5 Minute Crypto ⏳ - HODL; DCG v Gemini 🥊; iOS wins; VC landscape survey; more more more

Howdy everyone — this is the 5 minute crypto update for Thursday May 25

We’ve got early bitcoin history, DCG and Gemini fight!, Apple iOS, blockchain VC stats, and more.

Let’s get it on!

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As of this recording...

Bitcoin continues its slow downward slide, currently at $26200
ETH is at $1780

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On to the news

Origins of the phrase HODL
In honor of Bitcoin pizza day earlier this week, I wanted to share a bit more bitcoin history, which is the origins of the term HODL
Just a snippet of what he wrote:
GF's out at a lesbian bar, BTC crashing WHY AM I HOLDING? I'LL TELL YOU WHY.  It's because I'm a bad trader and I KNOW I'M A BAD TRADER.

https://twitter.com/fintechfrank/status/1660561518461583360?s=46
Now Gemini, the Winklevii’s exchange, claims that DCG has missed a $630M payment that it owes
And together with other creditors, are working on a plan for DCG to avoid default

https://www.theblock.co/post/231646/apples-crypto-policy-softens-as-stepn-offers-in-app-digital-asset-trading
Two signs now that Apple may be relaxing its policy towards crypto - although these could both be exceptions or oversights

From the Arca newsletter, an interesting take on Tether’s announcement that they’ll invest up to 15% of their quarterly profits into bitcoin
But the Bitcoin component is interesting. They certainly don’t need to do this. Tether could invest 100% of their cash holdings in short-duration U.S. Treasuries, and they would still print roughly $4 billion in profit per year with arguably the simplest business model on the planet...

https://twitter.com/ramahluwalia/status/1660624641897971714?s=46
Takeaways and themes from Bitcoin Miami conference

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/05/17/usdc-issuer-circle-moves-87b-to-repo-agreements-to-protect-reserves-from-us-government-default/
Though I’m sure part of the move is PR motivated, officially Circle had this to say:
While this plan has been underway for many months, the inclusion of these highly liquid assets also provides additional protection for the USDC reserve in the unlikely event of a U.S. debt default

https://medium.com/@HuttCapital/hutt-capital-blockchain-vc-landscape-2023-edition-744ec489a0ce
Hutt Capital’s 5th review of the blockchain VC space
-track 224 blockchain venture funds that manage $34B dollars
-first time funds represent 2/3 of the total - or about 150 of them

https://vogue.sg/9dcc-gmoneys-web3-fashion-empire/
But gmoney who is an OG NFT whale, is having some success with his luxury brand 9dcc

https://twitter.com/LambolandNFT/status/1658573938228690945
Great recap of some controversial moments in NFT history

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/16/books/michael-lewis-ftx-bankman-fried-going-infinite.html
Michael Lewis, the author famous for his storytelling biographies of famous men, had been embedded with SBF and the FTX team in the Bahamas for months before the collapse happened
I hate to say this. It’s horrible. It does not reflect well on me as a human being, but my first thought was, ‘Oh my God’ — it was like a lock clicking into place — ‘now I have the story.’ It didn’t occur to me for a moment that it would blow up the book. I did think, just how messy is this going to get, as the writer, because I’d been so involved.

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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… 

Patrick Bet David on recent banking failures
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1PRsS4SyUc