September 28, 2021       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • Revolut is looking to launch its own token.

  • Nearly 1/3rd of Salvadorans are using the Bitcoin wallet Chivo, according to President Nayib Bukele.

  • Robinhood’s COO and CTO hinted that DeFi features could soon be available on the trading app.

  • Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce company, will block sales of cryptocurrency mining equipment starting on October 8th.

  • Coinbase is rolling out a product that will allow customers to directly deposit their paycheck into a Coinbase account.

  • Ethereum researcher Vigil Griffith pleaded guilty at his trial for violating existing US sanctions by giving a talk in North Korea about crypto in 2019.

  • Immutable X, an NFT focused L2, raised $12.5 million in a token sale yesterday.

  • Bitfinex paid $22.875 million in gas fees during a single Ethereum transaction.

  • Facebook (disclosure: I have a Facebook newsletter) is investing $50 million to build the metaverse responsibly.

  • Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, is launching an augmented reality NFT collection on Ethereum.

  • Binance customers in Singapore will no longer be able todeposit fiat, spot trade crypto, or purchase crypto.

  • Cardano’s commercial arm is investing $100 million into DeFi, NFT, blockchain education efforts on Cardano.

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

Digital asset investment products are poppin’.

Despite a slew of regulatory headwinds last week, including China’s latest crackdown on cryptocurrency trading, SEC Chair Gary Gensler escalating his rhetoric regarding crypto regulation, and the US Treasury sanctioning a crypto exchange for the first time, digital asset investment products saw inflows totaling $95 million.

According to data compiled by CoinShares, the week ending September 24th (last Friday) was the sixth consecutive week of digital asset product inflows — the longest such streak since in nearly five months.

Interestingly, Bitcoin products were the most popular last week, accounting for $50 million of the inflows. Over the past 17 weeks — or roughly four months — Bitcoin has only seen inflows four times. Fittingly, Ethereum followed Bitcoin in inflows, wrangling $29 million in new investments.

Solana, an Ethereum competitor, did not perform as well this week. It appears that investor interest in the high-throughput blockchain is starting to wane. Funds exposed to the Solana blockchain saw only $3.9 million of inflows last week after bringing in $49 million just two weeks before.

For the year, investors have pumped over $6 billion worth of capital into digital asset-based products.

Recommended Reads

  • CoinShare’s Meltem Demirors on cross-chain liquidity:

  • a16z’s Katie Haun on stablecoin regulation:

  • Mirror’s Andrew Hong on tokens and community:

On The Pod…

Crypto Actually Fixes This: How Code to Inspire Uses Crypto in Afghanistan

 

Fereshteh Forough is the founder and CEO of Code to Inspire, a coding school for girls in Afghanistan. She discusses her background as a refugee, how she uses crypto to fund the school and pay students, and how the US military’s departure has affected student life. Topics include:

  • Fereshteh’s journey from refugee to computer science professor to founder and CEO of Code to Inspire
  • what Code to Inspire offers to young Afghan women and what risks they take by getting an education
  • how Code to Inspire success stories are changing the attitudes of student’s families and communities
  • the importance of Afghan Hero Girl, a video game created by Code to Inspire students
  • why crypto payments are a better alternative to PayPal and Western Union for Code to Inspire and its students
  • how Code to Inspire and its students exchange crypto to fiat
  • what the perception of crypto is in Afghanistan
  • how the Taliban is stifling the education of women and how Code to Inspire is attempting to continue its curriculum
  • how crypto companies can offer assistance to Code to Inspire
  • what features and products Fereshteh thinks would help the crypto industry actually bank the unbanked
  • how listeners can help Code to Inspire and where to find more information on Fereshteh

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