First U.S. Congressional hearing to address ICOs.

"Examining the Cryptocurrencies and ICO Markets"

Stream: https://t.co/JZqWE9qQQa

Bitcoin Lightning Network released on mainnet

>Today we at Lightning Labs are announcing the release of lnd 0.4-beta! This release marks the 4th major release of lnd and the first Lightning mainnet beta, an important milestone.

Source:
https://blog.lightning.engineering/announcement/2018/03/15/lnd-beta.html

Request (REQ) new update

https://blog.request.network/request-network-project-update-march-16th-2018-mainnet-audits-bug-bounties-a-new-hire-2173b8903f5b

[DarpalRating] We went through 133 Blockchain projects Github, Here’s our Code Audit Report for February

https://medium.com/@Darpalrating/darpalrating-we-went-through-133-blockchain-projects-github-heres-our-code-audit-report-for-5c060df3af44

South Korean authorities raid 3 Crypto Exchanges

South Korean prosecutors stormed the premises of three cryptocurrency exchanges in Seoul earlier this week after a government investigation raised suspicions that top executives at the exchanges were shifting client assets into their personal accounts, local media outlet Chosun reported.

Source:
https://cryptovest.com/news/3-korean-crypto-exchanges-get-raided-by-prosecutors/

Reminder: Bittrex will remove number of coins on March 30th

>We will be removing the wallets included in the list below on March 30, 2018. Once these wallets are removed, we will no longer be able to recover these coins. Users must withdrawal their coins before March 30, 2018, in order to keep them. The coins marked with an asterisk (*) have broken blockchains or wallets that will not allow withdrawals. In those cases, the inability to withdraw your balance is not due to the Bittrex Exchange platform, but is caused by a problem with the underlying blockchain or wallet associated with that coin.

8BIT, ADC, AM, AMS, APEX*, ARB, BITS*, BITZ*, BLC, BOB, BSTY, BTA, CCN, CRBIT*, CRYPT*, DAR, DGC, DRACO, DTC, FC2, FRK, FSC2*, GEMZ, GHC, GP, GRT, HKG, HYPER*, HZ, J, KR*, LXC*, MAX, MEC, METAL, MND, MTR*, MZC, NAUT, NET, NEU*, NTRN, OC*, ORB, PRIME*, PXI, ROOT*, SCOT, SCRT*, SFR*, SLG, SLING*, SOON, SPRTS, SSD*, STEPS*, STV, SWING, TES, TIT, TRI, TRK, U*, UFO, UNIQ*, UNIT, UNO, UTC, VIOR*, VIRAL*, VPN, WARP*, XAUR, XBB, XC, XCO, XDQ*, XPY*, XQN, XSEED*, XTC, YBC*



Source:
https://support.bittrex.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001609031

Binance announces DEX building challange with 1m$ prize money

The objective of this project is to solicit prototypes of a decentralized exchange with a focus on speed and capacity, or more precisely, a dex blockchain that is low-latency and high-throughput. We will offer a prize pool equivalent to $1,000,000 USD, paid in BNB. In addition, winning team(s) may also be considered for employment.

The dex prototype should have the following features:

-Sending and receiving of the native coin
-New token creation
-Sending, receiving, freezing, and burning of tokens
-Ability to trade one token with another token (all within the same chain)
-All features mentioned above built-in natively to the blockchain
-No support for smart contracts, virtual machines or turing complete languages
-If a trade-off is required, always choose speed and simplicity over fancy features.

Bonus feature:
- Native on-chain ICO

Source:
https://medium.com/binanceexchange/binance-dexathon-845dc0cbfffe

DeepBrainChain (DBC) token repurchasing plan.

https://twitter.com/DeepBrainChain/status/974816911606169601

Electrify.Asia (ELEC)

Interview with co-founders LIVE now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbSXRt3hkr4

A snapshot of current crypto regulations of all G20 member states

https://medium.com/@Torquecapital/a-snapshot-of-current-crypto-regulations-of-all-g20-member-states-3b5f80ffac81

Credits CS published Results of their "500k TPS" blockchain testing

Original Article:
https://medium.com/@credits/the-alpha-version-of-credits-showed-a-speed-of-488-403-transactions-per-second-during-the-testing-ca5c1045577

Wolf Review:

1) Test was performed on local network (potentially on single server cluster) - no consideration for network delays
2) They used centralised database (or each node had its own? not explained)
3) They used minimalistic Transactions (no actual data) and crammed as many as they can in single block
4) The checking of transaction uniqueness was performed without checking the account balance. - No balance checks were performed - basically indicates no replay protection, huge timesaves as nodes do not keep track of other nodes and beats completely the purpose of blockchain
5) validation algorithm BFT. During the testing phase, it was decided to use a stripped-down, but a stable version of this protocol - Non-standard consensus algorithm with unknown properties - this may very well mean that no network consensus was performed at all
6) No verifiable data for 3rd party audit
7) No source codes to show actual code involved in test
8) Article contains several logical fallacies
9) Collision protection not explained properly, most likely done by PK constraints on DB
10) Their data indicate that network transfered 385MB per second (TX size, total consensus communication would be much larger), this would indicate core network transfering 3080 mbps... good luck finding that
11) No EDS, again lightweight TXs
12) Use of trusted nodes - centralization
13) 70 people working on it - Github - 1 contributor, 53 commits
14) Code on Github and in unpacked jars on websites is ridiculously unprofessional, does not support abovementioned claims and is full of dangerous security risks (E.g. hardcoded hashes, MD5, no curves etc"

Conclusion:
Results are inconclusive at best, lack of details and number of suspicious "optimizations" together with questionable and unproven claims make this project extremely risky. Would personally stay away

Suggested reading:
https://medium.com/@suchi.blackwing/cryptocurrency-code-review-credits-f6c42c3f6f80

Disclaimer:
This is only a quick overview, no in depth examination was performed due to lack of reliable sources, data and additional information. Some of information above might not be 100% accurate

G20-FSB rejects calls for cryptocurrency regulation

(Google translated)
LONDON, March 18 (Reuters) - FSB (Financial Stability Board, FSB), which coordinates financial regulation for the countries of the G20 , on Sunday rejected calls from several countries who called for regulation of cryptomonnaies like bitcoin .

The FSB, however, stressed the need for greater international coordination in monitoring these rapidly evolving technologies, which still represent a tiny sector equivalent to less than 1% of global gross domestic product.

"The first assessment of the FSB is that currently, these crypto-assets do not pose a risk to global financial stability," said Mark Carney , president of the FSB, in a letter to finance ministers and governors of central banks, which will meet in Buenos Aires on Monday and Tuesday.

Mark Carney, who will leave his post next year, when he resigns as Governor of the Bank of England, noted that his successor would oversee a regulator more inclined to review existing rules than to set up new ones.

In his letter, he also said that the FSB, which has conducted a series of banking and financial reforms after the 2007-2009 crisis, will focus on the current rules rather than design new ones.

"As the work of the FSB, which aims to fill the fault lines that caused the financial crisis, is nearing its end, the latter will focus more (..) on the implementation and rigorous evaluation of the effects. reforms approved by the G20, "said Mark Carney. (Huw Jones Catherine Mallebay-Cowboy for French Service, edited by Danielle Rouquié)


Source:
https://investir.lesechos.fr/marches/bitcoin-cryptomonnaies/g20-le-fsb-rejette-les-appels-a-une-regulation-des-cryptomonnaies-1750099.php#TrF5bBY3IQcdXPbG.99

Dear Red Pulse Community,

We are more than happy to announce a partnership with Switcheo Network (Switcheo Exchange), a leading NEP5 decentralized exchange built on the NEO platform.

As the core part of our partnership, Red Pulse (RPX) will be the first few tokens to be listed onSwitcheo Exchange. This helps people trade RPX on Switcheo Exchange with NEO and GAS immediately. Trade is set to be alive by the end of March.

About Red Pulse

Red Pulse is a tokenized research ecosystem for China's economy and capital markets. The company incorporates its own cryptocurrency RPX to facilitate an open and transparent sharing economy for research and is developing a machine learning-based matching engine to connect industry experts with institutions seeking market insights to make better business decisions. Ultimately, Red Pulse aims to solve the problem that we all face today: Information overload.

https://www.redpulse.com

About Switcheo

Switcheo is a Decentralized Exchange (DEX) built on the NEO platform. It allows for the trustless exchange of NEP-5 tokens and may expand to other cross-chain tokens in the future. Switcheo Network has a stronger focus on user experience and aims to be cross-chain compatible as quickly as possible; Work on the Qtum blockchain has already begun.

https://switcheo.network

BREAKING NEWS! Electrify.Asia has officially partnered with Kucoin. ELEC tokens will be listed today at 2PM UTC!

https://news.kucoin.com/en/electrify-asiaelec-gets-listed-on-kucoin/

Trump Prohibits U.S. Purchases of Venezuelan Cryptocurrency Petro

President Donald Trump banned U.S. purchases of a cryptocurrency the Venezuelan government is rolling out, as part of a campaign to pressure the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

Source:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-19/trump-prohibits-u-s-purchases-of-venezuelan-cryptocurrency

US Congress Praises Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology

The US Congress just released its massive joint report on the state of the economy, and for the first time an entire chapter is dedicated to cryptocurrency.
What’s even more extraordinary are the number of bullish sentiments on the future of the emerging technology like:

- Blockchain Looks Like the New Internet
- Cryptocurrencies Could Outshine Government Fiat
- Blockchain Is Secure and Efficient
- Blockchain May Transform Many Industries

Sources:
https://dailyhodl.com/2018/03/19/us-congress-releases-extraordinary-report-praising-cryptocurrency-and-blockchain-technology/
https://www.congress.gov/115/crpt/hrpt596/CRPT-115hrpt596.pdf