8/2: Worldcoin Token, MicroStrategy, and A Crypto Crash

Global identity startup Worldcoin’s token WLD is a natural at swimming in crypto’s murky waters. A week after launch, its price is already up by 4.6%. As of this writing, it is changing hands at $2.37, down 1.4% since yesterday. This is despite the fact that governments and regulators around the world have expressed reservations… Read More 8/2: Worldcoin Token, MicroStrategy, and A Crypto Crash

Notes 3/31: Tether Attestation Report, Stablecoins as Free Banking, and The Banality of Another DeFi Hack

Tether, the algorithmic stablecoin that straddles all of crypto, released an attestation report for its second quarter this morning. As usual, it is a sham exercise. The report is a mishmash of meaningless statistics and assertions and does not provide much clarity about the stablecoin’s finances though it does bring to light some of the… Read More Notes 3/31: Tether Attestation Report, Stablecoins as Free Banking, and The Banality of Another DeFi Hack

Notes 7/29: MEV Funding, Lightning Problems, and Tether Market Cap

Sometimes, actually most of the time, it is difficult to distinguish between actual news and trolls in crypto. And so we have Flashbots, a startup that claims to remove the “negative impacts” of Ethereum’s controversial Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) practice, announcing a raise of $60 million at a billion dollar valuation. According to the startup,… Read More Notes 7/29: MEV Funding, Lightning Problems, and Tether Market Cap

Notes 7/28: Bitcoin Price, Tether and Bitcoin, and Palau Stablecoin

Bitcoin price continues to remain equable in its chosen range of between $29,000 to $30,000. Right now, the cryptocurrency is changing hands for $29,243.94, unchanged from its price a day ago. The world’s biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization shrugged off positive data about an increase in US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – news that should… Read More Notes 7/28: Bitcoin Price, Tether and Bitcoin, and Palau Stablecoin

Notes 7/27: Bitcoin Price, Bitcoin Miners,And Lido Tricks

Fed Chair Jerome Powell raised interest rates by a quarter percentage point yesterday and refused to commit to a pause in future hikes. But the stock market did not buy his spiel and sent equities higher. Crypto markets followed suit, albeit in a less dramatic fashion than usual. Bitcoin price rose by only one percent… Read More Notes 7/27: Bitcoin Price, Bitcoin Miners,And Lido Tricks

On FedNow

One of the most interesting developments in the last week has been the launch of FedNow, an instant payment settlement service for banks and financial institutions from the Federal Reserve. Up until now, settlement times between banks in the United States vary between one to three days. The promise of FedNow is instant settlement for… Read More On FedNow

Notes 7/25: Stablecoin Ratings, Bitcoin Price

Here’s a zinger of a news item from crypto. Bluechip Stablecoin Ratings Agency has come out with ratings for stablecoins operating in the crypto ecosystem. Binance’s native stablecoin BUSD and Gemini USD have received an A rating while algorithmic stablecoin Tether gets a D. Apparently, the factors considered while deciding the rating are governance, ability… Read More Notes 7/25: Stablecoin Ratings, Bitcoin Price

Notes 7/24: Worldcoin, Crypto Markets

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a hot topic this year and there have been many posts discussing its intersection with cryptocurrencies. Can the combination of AI, with its potential to reshape human existence, and cryptocurrencies, another supposedly world changing technology, produce a revolution? If Worldcoin, the latest project from OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, is any… Read More Notes 7/24: Worldcoin, Crypto Markets

Notes 7/19: BNB Danger at Binance, Tether’s Peg Still Off at Binance.US, and An Ether Sale

Binance burned $484 million worth of its native token BNB yesterday. Burning is the equivalent of taking tokens out of circulation. For a valuable and useful asset, that action should translate into a price bump because there are fewer of its numbers in circulation. While BNB is mostly useless, previous burns of the token have… Read More Notes 7/19: BNB Danger at Binance, Tether’s Peg Still Off at Binance.US, and An Ether Sale

Notes 7/17: Tokenized Treasuries, Lido and Binance Rewards

Tokenization of securities and real world assets (RWA) is one of the promises of crypto. And tokenizing U.S. treasuries is a low-hanging fruit because the market for such securities is already liquid. According to rwa.xyz, the market value of blockchain-based investment products for treasury bills, bonds, and money market funds into tokens totals $614 million.… Read More Notes 7/17: Tokenized Treasuries, Lido and Binance Rewards

Notes 7/13: A Revised Bill To Regulate Crypto, Ethereum’s Lido Problem

There’s a fresh attempt to regulate crypto afoot in Congress. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) have proposed a new version of the bill they introduced last year. According to CoinDesk, the bill draws a demarcating line between securities and commodities. That might help settle a long simmering dispute between the Commodities Futures… Read More Notes 7/13: A Revised Bill To Regulate Crypto, Ethereum’s Lido Problem

Notes 7/10: DeFi Total Value Locked Declines, Bitcoin Hash Rate Surges

Decentralized finance (DeFi) was supposed to be the savior and next iteration of modern finance. Investors don’t seem to think as much. The total value locked (TVL) in DeFi systems has slumped from a peak of $178 billion in November 2021, when bitcoin price set a record, to $44.5 billion, as of this writing. It… Read More Notes 7/10: DeFi Total Value Locked Declines, Bitcoin Hash Rate Surges