August 2, 2022 / Unchained Daily / Laura Shin
Daily Bits✍️✍️✍️
- Crypto-linked PACs are spending millions of dollars on upcoming primaries across the United States.
- Troubled crypto lender Vauld was granted a three-month moratorium.
- The SEC charged Forsage founders in an alleged $300 million pyramid scheme.
- Bitfarms, a crypto mining company, increased its capacity by 21% last month.
- After the news about the collaboration with Tiffany & Co., the floor price of CryptoPunks surged by 10% and sales soared.
- New York’s attorney general encouraged workers of crypto companies to report misconduct.
Today in Crypto Adoption…
- Colombia’s government announced a partnership with Ripple to put land titles on the blockchain.
- Muse, a British rock band, will release its new album on an NFT marketplace built on Polygon.
The $$$ Corner…
- Hardware wallet maker Ledger is looking to raise $100 million.
- Cboe’s latest earnings report revealed a $460 million write-down on its purchase of ErisX, a crypto asset exchange.
- FC Barcelona announced a $100 million partnership with Socios.com, a blockchain-based engagement platform.
- Debt DAO raised $3.5 million led by Dragonfly Capital.
What Do You Meme?
What’s Poppin’?
Coinbase Integrates With Ethereum PoS
Coinbase will start offering Ethereum staking to institutional investors in the United States, the company announced yesterday.
”Using our industry-leading cold storage, clients can now generate yield by staking ETH,” said Aaron Schnarch, Vice President of Product.
This new feature will allow institutional clients on Coinbase to earn an additional passive income. However, the practice may not be 100% safe, even though Coinbase says that “securing clients’ funds is our highest priority.”
Why could it be a dangerous play? Coinbase will always own the private keys to all those staked coins. “We hold withdrawal keys in our cold storage custody vault at all times.” With all the trouble that the crypto industry has been going through recently with BlockFi, Celsius, 3AC, Vauld, and many others, it raises the concern about a single entity owning such a large amount of assets.
In addition, this could potentially pose another threat to Ethereum becoming centralized. A single centralized entity could end up having a very large percentage of the staked Ether after the Merge. This is kind of similar to the Lido situation (which was covered in Unchained ep. 370 and 372), but it’s still quite different – and potentially more dangerous – because unlike Lido, Coinbase is a centralized company.
The announcement came at the same time as people are debating the possibility of the survival of an ETH Proof of Work chain, and even another Ethereum fork. If you are interested in this topic, don’t miss next Tuesday’s show with Galois Capital’s cofounder Kevin Zhou!
On a positive note for Ethereum holders, it looks like a publicly traded company like Coinbase is confident that the Merge will happen soon. In addition, Coinbase’s new feature could bring a lot of investment money into ether.
Recommended Reads
- Hunter Lampson on decentralized cloud storage
- Mikko Ohtamaa on the Cosmos ecosystem
- Haseeb Qureshi, host of TCB, on Kevin Zhou’s arguments about the Merge
On The Pod…
Lyn Alden, founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy, and Mauricio di Bartolomeo, cofounder of Ledn, discuss how inflation could affect the digital asset industry. Show highlights:
- how Mauricio’s upbringing in Venezuela and firsthand experience with inflation led him to Bitcoin
- what a “long-term debt cycle” is and why Lyn thinks the 2020s could be similar to the 1930s and 1940s
- the difference between inflation and hyperinflation
- how inflation changes consumer investing and purchasing decisions
- what the impact of inflation is on Bitcoin
- how Russia’s war on Ukraine will continue to impact inflation
- how rising interest rates will affect Bitcoin and stablecoin adoption
- what type of economic environment is worst for BTC growth
- whether Bitcoin is an inflation hedge
- why Lyn is long-term bullish on stablecoins and Bitcoin
- what effect a global recession would have on Bitcoin
- how global inflation has changed adoption rates for BTC in developing economies
- how Venezuelans use and perceive Bitcoin
- why Lyn and Mauricio are excited about Lightning Network in developing countries
- what Lyn and Mauricio think about El Salvador’s adoption of BTC and its billion dollar BTC bond
- how Ledn, as a lending company, was able to navigate the Celsius/Voyager crash
- how Lyn analyzes the risks associated with firms like BlockFi
- what lessons Lyn and Mauricio have learned in 2022 about digital assets and the economy
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: http://bit.ly/cryptopians
