The Breakdown

The full week's episode run in one long-run, long-chill, long-sleep episode: Monday | Caitlin Long on Coronavirus, Crypto Custody and Building a Bank Tuesday | 6 Explanations for Crypto’s Coronavirus Focus Wednesday | Is Bitcoin A Safe Haven or ‘Schmuck Insurance’? Thursday | A 101 Guide To Ethereum’s ProgPoW Controversy Friday | Understanding This Week’s Market Whiplash, Featuring Scott Melker

After weeks of not reacting to Coronavirus, the markets took a profound turn for the worse this week, leading ultimately to the fastest correction - i.e. loss of 10% - in recorded history. In this episode of The Breakdown, @NLW is joined by crypto trader, DJ, and broad market thinker Scott Melker to discuss: What the crypto markets demonstrated this week What recent price action suggests about the bitcoin as a safe haven narrative Why it’s insane that just two weeks ago, despite tens (or hundreds) of millions of people being quarantined in the supply chain capital of the world, stock markets were printing all time highs How we went from those ATHs to the fastest correction (10% drop) in recorded history What the correction suggests for the fundamentals of our economy Why central bankers have fewer options than ever to fight economic turmoil

Last Friday on Ethereum’s core developer call, the devs agreed to push forward a controversial anti-ASICs consensus algorithm switch known as ProgPoW. The broader Ethereum community was not pleased, and has spent the last week debating both ProgPoW itself as well as the way decisions in the community get made. In this 101-guide to the controversy, @nlw breaks down: What is ProgPoW The history of the debate Arguments for and against Who falls on what side and why The implications of ProgPoW for DeFi

Bitcoin is having a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day. Many are using the dump - which from a timing perspective aligns with a broader market selloff among Coronavirus fears - as a way to diminish the “bitcoin as a safe haven” narrative. In this episode, @nlw revisits that narrative and argues that it is uncomfortably bunched up with the uncorrelated asset narrative, or, as Chamath Palihapitiya calls it “schmuck insurance.” This episode also covers: Central bank digital currency (CBDC) news: Canada says it doesn’t see the need right now but that could change if private cryptos get more traction, while China’s work on a digital yuan is paused due to Coronavirus shutdowns. The six year anniversary of Mt. Gox’s lost 750,000 BTC coming to light.

The spread of Coronavirus has dominated the news cycle across industries, but the discussion has been particularly fierce in both the finance and tech worlds, with crypto right in the lead. For a month or more, prominent crypto voices have been discussing the event in terms of skepticism of reported government cases, questions of market impact, and plans for personal preparation. I surveyed more than 1500 people on Crypto Twitter to ask why crypto was so interested in the Coronavirus. These were their top answers. This episode of The Breakdown also features an excerpt from Hidden Forces Ep 123: Market Nihilism: Price Discovery in a World Where Nothing Matters | Ben Hunt & Grant Williams

An incredible amount of work has gone into convincing institutional investors that bitcoin and crypto should be on their radar. Now that many are convinced, however, they face some significant limitations in the infrastructure. A new crypto bank out of Wyoming is designed to address those problems. Founded by Caitlin Long, Avanti is apply for a special purpose depository institution (SPDI) charter and already has 8 products in its pipeline not currently available to US investors. In this interview, Caitlin and @nlw discuss: Why Avanti is needed Why Avanti will have 100% of assets in reserve at all times Why the right model for crypto custody is more akin to valeting a car than current financial market models Why building a crypto bank is important in the context of macro market turmoil How Coronavirus is exposing pre-existing problems in the global economy

The full week's episode run in one long-run, long-chill, long-sleep episode: Monday | Off Tuesday | Is It Exploitation Season for DeFi? Wednesday | Chainlink's Sergey Nazarov on What DeFi Can Learn From Early Exchange Hacks Thursday | Why We Should Stop Thinking of ‘Crypto’ as a Single Industry Friday | Diagnosing the Dip: Why Today's Leading Exchanges Are Powerful, but Not Inevitable

After settling in to the $10,000 price level, BTC suddenly and rapidly dipped more than 5% in an hour on Wednesday. As the market discusses possible explanations, some floated the unexpected simultaneous downtime of Binance and Coinbase as a causal factor. In this episode of The Breakdown, we discuss the power exchanges wield - both in terms of market liquidity as well as the ability to shape news cycles. The good news is that new funding for insurgent exchanges suggest that power today is not inevitable. Lastly, we discuss the latest in central bank digital currencies, with Sweden launching an e-krona pilot; a former head of China’s national bank saying Coronavirus could accelerate efforts; and a new member of the Libra Association.

The ‘crypto’ industry is having a hard time fitting everything that’s happening inside that one monolithic term. On this episode, @nlw looks at current news stories from across at least 5 different categories - DeFi, enterprise blockchain, central bank digital currencies, digital collectibles and bitcoin - to ask whether they really all belong lumped in in the same category. The episode also looks at: Four reasons these increasingly different categories remain bunched together Why turning other parts of the industry into an enemy is rewarded in the public sphere Why letting individual parts of the industry evolve individually is likely to bring more, not fewer resources into the space.

The DeFi world continues to dissect the recent attacks on bZx. To most, the amount lost in the attacks is far less relevant than what the attacks suggest about how DeFi applications need to be designed. Within that, one key topic of conversation is the role of price oracles - the systems by which DeFi applications check the prices of assets that dictate what happens in a given smart contract. Since asset price manipulation was at the core of the recent attacks, this is a particularly pertinent area of inquiry. Yesterday, Chainlink announced that it would be helping bZx upgrade their systems taking advantage of Chainlink’s recently-launched “meta oracle.” On this episode of The Breakdown, Chainlink founder Sergey Nazarov discusses: The role of price oracles in DeFi How price oracles were targeted in the recent attacks What the DeFi industry can learn from early crypto exchange hacks

Part of what makes DeFi interesting to people is how it takes advantage of open source protocols to enable types of transactions never before available. The problem, however, is that financial structures mean new financial vulnerabilities. In the last few days, two attacks on bZx have used a similar strategy of manipulating the price of synthetic assets in the context of a new instrument called “flashloans.” On this episode of @nlw breaks down exactly How the attacks were carried out How the community is responding What the larger ramifications for DeFi might be

The full week's shows as one long episode, featuring guests including Travis Kling (Ikigai), Muneeb Ali (Blockstack), Coinlist (Andy Bromberg) Monday | On the Frontlines of the SEC Safe Harbor Proposal With CoinList President Andy Bromberg Tuesday | Muneeb Ali Explains Blockstack’s Big Bet on Bitcoin Wednesday | Why Crypto Sentiment and Prices Are Soaring: Puppets, Pundits, Partnerships Thursday | The US Government Sends Mixed Signals on Digital Currency Privacy Friday | The Top Narratives Driving Crypto Market Growth feat. Travis Kling

There’s no denying that 2020 is off to a roaring start. From prices to volume to social media, sentiment is up up up. But what’s driving it? On this special Valentine’s Day episode, @nlw reacts to listeners votes about which narratives are most driving the shift in energy, discussing: The BTC halving Coronavirus and volatility Fed action Central bank digital currency intrigue Ethereum and DeFi Price reflexivity and Lindy effects The episode finishes up with some hot takes on what is driving the markets and what we should be most concerned about and most excited for with Ikigai Asset Management’s Travis Kling.

To look at the US Government, it is the best of times and the worst of times for personal financial privacy. On the one hand, in comments before the Senate Financial Services Committee, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says that FINCEN is planning more strict regulations around anti-money laundering and crypto. At the same time, the CEO of DropBit was arrested on money laundering charges around a bitcoin mixing service he ran between 2014 and 2017. In this new enforcement regime, one of the government’s major partners is Chainalysis, who have seen more than $10m in Federal agency contracts since 2015. Yet privacy advocates are also surprisingly enthused by comments from Fed chair Jerome Powell, who suggested in testimony to Congress that any potential US digital dollar would need to be privacy preserving.

After Monday’s quick retrace, bitcoin and the rest of the market went green again. In this episode, @nlw breaks down the shifting sentiment, looking at: How a partnership between Hedara Hashgraph and Google Cloud pumped HBAR more than 50% - featuring commentary from Hedara CEO Mance Harmon Why Figure is launching a TV campaign to educate people about blockchain CNBC Fast Money actively (and convincingly) promoting the narrative of bitcoin as a safe haven asset.

Last week, Blockstack announced a new proposal through which node operators would be rewarded in bitcoin. The concept behind Proof of Transfer is that, for the cryptoasset ecosystem to run, electricity should only have to be converted into digital scarcity once. In this interview with @nlw, Blockstack CEO Muneeb Ali explains how, by tying the security of Blockstack’s Stacks blockchain to bitcoin, and allowing miners to be rewarded with BTC, Blockstack might be setting a new precedent for how the crypto ecosystem looks to bitcoin as a base layer.

Last week, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce proposed Rule 195 to give token projects a 3 year safe harbor. This proposed period would allow them to distribute tokens without fear of violating securities law so long as they achieve certain standards of decentralization in that time. Coinlist is a platform for compliant token sales. On this episode of The Breakdown, Coinlist CoFounder & President Andy Bromberg and @nlw discuss: The cost of regulatory clarity in the US, including projects leaving US shores Historic approaches to “compliant” token sales and what problems they still leave What Commissioner Hester Peirce’s proposed Rule 195 includes The potential implications for the US crypto markets The chances that Rule 195 comes to pass

The week's full episode run in one long-run, long-drive ready podcast. Monday | Deplatforming, Ethereum Marketing and Whether Brexit Matters for Crypto feat. Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier Tuesday | Are Uncensorable Web Domains Blockchain's Next Killer App? Feat Namebase CEO Tieshun Roquerre Wednesday | What All This VC and M&A Activity Tells Us About The State Of The Crypto Markets Thursday | The Federal Reserve Has Its 'Come to Satoshi' Moment Friday | Kraken's Dan Held on What's Different About Bitcoin At $10k This Time

Bitcoin is on a 7 week upward trend. Having already smashed through its $9,000 Vegeta memes, it is now inching closer towards $10k. On this episode, @nlw is joined by Kraken’s Dan Held to discuss how bitcoin has changed in a number of ways since the last time we were at the $10,000 price level last year. They look at: Narrative - Speculation around bitcoin as a safe haven and the role of the halvening continue to shape the conversation Infrastructure - The tools for how people can interact with bitcoin - from lending to derivatives - have never been broader Audience - Institutions are no longer just around the corner but actively participating in the market

That’s the way Meltem Demirors described Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard’s remarks at Stanford yesterday. For the first time, the Fed has said it is actively researching and experimenting with digital currencies and distributed ledger technologies. This is a change in tone from a Fed that, when asked previously, has more or less dismissed digital currencies. On this episode, @nlw looks at Brainard’s speech, along with: the latest from Japanese lawmakers proposing a digital currency to counteract the influence of a forthcoming Chinese digital yuan; a Bank for International Settlements digital currency working group with six major central banks; and the potential implications of CBDCs on bitcoin.

If venture investments and acquisitions provide a window into the sentiment in markets, boy did we get a big dose of information today. Today we look at investments in the world’s best known developer of the Lightning Network; a new prominent corporate investor for a tokenized securities platform; and Square’s investment in a real-time payments company. We also look at a set of acquisitions, including a ConsenSys acquisition poised to get them in the $3.8T municipal bond space; a Bakkt acquisition poised to get them ready for a consumer app that includes more than just cryptocurrencies; and an attempt by Bakkt-parent ICE to buy eBay for north of $30b.

As claims of election tampering, fraud, and other dubious activities fly around the botched Democratic Caucus in Iowa, trust in our public institutions continues to crater. The question of trust and censorship are at the heart of our episode today. Handshake is a new protocol for uncensorable web domains. The goal is to create a new blockchain-based Top Level Domain system that governments can’t censor or block. To explain why Handshake (HNS) matters, @nlw is joined by Tieshun Roquerre, the CEO of Namebase, a next-generation domain registrar for HNS. In this interview, they discuss: What Handshake is How a HNS domain is different from a standard web domain Why uncensorable web domains are the next great blockchain killer app How Roquerre became interested in the space How Namebase works

Much of the Crypto Twitter conversation this weekend was dominated by talk of Twitter’s suspension of ZeroHedge. @nlw explores why the specifics of the infraction or the quality of the publication aren’t the important part of the conversation, and why he thinks we’ll see arguments for social media platforms to be turned into public utilities in the years ahead. Also on this episode: Debates around Ethereum marketing. Does the community need to spend more resources telling the story and recruiting new users or should the tech speak for itself? What Brexit means for the crypto community - practically and metaphorically. The last section features comments from Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier.

The full week's episodes in one (plus a bonus TL;DR on ZeroHedge's deplatforming. Tuesday | Narrative Watch: The Future of Fud Wednesday | Exclusive Interview with Binance US CEO Catherine Coley announcing staking Thursday | The Unsolved Mystery of How To Fund Public Protocols Friday | The Founders of Chainlink and Synthetix on DeFi, Derivatives and 25 New Decentralized Price Feeds

Yesterday Chainlink released price reference data for 25 of its decentralized oracle networks which, together, power more than $100m in DeFi. On this special interview episode, @nlw talks with Sergey Nazarov and Kain Warwick, the founders of Chainlink and Synthetix respectively about: The evolution and goals of Synthetix, a novel type of derivatives exchange where users can interact with any asset with a price feed. The challenge Synthetix faced around spinning up their own oracles around price feeds The history of their collaboration and how Synthetix came to work with Chainlink Chainlink approach to building decentralized oracles for data such as price feeds Chainlink’s announcement yesterday about the new published price reference data for 25 oracle networks The state of the idea of decentralization, and how what was previously a concept is becoming operationalized One thing that gives them pause or scares them about DeFi and crypto and one thing that makes them excited for the future

The best way to fund open source projects remains a question, and one that - in the context of crypto protocols - has never had higher stakes. Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen live action experiments in a number of different approaches. Gitcoin grants used a quadratic funding program to match grants to technology builders and media creators in Ethereum After months and months of concerted community debate and conversation, Zcash will implement a new Dev Fund of 20% of the block rewards after the Founders Reward runs out in November, splitting it between the Electric Coin Co (7%), Zcash Foundation (5%) and 3rd party developers (8%) A consortium (cartel?) of the 4 largest BCH mining pools tried to insist upon a 12.5% block reward diversion to a new dev fund, with a threat to orphan blocks that didn’t comply. The plan ran into a barrier when Roger Ver’s bitcoin.com backed away. Also in this episode, @nlw looks at the latest in CBDCs - including Japan’s continued hedging that they’re preparing for the possibility of needing to move quickly and Cambodia’s announcement that they will be implementing a CBDC this quarter. Finally, Andrew Yang took a few minutes yesterday to talk about cryptocurrencies and why regulation with the intent to stop them would be doomed to fail.

In a Breakdown exclusive, Binance US CEO announces that the exchange will begin supporting staking, starting with ALGO and ATOMs. On this episode, Catherine and I discuss: How the company prioritizes both new features and which audiences to build for Why staking is important both for allowing people to do more with their crypto assets as well as help build and secure the networks those assets run on How staking is part of a much larger mission around education, financial literacy and lowering the barriers to entry for participation in crypto.

We’re over $9,000! That means a lot of good things, of course. But any price increase brings with it increased scrutiny and, yes, increased FUD. The question for this time around is whether the FUD is the same old same old or something new. In this episode, @nlw looks at three emergent (and continued) areas of FUD, including: 1) accusations that the bitcoin community is rooting for calamity as the safe haven narrative takes hold; 2) an updated “crypto is for criminals” narrative with more emphasis on state-level enemies; 3) a new, more economically vindictive green/energy waste narrative. Importantly, the question isn’t so much whether these new categories of FUD will come to fruition, but what can be done about them.

A single long-form episode with all the week's content + a TL;DR. This week was all about macro frame-setting coming out of Davos. Monday - 4 Reasons Crypto Should Care About Davos Tuesday - Gitcoin's Kevin Owocki on Controversy and the Future of Open Source Funding Wednesday - Why Vodafone’s Defection Won't Matter For Libra Thursday - Will Mass Adoption Be More PayPal or Pornhub? Friday - Davos Takeaways, CBDCs & the Rise of Bitcoin Art featuring Brekkie von Bitcoin

That’s a wrap! The World Economic Forum is over, and the key ideas coming out of Davos for our industry are: 1) a continued ‘blockchain, not crypto’ narrative; 2) a believe in the inevitability of cashless futures (without much concern about the negative implications); and 3) the rise of CBDCs. On the CBDC front, the WEF put out a toolkit for governments that are considering their own currency; Japan announced a project to explore a digital currency as a counterweight to the influence a digital yuan might bring China; and a BIS study says 1 in 10 governments anticipate having a digital currency within 3 years. Finally, we close asking prolific bitcoiner and artist Brekkie von Bitcoin about the state of bitcoin art and why even the hardcore financially-minded folks in the space should care.

There is an ongoing debate in the crypto community about where mainstream adoption. One point of view is that it will be the slow steady acceptance of digital assets. On that front, Bakkt president Adam White said in Davos yesterday that the company is on track to launch their app this year. Another perspective is that the main use case of crypto is to enable otherwise censored transactions. Lending credence to this perspective is the case of Pornhub, which saw payouts to its more than 100,000 performers blocked unexpectedly by PayPal in November, and which announced cash outs via Tether (USDT) today. In this episode, @nlw breaks down these two arguments and asks whether they’re mutually exclusive. Also discussed is the new BCH mining group (cartel?) insisting on a 12.5% block reward dev fund, as well as interesting insights and data from research from CoinDesk and The Block today.

News broke yesterday that the Libra Association had seen it’s 8th high profile defection, this time from the telecom giant Vodafone. In today’s episode of the breakdown, @nlw argues that Association members are far less of a factor in Libra’s success than key regulatory questions around domiciling, the value peg, and the US’s fear of a Chinese digital currency. Also in this episode, Square Crypto announces its plans for a Lightning Development Kit while Square also announced a new patent that could make crypto easier to use. In regulatory battles, meanwhile, both the Blockchain Association and the Chamber of Digital Commerce have filed amicus briefs around the SEC-Telegram lawsuit.

Ever since announcing their fourth round of grants, Gitcoin has been a major subject of conversation across the Twittersphere. In addition to all the excited buzz from both technical projects and media creators vying for grants matched based on E. Glen Weyl and Vitalik Buterin’s quadratic funding model, there has been controversy. Some of that controversy has been from outside the Ethereum community, pointing to Consensys and Ethereum Foundation support as an example of centralization. Some of the controversy has come from within, as debates rage about what is or isn’t an acceptable use of “public” resources. No matter what one’s position, it’s hard to deny that Gitcoin is one of the most interesting experiments in open source funding to date. Listen as @nlw askes the projects founder Kevin Owocki about the history of the project, the controversy, and what makes this round of grants such a big jump forward.

The World Economic Forum kicks off today. CoinDesk and The Block both have representatives there. Numerous panels relate to topics around the industry. At the same time, the centralized power structure is something of an anathema to the world crypto is trying to build. The question is: should crypto even care?

A single long-form episode with all daily episodes of The Breakdown along with a TL;DR on the week: Monday - Tokenized NBA Contracts & The Hunt For Crypto’s Killer App Tuesday - Mati Greenspan on the Technical and Macro Roots of Bitcoin’s Price Surge Wednesday - Why DeFi Is Surging As The Market Pumps Thursday - Why ‘Crypto Dad’ Is Building the Digital Dollar Foundation Friday - Tyrone Ross On The Next Million Crypto Investors

One man. Three piping hot takes. In this special interview episode of The Breakdown, financial advisor and crypto advocate Tyrone Ross shares his thoughts on: Why Financial Advisors are the key to bringing in the next wave of crypto investors Why DeFi is an even bigger deal than you think - and not just to the hackers and entrepreneurs building on it Why Square’s CashApp - not Binance, not Coinbase, not any one else - is the most important company in Crypto

As Libra continues to spur discussions among regulators around the world, and China’s digital yuan comes ever closer to fruition, the U.S. Federal Reserve seems disinclined to look seriously at a digital dollar. Ex-CFTC Chair Chris Giancarlo - aka “Crypto Dad” - isn’t waiting around. He has teamed with Accenture to launch the nonprofit Digital Dollar Foundation. As crypto continues to evolve, it does so in sometimes divergent directions. Gemini announced a new insurance company designed to make big institutions more comfortable with the space. Zcash, meanwhile, released an updated SDK to make it easier to shield transactions via mobile. Can the privacy-preserving side of crypto co-exist, ultimately, with the sanguine institutional side? Finally, we revisit our discussion of personal tokens and ISAs, as well as look at the latest research from Coinmetrics on whether bitcoin is behaving like a safe haven asset.

Crypto tokens weren’t the only thing that saw a major pump yesterday. The total value locked in DeFi ascended to new heights. While part of this can be explained simply by the rise in ETH price, it also reflected traders turning to DeFi platforms as a way to get more exposure to the market action without selling their core assets. For all the exciting price action, not everything is pointing in a positive direction. These market moves don’t seem to reflect new market participants, for example, and anecdotally, times remain tough for projects trying to fundraise. In our final segment, we look at a blockchain conference in North Korea that the UN suggests simply attending may violate international sanctions, an Iran-focused hedge fund that uses cryptocurrency to work around international restrictions, and ask whether this sort of activity presents a narrative risk to the industry as a whole?

Bitcoin is up more than 8% in the last 24 hours. BSV, meanwhile, is up nearly a whopping 100%. The question is, of course, why? Is it some larger macro context? A pump-and-dump? Or just the crypto markets being as crazy as they are. The Breakdown invited guest Mati Greenspan, former e-Toro analyst and now founder of Quantum Economics to give his take. We also look at two stories around the growing crypto derivative markets: the launch of the CME’s options on bitcoin futures and CFTC Chair Heath Tarbert’s comments yesterday that regulated derivatives will bring legitimacy to the space. Finally, we look at a just-released Investor Alert from the SEC on IEOs.

Starting today, accredited investors will be able to part of $13.5m in tokenized bonds connected to the contract of Brooklyn Nets Point Guard Spencer Dinwiddie. The first-of-its-kind offering took months of negotiation with the NBA but marks a seminal moment for both crypto and the larger idea of Income Share Agreements. In this podcast, we discuss how big a deal Dinwiddie’s offering is and whether Income Share Agreements could be a breakout use case for crypto. We also discuss other contenders for “crypto killer app,” including undercollateralized DeFi loans and NFT-based games. Finally, we discuss whether crypto’s actual killer app has already arrived - in the form of using bitcoin to escape local political and economic controls.

All 5 episodes of The Breakdown in one long file. By popular demand, this is an experiment to see if it's useful to have the full week's episodes compiled in a single file. I've also summed up what I think is most important about the week. Let me know if you like this format or if you just find it repetitive @nlw on Twitter.

China’s digital currency project continues to move ahead aggressively, with a new paper from the People’s Bank of China suggesting that a core design is complete. Whatever stage of development the currency actually is, it’s clear that China wants the world to see it as ahead of the curve in the digital currency race. In other parts of the world, crypto companies face a never-ending game of regulatory arbitrage. Derebit has moved from the Netherlands to Panama, citing a new burden from AMLD5 compliance. In the U.S., New York wants to give its crypto regulators (even) more teeth while Illinois recognizes the legality of blockchain-based contracts.

The aftershock of the 2016 The DAO hack meant that DAOs weren’t nearly as hyped as ICOs and later some other aspects of the web3 movement. In 2019, however, DAOs came roaring back and start 2020 with the wind at their sails. In this episode, we look at the 2019 DAO tale of the tape - what people thought would happen and what actually did happen, including the launch of Moloch, MetaCartel, Ethereum’s MarketingDAO and more than 1000 DAOs on Aragon. We also hear from Aragon founder Luis Cuende who discusses 1) why the newly launched Aragon courts expand what DAOs can do; 2) examples of the need for subjective human intervention in DAOs; and 3) why 2020 is poised to be DAOs best year yet.

The conversation about whether bitcoin is a safe haven asset continues in the wake of Iranian missile strikes, which saw the price of BTC both surge and retrace in parallel with crude and gold. To help explain what’s going on, we feature comments from Ikigai Asset Management’s Travis Kling. Also in today’s episode, we look at newly published priorities from the SEC around crypto including investor suitability, trading practices, and compliance program effectiveness. We also discuss former Bakkt CEO and now Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler’s appointment to the committee that oversees the CFTC. Is it a conflict of interest, something good for the crypto industry, or both?

In their annual transparency report, Kraken reported seeing a 50% increase in regulatory inquiries as compared to 2018, which CEO Jesse Powell later revealed cost the exchange more than $1m. Between this and stories like the $2m it cost Blockstack to raise $23m in an SEC compliant token sale (8.7% of the raise), it begs the question: will compliance costs fundamentally limit innovation by demanding big war chests to play? Will the most successful companies be those who (like Block One) simply raise enough to pay off the regulators on the back end? We also look at new mining interests in Texas and what it means for Amiercan mining and bitcoin mining in the lead up to the halving more broadly, as well as dissect an op-ed from the IMF’s chief economist on the strength of the dollar over digital alternatives.

Last week, the US government took out a key Iranian military leader. As the world - and the markets - reacts to the news, some are asking what happens with bitcoin. With global instability on the rise, will more people turn to bitcoin as a safe haven asset? Will speculators drive the price up on that narrative even if it doesn’t bear out in reality? If Iranians use crypto, will that draw the attention and ire of regulators? In a different area of the industry, Telegram has released updated information about their forthcoming crypto token TON. Most notable was the bombshell that the token would not be integrated into Telegram Messenger - which was, of course, the predominant logic behind the more than $1.7B that was invested in the TON presale. Finally, we discuss the dust up around Nakamoto.com, a new crypto journal that was almost immediately accused of affinity scamming and censorship. Is it a case of overzealous bitcoin defenders or does the critique hold merit?

The past few weeks have seen multiple instances of large, centralized tech giants censoring crypto related content and activity. Noticed in the context of the Coinbase Wallet, Apple is pushing back against apps that have anything to do with Dapps. YouTube caused even more of a stir when it took down hundreds of crypto-related videos from prominent influencers without any warning. It later reversed the action, claiming an error, but it was enough to get many to ask: are decentralized alternatives possible? As if on cue, Justin Sun popped up to announce that TRON had struck a deal through which decentralized Twitch competitor and streaming service DLive would be moving to the TRON Blockchain and integrating with BitTorrent’s BLive streaming service. For many, however, TRON’s involvement makes DLive more likely to end up a centralized tool than a disruptive decentralized social network alternative.

Taylor Monahan is the founder and CEO of MyCrypto. In this interview as part of The Breakdown’s end of year coverage, she argues that the level of discourse in crypto matured in 2019, with more focus on things that actually matter. That’s important, because in 2020, she predicts a major fork-in-the-road moment, where the industry as a whole could either stay on the path set out in its cypherpunk roots, or be significantly co-opted and corrupted by the entrace of corporate and government actors into the space.

Tom Shaughnessy is a co-founder at Delphi Digital as well as the host of the Chain Reaction podcast. Jordan Clifford is managing director of Scalar Capital. In this end of year interview for The Breakdown, Tom argues that the big story of 2019 was actually the fact that it was all about quiet building. When it comes to 2020, however, watch out for fireworks. Tom predicts we’ll see a major increase in the layer 1 smart contract platform wars, as well as an increased in the perceived importance of token economic design. Jordan meanwhile argues that we’re likely to see a shift back to development at the application layer.

Katherine Wu was a founding team member at Messari before moving into a VC role at Notation Capital, but is perhaps best known in crypto for her epic annotations of key regulatory enforcement actions. In this end of year interview with The Breakdown, Katherine argues that decentralized finance is the narrative of 2019, but also that when it comes to 2020, the emergence of a Chinese digital yuan is likely to have a huge impact on the crypto space.