TWIBS — Ethereum Used for $20M Bank Bond, Litecoin Getting MimbleWimble, NEO3 Testnet Launches, IOTA to Create First Decentralized Marketplace, Factom Pro Offers Enterprise Data Storage, Nexo Paying Interest on PAX Gold
Every week we comb through hundreds of Blockfolio Signals to bring you the most significant team updates with brief analyses to help you understand the latest developments in blockchain.
Want to receive this newsletter direct to your inbox? Click here to subscribe!
In this week’s issue:
- Ethereum Used by Banco Santander to Issue $20M Bond
- Litecoin Working on MimbleWimble as Charlie Lee Reaffirms Funding
- NEO Launches NEO3 Preview 1 Testnet with Multiple Improvements
- IOTA to Launch World’s First Autonomous Decentralized Marketplace
- Factom Launches ‘Factom Pro’ Secure Data Storage
- Nexo Pays Interest on Tokenized Gold for the First Time
Ethereum Used by Banco Santander to Issue $20M Bond
“Banco Santander issues, escrows, and settles a $20 million bond on the Ethereum mainnet. DeFi is here.”
— Evan Van Ness, Ethereum
Summary
- The fifth-largest bank in Europe, Spanish bank Banco Santander, has issued, escrowed and settled a $20 million bond on the Ethereum mainnet in what it claims is the first end-to-end blockchain bond ever.
- Santander securely tokenized the bond in a permissioned manner. Both the cash used to complete the investment and the quarterly tokens were tokenized, with the bank noting that the high degree of automation involved dramatically reduced the number of intermediaries required.
- The blockchain bond transaction was faster, more efficient and simpler than legacy systems. Santander will now engage with clients to move the initiative from the project stage through to development.
Significance
Last month, the World Bank revealed it had raised fund for its Kangaroo bond due August 2020 using blockchain technology. And now one of the largest banks in Europe chose Ethereum to issue, escrow and settle a bond. The move is an indicator of ETH’s growing importance in finance and is likely to be followed by more banks utilizing blockchain technology to tokenize various assets. In addition to all of the DeFi development taking place on the Ethereum mainnet, this news is bullish for Ethereum. It also demonstrates yet another ideal use case for blockchain technology.
The downside of the increased usage is that the Ethereum network is once again getting congested. The ETH2.0 upgrade should address this issue but is still months away.
Price at the time of Blockfolio Signal: $178. View ETH on Blockfolio.
Litecoin Begins Work on MimbleWimble Implementation as Charlie Lee Reaffirms Funding
“The Litecoin Project Developers begin work on MimbleWimble Implementation.” Read More
Charlie Lee reaffirms his commitment to Funding Litecoin Adoption and Development.” Read More
— Franklyn Richards, Director
Summary
- The Litecoin Project is working with David Burkett, a Grin++ developer, to add MimbleWimble support to the Litecoin network.
- MimbleWimble (MW) is a protocol change that enables confidential transactions (CT) and non-interactive CoinJoins while improving scalability. Those who opt in to use MW on Litecoin would have their transaction values hidden and be mixed among other network participants, making it harder for third parties to track and log activity.
- MW would provide a more comprehensive fix to the fungibility problem than CT alone, something Lee views as the only property of sound money that is missing from Bitcoin & Litecoin.
- By utilizing extension blocks (EB) Litecoin is expected to see a network capacity increase.
Significance
David Burkett’s ultimate goal is financial privacy for everyone. He noted that he would love nothing more than to see Mimblewimble on Bitcoin itself. Getting MW added to Litecoin is an obvious first step, as Litecoin often acts as an informal testnet for Bitcoin. If the MW implementation is successful on Litecoin, it will increase the odds of it being introduced into the Bitcoin protocol. This would be huge, as it would address both privacy and scalability on the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
This announcement came just a few days after Charlie Lee reaffirmed his commitment to funding Litecoin adoption and development.
“The goal, of course, is to get Litecoin Foundation to be self-sustaining from donations, partnerships and merchandise sales,” — “Until we get to that point, I have and will continue to support the Litecoin Foundation financially as necessary.” — Charlie Lee
Price at the time of Blockfolio Signal: $69.67. View LTC on Blockfolio.
NEO Launches NEO3 Preview 1 Testnet with Multiple Improvements
“With the launch of #NEO3 TestNet and Preview1, NEO has taken a tangible step forward in terms of advancing NEO3 while enabling our developer communities to begin testing and exploring NEO3 upgrades.
Major features and improvements included in NEO3 Preview1:
- Architecture Optimization
- Stability enhancements
- Pricing model adjustment
- Performance enhancements”
— Erik Zhang, Founder & Core Developer
Summary
- The first preview version of NEO3 has been optimized and improved in many aspects, including architecture, stability, and performance.
- It also features a redesigned pricing model that significantly reduces development costs.
- All of these changes are intended to support large-scale commercial applications on NEO3.
Significance
A major update to the NEO protocol is a long time coming, so it is encouraging to see this first version on testnet. The improvements will help NEO to attract more enterprise-level customers to their smart contract platform and push them closer to their goal of creating an open network smart economy.
Price at the time of Blockfolio Signal: $9.20. View NEO on Blockfolio.
IOTA Foundation to Launch World’s First Autonomous Decentralized Marketplace
“IOTA Foundation to Launch Industry Marketplace, the World’s First Autonomous, Decentralized Marketplace
The Industry Marketplace will Leverage IOTA’s Distributed Ledger Technology, the Tangle, to Automate Interconnectivity Between Machines and Machine Readable Contracts, to Advance Digital Transformation.”
— Cara Harbor, Director of Communications
Summary
- The IOTA Foundation announced the release of the Industry Marketplace, the world’s very first autonomous and decentralized virtual marketplace. The Industry Marketplace will serve as a vendor and industry-neutral platform, automating the trade of physical and digital goods and services.
- IOTA has formed a consortium of world-leading academics, standardization bodies, enterprises, and thought leaders in order to accelerate industrial automation and commercial machine interaction.
- Industry 4.0 devices will contain not only asset information, but proactive decision and optimization algorithms to enable goal-oriented behaviors.
- By combining distributed ledger technology with established standards and openly-developed specifications, the Industry Marketplace will spearhead I4.0 and create a platform for the economy of things.
- Combining DLT technology, immutable audit logs, machine-readable contracts, and an integrated decentralized identify system with secure communication and payments will enable decentralized exchange.
Significance
Powerful efficiencies can be realized via the creation of a decentralized marketplace. This is a huge evolution from IOTA’s first Data Marketplace that was launched in 2017 and will push forward an industry standard for decentralized data and service exchange within the Internet-of-Things ecosystem.
Price at the time of Blockfolio Signal: $0.28. View MIOTA on Blockfolio.
Factom Launches ‘Factom Pro’ Secure Data Storage
“Factom Pro is a unique and innovative gateway for businesses to access blockchain-based storage without the need to handle cryptocurrency or deal with cumbersome deep tech.
We’re excited to announce the launch of Factom Pro — a cloud-based portal designed to secure enterprise data using the Factom blockchain.”
— Allie, admin
Summary
- The Factom Protocol announced that one of its operators, De Facto, has launched a new portal for the cloud called Factom Pro.
- It is a cloud-based portal designed to secure business data using the Factom blockchain, anchored to the bitcoin and Ethereum public blockchains, at a fixed price of a penny per write.
- Factom Pro is a gateway for businesses to access blockchain-based storage without the need to handle cryptocurrency or deal with deep tech.
- Enterprise users get access to a full suite of blockchain capabilities through a platform for evidence capture, decentralized identity, tokenization (including cryptocurrencies), smart contracts and verifiable credentials.
- Use cases for Factom Pro’s decentralized data storage include intellectual property protection, supply chain tracking, secure voting systems, fraud detection, trade and credit financing, and insurance claim verification.
Significance
Decentralized cloud storage is an excellent use case for blockchain technology, as it eliminates centralizes points of failure and can be offered at lower prices than traditional cloud storage. Since Factom already has enterprise-level clients using their platform, this additional offering makes sense and should help to further increase the appeal of Factom to businesses. It also ensures privacy for sensitive information that we’ve already seen is not necessarily safe with centralized cloud storage providers.
Price at the time of Blockfolio Signal: $3.12. View FCT on Blockfolio.
Nexo Offers Credit Lines and Pays Interest Against Tokenized Gold for the First Time
“Nexo is the only crypto lender to offer Instant Crypto Credit Lines™ against tokenized physical gold and interest-bearing accounts on gold with up to 8% APR, debunking the century-old stigma that ‘gold does not pay dividends.”
— Antoni Trenchev, Managing Partner
Summary
- Nexo has announced that gold investors can gain instant access to their wealth. Tokenization of gold means that gold investors can now use their gold as collateral for credit lines or to earn interest up to 8% APR.
- Through blockchain technology, we can tokenize real-world assets such as fine art, real estate, and now gold, unlocking their value and making the transfer of ownership a breeze.
- PAX Gold is a token that runs on the Ethereum blockchain. It digitally represents a physical amount of gold held in the vaults of the London-based Brink. As Paxos teams up with crypto lending provider Nexo, gold investors now have more options for unlocking the value of their gold.
- Through the new partnership, Nexo will allow gold investors to access their wealth in a total of 45 fiat currencies via same/next day transfers across 200+ jurisdictions.
Significance
One of the biggest criticisms of gold by traditional investors is that it does not generate interest or cash flow of any type. But with PAX Gold and their partnership with Nexo, it is now easy to earn interest or access credit lines with gold. This is the first time everyday investors have an easy way to generate interest or access credit with their safe-haven asset thanks to the tokenization abilities inherent in blockchain technology.
Price at the time of Blockfolio Signal: $0.09. View NEXO on Blockfolio.
Quote of the Week:
“in conclusion, this is good for bitcoin.”
Speaking about U.S. government’s decision to ban the purchase of his book.
— Edward Snowden
Thanks for joining us and we look forward to bringing you our top Blockfolio Signals again next week.
CLICK HERE to receive this report directly in your inbox next time.
Jason Hamlin
Ecosystem Insights & Development @ Blockfolio
—
Blockfolio Signal is a first-of-its-kind communications platform built exclusively for token teams to connect and engage with their communities. Over 400 token team CEOs and team leaders actively use the platform to provide relevant project updates directly to Blockfolio’s 5 million+ users. Learn more at www.blockfolio.com/signal.
Stay in touch with us on Twitter, Instagram, Telegram, and Facebook or email us at support@blockfolio.com for troubleshooting, feedback, and suggestions.
Disclaimer: No information included herein constitutes an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any investment product, or legal, tax, accounting, or investment advice.
