Crypto weekly is authored by maaria

PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($8,890): +7% / -33%
- ETH ($633): +20% / -13%
- LTC ($150): +15% / -32%
- XRP ($0.88): +29% / -54%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) raised more money in the first quarter of 2018 than the whole of 2017, according to data collected by CoinDesk. ICO funding hit $6.3 billion in 2018 including $1.7 billion from Telegram, and $4.6 billion excluding it. Even excluding Telegram, ICOs in Q1 2018 raised 85 percent of 2017 total. Link.

- The City of Austin is piloting a new blockchain platform to improve identity services for its homeless population, with a goal of consolidating identity and vital records of each homeless person in a safe and confidential way while providing a means for service providers to access that information. By using blockchain, the hope is that the city could replace paper records, which are hard to manage, with electronic encrypted records that would be more reliable and secure. In addition, the blockchain platform could create a decentralized authentication mechanism to verify a particular person’s identity. For instance, a homeless services worker operating in the field could potentially use their mobile device to verify a person live, without having to bring someone back to an office for processing. Link.

- Cambridge Analytics, the London-based data mining firm involved in the latest Facebook privacy scandal, had been developing its own initial coin offering (ICO) in the past few months. They were raising the funds for a system designed for storing and selling personal information to advertisers. Link.

- Orchid Labs, the startup developing a surveillance-free layer on top of the internet, has close on $36.1 million of recent funding. Early investors include Andreessen Horowitz, DFJ, MetaStable, Compound, Box Group, Blockchain Capital, and Sequoia Capital. The stated goal of the Orchid is to provide anonymized internet access to people across the globe, particularly individuals who live in countries with excessive government oversight of their browsing and shopping. Link.

- Under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), companies will be required to completely erase personal data of any citizen who requests that they do so. For businesses that use blockchain, specifically applications with publicly available data trails such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, purging such information could be impossible. Under GDPR, the definition of personal data is deliberately broad so blockchain businesses are concerned that even an individual’s Bitcoin address could be considered personal information. Some companies may have to redesign their software and move personally identifiable information off the blockchain, removing many of blockchain’s benefits. Link.

- Basis raises $133 million from investors like Bain Capital Ventures, GV, longtime hedge fund manager Stan Druckenmiller, one-time Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Foundation Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, WingVC, NFX Ventures, Valor Capital, Zhenfund, Ceyuan, Sky Capital, Digital Currency Group and others. Basis is a ‘stable coin’ whose elastic supply will expand and contract to keep its value at about a dollar, in an effort to reduce the volatility seen in other cryptocurrencies. The funds will be used to expand on its three-token system, including the Basecoin, Base Bonds, and Base Shares. Link.

- Harbor, a San Francisco-based blockchain platform for creating tokenized securities based on real-world assets, raises $28 million in new funding. Founders Fund led, and was joined by Andreessen Horowitz, Pantera Capital, Future Perfect Ventures, 1confirmation, Signia Venture Partners and return backers Craft Ventures, Vy Capital and Valor Equity Partners. Link.

- Rare Bits, a crypto-collectibles and kitties marketplace, raises $6 million in an effort to build the eBay for blockchain. Spark Capital, First Round, Craft Ventures, and SV Angel all participated in the round. Link.

- Andreessen Horowitz helped assemble a group of investors and lawyers to meet with the SEC in March in an effort to lobby the federal regulators to protect some virtual currencies, like Ether, from being categorized as securities. Jay Clayton, Chairman of the SEC, had said in recent months that he believes almost every token issued through an initial coin offering should be registered as a security – almost none are today. Most investors assume that Bitcoin is safe from being categorized as a security because it was not originally issued through an ICO. Ethereum, however, raised money selling Ether tokens to investors through an ICO so risks being categorized as a security. The group pulled together by Andreessen Horowitz said in its proposal that Ether “has become so decentralized it should not be deemed a security”. Link.

- JPM partners with National Bank of Canada and other major firms to trial a blockchain platform aimed to improve the debt issuance process. The technology obscures all identifiable information about a transaction but still provides the ability to audit those transactions. Link.

- TSMC, one of the largest chip manufacturers in the world, reported strong financials for Q1 2018 driven by a growth in orders for cryptocurrency mining chips. The news comes soon after Chinese mining hardware giant Bitmain, which is a client of TSMC, released an ASIC dedicated to Ethereum. Link.

- Insurance giant Allianz has been testing an internal token to move money around between its global affiliates without having to deal with currency conversions or other costs and inefficiencies. The blockchain startup Adjoint created a proprietary blockchain for the project. Link.

- Walmart patent applications hint at plans to store payments data using blockchain technology. The patents specify that customers can see their payment histories - but that third parties are restricted from such access. These patent applications are the latest filings from Walmart, who most recently filed a patent for a ‘smart package’ that would use blockchain as a way to encode information. Link.

- FinCEN released a letter to the Senate indicating that they interpret the law such that token sellers are money transmitters. They wrote, “A developer that sells convertible virtual currency, including in the form of ICO coins or tokens, in exchange for another type of value that substitutes for currency is a money transmitter and must comply”. This could create criminal liability for companies that sold tokens as unlicensed money transmitters. Link.

- The SEC announces charges against Raymond Trapani, the third co-founder of Centra Tech, in efforts to crack down on ICO frauds. Centra Tech had previously raised $32 million for a cryptocurrency debit card last year through an ICO endorsed by DJ Khaled and Floyd Mayweather. The company’s other two co-founders were charged and arrested earlier this month. Link.

- The co-founder of Tezos, the cryptocurrency project that held a $232 million ICO last year, was banned by FINRA from being a broker-dealer for two years over allegations that he made false statements about the project while employed at Morgan Stanley. FINRA alleged that Arthur Breitman failed to disclose his involvement in developing and pitching Tezos during his tenure at the bank. Link.