1/ Long Reads Sunday #18. It’s the 10 year anniversary of Satoshi’s white paper this week, so obviously the hottest thing in crypto are regulatory-compliant fiat-pegged stablecoins. Wait, what? Slap some of those daddy warbucks down for a delicious PSL, it’s Long Reads time. 🎃 
2/ First, warning: aggressive shill time. @APompliano & I recently got to chat about everything from what real security token experimentation to the need for better crypto comms to aliens. Plus they made me this awesome graphic. Have a listen below. itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/nat…
3/ On to actually news now. Coinbase looked around, saw literally everyone else launching a stablecoin and thought “screw it, let’s do one too.” There’s is actually a collaboration with Circle and will be offered directly to their massive user base.
4/ Response ranged from excitement to skepticism. @cryptorae & @econar pointed out that Coinbase had the ability to freeze funds while @VitalikButerin argued the fact that power has to be written into open code represents progress
5/ In the intro to his latest PoW, @wheatpond riffs on USDC and comes to the conclusion that while USD-backed coins are a “great compliment” to real crypto, they are not the same thing. Questions of censorship and ability to freeze funds remain too great. proofofwork.news
6/ As is clear from the poll below, there are a variety of opinions on what some are calling “fiatcoins.” This is part and parcel of the battle to become new money and part of a larger question of the broader institutionalization happening across crypto.
7/ Speaking of institutionalization, the ETF hype train did its best to pull out of the station after a meeting b/n the SolidX/VanEck team (who have the most promising ETF proposal under consideration) and the SEC. @jchervinsky added some relevant context:
8/ From the “No Bullshit Big News” files meanwhile came the announcement that Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund would be making an investment in Binance. Interesting both in terms of the planned fiat-crypto exchange, & as a marker of state-level $ interest
9/ But does all this institutionalization contradict the very point of crypto in the first place? That question is worth contemplate as we role towards the 10-year anniversary of Satoshi’s WP. Highly recommend @danheld’s 4-part opus on the founding.
10/ Perhaps even more important than trying to parse out Satoshi’s intention is to understand the larger cultural context in which crypto is finding resonance. This is, as @avichal points out in this eloquent thread, a fundamental mistrust of institutions.
11/ It can feel that in the USA, mistrust is reduced to a political football. In many parts of the world, the stakes are higher. @AlegW says in Venezuela, purchasing power is so reduced that doctors earn $5/mo while gamers mining Zcash can make $200 caracaschronicles.com/2018/10/22/the…
12/ Venezuela today makes up 12.2% of volume on LocalBitcoins, second only to Russia and reflecting a larger trend. According to research by @lawmaster @theblock_ “the importance of developing countries in the Bitcoin ecosystem is quickly growing.” theblockcrypto.com/2018/10/26/ana…
13/ In another part of the crypto world, two threads on China, both summed by (who else?) @katherineykwu. The 1st was a regulatory definition of blockchain: The 2nd was a court decision arguing that crypto is protected as property:
14/ Wrapping up a couple news items that have been dominating the crypto headlines for the past few weeks now. First, @CryptoMacro wrote this comprehensive recap and timeline of the entire Tether saga. hackernoon.com/tether-bitfine…
15/ As prominent as Binance and Coinbase are, the exchange that has dominated crypto mindshare in 2018 is trader-focused BitMex. @hasufl’s piece exploring the major critiques and speculative theories about exchange practices absolutely popped off medium.com/swlh/a-storm-i…
16/ But Sundays aren’t just about recapping the news, they’re about thinking bigger & there are no shortage of pieces to meet that need. In a commencement speech at the University of Wyoming, @CaitlinLong_ called for more systemic thinkers. caitlin-long.com/2018/10/23/the…
17/ @cburniske sparked one of the most interesting conversations of the week with this thread on why the winning combination in crypto is likely to be centralized apps building on top of decentralized protocols.
18/ @obstropolos argued on @tokendaily that “decentralization” is a distraction & that the more precise we are about the point of decentralization we’re trying to achieve - censorship resistance, accessibility, etc - the more likely we are to achieve it tokendaily.co/blog/the-death…
19/ @AriDavidPaul wrote an overview of the state of crypto fundraising, with one of the interesting arguments being that as hedge funds are less able to recycle capital, ecosystem funds are becoming a better target for entrepreneurs
20/ @BMBernstein explains how, even in a bear market, a dearth of talent leads to massive demand for a small handful of top projects, leading to excess capital, leading to ecosystem funds & other anomalies & warns of an inevitable early stage deleveraging.
21/ Meanwhile, @TusharJain_ brings together a set of the ideas driving the “generalized mining” conversation to argue that the role of crypto investors is evolving and that “The best way to capture alpha as an investor is to create it.” multicoin.capital/2018/10/23/the…
22/ The incomparable @roybahat tweet streamed a phenomenal #bloombergideas conversation around crypto with thinkers @tylercowen @NoahRFeldman @matt_levine @mirkaissar. Check the concept of “alegal."
23/ One more from the investor column, the thesis from @iterativecap @chrisdannen argues that Bitcoin is a fundamental improvement on the process of software development & that the benefits like trustlessness are resultant from that structure iterative.capital/2018/10/25/un-…
24/ Speaking of Bitcoin, @woonomic shares a monster thread on the state of the markets using a number of different indicators including Sharpe Ratio, volatility compared to other assets, Mayer Multiple, NVT ratio and more.
25/ @TuurDemeester brought the Bitcoin perspective to a mainstream economic crowds at the George W. Bush presidential center, speaking on “Cryptocurrencies, AI and Disruptive Technologies” alongside forks like the current president of the Dallas Fed.
26/ Crypto’s favorite essayist @tonysheng digs deep on how the price of BTC can actually stabilize, taking head on the idea that Bitcoin is a Keynesian Beauty Contest and exploring “Narrative Bubble Loops.” Slip a lil absinthe in the coffee for this one. tonysheng.com/keynesian-beau…
27/ One more on Bitcoin - I haven’t quite wrapped (get it?) my head around $WBTC Wrapped Bitcoin yet, so here are a couple threads asking people their perspective on it.
Here’s mine:
Here is Jakes’s:
Here’s mine:
Here is Jakes’s:
28/ For those who want to focus on the potential of what comes next, highly recommend @ercwl’s live tweeting of his reading of the @elixxir_io technical brief. Elixxir has more buzz than many new projects based on its origin from true crypto OG David Chaum
29/ For some totally novel org form ideas, 3 great threads/essays:
+@thibauld on continuous organizations:
+@abh1manyu on better thinking re:security tokens
+@simondlr on radical markets in the arts: medium.com/@simondlr/radi…
+@thibauld on continuous organizations:
+@abh1manyu on better thinking re:security tokens
+@simondlr on radical markets in the arts: medium.com/@simondlr/radi…
30/ I would be remiss if I didn’t mention all the big ideas chugging around Europe. Between the Web3 Foundation summit last week and upcoming DevCon, there is a LOT happening. @lrettig threads some from Web3 Fndn here:
31/ Finally, these LRS threads feel like they move in and out of a million thought streams, it’s because they do. @jon_choi_ called this the “crypto idea maze." Dig into his argument that money, finance and web crypto uses are related, but different. jonchoi.com/cryptoideamaze/
32/ And with that, we close! What did I miss? Find LRS wherever you are:
+email: getrevue.co/profile/nlw
+Long Reads Live - 7pm EST Mondays: youtube.com/c/nathanielwhi… …
+LRL podcast iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/lon… …
+LRL Podcast home: nlwcrypto.libsyn.com
+email: getrevue.co/profile/nlw
+Long Reads Live - 7pm EST Mondays: youtube.com/c/nathanielwhi… …
+LRL podcast iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/lon… …
+LRL Podcast home: nlwcrypto.libsyn.com
