1/4/2019 - 1/11/2019
___________
Don’t you wish State of the Market was just… better??? If so, fill out this quick form and tell us how you really feel. We appreciate your feedback!
___________
Market Summary
Asset | Price (USD) | 7 Day Change (%)
Bitcoin (BTC) | $8,071 | +9.94%
Ethereum (ETH) | $143.71 | +6.89%
Ripple (XRP) | $0.2132 | +9.42%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) | $263.04 | +18.85%
Litecoin (LTC) | $51.04 | +20.80%
Data sourced from https://onchainfx.com at 10:00PM CST
This week marks an incredible week for the cryptocurrency markets, with Bitcoin jumping nearly 10% in this last week, and around $16 billion being added to cryptocurrency’s overall market capitalization. The jumps came most significantly on Tuesday and Saturday, with virtually all cryptocurrencies experiencing significant boosts in price and market activity. Shockingly, Litecoin gained over 20% in value over this past week, gaining about 14% this Saturday alone.
Top Stories
$15 Million of Tether Moves to Liquid Sidechain
The stablecoin Tether (USDT) aims to be blockchain agnostic, issuing its dollar-pegged tokens on multiple blockchains. In 2019, Tether migrated most USDT tokens from Bitcoin’s Omni layer to Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard. However, on January 7th, Tether migrated an initial $15M USDT from Ethereum to Liquid, a Bitcoin sidechain developed by Blockstream. Ethereum still supports the majority of USDT tokens ($2.3B). Bitcoin’s Liquid sidechain provides the ability to issue confidential assets with private transactions. Privacy (deniability) is attractive to exchanges and traders, since cryptocurrency is subject to extreme regulatory uncertainty.
US Treasury Department Trials Blockchain-Based Platform Using Tokens
Craig Fischer of the US Treasury Department has revealed that the department has almost completed a proof-of-concept program that tokenizes letters of credit that are given to individuals and organizations that receive grants. The tokens store both the amount of money granted, and the information of the grantee, allowing the department to track grants in a much more efficient and secure way.
Virgil Griffith Finally Released on Bail
If you’ve been reading state of the market over this holiday season, you probably remember the name Virgil Griffith. Griffith is a leading Ethereum developer, and was arrested in the US on charges of helping North Korea evade sanctions after giving a presentation on cryptocurrency in the country. Griffith was later denied bail, and held in jail facing up to 20 years in prison if convicted. However, reports have surfaced that Judge Broderick granted Griffith’s $1 million bail on December 30th, though he was held an additional 10 days afterwards.
Basketball’s First Celebrity Token Shoots for Monday Launch
While the idea of tokenized sports contracts has existed for years, it seems that some public trial runs of the idea are finally being put to use. Spencer Dinwiddie, a player for the Brooklyn Nets, is partnering with the cryptocurrency firm Paxos in order to tokenize the first year of his 3 year, $34.5 million contract. Fans and investors alike can buy tokens of Dinwiddie’s contract, earning interest off of his bi-monthly paycheck. In addition, all investments into Dinwiddie’s contract are guaranteed, meaning investors do not lose their money if Dinwiddie is injured.
Chart of the Week
Bitcoin (blue), gold (red), and oil (orange). Last week, the assassination of Iran’s general triggered a mini-panic. Investors rushed to buy commodities like gold and oil, whose value is sought in times of economic uncertainty. Interestingly, the price of Bitcoin spiked with these ‘safe haven’ assets and maintained a tight correlation through Iran’s counter-strike and Trump’s de-escalation. For the full narrative, check out this piece by Parker Lewis, who reconciles Bitcoin’s extreme volatility with its store of value narrative.
Tweet of the Week
@rickygervais hosted the 77th Golden Globe Awards… and stole the show. He ruthlessly called out the Hollywood elite and corporations like Apple, Netflix, and Amazon. Ricky’s opening monologue is stuff of legend.
Tom Hanks reacts only.
@balajis, founder of YCombinator, and @VitalikButerin, creator of Ethereum, created a blog called @nakamoto to “publish pieces of general interest to crypto as a whole.” However, the movement sparked a backlash from Bitcoiners, who see the publication as an attempt by VCs to hijack Bitcoin’s brand and promote their own projects. On its website, Nakamoto claims that all contributors are “pro-Bitcoin (BTC) for the long-term”, even though primary contributors like Roger Ver (BCH), Michael Arrington (XRP), and Zooko (ZEC) use the platform to promote their coin’s improvement over Bitcoin’s outdated technology. The hashtag #ProBTC was co-opted by Bitcoiners to mock the VCs masquerading behind Bitcoin’s namesake. This parody article written by CoinJazeera provides a comical twist on the situation. And finally, a peek at the drama:
Nakamoto’s Telegram chat group, meant to facilitate meaningful discussion about crypto, is shut down. The chat became overrun by trolls and shills after admins (@VitalikButerin @balajis) removed prominent Bitcoiners (@BitcoinErrorLog @pierre_rochard) @StopAndDecrypt). @adam3us, CEO of Blockstream, put the nail in the coffin:
Gym friend embraces the meme. “Gym friend” was quite possibly the most powerful meme of 2019, which led to Samson Mow, CSO of Blockstream (and boyfriend of @LinaSeiche), filing a DMCA takedown lawsuit against @karbonbased who posted the meme. RIP @karbonbased, infamous crypto troll, whose Twitter account was suspended as a result. So much for censorship-resistance, eh @Blockstream??
@TrustlessState shares his article, titled “Ethereum: The Money-Game Landscape” with a visually appealing graphic:
Wowww. You’ll notice @TrustlessState is raising money through Gitcoin, which uses quadratic funding to support public goods for Ethereum (education, media, dev bounties, etc). Vitalik preaches quadratic funding as an incentive scheme to scale users’ funding with their true valuation of a public good.
Another short, sad story. Stay safe out there.
John Maynard Keynes is responsible for popularizing Keynesian economics, the dominant school of thought today. Most universities only teach Keynesian theories and most central banks only enact Keynesian policies. Keynesian policy favors spending over saving, inflation over deflation, and regulation over free markets. But, as @dwparkinson points out ‒ Keynes was just evil, not stupid:
Also this ‒ posted by @JoseAlNino (Hook ‘em) from @saifedean’s book. The excerpt highlights Keynes’ apparent pedophilia, with multiple sources attached. This comes after @paulkrugman’s likely story of falling victim to the classic hacker-uses-my-computer-to-download-child-porn attack. Paul Krugman championed Keynes’ theories by winning the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008 and advising White House administrations since Ronal Reagan. In his op-ed, titled “The Conscience of a Liberal”, Krugman writes: “John Maynard Keynes is my economic idol.” <3
The Millenial / Gen Z retirement plan in the wake of Keynesian policy.
@bergealex4 posts “a lesson on toxicity from one of the OGs”. It’s a quote from Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, the open-source operating system that powers Android, Chrome OS, and most enterprise computers around the world. Linux is a foundational example of free and open-source software (FOSS) collaboration. Because of its open nature, FOSS development can get messy. However, Torvalds saw toxicity as more of a feature than a bug:
@SamouraiWallet and @MartyBent echo Torvald’s sentiment of toxicity for Bitcoin.
@yassineARK shares an article by @MartyBent, expressing that “Bitcoin is just as much a hardware revolution as it is a software one.” Yassine lists examples of Bitcoin hardware solutions, which leverage the laws of physics in their security model.
@mdudas publicizes a series of slidesets from Ripple’s federal class-action lawsuit:
“Read with the benefit of doubt, this information tells a story of negligent marketing. At worst, it tells a story of deliberate deceptive marketing, disinformation, and at times outright lying to distance Ripple Labs from XRP tokens.”
Video of the Week
‘Watched with the benefit of doubt, The Four Horsemen tells a story about the powers that be. At worst, it tells a story of deliberate deceptive propaganda, rhetorical fallacies, and at times outright lying to distance the rich from the poor.’