Messari's Weekend Reads 😎 - Unqualified Opinions #23
self care, sleep, and readings (plus the latest podcast!)
Messari’s Unqualified Opinions #23
It’s Friday, which means we’re keeping things light and teeing up our weekend reads.
We also have a new episode of the Messari podcast out! On this pod, Katherine breaks down the latest arbitration case to come out of China's Shenzhen International Court of Arbitration, which determined bitcoin is protected under China’s existing property laws. Additionally, Zack interviews Samson Mow of Blocksteam about sidechains: what they are, what Liquid is, and how its release can impact the average crypto investor. (13 minutes long for your evening commute.)
Listen and subscribe— on Apple Podcasts here, Spotify here, and Google play here.
Messari’s weekend reads 📚:
What's Really Driving the Cryptocurrency Phenomenon? - Iterative Capital
Enter the Crypto Idea Maze- Jon Choi
Do Security Tokens Need a New Blockchain? Benefits and Challenges [Part I]- Jesus Rodriguez
What will it take for crypto to boom again?- Daniel Jeffries
Planting Bitcoin Part One (of Five): Species - Dan Held
A Guide to Post-Quantum Cryptography- Trail of Bits Blog
Detailed overview of Ethereum 2.0 shard chains: Committees, Proposers and Attesters- Alexander Skidanov
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. Share. Subscribe. Tweet at Messari for feedback, comments, or questions.
P.P.S We so appreciate you for being a subscriber and reading our daily newsletter. Please let us know how we can do better by taking the survey here. Thank you!
News & Analyses
Messari Compression Algorithm
Content and thoughts from around the web as summarized by the Messari team.
💰Ripple sold $163 million of XRP during the third quarter
According to the company's most recent transparency report Ripple sold $163 million of ($XRP) amounting to 0.43 percent of global volume during the third quarter of 2018. Of the total, $98.06 million was sold directly to institutions and $65.27 million was sold through programmatic sales. During the quarter 3.0 billion XRP was released as part of a pre-determined escrow schedule and 2.6 billion was returned to smart contracts to remain in escrow. In the fourth quarter of 2017 Ripple created a system that locked the company's 55 billion XRP in order to create certainty around the sale of tokens. Due to the lockup, Ripple has access to only 13 percent of the total XRP in circulation. (Messari | Source)
💰 [Analysis] Bitcoin's buyers of last resort – Pierre Rochard
Together, Bitcoin’s buyers and holders of last resort help break the negative feedback loop in a bitcoin exchange rate crisis, setting up the base for the next bull market. Buyers of last resort break the negative feedback loop in two ways. Bidders of last resort put in limit orders, and buyers of last resort put in market buy orders. Buyers of last resort fall into the following categories:
People paid in btc
Recurring buyers
Windfall buyers
Opportunistic buyers
Relative value and flight to safety traders
⛏ [Analysis] Notation + blockchain mining 2.0
As blockchains evolve into the era of Mining 2.0 - during which new mining methods are invented - it will become increasingly important for investors, builders and other stakeholders to actually participate in these new networks. Aside from it being a lucrative financial opportunity and gives stakeholders a bigger say, it also encourages meritocracy and decentralized participation. Firms will begin to build out in-house teams and partner with external parties to build out internal mining teams. Some of the difficulties will be dev ops requirements, software requirements, hardware requirements, security requirements, and marketing requirements. (Messari | Source)
Quick Bits (Don't read that, I read it for you)
Choke Points (Exchange News)
💭 Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao introduced the Blockchain Charity Foundation at the United Nations’ World Investment Forum in Geneva. CZ explained how increased transparency via blockchain-based donations could help "charity improve 100 times: 100x more efficient, 100x more donations, 100x more impact!” [TBI Note: Never short on hype, eh.] (Messari | Source)
Startup Signals (ICOs, Cryptos, and Startups)
💰Algorand, the blockchain protocol founded by MIT professor and Turing Award winner Silvio Micali, has raised $62 million in new funding. The new funding comes months after Algorand secured $4 million in a seed funding round from Pillar and Union Square Ventures. (Messari | Source)
💯 Boost VC officially backed their hundredth crypto startup, four years after Boost VC co-founders Adam Draper and Brayton Williams made a pledge to invest in 100 bitcoin startups over the next three years. 45 percent of their backed startups have secured additional funding while 25 percent have shut down. (Messari | Source)
The Powers That Be (Legal/Reg/Policy)
📝 Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) on Wednesday gave the cryptocurrency industry self-regulatory status, permitting the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association to police and sanction exchanges for any violations. The association will set rules that safeguard customer assets, prevent money laundering, and give operational guidelines. (Messari | Source)
🚨 Indian police seize crypto ATM run by exchange Unocoin. A commissioner from the Bangalore city police, Alok Kumar, said that Unocoin did not have a license from the Reserve Bank of India nor the Securities and Exchange Board of India that allowed it to carry out bitcoin transactions. Questionable motives. (Messari | Source)
👐 U.K.-based settlement infrastructure provider SETL has been granted a license from France's securities regulator, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers, to operate a central securities depository system using blockchain technology. SETL announced a new CEO on Tuesday, replacing cofounder Peter Randall (who will move on to be president) with BCG senior partner Philippe Morel. (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, last week Katherine interviewed Blockchain Capital’s Spencer Bogart (disclosure: he’s a Messari investor) in SF. They chat about fund tokenization, benchmarks for crypto fund performance, and his transition from equity research to venture investing - something that might be interesting to our analyst community.
Some other great episodes are #9 (Tony Sheng on his writing proecess), #6 (Jake Chervinsky’s primer on federal & State crypto regulators), #4 (Nic Carter on data integrity in crypto), and #8 (Conversations on the ground at CryptoSprings).
Find our podcast series on Apple here, Google Play here, and Spotify here.
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 that end, We’ve made a Trello board to take in any and all of the feedback you have for us! Have at it 🛠
We also want your opinions on how this newsletter can be improved. Give us your thoughts here!
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:
DevCon, Prague, Czech Republic | October 30–November 2
Consensus Invest, New York, New York | November 28
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.