Ethereum Fees, CBDC In Bahamas, Filecoin’s Liftoff, Ebang’s Crypto Bang + More News

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.

DeFi/Ethereum news

• Long-suffering ethereum (ETH) users have cause to celebrate, while DeFi enthusiasts will be dismayed to hear that the craze may be subsiding – after median transaction fees on the Ethereum blockchain network dropped again. Per BitInfoCharts statistics, the median Ethereum transaction fee currently stands at USD 1.3 – down from staggering median fees of USD 8.48 recorded on September 2.
• But it may well be too early to call time on DeFi, with one project showing signs of rude health: The lending platform Aave has debuted a governance platform that it said will allow its community vote on whether they wish to upgrade its LEND to AAVE. In a blog post, the London-based Aave (formerly ETHlend) stated that the proposal would seek to “make AAVE the new governance token of the Aave Ecosystem,” proposing rates of 100 LEND tokens to 1 AAVE.
• The announced Spadina Ethereum 2.0 will go live on September 29 at noon UTC. Spadina is a mainnet-configuration test network, which will run for three days, and in parallel to Medalla, which was launched in August, said ETH 2.0 developer Danny Ryan. The main objective is to give developers another chance “to go through one of the more difficult and risky parts of the process – deposits and genesis – before we reach mainnet. If all goes well, it should give us greater peace of mind before we jump into the real deal later this year,” Ryan wrote.

CBDCs news

• The Bahamas is set to pip leading economies such as China, the United States and EU nations to the digital currency post as it releases a central bank digital currency (CBDC) late next month. In an official release, the Central Bank of The Bahamas stated that it will “gradually release a digital version of the Bahamian dollar nationally, outside of the pilot regions of Exuma and Abaco, through authorized financial institutions” on October 20. The central bank has dubbed the new token the Sand Dollar – and full rollouts across the public and private sectors are slated for 2021.

Blockchain and DLT news

• Decentralized storage network Filecoin, one of the top ICOs of 2017, said that it estimates to launch its mainnet around October 15 and after a few days of monitoring and problem solving they will hold “Filecoin Mainnet Liftoff: a week of events from October 19-23 celebrating Filecoin’s mainnet launch.”
• Major professional services firm EY has launched its EY OpsChain Network Procurement, a solution built on the EY OpsChain platform that allows companies to run private, end-to-end procurement activities on the Ethereum blockchain. The beta version of this solution is now available free for individual users, said the company.
• Regulated financial institution for digital assets Nexo has become an official credit partner to the Litecoin Foundation. The goal of the partnership, said the emailed press release, is to bring greater access to financial services to both of their communities, as well as to promote crypto and blockchain adoption as the way to have a fairer finance marketplace.

Exchanges news

• Ebang, Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin (BTC) mining hardware manufacturer, confirmed that they are at an initial preparatory stage of launching “blockchain-enabled financial business by establishing cryptocurrency exchange(s) and online brokerage(s) and by combining the blockchain-enabled financial businesses with the traditional ones to capture the entire value chain of the blockchain industry.” As previously reported, the company is planning to launch an offshore exchange for digital assets in 2020. Meanwhile, in the first half of this year, total revenues of the company dropped by 50.6% to USD 11m, compared to the same period in 2017. Net loss decreased by more than 60% to USD 7m.
• Bitfinex Derivatives has announced the launch of perpetual contracts for Europe 50 (EUROPE50IXF0:USTF0) and Germany 30 (GERMANY30IXF0:USTF0), both of which went live on September 28. According to the emailed announcement, each contract will offer users up to 100x leverage and will be settled in tether (USDT). Markets will remain open over the weekend, but price limits will be put in place to increase price stability, said Bitfinex.

Investments news

• Wave Financial Group, a digital asset investment manager, said it partnered with Singapore based digital securities firm InvestaX in order to attract a broader investor base for its Wave Kentucky Whiskey 2020 Digital Fund. Wave plans to complete the fund raise for this year’s fund “soon.”