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Daily Bit
There’s a temptation when you write a daily or weekly newsletter to get pretty territorial and winner-take-all about it.
That’s especially true for me given my stated interest in making this a resource that “distills critical information into an hour of focused reading and learning per day.”
If you’re subscribing to many newsletters, you’re (mostly) reading the same shit over and over again. It kind of defeats the whole purpose of a digest, unless you truly pick the best one for you.But not everyone is going to like this newsletter. Too snarky. Too many words, and not enough pictures (we’re working on it, idiots). Not technical enough. Not for beginners. Just a general lack of good taste (on the part of the reader).
I get it.
That’s why I wanted to share the other resources that I read every day, to make sure we didn’t miss anything. A curation of curation artists if you will.
If I miss or ignore a story, there’s a good chance one of these other publications has it, and it’s almost certain that one or several of them will fit your style and needs.
We’ll save the Hunger Games audience war for the next bear market, but during this era of abundance, here are the best of the rest:
Weekly Analysis: The Semantic Ventures team has an opinion, and it’s usually pretty sharp. Lucky for you, they share it weekly via Token Economy. (Disclosure: They are an investor in Messari.) Drops Sunday nights.
Updates from Token Projects: Another investor newsletter, Eric Meltzer’s Proof of Work curates updates directly from many of the industry’s most high-profile token teams. Usually drops Mon or Tues nights.
Daily Snapshots: I like a couple of other dailies, but my recommendation has to be Token Daily because of the team’s body of (free) work, and the fact that their whole schtick is curation. TD reads like theSkimm for crypto, which is to say, it’s more readable than most. Drops weeknights.
Traders’ Resources: Technical analysis is garbage. But Bitmex has always had pretty insightful research posts. They aren’t posted on a defined cadence, but that’s what keeps it exciting.
General Industry News: And of course, there’s CoinDesk. When it comes to crypto news, everyone else is playing for second. When it comes to analysis, they could get outflanked quickly if Quartz’s new daily newsletter ends up as good as it looked in my first read. That new letter is curated by one of CoinDesk’s old top journalists, Joon Ian Wong, who also created Consensus.
Stay or leave, we hope this helps you save time and mental energy.
We can’t read everything for you, but we can cut out the bullshit.
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I Like Pictures
Speaking of the best of the rest…
You know Stellar, Dfinity, Chia and NEO.NEM, Lisk, Waves, Hashgraph, Cardano, and EOS. But do you recalllll? The most famous smart contract platform of all?
Still ethereum. For now.
But here are the others, courtesy of Token Report.
Almost all of these projects are trading in the nine or ten figures. Most don’t work yet.
Much pain ahead, there is, for general purpose computation platforms.
Want to track the pain? Sector segmentation via @onchainfx.
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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. Interested in joining our volunteer analyst community? Apply to Eric Turner (eric@messari.io).
First profile drops Wed.
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TBI’s Compression Algorithm
Bifinex’s Busy Weekend. Bitfinex announced Friday that it was adding 12 new ERC-20 token listings with a combined $1.1bn of “market capitalization” (a term we hate) to its platform, all tradable against BTC, ETH and USD. In separate headlines, Polish media reports prosecutors seized $400 million from two accounts at a little-known Polish bank, including one allegedly linked to Bitfinex. The company denied the reports and plans to make an official statement today. Bitcoin News | CoinTelegraph
Coinbase in talks to become a SEC registered brokerage. Coinbase met with the SEC recently to talk about registering its business as a licensed brokerage firm and electronic-trading venue. Coinbase currently only lists four cryptoassets (Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Ether), but registering with the SEC would allow it to expand its asset coverage and list tokens that comply with securities laws. The downside: this would open the company up to SEC examinations (all trading records, internal policies, systems, etc) and a much broader array of regulations. WSJ
Crypto Ads Ban. To date, Facebook, Google, and Twitter have all blacklisted cryptocurrency-promoting advertisements on their platforms. Google’s Chrome also will be banning extensions that “mine” cryptocurrency. MailChimp will bar marketing campaigns for cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings starting next month. In response, cryptocurrency associations and businesses from Switzerland, Kazakhstan and Armenia have joined the initiative to sue Internet corporations over restrictions on crypto-related advertisements. The class action lawsuit will be filed in New York. Bitcoin News
Tax season is upon us, and filings are due Tuesday, April 17th. Shoutout to CoinDesk for their 2018 Crypto and Taxes series. Tom Lee from Fundstrat estimates that U.S. tax liabilities for crypto currencies in 2017 seen at $25 billion, and that probably includes you. Chris Burniske runs some scenarios analyses, and comes up with figures in the $14–30bn range as well. Of course, yours, truly also had you covered on this topic last Tuesday. CoinDesk | Medium
Quick Bits (Don’t read that, I read it for you)
Choke Points (Exchange news) + Following the Indian central bank’s prohibition on cryptocurrency related services, word is that India-based crypto startups are preparing to mount a legal challenge.+ Pakistan’s central bank bars financial companies in the country from working with cryptocurrency firms. Urdubit, Pakistan’ first crypto exchange, will shut down.+ Canada’s Ontario Securities Commission begins gathering information about the activities of various cryptocurrency trading platforms after receiving a number of complaints about those platforms selling cryptocurrencies that may qualify as securities.
Startup Signals (ICOs, Cryptos, and Startups) + VC Venrock (Rockefeller’s $3 Billion Venture Capital fund) and Crypto investor Group CoinFund announce a strategic partnership. + Monero hard forked to version 12 of its protocol. Now there is Monero Classic (XMC), Monero 0 (XMZ), Monero Original (XMO) and a second Monero-Classic (XMC). Good luck exchanges.
BigCo Noise (Enterprise initiatives)+ Soros Fund Management, George Soro’s $26 billion fund, prepares to trade cryptocurrencies.
The Powers That Be (Legal/Reg/Policy)+ SEC obtained a court order that froze more than $27 million in trading proceeds from allegedly illegal distributions and sales of restricted shares of Longfin Corp., a cryptocurrency company. + UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a statement requiring businesses to seek authorization for dealing in cryptocurrency derivatives. https://cointelegraph.com/news/uks-financial-regulator-releases-guidelines-for-dealing-in-crypto-derivatives + The Texas State Securities Board executed an emergency cease-and-desist order against a man for selling unregistered securities tied to a cryptocurrency trading platform.
“Celebrities”+ Plot twist: the crypto community is united over trolling Craig Wright. At least that is one thing we all seem to agree on. Satoshi or no, he’s an ass hole. + Brian Wirtz, a tech banker from Credit Suisse, is leaving to start an advisory service that caters to securities tokens.
Did I miss something big?
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).
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Shameless Plugs
Hit me up when I’m in your city!
Upcoming Travel:+ 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)
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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.