Hello cryptofolks, another month, another (irregular) update on all things in decentralized technolog
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| August 19 · Issue #2 · View online Curated digest about Coins, Tokens, dApps, Chains, Cryptoeconomics & all things decentralized |
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| Hello cryptofolks, another month, another (irregular) update on all things in decentralized technology. Things are moving so fast that I have realized monthly update is not nearly enough to be informed. Also considering the news and opinions are pretty biased with subjective opinions and many times no empirical evidence. Anyhow, I will be looking into more ways how to provide value for the subscribers be it more analytical research or more thoughts on investment opportunities without shilling any particular coin but rather looking into staking economics, designing the blockchain business logic and the paradox between utilisation of tokens and price appreciation. I have started this newsletter mainly to educate myself and my friends. In between I engaged with few projects together within my network working on mobile cryptocurrency mining, security token offering and and made various investments across the "tokensphere". Considering the complexity of the industry, the nature of how fast it moves and time investment put in, it really did make sense to actually go full-throttle and deeper into a rabbit hole. On that note, I will be joining a great company in Singapore => Carousell to work on their blockchain strategy and be even closer to the industry to shift things forward. Singapore has recently became one of the best destinations for blockchain businesses and is a home to incredible projects like Zilliqa, Bluzelle, Kyber, Republic Protocol, Wanchain, TenX and many more. We are working on a very exciting use-case and I hope to share more in the future when it goes public! Without further ado, enjoy this issue! |
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 Coinbase Seeks Patent for Security-Enhanced Bitcoin Payment System. U.S.-based digital currency exchange Coinbase has filed a patent on a new bitcoin payment system designed to make cryptocurrency payments safer. |
 Decentralized Exchanges Aren't Living Up to Their Name – And Data Proves It. Decentralized exchanges have been a very hot topic of 2017 with big expectations towards 2018. However data shows that the adoption hasn't been such an easy thing to crack. |
 Crypto Unicorn Bitmain Weighs $18 Billion IPO. Bitmain looks like a hot company from the outside. However many concerns have spiked since the rumours came out: "Why is Bitmain raising capital so fast & only showing Q1 results to pre-IPO investors? We're well into Q3 now. The reason is Q2 was a disaster. Bitmain is sitting on a massive $1.24 billion USD in inventory & S9 prices dropped by ~85%! Q2 losses range in the $600-700 millions." |
 Blockchain Systems at Volkswagen. Volkswagen Group is testing applications for blockchain-based crypto technology and developing them further, even beyond Bitcoin and Co. It's all about supply chains, tamper-proof odometers, digital car keys, a meta-app for electric charging stations, and more. |
 $270 Million: Chinese Firm Backs Overstock Blockchain Subsidiary in Record Investment The investment by GSR Capital will see it acquire about 3.1 million shares of US-based Overstock, amounting to about 10% in overall shares of the company. |
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The Psychology of Money. If you would have to read only one article this year, I recommend this one. It doesn't really have to do much with crypto in particular, on the other hand it has everything to do with it in the context of creating wealth and making the right decisions. |
 Meta-analysis of Alternative Consensus Protocols. Breakdown of various protocols by network, adversarial, and economic model, deeply understanding the common challenges of choosing proposers and committees, propagation, and finality. |
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 A BCH Update: Bitmain, BCH, the IPO & What it all Actually Means. Based on the news above, here is a great piece on what's wrong with Bitmains valuation and their current business model. Some interesting insights on the holdings, liquidity and why you should keep your money in the pockets. |
 Aggregation Theory, Thin Protocols, And Recentralization: Augur Edition. Folks from Multicoin has written another piece on dynamics between developers building on top of protocol. Aggregation theory if oversimplified states that the power belongs to the side that interacts with end users. Whether its front-end UI or back-end logic, the incentives are driving various behavior, from stealing, copying to just making the biggest buck of a project. |
 How Asian Exchanges And Investors Are Making Huge Profits Through Trade-Driven Mining. Cool article on how exchanges are increasing their value by having their exchange tokens being distributed to various players for cutting fees, yet having a particular strategy behind it. |
Not all Governance is Voting. Governance is not a feature, it is a complex system. Voting is just one (optional) part of that system and does not itself lead to strictly better governance (though it can). A project can have strong governance without voting and a project with voting can have terrible governance. We should be wary of projects that claim decentralized governance solely based on their voting feature and instead seek to understand all sources of influence across the decision-making process. |
 Ether (ETH) Bearish Thesis: The "Flippening" of Market Irrationality. Tetras capital issued a paper with a notion of "SHORT ETH" some time ago. However considering what is happening with ETH it seems like their prophecy was right at least short-term. There is some sound math behind their arguments as well as qualitative reasons behind it. |
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 Vitalik Buterin on Cryptoeconomics and Markets in Everything. The Ethereum creator talks with Tyler Cowen about crypto, the blockchain, social science fiction, why belief in progress is our most useful myth, learning new languages, and more. |
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 Institutional money in crypto? Conversation about what institutional money is in crypto currently and how they are invested with Ari, CIO of Blocktower Capital. |
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 ÐApps? Smart contracts on Ethereum? Use Trezor with MetaMask! Trezor has finally integrated with Metamask, a browser extension for various crypto needs! I have been an active user and big fan of the project. Now with Trezor it's a killer combination! |
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On Bitmain IPO and Bcash Vulnerability. According to the Bitmain pre-IPO investor deck, they sold most of their #Bitcoin for #Bcash. At $900/BCH, they've bled half a billion in the last 3 months. If Bitcoin Core devs didn't disclose the Bcash vulnerability, it could've wiped a billion dollars off their balance sheets. |
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 NuCypher Staking Economics. NuCypher released their staking economics with inflation and minting. It is a great read together with the model to understand and plan the supply for PoS based projects. |
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Project Lead/Agency for security token offering - Remote/Prague, CZ A project I used to work with is looking for a lead person/agency to take on responsibility of tokenizing equity within a revenue generating business. Responsibilities will include taking care of marketing / legal partners and driving the initiative towards issuance via STO platforms of choice (Polymath, Securitize, Neufund etc.). The ideal candidate / agency would already have experience with working on ICOs and successful track record managing projects. Lead Blockchain Architect / CTO - Singapore A project in Singapore is on a lookout for potential lead architect / CTO position to drive the roadmap, hire a team of developers and deliver on milestones for a new blockchain network solving a global issue. Full job description is available upon request. |
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 Crypto War Zone: Top 100 Cryptocurrencies Ranked by Risk-Adjusted Return. Which of the following investments would you rather be in? - Crypto A started at $1, went to $500, back down to $1, back up to $600
- Crypto B started at $1, went to $100, to $300, to $600
John Young ranks cryptocurrencies based on Sorento ratio which mainly measures the downside deviation instead of a standard one as a measure of risk adjusted return. |
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Special thanks to you, who made it to this paragraph. Feel free to drop me a word in case you want to post a job, feature or contribute with content. Oh, by the way, I wouldn't mind if you gave my digest some love through Twitter or Facebook :-) |
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