Block.one’s social media platform Voice.com built on the EOS blockchain continues to permeate top headlines.
Many have reported on the $30 million expenditure on the ‘Voice.com’ domain name in a vacuum, when combined with prior news this year regarding Block.one and its expenditure this year (498+ million USD) for EOS projects, it becomes telling that the company is putting its money where its proverbial mouth is with regards to taking its future seriously.
Time will tell as to whether these investments are wise, and it could tell us something as soon as Voice.com sees a full-scale launch as a reflection on the EOS price.
Meanwhile, the company has remained radio silent over ongoing allegations of over-centralization, with a total lack of transparency on the matter.
Top News
Welcome to the latest bi-weekly EOS / Block.one news summaries, among multiple concurrent token-specific news roundup series looking specifically at the coins which rank among the top ten for market cap.
June 18th
Block.one has reinvested almost half a billion dollars into EOS this year; including $30 million on Voice.com domain name
High-profile web domain dealer MicroStrategy revealed that it had sold ‘Voice.com’ to Block.one(EOS) via GoDaddy for $30 million, paid in cash, on May 30th 2019.
Voice.com is a social media platform developed by Block.one, the company behind the EOS block-chain, for which the domain was purchased for. The platform was announced on June 1st 2019, which we discussed last month, and cost the company $150 million to create (plus one year).
In the announcement, Marge Breya, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at MicroStrategy offered the following
“Block.one has made a smart strategic decision in choosing Voice.com to be the internet domain name for its new social media platform.
“The word ‘voice’ is simple and universally understood. It’s also ubiquitous — as a search term, it returns billions of results on the internet.
“An ultra-premium domain name like Voice.com can help a company achieve instant brand recognition, ignite a business, and massively accelerate value creation,”
On the topic of expenses and reinvestment, Block.one reportedly also reacquired 10% (212000 shares) of its stock from early investors in a buy-back valued at $1500 per share – a total of $318 million.
Altogether this comes to a total of $498 million reinvested by Block.one this year alone, not counting any additional or undisclosed expenditure.
June 12th
Political About Crypto: Block.one Registers for US Lobbying
Holland and Knight LLP (H+K) filed an LD-1 disclosure form with the US House of Representatives, it has emerged, registering on behalf of its new client Block.one for the purpose of political lobbying.
Where the form discloses the lobbying issues of the client, it lists “policy related to blockchain” in addition to ‘FIN’, a ‘general lobbying issue area’ denoting financial institutions, investments and securities.
Lobbyists listed on the LD-1 include Scott Mason (senior policy officer at H+K) and Norma Krayem.
Scott Mason’s practices include government representation, local government advocacy, federal budget and appropriations, energy, general practice, congressional investigations, public policy & regulation, and legislative tax. He has also previously served as the director of congressional relations for both ‘Donald J. Trump for President Inc.’ as well as the ‘President-Elect Transition Team’.
Norma Krayem’s details are listed clearly on the document itself, and are as follows,
- Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Dept. of Transportation
- Deputy Administrator, Federal Railroad Administration
- Director of Special Projects, U.S. Department of State
- Special Asst., Office of the Secretary, U.S. Dept. of Commerce
The LD-1 was filed in May 2019 and the signature, that of Rich Gold (H+K), is dated June 6th 2019.
It is unclear as of yet what the intentions are of Block.one regarding lobbying, but it must be noted that this comes at a time when convergence between cryptocurrencies and social media are in the spotlight (see: Facebook).
More Stories
June 7th
EOS Centralization Concerns Result In Ratings Downgrade
Earlier this month Weiss tweeted out a message stating that EOS has “serious problems with centralization” have led to a “severe downgrade” to its ‘technology score’. The message subsequently brings up Cardano (ARDR) as a suggested next-contender for “a truly decentralized PoS blockchain”.
Weiss Ratings is a New York research firm that was founded in 1979 by Dr. Martin D. Weiss – remaining in operation to this day, however now they cover digital assets as well as other types of investment which weren’t available upon foundation.
According to its website, Weiss is:
“the only financial ratings agency in the world that provides a combination of five critical advantages for users: The broadest coverage, the strictest independence, complete objectivity, high ethics and a commitment to safety”
and
“issues grades on 53,000 institutions and investments”.
EOS has been criticized more than once recently when it comes to the topic of centralization. From widespread community discussion from November last year pertaining to reversed transactions (that had previously been confirmed), to longer stemming concerns over core technologies such as the EOS governance model.
June 11th
Study: 75% of EOS Dapp Transactions Are Now Made By Bots
A report coming from AnChain.AI, AI-powered blockchain ecosystem security company was published recently, which focused almost entirely on the EOS blockchain and token. The study is self-proclaimed as
“the largest-scale study of malicious bots in the EOS ecosystem”.
AnChain is backed by Amino Capital (a Palo Alto VC firm) and has 15 employees.
Top results include:
- (Equivalent of) $6 million in transaction volume was driven by rampant, malicious bot activity on Dapps in the first quarter of 2019.
- 51 percent of unique accounts and 75 percent of total transactions driven by non-human accounts.
Whilst the study does not directly specify what it is referring to with regards to “Dapps 1-10” – it is heavily implied by the following list (included in the article)
Taking that into account, note the following stats:
- “In terms of unique accounts, the most active DApp (DApp-1) has only a small percentage of bot activity.”
- “The remaining Top 10 DApps (DApps-2–10) all have substantial bot activity.”
- “With 4500+ unique accounts, DApp-2 attracted the most bots (~1900) while its organic human generated traffic is lower than that of DApp-1.”
June 13th
Morpheus Labs and Cypherglass Seek to Teach Public
Morpheus Labs and Cypherglass have teamed up to provide an educational service to inform and promote ‘EOSio software’ as well as blockchain technology in general – focused primarily around the EOS infrastructure and ecosystem.
It echoes prior recent news of when Coinbase launched an EOS-centric programme within its ‘Earn’ Programme – which enabled its exchange members to earn tokens in return for learning about its related platform and ecosystem.
This also marks the beginning of Morpheus Labs’ (blockchain-based platform-as-a-service) partnership / collaboration with US-based EOS block producer Cypherglass.
Price Movements
Information correct as of 21:56 PM, GMT 23rd June 2019
