Ethereum (ETH) fans are celebrating the setting of the genesis block 2.0 date, scheduled for December 1st. At first glance, it seems like a great achievement, but not quite the story.

The journey began in late 2018, when a new roadmap was released to start a network with validators, in the Proof of Stake system, in addition to the additional layers (shards), significantly increasing the computational capacity.

However, there are no plans for the new network to enable the launch of decentralised applications and smart contracts. In fact, at this first moment it is not possible to carry out any movements within the 2.0 network.

How is the demand in DeFi?

Decentralized finance (DeFi) peaked between August and September with the launch of several tokens. The main segments were collateralized loans, decentralized exchanges, and liquidity pools.

The magic of high profitability was in the value of these tokens, which were distributed to participants and investors in these projects. While Uniswap (UNI), UMA, Compound (COMP) and Yearn Finance (YFI) were all valued, everything was a wonder.

When the tide turned at the end of October, investors began to understand that most of the gains were based on the token appreciation. It was then that the universe of DeFi came to know the term „impermanent loss,“ or loss caused by imbalance.

Although traditional market analysts had pointed to this risk long before, the DeFi boom left investors blind. This led to congestion in the Ethereum network, raising the average rate per transaction to a peak of $8.

The disappointment was so great that in October the number of transactions in the Bitcoin Profit network plummeted by 60%. As a result, the fees have dropped to the current $0.60.

Above is the graph of the value traded on the Ethereum network in dollars, according to CoinMetrics. Most of this drop can be attributed to the lower volume in decentralized exchanges, even with the stagnation of the amount invested in DeFi.

Is DeFi dead? What is the impact for ETH?

No, the universe of decentralized finance is not dead. There was only an adjustment after the bubble formed by the strong appreciation of the tokens. However, it must be understood that the number of active wallets in the Uniswap leader, for example, hardly exceeds 40,000.

A new research project at the Vienna University of Technology has dedicated itself entirely to the topics of interoperability, blockchain and IoT. The IOTA Foundation is involved in the long-term project – and does not just want to advance its own network.

The IOTA Foundation has joined the newly founded DLT research group at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) as an industrial partner

The group is part of the Christian Doppler Laboratory Blockchain Technologies for the Internet of Things (CDL BOT) and researches the interface between the Internet of Things (IoT) and distributed ledgers-Technologies (DLT) such as blockchain or the Tangle from IOTA. As the latest addition to the Christian Doppler Research Association, the project is financed by state subsidies. Margarete Schönbock, Federal Minister for Digitization and Business Location, also made the opening on November 26th.

IOTA co-founder Dominik Schiener is pleased in a corresponding blog entry the IOTA Foundation on the cooperation:

We are honored to be part of this long-term research project and thank the Christian Doppler Gesellschaft and the Austrian Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs for recognizing and supporting the enormous potential of blockchain and distributed ledger technology for building a more transparent, trustworthy and networked one Economy.

However, IOTA is not the only representative from the blockchain industry to have joined the venture. The Austrian Bitcoin exchange Bitpanda is also involved in the project: with its research arm Pantos.

In order to take the industry to the next level, the interoperability of blockchains and the integrity of data should be the top priority. We believe that our partnership with the Christian Doppler Gesellschaft, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs and the IOTA Foundation allows us to stay at the forefront of interoperability development, one of the greatest complexities in this young but steadily maturing industry to solve,

Bitpanda CEO and co-founder Eric Demuth is quoted in the press release.

IOTA + X: focus on intercompatibility

The economist and programmer Prof. Dr.-Ing. Stefan Schulte. Schulte also emphasizes in his statement the importance of interoperability for the future prosperity of decentralized networks and the Internet of Things:

With the increasing number of potential applications for DLT-based payments and data exchange in the Internet of Things, new DLTs need to be integrated and interoperability between different DLTs becomes necessary. I look forward to […] finding new solutions for this highly topical issue together.

BitMEX och grundare står inför ännu en rättegång som påstår penningtvätt och marknadsmanipulation

• BitMEX och dess grundare har drabbats av ännu en stämningsansökan som påstod förskingring, penningtvätt och marknadsmanipulation.
• Păun Gabriel-Razvan, bosatt i Bucuresti, Rumänien, anklagar BitMEXs interna handelsdisk för direkt deltagande i manipulationssystem.

Belägrade kryptaderivat utbyter BitMEX och dess grundare står inför ännu en rättegång som påstår racketeering, penningtvätt och marknadsmanipulation.

Păun Gabriel-Razvan, bosatt i Bucuresti, Rumänien, väckte talan vid Northern District Court i Kalifornien på fredag. Han hävdar att HDR Global Trading Limited, operatören av BitMEX, börsens grundare Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo, och Samuel Reed och andra, engagerade Bitcoin Trader sig i och underlättade racketverksamhet, „tjänar svaranden miljarder dollar i olagliga vinster.“

Klagomålet kommer en månad efter att en liknande rättegång inlämnades mot BitMEX och grundare av käranden Dmitry Dolgov, bosatt i Moskva, Ryssland. Både Dolgov och Gabriel-Razvan representeras av samma advokat – Pavel Pogodin från Consensus Law.

„Pavel Pogodin från“ Consensus Law „fortsätter att lämna falska anspråk mot oss och andra inom kryptovalutasektorn“, sa en BitMEX-talesman idag till The Block. „Som vi har sagt tidigare, fungerar tyvärr herr Pogodin precis som ett patenttroll, och lämnar in“ kopiera och klistra in „klagomål mot oss baserat på återhasad information som tas bort från internet. Vi kommer att hantera detta genom den normala processprocessen och förbli helt övertygad om att domstolarna kommer att se hans anspråk på vad de är. „

Den nya 197-sidors stämningen hävdar att de tilltalade kringgick känner till dina kunders (KYC) eller anti-penningtvätt (AML) krav och accepterade „obegränsade medel från någon, utan en enda fråga.“ På grund av denna brist på tillsyn strömmade „hackare, skatteflyktare, penningtvättare, smugglare, narkotikahandlare till BitMEX plattformen med heta pengar“, hävdar rättegången.

Gabriel-Razvans stämning hävdar också att „BitMEX deltar direkt i och drar nytta av marknadsmanipulation och penningtvätt genom sin interna handelsdisk och indirekt,“ och beskriver ett specifikt exempel på hur detta sker:

„En penningtvättare (svarande) skulle öppna två växlingskonton – ett hjälpkonto på ett eller flera börser som BitMEX använde för att beräkna indexpriset (Coinbase Pro, Kraken och BitStamp) och ett vinnarkonto på BitMEX,“ förklarar rättegången. „Penningtvättaren skulle då gå in i en stor hävstångsderivatposition på BitMEX och omedelbart utföra marknadsorder från hjälpkontot med maximal glidning för att flytta indexpriset i en gynnsam riktning.“

Gabriel-Razvan hävdar att han lidit „betydande skador“ i ett belopp som ska bevisas vid rättegången. „Käranden drabbades av förlust av egendom … Käranden begär tre gånger det faktiska skadeståndet, kostnadskostnaderna och rimliga advokatsalar.“

Med specifika detaljer berättade Pogodin för The Block att Gabriel-Razvan var „bedragen av 247,94 bitcoin“, vilket är cirka 4,2 miljoner dollar i dagens takt. „Enligt tillämplig lag försöker vi återkräva tre gånger detta belopp (12,6 miljoner dollar) plus ränta, kostnader och advokatavgifter.

Dessutom söker vi straffskador på 50 miljoner dollar enligt Kaliforniens lag

Han fortsatte med att säga att fler „bedragna offer“ för BitMEX kommer fram, och „fler rättegångar förbereds och kommer att inlämnas inom kort.“ Pogodin har tidigare lämnat in liknande klagomål mot kryptoföretagen Ripple och FTX.

Under tiden drabbades BitMEX och grundarna nyligen av tvillingstämningar från den amerikanska regeringen. Justitiedepartementet och Commodities Futures Trading Commission anklagade dem för att ha drivit en oregistrerad handelsplattform, brott mot KYC- och AML-reglerna samt lagen om banksekretess.

Blockchain technologies have long been attractive for established companies too, after which they are used as an enterprise variant.

With its enterprise solution, VMware takes special expectations into account

For years, many companies were rather skeptical of the topic of enterprise blockchain . Recently, however, these blockages have dissolved more and more, which is due to the fact that many providers dispel concerns about the security of the infrastructure and have been able to convince companies of the many advantages of the decentralized ecosystem. In a press release The cloud computing and blockchain provider VMware informs about its new offer of such an enterprise platform.

The commercial availability of the VMware Blockchain offers companies a digital basis for building business networks and providing elementary applications on a decentralized basis. The VMware Blockchain is also a scalable enterprise-class platform that makes data available for a secure, private and immediate workflow.

VMware has worked for several years to make this blockchain platform commercially available. Before that, it was already used in some special and extensive projects. One of them was the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) ’s CHESS settlement solution. Originally, the operators relied on the blockchain from Digital Asset. But now one falls back on the ledger from VMware, using the smart contract protocol DAML from Digital Asset.

We have focused on building an enterprise-class blockchain platform that meets the most stringent application requirements of the financial services industry […] that require reliable, high-performance blockchain services.

VMware has to hold its own against strong competition

Even if solutions in the field of enterprise blockchain are still new territory for many interested parties, the listed company VMware is already facing some competition with its offer. First and foremost, there is certainly the Hyperledger Fabric project . Its biggest sponsor, IBM, is certainly not what one calls a small IT dumpster. Ethereum and Corda’s R3 consortium are also shaking up the market. The question of how VMware would like to gain a foothold seems entirely justified. The company emphasizes that it will serve the very important and fundamental expectations of its clientele. Expandability, security, data protection, performance and scalability are definitely in focus.

The software is easy to implement, manage and update and also offers first-class support. The latter point is noteworthy. Product support is an extremely important point for the company’s blockchain. However, neither IBM nor R3 are beginners in this area.