite the process of expansion of kraken financial services into more countries? Expanding to new countries as a bank is alot easier than as a crypto exchange. Is this a priority or not?

Having a bank that accepts fiat and crypto while issuing debit cards, bank statements and is recognised as a bank is a huuuuge plus.

2. it is very important that you start offering staking services and high yield deposited. Most crypto exchanges offer 5% or more on deposits of stable coins. Offering this on your exchange based wing will be easier than your bank based wing since you dont need to keep 100% reserve, do you plan on offering this in the future?

What new services will this allow for?

Sounds big if true

So they spent $30 million of the $4 billion ICO money to buy a web domain. Smart move lol.

"There are 3500 publicly traded companies and there’s $5 trillion in their treasuries and it’s all melting and at some point, you have a fiduciary obligation to not lose the money.” The next 12 months are going to be very interesting.

‘Wow this social media site is really innovative, nothing else like it today. I should buy bitcoin’

MSTR stock up 10% today 👐

A bold decision that everyone will remember in the future as a stroke of genius.

The first to take the step, but certainly not the last.

voice is dead

It's great to have an excess of $500 million in cash to park.

Here's the thing: A lot of funds (pensions, insurance, hedge, universities and so forth) have the same "issue" of huge liquidity reserves. Many are willing to pay interest to hold government bonds - i.e. negative interest rates, when in fact they are meant to achieve a return on funds invested.

If some of them were allowed to invest just a portion of their funds into Bitcoin there's no worry about the missing demand side point of view in the S2F model.

Selling voice.com domain name for $30M to EOS creator but buying BTC only, that speaks volume about all the alt coins

Cool. Maybe it could inspire a 175m investment into EOS next.

This is a huge bet for a publicly listed company. I'm actually quite surprised that the shareholders would let him go all in like that. There is still lots of risk holding Bitcoin - theft of keys, severe bug, drop in price, etc. This could end up in triumph or tragedy.

"stacking sats", he said in a press release.

Taylor found himself reading up on bitcoin. He learned as much about crypto as fast as he could. Saylor said he pored over essays by “bitcoin luminaries,” listened to Nathaniel Whittemore’s and Anthony Pompliano’s crypto podcasts, scoured the internet for Peter Schiff’s bitcoin debates

LOL

“We just had the awful realization that we were sitting on top of a $500 million ice cube that’s melting,” Saylor said. MicroStrategy has settled on bitcoin as the treasury alternative.

“This is not a speculation, nor is it a hedge,” said Saylor. “This was a deliberate corporate strategy to adopt a bitcoin standard.”

Super bullish

The most I ever bet was $100 on the Superbowl for the Chargers

That could make him the richest man in the world in 10 years

It's Bitcoin. Duh.

Well look here, announced today, https://blog.kraken.com/post/6241/kraken-wyoming-first-digital-asset-bank/

Things are changing (moon)bois...

The first draft said (in the second bullet point), “This will streamline compliance, making it easy for state-licenses money transmitters like RIPPLE and Coinbase to work across multiple states...” they took Ripple out 🤑

This is what we need to see for XRP adoption!!!

Good for strike?

Compliance and regulation, in my opinion, will be essential in bolstering future adoption as it makes people less cared of crypto.

Wow, this is great news. They talk about releasing news on Thursday (so today?), any ideas when this might take place?

The framework will include 48 US states, further information to be released today.

We’re pleased to announce Jeremy Welch, co-founder of the popular Casa wallet service, is joining Kraken as our newest VP of Product.

In addition to his expertise as a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, Jeremy brings to Kraken a decade of experience leading product development at both startups and tech giants like Google. In his new role, he will be tasked with making it easier than ever for clients to buy and sell crypto assets with Kraken. 

This will include launching strategic improvements across Kraken’s product suite and leading the charge on new features to improve our existing user experience. 

Jeremy will also continue to serve as an advisor to Casa as it seeks to grow its non-custodial wallet offering, praised by users for enabling them to safely and securely store Bitcoin without the need for a custodian or exchange. 

To mark the occasion, we sat down with Jeremy to learn about his new position and to get his perspective on the industry’s past, present and future.

Kraken: Welcome to the team Jeremy! What makes you most excited about leading the product experience here at Kraken? 

Jeremy: I’m most excited about building a better future with such a talented team. It’s an incredible honor to learn from and work with Jesse and the other Krakenites around the globe. 

Kraken is the quiet juggernaut in the cryptocurrency world. We have a strong security stance and a culture focused on solving real problems for our large global customer base (we’re not just reinventing Wall Street on the blockchain). 

Despite already being a customer, it was honestly a surprise to see the breadth of initiatives Kraken is quietly building globally.  

There are very few teams that understand the real implications of Bitcoin and other new decentralized technologies. There are even fewer teams out there that have both the resources and the courage to invest in the big technology breakthroughs that are now starting to emerge. I feel very lucky to be working with a team that is aggressively pushing this world forward.

Your prior position was as a co-founder at Casa, a non-custodial wallet service. Why make the jump to a leading global exchange?

I spent almost four years building Casa before stepping away in January to focus on a family health issue. It was an incredibly tough decision to make, but I knew that my family needed my focused attention, and that I wouldn’t be an effective CEO while that was the case. 
After several months off, I started thinking about what would come next. It wasn’t just a question of the type of product or industry. 

My search for a new role was guided by three priorities: 1) Working with great people 2) Finding a culture focused on building a better future and 3) Flexibility to focus on family.
Those seem like straightforward requirements – but most companies out there offer a mixed bag when it comes to work impact, culture, location, etc. You might get to work on something important and new, but location flexibility or pay might be low. 

Kraken is a rare company – investing heavily in its teams, working on some of the most impactful technologies in the world and also enabling teams to work anywhere and anytime. 
Working at an exchange is extremely fast-paced, and we are still in the early stages of the cryptocurrency revolution. There’s so much to build. But within Kraken’s great team culture and work environment, I’ve found the pace of work to be strongly sustainable. 

The Kraken team has made it very easy for me to get things done while also finding time for family. This company is just phenomenal and I feel very fortunate to work here. 

Tell us a bit about your experiences as a cryptocurrency user. What challenges did you encounter and how will this inform your strategy for your new role? 

Using cryptocurrencies, and more broadly any kind of encryption or decentralized computing technology, is still too complicated. When we started Casa, it was out of a personal need and also out of concern for friends and family. I knew people who were attacked, who lost funds, and I saw centralized services fail directly.We made it easy for anyone to manage their funds directly with the best possible security using a carefully designed multi-signature personal key system. Today, it’s super easy-to-setup and easy-to-use with simple apps and 24/7 client service. 

At Kraken, I plan to use the same approach to improve overall user experience, but at an even larger scale. Exchanges are getting more complicated, not less. Increased scale, new security risks, new fintech experiences, new regulatory frameworks and new layer 1 and layer 2 technology improvements are all converging at the same time. 

If that wasn’t enough, something tells me that we’re about to see a whole new wave of customers coming into the market. For this group especially, I want to make their first experience a lasting one.  

Given your past experience, what do you see as the role for cryptocurrency exchanges in the customer journey? What trends do you think will most shape the sector in the next decade? 

Cryptocurrency is no longer a niche industry. More than just wider awareness by the financial industry and by consumers, the bigger sign is the new technologies like Microsoft’s ION project and Facebook’s Libra project. The future of fintech, consumer apps, and much much more will all be built on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. 

And timing is fitting. The Internet needs a new business model. The Internet also needs an updated and more resilient architecture. I think Bitcoin could be foundational for both of those, and I think the exchange plays a fundamental role in that foundation.  

Money isn’t just about taking and paying debt. It’s an information system. With cryptocurrencies we will see many more unexpected use cases emerge.  

For all these use cases to work, exchanges must work flawlessly and at massive scale. It’s both an exciting and a daunting future we are heading towards. 

What do you hope to achieve in your new role?

Right now, we’re focused on making many improvements to the core exchange experience, but there are also many new product areas we are investing in that I think will completely take people by surprise. I’m excited to be contributing to both, and to continue to build a great team.  

Kraken started as one of the first exchanges, and its strong security stance has now enabled it to scale into one of the largest globally. But we are still just getting started. We are working to bring better financial and data access to billions globally.  

Please reach out if you want to help us build a better future! You can review our jobs page. We are hiring across Product Management, Engineering Design, Product Marketing, Growth, support and much more.  

Can’t wait to share more of what we’re working on soon!

Once again, welcome Jeremy! 
– The Kraken Team

If we can't fix the peg, someone else will.

Im in shock at how its blown up so big....and out of nowhere.

How do they prevent the system from being under collateralized and perform liquidations? How is the peg maintained? Do they have a way to unwind the system if it becomes under collateralized? It's a very interesting project, bit I feel like there are major things that have not been explained yet

Would love to open a discussion for MKR holders on Andre Cronje's new StableCredit protocol. It seems to be a direct competitor to CDP's and Maker's Dai.

More layman explanations:

DC Investors explanation

Lisa Tan's explanation

What does this mean for Maker? Would it become obsolete?

Can someone eli5?

You can provide any asset and create tokenized credit called StableCredit USD (can also support EUR, JPY, etc).

Excited about this aspect. Not enough stable assets pegged to assets beyond USD yet. What are the Oracles being used here? Chainlink?

Also how about StableCredits for XAU/precious metals? Or are they not stable enough for StableCredit?

The AMM defines the premiums at which you borrow/repay assets.

Any models yet that define how those premiums are distributed? Presumably lion share to LPs, small share to the Treasury?

Seems like a very good idea. Their primary arguments are "it isn't technically well defined" (bills don't often specify hundreds of functional and non functional tech requirements, "doctors aren't sure if it's okay to go out if you're not sick" (the best argument but that's far more general a problem) and "poor people don't have smartphones" (I'm not sure about the stats on this, but children in sub saharan Africa have smartphones).

For a second I thought I was in r/technology

Good god, on top of everything else (and there’s a lot of “everything else”) we can’t even be sure that the presence of currently known antibodies guarantees that a person is no longer contagious. No matter how convenient (which it isn’t), or legal (which it isn’t), or well-executed & strictly enforced this is (which it won’t be) the data is simply not reliable enough to make this assertion at this time.

Jesus Christ. California is out of control

You get what you vote for. Good luck with that dystopian mess.

Sniff, sniff. I bet there's a money trail that leads to sponsors or sponsors files that are into speculative tech stocks relying on finding a purpose for blockchain.

Stupidist thing I've heard on a while. Well, Stupidist thing today. OK, the last hour because I just stopped reading the national news.

You need phones that do not track you. -: Rob Braxman :- on YouTube and LBRY

So what is the solution? Pray do tell

If anyone was wondering why there were mempool problems in 2017 that seemed like this, similar attacks popular around that time.

The vulnerability was discovered on Friday, June 22nd, 2018

price didn't really move during these dates. how nice of them not to dump and then tell the public.

Coindesk report: https://www.coindesk.com/high-severity-bug-in-bitcoin-software-revealed-2-years-after-fix

Summary: an attacker sends an INV message to a victim node with 49,999 hashes of transactions that don't exist. The victim node stores all those hashes in memory and waits for the TXs to arrive (they never do). The process can be repeated quickly until the victim node is out of memory.

For those who don't know, bcoin is an alternative implementation of Bitcoin for nodejs. It's not altcoin, it's a bitcoin fullnode, SPV node, and bip44 wallet library written in JavaScript.