Two Degens (resources, interviews, on all things crypto and some AI)

Howdy everyone — this is the 5 minute crypto update for Thursday May 25
We’ve got early bitcoin history, DCG and Gemini fight!, Apple iOS, blockchain VC stats, and more.
Let’s get it on!
—
As of this recording...
Bitcoin continues its slow downward slide, currently at $26200
ETH is at $1780
—
On to the news
Origins of the phrase HODL
In honor of Bitcoin pizza day earlier this week, I wanted to share a bit more bitcoin history, which is the origins of the term HODL
Just a snippet of what he wrote:
GF's out at a lesbian bar, BTC crashing WHY AM I HOLDING? I'LL TELL YOU WHY. It's because I'm a bad trader and I KNOW I'M A BAD TRADER.

https://twitter.com/fintechfrank/status/1660561518461583360?s=46
Now Gemini, the Winklevii’s exchange, claims that DCG has missed a $630M payment that it owes
And together with other creditors, are working on a plan for DCG to avoid default
https://www.theblock.co/post/231646/apples-crypto-policy-softens-as-stepn-offers-in-app-digital-asset-trading
Two signs now that Apple may be relaxing its policy towards crypto - although these could both be exceptions or oversights
From the Arca newsletter, an interesting take on Tether’s announcement that they’ll invest up to 15% of their quarterly profits into bitcoin
But the Bitcoin component is interesting. They certainly don’t need to do this. Tether could invest 100% of their cash holdings in short-duration U.S. Treasuries, and they would still print roughly $4 billion in profit per year with arguably the simplest business model on the planet...
https://twitter.com/ramahluwalia/status/1660624641897971714?s=46
Takeaways and themes from Bitcoin Miami conference
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/05/17/usdc-issuer-circle-moves-87b-to-repo-agreements-to-protect-reserves-from-us-government-default/
Though I’m sure part of the move is PR motivated, officially Circle had this to say:
While this plan has been underway for many months, the inclusion of these highly liquid assets also provides additional protection for the USDC reserve in the unlikely event of a U.S. debt default

https://medium.com/@HuttCapital/hutt-capital-blockchain-vc-landscape-2023-edition-744ec489a0ce
Hutt Capital’s 5th review of the blockchain VC space
-track 224 blockchain venture funds that manage $34B dollars
-first time funds represent 2/3 of the total - or about 150 of them
https://vogue.sg/9dcc-gmoneys-web3-fashion-empire/
But gmoney who is an OG NFT whale, is having some success with his luxury brand 9dcc
https://twitter.com/LambolandNFT/status/1658573938228690945
Great recap of some controversial moments in NFT history
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/16/books/michael-lewis-ftx-bankman-fried-going-infinite.html
Michael Lewis, the author famous for his storytelling biographies of famous men, had been embedded with SBF and the FTX team in the Bahamas for months before the collapse happened
I hate to say this. It’s horrible. It does not reflect well on me as a human being, but my first thought was, ‘Oh my God’ — it was like a lock clicking into place — ‘now I have the story.’ It didn’t occur to me for a moment that it would blow up the book. I did think, just how messy is this going to get, as the writer, because I’d been so involved.

—
That’s it for today! All the links are in the show notes. You can follow @twodegenspod on Twitter and subscribe for more!
For our outro clip...
Patrick Bet David on recent banking failures
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1PRsS4SyUc

Howdy everyone — this is the 5 minute crypto update for Monday May 15th
It’s been 5 days since the last one, so this episode will be a bit longer than usual
We’ve got a metrics update, Binance pulling out, Bitfinexed with more Tether tea, US inflation, Dork Kwon, bitcoin halving, crypto hopium, and more more more
Let’s get it on!
—
As of this recording,
Bitcoin continues its slow downward slide, currently at $26,800; it’s down 6% for the week
ETH is at $1788, down a bit less, 5.6% for the week
A few tokens managed some greens including Lido and Rocket Pool, both up 4% for the week
—
What’s going on in crypto land...
According to https://moneyprinter.info/
The top chains by value of daily issuance are bitcoin at $25M, Solana at $2M, and dogecoin at $1M
The top chains by issuance rate are Solana at 6%, Avalanche at 4%, and dogecoin at 3.5%
So, uh, you may not want to buy so much doge or Solana
https://www.theblock.co/post/230689/bitcoin-binance-pulling-out-of-canada
https://twitter.com/binance/status/1657099651210969088?s=20
Binance is leaving Canada
https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed/status/1656304700872962049?s=20
From Bitfinexed, famous for its criticisms of Tether, so treat as grain of salt
-Tether holds $53B in US Treasury bills
-$7.5B in money market funds
-$1.5B in bitcoin
-$3.4B in precious metals
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/05/10/us-internal-revenue-service-files-claims-worth-44-billion-against-ftx-bankruptcy/
The US tax collection agency, the IRS, just filed a claim against FTX and Alameda in the amount of $44B
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/current-inflation-rate/
US inflation has fallen to 4.9% for April, compared to 5% in March and 8% the same time last year
https://twitter.com/theblock__/status/1656987557668827137?s=46
Do Kwon getting a little taste of freedom
His lawyers have negotiated a $436K bail from Montenegro jail
https://medium.com/paradigm-research/defi-in-d908ea8b
-Curve deploys a US dollar stablecoin
-Synthetix adds markets for 9 new perps futures including SHIB, Curve, and Lido
-total value locked in Defi is $47.3B, with Lido dominating at 25%
—
Paradigm itself made news recently for buying $50M worth of Coinbase’s stock COIN
BRC-20s explainer
https://twitter.com/the_smart_ape/status/1655905530982850560?s=46
-The BRC-20 standard was created by Twitter user @domodata on March 8th, 2023
https://www.onceinaspecies.com/p/bitcoins-halving-is-less-than-a-year
Great essay from Jesse Myers aka Croesus BTC
Right now, Bitcoin’s supply inflates by ~1.8% every year. In April 2024, the 4th halving will happen and suddenly, Bitcoin’s supply inflation will drop to 0.9% per year. This will make Bitcoin a “harder” asset than gold, whose supply grows 1.5-2% every year from global gold mining efforts.
https://ournetwork.substack.com/p/ournetwork-issue-168
OpenSea's volume is primarily driven by Normal users (64%), with the the top 1% contributing 24% to the total volume. On the other hand, Blur's volume is led by the the top 1% of NFT traders (69.5%), with Normal users accounting for 18% of total volume

https://twitter.com/redphonecrypto/status/1654173100139847681
I expect the next cycle to onboard the biggest group of crypto users we've ever seen.
It will be the beginning of the grand migration from Web 2 to Web 3.

Amazon’s new NFT marketplace is launching May 15 / this week
https://twitter.com/moritz_web3/status/1653716087752769536
—
That’s it for today! All the links are in the show notes. You can follow @twodegenspod on Twitter and subscribe for more!
For our outro clip... Jeff Booth talking about how Bitcoin holders will experience growing purchasing power o

Howdy all — this is the 5 minute crypto daily update for Wednesday April 26th. I listened to yesterday’s update and it seemed low energy
Let’s get it on, got to get it on
—
As of this recording
Bitcoin is up 3% in the last 24 hours to $28,400
ETH is up 2% to $1870
Speculation for the increase is some better than expected tech earnings and some shorts liquidation
—
What’s going on in crypto land...
https://www.ft.com/content/e904f8bd-0d4f-4d38-8d71-a199e7e9c131
Article from Financial Times
-Coinbase trading volume fell from $49B in March to $27B in April, its lowest level in 16 months
-it’s share price has also fallen 15+%, currently trading at $55.55
-this is even though crypto prices have risen, which is usually a good indicator for Coinbase’s business
-DEX volume is also growing, perhaps eating at Coinbase share, Uniswap trading volume was $69B in March compared to Coinbase’s $49B
https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/04/25/terra-co-founder-daniel-shin-indicted-by-south-korea-bloomberg/
Terra cofounder Daniel Shin formally indicted along with 9 others in South Korea
-violations of capital markets law
-prosecutors froze $184M in assets from these 10 suspects, who are claimed to have profited almost $350M before Terra Luna’s implosion
-if you remember, Do Kwon was arrested in Eastern European country Montenegro in March, using a forged passport, and is awaiting extradition to either Korea or the US
Shin's lawyer, Kim Ji-dong, said he has “nothing to do with the ... collapse as he left the company two years before the fallout," according to the report. “He voluntarily returned to South Korea immediately after the collapse, and has been faithfully cooperating with the probe for over 10 months, hoping to contribute to fact finding."

https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/seized-bitcoin-stack-could-be-bulgarias-golden-ticket
Bulgaria, a small southeast European country, population 6.8M, holds one of the largest government owned stashes of bitcoin in the world
-213K bitcoin which they seized from a criminal import gang
-at the time these bitcoin were only worth $500,000 - WOW - and now are close to $6B dollars
-by comparison, El Salvador is estimated to own around 2400 BTC, or 90x less, Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor owns 130K, and estimates of the Winklevii’s stash range from 70K to more than 100K
—
Crypto twitter...
Nick Gerli on how US M2 money supply is contracting for the first time in 90 years
https://twitter.com/nickgerli1/status/1650927931126849548
-the only other periods this has happened are kind a who’s who of terrible times: depressions and banking crises
What's so problematic about this money supply contraction is that inflation is STILL an issue.
So businesses will have less access to capital just as they need it most to pay for expenses and payroll expansion.
Coinbase’s lawsuit against the SEC from MetaLawMan
https://twitter.com/MetaLawMan/status/1650847807480135681
He believes the case will move quickly, unlike Ripple’s own case
Coinbase defense is led by Eugene Scalia who is son of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
—
Recommended reads...
https://defillama.com
-top projects by TVL: Lido is number 1, followed by MakerDAO and Aave
-top projects by 24 hour fees earned: Ethereum far and away 1, followed by Lido and Uniswap again
-the 3 biggest stablecoins are Tether at $81B, USDC at $30B, and Binance USD at $6B
—
That’s it for today! That was 5 minutes long. Links in the show notes. You can follow @twodegenspod on Twitter and subscribe for more!
Outro clip is Vance Spencer on Bell Curve talking about Asia trip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1feJXH0_9k

Oct 11 2022 Self intros

• Kevin / Habits - been in crypto for 3 cycles now, first cycle focus was bitcoin, second cycle was altcoins, went big into Rare Pepes then, third cycle it’s just amazing where we are now
• George - been in crypto for 3 cycles; bitcoin, eth/alts, and then bitcoin eth/alts again
  • Most recently focused on CitaDAO bringing real estate on chain & general investing, previously co-founded an early Ethereum dApp in 2017
  • Prior to crypto: engineer by training, consulting, tech, startups

Kevin’s links

• Article - https://blog.bitmex.com/contagion/
  • 5 big CBs: BOJ, BOE, ECB, PBOC, Fed; 3 of 5 are printing again, and soon 4 of 5
  • The EU is an artifice – a political ploy of France to keep Germany down, which the Germans only went along with due to their guilt over WWII. The US shares France’s interests, standing ready to prevent any real alliance between Germany and Russia. A weak EU serves the political interests of America quite well
• Article - https://dergigi.com/2022/10/02/bitcoin-is-digital-scarcity/
  • Virtual can be copied; Digital can’t
  • Studies game economies including Second Life, Diablo 2, and Ultima Online - all of them broke because of either centralized failure or player hacks
  • In short: bitcoin can’t be printed because it is automatically issued over time. The system can’t be cheated because energy can’t be copied.
• Twitter - @urbankaoboy, former GS trader, fund manager, writes lots of really good threads on global macro
• TV show - check out Narco Saints - could take this Narcos template and apply it to any culture / geography
• Random - @mrlovenstein - cartoonist with a dark sense of humor

George’s links

Throwback Classic: ELI5 bitcoin

https://medium.com/free-code-camp/explain-bitcoin-like-im-five-73b4257ac833
Article uses analogy of giving your friend an apple directly, while sitting on a park bench, without an ‘official’ intermediary – but imagine you can now do that with digital items.

The use of real imagery was visceral and I feel it is a good reminder to the simplicity and power of this idea/ technology, and what it has and can enable. We’ve uncovered maybe 5% of the potential, and there is so much more to be created. I feel it’s always important to go back to the fundamentals of why we’re here. Go back to the first principles to determine why this ecosystem/ industry is so amazing.

cool to see how incentives can be used to drive behavior, this is what crypto can enable across jurisdictions: https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon/status/1577576345600593920 -

Good movie: 人生大事 Lighting Up the Stars, came out in summer 22’

Howdy everyone — this is the 5 minute crypto update for Monday May 29, hope everyone had a great weekend
Let’s get it on!
—
As of this recording...
Bitcoin price has popped up a bit recently to right at $28000
ETH is at $1900
Winners in the last 7 days include Huobi, Polygon, ImmutableX, and Aave
—
On to the news
https://www.vaneck.com/us/en/blogs/digital-assets/matthew-sigel-ethereum-price-prediction-118k-by-2030/
The tldr is a financial model that gives Ethereum an estimated present value of $5.3K, which is almost 3x its current value - no surprise to me since Ethereum is always undervalued until it’s wildly overvalued for brief periods - but I still stand by my conviction that at a high level, its price is like 1-2 cycles behind bitcoin
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2022-report-economic-well-being-us-households-202305.pdf
Use was more common among younger adults, among men, among higher incomes for investment and lower incomes for transactions
https://www.theblock.co/post/232247/crypto-vc-paradigm-ai
Paradigm - among the most blue chip crypto VC firms - is now broadening investments to potentially include AI and other frontier tech
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/crypto-binance-money/
The money flows at Binance described by Reuters indicate a lack of internal controls to ensure customer funds were clearly identifiable and segregated from company revenues, three former U.S. regulators said. They said the commingling of these funds put client assets at risk by obscuring their whereabouts.

https://twitter.com/dellannaluca/status/1662111839977893888?s=46
The recent wealth tax increase in Norway was expected to bring an additional $146M in yearly tax revenue
Instead, an estimated $54B-worth of ultra-rich left the country, leading to a lost $594M in yearly wealth tax revenue
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/05/23/bitcoin-jumps-to-key-price-resistance-as-hong-kong-opens-crypto-trading-for-retail-investors/
Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) announced that it would accept applications from exchanges to offer crypto trading to retail investors from June 1, adding that approved tokens need a 12-month track record and substantial market capitalization. The SFC said registered exchanges would be barred from providing stablecoin and interest-bearing instruments.

Rektdiomedes thread
the only answer- at least in my opinion- is to purposefully cultivate a life of intense discipline and self-imposed hardship.
There is no tribal elder, or drill sargeant, or older brother to keep you in line. You need to be those things to yourself.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/ranked-dead-crypto-coins-by-year/
2,383 crypto coins that bit the dust between 2013 and 2022
Biggest year was 2018, which interestingly came after the insane bull run of 2017
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-second-largest-nft-chain-stepn-apple-pay
Believe it or not, *Bitcoin Ordinals* volume has surged past *Solana NFTs* as the second largest chain for NFT sales.
$167M in NFT sales over 30 days, compared to ETH’s $400M
Solana distant 3rd at $56M
—
That’s it for today! All the links are in the show notes. You can follow @twodegenspod on Twitter and subscribe for more!
No outro clip today, I may actually do a separate podcast where I share a bunch of related podcast clips and provide some commentary. If that’s interesting to you definitely let me know!