Open source software publisher Block.one pre-released its scalability-focused Blockchain platform EOSIO Dawn 3.0 on Github yesterday, April 6, according to an EOSIO Medium post.

Dawn 2.0 had been released in December of last year, and the most current pre-release of Dawn 3.0 this April 6 is noted as a “major milestone on the road to EOSIO 1.0,” which reportedly will be released in June.
Earlier this month, Block.one and German fintech incubator FinLab AG announced a partnership for developing EOS software with $100 mln of funding.
EOSIO’s Medium post writes that that “we think we have achieved” the goal for inter-Blockchain communication, which they describe as the “the ultimate scalability feature — the holy grail — that the industry has been searching for,” to be “as secure as intra-chain communication between smart contracts.”
Dawn 3.0 contains many new features that “were not even contemplated in the original EOSIO White Paper,” most notably the capability to “accelerate throughput without hard forking changes” through parallel computation, the “ability to implement a light client as a smart contract,” the implementation of context free actions whose validation computation can be “pruned from replay,” and the addition of a new resource rate liming system.
The Medium post continues by reporting one of Dawn 3.0’s “most significant features,” which is a user-configurable delay for various actions that will allow a user to know they have been hacked before a hacker’s transaction goes through, because the delay broadcasts the transaction to the Blockchain for whatever amount of time chosen before it can be applied.
EOSIO can be used without tokens in private and permissioned Blockchains, has a .5 second block interval, and uses a “hello world” contract development that contains only “a few simple lines of code.”
The Medium post ends with encouragement to EOSIO public network to “operate as many chains as necessary to meet user demand,” in order to create the “maximum possible network effect around a single token and leverage the trust and security of economic incentives created by high-market capitalization tokens.”
Other Blockchain scalability projects in the crypto ecosystem include PHANTOM, a scalable BlockDAG - an alternative structure to Blockchain protocol - which was introduced in an academic paper in early February.

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A bill allowing corporations to hold and share data on a distributed ledger was officially signed into Arizona state law by Governor Doug Ducey, according to a legislation tracker April 3. 

The Arizona House of Representatives passed HB 2603 with 56 in favor, 3 against, and 1 abstention. The Arizona Senate proceeded to pass the bill unanimously.
The bill was first introduced as an amendment to the Arizona Revised Statutes by Rep. Jeff Weninger in February, one of three bills aiming “to open the door for emerging technologies in Arizona.”
HB 2602 and HB 2601 are both awaiting a third reading in the Arizona Senate. The former would prohibit towns from restricting cryptocurrency mining in residences, while the latter aims to address securities and crowdfunding, recognize a “virtual coin” as “a digital representation of value”, and authorize its function as a medium of exchange in digital trading.
Weninger’s measures emerge amid a backdrop of robust regulatory moves by the state to recognize and delimit applications of Blockchain technology. As Cointelegraph reported in March, the Arizona Senate passed SB 1091, which would allow state residents to pay their taxes in Bitcoin.
In April last year, HB 2417 legalized Blockchain signatures and recognized the enforceability of smart contracts. Arizona’s Revised Statutes now stipulate that data “written” and stored on Blockchain technology is “immutable and auditable and provides an uncensored truth.”
Across the US, state governments are passing liberal legislation on cryptocurrencies and Blockchain technology. New Hampshire exempted crypto traders from money transmission regulations in March 2017, while this year Wyoming exempted virtual currencies from state property taxation, as well freeing certain Blockchain tokens from securities regulations.

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A panel discussion dedicated to Bitcoin (BTC) scaling between Bitcoin.com CEO Roger Ver and Blockstream Chief Strategy Officer Samson Mow turned into a battle of visions at the Distributed Economy’s (Deconomy 2018) first annual Blockchain forum in Seoul, South Korea, April 3rd.

The two-day event, which took place from April 3rd to 4th, brought together Blockchain enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, and leaders in the field aiming to cover the hottest topics in the industry.
The issue of Bitcoin scalability has always been a persistent and painful problem of the first cryptocurrency due to the constant increase in the number of transactions on the chain and the inability to validate them fast enough.
Giving the floor to Ver to express his opinion about Bitcoin scaling, the attendees witnessed his ardent conviction that the scaling of Bitcoin is a ‘natural’ part of the cryptocurrency’s Blockchain, and that there’s no reason to avoid block size increasing if the growing adoption requires it. Ver’s position is that Bitcoin has failed to become digital cash for everyday payments, such as paying for a coffee. That vision, according to Ver, now lives in the ideology of Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
Samson Mow, to the contrary, said that an over the edge increase of blocks is not an ultimate solution as it could lead to increasing the chain weight. Mow believes that there should be a second layer technology integrated, where everything is cryptographically bound to the main chain. According to Mow, this would enable keeping the Bitcoin Blockchain compact enough to synchronize transactions with nodes for a relatively small period of time. He also sees a solution in the usage of Bitcoin coupled with Lightning. Mow said:
“I think scaling Bitcoin, we have to take into consideration the computer science aspect of it. We can’t just make things up. We actually have to look at the code and we have to follow the consensus rule, so if you look at what Bitcoin Core has been doing, is they’ve been scaling all along so that everything is backwards compatible.”
Ver parried with an argument that the intention behind Bitcoin Core might be positive, however the empirical evidence shows that the “effects were negative and incredibly damaging to Bitcoin” and cause a “negative merchant adoption around the world.” Ver claimed that it’s easier for merchants to migrate to Altcoins rather than to add Lightning support to the existing Bitcoin payment option because it would be expensive and unreliable. Ver stated:

“Bitcoin Core is having negative merchant adoption around the world. Bitcoin Cash is having positive merchant adoption around the world. So even if Samson and Blockstream and Bitcoin Core supporters have the absolute best intentions in their heart, we have the empirical evidence to show that the effects were negative and incredibly damaging to Bitcoin. Let’s judge things by their effect and their results, not the intent of the people that were putting it together.”

Ver’s tone towards Mow’s Bitcoin Core team became accusatory, saying, “they’ve shattered the Bitcoin ecosystem into a thousand and one different altcoins and delayed the adoption of cryptocurrencies around the world by years.”
Mow stated that Bitcoin can be used by everybody, but technology takes time to mature, including Lightning. This will result, according to Mow, in the ability to make transactions with Bitcoin by anyone, even on low-grade devices. With a wider implementation of Lightning, transaction fees will inevitably change “like the weather, it can be hot one day, cooler the next day and windy and rainy.”
The passionate debates gave rise to a sarcastic reaction from the community, which has been absorbedly discussing the way Roger and Samson behaved on stage, rather than addressing the topic of Bitcoin scalability.
Youtube user Jonathan Mogg said:

“Does Bitcoin core have any spokesperson who can articulate the BTC value proposition anymore? You may not like Roger but he can speak to the commercial and economic aspects of Bitcoin far better than anyone I've seen from the Blockstream crew.”

Youtube user sssidhu7788 said:

“Samson didn’t answer anything, he didn’t clarify anything. Just sitting there like he’s some cool guy with an ace up his sleeve but nothing.”

Youtube user Slowly GoingBroke said:

“Roger Ver sounds like a BCH commercial.  He is just embarrassing himself now…”

mango_drive said on Reddit:

“Roger appears so agitated and angry all the time. I don't mind listening to differing opinions but he makes it rather unpleasant to do so.”

Bananananbread said on Reddit:

“Did you see Mow’s body language? The constant finger tapping and playing with the water bottle. He looked so nervous like he was about to visit the dentist for root canal surgery...”

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged trade finance group LongFin Corp. and its CEO, Venkata Meenavalli, with securities fraud, and frozen over $27 mln raised in “illicit trading profits,” according to an SEC Press Release published today, April 6.

The SEC filed its lawsuit in the federal court of Manhattan, accusing Meenavalli of insider trading for selling “over two million unregistered, restricted shares” to Amro Altahawi, as well as “tens of thousands of restricted shares” to Dorababu Penumarthi and Suresh Tammineedi.
The defendants are being charged with subsequently selling these shares to the public while the stock price was “highly elevated” due to Longfin’s publicized acquisition of “purported” crypto business Ziddu.com. Longfin’s post-acquisition market cap soared to over $3 bln, the SEC reports.
The SEC is seeking penalties and disgorgement of “ill-gotten” profits under Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933. “We acted quickly to prevent … the profits being transferred out of the country,” remarked Robert Cohen, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Cyber Unit. 
Longfin had been mired in controversy well before news of the SEC suit broke. The company was expelled from the Russell 2000 and 3000 indices in late March, with onlookers tweeting that the company was a “a pure stock scheme.”
“I’m not going to sell [for] three years,” Meenavalli protested on CNBC’s Fast Money earlier this week. Eye-popping volatility in its share price saw stocks peak at $71.10 on March 23, before crashing to $9.13 by early April.
On April 6, Nasdaq halted trading in Longfin shares at 10.01 AM (EDT).  Nasdaq’s action preceded the SEC announcement.
Companies affiliating themselves with Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are coming under particular scrutiny recently, as regulatory frameworks take shape across the globe. Washington’s recent SEC and CFTC hearings were devoted to crypto-regulation, and the SEC recently announced it would probe up to 100 hedge funds trading in crypto assets.

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced that it is looking into issuing its own central bank digital currency (CBDC), after a meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), according to a Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies released Thursday, April 5.

RBI has established an inter-departmental group to investigate the potential advantages and feasibility of its CBDC, which will submit its findings in a report in June 2018, the statement says.
“Technological innovations, including virtual currencies, have the potential to improve the efficiency and inclusiveness of the financial system,” RBI Deputy Governor B P Kanungo told The Times Of India Thursday.
The Reserve Bank’s inquiry into a CBDC emerged even as it announced it was prohibiting all regulated entities from providing services to any users, traders or holders of cryptocurrencies, as Cointelegraph reported yesterday.
RBI’s position — pro state-issed cryptocurrency and anti decentralized cryptocurrency — represents a broader trend among international central banks as they move in to police the digital frontier.
One solution to central banks’ potential concerns like money laundering is the co-optation of Blockchain tech by the institutional behemoths themselves, as Kanungo himself emphasized yesterday:

“We recognize that the Blockchain technology has potential benefits for the financial sector and we believe that they should be encouraged to be exploited for the benefit of the economy.”

As early as 2016, the Bank of England and the People’s Bank of China explored the idea of issuing their own digital currencies, with over 90 central banks worldwide that same year investigating DLT tech. In 2017, the Bank of Canada published extensive research into the benefits of CBDCs, and already in the first months of 2018, banks in Malaysia, Taiwan, Poland, Switzerland, among others, have all made news with inquiries into the use of Blockchain systems.
Earlier this week an R3 researcher stirred a Deconomy panel in South Korea with his prediction that wholesale CBDCs would see real-world implementation in 2018.

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The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a statement requiring businesses to seek authorization for dealing in cryptocurrency derivatives on its website Friday, April 6.

The statement clarifies that trading, transacting and advising on cryptocurrency derivatives is an activity which falls under the “Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID 2),” which was introduced as a part of the EU’s Jan. 2018 financial reforms.
The FCA stipulates that although cryptocurrencies are not considered currencies or commodities that require regulation, derivatives referring to cryptocurrencies or ICO tokens are capable of being “financial instruments,” and thus fall within its regulatory perimeter.
The FCA includes 3 examples of crypto derivatives: futures, contracts for differences (CFDs), and options.
CFDs based on crypto-assets track the price of the underlying asset and allow investors to borrow money for their bets in order to chase high leverage returns. Importantly, they do not need to own any of the cryptocurrency itself.
In late March the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) strengthened requirements for crypto-backed CFDs, citing the high price volatility of cryptocurrencies as its main concern.
The FCA’s position echoes that of another European regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), earlier this year, which likewise sought to clarify the definition of derivatives after online crypto trading platforms began offering binary options, CFDs, and Forex contracts.
Beyond Europe, Bitcoin futures are a popular derivative making inroads into the world of regulated finance, with banks such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs both clearing futures contracts for some clients after their launch on derivatives exchanges CME Group (Dec. 2017) and CBOE (Jan. 2018).

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Chile’s national energy regulation organization, Comisión Nacional de Energía de Chile (CNE), recently announced the launch of a project based on the Ethereum (ETH) Blockchain network to record data from the nation’s energy sector, according to an agency press release April 5.

The pilot project was first revealed by the CNE on Feb. 27, aiming to provide data security, as well as its accuracy, transparency, and accessibility with the help “the most disruptive technology of the last decade.” As the agency tweeted, Chile’s energy sector “is pioneering Blockchain implementation in Latin America.”
According to the trial project, instead of creating a centralized database, which is vulnerable to man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks or "easy to manipulate,” the CNE will develop a record system consisting of several stages.
First, the energy data will be stored on Energía Abierta or Open Energy database distributed on “hundreds of thousands of servers,” which will provide public access to real-time information. Then, CNE employees will transfer data from Open Energy to the Ethereum Blockchain.
Only after verification of the generated energy data will records be put on the Ethereum network. This will minimize the chance of an incorrect data input caused by either the Open Energy platform or human error. The data written on the Blockchain will be accessible to members of the public via one of several graphical user interfaces (GUI).
The Minister of Energy, Susana Jiménez commented that public disclosure of the information is extremely important increasing the confidence of citizens and stakeholders.

"Public information is an important input for making investment decisions, designing public policies or creating new tools at the service of society, which is why many of our users use this information to decide technical, economic, and labor aspects. That is why, by using [Blockchain] technology, we will raise the levels of trust of our stakeholders, investors and citizens in general who use the data delivered.”

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