Application Allows Users to Purchase Bitcoin with Dollars

Willmen Blanco
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Application Allows Users to Purchase Bitcoin with Dollars

The application is compatible with Mac, Linux and Windows operating systems. The first version is designed for those who run a Lightning Network node.

The startup Sparkswap announced the launch of a new desktop application that allows users to buy Bitcoin with fiat money, such as the US dollar, to send it directly to their Lightning Network (LN) wallets.

In a post published on September 16th in its corporate blog, the company explains that purchases of Bitcoin through Sparkswap Desktop are instantly transferred to users’ LN wallet without the company taking custody of the cryptocurrency.

The above is possible because the process runs as a Lightning Network atomic swap, in which users only have to rely on open source software and not on the company. These direct exchanges are usually made between two blockchain platforms without intermediaries.

The company adds that, for the moment, only the purchase of bitcoins is supported. However, they hope to support mobile platforms and make BTC sales in the future. They also note that this first version of the application is aimed at users who are already running a Lightning Network (LND) node. In the event that they are not, the startup clarifies that users should use Lightning, Zap or Node Launcher applications, which facilitate the installation of Bitcoin and LN nodes and optimize the use of Sparkswap Desktop.

Configuration and Security Measures

To start using the tool, users must download the application, which is compatible with Mac, Linux and Windows operating systems. Besides, they can compile the source code from GitHub.

The configuration requires being connected to the existing LND node, after which a live Bitcoin/USD price feed appears for the purchase of BTC. This allows users to transfer US dollars from their bank accounts, without being charged fees. The company adds that US dollars will be instantly available for qualified customers. Otherwise, the transfers will be settled in a few days.

It is further stated that the dollars are kept in a deposit account domiciled in the United States, subject to periodic third-party audits and contractual controls that seek to ensure that the funds are not used for anything other than refunds in dollars. The startup explains that users’ USD transfers are not subject to bankruptcy proceedings of Sparkswap or any of its affiliates.

Last April 2019, this startup raised almost USD 4 million in an initial coin offering (ICO). The project aims at creating a non-custodial exchange platform in order to take advantage of the scaling and speed functions of Lightning Network and atomic exchanges. The Mainnet tests had begun in January 2019.

The operation of Sparkswap resembles that of Boltz, whose launch in the alpha version also occurred last April, with the objective of creating an instant, no-account and non-custodial digital asset exchange platform, built on Lightning Network. Boltz exchanges crypto assets between a Lightning network channel and a blockchain. In addition, it uses underwater exchanges and a hash time locked contract (HTLC) that conditions the ownership of an unspent transaction output (UTXO) to the payment of an invoice in LN.

By Willmen Blanco

Increase of GAS per Ethereum Block Promoted by Miners

Willmen Blanco
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Increase of GAS per Ethereum Block Promoted by Miners

Spark Pool, Ethermine and F2Pool have voted on limits of almost 9,000,000 GAS per block. The three pools have about 60% of Ethereum processing power.

About 50% of Ethereum miners are in favor of the increase in the GAS limit (measure of transaction costs) per block. This is reflected in figures from etherchain.org, as well as in developers’ statements about Ethereum. Among them are those by lead developer Vitalik Buterin.

It can be seen in data from Ether Chain how the main mining pools of Ethereum have supported the proposal. Among those pools, the most prominent are Spark Pool, Ethermine and F2Pool, whose combined processing power is around 60% of that of the network.

According to developer Eric Conner, miners seek to increase the capacity of the network by 25%. He says that the main objective of these mining pools would be to set a limit of 10,000,000 GAS per block, which would also lead to increase in the size of the chain blocks.

It is intended to decongest the network in order to improve the performance in the processing of transactions. Besides, it is sought to improve the interaction between smart contracts that work on the Ethereum chain.

At the time of writing this note, the mining pools mentioned above voted on limits exceeding 8,900,000 GAS.

Since December 2017, the limit has remained around 8,000,000 GAS per block, according to data available in Etherscan. However, that average has reached its highest point in recent days, exceeding 8,200,000 GAS.

In Ethereum, each transaction requires GAS expenditure on processing. This amount of GAS is measured depending on the size of the transaction and is based on Gwei, the minimum fraction of Ether, the network’s native cryptocurrency. At the time of writing this note, the average for a transaction to be included in the next block on the chain is 23 GAS per byte of information.

According to Eth Gas Station data, the average price of GAS in the last mined block was 28 gwei per GAS unit. The highest price ever paid for a transaction in that block was 100 Gwei per GAS. That figure is equivalent to USD 0.29, based on the current price of Ether in the cryptocurrency market.

Concern about Ethereum’s Scalability

Among the Ethereum developers’ main concerns about the future of the network is its scalability. In that regard, for the Istanbul fork, which is expected in October, the reduction on the costs of data transmission during transactions has already been approved.

The proposal, submitted by the StarkWare development team, establishes the decrease from the current average of 60 units of GAS per byte processed to about 16 GAS. This will influence the increase in the size of Ethereum blocks. According to StarkWare, this will not pose a problem for the network, alluding to a study that they conducted on the impact of the proposal.

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has recently expressed concern about the scalability of the platform. He asserted that the network was almost full and that the scalability was currently in a “bottleneck” due to network saturation.

By Willmen Blanco

USD 250 Thousand in Prizes in Decentraland Online Hackathon

Maria Rodríguez
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USD 250 Thousand in Prizes in Decentraland Online Hackathon

Over 2,000 developers will flood the metaverse to compete for the awards. Last March, the company held a similar contest that rewarded the best 50 creations.

Decentraland, the virtual reality platform built on Ethereum, announced the start of its online hackathon Decentraland Game 2019, which will grant, from September 16th to 30th, more than USD 250 thousand, or 2,500,000 MANA, the system’s native cryptocurrency.

The hackathon Descentraland Game 2019 is a contest that invites Ethereum engineers and game developers, as well as the general public, to create designs, digital art, games or any scenery that has to do with virtual worlds.

Last Monday, September 16th, the company explained that more than 2,000 developers will flood the metaverse in order to compete for the awards.

On Decentraland plots, players can create virtually anything that comes to their minds. Among the creations that have been shared through the platform are sceneries of King’s Landing, from the TV series Game of Thrones, and Minecraft City Building Project, from the movie The Lord of the Rings, among others.

Last March, the company held a similar contest, during which it awarded the best 50 sceneries created.

It should be noted that that Genesis City, the central city of Decentraland, is divided into plots grouped into thematic districts. Some of the best known are Bittrex Tomorrow, The Crypto Valley, Dragon City and Fashion Street.

Genesis City is presented as a virtual metropolis that allows a smooth exploration by users and developers. Besides, it resembles a real city that boasts of having everyday places, such as commercial, industrial and residential areas.

How to Participate

Decentraland explained that once the participants’ creations are ready, they must complete a form that is linked to the company’s official website. For that reason, they will have to access or quickly configure a Typeform account.

In the form, the participants have the options to display their sceneries on the platform or allow Descentraland to handle their publication in its pool. In case of choosing the second alternative, participants must add a link to either GitHub or Dropbox, or any other similar service. After completing all the requested boxes and sending the sceneries, they will be participating.

Virtual Real Estate Market

Decentraland, a virtual world mixing Ethereum and P2P torrent, has a market structure similar to that of real estate in the physical world, where the cost of the plots can amount to 1,000 MANA. However, there is a slightly more expensive secondary market where users can merge plots to build assets, which can cost between 10 thousand and 2 million MANA. However, the organizers seek to auction plots that remain unowned at “reasonable prices.”

MANA is an ERC20 token whose initial offer was launched by the company from August 8th to 26th, 2017, raising more than USD 26 million in Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies.

One of the features of the Decentraland MANA token is that it cannot be extracted. Besides, once it is used in the RV game, it disappears forever, although the land where the player builds is maintained in Ethereum’s smart contracts.

By Willmen Blanco

Association between Mastercard and R3 Will Improve Cross-Border Payments

Willmen Blanco
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Association between Mastercard and R3 Will Improve Cross-Border Payments

The alliance seeks to strengthen global international transaction services with blockchain technology.

Mastercard recently announced its new plans with blockchain technology by partnering with the R3 Company. This alliance will seek to solve problems in payments and transactions between different countries, using a blockchain platform that will also help improve intercommunication between some financial institutions.

One of the world’s leading credit card companies, Mastercard, has confirmed its strategic contract with the powerful blockchain consortium R3, which is dedicated to handling financial data using blockchain technology. Both companies will seek to develop tools that help reduce problems in certain international payments. In this way, it is planned to use blockchain technology to improve those processes.

Mastercard issued a statement in which the news is released. The review explains that with this alliance, said company will mainly seek to expedite transnational transfers, improve the data connection between infrastructures as a method of accelerating liquidation as well as avoid the usual processes of credit banking. According to the statement, it will work under a completely business design seeking to take advantage of blockchain technology.

The scope of the multinational credit company Mastercard is known thanks to an important financial network between governments, merchants, financial institutions and individuals, in more than 210 countries around the world.

The action corresponds to a plan for the growth and improvement of the international payment systems that Mastercard conducts since January of this year with the purchase of Transfast, which is the global payment technology platform. It is believed that this alliance is one step more to intertwine the best of each company and create a new international system for large transactions.

About the new plans that would be developed during the next few years, the Executive Vice President of the Mastercard payment platform, Peter Klein, explained that this development will represent a new option for his clients.

“Developing a new and better business to business (B2B) solution for cross-border payments by improving worldwide connectivity in the account-to-account space is central to Mastercard’s ambition. Our goal is to deliver global payment infrastructure choice and connectivity as demonstrated through our recent strategic acquisitions and partnerships, including our relationship with R3″, he concluded.

In another sense, when making reference to the acquisition of the international payment platform, Transfast, spokesmen of the Mastercard Company, commented: “It confirms our commitment to innovation, both home-grown and through partnerships and acquisitions, to support advances and innovation in the increasingly complex global payment infrastructure space”.

It is estimated that the plan will operate to allow customers to manage their money instantly and from any country in the world. It is for this reason that the technology developed by the R3 Company can speed up Mastercard projects supported with a high-fidelity blockchain platform.

This blockchain platform is being designed to support administrative processes, reduce costs, and increase connectivity between banks and credit compensation systems. Users seek to execute cross-border payments and now another blockchain platform will allow it to improve the traditional market.

By María Rodríguez

Libra’s Co-Creator Dimisses Notion that the Project Threatens Nations’ Monetary Sovereignty

Andres Chavez
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Libra’s Co-Creator Dimisses Notion that the Project Threatens Nations’ Monetary Sovereignty

Libra, Facebook’s stablecoin project, keeps making noise. Last week, European authorities claimed that the asset constitutes a threat to countries’ monetary sovereignty. However, the ecosystem developers and leaders, most specifically those associated with the Calibra digital wallet, have replied to those comments and, naturally, to defend the asset that is, allegedly, going to be available in the first half of 2020.

The Co-Creator of Libra, David Marcus, went to his official Twitter account and defended his project in a thread. He stated that he wanted to “debunk” the notion started by the French Economy and Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, which claims Libra is a threat to nations’ monetary sovereignty.

Le Maire’s Remarks

Le Maire, an influential voice in the European financial landscape, stated last week that thanks to Libra, “the monetary sovereignty of states is under states is under threat,” and he also said that would block the development of the ecosystem in European soil.

Marcus, however, explained that Libra will be “backed 1:1 by a basket of strong currencies. This means that for any unit of Libra to exist, there must be the equivalent value in its reserve.” As a result, and to the contrary of what many people may think, Libra won’t create “new money,” and that will “strictly remain the province of sovereign nations.”

Marcus, in front of the Calibra digital wallet and payment ecosystem, also stated that Libra is actually being developed to be a better and more efficient payment network using specific national currencies and “delivering meaningful value to consumers all around the world.”

Despite his reply to Le Maire and similar sentiments around the European area, in which financial watchdogs have made it clear that they do not want Libra to be developed there, Marcus embraced the attention from the regulators.

He stated that “we believe strong regulatory oversight preventing the Libra Association from deviating from its full 1:1 backing commitment is desirable,” showing that he is not necessarily averse to having the network constantly surveilled.

Marcus offered his thoughts about the matter in the midst of a meeting of 26 central banks in Switzerland to discuss the Libra project and its potential impact in the world and European financial landscape.

An Important Meeting

Among the entities meeting in the influential European nation are the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and the U.S. Federal Reserve, but there will be plenty others. Those three have showed concern about Facebook’s and Libra’s potential privacy breaches in the past, considering the former’s troubled past in said matter.

Marcus made it clear that he is not afraid of watchdogs and legislators, and in the thread, he said that he planned to keep working with “central banks, regulators, and lawmakers to ensure we address their concerns through Libra’s design and operations.”

On a different subject, he also tweeted that he is “looking forward to the Libra Association taking on full leadership of the project soon after its charter has been ratified, so I can focus on building Calibra.”

By Andres Chavez

Harbor Will Tokenize Real Estate Funds in a Business Strategy Shift

Andres Chavez
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Harbor Will Tokenize Real Estate Funds in a Business Strategy Shift

In a change in business strategy, Harbor has decided to help companies tokenize existing securities, rather than helping them issue their own security tokens. According to an announcement made at the start of the week, the firm developed tokens on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain that represent the shares of four total real estate funds that are worth approximately $100 million.

The intentions behind the decision are to facilitate the trade of these private securities for the holding investors, a number that comfortably surpass one thousand. The tokenizing of real estate funds will also make things easier for 17 broker dealers and placement agents that work with iCap Equity, the manager of the funds.

The Best Investment Experience

“For years, we’ve been looking for ways to create the best investment experience we can and for us that means providing liquidity for them,” were the words of Chris Christensen, the CEO of iCap.

Harbor has made its fame around the industry by helping customers raise funds via the sale of security tokens. Now, in quite a strategic shift, the company is now building a proper ecosystem to host those assets.

Josh Stein, the startup’s CEO, explained it more concisely. He said that the firm “evolved from crowdfunding and tokens to being the Salesforce.com of the security token field,” according to the leading executive of the San Francisco-based enterprise.

Buying to Speculate

The firm originally made an attempt to develop tokens that were backed by real-life assets, but they saw that if investors were interested in ICOs which only value was that of a promise, they thought that their level of interest would be even greater if the tokens were backed.

Yet, Stein observed that “the overlap between investors demanding tokens and investors interested in security tokens was zero. People were buying tokens but they weren’t buying it to invest, they were buying it to speculate.”

Harbor established an alliance in late 2018 with DRW Holdings, with the intention of smoothing the sale of almost 1,000 tokenized shares in an apartment building, but the pact fell through on early 2019 because of problems between the issuer and the mortgage lender, among other things.

Harbor is now offering clients a network in which all actors involved, including broker-dealers, investors, and even advisors, can trade their securities in a private way.

According to Christensen, the funds are “high-yield, [which] usually requires a lockup” period in which the involved investors are obligated, by contract, not to sell their shares in a period that goes from three to five years.

Measured Liquidity

“We just knew if we can provide measured liquidity for them and allow us to continue our business model [but] allow them to … exit as needed, that would be cutting-edge,” Christensen explained.

It typically works like this: the iCap customers acquire their securities and sign up for the multi-year lockup period, but it could happen that the investors need their money to be returned to them before it ends, according to Christensen. The old approach would dictate that they would need to find another fellow investor that wants to buy the securities, respecting the remainder lockup.

However, that process was costly and often took too much time, but per Christensen, his firm has served as a facilitator for $2 million worth of trades for funds like these.

“What Harbor does is they automate this entire process. Those who want to come in come in, those who want to exit can do that,” he concluded.

By Andres Chavez

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