Bitcoin

Suddenly, Bitcoin Hard Fork Looks Unlikely As Chinese Exchange Readies For SegWit (Cointelegraph)

Over the past few days, miners have begun signaling in increasing numbers for BIP 91 over BIP 148. If the required support threshold is reached before Aug. 1, BIP 91 would lock in, providing an alternative road to SegWit without a mandatory hard fork.

CoinDesk Explainer: How BIP 91 Enacts SegWit While Avoiding a Bitcoin Split (Coindesk)

But, more importantly, BIP 91 was proposed as an alternative to having to completely redeploy BIP 141, a task that would have been technically infeasible, given that BIP 141 does not expire until mid-November.

So, to get around that, BIP 91 employs a clever trick. Rather than change the SegWit activation code path, it simply adds an additional rule to enforce BIP 141 mandatory signaling.
As such, BIP 91 uses the same version bits soft fork deployment as BIP 141, but with a few key differences:
• Miners signal with "bit 4," as opposed to "bit 1"
• Activation only requires 80% as opposed to 95% of hash power support
• The activation window is 336 blocks, as opposed to 2,016.

So, once that 80% threshold is reached, BIP 91 locks in, and another 336 blocks later, it activates.

At that point, BIP 141 is enforced using the same technique as BIP 148:
• Miners begin signaling with "bit 1"
• Any blocks that do not signal with "bit 1" will be blocked from the network.

Ethereum

Daimler's €100 Million Ethereum Bond Is Bigger Than Mercedes-Benz (Coindesk)

Since the financial crisis of 2008, this German version of a private placement has seen an explosion of use around the world, now totaling more than €20bn annually. But while Daimler itself says large-scale use of an ethereum-based Schuldschein isn't likely anytime in the near future, its success is already encouraging the German firm to test even more use cases. According to Daimler AG's senior manager of treasury process management, Eva-Marie Scholz, multiple business departments in the firm are now exploring use cases as a result.

Altcoins

Altcoin intel bot CryptoPing launches its subscription-based services (Crypto Ninjas)

Moving quickly on its roadmap after a successful ICO, altcoin intelligence bot CryptoPing is now launching their subscription based service. Some good news for those interested in the service as new features were added this week such as adjusting the frequency of signals, whitelisting/blacklisting coins and filtering coin signals according to daily volume and market cap.

Why Tokens are Eating the World (Medium)

We’re currently in a world where the belief is that the majority of crypto tokens and coins are all highly correlated with each other, but these fluctuations distort the reality of what’s happening underneath. Not all cryptocurrencies or tokens are created equal.

Blockchain

European Commission Hosts Blockchain Workshop with Industry Focus (Coindesk)

Emerging Applications For Blockchain (Forbes)

Top-10 Market Cap Coins