Messari's Weekend Reads 😎 - Unqualified Opinions
Self care, sleep, good content, and LIVE STREAMS!
Your daily snapshot from our OnChainFX markets dashboard.
Missing the daily dose of crypto? This week our subscribers took a deep-dive into Web3 vs DeFi, DApp usage, and just what makes Maker so valuable (hint, it might be mispriced) .
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It’s Friday!
We’re keeping things light on the weekend reads and queuing up some great interviews from ETH Denver.
📺 Messari livestreams:
We are live-streaming from ETH Denver and want you to be involved. Follow @twobitidiot on periscope and send us some questions during the next round. We will be live throughout the weekend.
In case you missed our guests today:
Erik Voorhees discussed the costs of regulation, ShapeShift, and new product releases.
Nadav Hollander gave a breakdown of decentralized lending and how Dharma is filling a niche in the blockchain space.
Lily Liu offered an incredibly detailed background on how 21.co and earn.com grew from their mining roots and expanded into a much larger company.
Ameen Soleimani talked about the future of organizations and how the newly proposed Moloch DAO gets us there.
☝️Watch them all and let us know what you think
📚 Messari’s weekend reads:
How to evaluate a cryptoassets cryptoeconomics - Steven Miller
The Moloch DAO - Ameen Soleimani et al.
Why it’s important to point out that JPM Coin is not a cryptocurrency- Jerry Brito
Bitcoin Delta Capitalization - David Puell
JPMorgan Just Killed the Bitcoin Dream - Ben Walsh
The Wired Guide to Your Personal Data (and Who Is Using It) - Louise Matsaskis
🚨 New features on messari.io:
We’ve been hard at work adding features that help bring transparency and smarter decision making to the cryptoasset space.
Here’s what we have rolled out recently:
Database updates
Did you know that we have 7,000+ datapoints on people, projects, and organizations in the space? Want to read more about Melon? We have everything here along with verified details on many other projects.
New homepage
In the meantime we are heads down on a new homepage! Its good, trust me.
Let us know what you think of the new features and this newsletter. Have a good weekend, y’all.
- The Messari Team
P.S. Share. Subscribe. Tweet at Messari for feedback, comments, or questions.
Messari Compression Algorithm
Content and thoughts from around the web as summarized by the Messari team.
📰 [Analysis] The libertarian fantasies of cryptocurrencies - Martin Wolf
Greed and fanaticism are features of financial systems and it is the duty of public policy to tame them. Cryptocurrencies, fueled by anarcho-libertarianism, only pushes these flaws at the expense of the public. The state, which needs little historical introduction as a tool of destruction, is still humanity's 'ultimate insurance mechanism.' It should be the purpose of public policy to examine the use cases for cryptocurrency where they exist. One such area would be central bank digital currencies, which could potentially break the business elites hold on money distribution. Yet, the costs must be understood: the financial systems of today would be radically altered and destabilized, perhaps creating more problems than it answers. The path forward, then, is adoption with caution. (share or read more)
⚰️ [Analysis] JPMorgan just killed the Bitcoin dream - Ben Walsh
The anarcho-capitalist monetary revolution is dead. With J.P. Morgan's launch of an internal stablecoin, the end-use of the cryptocurrency revolution has been realized and blockchain technology is officially in the 'boring' statge. The tech, described as a knife at the throat of bloated financial systems has become only another entrenchment tool for middlemen. Blockchain, and stablecoins built on them like JPM's digital coin, allow for instantaneous transfer of payments between institutions around the world. Massive market movers like JPM, furthermore, have pre-built internal systems with massive reach. The revolution, it seems, only helped the opponent. (share or read more)
Quick Bits (Don't read that, I read it for you)
Choke Points (Exchange News)
😁 Circle exchange platform Poloniex announced that users can now deposit and trade Grin ($GRIN) on the platform. In order to support Grin development Poloniex has pledged 25 to 50 percent of all Grin transaction fees on the exchange to the Grin General Fund for the next 12 months. (share or read more)
💸 Coinbase is now allowing withdrawals of Bitcoin SV ($BSV), nearly three months to the day after the Nov. 15th hardfork. Bitcoin Cash ($BCH) holders at the time of the hardfork will receive an equivalent amount of BSV deposited to their Coinbase accounts. Coinbase is not supporting any BSV exchange features at this time. (share or read more)
Startup Signals (ICOs, Cryptos, and Startups)
💳 According to a Kaspersky Labs study, one in ten people have used Bitcoin ($BTC) to make online purchases. Kaspersky surveyed some 12,000 customers in 22 countries. While still the least popular online payment method--credit and debt stood at 81% popularity--Karspersky Labs' survey shows Bitcoin is growing as a payment system. (share or read more)
📂 In a bid to encourage development, Filecoin ($FIL) has opened its GitHub project repos, devnets, discussion forum, certain chat channels, and project management tools for public use. The project started out privately, but recently hit a developmental milestone moving the project toward more public access. (share or read more)
The Powers That Be (Legal/Reg/Policy)
🏛 The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has tasked the the Division of Market Oversight (DMO) with examine cryptocurrency surveillance practices. The publishing of 2019 Examination Priorities comes at the time when multiple firms are seeking CFTC and SEC approval for crypto projects. ICE's Bakkt Bitcoin ($BTC) futures exchange is still awaiting approval. (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).
Podcast Recap
🎧 ICYMI last week Ryan (TBI) and Arjun Balaji sat down for over an hour to discuss what they see happening in the industry during 2019. If you are a subscriber, make sure you have caught up on our two part series and check out Arjun’s theses for 2019.
You can view the full video here and as always you can listen and subscribe to all of our podcasts— on Apple Podcasts here, Spotify here, and Google play here.
Shameless Plugs
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