September 29, 2021       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken (disclosure: a former sponsor) will pay $1.25 million in fines to the CFTC for offering margined crypto products without registering.

  • Dapper Labs is planning to announce a marketplace for National Football League NFTs.

  • Participants in an Art Blocks auction were left unhappyyesterday after a block reorg.

  • Fed Chairman Jerome Powell believes it would be ideal to work with Congress on a digital dollar.

  • Two senators are calling for a US Treasury study on crypto mining that would require regulatory agencies to track crypto mining and use cases worldwide.

  • After accidentally spending $22 million in gas fees for a single transaction, DiverisiFi, a DEX, announced the miner returned the funds.

  • Roll, a social token infrastructure platform, raised $10 million in a Series A.

  • An analyst from JMP thinks COIN may have 30% upside.

  • Polygon daily users eclipsed Ethereum daily users on Monday for the first time.

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

Two of the five largest Ethereum mining pools are set to shut down in less than a month. According to data from Etherscan, the two mining pools, Spark Pool and BeePool, account for 25% of all Ethereum mined in the last two weeks.

Yesterday, BeePool, based in China, announced it will cease operations by October 15th. The mining pool has already stopped accepting registrations. BeePool said the closure came “in response to the latest regulatory policies.”

On Monday, SparkPool, the second-largest Ethereum mining pool, also issued a statement canceling its service. The China-based company cited “an effort to be maximumly compliant with regulatory requirements” as its reason for shutting down. Sparkpool plans to completely close all operations by the end of the month.

The news comes shortly on the heels of China tightening its policy on crypto by declaring all crypto transactions to be illegal, which has affected the entire market — not just Ethereum mining pools. For example, two crypto exchanges, Binance and Huobi, will no longer provide services to China-based users. CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap, two crypto market data sites, are now blocked in China, according to The Block. Bitmain, a company specializing in crypto mining hardware, is set to haltsales of its product in China while the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba will start blocking the sales of cryptocurrency mining equipment.

Recommended Reads

  • Cinneamhain Ventures’ Adam Cochran on valuing AMMs:

  • Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire on USDC use-cases:

  • Vitalik Buterin on cryptoeconomics (you’ll need a crypto Ph.D. to understand this one):

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