Two Degens (resources, interviews, on all things crypto and some AI)
We're two degenerate crypto nerds based in Asia who have survived multiple cycles and still love decentralization and chasing 100x's and spending too much time on twitter (Kevin is @habits and George is @bridgexplore)
Our podcast does two things
1. Provide perspectives from Asia, including interviews with Asia-focused builders, analysts, and investors
2. A 5-minute daily crypto update covering news, tweets, recommended reads, and more (this is an experiment for now)
Finally, thanks to @sawawse for the incredible cover art!
Two Degens (resources, interviews, on all things crypto and some AI)
5 Minute Crypto ⏳ - Binance byes Canada, Tether 🧑🏻💻, US 4.9% infl, Do Kwon bails, 🌽 halving 0.9%
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!
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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
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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%
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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
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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