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Long Reads Sunday #37.
Some weeks, LRS is aaaaall news. This week, however, the crypto community came *hard* with research, analysis, and debate so thoughtful you’ll hope the bear market never ends. 🔥
Carve out some *serious* time for this. Thread👇
Some weeks, LRS is aaaaall news. This week, however, the crypto community came *hard* with research, analysis, and debate so thoughtful you’ll hope the bear market never ends. 🔥
Carve out some *serious* time for this. Thread👇
2/ On the topic of the bear market, one of the commonly held sensibilities of the past year is that while users might not be flocking to crypto, developers are. @cburniske argues here that it’s because “can’t be evil” matters more to them.
3/ Turns out, this sensibility about devs is correct. According to some amazing new research from @ElectricCapital, the number of devs working on public coins has doubled in 2 years - more than 4k devs contribute code to 2.8k projects.
4/ There are a ton of takeaways in the Dev Report, but one is that the Bitcoin and Ethereum dev communities continue to be in top health. @twobitidiot argued that those are the only protocols to reach maturity, w/ MKR, BNB, LTC the next closest
5/ Maker has undeniably been a breakout protocol of the last year. In fact, it’s grown so much that it’s starting to get the sort of scrutiny that only happens when a project matures. Case in point, this super thoughtful thread from @CremeDeLaCrypto
6/ I believe strongly that this sort of open dialogue is essential for protocols. The conversations about Maker and DeFi are part of what I’m observing as a larger reflective period for Ethereum about its governance, competition, and purpose. See:
7/ Ethereum also got the @Delphi_Digital treatment, with this massive research deep dive that cuts across economics, security, roadmap, scaling and vision. This sort of analysis is such an important compliment to debates in the CT court of public opinion
8/ Luckily for us, the state of crypto research is getting nothing but better. This week, @TokenDaily joined the fray announcing a new research wing featuring the contributions of @raulitojordan @MohamedFFouda @lmrankhan @drmelseidy. Congrats to all!
9/ Since we’re on the topic of great research, a couple more to highlight. First, @ResearchCircle has been consistently putting out good stuff, including a recent report on Venezuela and their latest on everything Mimble Wimble.
10/..and of course, there is @BitMEXResearch. Their latest is an extensive history of Ripple, plumbed from a huge array of sources and highlighted here by @nic__carter.
12/ There was a bunch of really interesting content on Bitcoin this week. @CoinSharesCo @RyanRadloff argues that "For technologists and historians, [Bitcoin] may well be a revolution; but for everyone else — it’s an evolution in personal finance." medium.com/coinshares/bit…
13/ Coming at ya with a different format, @iam_preethi and @hosseeb live-streamed a debate about whether Bitcoin would ever be more than a store of value. Love the experimentation with the live format.
15/ If your Bitcoin interest is more Lightning-y, I have to call out another great market map from @TheBlock__ - this time focused on quickly developing ecosystem of Lightning wallets, hardware, payments and more
16/ One more spot I’ll be watching for more killer Bitcoin content: the annual #MITBitcoinExpo, which has just an insane lineup and is live-streaming everything.
Livestream link & Schedule here: mitbitcoinexpo.org/#page-schedule or just peep this bomb sentiment:
Livestream link & Schedule here: mitbitcoinexpo.org/#page-schedule or just peep this bomb sentiment:
17/ Okay, going back to the news for just a minute, the most exciting Bitcoin news of the week had to be that one of the most anticipated and important projects in the space, @DigitalAssets is live with a first cohort of clients.
18/ In this interview with @TheBlock__ @fintechfrank, @DigitalAssets head Tom Jessop gives more color on the company’s first 5 clients and its plans for a slow and steady rollout of its custodial services. theblockcrypto.com/2019/03/08/fid…
19/ Elizabeth Warren made news this week when she called for a breakup of big tech like Amazon and Facebook. While it feels like an inevitable conclusion of a rising populist tide, not every 2020 Dem candidate agrees with the approach:
20/ The announcement was preceded a few days earlier by a new memo from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the company's privacy plans. The crypto community, who sort of have strong opinions on privacy, weren’t buying.
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21/ Still, others argued that the Facebook’s rising public stance around privacy and private communications and its depend engagement with blockchain is not just coincidental timing.
22/ Long story short, what mass-scale social platforms like Facebook decide to do with crypto will impact the space akin to governments. We live in a world where these are global, supra-national entities. It’s likely to get weirder before it gets clearer
23/ Speaking of governments, while everyone else is yutzin around, Wyoming continues to plow on. In the latest dispatch from the regulatory frontiers, @CaitlinLong_ shares an analysis/guide to the states new commercial law around blockchain
24/ And speaking of crypto *friendly* governments, news from Argentina this week that the government there would be matching investments in local participants in @Binance Labs incubator. Impossible to deny this company’s global hustle.
25/ In one happy update to a governments/surveillance story, after significant internal and external pressure, Coinbase announced that they had let go the part of the team they had acquired with Neutrino who had previously been with Hacking Team.
26/ Looking globally, I think regulatory neutrality will be in ever shorter supply, with states/nations lining up either on the “crypto is an opportunity” side or “crypto must be stopped.” Taking the later pt, see the French Nat’l Assembly’s Finance Head
27/ On the topic of anonymous monies, @CoinCenter has been en Fuego of late. Their latest is this essay arguing that pushing software developers to spy on users of anonymous digital currencies or decentralized exchanges would be unconstitutional
28/ The opportunities that crypto enables for marginalized groups to operate outside of the constraints of wherever they happen to be from continues to inspire me. @soonaorlater flags a @coinbase report on Women & Crypto released for #IWD2019
29/ Finally, speaking of #InternationalWomensDay, I did my favorite #FollowFriday ever about just a few of the folks who I turn to every week for the content that becomes LRS. Give it a look and give everyone a follow - you will not be disappointed.
30/ And there we have it, your LRS37! As always, I want to know what I missed and what content you love. If you’d like to get LRS via email, you can sign up at this link. Happy Long Reads Sunday! getrevue.co/profile/nlw
Appendix: some more good research/analysis, this time around @AragonProject voting from @ForegroundBlock
Appendix 2. Town Hall from one of the first Dem candidates to speak positively about crypto
