October 26, 2022 / Unchained Daily / Laura Shin
What’s Poppin’?
The Crypto Markets Had a Day of Relief: Is the Bear Market Over?
The markets are experiencing significant gains, with ETH reaching pre-Merge levels and BTC surpassing $20,000. Have the crypto markets turned a corner finally?
Compound Votes to Pause Activity for Illiquid Crypto Assets
The Compound DAO passed a proposal to pause activity for YFI, BAT, ZRX and MKR over concerns that their lack of liquidity could prove to be a risk.
Why SEC Chair Gary Gensler Thinks Crypto Is Centralized
by Samyuktha Sriram
SEC Chair Gary Gensler is concerned about the significant role that centralized intermediaries have in the crypto industry.
Bitcoin Market Share Hits Two-Year High Against Altcoins
by Samyuktha Sriram
Bitcoin’s trading volume now accounts for more than 50% of all volume across 14 major crypto exchanges – the highest level since 2020.
BNB Chain Launches $10M Gas Fee Incentive Fund
by Samyuktha Sriram
BNB Chain will support projects building on its ecosystem with a $10 million gas fee incentive fund beginning this quarter.
In Other News… ✍️✍️✍️
- Lawmakers Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sent a letter to several agencies with concerns about former regulators working in the crypto industry.
- BitMEX CFO Stephan Lutz will take additional responsibility as interim CEO after Alexander Hoeptner stepped down with immediate effect.
- Kim Seo-joon, CEO of VC firm Hashed and an early investor in Terra, failed to show up as a witness before a hearing of the Korean National Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee investigating Terra’s collapse.
- Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, said that he thinks he will stand by the financial commitment to Elon Musk’s Twitter bid.
Today in Crypto Adoption…
- Lawmakers from the House of Commons in the U.K. voted in favor of recognizing crypto assets as regulated financial instruments.
- Meta (disclosure: I write a Bulletin newsletter) signed a partnership with makeup brand L’Oréal and French business school HEC Paris to back up a startup acceleration program built to foster creativity in the metaverse.
- Cryptocurrency exchange BitOasis partnered with Mastercard to offer customers crypto-linked payment cards in the Middle East and North Africa region.
- Web3 ticketing company YellowHeart will launch a metaverse music venue.
The $$$ Corner
- ParaFi Capital, White Star Capital and Shima Capital co-led a $6 million seed round for Thala Labs.
- NFT startup Exclusible closed a $5 million round co-led by Dan Holzmann and Tioga Capital.
- Synota, a Bitcoin technology startup, raised $3 million in a seed round led by Ego Death Capital.
What Do You Meme?
Recommended Reads
- Bloomberg’s Matt Levine on the story of crypto
- ape16z on NFT royalties
- The Tie on Layer 1s Aptos and Sui
On The Pod…
Eric Wall, crypto blogger and investor, and Udi Wertheimer, a recovering Bitcoin maxi, discuss everything about Bitcoin Maximalism, whether BTC can survive, and whether Ethereum constitutes a threat to Bitcoin. Show highlights:
- how Eric and Udi got involved with Bitcoin
- what Bitcoin was like in the first days
- how Bitcoin maxis appear to have a script to engage in discussions
- the philosophy behind Bitcoin maximalism
- why Eric believes Bitcoin maximalism is like a “weird cult”
- how Eric thinks that the BTC community has an unspoken rule forbidding criticisms
- whether Bitcoin has lost intellectual power
- why people have recently been turning away from Bitcoin maximalism
- why the poor Bitcoin culture doesn’t mean it’s the end for Bitcoin, according to Eric
- the perception of the Lightning network and how people are not interested in faster blockchains
- whether Bitcoin should increase the use cases of the blockchain, like DeFi, NFTs, and stablecoins
- El Salvador’s adoption of BTC and whether it had an impact
- what happens to internet subcultures and how the behavior of Bitcoiners could be predicted
- whether Ethereum is a threat to Bitcoin
Book Update
My book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze, which is all about Ethereum and the 2017 ICO mania, is now available!
You can purchase it here: https://amzn.to/3CvfrbE
