July 30, 2021       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • Paxos announced a $300M Series D backed by Bank of America, Coinbase Ventures, FTX, and Founders Fund.

  • Representative Don Beyer introduced the Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act.

  • Vauld raised a $25M Series A, led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures

  • State Street Digital, a $3.5T asset manager, will add digital and cryptocurrency asset fund services through a partnership with Lukka.

  • PayPal CEO Dan Schulman is excited about smart contracts and DeFi.

  • Bitcoin miners can now sidestep taxes by sending proceeds directly to an IRA.

  • MicroStrategy plans to purchase more Bitcoin.

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

A New Infrastructure Bill Looks to Raise $28B Through Crypto Taxes

In the latest version of the bipartisan infrastructure plan in the US, policymakers have proposed to raise an additional $28B through crypto taxes. These funds would be funneled into a larger $550B investment into the country’s transportation and infrastructure.

As part of the bill, reporting rules would tighten, with US businesses being obligated to report any transaction over $10,000 to the IRS. Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association told CoinDesk, “We interpret this to mean software wallet developers, hardware wallet manufacturers, multisig service providers, liquidity providers, DAO token holders and potentially even miners.”

According to Jake Chervinsky, general counsel at Compound Labs, the new bill includes a provision that “could be very bad for crypto,” due to the aforementioned reporting obligations.

In other US regulatory news, Representative Don Beyer introduced the Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act on Thursday. The Block reports that the bill “seeks to delineate the treatment of crypto assets under five securities acts, the Commodity Exchange Act and the Bank Secrecy Act, as well as Federal Reserve treatment of stablecoins and possible digital legal tender.”

Recommended Reads

  • Binance US CEO Brian Brooks told Forbes that he believes crypto exchanges will not be profitable for much longer:

  • @magdalenakala on why digital ownership matters:

  • CoinShares just dropped research on the Lightning Network:

  • Siddharth Jain on decentralized treasury management:

On The Pod…

Axie Infinity’s July Revenue Tops $200 Million. Here’s How Filipinos Drove It

Leah Callon-Butler, director of Emfarsis, discusses her documentary, “Play-to-Earn: NFT Gaming in the Philippines,” and the real-world impact that crypto is having in the Philippines. Show highlights:

  • how the Axie Infinity movement started in the Philippines

  • how much money players can earn through Axie Infinity compared to normal wages in the Philippines

  • how Filipino crypto exchanges are catering to Axie Infinity players to make it easier to cash out their earnings

  • what percentage of Axie Infinity players live in the Philippines

  • why the game is so popular in rural areas

  • what about Axie Infinity is bringing in non-crypto native players

  • why Axie Infinity now has high barriers to entry

  • how players have created their own system for helping bring new users into Axie Infinity

  • how Axie Infinity scholarships work

  • what Leah thinks about Yield Guild Games’s relationship with Axie Infinity

Book Update

My book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze, is now available for pre-order now.

The book, which is all about Ethereum and the 2017 ICO mania, comes out Jan. 18. Pre-order it today!

You can purchase it here: http://bit.ly/cryptopians