November 1, 2021       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • Decentraland’s MANA token has jumped 100%+ since Facebook rebranded to Meta.

  • MicroStrategy now holds over 114,000 BTC.

  • Mastercard CEO described its purchase of CipherTrace, a blockchain analytics firm (and disclosure: former sponsor), as a “massive services opportunity.”

  • The DOJ is looking to hire a director for its crypto enforcement unit.

  • New Jersey announced five cease and desist orders against websites running crypto-related frauds.

  • Tron founder Justin Sun withdrew billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency from Aave.

  • Thieves are taking advantage of El Salvador’s Chivo Wallet’s setup wallet.

  • Ethereum hit net negative issuance over a week for the first time.

  • A Coinbase user lost $11 million in a fake-notification scam.

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

Around 2 pm ET yesterday afternoon, Bitcoin’s white paper became a teenager, as the original document was released on October 31, 2008.

Penned by the anonymous Satoshi and titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” the Bitcoin white paper laid the foundation for an entirely new financial system.

“I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party,” wrote Satoshi in the original email containing the white paper.

He went on to describe the main properties:

  • Double-spending is prevented with a peer-to-peer network.
  • No mint or other trusted parties.
  • Participants can be anonymous.
  • New coins are made from Hashcash style proof-of-work.
  • The proof-of-work for new coin generation also powers the network to prevent double-spending.

Shortly after the white paper’s release, Bitcoin, the network, went live on January 3, 2009, when the genesis block was mined. You can read the original email here, courtesy of the Nakamoto Institute. As for the whitepaper, you can find it here, hosted on bitcoin.org.

Bonus recommended read: I also published an in-depth article on Medium in celebration of the Bitcoin white paper’s anniversary. Check out “13 Bitcoin Facts on the 13th Birthday of the Bitcoin White Paper” here.

Recommended Reads

  • Ark Invest on valuing Bitcoin:

  • Natasha Che on blockchain nations:

  • Real Vision’s Raoul Pal on why people invest in crypto:

On The Pod…

Why Terraform Labs Cofounder Do Kwon Is Unfazed by US Regulators

Do Kwon, co-founder of Terraform Labs, was recently served subpoenas by the US Securities and Exchange Commission during Messari’s mainnet event, leading Kwon and Terraform to preemptively sue the SEC. On Unconfirmed, Kwon discusses:

  • what Terraform Labs does and how it is building its DeFi ecosystem around TerraUSD ($UST)

  • why Terraform Labs created its synthetics protocol, Mirror, and how it works

  • what Do thinks about the SEC’s investigation into Mirror

  • what happened to Do at Messari’s mainnet event

  • why the SEC’s approach to crypto regulation does not impact Do very much

  • what Do thinks about how US regulators are treating crypto companies

  • how Do would regulate the crypto industry

  • why he believes the current state of crypto regulation doesn’t work in a global context

  • why he says the SEC couldn’t do anything to TerraUSD — even if it wanted to

  • what two characteristics are critical in building a decentralized protocol

  • how the crypto industry could improve security in light of the $130 million Cream Finance hack

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