Crypto Daily: Vitalik Buterin on Creating New, Equitable and Innovative Systems with Positive Social Impact; Social investment platform eToro acquires smart contract startup Firmo
Vitalik Buterin: Create New, Equitable and Innovative Systems with Positive Social Impact
【cointelegraph】Vitalik Buterin had jointly initiated RadicalxChange with economist Glen Weyl, co-author of the book “Radical Markets,” which argues in favor of rethinking markets from within an emboldened and radicalized liberal perspective as an antidote to neoreaction, populism and protectionism.
In his speech, Buterin argued that today’s crypto advocates and developers should evolve away from the fierce individualism of the cypherpunk movement and from an excessive focus on maximizing autonomy and privacy.
Money, he argued, is fundamentally and profoundly social, and the potential of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology is to advance an explicitly political, collective agenda. This includes rethinking models of social governance, formalizing identity and community membership, facilitating the equitable funding of public goods, and re-hauling ownership structures.
Noting that the invention of Bitcoin represents a powerful movement against state and central bank hegemony, he proposed that smart contract platforms such as Ethereum, as well as governance-focused blockchains, can help realize its originary revolutionary impulse to the full.
MetaMask Reportedly Broadcasts ETH Addresses To Sites Visited By Users
【ethnews】MetaMask, a browser extension that enables users to run Ethereum dApps, has been broadcasting individuals’ ETH addresses to websites and dApps visited by the user, according to a recently submitted GitHub issue outlining the extension’s default privacy settings.
The apparent privacy concern allows third parties to see ETH addresses and potentially link a user’s “blockchain transactions to credit card payments, thereby [their] identity, and the identity of the last person [they] transacted with.”
In their GitHub post, the concerned user states that MetaMask’s privacy mode is not enabled by default, meaning the browser extension sends out “message broadcasts” about every 40 seconds. These broadcasts contain the client’s ETH address, which can then be relayed to any ads or trackers, such as Facebook and YouTube’s like button, and Twitter’s like and retweet buttons.
MetaMask unveiled its new privacy mode feature in November 2018. According to the announcement, MetaMask broadcasts users’ ETH addresses in order to let providers “propose Ethereum transactions, ask for your signature, query the blockchain,” and allow dApps to know your account balance. However, users can enable MetaMask’s privacy mode so that websites and dApps have to ask permission to see a user’s ETH address, which is supposed to help prevent malicious sites from collecting data to fingerprint, phish, or track unsuspecting users.
The GitHub poster says that enabling MetaMask’s privacy mode feature “doesn’t do very much at all” to prevent ETH addresses from being broadcast, and that the broadcasts themselves “serve no purpose.” Commenters were quick to point out that enabling privacy mode does indeed cause the message broadcast to be read as “undefined.” Further, MetaMask explained in its November 2018 announcement that privacy mode is not enabled by default because older dApps may not be compatible yet with the feature.
MetaMask’s lead developer, Dan Finlay, also found his way into the GitHub post’s comments, admitting that the browser extension’s team has been slow to enable the privacy mode feature by default. Finlay did assert that the switch would be coming sooner, rather than later, and that once the feature is enabled by default, users would still be able to manually turn it off.
Social investment platform eToro acquires smart contract startup Firmo
【techcrunch】Social investing and trading platform eToro announced that it has acquired Danish smart contract infrastructure provider Firmo for an undisclosed purchase price.
Firmo’s platform enables exchanges to execute smart financial contracts across various assets, including crypto derivatives, and across all major blockchains. Firmo founder and CEO Dr. Omri Ross described the company’s mission as “…enabl[ing] our users to trade any asset globally with instant settlement by tokenizing assets and executing all essential trade processes on the blockchain.” Firmo’s only disclosed investment, according to data from Pitchbook, came in the form of a modest pre-seed round from the Copenhagen Fintech Lab accelerator.
Firmo’s mission aligns well with that of eToro — which is equal parts trading platform, social network and educational resource for beginner investors — with the company having long communicated hopes of making the capital markets more open, transparent and accessible to all users and across all assets. By gobbling up Firmo, eToro will be able to accelerate its development of offerings for tokenized assets.
The acquisition represents the latest step in eToro’s broader growth plan, which has ramped up as of late. Earlier in March, the company launched a crypto-only version of its platform in the US, as well as a multi-signature digital wallet where users can store, send and receive cryptocurrencies.
Rakuten Readies Cryptocurrency Exchange for April Launch After Name Change
【cointelegraph】Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten has completed registration of its cryptocurrency exchange Rakuten Wallet, which will go live next month, the company confirmed in a press release on March 25.
Rakuten, which follows several major Japanese tech players in entering the crypto exchange market, renamed its product from Everybody’s Bitcoin earlier this month.
The company had acquired the exchange under the former name in August last year for 265 million yen (at the time $2.4 million).
Following a consolidation period during which Rakuten made changes to its structure, executives have now confirmed that Everybody’s Bitcoin in its current guise will cease operations at the end of March.
“Rakuten Wallet will contribute to the sound growth of the market as a virtual currency exchange company, and will further enhance security and provide enhanced services so that more customers can use it safely and with confidence,” the company stated in the press release.
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