Messari’s Unqualified Opinions
It’s Friday, which means we’re keeping things light and teeing up our weekend reads.
Want to learn how to write so that your stuff gets featured above the fold in these Friday missives? Check out Kwu’s conversation (Episode #9!!!) with Decentraland’s Tony Sheng, a prolific, deep thinker, whose work we love.
KWu grills Tony on his writing process. How he picks a topic, how he goes about actually putting pen to paper, and how he edits his masterpieces. It’s 13 minutes of pure writing geekdom.
(TBI Note: This sounds a lot like my writing process from back in 2013-2015. Tony’s the best in the game right now.)
Give the podcast a listen and subscribe! All nine of KWu’s Messari podcasts are on Apple Podcasts here, Spotify here, and Google play here.
📑 Messari weekend reads:
Banking when the bank is shut down - Antony Lewis
Tether’s hold on bitcoin’s liquidity: a risk assessment - Hasu
The tether truth machine - Bitfinex’ed
Testimony for the hearing of the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Community Affairs - Nouriel Roubini
Testimony for the hearing of the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Community Affairs - Peter Van Valkenburgh
What the lame duck election year could mean for cryptocurrency regulation - Roger Huang
Short convexity - Jill Carlson
What's a senior engineer's job? - Julia Evans
And the week ahead…
Three weeks in! We hope you like what we’ve been doing with the new daily - we’ve had fun writing it, and have appreciated the feedback so far. Please keep those comments and critiques coming. And stay tuned for more good times next week.
If there’s anything we should do better or any topic you want covered, let us know.
Have a good weekend, y’all.
- TBI & the Messari Team
P.S. Smash those share and subscribe buttons, and spread the love. Tweet at Messari for feedback, comments, or (more?) questions.
News & Analyses
Content and thoughts from around the web as summarized by the Messari team.
Quick Bits (Don't read that, I read it for you)
Choke Points (Exchange News)
🛑 Bitfinex suspends all fiat deposits. Bitfinex has paused all USD deposits but expects the situation to "normalize within a week." This comes after rumors of financial instability and insolvency over screenshots of Bitfinex allegedly banking with HSBC, which Bitfinex responded to in a blog post. (Messari | Source)
Startup Signals (ICOs, Cryptos, and Startups)
💼 Coinbase’s Adam White is joining Bakkt as its COO. Big, big hire. That didn’t take too long. (Messari | Source)
👨💼Crypto wallet provider Blockchain has hired former Noble Bank chief compliance officer, Ben Melnicki, as global regulatory counsel. (Messari | Source)
The Powers That Be (Legal/Reg/Policy)
💢 Coin Center director of research Peter Van Valkenburgh and economist Nouriel Roubini testified about the blockchain and crypto ecosystems before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs on Thursday. (Messari | Source | Zack’s live tweet)
"Celebrities" (Crypto Influencers)
🤦 Creator of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin denied his billionaire status in a tweet, claiming to have never held more than 0.9 percent of ether. Buterin posted a link to his digital wallet, with 365,003 ether valued at about $73 million. (Messari | Source)
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).
Community Updates
Podcast Recap
ICYMI, KWu’s latest and greatest Messari podcast #9 is an interview with Tony Sheng on his writing process. Last week, KWu was on the ground at Crypto Springs taking names and doing interviews in #8.
Listen to 1 (or all 9) on Apple Podcasts here, Spotify here, and Google play here. Happy learning!
Shameless Plugs
We want your feedback!
We know Messari can feel like a couple different products right now, and we're working to unify our features into one overarching whole. To the end, We’ve made a Trello board to take in any and all of the feedback you have for us! Have at it
We're Hiring:
We need data engineers who want to bring transparency to crypto!
Join a fast growing team in NYC; work with crypto OGs, and former Bloomberg/Palantir engineers; & access a network that sets you up for the rest of your career. Apply here!
Upcoming Travel:
Hit us up in these locations:
Money 20/20, Las Vegas, October 21-24th.
DevCon, Prague, Czech Republic October 30–November 2, 2018.
Join Our Community:
If you are interested in helping us crowdsource token project details, or want to join our community to share your expertise, wed love to have you on board! Take a second to fill out an application and we will get back to you soon.
Going forward, we’ll be capping new members at 15 each week to keep things running smoothly. If you haven’t heard back, you are probably in the queue.
Like what you read? Share it! Hate what you read? Let me know @MessariCrypto.