CWC Newsletter #30 (June 8, 2020)
By Taylor Ryker, Analyst
Top 10 Headlines of the Past Week for EOSIO
This past week saw more developments, announcements, and releases in the EOSIO ecosystem. If you would like to see other EOSIO weekly recaps for the past week, I recommend that you take a look at EOSWriter's Twitter posts, Crypto Peter's Moran Post, and EOS Nation's Hot Sauce. In this post, I have also included headlines that are not in the three aforementioned recaps. In addition, I have tried to make each headline more brief and streamline with additional links for more in-depth reading and research.
Below are the top 10 headlines of the past week for EOSIO:
1. EOS Celebrates 2nd Birthday and EOS Nation's Yearly Recap
2. Latin American Block Producers
3. EOS Microloan
4. Galaxy EOS VC Funds 9 Investments in Quarter 1 of 2020
5. WordProof
6. Telos Ecosystem Developments: Food Assistance and Gaming
7. PrediQT and Discussions.app Interview with CEO Sam Kazemian
8. WAX Council and NFT marketplace
9. Block.one's Voice Announcement and Voting for Block Producers
10. EOSIO Development and dApp Updates: Anchor Wallet, EOS Studios, Chintai DAPP Lease, DAPP Network's Hub and Spoke article, and dfuse's gaming overview
1. EOS Celebrates 2nd Birthday and EOS Nation's Yearly Recap
The EOS mainnet celebrated its 2nd birthday on June 1, 2020. After two years of development and accomplishments, the EOS mainnet is maturing at a fast rate (although some community members would have liked to have seen more progress). EOS Nation compiled the many highlights over the past year.
EOS Nation's highlight publication showcased diverse dApps, upgrades to EOSIO infrastructure and developer tools, and contributions from prominent Block Producers, to name a few. The list of achievements should provide support against future FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) from outsiders and misinformed critics.
2. Latin American Block Producers Create LatamLink
Three EOS Block Producers--EOS Argentina, EOS Costa Rica, and EOS Venezuela-- announced that they created LatamLink to help support the growth of the EOSIO ecosystem in Latin America. With a partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank, Latamlink will offer an EOSIO-based testnet, block explorer, wallets, and a dfuse endpoint to showcase the strengths of the EOSIO protocol.
3. EOS Microloan
EOS Microloan is a decentralized finance platform that leverages the EOS mainnet to allow peer to peer loans. By using their native token called MLT, people who provide or receive loans can also obtain a passive income stream from the MLT token. Similar to Chintai's or Newdex's token, the MLT token generates income by making users stake their MLT in order to use and operate the micro-loan platform. To open an account, one needs to sign-in with Scatter, stake MLT, and create a loan.
4. Galaxy EOS VC Funds 9 Investments in Quarter 1 of 2020
Galaxy EOS VC Fund made 9 investments primarily in the blockchain gaming space. With regards to the investments, EOS Writer raised a good concern in the community: "Galaxy Digital, in association with the Galaxy EOS VC Fund, has had criticisms about the companies it chooses to invest in. The argument is that they invest in companies that don't necessarily utilize any of the EOSIO tech and this can be seen with the Inc., Current, and Superplastic investments. However, the counter argument is that these are long term investments that will benefit the EOSIO ecosystem in one way or another in the long run."
5. WordProof Announcement
Alfredo de Candia's article on WordProof highlighted the growing success of WordProof, and EOS-based project that timestamps website publications for authenticity and integrity. WordProof just recently received funding from Block.one and the Noord-Holland Innovation Fund, a Dutch initiative supported by the European Union.
WordProof CEO Sebastiaan van der Lans thoughts on the future roadmap for WordProof: "to further develop the intended timestamp ecosystem on the blockchain. Among other things, we are working on techniques to support search engines in recognizing real and un-manipulated content. The goal of the timestamp ecosystem is to facilitate search engines and social media platforms with timestamps to which value can be assigned."
6. Telos Ecosystem Developments: Food Assistance and Gaming
Cointelegraph reported that "EOS-based blockchain platform Telos has announced a partnership with virtual card provider All_EBT to scale the firm's service for food assistance programs. The partnership will see Telos' blockchain used to facilitate payments between All_EBT's stakeholders in food assistance and public welfare."
GoodBlock, a Telos Block Producer, announced that Turncoat Galaxies launched their beta game on the Telos blockchain. Turncoat Galaxies is "a real time strategy game where you fight alongside and against other people online to conquer a huge game board."
7. PredIQt and Discussions.app Interview with CEO Sam Kazemian
EOSWriter reported the latest 2.0 update to PredIQt, Everipedia's knowledge market, which saw updates to usability and creation of new features. "PredIQt is especially powerful because it allows for the creation of prediction markets that simply don't exist elsewhere. Unlike traditional market venues, PredIQt has no restrictions on which topics can create markets for. As a result, PredIQt has extremely unique and often exciting niche markets for users to try."
Last week, Jacques Whales of Discussions.app interviewed Everipedia CEO Sam Kazemian about PredIQt and Everipedia. During the informative interview, the issue of liquidity of the IQ token came up. Kazemian, on twitter, explained that "Yes, liquidity is our priority right now. We are improving the UX and shipping features daily that address this (shares DEX etc.). Our weekly volume + user growth is looking great and this is Everipedia + IQ's first step into DeFi (decentralized finance)."
8. WAX Council and NFT marketplace
WAX, an EOSIO sisterchain focused on digital assets and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), released some important announcements this past week. WAX announced that a "new NFT marketplace has launched on the WAX blockchain. Collectables.io is a 100% on-chain platform offering to sell bundles of WAX NFTs, instant-purchases, auctions, and more."
WAX also introduced "the WAX Advisory Council, an organization to bring together the greatest minds in tech, video gaming, entertainment, and other relevant industries to accelerate the adoption of WAX blockchain technology." According to their WAX website post, "the first members will be announced over the coming weeks" and "will offer recommendations and guidance to the WAX Team that's relevant to their area of expertise."
9. Block.one's Voice Announcement and Voting for Block Producers
According to Voice, "On July 4, our beta will open for public reading and international registrations (by request until August 15). We will also release our iOS app with our new 'human signup' which verifies identity without government identification." The need for Voice and their upcoming releases are reported well by Alfredo de Candia and EOSWriter. Crystal Rose Pierce of Sense Chat relayed her thoughts on Voice: "Voice is the new Facebook, Sense Chat is the new WhatsApp."
EOSWriter reported that Block.one has voted for another 10 Block Producers. In their article, EOSWriter details the contributions and overviews of the 10 Block Producers: alohaeosprod, big.one, eosasia11111, eoscannonchn, eosiomeetone, eosnationftw, eosrapidprod, helloeosnbp, whaleex.com, and zbeosbp11111.
10. EOSIO Development and dApp Updates: Anchor Wallet, EOS Studios, Chintai DAPP Lease, DAPP Network's Hub and Spoke article, and dfuse's gaming overview
1) Greymass, creators of Anchor Wallet, announced "Experimental build from this weekend that receives a smart contract action from a Near Field Communication (NFC) tag and allowing signature requests. Could be used for contactless payments, payment requests, in-person multisig and more. Whatever EOSIO can do, Anchor can too."
2) Obsidian Labs, creators of EOS Studio, announced "EOS Studio v.0.13.2 is released, focusing on fixing bugs feedback from community developers."
3) Chintai announced that "DAPP token leasing will be live by mid June 2020." In their article, the Chintai team answers questions like "How will the market work? What does this mean for developers? How can you earn maximum rewards? And announcing the new Chintai DSP."
4) LiquidApps released an article detailing how "Hub networks are rising fast, but what are they and why is this such a popular route to scaling blockchains? Read all about hub networks and how you can boost functionality, deepen liquidity, [and] share data by building them with DAPP Network technologies."
5) dfuse released an informative article on an overview of EOSIO blockchain games.
Disclaimer: KJ Kingsley is not a financial advisor and holds the digital tokens or cryptocurrencies represented in the content above. This content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Nothing contained in this post constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer by myself to buy or sell any securities or other financial instruments in this or in any other jurisdiction in which such solicitation or offer would be unlawful under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the author’s employers.