Texts From Crypto Giant Binance Reveal Plan to Elude U.S. Authorities (10 minute read)
Texts from Binance have revealed a plan developed in 2019 to avoid potential prosecution from US authorities. The information indicates that Binance.US set up a corporation in the US that would license technology from Binance but maintain, or appear to maintain, independence to draw US regulatory scrutiny away from Binance. However, documents and interviews revealed that Binance and its US partner Binance.US could be more interwoven than the companies led authorities to believe, sharing staff, finances, and an affiliated entity. If regulators determine that Binance.US is actually a subsidiary of Binance and not an independent company, it could provide them with the firepower they need to bring Binance as a whole under the microscope. |
The Rise and Fall of Silvergate's Crypto Business (3 minute read)
Silvergate Bank lost the majority of its $8 billion crypto customer deposits in the last months of 2022 as US banking watchdogs warned banks against concentrating on crypto. Its Silvergate Exchange Network transfers and overall asset size peaked in 2021, but its leverage ratio fell to 5.4%, just above the minimum requirement to maintain the "well-capitalized" designation, leading to major crypto clients withdrawing their deposits. Silvergate was one of the most crypto-friendly financial institutions and provided easy rails for crypto companies to operate on. Its struggles create an even narrower set of options for crypto businesses in the US to be banked. |
Uniswap Wants to Launch Mobile Wallet, But Apple Won't Greenlight its Launch (2 minute read)
Uniswap Labs has launched a new self-custodial mobile wallet that allows users to swap on multiple L1 and L2 networks, including Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism. The wallet was built with maximum security and offers various options for storing seed phrases and private keys. Despite having its first build approved, Uniswap Labs is still waiting for Apple to approve the launch. In the meantime, Uniswap is conducting a limited early release on TestFlight to 10,000 users. |
Sovereign Rollups on Bitcoin with Rollkit (5 minute read)
Rollkit is the first rollup framework to support sovereign rollups on Bitcoin. This integration allows users to run the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) on Bitcoin as a Rollkit sovereign rollup. The implementation is possible due to Bitcoin's Taproot upgrade and Ordinals' usage of Bitcoin for publishing arbitrary data. Rollkit supports custom execution environments and data availability layers, making it possible to create arbitrary rollups that inherit Bitcoin's security and data availability guarantees. |
All about ERC-4337 (5 minute read)
Since its announcement last week, much has been written about ERC-4337, a potential game-changer for helping to increase crypto adoption. While the topic can be technical, this article provides a great, simple breakdown of ERC-4337 and what it means for users. ERC-4337 introduces "Smart Accounts" which offer users alternative wallet recovery options, the ability to bundle multiple transactions together, sponsored transactions, pre-approval for certain transactions, and a more seamless subscription model. It is already being spoken about much less than The Merge, despite its power to help with mass adoption. |
What Do You Need to Know About Bitcoin Stacks & Ordinals? (5 minute read)
Muneeb Ali, the founder of Stacks, appeared on Blockcrunch last week and discussed the phenomenon known as Ordinals, which are essentially NFTs on Bitcoin and have been responsible for reigniting interest in building on Bitcoin. They discussed Stacks and how it puts major emphasis on decentralization, durability, and simple systems. They also spoke about Bitcoin hash power and its security measures, the Path to becoming 1st SEC-approved Token Offering, and the history of Bitcoin and Blockchains. |
Eco Said It Was Lending To Fidelity & Goldman. Really, User Funds Went To Risky Crypto Lenders & DeFi Protocols (20 minute read)
Eco.com, a startup backed by a16z and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, promised users APY as high as 5% coming from lending relationships with "banks", but user funds were allegedly lent to high-risk entities like FTX, Alameda, and Genesis, as well as DeFi protocols like MakerDAO and Compound. Fraught with its own issues, Signature Bank, one of Eco's bank partners, is offboarding the company, effective at the end of March, and Eco will likely be left paying interest on user balances with its own funds. This could put pressure on the Company's balance sheet or force it to lower its rewards or interest rates offered to users. |
Curve Ball - An Arthur Hayes Essay (25 minute read)
In this article, Hayes analyzes what might happen if global energy prices rise sharply. In the face of an energy shock caused by conflict between the US, China and Russia, he makes the argument central banks would likely implement global loosening of monetary policy. Bitcoin, being a fixed-supply monetary instrument, would respond positively to the loosened monetary conditions which would give it a boost in fiat money terms. However, rising energy prices could put miners at a disadvantage since most countries would pressure miners to pay more for electricity. On the other hand, net-producing countries may choose to store excess energy in Bitcoin mining instead. In either case, the rising energy prices are likely to trigger moments where all risky assets suffer. Ultimately, however, Hayes expects Bitcoin to reemerge as non-correlated to general equity prices as global liquidity is targeted toward increasing energy production. |
Understanding Market Cap Floors (4 minute read)
Market cap is a crucial metric when investing; however, it is often overlooked. Market cap floors are a dynamic metric and should not be thought of in absolutes; they will move over time. This thread gives an overview of how to analyze these market cap floors across bull and bear cycles. |
Quick Takeaways from ETH Denver (2 minute read)
For those that didn't make it to ETH Denver, this thread highlights some of the main themes of the conference including a muted DeFi presence, ZK and roll-ups galore, gaming, AI, and Asia as a user hub. |
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