I've been trading futures for over a decade, so I'm not new to the game. I have a subscription to CBOE and went to place a trade, but was denied. I learned that I need specific "CryptoCurrency" trading permission! WTF???? So I applied and it will take 24 hours to be granted permission. Then I learned Interactive Brokers is NOT ALLOWING TO SHORT GXBT!!!!! WTF???? That's what's good about futures, the ability to go long or short at any time. Then I learned they're charging $5/contract!!!! Again....WTF???? Normal charges for futures contracts are between 40 & 80 cents/contract. $5????? And each contact only holds one bitcoin - a very low amount for a futures contract (except if you consider e-mini's).
I hope things will change with the CME next week. I know one contact will equal 5 bitcoins. Hoping volume will be higher too. Currently, volume is way too low for the amount of hype that was surrounding this.
And the Interactive Brokers CEO said on CNBC earlier that he thinks Bitcoin will go to $0. But before that happens, it could $100,000!!!
Welcome to pure gambling :-)

In an interview on CNBC, Thomas Peterffy says that he is interested in having real bitcoin trades as well as other bitcoin products on Interactive Brokers platform.
He also said that he is wary of CME's attempt to launch bitcoin futures without requiring anyone to actually hold the underlying bitcoin that is being traded (because the contracts will be cash-settled).
It seems to be going more and more mainstream by the day!

Taproot! Everybody wants to have it, somebody wants to make it, nobody knows how to get it!
(If you are asking why everybody wants it, see: Technical: Taproot: Why Activate?)
(Pedants: I mostly elide over lockin times)
Briefly, Taproot is that neat new thing that gets us:

Multisignatures (n-of-n, k-of-n) that are just 1 signature (1-of-1) in length!! (MuSig/Schnorr)
Better privacy!! If all contract participants can agree, just use a multisignature. If there is a dispute, show the contract publicly and have the Bitcoin network resolve it (Taproot/MAST).
Activation lets devs work get back to work on the even newer stuff like!!!
- Cross-input signature aggregation!! (transaction with multiple inputs can have a single signature for all inputs) --- needs Schnorr, but some more work needed to ensure that the interactions with SCRIPT are okay.
- Block validation - Schnorr signatures for all taproot spends in a block can be validated in a single operation instead of for each transaction!! Speed up validation and maybe we can actually afford to increase block sizes (maybe)!!
- SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT - you know, for Decker-Russell-Osuntokun ("eltoo") magic!!!
- OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY - vaulty vaults without requiring storing signatures, just transaction details!!

So yes, let's activate taproot!

The SegWit Wars

The biggest problem with activating Taproot is PTSD from the previous softfork, SegWit. Pieter Wuille, one of the authors of the current Taproot proposal, has consistently held the position that he will not discuss activation, and will accept whatever activation process is imposed on Taproot. Other developers have expressed similar opinions.
So what happened with SegWit activation that was so traumatic? SegWit used the BIP9 activation method. Let's dive into BIP9!

BIP9 Miner-Activated Soft Fork

Basically, BIP9 has a bunch of parameters:

bit - A field in the block header, the nVersion, has a number of bits. By setting a particular bit, the miner making the block indicates that it has upgraded its software to support a particular soft fork. The bit parameter for a BIP9 activation is which bit in this nVersion is used to indicate that the miner has upgraded software for a particular soft fork.
timeout - a time limit, expressed as an end date. If this timeout is reached without sufficient number of miners signaling that they upgraded, then the activation fails and Bitcoin Core goes back to the drawing board.

Now there are other parameters (name, starttime) but they are not anywhere near as important as the above two.
A number that is not a parameter, is 95%. Basically, activation of a BIP9 softfork is considered as actually succeeding if at least 95% of blocks in the last 2 weeks had the specified bit in the nVersion set. If less than 95% had this bit set before the timeout, then the upgrade fails and never goes into the network. This is not a parameter: it is a constant defined by BIP9, and developers using BIP9 activation cannot change this.
So, first some simple questions and their answers:

Why not just set a day when everyone starts imposing the new rules of the softfork?
- This was done classically (in the days when Satoshi was still among us). But this might argued to put too much power to developers, since there would be no way to reject an upgrade without possible bad consequences. For example, developers might package an upgrade that the users do not want, together with vital security bugfixes. Either you live without vital security bugfixes and hire some other developers to fix it for you (which can be difficult, presumably the best developers are already the ones working on the codebase) or you get the vital security bugfixes and implicitly support the upgrade you might not want.
- Sure, you could fork the code yourself (the ultimate threat in the FOSS world) and hire another set of developers who aren't assholes to do the dreary maintenance work of fixing security bugs, but Bitcoin needs strong bug-for-bug compatibility so everyone should really congregate around a single codebase.
- Basically: even the devs do not want this power, because they fear being coerced into putting "upgrades" that are detrimental to users. Satoshi got a pass because nobody knew who he was and how to coerce him.
Why 95%?
- Suppose the threshold were lower, like 51%. If so, after activation, somebody can disrupt the Bitcoin network by creating a transaction that is valid under the pre-softfork rules, but are invalid under the post-softfork rules. Upgraded nodes would reject it, but 49% of miners would accept it and include it in a block (which makes the block invalid) And then the same 49% would accept the invalid block and build on top of that, possibly creating a short chain of doomed invalid blocks that confirm an invalid spend. This can confuse SPV wallets, who might see multiple confirmations of a transaction and accept the funds, but later find that in fact it is invalid under the now-activated softfork rules.
- Thus, a very high threshold was imposed. 95% is considered safe. 50% is definitely not safe. Due to variance in the mining process, 80% could also be potentially unsafe (i.e. 80% of blocks signaling might have a good chance of coming from only 60% of miners), so a threshold of 95% was considered "safe enough for Bitcoin work".
Why have a timeout that disables the upgrade?
- Before BIP9, what was used was either flag day or BIP34. BIP34 had no flag day of activation or a bit, instead, it was just a 95% threshold to signal an nVersion value greater than a specific value. Actually, it was two thresholds: at 75%, blocks with the new nVersion would have the new softfork rules imposed, but at 95% blocks with the old nVersion would be rejected (and only the new blocks, with the new softfork rules, were accepted). For one, between 75% and 95%, there was a situation where the softfork was only "partially imposed", only blocks signaling the new rules would actually have those rules, but blocks with the old rules were still valid. This was fine for BIP34, which only added rules for miners with negligible use for non-miners.
- The same activation process for BIP34 was used for BIP66. After BIP66 reached 95%, however, a single miner mined an invalid-for-BIP66 block that still signalled BIP66 support. It turned out that of the 95% signaling BIP66 support, only about 50% were actually imposing the BIP66 new rules. The rest signalled support without upgrading their software to support new rules. This lead to many chainsplits and chaos with SPV nodes.
- The reasons miners signalled support was because they felt they were being pressured to signal support. So they signalled support, with plans to actually upgrade later, but because of the widespread signalling, the new BIP66 version locked in before upgrade plans were finished. Thus, the timeout that disables the upgrade was added in BIP9 to allow miners an escape hatch.

The Great Battles of the SegWit Wars

SegWit not only fixed transaction malleability, it also created a practical softforkable blocksize increase that also rebalanced weights so that the cost of spending a UTXO is about the same as the cost of creating UTXOs (and spending UTXOs is "better" since it limits the size of the UTXO set that every fullnode has to maintain).
So SegWit was written, the activation was decided to be BIP9, and then.... miner signalling stalled at below 75%.
Thus were the Great SegWit Wars started.

BIP9 Feature Hostage

If you are a miner with at least 5% global hashpower, you can hold a BIP9-activated softfork hostage.
You might even secretly want the softfork to actually push through. But you might want to extract concession from the users and the developers. Like removing the halvening. Or raising or even removing the block size caps (which helps larger miners more than smaller miners, making it easier to become a bigger fish that eats all the smaller fishes). Or whatever.
With BIP9, you can hold the softfork hostage. You just hold out and refuse to signal. You tell everyone you will signal, if and only if certain concessions are given to you.
This ability by miners to hold a feature hostage was enabled because of the miner-exit allowed by the timeout on BIP9. Prior to that, miners were considered little more than expendable security guards, paid for the risk they take to secure the network, but not special in the grand scheme of Bitcoin.

Covert ASICBoost

ASICBoost was a novel way of optimizing SHA256 mining, by taking advantage of the structure of the 80-byte header that is hashed in order to perform proof-of-work. The details of ASICBoost are out-of-scope here but you can read about it elsewhere
Here is a short summary of the two types of ASICBoost, relevant to the activation discussion.

Overt ASICBoost - Manipulates the unused bits in nVersion to reduce power consumption in mining.
Covert ASICBoost - Manipulates the order of transactions in the block to reduce power consumption in mining.

Now, "overt" means "obvious", while "covert" means hidden. Overt ASICBoost is obvious because nVersion bits that are not currently in use for BIP9 activations are usually 0 by default, so setting those bits to 1 makes it obvious that you are doing something weird (namely, Overt ASICBoost). Covert ASICBoost is non-obvious because the order of transactions in a block are up to the miner anyway, so the miner rearranging the transactions in order to get lower power consumption is not going to be detected.
Unfortunately, while Overt ASICBoost was compatible with SegWit, Covert ASICBoost was not. This is because, pre-SegWit, only the block header Merkle tree committed to the transaction ordering. However, with SegWit, another Merkle tree exists, which commits to transaction ordering as well. Covert ASICBoost would require more computation to manipulate two Merkle trees, obviating the power benefits of Covert ASICBoost anyway.
Now, miners want to use ASICBoost (indeed, about 60->70% of current miners probably use the Overt ASICBoost nowadays; if you have a Bitcoin fullnode running you will see the logs with lots of "60 of last 100 blocks had unexpected versions" which is exactly what you would see with the nVersion manipulation that Overt ASICBoost does). But remember: ASICBoost was, at around the time, a novel improvement. Not all miners had ASICBoost hardware. Those who did, did not want it known that they had ASICBoost hardware, and wanted to do Covert ASICBoost!
But Covert ASICBoost is incompatible with SegWit, because SegWit actually has two Merkle trees of transaction data, and Covert ASICBoost works by fudging around with transaction ordering in a block, and recomputing two Merkle Trees is more expensive than recomputing just one (and loses the ASICBoost advantage).
Of course, those miners that wanted Covert ASICBoost did not want to openly admit that they had ASICBoost hardware, they wanted to keep their advantage secret because miners are strongly competitive in a very tight market. And doing ASICBoost Covertly was just the ticket, but they could not work post-SegWit.
Fortunately, due to the BIP9 activation process, they could hold SegWit hostage while covertly taking advantage of Covert ASICBoost!

UASF: BIP148 and BIP8

When the incompatibility between Covert ASICBoost and SegWit was realized, still, activation of SegWit stalled, and miners were still not openly claiming that ASICBoost was related to non-activation of SegWit.
Eventually, a new proposal was created: BIP148. With this rule, 3 months before the end of the SegWit timeout, nodes would reject blocks that did not signal SegWit. Thus, 3 months before SegWit timeout, BIP148 would force activation of SegWit.
This proposal was not accepted by Bitcoin Core, due to the shortening of the timeout (it effectively times out 3 months before the initial SegWit timeout). Instead, a fork of Bitcoin Core was created which added the patch to comply with BIP148. This was claimed as a User Activated Soft Fork, UASF, since users could freely download the alternate fork rather than sticking with the developers of Bitcoin Core.
Now, BIP148 effectively is just a BIP9 activation, except at its (earlier) timeout, the new rules would be activated anyway (instead of the BIP9-mandated behavior that the upgrade is cancelled at the end of the timeout).
BIP148 was actually inspired by the BIP8 proposal (the link here is a historical version; BIP8 has been updated recently, precisely in preparation for Taproot activation). BIP8 is basically BIP9, but at the end of timeout, the softfork is activated anyway rather than cancelled.
This removed the ability of miners to hold the softfork hostage. At best, they can delay the activation, but not stop it entirely by holding out as in BIP9.
Of course, this implies risk that not all miners have upgraded before activation, leading to possible losses for SPV users, as well as again re-pressuring miners to signal activation, possibly without the miners actually upgrading their software to properly impose the new softfork rules.

BIP91, SegWit2X, and The Aftermath

BIP148 inspired countermeasures, possibly from the Covert ASiCBoost miners, possibly from concerned users who wanted to offer concessions to miners. To this day, the common name for BIP148 - UASF - remains an emotionally-charged rallying cry for parts of the Bitcoin community.
One of these was SegWit2X. This was brokered in a deal between some Bitcoin personalities at a conference in New York, and thus part of the so-called "New York Agreement" or NYA, another emotionally-charged acronym.
The text of the NYA was basically:

Set up a new activation threshold at 80% signalled at bit 4 (vs bit 1 for SegWit).
- When this 80% signalling was reached, miners would require that bit 1 for SegWit be signalled to achive the 95% activation needed for SegWit.
If the bit 4 signalling reached 80%, increase the block weight limit from the SegWit 4000000 to the SegWit2X 8000000, 6 months after bit 1 activation.

The first item above was coded in BIP91.
Unfortunately, if you read the BIP91, independently of NYA, you might come to the conclusion that BIP91 was only about lowering the threshold to 80%. In particular, BIP91 never mentions anything about the second point above, it never mentions that bit 4 80% threshold would also signal for a later hardfork increase in weight limit.
Because of this, even though there are claims that NYA (SegWit2X) reached 80% dominance, a close reading of BIP91 shows that the 80% dominance was only for SegWit activation, without necessarily a later 2x capacity hardfork (SegWit2X).
This ambiguity of bit 4 (NYA says it includes a 2x capacity hardfork, BIP91 says it does not) has continued to be a thorn in blocksize debates later. Economically speaking, Bitcoin futures between SegWit and SegWit2X showed strong economic dominance in favor of SegWit (SegWit2X futures were traded at a fraction in value of SegWit futures: I personally made a tidy but small amount of money betting against SegWit2X in the futures market), so suggesting that NYA achieved 80% dominance even in mining is laughable, but the NYA text that ties bit 4 to SegWit2X still exists.
Historically, BIP91 triggered which caused SegWit to activate before the BIP148 shorter timeout. BIP148 proponents continue to hold this day that it was the BIP148 shorter timeout and no-compromises-activate-on-August-1 that made miners flock to BIP91 as a face-saving tactic that actually removed the second clause of NYA. NYA supporters keep pointing to the bit 4 text in the NYA and the historical activation of BIP91 as a failed promise by Bitcoin developers.

Taproot Activation Proposals

There are two primary proposals I can see for Taproot activation:

BIP8.
Modern Softfork Activation.

We have discussed BIP8: roughly, it has bit and timeout, if 95% of miners signal bit it activates, at the end of timeout it activates. (EDIT: BIP8 has had recent updates: at the end of timeout it can now activate or fail. For the most part, in the below text "BIP8", means BIP8-and-activate-at-timeout, and "BIP9" means BIP8-and-fail-at-timeout)
So let's take a look at Modern Softfork Activation!

Modern Softfork Activation

This is a more complex activation method, composed of BIP9 and BIP8 as supcomponents.

First have a 12-month BIP9 (fail at timeout).
If the above fails to activate, have a 6-month discussion period during which users and developers and miners discuss whether to continue to step 3.
Have a 24-month BIP8 (activate at timeout).

The total above is 42 months, if you are counting: 3.5 years worst-case activation.
The logic here is that if there are no problems, BIP9 will work just fine anyway. And if there are problems, the 6-month period should weed it out. Finally, miners cannot hold the feature hostage since the 24-month BIP8 period will exist anyway.

PSA: Being Resilient to Upgrades

Software is very birttle.
Anyone who has been using software for a long time has experienced something like this:

You hear a new version of your favorite software has a nice new feature.
Excited, you install the new version.
You find that the new version has subtle incompatibilities with your current workflow.
You are sad and downgrade to the older version.
You find out that the new version has changed your files in incompatible ways that the old version cannot work with anymore.
You tearfully reinstall the newer version and figure out how to get your lost productivity now that you have to adapt to a new workflow

If you are a technically-competent user, you might codify your workflow into a bunch of programs. And then you upgrade one of the external pieces of software you are using, and find that it has a subtle incompatibility with your current workflow which is based on a bunch of simple programs you wrote yourself. And if those simple programs are used as the basis of some important production system, you hve just screwed up because you upgraded software on an important production system.
And well, one of the issues with new softfork activation is that if not enough people (users and miners) upgrade to the newest Bitcoin software, the security of the new softfork rules are at risk.
Upgrading software of any kind is always a risk, and the more software you build on top of the software-being-upgraded, the greater you risk your tower of software collapsing while you change its foundations.
So if you have some complex Bitcoin-manipulating system with Bitcoin somewhere at the foundations, consider running two Bitcoin nodes:

One is a "stable-version" Bitcoin node. Once it has synced, set it up to connect=x.x.x.x to the second node below (so that your ISP bandwidth is only spent on the second node). Use this node to run all your software: it's a stable version that you don't change for long periods of time. Enable txiindex, disable pruning, whatever your software needs.
The other is an "always-up-to-date" Bitcoin Node. Keep its stoarge down with pruning (initially sync it off the "stable-version" node). You can't use blocksonly if your "stable-version" node needs to send transactions, but otherwise this "always-up-to-date" Bitcoin node can be kept as a low-resource node, so you can run both nodes in the same machine.

When a new Bitcoin version comes up, you just upgrade the "always-up-to-date" Bitcoin node. This protects you if a future softfork activates, you will only receive valid Bitcoin blocks and transactions. Since this node has nothing running on top of it, it is just a special peer of the "stable-version" node, any software incompatibilities with your system software do not exist.
Your "stable-version" Bitcoin node remains the same version until you are ready to actually upgrade this node and are prepared to rewrite most of the software you have running on top of it due to version compatibility problems.
When upgrading the "always-up-to-date", you can bring it down safely and then start it later. Your "stable-version" wil keep running, disconnected from the network, but otherwise still available for whatever queries. You do need some system to stop the "always-up-to-date" node if for any reason the "stable-version" goes down (otherwisee if the "always-up-to-date" advances its pruning window past what your "stable-version" has, the "stable-version" cannot sync afterwards), but if you are technically competent enough that you need to do this, you are technically competent enough to write such a trivial monitor program (EDIT: gmax notes you can adjust the pruning window by RPC commands to help with this as well).
This recommendation is from gmaxwell on IRC, by the way.

The U.S. State Department has ordered the closure of China's consulate in Houston to protect property and "private information" of Americans as reports came in last night of documents being burned in the compound's courtyard. "We urge the U.S. to immediately withdraw its erroneous decision. Otherwise China will make legitimate and necessary reactions," China's Foreign Ministry declared, as the U.S. dollar surged against the Chinese yuan, breaking the key 7 level. On Tuesday, the DOJ also accused two Chinese hackers of working for the government to steal terabytes of data, including coronavirus research, from Western companies across 11 nations. Go deeper: China may respond by closing the U.S. consulate in Wuhan.
Tensions hit sentiment
S&P 500 futures pulled back 0.4% overnight following the diplomatic flare-up, which adds to concerns over the deteriorating relationship between the economic superpowers. President Trump already dimmed hopes of a Phase 2 trade deal earlier this month, saying the relationship with China had been too badly damaged by COVID-19. Investors are also questioning whether Congress will reach an agreement on the next coronavirus stimulus bill before lawmakers start their summer recess, while Trump warned the pandemic will probably "get worse before it gets better."
Earnings
Two big names are on the radar today as earnings season kicks into high gear. Following a record number of car deliveries earlier in July, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) may report a fourth straight quarterly profit, which could qualify the high-flying stock for inclusion in the S&P 500. Shares have jumped more than 50% this month alone (adding to the stock's more than 3x increase this year), as investors bet on a sudden jump in demand from passive funds that track the benchmark. Don't forget about Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)! Much of the focus will continue to center around its cloud business amid recent trends towards remote work.
Twitter cracks down on 'QAnon' activity
"We've been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm," the company said via its Twitter Safety account. "In line with this approach, this week we are taking further action on so-called 'QAnon' activity across the service." A Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) spokesperson said more than 7,000 QAnon-related accounts were banned in recent weeks, while the platform limited the distribution of 150,000 others. According to Wikipedia, QAnon is a "far-right conspiracy theory detailing a supposed secret plot by an alleged 'deep state' against U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters." Last year, the FBI designated QAnon as a potential domestic terror threat.
Abandoning hopes
While U.K. and EU negotiators began the latest round of Brexit negotiations on Monday, the two sides remain deadlocked over fishing rights, level playing field guarantees, governance of the deal and the role of the European Court of Justice. With just days to go until Boris Johnson's deadline for an outline agreement, senior sources told The Telegraph that there is now an assumption that "there won't be a deal." What would happen in that case? The U.K. would leave the bloc on December 31 by following default WTO rules and specific agreements for certain goods. The British government has also abandoned hopes of clinching a U.S. free trade deal ahead of the presidential election in November, with the novel coronavirus outbreak blamed for slow progress.
Record retail trading volumes
Earnings yesterday from some of the biggest publicly traded brokers have highlighted the major jump into retail trading. TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ:AMTD), which is set to be acquired by Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW), added a record 661K new funded retail accounts in Q2, surpassing the 608K new accounts during the first quarter. A record 3.4M daily average revenue trades were also noted, more than four times last year's levels and 62% more than the prior quarter. Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ:IBKR), which additionally beat on the top and bottom lines, said its daily average revenue trades increased 111% since the same quarter last year, while customer accounts grew to 867K.
737 MAX may not return until next year
The latest timeline anticipates the FAA won't finish work to lift its March 2019 grounding order until late October or early November because the agency has decided to ask for public comments before finalizing software and hardware changes, WSJ reports. Completing pilot training and maintenance checks is expected to stretch well into December, and only then will the MAX be ready to return to commercial service. That means the jets are expected to be grounded at least as long under current Boeing (NYSE:BA) CEO David Calhoun as under his predecessor, Dennis Muilenburg, who was ousted at the end of 2019 after repeated delays in getting the plane back in the air. BA -1.3% premarket.
Self-driving partnerships
Ending work on autonomous commercial vehicles it began with startup Aurora in 2019, Fiat Chrysler (NYSE:FCAU) has selected Waymo as its exclusive, strategic technology partner for "Level 4" fully self-driving technology across its full product portfolio. The collaboration will start with the Ram ProMaster full-size van, though it's likely to expand given Fiat's expected merger with PSA Group into a company called Stellantis. It's been quite a run for the Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) unit. Waymo, considered the leader in autonomous vehicle development, inked another partnership in June with Volvo Cars (OTCPK:GELYY) to develop self-driving electric vehicles designed for ride-hailing.
What else is happening...
Senate committee clears Shelton, Waller for Fed positions.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) pledges to be 100% carbon neutral by 2030.
Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) sales are rebounding as stores reopen.
Tesla's (TSLA) Elon Musk qualifies for another $2.1B payday.
Jamf (JAMF) prices upsized IPO above range at $26.
Tuesday's Key Earnings Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) +2.3% saying the worst is over. Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) +2.6% topping estimates, raising guidance. Philip Morris (NYSE:PM) +4.2% posting better-than-feared results. Snap (NYSE:SNAP) -6.2% AH on lagging Q2 growth. Texas Instruments (NASDAQ:TXN) +1.3% AH following Q2 beats, upside outlook. United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL) +1.2% AH expecting to lower cash burn.
Today's Markets In Asia, Japan -0.6%. Hong Kong -2.3%. China +0.4%. India -0.2%. In Europe, at midday, London -0.9%. Paris -1.2%. Frankfurt -0.6%. Futures at 6:20, Dow -0.4%. S&P -0.4%. Nasdaq flat. Crude -1.3% to $41.36. Gold +0.7% to $1856.50. Bitcoin -0.7% to $9351. Ten-year Treasury Yield -2 bps to 0.59%
Today's Economic Calendar 7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications 9:00 FHFA House Price Index 10:00 Existing Home Sales 10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories 1:00 PM Results of $17B, 20-Year Bond Auction

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Hello everyone, thank you for your continued interest and support. In the past two weeks, various tasks of TokenClub have been progressing steadily. The product development and community operation progress this week are as follows:
1. TokenClub Events
1)TokenClub & 499Block reached strategic cooperation in live broadcasting
On May 28th, TokenClub and 499Block reached a strategic cooperation to jointly build a live broadcast ecosystem in the vertical field of blockchain.
2)520e events
When 520 comes, TokenClub launches live interactive interaction. During the event, participate in interactive questions in the live broadcast room or forward the live poster to Twitter and the telegram group, and upload a screenshot to have the opportunity to extract 520, 1314 red envelope rewards

https://preview.redd.it/apyee28406251.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=9c9798db931ad6611d6c258907120610ae11ff11

3)Text version of live content is abailable on Medium
In order to better understand the live broadcast of TokenClub by overseas communities, we translated the live broadcast content into English and uploaded it to TokenClub’s Medium official account, so that the community’s small partners can view it.

https://preview.redd.it/hhmu3pl506251.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=fae9d42dcdee9d079219d1ffe612fc573bad01e8
4)Preview: TokenClub’s self-media grandma is invited to participate in the golden financial theme live event
From May 29th to June 4th, Golden Finance will hold a five-day live broadcast of the theme of “Finding Double Coins”. Grandpa Coin will express his views on June 3, welcome to pay attention.

2.TokenClub Live
1) Summary
Recently, Binance Co-founder He Yi, TRON founder Sun Yuchen, Hobbit HBTC founder Ju Jianhua, OSL chairman Dave, BlockVC founding partner Xu Yingkai, Outlier Ventures founder amie Burke, Bitribe founder SKY, CryptoBriefing CEO Han Kao , Huarai Group / Vice President, Global Market and Business Leader Ciara, Guosheng Securities Blockchain Research Institute Sun Shuang, Tongtongtong Research Institute CEO Song Shuangjie, Jin Tiancheng Law Firm Senior Partner Yu Bingguang, Binance China Jiang Jinze, principal researcher of Blockchain Research Institute, Meng Yan, vice president of Digital Asset Research Institute, co-founder of Primitive Ventures & director of Coindesk advisory board-Dovey Wan, founding partner of Genesis Capital & co-founder of Kushen Wallet Ocean Liao Yangyang, Binance C2C-Kathy, Binance OTC-Coco, Binance Contract & Options-Justin, Binance VIP-Jennifer, Binance Broker-Jess, Binance Mining Pool-Denny, Harbin Institute of Technology Blockchain Research Executive Deputy Director Xu Zhifeng, dForce founder Yang Mindao, Mars Finance co-founder Shang Silin, Cobo & Yuchi co-founder Shenyu, well-known investor Xu Zhe, CasperLabs CEO Mrinal Manohar, CasperLabs co-founder Scott Walker, Chairman of Rock Tree Omer Ozden, Nova Club incubation team leader & Waterdrop Capital partner Zheng Yushan, Rolling Stone miner founder Alex Lam, BitUniverse coin founder Chen Yong, Odaily Planet Daily founder and CEO Mandy Wang Mengdie, Binance stablecoin BUSD project responsible Helen Tu and senior expert of TokenClub blockchain and cryptocurrency investment strategy-Zao Shen talks with you about blockchain things ~
On May 18, Block 101 Binance Key Account Manager Luna talked to Primitive Ventures co-founder, non-profit bitcoin development fund Hardcore Fund executive director, and Coindesk advisory board director-Dovey Wan, to understand “C and C How is the Goddess of Crypto Assets made? “Dovey Wan shared with us on asset allocation, investment judgment, entrepreneurship, DCEP, etc.

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On May 19, Block 101 Yingge talked with Sun Zeyu, the founding partner of Genesis Capital and co-founder of Kushen Wallet, to share the theme of “Blockchain Investment Experience”. This investor, who is rated as “reliable” by insiders, recommends that novices try not to touch contracts, do not stay overnight even when making contracts, be alert to risks, refuse gambling, and rationally analyze investments.

On May 20th, 499Block ’s two-year birthday carnival “Global Hot Chain, Keeping Together for Every Year” celebration was held in the TokenClub Live Room. The cross-border AMA Solitaire + popular day group anchor live video sharing, including Binance Co-founder He Yi, TRON founder Sun Yuchen, Hobbit HBTC founder Ju Jianhua, OSL chairman Dave, BlockVC founding partner Xu Yingkai, Outlier Ventures founder amie Burke, Bitribe founder SKY, CryptoBriefing CEO Han Kao, Huobi Group / Vice President Global Markets and Dozens of blockchain leaders from home and abroad, such as Ciara, the business leader, all appeared on the scene, and 499Block became a popular beauty angel group to help the interactive host.

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On May 20, Sun Shuang, senior researcher of Guosheng Securities Blockchain Research Institute, Song Shuangjie, Jin Tong, CEO of Tongzhengtong Research Institute were jointly invited by Lingang Xinyefang, Lingang Innovation Management School, and Binance China Blockchain Research Institute. Tian Bingguang Senior Partner Yu Bingguang, Binance China Blockchain Research Institute Chief Researcher Jiang Jinze, Vice President of Digital Assets Research Institute Meng Yan, and many experts talked about the “Critical Digital RMB DCEP” in the live broadcast, one A feast of intertwined thoughts is worth watching again!

On May 21st, Ocean Liao Yangyang, the founder of Block 101 Seven Seven Dialogue Force Field, focused on the “big enlightenment era of digital assets”, Ocean shared with us his entrepreneurial experience, the first pot of gold, public chain, currency circle and Analysis of the current market. Regarding the future of Bitcoin, Ocean feels that he can work hard towards the direction of digital gold and become a substitute or supplement for gold. He is determined to see more, because the ceiling of the entire industry is very high, and he still cannot see its end point. The index level is rising, far from being over.

On May 22, “In the name of the Pizza Festival, we came to a different live broadcast” Bringing Goods “”, which was organized by the girls in the 101-day group of the block: June 6, July 7, Sisi, Yingge, Qianjiangyue , Dialogue: Binance First Sister, Binance C2C-Kathy, Binance OTC-Coco, Binance Contract & Options-Justin, Binance VIP-Jennifer, Binance Broker-Jess, Binance Mining Pool-Denny. We have explained to us one by one about C2C, OTC, contract options, etc. If you are interested, please move to the live room.

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On May 22, Block 101 Sisi Dialogue Xu Zhifeng, executive deputy director of the Blockchain Research Center of Harbin Institute of Technology, shared the theme: “Strategy of Great Powers: Seizing New Highlands of Blockchain Technology”. He expressed his views on his own currency circle experience, entrepreneurship, blockchain technology, DECP, etc. Xu Zhifeng is very optimistic about the future development of blockchain. He said: “Ten years later, blockchain will become a very common industry. We are the Internet industry and have never changed.”

On May 23, the old Chinese doctor Zao Shen from the coin circle went online ~ The theme of this issue: If you want to be short, you must be able to sing first, and if you want to be long, you must be patient. If the meal is not fragrant, the game is not good, and the happiness of the past has drifted into the distance, just because the daily reading is still a loss, and the head is hurt. Don’t panic, the old Chinese doctor Zao Shen of the currency circle will adopt the Trinity Interventional Therapy and precise care to regenerate life. Don’t move quickly to the live room to see what “therapy” is.

On May 25, Block 101, July 7th conversation with dForce founder Yang Mindao, talked about “DeFi opportunities and challenges.” Yang Mindao believes that the four biggest benefits of DeFi are: programmability; non-custodial nature; non-licensing; composability. He believes that the current public chain market is seriously homogenized, and the most promising public chain is Ethereum. Ethereum is the best and largest in terms of developer group, ecology, and technological evolution, and can absorb the advantages of each public chain. At the same time, he is also extremely optimistic about DeFi, “DeFi application value is gradually verified, and the value of this type of token will gradually become more prominent.”

On May 26th, Mars Finance co-founder Shang Silin Hardcore Dialogue Cobo & Yuchi co-founder Shenyu and well-known investor Xu Zhe. The trend of “financialization” in the digital asset industry is becoming more and more obvious, and the friends of miners need to master more and more skills. Unveiling the mystery of hedging for everyone.

On May 26th, Nova Superstar Dialogue Phase 13 focused on the Silicon Valley star project CasperLabs, specially invited CasperLabs CEO Mrinal Manohar, CasperLabs co-founder Scott Walker, Rock Tree chairman Omer Ozden, and Nova Club incubation team leader Water Capital Partners Zheng Yushan, discuss CasperLbs together.
On May 26, Block 101 Sisi talked with the founder of the Rolling Stone Miner, Alex Lam, and took us into the “post-worker life” of a PhD in finance. Alex shared the reasons for entering the coin circle, the first pot of gold, mining, pitted pits, investment experience and opportunities in the digital currency industry. Alex said: Bitcoin exceeds US $ 100,000, and it will be in the second half of next year or the year after.
On May 27th, Block 101 Yingge talked with BitUniverse founder Chen Yong and shared the theme: “Who” needs grid trading. Chen Yong mainly introduced the currency trading tool of Bitcoin. In his view, grid trading has changed an investor’s concept-from stud into a batch of positions and positions. Regarding the price of Bitcoin, Chen Yong believes that the price of Bitcoin may reach one hundred thousand dollars around 2030.

On May 28, Block 101 Binance Mining Pool Wu Di talked to Mandai Wang Mengdie, founder of Planet Daily Odaily, to learn more about the process of “media entrepreneurs marching into the blockchain from venture capital circles”. Mandy believes that the core competence in the media industry is high-quality original content, which is the most basic but difficult to stick to. The initial focus of entering the mixed media industry of the dragon and dragon is to focus and amplify value.

On May 29th, Block 101 Qianjiangyue Dialogue Hellen Tu, the project leader of Binance Stablecoin BUSD project, talked with everyone about the stablecoin “Life and Death”, Hellen shared the stablecoin in detail, and published his own the opinion of. For details, please move to the live room.

On May 30th, Zaoshen came to share the theme: Dongfeng blowing, bullets flying, unlimited chase? In this issue, Zao Shen shared with you the recent international financial situation and various major events in the United States in the past week, which extended to the impact on the currency circle and answered various questions about investment strategies. Friends who want to know more details can move to the live room of Zao Shen.
3.TokenClub operation data
-Live data: 13 live broadcasts in the past two weeks, with over 800,000 views. TokenClub hosted a total of 870 live broadcasts with a total of 45.06 million views.
-Binary trade data: In the past two weeks, guess the rise and fall to participate in a total of 1268 times, the amount of participation exceeded 2 million TCT. At present, it is guessed that the rise and fall function has participated in a total of 1.11 million times, with a cumulative participation amount of 498 million TCT.
-Chat data: In the past two weeks, a total of 19271 messages have been generated. A total of 4.85 milliom messages have been launched since the function was launched.
-Mini-game data: The mini-game has participated in a total of 4212 times in the past two weeks. A total of 1,66 million self-functions have been online.
-Cut leeks game data together: Since the game was launched, the total number of user participation in the game was 962612 TCT total consumption was 6,27 million gift certificate total consumption was 15,95million and TCT mining output was 161496.
-TokenClub KOL data: Over the past two weeks, the total reading volume of the BTCGrandpa article has been viewed by more than 300,000 people.
-Social media data: At present, the number of Weibo official accounts is 18033 and the number of Twitter followers is 1332 and we have opened the official Medium account this week, welcome to follow.
-Telegram official group data: In the past 2 weeks, there were 238 chats in the group, and the total number of Telegram official groups is currently 2906.
-Medium data: Medium official account u/TokenClub has published 5 excellent articles, official announcements and updates are published in English, welcome to follow.
4.Communities
1)Overseas Community
TokenClub held an event for forwarding Twitter and telegram group chats for overseas users. Bitcoin halved in less than two weeks, overseas users are more active in the telegram group, and some friends are more concerned about Binance Block 101 live broadcast, aggregation exchange, TCT usage and other issues, the administrator responded in time.On May 12th, when Bitcoin was halved, TokenClub organized a forwarding Twitter, telegram group chat prize event and participating in a live question asking interactive prize event for overseas users. There are many live broadcast events in the near future. The live broadcast poster information will be released to overseas users as soon as possible. The follow-up TokenClub will translate and broadcast high-quality live broadcast content to Twitter and Medium. Bitcoin halved, overseas users are more active in the telegram group, and some partners are more concerned about block 101 live broadcast, bitcoin future price trend, TCT usage and other issues, the administrator responded in time in the group.

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2)Domestic community
Sweet Orange Club Weekly News
Last Friday, a holiday, the community opened the red envelope rain event, and brought a sincere gift to everyone while relaxing in the holiday. At the same time, it also sent the most sincere blessings to all mothers in the community on Mother’s Day. Thank you for your long-term support and help to the Orange Club community.

Hundred-day scheduled investment event (Phase II)
The fourth week of the second 100-day fixed investment plan held this week has been awarded, and everyone is still very active in this event. This week, the Bitcoin halving market was also opened in advance. The small partners participating in the fixed investment should now have a certain floating win, so we adopt the correct cycle investment strategy to believe that it can bring unexpected benefits to everyone.
Sign in the lottery.
On the evening of May 3rd and May 10th, TCT Fortune Free Academy carried out the 51st and 52nd week sign-in sweepstakes, and rewarded the small TCT partners who had always insisted on signing in. In these two sign-in sweepstakes, the lucky friends received 20–180TCT as a reward. In addition, during the lucky draw, the college friends also actively expressed their opinions on the topic of this year’s bull market.

The Leek Paradise Community Conference will continue as usual every Sunday at 20:00. During the conference, members will discuss recent hot topics, including gifts and blessings for Mother ’s Day, and the halving of Bitcoin everyone is paying attention to. At the end, the friends in the group also showed a rare enthusiasm at the first sight. It seems that the market still affects the mood. The members routinely started a red envelope rain to cheer for the participating partners and encourage everyone to maintain patience and confidence. Of course, at the same time, we are encouraging ourselves to see the community meeting next week. Come on!

TokenClub volunteer community, sign in red envelopes every day, as long as you sign in every day, you can get good benefits, friends join us quickly! In the past two weeks, the community has conducted active partners.
Volunteer community: Change to the currency circle consultation and pass the analysis of Grandma Coin and Panda analysts, support TokenClub in action, and continue to vote for TCT. In the last month, we have worked hard to learn the rain god’s strategy. We have doubled the coins in our hands. The community WeChat group has recently injected fresh students. We look forward to more people joining! Volunteer community, will continue to work hard for TokenClub
TCT has been listed on Binance、Okex、Gate.io、ZB-M、MXC、Biki、Coinex、BigOne、Coinbene、Cybex、SWFT、Loopring、Rootrex etc.
TokenClub website: www.tokenclub.com
Telegram：https://t.me/token\_club

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During the development of the project, we published 3 documents about the technology that we are developing and preparing for the market. Some decisions were changed, but the main idea and goal remained the same — effective financial management.
Since the ICO boom, several years have passed, blockchain and cryptocurrencies have become synonymous and are perceived only as a means of earning money and the obvious advantages of using the technology itself in combination with others are of little interest to anyone. A user, business representatives, or some government officials associate the word “blockchain” directly with cryptocurrency or Bitcoin, without thinking about using systems built on a distributed registry in the current reality.
As we mentioned above, during the development of the project, several documents were published in which we announced our technology and clearly said that we are mixing modern concepts and approaching the market from an economic and scientific point of view, borrowing the best from Bitcoin, Ethereum, DASH, and other alternative currencies.
It is important to note that the concept of Bitcoin or Monero will be different from the concept of TkeyNet. These are other areas and practical application that some market participants may perceive as similar, but this is far from the case.

“When you innovate, you must be prepared for a prolonged lack of understanding of your actions on the part of your environment. You can do something you believe in, but for a long time, people who only wish you well may criticize your endeavors. When faced with such criticism, ask yourself — Are they right? And if you answer this question positively, accept the criticism and adjust your work accordingly. If the answer is negative, if you are firmly convinced of your rightness, you should prepare for a long defense, defending your positions. This approach is a key component of innovation.” ©

The idea of Bitcoin is beautiful, even if it has not yet been accepted by society as planned, but at least the idea of using Bitcoin as a means of accumulating value and storing savings has a place to be. Bitcoin actively strives for a high price mark and dominates the market by more than 50%, and this is a great result. Bitcoin set the necessary vector for many developers around the world, people were able to review the systems used and make their own decisions based on the Bitcoin core, for example, DASH or Ethereum, and users, in turn, learned about such a phenomenon as cryptocurrency.
In General, what was this introduction for? That TKEY should be considered as a universal asset, without defining it as a cryptocurrency. The question may immediately arise, why is this so? It doesn’t have explicit currency properties? Bitcoin also does not have the properties of cash but is called a cryptocurrency, and the types of applications of the peer-to-peer payment system Bitcoin and TkeyNet can differ significantly from each other.
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The purpose of this publication is to tell you about the new features of TkeyNet, when the official transition to the new Protocol will take place, and why TKEY is a universal asset that simply needs liquidity? In General, we will talk about the clear advantages of switching to new technologies that we have been striving for so long and about your benefits of using them accordingly.

What is TkeyNet, and what are its advantages?

TkeyNet is an infrastructure that combines various solutions for users, businesses, and the public sector. Secure corporate networks, payment processors, liquidity, cross-border payments, trading tools, information security, instant exchanges, investment tools. One platform — millions of opportunities.
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When creating TkeyNet, we immediately turned to e-cash protocols, concepts of electronic currencies, considered the movements of Bank international transfers, and also drew attention to the obvious complexity of these systems. Therefore, to build a high-quality architecture of TkeyNet, the team took as a basis — blockchain technology, cryptography, payment and banking system, electronic cash protocols, exchanges, stock markets, DHT, and other p2p networks.
Now more than ever, businesses, users, and most financial market participants need reliable and modern systems that will meet the needs of the market.
For example, a user wants to quickly send funds to another user, and they do not want to think about how the blockchain works and who the “miners” are and what they do for the network. Any of us want to open the app and click a few buttons on the screen to pay for a particular service or send money to relatives abroad and the most importantly, know that the funds will reach you quickly and with a minimum Commission. Or let’s say you came to India, you have some funds in Bitcoin, but you would like to pay for your purchases in the local currency — the Indian rupee without extra conversions.
You are the owner of a payment system or Bank, and you want to receive % for conversion transactions, or banks want to create their consortium for cross-border payments. Either you are an entrepreneur and plan to open an exchange or trading platform for trading various assets, not necessarily digital, but, for example, gold and diamonds, or you are a young and purposeful startup team and want to quickly launch your Digital Bank, or you do not want to do business, and you have several million euros or dollars, you want to get % of their use.
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TkeyNet makes these features available to all participants.
As we can see with you, there are quite a lot of use cases, and it may seem that TKEY is again torn into 100500 different directions, but this is far from the case. Here, a specific and clear direction is Finance and its movement.

How TkeyNet works

Remember, we said that — “to develop the platform on a global level, it is necessary to reach a consensus between government regulation, business, and society. We understand that it is impossible to achieve 100% of this, but it is possible to create favorable conditions favorable to all parties.”
How will the system work? All participants are connected to the system using TkeyNet technology that allows the financial gateway to control their transactions with increased speed, transparency, and efficiency. Independent verification servers constantly compare their transaction records. To hack the system, you will need to get access to all the devices that are logged in.
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TkeyNet solutions offer a cryptographically secure, end-to-end payment flow with the immutability of transactions and redundancy of information contained in them. It is developed to meet each financial gateway’s risk, privacy, and compliance requirements. Since the software is developed to be easily integrated into the existing financial infrastructure, it minimizes any integration costs and failures, and also meets international standards (ISO, etc.).

TkeyNet can be a neutral utility for financial institutions and systems

A gateway is an organization that allows users to invest money and take money out of a pool of liquidity. The gateway accepts currency deposits from users and issues balances to the TkeyNet blockchain.
TkeyNet Protocol provides a single source of truth for counterparties while maintaining the confidentiality of payment data of Bank clients.
TKEY is a universal bill (digital obligation) in the distributed registry TkeyNet.
Gateways install specialized software for interacting with the distributed registry and other system participants. Users, brokers, and other participants interact with the system via mobile or web interfaces. Gateways act as a link between the distributed registry, brokers, users, and other services that allow you to make quick transactions.
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The participants of the system make payments between themselves by using cryptographically signed transactions denominated in digital obligation. This type of transaction uses an internal registry.
In the case of working with Fiat currency and other assets, such as securities and precious metals, the registry records the amounts owed with assets presented as debt obligations. All accounts and transactions are cryptographically secure and verified algorithmically. Payments can only be authorized by the account holder, and all payments are processed automatically, without any third parties or intermediaries. The TkeyNet Protocol checks balances and accounts inside the system for transferring payments and sends payment notifications with minimal delay, which ensures fast calculations in the system.
For more specialized solutions can be created by the Central gateways and the gateways just. A Central gateway is an organization that allows users to invest money and take money out of the liquidity pool. Gateway is an organization that interacts with the Central gateway. Accepts and exchanges digital liabilities for other assets, such as securities.
TkeyNet globally reduces the number of different expenses and automates operational tasks, simplifies and reduces the cost of conducting monetary transactions, and improves traditional financial services.
We understand that it is not easy to tell all the principles of the TkeyNet system in a single publication, especially one that deals with neither one nor two issues. Therefore, you should consider this material as a basis, a base that will help you learn the information that is related to the TkeyNet Protocol most easily after the release of TkeyNet.
Moving a little away from corporate solutions, we suggest you recall some theses from our roadmap, which was published on the official website in the period from September 2018 to November 2019:

“The introduction of the exchanger in web wallets and the app will allow users to send money in one currency, and the recipient will receive it in another currency. For example, a user can buy Tkeycoin for dollars and exchange it for euros or Bitcoin or Ethereum at the current exchange rate.This functionality provides full control of funds through a single trusted and most secure source. Users no longer need to create multiple accounts on third-party resources to make an exchange into a particular currency.With the development of the network, it is possible to implement a multi-exchange that works on the principle of a payment bridge, when the user sends funds to Tkeycoin, and the recipient chooses the receiving currency, let’s say Litecoin, the funds are automatically converted” ©

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We wrote above that TKEY can in principle be used as a universal asset, acting as a digital obligation or an asset as an exchange. By the way, references to this were also published on the official website — tkeycoin.com. In simple words, using one of our web interfaces, you can access TKEYRUB or TKEYUSD or any other asset, such as TKEYGOLD.
TKEYUSD, TKEYRUB, and TKEYGOLD are symbols and can be called differently in the system, for example, TKUSD or GOLDTKEY, so now they should be considered as an example.

Why is TKEY a universal asset?

As before, you can easily and quickly send TKEY to any member of the network and TKEY will have liquidity on the exchange also, TKEY allows you to fast exchange for euros, dollars, or other currencies.
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For the interface, the applications will display functions of digital assets 1:1 to a particular currency, for example, TKEY to RUB, TKey to EUR, or TKEY to Dirhams or TKEY to the pound and vice versa, respectively.
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Therefore, as we said above, TKEY should not be regarded as a cryptocurrency, it is a universal unit inside the system TkeyNet, which may refer to transaction information as exchanges of obligations between banks and transaction TKEY -> TKEY between users, or to carry information about the exchange on the exchange or the exchange of digital assets or gold variations quite a lot, for most of the functions we describe in the release day TkeyNet.

What are the advantages for companies and developers?

First of all, we strive to open the doors for all platform participants. Only through synergy and cooperation can we accelerate the pace of development of the entire system and the introduction of new technologies in the market.
The platform will open doors for developers, who in turn can create technological solutions based on TkeyNet. A working environment will be created, and integration with the TkeyNet platform will be as easy as with the documented SDK or plug-ins. In the course of development, API documentation and ready-made SDKs for developers will be published.
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This will make it easy to use and implement TkeyNet technology in various types of applications, for example, you want to create fast exchanges, we provide you with a framework, back-end, and API, and you create a front-end and launch your service, get your Commission, and are an independent project in the market. An important point is that integration into the existing infrastructure takes place while maintaining the decentralization of the TkeyNet system so that all its internal and external operations remain confidential and verified at the same time.

What are the advantages for users?

This means getting a universal tool for working with financial markets and easily converting an asset into any other asset: euro, dollars, or gold.

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Also, TKEY owners should clearly understand that the more the system develops and there are more participants, namely the corporate segment, projects, and partners, the company will be more stable and thus the project assets will grow stronger.
The popularity of the platform and trust in it directly affects the price of assets, these are the key points of growth signs, the wider and more influential the spread of the company in various areas, the higher its performance in the market.

When will the long-awaited transition to TkeyNet take place?

What changes will be made to the products?

As you understand, everything will change, and this is for the better. At a minimum, products will become faster, lighter, safer, and more versatile.
Changes and new releases will be released as soon as they are ready. In TkeySpace, the TKEY libraries will be rewritten under TkeyNet. A web version of the wallet will appear, and eventually, an application with an exchange interface will be released for quick trading and exchange of various assets, not limited to digital ones. The Tkey Messenger will be adapted for TkeyNet and will be released for previously announced platforms: iOS, Android, Linux, macOS, Windows immediately with the ability to translate directly in the messenger. We will tell you about the messenger architecture on the release day.

All changes and releases will be published and announced after the release of TkeyNet.

What is radically new in TkeyNet?

There will be funds, the Protocol will become much more universal, as well as the TKEY itself. The Protocol will also exclude the possibility of attacks that could have been in Core 1.0, also, the principles of the platform will change. We will publish all technical specifications on the day of release.

Timeline for switching to TkeyNet

The transition to TkeyNet will not take place until August 2020. We will release news and instructions for switching to TkeyNet, so we recommend that you subscribe to the newsletter immediately: https://tkeycoin.com/en/newslette.

Listing on crypto exchanges

The liquidity of the TKEY asset is urgently needed for the development of the entire TkeyNet system, so the company will provide trading platforms for TKey trading and exchange.

Conclusion

The introduction of technologies using digital currencies will create the fastest transition of users and the corporate market to a new level.
FinTech direction makes it possible to manage finances in the most efficient and secure way, without violating the law. This system simplifies, reduces the cost of conducting monetary transactions, and actually improves traditional financial services.
The solution is interesting to everyone who works with money and is used to getting maximum efficiency from it: business, investors, traders, users of banking solutions, the corporate segment, etc. When using the system, large businesses get solutions for interacting with customers online, without using specialized points.
We, in turn, are open to various offers and cooperation on flexible terms. If you have any suggestions or interesting concepts, please contact us at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).

Hey everyone!
A lot of brokerages today allow people to trade bitcoin futures (all of the major online ones do at this point AFAIK). However, I primarily use TD Ameritrade, and they do not allow trading of bitcoin futures options! Given this, I'm interested in switching brokers if I can find one that gives me more flexibility.
Could anyone with an Interactive Brokers or E-Trade account let me know if they can trade bitcoin futures options? Those two seem like the most likely candidates, but I'd be willing to use others as well.
Thanks for your help!

Let's start with some of the more insidious controls the state has put on Americans. Specifically, KYC/AML, suspicious transactions reporting, income reporting, and investing.
KYC/AML is prevented entirely when both parties, and all parties they transact with do their transactions in peer to peer transactions. People who deal with both dollars and cryptocurrencies are edge nodes in a crypto economy, and they are subject to kyc/aml. However people who deal purely in cryptocurrency are able to completely escape kyc/aml, because they never interact with an entity that has kyc/aml requirements.
Suspicious activity reporting is when an american takes any action outside of the ordinary. Move 5,000 to buy a car? Suspicion activity report. Give your girlfriend 1,000 when she takes home a bimonthly paycheck of 1200? Suspicious activity report. The banks are bound by federal law to make these reports, and they go towards assisting the IRS. They also increase your chance of audit by the IRS. This reporting is insidious, because most Americans don't realize it, or even interact with it. It is data theft.
Income reporting is also insidious. It is insidious, because if you don't tattle on your employee to the IRS about how much your employee made, you are legally liable. Transacting in cryptocurrency or shares instead of normal dollars makes this incredibly painful for an IRS agent to decipher, let alone understand. For example, let's say I were paid in dogecoin, and then I used my dogecoin to buy monero (which completely obscures even on chain analysis), and then I bought bitcoin and used that to buy groceries, the IRS agent investigating that string of transactions would be pulling blanks especially if I cashed out at a later date to dollars. This isn't intentional tax evasion here. It is simply the nature of cryptocurrencies to be resistant to analysis by the fed. The opportunity cost to audit people goes up by an order of magnitude when they are transacting in crypto.
Investing is another part of where the federal government has impinged upon the rights of Americans. If you are not a qualified investor, brokers are FORBIDDEN to allow you to buy shares of startups that are not publicly listed. qualified investors (either independently wealthy, or making a large income) are allowed to buy shares of those startups. Startups are risky but extremely profitable investments. An investor can mitigate that risk by doing due diligence, but the average american wage slave is never given the opportunity to do so. Blockchain ICOs allowed people to get around this in 2017, and as a result many millionaires were made. The american government clamped down on this by suing people offering icos as unregistered securities, but a savvy investor can still get exposure to icos even to this day by rebuying the coins on secondary markets, or by lying about their country of origin. The second is unethical, but even with the first option, you have a good opportunity to 10x your money if you play your cards right and invest wisely.
In addition to all of the above, there is DEFI. DEFI (short for decentralized finance) is a series of smart contracts and financial tools that are run on the blockchain only. They don't report to the government, they don't report to banks, and they don't keep records on your activity. In short, DEFI is the strongest tool in the libertarians financial toolset for deconstructing the government. Defi is mostly run on the ethereum blockchain (part of why ethereum is an insanely good crypto)
DEFI Links:
https://oasis.app/
https://uniswap.exchange/swap
https://medium.com/kyberswap/getting-started-on-ethereum-with-kyberswap-60b3951bd74
Even if you an 80 year old who hates technology and cannot get a handle on defi (I admit it is complex and a hassle) simply buying bitcoin and holding it for your children is a very good way to withdraw your trust from the inflationary measures of the federal reserve. By buying bitcoin, you are anchoring your value to a cryptocurrency that will never have more than 21 million units, is infinitely divisible, and is so secure that the cia hasn't been able to reverse a single transaction, despite having attempted to do so for years. Bitcoin is the perfect medium for defunding the united states government. The same can be said for ethereum, but it has more complex economics involved. (both will perform well when we get inflation though)
EDIT: By destroying the underlying structures of the Federal government's power, you degrade their power. Take away kyc/aml, suspicious activity reports, and income reporting, and their ability to fight their drug war, meddle with free trade, ban transactions, and censor transactions to foreign countries is curtailed.

automod won't let me share for some reason, but would like to start discussing the end of the biggest bubble in the history of the world still not popped. Yep, sovereign bonds. Specifically, Japanese and German bonds that's still considered a safe haven in this world full of crashing markets and full on pandemic induced liquidity crunch. People sell anything they can get cash to meet margin calls with and yet these sovereigns have held up remarkably well because people think this only goes up in bear markets. What were the other "safe" havens people are now liquidating? One starts with a G and ends with OLD and the other is something something bitcoin.
The financial crisis and great recession in 08 had arguably been averted by ultra low interest rates where banks borrowed money from the central bank's only to buy long dated government issuances for lit free tendies like the autists that all professionals like to pretend they are not. Nowhere had this retarded behavior been as apparent as in the German and Japanese bond market (at least the most liquid ones)
I won't pretend I'm some expert on repos and leverage on eurodollars like that noob that got all that attention week or two ago but I am retarded enough to make a bet that this trade is in the starting stages of unwinding. At the very least, people will prefer US treasuries with a Fed going zero rates rather than retarded ECB that has set their facility rates at neg 0.4% and Japan with no choice but to keep monetizing to the point they are literally holding 30% of stock ETFs (Google it) to the point these two more retarded central banks are so much more retarded than even our own retarded Fed.
Best part of this trade is the IV on sovereign bonds is retardedly low for these sovereigns (no one expects them to blow out) Bunds is around 10% and JGBs are a measely 6%. In a world where all our retarded SPY puts are around 80% that is a steal.
So since you've read this far, here's the trades (and my positions linked)
Puts on 10Y German Bunds (ticker GBL in interactive brokers) any strike below 173 with Jun Expiry (next futures roll)
Puts on 10Y JGBs (ticker JGB in interactive brokers) any strike below 162 with Apr or May expiry (more liquid)
I put my money where these thoughts are but that doesn't mean you should. Please don't blame me if central banks somehow keep this bubble going for another 6 months and the most you'll lose is a few thousand dollars in premium per contract.
[positions] https://imgur.com/gallery/LCrSLB5)
Edit: My previous DD on this blocked by automod https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/fau18i/puts_on_german_10y_bund_futures/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Hello all,
So I am new to trading and investing. I am looking to start small with a trustworthy low cost broker. Degiro looks like a good candidate since Interactive brokers require you to be a US citizen for their low cost lite account.
Anyways, thing is I am based in Greece but I want to use Degiro in English. How do I do that?
What would you suggest a good beginning to be? Stock or ETFs? I've been also quite seriously considering bitcoins.
I am mostly looking for long term investment. Just to combat inflation and maybe make a buck in the process. Should I look for something that pays dividends?
Any other tip for beginners will be greatly appreciated.
Cheers

Are there any stocks, futures, or etfs that slightly mimic the price movement of BTC that have options chains with a fairly decent amount of volume?

For Trading March 10th
HISTORIC ACTION
Is Cruising Over?
Entire Yield Curve Under 1%
Today’s market was down from overnight with the futures hitting “limit down” before 4:00AM. The DJIA opened at 9:30, like always, but was halted within 4 minutes after hitting the “circuit-breakers” at -7% and trading was stopped for 15-minutes after which we reopened and headed lower again, touching -1946, and by noon we had recovered to only -1183, but by 3:00 we had made a new low of 23,706 -2158 before a rally to -1650 before another sell-off to close DJIA – 2013.76 (7.79%), NASDAQ -624.94 (7.29%), S&P 500 -225.81 (7.60%), the Russell -135.79 (9.37%, and DJ Transports, the biggest loser -874.21 (9.76%). Market internals were just short of absurd with numbers that I had to go to several sources to make sure were correct. NYSE raw numbers were 70:2973 or 43:1 and NASDAQ was 169:3190 or 19:1. The DJIA was 30:0 after WMT, which held on all day fell into the red. The biggest losers were not double, but triple-digit movers with BA -237, AAPL -155, GS -136, HD -123, CAT -117, and JPM -100DPs. The only single digit losers were VZ and WMT. It was an interesting day, but not one I’d like to see too often. The market was influenced by not only COVID-19, but also the fact that OPEC couldn’t come up with an agreement to limit oil production. Over the weekend Saudi Arabia declared a price war with Russia, the main opponent to any agreement. Interest rates continued to fall, and that, along with the oil news sent the banking names down dramatically. I’ll list those below in their sector.
Our “open forum” on Discord, which allows me to interact with subscribers and others to allow direct questions and chart opinions on just about any stock, continues to grow with more participants every day. It is informative and allows me to share insights as the market is open and moving. The link is: https://discord.gg/ATvC7YZ and I will be there and active from before the open and all day. It’s a great place to share ideas and gain some insights.
SECTORS: Other names in the news: It was a very tough day for everyone. While we did have a “Merger Monday” deal between AON and WLTW, neither of the participants made any headway. AON Plc, is buying Willis, Towers, Watson in the biggest insurance transaction ever and creating the world’s largest insurance broker, surpassing Marsh & McLennan (MMC) and worth about $80Billion.
There were a couple of names higher, just a few, and the main ones were in the auto parts segment with ORLY finishing $373.63 +5.55 (1.51%), AZO, $1113.69 +53.38 (5.03%) and AAP $130.36 +2.45 (1.92%). This group has been weak for the past 4-6 months. Also higher was discounter DLTR, $83.51 +3.27 (4.08%).
The Cruise lines continued to fall with all making new lows. RCL fell to $48.27 - 16.74 (25.75%) and down from $135 in January. CCL fell to $21.74 -5.41 (19.93%) and down from $52, while NCLH was $19.81 – 7.29 (26.9%) and down from $60. This is absolutely uninvestable. There will clearly be a point at which the shorts cover, but this group is dead money for a while.
In more COVID-19 news, Inovio (INO) which moved from $2.40 to $16.00 on the news that it would start human trials of its vaccine in April. This morning at $19.36 before collapsing all the way back to $8.53 before closing $9.83 -4.26 (30.23%).
But the HOMERUN OF THE DAY was another name I talked about in this space, AIM Immuno-Tech, Inc (AIM). The company said that its drug, Ampligen will begin testing at National Inst. Of Infectious Diseases in Japan that could play an important role in developing a protective early-onset therapy for COVID-19. The stock has been reverse split both 1:12 in 2016 and more recently 1:44 last June and traded under $ .40 had moved up to $3.50 this month and traded up on the news finishing $6.10 +4.00 (190%) and is continuing in extended hours to $8.75 and is currently $7.69 up an additional $1.59 for a total gain of $5.59 (266%). Quite a highlight on a dismal day.
BIOPHARMA: was LOWER with all names falling hard with BIIB -20.76, ABBV -3.55, REGN -20.58, ISRG -44.48, MYL -1.19, TEVA -1.42, VRTX -13.85, BHC -2.69, INCY -4.42, ICPT -6.88, LABU -11.47 (24.95%), and IBB $109.80 -8.23 (6.97%).
CANNABIS: stocks were LOWER with TLRY -2.47 (24.65%) and KERN -2.58 (37.34%) and none down less than 7.48%. The ETF, MJ $11.74 -1.36 (10.38%).
DEFENSE: was LOWER with some major loses by LMT -31.47, RTN -14.83, GD -13.01, TXT -5.48 (15.26%), UTX -12.48, NOC -15.58, BWXT -5.14, TDY -33.73, and ITA was $174.00 -21.04 (10.79%).
RETAIL was LOWER with major losses. The brands were the biggest losers on the day. M-1.12, JWN -1.88, KSS -2.84, DDS -2.37, JCP - .015, WMT -1.17, TGT -1.92, TJX -1.35, RL -10.78 (10.19%), UAA -1.46 (11.56%), LULU -22.44 (10.27%), TPR -3.35 (15.44%), CPRI -3.13 (13.65%) and XRT $37.01 -2.12 (5.42%).
FAANG and Big Cap: were LOWER with GOOGL -80.14, AMZN -96.19, AAPL -21.42, FB -11.40, NFLX -22.48, NVDA -21.04, IBM -10.38, TSLA -92.48 (13.01%), BABA -7.24, BIDU -8.52, BA -36.22 (13.81%) on continuing problems with the 737MAX and the general market, CAT -16.42 (13.52%), DIS -10.55, and XLK $82.84 -6.07 (6.83%).
FINANCIALS were LOWER with most down over 10% with the market and softness in rates with GS -19.14, JPM -13.53, BAC -3.59, MS -4.35, C -9.34, PNC -15.48, AIG -5.13, TRV -8.54, AXP -9.94, and XLF $22.80 -2.75 (10.76%).
OIL, $31.13 -10.15 (24.58%) The stocks were LOWER with the dramatic fall on the “price war” between the Saudi’s and Putin. It’s difficult to even relate to the prices I’m seeing. In August when OXY bought APC for $57billion OXY was just over $50. Tonight it closed $12.51 –14.35 (53.43%) and the COMBINED market-cap is only $11.4Billion. The rest of the list was equally bad with CVX -13.42, XOM -4.94, MRO 4.06 -2.77 (40.56%), MPC -5.43, APA 10.22 -10.48 (50.6%), BP -5.66 and XLE $34.98 -7.52 (17.69%).
METALS, GOLD: $1,675.70 +3.30. After the rebound, and the overnight move to $1,704.30 we sold off as liquidation hit even the yellow metal. We managed to close up on the day, but it was a disappointment just the same. Our $1.40 position in the GLD calls finished $1.65 +.11.
BITCOIN: closed $7,850 -1,315. We broke to the downside overnight and fell to a low of $7,640, which closed a gap left on the breakout back in January. While I want to add the 350 sold just over a week ago, I want to wait and see some stabilization. We did have 2 subscribers add to new positions under the close today. But we still own 400 GBTC with an average of $8.06. GBTC closed $8.86 – 1.72 today.
Tomorrow is another day.
CAM

Any thoughts on these, do they have enough liquidity that you can jump in and get your trades pretty quickly? It looks like ledgerx has some pretty huge spreads (so might not be great liquidity) but I can't see the bid/ask or volume for chicago mercantile exchange.
Also couldn't tell if ledgerX is charging $.15 per bitcoin option or $15 - which are obviously pretty different - since the page lists a "contract" as .01 btc but they're clearly being sold in 1 btc units. I'm assuming it's $15 which would make some options incredibly expensive. Also potentially looking for a good broker to trade CME from USA if they actually have good bitcoin volume there, considering interactive brokers but might like to do better than $1 per contract on fees.
Edit: Or any other options aside from CME or ledgerx that work well for option trading?

There is not going to be one blockchain to rule them all, each have their own advantages and disadvantages. Interoperability is key to unlocking the true potential of blockchain, where it will have a profound effect across all industries, creating a secure, trusted and hyper-connected world.
The rise of The Networks of Networks, interconnecting all DLT Networks, existing off-chain networks and even the Internet itself. Where true, scalable interoperability can be achieved without requiring connected chains to fork their code and imposing limitations, without the overhead, bottleneck and single point of failure of adding another blockchain in the middle. Where it will be quick, easy and free to participate.
It’s time to stop the childish tribalism that’s plagued this space for so long and realise the bigger picture. Tribes fighting amongst themselves over a tiny insignificant island where there is a whole world out there to conquer if they work together. A rising tide lifts all boats and with the birth of The Network of Networks all connected projects can benefit from the efforts of each other, to usher in Mass adoption of Blockchain.
https://preview.redd.it/wlwj7pmmyoi41.png?width=683&format=png&auto=webp&s=34918b25c8ef6303fc5579666352e8c8c52c4835
In this article I will discuss the foundations that are being laid in preparation for the release of Overledger Network, The Network of Networks to make all of this possible and to unleash the true potential of blockchain with a secure, hyper-connected decentralised ecosystem. Table of Contents:

Overledger SDK Update
Standards
Security
Regulation
Overledger Network
The Five Ingredients of Interoperability
Connecting Blockchain and Non-DLT Applications / Networks to Overledger
Connecting the Internet directly to blockchain
Join your favourite Blockchain project to the Overledger Network Ecosystem

Overledger SDK Update

Quant have just released their Overledger SDK update which has enabled standardisation of objects to abstract and simplify how to interact with different types of blockchains (UXTO and Account-based) in a common model. As well as the ability to directly deploy, invoke and query smart contracts directly through Overledger. I strongly recommend reading the teams Overledger SDK Update which explains it in more detail and includes example use cases of how Overledger is being used and the benefits it brings. Dr Luke Riley also did a fantastic job providing an in-depth demo of the Overledger SDK Update via Video as well.
https://youtu.be/PbpaZpe4mTQ

“This update sets the foundations to build the ecosystem for Overleger Network, allowing stakeholders other than Quant to write any type (DLT and non-DLT) Overledger connectors and sets up the ecosystem with multiple entry points for Overledger Gateways. These updates open up the integration capabilities of Overledger to 3rd parties and create the foundations for the Overledger Network”

Standards

“Trusted standards mean that industry doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, that innovations will be compatible and work with existing technology, and that products and services will be trusted too. Governments use standards as trusted solutions to complement regulation, and they give peace of mind to consumers who know they are not putting themselves or their families at risk.” — Acting ISO Secretary-General Kevin McKinley

The foundations need to align with internationally recognised standards as they play a crucial role in ensuring interoperability with new and existing technology and validates a product meets the best practices / regulation required to ensure Enterprises remains in compliance. CEO of Quant, Gilbert Verdian, founded the ISO TC 307 standard covering blockchain as a whole, which 56 countries are working towards today.
Countries involved with ISO TC 307 — https://www.iso.org/committee/6266604.html?view=participation
Gilbert Verdian is the chairman for the ISO TC 307 working group for interoperability of blockchain and distributed ledger technology systems as well as being chairman for Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology for BSI (British Standards Institution) which represent the UK and includes companies such as Quant, IBM, Microsoft, HSBC, BAE Systems, Huawei as well as a number of UK Government bodies such as BEIS — Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Defence Science and Technology and the National Cyber Security Centre.
The standardisation updates to the Overledger SDK aligns with the work in ISO TC 307 and academic work from Dr Paolo Tasca and Dr Claudio Tessone to provide users with a clear distributed ledger data standard. This will enable everyone to easily create connectors in a standard way, facilitating interoperability with all of the connected blockchains / non-DLT networks that are already connected to Overledger through Overledger Gateways.

Security

Cybersecurity is in Quant’s DNA. The team have a rich heritage of working for Governments, banks and industry for over 20 years protecting organisations and people from security threats. Before Quant, Gilbert Verdian was the Chief Information Security Officer for Vocalink (Mastercard) where he was in charge of security for the entire payments infrastructure in the UK (£6 Trillion per year).

Gilbert has led a team determined to take security to another level, protecting a critical part of the UK’s infrastructure, protecting UK citizens and businesses from fraud and risk and, by extension, allowing them to live as they want to. Under Gilbert’s guidance, Vocalink security is not merely best-in-class, but setting a new standard. — https://connect.vocalink.com/2017/july/a-winning-streak/

In addition to Quant being selected as a Guarantor for Pay.UK, Gilbert has also been appointed to the Cybersecurity Advisory Board (Pay.UK is the UK’s leading retail payments authority and runs the UK’s retail payments operations, which includes Bacs, Faster Payments and Cheques.)
The pillars of security are Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability. As such, they have used their experience in running payment and financial infrastructure and critical national infrastructure for nations and embedded these principles into every aspect of Overledger.

Regulation

Regulation is playing an ever increasing role for blockchain. Standards and Security naturally complement and help define regulation. The verticals Quant are involved in with regards to regulation span the globe. Gilbert helped shape the conversation about consumer data protection rights during his time as CISO of NSW Health, and is continuing to serve as a cornerstone for policy within the adoption of blockchain in public infrastructure. Quant serves as a founding member of INATBA (The International Association of Trusted Blockchain Applications), which is the formal governing body of the European Blockchain Partnership, all of which is overseen in Brussels by the EU. More locally, Gilbert and team are in consistent contact with the House of Lords within the UK, and advises the FCA in matters regarding cryptoassets.
https://preview.redd.it/9eynt6jpyoi41.png?width=735&format=png&auto=webp&s=c6073e7717ece1c8b878e02e34c9e359e3282fd7
As recently seen in the SDK update, Overledger can serve as a key component of automatic compliance of governance bodies’ financial regulation, shown here by an Overledger instance reporting to the BoE’s Prudential Regulation Authority. Project BARAC, stewarded by University College London, is a project examining the impact Automatic Regulation as administered by Blockchain can have on the Federal Government. Most notably, the FCA and R3, the developers of Corda, are involved here. Gilbert’s recent engagements with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston also seem to revolve around this very topic, with the Boston Fed pilot-testing a Supervisor Node for automatic regulatory compliance. While at P2PFISY 2019, it was noted by Gilbert that Raphael Auer’s “Regulation Automata” aligns very well with the vision of Overledger, with Paolo Tasca, former CSO of Quant, more recently co-hosting a recent blockchain panel with him. Raphael’s ideas will most likely be taken into consideration by the BIS, as they recently announced a trial of a 6 central banks collaboration centered around exploring CBDC, and are in the early stages of installing Innovation Hubs in Hong Kong, Switzerland, and Singapore.
Gilbert Verdian with Guy Dietrich (Managing Director at Rockefeller Capital who is also on the Board at Quant) attending a meeting with the Financial Conduct Authority

Overledger Network

https://preview.redd.it/1wgbdybryoi41.png?width=1684&format=png&auto=webp&s=baf87b413947a19e745fcd859c0706a1cf8570b2
The Overledger Network is a network of networks, which allows enterprise and communities stakeholders to access and participate in a growing hyper-connected decentralised ecosystem. Enterprises, banks, central banks, trading venues, etc will be able to host their own secure dedicated gateways, enabling secure connectivity to permissioned networks, permissionless networks, ecosystems, consortia and other distributed technologies. Community members will also be able to run an Overledger gateway to further enhance the scalability, decentralisation and optimise network latency, providing enterprises, developers and users choice to use the closest gateway when accessing permissionless blockchains. The Overledger gateways will create a scalable p2p network that shares the transaction and volume between participants and chooses the closest or largest node to transact with.
As per the example use case in the recent update a Bank can run an Overledger Gateway to provide access to the various consortiums hosted on a variety of blockchains including Corda, Hyperledger Fabric and JP Morgan’s Quorum as well as access to the legacy / non-DLT platforms. Should they want to utilise a public blockchain as well in a hybrid scenario then they also have the option of using a Overledger Gateway hosted by a community member.
https://preview.redd.it/veb0q18syoi41.png?width=1096&format=png&auto=webp&s=c8ea3bedd09e16e548c6da938d50f3b245e18ac6

https://preview.redd.it/r9j1v04tyoi41.png?width=1252&format=png&auto=webp&s=ae9cc70a01f6360550d7f1f00e046d9b801b89a1
The Overledger Gateways contain several layers which we will explore some of their features below:

Overledger Operating System

https://preview.redd.it/9v7rxtmvyoi41.png?width=1197&format=png&auto=webp&s=01c9d6e0a73f595283e3cebeb45b5a6bf484d94d
Overledger allows connection to any blockchain / DAG as well as easily integrating with existing non-DLT environments. It does this without adding the overhead of yet another blockchain / consensus in the middle, ensuring that it’s scalable and doesn’t contain a single point of failure. Nor does it require the connected blockchains to fork their code to integrate and place restrictions on what can be implemented going forward. All of this is done in a secure, trustless manner where transactions are signed and encrypted client side so the contents can’t be viewed / modified as they pass through Overledger. It currently connects all of the leading permissioned and permissionless blockchains used by enterprises today. This article explains the differences between other interoperability solutions and the benefits of Quant’s approach

The Five Ingredients of Interoperability:

Recently there was an interoperability webinar with Fintech connect with speakers such as R3’s CTO Richard Gendal Brown, along with representatives from the Bank of England, Deutsche Boerse, Nasdaq, ArchaxEx and SwissRe. Richard Gendal Brown from R3 wrote about the Five key Ingredients of Interoperability:
https://preview.redd.it/18e9wwq7zoi41.png?width=2356&format=png&auto=webp&s=537b2e70139bb0e70fcd615c497541fc89bba97f

INTEGRATE with existing business systems — Businesses aren’t going to replace their existing applications for new blockchain ones, they need to integrate with their existing systems.
INITIATE Payments on existing rails or blockchain rails — Needs to be able to make a payment / settlement using a wide variety of existing payment rails (off chain) as well as blockchain rails, ensuring delivery vs payment can be achieved with certainty that they have happened.
INTERCHAIN applications and smart contracts that can be deployed / executed across protocols — Enabling a solution built on Corda such as Marco Polo to easily connect to a solution on another platform such as Vakt on Ethereum or CargoSmart on Hyperledger Fabric etc
INTRACHAIN applications that benefit from value add of same underlying protocol — What happens when networks such as Marco Polo and Contour both running on Corda want to interoperate and the additional value and benefit that can be achieved.
INTERCHANGE applications to switch platforms — What happens if you want to interchange one platform for another. Can you achieve that holy grail of interoperability by being able to be completely agnostic to the underlying platform?

Overledger meets all of these key ingredients in performing interoperability. Overledger enables existing business systems to benefit from blockchain connectivity by adding as little as 3 lines of code to their existing applications. No need to completely rewrite / replace their existing systems and all done in the most common programming languages such as Java and JavaScript.
https://preview.redd.it/7jqjt9v8zoi41.png?width=1127&format=png&auto=webp&s=6f40c1ae463d76c6c6b46a9e716e544e06ef3cd4
At QuantX in December they announced Overledger Interchange which enables settlement on a variety of existing non-dlt payment rails such as Faster Payments, BACS, CHAPS, SEPA, SWIFT as well as on DLT payment rails such as with Central Bank Digital Currencies, Stablecoins and XRP. It also facilitates Cross Chain Atomic Swaps using Hash Time Locked Contracts ensuring Delivery vs Payment is achieved. Interchange is at the centre of the discussions Quant has had with traditional exchanges in capital markets and central banks and is a technology financial services have been missing and was built it address client needs.
Overledger enables interoperability within the same ecosystem such as Corda DAPP to another Corda DAPP etc as well as interoperability between any of the connected permissionless and permissioned blockchains.
Quants blockchain agnostic Operating System enables users to benefit from using the best features from different chains in combination and migrate between them, preventing Vendor or Tech Lock in without having to completely rewrite existing applications, achieving the holy grail of interoperability. It enables developers to quickly test a variety of connected blockchains in a sandbox environment to see which is best suited for their requirements, starting with just 3 lines of code.

Transactions Services Layer

https://preview.redd.it/xfthwuz9zoi41.png?width=771&format=png&auto=webp&s=8721b0ae8cff0d8aa11a484ac0ac842e700def0a
The Transaction Services layer handles more complex features of Overledger. Allowing for applications to request services such as cross-chain atomic swaps, treaty contracts (Multi Chain Smart Contracts as well as enabling smart contract functionality even on blockchains that don’t support smart contracts natively such as Bitcoin) and transaction brokering (using heuristic analysis to determine which method is the fastest / cheapest out of the various payment rails)

Financial Services Layer

https://preview.redd.it/4zgt0umazoi41.png?width=740&format=png&auto=webp&s=49a840532d70740a77c00901aafd047311b84229
Financial services features can be called upon by participants and applications to use crosschain and cross-platform. Financial Services specific use cases can use the features in Overledger to operate across networks. This layer provides enhanced privacy and security to regulated entities and institutions who require additional controls to maintain compliance to regulation and security policy. The features of Zero-knowledge Proof and privacy can be mandated for all transactions.

Channels Layer

https://preview.redd.it/ef5z0jbbzoi41.png?width=752&format=png&auto=webp&s=3fd398e0b9917e338fb6c3e0afb477d82dfeb1c8
Channels provide interoperability of services related to digital assets, payments and tokenisation. The Overledger Network allows for participants to transfer interoperate enterprise and institutional issued tokens and assets. Connect to many existing payment rails such as SWIFT, SEPA, Faster Payments etc.
https://preview.redd.it/0u93b51czoi41.png?width=1441&format=png&auto=webp&s=a7ecbf440684a926b66db7273fdba9acfda826d7

Connecting Blockchain and Non-DLT Applications / Networks to Overledger

The connectors to Overledger which grant access to Overledger Network will be open source and soon be made available, allowing for anyone to create a connector and benefit from being part of the ecosystem. Currently the permissionless blockchain space is mostly speculation with little adoption, mainly due to issues that need to be resolved such as scalability, privacy and regulation with permissionless blockchains, however there are some extremely large Enterprises, Banks, Governments, even Central Banks getting heavily involved and going into production albeit mostly in the permissioned blockchain space where such issues are not a problem. Just as each Blockchain has its advantages and disadvantages, parts of Enterprise applications are better suited to Permissioned blockchains (such as more sensitive parts) and permissionless blockchains suited for a higher degree of immutability, thus a Hybrid model requiring interoperability between permissioned, permissionless as well as existing non-DLT applications is required arguably for many years ahead. Just as with cloud computing where everything didn’t suddenly just move up into the cloud, well over a decade later since the birth of the likes of Amazon AWS, hybrid is still very prevalent today with only recently the likes of central banks, banks, governments discussing moving more sensitive workloads to public clouds such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud etc.

SIA, Central Banks, Banks, Trading Venues

Quant Network partnered with SIA, a game changer for mass blockchain adoption by Financial Institutions. SIA is the leading financial network provider in Europe that connects over 570 Banks, Central Banks, Trading Venues (stock exchanges etc) to their infrastructure. They provide a dedicated private network / infrastructure for financial institutions. Every European financial institution will either connect via SIA, in partnership with Colt or via SWIFT (and in many cases they will have connectivity with both) in order to access the Eurosystem Single Market Infrastructure Gateway, granting access to all RTGS, Securities and Instant Payment transactions for Europe.
SIA have integrated Overledger into their private infrastructure covering Europe consisting of 570 supernodes called SIAChain which enables each bank, central Bank, trading venue etc to utilise Overledger for interoperability. Some of the largest deployments of blockchain are happening on SIAChain such as the Spunta project where the entire Italian Banking Sector will be using blockchain and due to go live next month. As well as the “Fideiussioni Digitali” initiative (Digital Sureties) to digitize the management of sureties using blockchain technology with the Central Bank of Italy involved.
Central Bank Digital Currencies are going to play a hugely significant role in the future and there is one central Bank currently testing Overledger and Quant are in discussions with 4 others.
Connecting your blockchain / legacy network to Overledger enables the possibility that it could be used by any of these connected Banks, Central Banks, Trading venues etc in their private network (obviously due to the amount of regulation and critical financial infrastructure the options are going to be limited on what they want to connect).
https://preview.redd.it/ob1vzu7dzoi41.png?width=1336&format=png&auto=webp&s=af9fc79d4749005e60666e3f21cee1a10e9b2275

Oracle

Quant are a Fintech Partner with Oracle, the 2nd largest software company in the world and Oracle are taking Quant’s tech to their clients directly. They have 480,000 clients globally and towards the end of last year Oracle invited Quant to attend Sibos (SWIFT) where they met existing financial services and banking clients and introduced to new ones. By connecting to Overledger this also enables your solution to potentially be used by those 480,000 of Oracle’s global clients.
https://preview.redd.it/rgo9n1ydzoi41.png?width=1220&format=png&auto=webp&s=2521b5968cfb2d8533da0963d3f838b9f518faa5

SIMBA Chain

SIMBA Chain is a cloud-based, smart-contract-as-a-service (SCaaS) platform, enabling users across a variety of skill sets to implement dapps (decentralized applications). The easy-to-use platform is tailored for users, developers, government, and enterprises to quickly deploy blockchain dapps for their enterprise. SIMBA Chain are developing on Quant’s Overledger Blockchain OS to allow them to deploy DAPPs across multiple connected blockchains.
SIMBA Chain have recently been awared a $9.5 million contract with the US Navy, they are also working with the US Air Force. They have a thriving ecosystem with over 1100 Organizations and 650+ Applications developed. Partners include Microsoft, Government Blockchain Association, Air Force Research Laboratory, Caterpillar, SAP and EY. Recently they also integrated Unity 3D plugin for Gaming to enable owning, storing, and managing all personal gaming assets across a variety of blockchains.
These are just a few of the companies that Quant have partnered with directly, but the ecosystem for Overledger Network is the Network of Networks. Every connected blockchain (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple (XRPL), EOS, Stellar, IOTA, DAG, R3’s Corda, Hyperledger Fabric, JP Morgan’s Quorum and other Permissioned Variants of Ethereum) and their associated partners / applications built on them have the ability to connect and interoperate with the other blockchains connected as well as non-DLT networks such as existing payment rails like SWIFT, Faster Payments, SEPA etc. This Network of Network’s effects will grow exponentially as more and more join the ecosystem.
https://preview.redd.it/fd1m5uvezoi41.png?width=590&format=png&auto=webp&s=99c5b1893d851ba1effe7b5e73480c27f3f7973e

Connecting the Internet directly to blockchain

Quant Network are also developing the ability to allow developers to build MAPPs that integrate directly with the internet as well as blockchain data. They will enable this via creating a new IP address for blockchains which they are calling Quant IP which will enable traffic to be routed from an IP connection from the Internet through Overledger to the connected blockchains.
Another Quant product called Seeq is a distributed search engine that is able to search and retrieve data from multiple blockchains and display them via html directly from the blockchain. More details will be released about Seeq later this year.
Connecting the Internet directly to blockchain will allow websites to be natively created and served directly from blockchains, without the need to have, run and maintain web servers, web services, SSL certificates etc and all running in a completely trusted, extremely resilient / tamperproof environment. The implications of this are enormous and more details will be released by the team later on this exciting prospect. By connecting your blockchain to Overledger you will also be able to benefit from this.

Join your favourite Blockchain project to the Overledger Network Ecosystem

Instead of the current mentality of having the main focus for many projects of listing on exchanges for vast sums of money, why not spend a little time (connectors can be created in as little as a week of development and don’t necessarily even need to be created by the team themselves) and make your blockchain / non-DLT application available to be used by all existing enterprises / members. Not only that but if you also run an Overledger Gateway connecting your blockchain node you also benefit from the transaction fees of the traffic going to it. The connectors are open source and completely free to connect and now with the standardisation of Objects in the recent SDK update the foundations are in place for the launch of Overledger Network with an ETA of Q2 2020. If you would like your favourite blockchain project to interoperate and be part of the ecosystem to further adoption then make the relevant people aware and keep an eye out for further details released in the future.

https://medium.com/@CryptoSeq/the-network-of-networks-scalable-interoperability-to-unleash-the-true-potential-of-blockchain-c54e7d373d2d

Thanks to community member Ghost of St. Miklos for contributing the section about regulation as well as Sonic for proofreading.
You can find more about Overledger Network as well as the token utility — here and community member David W. wrote an excellent article “A deeper look into the Quant Network Utility Token (QNT) valuation dynamics and fundamentals”
What is a blockchain operating system and what are the benefits? Introducing Overledger from Quant Network.
Wall Street 2.0: How Blockchain will revolutionise Wall Street and a closer look at Quant Network’s Partnership with AX Trading
Large Enterprise Adoption of Blockchain is happening, enabled by Quant Network’s Overledger
As well as an 8 Part Series taking an indepth look at Overledger starting with Part 1

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