Unchained

Hester Peirce, AKA “Crypto Mom,” was just confirmed to a second term as SEC Commissioner of the Securities Exchange Commission in August. In this episode, she talks about:

• the reasons for her dissent in the Unikrn Settlement and what she believes would have been a proper penalty
• the current status of her token safe harbor proposal
• her thoughts on fair launch projects as opposed to traditional VC-backed tokens
• her view on how the SEC should view airdrops
• her thoughts on whether existing securities laws could be tweaked as opposed to implementing a safe harbor
• whether she thinks DeFi governance tokens should be considered securities
• her thoughts on DeFi playing its own regulatory role
• her thoughts on the Securities Clarity Act introduced in Congress
• the chances of a Bitcoin ETF being approved by the SEC in the future
• the charges against BitMEX and the effect it may have on the industry in general
• stablecoins, and how they might raise securities issues
• and whether she thinks that all securities could one day be tokenized

Thank you to our sponsor!

Crypto.com: https://www.crypto.com

Episode links: 

Hester Peirce: https://twitter.com/HesterPeirce

SEC: https://www.sec.gov

Her dissent on the Unikrn settelement: https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/peirce-statement-settlement-charging-token-issuer

Unconfirmed interview on her safe harbor proposal: https://unchainedpodcast.com/sec-commissioner-hester-peirce-on-her-safe-harbor-proposal/

Her token safe harbor proposal: https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/peirce-remarks-blockress-2020-02-06

Unchained interview with Cmr. Peirce: https://unchainedpodcast.com/sec-commissioner-hester-peirce-come-talk-to-the-sec/

Proposal in The Block on ways to amend existing securities law instead of issuing a token safe harbor: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/57207/case-for-reg-a-response-commissioner-peirce-sec-token

Is UNI a security: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/78231/uniswap-token-security-debate

FCA banning crypto derivatives and ETNs: https://www.coindesk.com/fca-bans-sale-of-cryptoderivatives-to-retail-consumers-in-uk

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/79911/uk-regulator-fca-bans-crypto-derivatives-retail-users

Securities Clarity Act: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/78231/uniswap-token-security-debate

Statement on ATS’s: https://www.sec.gov/divisions/marketreg/mr-noaction/2020/finra-ats-role-in-settlement-of-digital-asset-security-trades-09252020.pdf

SEC chairman Jay Clayton says all stocks could be tokenized: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/79783/all-stocks-tokenized-sec-chairman-clayton

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Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of FTX and Alameda Research,  and Anatoly Yakovenko,  the co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs, discuss the Project Serum ecosystem that they are building on the Solana blockchain, and the unique approach to scaling the Solana blockchain is taking.

In this episode, they talk about:

• their backgrounds, and how they became involved in crypto
• why Solana takes a different approach to scaling and how it is implemented
• why they think a relatively lower number of nodes is sufficient to protect from attacks or collusion
• what the vision for Solana is, who they see using it, and how Serum fits into that vision
• why they think there haven’t been more crypto projects migrating to Solana yet
• Solana’s proof-of-history algorithm and how it works
• how Solana plans to attract DeFi developers
• why Serum was made interoperable with Ethereum
• the types of traders they are hoping to attract with Serum, and what their experience will be like on the platform
• why Project Serum is an ecosystem and not just an order book exchange
• how high-frequency trading firm Jump Trading came to adopt Serum
• how Serum will manage trading tokens from different chains
• the purpose of Serum’s two tokens, SRM and MSRM
• and what’s in store for Project Serum in the future

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.Com: https://www.crypto.com

Gods Unchained: https://playgu.co/unchainedpod

Episode links: 

Anatoly Yakovenko: https://twitter.com/aeyakovenko

Solana: Solana.com

Sam Bankman-Fried: https://twitter.com/SBF_Alameda

Project Serum: https://www.projectserum.com

Project Serum on Twitter: https://twitter.com/projectserum

Solana CoinList auction in March: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/59952/blockchain-project-solana-raises-1-76m-from-its-launch-auction-on-coinlist

Solana network stats: https://explorer.solana.com

The Block Research on Solana: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/76615/solana-blockchain-overview

Proof of history: 

https://medium.com/solana-labs/proof-of-history-a-clock-for-blockchain-cf47a61a9274

Serum: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/daily/72924/ftx-dex-serum-solana-blockchain

Tether: https://medium.com/solana-labs/tether-to-bring-usdt-to-the-solana-network-77864184b20

Jump Capital: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/76826/veteran-market-maker-jump-trading-forays-into-defi-to-provide-liquidity-for-ftxs-solana-based-dex

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Andreas M. Antonopoulos, speaker, educator, and the author of Mastering Bitcoin, Mastering Ethereum, and The Internet of Money, Volumes 1, 2, and 3, and Dan Held,  growth lead at Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, discuss the core features of Bitcoin's monetary policy, including how it differs from traditional central bank monetary policy, what gives it value and yet how it seems to have derived value from thin air. Plus, we talk about how the coronavirus pandemic will affect Bitcoin. In this episode, we cover:

• how monetary policy in general is defined
• the core feature of Bitcoin’s monetary policy, and how it differs from previous forms of money
• the similarities and differences between Bitcoin and gold
• why the hard cap on Bitcoin is unique and so important
• the difficulties in analyzing and classifying Bitcoin
• whether or not transaction fees alone can sustain the network once all 21 million Bitcoin have been minted
• if Bitcoin will be able to fulfill its original vision of democratizing finance and serving as an everyday medium of exchange
• why they think Bitcoin has recently been more correlated with the stock market
• their thoughts on the stock to flow model and whether it works for Bitcoin
• how they think the coronavirus, unprecedented quantitative easing, and increasing inflation will impact Bitcoin’s adoption and price
• how crypto banks that don’t conduct fractional reserve banking or lending might change the economy

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

Gods Unchained: https://playgu.co/unchainedpod

Episode links: 

Andreas Antonopoulos: https://aantonop.com

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/aantonop

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/aantonop/

Dan Held: https://www.danheld.com

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/danheld

Dan Held on Bitcoin's monetary policy: https://medium.com/the-bitcoin-times/information-theory-of-money-36247aebdfe1

Dan Held on Bitcoin's security model: https://www.danheld.com/blog/2019/6/16/bitcoins-security-is-fine

Unchained interview with Saifedeam Ammous: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-bitcoin-now-saifedean-ammous-on-why-bitcoin-is-the-most-advanced-form-of-money/

Mises’ Regression Theorem: https://mises.org/library/bitcoin-regression-theorem-and-emergence-new-medium-exchange

Stock to flow model: https://medium.com/@100trillionUSD/modeling-bitcoins-value-with-scarcity-91fa0fc03e25

https://medium.com/@100trillionUSD/bitcoin-stock-to-flow-cross-asset-model-50d260feed12

Why the stock-to-flow model is wrong: https://www.coindesk.com/why-the-stock-to-flow-bitcoin-valuation-model-is-wrong

Federal Reserve announcement about letting inflation run higher than normal to achieve a 2% target rate of inflation: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20200827a.htm

Kraken launching the first crypto bank: https://unchainedpodcast.com/the-first-crypto-bank-what-kraken-financial-will-do-and-how/

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Matthew Leising, a reporter at Bloomberg who began covering crypto in 2015, is out with a new book Out of the Ether: The Amazing Story of Ethereum and the $55 Million Heist that Almost Destroyed It All. In this episode, he discusses:

• the catalyst that led to him writing his new book, which covers the early history of Ethereum and the DAO attack of 2016
• why he thought the story of the DAO hack was compelling enough to make a book, and how he went about reporting it
• the surprising things he learned about Ethereum’s early days and Vitalik
• the twists and turns during his quest to discover the identity of the DAO attacker
• why he thinks separate people were responsible for the two biggest DAO attacks
• his meeting in Tokyo with one of the prime suspects of a copycat DAO attack
• why he decided to end his story at the Ethereum hard fork and chose not to write about Ethereum Classic 
• what he feels the long-term significance of the DAO and the hard fork has been for Ethereum
• why he thinks the lessons of the DAO are not being heeded today
• what he thinks the next chapter of Ethereum will be and how it will unfold
• the differences he’s found as a journalist covering crypto as opposed to covering more traditional finance
• and how the book is about more than just the DAO

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://www.crypto.com

Gods Unchained: https://playgu.co/unchainedpod

Episode links: 

Matthew Leising: https://twitter.com/mattleising

Out of the Ether: The Amazing Story of Ethereum and the $55 Million Heist that Almost Destroyed It All: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Out+of+the+Ether%3A+The+Amazing+Story+of+Ethereum+and+the+%2455+Million+Heist+that+Almost+Destroyed+It+All-p-9781119602934

Matt's original Bloomberg article on the DAO attack, "The Ether Thief": https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2017-the-ether-thief/

Excerpt in Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-16/a-trip-down-the-crypto-rabbit-hole-in-search-of-the-dao-hacker

Excerpt in CoinDesk: https://www.coindesk.com/55m-hack-ethereum-down

Decrypt's interview with Matt about the book: https://decrypt.co/41952/book-sheds-new-light-on-ethereums-55-million-dao-hack

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Andre Cronje, the developer of yearn.finance, talks about all things DeFi and the past, present, and future of yEarn. In this episode, he discusses:  

• what Yearn Finance is, and what led him to develop it and eventually open it to the public
• his history and background, leading up to the development of Yearn
• the processes and mechanisms involved in yEarn v1 and yEarn v2
• why he decided to do a "fair launch" of the YFI token, despite being in debt as a result of building Yearn
• why he felt that a Decrypt article about him in August was a "horrible hatchet job"
• why he disagrees with what he sees as the current anti-VC narrative
• his thoughts on the phenomenal rise in YFI's price and why the price of a YFI token still doesn't matter
• how and why he decided governance participation would be a requirement for earning tokens in the Balancer/yCurve/YFI pool
• the governance processes in Yearn and his thoughts on whether or not a Compound-style form of governance would be better
• how he might mitigate whales dominating the vote
• what he means by "I test in prod" and how people have misinterpreted his meaning
• why he briefly walked away from DeFi
• whether he agrees that YFI could be a new structure to replace existing traditional business structures
• his response to the allegations by XAR Network
• whether he would consider moving Yearn to another blockchain
• his vision for what Yearn can become
• and how much YFI he currently owns personally

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

Gods Unchained: https://playgu.co/unchainedpod

Episode links: 

Andre Cronje: https://twitter.com/AndreCronjeTech

Yearn Finance: https://yearn.finance

https://docs.yearn.finance

CoinDesk on Yearn: https://www.coindesk.com/what-is-yearn-finance-yfi-defi-ethereum

The Block report on yEarn Finance: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/75189/defis-yield-aggregator-dao-yearn-finance

Post introducing $YFI: https://medium.com/iearn/earning-yfi-y-curve-fi-53b5fd347f0f

Delegated vaults: https://medium.com/iearn/delegated-vaults-explained-fa81f1c3fce2

V2: https://medium.com/iearn/yearn-finance-v2-af2c6a6a3613

Delphi Digital report on yETH yVault: https://www.delphidigital.io/reports/yeth-now-do-you-understand/

yETH collateralization ratio: https://defiexplore.com/cdp/13972

Tony Sheng newsletter: https://tonysheng.substack.com/p/yfi-ponzinomics

Yearn Governance: https://medium.com/iearn/yearn-governance-forum-7b7c9d0300ac

yInsure Finance: https://medium.com/iearn/yinsure-finance-a-new-insurance-primitive-77d5d4217896

Delegated funding DAO vaults: https://medium.com/iearn/delegated-funding-dao-vaults-7ab05a63d7ba 

Siege Rhino question about governance: https://twitter.com/SiegeRhino2/status/1303415750238101504?s=20

Andre’s “Building in DeFi Sucks” post: https://medium.com/@andre_54855/building-in-defi-sucks-b8fdfda0ef58?source=---------17------------------

Andre quits in February: https://decrypt.co/21068/founder-of-promising-defi-project-abandons-the-toxic-cryptosphere

Andre close to quitting in August: https://decrypt.co/37995/exclusive-yfi-andre-cronje-broke-quitting-defi

What Andre wishes he had known before building Ethereum dapps: https://medium.com/iearn/things-i-wish-i-knew-before-building-ethereum-defi-dapps-cd6bf0f07a16 

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Olaf Carlson-Wee, the founder and CEO of Polychain Capital, goes deep into yield farming, fair launches and how decentralization will upend the traditional notion of the corporation. In this episode, he talks about:

• when it makes sense for a team to introduce a liquidity mining scheme, and when it doesn't
• the difference between yield farming and ICOs when it comes to investing
• his thoughts on YFI, as well as YAM, and the pace at which unaudited DeFi projects are
• moving forward
• the three advantages he sees in automated market makers as opposed to centralizedexchanges
• his thoughts on Uniswap and SushiSwap and why he's not sure Uniswap will make a token
• his thoughts on fair launches and whether he thinks they will threaten traditional crypto VCs
• whether the CRV token launch really was instigated by someone unrelated to the team
• his thoughts on the yEarn yETH vault and what it says about where the DeFi space is going
• what he sees as the pros and cons of rebasing
• why he sees projects like YFI as a new kind of corporation
• whether he thinks Ethereum will scale fast enough to meet the demand already being put on it
• why he thinks systems like Polkadot are going to expand what is possible in the same way that Ethereum expanded beyond what was possible with Bitcoin
• whether he thinks the yields from yield farming will pull investors away from staking on Ethereum 2.0
• what he thinks DeFi teams should do to improve security
• Bitcoin on Ethereum and what he believes it could mean for DeFi in the future
• the chatter around a potential public offering from Coinbase, and what's in store for Polychain in the future

Thank you to our sponsor! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Episode links: 

Olaf Carlson-Wee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olafcw/

Polychain Capital: https://polychain.capital

Previous interviews with Olaf on Unchained and Unconfirmed: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-the-first-employee-of-coinbase-launched-a-hedge-fund/

https://unchainedpodcast.com/to-the-moon-and-back-with-polychains-olaf-carlson-wee/

https://unchainedpodcast.com/special-episode-with-cnbcs-crypto-trader-olaf-carlson-wee-on-why-this-crypto-winter-is-different-from-previous-ones-ep-028/

https://unchainedpodcast.com/all-things-cryptoeconomics-pt-1-with-olaf-carlson-wee-and-ryan-zurrer-of-polychain-capital/

Why trading on automated market makers has risen so quickly: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-decentralized-trading-has-10xed-in-a-few-months/ 

Launch of yEarn/YFI: https://medium.com/iearn/yfi-df84573db81

Dex volume over time: https://defiprime.com/dex-volume

YAM recap: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/74810/yam-token-market-cap-collapses-by-more-than-90-flaw

YAM team’s plans going forward: YAM Post-Rescue Attempt Update. At approximately 6PM UTC, on Wed August… | by Yam Finance | Aug, 2020 | Medium

SushiSwap vs. Uniswap: https://unchainedpodcast.com/sushiswap-takes-on-uniswap-which-should-win-and-why/

Ian Lee of IDEO CoLab Ventures on fair launches vs. VC coins: https://synthesis.substack.com/p/fair-launches-will-disrupt-crypto

And on fast-follower forks: https://synthesis.substack.com/p/fast-follower-forks-in-defi

CRV token launch: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/74921/the-story-of-the-botched-crv-launch

yEarn's yETH vault: https://www.coindesk.com/yearn-finance-yeth-vault-defi-triforce

Ethereum's transition to 2.0: https://unchainedpodcast.com/vitalik-buterin-on-ethereums-five-year-anniversary/

Security in DeFi: https://unchainedpodcast.com/defi-security-with-so-many-hacks-will-it-ever-be-safe/

Whether Coinbase will do a token offering when it goes public: https://unchainedpodcast.com/will-coinbase-do-a-token-offering-when-it-goes-public/

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Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital, and Dan Robinson, research partner at Paradigm, discuss the explosion in decentralized exchange activity on automated market makers from $1 billion earlier this year to more than $10 billion in August. 

• Why trading in automated market makers has 8xed in a few months
• how automated market makers work, and how specific dexes can specialize for the assets being traded on them
• why traders would prefer to trade on a dex vs. a centralized exchange
• how incentivized pools have drawn traders and liquidity 
• why trading on a dex seems can be more appealing than on a centralized exchange
• why trading on dexes now mirrors trading on Binance in 2017
• how "DeFi is the hottest coolest place where people are making a lot of money"
• the difference between the metrics of liquidity, trading volume and total value locked for a dex
• why AMMs are capital inefficient
• what it means that fees paid on Uniswap are about half of those paid on Bitcoin 
• what the purpose of liquidity mining is
• why Haseeb doesn't think that dexes have network effects and that once professional market makers come in the space, Uniswap will lose market share
• whether users will use DeFi directly through the dexes or through another interface
• why Dan thinks that DeFi is now comparable to financial investment in the 1970s 
• whether or not yield aggregators like yEarn make it harder for AMMs to compete
• what happened with the CRV token launch
• initial dex offerings or initial DeFi offerings, like the UMA token launch
• whether, because of the high fees on Ethereum and the how long its transition to Ethereum 2.0 will take, DeFi activity could move to another blockchain such as Solana
• where DeFi will go over the next few years

Thank you to our sponsor! 

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

Episode links: 

Haseeb Qureshi: https://twitter.com/hosseeb

Dan Robinson: https://twitter.com/danrobinson

Haseeb’s post on the rise of AMMs: https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/what-explains-the-rise-of-amms-7d008af1c399

Haseeb's post on how Uniswap could be un-bundled: https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/unbundling-uniswap-the-future-of-on-chain-market-making-1c7d6948d570

Dex volume: https://defiprime.com/dex-volume

Trading volume on centralized exchanges: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/74539/july-by-the-numbers-a-look-at-crypto-exchange-volumes-open-interest-and-miner-revenue

Incentivized pools: https://pools.fyi/#/?tag=incentivized

Top dexes by trading volume: https://www.coingecko.com/en/dex

Ethereum transaction fees: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/ethereum-transactionfees.html 

Uniswap website visits 15x in July: https://messari.io/article/uniswap-total-website-visits-grew-15x-in-july

Website traffic to DeFi platforms explodes in July: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/74231/defi-platforms-web-traffic-july

Fees paid to various crypto projects: https://cryptofees.info

Curve reaches $1 billion in TVL: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/75014/curve-becomes-third-defi-protocol-to-hit-1-billion-in-total-value-locked

The Block on dex aggregators: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/69468/dex-aggregators-user-experience

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Saifedean Ammous is an economist and the author of The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, which has been translated into 20 languages. In this episode, he discusses:

• the basic tenets of Austrian economics and why it is the only school where Bitcoin is possible
• historical examples of currencies and how they lost their monetary value
• the stock-to-flow model and how Bitcoin fits into that model
• the three functions, or descriptive properties, of money and why Bitcoin fulfills these functions
• the concept of sound money
• the idea of time preference in economics and why he believes it is so important
• the distinction between debt and money, and why they are not the same
• the significance of difficulty adjustment and why he believes it is the crowning achievement of Bitcoin
• why he views Bitcoin as the best store of value humanity has ever invented
• the metrics he watches when assessing Bitcoin
• what he thinks is in store for Bitcoin in the future, and whether he still thinks central banks will buy Bitcoin as a reserve currency
• his thoughts on Ethereum and other digital currencies
• and his predictions for Bitcoin in the next year

Thank you to our sponsor! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Episode links: 

Saifedean Ammous: https://twitter.com/saifedean

Saifedean’s website: https://saifedean.com

The Bitcoin Standard: https://saifedean.com/book/

Invest Like the Best episode with Saifedean: http://investorfieldguide.com/ammous/

What Bitcoin Did episode with Saifedean: https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/saifedean-ammous-on-understanding-bitcoin-economics

Plan B’s stock-to-flow model applied to Bitcoin: https://medium.com/@100trillionUSD/modeling-bitcoins-value-with-scarcity-91fa0fc03e25

https://medium.com/@100trillionUSD/bitcoin-stock-to-flow-cross-asset-model-50d260feed12

Essay on why the stock-to-flow model is wrong: https://www.coindesk.com/why-the-stock-to-flow-bitcoin-valuation-model-is-wrong

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David Chaum, the inventor of eCash and CEO of xx network, and Adam Back, the inventor of Hashcash and the cofounder and CEO of Blockstream, discuss their involvement in digital currency well before Bitcoin existed. In this episode, they discuss:

• how they each became enamored with the idea of digital currency years before such an idea was widely discussed
• the crypto wars of the 1990s and the U.S. government’s attempts to control access to advanced cryptography
• Digicash, the creation of eCash, and the difficulties of implementing the system with the technology available at the time
• the innovation of blind signatures used in eCash
• what caused the demise of Digicash, and David's role in that
• the development of Hashcash and the problems Adam was trying to solve by creating it
• their initial reactions to learning about Bitcoin for the first time
• how they think Bitcoin might improve in the future
• the stock-to-flow Model, and where they believe the Bitcoin price might go next
• why the Hashcash proof-of-work mechanism became so widely used 

Thank you to our sponsor! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Episode links: 

Adam Back: https://twitter.com/adam3us

Blockstream: https://blockstream.com 

Adam's website: http://www.cypherspace.org

David Chaum: https://twitter.com/chaumdotcom

Elixxir: https://elixxir.io 

XX Network: https://xx.network

Previous Unchained episode on the history of digital currency: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-bitcoin-now-the-history-of-digital-currency/

Wired article on “e-money”: https://www.wired.com/1994/12/emoney/  

Translated Dutch article on why DigiCash failed:  https://cryptome.org/jya/digicrash.htm

Aaron Van Wirdum's Bitcoin Magazine series on the history of digital currency:  https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/the-beginners-guide-to-bitcoin-part-3-bitcoins-pre-history-and-the-cypherpunks-with-aaron-van-wirdum 

David Chaum's e-Cash: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-how-david-chaums-ecash-spawned-cypherpunk-dream

Hashcash: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-hashcash-or-how-adam-back-designed-bitcoins-motor-block

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Aaron van Wirdum is the technical editor at Bitcoin Magazine. Finn Brunton is the author of “Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency.” In this episode, they tackle the history of digital currency. Topics include:

• the motivations behind the earliest attempts to create digital currencies, and who was behind those attempts
• the Extropian philosophy and how digital currency was born out of it
• how the cypherpunks came together and eventually began implementing tools that would lead to the creation of digital currencies
• the problems faced during the development of digital money, from double-spending to privacy, centralization, and spam
• the development of a public key protocol and why it was so significant
• the characteristics of earlier forms of digital currency like e-cash, hashcash, b-money, and bit gold, as well as their differences
• the original purpose of proof-of-work and how it was developed
• Hal Finney’s essential contributions to the creation of earlier digital currencies, and later, Bitcoin
• previous implementations of blockchain and how Bitcoin came to reinvent and utilize it
• which previous digital currencies come closest to Bitcoin
• and who they think Satoshi Nakamoto is … 

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com

Episode links: 

Aaron Van Wirdum: https://twitter.com/AaronvanW

Finn Brunton: http://finnb.net

Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179490/digital-cash

Aaron's Bitcoin magazine series on the early days of digital currency: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-how-david-chaums-ecash-spawned-cypherpunk-dream

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-hashcash-or-how-adam-back-designed-bitcoins-motor-block

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-if-bitcoin-had-first-draft-wei-dais-b-money-was-it

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-bit-gold-szabo-was-inches-away-inventing-bitcoin

Aaron on What Bitcoin Did discussing the stories: https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/the-beginners-guide-to-bitcoin-part-3-bitcoins-pre-history-and-the-cypherpunks-with-aaron-van-wirdum 

Breaker Mag Interview with Finn Brunton about his book: https://breakermag.com/new-book-reveals-cryptos-radical-origins/

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Dave Jevans, CEO of CipherTrace, and Siân Jones, Senior Partner at XReg Consulting, give the lowdown on the Financial Action Task Force’s travel rule and how it applies to businesses in the crypto space. They discuss:

• their background and journey into crypto
• what the travel rule is
• the consequences for countries that are not compliant
• whether the regulation will apply to staking providers in the future
• the type of companies and transactions that will be covered under the travel rule
• the type of information that has to be provided 
• how banks comply with the travel rule and whether crypto companies can use the same system
• the different open standards available for sharing information
• how the information will get shared between entities who use different travel rule solution providers
• the “sunrise problem” in which different companies implement their compliance systems at different times
• the security of user data being shared between different entities
• how it applies to central bank digital currencies and centralized stablecoins
• how the rule would affect privacy coins
• the inherent contradiction between the cypherpunk philosophy and regulatory compliance
• unintended consequences of the travel rule
• how the travel rule may play out in the coming years

A glossary of terms discussed in the episode: 

FATF: Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental organization that develops policies to combat money laundering and terrorist financing

VASP: virtual asset service providers, who are custodial entities that run fiat-to-crypto or crypto-to-crypto exchanges, or run businesses related to transfer and safekeeping of virtual assets and financial services.

FinCEN: Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the United States federal bureau that analyzes information about financial transactions in order to fight money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes

FCA: Financial Conduct Authority, the financial regulatory body of the UK

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://www.crypto.com 

Tezos: https://tquorum.com/

Episode links: 

Dave Jevans: https://twitter.com/davejevans

CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com/

Sian Jones: https://twitter.com/COINSULT

XReg Consulting: https://www.xreg.consulting/

Financial Action Task Force (FATF): https://www.fatf-gafi.org/

The Osaka conference where crypto got serious about FATF’s travel rule: https://www.coindesk.com/inside-the-osaka-conference-where-crypto-got-serious-about-fatfs-travel-rule

Will Osaka be crypto’s Bretton Woods moment? https://forkast.news/will-osaka-be-cryptos-bretton-woods-moment/

InterVASP Messaging Standard: https://intervasp.org

OpenVASP: https://openvasp.org

OpenVASP white paper: https://openvasp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/OpenVasp_Whitepaper.pdf?cache=1

FATF report on “so-called stablecoins”: http://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/recommendations/Virtual-Assets-FATF-Report-G20-So-Called-Stablecoins.pdf

OKEx’s Korea arm delisted privacy coins: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/39724/okex-korea-delisting-all-privacy-coins-including-monero-zcash-and-dash-as-these-violate-fatfs-travel-rule

Some of the potential FATF compliance solutions: 

Travel Rule Information Sharing Alliance (TRISA): https://trisa.io/

Coinbase’s messaging board solution: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/daily/72293/coinbase-exchanges-fatf-travel-rule-solution

CoolBitX: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/56853/coolbitx-raises-16-75m-series-b-to-help-crypto-exchanges-comply-with-fatfs-travel-rule

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Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, shares his thoughts on the five-year anniversary of Ethereum, challenges with ETH 2.0 and criticisms about DeFi. We discuss:

• his thoughts and feelings ahead of Ethereum’s five-year anniversary
• how to address the high gas fees on the Ethereum network
• whether the complexity of Ethereum 2.0 creates a risk for the security of the network
• whether staking will lead to a higher focus on ETH price and issues such as monetary policy 
• how he looks at the ETH price with its significance for security in Ethereum 2.0
• how proof of stake systems can be more democratic
• whether staking lends itself to the kind of securitization that looks similar to mortgage-backed securities
• his concerns about DeFi
• the most optimal way for DeFi projects to distribute their tokens
• his thoughts about Bitcoin on Ethereum
• inherent risks to Ethereum users connected to China’s Blockchain Service Network (BSN)
• his views on DCEP, other CBDCs and Libra
• the indictment of Ethereum Foundation staff member Virgil Griffith for allegedly helping North Korea to circumvent sanctions
• how he plans to make the Ethereum Foundation more transparent
• whether lack of diversity would impact the success of Ethereum in the long term
• where he would like to see Ethereum in the next five years

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://www.crypto.com 

Tezos: https://tquorum.com/

Episode links: 

Vitalik Buterin: https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin

Ethereum: https://ethereum.org/en/

Vitalik’s blog: https://vitalik.ca

Median gas price: https://blockchair.com/ethereum/charts/median-gas-price

Average gas price: https://blockchair.com/ethereum/charts/average-gas-price

Solutions to gas price problem: https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-developers-consider-new-fee-model-as-gas-costs-climb

Reddit AMA with the Ethereum 2.0 Research team, including Vitalik: https://old.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/ho2zpt/ama_we_are_the_efs_eth_20_research_team_pt_4_10/

Paper on how DeFi lending could undermine security in a POS system: https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.00919

Vitalik tweet on yield farming: https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1278337657194655744

Abra settlement with SEC and CFTC: https://www.coindesk.com/sec-cftc-hit-crypto-app-abra-with-300k-in-penalties-over-illegal-swaps

Maya Zehavi’s comments on what this could mean for DeFi: https://twitter.com/mayazi/status/1282696180741414918

China’s BSN using public chains, including Ethereum: https://www.coindesk.com/chinas-blockchain-infrastructure-to-extend-global-reach-with-six-public-chains

Unchained interview about DCEP: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-china-aims-to-replace-cash-with-the-digital-yuan/

Charges against Virgil Griffith: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-arrest-united-states-citizen-assisting-north-korea

More on Virgil Griffith case: https://www.coindesk.com/usa-v-virgil-griffith-what-we-know-and-dont-in-the-bombshell-crypto-sanctions-case

Unchained interview with human rights activist Yeonmi Park on what life is like in North Korea: https://unchainedpodcast.com/yeonmi-park-on-why-doing-business-with-north-korea-is-like-buying-a-ticket-to-a-concentration-camp/

Unchained interview on why North Korea is interested in cryptocurrency: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-north-korea-is-interested-in-cryptocurrency/

Case against Steven Nerayoff: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/two-arrested-extortion-startup-cryptocurrency-company

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Camila Russo, founder of The Defiant and author of a new book on Ethereum, "The Infinite Machine," speaks about how currency controls in Argentina got her interested in crypto and explains why she chose to tell the Ethereum story. She discusses:

• how she started covering the crypto space
• what it was like living through currency controls in Argentina
• why she started focusing on Ethereum instead of Bitcoin
• what’s in her new book, The Infinite Machine
• the most pivotal moments in Ethereum’s history
• possible risks to Ethereum 2.0 because of delays
• whether competing protocols could take market share away from Ethereum
• the most surprising aspect of the Ethereum story
• starting her own DeFi-focused media platform, The Defiant
• why she launched ‘CAMI’ tokens and how they are used
• the significance of ERC-20 tokens having a higher market cap than ETH
• her predictions about trends and promising projects in the DeFi space

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://www.crypto.com 

Tezos: https://tquorum.com/

Episode links: 

Camila Russo: https://twitter.com/CamiRusso

The Infinite Machine: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-infinite-machine-camila-russo

The Defiant: https://thedefiant.substack.com/

Excerpt from The Infinite Machine on CoinDesk: https://www.coindesk.com/sale-of-the-century-the-inside-story-of-ethereums-2014-premine

Decrypt review: https://decrypt.co/35466/the-incredible-story-of-ethereum-the-infinite-machine

Camila on what Ethereum has accomplished in five years: https://www.coindesk.com/five-years-on-ethereum-really-is-the-minecraft-of-crypto-finance

Hidden Forces podcast with Camila:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rise-ethereum-future-defi-transformation-crypto-media/id1205359334?i=1000484635053

Camila in the Keen On podcast: https://lithub.com/camila-russo-on-ethereum-and-the-future-of-the-internet/

Ethereum 2.0 phase 0 may not go live until 2021: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/71155/eth-2-phase-0-ama-2021

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Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the author of numerous books including The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World and most recently, the Square and the Tower: Networks and Power from the Freemasons to Facebook, and Michael Casey, chief content officer at CoinDesk and coauthor of two books on crypto, The Age of Cryptocurrency and The Truth Machine, discuss the history of money and the macro environment for Bitcoin. We cover:

• how they became involved in crypto
• historically, what has made things money, or how people have decided that something is money
• the difficulty of managing fiat currency
• modern monetary theory and the role of the state in the financial system
• Satoshi’s message in BTC’s genesis block and what that indicates about Satoshi's intentions with Bitcoin 
• whether a more transparent, blockchain-based financial system could eventually lead to a new financial order
• how Bitcoin behaves like an option on digital gold, and when it will behave like digital gold
• whether Bitcoin is simply a reversion to previous forms of money that weren’t controlled by the state
• how crypto/blockchain and fintech innovation from startups and the Chinese government will affect the USD
• how a hypothetical war between the US and China would affect the dollar's dominance
• how China's DCEP could disintermediate banks 
• how Bitcoin fits into all of the different macro conditions facing the global economy
• whether Libra is going to be the initial gateway getting people into our digital currency world
• how well the recovery from coronavirus will go, and how it will affect the development of the crypto space in the near-term

Thank you to our sponsors!

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com

Tezos: https://tquorum.com/

Episode links: 

Niall Ferguson: http://www.niallferguson.com

The Ascent of Money: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/302900/the-ascent-of-money-by-niall-ferguson/

Michael Casey: https://www.michaeljcasey.com

Money Reimagined: https://www.coindesk.com/tag/money-reimagined

The Age of Cryptocurrency: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250081551

The first episode in the Why Bitcoin Now series: Mike Novogratz and Raoul Pal on 'the Single Greatest Brand' ofo the Last 10 Years:  https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-bitcoin-now-mike-novogratz-and-raoul-pal-on-the-single-greatest-brand-of-the-last-10-years/

How Niall got into Bitcoin:

http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/finance-economics/bitcoin-may-go-pop-but-its-revolution-will-go-on

Niall and Michael at Consensus: https://www.coindesk.com/disruption-money-and-a-world-of-change-feat-niall-ferguson

Unchained interview with Chamath Palihapitiya, who believes Bitcoin is a hedge on everything blowing up: https://unchainedpodcast.com/chamath-palihapitiya-why-bitcoin-will-be-the-category-winner/

Carlota Perez at CoinDesk's Consensus: https://www.coindesk.com/video/carlota-perez-on-blockchains-and-technological-revolutions

Unchained interview about the DCEP: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-china-aims-to-replace-cash-with-the-digital-yuan/

Unchained interview with Christopher Giancarlo about a digital dollar: https://unchainedpodcast.com/christopher-giancarlo-why-the-us-needs-to-have-a-digital-dollar/

Unconfirmed episode with Michael about Libra: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-it-would-be-good-if-libra-rivaled-the-us-dollar/

Unchained episode with a co-creator of Libra: https://unchainedpodcast.com/a-libra-co-creator-on-how-facebook-will-make-money-from-calibra/

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Dan Elitzer, investor at IDEO CoLab Ventures, and Will Price, data scientist at Flipside Crypto, discuss the yield farming craze. In this episode, we cover:

• the goals of protocols offering liquidity mining
• the goals of users yield farming right now
• whether users of Compound will have much awareness of COMP in the future
• how Compound is trying to dampen inorganic activity and properly align incentives 
• how incentives in one DeFi protocol can screw up another's such as changes in Compound's liquidity mining program causing Dai to lose its peg
• whether the activity created by liquidity mining is sustainable and how
• whether Compound is overvalued and how to determine valuations for DeFi tokens
• the security risks that come with trying yield farming
• how teams can keep their protocols safe given the composability of DeFi and the growing number of developments in the space
• whether the yield farming craze will cause the price of ETH to rise and why the prevalence of stablecoins might prevent that
• whether new DeFi tokens could push flagging layer 1s out of the top 10
• what will happen if even more Bitcoin comes to DeFi
• how the next big thing in DeFi might be trying to stack yield across protocols and eventually prime brokerage protocols

Thank you to our sponsor!

Crypto.com: https://www.crypto.com

Episode links: 

Dan Elitzer: https://twitter.com/delitzer

IDEO CoLab Ventures: https://www.ideocolab.com/ventures/

Will Price: https://twitter.com/will__price

Flipside Crypto: https://flipsidecrypto.com

Total value locked in Compound: https://defipulse.com/compound

What liquidity bootstrapping pools are: https://medium.com/balancer-protocol/building-liquidity-into-token-distribution-a49d4286e0d4 

Dan on earning more from borrowing USDT than lending it on Compound: https://twitter.com/delitzer/status/1272642107128164354 

Tony Sheng on how yield farming works and how much you can earn from it: https://twitter.com/tonysheng/status/1274393189231689728

And his followup on the risks of yield farming: https://twitter.com/tonysheng/status/1274780457729617920

The purpose of COMP for governance: https://medium.com/compound-finance/compound-community-ownership-ee0ed1252cc3 

https://medium.com/compound-finance/expanding-compound-governance-ce13fcd4fe36

Risks of so much BAT being held in Compound: https://twitter.com/spencernoon/status/1276897377446776832?s=20

https://twitter.com/defiprime/status/1277026665952980992?s=20

https://twitter.com/devops199fan/status/1274732220192829441?s=20

Cyrus of MakerDAO concerned about the risks COMP poses to the Dai peg: https://forum.makerdao.com/t/upcoming-comp-farming-change-could-impact-the-dai-peg/2965

Dan Guido and Taylor Monahan on Unchained discussing DeFi security: https://unchainedpodcast.com/defi-security-with-so-many-hacks-will-it-ever-be-safe/

Twitter discussion on whether ETH price will rise due to yield farming: https://twitter.com/RyanSAdams/status/1274781676875452421

What will happen to other Layer 1s? https://twitter.com/Shaughnessy119/status/1274376237239189504?s=20 

Aquaponic yield farming: https://bankless.substack.com/p/aquaponic-yield-farming

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This episode is the first in a series, Why Bitcoin Now, that takes a deeper dive into Bitcoin and the history of money in the macroeconomic environment of the coronavirus. Mike Novogratz, founder, CEO and chairman of Galaxy Digital, and Raoul Pal, founder and CEO of Global Macro Investor and Real Vision Group, tell us where they think Bitcoin is going amidst this macro uncertainty and the global crisis due to the coronavirus. We discuss: 

• why Bitcoin’s price hasn't risen in price due to the global turmoil, and instead fell with the rest of the market on Black Thursday 
• why quantitative easing is the catalyst for institutional investors to turn to Bitcoin, but why that takes time, and why registered investment advisors may be on the cusp
• why they think retail investors will continue to buy Bitcoin despite record unemployment
• why Bitcoin will benefit from social unrest
• why any particular country's success in dealing with the coronavirus won’t really lessen the economic impact there
• whether China's first-mover advantage with the DCEP and its comprehensive enterprise blockchain initiatives will undermine the global dominance of the US dollar 
• why they believe there will ultimately be a dollar-based stablecoin 
• why they believe Libra will be a strong player in the future of stablecoins 
• how election outcomes, and in particular a potential movement to break up Big Tech, could affect Bitcoin and the vision for Web3
• whether Ethereum, and staking, will see more adoption from institutional investors 
• why they believe yield farming is ultimately not sustainable, but still profitable
• the impact the Bitcoin halving will have in this macroeconomic environment

Unchained is hiring! 

Check out our job listing for a remote editorial assistant here!

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com

Kelman Law: https://crypto.law 

Stellar: https://www.stellar.org 

Episode links: 

Mike Novogratz: https://twitter.com/novogratz

Galaxy Digital: https://www.galaxydigital.io

Raoul Pal: https://twitter.com/RaoulGMI

Real Vision: https://www.realvision.com

Unchained interview with Kyle Samani on what happened in the crypto markets on Black Thursday: https://unchainedpodcast.com/teetering-on-the-edge-how-black-thursday-exposed-the-flaws-in-the-crypto-markets/

Unconfirmed interview with Antoine Le Calvez on what happened on BitMEX during Black thursday: https://unchainedpodcast.com/what-happened-on-bitmex-during-black-thursday/

Unchained interview with Chamath Palihapitiya on Bitcoin: https://unchainedpodcast.com/chamath-palihapitiya-why-bitcoin-will-be-the-category-winner/

Brian Armstrong tweet about deposits to Coinbase the same size as the $1,200 stimulus check: https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1250907110730170370?s=20

China's DCEP and blockchain initiative: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-china-aims-to-replace-cash-with-the-digital-yuan/

Unchained interview on Libra: https://unchainedpodcast.com/a-libra-co-creator-on-how-facebook-will-make-money-from-calibra/

Unconfirmed interview with the Libra Association's Dante Disparte: https://unchainedpodcast.com/libras-dante-disparte-on-why-we-should-trust-a-financial-system-designed-by-facebook/

Unconfirmed interview with Michael Casey on why it would it would be good if Libra rivaled the USD: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-it-would-be-good-if-libra-rivaled-the-us-dollar/

Christopher Giancarlo's digital dollar project: https://unchainedpodcast.com/christopher-giancarlo-why-the-us-needs-to-have-a-digital-dollar/

Ethereum 2.0 staking: https://www.coindesk.com/3-ways-staking-will-upend-the-economics-of-ethereum

Unconfirmed with Kain Warwick on COMP's launch: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-comp-5xed-on-day-1-and-what-this-means-for-a-defi-bull-market/

Unconfirmed interview with Tony Sheng on yield farming: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-you-can-double-your-money-or-lose-everything/

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Chamath Palihapitiya, the CEO of Social Capital and chairman of Virgin Galactic, talks about a wide range of issues, including Bitcoin, COVID, civil unrest, and broad economic trends and forecasts. We discuss:

• Whether his economic forecasts have shifted throughout COVID
• Why he believes a debt crisis will occur
• How he views the success of BTC as a hedge against the ruling class
• How the economic pendulum will swing back toward consumers
• Why he doesn't mind if big corporations and hedge funds get wiped out
• Whether he subscribes to the thesis that Bitcoin is uncorrelated 
• Why the pandemic has not spurred institutional adoption of crypto
• Why he sees no merit in Ethereum
• How the economy will become more decentralized in the future and whether blockchain will be a part of it 
• Why he prefers SPACs over ICOs
• Why he started capital as a service 
• Why he believes the government should bust up large corporations

Unchained is hiring!

I'm looking for a remote editorial assistant. If you love crypto and have journalism experience, get in touch! https://unchainedpodcast.com/seeking-remote-editorial-assistant/

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com

Stellar: https://www.stellar.org 

Kelman Law: https://www.kelman.law 

Episode links: 

Chamath Palihapitiya: https://twitter.com/chamath

Social Capital: https://www.socialcapital.com/

Turmoil at Social Capital: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/social-capital-founder-gives-his-account-of-turmoil-at-firm

https://observer.com/2018/09/chamath-palihapitiya-social-capital-turmoil/

https://medium.com/@chamath/the-reports-of-our-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated-11bcc80ee4ab

2019 interview with Kara Swisher: https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2019/3/4/18247010/chamath-palihapitiya-social-capital-happiness-identity-crisis-kara-swisher-teddy-schleifer-podcast

Chamath on Recode Decode in 2020: https://podcastnotes.org/recode-decode/chamath-palihapitiya-kara-swisher-investing/

Fed buying up to $250 billion in individual corporate bonds: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/federal-reserve-begins-individual-corporate-bond-purchases-secondary-market-relief-2020-6-1029309910

CNBC interview where he says Bitcoin is an uncorrelated hedge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2gDmcU8bDw 

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/12/12/social-capitals-palihapitiya-bitcoin-is-going-to-1-million-in-the-next-20-years.html

SPAC: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-modern-ipo-is-useless-lets-reinvent-it-1506361770?mod=searchresults&page=2&pos=13

China’s blockchain efforts: https://www.coindesk.com/from-banking-giants-to-tech-darlings-china-reveals-over-500-enterprise-blockchain-projects

Capital as a service: 

https://caas.socialcapital.com 

https://medium.com/social-capital/from-experiment-to-product-capital-as-a-service-one-year-later-6d8b4b9c038b

2019 investor letter: https://www.socialcapital.com/annual-letters/2019

At Stanford GSB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk

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At an event at the NYU Stern School of Business, Christopher Giancarlo, former CFTC Chairman and co-founder of the Digital Dollar Foundation, discusses his proposal for a US central bank digital currency (CBDC), and how that fits into the broader geopolitical environment. We cover:

• Why he has focused on pushing for a US digital dollar after leaving the CFTC
• How a US CBDC would be different from other stablecoins
• How the proposal is designed to build off of the traditional banking infrastructure
• What pilot programs would look like
• How a digital dollar would foster economic inclusion even though using the digital dollar requires owning a smartphone
• How it would handle privacy
• How the network would be secured
• Whether the US is falling behind China in terms of central bank digital currencies and blockchain exploration
• Whether Libra will be a proxy for the digital dollar
• How COVID-19 has affected the discourse around a digital dollar
• Whether the election will affect the future of the digital dollar

Unchained is hiring!

Check out our job listing for a remote editorial assistant here! https://unchainedpodcast.com/seeking-remote-editorial-assistant/

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com

Kelman Law: https://crypto.law  

Stellar: https://www.stellar.org

Episode links: 

Chris Giancarlo: https://twitter.com/giancarlo

Digital Dollar Project : https://www.digitaldollarproject.org

Previous Unchained interview with Chris: https://unchainedpodcast.com/christopher-giancarlo-on-the-craziness-of-becoming-crypto-dad/ 

Chris and Daniel Gorfine’s WSJ op-ed advocating for a digital dollar: https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-sent-a-man-to-the-moon-we-can-send-the-dollar-to-cyberspace-11571179923

Digital dollars in stimulus bills — March: https://www.coindesk.com/house-stimulus-bills-envision-digital-dollar-to-ease-coronavirus-recession 

April: https://www.coindesk.com/digital-dollar-reintroduced-by-us-lawmakers-in-latest-stimulus-bill

Pew Research on smartphone adoption: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/

FDIC survey on the unbanked and underbanked: https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2017/2017execsumm.pdf

Banks keeping some of customers’ stimulus money: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/business/stimulus-paychecks-garnish-banks.html

Why a digital dollar is politically more feasible at this moment than before: https://www.coindesk.com/the-overton-window-opens-for-a-digital-dollar

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown also proposes digital dollar: https://www.coindesk.com/us-senate-floats-digital-dollar-bill-after-house-scrubs-term-from-coronavirus-relief-plan 

Philadelphia Fed paper: https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/research-and-data/publications/working-papers/2020/wp20-19.pdf

Receptivity in Congress to the idea of a digital dollar: https://www.coindesk.com/how-a-flurry-of-digital-dollar-proposals-made-it-to-congress

Libra white paper: https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#cover-letter

Congressional hearing on using FedAccounts and for stimulus: https://financialservices.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=406612

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U.S. House Representative, Warren Davidson, contextualizes the state of crypto legislation in terms of widespread civil unrest, COVID-19, and global shifts in power. He explains where crypto plays a role in these paradigm shifts and talks about:

• Why he believes in crypto, and how he came into the space
• How his Token Taxonomy Act creates regulatory clarity for token issuers
• What four conditions tokens would have to meet to not be considered securities
• Other features of the Token Taxonomy Act, including a de minimus exemption for taxes and no taxation of crypto-to-crypto trades
• How the pandemic and coronavirus-related fiscal stimulus affects the prospects for the Token Taxonomy Act
• What he thinks about China's blockchain push and its DCEP digital yuan
• Whether and how that creates a credible threat to US dominance in global markets
• Whether Libra could be a counterweight
• How a shift toward digital currencies could undermine the global reserve status of the USD and whether that affects the US's ability to enforce sanctions
• How outcomes of the upcoming election will affect the potential passage of crypto-friendly regulation
• Why it is easier for crypto legislation to be more bi-partisan than other bills  
• What help he needs from the industry right now to push along crypto-friendly bills

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com

Kelman Law: https://crypto.law  

Stellar: https://www.stellar.org

Episode links: 

Rep. Warren Davidson: https://twitter.com/WarrenDavidson

His House page: https://davidson.house.gov

Press release on the Token Taxonomy Act: https://davidson.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/token-taxonomy-act-address-blockchain-innovation-flight-america

Token Taxonomy Act on GovTrack: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/hr2144

Text of the Token Taxonomy Act: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/hr2144/text

Letter requesting IRS clarify some crypto tax policies: https://www.coindesk.com/us-lawmakers-ask-irs-to-clarify-crypto-tax-rules-around-airdrops-forks-in-new-letter

Congressman Patrick McHenry on Unchained discussing his “permanent beta testing” idea for crypto: https://unchainedpodcast.com/congressman-patrick-mchenry-bitcoin-will-be-of-enormous-value/

Unchained interview on the DCEP: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-china-aims-to-replace-cash-with-the-digital-yuan/

Unchained interview with Libra co-creator Christian Catalini: https://unchainedpodcast.com/a-libra-co-creator-on-how-facebook-will-make-money-from-calibra/

Unchained with Christopher Giancarlo on his proposal for a digital dollar: https://unchainedpodcast.com/christopher-giancarlo-on-the-craziness-of-becoming-crypto-dad/

Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Libra and a digital dollar: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-05/mnuchin-powell-see-no-need-for-fed-to-issue-digital-currency

Video in which Rep. Davidson says “shitcoin”: https://www.coindesk.com/lawmakers-amp-up-pressure-on-facebook-to-halt-libra-cryptocurrency-development

Meltem Demirors and Jill Carlson on the Shitcoin Waterfall on Unchained: https://unchainedpodcast.com/meltem-demirors-and-jill-carlson-on-the-shitcoin-waterfall-ep-74/taxes

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Jesse Walden of Variant Fund, and Robert Leshner of Compound explain all of the problems associated with the decentralizing process in terms of governance and compliance, pulling from their own lessons and their commentary on other projects. We cover:

• Why projects must start with some level centralization
• How projects can both monetize and not put their code at risk of being forked
• How they can decentralize while also maintaining security, especially for composable DeFi projects that may become vulnerable as new technology and new protocols are introduced
• How and when to distribute the token so as not to attract only speculators and also not trip regulatory wires 
• How Compound’s current governance works, how it is decentralizing, why they decided to use a governance token, and what Compound (the company) will do after full decentralization 
• Why open-sourced projects are still able to extract profits, even after a fork
• Whether or not teams should have admin keys, such as what was used in response to the bZx attacks
• Whether or not projects should be upgrade-able
• What Block.One, which raised $4 billion in an ICO, did right to only pay a $24 million fine to the SEC 

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com

Kelman Law: https://crypto.law  

Stellar: https://www.stellar.org

Episode links: 

Jesse Walden: https://twitter.com/jessewldn

Robert Leshner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rleshner/

A16z Crypto startup school: https://a16z.com/crypto-startup-school/

Compound: https://compound.finance

Progressive Decentralization playbook: https://jessewalden.com/progressive-decentralization-a-playbook-for-building-crypto-applications/

What recent moves by the SEC say about mutability when it comes to crypto networks: https://a16z.com/2019/10/22/mutability-sec-recent-cases/

Compound’s $COMP token: https://medium.com/compound-finance/compound-governance-5531f524cf68

More on Compound’s governance token: https://www.coindesk.com/compound-extends-defi-ethos-to-itself-launches-governance-token

Unchained discussion about bZx attacks: https://unchainedpodcast.com/the-bzx-attacks-unethical-or-illegal-2-experts-weigh-in/

Eric Wall tweet storm on admin keys: https://twitter.com/ercwl/status/1229198599264907264?s=20

tBTC shutting down: https://twitter.com/keep_project/status/1262483526437556228

More on tBTC: https://www.coindesk.com/bug-forces-shutdown-of-bitcoin-backed-ethereum-token-tbtc

Unchained interview about tBTC in which Matt Luongo explains the admin key: https://unchainedpodcast.com/tbtc-what-happens-when-the-most-liquid-crypto-asset-hits-defi/

Is the SEC trying to kill the SAFT? https://www.coindesk.com/with-kik-and-telegram-cases-the-sec-tries-to-kill-the-saft 

Block.One settlement with SEC: https://www.coindesk.com/eos-maker-block-one-settles-with-sec-over-unregistered-securities-sale

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This week’s Unchained is my panel at Ready Layer One! We talk everything layer one with four key players and projects -- Illia Polosukhin of NEARprotocol, Zaki Manian of Cosmos, Rob Habermeier of Polkadot, and Arthur Breitman of Tezos — to find out how these projects plan to compete with Ethereum and attract developers and users. We discuss: 

• What platforms they are building and at which stage in development they are 
• How they differentiate themselves from Ethereum, and what problems they believe need to be solved 
• How they plan to attract devs in an industry of network effects 
• Whether or not Bitcoin and Ethereum are direct competitors
• Whether, in the long run, crypto will be more winner-take-all or there will be multiple, interoperable chains  
• How they plan to bring new users into the space
• How they think the transition to ETH2.0 will shake up the existing blockchain space

Take our survey!

Tell us what would you like to see from Unchained! Please take a moment to fill out the survey to let us know what you'd like from the show: surveymonkey.com/r/unchained2020.

Crypto.com has offered our survey respondents a chance to win a metal MCO Visa card -- and Crypto.com will stake these cards indefinitely! Ten lucky winners will enjoy card benefits including free Spotify, free Netflix and 3% back on all spending, and they’ll earn extra interest on their crypto deposit and more!  Thanks, Crypto.com! Again, take the survey now: surveymonkey.com/r/unchained2020.

Unchained is hiring!

Come work at Unchained! We have an opening for a remote editorial assistant — find out more about the gig and apply here: https://unchainedpodcast.com/seeking-remote-editorial-assistant/

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

Stellar: https://www.stellar.org/

Episode links: 

Illia Polosukhin: https://twitter.com/ilblackdragon

Near protocol: https://near.org

Zaki Manian: https://twitter.com/zmanian

Cosmos: https://cosmos.network

Rob Habermeier: https://twitter.com/rphmeier

Polkadot: https://polkadot.network

Arthur Breitman: https://twitter.com/ArthurB

Tezos: https://tezos.com

Near protocol on mainnet: https://near.org/blog/near-mainnet-genesis/

Electric Capital report on the number of developers in Ethereum: https://unchainedpodcast.com/electric-capital-on-the-coins-punching-below-their-weight/

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Changpeng Zhao, aka CZ, cofounder and CEO of Binance, and I kicked off the Ethereal Virtual Summit with a fun fireside chat! He talked about Binance’s current operations, its plans for the future, and the crypto industry as a whole. He explains: 

• Why he thought the questions I asked him in our first interview were misleading
• Whether Libra’s new plans are affecting Binance’s strategy for Venus
• What impact China’s DCEP will have on crypto
• Why the confluence of circumstances caused by COVID are a “perfect storm” for crypto, and how this will affect crypto in the long-term
• Whether the Binance Smart Chain will leech away Ethereum developers and users
• Why he thinks competition in the industry only grows it
• How Binance can own CoinMarketCap without affecting its objectivity 
• What he says to the class-action lawsuit against Binance, him and the other cofounders of Binance accusing them of offering unregistered securities
• How he views the role of Binance in governance in delegated proof-of-state systems, such as when Binance flip-flopped on a contentious hard fork in Steem
• Where Binance is headquartered

Unchained is hiring! Check out the job posting here! https://unchainedpodcast.com/seeking-remote-editorial-assistant/

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

Stellar: https://www.stellar.org/

Episode links:

CZ: https://twitter.com/cz_binance

Binance: https://www.binance.com/en

My first interview with CZ: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-binance-became-the-most-popular-crypto-exchange-in-5-months-ep-84/

Details on BUSD: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/38607/binance-launching-its-own-usd-pegged-stablecoin-busd-with-paxos-as-custodian

Binance announcement about BUSD: https://binance.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032604131-Binance-Announces-Open-Blockchain-Project-Venus- 

BUSD marketshare: https://www.coindesk.com/binance-stablecoin-busd-tops-100m-but-lags-behind-rivals

Venus as the One Belt, One Road initiative of Libra: https://twitter.com/DoveyWan/status/1163364542233006082?s=20 

Venus focusing on developing countries: https://www.coindesk.com/binance-is-pitching-its-stablecoin-as-a-government-friendly-libra-competitor

Binance’s acquisition of CoinMarketCap: https://www.coindesk.com/binances-coinmarketcap-acquisition-is-a-bet-that-crypto-really-is-for-the-masses

125x leverage: https://www.binance.com/en/blog/393707200802271232/5-Things-You-Need-to-Know-About-Binance-Futures-125x-Leverage

The Block report on BNB’s latest token burn: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/62306/a-closer-look-at-binances-bnb-burns

Lee et al. vs. Binance: https://www.scribd.com/document/455203877/Lee-et-al-vs-Binance

Estimate that Binance earned $46 million in profit in 2018: 

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/10491/analysis-binance-brought-in-446-million-in-profits-in-2018-despite-the-bear-market

Binance used Steem tokens on its exchange to help vote out Steem validators: https://steempeak.com/witness/@ura-soul/ura-soul-witness-update-anarchy-vs-empire-tron-replaces-top-witnesses-and-takes-over-the-steem-blockchain 

CZ’s initial tweet about the how Binance handled the Steemit fork: https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1234565384327585792?s=20

Binance reverses course: https://www.coindesk.com/steem-will-hard-fork-in-just-hours-over-community-fears-of-justin-sun-power-grab

Binance not authorized to operate in Malta: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/56603/binance-is-not-authorised-to-operate-in-malta-says-the-countrys-financial-regulator 

CZ on Binance not being based in Malta and decentralized: https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1230860647086338048

Binance shut down Shanghai offices: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/47922/binances-shanghai-office-shut-down-following-police-raid-sources-say

Links to topics we did not have time to cover:

Binance removes all references to Visa from its credit card: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/60886/binance-quietly-scrubs-visa-mentions-from-its-payment-card-website

Opening mining pool: https://www.coindesk.com/binance-crypto-exchange-is-launching-its-first-bitcoin-mining-pool

Investment in startups in Africa: https://www.coindesk.com/binance-backed-crypto-payments-app-as-race-for-africa-heats-up

In-browser trading: https://www.coindesk.com/brave-partners-with-binance-to-develop-in-browser-crypto-trading

https://brave.com/binance/

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Amanda Fabiano, director of Bitcoin mining at the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, and Christopher Bendiksen, head of research at CoinShares, discuss the third Bitcoin halving, which occurred hours before the publication of this episode. They discuss:

• the significance of the halving
• what effect it could have on price and what Amanda and Christopher think of Dan Morehead's projection that it could reach $115,000 next year
• how macroeconomic events like the coronavirus and quantitative easing could impact uptake of Bitcoin
• how the halving could affect miners and hash rate
• how the halving could influence the environmental impact of Bitcoin
• why mining was the first activity Fidelity pursued with Bitcoin
• what they think needs to happen in Bitcoin to foster more adoption
• why hash rate derivatives will be a crucial step
• what the outlook is for institutional adoption of Bitcoin
• plus, is it halving or halvening?

Take the 2020 Unchained Podcast survey! 

I'm doing another survey to find out what you want from the podcasts and how I can make them better! Please take a moment to fill it out here and to tell us at Unchained what you'd like from the show: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/unchained2020

Plus, Crypto.com has offered our survey respondents a chance to win a metal MCO Visa card -- Crypto.com will stake these cards indefinitely! Ten lucky winners will enjoy card benefits including free Spotify, free Netflix, 3% back on all spending, earn extra interest on their crypto deposit and more!  Thanks, Crypto.com! Again, take the survey now! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/unchained2020

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

Stellar: https://www.stellar.org/

Episode links: 

Amanda Fabiano: https://twitter.com/_amanda_fab

Fidelity Center for Applied Technology: https://www.fidelitylabs.com

Christopher Bendiksen: https://twitter.com/C_Bendiksen

Coinshares: https://coinshares.com

Coinshares’ 5 Popular Bitcoin Halving Theories: https://coinshares.com/research/5-popular-btc-halving-theories

Coinshares’ December 2019 Bitcoin Mining Report: https://coinshares.com/assets/resources/Research/bitcoin-mining-network-december-2019.pdf

Unconfirmed episode with Dan Morehead: https://unchainedpodcast.com/a-bitcoin-price-of-115000-next-year/

Bitcoin stock-to-flow ratio: https://medium.com/@100trillionUSD/modeling-bitcoins-value-with-scarcity-91fa0fc03e25

Fidelity opens trading to institutional customers: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-06/fidelity-said-to-offer-cryptocurrency-trading-within-a-few-weeks

Fidelity Digital Assets signs first exchange: https://www.coindesk.com/fidelity-digital-assets-to-sign-up-its-first-crypto-exchange-by-end-of-the-year

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Hi everyone, this is an essay by Mariano Conti of MakerDAO that was so popular, personal and relatable, especially to those living in Latin America, that we decided to have Mariano translate it and read it in Spanish. Share it with your Spanish-speaking friends who still don’t understand what crypto is about, to show how it solved real-world problems for at least one person. 

Mariano Conti, jefe de contratos inteligentes de MakerDAO, nos lee su ensayo sobre su experiencia personal con criptomonedas, desde el punto de vista de un Argentino cuya familia ha experimentado períodos de hiperinflación, y de un freelancer que recibe pagos por su trabajo desde varios países. Mariano describe la evolución de Maker desde Dai de Colateral Único (ahora Sai) hasta Dai Multi Colateral, y también brinda su perspectiva de los eventos del Jueves Negro y las subastas de deuda subsecuentes que el protocolo debió llevar a cabo para regularizar su situación.

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Dan Guido, cofounder and CEO of Trail of Bits, and Taylor Monahan, founder and CEO of MyCrypto, discuss all the recent hacks in DeFi, how it can be made more safely and who is responsible. 

We tackle: 

• the Hegic security incident: whose responsibility it was to make sure the contract was secure — the auditor (Trail of Bits) or the team (Hegic) — what Trail of Bits was saying in its audit summary, and how to read between the lines of an audit summary
• how long an audit should be
• upgradeability: particularly around when more advanced technology and contracts interface with older technology/contracts
• centralization vs. decentralization: whether contracts can be made safely while maintaining adhering to the principle of decentralization, why Taylor would prioritize centralization and security, and how teams can create different levels of risk for users 
• bug bounties: why asking what amount they should be is the wrong question
• the security threats posed by oracles
• and what a checklist for DeFi teams might look like

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com 

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com 

Stellar: https://www.stellar.org

Episode links: 

Dan Guido: https://twitter.com/dguido

Trail of Bits: https://www.trailofbits.com

Taylor Monahan: https://twitter.com/tayvano_

MyCrypto: https://mycrypto.com

Initial tweet by Hegic calling the security issue a typo: https://twitter.com/HegicOptions/status/1253937104666742787?s=20

Hegic tweet saying, “It’s not a security issue”: https://twitter.com/HegicOptions/status/1253954145113038849?s=20  

Trail of Bits saying it will no longer work with Hegic: https://twitter.com/dguido/status/1254260725431894020?s=20 

Taylor breaks down the audit summary: https://twitter.com/MyCrypto/status/1254058121342803968?s=20

Molly Wintermute’s Medium post on requesting a week audit vs. three-day review: https://medium.com/@molly.wintermute/post-mortem-hegic-unlock-function-bug-or-three-defi-development-mistakesthat-i-feel-sorry-about-5a23a7197bce 

Unconfirmed episode with Haseeb Qureshi on the Lendf.me attack: https://unchainedpodcast.com/haseeb-qureshi-on-the-unbelievable-story-of-the-25-million-lendf-me-hack/

Unchained interview showing Matt Luongo's approach to kill switches and upgradeability with tBTC: https://unchainedpodcast.com/tbtc-what-happens-when-the-most-liquid-crypto-asset-hits-defi/

Discussion of the bZx attacks on Unchained: https://unchainedpodcast.com/the-bzx-attacks-unethical-or-illegal-2-experts-weigh-in/

Issue with Curve contract: https://blog.curve.fi/vulnerability-disclosure/ 

Compound bug bounty program: https://compound.finance/docs/security#bug-bounty

Taylor on “upgradeability makes things more insecure”: https://twitter.com/tayvano_/status/1222564979657723904?s=20 

Synthetix oracle incident, allowing a bot to profit $1 billion: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-synthetix-became-the-second-largest-defi-platform/

Taylor’s tips on how to get more ROI on an audit: https://twitter.com/MyCrypto/status/1254061500244713474?s=20

Tips to follow before getting an audit: https://blog.openzeppelin.com/follow-this-quality-checklist-before-an-audit-8cc6a0e44845/ 

Resources for security in DeFi: 

crytic/building-secure-contractsGuidelines and training material to write secure smart contracts - crytic/building-secure-contractsgithub.com

https://consensys.github.io/smart-contract-best-practices/ 

https://forum.openzeppelin.com

https://swcregistry.io

https://diligence.consensys.net/blog/2020/03/new-offering-1-day-security-reviews/

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Matt Luongo, CEO of Thesis, the parent company of Fold and Keep, describes the just-launched tBTC, his plan for a censorship-resistant Bitcoin-Ethereum bridge. He explains his personal reasons for wanting such a platform, why tBTC is different from other versions of Bitcoin on Ethereum, and how it works -- including the process of becoming a signer in minting tBTC, how the system will handle crises, the reason for high collateralization levels, why staking assets are limited, and the necessity of a work token, Keep. He also discusses the economics behind tBTC-backed tBTC, his vision for DeFi, how tBTC could buffer an ETH crash, and the reasoning behind minimal governance mechanisms -- playing into why institutions trust BTC more than ETH. Plus, he contrasts the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities and talks about the possibility of tBTC2.0.  

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

Episode links: 

Matt Luongo: https://twitter.com/mhluongo

Thesis: https://thesis.co/

Keep: https://keep.network/

Fold App: https://foldapp.com/

tBTC white paper: https://docs.keep.network/tbtc/index.pdf

Initial reveal: https://twitter.com/mhluongo/status/1162481737525583873?s=20

Announcement on Keep blog: https://blog.keep.network/bridging-bitcoin-and-ethereum-b2f9923630a7?gi=5c9040ed3a72

Some criticism of tBTC: https://twitter.com/peterktodd/status/1162728205607985152?s=20

Matt on the Breakdown podcast: https://www.coindesk.com/will-defi-matter-in-a-post-coronavirus-world-feat-matt-luongo

Matt on Sendwyre podcast: https://blog.sendwyre.com/announcing-tbtc-with-james-prestwich-and-matt-luongo-of-cross-chain-group-c424e2b0b40c?gi=d1e8b53ca80e

How tBTC works: https://defipulse.com/blog/what-is-tbtc/

The Block on tBTC: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/daily/55284/inside-tbtc-the-bitcoin-backed-erc-20-token-that-could-go-live-in-march

Keep raises $7.7 million: https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinoconnell/2020/04/03/coinbase-co-founder-invests-in-project-to-bridge-bitcoin-and-ethereum/#368a6f737df4

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Cathie Wood, CEO and CIO of ARK Invest, and Yassine Elmandjra, ARK's thematic analyst, discuss their investment strategy with disruptive innovation, and how blockchain technology, especially Bitcoin, plays a major role in it. They explain why the unique market circumstances due to the coronavirus have led to more correlation between crypto and the traditional financial markets, but also why, in the long-term, it will ultimately be uncorrelated. We cover why they think crypto in the age of COVID-19 will see new opportunity, and when there will be a recovery of the larger economy. They also share, from an investor standpoint, their growing conviction in Bitcoin due to its long-term value proposition compared to other chains like Ethereum. Plus, we talk about the future outlook for central bank digital currencies, and how Libra will launch, albeit differently, than expected. 

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

Episode links: 

Cathie Wood: https://twitter.com/cathiedwood?lang=en

Yassine Elmandjra: https://twitter.com/yassineARK 

Yahoo Finance interview on ARK’s big ideas for 2020: https://finance.yahoo.com/video/cathie-wood-talks-ark-invests-222723696.html

Keynote on State of Digital Assets at Volt Capital summit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2729&v=c50TMCKsktA&feature=emb_logo

ARK’s Q&A video conference on COVID-19: https://ark-invest.com/research/bis2020?utm_campaign=BIS%202020&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--kCZDJ0VuIxNViHjN7KR7qOryEusndZqMfNp7JMkD4AIZJCv8otUtZm8YgPdmVYTZb3ylv4ysbxt8fRIUvngkRLcyvIw&_hsmi=85729999&utm_source=hs_email&utm_content=85729999&hsCtaTracking=14ee7e75-5bf4-46f8-8c8c-f5aeb84b32a7%7C5f5d3a43-f10e-4792-92de-96ef495eb5c6 

Feature on Cathie Wood: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-18/cathie-wood-s-tesla-bet-puts-ark-invest-in-spotlight

Her views on Zcash: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/12660/cathie-wood-on-the-block-the-crypto-revolution-is-coming-jump-on-or-get-out-of-the-way

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Mariano Conti of MakerDAO, head of smart contracts at MakerDAO, reads from his essay about his personal experience with cryptocurrency, particularly as an Argentine whose family has experienced periods of hyperinflation, and as a freelancer accepting payment from foreign countries. He describes the evolution of Maker from single-collateral Dai (now Sai) to multi-collateral Dai, and also gives his perspective on the events of Black Thursday and the subsequent debt auctions the protocol undertook to right itself. 

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

Episode links: 

Mariano Conti: https://twitter.com/nanexcool

Linda Xie’s essay about crypto memes on Unchained : https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-memes-can-help-crypto-go-mainstream/

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Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital reads from his essay on how defensible each of the major DeFi protocols on Ethereum are, and what that says about Ethereum's defensibility.  He evaluates how easy it would be from an effort and capital standpoint to fork each of the major DeFi protocols, and makes a strong case for how and why he thinks protocols like Maker are quite defensible, and why he believes certain dexes are less so.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

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In this essay, Haseeb Qureshi of Dragonfly Capital explains why he thinks the focus on decentralization can be overhyped. He looks at why decentralization can be important but then makes it clear, by dissecting when it is important and when it’s not, and to whom it does and doesn’t matter, that it isn’t the be-all end-all goal for every endeavor. He talks about which questions we should be asking beyond just, “is it decentralized,” and also explains why that question doesn’t even make sense. 

Thank you to our sponsors! 

CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

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Kyle Samani, managing partner at Multicoin Capital, dissects Black Thursday, March 12, the day the crypto markets plunged twice amid the wider sell-off in the markets due to the coronavirus. He offers several theories for the first price drop that day, how that set off a series of liquidations on various exchanges, and then why liquidations stopped for about 12 hours before the next wave, which triggered the next price slump. He also describes why, at that point, the crypto market structure broke, as arbitrageurs attempted to move collateral from one exchange to another but could not because both the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains became congested, setting off a downward spiral particularly in Bitcoin, as miners began turning off equipment due to the falling BTC price. This led, ultimately, to there being $200 million worth of positions to liquidate on BitMEX, but only $20 million worth of bids on the entire BitMEX order book. Then we cover what happened next that ultimately saved the price of BTC dropping to $0 on BitMEXT.

Next, we discuss the second fall in prices that day, and how that affected MakerDAO, with congestion on the Ethereum blockchain preventing keepers from being able to liquidate undercollateralized vaults. A clever keeper sent a bid to liquidate a vault with a higher gas price, but realizing that there was no competition, bid $0, walking away with $4.5 million, and a total of $8 million being won this way. We covered how the price of ETH fell to $88 but because oracles weren't properly updating, the last price of ETH on MakerDAO was at $101 — a dollar higher than the $100 where a bunch of liquidations would have occurred, which would have likely put more downward pressure on ETH, resulting in another downward spiral. 

Kyle also evaluates some of the technical options for preventing these issues in future times of volatility, why many of them aren't promising but what is. 

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Episode links: 

https://multicoin.capital/2020/03/20/march-12-the-day-crypto-market-structure-broke-part-2/

Links from news recap:

Kyle Samani: https://twitter.com/KyleSamani

Multicoin Capital: https://multicoin.capital/

Multicoin blog part 1: https://multicoin.capital/2020/03/17/march-12-the-day-crypto-market-structure-broke/

Part 2: https://multicoin.capital/2020/03/20/march-12-the-day-crypto-market-structure-broke-part-2/

Theory that BitMEX’s maintenance was to prevent a collapse in Bitcoin: https://twitter.com/SBF_Alameda/status/1238306306043162625

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/58918/money-2-0-stuff-free-price-auctions

How traders took advantage of the roiling markets: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/59172/surfing-the-spread-crypto-market-turmoil-arbitrage

More on the liquidations in MakerDAO: https://medium.com/@whiterabbit_hq/black-thursday-for-makerdao-8-32-million-was-liquidated-for-0-dai-36b83cac56b6

https://blog.makerdao.com/usdc-approved-by-maker-governance-as-the-third-collateral-type-of-the-maker-protocol/

MakerDAO weighs emergency shutdown: https://www.coindesk.com/defi-leader-makerdao-weighs-emergency-shutdown-following-eth-price-drop

MakerDAO adds USDC as collateral: https://www.coindesk.com/makerdao-adds-usdc-as-defi-collateral-following-black-thursday-chaos

Kain Warwick on USDC as Dai collateral: https://twitter.com/kaiynne/status/1239795250882740225?s=20

Eva Beylin on USDC as Dai collateral: https://twitter.com/evabeylin/status/1240039492985085952?s=20

Huobi’s derivatives platform introduces circuit breaker: 

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/59210/huobis-derivative-platform-now-includes-a-circuit-breaker-function

Debate over circuit breakers in crypto: 

https://twitter.com/TusharJain_/status/1238311534767595520

https://www.coindesk.com/does-crypto-need-circuit-breakers-last-weeks-price-crash-ignites-a-debate

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In this essay, Chris Burniske of Placeholder Capital talks about what kind of world crypto entrepreneurs are creating and want to be creating with the systems they build. He talks about different kinds of values, the dangers of only pursuing market values, and why crypto has a unique opportunity now to recalibrate those market values and incorporate more of the societal virtues we hold dear. Then he dives into which values he hopes to imbue into crypto networks and how that informs his thinking as a VC in the space.

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Soona Amhaz, general partner at Volt Capital, and Yele Bademosi, founder of Microtransaction, explain why they believe Africa is poised to become a hub for crypto development. They give some interesting stats on how crypto is currently used and traded on the continent, plus talk about how these factors interplay with the region’s unique demographics and the status of some of the continent’s fiat currencies to create what could be a unique environment for increased crypto activity. They end with what they think crypto entrepreneurs should be working on to help further that development.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

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Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

Episode links: 

Soona Amhaz: https://twitter.com/soonaorlater

Yele Bademosi: https://twitter.com/YeleBademosi

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In this fireside chat from ETH Denver, crypto-friendly governors Jared Polis of Colorado and Mark Gordon of Wyoming discuss how they each became interested in crypto and blockchain, how their states became friendly to the industry and how to resolve some of the thornier problems in crypto regulation, such as the state-by-state money transmission licensing regime. We also dive into the details on some of the regulations in their states, such as the regulations that make it possible to hold state-specific ICOs, what types of companies are taking advantage of those, and whether there's a bipartisan attitude toward crypto regulation. 

Thank you to our sponsors! 

CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

Episode links: 

CO Governor Jared Polis: https://twitter.com/jaredpolis

WY Governor Mark Gordon: https://governor.wyo.gov/

CO Governor Jared Polis’s background: 

https://gazette.com/election/profile-entrepreneur-jared-polis-sees-governor-s-race-as-a/article_af2d0222-c1b2-11e8-8b2b-afa916b3b182.html

Governor Polis’s letter to SEC chairman Jay Clayton and then-CFTC chairman Christopher Giancarlo on crypto regulation: https://www.coindesk.com/lawmakers-renew-calls-us-lead-crypto-innovation

Colorado’s Digital Token Act: https://www.coindesk.com/colorado-could-be-next-in-the-race-to-bank-crypto-and-cannabis

https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/2019a_023_signed.pdf

https://thetokenist.io/colorado-signs-digital-token-act-into-law-some-digital-assets-exempt-from-securities-requirements/

Wyoming passes three crypto-friendly laws: https://www.coindesk.com/wyoming-lawmakers-pass-three-bills-in-boost-for-states-crypto-industry

Wyoming laws: https://www.wyoleg.gov/Legislation/2018/HB0070

https://www.forbes.com/sites/caitlinlong/2019/03/04/what-do-wyomings-new-blockchain-laws-mean/amp/

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Maya Zehavi, blockchain consultant, and Zubin Koticha, cofounder and CEO of Opyn, discuss the two recent bZx attacks, whether they were hacks or arbs and whether they were unethical or illegal. They also look at whether flash loans are to blame, how much transparency DeFi teams should have about vulnerabilities on their platforms, how much bug bounties should be for DeFi, and whether flash loans means the amount of bug bounties should be higher. We also talk about  whether DeFi should institute circuit breakers, when those would make sense, and whether these attacks could happen to anybody or whether bZx isn't up to the standards needed in this community. We also cover how bZx should handle the under-collateralized loans left on their platform, whether Chainlink will be a sufficient solution to prevent these attacks in the future, and whether DeFi insurance should cover these kinds of attacks. Plus, Maya and Zubin explains why they're happy the attacks happened and have made them more optimistic. And Maya reveals why she has a pizza slice emoji in her Twitter profile.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

Episode links: 

Maya Zehavi: https://twitter.com/mayazi

Zubin Koticha: https://twitter.com/snarkyzk

Opyn: https://opyn.co/

Description of first attack: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/56171/bzx-exploit-former-google-engineer-explains-how-an-attacker-made-350k-in-single-transaction 

Description of second attack: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/56171/bzx-exploit-former-google-engineer-explains-how-an-attacker-made-350k-in-single-transaction

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/daily/56413/experts-weigh-in-on-bzx-attacks-flash-loans-highlight-the-need-to-improve-defi-security-models

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/56134/defi-lending-protocol-bzx-exploited-a-portion-of-eth-lost

Unconfirmed episode about the attacks: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-2-defi-attacks-made-almost-1-million-in-profit/

1inch.exchange blog post: https://medium.com/@1inch.exchange/yes-we-hacked-bzx-fulcrum-but-one-month-ago-3f7e5c437ee3

1inch exchange-Fulcrum dispute: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/56579/bzx-attacks-and-1inch-exchange-allegations-heres-what-the-teams-have-to-say 

Nexus Mutual payouts: https://defirate.com/nexus-mutual-first-payouts/

Nexus Mutual blog post: https://medium.com/nexus-mutual/bzx-flash-loan-event-55753d19e52b

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Santiago Siri, the cofounder and president of Democracy Earth, reads from his essay on how governance and identity change in the age of cryptography.

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Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation, reads his essay, A World Without Bitcoin. 

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Linda Xie, cofounder at Scalar Capital, reads her essay on how the crypto community can successfully use memes to help people understand the technology.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

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Kraken: http://kraken.com/

Episode links: 

Linda Xie: https://twitter.com/ljxie

Scalar Capital: https://scalar.capital/

Read Linda's full essay at: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-memes-can-help-crypto-go-mainstream/

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Jonathan Levin, co-founder and CSO of Chainalysis, and Kim Grauer, head of research, discuss the company's 2020 Crypto Crime Report, which explores how cryptocurrency criminals, who perpetrate hacks and scams and send out ransomware and more, cash out. We cover how criminals are turning their illicit crypto into fiat currency, why exchanges are a prime avenue for money laundering, and how over-the-counter brokers are playing a large role. They talk about a group of OTC brokers they describe as the Rogue 100, what their transactions look like, and what can be done to help stop criminals from cashing out. Jonathan and Kim talk about the PlusToken scam, the largest Ponzi scheme in crypto and how Chainalysis determined that it was likely driving down the price of Bitcoin. They also explain the trends in exchange hacks and how the most prolific hackers have grown more sophisticated, giving some examples of how the Lazarus Group, a cybercriminal syndicate linked to the North Korean government has become more advanced. Finally, we also discuss ransomware and terrorism financing and what trends they are seeing there.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com/unchained

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com

Episode links: 

Chainalysis: https://www.chainalysis.com/

Jonathan Levin: https://twitter.com/jony_levin

Kim Grauer: https://twitter.com/KimberlyGrauer

Previous Unchained interview with Jonathan: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-chainalysis-helps-solve-crimes-jonathan-levin-tells-all-ep-62/

Unconfirmed episode on how Bitcoin led to the demise of the largest child porn site: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-bitcoin-led-to-the-demise-of-the-largest-child-porn-site/

Money laundering report: https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/money-laundering-cryptocurrency-2019 

https://fortune.com/2020/01/15/crypto-criminals-brokers-launder-billions/

Exchange hacks report: https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/cryptocurrency-exchange-hacks-2019

Unchained interview with Priscilla Moriuchi on why North Korea is interested in cryptocurrency: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-north-korea-is-interested-in-cryptocurrency/

Plus Token report: https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/plustoken-scam-bitcoin-price

Terrorism financing report: https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/terrorism-financing-cryptocurrency-2019

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Brendan Eich, CEO and president of Brave, discusses his history in tech prior to crypto, including working at Netscape, how he created Javascript in 10 days and his short stint as CEO of Mozilla, what problems with ads that Brave is trying to solve, and why Brave needs the Basic Attention Token. He explains why Bitcoin wouldn't work for cryptocurrencies on the platform, why they use BAT over stablecoins, and how Brave strips ads from publishers' webpages, but doesn't from Facebook or Google, and how it causes collateral damage to publishers. He talks about how the browser is a middleman, how Brave works with Uphold and why it doesn't require KYC unless the users wants to cash out on his or her Brave rewards. He also explains why he isn't worried that BAT could meet the four prongs of the Howey test, what it will look like when Basic Attention Token is decentralized and why he doesn't know if publishers are earning back in BAT the ad revenue that Brave blocks.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com/

Kraken: https://kraken.com/

Episode links: 

Brendan Eich: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich

Brave: https://brave.com/

Basic Attention Token: https://basicattentiontoken.org/

BAT white paper: https://basicattentiontoken.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BasicAttentionTokenWhitePaper-4.pdf

Brave Rewards: https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360027276731-Brave-Rewards-FAQ

Brave privacy policy: https://brave.com/privacy/

https://brave.com/privacy/#dev-detail 

BAT Growth: https://batgrowth.com

Publishers on BAT: https://batgrowth.com/publishers/website

Brendan Eich admits Brave is semi-decentralized: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/11/23/brave-blockchain-cryptocurrency-browser/

How Brave hurts publishers: https://practicaltypography.com/the-cowardice-of-brave.html

Publishers send cease and desist to Brave: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-browser-brave-responds-cease-desist

Whether BAT is necessary for Brave: https://micky.com.au/just-3-9-of-brave-browser-users-have-bat-in-their-wallets/

BAT ICO: https://www.coindesk.com/35-million-30-seconds-token-sale-internet-browser-brave-sells

Vitalik blog post on token sales: https://vitalik.ca/general/2017/06/09/sales.html

BAT roadmap: https://basicattentiontoken.org/bat-roadmap-1-0/

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Catherine Coley, the CEO of Binance US, talks about her background as a foreign exchange trader, how and why she made the leap into crypto, and how she became the CEO of Binance US. We discuss how Binance US differs from Binance, who Binance US's target customers are, how Binance decides which coins to list, what's on Catherine's wish list to regulators, and whether Binance US will be connected to or cut off from the global, open financial system Binance is building. We also cover why Binance US launched with Tether as its stablecoin, why the company is also focusing on BUSD, how they became comfortable using BNB token on the exchange, whether or not they worry that BNB could be considered a security. Catherine talks about whether the company will offer leverage, lending, staking, etc., and where Binance US's future revenue could come from as exchange fees trend to zero. We also cover what Catherine has learned from working customer support for Binance US and and how she compares the US and Asian crypto markets. 

Thank you to our sponsors! 

CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com/unchained 

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com/

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com/

Episode links: 

Catherine Coley: https://twitter.com/cryptocoley

Binance US: https://www.binance.us/en 

Binance US on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BinanceAmerica

Binance US blog: https://www.binance.us/en/blog

Crypto Rating Council: https://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-led-crypto-ratings-council-draws-skepticism-from-legal-experts

Telegram notice about Grams and Ton: https://telegram.org/blog/ton-gram-notice 

CZ’s 2020 New Year’s message: https://www.binance.com/en/amp/blog/419417682154909696/Binance-2020-New-Year-Message-Building-Foundations-- 

Binance US joins Chamber of Commerce Executive Committee: https://www.binance.us/en/blog/419943835304939520/BinanceUS-Joins-the-Executive-Committee-of-the-Chamber-of-Digital-Commerce

Multicoin Capital report, Binance is Blitzscaling: https://multicoin.capital/2019/11/07/binance-is-blitzscaling/ 

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Alex Pack, founding partner of Dragonfly Capital, and Haseeb Qureshi, Dragonfly managing partner, talk about why Dragonfly has a global focus, how they choose investments, and why they try to be as agnostic as possible about asset type. They also discuss why most protocols, including Bitcoin, still look like venture bets, why, at the moment, Bitcoin looks like a better investment than anything built on top of Bitcoin, and why Lightning hasn't yet taken off and why they think it won't. We also cover what the future holds  for Bitcoin. They explain what they think will happen in the smart contract platform race, why Ethereum is so far in the lead and whether anything will become an Ethereum killer. We also cover Libra, and how Libra affects their investments in stablecoins, why Xi Jinping's "blockchain, not crypto" emphasis is a dead end, whether blockchain-based identity is an investable area, what they think the killer app is or will be and their predictions for 2020. Also, Haseeb, a former professional poker player, describes how poker playing is similar to crypto trading.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

CipherTrace: https://ciphertrace.com/unchained 

Kraken: https://kraken.com/

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Episode links: 

Alex Pack: https://twitter.com/alpackap

Haseeb Qureshi: https://twitter.com/hosseeb

Dragonfly Capital: https://www.dcp.capital/

Dragonfly Capital’s blog: https://medium.com/dragonfly-research

Forbes on Dragonfly Capital’s $100 million initial raise: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2018/10/09/new-fund-dragonfly-bridges-china-us-crypto/#572aeb953c9a

Venture Beat story: https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/09/dragonfly-capital-partners-scoops-up-100-million-for-cryptocurrency-investments/

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/10/09/1618445/0/en/Dragonfly-Capital-Partners-Unveils-100-Million-Inaugural-Fund-for-Cryptocurrencies-Bridges-Gap-between-East-and-West.html

DeFi cannibalizing POS security: https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/how-defi-cannibalizes-pos-security-84b146f00697

Mimblewimble blog post: https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/breaking-mimblewimble-privacy-model-84bcd67bfe52

Haseeb’s 2020 article on CoinDesk: https://www.coindesk.com/what-defi-needs-next-year-three-priorities

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In this Best of 2019 episode, I selected the clips that seemed most representative of what crypto was about this year, which I call, The Year Things Got Geopolitical. My only regret is that none of the clips about DAOs lent themselves well to this episode. However, years from now, after we’ve got global stablecoins pinging around the world at a high transactions-per-second rate, the crypto community has made peace with U.S. regulators, and more of our lives seems to take place in the borderless digital world, perhaps we'll find it ironic that DAOs were burbling up right around the same time.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com/

CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained

Episode links: 

Unchained Interview with Vitalik Buterin: https://unchainedpodcast.com/vitalik-buterin-on-whether-or-not-ethereum-is-blowing-it/

Unchained Interview with Hester Peirce: https://unchainedpodcast.com/sec-commissioner-hester-peirce-come-talk-to-the-sec/

Unchained Interview with Ted Livingston: https://unchainedpodcast.com/kin-sets-up-5-million-defendcrypto-org-to-take-on-the-sec/

Unchained Interview with Glen Weyl and Santiago Siri: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-blockchains-can-help-create-little-democracies-everywhere/

Unchained Interview with Christian Catalini: https://unchainedpodcast.com/a-libra-co-creator-on-how-facebook-will-make-money-from-calibra/

Unchained Interview with Martin Chorzempa and Dovey Wan: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-china-aims-to-replace-cash-with-the-digital-yuan/

Unchained Interview with Emily Parker: https://unchainedpodcast.com/crypto-in-china-what-it-really-looks-like/

Unchained Interview with Sandra Ro: https://unchainedpodcast.com/sandra-ro-why-crypto-friendly-laws-are-coming-in-the-us/ 

Unchained Interview with Patrick McHenry: https://unchainedpodcast.com/congressman-patrick-mchenry-bitcoin-will-be-of-enormous-value/

Unchained Interview with David Andolfatto: https://unchainedpodcast.com/fed-economist-on-the-prospect-of-the-usd-losing-global-reserve-status-who-cares/

Unchained Interview with Yeonmi Park: https://unchainedpodcast.com/yeonmi-park-on-why-doing-business-with-north-korea-is-like-buying-a-ticket-to-a-concentration-camp/

Unchained Interview with Alex Gladstein: https://unchainedpodcast.com/alex-gladstein-of-the-human-rights-foundation-on-the-3-reasons-bitcoin-matters/

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This fall, I had an idea to do a crypto show for my normie friends, and figured I’d release it over the holidays, when maybe my regular listeners would be with the very people in their lives who could benefit from such an episode.  I solicited questions from my own real-life friends, edited down the repeats and tried my best to make the explanations as simple as possible. I cover basic explanations of Bitcoin, blockchain and Ethereum, plus we go into questions around mining and electricity usage, and why anyone would use cryptocurrency. I hope this clears things up for some of your friends and family — and gets some of them to go down the crypto rabbit hole.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Givewell: http://givewell.org/unchained

CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained 

Kraken: http://kraken.com

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

Episode links: 

Previous beginner episodes: 

Crypto 101: https://unchainedpodcast.com/crypto-101-everything-you-need-to-know-about-bitcoin-ethereum-blockchains-icos-and-more/

How to Explain Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain to the Average Person: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-to-explain-cryptocurrencies-and-blockchains-to-the-average-person/

Interviews with Vitalik Buterin: 2017: https://unchainedpodcast.com/vitalik-buterin-creator-of-ethereum-on-the-big-guy-vs-the-little-guy/

2019: https://unchainedpodcast.com/vitalik-buterin-on-whether-or-not-ethereum-is-blowing-it/

Episode with Wences Casares: https://unchainedpodcast.com/xapos-wences-casares-on-how-bitcoin-makes-a-fairer-world/

Lolli: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-to-get-7-of-your-purchases-back-in-bitcoin/

Cryptocurrency to evade surveillance: https://unchainedpodcast.com/alex-gladstein-of-the-human-rights-foundation-on-the-3-reasons-bitcoin-matters/

KHmap.live interview: https://unchainedpodcast.com/an-interview-with-the-anonymous-developer-of-hkmap-live/

North Korea's interest in cryptocurrency: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-north-korea-is-interested-in-cryptocurrency/

Bitwise: https://unchainedpodcast.com/bitwises-latest-plans-to-get-a-bitcoin-etf-approved/

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Priscilla Moriuchi, director of strategic threat development at Recorded Future and non-resident fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, explains North Korean usage of the internet and how it has changed over time, how it is reserved only for the few most senior people in the regime, and what the mobile devices of the other 25 million citizens connects to, and who is watching the activity on those devices. She also describes the various ways North Korea has shown an interest in cryptocurrency, how it's been determined that North Korea is engaging in those activities, such as cryptocurrency exchange hacks and malware, and its seeming interest in Monero. We also discuss how they convert crypto to fiat, and how well the government seems to have connected its cryptocurrency activities with its other real-world criminal networks used for other activities such as smuggling, drugs and counterfeiting cigarettes and US dollars. We also talk about which North Koreans have been trained to carry out such attacks and how and why they carry them out abroad rather than in North Korea. She also covers why Ethereum researcher Virgil Griffith's visit to North Korea, even if he were dispensing "public" information, would have been helpful in a country where everyone but a tiny elite is denied access to the internet.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Givewell: http://givewell.org/unchained

CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

Episode links: 

Priscilla Moriuchi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/priscilla-moriuchi-410297127/ 

Recorded Future: https://www.recordedfuture.com

Recorded Future on North Korea’s internet activity: https://www.recordedfuture.com/north-korea-internet-activity/

Full report: https://go.recordedfuture.com/hubfs/reports/north-korea-activity.pdf

Recorded Future report on North Korea’s interest in cryptocurrency: https://www.recordedfuture.com/north-korea-cryptocurrency/

Full report: North Korea targeting South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges: https://www.recordedfuture.com/north-korea-cryptocurrency-campaign/

Full report: https://go.recordedfuture.com/hubfs/reports/cta-2018-0116.pdf 

Podcast: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/recorded-future-inside-threat-intelligence/e/52982550

Priscilla on why Virgil’s attendance at a blockchain conference in North Korea was helpful to the regime: https://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-virgil-griffith-cryptocurrencies-bad-idea-analyst-2019-12

Priscilla on how North Korea uses cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions: https://www.vox.com/world/2018/2/28/17055762/north-korea-sanctions-bitcoin-nuclear-weapons

North Korea’s interest in Monero: https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-north-korea-hackers-mine-cryptocurrency-abroad-1515420004

North Korea’s plan to build its own version of the Petro, I mean, Bitcoin: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ae/north-korea-is-building-its-own-bitcoin 

DOJ Complaint against Virgil: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1222646/download

Virgil’s Facebook post inviting others to North Korea: https://www.facebook.com/virgil.gr/posts/10112756681859159

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In light of the questions around whether or not Virgil Griffith's talk at a blockchain conference in Pyongyang could have helped everyday North Koreans, Yeonmi Park, a North Korean defector, human rights activist, board member of the Human Rights Foundation and author of “In Order to Live, A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom,” talks to Unchained. She tells us about her life growing up in North Korea, how she thought the "dear leader" could read her thoughts, why freedom of thought is not allowed in North Korea, and how a South Korean had to teach her that Kim Jong Il was fat and not starving for the North Koreans, as she had been taught. She talks about what happened after her father was sent to a prison camp for selling copper, silver and nickel, how three generations of her family were then tainted and put in the "hostile" class of the caste system, and how watching the movie Titanic introduced her to the concept of romantic love. She tells the story of how, because of hunger, she fled to China — right into the hands of human traffickers, but decided to stay because of what trash cans in China signified to her, and describes the first time she heard the word "free." She also covers the difficulty of her transition to freedom and how reading George Orwell's Animal Farm was a turning point for her. 

We discuss why the strategy for liberating North Korea is mostly about getting outside information in, who benefits from tours to North Korea and why lifting sanctions would only help the regime. She also explains why the only people who would have benefited from Griffith's talk would have been North Korean elite, and how any actions in line with what the dictator wants help him maintain power. She says the best ways to improve the situation in North Korea are to boost awareness of what is happening, empower the people there by getting outside information in and helping during the rescue, as 300,000 defectors, most of them women and girls living as sexual slaves, are hiding in China. 

Thank you to our sponsors! 

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Episode links: 

Yeonmi Park: https://yeonmi.com/

Yeonmi Park on Twitter: https://twitter.com/YeonmiParkNK

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialYeonmiPark/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yeonmi_park/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpQu57KgT7gOoLCAu3FFQsA

Human Rights Foundation: https://hrf.org/

In Order to Live: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/318940/in-order-to-live-by-yeonmi-park-with-maryanne-vollers/

One of the first speeches by Yeonmi that went viral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei-gGvLWOZI

Yeonmi's TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/yeonmi_park_what_i_learned_about_freedom_after_escaping_north_korea

New York Times video op-ed with Yeonmi's message for President Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/opinion/north-korea-trump-kim-human-rights.html

DOJ complaint against Virgil Griffith: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-arrest-united-states-citizen-assisting-north-korea

Economist video on the efforts to get outside information into North Korea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVRQpfXGQyc&app=desktop

Guardian article on North Korean defector activist groups attempting to get outside information into North Korea: https://amp.theguardian.com/global/2016/aug/27/north-korea-defectors-ian-birrell

Wired article on getting outside information in: https://www.wired.com/2015/03/north-korea/

The story of Otto Warmbier: https://www.gq.com/story/otto-warmbier-north-korea-american-hostage-true-story

South Korean woman shot for crossing line at a resort in North Korea: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/12/korea

Unchained interview with Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation: https://unchainedpodcast.com/alex-gladstein-of-the-human-rights-foundation-on-the-3-reasons-bitcoin-matters/

Unconfirmed interview with Alex Gladstein: https://unchainedpodcast.com/alex-gladstein-of-the-human-rights-foundation-on-the-first-crypto-war-ep-021/

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Kain Warwick, founder of Synthetix, talks about synthetic asset issuance platform, which enables people to create tokens that track the price of assets in traditional and crypto finance. We discuss the various types of assets available, why changing the monetary policy helped the ecosystem take off, why people would buy synthetic Bitcoin over Bitcoin itself, and why Uniswap has been pivotal to Synthetix's success. He covers the role the SNX token plays, why people minting synths must be over-collateralized by about 700%, and some of the changes coming down the pike, including futures, tweaks to the inflation rate, and a new oracle system. He also explains what happened when a trader made the system insolvent — and how they negotiated with the trader to keep it alive — how he thinks about decentralization and why the system's governance might one day be handled by a DAO.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

GiveWell: http://givewell.org/unchained

Kraken: https://kraken.com/

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Crypto.com: http://crypto.com/

Episode links: 

Synthetix: https://www.synthetix.io/

Synthetix on Twitter: https://twitter.com/synthetix_io

Kain Warwick: https://twitter.com/kaiynne

Havven transforming into Synthetix: https://blog.havven.io/havven-is-transforming-into-synthetix-2fdf727b8892

Synthetix overview: https://blog.havven.io/synthetix-overview-f4a5a6c41210

How Synthetix works: https://www.synthetix.io/how-it-works/

Synthetix lite paper: https://www.synthetix.io/uploads/synthetix_litepaper.pdf

Changing monetary policy: https://blog.synthetix.io/synthetix-monetary-policy-changes/

Oracle hack: https://www.coindesk.com/synthetix-trader-rolls-back-broken-trades-that-netted-1-billion-profit

Synthetix response to oracle incident: https://blog.synthetix.io/response-to-oracle-incident/

How staking works on Synthetix:  https://www.stakingrewards.com/asset/synthetix-network-token

https://help.synthetix.io/hc/en-us/articles/360020245314-How-can-I-earn-Synth-exchange-rewards-

Reddit complaint by trader who initially made the system insolvent: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/d4edxm/the_synthetix_dapp_deleted_my_balance/

Efforts to resolve the front running problem: https://sips.synthetix.io/sips/sip-6

Synthetix and Chainlink: https://blog.synthetix.io/synthetix-and-chainlink/

Kain’s tweets on the censorship vector stack: https://twitter.com/kaiynne/status/1197265019169169409?s=20

https://twitter.com/kaiynne/status/1197265044204998656?s=20

Unconfirmed episode on Uniswap: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-uniswap-quickly-became-one-of-the-most-popular-dexes/

Defiant interview: https://thedefiant.substack.com/p/theres-a-pipeline-of-etf-like-tokens

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Carylyne Chan, chief strategy officer at CoinMarketCap, and Gerald Chee, head of research, discuss the history of CoinMarketCap, why the founder Brandon Chez initially focused on circulating supply to calculate market cap, how the ICO craze has changed the way CoinMarketCap defines circulating supply and how the kimchee premium on the Bitcoin price in Korea at the end of 2017 is influencing the future direction of the website. We cover why CoinMarketCap is branching out into other areas such as metrics, blockchain explorers, hosting conferences and more, how the site has made money historically, the demographics, geographical distribution and behaviors of users on the site, and how CoinMarketCap's web traffic is 90% correlated to the Bitcoin price. We talk about the fake volume problem, how CoinMarketCap decided to address it with a new liquidity metric, the new Data Accountability and Transparency Alliance they formed, and why they are working with some of the exchanges identified by Bitwise as being the most egregious in faking volumes, and how those exchanges fare when it comes to CMC's new liquidity metric. We also cover some of the other ways companies have tried to address the fake volume issue, how CoinMarketCap tries to identify the "true price" for any cryptocurrency (and why USDT makes this hard), and what the circulating supply of Ripple should be.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Kraken: https://kraken.com/

CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com/

Episode links: 

CoinMarketCap: https://coinmarketcap.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CoinMarketCap

Carylyne Chan: https://twitter.com/carylyne

Gerald Chee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerald-chee-8340a0161/

History of CoinMarketCap: https://blog.coinmarketcap.com/2019/05/01/happy-6th-birthday-data-alliance-block-explorers-and-more/

Incident in which CoinMarketCap shaved $100 billion off the total market cap of crypto assets when Chez decided to remove South Korean exchanges from its calculations: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-programmer-at-the-center-of-a-100-billion-crypto-storm-1516708800  

CoinMarketCap's new interest for crypto loans  page: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/43460/coinmarketcap-now-publishes-interest-rates-on-cryptocurrencies-allowing-users-to-compare-and-choose

Bitwise report on fake trading volume: https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-nysearca-2019-01/srnysearca201901-5164833-183434.pdf

The 10 exchanges Bitwise says have real volume: https://www.bitcointradevolume.com/

CryptoCompare Q3 Exchange Benchmark Report: https://www.cryptocompare.com/media/36569367/cryptocompare_exchange_benchmark_2019_11pdf.pdf

DATA: https://coinmarketcap.com/data-transparency-alliance/ 

Messari benchmarks: https://messari.substack.com/p/more-reliable-cryptoasset-benchmarks

Messari report on Ripple’s “circulating supply”: https://messari.io/article/messari-research-ripple-s-market-cap-is-likely-overstated-by-6-1-billion

Ripple’s response to Messari report: https://www.coindesk.com/xrp-market-cap-may-be-overstated-by-billions-messari-report-estimates

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Martin Chorzempa, research fellow the Peterson Institute, and Dovey Wan, founding partner at Primitive Ventures, discuss China's new blockchain push and the forthcoming DCEP. They cover how the blockchain initiative is part of an effort to set global blockchain standards, how it fits into the larger U.S.-China trade war as well as the threat from Facebook's Libra, and why part of the motivation behind the DCEP may stem from the shadow banking system in China. They also talk about how the DCEP might work, why it aims to be like cash, and ways in which a successful digital currency could be used to help internationalize the renminbi, but why other countries will likely still resist becoming more dependent on China's currency. We also explore what "controlled anonymity" will look like in the DCEP, why it might actually be preferable to transacting via WeChat Pay or Alipay and whether or not Chinese people will become interested in Bitcoin due to this exposure to blockchain technology.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Kraken: https://kraken.com/

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CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained

Episode links: 

Martin Chorzempa: https://www.piie.com/experts/senior-research-staff/martin-chorzempa

https://twitter.com/ChorzempaMartin

Dovey Wan: https://twitter.com/DoveyWan

Xi Jinping’s speech: https://www.coindesk.com/president-xi-says-china-should-seize-opportunity-to-adopt-blockchain

Cryptography law: https://www.coindesk.com/chinas-congress-passes-cryptography-law-effective-jan-1-2020 

China’s 500 enterprise blockchain projects: https://www.coindesk.com/from-banking-giants-to-tech-darlings-china-reveals-over-500-enterprise-blockchain-projects

Changchun Mu, the deputy director of the payment and settlement department of the PBOC, on how DC/EP aims to replace the M0 money supply (banknotes and coins): http://www.cf40.org.cn/uploads/newsletter/20190803.pdf

Dovey’s article on how the digital yuan will affect the M0 money supply: https://www.coindesk.com/digital-renminbi-a-fiat-coin-to-make-m0-great-again

China’s already very digital economy: https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/who-likes-facebooks-libra-currency-not-chinese

Reaction of Chinese dissident to China’s blockchain push: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-dissident-sees-dark-warnings-in-chinas-blockchain-push

Unconfirmed interview with Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-the-digital-yuan-could-one-day-be-seen-as-a-blunder/

The commercial entities involved in helping to release the DCEP: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2019/08/27/alibaba-tencent-five-others-to-recieve-first-chinese-government-cryptocurrency/#95e9d351a516

How they will be involved: https://twitter.com/DoveyWan/status/1191807688570626048?s=20

”Controlled anonymity“: https://twitter.com/ChorzempaMartin/status/1162071943568338944?s=20

Problems that could arise with the DCEP: https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3035797/blockchain-endorsement-chinas-xi-jinping-could-lead-fraud-and

People with poor social credit banned from buying plane and train tickets: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/01/china-bans-23m-discredited-citizens-from-buying-travel-tickets-social-credit-system

The FT on why China’s currency will not replace the USD: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/09/19/1537329600000/China-s-currency-will-not-replace-the-US-dollar/ 

2000 speech by Bill Clinton: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/030900clinton-china-text.html?mcubz=2&module=inline

Change in plans to eliminate the Bitcoin mining industry: https://www.coindesk.com/sichuan-should-work-to-remain-attractive-to-crypto-mining-policy-advisor

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Former CFTC chairman Christopher Giancarlo talks about how his experience of the financial crisis piqued his interest in blockchain technology, why the CFTC thought the introduction of Bitcoin futures would help pop the 2017 Bitcoin bubble, and how "there's no simple answer" to explain when a token goes from being a security to a commodity. He discusses why he believes there needs to be a "refresh" of regulations written decades ago that are difficult to apply in a digital world, why he thinks Libra represents a fundamental generational change and why he thinks the project should be allowed to go forward. We also cover the Chinese digital yuan, why the USD should not assume that its global dominance today will translate into global dominance tomorrow, and his own proposal for a digital dollar, which he dubs "Zelle + JPMorgan Coin." Plus, he gives the behind-the-scenes look at why he decided to speak "as a dad" in the Congressional hearing that made him an overnight crypto celebrity.

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Kraken: https://www.kraken.com

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Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

Episode links: 

Christopher Giancarlo: https://twitter.com/giancarloMKTS 

https://www.cftc.gov/About/Commissioners/JChristopherGiancarlo/index.htm

CFTC: https://www.cftc.gov/

Chamber of Digital Commerce: https://digitalchamber.org/

Let the technology evolve before regulating/CFTC is behind on regulating: https://www.coindesk.com/cftc-chair-says-regulator-is-behind-on-blockchain

Popping the Bitcoin bubble: https://www.coindesk.com/trump-administration-popped-2017-bitcoin-bubble-ex-cftc-chair-says 

Talks with Facebook pre-Libra launch: https://www.coindesk.com/facebook-holds-talks-with-cftc-over-globalcoin-cryptocurrency-report

The introduction of Bitcoin futures helping to pop the crypto bubble: https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2018/may/how-futures-trading-changed-bitcoin-prices/

Wall Street Journal op-ed proposing a digital dollar: https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-sent-a-man-to-the-moon-we-can-send-the-dollar-to-cyberspace-11571179923

Initial confusion over LedgerX not receiving approval or disapproval within 180 days to launch Bitcoin futures: https://www.coindesk.com/what-happened-why-the-first-us-physical-bitcoin-futures-contracts-havent-launched

CoinDesk article with emails from LedgerX on CFTC dispute: https://www.coindesk.com/ledgerx-claims-personal-animus-drove-ex-cftc-chair-to-stall-approvals

Commodity Exchange Act: https://legcounsel.house.gov/Comps/Commodity%20Exchange%20Act.pdf

Emails sent from LedgerX to the CFTC:  https://static.coindesk.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/19-00104-FOIA-Records.pdf

Paul Chou’s blog post summarizing what happened: https://blog.ledgerx.com/let-me-set-the-record-straight/

More context from Noelle Acheson on the dispute: https://www.coindesk.com/derivatives-drama-the-unintended-consequences-of-crypto-regulation

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