,
35 tweets,
22 min read
Read on Twitter
2/ “2019 is shaping up to be the year of staking.” That is according to @melt_dem who wrote up this summary of the inaugural Staking Summit, which serves as a state of the market. Great jumping off point for an increasingly vibrant part of the industry. medium.com/@Melt_Dem/refl…
3/ Without a doubt, the biggest new in staking this week was @Coinbase Custody launching staking support for Tezos. The goal, of course, is to be the trusted, secure, compliant answer for holders who want to generate passive income from crypto assets.
4/ Speaking of generating income, I loved the simplicity with which @zmanian described the different business models surrounding staking. Humbly request a full article or thread on this, Zaki!
5/ Another interesting part of the Coinbase announcement was that support for MakerDAO governance would be coming soon, as well. On the one hand, governance is one of the defining narratives of 2019. On the other, there are clearly still some questions.
6/ Voter turnout isn’t the only concern around governance. In another of @isTruStory live-streamed debates, @iam_preethi and @melt_dem (damn fam u everywhere) discuss the premise that current models of on-chain governance are trending towards oligopoly
7/ Then again, not everyone is convinced that we should port our mental models of state governance to crypto. Ethereum and Aragon community mainstay @lkngtn shares some very interesting thoughts around the problems with democratic governance in blockchains
8/ Still, the loudest and most interesting governance conversation this week was kicked up by @lrettig, who declared Ethereum governance failed (or at least stuck), with too much power concentrated in the hands of the core devs.
9/ There are a huge number of interesting conversations now spun up around Lane’s thread. In his follow up, @VladZamfir argues that the governance system was simply not designed for decisions around non-technical issues.
10/ Then again, if you want a slightly different take on the governance question (and other key issues for Ethereum and other public blockchains) I recommend this thoughtful thread kicked off by @_prestwich
11/ While it may feel like every week is some new contentious issue in the Ethereum community, I would not despair. I agree with @arjunblj that this is the public blockchain hero’s journey and a necessary part of the growth of any successful blockchain.
12/ Between yield generation through staking and the complexities of governance systems, you might feel like the conversations here have sort of leveled up. Luckily, @spencernoon has you covered with this great thread on 300-level crypto topics
13/ In addition to the aggregating, @spencernoon also did a bit of educating all on his own, explaining how @UMAprotocol synthetic ownership of stocks with MKR and ERC20’s actually works to allow people anywhere exposure to US stocks.
14/ The news about @UMAProtocol’s US Stock Index Token actually got quite a few people in the community excited. @_jillruth explains *why* the product is important - expanding the option set for where people outside the US can put capital.
15/ Speaking of crypto outside of the US, maybe the most fascinating thing you’ll read is this epic account of a month spent in Rojava in Northern Syria, which is experimenting with new political models with some alignment with decentralized technologies. coindesk.com/sand-death-and…
16/ @FastCompany also digs in to the proliferation of global digital money, asking the important question of whether the original ideals of cryptocurrency can survive in the face of the mass movement of states to leverage digital money for surveillance fastcompany.com/90323550/digit…
17/ One way to address creeping state surveillance is, of course, privacy tech. As @jcliff42 describes in this post however, using cryptocurrencies can leave new types of privacy problems - even with privacy focused coins! medium.com/scalar-capital…
18/ Let’s check in on Bitcoin for just a second, shall we? For whatever reason, the Bitcoin-security-post-block-subsidy convo has been louder than normal recently. @LucasNuzzi gives 5 reasons why Bitcoin security won’t require perpetual inflation.
19/ I wrote last week about @Ikigai_fund’s new Valuation Depot. For people interested in that topic, check out @stephanlivera’s latest podcast - a conversation with @TuurDemeester on Bitcoin valuation frameworks
20/ Here’s an interesting first. @ruigomeseu sold his site Lightning Spin, a gambling game powered by the Lightning Network. H/t to @LowBtc who pointed out it was likely the first sale of a Lightning only site. Congras!
21/ Fresh off organizing the excellent MIT Bitcoin Expo, @huvegi drops his first Medium post. This one is a “Millennial’s Guide To Bitcoin” that was actually inspired by a tweet from @bquittem. Welcome to the content game, sir! medium.com/@hugo.uvegi/a-…
22/ BTC volume was a big point of conversation on last week’s LRS, as @BitwiseInvest dropped research suggesting massive overstatement by exchanges. Well, this week, @MessariCrypto declared “war on fake data” as @guillermojimnz put it decryptmedia.com/6199/messaris-…
23/ Speaking of exchange-related groan tests, @DoveyWan agonizingly chronicles Bithumb being hacked, coming to this important conclusion: “this is just insane.”
24/ Alright, just a few more great links before we wrap. For those of you paying attention to the @Cosmos launch over the last few weeks, check out this pretty comprehensive overview from @mrjasonchoi medium.com/the-spartan-gr…
25/ @raynesteinberg adds to his string of interesting essays, this time with a piece on why blockchain tech might be the ultimate ESG (environmental, social and governance) investment. ar.ca/blog/one-good-…
@raynesteinberg 26/ On the topic of emergent categories of investment, dig in to the idea of people investing through income share agreements. @ljxie threaded a recap of an event on the topic hosted by @lessin & @eriktorenberg who is way down this particular rabbit hole.
27/ Counter-narrative watch: Bitcoin mining as economic motivator to capture otherwise unusable energy. H/t to @martybent for flagging this one
28/ As usual, the #1 follow to keep track of regulatory action at the US national (and even more, at state-levels) is @CaitlinLong_ Check this thread for the latest action around the Uniform Law Commission wrt to state crypto models
29/ In the spirit of expanding opportunities for builders in crypto, I’ve gotta shout out this RFP from @APompliano for pre-seed crypto investments. What’s your big idea?
30/ Last week, I shared a live tweet thread from the #RadicalXChange event. To dig deeper into why the ideas behind the event have so much overlap with the crypto community, @davidzmorris on the recap breakermag.com/blockchains-bi…
31/ In the wake of the DAO hack, excitement around decentralized organizations dipped precipitously. In this essay, @Steven_McKie argues that they’re coming back in a big way as we try to solve complex coordination and incentive problems.
32/ Finally, on that topic of incentives, I loved this thread version of @owocki’s talk at @coinfund_io about incentives and sustainability in open source software development.
33/ Lastly, @owocki’s talk gives me the chance to announce something I’ll be experimenting with: LRS TL;DR.
Basically, I’ll be asking some of the content creators I feature each week to do a quick 1-3 minute video summary. Here’s the first!
Basically, I’ll be asking some of the content creators I feature each week to do a quick 1-3 minute video summary. Here’s the first!
34/ And that’s it for LRS40! As always let me know what you loved and what I missed. Please do also share your feedback and ideas on LRS TL;DR. And of course, if you’d like to get LRS via email, sign up here getrevue.co/profile/nlw
35/ First Appendix: Great thread on blockchain voter apathy. Really important issue to consider around viability of different governance models.
36/ Second Appendix: Very much meant to include this conversation between @cburniske and @PeterMcCormack and Chris' thread summary
