Crypto weekly is authored by maaria

PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($6,385): +1% / -52%
- ETH ($297): -7% / -59%
- LTC ($57): -5% / -74%
- XRP ($0.34): +13% / -82%
- Crypto Market Cap: $214 billion
- BTC Dominance: 51.5%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- Coinbase launches the Coinbase Wallet, a digital wallet for ERC-20 tokens, airdrops, and ICO tokens. The wallet also has features that allow users to send and receive tokens in P2P transactions, similar to Venmo. Link.

- Coinbase wants to be the “Facebook Connect” for crypto. The company plans to develop a “Login with Coinbase” or similar identity platform for dApp developers to make it much easier for users to sign up and connect their crypto wallets. The company acquired Distributed Systems, a startup founded last year that was building identity standard for dApps, to fuel this platform. Link.

- Unikrn, a Seattle-based esport betting startup that conducted a $31 million ICO last year, is now facing a class action suit accusing it of violating securities law in the US. The filing alleged that Unikrn and its founder Rahul Sood sold unregistered securities to the public via the ICO for its blockchain-based UnikoinGold Tokens (UKG). The lawsuit alleges that investors were led to expect that the tokens would increase in value and become worth more than the virtual currencies invested. Link.

- Incentivai came out of stealth this week and debuted AI simulations that test for security holes in blockchain systems before they go live. Rather than checking for vulnerabilities in smart contracts, Incentivai focuses its AI efforts on understanding economic incentives, and builds its simulation with ML agents that behave like humans so companies can figure out how their systems will operate. Incentivai is a part of Y-Combinators summer 2018 batch. Link.

- Enterprise blockchain startup Axoni raises $32 million to help financial institutions move their infrastructure to interoperate with the Ethereum blockchain. The Series B round was led by Goldman Sachs and Nyca Partners, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Y Combinator, DCG and more. One of the largest enterprise blockchain project Axoni is developing is its effort with DTCC, the New Jersey-based clearing company; Axoni is moving part of the clearing organization’s transactions to a shared, distributed ledger, reducing the time to close and the middlemen required. Link.

- Crypto trading platform Sfox, raised a $23 million Series A led by Social Capital and Tribe Capital, with participation from investors like Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, Blockchain Capital, and Digital Currency Group. . The 20-person startup aims to help investors make large trades by routing their orders to multiple places, enabling faster execution and better prices. Forbes estimates Sfox has reached $15 million in revenue over the last 12 months. The startup was founded by Akbar Thobani, a software engineer who was one of the first 15 employees at Airbnb and served as its head of business development. Link.

- Square’s Cash App now supports bitcoin trading in all 50 states. The company acquired a BitLicense in June to operate in the New York. Other crypto-trading apps like Robinhood do not offer their services in every state. Square recently announced that it had doubled its crypto-based income to $70 million from Q1 to Q2. Link.

- Ripple has partnered with a leading Chinese money service company, LianLian International, in order to support cross border e-commerce transactions. LianLian will use XCurrent – Ripple’s settlement solution that offers end-to-end tracking – to power cross-border transactions between China, the US, and Europe. Link.

- US Customs and Border Protection plans to trial blockchain technology to verify NAFTA and CAFTA certificates. The agency announced it was beginning a live fire testing of a blockchain platform to certify that imported products originated where they claim. The new system will launch in September and is going to help CBP verify information about imported goods and event authenticate trademarks and check on an item’s physical properties. Link.

- Pantera Capital is raising $175 million for its third venture fund, surpassing the $25 million raised for its second fund and the $13 million from its first one. A new filing with the SEC shows that the company already has %71 million in commitments. Pantera Capital invests exclusively in crypto and blockchain projects. Link.

- Nvidia’s nine-month crypto gold rush is over. Sales of graphics chips to miners dried up faster than expected. Shares in the company were down 3.7 percent pre-market on Friday. Nvidia said it had expected about $100 million in sales of chips in the second quarter. Instead the total was $18 million during that period, and the company also indicated that revenue is likely to disappear entirely going forward. Link.

- Commission-free crypto trading app Robinhood listed Ethereum Classic on its platform, just a few days before Coinbase made a similar announcement. The two companies made the announcement last month, which has led a 20 percent increase in Ethereum Classic’s value over the past month. Link.

- Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com has launched a blockchain-as-a-service platform alongside its first app – one that digitally tracks corporate invoices for one of the largest publicly traded insurers in China. The goal of the app is to boost efficiency and to streamline the accounting process by keeping the invoice data updated on a distributed ledger. Link.

- Popular Asia-based messaging company Line announced a $10 million fund to invest in blockchain-related early-stage startups. Line claims nearly 200 million users of its messaging app, which is particularly popular in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia. This marks Line’s second major crypto move this year following the launch of its BitBox exchange last month. Link.

- Coinbase says it was signing up 50,000 new customers a day last year and helped its customers trade $150 billion worth of cryptocurrency. Coinbase did not disclose the company’s current rate of new customers compared with a year ago. Link.

- High Times will not accept bitcoin in its IPO, contradicting a statement from the company earlier this month. High Times had originally said it would accept cryptocurrencies in its IPO as a way to attract more investors. High Times said the original announcement, which came via press release, was distributed in error. Link.

- Coinbase wins patent seeking to protect a way of making bitcoin purchases more secure for customers. In the filing, Coinbase outlined how it could develop a payment portal which would allow users to pay using bitcoin directly from their digital wallet. The system described sets up a “key ceremony” that creates key shares that are combined into an operational master key – encrypted with the users’ passphrases – that can be made publicly available and deleted after use. Link.

- Tube8, an adult video service and subsidiary of Pornhub, has partnered up with the Vice Industry Token (VIT) to pay viewers for interacting with its services. The partnership is aimed at fully tokenizing Tube8’s platform – the streaming service will insert VIT tokens onto its website and reward visitors for watching or otherwise interacting with adult videos. Link.