The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day Nov. 3, 2021 If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it, sign up here. Sponsored by Welcome to The Node.
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–Daniel Kuhn
Today's must-reads Top Shelf MISMANAGEMENT: EOS Foundation CEO Yves La Rose said the smart contract blockchain has been "a failure" and "terrible investment." Plotting a new direction for the project, La Rose said the recently launched EOS Foundation will take the reins from software company Block.one, which he claims misled the blockchain following a record $4.1 billion token sale in 2018. Separately, a group of ex-ConsenSys employees are preparing to sue a branch of the Ethereum developer, ConsenSys AG, for allegedly misvaluing Metamask, Infura and other key portfolio assets prior to a deal struck with JPMorgan. TAKING STOCK: Marathon Digital produced 417.7 BTC in October, a 23% increase over the previous month, and plans to continue expanding its mining fleet. The publicly traded miner now holds 7,453 BTC worth about $457 million. Rival miner Riot Blockchain plans to increase its hashrate to 8.6 EH/s next year, to capture over 11% of the Bitcoin network security, it said. Overall, crypto mining stocks outperformed other crypto-linked stocks amid bitcoin's recent price rally. KEY HOLDERS: Miami Mayor Francis Suarez pledged Tuesday to take his next paycheck entirely in bitcoin through Strike – potentially the first U.S. politician to do so. He earns an annual salary of $187,500. Meanwhile, BTC whales, or investors holding at least 1,000 BTC, are accumulating coins quicker amid inflation concerns, new data shows. Said whales bought 142,000 BCT last week. Elsewhere in crypto: Venture capitalists invested a record $6.5 billion over 286 blockchain-related deals in Q3. CBDC CHECK-IN: China's central bank digital currency (CBDC) has been used for 62 billion yuan ($9.7 billion) worth of transactions as of end-October, according to People's Bank of China (PBOC) officials. Some 140 million civilian and 10 million corporate accounts have joined the "eCNY" pilot with no official launch date in sight. Relatedly, a JPMorgan report claims a CBDC could save global corporations $100 billion a year in cross-border transaction costs DIALOGUE EXCHANGED: Exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuer Direxion has withdrawn its application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to list a short bitcoin futures fund, a way to bet on the crypto's price falling, complying with an ask from the agency on Oct. 26, the day it was filed. Separately, Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) Deputy CEO Julia Leung said the watchdog has received "a number" of requests to launch crypto ETFs.
"If you look at our financial markets, fintech is the dominant area of innovation right now and crypto is the dominant asset class in fintech."
–Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), on CoinDesk TV's "First Mover."
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What others are writing... Off-Chain Signals
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Crypto is on the rise. Crypto knowledge, however, is stuck on the runway: It turns out that 96% of U.S. adults can't pass a test on crypto basics. Throughout November, Crypto Literacy Month aims to change that. Brush up on your crypto knowledge!
Putting the news in perspective The Takeaway The Cube Movement David Morris reporting today. The Cube is Life.
It started off as another Crypto Twitter meme obliquely commenting on speculative manias, but has become A Thing for literally material reasons: The cubes are so weirdly heavy that holding one feels like a kind of tactile illusion. To my shame, I do not own a Cube, but I have experienced its inscrutable allure, the almost supernatural sense that something so dense must be in some unspeakable way alive, an aliveness beyond the horizon of our petty human concerns. As Tim Copeland at The Block perfectly phrased it, when you hold a Cube, you sense that "it yearns to be one again with the earth."
Yes, OK, at the end of the day there's no denying that Tungsten Cube Mania is mostly just another fad, fueled by the newly crypto-rich who can splash out two hundred bucks or more for a 21st century Hummel figurine. But like any fad with real legs, if you look a bit deeper you'll find a weighty truth within.
–David Z. Morris
Sponsored Content
Polymesh: Crafting Tokens Both Wall Street and Washington Can Love
Security tokens are on the rise. According to STOMarket.com, well over 100 tokens compete for attention from U.S. investors, with a combined market cap exceeding $1.1 billion. Such widely held names as Apple, Tesla and Google offer tokenized versions of their stock. But still, that could be an order-of-magnitude undercount.
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This poses a multibillion dollar problem that continues to grow exponentially: regulatory compliance.
The Chaser...
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