You Can Actually USE Your Crypto!
A new app, DashDirect, was just released, that allows users to pay for everyday goods and services using the DASH cryptocurrency. DashDirect founder and CrayPay CEO, Marshall Greenwald, said:
“DashDirect is an instant-savings retail app that allows the cryptocurrency DASH to be spent at more than 155,000 stores and 125 websites within the United States”.
Users can save up to 12% on their purchases, and there are no exchange fees charged to use DashDirect. Creating a closed loop economy in crypto is the ultimate dream, with people being able to earn and spend their crypto for everyday purchases. This app helps accelerate that transition into the crypto economy for more users. We’ve tried out the app and are a big fan so far!
A similar announcement was made earlier this month, when Flexa revealed a partnership with InComm Payments, a global payments technology company with over 500,000 points of retail distribution around the globe. It could potentially enable crypto payments at a large number of stores, in currencies like ZEC, ETH, BCH, DASH, XTZ, and many others. We’re still digging into the details of that one!
Things got pretty heated on the Hash this week when we debated whether crypto for everyday purchases makes sense. Thanks to Will Foxley for always being a fun sparring partner!
Will Foxley and I hash it out on Coindesk.tv
Now Hiring: CEO of Binance
At a press conference on July 27th Binance CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, announced that he is planning to step down as CEO and is searching for a suitable replacement. “We are looking for someone with a strong regulatory background to step in and be CEO,” he said on Tuesday. This news may or may not be surprising as Binance has become the center of intense regulatory scrutiny and has been publicly denounced in many countries including the UK and Japan. Zhou has announced plans to “...[pivot] from a self-startup to a financial institution,” in response to the recent outcry from regulators. When asked about how soon his replacement could take the helm, he responded by saying “I will always contribute to Binance and the BNB ecosystem. I don’t have to be CEO to do that.”
The UK announced earlier this month that they are looking for a “UK version of Brian Brooks”, former top federal banking regulator in the US who now leads Binance.US. It seems that the quest for a “global Brian Brooks” is now underway.
Bank of America Embraces CBDCs
Bank of America (the second largest bank in the US), said Wednesday that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could “replace cash completely in the (distant) future” and are “a much more effective payment system than cash.”
It begs the question, much more effective at what, exactly? Financial surveillance? Complete control of the movement of money? China has been exploring the digital Yuan and how this wonderful advancement of programmable money will now allow them to delete money from people’s accounts if they don’t spend it fast enough.
In the United States, it’s reported that 40% of banks are already exploring and testing programs involving the implementation of CBDC concepts.
Everyone is getting onboard this new movement that will likely phase out cash. And we’re not particularly excited…
Chinese Crackdown Continues
The Chinese attacks on tech companies and crypto continue. This week the Hang Seng Tech Index of Hong Kong dropped 8% as investors got spooked by the widening crackdown on many tech giants.
The Chinese government recently went after Ant Group and Didi Global, then Tencent suspended new sign-ups for its WeChat messaging service which the WSJ argues may also have unsettled some investors.
China also has their hands firmly around the throat of cryptocurrency in the country. They banned mining earlier in the year, and have been closely scrutinizing the whole industry.
This week Huobi (a cryptocurrency exchange that was first founded in China) shut down its Beijing entity, saying it will deregister in 45 days. The Chinese characters for Huobi have been censored on the company information platform and on social media since June.
The crackdown by the government against Tech and Crypto is in the name of things like “reining in big tech”, “data security”, “curbing monopolistic behavior”. But it’s very clear that governments around the world are increasingly threatened by the tech and cryptocurrency industries, and that moves such as these are all about control.
Monero Bug Discovered
In an official tweet released on July 26, Monero disclosed the discovery of a “significant bug” in their native code that could reveal the “true spend” output of a transaction. Found in the Decoy Selection Algorithm, the bug has the potential to reveal transactions that users have made if they are made less than 20 minutes after they have received new funds. To rephrase, Monero throws in a bunch of random decoy transactions for each transaction, to obfuscate what the real spend was. They pick random decoys, but the way they implement this selection process makes it almost impossible for a recent output to be used as a decoy. This means that if you see an input that uses a recent output, you will know that is the real transaction.
They implied that there will be a fix in a future wallet software update, but did not specify when this will be released. Until then users are encouraged to wait, “...1 hour or longer before spending their newly-received Monero.
By Will Sandoval NBTV Associate Producer, and Naomi Brockwell