From Binance’s push to create a decentralized revolution and a new blockchain ecosystem, to a potential partnership in the works at Ripple, here’s a look at some of the stories breaking in the world of crypto.
Binance Countdown
Binance says it’s just hours away from launching the public testnet for its own blockchain, called Binance Chain.
The blockchain will power Binance DEX, designed to be the first decentralized exchange that achieves mass adoption, moving huge sums of crypto at high speeds without a middleman. Binance Coin (BNB) will migrate from the Ethereum network onto Binance Chain to become the native currency on Binance DEX.
“Ever since Binance was created, we have envisioned the creation of a native blockchain for our platform. And during the months that passed since the launch of Binance, amid all the expansions we made for the Binance ecosystem, the blockchain project remained an important step in our goal of exchanging the world. After months of groundbreaking work, we’re hours away from the testnet launch of the all-new Binance Chain, set at February 20.”
Binance Chain is built to create an entirely new token ecosystem for a variety of crypto projects, making it easy for companies to spin up their own tokens and add them to the DEX. Last month, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said a number of Ethereum-based tokens are already planning to switch to Binance Chain.
“If you’re only using ERC20 as a token, there’s no real reason for you to stay on Ethereum. Whereas on Binance Chain, you get one-second transaction confirmations. One confirmation is final. So it’s a much faster chain and the transaction fees are cheaper. So there’s a lot of advantages for them to move to Binance Chain, which uses a native DEX…
If you’re using some other feature of the smart contract on Ethereum that’s not token issuance related, then we don’t support that on Binance Chain initially. So then, you’ll probably have to stick with ERC20.”
Bitcoin
An 88-year-old grandma says she’s ready to grab the Bitcoin Lightning Network torch.
Lightning Labs CEO Elizabeth Stark, who received the torch a couple weeks ago, is all over the idea.
Omg, this is amazing! ?
— elizabeth stark (@starkness) February 18, 2019
The torch represents a symbolic amount of Bitcoin that’s being passed around to create awareness of the Lightning Network, which is a layer-2 solution designed to boost the speed of Bitcoin transactions and lower the fees.
Ripple and XRP
The upcoming US-based crypto exchange BlockQuake says a future partnership with Ripple is in the works. Members of the team recently visited Ripple’s headquarters, raising speculation that the exchange will feature XRP as a base pair. BlockQuake is set to launch in the first quarter of this year.
Ethereum
The latest ConsenSys-sponsored Week in Ethereum blog post is out.
This edition covers the ETHDenver conference and news on a number of Ethereum-based platforms, including Raiden Network and MyEtherWallet.
Litecoin
Litecoin Foundation director Franklyn Richards just released a video outlining how Confidential Transactions work.
According to Litecoin creator Charlie Lee, the network is aiming to implement privacy features on the network this year.
Tron
Bithumb says it will officially list Tron’s BitTorrent token (BTT) today. In addition, the South Korean crypto exchange says it will begin an airdrop of one million BTT.
#BTT will be listed in @BithumbOfficial today with 100 million $BTT airdrop. #TRON #TRX $TRX #BitTorrent @BitTorrent @utorrent https://t.co/EYNTdwBR6T
— Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) February 19, 2019
IOTA
The IOTA Foundation is partnering with the Liverpool-based investment firm Nova.
The two companies will create a seed fund to support developers building on IOTA in an effort to boost the number of successful startups utilizing the next generation of distributed ledger technology.
IOTA Partners With Cofoundery, Nova, to Launch Seed Fund Supporting DLT Start-upshttps://t.co/D30Q8xS3DZ#IOTA #DLT
— IOTA (@iotatoken) February 18, 2019
VeChain
The team at VeChain says it’s created an easy way for developers to deploy the VeChainThor blockchain with the click of a mouse. The new feature utilizes Amazon Web Services to provide “quick, secure and compliant use of blockchain technology to support business processes and activities.”
AWS services enable one-click VeChainThor Blockchain deployment for enterprises.
Original: https://t.co/qIWZVS9mbR
English: https://t.co/lBtB6T5vCZ
— VeChain Foundation (@vechainofficial) February 18, 2019
Monero
An anonymous Monero fan says the private key to an undisclosed amount of XMR is hidden in the image below. So far, the crypto community has been unable to crack the code.
[the_ad id="42537"] [the_ad id="42536"]This artwork is a #Monero #puzzle I made with a lot of ??.
There’s a private key with an unknown amount of #XMR hidden in it. Which, rumour has it, is the same @fluffypony lost in his boating accident.
Can you find it? Blow my mind!https://t.co/vrneCuhUsa pic.twitter.com/PNmVSNB9vW— M. (@TheMonera) February 13, 2019
