June 4, 2021       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • Mike Novogratz’s and Christan Angermayer’s firm, Cryptology Asset Group, has committed to investing $100M into crypto venture funds over the next two years

  • FTX unveiled an NFT marketplace where tokens from both Ethereum and Solana can be bought and sold

  • eToro added 3.1 million customers in Q1

  • Michale Hsu, the acting head of the OCC, said “everything’s on the table” regarding the OCC’s review of its interpretative letters on digital assets and trust charters written during Brian Brooks’ tenure

  • Borderless Capital will invest $25M into crypto projects in Miami

  • Blockchain.com is moving its headquarters to Miami

  • Anchorage, a digital asset bank, is partnering with BankProv, a 200-year-old bank, to enable ETH-backed loans

What Do You Meme?

Speaking of the FTX NFT marketplace, one of the more interesting tokens available for purchase is a 30-minute lunch (zoom or in-person) with CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. The latest bid is… $110,000!

What’s Poppin’?

In a blog post on Tuesday, Coinbase Pro announced that it would begin accepting DOGE transfers and that DOGE trading would go live sometime yesterday — depending on liquidity conditions. The market immediately reacted as Dogecoin jumped up roughly 32% in the 24 hours after the blog post, breaking 40 cents once again.

After the announcement, CoinDesk asked several knowledgeable market participants for their take. I’ll highlight two bullish quotes and a bear:

  • Edward Moya, a senior analyst at Oanda, noted that “People are still going to be cautious long-term, but this debut will eventually have some ability to attract traditional investors and not just the Robinhood/Reddit army.”
  • Voyager CEO Steven Ehrlich said, “We’ve had consistent net buyers on Dogecoin, which indicates the general bullishness around it as it gains popularity across all demographics.”
  • James Butterfill of CoinShares was hesitant to endorse DOGE, saying, “When you invest in any digital asset, you have to look at the fundamentals behind it, with dogecoin there’s a lack of these.”

At the time of writing (Thursday afternoon), the DOGE price was holding steady around 40 cents — even after Coinbase tweeted that DOGE was live.

Recommended Reads

  • Here is an excellent analysis of yield farming activity: 

  • Gabriel Shapiro on why “cryptolaw should be done in the crypto spirit”: 

  • Everything you need to know about Arbitrum in the context of other layer 2 solutions:  

On The Pod…

June 14th is the 5-year anniversary of Unchained. 🎉

On Tuesday, June 15th, we’ll publish a 5-year anniversary episode with questions or messages from you listeners to me.

If you want to have your question or message included:
  • record a video or audio message of 60 seconds or less stating your name, where you’re from and your question or message.
  • email it to [email protected] with “anniversary” in the subject line (or just respond to this email)!
You can also email a question, and I will read it on the air. If so, please let me know how you’d like to be identified. (And let me know how to pronounce your name.)

The deadline to get your submissions in is Thursday, June 10 by 5 pm ET/2 pm PT.

Thanks so much for supporting Unchained all these years! 🙏

Check out the latest episode of Unchained:

How Taproot Could Improve Bitcoin — If It Gets Adopted

Jeremy Rubin, a Bitcoin Core contributor and founder of Judica, a Bitcoin R&D Lab, joins Unchained from the Miami Bitcoin Conference (2021) to discuss all things Taproot. Show highlights:

  • a general update on the Miami Bitcoin Conference

  • what Taproot will do for the Bitcoin network

  • how Taproot will make Bitcoin transactions more private

  • what effect Taproot might have on on-chain analytics companies

  • what parts of Bitcoin transactions will be public if/when Taproot goes live

  • what new wallet features Taproot will unlock for Bitcoin

  • how Bitcoin vaults might work

  • a user-friendly definition of MASTs (Merklized Abstract Syntax Tree)

  • how Taproot signaling works

  • when/if Taproot will lock-in

  • why network updates strain the relationship between miners and users

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 Nov. 2nd. Pre-order it today!

You can purchase it here: http://bit.ly/cryptopians