Bitcoin is based on a simple idea, that we can be our own bank. That idea might seem revolutionary and crazy, probably as crazy as the things we do now on Internet, that were science fiction before the Internet made them possible. (“hers’s to the crazy one’s…” link)

Because Bitcoin can be hacked, we’ve seen people build physical vaults in the Swiss Alps, like old-fashioned Wild West banks to store digital assets. Physical vaults to store digital assets… this hardly sounds like progress. In the digital era you need digital storage, not a bunker. …

After twelve months of insanely hard work, we are proud to announce the launch of Kryptonio, a new bitcoin and cryptocurrency wallet that is keyless and simple.

“Keyless” means, there is no private key, no password, no seed phrase to worry about and no servers that can be hacked. “Simple” means, that no matter what happens (device lost or compromised), customers will always be able to recover their digital assets.

Kryptonio is the evolution of the work we started at Mercato Blockchain AG, releasing a multi-sig cryptocurrency wallet in the fall of 2018. While multi-sig wallets offer good security, when the keys are constructed correctly, they have problems with higher fees, less privacy and are not universally supported by different blockchains. …

After months of criticism, the Libra cryptocurrency project is pivoting. To appease skeptical regulators, Libra is shifting gears from a new global financial system to a more traditional payment network very similar to PayPal and with digital coins backed by individual fiat currencies. When the Libra Association announced the cryptocurrency last June, it intended to create a single global digital currency that would be pegged by a basket of fiat currencies from different countries. Politicians, regulators and central bankers everywhere were rattled and feared that Libra would undermine their power, control and threaten monetary sovereignty.

Facebook shook the world last year when it announced Libra. The idea was simple, to let billions of people send and receive money, using a single global digital currency, on their mobile phones with Facebook. …

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is building a new financial system. The DeFi movement is picking up steam. DeFi has been successful in remittances, loans, stable coins, and other core elements of the fiat world. With a little over a year under its belt, DeFi hit a major milestone a couple of months ago, with more than $1 billion in value locked in the DeFi markets. Bitcoin (BTC) dominates the cryptocurrency market, its 8x bigger than the Ethereum, the second cryptocurrency by market cap, but Bitcoin doesn’t have Ethereum’s sophisticated on-chain lending, derivatives, trading capabilities . While there are already several centralized BTC lending platforms like BlockFi/Nexo/Celsius. Bitcoin DeFi has been a dream for Bitcoiners. Maybe the dream is over and new tBTC project will bring Bitcoin to the DeFi world. …

By Ilias Louis Hatzis on The Capital

In 1994, Bill Gates said: “We need banking, but we don’t need banks anymore.” So why hasn’t Bill Gates opened a bank? Well, because technology giants don’t really want to be banks. Banking has a lot of the audit and compliance overhead, that tech giants don’t need or want. Big tech companies, Microsoft and GAFAs (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon), want data and want to figure out how to turn it into insights to sell products. Some call it “Surveillance Capitalism.” Yet, banks are sitting on a data gem that tech giants want.

Big banks know they need to change with the times. This is the reason that many banks are partnering with big tech or buying smaller digital-savvy startup competitors. The logic behind partnerships is simple. Banks can unlock the tech competencies of companies like Apple, Google, or Square and catch up quickly, without having to build them internally. …

By Ilias Louis Hatzis on The Capital

Back in 2011, Marc Andreessen famously wrote: “Why Software is Eating the World.” Today the idea that every company needs to become a software company has seeped into every aspect of our lives, changing the way we live, eat, interact, and commute. We shop on Amazon, we ride Uber to get around, we order food with efood, we find places to stay with Airbnb, and we search on Google when we have a question. Few of us could have imagined the impact software would have on our day-to-day lives. Along with this innovation, we’ve seen some side effects. Some of the biggest companies own almost nothing and employ almost nobody. …

By Ilias Louis Hatzis on The Capital

Bitcoin was the first and every other cryptocurrency came from it. Will Bitcoin survive? Will altcoins survive? This has been a heated debate with one side predicting the demise of the other. Bitcoin maximalists claim that we are heading to Bitcoin dominance and that altcoins are dying, urging the people to sell their positions in other crypto assets to put it all in Bitcoin. In a tweet last year, Charlie Lee wrote: “Some self-proclaimed Bitcoin Maximalists, are actually Bitcoin Extremists. They think all other coins are scams and will go to zero. Maximalists think Bitcoin is and will remain the dominant cryptocurrency, but there is room for altcoins to exist and even do well. …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has literally exploded this year. 2020 is set to be even bigger. DeFi offers a unique way to earn interest on digital assets without a middleman taking a cut. Decentralized finance is evolving and Ethereum based DeFi is at the forefront. While several other smart contract platforms have been taking pot shots at Ethereum’s lead, none of Ethereum’s would be killers have been able to gain significant traction this year.

When we look at the Ethereum ecosystem, 2019 was a year of continued growth and innovation. Looking at the numbers:

• 80m+: Total Ethereum accounts
• 4 million: New active Ethereum…