Monday May 2, 2022
◾ The Chairman of the Swiss National Bank said his agency has no plans to buy or hold bitcoin as a reserve currency. (Reuters)
◾ Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) will require all Belgians wanting to provide exchange services between virtual currencies and legal currencies, or custody wallet services, to register with the FSMA in advance. (FSMA)
◾ The European Central Bank has issued a call for expression of interest for a front-end technical solution to facilitate a digital euro. (ECB)
Thoughts from last week’s SALT / FTX Crypto Bahamas conference:
Crypto-wealth cannot be construed as having market experience. I spoke to several individuals who left a “career” working within traditional financial to join a crypto company. I subsequently learned that most of these “careers” lasted one to two years.
Benchmark’s Bill Gurley tweeted about valuation this weekend, but his words can be used to view the influx of new overly arrogant entrants into crypto markets:
“An entire generation of entrepreneurs & tech investors built their entire perspectives … during the second half of a 13-year amazing bull market run. The ‘unlearning’ process could be painful, surprising, & unsettling to many.”
I have issued numerous posts on the Bahamian Sand Dollar since its introduction in October 2020, but while readers of BitDigest may have an understanding of this CBDC, none of the local people, including former bankers, I spoke with had any comprehension about its use or benefits. Adoption will take time.
The Bahamas is committed to expanding their position as an international financial center in the Latin America and Caribbean region to become a crypto hub and global leader in the regulation of digital asset.
Thanks to my fellow Gaming / Web3 panel speakers @pauldawalibi, @clintonsparks, and @JaceHall, we succeeded in convincing attendees that gaming needs to be fun! Play to earn / own will not succeed if it continues to be pushed on to gamers by the crypto industry. Gamers need to be educated on the benefits of these technologies and then decide to adopt them.
Developments in insurance products could lead to an expansion in DeFi offerings.
Regulators may be taking a stronger position against centralized protocols and define them as security offerings. Zoe Scaman said it perfectly in this months Wired:
“Every platform remains at the whims of the team behind it.”
"The biggest risk to crypto technology is ignorance! – Former British PM Tony Blair. Greater education is needed.
On Saturday, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) had their annual investor meeting. The following are comments (media sound bytes) Berkshire Chairman Warren Buffet and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger made regarding bitcoin.
Warren Buffet:
“If you told me you own all of the bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me for $25, I wouldn’t take it because what would I do with it? I’d have to sell it back to you one way or another… It isn’t going to do anything.”
“Basically, to have value, assets have to delivery something…the one thing I’m pretty sure of is that [bitcoin] doesn’t produce anything”
“There’s no reason in the world why the United States government… is going to let [a competitive] money replace theirs…Anyone who believes this is out of their mind.”
Bitcoin has “a magic to it and people have attached magics to lots of things.”
Charlie Munger:
“When you have your own retirement account and your friendly advisor suggests that you put all your money into bitcoin, ‘just say no.’”
“In my life, I try and avoid things that are stupid and evil and make me look bad in comparison to somebody else – and bitcoin does all three. In the first place, it’s stupid because it’s still likely to go to zero. It’s evil because it undermines the Federal Reserve System and national currency system... and third, it makes us look foolish compared to the Communist leader in China. He was smart enough to ban bitcoin.”
Government & NGO Actions
◾ India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has appointed the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) the national agency to oversee cyber security including incidents that include cryptocurrencies. (CERT-in)
◾ The Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement issued an intelligence bulletin warning banks, law enforcement, and personnel and private citizens of dangers associated with NFTs. (IRS.gov)
◾ The European Banking Authority believes it is premature to introduce new macroeconomic tools to address the systemic risks related top crypto at this time. (EBA)
◾ The Idaho Department of Finance issued an Online Cryptocurrency Investment advisory accusing Cryptofxdirect, Shieldinvestors, Quartzfxtrade and Finvesttrading of selling fraudulent securities. (Idaho.gov)
Public Company Releases
◾ BitDigital (BTBT) earned 194.48 bitcoin and 189.26 ether during Q1 from their network of mining rigs representing 0.5 EH/s and 0.18 TH/s respectively. (Cision)
◾ Wisdom Tree (WETF) added 28 million in digital assets in Q1’22 ending the period with $357 million. (WisdomTree)
◾ Ebang International (EBON) reported revenue of $51 million from sales of 1.5 million TH/s of compute sold in fiscal 2021. (Globenewswire)
◾ Samsung Asset Management plans to list a blockchain-based exchange-traded fund on the Hong Kong Exchange. (Kedglobal)
◾ Global X has launched a new metaverse ETF under the ticker “VR.” (ETF)
Protocols, Applications & Business News
◾ A South Korean civilian and an active-duty military captain have been accused of stealing military secrets for a North Korean agent in return for payment in cryptocurrencies. (France24)
◾ Binance has closed digital asset accounts of relatives linked to senior Kremlin officials. (Bloomberg)
◾ The Wikimedia Foundation has decided to stop accepting cryptocurrency donations. (Twitter)
Metaverse Briefings & Activations
◾ The creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club Yuga Labs raised $285 million by selling virtual land on the Otherside metaverse platform making this the largest single NFT mint ever. (Reuters)
◾ Italian soccer league Serie A has started broadcasting matches in The Nemesis metaverse. (Reuters)
Market Data
◾ Bitcoin’s hashrate jumped 12.7% over the past 24 hours (6:46AM) to hit a new all-time-high of 249.6 EH/s. (Bitinfo)
Exchange, Custody and Product Updates
◾ To avoid front running, Coinbase (COIN) will no longer provide a list of assets that may be added to the exchange and will only identify digital assets once they are formally listed. (Coinbase)
Thoughts on the Ecosystem
◾ JP Morgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon warned that one should be careful how much money you put in bitcoin but said not all of digital assets are bad and some can offer an improvement to transfer funds. (News.bitcoin)