Episode 206 - Justin Sun invites the big dogs to eat, Telegram's doing stealthy crypto moves and 640 crypto projects get EXPOSED.

Another week, another flagship. This time, all 3 of the guys are on the show, as Brent's sniffles have subsided and he's pumped up to talk crypto with the crew. Today we go over how Kik's ditching its messaging service to focus on crypto, how Telegram is about to bamboozle libra, as well as the entire crypto space, in the most cool-guys-don't-look-at-explosions way possible, and we're taking a look at 640 crypto projects that haven't pubished a single line of code in over a YEAR. We also (lightly) touch on the price of bitcoin (so that it doesn't trip and fall further down) and we answer a mailbag question concerning halvenings asked by yours truly, America's favourite editor, Jason.

Dive into the cryptoverse with us on this week's Flagship Friday.

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• Rapid Fire

  • https://www.binance.us/?ref=35015918

  • Kik is Killing it Messaging App to Focus on Crypto

  • Blockchain Transparency Institute says Kraken and Coinbase have clean trading volumes.

    • In the same report they revealed that 73% of exchanges are faking 90% of their volume.

  • Facebook Libra is pushing it's release date back

    • Zuck has refused to commit to the planned 2020 launch date. Bogged down by regulators saying it poses a risk to financial stability and could be used in financial crimes and a threat to sovereign currencies.
    • Zuck posted on FB that FB is taking a more cautious approach bringing forward projects that are "sensitive to society" and allowing a period of consultation and "working thru the issues" Kumbaya

  • Bitcoin Lightning Network hits 10k nodes.

    • 3.1% increase over last 30 days.
    • Unlike BTC network more nodes on Lightning Network will make it more efficient

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• Justin Sun seeks Andrew Yang’s attention

  • First off he did announce on Tuesday during a live stream that he's going to reschedule his lunch with Buffett "very soon"
    • of note which I hadn't realized - he had actually invited Trump
    • “Mr. President, you are misled by fake news. #Bitcoin & #Blockchain happens to be the best chance for US! I'd love to invite you to have lunch with crypto leaders along with @WarrenBuffett on July 25. I guarantee you after this lunch, nobody will know crypto more than you!”
  • Then he started making overtures at Yang
    • So apparently this started when Yang announced on debate that he was doing UBI pilot program
    • Yang’s initiative to UBI $1k to 10 ppl per mth for 1 yr, I'll pledge UBI $1k to 100 ppl per mth in 2020! I'll pick 1 to attend lunch w/ me & @WarrenBuffett 2020! I'll let Yang assist me in picking the lucky 100! Join us! #YANG2020 @AndrewYang
    • Mini rant - lots of ways to be and succeed, Credit where it is due. hate him still

• Bakkt? Yes.

  • What is Bakkt?
  • Owned by ICE (Intercontinental Exchange), NYSE's parent company. Bitcoin futures exchange and digital assets platform opening 2018. Was planning on launching in 2018 but postponed it for a year due to volume of interest and regulatory issues.
  • Bakkt Launched a few days ago. This has been a hinge point for many people on whether institutions are going to go ballistic grabbing Bitcoin Futures contracts.
  • In less than 24 hours they did have $600k in contracts bought. That's actually kinda slow to me.
  • However, the price of Bitcoin went down.
  • Already scammers put up a fake website called BakktLaunch.com for an ETH and BTC giveaway lol

• 640 Crypto Projects haven't published a single line of code this year

  • Based on a research of 2,000 startups by the Coincodecap project, 640 were completely inactive. (32%)
  • analysis of Coincodecap, which links exchange rate success with code commits, reveals that the assets belonging to the inactive projects have a market capitalization of $415 million.
    • Proton Token with more than $80 million in market cap didn’t push any code since 2018
    • One of the reasons for the weak activity is that creating a new blockchain project can be relatively simple, especially if the token is built over the Ethereum network.
  • Exchanges with most inactive projects
    • Crex24 - 30
    • Coin Exchange - 39
    • YoBit - 62

• Google's Quantum Supremacy

  • We know Quantum computing is coming.
  • Google partnered with NASA to execute a Quantum computation.
  • They were able to produce exactly one calculation in 3 min 20 seconds that it would take the most advance supercomputer today (Summit) 10,000 years to complete.
  • Here's the tricky thing - this claim was made in a paper on NASA's site, and it was taken down.
  • What does this mean for crypto?
  • Well nothing new really, maybe some of these core dev teams need to work on quantum resistance sooner, but we know it's coming. The timeline, according to the Quantum Devs and big crypto names (charles, Andreas) ranges from 10 to 30 years to crack current encryption.
  • What we do know is that it won't be easy.

• How Telegram quietly snuck its blockchain past regulators

  • Everyone is super mad at Libra, Congress, EU, everyone clamped down hard
  • Meanwhile, Telegram Open Network (TON)
    • POS network promising to integrate blockchain payments to...365m users...
    • By the end of October no less
  • Even though they raised $1.7B they barely acknowledged it much less talk about it
    • "On September 8, Telegram dumped half a million lines of code for TON, hundreds of pages of new documentation, and a beta"
  • Theres little time to figure out everything, but if they deliver on "high speed and decentralization", it will be the largest blockchain launch in history
  • Check out these quotes
    • German Central Bank - "We do not possess any specific information on TON. That's why we cannot comment on this app.”
    • European Central Bank - “It looks like another crypto experiment, not really an issue for regulators/ overseers at this stage,”
  • Of course TON Labs argues it has to do with the centralized vs decentralized nature of each
    • VP Pavel Prigolovko said "If there is one person who manages the payment system, it is this person who must comply with all the laws and regulations of the regulators, and if there is no central agent, then there is no one to present the requirements to,”
    • The main challenge will be to get enough tech savy Gram holders to become validators. (CryptoPeaStew shoutout and reminder UltimateNodes.io)
      • Supposedly they have developed industrial-grade solutions to run the validation process
  • They're also responding to concerns about Data storage & privacy in a simple way -
    • We dont collect or store data, its decentralized and public, so fully transparent. All transaction details will be public like on any other public ledger
  • Lastly some concerns over BlackMoon
    • exchange whose cofounder, Ilya Perekopsky, is Telegrams VP
    • Already said they will be one of the first to list Grams

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