Featured | US Government Arrests Ethereum Developer Virgil Griffith; Billion Defi Market

Today's content includes:

1.U.S. government arrests Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith

2.Game of Thrones cryptocurrency version episode

3. Blockchain is not equivalent to financial market infrastructure (FMI)

4. Venezuela's paper money is worthless, so its people seek virtual gold

5. Billion Defi Market

U.S. government arrests Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith

The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York issued a press release announcing the arrest of Virgil Griffith, a prominent member of the Ethereum community. He was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 28, 2019, and appeared in federal court in Los Angeles on Friday, November 29, 2019.

Griffith is Ethereum (a member of the global Ethereum blockchain developer / stakeholder community). A non-profit Ethereum Foundation (EF) affiliated with Switzerland. Like many researchers at EF, he has conducted research on different projects.

Griffith allegedly attended and attended the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference in North Korea with about 100 other participants around April 26-27, 2019, and took an oath. The theme of Griffith's speech was: "Blockchain and Peace".

According to the announcement, Griffith was suspected of contacting the conspirators (CC-1) and the North Korean "diplomatic mission facility" in Manhattan to arrange travel to North Korea, including obtaining a visa.

Why is the US government prosecuting U.S. citizens traveling to North Korea to introduce blockchain technology? The short answer is: cryptocurrency. The longer answer is that this raises a case that is relatively easy to prosecute, and may result in binding judicial precedents that target Eth as a money and / or financial instrument. These allegations are presented by a crypto anarchist who "shows off" knowledge and helps "rogue regimes" circumvent targeted financial sanctions. The prosecutor will portray Griffith as a technical adviser to sanction dodgers.

Full text link: https://medium.com/cryptolawreview/usa-v-virgil-griffith-quick-review-5b63eb39c5bf

Game of Thrones cryptocurrency version

This is a very interesting series of articles. The author uses the approach of Fantasy Narratives to substitute the gathering of power games to tell the power change in the history of the currency circle. If you look at the catalog, you will find it very interesting. It can be viewed as an interesting historical novel, although there may be a little bit of soft implantation for the purpose of HEX.

Chapter 1 — The FiatLand Empire Chapter 2 — The Bitcoin Kingdom Chapter 3 — New CryptoKingdoms are born Chapter 4 — The Ethereum Kingdom Chapter 5 — Ethereum Kingdom and the token Apocalypse Chapter 6 — The HEX Kingdom Chapter 7 — Merlin's Crystal Ball

The world is notified by fiat currency. The fiat currency is centralized. Centralized to cause corruption, deception and serfdom. However, it will be hard to do, and its winter is coming …

Here are some excerpts from Chapter 3:

Whenever a new bull market expands the land of cryptocurrency on the territory of the fiat currency empire, many cryptocurrency kingdoms rise, although most of these new cryptocurrencies will soon fail or become worthless.

The country of Litecoin, it is always a loyal servant and close companion of the Bitcoin kingdom. Just like Bitcoin, Litecoin's vision is to empower the Warriors to control their financial situation and help them escape the fiat currency-based debt crisis.

In the land of Ripple, the bankers of the empire of fiat currency were uneasy about Bitcoin's continued growth and began to contend with it. One of their evil ideas was to create another cryptocurrency kingdom against the Bitcoin kingdom. Ripple.

In March 2013, the market value of Bitcoin was more than $ 1 billion. From October 2013 to December 2013, the size of the Bitcoin Kingdom increased tenfold to $ 1,150 per Bitcoin! The Bitcoin Kingdom was unable to maintain its border expansion and returned to $ 200 in a sad 2014 and a boring 2015 crash.

Full text link: https://medium.com/the-game-of-cryptos

Blockchain is not equivalent to financial market infrastructure (FMI)

Should public blockchains serve as financial market infrastructure? The main idea of ​​this article is to give back to the vigorous development of Defi. We all know that the current development of Defi in Ethereum is growing fast, but don't generate Defi's maximalism and limit the development possibility of the blockchain.

If the blockchain is FMI, the blockchain operators will be required to "support the stability of the broader financial system." Therefore, whether the blockchain is FMI is a big issue and has broad implications.

1) Although there are superficial similarities between blockchain forms, processes and institutions and existing financial forms, processes and institutions, the quality of blockchain is different from non-blockchain financial networks. (2) Blockchain is not a financial market infrastructure. (3) The positioning of 'blockchain equals financial market infrastructure' will severely limit the economic potential of blockchain technology.

Most people in the blockchain field understand the actual meaning of blockchain (and it should be retained): blockchain is a globally distributed decentralized database used to store any type of data, not only with "financial" or "Assets" or "Money. '

Some core developers want blockchain to be a financial infrastructure, but not everyone. Many different stakeholders are building financial and many non-financial applications (dID, games, dispute resolution processes, SCM processes, NFT, DAO, LAO, etc.) on top of Ethereum and other blockchains. Stakeholders will maintain basic expected baseline expectations for certain characteristics of their blockchain. Forcing the blockchain to comply with financial infrastructure standards will limit these expectations and developments, with a net negative impact on the economy and society.

Full text link https://medium.com/cryptolawreview/blockchains-financial-market-infrastructure-fmi-1de19055d739

Venezuela's paper money is worthless, so its people seek virtual gold

This is an article by The Economist. It mainly introduces that Venezuelans earn income from alternative national currencies by seeking virtual currency, and this virtual currency is no longer limited to Bitcoin.

Corruption, incompetence and sanctions have destroyed Venezuela's oil industry, and oil is the country's main source of hard currency. But Venezuela's economic crisis has prompted another growth.

Venezuelans spend a lot of time playing massive multiplayer online role-playing games (mmorpgs) to withdraw gold coins (currency in RuneScape) or crystal coins (Tibia). They sell these items to other gamers in real currency through third-party websites, which they use to buy virtual valuables such as weapons, armor and potions.

Venezuelans spend a lot of time to RuneScape, earning 500,000-2m gold per hour. According to the current exchange rate, a gold farmer (game currency farmer) can earn 40 dollars a month. In a country with a minimum wage of 7.5 dollars a month, this is a lot of money. Some farmers replace bitcoin with game currency, which is more stable than most traditional currencies, but more stable than Venezuela Bolivar. This is another source of income for desperate Venezuelans.

Full text link https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2019/11/21/venezuelas-paper-currency-is-worthless-so-its-people-seek-virtual-gold

Billion Defi Market

An article on Trustnode talks about the rapid development of Defi and talks about an idea related to the recent theft of Upbit and Defi.

Since last year, the number of assets locked in DeFi has increased by more than ten times, from $ 50 million to the current $ 700 million, a record high.

MakerDAO's DAI continues to dominate as eth, currently valued at approximately $ 336 million, is locked in there. A lot has changed in the second position. Synthetix has doubled to nearly $ 200 million. Synthetix is ​​a curious project because it is not the eth or bitcoin locked in it, but the Synthetix Network Token (SNX).

Other projects should be familiar to everyone, and Compound has grown to $ 101 million.

Defi can be a headache for law enforcement,

Recently, some hackers' coins that Upbit encountered have been transferred to Huobi, which is very risky because Huobi can lock funds. Conversely, if eth is sent to Maker or Compund as collateral and traded as DAI or any other token, then any asset can be traded on a dex or centralized exchange, and it is difficult to track what happened, if possible.

As they run on the blockchain, you might be able to track them, but it's clear, but maybe hackers and law enforcement officers haven't fully developed these skills.

Full text link https://www.trustnodes.com/2019/11/29/defi-nears-one-billion-dollars