Latest news about Bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies. Your daily crypto news habit.
The Daily Bit
“To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week’s newspapers.” -Nassim Taleb
It’s impossible to keep up with the onslaught of information bombarding us from all angles in the crypto community. It has been for some time.
But it’s maddening to me that there are still so few options for high-quality curated content that promote a) “just-in-time” learning, b) condensed (and actual) news and analysis, and c) specific links to rare research or features that are actually worth reading in full.
Aside from greed and FOMO, poor information curation is one reason people continue to throw good money after bad at new token projects (and new crypto funds).
You can lecture people to “DYOR,” but where do you even start?
Satoshi’s white paper was eight pages and took 20 minutes to digest. It’s on my desk and on our office wall as a reminder to communicate as thoughtfully and succinctly as possible.
Satoshi didn’t bother with daily price predictions and chartist voodoo.
If you think about it, Bitcoin’s “press release” was one line embedded in the project launch: “The Times 03 Jan 2009, Chancellor on Brink of Second Bailout for Banks.”
Most white papers today are 50 pages of incomprehensible drivel that take two eye-gouge-inducing hours to parse (and usually discard). 1,000 word TA “thought pieces” with expert crypto-trader quotes can be summarized in 4 words: BTC prices up/down [x.x%]. Press releases announcing new partners? You can skip the quotes; it’s a f*cking pilot and two partners are saying nice things about each other.
Saved you a click. You’re welcome.
Everywhere we turn our attention is being stolen from us. Flat out stolen. And usually resold.
Whether it’s social media notifications that give you that much needed rat-just-got-to-the-cheese dopamine hit so you’ll scroll down to another James Altucher ad; or clickbaity headlines that drive you to news sites that lean on page views and way-too-long word counts; or the constant ping, ping, ping of emails or slack or telegram notices that directly solicit you for your time or money, the crypto web especially is a special sad attention sinkhole.
I’m more susceptible to the dopamine hits and shiny objects than most, so I’m especially frustrated.
This month I’m making a concerted effort to snatch back some of my time, and to help you reclaim some of yours so you can get up to speed faster and focus on building.
For the first time since 2015, I’ve got the time and resources to blast a comprehensive, curated Daily Bit. One that should give you 100% of what you need to know every day in crypto.
I’m hoping this resource will help to distill critical information into an hour of focused reading and learning per day. More than that is difficult to absorb. Less than that and you’re going to fall behind.
I’m doing this for my own benefit. But I hope you enjoy it, too.-TBI
***
What to Expect
+ Daily Bits — Initially my own commentary exclusively. Long-term we’ll curate guest bits.
+ I Like Pictures — A new graphic tool we like and find helpful when evaluating cryptos.
+ Red Pillz — One page crypto tear sheets (coming soon from the Messari research volunteers).
+ Compression Algo — TL:DRs of what’s worth reading. We’ll recommend a full read if we can’t properly condense the punch lines. (Rarely do “thought pieces” actually require full reads.)
+ Shameless Plugs — Here’s where I’ll sell all my shit. ICOs need not apply to advertise.
+ Distribution — Medium, Mailchimp, Twitter — whatever format helps you digest info fastest.
+ Format — Over time, more pictures, fewer words, but graphics take lots of manpower. ***
I Like Pictures
Most people in crypto are still renegades.
Throw out the 52% number in its entirety, as I assume many who checked that box we joking. Those who answered #1–3 had fewer reasons to lie or click through to the results (if you wanted to show results, odds are you’d click on the jokey answer).
If you add all that up though, that works out to nearly 3/5 crypto users in the US who haven’t yet filed their tax returns for 2017. A third of those haven’t even sold the crypto they need to cover their estimated liabilities…they’re due in two weeks.
I’m not going to try to catch the falling knife in the face of that type of short-term selling pressure.
***
Red Pillz
The volunteer army at Messari is building a free, open-source library that anyone can use as a resource, so you can go down the crypto rabbit hole a bit more efficiently. Starting next week, we’ll start featuring one new token profile each day.
Interested in participating in this exclusive research group and slack channels? Apply to Eric Turner (eric@messari.io).
***
TBI’s Compression Algo (3/22)
No Joke: Vitalik proposed a 120mm cap on future ETH supply yesterday. The final total would be exactly double what had been initially generated during ETH’s crowdsale, and would put ETH’s total outstanding supply at approximately 82%, just north of bitcoin’s current supply distribution percentage. OnChainFx’s 2050 supply estimate for ETH had been closer to 150mm. Vitalik notes that in reality rewards will decrease anyway once the network has migrated to Casper’s proof of stake algorithm, and anticipates that his recently proposed “rent” fees would cancel out any minimal new inflation. Interesting.
The rent concept would tax storage in the ethereum state database pro rata according to a dapp operator’s usage. The concept is similar to bitcoin’s dynamic fee market where per block transactions are given priority according to the miner fees they pay. The proposal would push data compression responsibilities from the network to the network user by charging them for how long their data was stored. Vitalik argues that a 500 GB limit on the state database makes sense if developers are able to implement sharding. Github. CoinDesk. Vitalik.
In other ETH news, the Foundation says miners should expect an 80% haircut soon. shared It released specs for the Casper hybrid PoW/PoS upgrade, and new block rewards are propsed to go from 3 ETH to 0.6 ETH. An aggressive opening bid, and I’d be surprised if that’s the final number in what is supposed to be a gradual transition to staking. Vitalik has previously shared his thoughts that block rewards should ultimately fall to ~0.22 ETH per block once sharding and Casper are in full effect. That would work out to 5% annual inflation. Trustnodes.
Blockstack makes the front of the newspaper in the NYT. Nate Popper’s piece profiles Blockstack in his coverage on the industry’s pitch to empower users to own their data. Not much new in this general audience piece, but we did learn that Bradley Tusk, a former campaign manager for Michael Bloomberg, and regulatory advisor to ventures like Uber and Fanduel, is an investor in several large crypto companies, including Ripple and Circle, and is supporting efforts aimed at blockchain-based voting for governments. Blockstack also posted a full set of killer videos from their recent Berlin event. NYT. Blockstack.
Two academic researchers publish a paper on sound ICO design. MIT’s Christian Catalini and the University of Toronto’s Joshua Gans explain how “buyer competition” can reveal a consumer’s willingness to pay for a product or service before it is delivered. The paper highlights the major risks of ICOs. 1) How are entrepreneurs incentivized to deliver even after they’ve “exited” via a token offering? 2) Will the teams commit to monetary policies that preserve a buyer’s token purchasing power? 3) Will the capital raised actually be sufficient to get a proposed solution to production? 4) Does the token economic system effectively facilitate coordination among stakeholders within the network? CoinDesk. Paper.
Cybersecurity company Vectra highlights a spike in mining activity on college campuses. Particularly around CPU-intensive mining algorithms where it’s possible to create a large pool of computing power via botnets. Universities usually have looser security controls than enterprises, and some enterprising youths are taking advantage, particularly with Monero’s CryptoNight algorithm. The company estimated that a student who ran a botnet across 800 devices to mine XMR 24/7 could pull in nearly $4,000 / month in profits. Well played. Vectra.
Quick Bits (Don’t read that, I read it for you)
Choke Points: + Antigua and Barbuda is working with a crypto gazillionaire to create a government-run crypto exchange that will generate non-tax revenue for the island nation’s Treasury. + Huobi launches in South Korea with 100 tradable assets. + BitFlyer says its exchange user base doubled in the past four months to 2mm.
Startup Signals: + ConsenSys’s Virtue Poker will sell tokens in late April for a provably fair (and non-custodial?) online poker platform in advance of a late May beta launch.+ Telegram attracts $850mm in ICO round two. $1.7bn in total for the TON network. They are considering a third pre-sale because it’s never enough+ Kik is building an SDK for video gaming giant Unity Technologies for use in its Asset Store + Brave plans to launch a new browser later this year which will support Chrome extensions.
BitCo Noise: + Ford files a new traffic flow patent that would allow cars to trade tokens to alleviate congestion. Tokenized surge pricing reminds me of this old Scott Adams post+ Intel thinks it can reduce bitcoin mining waste by 35%, and filed a patent to make it happen.
The Powers That Be: + South Korean tax regulators will have some guidance by June. Your turn, IRS. + The Kazakh National Bank says it may ban crypto mining and trading given money laundering and fraud concerns. + The Bank of England is testing a real-time gross settlement DLT system with Baton Systems, Token, R3 and Clearmatics. + The Massachusetts Secretary of State ordered five ICOs to cease fundraising for their “unregistered securities.” + Economist Gina Pieters found bitcoin could be used to identify central bank currency manipulation and capital controls. She used a basket exchange rate from global cryptocurrency exchanges to compare deviations from a country’s official fiat currency exchange rate. + One for the legal nerds, New York-based Morrison Cohen LLP created a litigation tracker for the industry. We’ll be following this closely. + Bank of Montreal is blocking cryptocurrency merchant transactions.
People & Personalities: + Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic warns people not to speculate on crypto if they can’t afford it. (Why is this news? It’s not. But he’s a newsworthy guy, I guess.)+ Only in it for the money? Indeed.com says crypto job interest is down following the recent markets bloodbath.
Did I miss something big? [Probably, since it’s only day 1.]
Send me the link, your twitter handle and your best imitation compression algorithm write up. If I really whiffed, I’ll include your bit tomorrow (with attribution).
***
Shameless Plugs
Hit me up when I’m in your city!
Upcoming Travel:+ SF (4/8–4/10 — Blockfin at LendIt) + Boston (4/25–4/27 — Pillar VC’s Unchained) + SF (5/1–5/3 — private event)+ NYC (5/10–5/17 — Fluidity, Ethereal, Consensus, Token Summit)+ Asia (Japan, Korea, Hong Kong early through mid-June)
My company, Messari, is hiring:+ Front-end developer, blockchain engineers, data engineers+ Volunteer analysts and summer interns+ Content curation lead (compression algo tinkerer)
Like what you read? Share it! | Hate what you read? Troll me.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.