Crypto Weekly News — October, 2

What important crypto events happened last week?

Cryptocurrencies

📌 Ethereum 2.0 Testnet ‘Spadina’ Goes Live Ahead Of The Mainnet Release

The preparation of the Ethereum network for the turn to the new algorithm, slowly, but surely, is coming to the finish line. The developers launched the Spadina test network, whose main task was to test the process of creating the first block.

📌 Nexo And Litecoin Partnership To Change The Crypto Ecosystem 

Nexo, the largest crypto-credit platform, is now an official credit partner of the Litecoin Foundation. Together, they plan to provide their users with better access to financial services and a fairer financial market.

📌 Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse Hints More Investments And Acquisitions Coming Soon

Ripple's CEO Brad Garlinghouse hinted that the company plans to use its available capital to develop its business and make new deals in the next few months.

📌 Chainlink (LINK) Arrives On Travala 

Travel booking service Travala has integrated Chainlink as a payment method on its platform. Now users can book their trips using LINK tokens.

Projects and Updates


📌 Crypto Exchange Bitfinex Announces Margin Trading Facility for Uniswap (UNI)

Bitfinex started margin trading for Uniswap's governance token UNI. Uniswap, a popular decentralized platform based on Ethereum, launched UNI on September 17 and instantly created a great commotion in the DeFi market. Trading is now available in pairs with the US dollar (USD) and the Tether stablecoin (USDT).

📌 BitFlyer Launches Cross-Border Platform, Connecting EU With Japan 

The bitFlyer Europe cryptocurrency exchange has announced that it will provide direct access to the BTC markets in Japan, becoming the first cross-border regulated cryptocurrency trading platform.

📌 Gemini Now Supports ‘Shielded’ Zcash Withdrawals For Added Privacy 

The Gemini cryptocurrency exchange has added "shielded" Zcash (ZEC) withdrawals to provide its users with better privacy protection. According to a press release, Gemini became the first regulated crypto exchange supporting such transactions.

📌 Coda Protocol Changes Name After Trademark Dispute With R3

The developer of the "simplified" Coda blockchain, O(1) Labs, has relaunched a project now-called Mina after a legal dispute over the similarity of trademarks to the R3 Corda platform.

📌 Coinbase Announces ‘Company-First’ Policy Banning Controversial Workplace Discussions 

In a blog post published on September 27, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced that his company would seek a neutral or apolitical workplace. Armstrong said that social activism of employees hinders the company on its mission. Employees' discussion of unrelated global issues during the working day benefits neither the company nor its shareholders.

📌 Bitfinex Launches Europe 50 Derivatives

The Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange has moved beyond the cryptocurrency space and made a step into the territory of traditional markets launching derivatives — Europe 50 and Germany 30 — perpetual contracts, settled in Tether (USDT) stablecoins.

📌 Another Epoch Awaits Cardano As Bittrex Finally Updates $ADA Wallet 

Bittrex cryptocurrency exchange has resumed depositing and withdrawing Cardano ($ADA) funds to its users' wallets. Problems started in July when the Cardano's Shelley mainnet was launched, and since then, $ADA deposits and withdrawals on the exchange have been deactivated. Richie Lai, Co-founder, and CEO of Bitrix apologized for the long delay and thanked the Cardano team for their cooperation.

📌 VISA Reveals That It Builds Blockchain-Integrated Solution

Visa is considering creating an offline payment system based on digital currency, the head of the company's cryptocurrency division, Cuy Sheffield, told Forbes. He added that research in this area is continuing, and more details will be known within the next year.


Hacking

📌 KuCoin Hacker Exposes Decentralization Theater Among DeFi Projects 

Over the weekend, the cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin reported a hack. Unknown attackers have emptied the resource's hot wallets. KuCoin's total losses are estimated at approximately $150,000,000.

People

📌 Binance CEO Says He Fully Expects DeFi To Cannibalize His Crypto Exchange

Сryptocommunity is becoming more and more involved in DeFi. Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao sees prospects of decentralized finances and does not exclude the possibility that in the future the company will start working in this area. He spoke about this in one of his recent interviews.

📌 Exclusive Interview With Rudy Bouwman From DigiByte

Rudy Bouwman, one of the creators of DigiByte Foundation gave an exclusive interview to CoinJoy and discussed many things, including the plans on the project, the company's goals, work process in the DeFi organization, and more.

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