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

5 Minute Crypto ⏳ - MTGox history 🧙🏼‍♂️; Cosmos alfalfa; Solana $1 shenanies; US macro 💸; Su Zhu v Arthur; Saylor sends ⛵️

Howdy everyone — this is the 5 minute crypto update for Wednesday May 17th

We’ve got some fun crypto history, Cosmos talk, Solana experiments, US macro, Three Arrows gossip, and more

Let’s get it on!



As of this recording...

Bitcoin is ranging around $27060
ETH is slightly stronger at $1820
Greens this week include XRP, Decentraland’s Mana, and Litecoin



What’s going on in crypto land…

https://blog.bitgo.com/bitgo-crypto-water-cooler-may-10-d31082369e63
MTGox exchange origins and hack

https://twitter.com/ordinalenjoyer/status/1657782951050919948?s=46
First bitcoin trade for something other than cash

https://twitter.com/ZeMariaMacedo/status/1655575900048506885
From Delphi Labs, who are incubating projects on Cosmos chain
Cosmos finally getting native USDC stablecoin via Noble

https://twitter.com/ThugGod6666/status/1656204342263705600
Fascinating demonstration of what you can do on Solana for just $1 - and also by extension a beautiful illustration of what blockchain uniquely enables

https://twitter.com/RuneKek/status/1656731619753852951
Rune Christensen, MakerDAO founder, tweeted out Maker’s roadmap and strategy
According to DefiLlama, DAI is the 4th ranked stablecoin with a current market cap of $4.6B, behind Binance USD and ahead of TrueUSD

https://twitter.com/dunleavy89/status/1655713461677219840
-Consumers are dealing with the tightest financial conditions in 50 years. They can't afford to continue to pay up and above inflation.
-The market is pricing US default as the most likely its ever been

https://coingape.com/arthur-hayes-gets-restraining-order-from-3ac-founder-harrasment/
In the crypto gossip files, the disgraced Three Arrows Capital founder Su Zhu has filed a restraining order in Singapore court against Arthur Hayes, who had been tweeting at Su and Kyle that they still owe him $6M from 3AC’s failure

https://coingape.com/worlds-largest-bitcoin-holder-bullish-on-bitcoin-ordinals/
“Every time someone builds an application that’s cool on Bitcoin, like all the Ordinals and inscriptions and whatever that are driving up transaction fees, it’s a catalyst”

https://twitter.com/enur72/status/1656720217798475778
Fascinating story from the author of the book Fraudcoin on how, according to him, “the Norwegian krone has become a shitcoin”
My takeaway here is that inflation almost always hurts workers, middle and lower classes more than the upper classes, since the upper class is more likely to own investment assets, and are closer to the money printer, benefitting from the Cantillon effect

Great description of zk v roll ups from Pantera Capital partner Paul Veradittakit’s weekly newsletter, which does great weekly crypto deep dives
https://www.veradiverdict.com/p/zk-vs-optimistic

https://www.0xtrends.com/issue-008-revenue/
The playbook is simple: Pay users with your relatively illiquid utility token -> Watch usage soar and earn revenue in valuable tokens -> Degens ape into your token because they see the revenue and usage -> Token value pumps, making incentives even more tempting -> Rinse and repeat

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/05/09/market-maker-jane-street-jump-retreating-from-us-crypto-trading-bloomberg/
According to Bloomberg and Coindesk, two of the biggest US market makers - Jump Capital and Jane Street - are retreating from crypto trading as regulatory crackdown grows



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… Saylor talking about ordinals and bitcoin catalysts

People on this episode