An SEC Crypto Jam Session + Messari's Weekend Reads 😎 - Unqualified Opinions
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Short, but action-packed week this week with a breakdown of our support for the Kin “Defend Crypto” campaign (risky for us, but important, we think); a look at IEO performance (subscribers-only) and an analysis of how Bitcoin might behave in a financial crisis (subs-only).
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SEC Talks Crypto
A lot of good stuff came out of the SEC crypto event today in DC today...not sure if you caught it, but several senior officials once again opened the door for no action letters to projects who became "sufficiently decentralized" over time. And they harped on their "facts and circumstances" approach to enforcement, and talked about the need for common sense transparency audits.
We particularly liked this tweet:
This one was a bit more loaded:
Sounds like the SEC definitely wants to go after Kin. We’ll see!
-TBI
***See those weird little rankings underneath the profile pictures of the two quoted tweeters? Those are “crypto clout” scores that get added automatically to your twitter conversations, and measure accounts based on strength of follower base. Helpful for discovering smart new people, and industry rising stars. (Powered by Hive.One)
📚 Messari’s weekend reads:
Decred governance: An iterative approach - Max Bronstein
Zuckbucks or bust: How SEC rulemaking hurts startup cryptos and favors big tech - Zachary Kelman
In Baltimore and beyond, a stolen N.S.A. tool wreaks havoc - Nicole Perlroth and Scott Shane
Introducing Aragon Fundraising - Aragon
A taxonomy of token models and valuation methodologies - Jose Maria Macedo
Notes on blockchain governance - Vitalik Buterin
Debunking Bitcoin myths, The ‘Intrinsic Value’ fallacy - Kyle Torpey
Spartan: zkSNARKS without trusted setup - Gorka Irazoqui Apecechea
New START must be extended, with or without China - Daryl Kimball
✅ Project updates from the Messari Registry Members:
Blockstack published its whitepaper 2.0 which builds on two years of R&D work, peer-reviewed research, and presents a more detailed specification of the technology.
Gnosis’ dxDAO launched this Wednesday. So far, over $8 million has been locked to earn voting power.
IDEX published a cool article laying out thoughts and advice on how to measure DApp usage and adoption.
Melon Council member @madeeba_ltd submitted a tool to the CoinList - The Graph hackathon to evaluate historical data for funds, assets & investors of Melon.
Morpheus Labs announced its partnership with KardiaChain which will be developing its Dual Node technology which allows access to the ledger data of two chains simultaneously.
Waves announced its plans to develop Waves DEX as a standalone trading-focused product.
Have a good weekend y’all.
- The Messari Team
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Messari Compression Algorithm
Content and thoughts from around the web as summarized by the Messari team.
🏛 [Analysis] Report to Congress ponders a future of cryptocurrency over cash - Steven Harras (May 2019)
A recent report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) emphasized the decline of cash relative to other digital payments, including crypto, according to Steven Harras. Although the amount of cash in the U.S. economy writ large has grown, the use of cash in transactions has tumbled as traditional digital methods mature. While crypto payments remain "quite rare," they are a meaningful alternative according to the CRS. The rise in cashless methods is not without political consequence, with many Democratic statesmen decrying the ill effect cashless commerce has on the unbanked. Volatility and little support for high trade volumes are two other hurdles the report disclosed to Congress. (share or read more)
📱[Analysis] Robinhood’s free crypto trades powered by Chicago’s jump trading - Benjamin Bain (May 2019)
While a few big legacy finance firms have moved into crypto, others are working in the shadows to turn a profit like Chicago's Jump Trading, according to Bloomberg's Benjamin Bain. Jump handles millennial darling Robinhood Crypto's trade orders which offer lower risk compared to fast-paced professional trades. Robinhood earns profit from volume rebates from subscribing trade venues like Jump. Adding crypto to its order options helped double Robinhood's user base from April 2017 to Feb. 2018, with last year's valuation standing at $5.6 billion for the six-year-old company. (share or read more)
Quick Bits (Don't read that, I read it for you)
Choke Points (Exchange News)
🔎 Cryptopia liquidator Grant Thorton says the exchange owes creditors $2.74 million in both secured and unsecured debt and salaries to employees. Following a January hack costing $16 million and subsequent effort to resume trading, the exchange went into liquidation. Grant Thorton says the exchange has just under $700,000 in cash with $1.3 million in assets, although only an estimated $242,000 of the assets are deemed recoverable. (share or read more)
🧼 Huobi claims certain market makers were engaging in wash trading without the exchange's knowledge, leading to their inclusion in Bitwise's recent SEC report. Huobi identified and ended the wash trading after the report, a spokesperson told CoinDesk. Bitwise's follow up on its latest report says a change in Huobi's trade patterns was noticed after the initial report, but overall trade volume did not decrease. (share or read more)
Startup Signals (ICOs, Cryptos, and Startups)
⚓️ Andreessen Horowitz-backed crypto custody startup Anchorage says it now offers 'end-to-end' crypto insurance for crypto institutions and investors through the UK's Aon. Anchorage says its unique custody design does not utilize offline or cold storage tech like rival custody firms Coinbase or Bitgo, making it more dynamic for users. (share or read more)
💰Binance has teamed up with California's Cred to extend the latter's lending and borrowing program across the ecosystem, according to CoinDesk. As part of the agreement, some of Cred's native token LBA will move to Binance Chain which Binance claims will help Cred scale its product at higher and more efficient speeds. (share or read more)
The Powers That Be (Legal/Reg/Policy)
🦘The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has issued guidance to local ICOs, saying crypto projects need to self-determine the need for an Australian financial services (AFS) license and compliance with the Corporations Act. (share or read more)
🇯🇵 A bill to amend existing crypto law in Japan has passed and will go into effect in April 2020, according to CoinTelegraph. The bill amended two laws, tightening regulation for consumer protection particularly around derivatives trading, exchange hacks, and limiting margin trading from four to two times the initial deposit. (share or read more)
Did I miss something?
Send me the link, your twitter handle and your best imitation compression algorithm write up. If I like it, I’ll include your bit next issue (with attribution).
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