Messari's Weekend Wrap Up 😎 - Unqualified Opinions
self care, sleep, good content, and new features
Your daily snapshot from our OnChainFX markets dashboard.
It’s Friday. We’re keeping things light and teeing up our weekend reads and listens.
This week we have a special replay of our new Unqualified Opinions live series . 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. If you have any suggestions for future guests let us know on twitter!
📚 Messari’s weekend reads:
Dear crypto community, it’s time to acknowledge hidden marketing, bots, & astroturfing - Twan
Cryptoasset research: Monero (XMR) - Jack Purdy
What we can learn from the biggest tech policy mistakes of 2018 - Steve Case
Steven Pinker on the past, present and future of optimism - Darryn King
Deconstructing decentralized exchanges - Lindsay X. Lin
MimbleWimble: History, technology, and the mining industry - Arjun Balaji
How modern monetary theory could become the left’s worst nightmare - Max Gulker
Bitcoin at 10, the untold stories - CoinDesk
Blockchain can wrest the internet from corporations' grasp - Chris Dixon
🚨 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:
Cycle low measures
Our OnChainFX dashboard now features cycle low measures to track recent lows and compliment our existing all time high statistics. Most assets that we tracked hit an all time high in early 2018 and reached their lows late in the year.
For high and low information on all of our covered assets head over to this sample dashboard.
Hashrate and 51% attack details
On the heels of the recent Ethereum Classic reorg attack we added new metrics from crypto51.app with details on mining algorithms, hashrate, and what it might cost to launch an attack on a network.
Get started with this custom dashboard that sorts by attack cost per day.
Price methodology
We have also updated our FAQ page with details on how we calculate price across our site. This page will be updated as we add new assets or exchanges and refine our methodology.
Let us know what you think and as always, 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] Maker Dai: Stable, but not scalable - Su Zhu and Hasu
While Maker's decentralized Ethereum backed Dai stablecoin has successfully proven itself to withstand a decline in the price of ETH it is not scalable according to Su Zhu and Hasu. The authors argue the dynamics of the Maker model make it inefficient to arbitrage in the Dai ecosystem, potentially leading to an imbalance between supply and demand, and a deviation from Dai's dollar peg. This is primarily related to the requirement create collateralized ETH contracts in order to create new Dai, and for arbitragers that means needing to find a way to later liquidate a contract after creating new Dai. Other stablecoins, like those that are backed by fiat currency, represent a more efficient arbitrage opportunity for traders because there is no need for over-collateralization and the creation and withdrawal mechanisms create less friction. Despite this, Zhu and Hasu argue that perhaps a scalable stablecoin isn't the true value of Maker, but instead it is to generate censorship resistant stability for anyone holding a volatile censorship resistant asset. (share or read more)
📚 [Analysis] Understanding the SEC’s Guidance on Digital Tokens with the Hinman Standard - Blockchain Association
Washtington, D.C.'s Blockchain Association asserts that realizing the full potential of a new digital asset economy must begin with robust consideration of existing and needed regulations for these tokens and networks. The SEC’s Corporation Finance Director William Hinman has suggested a regulatory framework for digital tokens based on the level of decentralization of the token network, which has sparked immediate scrutiny and speculation around every project vying to prove satisfaction of this standard. As it's understood, the Hinman test infers that a project should meet the standard for decentralization if it is more decentralized than the Bitcoin or Ethereum networks. In this piece, the Blockchain Association describes exactly what this comparative standard could mean and explains why much more regulatory certainty for these frameworks is immediately needed from the SEC and Congress. (share or read more)
Quick Bits (Don't read that, I read it for you)
Choke Points (Exchange News)
😰 Only a third of recently inspected Korean cryptocurrency exchanges received a full pass. The Ministry of Science and ICT, the Korea Internet & Security Agency, and the Ministry of Economy and Finance examined 85 different security aspects across 21 exchanges in the country. (share or read more)
😬 Security token trading platform DX.Exchange claims it has patched a security vulnerability that had leaked sensitive data, including password reset links, following its Monday launch. An announcement from the exchange claimed that a bug related to user authentication tokens was resolved before any damage could occur and that funds were not at risk. (share or read more)
Startup Signals (ICOs, Cryptos, and Startups)
🏛 Crypto index fund provider Bitwise Asset Management has applied with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)to offer a new Bitcoin ETF. According to the registration filing, the product plans to track the Bitwise Bitcoin Total Return Index, which tracks BTC prices across multiple exchanges. Bitwise would require physical Bitcoin to be held with regulated third-party custodians. (share or read more)
💱 SharesPost has executed its first secondary transaction in Blockchain Capital’s BCAP security tokens, making it the first marketplace that enables secondary trading and custody of digital securities, according to an announcement from the firm. (share or read more)
The Powers That Be (Legal/Reg/Policy)
✅ Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) has granted full permission for crypto exchange Coincheck to continue operating in the country. Coincheck was sold to Monex Group for $33.5 million in April 2018 after hackers managed to steal $530 million worth of tokens, mainly NEM, from the exchange. (share or read more)
🏛 In its recently released examination priorities for 2019 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Committee Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) named digital assets as one of six priorities. The agency said the growth of the digital asset market and different market participants raises a number of concerns requiring the continued monitoring of the offer, sale, trading, and management of the assets. (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 on the Messari podcast, In 2019's first episode, Katherine took an interesting dive into Hong Kong's crypto ecosystem with Leo Weese, President of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong. They talked about how the Hong Kong crypto ecosystem has changed since 2012, what some of the common misconceptions are about crypto in Hong Kong, and what makes this city so unique and well suited for crypto development.
Listen and subscribe to all of our podcasts— on Apple Podcasts here, Spotify here, and Google play 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. Head over to our new feedback tool and let us know what you think!
🛠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!
Join Our Community:
If you are interested in helping us crowdsource token project details, or want to join our community to share your expertise, we’d 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.