XRP Fallout & Weekend Reads 😎 - Unqualified Opinions
XRP Fallout & Weekend Reads 😎 - Unqualified Opinions
self care, sleep, good content, and new features
Your daily snapshot from our OnChainFX markets dashboard.
Missing the daily dose of crypto? Our paid subscribers got meaty debriefs this week on Ripple-XRP, new UK regulatory developments, and BitMEX’s insurance pool. Join them to get access to our full content library.
Well, yesterday was…interesting…to say the least!
Drop a report which shows XRP’s market cap could be $6.1 billion overstated? You’re gonna incur the wrath of the #XRPArmy. Not surprising.
It also wasn’t surprising to get a series of menacing phone calls and have to go to local police and FBI to give them a heads up so you don’t risk getting swatted.
What was surprising was how Ripple’s management team (once again) did nothing to denounce its mob of rabid $XRP shills. The company has a pattern of stoking its “base” when convenient, but staying silent when the degenerate #XRPthestandard society attacks researchers, journalists, or anyone who dares ever question the hype.
Suffice it to say, we took great strides to release thorough, objective research on $XRP.
But make no mistake, I am not objective and take it very personally, when a management team of a $500 million enterprise software company fails to denounce the dregs of its investor ranks when they make threats and tag the CEO:
The lack of executive-level response is weak. Pathetic. Infuriating.
And Brad Garlinghouse should be ashamed of himself and his team for continuing to enable and even provoke these types of attacks against researchers and critics. I don’t know how people go to work at Ripple every day and feel good about their contributions to the world.
Not when leadership abdicates common sense ethical responsibilities.
If people don’t already see the issues with Ripple, and the multitude of problems with its core asset by now, I don’t know what else will convince them.
I just hope the Ripple’s xRapid banking partners carefully evaluate who they’re getting into bed with, and whether the (highly dubious) 1.9 bps of savings is worth it.
Messari’s report was an invitation to bring transparency to the liquid XRP markets. Actual transparency vs. transparency theater.
Our research was not well received by Ripple, yet none of our assumptions were specifically disputed or challenged. We will correct assumptions if and when Ripple decides to be more forthcoming. But we’re not holding our breath.
We’re excited to get back to work Monday and to keep driving transparency in crypto.
After a much needed weekend.
-TBI
***
It’s Friday!
We’re keeping things light and teeing up our weekend reads and some new site features.
📚 Messari’s weekend reads:
How to be successful - Sam Altman
Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin - Hacker News
Beyond the doomsday economics of "proof-of-work" in cryptocurrencies - Raphael Auer
2018 crypto retrospective - Circle Research
Some thoughts on investing in Grin - Alex Woodard
What proof of stake is and why it matters - Vitalik Buterin
(Podcast) Daniel Ellsberg on the creation of nuclear doomsday machines, the institutional insanity that maintains them, and a practical plan for dismantling them - 80,000 Hours
AlphaStar: Mastering the real-time strategy game StarCraft II - DeepMind
🚨 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:
New return periods
We are working to make it easier to understand market movements over various periods of time. This week we added new columns to the OnChainFX dashboard that show month-to-date, quarter-to-date, and year-to-date returns.
Check out our custom board with all return categories here.
Facebook page
We are now on Facebook. Get all of your news and Messari updates on our new page.
Expanded asset coverage
Our OnChainFX dashboard now covers more than 400 assets! Take a look and if we are missing your favorite token please let us know!
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] Will people ditch cash for cryptocurrency? Japan is about to find out - Mike Orcutt
The third largest economy, Japan, is flush in cash. Once the global leader in fintech, Japan has almost entirely failed to adapt to credit and debit cards, costing the Asian nation $18 billion per year. Still, Japan's fintech and government is expecting a breakout born on the back of blockchain digital payment systems. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has set 2025 as the target year to move 40% off cash payments. The countries largest bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) is developing its own blockchain payment system with American internet company Akamai, which is claimed to be capable of more than one million transactions per second. Its not as if Japan's citizens lack enthusiasm for crypto either: Japan accounts for half the world's foreign exchange margin trading, boasts the first and only cryptocurrency licensing regime, and hosted infamous Mt Gox till its collapse in 2014. Japan, regardless of its affinity for cash, could leap frog today's systems for the crypto based systems of tomorrow. (share or read more)
🏆 [Analysis] All the ways Grin and Beam take crypto back to its roots - David Z. Morris
"Ethos-driven" communities developing politically bent technology defined the Cypherpunk movement, and so it does for Beam and Grin ($grin), the two newest cryptocurrencies on the block. Both launched in January to great fanfare, particularly because of Mimblewimble technology and no initial coin offering (ICO). Mimblewimble allows for truly untraceable payments like privacy coins ZCash ($ZEC) or Monero ($XMR). This tech, as outlined in Grin's white paper, has political teeth: even Bitcoin ($BTC) reveals to much. Lastly, by not repeating the ICO mistakes of 2019 like premines, Grin and Beam have put themselves about the fray, limiting speculation and increasing there values. (share or read more)
Quick Bits (Don't read that, I read it for you)
Choke Points (Exchange News)
📦 Overstock.com's security token trading platform, tZERO, went live Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. As of now, tZERO's own security token is the only available asset. tZERO's launch has been years in the making and was funded by a months long token sale ending in August 2018 which raised $134 million. (share or read more)
👍 Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has launched an over-the-counter (OTC) exchange, allowing for quick and easy settlement of large cryptocurrency transactions. Binance OTC has 80 cryptocurrencies available. To access Binance OTC, a level two verified account is necessary and trades must exceed 20 Bitcoin. (share or read more)
Startup Signals (ICOs, Cryptos, and Startups)
🌌 Michael Novogratz's Galaxy Digital is launching a $250 million credit fund for crypto companies. The collateral will be acceptable in cryptocurrency, real estate, and even cryptocurrency mining rigs. Typically, the investment arm of Galaxy Digital, Galaxy Digital Ventures, hosts cryptocurrency loans, but demand is so high Galaxy Digital has opened up its own fundraiser. (share or read more)
👏 Veil, a peer-to-peer prediction market and derivatives platform built on the Auger platform, has acquired Predictions.Global, the top site for exploring Augur betting data. Veil launched earlier this month and received seed funding from Sequoia Capital and 1confirmation. (share or read more)
The Powers That Be (Legal/Reg/Policy)
😟 An International Monetary Fund regulatory consultation mission elicited concerns over the self-proclaimed 'blockchain island's' control over the tech for money-laundering and terrorism. The IMF mission praised the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit's efforts to date, but stated both capacity constraints and deficiencies in the regulatory framework require immediate action. (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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