The Daily
In Friday’s edition of The Daily, Shapeshift emulates Kraken by sharing details of the compliance requests it fields from law enforcement. We also look at the Bitcoin maximalists who just can’t stop making eyes at the latest privacy coin on the block, Grin.
Also read: Mining Closures Reveal Recurring Bitcoin Bear Market Trend
Shapeshift Discloses LE Compliance Requests
Mirroring the actions of U.S. exchange Kraken, Shapeshift has published a blog post detailing how it handles law enforcement (LE) compliance requests. The noncustodial crypto changing service has revealed that it received 60 LE requests last year, with U.S. agencies accounting for 18 of these. “We believe in educating our customers and the broader industry to these occurrences,” explained Shapeshift. The three-letter U.S agency that submitted the most requests to the company was the FBI, followed by the SEC.
Elaborating on the nature of the requests it receives from LE, Shapeshift wrote:
The requested information can vary wildly. It could be something as simple as a crypto address (in or out of our system), transaction IDs, or it could include names, emails, IP addresses, coins/asset information and more.
The blog post finished: “Shapeshift has always held financial transparency as a core principle, and for this reason, we felt the world should know that these types of law enforcement requests happen – almost continuously.”
Bitcoin Maximalists Smile Upon Grin
Grin, the privacy-focused cryptocurrency built using Mimblewimble technology, is less than a week old but already it’s gotten the crypto community talking. The intense interest is not on account of the copious Harry Potter references sprinkled throughout the Grin ecosystem and it might not be due to the lightweight protocol’s privacy features either. Rather, many bitcoiners seem to be enticed by Grin’s fair launch and pseudonymous team.
A nascent Grin ecosystem is expanding rapidly, including block explorers, exchanges, and a cypherpunk marketplace that accepts grin. Reflecting on the cryptocurrency’s launch, pseudonymous project contributor Ignotus Peverell wrote: “This has been a long time in the making and I couldn’t be more proud of our team, our community and what we accomplished with Grin v1.0.0 (yes, we’re sporting the scary v1). He continued:
Now it’s time to look ahead, and our commitment to keep pushing Grin and its community forward has never been stronger. We’ve made clear that we weren’t here for the quick ICO, but rather to push the state of the art in what can be accomplished with a blockchain. We have many research directions to pursue, and intend to make Grin even more nimble and private than it already is.
BitcoinTalk now accepts Grin for forum payments. This is the first “altcoin” the forum acknowledges in this way (even BTC LN payments aren’t accepted yet). A testament to the extremely interesting technology behind Grin. Exciting times: https://t.co/79qSClpUMf.
— Cøbra (@CobraBitcoin) January 17, 2019
Bitcoin maximalists have taken a particularly keen interest in Grin, including Bitcointalk operator Theymos, who welcomed the altcoin to his forum with open arms, gushing: “I’m super excited about grin. All past altcoins have been just Bitcoin with a few bits tacked on … But grin is packed full of useful innovation from top to bottom; moreover, it’s clearly built in the same cypherpunk spirit that Bitcoin was: increased freedom/sovereignty through technology.”
New Augur-Based Prediction Market Unveiled
Wagering on future Grin developments is just one of the use cases for Veil, a new prediction market built on top of Augur. “Will GRIN/USD be listed on CoinMarketCap by March 16, 2019?” reads one of the markets. 95 percent of bettors have elected for “Yes.” There’s also the ability to wager on the price grin will be trading for on the same date.
Veil, which went live on Jan. 15, also features a derivatives market. As the project’s developers explain, “Veil is a trading platform for Augur. Veil hosts its own order books for markets and uses Augur to represent markets and settle them.” Shares can be purchased in binary markets. “A Long or Yes share being offered for 0.25 ETH is equivalent to being offered 3:1 odds or a 25% chance of something happening,” explains Veil. The platform also provides scalar markets, which operate similar to binary markets in that they have two outcome shares – Long and Short – but the payout between the two shares is scaled, rather than winner-takes-all.
Other markets currently seeing action on Veil are “What film will win Best Picture at the 91st Academy Awards?” which has 2.3 ETH of volume, and “What will be the price of REP in USD at 12am GMT on Saturday, January 19, 2019?” where volume stands at 13.7 ETH. Traders can go long or short on the REP market, with price predictions bounded between $7.62 and $11.44.
What are your thoughts on the stories in today’s news roundup? Let us know in the comments section below.
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