NEW ETH MINER An upstart manufacturer is ready to produce powerful new machines for mining ethereum and ethereum classic cryptocurrencies. Linzhi, based in Shenzhen, China, said Wednesday it had ordered 37 wafers from the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to build about 200 application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners. The test units, if they work as planned, would mark a major step toward mass production as Linzhi sets out to compete with makers of general-purpose computing chips, such as NVIDIA. Full story
LIGHTNING BUG: Developers have disclosed a security hole in versions of bitcoin’s Lightning Network software that could cause users to lose funds if not updated. The bug was first made public on Aug. 30 by bitcoin and Lighting developer Rusty Russel and confirmed Tuesday afternoon by Olaoluwa Osuntokun, CTO of startup Lightning Labs. Multiple Lightning node versions are vulnerable and should be updated immediately, Osuntokun warned a developer mailing list. Full story COINBASE COIN: San Francisco-based exchange Coinbase may soon issue a proprietary exchange token, according to Coinbase’s head of institutional sales in Asia, Kayvon Pirestani. Speaking on a panel at CoinDesk’s Invest: Asia conference, Pirestani said an initial exchange offering (IEO) platform is one of several capital-formation tools currently being explored by the company. “We think there’s a really interesting opportunity there for Coinbase,” he said. Full story IRAN INSIGHT: Out of 1,650 Iranian bitcoiners surveyed in Persian Telegram groups, 25 percent earned $500 to $3,000 a month from working with cryptocurrency, according to a survey conducted by the analytics firm Gate Trade. The data offers a unique peek inside the evolution of the Iranian bitcoin community, and so far it looks like the classic “store of value” investment thesis holds water. More than a third of respondents (35 percent) earned that income by mining, while 58 percent earned income through trading. Full story MASTER STROKE? Payments giant Mastercard is to develop a blockchain-powered cross-border payments platform in partnership with enterprise-focused blockchain firm R3. In an announcement on Wednesday, Mastercard said the two firms have inked a deal to “develop and pilot” the payments solution. It will initially be aimed at connecting faster payments schemes and banks backed by Mastercard’s clearing and settlement network. The platform will be built on Corda Enterprise, the commercial version of the platform, R3 told CoinDesk. Full story | 