The Breakdown

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:

1. Why Financial Advisors are the key to bringing in the next wave of crypto investors
2. Why DeFi is an even bigger deal than you think - and not just to the hackers and entrepreneurs building on it
3. 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.

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?