Lightning strikes twice. Ethereum no longer a security. EOS network control just a phone call away - Weekly Recap 18 June

Bitcoin microtransactions are here. Satoshi’s Place is a Lightning Network powered online collaborative artboard. There are 1 million pixels on the canvas and each pixel costs 1 satoshi to paint. 1 Satoshi is currently worth 0.00006458 USD.

You can now play Pokemon with Bitcoin over the lightning network - another great example of bitcoin micropayments at work. It costs 1 satoshi per move ($0.00006458 USD). Help Satoshi (Ash) and Hal (Pikachu) defeat their rival Fiat (Gary).

International Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is considering introducing binding rules governing the world’s cryptocurrency exchanges.

Rating agencies may downgrade banks that clear bitcoin futures if these financial products continue to see increasing volumes over the coming months.

A senior U.S SEC official has said that current offers and sales of Ethereum are not securities transactions. His belief that it has become sufficiently decentralized will help it to avoid heavy regulation.

EOS has struggled to transition into a decentralised protocol. This comes after the team completed one of the worlds largest ICOs and raised close to $4bn USD. The “decentralised” protocol came to a halt 48hrs after launching due to critical issues. A conference call was held amongst a small central group of participants before a solution was reached and a patch rolled out. The transition from centralised ICO to decentralised protocol is proving challenging, however earlier ICO’s like Ethereum have proven that it may be possible.

An interesting look at the classical finance concept of Time Value of Money being applied to Bitcoin. The Author writes that the new lightning network and its ability to generate returns/fees for savers (i.e. interest) will enable a reference rate to be established like LIBOR and give rise to the Bitcoin Capital markets.

Walmart has applied for a patent in the electricity supply market. They envision a system that allows users to prepay cryptocurrency to cover expected electricity demand of specific devices. They believe this will address the growing difference between energy provided and energy consumed, an imbalance that leads to spiking electricity costs.