Someone on the editorial board of the Washington Post may have read your NYT story. The Post published an editorial yesterday headlined: “Regulating crypto might end it. And that’s just fine.” Subhead: “The industry is little more than a vast digital casino.” Time for crypto scammers to juice up those campaign contributions to members of Congress.
My theory on crypto going up right now is that it has more to do with people putting less value in stablecoins, as opposed to an actual increase in the value of the things they're buying with the stablecoins. The Israel situation is really bad news for stablecoins, because it is drawing some unwanted attention to their utility at laundering money for Hamas and Hezbollah. Tether's always been a ticking time bomb, and USDC is also up to its neck in terrorist financing. BTC going up is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, they're buying it with Monopoly money.
I can't imagine retail dollars are flooding in right now on the heels of a spectacularly public exchange collapse, and that's borne out in the fact that Coinbase's transaction volume has been on a continual nosedive (Coinbase being a primary on-ramp for retail dollars, and its financials are uniquely transparent since it's a public company).
Glad you mentioned that Ed Zitron piece. He - like you - has been amazing as a guide through the morass of Crypto, and I eagerly away his (and yours) writings.
In terms of continuing your Web3 work (which is great and valuable), perhaps you could do a piece to be released in Q3 of 2024 about who has pulled funds from the various Web3 VC and PE funds through Q2 of 2024. I sense a reckoning coming.
as far as NTFs go, there seem to be a push by certain actors, nudging artists to create NTFs, giving them a hope to sell them.
At least that's what my sister, who is an artist, no, not particularly famous or anything, tells me - she's been spammed in the past month by several ppl telling her they want to buy NTFs of her works, for crypto equipment of thousands of US$.
Speaking of Wikipedia: I find its distinction between references and notes useful (to a first approximation, “I care about letters and pass over numbers” ^^), if that’s something you would consider for this newsletter too :)
A (much younger) friend of mine, who swears he can read the minds of his dog and 2 cats, swears this happened when he had to go back out of the house and into the world when the lockdowns ended: seeing him dressing in business clothes, knowing what was coming, the dog waited sadly by the door with a forlorn look on his face, thinking 'awwww..'. The cats stretched lazily in their corner, glancing over with their usually stoic expressions, thinking 'FINALLY....'
"It’s not entirely clear to me why people are excited about this, given that the FTX bankruptcy team has just spent a year talking about how the exchange was a pile of hot garbage led by incompetent fraudsters."
i'm happy to see your optimism for cryptobros to come around to sanity or have a singular moment of actual introspection but my cynicism is remaining firmly in place. in fact, the one thing i've been struck by in the interviews with those burned by the meltdown is their unflagging devotion to getting burned again.
to tickle your [citation needed] bones, as P.T. Barnum (may or may not have) said: "There's a sucker born every minute." 😎
Issue 43 – Laser eyes
I can't wait to buy your Citation Needed NFTs or CTND tokens.
Someone on the editorial board of the Washington Post may have read your NYT story. The Post published an editorial yesterday headlined: “Regulating crypto might end it. And that’s just fine.” Subhead: “The industry is little more than a vast digital casino.” Time for crypto scammers to juice up those campaign contributions to members of Congress.
Oh boy an FTX reboot! Just what the world is calling for *eyes roll out of head*
My theory on crypto going up right now is that it has more to do with people putting less value in stablecoins, as opposed to an actual increase in the value of the things they're buying with the stablecoins. The Israel situation is really bad news for stablecoins, because it is drawing some unwanted attention to their utility at laundering money for Hamas and Hezbollah. Tether's always been a ticking time bomb, and USDC is also up to its neck in terrorist financing. BTC going up is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, they're buying it with Monopoly money.
I can't imagine retail dollars are flooding in right now on the heels of a spectacularly public exchange collapse, and that's borne out in the fact that Coinbase's transaction volume has been on a continual nosedive (Coinbase being a primary on-ramp for retail dollars, and its financials are uniquely transparent since it's a public company).
Glad you mentioned that Ed Zitron piece. He - like you - has been amazing as a guide through the morass of Crypto, and I eagerly away his (and yours) writings.
Great stuff Molly!
# landed on a name: Citation Needed
Perfect!
In terms of continuing your Web3 work (which is great and valuable), perhaps you could do a piece to be released in Q3 of 2024 about who has pulled funds from the various Web3 VC and PE funds through Q2 of 2024. I sense a reckoning coming.
as far as NTFs go, there seem to be a push by certain actors, nudging artists to create NTFs, giving them a hope to sell them.
At least that's what my sister, who is an artist, no, not particularly famous or anything, tells me - she's been spammed in the past month by several ppl telling her they want to buy NTFs of her works, for crypto equipment of thousands of US$.
Speaking of Wikipedia: I find its distinction between references and notes useful (to a first approximation, “I care about letters and pass over numbers” ^^), if that’s something you would consider for this newsletter too :)
Just FYI there’s a fairly established podcast with very similar name, so you may want to try and reach out to them about any potential conflicts:
https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/
A (much younger) friend of mine, who swears he can read the minds of his dog and 2 cats, swears this happened when he had to go back out of the house and into the world when the lockdowns ended: seeing him dressing in business clothes, knowing what was coming, the dog waited sadly by the door with a forlorn look on his face, thinking 'awwww..'. The cats stretched lazily in their corner, glancing over with their usually stoic expressions, thinking 'FINALLY....'
Hey Molly, xkcd (or just Randy) is my cousin!! I rarely get to brag about this in real life so I always jump at the chance :-) he is a great guy btw
Also my dog Video says hello to Atlas! Not much substance to my comments today oh well goodbye!
Hey Molly, don't know if you've seen this yet, in today's WSJ:
Hamas nedeed a new way to get money from Iran. It turned to crypto.
"It’s not entirely clear to me why people are excited about this, given that the FTX bankruptcy team has just spent a year talking about how the exchange was a pile of hot garbage led by incompetent fraudsters."
i'm happy to see your optimism for cryptobros to come around to sanity or have a singular moment of actual introspection but my cynicism is remaining firmly in place. in fact, the one thing i've been struck by in the interviews with those burned by the meltdown is their unflagging devotion to getting burned again.
to tickle your [citation needed] bones, as P.T. Barnum (may or may not have) said: "There's a sucker born every minute." 😎