Long Reads Sunday #77 - BEST OF 2019 EDITION
This is the final recap of a year that saw IEOs, SEC action, Libra, gov’t digital currency efforts, DeFi, and so much more. Let’s take a trip back through LRS world, week by week throughout 2019!
This is the final recap of a year that saw IEOs, SEC action, Libra, gov’t digital currency efforts, DeFi, and so much more. Let’s take a trip back through LRS world, week by week throughout 2019!
A note on reading this: each week, I’ll post the week and LRS # along with a few words on the vibe or key events of the week, plus the highlight content. The content was chosen based on how clicked it was + my personal bias!
[LRS28 - Jan 6] Like any year, 2019 kicked off with a bevy of prediction posts, and among all of them it was @arjunblj that stood out. What’s notable looking back is how much crypto black swan events like Libra just weren’t on the horizon medium.com/@arjunblj/cryp…
[LRS29 - Jan 13] Yellow Vest protests raged across France, setting the scene for a year characterized by dissent. That said, it was an analysis of a 51% attack on Ethereum Classic by @hosseeb that stood out as the week’s top content
[LRS30 - Jan 20th] One of the most buzzed about launches of 2019 was Grin with their no presale, no premine “fair launch.” @wheatpond wrote about the launch in his Proof of Work newsletter proofofwork.news/p/proof-of-wor…
[LRS31 - Jan 27th] Sometimes the biggest content in a week isn’t the best recap of an event, but a piece that simply sets the tone of the conversation, like it or not. That was @VladZamfir rallying cry for a new crypto legal system medium.com/cryptolawrevie…
[LRS32 - Feb 3] February kicked off with some debates about tribalism and other heady thoughts. No piece, however, saw more discussion than the thought experiment from @lrettig on “if ETH has failed in 5 years, why?”
[LRS33 - Feb 10th] This might have been the first truly insane week of the year, with the Quadriga X scandal breaking, @Jack taking the LN Torch, and the emergence of privacy as a central issue for 2019
[LRS34 - Feb 17] The theme across so much of the discussion this week was power - to print money; to make decisions; to surveil transactions. @AriDavidPaul was prescient in calling crypto fiat a future battleground
[LRS35 - Feb 24] An undercurrent throughout the year was more substantive research across the crypto space and the development of new models. Take for example these new BTC investor sentiment models from @TuurDemeester medium.com/@adamant_capit…
[LRS36 - March 3] This week absolutely *dominated* by the furor around Coinbase’s acquisition of Neutrino - the same team behind authoritarian support squad Hacking Team. @davidzmorris had the best piece on it
From that same week, I also wanted to call out @TaylorPearsonMe’s excellent “Markets are Eating the World.” This is exactly the type of content that I started Long Reads Sunday to highlight.
[LRS37 - March 10] This was the research-y-est of research weeks, with excellent content from @Delphi_Digital and @hasufl & @zhusu but the @ElectricCapital Dev Report stands out
[LRS38 - March 17] It was the 30 year anniversary of the World Wide Web and a time for reflection. It makes sense then that the top piece of the week came (again) from @hosseeb hackernoon.com/3-moments-in-h…
[LRS39 - March 24] This week we saw another one of the big narrative trends of the early part of the year: IEOs. @lawmaster wrote up his reflections on a week in Asia on a topic he would come back to regularly throughout 2019
One more from that week in March that deserves to be called out: @AriDavidPaul’s connecting the dots between MMT and Bitcoin as an inverse twin reaction to the same phenomena is something I keep coming back to
[LRS40 - March 31] Two other key 2019 narratives - governance and staking - were on display this week as Coinbase announced Tezos staking and MakerDAO governance support. Piece of the week came from @Melt_Dem medium.com/@Melt_Dem/refl…
[LRS41 - April 7] Ohhhh baby, BTC had peaked above $5k and people were starting to get excited. @Travis_Kling penned a piece for @TheBlock__ that hit on some of the key themes for the rest of the year theblockcrypto.com/post/17838/bit…
[LRS42 - April 14] In one of the most memorable episodes of the year, the crypto community temporarily laid down arms against one another this week to rise to a larger challenge and declare: We Are All @Hodlonaut
[LRS43 - April 21] This week was amazing for content that hit some of the most important narratives of 2019. I might even take a couple tweets for it. Let’s start with @AriannaSimpson and @UniswapExchange
Second, @Melt_Dem wrote what was maybe her best piece in a year of best pieces, puncturing one of the most enduring mythologies around privacy medium.com/@Melt_Dem/im-n…
Third, @EpsilonTheory captured the seething frustration of us frogs being boiled in the pot with his epic “This is Water.” Like I said, great week for content epsilontheory.com/this-is-water/
[LRS44 - April 28] The conversation shifted (as it seems always to do) to Tether, with @davidzmorris connecting the dots between Tether, Quadriga and Crypto Capital. breakermag.com/crypto-capital…
[LRS45 - May 5] Tether [all 74% backed of it] continued to dominate the conversation, along with IEOs. Multicoin Capital meanwhile dropped their epic 3 Mega Theses for Crypto
[LRS46 - May 12] This was the week where you heard “re-org” more than you ever thought possible and where @katherineywku dropped the first of her now-famous crypto legal annotations
[LRS47 - May 19] Coming off of NY Blockchain week, there was a lot of chatter about institutional interest. @lawmaster showed some positive data while @real_vijay asked questions about their approach
[LRS48 - May 26] IEOs continued to dominate the conversation (even though I recently argued they were the biggest nothing burger of 2019). See this thread from @jdorman81 and a snarkier take from @cryptohayes
I also want to make mention of @MiguelCuneta’s powerful injunction to “not use my country as your narrative.” This was extra important in a year when we started talking more about the relevance of bitcoin around the world
[LRS49 - June 2] Oh god, this was the beginning of “Defend Crypto,” a weird, slightly solipsistic, definitely opportunistic campaign. In another dimension entirely, @jessewldn flagged a theme I expect to see more of in 2020: DAOs
[LRS50 - June 9] In MAJOR foreshadowing of what was to come just around the corner, @balajis suggested that the choice for many tech companies was increasingly going to be “decentralize or be nationalized”
BTW, bookmark this @Naval tweet from that week as it will be referenced, reiterated, and straight ripped off from now to eternity.
[LRS51 - June 16] This was it. The biggest turning point in the year. Of course, it was the announcement of Facebook’s Libra, an event that has fundamentally up-leveled the significance of this industry on a global stage
[LRS52 - June 24] As will be the case for some time, the conversation was dominated by Libra (with a side of Algorand auction). @udiWetheimer discusses the privacy dimension
[LRS53 - June 30] As Libra sunk in, more and more mainstream conversation turned to crypto and Bitcoin. @TylerCowen wrote that the volatility of the world provides a continuously renewing mandate for BTC bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
[LRS54 - July 7] One of the big debates of 2019 was: is bitcoin a macro asset? Is it a flight to safety asset? @BMBernstein set the context and @jillruthcarlson asked the question
Hey another quick sidebar mention. As you can tell, a lot of the content I’m focused on has to do with the larger market narratives, but this thread from @gakonst on sidechains is pure education
@gakonst [LRS55 - July 14] The SINGLE MOST SEEN bitcoin tweet of the year goes to @realDonaldTrump himself in the lead up to the Libra hearings.
Meanwhile, @EpsilonTheory had some choice words
Meanwhile, @EpsilonTheory had some choice words
[LRS56 - July 21] In some ways, the Libra hearings were the most significant week of the year. They were weird, sometimes distracted, but also revealed new allies, such as @PatrickMcHenry
And of course, the biggest of shoutouts to @Melt_Dem who not only testified and tried to educate Congress on the differences between Facebook and Libra but who summed it all up too
[LRS57 - July 28] For the first week in a while, the chat wasn’t all about Libra. There was a fair bit of talk about crypto-based games but the content of the week was @nic__carter’s piece on settlement assurances medium.com/@nic__carter/i…
[LRS58 - Aug 4] In the wake of Libra, the crypto discussion took a distinctly macro turn. @RaoulGMI was on @HiddenForcesPod and @stephanlivera and this thread from @hussmanjp dominated the conversation
[LRS59 - Aug 11] Speaking of @RaoulGMI, he owned this week with his thread on “Bonds. Dollars. Bitcoin. Gold” There was also more on privacy vs surveillance in the context of encryption backdoors
[LRS60 - Aug 18] Staying on the macro theme, this week @TheStalwart explained inverted yield curves and @KyleSamani gamed out a theoretical battle between the PBOC and the Fed.
[LRS61 - Aug 25] When Bank of England governor Mark Carney proposed a “Synthetic Hegemonic Currency” at an official Fed meaning, it became clear that Libra was bringing up questions around the USD bigger than itself
In that same week, @allenf32 wrote one of the most viral threads of the year on the cocaine binge-esque nature of the modern economy
[LRS62 - Sept 1] To close out the summer, I asked an array of guests to answer what we learned, what happens next and what we’re not talking about enough. Scroll to the bottom to see how folks did with their EOY price predictions getrevue.co/profile/nlw/is…
[LRS63 - Sept 8] In this weirdly gloomy BTC-at-$10k week, @DoveyWan opined that there was a “BTC bull disguising an alt coin bear” while @nic__carter brought the fire with his piece on the “most peaceful revolution” medium.com/@nic__carter/a…
[LRS64 - Sept 15] If it wasn’t clear by this time, actions this week from world governments around digital currencies validated @el33th4xor point that Libra “awakened the sovereigns”
And if you want to zoom out to the realm of philosophical and theoretical, this post from @erikcason was one of the most interesting of the year cryptosovereignty.org/the-political-…
[LRS65 - Sept 22] And now we get to the Repo Markets. Need a primer? @moorehn FTW Need a sense of how crypto was reacting?
[LRS66 - Sept 29] As the bitcoin price receded, crypto twitter started to get a little gloomy. Thankfully, @Ikigai_Fund’s new gem @hansthered was here to look at data to show the strength of the fundamentals
[LRS67 - October 6] In some of the biggest regulatory news of the year, the SEC announced that it had settled with Block One over their $4B year-long ICO. As we had come to expected, @katherineykwu was there with the annotation within hours
Before leaving this week, I must point to @SarahJamieLewis passionate and eloquent thread on privacy as a human right. This was one of the most important themes of 2019 and will be again going into next year
[LRS68 - October 13] Libra was back in the news, and not at all in the way they would have liked, as most of the major financial institutions vacated the Libra Association. Nick Szabo’s back and forth with @davidmarcus was fascinating
[LRS69 - October 21] As he is wont to do, @TheStalwart enflamed at least half of the bitcoiners on Twitter by suggesting there is an inherent tension between the goal of censorship resistance and the financialization of BTC
I’m highlighting that point because I think it’s an important conversation that just gets higher and higher stakes the more these big financial institutions get involved with bitcoin.
Meanwhile, that same week, despite the bad news around PayPal and others leaving Libra, @mikejcasey suggested it was too early to call them done for coindesk.com/its-not-time-t…
[LRS70 - October 27] This was the showdown everyone was waiting for - Zuckerberg testifying about Libra. There was a ton of great content, but @twobitidiot’s “Then They Fight You” stood out. messari.substack.com/p/then-they-fi…
BTW, this may have been my favorite single tweet of the year
@DoveyWan Her thread during this week was one of a million examples, but they deserve to be highlighted as a whole!
[LRS71 - November 10] Outside of Libra and the macro context of bitcoin, probably the biggest crypto narrative this year was DeFi. @ercwl writes why it ISN’T a fad
I would also be remiss not to highlight one of my favorite bits of original thinking from 2019, Adamant Research’s piece connecting the conditions for reformation to the context of bitcoin today ?
[LRS72 - Nov 17] This week @mayazi gave us the perfect term for a phenomenon we’ve been talking about in growing fashion all year: #DissidentTech. @PeterMcCormack’s Defiance podcast launch was reflective getrevue.co/profile/nlw/is…
This week also saw one of the biggest, most extensive pieces of research and trend watching of the year in @CoinSharesCo Mary Meeker style “Crypto Trends” report
@CoinSharesCo [LRS73 - Nov 25] Honestly, this week was a lot of people trying to figure out why number go down. One side bar was a growing conversation about mining, reflected in this thread
[LRS74 - Dec 8th] Just like the Starbucks Xmas drinks arrive earlier each year, so the EOY trend pieces start early too. Still, this look from @LucasNuzzi at BTC technical development would be great any time of year
[LRS75 - Dec 15] I think when the dust settles, one of the most controversial pieces of the year will have been @jillruthcarlson questioning for @CoinDesk’s Year In Review about whether crypto is SUPPOSED to be mainstream coindesk.com/cryptocurrency…
[LRS76 - Dec 22] Finally, we wrapped the year with a summary of the EOY trend reports. There were great ones from @BlockchainCap and @Soonaorlater, but I have to give it to @TwoBitIdiot for his/@MessariCrypto’s monster
@blockchaincap @soonaorlater @twobitidiot @MessariCrypto So there you have it! A full year of great content. Through ups and downs, one of the most amazing things about this space is how much people are willing to share knowledge, ideas, theories, and insight.
Here's to an even better 2020!
Here's to an even better 2020!
@blockchaincap @soonaorlater @twobitidiot @MessariCrypto And of course, if you prefer to get LRS via email, sign up here: getrevue.co/profile/nlw
