August 27, 2021       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • 1inch Network, a DEX aggregator, is in the process of raising $70M at a $2.25B valuation, according to The Block. 
  • Two bills introduced by Representative Darren Soto seek to push the CFTC to create reports to bring more clarity to digital asset markets.
  • You can now use your “.com” domain just like a “.eth” address. 
  • Microsoft won a blockchain-related patent for a cross-chain token management system.
  • Royal, an NFT platform founded by 3LAU, raised $16M in a funding round led by Paradigm and Founders Fund. 
  • More than 100,000 ETH has been burned since Ethereum’s London fork. 
  • Coinbase named a former Facebook executive as its CMO. 
  • Morgan Stanley owns over one million shares of GBTC
  • Brazilian police seized $28.7M worth of crypto as part of Operation Kryptos. 
  • Senator Pat Toomey is looking for feedback on how to legislate crypto and blockchain. 

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

Andreessen Horowitz Publishes Best Practices for DeFi Delegation

In a Thursday blog post, a16z shared details about its token delegation process, including best practices, delegate assessment criteria, legal mechanics, the current delegate network, and ideas for future improvement. 

As an early investor in DeFi protocols like Uniswap, Compound, and Celo, amongst others, a16z has collected a large number of governance tokens. Over the past year, a16z has delegated the majority of its governance rights in protocols to a collection of nonprofits, startups, and universities with the idea of lowering a16z’s sway in on-chain voting. 

“Unlike traditional companies, protocols are meant to be governed on a decentralized basis. This unlocks their core value prop (neutrality) and ensures they’ll remain open to anyone who wants to use/build on them,” tweeted a16z’s Jeff Amico. “To truly serve this purpose, though, a “strong” form of delegation is needed. One that not only reduces surface level concentration, but that optimizes for certain other key principles as well, including quality, diversity, engagement, and perhaps most of all, independence.” 

 

Bonus Content: August 20-2017 Bitcoin Round-up

Bitcoin broke $50K for the first time in three months on Sunday. However, according to Arcane Research analysts, the seven-day average BTC trading volume is lagging behind the positive price action. If the trend continues, Arcane analysts think the market could become exhausted and fizzle out. On-chain analyst Will Clemente agreed, saying he was “short term bearish” on Monday, citing illiquid supply and coins moving onto exchanges. At publishing time, it appears that Will and Arcane could be right about BTC moving bearish, with the price falling back down to $46K-$47K. 

Despite all that, Bitcoin had a pretty good week. Here are five highlights:

  • Substack, a newsletter and content platform, integrated bitcoin as a payment option through a partnership with OpenNode. On-chain analyst Willy Woo and Dan Held, director of growth at Kraken, will be some of the first writers to accept Bitcoin sent on-chain or through the Lightning Network. 
  • El Salvador plans to launch its government-supported BTC wallet on September 7th, according to President Nayib Bukele. Those who download the wallet will receive $30 in BTC. The wallet release will coincide with El Salvador’s bitcoin law coming into effect. 
  • The business intelligence firm MicroStrategy announced another Bitcoin purchase this week, adding 3,907 coins ($175M) at an average price of $45K. The company now HODLs roughly 109,000 BTC on its balance sheet — roughly $5.5B. 
  • Citigroup is awaiting regulatory approval to begin trading bitcoin futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. If approved, Citi would join Goldman in offering BTC futures trading. 
  • Blockstream, a Bitcoin technology company, raised $210M in Series B funding, valuing the company at $3.2B. The new influx of cash will help fund an expansion into manufacturing mining chips, also known as ASICs. 

Recommended Reads

  • Other Internet on public goods and crypto protocols:

  • Alex Gladstein on Bitcoin and Afghanistan:

  • Multicoin Capital’s Kyle Saman on generative art and NFTs:

  • LedgerPrime’s Joel John on the creator economy (and OnlyFans):

On The Pod…

How Another NFT Trend, .eth Names, Has Attracted the Likes of Budweiser

Nick Johnson, lead developer at the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), talks about making Ethereum human-readable, why Budweiser purchased an NFT, how purchasing an ENS works, and more. Show highlights:

  • what ENS does and why it is important

  • why Budweiser bought “beer.eth”

  • how ENS names can be used to make Ethereum easier to use

  • what business use cases ENS names make possible

  • what made Nick want to create a naming service on Ethereum

  • how people are using their ENS names

  • why people are purchasing ENS names

  • what privacy issues arise from people attaching their name to an ETH address

  • what happens when Ethereum addresses get spammed with unwanted tokens

  • how to buy an ENS name and how much it costs

  • how ENS handles squatters

  • what happens when you lose access to an address holding an ENS name

  • how ENS is integrating normal domains (ex: “.com”) to Ethereum

  • what ENS has planned for L2 launches

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