The US patents and trademark office today published a patent by Visa [1], the card payments network, for a digital currency issued on a blockchain [2-4]. This is not their first patent in this area [5].
As the Moscow Times expected [6] and everyone now reports [2,3,4,5] Telegram cancels its TON project. The reason cited is the SEC’s stance on the project and the on-going court case. For the STO market this sends mixed messages.
The Block reports the JPMorgan now serves Coinbase and Gemini [1] based on a story in the Journal [2,$] This is good news, especially after Barclays no longer agreed to serve Coinbase in August ago [3]. Hopefully this is good news for other crypto firms who are finding it hard to pick up banking relationships and/or having problems with their existing banking relationships [4]
It is Consensus [1] this week, and the conference is great (and it is free!). If anything it is more time consuming as virtual conference than as a real one, so I am not sure to which extent I can publish podcasts this week. But maybe talk to me there? Just schedule a call with me on their networking system [2]!
This is the second part of the Short STOry Academy lecture on the economics of Bitcoin mining, including the analysis of what will be happening to miner profits and the hash rate.
A brief shoutout to CoinDesk for their CoinDesk 50 article ahead of next week’s conference.
Yesterday I covered a big news item, and today I’ll cover what looks more like a curiosity for the time being but which could turn into a very interesting project in the digital assets space if it takes off. It is already a bit older but given it is a slow news day it fits right in. The Parisian artist Ben Elliot is working on launch the “Ben Elliot Token” [1][2][3][4] that will be tied to his future artistic output, and bestow other privileges on its holder. Is this a way for artists who are just starting up to kickstart their careers? And an opportunity for art investors to get in at the bottom?